US ready to attack Syria as evidence mounts that the Assad regime is responsible

(Image Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo)

President Obama appears ready to reluctantly order military strikes in Syria over the strong objections of Russia and the dire threat from Iran that “There will definitely be perilous consequences for the region. These complications and consequences will not be restricted to Syria. It will engulf the whole region." The President has repeatedly said the use of chemical weapons was a red line that would require a strong response by the US.

Vice President Joe Biden has “no doubt” that the Syrian Government used chemical weapons against their own citizens in a Damascus suburb not controlled by the Assad regime’s military. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told the BBC that there was little doubt among most U.S. allies that "the most base ... international humanitarian standard was violated."  National Security Advisor Susan Rice reportedly told UN Ambassador Samantha Power that the chemical weapon evidence was “conclusive.”  “Undeniable,” Secretary of State John Kerry said.

And so our military is ready to act. While I abhor the fact that chemical weapons were unleashed against Syrian citizens I am unconvinced that military action against the Assad regime is the correct response. There are three reasons for my concern.

First are my visions of Colin Powell presenting conclusive evidence of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction to the UN. While he represented an administration hell bent on war with Iraq he put his honor on the line by making that presentation. The intelligence that was provided to Powell convinced him of the truth about the case he was presenting. So statements that the CIA has verified intelligence confirming the chemical weapon attack was the work of the Syrian government provided by Israel is not at all reassuring.

Next is the question, why would Assad order such an attack?  He knew that the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war would bring condemnation from the international community and certain military reprisal.  What did Assad have to gain?  And if he had nothing to gain by such an act, who did?  With over 100,000 casualties in the Syrian civil war to date is it unrealistic to think one of the rebel groups might decide that another one or two thousand new deaths would be an acceptable sacrifice if it would assure outside intervention against the Syrian government ?

Finally, what happens after a US (or a US, UK and French) attack?  Our rocky relations with Russia will certainly worsen.  China will also strongly object.  But of greater concern will be the response of Iran and other countries in the region who support Assad. In a volatile region the consequences of such action are unknown and could be far reaching. Even assuming that the intervention succeeds in removing President Assad from power, who replaces him?  Is there a rebel group that is strong enough to step in and stabilize the country or will it be plunged into an even longer civil war with multiple interests struggling for power?

A chemical attack on a civilian population certainly demands a response. But the wrong response may be much worse than no response. Is it any wonder that most Americans do not support military action? Will the Obama administration’s evidence change people’s opinion?  Only time will tell.  I find it hard to be optimistic about the outcome of the action the US is likely to take.

I was never a Republican because

This quote is attributed to Samuel J. Tilden, Governor of New York and Democratic nominee for President, who ran against Republican Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876.  Tilden ran as a reformer after 8 years of the magnificently corrupt administration of General Ulysses S. Grant.  The quote is in Gore Vidal’s historical fiction novel 1876.  (Highly recommended if you enjoy carefully researched history narrated by a fictional character)

“I was never a Republican, Mr. Schuyler, because those gentlemen you mentioned, distinguished as they are, have only one real interest, and that is the making of special laws in order to protect their fortunes.  I know.  In my day I was employed by them as a working lawyer.  I also know that they have no compassion for the masses of people in this country who are without money and who are, many of them, thanks to General Grant and his friends, without food or houses.  I have always thought that only as a Democrat, reflecting Jefferson and Jackson – and our common friend Van Buren – could justice ever be done the people because, at this moment in history, ours is the only party, which is even faintly responsive to the forces of ideas.  That is why I mean to do my very best to fire the majority of the people with a desire for true reform.  I also have every intention of succeeding.  To fail now would be cruel and unthinkable.”

What really happened and who is to blame?

It is no secret that I love boats. Little boats, big boats, almost any kind of boat. So I’ve been spell bound by the story of the Costa Concordia. And of course anyone who has enjoyed a cruise on a luxury ship has to shudder to think that such a memorable and enjoyable experience could have turned into the nightmare we see repeated over and over again on the news and in the papers. But I could not help wondering, even as the media and the ship’s owners’ were quick to condemn the Capitan, how did this happen? Capitan Francesco Schettino is an experienced mariner and the ship was launched less than six years ago.

Villian or scape goat? Hard to tell at this point but the story is slowly unfolding. The media rushed to portray Capitan Schettino as a reckless grandstander showing off his magnificent ship to locals on the island of Giglio by sailing too close to its rocky shore. The Capitan early on stated that his ship struck uncharted rocks and that he did nothing wrong. Nothing I’ve read has even attempted to be a balanced look at this terrible accident. But there is clearly more to this story than reporters looking for their name on a byline are telling us. Even a story from Fox News trying to further inflame the story by reporting on a supposed mystery woman seen at the Capitan’s table earlier in the evening let slip a couple of facts that call into question the so far unchallenged charges. You can begin to understand why a judge ordered the Capitan released from jail (but keeping him under house arrest) while the investigation continues.

Here is the passage from the Fox report that starts to shift the story from the one sided outrage spewed by the news media and to provide some counter balance that hopefully will lead to the truth behind this tragedy.
The ship's operator, Crociere Costa SpA, has accused Schettino of causing the wreck by making the unapproved detour, and the captain has acknowledged carrying out what he called a "tourist navigation" that brought the ship closer to Giglio. Costa has said such a navigational "fly by" was done last Aug. 9-10, after being approved by the company and Giglio port authorities.

However, Lloyd's List Intelligence, a leading maritime publication, said Wednesday its tracking of the ship's August route showed it actually took the Concordia slightly closer to Giglio than the course that caused Friday's disaster.

"This is not a black-and-white case," Richard Meade, editor of Lloyd's List, said in a statement.

"Our data suggests that both routes took the vessel within 200 yards of the impact point and that the authorized route was actually closer to shore."

So, this is not a black and white case and the owners and the port authorities had approved a similar maneuver in August that placed the ship even closer to the shoreline than where it crashed into the submerged rocks.

Then there are the charges that the Capitan abandoned ship while passengers where still aboard. Again, quoting the Fox report, here is his response.

New audio of Schettino's communications with the coast guard during the crisis emerged Wednesday, with the captain claiming he ended up in a life raft after he tripped and fell into the water.

"I did not abandon a ship with 100 people on board, the ship suddenly listed and we were thrown into the water," Schettino said, according to a transcript published Wednesday in the Corriere della Sera paper.

I’ve read lots of references to the charges of abandoning the ship but little of the statements of some crew members claiming the outcome would have been much more dire if the Capitan had not maneuvered the ship closer to shore and to shallower water after impact.

There are many more charges to be answered. Why was the crew largely untrained in the basics of evacuation? Why was a lifeboat drill postponed until the following day so passengers had no idea where to report for assistance into the lifeboats? And why where the lifeboats so late in being deployed that some could not be launched due to the listing of the stricken ship?

While I’ll be anxiously waiting to find the answers to these questions and to better understand how in this day of advanced navigational and safety technology a major ship the size of a small city could end up crushed and laying on its side on a rocky island shoreline, I doubt that I’ll read it in the mainstream press unless I’m able to read between the lines and draw out facts dropped in reports like the Fox News piece. Their attempt was to titillate. The facts revealed were secondary to the story they were hawking.

You can read the entire Fox News report here:
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/01/19/captain-in-cruise-ship-disaster-says-fell-out-ship-during-evacuation/

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Vietnam War 1959 - 1975 : Afghanistan War 2002 - ?

"Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it." - Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

Watching Bill Moyers’ Journal tonight on PBS brought this famous quote to mind. (http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11202009/watch.html) Moyers recounts President Lyndon Johnson’s agonizing deliberations and decision to escalate the Vietnam War. The story is heartbreaking, especially in retrospect. We know now that the cost of that war damaged the United States for decades and generations. The pain of the massive loss of American and Vietnamese life is felt to this day. The program shows that Johnson was under tremendous pressure and that the decisions made were based on the perceived realities of the day. There is no way to watch and hear LBJ try to avoid escalation while being goaded by Republicans to enlarge the war, even to use atomic bombs against the North, without feeling his pain. His decisions seem somehow inevitable. But we now know they shouldn’t have been. They destroyed his Presidency and led to his decision not to run for re-election in 1968. President Johnson was aware that the war stifled his domestic agenda and regretted not being able to do more at home. What would his re-election in 1968 have accomplished if he had been a viable candidate in that election? Where would the Great Society have gone? For instance, would universal health care have followed the creation of Medicare and Medicaid? It seems a natural progression that was interrupted by the events of history.

The thought that has me feeling depressed is that you cannot watch the Moyers program without clearly seeing the parallels between Vietnam in the sixties and Afghanistan today. Like LBJ, President Obama inherited a war that was not of his making. Like LBJ, President Obama is being advised by the military that he needs to go in big for a win. Like LBJ, President Obama seems to be looking for another course of action. Like LBJ, President Obama faces tremendous political pressure by the Republicans and some in his own party to escalate the war. President Johnson feared he could not be re-elected or govern as a strong President if he was painted as weak by his opponents. We can clearly see that Johnson’s flawed conclusions were disastrous for the country and for his political future. The lives of countless Americans were devastated by his decisions made under terrible circumstances.

President Obama is clearly trying to find better choices in Afghanistan. But is he strong enough and wise enough to do so? The anti-war forces of the 60s and 70s were massive and included many voices of reason including lots of soldiers who returned and spoke out against the futility of trying to prop up a weak and corrupt government half way around the world. But it took years for those forces to finally become strong enough to sway President Nixon to withdraw. Where is the massive anti-war sentiment today? Where are the numbers that can give President Obama political cover to buck the Pentagon and the Republicans and refuse to escalate?

On October 27^th the Washington Post reported that Matthew Hoh resigned from the Foreign Service in Afghanistan where he was the senior U.S. civilian in Zabul province, a Taliban hotbed. (http://newstrust.net/stories/343138/toolbar?utm_campaign=daily%2B20091027&utm_medium=email&utm_source=daily) Hoh, a former Marine Corp captain who served in Iraq and in uniform at the Pentagon, wrote in his resignation letter that “I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan.” Upon receiving his letter of resignation both U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl W. Eikenberry and the administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard C. Holbrooke offered Hoh positions on their staffs. While Hoh initially accepted the position with Holbrooke he later reconsidered saying, “I recognize the career implications, but it wasn't the right thing to do.”

Days later, on November 11^th, the Washington Post reported that Ambassador Eikenberry sent two classified cables to Washington expressing deep concerns about sending additional troops to Afghanistan. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/11/AR2009111118432_pf.html) Eikenberry, a retired general in NATO and former commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, now finds himself at odds with his former Pentagon colleagues who are requesting that President Obama send an additional 40,000 U.S. troops.

With the voices of these two influential men questioning the course the Pentagon is proposing, where are the public protests demanding an end to the war? Will enough voices of dissent be heard before it is too late? There is so little time left.

President Obama’s decision on an altered course for the nearly eight year old war in Afghanistan may well lead us down the same path that LBJ followed in South East Asia. Or perhaps he will prove himself to be strong enough to stand up to the generals and steer a better course. President Kennedy did during the Cuban Missile crisis in 1962. Many have argued that his assignation only 13 months later was related but we will probably never know if that is true.

President Obama clearly knows history. How will our history effect his decision?

Ted Kennedy

To me, it feels like the 60s have died. Senator Edward Kennedy is gone. For those of my generation what voice, what symbol of that turbulent and violent decade remains? Our world view was formed by the events that a younger generation thinks of as history. Ted Kennedy buried two brothers who struggled to lead their country in a time of chaos. He went on to take his place as a leader in his own right, as spokesman for fairness and rights for all oppressed people. For all of his personal failings and weaknesses, this man was truly a great American.

The election of President Obama signaled the transitions to a new generation of leadership and I believe that is a good thing. The death of Ted Kennedy is almost like the close of that transition. Yes, there are many of my generation still in leadership positions but only for a short while. New, younger leaders with fresh ideas not shaped by the 60s are already moving into place. And the sooner some of those older neo-cons step aside the better (yes, Mitch McConnell, your days should be numbered).

I can’t help but wonder who will fill the void of the man who is being buried today. Where will we find the voice to speak for the oppressed, who will have the kind of understanding of the best values of our country that Ted Kennedy consistently put forth to remind us all of the principals that are the foundation of this country?

It’s a beautiful summer day in Kentucky. But it is a sad day for the United States and all Americans, even those who don’t share my admiration for Senator Kennedy.

American Experience: We Shall Remain

PBS is airing the series We Shall Remain on American Experience.  This amazing but under publicized and under reviewed series tells the history of America since the arrival of Europeans from the perspective of Native American Indians. 

I have long had an interest in history, especially American history and consider myself to be fairly well read.  I am shocked to realize how little we have been taught about the real story that is American history.  History has always been written by the victors but over time a more balanced view of that history usually emerges.  So far that really hasn’t happened in the United States. 

We denounce those who deny the holocaust and demand that other countries meet our human rights standards but hide our own history of genocide.  We deliberately destroyed cultures older, more sophisticated and certainly more in harmony with nature than that which we were importing from Europe. 

The first four episodes have aired and the final episode will air on Monday, May 9^th.  The entire series will be available online at www.pbs.org.  This outstanding program should be required viewing for all high school history students.  I hope you will take the time to watch, learn and discuss with your family and friends. 

American Experience:  We Shall Remain

    After the Mayflower

Tecumseh’s Vision

The Trail of Tears

Geronimo

Wounded Knee