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President Obama Has Finally Learned the Limits of American Military Power

by AlysaKincaid Posted on June 27, 2014

Mother Jones

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I’ve been meaning to make note of something about Iraq for a while, and a story today in the LA Times provides the perfect hook:

A group of U.S. diplomats arrived in Libya three years ago to a memorable reception: a throng of cheering men and women who pressed in on the startled group “just to touch us and thank us,” recalled Susan Rice, President Obama’s national security advisor….But in three years Libya has turned into the kind of place U.S. officials most fear: a lawless land that attracts terrorists, pumps out illegal arms and drugs and destabilizes its neighbors.

….Now, as Obama considers a limited military intervention in Iraq, the Libya experience is seen by many as a cautionary tale of the unintended damage big powers can inflict when they aim for a limited involvement in an unpredictable conflict….Though they succeeded in their military effort, the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies fell short in the broader goal of putting Libya on a path toward democracy and stability. Exhausted after a decade of war and mindful of the failures in Iraq, U.S. officials didn’t want to embark on another nation-building effort in an oil-rich country that seemed to pose no threat to Western security.

But by limiting efforts to help the new Libyan government gain control over the country, critics say, the U.S. and its allies have inadvertently helped turn Libya into a higher security threat than it was before the military intervention.

The view of the critics in this piece is pretty predictable: no matter what happens in the world, their answer is “more.” And whenever military intervention fails, it’s always because we didn’t do enough.

But I don’t think Obama believes this anymore. He mounted a surge in Afghanistan, and it’s pretty plain that it’s accomplished very little in the way of prompting reconciliation with the Taliban or setting the stage for genuine peace. Even lasting stability seems unlikely at this point. That experience made him reluctant to intervene in Libya, but he eventually got talked into it and within a couple of years that turned to shit too. Next up was Syria, and this time his reluctance was much more acute. There would be some minor steps to arm the anti-Assad rebels, but that was it. There was a brief moment when he considered upping our involvement over Syria’s use of chemical weapons, but then he backed off via the expedient of asking for congressional approval. Congress, as Obama probably suspected from the start, was unwilling to do more than whine. When it came time to actually voting for the kind of action they kept demanding, they refused.

By now, I suspect that Obama’s reluctance to support military intervention overseas is bone deep. The saber rattlers and jingoists will never change, but he never really cared about them. More recently, though, I think he’s had the same epiphany that JFK had at one time: the mainstream national security establishment—in the Pentagon, in Congress, in the CIA, and in the think tanks—simply can’t be trusted. Their words are more measured, but in the end they aren’t much different from the perma-hawks. They always want more, and deep in their hearts the only thing they really respect is military force. In the end, they’ll always push for it, and they’ll always insist that this time it will work.

But I don’t think Obama believes that anymore, and I think he’s far more willing to stand up to establishment pressure these days. This is why I’m not too worried about the 300 advisors he’s sent to Iraq. A few years ago, this might very well have been the start of a Vietnam-like slippery slope into a serious recommitment of forces. Today, I doubt it. Obama will provide some limited support, but he simply won’t be badgered into doing more. Deep in his heart, he now understands that Iraq’s problem is fundamentally political. Until there’s some chance of forging a genuine political consensus, American troops just can’t accomplish much.

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President Obama Has Finally Learned the Limits of American Military Power

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What Did My Government Do When I Was Taken Hostage In Iran?

by Blaine3524 Posted on June 7, 2014

Mother Jones

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Yesterday I filed a lawsuit against the FBI, the CIA, and the State Department. I intend to persuade the government to release records that will reveal how it dealt with the imprisonment of Sarah Shourd, Josh Fattal, and myself in Iran from 2009 to 2011. The three of us were arrested near the Iranian border while on a hike in Iraq’s Kurdish region, which we were visiting on a short trip from Sarah’s and my home in Damascus. Sarah remained in prison for 13 months, and Josh and I for twice as long. For the two years that I was in prison, I wondered constantly what my government was doing to help us. I still want to know.

But my interest in these records is more than personal. Innocent Americans get kidnapped, imprisoned, or held hostage in other countries from time to time. When that happens, our government must take it very seriously. These situations cannot be divorced from politics; they are often extremist reactions to our foreign policy. Currently, Americans are being detained in Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, Cuba, and other countries.

What does our government do when civilians are held hostage? Sarah’s, Josh’s, and my family, like others in similar situations, were regularly assured by our leaders—all the way up to the Secretary of State and the President—that they were doing everything they could, but our families were rarely told what that meant. Why is this information so secret, even after the fact? It is important to know how the government deals with such crises. Is there a process by which the government decides whether or not to negotiate with another country or political group? How does it decide which citizens to negotiate for and which not to? Are the reassurances the government gives to grieving families genuine, or intended to appease them? Do branches of government cooperate with each other, or work in isolation?

Some will say disclosing such things only helps our enemies. This is a common defense of government secrecy. The CIA seems to be taking this approach with my request by invoking “national security” in its denial. This logic can be applied to almost anything related to foreign policy. If Congress had not publicly discussed the ins and outs of going to war with Syria, for example, it might by some stretch of the imagination have given our military an edge. But without having to defend their positions to the public, members of Congress might have come to a different conclusion and decided to go to war. Obstructing public discussion on how the government reacts to crises impedes democracy.

We are fortunate in this country to have the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which allows citizens to access unclassified government records. The Act originated in 1955 during the Cold War, when there was a steep rise in government secrecy. It was strengthened after the Watergate scandal. But transparency has since eroded, to the point that federal agencies often don’t abide by the terms of the FOIA without legal coercion. It’s been almost a year since I first filed FOIA requests with the FBI and State Department for records about our case. I filed with the CIA six months ago. The law gives government agencies up to 30 business days to determine whether they will release records. So far, however, no records have turned up. I am not surprised by this. Without a lawsuit, I would not expect to receive anything for years, if at all.

Years can pass before the government gets around to releasing records in response to FOIA requests. Last year, for example, the State Department notified me that it was ready to release around 700 documents in response to a FOIA request I had filed four years prior. The request regarded an Iraqi sheikh who was receiving what amounted to bribes in the form of inflated construction contracts from the US military, a scheme I wrote about for Mother Jones in 2009. Despite the fact that the war is now over, and the records will be much less significant than they might have been at the time, I told State I would indeed like to see them. I am still waiting.

It has unfortunately become commonplace for government agencies to do everything they can to muddle the transparency mandated by the FOIA, to the point where only people trained to get around stonewalling have any chance of succeeding. Take my request to the FBI for records about our case. The Bureau responded to my initial request with its standard denial letter: “Based on the information you provided, we conducted a search of the Central Records System. We were unable to identify main file records.” It’s a standard response—I’ve received it before—but I was surprised to see it this time. The FBI visited my mom’s home, spoke to my family repeatedly and they have no records?

In fact, the FBI letter is intentionally misleading. What they are saying is that they have failed to find a very particular type of records. As my attorney, Jeff Light, put it, the FBI “has main files on persons, event, publications, etc. that are of investigative interest to the Bureau. Imagine a file cabinet containing a series of folders. Each folder is titled with the name of a person, event, etc. When they are searching main files, they are searching the label on each folder. They are not searching any of the documents inside the folder.” In response, Light and I specifically named a long list of databases and records systems for the FBI to search. Nothing has turned up yet.

It is unfortunate that litigation has become a standard part of the FOIA process. It’s also unfortunate that the government is not transparent with people entangled in political crises about what it is doing to help them. While I was in prison, my mother walked out of meetings with politicians, frustrated with their inaction. After Sarah came home, she also asked the government to tell her what it was doing, and got nothing. We asked again after I was released. I wish I didn’t need to go to court to get an answer.

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What Did My Government Do When I Was Taken Hostage In Iran?

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World Briefing: Syria: Drought Adds to Woes, U.N. Says

by Myrna Posted on June 6, 2014

The supply of safe water in Syria is now one-third of the level it was before March 2011 when the civil war began, Unicef officials said. Read the article –  World Briefing: Syria: Drought Adds to Woes, U.N. Says ; ;Related ArticlesThis Is Why You Have No Business Challenging Scientific ExpertsRoundup: Can New E.P.A. CO2 Rules Have a Climate Impact?Fixes After BP Spill Not Enough, Board Says ;

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World Briefing: Syria: Drought Adds to Woes, U.N. Says

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Is Obama a Realist, Isolationist, Humanitarian Interventionist, or Drone-Dropping Hawk?

by Eugenio8037 Posted on May 28, 2014

Mother Jones

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Since the end of the Cold War, foreign policy has become much more challenging. In a post-bipolar world where nonstate actors pose real threats and disrupters (good and bad) are everywhere, the issues are knottier and unforeseen developments often yield difficult options. In the aftermath of 9/11, George W. Bush chose not to come to terms with this fundamental change. Instead, he opted for a blunderbuss policy dominated by a misguided invasion of Iraq. President Barack Obama inherited a helluva cleanup job. And as he had handled the details—such as winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—he has had tried to articulate an overall strategy. His latest stab at this was the speech he delivered to West Point graduates this morning.

Early in the address, Obama noted, “you are the first class to graduate since 9/11 who may not be sent into combat in Iraq or Afghanistan.” The young men and women before him cheered. It was a poignant moment. Then Obama proceeded to outline a larger vision. He summed up his stance in these lines:

Since George Washington served as commander in chief, there have been those who warned against foreign entanglements that do not touch directly on our security or economic well-being. Today, according to self-described realists, conflicts in Syria or Ukraine or the Central African Republic are not ours to solve. Not surprisingly, after costly wars and continuing challenges at home, that view is shared by many Americans.

A different view, from interventionists on the left and right, says we ignore these conflicts at our own peril; that America’s willingness to apply force around the world is the ultimate safeguard against chaos, and America’s failure to act in the face of Syrian brutality or Russian provocations not only violates our conscience, but invites escalating aggression in the future.

Each side can point to history to support its claims. But I believe neither view fully speaks to the demands of this moment. It is absolutely true that in the 21st century, American isolationism is not an option. If nuclear materials are not secure, that could pose a danger in American cities. As the Syrian civil war spills across borders, the capacity of battle-hardened groups to come after us increases. Regional aggression that goes unchecked—in southern Ukraine, the South China Sea, or anywhere else in the world—will ultimately impact our allies, and could draw in our military.

Beyond these narrow rationales, I believe we have a real stake—an abiding self-interest—in making sure our children grow up in a world where schoolgirls are not kidnapped, where individuals aren’t slaughtered because of tribe or faith or political beliefs. I believe that a world of greater freedom and tolerance is not only a moral imperative—it also helps keep us safe.

But to say that we have an interest in pursuing peace and freedom beyond our borders is not to say that every problem has a military solution. Since World War II, some of our most costly mistakes came not from our restraint, but from our willingness to rush into military adventures—without thinking through the consequences, without building international support and legitimacy for our action, or leveling with the American people about the sacrifice required. Tough talk draws headlines, but war rarely conforms to slogans. As General Eisenhower, someone with hard-earned knowledge on this subject, said at this ceremony in 1947: “War is mankind’s most tragic and stupid folly; to seek or advise its deliberate provocation is a black crime against all men.”

This is not new. Obama chooses no specific camp. He does not truck with so-called realists and isolationists who do not want the United States to be involved with overseas conflicts that do not directly and immediately threaten the United States. Nor does he side with interventionists who call for US military engagement in trouble spots around the world. Cognizant of the costs of war (money, lives, and more), he does not want to overcommit the United States. Citing the costs of nonaction and the interconnectedness of today’s world, he does not want to remain on the global sidelines. He’s certainly no neocon eager to deploy US military resources overseas to intervene in Syria or to up the ante with Russia regarding Ukraine. (Obama announced he would boost efforts to help Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iraq, deal with refugees and cross-border terrorists from Syria, and “ramp up” support for elements of the Syrian opposition “who offer the best alternative to terrorists and a brutal dictator.” He said he would keep working with the IMF and allies to bolster Ukraine and its economy and isolate Russia.) But Obama did defend his use of drone strikes. He noted, “In taking direct action, we must uphold standards that reflect our values. That means taking strikes only when we face a continuing, imminent threat, and only where there is near certainty of no civilian casualties. For our actions should meet a simple test: We must not create more enemies than we take off the battlefield.” (Yet his administration has not always met this standard.)

For years, Obama has been trying to form and sell a balanced approach that justifies certain military interventions and limits others—while redefining national security interests to include climate change and other matters. That’s a tough task. The world is not a balanced place. It’s likely that Obama’s handling of foreign policy will continue to be judged on a case-by-case basis and less on the establishment of an integrated doctrine. Given the global challenges of this era, a grand plan may not be realistic.

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Is Obama a Realist, Isolationist, Humanitarian Interventionist, or Drone-Dropping Hawk?

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"The Simpsons" Producer Responds To Insane Conspiracy Theory That His Show Helped Start the Arab Spring

by CarleyYXZV Posted on May 8, 2014

Mother Jones

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There is a new theory that an episode of The Simpsons (one that aired on February 25, 2001) predicted the Syrian uprising and civil war, and also that the episode is proof of a massive international conspiracy that laid the groundwork for the Arab Spring.

You read that right.

The conspiracy theory was recently proposed by anchor Rania Badawy on the Egyptian TV channel Al Tahrir. Badawy insists that the Simpsons episode “New Kids on the Blecch“—in which Bart, Nelson, Ralph, and Milhouse are recruited into a boy band called the Party Posse—contains clues that suggest “what is happening in Syria today was premeditated.”

Here’s the segment, which was flagged by the Middle East Media Research Institute:

In the episode, the boys star in a music video for “Drop Da Bomb,” a pop song that seems to encourage heroic bombing of hostile Arab countries. (“Your love’s more deadly than Saddam / That’s why I gotta drop da bomb!“) The chorus of the tune is “Yvan eht Nioj,” which is “Join the Navy” backwards; the Party Posse turns out to be a secret project by the US Navy to boost recruitment numbers through subliminal messages.

Badawy, the astute television anchor, noticed that the soldiers bombed in the music video (posted below) have a car emblazoned with a version of the Syrian flag that looks an awful lot like the ones Syrian rebels and protesters waved in 2011. “How it reached this animated video nobody knows, and this has aroused a debate on the social networks,” she says. “This raises many question marks about what happened in the Arab Spring revolutions and about when this global conspiracy began.”

Not that you need it at this point, but the New York Times has a thorough rundown of why—when you factor in “crucial aspects of both Syrian history and details of the Simpsons episode”—this is all so silly.

Still, I thought I’d ask Al Jean, a longtime Simpsons executive producer, what he thought about this interesting theory. Jean sent along the following brief statement:

Yes, we had the amazing foresight to predict conflict in the Middle East.

Somehow, I doubt the heavy sarcasm in Jean’s admission will register with certain conspiracy theorists. There are also wacky theories out there that The Simpsons predicted the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Also, there’s a fun post on the 11 times The Simpsons “predicted” the future of technology.

Now here’s the “Drop Da Bomb” music video that is complicit in the bloodshed in Syria, I guess:

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"The Simpsons" Producer Responds To Insane Conspiracy Theory That His Show Helped Start the Arab Spring

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"Talk to Me So I Know You Are Safe": Syrian Refugees Text Home

by Andrianayhv Posted on April 18, 2014

Mother Jones

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His face lit by the phone in his hand, a boy texts with family members in Homs, Syria, the site of some of the worst fighting in his country’s three-year civil war. The teen was one of 100 or so refugees photographer Liam Maloney found living in an abandoned slaughterhouse in northern Lebanon. Maloney’s “Texting Syria” project depicts the displaced Syrians and their texts with loved ones behind the frontlines.

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"Talk to Me So I Know You Are Safe": Syrian Refugees Text Home

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Condi Rice In Running For 2014 Chutzpah Award

by EmanuelLashbroo Posted on March 28, 2014

Mother Jones

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Condi Rice has joined the tut tutting brigade against Americans who aren’t crazy about fighting yet another war:

“I fully understand the sense of weariness,” she told a GOP fundraiser Wednesday, according to reports. “I fully understand that we must think: ‘Us, again?’ I know that we’ve been through two wars. I know that we’ve been vigilant against terrorism. I know that it’s hard. But leaders can’t afford to get tired. Leaders can’t afford to be weary.”

….Rice said the United States has taken a step back in conflicts including Syria, Ukraine and others. “When America steps back and there is a vacuum, trouble will fill that vacuum,” Rice said.

That’s precious, isn’t it? Maybe Rice should give some thought to the possibility that Americans aren’t weary of war, but weary of dumb, poorly fought wars. Maybe if the administration she served for eight years hadn’t launched two of the dumbest, most mismanaged wars in American history, we wouldn’t all be so weary.

As an aside, I’d point out that her administration took no military action against Iran and mounted no serious international sanctions against the regime. Her administration also did nothing when Russia invaded South Ossetia. Obama, by contrast, has doubled down in Afghanistan to try and clean up the mess left over from the Bush administration; he’s forced Iran to the negotiating table by crippling its economy; he’s participated in an invasion and regime change in Libya; he’s crippled al-Qaeda via massive drone attacks; and he’s spearheaded a growing backlash against Russia’s invasion of Crimea. And when he tried to mount an attack against Syria in retalition for its use of chemical weapons, he was shot down not just by members of his own party, but by members of Rice’s Republican Party too.

Whatever else you can say about Obama, he’s hardly a peacemonger. His foreign policy might not be quite as blindly bellicose and unfocused as George Bush’s, but he sure isn’t shy about using or threatening military force when he thinks it’s in America’s interest. Rice should pay more attention. She might learn something.

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Condi Rice In Running For 2014 Chutzpah Award

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What Has Become of the American Spirit of Rebellion?

by SterlingCoffill Posted on March 17, 2014

Mother Jones

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This essay will appear in “Revolution,” the Spring 2014 issue of Lapham’s Quarterly. This slightly adapted version is posted at TomDispatch.com with the kind permission of that magazine.

In case of rain, the revolution will take place in the hall.
— Erwin Chargaff

For the last several years, the word “revolution” has been hanging around backstage on the national television talk-show circuit waiting for somebody, anybody—visionary poet, unemployed automobile worker, late-night comedian—to cue its appearance on camera. I picture the word sitting alone in the green room with the bottled water and a banana, armed with press clippings of its once-upon-a-time star turns in America’s political theater (tie-dyed and brassiere-less on the barricades of the 1960s countercultural insurrection, short-haired and seersucker smug behind the desks of the 1980s Reagan Risorgimento), asking itself why it’s not being brought into the segment between the German and the Japanese car commercials.

Surely even the teleprompter must know that it is the beast in the belly of the news reports, more of them every day in print and en blog, about income inequality, class conflict, the American police state. Why then does nobody have any use for it except in the form of the adjective, revolutionary, unveiling a new cellphone app or a new shade of lipstick?

I can think of several reasons, among them the cautionary tale told by the round-the-clock media footage of dead revolutionaries in Syria, Egypt, and Tunisia, also the certain knowledge that anything anybody says (on camera or off, to a hotel clerk, a Facebook friend, or an ATM) will be monitored for security purposes. Even so, the stockpiling of so much careful silence among people who like to imagine themselves on the same page with Patrick Henry—”Give me liberty, or give me death”— raises the question as to what has become of the American spirit of rebellion. Where have all the flowers gone, and what, if anything, is anybody willing to risk in the struggle for “Freedom Now,” “Power to the People,” “Change We Can Believe In”?

My guess is next to nothing that can’t be written off as a business expense or qualified as a tax deduction. Not in America at least, but maybe, with a better publicist and 50 percent of the foreign rights, somewhere east of the sun or west of the moon.

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What Has Become of the American Spirit of Rebellion?

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Is the Era of Imperial Global Powers Over?

by SuzanneBl Posted on March 3, 2014

Mother Jones

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This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

There is, it seems, something new under the sun.

Geopolitically speaking, when it comes to war and the imperial principle, we may be in uncharted territory. Take a look around and you’ll see a world at the boiling point. From Ukraine to Syria, South Sudan to Thailand, Libya to Bosnia, Turkey to Venezuela, citizen protest (left and right) is sparking not just disorganization, but what looks like, to coin a word, de-organization at a global level. Increasingly, the unitary status of states, large and small, old and new, is being called into question. Civil war, violence, and internecine struggles of various sorts are visibly on the rise. In many cases, outside countries are involved and yet in each instance state power seems to be draining away to no other state’s gain. So here’s one question: Where exactly is power located on this planet of ours right now?

There is, of course, a single waning superpower that has in this new century sent its military into action globally, aggressively, repeatedly —and disastrously. And yet these actions have failed to reinforce the imperial system of organizing and garrisoning the planet that it put in place at the end of World War II; nor has it proven capable of organizing a new global system for a new century. In fact, everywhere it’s touched militarily, local and regional chaos have followed.

In the meantime, its own political system has grown gargantuan and unwieldy; its electoral process has been overwhelmed by vast flows of money from the wealthy 1%; and its governing system is visibly troubled, if not dysfunctional. Its rich are ever richer, its poor ever poorer, and its middle class in decline. Its military, the largest by many multiples on the planet, is nonetheless beginning to cut back. Around the world, allies, client states, and enemies are paying ever less attention to its wishes and desires, often without serious penalty. It has the classic look of a great power in decline and in another moment it might be easy enough to predict that, though far wealthier than its Cold War superpower adversary, it has simply been heading for the graveyard more slowly but no less surely.

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Is the Era of Imperial Global Powers Over?

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2014 Could Be a Good Year For President Obama

by adndseu13da Posted on December 18, 2013

Mother Jones

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A couple of days ago I wrote that 2013 had been a rough year for President Obama:

It started with the fiscal cliff showdown and then barreled straight into Scandalmania (Benghazi+IRS+AP subpoenas); Edward Snowden and the NSA leaks; the Syria U-turn; the government shutdown; and finally the Obamacare website debacle.

Steve Benen takes a look at these same events and pushes back:

Twice congressional Republicans threatened debt-ceiling default; twice Obama stood his ground….Congressional Republicans shut down the government to extract White House concessions. Obama and congressional Democrats stood firm and the GOP backed down….forged an international agreement to rid Syria of chemical weapons….The “scandals” the media hyped relentlessly in the spring proved to be largely meaningless.

Nice try! And there’s something to this. Obama did manage to squeeze out “victories” in the fiscal cliff and government shutdown fights, Scandalmania mostly turned into a nothingburger, and Syria and Iran may yet turn out to be foreign policy wins.

But at best, that’s for the future. For now, 2013 just looks a year that Obama barely survived, bruised and bloody. It’s possible that the other guy looks even worse, of course, and after watching John Boehner’s press conference a couple of days ago, I’d say it’s fair to think so.

The good news, such as it is, is that all this stuff might set up Obama for a decent 2014. If Republicans realize it’s pointless to pick more debt ceiling fights; if Obamacare starts working smoothly; if we strike a decent deal with Iran; and if the economy picks up—if all those things happen, then 2014 will look pretty good. It probably can’t look much worse.

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2014 Could Be a Good Year For President Obama

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