Thomas Friedman Agrees With Me: Turkey, Jordan & Iraq Must Supply the Ground Forces

Link to Thomas Friedman Column Today


And I cannot resist another dig at the Neo-conservative view of the proper American role in the international arena.  For decades now, it has been a core belief of the neo-conservative view that the U.S.A. should do everything in its power to support the Saudi Arabian regime.

But as David Motadel, a British historian, writes in today's NY Times, there is a long history of Jihadist regimes trying to rise up and being crushed by neighboring Armies with an interest in seeing their demise.  One reason for this success by the French in Algeria, the British in the Sudan and Russia in Chechnya is the absolute failure of the Jihadist regimes to generate a stable platform for a functioning economy.

The only successful regime is the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia (because they avoided some of the excesses and supported the "West" in WW II), but they provide both political cover and the money (from the West's oil imports) that support the modern Jihadist movement.

So while we need Turkey, Jordan and Iraq to defeat ISIS, the West must pressure Saudi Arabia, Qatar,  Kuwait and the Emirates to cease the financial support for Jihadism.

The Ancestors of ISIS


And lastly, Jews in Europe are now paying the price of Israel's failure to find a path to a two state solution or at least a failure to find a way to have the world blame the Palestinian's for such a failure.  There is a news article on how anti-Semitism is rising in Western Europe.  It was inevitable that Muslims in Western Europe would become more vocal in their support for the Palestinians because the need for The State of Palestine has been apparent for over 50 years now and, yet, all Israel does is expand settlements and shrink the land available for such a state.

I used to think I was in the minority of Jewish Americans with this view, but I saw an article several weeks ago that stated that over 70% of American Jews agree with me on the settlements.  So this issue is not a question of support for the State of Israel by 70% of American Jews, it is a question of the sanity of the current Israeli policy regarding the settlements.

Reason for Optimism & a View on Pessimism

David Brooks today outlines evidence that the world is in a much better off place now then it has ever been.  And without saying so, you can trace that to policies that encourage economic growth while providing a safety net.  I will list them chronologically:  Freedom of movement so people can cross borders to live in a different country, capitalism and democracy, Social Security, Medicare, the Federal Reserve accepting that low inflation is the overriding goal, Free Trade Agreements, reduction in the top marginal tax rates to below 40%, globalization and the Affordable Health Care Act.  What is the common thread through much of that?  Political support from both parties! (While the Affordable Health Care Act did not get any GOP votes, it was designed by a GOP think tank and implanted 1st by a GOP governor and forced into the design by GOP senators, who in the end voted against it.)

Link to David Brooks column

Globalization has produced the greatest reduction in global poverty in history, but is also the cause of the angst and anger in a substantial part of the electorate that has produced the malaise that dominates the U.S.A. political picture.

I don't have a solution to reduce partisan political views that view compromise with the other side as the equivalent of being a treasonous.  It is stunning that 49% of Republicans and 33% of Democrats would be displeased if their child married a person who supports the other political party.  My parents were split, my father was a Democrat, my mother a Republican.  I have been a registered Democrat, then a registered Republican, and now a registered Democrat.  I voted for Harold Washington and Ronald Reagan on the same election day and believed that I was being completely consistent in what I was voting for.

I clearly don't understand the intellectual basis for partisan political rancor, but I do believe the GOP is responsible for it by trying to create a ruined Presidency for President Obama from Day 1.  I don't understand why they wanted it, but I do believe they did not think through what a disastrous effect it would have on the country because it fed into the economic racism that percolates throughout U.S. society.  Throughout the history of this country, a significant percentage of the people have feared the poor and that more than anything is behind much of the economic rancor that dominates politics today.  If we give them something, I will have less.

Yet, much of the good that David Brooks writes about is the result of policies that encourage a growing pie that helps everybody while creating a safety net that supports the common good.  Free-for-all capitalism for owners, without democracy, has created the conditions that have spawned support for Jihadists.   A perception of a corrupt society breeds hostility and only the political elite can offset that by fighting corruption.  That is as true in Washington D.C. as it is in Baghdad or anywhere else.

Neo-Conservative Reality Conumdrum

and the reason why the U.S. has to keep boots out of harms way.

Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and who knows for sure who else, are balking at helping the U.S. defeat ISIS because that will assist Shia Iraq, Assad (Alawites are a form of Shia), and Iran.

The U.S. and Iran are still such enemies that we cannot cooperate.

Russia is balking at supporting anything that does not help Assad and Iran, and besides, aren't we still upset with Russia for violating the sovereignty of the Ukraine and their terrorist act of shooting down the Malaysian Air 777.

A WSJ writer correctly points out that U.S. soldiers fighting ISIS on the ground would be magnet for Muslims all over the world to rush to Syria to kill Americans.  And a Judeo-Christian assault on ISIS would allow them to make it a holy war akin to the Crusades increasing the attractiveness for disaffected Muslims (of which there are millions) all over the world to rush to Syria to kill Americans.

For now, all the U.S. can do is help from the air and giving adequate weapons to the Kurds.  Of course, Turkey is not happy with that and we need Turkey to stop the flow of funds to ISIS by buying their oil production and the flow of fighters across their border.

How do we bribe Turkey into doing the right thing is the question?

That folks is a conundrum!!!

Where are Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Kuwait and Iran on ISIS?

I hope Obama sticks to his guns and keeps American boots out of the mud.  The NY Times reports today that Turkey, Jordan and Egypt are giving tepid support to the U.S. campaign to defeat ISIS out of fear of their population which is more supportive of ISIS.

That is precisely why John Boehner should know we cannot put American boots on the ground to win   this.  They will attract wanna be heroes from all these populated countries and grow ISIS.

Only Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, the Kurds, and the right guys in Syria can defeat ISIS on the ground.  This will take a long time because other than the Turk's, their Armies are weak and under armed.  The Iraqi's had adequate arms but they abandoned them in their flight and now ISIS has them.

There is no way this threat will be defeated and made harmless quickly, but it is necessary.

Unfortunately, for the Arab states, this cannot be done by their mercenary Army, the United States Army and Marines.  They have to do this themselves.  They hope they can buy their way out of it by funneling money to America but it will not be enough.  They need to commit their own armies to this effort.

Now It Comes Out: There was/is evidence that Saudi Arabia was behind 9/11

Buried by the the Bush II Administration is 28 pages of redacted testimony to a Congressional Investigation immediately after 9/11/01 that Saudi Arabia supported key individuals who ultimately committed the terrorist crime of 9/11/01 that killed over 3,000 Americans and New Yorker's.

Why is Obama protecting this testimony?  Are there some Presidential rules that no President can violate on National Security Grounds.

Saudi Arabia needs to be held accountable for the HELL that they have created with 9/11/01, Osama bin Ladan, free flowing funds to Al Qaeda and other Jihadist organizations.

Janay Rice

It has to be awful to become a symbol of stereotype views on aspects of the human condition that need to be changed by society.  What can true for many is not necessarily true of any one individual.

Yet, without any knowledge of the inner workings of that individual's mind, commentators use the publicity value of a husband's bad act to project a stereotype upon this victim; which may or may not be valid, and feel no need to acknowledge that this situation may not reflect what many situations do reflect.

The result is this poor couple have their private situation become known to millions of people who all  create an opinion and they have no privacy left as soon as someone learns their name.  Something is terribly wrong with that.

I am not stating all this with any belief that Ray Rice should not suffer some punishment for his act.  He has acknowledged that and said he is responsible and remorseful.  I live in the town next to where Ray Rice grew up and have followed his football career since he received an award along with my son.

When he says he is remorseful and this one act is not who he is and he will work every day to be a good person, I believe him.  Since Janay Rice married him after the incident, she apparently believes him.  If you have seen the video, you should have noticed they both appeared to be drunk, and while that does not create an excuse for the act, it does offer an explanation for how they created the situation together and why they have remained committed to each other.  They both seem remorseful.

My real point is, people working on protecting real victims of domestic violence should know that every situation is different, and unless there is a repetitive pattern, it is likely their stereotyping of the situation is wrong.

Only Janay and Ray know for sure.  Surely they deserve the privacy to find healing if there is no repeat of the behavior.

The E.U. is losing The Ukraine & Other Tidbit Views

So the paper this morning confirms that a heat seeking missile downed the Malaysian Air plane over the Ukraine.  The separatists say it couldn't be them because they don't have that technology.  The Ukraine didn't have the technology in the area because the separatists don't have any airplanes.  That only leaves the possibility open that Russia could have had the technology in the area.  But we already knew that.

Then Putin doubles down as The Ukraine is defeating the terrorist thuggish separatists by sending in more "irregular" militias, supported by the Russian Army in key ways, to open up another front along the Black Sea and bringing The Ukraine to the negotiating table.

We will see what kind of independence The Ukraine can negotiate from this position, but what outrages me is that the EU is not even discussing ways in which to reduce their energy imports from Russia, which is the only way to really punish Russian and Putin for this outrageous intrusion on Ukrainian sovereignty and the criminal downing of the Malaysian Air flight.

The only thing the U.S. can do is start to export oil and gas, but the me-firsters in Congress won't allow that, but I urge anyone who reads this to support that concept.   The Bush II Administration tried to fight the War on Terror without asking for any sacrifice from the American people who did not have relatives in harms way and the least we can do is pay more for our energy to help reduce the flow of funds to our enemies in Russia and the Middle East.

Meanwhile, it is notable that the rumored coalition of the willing to fight ISIS does not include Qatar. That is the center of the flow of funds to jihadist groups, along with the two faced Saudi regime.  Something has to be done about this flow of funds.

Finally, Frank Bruni correctly pointed out that reelecting incumbents is not going to change the way the Congress, with a 14% approval rating, operates.  I think the country is going to have to go down the tubes in some manner before the Tea Party will lose enough support for the GOP to compromise.  Meanwhile, centrist Democrats are having mixed success fighting back ultra-liberal advocates, but at least in NY State yesterday, we centrists were able to declare victory on most fronts.  One obvious exception was the victory by an indicted Brooklyn State Senator who had the audacity to run for reelection, but that is not my district.  So be prepared for more D.C. gridlock and no progress on anything for the next 30 months.

Why Nihilistic Jihad Exists

A must read column for anybody who cares.  The solution must come from within these countries and it must be a political solution.

Link to Column