Saturday, October 31, 2015

PAUL SINGER BUYS GOP CANDIDATE

RUBIO A PUPPET CANDIDATE

Oct 30, 2015. After what appeared to many to be a strong showing in the Oct 28, GOP debate in Colorado, Paul Singer, billionaire, hedge fund CEO ( Elliott Management) investor, Republican activist, and political mega donor came out publicly with a big check for Republican (absentee) Senator from Florida, Marco Rubio. He is now the Geppetto controlling the puppet strings to Marco's Pinocchio. Singer has been a long time political activist especilly concerned with the Midle East and Israel and on foreign policy issues. He supported George Bush's campaigns and wars and the Swift Boat Veterans attack against John Kerry.

"When people donate to us, they buy into our agenda" bragged Rubio, in response to queries by reporters concerned about the "influence effect". Slick Rubio twisted his answer around a full 180 degrees. The truth is that Rubio by accepting a huge chunk of cash, in this obvious influence sale, just made a solemn promise to accept Paul Singer's agenda rather than the other way around. Rubio has just been bought, stock, lock and barrel and is now mega donor Paul Singer's property.

Fast talking and smart, Marco, has been tailoring and parsing his messages carefully for a long time to snag this investor. So from now on, if we really want to know what Rubio thinks or will support on some topic or other, or what actions he may take in the Oval Office, if, heaven forbid, he actually gets elected, ..just ask what Paul Singer wants, would like or is thinking.

This is not how the Founding Fathers envisioned we would select leaders in our nascent democracy when they wrote the Constitution.

My opinion is that this influence sale puts Rubio too much in the control of one powerful man. It underscores the fact that millions of American voters and supporters will have significantly less influence on any issues that this candidate supports. As a result, I put Rubio on my "do not vote for list".

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

POLLS REVEAL VOTERS REJECT DONOR CLASS CONTROL

2016 DONOR CLASS VS PEOPLE

GOP PULLED TOO FAR RIGHT BY DONOR CLASS

RESULT: PARTY FAITHFUL SUPPORT OUTSIDERS

It's a story as old as politics itself. In the late Roman Republic it was the Optimates (elite, wealthy, old families) who battled the Populares (the rest of the Roman people including the tribunate and the people's assemblies) for political power, sometimes to the death. Today, we see that same conflict play out between the elite, super wealthy, donor class and the rest of the nation (small businessman, professionals and working classes and poor) as they vie for political ascendency and control,over government policies. In recent times, it has become all too apparent that the donor class choose the candidates and control the political agenda by application of big wads of cash. This practice is even openly defended by the political establishment of both parties as a form of free speech. Such overwhelming power by the few is rightly resented by those of us who were raised to treasure our vote as meaningful, and our nation as a democracy.

The sad effect of this system of political control by the donor elites is the effect on the Republican Party (and Democrats too). The demands on policy by the donors have pushed the GOP farther and farther to the right. Its agenda is now so close to that off its large donors and so far away from that of its voters and general members that not one of its establishment candidates who mouth the polices they must (to maintain their financial support) are supported by more than single digits in the polls.

After fifteen years of a senseless, unfunded $3 trillion dollar war, continued foreign military imbroglios, a stuttering economy stuck in the doldrums, (an economy which floats the hedge fund magnate yachts into high water, but has kept the work boats and row boats still inundated), a $19 trillion dollar debt, an immigration crisis, healthcare fiasco, collapsing infrastructure, and political dysfunction in Washington---- the people are clearly dissatisfied with government as it is. In addition, due to modern technology and access to instant media we all have a clear recognition of the political might of the oligarchic donor class simply with the click of a mouse or the touch of an iPad screen. That over-weaning power is also manifested in the hand-kissing and kow-towing of prospective candidates before moneybag donors like the Adelsons, Koch brothers and others. The citizenry are now aware that before any human vote is cast a minuscule number of super wealthy, perhaps 100-200 financially powerful individuals, have already decided as to whom the candidates will be and what policies they will support. They know this is not how a democracy should function.

The people have been left behind as the party led by its rich donors and controlers have moved radically rightward. Today, there is a nascent, nay, full blown rebellion against the establishment political parties and the donor network of the few which support it. It is the donor class against the people. Who will have control over the political agenda? The polls show who the people support.

Those who respond to the numerous polls indicate a clear aversion for the "puppet", "controlled", "programmed" candidates who can only run with the support of big donors, take the money and do their bidding. This "puppet"category of candidate includes all of the present Republican field (with the exception of Donald Trump). That group of candidates are all in single digits in the polls. The people are clearly rejecting them. The people are not willing to support the establishment puppet candidate.

The most recent national GOP a poll give Trump 32 % of the GOP voter electorate. Dr. Ben Carson gets 22 % ....all the rest except for Rubio (who just makes double digits), are in the single digit category. ( An even more recent national poll ( October 27, 2015) seems to indicate that Carson has a slight lead. His lead is within the margin of error. ). Right now more than 54% of the Republican voter pool favors Trump or Carson, two men who have no political experience and who are not supported by the elite donor class.

But when you look at a graph of the long term trends of the polling data one sees an even more striking picture. Trump and Carson's campaiang long poll data stand out over the other candidates. They rise steeply to the right, i.e. moving to higher percentages. Only these two are on a clear upswing. All the other candidates , including Rubio, are either in a steady state (level) or on a generalized downward trend, heading toward lower percentages . (See Realclear politics.com/polls, accessed October 25, 2015).

Political,pundits, Republicans Democrats, establishment types, media and others please take notice. The people are rejecting the present system of political finances...and the control of candidates and policies by a few high roll donors. The "optimates" have acquired too much power. The result of this in antiquity was the rise of the dictator Julius Caesar. Time to change.

Friday, October 23, 2015

HILLARY'S GOT ONLY ONE GOAL



What the Benghazi Hearings revealed or reexposed about the Secretary of State is the following: Clinton's hawkishness on Libya led to a military and political disaster in that country. Her war-mongering polices certainly set the stage and contributed to the attack on our embassy in that troubled nation and the loss of life there. As head of the State Department, it was her responsibility to protect her staff, but she failed to secure the Benghazi post in the face of known threats and numerous requests for more security. Finally, she brazenly misled the American citizenry about the cause of the attacks to protect herself and her President from political fallout during an election year. That kind of a record may not harm her nomination prospects....but will be a heavy burden to bear in the general election

After the so called "Democrat Debate", the departure of Joe Biden and the Benghazi Hearings Clinton appears to have clinched the Democrat Party nomination. But perhaps not the election. As for the nomination, she had no real competition. ShE rolled over the Lilliputians in her way. She is supremely practiced. Recall, she has been running and preparing for this for decades. Sadly for her Party and the nation, that is all she is prepared for---- campaigning. When she actually has to perform, evidence seems to indicate she sits back, focuses only on her next personal goal,takes few risks and functions poorly.

Thanks to Joe Biden's wrong-headed departure from the race, and Bernie Sanders' revelation that he is NOT to be considered a REAL candidate (after giving away the debate with his "damned email" remark) the Dems have firmly placed the nomination crown on Hillary Clinton's head. That smakcs too much of oligarchy. Also it will put a bit of a dent in the TV viewership of any future Democrat "debates". The DNC should just cancel them as a waste of time and energy.

But rather than being a tour de force for her, the Bengazi Hearing were, for all her touted preparation, and polish, revealing of the inner Clinton. She still comes off as mendacious, controlled, plotting, haughty, insincere, untrustworthy, unbelievable and unlikeable. When her vaunted "record" is examined closely one must admit that though she is, on a superficial level, "well prepared". But closer examination of her curriculum vitae reveals her preparation is illusory and thin. She has breezed through her appointments only to count them on her list of required posts. Her single-minded focus is to gird herself ONLY FOR HER OWN PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRATIONS. She has labored tirelessly these last decades, but only to check off boxes and punch holes into her belt at each land post of her presidential cursus honorum. (Featehing her own nest via the Clinton Foundation slus fund was also right up there too.) Serving the public weal or making sure her staff have adequate security are not her main concern. The probing questions of the Committee members made that clear.

Yes, she served as First Lady, for a scalywag President who was rightly impeached. As the wife of a President, she was handed the seat of a Senator, carpet-bagging her way into New York State from her native Arkansas and points west. As Senator from New York she did little or nothing during her single term. She infamously voted in favor of the Iraq War (but only to burnish her credentials as a Presidential candidate). As soon as was possible, she abandoned the people of the State of New York to run for President in 2008. She was a poor campaigner and ignominiously lost her Presidential campaign to upstart one-term Senator Barak Obama. Her loss was to a large degree based on that misguided, self-aggrandizing Iraq vote. After the election, she pushed her political weight around to land another unwarranted plum position--- the post of Secretary of State in the Obama Administration. During this period she traveled widely keeping voluminous notes on the names of heads of state, but accomplishing little of significance. Again, while doing nothing much, she still found something to screw up. While Head of the State Department she compounded that first war-mongering Iraq vote, by initiating and pressing for the President into a military intervention in Libya. That action helped destabilize another Middle Eastern nation and ended in disaster with the overthrow of the Ghadafi Government. Libya became another failed state where ISIS is today established and already beheading its enemies. As Head of the State Department, she paid little attention to the plight of the very people who she placed into harms way in Libya, ignoring pleas for more security from her own appointment, Ambasssoador Chris Stevens. He lost his life there. She wrote and published a "memoir book" (since the Presidency of eorge Bush--who didnt read) this has become a near-requirement of all presidential candidates. The massive tome she published was very poorly received. The present investigation into her actions during and after the Benghazi attacks in Libya which killed three brave Americans and our Ambassador have revealed a Secretary of State who was in good measure responsible for the parlous state of that impoverished nation, but callously ignored her own Ambassador's multiple pleas for more security while posted there. Her answer to the House Committee inquiry about this matter:"Security was not my job." But as "Secretary of Hillary's Presidential Aspirations Campaign" she had plenty of time to respond to Sid Bluementhal's political lobbying and chatty emails.

Unwilling to reveal the fact that Libya was in the hands of terrorists as a result of her and Obama's ministrations just before the 2012 elections, she lied concerning the motives of the lethal Bengazi attacks. All these revelations underscore this candidates's tendency toward mendacity, and poor judgement and her continued focus on her own political goals and aspirations rather than on actually fulfilling her mandate as an officer of the the government. If the decisions she made regarding her "private email server, her forign policy decisions and her communications are any example of her thought processes and abilities as a leader, her Party and the natiion are now threatened with a pending disaster.

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

NETANYAHU BLAMES OTHERS FOR VIOLENCE



Violence has broken out again in Israel. Over the last few weeks ten Israelis have been killed, many in ugly, violent attacks by knife wielding young Arabs. Forty Arabs, many of them attackers have fallen to Israeli bullets. Many of these were attwckers but too many were simply demonstrators or bystanders. The turmoil has affected the whole population. Even a group of recent immigrant French Jews seeking safety in Israel from Moslem attacks are fearful they have made a terrible mistake leaving France. The some streets of Jerusalem are filled with young Arab men slinging stones and chunks of concrete at Israeli soldiers who fire back with rubber coated steel bullets and throw canisters of stink bombs and tear gas. The Palestinian youths ironically look like modern Davids slinging their missiles at the Israeli military Goliath. On American TV, Netanyhau and his operatives have mounted a propaganda campaign trying to blame the ugly violence on the victims of their expansionism.

What set off this most recent intifada? Netanyahu and his Likud government hard-liners have been tweaking the rules concerning entry and prayer at the Moslem world's most holy site. The fear of Israeli intentions to control access at the Dome of the Rock And Al Aqsa Mosque have been the last heavy burden which broke the donkey's spine this time. The incident of the burning deaths of an entire Palestinian family trapped in their home by settler mobs, who are known but against whom the Israeli government has not moved, also weighs heavily on the Plaestinian consciousness. The fact that Netanyahu also heads one of the most right wing, repressive, human-rights-ignoring Israeli governments and is intensely averse to peace negotiations is another cause. After fifty years of wars, wall building, illegal expansion into the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, house demolitions, arrests, killings, repression, check-points and denial of legitimate rights of the hope and patience of the Palestinian people has been exceeded..again. Netanyahus recent ridiculous claim that it was a Palestinian cleric who convinced Adolph Hitler to "burn the Jews" rather than deport them has only added gasoline to an out of control bonfire. With no hope and continued repression what else can one expect from an oppressed and humiliated Palestianian population? UN intervention at the holy sites of three major world religions, and a UN presence along the boundary between these two populations may be the ultimate solution if Netanyahu and his government is unable or unwilling to make the necessary moves to stabilize the region.

Perhaps the specter of the ISIS-sponsored chaos and violence surrounding Israel in Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere will bring Israel's leaders to the realization that meaningful negotiation and compromise are a better option than stonewalling American and UN sponsored peace initiatives. Can we hope that Netanyahu and his supporters will finally make an honest effort to seek peace rather than opting for the fragile and violent status quo and creeping expansion that they have favored for years now? I hope so.

Two nations seem to be responsible for inciting much of the violence. American counter-productive drone assassinations and attacks in which nine out of ten "terrorists" killed have been revealed to be innocent almost exclusively Moslem by-standers. And of course, Israeli policies in the West Bank and Gaza are simplly great advertisements and incentives for young Arab jihadists to join ISIS and continue the cycle of violence.

Adults please stand up and take charge!

TRUMP UNAFRAID OF THE TRUTH

TRUMP STANDS UP TO THE ESTABLISHMENT

TRUMP TELLS US LIKE IT IS. THINKS OUTSIDE OF THE BOX. THEY HATE THAT IN WASHINGTON.

Way back in September, I was impressed by a little comment that Trump made, almost as an aside, during the early days of the campaign. At a speech in Dallas, he remarked about the Capital which as all could see was (and has remained) completely sheathed in scaffolding...obscuring the lovely white dome. The $60 million dollar renovation has been taking a long time. Many think too long. Some have claimed that the construction firm doing the work have a contract which states that are ready to take the scaffolding down during the January inauguration in 2016. Then for an additional fee of a million dollars they will replace it and complete the job. Remarking about this typical example of Washington inefficiency Donald Trump said: "See that dome in Washington?" "If I get elected, I will let the scaffolding stay up. But you know, I would have made a better deal. I would have made them work faster. Made them get it done. If I was in charge, we would not have to take it down then put it up again." The Donald the added, "Can you believe they never thought of that?" It was true. No one had asked that question. The Washington insiders are not spending their own money...so who cares? It was a question that no one else would have asked. Donald Trump did. That impressed me. He is not the "business as usual" candidate.

Yes, knowing the bureaucracy of Washington, we can all believe that story. And of course we also know what to think about the ready reaction and defensive response of those in the establishment. Soon after these remarks were published the architectural firm contracted to complete the renovation reassured any and all questioners that the project "was on schedule" and was to be completed BEFORE the inauguration. We will see.

But now every time I see that iconic dome--a common image featured in our tv news reports from Washington, I think of Mr. Trump and his unorthodox question----- and his practical solution. His answer: Make them work faster, increase the workforce, and get the job completed on time.

Donald Trump is riding high in the polls. The people seem to love it. The establishment types are shaking in their boots and plotting his downfall. Out here in the countryside we all enjoy the sound of the delicate china smashing in the halls of the establishment. We relish the response concerning the King's new clothes, "Sorry, but he ain't wearing no clothes". But mostly, we enjoy hearing someone state out loud what we all know are the facts. Americans love the unvarnished truth. That is what attracts the voters to Trump's band wagon.

Concerning truth-saying the Democrats are as guilty as the the Republicans. They are the Tweedle Dee of the " Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum" establishment. Foolish Obama, decided to play the establsihment white guys game when he was elected. He refused to deal with the "past" when he took office. He didn't dare state the truth about the former administration. The Republicans lie and the Democrats kept mum. Perhaps understandably the GOP hid the facts about the failures and foibles of the George Bush administration. Then, as they did with the "weapons of mass destruction lies", they fostered and polished the Republican myth that " Bush kept us safe". It took Donald Trump, a brash, billionaire, New York businessman and real estate developer to smash the Bush "kept us safe myth". He simply said it out loud on a tv interview. "He didn't keep us safe. The towers came down during the Bush Administration. It was on his ((Bush's) watch. That is not keeping us safe." ( loosely quoted) . That was gratifying to hear for a knowing observer. Finally.

Candidate John E.Bush, (Jeb) Darling of the donor class didn't know enough to let that dog lie. He seems determined to defend (again) his brother George W. on every count. The day following Trump's barb, JEB published a more detailed, ad hominem attack on Trump with a more detailed replay of the Bush family myth. That gave Mr. Trump the opportunity to twist the embedded blade another half turn, widening the bloody wound. Trump simply stated the truth, the documented and verified claim that JEB's bro was not only to be held responsible for the Twin Towers going down but, even more egregiously, he was remiss in his Presidential oversight responsibilities BEFORE the 9/11 attack. Trump reminded us all that before 9-11 there was ample evidence in our intelligence reports that an attack was being planned by Bin Laden. "They knew it was coming," he charged. Recall the unopened and unread Daily Briefing book?

And why is Mr. Trump able to speak so frankly? He is not a bought and paid for candidate...like ex-candidate Walker, Marco Rubio and JEB Bush. He has no control strings and can tell it like it is...He is responsible only to the grassroots voter...not one of the 150 families of the donor elite class which today control too much of our political life. This is supposed to be a democracy where the voters have their say...not an oligarchy for few billionaires.

Keep it up Mr. Trump. You are remodeling the entire Republican Party, and perhaps the nation.....for its own good.

Sunday, October 11, 2015

GOP: COALITION OF THE EXTREME

The GOP, perhaps because it was vainly struggling to compete with the Democrats, moved off into the desolate, right-wing " political steppes", riding off into a cloud of red dust with the hordes and ghosts of Ghengis Khan. The Party deserted members of the vast middle class and working class family, friends and neighbors.

The recent spectacles of the 2016 GOP field of candidates for the Presidency has revealed a mind-set in the modern Republicans so radical one wonders how they could be expected to be elected, and if they were, how could they possibly govern a modern nation? According to multiple polls, the likes of the illogical, simplistic, naive, unsophisticated, uninformed and bigoted Dr. Ben Carson, have actually garnered the allegiance of a large chunk of the GOP primary voters. This phenomenon has made me think. What group of citizens could possibly support a candidate who promotes such simplistic, illogical, and yes radical views?

What I have concluded is the following. This is undisputed, the Republican Party is, as presently constituted, established to solely to support and perpetuate the aims and purposes of the affluent and super affluent--the 1%. THE GOP WORKS ONLY FOR THE WEALTHY. That fact is a terrible handicap when it comes to elections. It is clear from their pronouncements that the GOP's main goal is to reduce taxes for the affluent, increase the profits of the wealthy, and radically cut government domestic spending, and any other expenditures that might serve the rest of us. While cutting government spending, the GOP hypocritically FAVORS lavish SPENDING on Wall Street, big banks, big business as well as the energy, military-industrial complex which are owned or operated or supported by the elites and affluent. The result is a shift of tax burden to the hard pressed middle classes and increasing levels of income and wealth disparity. This is not good for our economy. So why would anyone of the working and middle classes support such a candidate? There IS no natural support for their positions.

In a perfect world, where the UNVARNISHED TRUTH must be told, Republicans would have to clearly state: WE WORK ONLY FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE WEALTHY. In that world who would support them? Their actual client base is so small. Unfortunately for them, if ALL of the super wealthy, disgustingly wealthy, industry CEOs, bank officials, Fortune 500 managers, company presidents and high officials, came out in droves to vote Republican, they would not have enough votes to win a county supervisor's post. The Republican brand would die out. They would not be heard of again.

To survive, the Republicans, have to corral the support of the little guys too. For this reason they have cobbled together, a COALITION OF THE EXTREME out of our political universe. The smartly dressed and coiffed "one percenters" under the GOP tent have coerced others to join them. They have gathereed in the old, the greedy, the bigoted, the ill-informed, ignorant, and easily led. They have welcomed in the know-nothings, the anti-science, anti-global warming, anti-gay, anti-abortion, religious fanatics, plain nut jobs, nativists, gun toters, war mongers and all other far right fringe elements that this great nation harbors in its nooks and crannys.

With this in mind, it becomes crystal clear why the Ben Carsons, Carly Fiorinas, and Donald Trumps are doing so well in polls of Republican primary voters. The GOP is simply gathering in any and all who will mindlessly go along with the one percenters, so as to make it possible for them to eke out a possible win in a national election. They need these little malleable folks to make it possible for them to continue working for the welfare of the super wealthy of this nation.

But it is a dangerous game they play.

Friday, October 9, 2015

FRACTURED NATION:CONFLICTING FORIEGN POLICIES

Our nation seems to be coming apart at the seams. Our hidebound political system, so in need of evolutionary change, is straight jacketed in our excellent (though dated) US Constitution. Our great national document ranks up there with other great watershed political documents of the past, such as the Code of Hammurabbi 1754 BC, Charlemagne's Capitulary laws (802) the Magna Carta (1215) and the Declaration of Independence (1776). Its weakness is that it is near impossible to alter or modify. We are (almost) just stuck with it. Our nation is a militarily and economically powerful, dynamic modern nation of the 21 Century. But we are saddled with a political system codified in our Constitution designed for a small, weak, agricultural nation of the late 18th Century. Our exemplary Founding Fathers could never have imagined what their newly freed thirteen colonies would eventually become. They could not have foreseen the problems or difficulties we face in the 21 st century. Our modern nation's errors, problems and disgraces are out there for all to see. We are a nation with crazy gun laws, the highest incarceration rate in the world, an antiquated, and inhumane death penalty, Gerrymandered election districts, elections awash with cash, and rampant income inequality. The affluent and powerful regularly buy and sell offices, and political favors. Our Supreme Court's Citizen's United Decision released a tidal wave of corporate money into the election system which has only exacerbated an already fraught and dire "money in politics" situation. These and other political "multiple stressors" have acted synergysitcally to degrade our once great "city on a hill" into what many foreign observers (See: The Economist October 2015) hace called a "dysfunctional and fractious" nation.

Besides these problems enumerated above, we are an arrogant and belligerant people, living in a nation armed to the teeth both in our homes and our air, naval and military forces. At home, we shoot to kill more than 30,000 of our own citizens each year with the more than 300 million guns (AK47s, Kalasnikoffs, Glocks) we have stashed in our closests and under our beds. Nationally, our massive military establishment with more than 900 bases spread all around the globe, suupported by a government which spends more than $600-700 billion dollars on it annually. That massive amount of cash is more than the cumilative outlay of almost all the other nations in the world combined. China and Russia, our chief military competitors, have a combined outlay for military assets of only one-fifth (20%) of ours. Like the carpenter who has just acquired a big, new hammer and tends to treat everything before him as if it were a nail (Maslow 1966), our nation seems determined to solve all of our foreign problems by going first for its big powerful military. Our penchant for applying the muzzle of a gun to every and all foreign matters has resulted in the devastation of wide swaths of the Middle East, the expenditure of trillions of USA dollars and the loss of countless lives...both American and foreign civilians.

That gets us to our Syria policy which is just another example of our fractured and conflicting political and policy impulses. These first few days in October since Mr. Putin of Russia began his overt and more robust military support of the Assad regime in Syria we have heard much in the way of complaints, envy, warnings etcetera from Washington. The Prsident is being attacked for doing nothing in Syria, or doing too much in Syria, or letting the Russians outflank and embarrass him.

Our Syria policy is just another example of a governemnt on the verge of political spastic cerebral palsy. President Obama was forced by the neocon holdovers in his government from the Bush years and his political detractors on the far right into "doing something" about Syria. He did so reluctantly. He is smart enough to know well that there is no military solution to the Syria tragedy. But a politically divided Congress dominated by the Republicans, a right leaning presss corps forced him into making a foolish decision. The result? He now finds himself with a conflicted Syria policy in which one hand is covertly working to attack, degrade and undermine the legitimate government of Syria, while the other supports military forces which are armed ostensibly to fight ISIS irregulars but in fact turn their guns on both the ISIS forces and the Assad regime. Wisely reluctant to put American "boots on the ground" Obama has instead taken up an ineffective air and drone campaign agaist the terrorists of ISIS. With no informants in the region to identify targets or ground troops to occupy territory, this aerial campaign to "slowly degrade" the ISIS forces has been a failure.

Our fractious, conflicted, and dysfunctional government prevents Obama from actually explaining to the American public that our bombing campaign is a failure and our covert attacks on the Assad regime only serve to weaken the only forces that have some chance of reuniting Syria and hopefully helping to end the chaos and bloodshed. We all know that there is no military solution. Let's state that plainly and work toward a better solution.

Why not put our efforts into cooperating with Russia and after ISIS and the other insurgents are disarmed and pacified work to bring the disparate forces to the conference table where a peace settlemnt may be hammered out. Can we not be part of the solution rather than part of the problem?

Saturday, October 3, 2015

PUTIN TO SYRIA: TO END CHAOS

AAn alternate view of Mr. Putin's actions in Syria.

President G. H. W. Bush's, Gulf War, his son, "junior" George Bush's illegal Iraq War, the Afghanistan War and the seemingly endless on-going (14 year) conflict in Afghanistan have all had their negative effects on neighboring Syria. In March of 2011, a severe drought possibly the effect of climate change, coinciding with an economic downturn, these as well as food shortages, and the "spill over" from the Iraq war may have been some of the many triggers that sparked an uprising in Syria...a nation riven by ethnic and religious differences. The despotic Assad government reacted to this event...or over reacted. It certainly mis-handled the demonstrations helping to careen the fragile nation from civil unrest into widespread protest marches and pubic disruptions. But it was the calculated covert actions of the USA"s CIA, as well as the overt monetary and direct military support given by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Quatar to a group of violent insurgents (we would call them "terrorists" here) which tipped the conflict into a generalized sectarian civlil war. In this war nations dominated by the Sunni branch of the Moslem faith (Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates) are ranged against Shiite Moslems: the Shia Alawites under Assad in Syria, and Shiite Iran and Hesbollah in Lebanon. The USA has thus unwisely inserted itself AGAIN into the middle of what has become a violent religious conflict which it knows little of, and from which it has nothing to gain. Its meddling can only exacerbate the problem.

In March of 2011, our government seems to have reflexively engaged in the conflict simply to topple Mr. Assad. That goal, in a more historically and politically astute administration (perhaps such as that of the GHW Bush administration) would have paused as it questioned the effects of such a destabilizing act on the entire Middle East region. But Mr. Obama, ( and his coterie of female foreign policy advisors who seem to always choose to show their ability to "man-up" to any situation even when it is not advisable) and his then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton didn't get that far in their thinking. Only a short time earlier, they made the now demonstrably unwise decision to topple the Gaddafi regime in Libya. As a result of their ministrations that poor nation has devolved into chaos, where armed camps and warring tribal enclaves, death and destruction continue unabated. It is from Lybia that refugees pour out into frail boats plying the Mediterranean seeking succor in the west. The President's goal for Syria is on track to repeat the Lybia disaster. The Obmama Administrqtion's goal to remove Assad was probably unwise and unattainable even very early in the insurgency. But as more and more money, weapons and radicalized foreign troops surged into Syria, the idea of toppling the existing government, its police forces, and the infrastructure which served millions of Syrians and kept the peace, became less and less realistic and more and more foolish. At present, the anti-Assad movement is highly radicalized, fragmented and infiltrated with al Qaida, hyper-radical ISIS elements and jihadist fighters and terrorists drawn into the conflict with the money from the Gulf oil sheikdoms and that provided covertly by the USA.

President Obama, in the face of harsh criticism (much of which was deserved) did restrain the knee jerk Israeli supporters and neocon elements in his government ro limit the USA involvement to air strikes against ISIS targets in the eastern part of Syria. However, his mis-guided early covert (CIA) policy to destabilize the only existing and legitimate (Assad) Syrian government with arms, money and military support continues to this day. These USA policies secretly funded and hidden from Congressional purview may have had thr support of weak arguments very early in the conflict, but as the civil war has worn on and the players and situations have changed radically, now these USA policies are simply DUMB.

In early October, Russia's Mr. Putin began to transport to western Syria significant advanced military materiel, men, planes and other equipment to take a strong role in support of Mr. Assad's government which has been weakened by losses over the last four years. Mr. Assad is not a democratic savior, but he can be useful as a means to an end in Syria. It is wise to support him. He is a despot and strong man who has ruled in a ham-fisted manner to control a diverse and fractious nation. But he does head an actual functioning government. He is a legitimately elected leader with whom the world body of concerned nations can negotiate with and work with. On the other side, there is a diverse group of rabble-rousers, jihadist fighters, religious fanatics, terrorists......and chaos. Continued support of the insurgents to weaken and replace the Assad regime is foolish and will only lead to more refugees, more bloodshed. It will surely end in another nation bombed and degraded back into the "Stone Age" as Mr. George Bush so correctly described his intentions during his military adventures in Iraq---an adventure that has much to do with the present state of affairs in Syria.

Mr. Obama, should welcome the arrival of Mr. Putin's forces.... If domestic political reality makes it impossible to actually support his efforts, Mr. Obama should just stay out of his way. Mr. Putin seems to be the only leader who is actually taking some positive action in Syria that will ultimately benefit the Syrian people, alleviate the refugee disaster facing Europe, help to move the entire region...Lebanon, Israel, Iraq and Iran to a more peaceful solution. It is too bad that Putin can not speak English more effectively. He gets a (an unnecessary) bad press here in the USA.