Anger in Politics – Page 29

The FBI and Omar Mateen

(Sorry for the lack of posts. We went straight from the trip to Santa Barbara to visit with my brother who is now in hospice. His story is a column for another day, but helping his wife has been our number one priority for the past few days.)

The Orlando killings are being covered exhaustively on all media outlets. There is no time yet for perspective, but Wrongo uncovered a few very interesting facts in researching a future column about the role of the FBI in domestic terrorism, and rather than hold them back, here they are for your consideration:

First, we learned today that Omar Mateen’s wife allegedly tried to talk him out of the Orlando attack. Apparently, his wife was with Mateen when he bought ammo AND she once drove him to Pulse “because he wanted to scope it out”, reports the NY Daily News. An Orlando Grand Jury will get her involvement to chew on.

Second, there are at least four data points that should have indicated to the FBI that Omar Mateen was gay, or at least, closeted:

He hung out with a friend from high school, who is a drag queen, and the friend’s lesbian co-worker friends
He asked out a fellow (male) student while in cop school
He used a profile on a gay dating site
He had been going to Pulse for at least 3 years

That all likely adds some doubt to the story that he killed at the Pulse solely on behalf of ISIS, which is the theory the FBI fed the media on Sunday. Some in the gay community think this attack was more about Mateen struggling with his own sexuality than with ISIS.

But, for now, terror “pundits” are working very hard to turn Mateen’s claims of affiliations with several Islamic groups (Hezbollah, al-Nusra, and ISIS, as well as the Tsarnaevs) into some kind of coherent world view that could explain his actions as Islamic terrorism.

The FBI says they had a 10-month tail on him, which you would think should have identified the many two hour-long round trips to Orlando Mateen took to hang out at Pulse, which according to witnesses, were taking place at the time of the investigation. Did the FBI know about these things?

That is not to say that Mateen didn’t have an attraction to Islamic extremism.

OTOH, it’s doubtful that the FBI’s checklist of things to look for when investigating someone making claims such as “I luv ISIS” or “I’m with Al Qaeda” includes a box for “closeted gay male having difficulties with his sexuality”.

Third, Spencer Ackerman of The Guardian has new details on what it was that got Omar Mateen on the FBI radar in 2013: He claimed to have a tie to the Tsarnaev brothers:

Omar Mateen…told co-workers at the private-security firm employing him that he knew Tamerlan and Dhzokhar Tsarnaev, according to a source close to the investigation who requested anonymity.

The FBI interviewed Mateen on two occasions in 2013 related to his purported connection to the Tsarnaev brothers, the first known time Mateen drew the attention of federal law enforcement.

At the time, the FBI was focused on a member of Orlando’s Muslim community, who was actually related to the Tsarnaev brothers, Ibragim Todashev. In May of 2013, the FBI killed Todashev in his own Orlando apartment, in the midst of interviewing him.

That’s not to say Mateen had a tie. Even though the Tsarnaevs lived in Boston, Todashev lived in Orlando at the time Mateen was making his claim about knowing the Tsarnaevs, and Mateen must have been aware of Todashev’s demise.

And finally, didn’t the FBI wonder at all about the shooter’s father, Siddiqi, who posted YouTube videos praising the Taliban (in Dari) and promoting Pashtun nationalism? Those seem like the sort of things that might be red flags.

It is true that Islamic extremists want to attack this country. If you’re a Muslim wanting media attention, the easiest way to get it is to say that word, “ISIS.”

That’s a guarantee law enforcement will give your case much more attention than it gives investigating the Bundy brothers.

That is, except in the case of Mateen.

We need to look closely at the FBI’s role in the lead-up to the Pulse shooting, if only to scope out the “lessons learned” for the future.

Can the GOP Edge in the Primaries Carry Over?

(Note: There will not be a Sunday Cartoon post again this week. Wrongo and Ms. Right will be in Santa Barbara CA for our granddaughter’s college graduation. Blogging will resume on Tuesday, 6/14)

In 2008, the Republicans turned out a total of 20.8 million votes in 45 Primaries. In the 2016 primaries, the Republicans grew that total to 28.6 million votes.

The Democrats have 27.7 million primary votes in 2016, before the DC primary. When Clinton and Obama ran against each other in 2008, they had 37.4 million votes.

So the GOP is up 7.8 million votes or a 37.5% increase over 2008. The Democrats are down nearly 26% or, 9.7 million votes. The parties were separated by only 900,000 votes by the end of the 2016 primary season, and the GOP was on top.

The question to ask the pundits: What does the Republican increase in primary voter turnout by almost 8 million, and the Democrats’ vote shrinking by almost 10 million mean for the general election?

We could talk about the populist turn in 2016. The electorate is rebelling against the establishments of both parties. We could point to the insecurity about jobs, social security and pensions for the 98% of America who know these things are no longer certain in today’s America, and are even less certain in tomorrow’s America. These have made the Bernie promise of free education, Medicare for all, and a break-up of the banks very popular with Millennials. Trump has understood the economic fears of the white middle and lower classes, and has added fear of Muslims, fear of Mexican immigrants and a longing for a simpler world where America was unchallenged, and the 40-hour work week was nearly a right, to be the aspirational standard for tomorrow’s America.

We could talk about Hillary Clinton and the enthusiasm gap. In 2016, Hillary has garnered 15.7 million votes, and she will win the nomination. In 2008, she received 18.1 million votes, 2.4 million more than she got in 2016, and lost. This time around, she was not facing one of the best retail politicians of the last 100 years in Barack Obama, and no one thought that Bernie was real competition, until he was.

So, America is now at a point where, for the Pant Suit vs. the Pant Load, these numbers really begin to matter. Let’s remember that primary turnout doesn’t necessarily translate into a reliable indicator of the turnout in the general election.

Also, over half of the GOP turnout was for candidates other than Trump. Voter preference may change significantly for the general election.

This election will be true to previous form and will be decided in just a few states: Ohio, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia and Pennsylvania will likely decide the outcome. Obama won all but NC in his 2012 race against Mitt Romney.

Assume that Hillary will win the majority of blacks, Hispanics, other ethnic minorities and many white women. The biggest question is: What percentage of women will vote for Hillary? If Trump peels off enough, he may be able to win in a few of those states.

So, turnout will be key. As an example, Charlie Crist would be the current governor of Florida if just 50% of the African American voters who were registered Democrats, had voted in the last gubernatorial election. In just in one (populous) Florida County.

The gap in the primary voting numbers are a good indicator that the GOP primary voters were more enthusiastic than were Democratic voters in 2016. However, the Democrats were very good at “Get out the Vote” programs in 2008 and 2012. Can Donald Trump match that in 2016?

Hillary starts with better odds of winning since the Democrats have an Electoral College advantage. Romney won 206 Electoral College votes. He lost Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia each by between 150,000 and 250,000 votes. So, it’s conceivable that the enthusiasm for Trump in these states combined with less enthusiasm for Hillary could give him an Electoral College victory.

OTOH, Trump can’t change who he is. He’s not going to go toe to toe with Hillary on wonky policy details. So, he’ll continue the campaign that won him the primary in the general.

Will Pant Load fatigue set in? It hasn’t yet.

The Pant Suit vs. the Pant Load – Jobs

The 90% know they’ve gotten the short end of the stick for way too long. Now, with the bad May jobs report that came out last Friday, there is concern that our seven-year recovery, which has not helped everyone, may not last a lot longer.

So, a quick review of the numbers: The BLS reported that the economy had added 38,000 jobs in May, the lowest since September, 2010. Furthermore, the April job gains of 160,000 were cut by 37,000, while the March job gains of 208,000 were cut by 22,000.

So, with 59,000 jobs revised away, and with only 38,000 jobs “created” in May, the net total in today’s report was a net loss of 21,000 jobs in the last 3 months. We haven’t seen this since the 2008 Financial Crisis. And the labor participation rate dropped for the second month in a row, to 62.6%, which doesn’t bode well for the future either.

But the true bad news was that the number of temporary jobs also fell by 21,000. Temporary employment is a predictor of future employment trends, both on the way up, and on the way down.

The temporary-help sector has been the best thing about the economy; we reported in March that more than 100% of the jobs created in the US since 2005 were temp or contracting jobs. The temporary jobs sector peaked in December 2015 at 2.94 million, and has lost 63,800 jobs since then:

Temp Jobs 2006-2015

Wolf Richter thinks that the decline in temporary workers isn’t just a one-month statistical blip, but a five-month trend, and that the sector has become a warning sign that the labor market could be heading towards deeper trouble. From Richter:

This also happened in 2007, when the temporary help sector started shedding jobs even as the overall economy was still adding jobs until right up to the official beginning of the Great Recession. And it happened in 2000, before the 2001 recession kicked in.

We lost nearly 8 million jobs in the Great Recession. Since 2009, the economy has added 14.5 million new jobs. But if we subtract the 8 million jobs lost during the recession, our net job growth was 6 million added, while our population grew by 16.5 million.

Now, not all of the growth in population is a person currently looking for a job. The big contributors are immigrants (both legal and otherwise), and births. Most of the immigrants want work, but they are the smaller fraction of our population growth, while infants, toddlers, and young children do not need access to employment just yet. The Boomers are trying to stay employed and not retire, while Millennials have moved into the workforce.

All of these groups are jostling for jobs. If US job growth can’t accommodate them, their individual situations will get worse, even while the overall numbers might look acceptable on paper.

So the questions for the Pant Suit and the Pant Load are:

Do they think that the lack of GDP growth and our lack of jobs growth is politically sustainable? How long could it go on without seeing pitchforks in the streets?
Where are the jobs going to come from?
What will they do if the jobs fail to materialize?

Hillary Clinton has the bigger problem, since she is presenting herself as the heir of Obama’s (and earlier, Bill Clinton’s) economic policies. She has to play defense on the economy. Trump can jump on the bad data, saying he can fix it, and many people will accept that uncritically.

But don’t count on hearing either candidate say anything that you think is useful. They will look for, and fail to find, “market” solutions to this dilemma created by the “market.”

And market solutions are what they will tell us we must wait for.

What does “To Serve” mean in the Senate?

There is an illuminating Op-Ed in today’s NYT by Frank Bruni that tells two stories, one about Cassandra Butts who was nominated by Mr. Obama to be our Ambassador to the Bahamas. She was never confirmed due to holds placed on the nomination by Republican Senators.

Butts died suddenly at 50 years old from leukemia, after waiting more than 820 days to be confirmed.

The second story is about the Senate’s process and specifically, GOP Senators who no longer even try to work across the aisle. From Bruni’s article:

The Senate held a hearing about her nomination in May 2014, and then… nothing. Summer came and went. So did fall. A new year arrived. Then another new year after that.

Bruni continues:

The delay had nothing to do with her qualifications, which were impeccable. It had everything to do with Washington. She was a pawn in its power games and partisanship.

At one point Senator Ted Cruz, (R-TX) had a “hold” on all political nominees for State Department positions, partly as a way of punishing President Obama for the Iran nuclear deal.

Later, Senator Tom Cotton, (R-AK), specifically placed a hold on Butts and on nominees for the ambassadorships to Sweden and Norway. He had a gripe with the Obama administration over a Secret Service leak of private information about a fellow member of Congress; and he was trying to pressure Obama to take punitive action. But that issue was unrelated to Butts and the Bahamas.

From Bruni: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

Cotton eventually released the two other holds, but not the one on Butts. She told me that she once went to see him about it, and he explained that he knew that she was a close friend of Obama’s — the two first encountered each other on a line for financial-aid forms at Harvard Law School, where they were classmates — and that blocking her was a way to inflict special pain on the president.

Bruni says that in a subsequent call to Sen. Cotton’s office, his spokeswoman did not dispute Butts’s characterization of that meeting, and stressed, in separate emails, that Cotton had enormous respect for her and her career.

There we have our two stories. In one, a Harvard educated lawyer, a classmate of the president, who could have cashed in by joining the private sector. But instead, she worked in DC, for the N.A.A.C.P.’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund, for the Center for American Progress and for Obama, including time as deputy White House counsel.

Tom Cotton on the other hand, is a Harvard educated lawyer. He was in the US Army. He did stints in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he earned a Bronze Star. He is a Tea Party Republican who is likely to be a candidate for president in 2020.

Cotton’s actions were not tied to ideology. Apparently, he just wanted to hurt President Obama. He is a US Senator. Think about the oath of office for the Senate. Mr. Cotton’s duty is to defend the Constitution, and to serve his constituents and the people of this nation, not to act out his retribution fantasies. The oath a Senator takes does not include ‘inflicting special pain on the president’. It does not include stymieing foreign relations or, in the case of Merrill Garland and 83 other judicial vacancies, our justice system.

Remember this when Sen. Cotton positions himself for his own quest for the White House. Think of the opportunities he would have for enhanced retribution, should he reach the Oval Office.

Senators from both parties use holds on nominations for leverage with the White House. But it has become extreme and egregious: a tactic that’s turned into a tantrum. Politicians sometimes do bad things. Usually, for money, or power, or to assist an ally. Cotton’s action was none of those. It was done purely for spite.

These Senatorial blocking privileges are being abused and should end. They are helping the Senate become a body of obstructionists for whom the verb “to serve” no longer has meaning.

In addition, why not change the Senate’s rules so that any nomination not acted upon for a reasonable time (90-120 days?) should be automatically approved.

It wouldn’t take a Constitutional amendment to accomplish this, just a change in Senate rules.

However, changing the rules in a body that has no accountability will require a “political revolution”, and as we have said before, the revolution has to be won precinct-by-precinct.

Pant Suit vs. Pant Load, Part III

(Note: this week there will be no Sunday Cartoon Blogging, since Wrongo will be visiting MA and PA through Sunday, returning on Monday.)

Wrongo and long-time blog reader Terry engaged in a short email dialog on how to “fix” the US political system. We were concerned that there is no individual Congressperson accountability. A backbencher can follow an agenda that can imperil our nation (and a few have done just that) without consequence.

But in America, accountability is managed by election district. Your only alternative is to round up enough votes to replace poor representation. So, if you wanted to reform the impact that money has in our politics, or the way the filibuster works in the Senate, you have to reform Congress.

Yet, under our Constitution, only Congress can reform Congress. And today, there are three parties vying for control of it, and since they rarely are willing to work with each other, not much gets done. So you can completely forget about Reform.

And the parties have not been willing to deal with the not-so hidden desperation in America that shows up in statistics like increasing opioid addiction and suicide rates. The political class ignores how lethal the US economy is for the less fortunate: The New York Times reported this week that US death rates have risen for the first time in a decade.

The increase in death rates among less educated whites since 2001 is roughly the size of the AIDS epidemic. One reason is the use of opioids. And, despite Mr. Obama’s speech in Elkhart, IN where he said our economy is doing well, there has been a spike in suicides to levels higher than during the 2008 financial crisis.

The little people know that the economic policies followed by both parties have brought income inequality to Gilded Age levels. They know that all of the post-crisis income gains have accrued to the top 1%. Unlike in China which continues to grow, our economic expansion has brought with it high unemployment and underemployment, particularly among the young.

As a result, people feel powerless. In fact, a RAND survey in January found that 86.5% of GOP voters who strongly identified with the statement “people like me don’t have any say about what the government does” were Trump supporters.

And, since so much of politics is about corralling money into the bank accounts of our politicians, your Congresspersons have no intention of listening to you unless you have given at least $10,000 to their campaign fund, or are the CEO of a major employer in their district or state. In US politics, money=speech. But, there is little meaning to free speech without free access to influence the political process.

Many of us feel nihilistic about our politics and our government. So the Pant Load’s support seems a lot like a form of public political vandalism where The Donald is the can of spray paint.

Most people can see that a large portion of Americans are poorer with each new election cycle. After all, the reason Trump (and Sanders) are doing well is because many, many workers are seeing their job security, income security, and retirement security all go up in smoke. That’s no mystery, just the natural outcome when the government fails to represent the people in favor of the rich who fund their campaigns. It’s no wonder the Pant Load is easily corralling the frustrated.

But can the Pant Suit reverse the Democratic Party’s abandonment of the working class in America?

We know that she needs to focus on drawing more potential working class and young supporters, but so far, Democrats are content to run only in their municipal strongholds, following a strategy of stitching together interest groups, largely in states with big urban populations.

Energizing people around the fact of our corrupt political system is both a way to get higher turnout, and a way to elect members of Congress and state legislatures to fix the corrupt system. That is Bernie’s message, what he calls a “political revolution.” But Sanders is not the person to bring this about. Consider Sanders just the messenger.

Strategically, the Pant Suit needs to figure out how to get folks energized enough to vote for her and against Trump for reasons that don’t so paralyze them with fear that they stay home. If she is successful, it could be the start of re-establishing the New Deal coalition, and a re-installation of the principles of the civil rights movement.

That’s a huge job that will not be completed in one election cycle.

This threat is the GOP’s worst nightmare. They have worked for 40 years to eliminate these ideas, so expect the GOP to unanimously support the Pant Load:

COW Never Hillary

The Bernie Dems will rally behind Hillary for similar reasons.

Trump/Arpaio 2016: Because immigrants are the greatest threat to the nation.

The Pandering Pant Load

Trump is a thin-skinned Pandering Pant Load© with rabbit ears: He hears everything that is said about him and responds to it all. Say something, and @realDonaldTrump will tweet back something nasty.

We saw two examples of his pandering in the past few days. First, Trump attended “Rolling Thunder” an annual event which brings hundreds of thousands of motorcyclists to DC to raise money for POW-MIA’s of the Vietnam War. On Sunday, He told about 5,000 that illegal migrants in the US are often better cared for than the nation’s military veterans:

Thousands of people are dying waiting in line to see a doctor. That is not going to happen anymore

Although Trump has used this comparison of the treatment of immigrants and veterans before, it isn’t true. Congress and many states have written an assortment of laws and policies designed to restrict government services to people living in the country illegally.

Could Congress do more for vets? Absolutely. Do we do less for them than we do for illegals? NO.

We know that the Pandering Pant Load© claimed to have raised $6 million for veteran’s groups, including $1 million of his own money when he held a fundraiser for veterans’ causes in place of an Iowa debate that he skipped.

But so far, he hasn’t distributed it, or said where it is going. He is expected to hold a news conference today to announce the names of the charities selected to receive the money. We’ll see.

Still, when you tell an interest group that you will do more for them than we do for illegals, you are setting the bar very low.

Second, the Pandering Pant Load© supposedly told House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) he supports cutting Social Security but cannot admit it publicly because it would hurt his election chances, according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Trump said of cutting Social Security:

From a moral standpoint, I believe in it…But you also have to get elected. And there’s no way a Republican is going to beat a Democrat when the Republican is saying, ‘We’re going to cut your Social Security’ and the Democrat is saying, ‘We’re going to keep it and give you more.’

Bloomberg reported that The Pandering Pant Load© made the above comments during the May 12 meeting with Mr. Ryan aimed at improving ties between them, citing an unnamed source who was in the room.

So the deal was made, and what we have been watching is theater. And from a “moral standpoint”, Trump just lies about what he plans to do, because his audience is against it?

HuffPo reported that Trump’s opposition to cutting Social Security (SS) has been both a hallmark of his campaign and one of his greatest departures from traditional conservative ideology. Now it seems, he is simply pandering. Consider this:

Many conservative House Republicans told The Huffington Post shortly after the May 12 meeting with Ryan that that they were unconcerned about Trump’s public posture on Social Security.
Why? Because Trump policy advisor Sam Clovis had already appeared to reverse course on May 11, indicating that Trump would be willing to consider cuts as president.

The media have their nice, shiny Trump, and they have signed on for the whole ride, so don’t expect to hear much more about his pandering.

The Pant Load will try to dupe people (this week, Vietnam Vets and the middle class) into voting against their interests, because he is sure that they can’t be bothered to pay enough attention to understand that he’s lying.

The truth is that SS faces a funding gap beginning in 2034. Without Congressional action to either raise the program’s revenues or scale back benefits, there will be an across-the-board benefit cut of approximately 20%.

We all know this.

Why is the Pandering Pant Load© being dishonest about it? Maybe the real shock shouldn’t be that Trump is devoid of integrity; if he’s breathing, he’s lying.

It’s that his base doesn’t seem to care that he’ll throw them under the bus without a second thought.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – May 29, 2016

Californians will be pleased to know that when Donald Trump becomes president, he can stop their drought overnight. California just went through the driest four-year period on record.

But Trump isn’t sold. He told supporters in Fresno, CA that the dry spell is bogus. Trump said the state was denying water to Central Valley farmers to prioritize the Delta smelt, a native California fish nearing extinction — or as Trump called it: “a certain kind of three-inch fish.” He told the crowd:

We’re going to solve your water problem. You have a water problem that is so insane. It is so ridiculous where they’re taking the water and shoving it out to sea…

At least we know where Trump stands on the issue:

If I win, believe me, we’re going to start opening up the water so that you can have your farmers survive.

Never mind that this is a state, not a federal issue, because Trump will win on the environment too.

In other news, Hill’s email problem gives her a few hurdles:

COW Hillarys Hurdles

So far, we’ve heard what we already knew, she broke a rule that others had broken before her. Of course, to Republicans, breaking an agency rule is proof she’s broken the law. Maybe, but rules ain’t the same as the law. She needs to put this behind her, or face death by a thousand cuts.

We got our first look at Hill’s emails:

Bill & Hill feel the Bern in CA:

COW kids in car

Trump and Bernie wanted to debate. You know who the target was:

COW Trump Bernie

Apparently, we have no antibiotic for the Superbug:

COW Superbug

The GOP plans to make the transgender toilet rule a centerpiece in the campaign:

COW Toilet

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – May 22, 2016

The 60 Minutes team that‘s working upstairs is pretty good, but it’s doubtful they are all angels. RIP Morley:

COW 60 Mins

Trump had a do-over interview with Megyn Kelly. Nothing happened:

COW Megyn

Trump refuses to show his tax returns, it’s none of our business:

COW None of yer Biz

The debate about which bathrooms to use continued:

COW Uterus Control

Congress shows it isn’t up to dueling with mosquitoes:

COW Zika Funding

TSA is the curse that never ends:

COW TSA 1

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – May 15, 2016

The week’s news was dominated by the summit meeting between Paul Ryan and Donald Trump. Going in to the big meeting, Ryan’s staff had an office pool:

COW Office Pool

The GOP feels that the boys will paper over their differences:

COW Paper Over

After the meeting, the Very Reverend Elephant abandoned his scruples:

COW GOP Marriage

Trump now says that the GOP is behind him:

COW GOP Behind Me

Donald’s General Election strategy is to promise only what fits on a ball cap:

COW Promises

Obama Is Visiting Hiroshima on May 27th

When the US president travels, he is accompanied by the “Nuclear Football”, a briefcase containing the nuclear launch codes. Here is a photo of the Football:

Football

The Football allows him to order nuclear war despite being away from the White House or away from a US military installation. It is beyond ironic that Mr. Obama will be visiting Hiroshima Japan as part of the G-7 Summit meeting, and will bring along the Nuclear Football to his May 27^th tour of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.

Obama will also bring a political to Hiroshima. No sitting American president has visited the site of the only nuclear weapon dropped in anger. The question is should he apologize for America dropping the bomb? What should he say to survivors and victim’s relatives?

And back home, what would he say to the veterans and their families who gave and lost so much?

Conservatives are revving up the “Apology Tour” meme. It gives them a free shot at Hillary, while allowing Trump to tout his truculence, by telling us once again that he “never apologizes.”

The Asahi Shimbun English (on line version) is making it clear that Obama will not apologize while in Japan. In fact, although he will be accompanied by Japanese Prime Minister Abe, there will be no major speech, and no meeting with the Japanese A-bomb survivors. According to White House Press Spokesman Josh Earnest, there will a wreath-laying and remarks underlining a “look back” at the events in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

So, the political football will be how Obama tip-toes between the natural human reaction to so much innocent death, and his role as Commander-in-Chief of the world’s most powerful military, the one that caused all that death 70 years ago.

Obama makes this an issue by going to Hiroshima. There would seem to be no point to the visit unless he intended to use it to make a gesture, such as indicating some level of regret or expressing sympathy for the victims (he should express sentiments short of an apology) and/or to speak about the need foster peace going forward.

Without a clear political or diplomatic objective, his visit merely reopens a long-festering wound in Japan. Although the Japanese have plenty of blood and atrocities on their hands, our use of nuclear weapons is an order of magnitude worse than anything the Japanese did.

The nuclear airburst was a deliberate targeting of civilians with the most powerful weapon ever created, for the sole purpose of fostering civilian terror. Obama could restate that no country should ever consider using nuclear weapons against civilians again, even if he cannot provide an apology.

We set a terrible precedent with the first use of nuclear weapons. Those attacks have enshrined our place in history as the first, and only nation ever to use these weapons in war. It’s a miracle that we have survived the false alarms and crises that could have easily led to nuclear exchanges between the US, its allies and the USSR. We still live under a cloud of potential devastation that could result from nuclear exchanges between India and Pakistan. And yet, we are now busy modernizing and upgrading our nuclear weapons (long after they’ve been recognized as having no essential military value).

Nobody can say for certain that the decision to bomb Hiroshima did or did not bring about a faster end to the war. But we can say that the Americans firebombing Tokyo or the Brits firebombing Cologne or Dresden, all of which caused hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, are not morally equivalent to dropping nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Obama will speak at Hiroshima. He will probably offer thoughts as a father, acknowledging the horror that occurred at an earlier time in the history of conflict between the two countries. It is important, as is the acknowledgement that the countries have been allies for what is now a very long time. They now have a common competitor in China, and their joint future is more important than their history in WWII.

Obama will attempt to square the circle, saying that use of nuclear weapons is a terrible, immoral thing, but he can’t forswear their future use without damning Hillary to second place. He can’t apologize for the US dropping nukes without turning the US military against the Democrats.

The Wrongologist

Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Category: Anger in Politics