Category Archives: Current events

Ask the Candidates – 1

Recently, President Obama had some strong  words for Donald Trump. Referring to his lack of governmental experience, especially in foreign policy, he said that being president “requires being able to work with leaders around the world in a way that reflects the importance of the office, and gives people confidence that you know the facts, and you know their names, and you know where they are on a map, and you know something about their history.” [1]

Well.

Given that it seems a lot of the candidates this time around are actually rather inexperienced in foreign affairs, it’s probably worth it to subject them to a little pop quiz on their knowledge of those matters. One would hope that at some point, now that all the preliminaries are out of the way and we’re into the serious part of campaign season, the media will eventually get around to asking these sorts of serious questions.

I’m focusing on the Middle East, since that’s where most of the “action” is at the moment. However, anyone wanting to be a leader should know that a crisis can arise anywhere at any time (Whatever happened to those schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram, anyway?).

Please note, there aren’t really any “right” or “wrong” answers – only “good” and “bad” ones. Since it’s unfair for an anonymous blogger to ask these questions without being willing to answer them himself, I’ll post my own answers in a week or so. Keep in mind I am no foreign policy expert; what I am aware of comes simply from reading newspapers (and their websites) and a sincere interest in what’s going on in the world at large.
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Empty Seats

The death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has made this campaign season even more interesting. Now we’ll get to hear the candidates talk about their ideas on the role of the Supreme Court, and what one should hope to get in its members.

Of course, there will also be the usual foofaraw over the “fitness” of the nominees to replace Justice Scalia. We’ve already seen it start, but it’s interesting that the tone is a bit different this time. Instead of the mouthpieces of the GOP saying flat out that they will oppose whoever Obama nominates (on whatever principle they feel their constituents are most concerned about), they are saying that the nomination should wait until after the election. Something having to do with the fact that there will be a new president very soon, and it isn’t fair to whoever that will be for some reason.

There are a few reasons why this delaying tactic is nonsense (mostly because there’s absolutely no reason behind it), but there’s much more to it than that. While the GOP strategists have been planning to oppose any potential Obama Supreme Court nominee for a long time, the words they are using – don’t even bother nominating someone – hint at what’s really going on.

Article II Section 2 of the Constitution says it is the duty of the president to nominate candidates for positions like the Supreme Court and it is the duty of the Senate to offer “advice and consent” on these nominees. If Obama were to present a nominee, the GOP members of the Senate would have to come up with reasons for not doing their job. The usual “Whatever it is, I’m against it” isn’t going to work much anymore. We’ve seen just how fed up voters are with the obstructionism and stalemates in Congress (which partly explains the rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders).

And this year, in addition to voting for a new president, thirty-four Senate seats are up for election. What makes the GOP nervous is that twenty-four of them are currently held by Republicans. Most of them are “safe” seats, but depending on who you listen to (and when they did their count), as many as ten are toss-ups. And the GOP majority in the Senate is only three seats (54 compared to the required 51)….

The GOP isn’t just trying to tilt the Supreme Court their way and win the White House; they also want to maintain control of the Senate. And that’s going to be harder to do if they anger more voters with pointless obstructionism. Sure, the GOP will spout a lot of sound and fury during the Inquisition (er, confirmation hearings), but it’s all going to signify nothing more than grandstanding for their base. In the end, as long as Obama doesn’t nominate a complete loser, the nomination will begrudgingly go through. Better a slight lean leftwards on the Supreme Court than a Democrat White House, Senate – and a slight lean leftwards on the Supreme Court, too.

DON’T PANIC!!!

It was March, 1954. The US economy was in recession, with no real end in sight. Edward R. Murrow had broadcast a scathing indictment of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Communist witch-hunt, but McCarthy was still on the rise. The US tested its first hydrogen bomb. Shooting had stopped in Korea, but there was yet no official end to the war. And the war in Indochina was reaching a crisis phase, as Viet Minh and French troops faced off at Dien Bein Phu.

At a press conference on March 17, President Eisenhower was grilled on these and other topics. In a comment on one of the questions, he said:

What are we talking about? It is, I think, there is too much hysteria. You know, the world is suffering from a multiplicity of fears. We fear the men in the Kremlin, we fear what they will do to our friends around them; we are fearing what unwise investigators will do to us here at home as they try to combat subversion or bribery or deceit within. We fear depression, we fear the loss of jobs. All of these, with their impact on the human mind makes us act almost hysterically, and you find hysterical reactions.

We have got to look at each of those in its proper perspective, to understand what the whole sum total means. And remember this: the reason they are feared and bad is because there is a little element of truth in each, a little element of danger in each. That means that finally there is left a little residue that you can meet only by faith, a faith in the destiny of America; and that is what I believe is the answer.

His speechwriters liked the “multiplicity of fears” line, so they turned that passage into a full speech, which was broadcast on April 5. It was paternalistic, in typical Eisenhower style, but if you want to calm a nervous nation you could do worse than speak like a kindly father-figure.

For example, we are concerned about the men in the Kremlin. We are concerned about the Atomic Age. We are concerned about the loss of our international friends in exposed areas of the world–the loss of them to the Communist dictatorship. We are worried about Communist penetration of our own country, and we are worried about the possibility of depression, and the loss of jobs among us here at home.

Now, the greater any of these apprehensions, the greater is the need that we look at them clearly, face to face, without fear, like honest, straightforward Americans, so we do not develop the jitters or any other kind of panic, that we do not fall prey to hysterical thinking.

He came round to the threat of Communism to America:

Now the next thing that we fear, or concerning which we are apprehensive, is this idea of Communist infiltration into our own country, into our Government, into our schools, into our unions, into any of our facilities, any of our industries, wherever they may be, and wherever those Communists could damage us. Now, it would be completely false to minimize the dangers of this penetration. It does exist. We know some of them are here. Yet, let me give you now some of the counterbalancing factors.

First of all, this fear has been greatly exaggerated as to numbers. In our country today, there are possibly some 25 thousand doctrinal Communists. The FBI knows pretty well where they are. But the headlines of the newspapers would sometimes have you think that every other person you meet is a Communist. Actually, 25 thousand out of 160 million people means about one out of six thousand. But they are dangerous.

You can pretty much replace “Communist” with “terrorist”, and it will work today.

When you get right down to it, terrorists are pretty low on the list of Things That Kill People. Malaria, motor vehicle accidents, and even falls kill more people than terrorists. Yet we don’t panic over those. Terrorists only gain the headlines because of the suddenness of the the attack, and the large numbers of casualties in a very short time. Yes, it’s a tragedy to those who lose loved ones. But is it worth going insane over?

Donald Trump wants to shut down mosques. Some are calling Islam an “existential threat” to America, as if it could somehow completely obliterate the country. Others want to slam the door on all refugees. Jeb Bush wants to declare war. But who do you declare war on? Terrorism is a tactic, not an “enemy”. And even if you declare war on ISIS (or ISIL, or whatever they are calling themselves today), how do you know when you’ve won? Chest-thumping and saber-rattling looks good in the media, but this isn’t that kind of conflict. There’s no well-defined enemy that wears the same uniform and has a leader who you can force into surrender (and can order his troops to lay down their arms, and have that order obeyed).

Far better to treat this as a matter for law enforcement. Consider attacks as a crime – which they are – and proceed accordingly. Collect evidence, arrest and prosecute those involved, take steps to prevent such crimes in the future. You won’t ever get rid of it completely, but you can reduce it to the point where it doesn’t matter, because it isn’t worth doing.

Look, when your house is infested with cockroaches, you clean the place up, seal off the little cracks that they move through (without closing off all the windows and doors that let air – and you – move about), and drop insecticide in key spots. You don’t blow up the house…..

 

Transcript of March 17 Press Conference: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=10184

Text of April 5 Speech: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=10201

Into the Home Stretch

We’re into the last month of the baseball season, and the pennant races are heating up. With the first team (Cincinnati) having just been eliminated, it’s a good time to take a look at who’s in first and who’s likely to make the playoffs.

Things are clearest in the National League. Every team in first has a six game lead (at least, as of this writing), and the teams in second place don’t look strong enough to overtake them. Sure, it’s possible the Mets could collapse like they’ve done before, but even given that they’ll be carefully watching the work loads of their ace starters, there’s practically no chance that the near dumpster fire of the Nationals will get their act together in time to take any advantage of that. Look for the Mets to clinch before that final Mets-Nats series in Citi Field.

It must hurt to be the Pirates. In four of the other five divisions, they’d be in first place. But they have to play in the same division as the Cardinals, who seem a lock to win 100 games this year. And the Cubs have two teams to look up at in envy. At least the two of them get to play in that “wild card play-in” game…

The only thing really left to be decided in the NL is who will get home field advantage in the first round of the playoffs – the Dodgers or the Mets. The way things are likely to wind up, they’ll be facing each other. And given the results of their games against each other (the Mets have won 4 of the 7 games, outscoring the Dodgers by a total of 33-19), home field could be key. It’s “Kershaw and Grienke, then grab a hankie” vs. the Harvey-deGrom-Syndegaard Triumvirate. Should be fun!

There’s more to be decided in the American League. Only the Royals have run away with their division (who saw that coming?). The Blue Jays and Yankees are fighting it out in the AL East, and the Rangers are making the Astros look nervously over their shoulders. Right now, the wild card spots are still up for grabs, too. In addition to the second place teams in the East and West, the Twins, Angels, and Rays all have a good shot at sneaking in. I wonder what the tiebreaker scenarios look like…

Even if your team isn’t in the race, there are still things to be decided. Can Josh Donaldson keep up his torrid pace, and take the MVP from Mike Trout? Will the utter mess of the Nationals hurt Bryce Harper’s MVP chances? Will there be another no-hitter, triple play, inside-the-park home run, or steal of home? Will St. Louis Cardinals fans become even more insufferable? Why does Donald Trump get more popular the more offensive he gets? Who was that lady I saw you with last night?

Where Have All the Grown-Ups Gone?

So by now it’s probably safe to assume you’ve heard of Senator Cotton’s letter to Iran, signed by 46 other senators, and the ongoing flap over it.

I’m not going to get in to the politics involved with it; that’s been done to death by better writers than I.

What I would like to know is if anyone in the Senate or on his staff took Sen. Cotton aside as he was circulating the letter and asked him something along the lines of “Is this really a good idea?”

The letter opens with a statement of utter condescension, stating flat out that the Iranian government may not be familiar with the way the American government works in regards to treaties. Did anyone realize that it’s part of the job description of ANY government’s Foreign Office or State Department (or their equivalent) to be aware of the basic operating procedures of every government that they deal with? Didn’t anyone realize how insulting this statement is?

Didn’t anyone realize that the United States and Iran aren’t the only parties involved in the negotiations? Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China are also involved. Didn’t anyone stop and ask what sort of message the letter gives to one of our greatest friends, two important allies, and two rival nations that we are and will always be negotiating with?

It should be noted (as it has been in many comments on the many news articles covering this matter) that individuals in the government have gotten themselves involved in negotiations, unasked and uninvited, for various international agreements. However, those were individuals. In this case, it’s an unprecedentedly large group who have made their interference public.

The term “senator” is derived from the Latin “senex”, meaning “old man”. The implication in the derivation is that with age comes wisdom. A “senator” is a person who has gained great wisdom with the experience of age, and can be expected to provide well-considered advice and judgment.

When the legislative branch of our government was split into two “houses” – senators and representatives – it was decided that the larger House of Representatives would have the shorter term of office – two years. Senators were fewer in number, and given six-year terms. The theoretical intent was that while the representatives would respond to short-term passions in the “body politic”, the senators would be able to consider issues in the long term (since they’d be around much longer). They are intended to be the “adults in the room”. Also, those six-year terms are staggered – only a third of the Senate deals with an election every two years. And it’s never both from the same state at the same time. For the junior senators, there’s supposed to be someone there with more wisdom who can guide them around while they learn what being a senator entails.

Senator Cotton is a first-time senator. I can almost forgive him for his childish rashness with this letter. But certainly someone else should have stopped him. And if he didn’t come up with the idea on his own, I’d love to know who put him up to it. They should have known better. Heck, all the senators involved should have known better.

Charlie or Ahmed?

If you notice at all the international news, by now you must have heard about the assassination of editors, cartoonists, and staffers at France’s Charlie Hebdo. The attack must be considered an assassination, since some of the victims were specifically targeted by name. It’s also appropriate to use the term “assassination”, given the origins of the word.

For the record, the dead are:

  • Stéphane “Charb” Charbonnier, 47, the editor in chief of Charlie Hebdo and one of its top cartoonists.
  • Bernard “Tignous” Verlhac, 57, a member of a group of artists called “Cartoonists of Peace” and also belonged to the Press Judiciare, an association of French journalists covering the courts.
  • Jean “Cabu” Cabut, 76, established himself as one of France’s best-known cartoonists over a career that spanned 50 years.
  • Georges Wolinski, 80, another of Charlie Hebdo’s veteran cartoonists. He was awarded the Legion of Honor, France’s highest decoration, in 2005.
  • Bernard Maris, 68, wrote a weekly column in Charlie Hebdo called “Uncle Bernard,” was a regular commentator for the France Inter radio network, and taught economics at a branch of the University of Paris.
  • Michel Renaud, the founder of the Clermont Ferrand-based festival of travel journals “Rendez-vous du Carnet de Voyage” who was visting the offices at the time.
  • Police officers Ahmed Merabet and Franck Brinsolaro
  • Three other staffers and a maintenance worker were also killed, but I haven’t yet been able to find their names.

The assassins identified themselves as members of one of the Al-Qaeda offshoots, and cited the paper’s “insults” to Islam as the reason for the killings.

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