Congress considers Syria

View 788 Wednesday, September 04, 2013

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barrack Obama, January 31, 2009

 

Never do any enemy a small injury.

Niccolò Machiavelli

“Congress is now the dog that caught the car.”

David Axelrod on President Obama’s Syria decision, August 2013

Syria:

Succinct and on point: http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/syria/articles/20130903.aspx#startofcomments

David Couvillon

Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Retired.; Former Governor of Wasit Province, Iraq; Righter of Wrongs; Wrong most of the time; Distinguished Expert, TV remote control; Chef de Hot Dog Excellance; Avoider of Yard Work

Who should we support?  Or we can break things and kill people.  Who should we kill?

Jerry Pournelle
Chaos Manor

We should support the Turks, the Iraqis, the Jordanians, the Israelis, the Lebanese (I know, I know… which ones…), and the French. Our only interest is AFTER the situation in Syria is decided – one way or the other. ‘Til then… hands off.

David Couvillon

Which is pretty close to my sentiment. We have allies. We support them, with trade, ammunition, whatever we think they need that is within our interest. Choosing a side in Lebanon isn’t as difficult as it looks: the old Christian-Druze-moderate Islam coalition that seeks independence from Syria still exists and could use our help – including our intervention when Israel gets unhappy with their inability to control border areas. It’s tricky, it’s not easy, but it’s sure easier than choosing a side in an active civil war.

Libya-Syria

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/special-report-we-all-thought-libya-had-moved-on–it-has-but-into-lawlessness-and-ruin-8797041.html

“A little under two years ago, Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, urged British businessmen to begin “packing their suitcases” and to fly to Libya to share in the reconstruction of the country and exploit an anticipated boom in natural resources.

“Yet now Libya has almost entirely stopped producing oil as the government loses control of much of the country to militia fighters.

“Mutinying security men have taken over oil ports on the Mediterranean and are seeking to sell crude oil on the black market. Ali Zeidan, Libya’s Prime Minister, has threatened to “bomb from the air and the sea” any oil tanker trying to pick up the illicit oil from the oil terminal guards, who are mostly former rebels who overthrew Muammar Gaddafi and have been on strike over low pay and alleged government corruption since July.

“As world attention focused on the coup in Egypt and the poison gas attack in Syria over the past two months, Libya has plunged unnoticed into its worst political and economic crisis since the defeat of Gaddafi two years ago. Government authority is disintegrating in all parts of the country putting in doubt claims by American, British and French politicians that Nato’s military action in Libya in 2011 was an outstanding example of a successful foreign military intervention which should be repeated in Syria.”

We did this by spending treasure in Libya. We have the opportunity to do this in Syria without spending treasure…

David Couvillon

Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Retired.; Former Governor of Wasit Province, Iraq; Righter of Wrongs; Wrong most of the time; Distinguished Expert, TV remote control; Chef de Hot Dog Excellance; Avoider of Yard Work

Libya was colonized by Italy during the colonial era before World War One, and as a victor in the Great War Italy got to keep its colonial assets while the British and French grabbed Mesopotamia, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Arabia, and other territories torn from the grasp of the dying Ottoman Empire. The Turks had never attempted to consolidate Iraq into a single province, and they kept the peace between the Palestinian Arabs and the incoming Zionist Israelis with difficulty. The Turks wanted out of the empire business, and being defeated by Imperialists got their wish.

Britain kept Egypt and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, France got Lebanon and Syria, Ibn Saud got Arabia having displaced the Hashemites who had been legitimate Protectors of Mecca since the days of the Prophet, so the Hashemite brothers got Iraq and Jordan under a British protectorate agreement. France kept Algeria and its protectorates in the western Mediterranean.

Libya was not a united kingdom: it was an artificial entity of various tribes occupying the regions of Tripoli, Cyrenaica, and the interior with Tauregs and Berbers and others, and it was not unified until Mussolini decided he had enough of Libyan independence movements and forcibly pacified the Italian colonies, then incorporated the whole mess into metropolitan Italy—as the French had done with Algeria. There’s more, of course, since Italy joined the Allies after the King dismissed Mussolini and confined him to a fortress, and Skorzeny rescued him in a Storch, and no I am not making any of this up. The upshot was that an artificial state composed of warring tribes which had oil in Cyrenaica, fierce tribes in the Fezzan, and the remnants of an Italian culture in the West was created and consolidated by force, and held together by Khadafy. Civil war was likely at some point, and establishment of a liberal democracy encompassing the entire region was highly improbable if for no other reason than Cyrenaica has no motive to share oil revenue with Tripoli and the Fezzan, and neither Tripoli nor Fezzan has much of the makings of a stable middle class democracy or for that matter a viable economy.

As Colonel Couvillon observes, we achieved the unsatisfactory results existing at present in Libya by expending treasure; we have the opportunity to achieve similar results in Syria by doing nothing.

One, many years ago, a wise man told me in an appropriate situation, “Son, if you want to win a horse race, you have to have a horse.” Similar observations apply to both Libya and Syria: do we have a horse in either race? The British, French, Italians, Turks, Israelis, Jordanians, and Egyptians have strong interests in the Middle East. Our only real interest is oil – and we have it in our power to make Middle Eastern oil irrelevant to America by adopting our own resources – and development will create jobs here while costing less than war.

I recall that the invasion of Iraq was to cost $300 Billion. I said at the time that for that sum I could make the US pretty well energy independent and let the Arabs drink their oil. The costs have changed, but it’s still true. War is Hell, Sherman said. It is also expensive. Gold cannot get you good soldiers, but good soldiers can get you gold – except that we have foresworn any advantage we might gain from successful conquest. We get the expenses and the Hell, but none of the fruits of war. So it goes.

As to whether the United States has the physical, economic, and military ability to be the world policeman as we implant liberal democracy throughout the world – remember the End of History? – we don’t know because it’s a moot question: we don’t have the political stamina to try. We are not ruthless enough to have a policy of competent empire, and we are not rich enough to afford incompetent empire. If we wish to spread republican government we once knew how: we were the shining example of just how rich you could get as a nation of states: as the land of the free. Now we transform ourselves into something else.

The Congress should state it clearly: the President is authorized to take any military action in Syria that he deems necessary to protect the vital national interests of the United States. If he has further designs for the region he should state them and obtain a new authorization from Congress. This Congress supports the interests of the people of the United States and calls upon the President to protect them in the Syrian situation.

The costs of security:

Roland found this account: “We’re not detaining you. You just can’t leave.” Or Why a Hindu must not fly during Ramadan.

http://varnull.adityamukerjee.net/post/59021412512/dont-fly-during-ramadan

 

I intend to write considerably more on this, but it is taking time to gather and evaluate the data. It’s still important to keep in mind

Fifteen Years After Autism Panic, a Plague of Measles Erupts

Legions spurned a long-proven vaccine, putting a generation at risk

PORT TALBOT, Wales—When the telltale rash appeared behind Aleshia Jenkins’s ears, her grandmother knew exactly what caused it: a decision she’d made 15 years earlier.

Ms. Jenkins was an infant in 1998, when this region of southwest Wales was a hotbed of resistance to a vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella. Many here refused the vaccine for their children after a British doctor, Andrew Wakefield, suggested it might cause autism and a local newspaper heavily covered the fears. Resistance continued even after the autism link was disproved.

The bill has now come due.

A measles outbreak infected 1,219 people in southwest Wales between November 2012 and early July, compared with 105 cases in all of Wales in 2011.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323300004578555453881252798.html

 

There is considerably more to the story, of course. It is a matter of evaluations of risk: vaccinations can – indeed must if they are going to work – cause stress to the immune system. We have plenty of evidence regarding smallpox, polio, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus – DPT shots were universal when I was a lad, all three at once – to know that the benefits far outweigh the risks.  We have plenty on measles and mumps.  It’s not quite so clear when you add rubella to the measles and mumps package. The consequences of overstressing the immune system in young children is still under study. The evidence is that in vast majorities the bad effects are small and the benefits large, but there remain doubts about just how many have suffered what bad side effects. At some point we’ll address this, but it has turned out to be more complex than it at first appears.