Clinton pandering, triangulation and maybe warhawking over #genocide by #ISIS or not in Iraq

Hillary Clinton, playing Hamlet for Politico, indicates that she's willing to take the oh-so-tough decision of breaking with President Obama and calling ISIS's killing of Christians in Iraq genocide.

On Twitter, which is where I saw the link, Doug Henwood disagrees, snarkily, noting that he doesn't think it's genocide:

Because it’s not genocide. If she said the sun rises in the west would you go along? https://t.co/ImJsPvmdJ6

— Doug Henwood (@DougHenwood) December 30, 2015

Per Doug, if Hillary Clinton said that, not only would I open the blinds, I'd go outside to check. And, as I told Doug, I like the assumedly deliberate direction reversal.

My concerns are other.

First, per the Politico piece, genocide declarations have little teeth, and basically no teeth at all against a non-state actor like ISIS. Given that Clinton was a former Secretary of State, and State is basically in charge of a lot of the relevant issues, she damn well knows that.

She also knows that from her husband's experience, as the U.S. did little but hand-wringing over Rwanda even after a genocide declaration.

So, it's pandering, since a couple of dozen Congresscritters have already pushed for such a declaration.

Besides all that, Obama is planning a genocide declaration against ISIS because of the Yazidis, per the Politico piece. And thus it's triangulation, as well, the Clinton claim that genocide also is against Christians in Iraq, since a fair amount of the push to have Obama declare this comes from the Religious Right. But, just because he's hypocritical (how many boots on the ground are YOU sending, Dear Leader, since bombing is of, er, less than optimal effectiveness?) doesn't mean that two hypocriticalities make a right.

As for the specific issue at hand, international law doesn't provide a percentage requirement for what constitutes genocide. Yet, per what I can tell, the percentage of people deliberately killed for religion by ISIS/ISIL is definitely smaller among Christians than Yazidis. Given that Yazidism is syncretistic of Islam and Zoroastrianism, mainly, it may draw extra ire. Per this NYT piece, about the "rape culture" of ISIS, the facts that the Yazidis are polytheists (more here), it seems, and not a "People of the Book," adds to ultra-fundamentalist Islamic contempt. Hence, if this all is a guide, Obama is right, right now.

(And, given that Obama has indicated that his administration likely will enter a finding of genocide re the Yazidis, the NYT piece linked just above, while horrific and disgusting, has no relevance to wanting to expand said declaration to cover Christians in Iraq, or Syria. None.)

Beyond that, if it's genocide by ISIS against Christians, why wasn't it genocide by al Qaeda before splinterings, makeovers and whatever else? If it's very clear to candidate Clinton that ISIS is committing genocide against Christians, not just Yazidis, why wasn't it clear about al Qaeda to Secretary Clinton? Or, to really throw the haggis in the fire, quoting Scotty of Star Trek fame, why not a finding of genocide by ISIS against Shi'ites?

Or, for that matter, if any finding of genocide by ISIS includes territory in Syria as well as Iraq, I'll bet we could get a finding against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. I mean, he did cross a red line publicly stated by Dear Leader by using chemical weapons.

Beyond that, what purpose is there of a second genocide declaration? If one of them has real teeth, it's like killing a person with an H-bomb instead of an A-bomb to have a second declaration. If one is toothless, it's like shooting a person with two water pistols instead of one.

That said, we know Clinton is more of a warhawk than Bernie Sanders, and probably more of a warhawk than her husband. After all, she did, in my opinion, "wear the pants in the family" more than he did, often times. And, for Hillarybot feminists who don't like that metaphor, I'll top you by reminding you that SHE quoted a famous, or infamous, Tammy Wynette song.

So, if you want to go beyond Rwanda hand-wringing, Madame Secretary, how many boots on the ground are you planning on sending to Iraq if you're elected president of These United States? If not that, what other actions do you plan?

Contra Amy Fried, who also didn't like that rhetorical question, it's a legitimate one, even were the declaration made against the nation of Iraq. It's even more legitimate against a non-nation state terror group. And, it's very legitimate when I'm told on Twitter to "do some research," when I already have more an idea what I'm talking about than she does.

Otherwise, we're in the land of rhetoric, where the epithet-thrower is king. Or queen, if you're a Hillarybot. Especially now that Amy Fried seems to think the Godwin's Law angle, or a milder version of it, is the next tactic. Saying we should worry as much about ISIS as Nazi Germany is ridiculous. And, Henwood's right on this, again: If you do believe that, then what action, not rhetoric, do you support?

And, that squares the circle again. Pandering, triangulation, or both, none of this should be of any surprise to people who track Hillary Clinton with a skeptical, gimlet eye.

Also, myths about smallpox blankets aside, under that international law definition, if exact percentages aren't involved, U.S. action against American Indians is arguably genocide.

#NYTimes forgets when Reagan sold $165M in arms as ransom to terrorists

If the President says it's not "arms for hostages," then it's not!
Ronald Reagan Library via Wikipedia

Oh, those spineless Europeans, with backbones like chocolate eclairs! Why can't they be like tough Americans?

The New York Times gives Western European governments an official Old Gray Lady (or would that be Old Grey Lady, in Times-speak?) spanking for giving Al Qaeda groups as much as $165 million in the last six years to ransom European citizens taken hostage:

While European governments deny paying ransoms, an investigation by The New York Times found that Al Qaeda and its direct affiliates have earned at least $125 million in revenue from kidnappings since 2008, of which $66 million was paid just in the past year.

In various news releases and statements, the United States Treasury Department has cited ransom amounts that, taken together, put the total at around $165 million over the same period.

Sounds horrible, does it not?

But, the Times article neglects to mention that the US did similar almost 30 years ago. I'll bet this stash was worth at least $165M in today's values, because Wiki gives us a nice Iranian shopping list about the Iran-Contra affair:

The following arms were supplied to Iran:

• August 20, 1985 – 96 TOW anti-tank missiles
• September 14, 1985 – 408 more TOWs
• November 24, 1985 – 18 Hawk anti-aircraft missiles
• February 17, 1986 – 500 TOWs
• February 27, 1986 – 500 TOWs
• May 24, 1986 – 508 TOWs, 240 Hawk spare parts
• August 4, 1986 – More Hawk spares
• October 28, 1986 – 500 TOWs

Too bad the Times neglected to tell us this.

Fortunately, we don't even have to guess. Weapons plutocrat Raytheon tells us that its current version of a TOW runs $58,000 per. Rounded to that even dollar value, all the TOWs alone?

A cool $140 million.

And, everything those naughty Europeans did sounds like it came from the pages of Ronald Reagan, Oliver North, John Poindexter, Robert McFarlane, Caspar Weinberger, George H.W. Bush, Bill Casey, Richard Secord and others:

These payments were made almost exclusively by European governments, who funnel the money through a network of proxies, sometimes masking it as development aid, according to interviews conducted for this article with former hostages, negotiators, diplomats and government officials in 10 countries in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. ...

Yet the fact that Europe and its intermediaries continue to pay has set off a vicious cycle.

“Kidnapping for ransom has become today’s most significant source of terrorist financing,” said David S. Cohen, the Treasury Department’s under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, in a 2012 speech. “Each transaction encourages another transaction.”

Yep ... exactly the same happened after Iran-Contra.

Going back to Wikipedia:

In September and October 1986 three more Americans—Frank Reed, Joseph Cicippio, and Edward Tracy—were abducted in Lebanon by a separate terrorist group. The reasons for their abduction are unknown, although it is speculated that they were kidnapped to replace the freed Americans.

So, if the Times is writing as a tsk-tsk mouthpiece of America's bipartisan foreign policy establishment, it needs to shut up.

Patterson mixes Alamo with appeal to "Tejanos"

Why do I say exactly that about Texas Republican Lite Guv candidate Jerry Patterson? Because he doesn't use the word "Hispanic" or "Latino," but rather, "Tejano," in this press release email, and that's not all:

Today, Jerry Patterson launched "Tejanos for Patterson," a group comprised of Texans locally and statewide who support Jerry Patterson's candidacy for Lt. Governor.

So, is he filming an announcement on Alamo grounds?

Anyway, next comes a bit of untruth.

"Tejanos represent over 1/4 of all the eligible voters in Texas. Most embrace conservative values. They should be Republicans," said Jerry Patterson, candidate for Lt. Governor. "That's why I'm launching Tejanos for Patterson. It is important for all Hispanics, or Tejanos, as they've proudly called themselves, to know that their voice is not only welcomed here, but sorely needed. My campaign is focused on including all Texans."

Really, on the conservative values? Then why do they consistently lean Democrat in voting?  And, do that many Hispanics in general, or Mexican-Americans in particular, really call themselves "Tejano"? I think that's three lemons, or three noes, Jerry!

And, I wasn't joking about the Alamo part.

Jerry gets some b-roll Alamo (or perhaps San Jacinto, but let's still pretend it's the Alamo) footage in his video of the announcement. Unfortunately, no pix of him unstrapping his hogleg from inside his boot, while at the Shrine of Texas Mythology:



Hey, I guess giving us a laugh factor helps us non-GOPers get entertained by the Repubs in the Lite Guv primary, what with the weird psyches of Dudley Dewless and the Three Blind Mice.

That said, I do know a reason why he uses that particular word. Due to the GOP's voter ID law, panty-knotting worries over voter fraud by illegal immigrants, more panty-knotting worries about keeping a brown tide on the other side of the border, etc., Jerry can't appeal to "Hispanics" or "Latinos" without coming under the guns of Dewless and the other two of the Blind Mice as being soft on immigration.

I also know why there's no footage of him whipping out his pistol. A Mexican-American seeing a batshit-crazy white man talking about "Tejano" while he waves a gun is going to quickly be running like hell.

Besides, with the Alamo and concealed handguns? We know what's really behind that: Texas tiny-penis syndrome, something that infects about three-quarters of the likes of Jerry Patterson, I do believe.

More seriously? If he wants to make a real appeal to Tejanos? Jerry should support the school funding lawsuit.

Back to the Alamo schtick, though. At times, I wish a Texas wing of al Qaeda would blow the damned thing up.

I remember the first time I visited San Antonio. The John Wayne movie had me prepared for something about three times as big as reality. And that's the problem.

And, arguably, since the tiny-penis syndrome at San Jacinto was deliberately built taller than the Washington Monument, it, too, is some sort of Shrine to Texas Mythology, is it not?

I've been to Sonoma, where California's brief Bear Flag Republic was started. (California was one of three states besides Texas — ignore history that claims Texas was one of two states — to be an independent republic before joining the United States, along with Vermont and Hawaii.) There's a tasteful, reasonably-scaled monument on the courthouse square.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her 'mirror' in great new bio

Wanted Women: Faith, Lies, and the War on Terror: The Lives of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Aafia Siddiqui by Deborah Scroggins

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is a great twin biography/history, kind of like a pair of Plutarch's "parallel lives." Indeed, Scroggins notes that it's possible Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Aafia Siddiqui could have cone in each other's directions; Ali herself has said so.

Beyond the general parallels, the thing I most noted about Ali is that it's more obvious than ever, from this book, why she threw her lot in with the neocons politically and the Gnu Atheist "philosophically." Both groups, and Ali, tend toward absolutism in their interpretation of various events. And also, while Ali is perhaps not quite Sarah Palin, Scroggins makes clear that she has a love of the limelight and publicity too. While she is still a sympathetic figure to some degree, she's less so to me than she was before I read this book, and she wasn't totally sympathetic then.

Siddiqui is less well-known; in fact, despite her trial and conviction, I knew very little about her. That said, an MIT graduate of graduate school becoming one of al-Qaeda’s top female backers is indeed a caution … a caution in part to the Ali types who want to say that all Islam is fundamentalist, and that it’s fundamentalist because of its backwardness.

Scroggins also offers a peek or two at Pakistan’s ISI and just how closely connected it may have been to Siddiqui.



View all my reviews

CIA asshattery in censorship

I am currently reading Ali Soufan's "The Black Banners." To refresh the memory of some, or to inform others who don't know who he is, Soufan was the FBI's top Arabic-speaking agent, who was already on the trail of al-Qaeda's growth before the East African embassy bombings in 1998.

Well, the CIA felt "the need," as Soufan notes in the introduction, to redact/censor stuff that was already in the public record.

And, at times, this gets ridiculous.

In one chapter, describing the interrogation of al-Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah, due to the details of the pages, we can tell just what the CIA insisted had to be blacked out. The first word in the chapter is "I," with Soufan talking about how he was packing a suitcase for a vacation when he was ordered off to Pakistan. Also censored are other individual words such as "we," "me," "my" and "us."

(Soufan is charitable in general in the book but has not a lot of good to say about the CIA.)

The "deather" conspiracy widens!

Even al-Qaeda is in on it!

I am sooooo waiting for deathers to spin this one.

Also, I am kind of curious about bin Laden's final tape message.

Strong argument for civilian trials of terrorists

David Frakt, an Air Force Reserve lawyer, says Bush could have taken the wind out of the sails of al-Qaeda's claim to be military fighters by announcing their trials would all be in civilian court. At the same time, he blasts current AG Eric Holder (and this is really an indictment of Holder's boss, President Obama) for perpetuating a two-tier trials system, a military/civilian hybrid.

Afghanistan troop surge argument continues

Nicholas Kristof is the latest pundit to weigh in on the “no” side. In his nut graf, he directly refutes Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s counterinsurgency-based call for a troop “surge”:

Standard counterinsurgency ratios of troops to civilians suggest we would need 650,000 troops (including Afghans) to pacify the country. So will adding 40,000 more to the 68,000 already there make a difference to justify the additional annual cost of $10 billion to $40 billion, especially since they may aggravate the perception of Americans as occupiers?

Sounds pretty straightforward, no?

Meanwhile, some “boots on the ground” work in Afghanistan looks promising, but, could it hold, even if we put more troops in now, and then pulled back three-five years later?

But, Kristof counters, as far as al-Qaida fears:

Steven Simon, a National Security Council official in the Clinton years who is now a terrorism expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, notes that there may be more Al Qaeda fighters in Pakistan, Yemen and perhaps Somalia than in Afghanistan.

The Afghan Taliban will know we can hit them with cruise missiles, and, eventually, Predators, from offshore, if they support an al-Qaida renaissance, anyway.

Pakistan ‘in danger of collapse’; And?

Former Bush Administration, and current Obama Administration, Aussie terror consultant David Kilcullen says we should be very, very afraid of the government in Islamabad collapsing, then followed by a possible al-Qaeda takeover.

To use a British English word, “tosh.”

First, al Qaeda is NOT the Taliban.

Second, while Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence does support the Taliban, it also has plenty of hardware to keep the Taliban on about the length of leash it wants.

Yes, the ISI may screw that up at some point.

But, that’s much less likely than, if push comes to shove, a military coup.

Blair could be ‘a bit of a flippertygibbet’ – even on al-Qaida?

That lovely quote is from Jonathan Powell, former chief of staff to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair from 1995-2007

That humorous, if still serious, tidbit, aside, Powell had much more serious things to say.

The most serious, coming from the man recognized as key to establishing the 1997 Northern Ireland accords, is this: The West needs to start negotiating with al-Qaida and the Taliban.

“There's nothing to say to al-Qaida and they’ve got nothing to say to us at the moment, but at some stage you’re going to have to come to a political solution as well as a security solution. And that means you need the ability to talk.”

The comments came from an interview Powell offered as part of a publicity tour to promote his new book on the Northern Ireland peace process.

Suffice it to say, the book probably won’t be anywhere close to Blair’s nightstand. Not with tidbits like this:

• He did not think Labour had governed boldly enough because it feared losing power.
• Blair had a tendency to change his mind about things and could be “a bit of a flippertygibbet.”
• Blair had failed in 10 years of government to sell Europe to the British.
• Relations between the Blair and Brown camps were so toxic that Gordon Brown did not talk to him for 10 years.

Already, the book is controversial outside of Blair’s house, with the “negotiation” comment. Gordon Brown’s Foreign Office has already weighed in:

“It is inconceivable that (Her Majesty’s Government) would ever seek to reach a mutually acceptable accommodation with a terrorist organisation like al-Qaida.”

Powell is the senior member of Blair’s government to serve his full 12 years. His book, “Great Hatred, Little Room,” will have excerpts serialized in The Guardian starting Monday, March 17.

Afghanistan, al-Qaida and 9/11 — Ted Rall has a slightly different take

Rall this week gives his clearest enunciation to his thesis that Osama bin Laden did NOT orchestrate the 9/11 attacks.

Well, who, then? Is Rall a conspiracy theorist?

The answer to the second question is no. Rall doesn’t believe George W. Bush or Mossad orchestrated the attacks. He does finger Muslim radicals.

Only, he points the finger at the Egyptian-originated Islamic Jihad, not al-Qaida. Now, that said, Islamic Jihad was founded by bin Laden right-hand man Ayman al-Zawahiri, and in June 2001, Zawahiri officially merged it with al-Qaida.

So, if I’m reading Rall correctly, he’s arguing that Zawahiri had at least started this operation before the merger, and that he kept independent control of it afterward, to the degree he still had any hands on the operation in those last three months.

I think Ted is hair-splitting a bit here. Zawahiri and bin Laden were together long before the formal merger of their organizations. Even if bin Laden didn’t start the idea, he certainly was involved. That said, after the merger, Islamic Jihad controlled six of nine seats on the combined entities’ “board of directors.”

Anyway, this is a sidebar to Rall’s belief that we, contrary to Democrats who still want one war, shouldn’t be in Iraq OR Afghanistan.

First, as he notes, if we want(ed) bin Laden, well, he was almost certainly in Pakistan, not Afghanistan, on 9/11. There, he’s right. And, considering that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence had built up the Taliban hosts of al-Qaida and Islamic Jihad for years, we should have done more with Pakistan. Rather than warn Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to play ball with us, if we had any CIA capability, we probably should have looked at overthrowing him. At the least, we should have told him we would blockade the country if he didn’t seal his border against Afghanistan, and hand over bin Laden ASAP.

Anyway, back to Rall’s take on Afghanistan. He says that since Afghan President Hamid Karzai only controls about 15 percent of the country, even less than the official U.S. estimate of 30 percent, we’d be pounding sand down a rathole to follow up on Barack Obama’s “mini-surge” idea of sending 3,000-8,000 more troops to Afghanistan. Beyond the strategic issues are the social and natural geography ones: Afghanistan’s population is about 20 percent larger than Iraq’s and its land area about 50 percent greater.

Bush gives al Qaeda its boogeyman

I don’t think I could say it any better than Gary Kamiya:

Jihadists need their American boogeyman as much as Bush needs his Islamist boogeyman. By fighting them in the wrong way and on the wrong terrain, we have inadvertently allowed them to claim the heroic mantle of nationalism and anti-Americanism. When the U.S. occupiers leave, Osama bin Laden and his ilk will groan in despair. ...

By conflating jihadists with militant, religiously oriented national liberation movements like Hamas, Bush has not only undercut the support we might otherwise have received from Arab populations for police operations against genuine jihadists, he has helped to create toxic new forms of anti-Western extremism. … The irony is that without our help, the jihadists would be struggling to survive. As Gilles Kepel, a French expert on radical Islam, argues in "The War for Muslim Minds," very few Muslims, no matter how radical, support al-Qaida. "Beyond the circle of Bin Laden and Zawahiri and their supporters and admirers ... the majority of Islamists and salafists, let alone most of the world's Muslims, no longer see the commando action carried out by 'the umma's blessed vanguard' against the twin towers and the Pentagon as fulfilling the promise of jihad," Kepel writes. "On the contrary, after the first few seconds of enthusiasm for this blow to America's 'arrogance,' most Muslims saw the massacre of innocents on Sept. 11 as opening the door to disorder and devastation within the house of Islam."

The suggestion that we now leave a bunch of fanatical mass murderers alone may strike most Americans as cowardly and morally contemptible. But what we want are results, not self-righteous campaigns that make matters worse. Bush's righteous war has failed. To leave jihadists alone is not to appease them. It is to plan their isolation and eventual extinction more precisely.

Kamiya goes on to worry about what could happen if al-Qaeda gets established in Gaza or Lebanon.

I’m not that worried about that. I suspect that Egypt would give tacit assent to Israel cracking down in Gaza and that Syria, where a majority is Druze or Alawite or otherwise non-Sunni, that Assad would do the same in Lebanon. (Another reason why it’s absurd for Bush to think AQI is getting support from Damascus.)

The Yugo-Forders, otherwise known as “Al Qaeda in Iraq”

“Huhhh?” you may be saying at this moment. Let me explain.

As Blue Girl posted at Proctoring Congress, mainstream media groups such as The New York Times seem too willing to conflate Al Qaeda in Iraq with a whole panoply of groups and splinter movements of Sunni and nominally Sunni terrorists and insurgents in Iraq, running from basically secular unreconstructed Baathists to and through various Falafists, whether called AQI or not.

In a political e-mail group on Yahoo, in response to one of Bush’s “there has to be a pony here somewhere” true believers, I started calling AQI “Yugo-Forders.”

I said, “You can slap a Ford badge on a Yugo; that doesn’t make it a Ford.”

I’m surprised he hasn’t come back with the “franchisee” counterargument, i.e., saying that a franchise 7-11 is just like a corporately owned store. I’ll shoot it down if he does, because the Yugo-Forders simply declared themselves to be “Al Qaeda in Iraq,” and that’s not the way 7-11 works. It would have nothing to gain by adopting every convenience store that calls itself 7-11 as being an actual 7-11.

If my metaphor sounds a bit clunky, try another one. But, we need to counter the incredulity, gullibility and BushCo stenography of the MSM with an alternative.

Frontline kicked off its new season with a bang

More than 100 tribal leaders assassinated. An original agreement between the Pakistani government of Pervez Musharraf and the al Qaeda-connected Northwest Frontier Taliban leader Nek Mohammed to have a cease-fire, with surrender of al Qaeda leaders, negotiated in 2004, later being broken. Haji Omar, head of the Taliban in South Waziristan, pledging to continue to import fighters into Afghanistan. And, as Frontline pointed out, a similar agreement negotiated just a month ago has already been broken.

No Pakistani arrests of any Pashtun Taliban leaders. Little more than that, at times, on al Qaeda leaders, and that only under American pressure. A Pakistan that either cannot or will not intensely patrol the Northwest Frontier. A Pakistan that is arguably not a whole lot less of a failed state than post-invasion Iraq or Afghanistan.

That’s the Pakistani border area profiled in detail in the “Return of the Taliban” episode.

A Pakistani journalist, Hayat Ullah Khan, who becomes a freelancer for PBS’s “Frontline” in areas restricted to Westerners kidnapped six days after his photographs showed a U.S. missile killed al-Qaeda connected leader Abu Hamsha in Pakistan. Musharraf first claimed to not even know who he was, then to say he was not in Pakistani custody.

Six days after the interview, he was found dead in a ditch, bound with government-issue handcuffs and with nine bullets in his head. So, you have a Pakistan that will clamp down when it can, and brutally, to maintain control. The dichotomy should underline just how much out of control, at least control from Islamabad, the Northwest Frontier is.

At the same time, you have an America refusing to recognize the fragile tightrope of a Pakistani leader who has survived multiple assassination attempts, who has little control over his own intelligence services, and not necessarily total control over all units in his own army.

And, in the combination of a power vacuum and a cash infusion in neighboring Afghanistan to roll back the Soviets, mullahs gained new authority, despite “Pashtuns derisively refer(ring) to the mullah as ‘the dog that lives off of table scraps.’”

Can we win the war with the Taliban? Is Musharraf right ― from his own point of view, setting aside that of the U.S. ― to try to negotiate? Read all this and more discussed online.
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Go see the even more in-depth online coverage. This map will show you the Northwest Frontier in some detail, as well as a larger overview of both Pakistan and Afghanistan.