Opinions Based on Facts: September 2013

WELCOME TO OPINIONS BASED ON FACTS (OBOF)

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (TYMHM)

YEAR THREE

	Published
OVERVIEW
OBOF & TYMHM PART 14	Dec 18, 2012
OBOF & TYMHM PART 15	Jan. 02, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 16	Jan. 08, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 16 EXTRA	Jan. 11, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 17	Jan. 15, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 18	Jan. 22, 2013
Gbtre OBOF & TYMHM PART 19	Jan. 29, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 20	Feb. 05, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 21	Feb. 14, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 22	Feb. 20, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 23	Feb. 27, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 23 SPECIAL	Mar. 06, 2013
saOBOF & TYMHM PART 24	`
OBOF & TYMHM PART 25	Mar. 12, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 25-EXTRA	Mar. 14, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 26	Mar. 19, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 27	Mar. 26, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 28	Apr. 02, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 29	Apr. 08, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 30	Apr. 17, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 31	Apr. 23, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 32	Apr. 30, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 33	May 07, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 34	May 18, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 35	May 21, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 36	May 30, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 37	June 05, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 38	June 11, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 39	June 18, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 40	June 25, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 41	July 02, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 42	July 09, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 43	July 16, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 44	July 23, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 45	July 30, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 46	Aug. 06, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 47	Aug. 14, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 48	Aug. 20, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 49	Aug. 27, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 50	Sept. 05, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 51	Sept. 11, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 52	Sept. 18, 2013

I have no idea why the index is screwed up like this. Actually, rather unimportant anyway.

IN THIS ISSUE

1. Opening thought.

2. Obama - Putin & the idea of World Order.

3. U. S. shambling toward political - financial crisis.

4. American Fascism - - accurate or misleading.

5. U. S. record on chemical weapons.

OPENING THOUGHT

I have been trying to think about where we, as a country, are, where we have been, and where, the heck, are we going. The later is the biggest subject to get a handle on. I guess I shouldn't be to upset with myself when I can't get much of a handle on it, because, as is stated in the first article below, the commentators, experts, and news analysts are all over the lot trying to see where we really are and where we are going.

All the articles in this posting address these problems in one way or another. The things that are on our country's plate are humongous and why anyone would want to President is beyond me. I do think that Obama has more on his plate than any President since Roosevelt.

What are all the items he is going to be facing in next few weeks? First and foremost at this moment is Syria. The whole world is watching to see what he does, which can telegraph to the rest of the world our strength or weakness. Then, right on top of us is the end of money to operate on. Sept. 30 is the dead line and the Republican House is doing nothing except to plan on leaving town. That is going to be a big crisis. Next, the debt ceiling is about to be reached, so here we go again with that problem. Obama has said, rather forcefully, that he will not negotiate with Congress on the debt ceiling.

And of course, there is immigration, more gun violence. All of this is just scratching the surface. Oh yes, there is an upcoming election in 2014 and it is very important. If Obama doesn't get a full Congress of Democratic control, his second term is over as far as getting anything accomplished.

This is a very critical time in the scheme of things and we as citizens and Democrats need to do all possible to help in anyway possible. Financially of course is a big item to help with the election, but just as important is getting the word out about the accomplishments he has made even without the help of the Republicans.

I think you will find the following to be very interesting and some real food for thought.

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Power and Morality: Obama, Putin and the ‘Crazy’ Idea of World Order.

Thomas Magstadt

NationofChange / Op-Ed

Published: Friday 13 September 2013

The headline in The New York Times reads: "As Obama Pauses Action, Putin Takes Center Stage." The article goes on to detail where things stand in the current political-military-diplomatic crisis over Syria. It's been a tense and fascinating few days, of course, and the "experts" and news analysts are all over the lot.

For what it's worth, I was part of a three-person team that led the first group of U.S. senior military officers from the Air War College on a get-acquainted trip to Moscow as the USSR was collapsing in the fall of 1991. Here's my take on the larger meaning of the current crisis:

First, President Obama's "red line" in Syria has placed US-Russia relations at the center of international politics in a manner reminiscent of the Cold War. Second, it has raised the stature of the Kremlin and, in particular, Russia's iron-fisted, steely eyed, sometimes half-naked president Vladimir Putin on the world stage. Third, it has turned a spotlight on the vital importance of a world order (aka the "international community") in the Global Age.

Self-styled political realists (myself included) often dismissed talks of a world order as wishful thinking or pie-in-the-sky idealism. But homo sapiens as a species would likely not have survived the last half century without some sort of order in a shrinking world bristling with weapons, constantly bombarded with the propaganda of hate and the daily bearing witness to evidence of human depravity on TV and the Internet.

For better or worse, the UN is the only vehicle available to the international community, and what critics say is true: the UN is least effective precisely when and where it's most needed—in the kind of crises that threaten to plunge the world into a major war. For example, Syria.

The five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council—the U.S., United Kingdom, France, Russia and China—have a veto and can thus paralyze UN action against an aggressor—or alleged transgressor like Bashar al-Assad, at any time. In Washington's version of reality, that's exactly what Russia and China are doing now, protecting Assad by preventing the UN from authorizing the use of force against his regime.

Of course, there's no denying that Russia does, in fact, side with the Syrian government and that Putin wants to stave off an attack against Assad. It certainly looks as if Putin is succeeding and that we are on the defensive, back-pedaling indecisively. And in the middle of a muddle that couldn't get any messier (for us, at least), Putin has the gall to make a major bid for the moral high ground—in The New York Times, of all places!

First reaction: What's the world coming to? Second reaction: Maybe we ought to take what Czar Vladimir the Shirtless says seriously…

Putin: The United Nations’ founders understood that decisions affecting war and peace should happen only by consensus, and with America’s consent the veto by Security Council permanent members was enshrined in the United Nations Charter. The profound wisdom of this has underpinned the stability of international relations for decades.

Comment: It's often been said that if the UN didn't exist it would have to be invented, but the people who have said it are not ensconced in the Kremlin. It's remarkable that the ruler of this former totalitarian state would see fit to go on record praising the UN founders for anything, much less endorsing the idea that "decisions affecting war and peace should happen only by consensus…" Putin not only expressed a certain reverence for the UN Charter but also did it in the NY Times, not Pravda or Izvestia ("profound wisdom…underpinned the stability of international relations for decades") . Oh, there's more…

Putin: We need to use the United Nations Security Council and believe that preserving law and order in today’s complex and turbulent world is one of the few ways to keep international relations from sliding into chaos. The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not. Under current international law, force is permitted only in self-defense or by the decision of the Security Council. Anything else is unacceptable under the United Nations Charter and would constitute an act of aggression.

Comment: Imagine that! Vladimir Putin lecturing an American president on the need to respect the rule of law: "Under current international law, force is permitted only in self-defense or by the decision of the Security Council."

First reaction: That's outrageous coming from a guy who arrested and jailed his political opponents, ordered Soviet troops to crush the uprising in Chechnya and invaded Georgia, all without getting permission from the UN. Second reaction: Why not take him seriously? Why not hold Putin's feet to the fire? Absolutely no use of force without UN authorization. Sounds good, but…

Big problem: Moscow might not play fair.

Bigger problem: Washington has no clue how to do foreign policy without the threat of unilateral military force.

Putin: It is alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States. Is it in America’s long-term interest? I doubt it. Millions around the world increasingly see America not as a model of democracy but as relying solely on brute force, cobbling coalitions together under the slogan “you’re either with us or against us.

Comment: Putin has a point. We HAVE made a habit of using military intervention as substitute for a nuanced foreign policy and patient diplomacy. It's not at all clear that it's in America's long-term interest to depend so heavily on military force or to spend so lavishly on weapons. And whether we like it or not, he's undoubtedly right about America's image in the world—we're admired as a model of democracy anywhere in the world now.

We ARE feared and many Americans, Democrats and Republicans alike, will continue to take great comfort in this fact, but there is a downside—not least the costs. And there are dangers. As the current crisis illustrates, the U.S. is more isolated and alone than at any time since World War II. Even the British declined to follow Washington's lead.

Putin: And I would rather disagree with a case [President Obama] made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.” It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor… We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.

Comment: There's no doubt that we tend to think God is on our side, but forget about that; it's nothing short of remarkable to hear a post-October Revolution Kremlin ruler talk about "the Lord's blessings" and invoke God in a message to the American people. Come to think of it, that the "World Socialist System" and the Soviet Union itself would collapse and just disappear from the face of the earth is also remarkable—in fact, it was unthinkable until it happened.

No, I'm not about to light a torch for World Government, or suggest that universal peace is possible. Nonetheless, the idea of a world order IS essential to survival on a small planet when anarchy anywhere (today: Syria and Egypt; yesterday, Libya and Mali; tomorrow, Greece and Spain?) poses a clear and present danger to peace everywhere. And given President Obama's evident confusion in the face of tumultuous events he apparently can't understand much less control, a strong case can be made for taking Putin at his word. And calling his bluff. Here's why:

a) all the Russians have to trade is oil and gas (a finite resource)

b) the U.S. GDP is officially put at around $15 trillion in 2012 and Russia's is estimated at about $2.5-2.6 trillion

c) Russia has powerful (and historically aggressive) neighbors on both flanks and unstable borders in three directions (only the north is a partial exception)

d) Russia's economy has yet to diversify to the point where (except for oil and natural gas) it can be taken seriously as a major player in global markets like Germany, Japan, and China (as well as the US)

e) the potential for internal ethnic and religious conflict in Russia is ever-present and that fact has been a major part of the political calculations of every Russian ruler in the Kremlin since the beginning of time (it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that it's an obsession, part of the Russian DNA)

f) Russia's demographic profile (140-145 million) is small in comparison to others in the neighborhood (China and India dwarf Russia; at over 500 million, so does the EU)

Fear-mongers typically take a blinkered view of the world. For them, the ultimate nightmare is not that we have a formidable enemy threatening our survival, but that we don't.

What would happen if a majority of Americans stopped believing that the only thing standing between us and oblivion is a bottomless money-pit called the Pentagon and a bloated military establishment that outspends all real, or imagined adversaries by trillions of dollars every year. What if we actually started to act like we believe what we say about morality—that it's real and can move mountains?

The world as we know it might come to an end, right? Come to think of it, that might not be such a bad thing…

ABOUT Thomas Magstadt

Tom Magstadt earned his Ph.D. at The Johns Hopkins University School of International Studies. He is the author of "An Empire If You Can Keep It: Power and Principle in American Foreign Policy," "Understanding Politics: Ideas, Institutions and Issues," and "Nations and Governments: Comparative Politics in Regional Perspective." He was a regular contributor to the Prague Post in 1998-99 and has published widely in newspapers, magazines and journals in the United States. He was a Fulbright Scholar in the Czech Republic in the mid-1990s and a visiting professor at the Air War College in 1990-92. He has taught at several universities, chaired two political science departments, and also did a stint as an intelligence analyst at the CIA. He is a member of the board of the International Relations Council of Kansas City. Now working mainly as a free-lance writer, he lives in Westwood Hills, Kansas.

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U.S. Shambling Toward Autumn

Political-Financial Crisis

By Matthew Yglesias

Posted Sept. 12, 2013.

As best I can tell, everyone's given up on following congressional politics, but the country appears to be shambling in the direction of a new politically-induced budgetary and financial crisis this fall.

The proximate issue is that even though Republicans have a majority in the House of Representatives, it's not a huge majority and they've been consistently unable to come up with a strategy for funding the government's discretionary functions that can pass the House. All Republicans are insisting on freezing sequestration-levels of spending into place on the domestic side while easing it on the military side. Democrats won't vote for that. But the most strident Republicans won't vote for it either. They want to insist on repealing or defunding or otherwise gutting Obamacare as a permission for allowing the government to keep operating past September 30. So they keep not passing anything and taking more days off even as the expiration of government funding keeps getting closer and closer.

Most likely I think this doesn't lead to a government shutdown. The optimal strategy for John Boehner to ride the tiger of his caucus' nuttiness is to delay, delay, delay and then at the last minute announce that there isn't enough time left for a prolonged negotiation. Then he passes a short-term extension of the current Continuing Resolution that relies on Democratic votes to pass and promises his caucus that the real concessions will be won when federal borrowing authority expires.

That, too, will probably end with Republican caving and then set the table for another appropriations fight. But even under that relatively rosy scenario where nothing shuts down and nobody defaults on any payments we're talking about a protracted months-long period of political

Matthew Yglesias is Slate's business and economics correspondent. Before joining the magazine he worked for ThinkProgress, the Atlantic, TPM Media, and the American Prospect. His first book, Heads in the Sand, was published by Wiley in 2008. His second, The Rent Is Too Damn High, was published by Simon & Schuster in March 2012.

The Challenge: New York Times: "The task of coming up with a verifiable plan to inspect, control and dispose of Syria’s chemical weapons during a civil war is daunting. Though Obama administration officials have said the problem of Syria’s chemical weapons has been discussed with the Russians for more than a year, the two sides have not yet talked about the problem in detail. For example, the United States and Russia have yet to compare intelligence on the size of Syria’s chemical stocks, their main elements and their locations. American officials have declassified.

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‘American Fascism:’

Accurate or Misleading?

William Astore

NationofChange / Op-Ed

Published: Monday 16 September 2013

A recent article by John Pilger in the British Guardian speaks of a silent military coup that has effectively gained control of American policymaking. It features the following alarmist passage:

In 2008, while his liberal devotees dried their eyes, Obama accepted the entire Pentagon of his predecessor, George Bush: its wars and war crimes. As the constitution is replaced by an emerging police state, those who destroyed Iraq with shock and awe, piled up the rubble in Afghanistan and reduced Libya to a Hobbesian nightmare, are ascendant across the US administration ... The historian Norman Pollack calls this "liberal fascism": "For goose-steppers substitute the seemingly more innocuous militarisation of the total culture. And for the bombastic leader, we have the reformer manqué, blithely at work, planning and executing assassination, smiling all the while." Every Tuesday the "humanitarian" Obama personally oversees a worldwide terror network of drones that "bugsplat" people, their rescuers and mourners. In the west's comfort zones, the first black leader of the land of slavery still feels good, as if his very existence represents a social advance, regardless of his trail of blood. This obeisance to a symbol has all but destroyed the US anti-war movement -- Obama's singular achievement.

Strong words. Is America the land of "liberal fascism"?

Certainly, since the attacks of 9/11 the U.S. has become more authoritarian, more militarized, and less free (witness the Patriot Act, NSA spying, and the assassination of American citizens overseas by drones). The U.S. Supreme Court has empowered corporations and the government at the expense of individual citizens. Powerful banks and corporations reap the benefits of American productivity and of special tax breaks and incentives available only to them, even as average American citizens struggle desperately to keep their heads above water.

But to describe this as "fascism" is misleading. It's also debilitating and demoralizing. It's misleading because fascism has a specific historical meaning. The best definition I've seen is from the historian Robert Paxton's The Anatomy of Fascism

For Paxton, fascism is:

"A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion."

In formulating this definition, Paxton had Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy in mind, but his definition is an excellent starting point in thinking about fascism.

What about it? Is the U.S. fascistic? Plainly, no. We don't have a messiah-like dictator. Our justice system still works, however imperfectly. Our votes still count, even if our political speech often gets drowned out by moneyed interests.

It's true that, in the name of "support our troops," we grant the Pentagon brass and defense contractors too much leeway, and allow our Department of Defense to seek "global power" without reflecting that such ambitions are the stuff of totalitarian states. But let's also recall that our troops (as well as our representatives) still swear an oath to the Constitution, not to a dictator or party.

It's also true that, as a society, we are too violent, too attracted to violence (think of our TV/Cable shows, our video games, and our sports), and too willing to relinquish individual liberties in the name of protecting us from that violence and the fear generated by it. Yet Americans are also increasingly weary and skeptical of the use of military force, as recent events involving Syria have shown.

The point is not to despair, not to surrender to the demoralizing idea that American politics is an exercise in liberal fascism. No -- the point is to exercise our rights, because that is the best way to retain them. Authority always wants more authority. But as political actors, we deny by our actions the very idea of fascism. For in fascist societies, people are merely subjects, merely tools, in the service of the state.

Don't be a tool. Be an actor. Speak up. Get involved. Work to make your imperfect republic a little more representative of the better angels of our nature. Because it'll be your deeds that keep our country from falling prey to fear and violence and the authoritarian mindset they breed.

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US Record on Chemical Weapons

Weakens Standing in Challenging Syria

Stephen Zunes

NationofChange / Op-Ed

Published: Friday, 13 September 2013

The Syrian regime's apparent use of chemical weapons against civilian areas on August 21 constitutes a breach of the Geneva Protocol of 1925, one of the world's most important disarmament treaties, which banned the use of chemical weapons. The Obama administration has made clear that the only way the Syrian regime could avoid U.S. military strikes on their country would be to place their chemical weapons stockpiles under control of the United Nations or otherwise rid themselves of ever again using them.

In 1993, the international community came together to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), a binding international treaty that would also prohibit the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention, and transfer or use of chemical weapons. Syria is one of only eight of the world's 193 countries not party to the convention.

However, U.S. policy regarding chemical weapons has been so inconsistent and politicized that the United States is in no position to take leadership in a military response to any use of such weaponry by Syria.

Neither of the world's two largest recipients of U.S. military aid -- Israel and Egypt -- is a party to the convention either. Never has Congress or any administration of either party called on Israel or Egypt to disarm their chemical weapons arsenals, much less threatened war for their failure to do so. U.S. policy, therefore, appears to be that while it is legitimate for its allies Israel and Egypt to refuse to ratify this important arms control convention, Syria needed to be singled out for punishment for its refusal.

It's not as if Syria is the only country which has actually engaged in chemical warfare. Egypt used phosgene and mustard gas in the mid-1960s during its intervention in Yemen's civil war. The U.S.-backed Egyptian regime has continued its chemical weapons research and development program.

Israel

is widely believed to have produced and stockpiled an extensive range of chemical weapons and to be engaged in ongoing research and development of additional chemical weaponry. Indeed, Syria may have began its chemical weapons program as a direct response to Israel's chemical, biological and nuclear programs.

It was the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, which used chemical weapons on a scale far greater than any country had dared since their banning following World War I. The Iraqis inflicted close to 100,000 casualties among Iranian soldiers using banned chemical agents, resulting in 20,000 deaths and tens of thousands of long-term injuries.

They were unable to do this alone, however. Despite ongoing Iraqi support for Abu Nidal and other terrorist groups during the 1980s, the Reagan administration removed Iraq from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism to provide the regime with thiodiglycol, a key component in the manufacture of mustard gas, and other chemical precursors for their weapons program. In fact, recently released CIA documents show that DIA personnel were dispatched to Baghdad during the war to provide Saddam Hussein's regime with U.S. satellite data on the location of Iranian troop concentrations in the full knowledge that the Iraqis were using chemical weapons against them.

Even the Iraqi regime's use of chemical weapons against civilians was not seen as particularly problematic. The March 1988 massacre in the northern Iraqi city of Halabja, where Saddam's forces murdered up to 5,000 Kurdish civilians with chemical weapons, was downplayed by the Reagan administration, with some officials even falsely claiming that Iran was actually responsible. The United States continued sending aid to Iraq even after the regime's use of poison gas was confirmed. Bothe the Reagan and Bush administrations blocked Congressional efforts to place sanctions on the Iraqi regime in response to the chemical weapons attacks.

Ironically, after denying and covering up Iraq's use of chemical weapons in the late 1980s, the U.S. government -- first under President Bill Clinton and then under President George W. Bush -- then began insisting that Iraq's alleged chemical weapons stockpile was a dire threat, even though the country had completely destroyed its stockpile by 1993 and completely dismantled its chemical weapons program.

Secretary of State John Kerry, who has been leading the administration's efforts to convince Congress to go to war, insists that "Chemical weapons were used by the [Syria] regime. We know this." However, as a senator in the fall of 2002, he falsely claimed that "Iraq has chemical and biological weapons ... and [their weapons programs] are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf War." House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, who is leading the pro-war effort in that chamber, insists that Syria's use of chemical weapons is "undeniable." On NBC's "Meet the Press" in November 2002, however, she falsely claimed that Iraq "certainly" had chemical weapons and that there was "no question about that."

Even though they are probably telling the truth this time, this record of deceit makes it difficult to trust U.S. government officials when it comes to accusations regarding hostile Arab governments and chemical weapons.

Even more problematic has been U.S. efforts to block region-wide efforts at disarmament.

UN Security Council Resolution 687, the resolution passed at the end of the 1991 Gulf War demanding the destruction of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons and the dismantling of its nuclear program, also called on member states "to work towards the establishment in the Middle East of a zone free of such weapons."

Syria

has joined virtually all other Arab states in calling for such a "weapons of mass destruction-free zone" for the entire Middle East. In December 2003, Syria introduced a UN Security Council resolution reiterating this clause from 12 years earlier, but the resolution was tabled as a result of a threatened U.S. veto.

A case can be made, then, that had the United States pursued a policy that addressed the proliferation of nonconventional weapons through region-wide disarmament rather than trying to single out Syria, the Syrian regime would have rid itself of its chemical weapons some years earlier, along with Israel and Egypt, and the tragic use of such ordnance and the resulting rush to war would have never happened.

This article is based on the article The U.S. and Chemical Weapons: No Leg to Stand On, which originally appeared in Foreign Policy in Focus on May 2, 2013

ABOUT Stephen Zunes

Dr. Stephen Zunes is a Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, where he chairs the program in Middle Eastern Studies. A native of North Carolina, Professor Zunes received his PhD. from Cornell University, his M.A. from Temple University and his B.A. from Oberlin College.

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If the good Lord is willing and the creek don't rise, I'll talk with you again next Tuesday, September 24, 2013.

God Bless You All

God Bless the United States of America

Floyd.

Opinions Based on Facts

Thursday, September 26, 2013

OBOF TYMHM & MORE PART 53

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

OBOF TYMHM & MORE PART 52

I have no idea why the index is screwed up like this. Actually, rather unimportant anyway.

U.S. Shambling Toward Autumn

Political-Financial Crisis