The Wrongologist – Page 238 – Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Transparency: OK for You, Not for Me

What’s Wrong Today:

Sometimes, good intentions get lost. Organizational rules and government laws are established with good intentions, and later, get watered down. We call this the “except me” option. The rules apply to everyone, except me, my company, my church, my political party.

Today let’s look at three examples of organizations saying the rules do not apply to them. The premise of Federal and state Freedom of Information Act laws is that government records should be open to the public, and their information subject to public review.

First, the Red Cross: Barry Ritholtz at Bloomberg warns us that the Red Cross doesn’t want you to know how they spend their money. The Red Cross is using a “trade secrets” exception as a pretext for hiding much of their activities. The story began with an article by Pro Publica about donations to the Red Cross for Superstorm Sandy, and what happened to the money:

Following Superstorm Sandy, donors gave $312 million to the American Red Cross. How did the aid organization spend that money? A year and a half after the storm, it’s surprisingly difficult to get a detailed answer

Pro Publica tried to get answers by filing a request with the State of New York for the information. They were rebuffed:

Just how badly [did] the American Red Cross want to keep secret how it raised and spent over $300 million after Hurricane Sandy? The charity…hired a fancy law firm (Gibson Dunn) to fight a public request we filed with New York State, arguing that information about its Sandy activities is a ‘trade secret’

That’s right, when asked where the money went, the Red Cross lawyered up. Isn’t it hard to believe that how a charity spends its money could be a trade secret? Yet, the Red Cross’ “trade secret” argument persuaded NY State to withhold the information. From Yves Smith: (brackets and emphasis by the Wrongologist)

The…New York State Attorney General [is] helping the Red Cross shroud its activities. Admittedly, Schneiderman has taken up an investigation of the Red Cross. However, when ProPublica tried to obtain a copy of the information that the charity sent to the Attorney General, the Red Cross’ law firm, Gibson Dunn, insisted that much of the material provided was a trade secret and thus not subject to disclosure under New York’s version of FOIA, the Freedom of Information Law, or FOIL

ProPublica published Schneiderman’s response. It shows how absurd some of Gibson Dunn’s arguments were. For instance, the charity wanted the second line of a two line title redacted. The first line was “American Red Cross.” What could the second line possibly be that Gibson Dunn would contend that it deserved secret status? The name of a legal entity? Why does the Red Cross need trade secrets? They are supposedly, not for profit. Why would they need “business strategies” when they are not a business?

Next, as police departments across the US militarize, a former good idea is now being used for a bad reason. The good part was the formation of Law Enforcement Councils (LECs), made up of various municipal police departments in a state or region. When these LECs were set up, the idea was to exchange information about policing techniques and to provide back-up when incidents on the ground exceeded a given town’s resources.

The bad part: The WaPo reports on how police departments use their LECs, often incorporated as 501 (c) (3) organizations, to avoid providing information on its SWAT team activities. These LECs exist throughout the US. As part of the ACLU’s recent report on police militarization, the Massachusetts chapter of the ACLU sent open records requests to SWAT teams across Massachusetts. It was told that the SWAT teams were part of a private company that was not subject to the Massachusetts public records law. From the WaPo: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

According to the ACLU, the LECs are claiming that their 501(c) (3) status means that they’re private corporations, not government agencies. And therefore, they say they’re immune from open records requests

These agencies oversee police activities. They employ cops who carry guns, wear badges, collect paychecks provided by taxpayers and have the power to detain, arrest, injure and kill. They operate SWAT teams. But in Massachusetts, they say that because they’re incorporated, they’re immune to Massachusetts open records laws. 240 of the 351 police departments in Massachusetts belong to an LEC. While LECs are legally “corporations,” they are funded by local and federal taxpayer money, and are composed exclusively of public police officers. Jessie Rossman, an attorney for the Massachusetts ACLU:

You can’t have it both ways…The same government authority that allows them to carry weapons, make arrests, and break down the doors of Massachusetts residents during dangerous raids also makes them a government agency that is subject to the open records law

Massachusetts residents aren’t permitted to know how often the SWAT teams are used, what they’re used for, what sort of training they get or who they’re primarily used against. Sound OK to you?

It is like a circular firing squad – as more and more Americans arm themselves with automatic weapons, the police see this as a reason why they need more and better military-grade weapons. And more secrecy.

Finally, our Congress at work: The National Journal reports that Congress decided to stop reporting Members’ trips that are paid for by private parties:

It’s going to be a little more difficult to ferret out which members of Congress are lavished with all-expenses-paid trips around the world after the House has quietly stripped away the requirement that such privately sponsored travel be included on lawmakers’ annual financial-disclosure forms

The move, made behind closed doors and without a public announcement by the House Ethics Committee, reverses more than three decades of precedent. Gifts of free travel to lawmakers have appeared on a Member’s yearly financial form dating back to the late 1970s, after the Watergate scandal. National Journal uncovered the deleted disclosure requirement when analyzing the most recent batch of yearly filings. They quote Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington:

This is such an obvious effort to avoid accountability…There’s no legitimate reason for it

Free trips paid for by private groups must still be reported separately to the House’s Office of the Clerk and disclosed there. But they will now be absent from the chief document that reporters, watchdogs, and members of the public have used for decades to scrutinize lawmakers’ finances. Last year, members of Congress and their aides took more free trips than in any year since the influence-peddling scandal that sent lobbyist Jack Abramoff to prison. There were nearly 1,900 trips at a cost of more than $6 million last year, according to Legistorm, which compiles travel records.

Now, none of those trips must be included on the annual disclosures of lawmakers or their aides.

There you have it: 3 examples of smart people, all ‘sponsored’ in whole or in part by we the people, who believe that the rules shouldn’t apply to them. These organizations are reducing transparency at a time when trust in public entities is at or near all-time lows, despite rules or laws on the books that argue against the very loopholes they say they need.

What about you and me is so scary to the Red Cross, the Massachusetts police, and Congress?

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – June 29, 2014

Americans prefer not to think about, and rarely allow elections to turn on foreign policy. Events, however, are not cooperating.

No Exit from Iraq:

The cartoon points out a different, subjective “reality.” Objective reality knows that there is always an exit ramp out of that loop. We perceive it doesn’t exist, since we fear the possible consequences. That blinds us to the options of seeing and using the exit.

Dems and Repubs send same message on Iraq:

Our options in Iraq are poor, and none:

However, sending Cheney to help ISIS might work:

In domestic news, Boehner digs in on Executive Orders:

The GOP feels that the primaries vindicated their approach:

Football not anywhere near as confusing as Cricket:

Wrongologist Site is Updated!

The Wrongologist has been silent the past few days. We were busy porting the site to WordPress. Our previous blogging software is no longer supported, and was in fact, discontinued on June 25th.

We hope you like the new look and feel. Comments on the changes would be very helpful. Previous posts have been imported to the new site, but formatting for previous posts was far from perfect, so please excuse the changes in fonts, line spacing and curious page breaks that appear in some posts.

One issue is that those who subscribed to the Wrongologist via email must re-subscribe, since we were unable to export that list.

China: Competitor, or Enemy?

What’s Wrong Today:

The relationship between China and the US is that of a rising power confronting a status quo power. China’s emergence as a challenger to the current global power structure and to the US as the world’s dominant power is based in part on challenging its neighbors, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam in order to consolidate its maritime interests in its territorial waters and beyond. In each of these situations,
it will confront our proxies, or it will confront the US.As
Professor David Lai of the US Army War College asks: Is
the Pacific Ocean big enough for China and the US? His answer is, maybe not.

China’s recent assertiveness on the global stage is based upon their economic growth in the past 25 years. China’s spectacular growth is hard to wrap your
mind around. Bill Gates helpfully tweets:

Gates shares Vaclav Simil’s book, Making of the Modern World, in which Simil argues that the most important man-made material is concrete. Concrete is the literal foundation for the massive expansion of urban areas globally for the past several decades. In 1950, the world made roughly as much steel as cement (a key ingredient in concrete); by 2010, steel production had grown by a factor of 8, but cement had increased by a factor of 25. This animated GIF from The Atlantic shows the dramatic transformation of the Shanghai skyline since 1987. Most of what you’re seeing in that picture is new concrete, steel, and glass.

So, in the next 25 years, the US won’t grow as fast as China has for the past 25 years. That means that China is likely to become the world’s largest economy.
What will that mean for America? Let’s compare our economies today. Start by remembering what makes up GDP. From our barely remembered college econ 101
course comes the formula: GDP = Consumer spending + Investment + Government spending + the Net of imports and exports. So to compare the US and China:

	GDP =	C +	I +	G +	NX
US	$16.6T	71%	13%	16.5%	-.5%
China	$ 8.2T	35%	48%	13%	3%

Source: Dr. John Troxell, Army War College

China’s economy is about half the size of ours, and investment spending drives it. That explains all of the new
buildings and new infrastructure that is reshaping its landscape. That investment has brought 600 million people out of poverty and added 200 million Chinese to the middle class. In order to sustain its growth, China’s challenge is to move more of its GDP to consumption, since government investment in infrastructure cannot continue at current levels forever. Looking at GDP/capita, it is $49.9k in the US and $6.1k in China, so they have a ways to go for the average Chinese to meet our standard of living, or to catch the US economy.

Given that China is a strong economic competitor that is morphing into a challenger to our role as the only superpower, what should our strategy be in dealing with them?

Should we consider them an “enemy”?

In the business world, all companies compete for market share with a variety of other firms. They engage their competitors, at industry meetings, on the golf course, over drinks, and in frequent communication. Along the way, they pick up some industrial espionage, facts that are useful to their strategy and businesses. For the most part, they
maintain active friendships with the top people at their competitors.

To a large degree, that is what was intended with the Obama Administration’s “Rebalancing” of our military as part of the US “pivot” to Asia. This is a good idea, but we have probably not executed it as well as we could have.

We need to have a comprehensive engagement with China, including greater strategic and economic dialogue. The
objective should be to deepen our cooperation across the spectrum of issues confronting the world.

If we are to retain our position as the world’s superpower, we must compete more effectively with China. The issues that we have to confront are here at home. We need to:

Improve the quality of our education

Modernize our infrastructure: Ports, Airports, Highways and Internet

Improve our export competitiveness

Strengthen our commitment to innovation

Given the lack of responsibility shown by Congress, our success at achieving these things may be doubtful.

China has the capabilities and ambition to challenge the US as the great superpower. How should we react to
that threat? The question becomes, do we want China to succeed or fail, as an economy and as a nation? The answer is not simple.

Our temptation will be to focus on China’s ring of potential conflicts with our regional partners. It will be difficult for America to let those conflicts play out without intervening and moving the conflict to one between China and the US. If that happens, we will almost certainly decide that the Pacific Ocean is not big enough for the two of us.

On the other hand, China has its own domestic challenges. It is the world’s #1 polluter. It has huge demographic issues that grew out of the one child policy. The one-child policy will reduce China’s labor force by 67 million people by 2030, equivalent to the population of France. While they have moved away from the policy, the economic impact is
already baked in. By 2040, China will face a labor shortage of almost 140 million workers, surely the biggest job crunch the world has ever seen. That will have a big impact on wage inflation and will hurt their export competitiveness.

The Chinese know that they have to move from a low-cost manufacturing country to a value-added innovator. That
will be an enormous challenge, and it will be difficult to bring off, without further reforming their tolerance for entrepreneurship and innovation.

They need to enhance the safety net for the world’s largest elderly population, which will be 300 million (the current size of the US) by 2025. The question of who will pay for these social safety net expenses is an open question. Local governments fund today’s costs by appropriating
local property and then selling it to developers or they use it as collateral for municipal borrowing. That is an unsustainable model.

We should want China to succeed, because we are now part of a concept that originated with Richard Katz in Foreign Affairs, called Mutually Assured Production. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union avoided triggering a nuclear war because “mutually assured destruction” meant that each side knew that any conflict would mean the obliteration of both countries.

But, no two nations with integrated economies can realistically go to war with the other. Today, in any potential tensions between China and the US, an economic version of mutual deterrence should preserve the status quo between both sides. Our economic interdependence is profound and likely to grow. Foreign-owned companies in China account for 52.4% of all Chinese exports, they account for 82% of high tech exports, and 99% of computer exports. That means both sides have a stake in staying cool, even in potentially hot situations.

Where do China and the US go from here?

China is challenging the existing world order, and the US will not look the other way. How both countries learn to sublimate their aggressive instincts and actions in favor of healthy competition will determine the shape of the world for the next several decades.

Our Military Strategy in the Middle East Hasn’t Worked

What’s Wrong Today:

Here is some perspective from two former presidents on the possibility of our returning to war. First, from Gerald Ford, speaking about Vietnam, at Tulane University in April, 1975: (h/t to Rachel Maddow writing today in the WaPo)

We, of course, are saddened indeed by the events in Indochina…Some tend to feel that if we do not succeed in everything everywhere, then we have succeeded in nothing anywhere. I reject categorically such polarized thinking. We can and we should help others to help themselves. But the fate of responsible men and women everywhere, in the final decision, rests in their own hands, not in ours

And the money quote is from Thomas Jefferson:

We have the wolf by the ears and feel the danger of either holding or letting him loose

So it is with Mr. Obama and the Middle East. He has the wolf by the ears. Some of our erstwhile allies on the Arabian Peninsula are encouraging a radical Sunni uprising in Iraq, and in Syria. It’s part of a regional, sectarian war, and we should have no interest in furthering the violence on either side. Bush’s team empowered Iran with the destabilization of Iraq. Then, Mr. Obama’s decision in Syria helped push our Sunni allies (Saudi Arabia, and Turkey) to go all-in with AL-Qaeda types in Syria. Let’s take another look at a map of the Sunni-Shia divide that we posted about a year ago:

Since the 1930’s when we first recognized Saudi Arabia, we have tried to straddle the fence with our choice of allies in the Middle East. Turkey (NATO member) is Sunni. So is Saudi Arabia. Our enemy AL-Qaeda is Sunni. Our “enemy” Iran is Shia. Our “ally” Iraq is Shia. So what did we think would happen when we deposed Sadaam’s minority Sunni government and replaced it with a majority Shia government in Iraq?

Since Assad has fought ISIS (Sunni) to a standstill, they have now moved part of their operations into Iraq to further inflame the regional situation, so that the US will be required to intervene, something that Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf Oil States and neo-con supporters of Israel have been advocating for some time.

Today, we have no real allies among the Muslim states in the Middle East. So, do we stay on the sidelines or do we go in with both feet? Mr. Obama, on Face the Nation:

But I think it’s important for us to recognize that ISIS is just one of a number of organizations that we have to stay focused on. Al Qaeda in Yemen is still very active and we’re staying focused on that. In North Africa, you’re seeing organizations, including Boko Haram that kidnapped all those young women that is extreme and violent

That doesn’t sound like in with both feet. Mr. Obama went on to say:

What we can’t do is think that we’re just going to play Whack-A-Mole and send US troops occupying various countries wherever these organizations pop up

Yet, neo-cons think that ISIS is a perfect tool for two American goals. First, they think ISIS helps in the removal of Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki, something which would make Israel very happy, since it would weaken Iraq’s connection to Iran.

Second, ISIS could be an excuse for American air attacks. If ISIS could be forced back into Syria by American jets, it could create an opportunity for Assad to continue to do the dirty work for both America and Iraq.

Andrew Bacevich, in an interview with Bill Moyers, took down the neo-cons, particularly Dick Cheney and Robert Kagan:

There is very little effort to look beyond the Bush versus Obama, Republican versus Democrat, to try to understand the larger forces in play that have brought us to where we are today…to think somewhat more creatively about policy than simply having an argument about whether we should, you know, attack with drones or attack with manned aircraft

Bacevich calls out the neo-cons, specifically, Kagan: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

He [Kagan] believes, many people in Washington believe, perhaps too many people in the hinterland also believe, that the United States shapes the global order. That there is an order for which we alone are responsible

He goes on to say we look for easy solutions: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

You know, we live in a country where if you want to go bomb somebody, there’s remarkably little discussion about how much it might cost, even though the costs almost inevitably end up being orders of magnitude larger than anybody projected at the outcome. But when you have a discussion about whether or not we can assist people who are suffering, then suddenly we come very, you know, cost-conscious…

We have been engaged in the Muslim world at least since 1930’s, based largely on the assumption that projecting American military power could somehow “fix” this part of the world, or at least secure our access to its oil resources.

So, we now have a track record to review. We intervened militarily in Lebanon in 1982. In Somalia. In Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. And Yemen.

Has the region become more or less stable? Has it become more democratic? Is there less anti-Americanism? The answer to all of the above is no. So, it is time to recognize that US military intervention in the Middle East has failed as a primary means of US policy.

Despite all the testosterone running rampant in Washington, we are not going to meet our goals by simply bombing more Muslims.

The events unfolding in Iraq right now require a debate around the question, “what should we do about Iraq?” The nation-state of Iraq was never a particularly good idea, but it plodded along for most of the 20th-Century with a series of kings and dictators at the helm. President George W. Bush ended that Iraq, and it is very doubtful that it can be saved.

Neither Iran nor the US has an interest in a protracted civil war in Iraq. And both the US and Iran have an interest in greater stability in this region. More from Bacevich: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

We should at least explore the possibility, whether this common interest in stability can produce some sort of an agreement comparable to Nixon’s opening to China. When Nixon went to China, that didn’t make China our ally. It didn’t have the immediate effect of bringing about a political change in China. But it did change the strategic balance in ways that were favorable to us and frankly favorable to the rest of the world

All efforts should be focused on creating a negotiated settlement and new boundaries rather than preserving Syria and Iraq as coherent nation-states. It is unlikely that they will ever be coherent nation-states again.

We need a new approach to our participation in the Sunni-Shia divide, one that keeps America from intervening again. Shortly after Mr. Obama was inaugurated, he went to Cairo and gave a speech that proposed a new beginning in the Middle East, a new beginning of US relations with the Islamic world.

Whatever happened to that President Obama?

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – June 22, 2014

“You may not be
interested in war, but war is interested in you.” – Leon Trotsky

The truth in
the quote attributed to Trotsky is the fact that more than 14,500 armed
conflicts are recorded in history. They have killed at least 3.5 billion
individuals.

And thus, Iraq
returns, VERY interested in America.

It arrives hot
on the heels of Ukraine, Syria, Libya, The Central African Republic and a dozen
other places.

Mr. Obama seems unable to articulate
what our strategy in Iraq should be. Since nature doesn’t tolerate a vacuum, up
steps the “Iraq Pack” as Steven Colbert calls them:

He means politicos John Bolton, John McCain, George W. Bush, Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney, who were so very wrong about the Iraq War, but now feel compelled to again tell us what to do.

Salon reports that Colbert declared war on Mr. Cheney’s testicles:

It takes ‘huevos rancheros’ to blame the outcome of a war you started, on the man who ended it…In fact, I’d say those things he’s swinging could be balls of mass destruction, which means we have no choice but to invade Dick Cheney’s sack!

We have got satellite images of this man’s nuts, and he is definitely hiding something down there…now for national security reasons, I cannot show them to you

Republicans knee jerk reaction to Obama:

The GOP’s reactions are influenced by facts on the ground:

Iran could be “frenemies” with us in the Iraqi conflict:

And in other news, Dan Snyder has issues with the Redskins trademark:

Kevin McCarthy finds the swamp wasn’t drained by Eric Cantor:

Aw C’mon, It’s Just a Few Little Air Strikes…

What’s Wrong Today:

Mr. Obama did not call for air strikes in Iraq in his announcement today. That was not what Senator McCain (R-AZ) wanted to hear. McCain wants US airstrikes in the region, if for nothing other than boosting Dick Cheney’s morale.

It is possible, but not likely, that surgical strikes might restore some stability to Iraq, at least near Baghdad, but hope is not a sufficient basis for a foreign policy decision. Iraq is trying (unsuccessfully so far) to cope with its sectarian divisions. It may have acted as a nation in its war against Iran, but that ended in 1988, and it doesn’t feel like a nation any more. As Jim Kunstler asks: “Have they tried diversity training?”

Probably not.

This is not the first time we have heard from Mr. McCain on Iraq. Regarding the potential challenges of a conflict in Iraq, here is a quote from 2002:

…I am very certain that this military engagement will not be very difficult. It may entail the risk of American lives and treasure, but Saddam Hussein is vastly weaker than he was in 1991. He does not have the support of his people

Regarding at least part of the reasons for war, consider this 2003 statement by McCain to FoxNews:

I remain confident that we will find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq

This was his view yesterday from The Hill:

There is a need for immediate action…The worst option is to do nothing

McCain said yesterday that political reconciliation between Islamic groups in Iraq is key to peace, but, that it can’t be a “prerequisite for military action”.

Whatever.

We need a comprehensive debate about our strategy in the Middle East and specifically, in Iraq. The debate should be explicit and public, since if/when Iraq descends into chaos or breaks up, there will be further recriminations from our opportunistic politicians and pundits, and the question of “who lost Iraq?” (As if it is ours to lose) will drive our political discourse for many years.

McCain could start by answering the question: Where do airstrikes fit into our overall strategy? Does he have an answer other than there is the big money to be made building drones and Hellfire missiles to blow up Toyota pickups filled with jihadis?

After 8 years, $2+ trillion dollars spent, 4500 American lives sacrificed, 50,000 wounded (plus those of the Iraqis), can the sum total of what was achieved by the US in Iraq be this harvest of ashes?

It might be. Our 8-year nation-building experiment achieved little of substance. Tactical strength on the ground did not overcome strategic weaknesses in the form of Iraq’s demographic divide, its geographic location and porous borders.

Another question is: Which of the following options should we choose?

(a) Stand aside and watch the most virulently hostile anti-American force in the world carve out a swath of territory in Iraq and Syria to use as a base of operations; or

(b) Re-establish a “coalition of the willing” and insert a level of direct military force into Iraq in order to aid the Baghdad government. The peacekeepers should be mainly comprised of soldiers from Arab countries in the Middle East.

Staying out may allow circumstances to unfold which later compel intervention against a direct security threat, like in Afghanistan in 2001.

From a regional geo-political perspective, it is important to note that Israel supports the Kurds. Turkey and Saudi Arabia support ISIS. The USA supports “moderate” Jihadists in Syria. The Obama administration wants a regime change in Baghdad, giving Nuri al-Maliki the boot. Imagine, we want to bring about TWO regime changes in Iraq in 13 years. A coalition of the willing might suffer from the same sectarian divide that is already seen on the ground.

Neither course is certain to meet our Middle East goals. Either course will result in creating more anti-American anger among a large number of dangerous people. If America supports Maliki directly while he declares emergency powers and cracks down on certain groups, it will re-establish our old pattern of US support for antidemocratic strongmen.

That has not served us well in the Middle East.

It appears that the partition of Iraq is about to become a fact on the ground, if not in the minds of some in Washington. The Malaki government cannot retake Anbar Province without outside help, from Iran or the USA. This January, ISIS took over Fallujah (in Anbar Province), 40 miles west of Baghdad, and has held it ever since, despite artillery and air counter attacks. Below is a map that outlines the approximate borders of the sectarian groups in Iraq:

No matter what course we choose, our actions will be seen as insufficient by one side, and an atrocity by the other.

No peace will be gained, but much enmity will accrue to our image in the Middle East.

Let’s close today with a quote from a blog post by Brian Dowling in 2006:

Our present efforts to build a unitary state acceptable to all three main groups are at an impasse. The construction of a central government is blocked by the majority’s unwillingness to cede disproportionate power and revenue to the Sunnis, who have misruled the country, often brutally, since its inception, and by a vicious insurgency, waged mainly by these same Sunnis, which is increasingly taking on ominous sectarian tones that threaten to devolve into civil war. Our policies are antagonizing the majority of Iraqis, which hardly augurs well for postwar relations

As you see, NOTHING has changed in the intervening 8 years.

Sorry, but if Iraq devolves into 3 states who wage a low-grade war among themselves, so be it. If one of those states creates a haven for anti-American jihadists, we will deal with that when we must.

Our choice today is not between a unified postwar democracy and chaos. Some form of Iraqi democracy has emerged, but a unified democracy does not exist, and may never exist.

It is not a choice between victory and defeat.

It is a choice between a foreign policy based on ideology and hormones, and one based in reality.

America’s Military Strategy in the Middle East

What’s Wrong Today:

Yesterday’s column asked about our goals in Iraq, and our willingness to default to military action whenever a crisis emerges. Since that is our reflexive reaction, let’s take a quick look at how effective our military operations in the Middle East have been. Ian Welsh wrote: (brackets and emphasis by the Wrongologist)

I think it’s worth emphasizing that what we’ve seen over the past 30 years is a revolution in military affairs. New model militaries have arisen which are capable of fighting Western armies to a draw in irregular warfare, or even defeating them on the battlefield (Hezbollah v. Israel). It’s not that guerrilla warfare wasn’t effective before (ask the Americans in Vietnam), it is how stunningly cheap it has become and how brutally effective [it is] at area denial and attrition warfare

The military as a tool of national strategy is designed to use its resources to inflict costs (loss of territory, weapons and fighters) on the enemy, which the enemy cannot easily replace. Or, that the financial costs of replacement are beyond the ability of the enemy to pay.

In a sense, war fighting is often a battle of attrition of resources, and generally, one side prevails. That was the history of warfare in the 20th century.

Our 21st century experience with fighting Islamist militias is instructive. Our military is brutally expensive. Islamist militias are cheap. The Taliban funds itself with blackmail and drugs. Until they broke the bank in Mosul for $425 million, ISIS ran on donations from rich Muslims along with some state support. Now they are self-funding.

These Islamic armies cost peanuts compared to the US, British or Israeli military. And they are capable of tying down Western militaries for years, using up huge financial resources, and even winning. Hezbollah defeated Israel, which was (before Hezbollah proved otherwise) widely considered one of the most effective militaries in the world. We were held to a tie in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

A military that is hundreds of times more expensive than its main competitor has problems, particularly in a long war. In military operations, effectiveness is most important. But if your effectiveness doesn’t actually deliver a win, in the sense of making your enemies stop fighting, then a hugely expensive military will indeed bleed us white in a prolonged state of warfare.

Our military is aware of these facts: We use drones because they are cheaper than planes. Ground combat robots, which the US army is working to perfect, may ultimately be cheaper than human soldiers, as well as offering the advantage of requiring fewer troops, meaning fewer combat casualties.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, our military leaders completely underestimated the strategic importance of the IED. When the insurgents deployed IEDs, the costs of American occupation soared, and our maneuverability, a perceived strength, slowed to a crawl. Now, IEDs are simply the 21st century version of land mines. It was understandable that our generals thought that we knew how to detect and beat the mine, but with the IED, a cheap and primitive weapon, entire areas of Afghanistan became “no-go” zones, where our troops could only move in convoys of exceptionally large armored vehicles. Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) caused by IEDs has become a major cause of US casualties in both Iraq and Afghanistan, with soaring costs for extended rehabilitation when the injured soldier returns to the US.

Our generals have not been able to blunt the effectiveness of IEDs, even though we own the most advanced military technologies since the dawn of human society.

We also have a political problem. America is no longer willing to accept high levels of casualties. We, our politicians, and therefore our generals, try exceedingly hard to avoid large numbers of dead and wounded in our “wars”. This has made successfully occupying space in a foreign country impossible. If we are occupying a province or a city in a foreign country, and the lives of our troops come first, we will shoot first and ask questions later. It is better strategically if we accept higher losses than it is to kill innocents in tribal societies, even though that is a very difficult ask of our military. When we kill an innocent, an extended family then hates America. Even if they don’t take up arms, they will then provide support to the insurgents.

Our soldiers stand out in a Middle Eastern culture. US soldiers did not speak Arabic, did not dress like Iraqis or Afghanis, did not practice the predominant religion or understand its culture. To our troops, all locals became the enemy, and to the locals, the occupying forces come to be seen as the enemy. This is true despite efforts to train our troops to work with locals.

The most amazing fact is that all of this is known/taught/accepted by US military leaders, but they seem to be incapable of behaving differently, or to change the tactics on the ground sufficiently to enable a “win”.

So the West uses highly expensive troops whom we don’t want to die, along with drones, close air support and extensive surveillance. And the Islamic militias, on budgets that aren’t even shoestring by US standards, survive and grow stronger. They are evolving: They communicate via Twitter, we use UHF radios with big, heavy batteries. They get smarter all the time. They are Darwinian organizations: screw up, and you die.

But, in his book, The Generals, Thomas Ricks d
emonstrates that a culture of mediocrity has taken hold within the Army’s top leadership rank, and if it continues, the country’s next war is unlikely to produce better results than the last two. Nor is there much of a relationship between an officer’s battlefield performance and subsequent promotions. He quotes an American civilian official based in Afghanistan in 2007:

The guys who did well didn’t get treated well, and the guys who did badly didn’t get treated badly

Ricks wrote in the Atlantic that the tactical excellence of enlisted soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan may have enabled and amplified the strategic incompetence of the generals in those wars. The Army’s combat effectiveness lets its generals dither for much longer than they could have if the Army had been suffering clear tactical setbacks. He quotes Sean McFarland, brigade commander in Ramadi in 2006: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

One of the reasons we were able to hold on despite a failing strategy…was that our soldiers continued to be led by highly competent, professional junior officers and non commissioned officers whom they respected…And they gave us senior officers the breathing space that we needed, but probably didn’t deserve, to properly understand the fight we were in

Despite our 13 years of military experience on the ground in the Middle East, our strategies, tactics and weapons remain essentially the same, and they haven’t worked well enough to deliver the strategic objectives we hoped they would.

So, which are the effective methods of stopping or defeating an insurgent or terrorist force in Tribalstan™?

Kill and/or expel the insurgent militias
Play ethnic groups against each other
Colonize the provinces with jobs, infrastructure, schools, and a new legal regime
Some combination of the above?
Something completely different?

As a thought experiment, how exactly could the US “win” on the ground in the Middle East, given our current military?

If we cannot “win” on the ground in the Middle East, where does the use of military force fit in our Middle East Strategy?

What’s Our Plan in Cheneystan?

What’s Wrong Today:

Does America have a goal in Iraq? How does that goal fit into our larger strategy in the Middle East?

Often, our thinking seems to begin and end with the use of military force, which is always the first answer on the Sunday Pundithons. The usual suspects in Washington are calling for air strikes. Why?

Is it our job to slow the progress of ISIS in their march towards Baghdad?
Are we defending something we gained in the 8 years we were in Iraq?
What would air strikes accomplish when ISIS is positioned in partially controlled Sunni cities? Civilian casualties would be the order of the day, on every day that we bombed

We need some perspective. Here is a viewpoint from Reidar Visser in Foreign Affairs:

On April 30, millions of voters — including millions of Sunni Arabs — selected mostly moderate candidates in the country’s third general election since its current constitution was adopted in 2005. Just weeks later, the local government in the largest Sunni city, Mosul, fell to [ISIS]

We need to understand that Iraq’s problems are its demography and its geography. And while neither can be altered, state power has been drastically altered from a Sunni minority under Saddam Hussein in 2003 to a Shia majority under Nuri al-Maliki today. Maliki has not been a good steward of the young democracy in the 8 years he has been Prime Minister of Iraq.

Many Sunnis are frustrated and alienated by Prime Minister Maliki’s harsh consolidation of power and marginalization of their communities. Some background is useful. Ross Caputi, in Unthinkable Thoughts in the Debate about ISIS in Iraq, said:

One year ago…a nonviolent protest movement…was in full swing [in Iraq] with widespread support in the Sunni provinces and significant support from the Shia provinces as well. This movement set up nonviolent protest camps in many cities throughout Iraq for nearly the entire year of 2013.

They articulated demands calling for an end to the marginalization of Sunnis within the new Iraqi democracy, reform of an anti-terrorism law that was being used to label political dissent as terrorism, abolition of the death penalty, [and] an end to corruption

Caputi continues:

Over the course of a year, the protesters were assaulted, murdered and the leaders were assassinated….until Prime Minister Maliki sent security forces to clear the protest camps in Fallujah and Ramadi in December 2013

After the government moved against Fallujah, it was the Sunni militias who took the lead in the fight against the Iraqi government. ISIS arrived later to aid Fallujans in their fight, and to piggy-back on the success of the tribal fighters in order to promote its own goals.

Six months later, the government still has not been able to clear ISIS and the militias from Fallujah.

So, what is the likely outcome on the ground? According to Kenneth Pollack at the Brookings Institution:

What appears to be the most likely scenario at this point is that the rapid Sunni militant advance is likely to be stalemated at or north of Baghdad. They will probably continue to make some advances, but it seems unlikely that they will be able to overrun Baghdad and may not even make it to the capital

Ken Pollack observes that Shias now number 80% of Baghdad’s population. Many will help defend their homes and families in Baghdad and other Shia-dominated cities in the south. The (largely Shia) remnants of the Iraqi Security Force (ISF) are being reinforced by the Shia militias and bolstered by contingents of Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Many new Shia recruits are answering Ayatollah Sistani’s call to defend their community. From Pollack:

Thus, the Sunni militants are likely to come up against a far more determined and numerous foe than they have confronted so far. The most likely outcome of that fighting will be a stalemate at or north of Baghdad, basically along Iraq’s ethno-sectarian divide.

That conforms to the pattern of other, similar civil wars. In Syria today, in Afghanistan in the 1990s, and in Lebanon in the 1980s, front lines tended to stalemate along tribal lines. They can shift a little, but generally remain unchanged for years. That’s because militias in civil wars find it far easier to hold territory inhabited by the members of their identity group than to conquer (and hold) territory inhabited by members of a rival identity group.

The absence of US troops since the 2011 withdrawal is a small element in the story. The interaction between the Syrian and Iraqi insurgencies is an accelerant, but again, is only part of the story. In reality, Mr. Maliki’s repeated refusal over 8 years to strike a political accord with the Sunni minority, and his heavy-handed military repression in Sunni areas this year are the key factors in today’s disintegration in Iraq. The shift to an external insurgency that brings the flow of money and weapons to a variety of armed groups are secondary but important reasons that have allowed ISIS to thrive.

So, should we give an open checkbook to Maliki? What goal of American Middle Eastern strategy does that serve? You will hear Washington say we can use this moment of leverage to attach political conditions to any military aid. Conditions we couldn’t get via diplomacy. But, that leverage faces a problem: It will be virtually impossible to force any meaningful political moves in the midst of a crisis, and any promises made now will quickly be forgotten once the crisis has passed.

Do we hold our nose and back Maliki right now? We went into Iraq to get rid of a Sunni dictator. He has been replaced democratically by a triumphalist Shia autocrat who is losing the country.

Or, do we sit this one out?

The answer depends on whether you think a democratic, unified Iraq remains our goal, not just an aspiration. And whether you think it is a realistic possibility. It depends on whether you think we have a constructive role to play in saving it, maybe like the UN, when it provides peacekeepers.

And if America believes, as did Joe Biden back in the day, that three independent states of Sunni, Shia and Kurd peoples is an answer, what should America’s role be in bringing that about? Does bombing and drone striking Sunni areas help achieve America’s goals in Iraq or in the Middle East?

What American goals are we serving by involvement in what promises to be a long civil war, with like Syria, little practical chance of delivering a unified, stable and democratic Iraq?

Police State America

What’s Wrong Today:

From The Guardian:

All across America, from Florida to Colorado and back again, the country’s increasingly militarized local police forces are using a secretive technology to vacuum up cellphone data from entire neighborhoods – including from people inside their own homes – almost always without a warrant

Ever heard of the “Stingray”? Few people have. Stingrays emulate a cellphone tower and cause all cell phones in range to register their location and identifying information with the stingray, not just with real cell towers in the area. They can track cell phones whenever the phones are turned on, not just when they are making or receiving calls. So even if you’re not making a call, police can know who you’ve been calling, and for how long, as well as your precise location.

“Stingray” is a trademarked name of the Harris Corporation. While it is a specific product, the name has entered the technical lexicon as a generic term like Kleenex or Xerox. In most sales agreements, Harris has required law enforcement agencies to sign nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) forbidding them from discussing whether or not an agency even possesses such a device, much less describing its capabilities. Since when do the laws requiring public disclosure of certain transactions and activities by public agencies get trumped by a NDA signed with a private company?

Ars Technica helpfully provided this map of the 15 states that are known to employ stingray technology:

Beyond those states, 12 federal law enforcement agencies, ranging from the FBI to the National Security Agency, also employ them.

ACLU attorney Nathan Wessler said in an op-ed last Thursday:

This sort of invasive surveillance raises serious questions about whether our tax dollars are funding violations of the US Constitution’s Fourth Amendment. At a minimum, police should be required to go to a neutral judge, demonstrate probable cause and get a warrant before using stingrays, but many law enforcement agencies are not doing that…Other agencies may not be going to a judge at all, or they may be concealing stingray use even when they do seek a court order

Wessler also said:

Because we carry our cellphones with us virtually everywhere we go, stingrays can paint a precise picture of where we are and who we spend time with, including our location in a lover’s house, in a psychologist’s office or at a political protest

You may be asking: How do local cops get their hands on such advanced military technology? Well, the feds are giving it to them for free. When the US government is not loaning police agencies stingrays, the Defense Department and Homeland Security are giving federal grants to cops, which allow departments to purchase the gear at the cost of $400,000 each from contractors like Harris Corporation.

The militarization of police departments has been covered by the Wrongologist here. The New York Times wrote this week detailing all of the other free military gear – like machine guns, armored vehicles and aircraft – that police are receiving from the Pentagon. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the DHS has handed out $34 billion in grants to police departments across the country, many for the purchase of armored vehicles and weapons. This program has created a cottage industry of companies who make militarized equipment and take checks from local towns in exchange for military hardware.

Why haven’t we heard about stingrays?

Stingrays have stayed out of the public eye because local police departments refuse to disclose they’re using them, sometimes even to judges. In one case, although the Tampa, FL police and the ACLU had agreed to an ACLU review, US Marshals seized the stingray records, citing national security reasons. It was not the first time that the US has intervened in many routine state public records cases regarding use of the technology.

The Associated Press reported that the Obama administration has been telling local cops to keep information on stingrays secret from members of the news media, even when it seems like local public records laws would mandate their disclosure:

Federal involvement in local open records proceedings is unusual. It comes at a time when President Barack Obama has said he welcomes a debate on government surveillance and called for more transparency about spying in the wake of disclosures about classified federal surveillance programs

As WaPo’s Radley Balko wrote this week, the Obama administration could easily limit these tactics to “cases of legitimate national security” – but by distributing stingrays to local police for mass data collection, it has clearly chosen not to do so.

We know that local and federal law enforcement officials aren’t using this technology to catch terrorists. They’re using them for more mundane policing, like catching people suspected of drug crimes. So, the Obama administration is working with local police to prevent knowledge about a technology that may be violating the Fourth Amendment rights of Americans because, in the administration’s opinion, revealing the details of said technology could jeopardize national security.

If details of the technology threatens national security, then the federal government should prohibit local police from using the technology, reserving it only for cases of legitimate national security. Alternatively, the feds can continue what they are currently doing, letting local police use the technology for local cases, possibly violating the rights of American citizens in the course of investigations that have nothing to do with national security.

That would mean that the fed’s current stance of obstructing the dissemination of knowledge of stingrays is a form of conspiracy with those same local police to prevent American citizens from discovering that their rights may have been violated.

To make sense of this, we should look at it from the perspective of our requirement that the relationship between our government and its people not descend into tyranny.

If we continue to allow the Fourth Amendment to be gutted, kept around only for the sake of appearances, Americans will face a state of oppression similar to that which caused us to declare our independence in 1776.

But the stingray is also part of a larger decay. It, along with the sources and methods of other governmental spying, can be used to build cases against the disliked, to destroy lives even where no real case actually exists.

Domestic spying creates an atmosphere of fear and wariness, which causes people to let the powers that be do whatever they want, unchecked by the protections afforded citizens (on paper, at least) by the Constitution.

Fewer and fewer people will have the courage to participate meaningfully in government or speak up if and when government has gone too far.

In short, domestic spying enables tyranny, and stingray in the hands of local police is another tool of tyranny.