Salon: Putin might be right on Syria

Meant to have this up much earlier, but editing this b* down is not easy, which is a compliment.  The best option ended up being to simply lop off the latter part, which referred to the wisdom of Messrs. Gordon Adams & Stephen Walt on said crisis.  Maybe just read what they have to say and ignore anything below...

...

Very simply, we have one secular nation helping to defend what remains of another, by invitation, against a radical Islamist insurgency that, were it to succeed, would condemn those Syrians who cannot escape to a tyranny of disorder rooted in sectarian religious animosities. And we have the great power heretofore dominant in the region hoping that the insurgency prevails. Its policy across the region, indeed, appears to rest on leveraging these very animosities.

Now we can add the names back in.

In the past week Russia has further advanced its support of Bashar al-Assad with intensified bombing runs and cruise missiles launched from warships in the Caspian Sea. Not yet but possibly, Russian troops will deploy to back the Syrian army and its assorted allies on the ground. This has enabled government troops to begin an apparently spirited new offensive against the messy stew of Islamist militias arrayed against Damascus.

It was a big week for Washington, too. First it pulled the plug on its $500 million program to train a “moderate opposition” in Syria—admittedly a tough one given that Islamists with guns in their hands tend to be immoderate. Instantly it then begins to send weapons to the militias it failed to train, the CIA having “lightly vetted” them—as it did for a time in 2013, until that proved a self-defeating mistake.

The fiction that moderates lurk somewhere continues. Out of the blue, they are now called “the Syrian Arab Coalition,” a moniker that reeks of the corridors in Langley, Virginia, if you ask me.

In Turkey, meantime, the Pentagon’s new alliance with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan government starts to play out just as the Turkish prime minister intended. All the persuasive signs are that the government was responsible for bombs that killed more than 120 people in Ankara last weekend as they protested Erdoğan’s renewed violence against Turkey’s Kurdish minority. The Middle East’s crisis has just spread into another country.

*

Since Russia reinvigorated its decades-old support for Damascus last month, the vogue among the Washington story-spinners has been to question Putin’s motives. What does Putin—not “Russia” or even “Moscow,” but Putin—want? This was never an interesting question, since the answer seemed clear, but now we have one that truly does warrant consideration.

What does the U.S. want? Why, after four years of effort on the part of the world’s most powerful military and most extensive intelligence apparatus, is Syria a catastrophe beyond anything one could imagine when anti-Assad protests egan in the spring of 2011?

After four years of war—never truly civil and now on the way to proxy—Assad’s Syria is a mangled mess, almost certainly beyond retrieval in its current form. Everyone appears to agree on this point, including Putin and Sergei Lavrov, the Russian leader’s foreign minister. There is no putting this humpty-dumpty back on any wall: The Russians readily acknowledge this, acres of groundless journalism to the contrary notwithstanding.

In the meantime, certain realities are essential to recognize. The Assad government is a sovereign entity. Damascus has the beleaguered bones of a national administration, all the things one does not readily think of as wars unfold: a transport ministry, an education ministry, embassies around the world, a seat at the U.N. In these things are the makings of postwar Syria—which, by definition, means Syria after the threat of Islamic terror is eliminated.

Anyone who doubts this is Russia’s reasoning should consider the Putin-Lavrov proposal for a negotiated transition into a post-Assad national structure. They argue for a federation of autonomous regions representing Sunni, Kurdish and Alawite-Christian populations. Putin made this plain when he met President Obama at the U.N. last month, my sources in Moscow tell me. Lavrov has made it plain during his numerous exchanges with Secretary of State Kerry.

Why would Russia’s president and senior diplomat put this on the table if they were not serious? Their proposed design for post-Assad Syria, incidentally, is a close variant of what Russia and the Europeans favor in Ukraine. In both cases it has the virtue of addressing facts on the ground. These are nations whose internal distinctions and diversity must be accommodated—not denied, not erased, but also not exacerbated—if they are to become truly modern. Russians understand the complexities of becoming truly modern: This has been the Russian project since the 18th century.

In the past week Washington has effectively elected not to support Russia’s new effort to address the Syria crisis decisively. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s latest phrase of the moment is “fatally flawed.” If he said it once he said it a dozen times: The Russian strategy is fatally flawed. We heard you the third time, Ash.

As to Obama, he rejects any notion that Washington has effectively ceded leadership on the Syria question—with potentially wider implications—to Moscow. In his much-noted interview with 60 Minutes last weekend, he found Putin foolhardy for risking the lives of Russian soldiers and “spending money he doesn’t have.”

Say what?

Whose strategy in Syria is fatally flawed, Mr. Carter? I assume there is no need to do more than pose the question. (Memo to SecDef: Get a new scriptwriter, someone who allots you more than one assigned phrase a week.)

As to Obama’s remarks, one wishes he were joking. We are $5 trillion into the mess that began with the invasion of Iraq a dozen years ago, and we are counting the fatalities one side or the other of a million. There are roughly 4 million Syrian refugees by the latest count. And Putin’s at fault for risking lives and blowing money? Who puts a smart guy like you up to this, Mr. President?

...

I'm not at all convinced that the Russians really know what they are doing here, or what the endgame looks like, but as for the Americans...

T'would seem that the Obama administration inherited from Bush & Co. the rather naïve view that if various tyrannical despots in the Middle East could be removed with the support of  Western military-aid, that the populations would immediately and unhesitatingly embrace both the West, and secular democracy, despite the historical record, in which revolutions, even well-meaning ones as often as not, if not more often, create worse outcomes than that which went before.  And despite both the existence of relatively widespread animosity towards the United States and the West generally in many of these countries, and the lack of a democratic tradition (the latter a problem for post-Soviet Russia also as we have seen).

The Arab Spring seemed liked it might be going well for a while (as perhaps did the War in Iraq early on), and having seen Qadaffi & Mubarak fall, Western leaders (who had previously sucked up to the same), decided to turn on al Assad, only...he didn't fall right away, and decided to fight instead.  Fight to the death perhaps if it came to it.  Which left the West rooting for the downfall of Assad in a civil war that involved various occasionally overlapping anti-Assad elements, some of which were explicitly Islamist, some more secular, some more or less concerned with ethnic or nationalistic factions, lining up as much against one another as against Assad.

And then the West (by which of course I mean the US) chose the amorphous opposition, not knowing into what it might morph as its champion against Assad a) assuming incorrectly as it happened that Assad would fold quickly, and b) with no awareness of whether the forces arrayed against Assad would ultimately be dominated by more Western-leaning more secular forces, or by the likes of Al Qaeda or ISIS.  Not like we have the history of living memory to look back on or anything for advice...

And so the West bet against Assad, (the now much denounced but recent ally still of the US), and by proxy for an ever amporphous coalition of groups, some of which are no doubt secular and democratic, but others of which would very much like to establish an Islamic caliphate all the way to Spain thank you very much, and if they can do it with donated US weapons, thanks that very much more.

Some of the non-ISIS-aligned & non-al-Qaeda aligned elements may still exist in the coalition against which Russia is currently fighting alongside the 'regime-forces'* & Iranians, but whom would we ask ?  Where/who/what is the leader of the Free Syrian Army ?  Where are the five or six (by most ambitious official military estimates) of the tens of thousands of US-trained opposition-forces meant to be in place by now ?

The US' official position is that Russia's involvement is prolonging the conflict unnecessarily, as if the conflict hadn't already been going on for four years with the US' involvement, and no end in sight.  I read somewhere (some beltway hackery no doubt) some speculation that the Russian involvement might in fact unite the various anti-Assad faction against the foreign 'imperialist' forces, and hasten Assad's removal.  Doubt it much, but even if that were the case, who would put money on the current conflict ending without either a) Western ground-forces having to intervene (likely to no avail in the long term), b) Assad remaining in power for the foreseeable future at least, or c) a victory for Islamist extremists ?

For our more Russophobic friends, we've seen how even the most relatively peaceful transitions from authoritarian dictatorship, can simply replace one dictator with another.  How in the absence of a concerted committed long-term international coalition dedicated to long-term liberal democratic reform, any hopes for a more progressive future may be dashed, even in historically liberal societies... Anyone think the US is willing or able to commit to a Marshall plan for Syria ?

* As in the still legitimate government of Syria under international law

** PS Fuck you any one who is still this far into the twenty-first century defending the mind-blowing incompetence of Microsoft Inc.

*** I hate the very notion of WYSIWYG, at least at it's implemented by our (consistently proven)-not betters.

Inscrutable

As it should be.

The White House on Dick Cheney & the Iran Deal

Missed this before now somehow.  The music sucks, and I kinda hate conceptually posting something from the White House itself, but the point still needs to be made apparently about the undead corpse of Darth Cheney, and other warmongering neo-con assholes like him, whether they be fellow Ford-admin. revanchists, radicals of the Newt Gingrich 'revolution' in the 'nineties, or latter-day hangers-on like Sarah Palin, that they have been consistently wrong on foreign policy, over and over and again, at the expense not just of the American pocket-book, and thousands of dead US soldiers, but at the expense of millions of civilian lives destroyed, damaged, or displaced, as one society after another is wrecked in their real-life game of Risk.*


* And no, the Obama administration is far, far from blameless, with say its similar reckless destabilisation in Libya & Syria.

Toles on Chinese Hacking

Slate/New Scientist on Obama's 'Bold' Climate Plan

Obama wants you to think his climate plan will be bold. It’s not

US president Barack Obama's much-heralded attempt to curb carbon emissions from coal-fired power stations is nowhere near enough

Later today, US President Barack Obama will unveil the final version of the centrepiece of his climate legacy: the Clean Power Plan.

It is designed to speed up the retirement of coal-fired power plants – the most carbon-intensive way of generating electricity – and could more than double the rate of their closures by 2040.

In a video preview, Obama called the Clean Power Plan “the biggest, most important step we’ve ever taken to combat climate change”. While that may be true, it’s not saying a whole heck of a lot.

As I wrote last year when the details were initially announced, many states are already well on their way to achieving the required reductions, thanks in part to a recent boom in cheap natural gas and the Obama administration’s choice of 2005 as the basis year for cuts, which was close to America’s all-time peak in carbon emissions. Obama’s plan is significant, but it’s not bold.

A previous version of the targets, announced last year, would have required states to begin implementing changes to their power-producing mix in 2020. The final version, to be announced today, gives states and utilities an extra two years. The targets will vary by state, depending on their current energy mix, and states will have flexible ways of achieving emissions reductions, including an option to join an interstate cap-and-trade scheme.

All this will be a heavy lift for some coal-intensive states, like Wyoming, but it’s being heralded as largely “business as usual” for some states, like Minnesota, that have already made significant efforts to shift their energy mix.

...

It has been calculated that the plan would shave just 6 per cent from US carbon emissions by 2030. Climate science and international equity demand the US cut emissions 80 per cent by then. We’re nowhere near that pace.

Still, this plan is not nothing. In its coverage, The New York Times includes this hopeful gem: “But experts say that if the rules are combined with similar action from the world’s other major economies, as well as additional action by the next American president, emissions could level off enough to prevent the worst effects of climate change.”

That’s a lot of hedging on which to base a climate legacy.

In fact, when compared with the climate plans of his would-be successors on the left – Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley – Obama’s ranks last in terms of ambition.

Clinton, who has frequently aligned herself with the president on climate, announced a preview of her own climate plan last week. It’s fractionally more ambitious than Obama’s, but it essentially just kicks the can forward another few years.

...

Last week, former NASA climate scientist James Hansen, fresh off a dire new warning about global sea levels, had harsh words for the slow, incremental progress that’s formed essentially the entirety of American’s climate ambition to date. “We have two political parties, neither one of which is willing to face reality,” Hansen told the Guardian. “Conservatives pretend it’s all a hoax, and liberals propose solutions that are non-solutions.”

“It’s just plain silly,” said Hansen, speaking specifically of Clinton’s planned renewable energy push. “No, you cannot solve the problem without a fundamental change, and that means you have to make the price of fossil fuels honest.”

In the end, our climate won’t care about how we fix this problem. But it’s clear that time is running out. If Obama truly wants to go all-in on climate change, he should meet Republicans where they are – as painful as that might be – and negotiate a way to pass a carbon tax.

...

If Obama really wants to make a lasting impact on global warming, he can work across the US political divide or across the Pacific in Beijing, to work toward implementing a meaningful, economy-wide carbon tax as quickly as possible. Just because such a breakthrough feels impossible doesn’t mean it isn’t necessary. 

Nice change from the coverage in most outlets, including, sadly, the BBC, which seems to have framed the discussion of Obama's plan solely in terms of his Republican opponents' view (ie, 'Radical Enviro-Nazi Obama and his War On Coal; Let's debate the two sides...'), whilst ignoring those who would argue Obama's legacy-burnishing proposals are at the very least too little, and quite likely, too late.

<Rant below the fold:>

Maybe the GOP is Right about Obama's Foreign Policy

This is pathetic.

Obama team, military at odds over South China Sea

Some U.S. naval commanders are at odds with the Obama administration over whether to sail Navy ships right into a disputed area in the South China Sea — a debate that pits some military leaders who want to exercise their freedom of navigation against administration officials and diplomats trying to manage a delicate phase in U.S.-China relations.

The Pentagon has repeatedly maintained it reserves the right to sail or fly by a series of artificial islands that China is outfitting with military equipment. The Navy won’t say what it has or hasn’t done, but military officials and congressional hawks want the U.S. to make a major demonstration by sending warships within 12 miles of the artificial islands and make clear to China that the U.S. rejects its territorial claims.

By not doing so, they charge, Washington is tacitly accepting China’s destabilizing moves, which are seen by U.S. allies in the region such as Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam as highly threatening.

“We continue to restrict our Navy from operating within a 12 nautical mile zone of China’s reclaimed islands, a dangerous mistake that grants de facto recognition of China’s man-made sovereignty claims,” Sen. John McCain, the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee, told POLITICO.

I hate to agree with John McCain, but he's right here.

Sources in the military and within the administration acknowledge the difference of opinion privately, but would not go on the record to discuss the differences between Navy leaders and the administration.

...

The dispute is more than just a naval territorial dispute — there are global economic implications if China claims ownership of this part of the sea, which sees trillions in goods shipped between Asia and the rest of the globe.

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China claims it has exclusive control over waters hundreds of miles off its coast, and U.S. officials say Beijing believes the man-made islands strengthen its claim to the disputed Spratly Islands chain, which China and several Southeast Asian countries claim as their own.

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The artificial islands have added to a broader disagreement between Washington and Beijing over freedom of navigation. The United States and most other countries, citing the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, maintain that a coastal nation has the right to regulate economic activities such as fishing and oil exploration within a 200-mile economic exclusionary zone and that it cannot regulate foreign military forces except within 12 nautical miles off its shores. China, however, has insisted it can regulate economic and military activities out 200 nautical miles.

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More than $5 trillion worth of international trade, from Middle East oil bound for Asian markets to children’s toys bound for Wal-Mart stores in the U.S., pass through the South China Sea each year. If China can restrict the passage of ships through what today are considered international waters, that could cause shockwaves for the world economy, U.S. officials warn.

...

The National Security Council also declined to discuss the dispute or outline the White House’s view, referring questions to the Pentagon.

But the Obama administration is increasingly seen as eager to avoid a confrontation by actually doing so — at least publicly — and Republicans are trying to pressure President Obama ahead of the Chinese leader’s visit to more aggressively assert himself in the face of China’s controversial behavior.

Just think back at the reaction of the US, when Russia annexed its own historical territory in Crimea, with the agreement of most of the Crimean population.  The PRC is, with its ridiculous EEZ-claims*, and creation of military outposts out of open ocean, effectively claiming exclusive ownership of and control over an entire sea !  At the expense of the actual territorial waters of the countries in the area, and at the expense of the entire international community's rights of navigation.  And the US response ?**  'Pretty please, don't do that, huh ?  What if we ask you really, really nicely ?'  Which is pretty much what I'd expect from a government that puts short-term corporate profits ahead of all other interests.

The US can't be counted on to stand by the Philippines or Viet Nam, here, can't be counted on by its Asian allies generally, if it allows this to stand without even attempting to assert its own legal right of navigation.  Sailing in international waters is an act of provocation towards a country a thousand kilometres away ?  Is that really a precedent you want to set ?  No-one's asking you to go to war with China.  Just assert your damn legal rights, and let the PRC take the first shot, if that's really where they want to go with this.  Shit !

Oh, but they left the best piece for last in that article:

But at the same time U.S. military leaders are advocating for something else — for the U.S. Senate to ratify the UN Law of the Sea treaty that it repeatedly cites as as the international framework for navigation of the high seas.

“We undermine our leverage by not signing up to the same rule book by which we are asking other countries to accept,” Gen. Joe Dunford, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate earlier this month.

That's right, as with so many other international agreements, the US signs up for something, then won't fucking ratify it, 'cos historically, the US has kinda not given a shit, figuring it will just do what it wants, regardless of the international community.  Which becomes somewhat problematic, when it comes up across another country with the same arrogant attitude, and the muscle to stand up to the US.

In the case of the UNCLOS, the US finds itself in a club that also includes the likes of North Korea & Iran.  But not the PRC, which ratified the agreement...but then just ignores it anyway.


* And absurd territorial claims based upon a bullshit made-up map from nineteen-forty-fuckin'-seven.

** Never mind the EU's silence on the matter.

Obama Late to the Party on Gun-Control ?

Here's Piers Morgan on Barack Obama's 'frustration' with his failure to pass 'sufficient common-sense gun-safety-laws.'

Well, I just think it's too little, too late.  Y'know, the president's been in office now, er nearly eight years; He's had plenty of time to prioritise gun-violence in America, and it's only very recently that we've heard him talk this way.

Really ?  Seems to me that the president has been out there time and time again, after one mass shooting after another, decrying gun-violence, and urging Congress to work with him across party-lines, only for the Republicans (and some Democrats) in Congress to consistently block any efforts at gun-control.

But, perhaps not quite, memory being what it is after all.  Looking over a review the Guardian did on Obama's responses to mass-shooting on his watch, tells a slightly different story, with Obama only really pushing for action in the last two or three years.  So Piers may have a point after all.

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As for what it will take for actual meaningful change in US gun-laws ?  Well probably a complete sweep of the Congress for one, on such a scale, that will only come about when the underlying culture changes.  And can we hope for such change as the millennials take over ?  Well...don't count on it.

Here's one more poll-result, I just have to include because it's so utterly bonkers.

Story after story in the media of gun-owners accidentally shooting themselves or their loved ones, of children accessing guns and blowing their brains out.  Never mind the increased risk of suicide.  But Americans actually believe having a gun in the house increases their safety.  This is the kind of crazy that decades of propaganda from the NRA has wrought, and with which Barack Obama has to battle.

Breitbart's Cuban Butthurt

Surely, more like a victory for common sense, abandoning a long-standing decades-long policy of isolation, that, multiple dead US Presidents later, was still failing to bring about regime-change in Cuba ?  This, on top of other accomplishments by Obama in the last couple of years, his continuing support of the right-wing capitalistic establishment aside, is making it harder and harder for me to maintain my disapproval of the guy.  I may still not agree with the guy 100%*, but compared to Dubya...or worse still, the lunatics even further to Dubya's right ?...

And yet, I get the impression from Breitbart that I'm meant to be outraged, incensed even over the idea of the flag of a 'communist dictatorship' flying in DC...

Former ambassadors, murderous guerrilla icons, and even folk singers have descended upon Washington, D.C. today to celebrate the raising of the Cuban flag over the newly-minted embassy of the communist dictatorship in America.

Cuban state media is treating the event, which has no analog at the American embassy in Havana, as a victory over the American people.

Erm, is the People's Republic of China, which has agents online and in person infilitrating US' governmental agencies and businesses left, right, and centre, not a communist dictatorship ?  A country that bullies the US' allies and has nuclear weapons pointed at the US.  And even Vietnam, for that matter, are they not considered a communist dictatorship ?  Oh, and that last line is bullshit, as the raising of the US flag in Havana is specifically planned to coincide with the visit of, I believe, John Kerry, in the country.

The State Department has raised the Cuban flag over the new embassy in Washington, D.C. while the American embassy remains barren in Havana, though operating officially as an embassy. It released its first press release today as an official embassy and not the Office of American Interests. It will be run by interim head Jeffrey DeLaurentis as Congress gears up to oppose the appointment of any ambassador to the communist dictatorship so long as the Castro regime continues to flagrantly violate human rights.

So the PRC doesn't violate human rights ?  How about Saudi Arabia ?  How about unquestionable Israel, the ultimate third rail of American politics ?  You would be willing to shut down the Israeli embassy over criticism of treatment of the Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank ?

Granma, the official propaganda outlet for the Cuban government, is treating the ceremony as a victory for the communist revolution. In an article quoting the various members of the delegation to D.C., a number of them described the flag-raising ceremony as analogous to a military victory against America. Pez Ferro, who participated in the 1953 attack on the Moncada military barracks that made Fidel Castro a nationally-recognized terrorist, told Granma that the flag-raising ceremony proves the communists “were in the right.” “This confirms that former policies were a failure,” he states, as well as “the recognition of the resistance of a country that did not cede to pressure despite not being a great power like its rival.”

Well, as for a communist victory, obviously they're fantasists.  They have a point regarding the failure of US policies towards Cuba, but, either way, why so much butt-hurt ?

I suppose, ultimately, it's a similar case as with Viet Nam.  Right-wingers in the US can never get over the idea that they were legitimately defeated, almost exactly as the British were defeated by their ancestors, via the guerrilla tactics of the ordinary populace.  A narrative has to be adopted, that somehow, the media were to blame, lefty liberals like Jane Fonda, traitors in the established political parties with insufficient will to crush the...'enemy.'  The 'enemy' who happened to be pawns on one side of the political chessboard than the other, and the same 'enemy' who are today coveted 'allies'.

Once, and perhaps future, ally of the US, Cuba, was condemned and demonised for similar reasons as other 'Communist' countries of the 'fifties and 'sixties, most of which are today, whether they nominally identify as Communist or not, eagerly courted and fêted by the West.  I suspect that a decade from now, right-wingers in the US will be talking about Cuba, much as they would talk today about Vietnam, and with their own current hyperbole conveniently forgotten.


* Well, not even close to that.

Ethanol !

Was wondering just the other day about the fact that we hear so little about biofuels these days.  A decade ago, they were all the rage, with governments pushing them as a more environmentally-friendly, more sustainable alternative to fossilfuels, and stories showing up all the time in the media about people filling up their cars with chipfat or other leftover oils from restaurants.

Those who pointed out the potential environmental consequences of turning over more land to development for fuel, never mind the impact on food-supply for humans in redirecting the output of swathes of agriculture were pooh-poohed or ignored.

Anyways, this led me to Google News, and these two recent headlines:

Confused ?  Can both these headlines be true ?  Apparently, they can.

As I understand it, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is increasing year-on-year the requirements for, 'renewable fuel' percentages in the United States, but is doing so at levels, below the targets set by Congress.  For the simple reason that there isn't enough supply.  Or, as the EPA puts it:

The Clean Air Act provides EPA with the authority to reduce the volume requirements from their statutory targets under certain conditions, and we are proposing to use these authorities in this action. EPA has evaluated the availability of qualifying renewable fuels and factors that in some cases constrain the supply of those fuels to the vehicles that can consume them. EPA has also considered the ability of the market to respond to the applicable standards by producing changes in production, infrastructure, and relative pricing to boost the use of renewable fuels.

Based on these and other considerations, EPA is proposing volumes which, while below the volumes originally set by Congress, would increase renewable fuel use in the
U.S. above historical levels and provide for steady growth over time.

This is the kind of thing BTW likely to cause a freakout on the right in the US over Barack Obama's 'tyranical' abuse of executive power.  Except for the fact, that it's a relatively obscure wonkish issue that most people don't understand or care about.

And so anyway, the end-result is that no-one is happy with these proposals, whether it be boaters worried about ethanol destroying their engines, or those calling for the abolition of this idiotic mandate that should never have been put through for stupid political reasons by the Bush administration in the first place (What, should I pretend not to be biased ?), or the agricultural groups with a vested interest in maintaining artificial government subsidies for their crops.

Speaking of which, here's a nice quote:

The president of the The Iowa Corn Growers Association, Jerry Mohr, pointed out that farmers have the capabilities for increased ethanol production. "Iowa farmers have rallied to the challenge and been asked to produce corn, and we have. We just need a way to get rid of it. And ethanol has been a great one. And it's great for our country, and it cleans the air."

Never mind the crap about it cleaning the air (is he talking about photosynthesis ?), 'we just need a way to get rid of it.' ?  Seriously ?

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that about 805 million people of the 7.3 billion people in the world, or one in nine, were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2012-2014. Almost all the hungry people, 791 million, live in developing countries, representing 13.5 percent, or one in eight, of the population of developing counties. There are 11 million people undernourished in developed countries (FAO 2014; for individual country estimates, see Annex 1.

This insane law is one of those things Obama could have set out to have repealed from early on in his presidency.  And although there is, of course, an instinctive resistance on the part of Republicans to go along with any the Obama administration's proposals, I suspect that there is actually some bipartisan agreement on this issue, the agri-lobby in Iowa aside, given that this law does interfere with the market, does impose bureaucratic governmental standards on business, and was pushed in the name of pseudo-environmental concern against the interests of fossil-fuel-based business.  The United States should be repealing this stupid legislation ASAP, and the EPA increasing the Ethanol-mandate not a jot.


* Relevant Links below:
http://www.examiner.com/article/corn-growers-rally-over-epa-s-rule-to-cut-ethanol-production
http://counton2.com/2015/07/14/epa-proposes-increasing-ethanol-in-fuel-supply/
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/fuels/renewablefuels/regulations.htm
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/fuels/renewablefuels/documents/420f15028.pdf
http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm#Number_of_hungry_people_in_the_world

** BTW, news-sites, the only thing worse than auto-play embedded video, is embedded video programmed to re-start automatically every five minutes or so, despite the fact that you've repeatedly expressed your disinclination to watch/listen to said video.  I am of course, not including in this comparison, video which is set by default to 100% volume.  WHICH IS SHEER EVIL !!!

Fox 'News' on that 'Bad Deal'

So, I find myself wondering*, what does Fox News have to say about the deal the Obama administration has apparently reached with Iran ?  A measured 'let's wait and see, while we digest the details' perhaps ?  No, of course not.

Officials: Iran nuclear deal fuels Middle East arms race, boosts Russia’s influence

Those 'officials' being, apparently, professional neo-con lunatic and bomb-thrower John Bolton, perpetual (to the point that it almost seems like compensation for something) warmonger Lindsey Graham, an obscure first-term senator called Ben Sasse, and some unknown 'intelligence official'.

The newly announced Iran nuclear deal and the negotiations leading up to it already are fueling an all-but-declared nuclear arms race in the Middle East, according to current and former government officials who say the situation also creates an opening for Russia to exert more influence in the region. 

As opposed to the inevitable arms-race that would result in the absence of a deal, as Iran felt compelled to seek a deterrent against an attack by the United States or Israel, and the almost inevitable move of Iran closer into Russia's orbit.

"We have given Iran the path it has been seeking for almost 35 years. The other states in the region are not going to sit idly by, which is why in effect the nuclear arms race is already underway," former U.N. Ambassador and Fox News contributor John Bolton said, adding that Iran and other nations have used civilian nuclear energy programs as cover for covert enrichment programs. 

You've given Iran the path they've been seeking ?  Huh ?  Because, it is so much easier to develop nuclear weapons whilst under international monitoring and scrutiny, than to do so under a covert programme ?

"Every Sunni Arab nation is going to see [a nuclear Iran] as an inevitable outcome," Republican presidential candidate and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said. "The worst possible outcome of the deal would be to create a nuclear arms race in the Mideast where Sunni Arabs feel threatened." 

Why would they see that, unless they were getting their information from Fox News & Bibi ?  I certainly hope they have far better sources of intellligence than that.  A nuclear arms-race is the inevitable outcome of no deal, as Iran clearly sees a nuclear weapon as the only effective deterrent against an attack by the US and/or Israel (and the desire in the West for 'regime-change' in Tehran, at any cost, with or without the nuclear issue, is real and clear), as neither the US nor Israel is willing currently to wage an actual ground-war against Iran to prevent it obtaining a weapon, and as the completely hypothetical 'better deal' imagined by the Republicans & Likudniks seems to require the total capitulation of Iran to Western interests.  Short of the West being willing to threaten Tehran with an actual nuclear assault, there is nothing, no amount of bombings, no amount of sanctions that will ever bring that about, without massive expenditure and loss of lives by the West.

Your choices are as they ever were: war, nuclear war, or an attempt at least at diplomacy.  Here's hoping that the grownups retain control of the White House for the next couple of electoral cycles.


* Is there such a thing as a rhetorical lie ?

So How Will Auntie Hill Come Down on that Trade Deal ?

I can't believe* that stupid non-troversy about Hillary Clinton and the rope between her and the media in some parade is still getting such attention in the US media.  It's utterly absurd, and of no interest to the average American at all.  Any more than for that matter BENGHAZI!!!! & E-mail-gate.

But, that said, she hasn't given many, if any, interviews since declaring her run for the presidency, and as such, until she does give her first major interview, she'll inevitably be judged by whatever does come out, via her, her people, her husband...

The former president described how Vietnam has going from being a country where people made barely a dollar a day twenty years ago, when we normalized relations with them, has seen explosive economic growth and how its children are now among the highest in the world in basic math, science and literature.

Finally, he spoke of how President Obama is trying to add to this record of economic cooperation with the TPP negotiations. He said he hoped “more than anything else that there will be as much bipartisan support for it as there was 20 years ago for the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Vietnam.” He said if our country can get good labor, human rights and environmental standards, the TPP will command the support of a broad swath of the American people.

'Good labor, human rights, and environmental standards'... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


* Who the fuck am I kidding ?  Of course, I can.



Update: Yeah, that CNN thing was a total softball puffpiece.  No hard questioning, no mention of TPP or trade generally.  And in so far as there was any approach at discussing anything remotely controversial, they just rehashed the same stupid nontroversies with which the US media is perpetually obsessed.  Basic takeaway: The Republicans are mean, nothing is Hillary's fault, and Hillary has a super-duper economic plan, but she can't tell you anything about it yet.

And since Hillary won't speak to TPP, I will on her behalf: She's for it.  Every bit of it.  Even the bits she may have criticised in the past.  Even the bit whereby the rightful constitutional authority of the government of the United States is made secondary to unaccountable tribunals run by multinational corporations.  Because she wants more wealth and power than she currently has, and the best way to ensure that happens is to suck up to and shill for her even-more powerful and wealthy friends on Wall Street.  But until the General Election at least, you get to enjoy folksy faux-populist Hillary.  As I hinted at in passing before, the woman knows how to act.

Really ?

AP Photo

I'm not a fan of the use of the rainbow as a political symbol, as may be inferred from this previous post.

As for the question of 'gay marriage' itself, my official stance would be a libertarian one; that government should get out of the business of defining what is or isn't marriage, provide civil unions (with the same benefits & protections) for all, and let individuals and religious groups define marriage as they see fit.  But generally, I'm glad that same-sex couples should find greater equality, greater acceptance, and (hopefully) greater happiness.  And if they find that in us extending the definition of marriage, more power to 'em.  History in the West is and has been clearly on the side of same-sex marriage, whatever I may think (and really, it's primarily if not solely the government redefining words that troubles me), and whatever the right-wing christianist bigots in the Republican party think.

Still, I do think this was ill-advised.  The Supreme Court's ruling on same-sex marriage was already likely to be the rallying-point for the Republican Party's base in the next Presidential elections that so-called 'Obamacare' (and I still hear every time the intended slur in that name, how ever much the Dem's may have tried to co-opt it) was in the last.  And the Obama administration just handed the GOP a needless present by turning the executive mansion into a political symbol.  And why ?  To provide a feel-good moment, to briefly excite the Democratic Party's more progressive supporters ?  A tweet wasn't enough ?

Maybe it was in part an attempt at trolling the GOP, given all the rhetoric of the last seven years about Obama being some sort of foreign interloper in 'our house' and 'taking our house back'.  If so, consider the effort successful.  I hope, sincerely, that it was worth it. *


* Call it concern-trolling if you will.  Whatever I may think of Hillary, the last thing the US needs is continued or expanded dominance of Congress by the GOP, and/or another Republican in the White House, at a crucial time especially for appointments to the Supreme Court.  And you may have just given the Republican base their moment.

Nick Clegg's Annihilation Lap

Watching this reminds me of my ongoing reaction to the hullabaloo regarding the Supreme Court's decisions on so-called 'ObamaCare', aka the ACA.  I don't want the fascist asshole Republicans to get their way in denying insurance to people by constantly attacking the healthcare-law they christened 'Obamacare' despite it being modelled on their own party's proposals in the 'nineties for an alternative to the plan of the Clinton administration.  But the law still sucks.  It's still flawed.  It's functionality still depends upon forcing people to hand over money involuntarily to massive corporations.  And people will still die for lack of coverage, and/or the inability to pay.

Still, arguably horrible law as it is, missed generational opportunity at real reform as it may represent ('May' ?  Who the fuck are we kidding ?), the fact is that people can obtain healthcare in the United States now who couldn't before, and who might not have been able to shortly if the Supreme Court had agreed with the latest (completely bullshit) attack on the ACA.

What did Nick Clegg's sellout buy any one ? The idea that he prevented a global economic meltdown by getting into bed with the Tories is absurd -- Every nation on Earth faced similar political considerations, including the far-more financially significant United States, but where else did a political party feel the need to sell out generations' worth of political principle for short-term power ?  And if the Lib-Dems had not done a deal with the Tories, what ?  What evidence was there at the time even remotely suggesting that there could be catastrophic outcomes without the coalition ?  What evidence since ?

It pains me to watch this, because I'm inclined to like Nick Clegg, to root for the Liberal Democrats.  Even now.  Even despite all that fucker has done to destroy his own party's brand.  And especially as the so-called Labour party seems divided between possibly genuinely loony Marxists like Corbyn and complete right-wing frauds like the rest of the scumbags vying for leadership.

And that's all I have to say.  I feel the need to say something witty, something controversial perhaps, but no, this asshole just makes me sad.  His incompetence, his idiocy, his vanity...all of it...just...makes...me...sad.

Megyn & Ann Take Apart the Lefty Media

Oh, and I almost forgot.

Wait for it...

The evil Marxist lefty news-media would...never...frame Ted Cruz in a halo like their hero Obama !


So I guess this photo, which I used three months back, was purely a product of my own imagination ?

Megyn & Ann were outraged at this messianic portrayal of Ted at the time, one might presume ?.....

A Perfect Circle: Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums

This one could/should maybe be saved for the next insane war, but, at this point, 'the war' is...every day.  And the need for reminders is perpetual.  So, given that it came up in the mix, why the hell not ?

Replacing the face in the last frames of the video isn't that difficult whether you replace them with that of Barry or that of Sir Plasticface.  Ever and ever as it was.

Stay Classy, JPost

What ?  We're just sayin'.  And if you click on the link, the Title specifies 'Not Just News.'   I'm willing to bet that a large part of JPost's readership wouldn't even see or acknowledge what is so very fucking wrong with that shit in the middle of the image above.  I try to keep an open mind.  I really do.  And then I see shit like this.  And I just give up...

Felix Kiprono is in love, and the young Kenyan lawyer is aiming high.

According to the daily newspaper Nairobian, the object of Kiprono’s affections is none other than President Barack Obama’s daughter, Malia.

Just how far is Kiprono willing to go to snatch the girl of his dreams? According to the Nairobian, he is prepared to offer the leader of the free world a dowry of 50 cows, 70 sheep, and 30 goats.

"People might say I am after the family's money, which is not the case. My love is real," Kiprono told the Nairobian newspaper.

Just how smitten is Kiprono with Malia Obama?

"I got interested in her in 2008," he said. "As a matter of fact, I haven't dated anyone since and promise to be faithful to her. I have shared this with my family and they are willing to help me raise the bride price."

He said he plans to deliver a letter to the US Embassy in Kenya to officially declare his intention.."

Ours will be a simple life. I will teach Malia how to milk a cow, cook ugali (a starchy dish) and prepare mursik (a sour milk) like any other Kalenjin woman," he said

Update: Apparently CNN & The Indy. also 'reported' on this non-story.  Which I guess, makes it okay...er, No.  No, it doesn't.  Our modern news-media is such a fucking disgrace.

Breitbart: Obama Thinks Iran is...'Rational' !

Gasp.  <Faints>  How dare he speak so of our former alliesthe evil empire that is the Satanic Republic of Iranistan ?

Okay, okay, let's get to it...

However, the most interesting point reported by The Times of Israel, is Obama’s opinion of the Iranian regime.

(Reported by The Times of Israel !  Not like we can't just read the damn transcript for ourselves)

Goldberg asked Obama if the fact that the Iranian regime is anti-Semitic, and thus possessed of a warped view of the way the world works, shouldn’t preclude a negotiating strategy that treats Tehran as a rational player. But the president replied that the regime’s survival instinct is more powerful than other calculations, including its hatred of Jews and imperialist aspirations.

“Well, the fact that you are anti-Semitic, or racist, doesn’t preclude you from being interested in survival,” he said. “It doesn’t preclude you from being rational about the need to keep your economy afloat; it doesn’t preclude you from making strategic decisions about how you stay in power; and so the fact that the supreme leader is anti-Semitic doesn’t mean that this overrides all of his other considerations.”

Tehran, he continued, won’t make irrational decisions — an apparent reference to the regime breaking away to a nuclear weapon or attacking another country — that would threaten its very survival. “What we’ve been very clear [about] to the Iranian regime over the past six years is that we will continue to ratchet up the costs, not simply for their anti-Semitism, but also for whatever expansionist ambitions they may have,” he said.

Just shocking.  I can't believe he said all that.  It's just outrageous !  What is wrong with the man ?

Obama is right. Iran is suffering severe internal problems. Rampant, out of control drug abuse, obscene levels of corruption, and severe economic problems are tearing at the foundations of the Iranian tyranny.

According to the Daily Mail, around seven per cent of Iran’s population remain addicted to hard drugs. On top of Iran’s already hideous problems with the flood of dirt cheap opium and heroin pouring out of Afghanistan, Iran has lately acquired a dangerous taste for crystal meth.

Okay, just WTF now ?

...

For all we know, the Supreme Leader of Iran himself could be a meth addict – suffering drug induced psychosis, paranoia, experiencing drug induced delusions about his own mission to remake the world, lusting for the destructive might which nuclear weapons would grant to his addled megalomanic fantasies.

Hitler was a well known meth addict  – under the influence of meth, he ordered the commission of irrational atrocities, such as the infamous Nero decree, Hitler’s order to destroy everything of value which might be seized by advancing Russian soldiers. The Nero decree was not executed – Albert Speer, in the final days of the war disobeyed Hitler, and refused to pointlessly destroy the infrastructure of Germany. But an occasional outbreak of reason was more the exception than the norm, in Hitler’s meth fuelled Reich.

And that's how the 'article' ends.  Reductio ad Hitlerum.  Shit.


For all we know, Bill Clinton could be a lizard-person from an alternate dimension.  George W Bush could have been an elaborate AI construct in the matrix. Vladimir Putin could be the second coming of Christ as understood in the cryptic version of the Gospel of Judas.  Steve Jobs could have been secretly an Arab (well, not really a secret as such).  Margaret Thatcher could have had a secret sexual obsession with Ken Livingstone.  For all we know, Ayn Rand could have been a rabidly anti-Christian atheist (uh, well, actually...)  Stalin could have had a really vulnerable soft spot for puppies, and secretly donated to funds for orphans.  For all we know, Luke Skywalker could have been the bastard child of Darth Vader.  For all we know, John McCain's anti-aging regimen could involve the daily bathing in the blood of Mexican babies.  For all we know, the staff at Breitbart might contain an actual journalist or two.... What after all....do we...actually...know ?


So easy, and ultimately futile (given the audience) to mock, but the full interview is arguably worth reading...okay, skimming, especially if you want to skip the facile spin than the traditional outlets will inevitably want to place on it:  http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/05/obama-interview-iran-isis-israel/393782/


Below the fold, here's how the interview ends, and the part that I personally found the most interesting:

Press-release on TPP Fast-track Deal

Via Gaius Publius, more information on the fast-track deal for TPP (and other trade-deals ?) currently being rushed through Congress, from individuals far better informed and less sweary than myself: https://www.citizen.org/documents/press-release-fast-track-introduced-april-2015.pdf.

I skimmed it myself, but it does amongst other things seems to indicate that this abdication of responsibility by the US Congress on trade-deals could continue at least through the next presidency if not into the one after that, as indicated on her show recently by Rachel Maddow.  Hillary still seems oddly quiet on the whole thing, huh ?

Wonder What (the Non-Ginger) Charles Johnson Thinks of the Latest Criticism of Obama from the Left

Uh huh.

I'm shocked.  Shocked, I say.  CJ in defence of the Obama admin. when a threat suddenly emerges from the left or on civil liberties.  When does that ever happen ?  Serendipitous posting I guess.

+1 for use of the word 'suddenly.'

Tom Cotton's Four Day War against Iran

So, if I'm understanding this right, when our new Ronald ReaganSenator Tom Cotton talks about the military alternative to Obama's treacherous deal with Iran as involving 'several days of air and naval bombing' and Ted Cruz says that 'a military action to take out the nuclear facilities would be a couple of days or...a week', the argument is that we are talking here not about ending Iran's nuclear programme or preventing Iran from developing a bomb, but about 'degrading' Iran's ability to make a bomb, and delaying it by maybe a year or two.

While, meanwhile, a primary criticism of the evil no-good deal that Obama cooked up with Iran, is that it would only delay Iran's breakout time to make a bomb by a mere thirteen years.

So, to gain a negative-eleven year delay in Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, the United States should bomb the shit out of them, causing massive destruction, and probably killing many innocent civilians, inviting a much greater military retaliation than Iraq could muster in 1998, further inflaming the region, while expending insanely expensive military resources, destroying any possibility for the foreseeable future of rapprochement with Iran, and most likely causing the Iranian citizens to unite against the United States and rally in favour of acquiring a nuclear deterrent, and spurring the 'regime' to hasten its development of a nuclear weapon as quickly as possible.

Well, then of course.  We should BOMB THEM NOW !