Secretary Kerry's Defense of Fiddling

Old Gadfly:  Gentlemen, earlier this week we suggested President Obama is fiddling, that is, political campaigning while America and the rest of the world are burning.  Today, Secretary Kerry went on most or all of the Sunday talk shows to defend the fiddling.  Of course, I pictured my daughter learning to hit a baseball with the ball sitting on a stationary tee when David Gregory kicked the interview off with Obama’s criticism of his predecessor in his book, The Audacity of Hope.

AM (an American combat aviator with an inquiring mind):  Gregory sets the stage by suggesting Obama’s grasp of foreign policy is superior to Bush because Obama says so.  What a joke.  If this were Jeopardy, and the emcee asked to whom this quote was directed among the 43 American presidents, I suspect most sufficiently educated contestants would say either Jimmy Carter or Barack Obama. Yes, bin Laden is dead (technically a battlefield execution in violation of international law and norms) but Islamic extremists are proliferating.  A President with superior judgment regarding foreign policy might have demonstrated the courage to actually apprehend bin Laden to put him on public trial.

Old Gadfly:  Do you think much could have resulted from such a public trial?

AM:  Do you remember the Scopes trial?  While it pitted religion against science, in the end it demonstrated the power of ideology—whether it be religious or scientific dogma.  A bin Laden trial could have put such ideology on trial.  That’s what our war on terrorism is all about.  And now we see a caliphate emerging in portions of Syria and Iraq.

Old Gadfly:  Why do you think this option was not considered?

AM:  There would be no political capital to be gained from a trial.  But to declare “bin Laden is dead” made for great political capital in election campaigns.

Old Gadfly:  That’s interesting.  When President Bush exercised bipartisan Congressional authority to invade Iraq in 2003, his popularity was nearly 90% and I remember seeing members of Congress, both Democrat and Republican, holding hands to demonstrate national unity.  Within a year after the invasion, harsh criticism from Democrats and the left-leaning media began.  I offered an op-ed to the Wall Street Journal that attempted to explain the quick reversal by the left-wing.  I called it the political dilemma (a spinoff of the prisoner’s dilemma used in game theory).  In the article I explained that if Bush were successful in achieving stability in Iraq and the region, this would result in significant political capital for Bush and by association the Republican Party.  This would not be good for Democrats.  Thus, the left-wing undermined Bush’s effort in Iraq.  To Democrats, the outcome must be win-lose—Democrats win and Republicans lose.  If this outcome is not achievable, then the alternative outcome needs to be lose-lose.  If Democrats cannot win, then by God, Republicans won’t win either.  In the Iraq scenario, this tactical objective was achieved (Democrats eventually won large majorities in both houses of Congress).  But not part of the political calculus was a strategic major win for the terrorists and insurgents in Iraq--as we see in Syria and Iraq today.  I am terribly disappointed when I hear or read people say today’s circumstances in Iraq are based on conditions established by the Bush Administration.  The Bush Administration had to fight a two-front war, the one against Iraqi insurgents and the other against political opposition on the home-front.  Democrats demonstrate more animus towards conservative Republicans than they do against militant jihadists/Islamists.  As they say in the Middle East, an enemy of my enemy is my friend.    

IM (an American citizen with an inquiring mind):  Well, Kerry did defend Obama’s foreign policy by laying out what he called “facts,” such as Obama’s team is far more engaged in foreign affairs than any predecessor.

AM:  Some, I for one, would argue “being engaged” in this case is more accurately described as ”tampering,” or if you prefer, “fiddling,” with existing norms and traditions that produced stability in the international system.  For example, the left euphemistically referred to the eruption of chaos in northern Africa and the Middle East as “the Arab Spring.”  This happened under Obama’s watch.  How would anyone celebrate the Arab Spring today?  Yes, North Korea is quiet for now—wow!  I’m sure any North Korean that is not a member of the government appreciates that consoling thought.  China continues to advance its strategic reach militarily, while America mothballs equipment and gives folks pink slips.  Then, there is Putin and the Ukraine situation.

Old Gadfly:  Watch and listen to (or read the transcript of) to Kerry’s outrage about the Malaysian airliner shoot-down.

IM:  Amazing . . . utterly amazing.  Here are some incredible statements by Kerry:

·         So there's a stacking up of evidence here, which Russia needs to help account for. We are not drawing the final conclusion here. But there is a lot that points and the need for Russia to be responsible. And what President Obama believes and we, the international community, join in believing, everybody is convinced we must have unfettered access.

·         And the lack of access, the lack of access, David, makes its own statement about culpability and responsibility.

Old Gadfly:  What is the significance and irony of these statements?

IM:  The “stacking up of evidence,” a lot of points and the need . . . to be responsible,” “we must have unfettered access,” “the lack of access makes its own statement about culpability and responsibility.”  Yes, there were nearly 300 casualties (to include some Americans) in the airliner shoot-down and the killing of innocents demands culpability.  Yet, in our own country, we see an Administration that seems well beyond culpability when we hear about hundreds of Mexicans being killed from weapons involved in the Fast and Furious operation.  Erik Holder refused to completely cooperate with Congress in its investigation, getting top cover through Obama’s use of executive privilege TO DENY UNFETTERED ACCESS to evidence.  How about the IRS scandal (to censor opposing voices)—Lois Lerner’s invoking the Fifth Amendment as a public servant, the loss of emails, and other points or “stacking up of evidence” that suggest deliberate efforts to deny unfettered access?  And while there are certainly other notable examples, the same critics of Russian attempts to delete social media information regarding who was involved with the Malaysian airliner shoot-down, accuse critics of Administration motives for blaming a video for the attacks at Benghazi as conspiracy theorists, right-wingers, or extremists.  Many of these same critics deride those who watch Fox News as a leading and reliable source to learn about many of these points that become a “stacking up of evidence.”  Of course, if you don’t get an alternative narrative, then the only narrative one knows is reality, even if it’s not true.  Many people in other parts of the world only get the narrative the state wants them to know, such as in North Korea, many parts of the Middle East, and so forth.

AM:  Recall our recent discussion, “Yes We Can!”  The Obama Administration wants to control the narrative to distract Americans from knowing about the need for culpability in our own nation.

IM:  For those who believe in immortal culpability (and accountability well beyond the state), there is great wisdom in Matthew 7:3:  "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? (New International Version)”

Beyond Engineering Sentiment

Old Gadfly:  IM (an American citizen with an inquiring mind), I received your email.  What do you mean by the public narrative appears to be beyond engineering sentiment?

IM:  With Putin’s offer to control Syria’s chemical weapons, I did a little digging and found some interesting, yet frightening material.

Old Gadfly:  I’m listening.

IM:  First, two days ago, watching Secretary Kerry testify before the House Armed Services Committee was like déjà vu.  On April 22, 1971, I vividly recall a long-haired reserve lieutenant in the US Navy Reserve, dressed in fatigues, testifying before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. 

 

Kerry gave an emotional plea regarding American atrocities in Vietnam.  Here is one of the more moving segments of his speech:

I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.

It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit, the emotions in the room, the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam, but they did. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.

They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, tape wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

Kerry referred to a Detroit investigation, called it the “Winter Soldier Investigation,” a poetic reference to Thomas Paine’s summer soldier metaphor.  Jane Fonda (pictured below with the North Vietnamese Army next to an anti-aircraft gun in 1972) played a role in funding and supporting the effort.  To this very day, the veracity of the “Winter Soldier Investigation” and its grave allegations remain controversial.

AM (an American combat aviator with an inquiring mind):  While Lieutenant Kerry seemed eager to invoke the moral high ground in his idealist and quixotic testimony in 1971, according to CBS Reporter, Sharyl Attkisson, today’s Secretary Kerry will not let Benghazi survivors testify before Congress.

Old Gadfly:  An excellent observation, AM.  Does it represent hypocrisy or intellectual maturity?   I suspect the former.  At any rate, I’d like to get back to IM’s assertion that the public narrative is beyond engineering sentiment.

IM:  Bluntly, I’m talking about disinformation.  Disinformation is false information intended to deceive or mislead according to Dictionary.com.

Old Gadfly:  Isn’t disinformation what Democrats accused George W. Bush of conducting?

IM:  Absolutely.  Democrat accusations are part of the actual disinformation campaign being conducted.

Old Gadfly:  How do you justify your judgment?

IM:  People like Senator Durbin like to frame the Syrian situation with Bush’s Iraq:  with Syria involving actual weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and Iraq involving Bush-manufactured claims of WMD.  Durbin is two-faced about WMD in Iraq and has done a good job of covering his tail.  But, one of the true benefits of the Internet is that it contains A LOT of information.  In building support for an attack of Iraq in 1998, Senator Durbin issued a press release justifying the attack because of WMD.  His staff has since purged this evidence from his Senatorial website.  Amazingly, Snopes.com, the organization that debunks myths and “urban legends,” verified that Democrats vigorously claimed Saddam Hussein pursued and maintained WMD.  Some of those who hypocritically demonize Bush in this narrative are Bill and Hillary Clinton, Madeline Albright, Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Bob Graham, Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, Robert Byrd, Jay Rockefeller, and Henry Waxman.

AM:  IM, this is all interesting, but I suspect that what you found to be frightening has yet to be introduced into the discussion.

IM:  You are right, AM.  What I found to be frightening was an article, entitled, “Ex-Spy Fingers Russians on WMD.”

Old Gadfly:  Was this a recent article, stemming from the Syria issue?

IM:  No.  It was published on April 4, 2005, to explain why Russia was tampering with the American intervention in Iraq.

AM:  Who wrote it?

IM:  Romanian Lieutenant General Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest ranking intelligence officer to defect from the former Soviet bloc.

Old Gadfly:  What did General Pacepa say in the article?

IM:  There were several key points.  The first is that Pacepa unequivocally asserted Russia assisted Saddam Hussein eliminate his stockpile of WMD prior to the US attack in 2003.  There is a New York Times article based on other key Iraqi officials that also indirectly supports this claim.  The second point is that Pacepa claimed such elimination of WMD was part of Russia’s “Sarindar” plan.  Pacepa further claimed that he personally implemented this plan in Libya. 

AM:  Related to Pacepa’s article, is a book by Pacepa and coauthor, Professor Ronald Rychlak, entitled, Disinformation.  Politico.com provided a synopsis of the book and its implications: 

By its very nature, a disinformation campaign can work only if the seemingly independent Western press accepts intentionally fabricated lies and presents them to the public as truth. Thus, Pacepa and Rychlak also document how the U.S. "mainstream media's" enduring sympathy for all things liberal-left has made it vulnerable to--indeed, the prime carrier of--civilization-transforming campaigns of lying, defamation and historical revisionism that turn reality on its head.

Old Gadfly:  Did not Obama claim he would transform America?

IM:  Yes.  There are numerous video clips that recorded this intention.

Old Gadfly:  In his Tuesday evening speech, Obama referred to America as a “constitutional democracy” instead of a “constitutional republic.”  This subtle, yet profound distinction is consistent with Woodrow Wilson’s idea of transforming America into a statist administration, run by political elite.  Obama also talked about a war-weary nation and that he spent the past four and a half years to end two wars, implying Bush got us into a quagmire in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Yet, as we discussed in our last conversation, Bush inherited bipartisan political momentum to complete regime change in Iraq.  Bush's involvement in Afghanistan was focused on Osama bin Laden.  Did Obama not declare that while Iraq was a war of choice by Bush, Obama's war in Afghanistan was a necessity?

AM:  Absolutely.  One of the venues for declaring this superior judgment was during presidential campaign debates with John McCain.  And the results of his superior judgment are that 73% of the American casualties in Afghanistan have occurred under his command.  And besides the battlefield execution of bin Laden that took place in Pakistan (without their knowledge or approval), I am not aware of any tactical or strategic successes in Afghanistan.

IM:  And bin Laden’s demise has not deterred the ideology that attracts other jihadists, as we witnessed in Benghazi and are barely acknowledging in Syria and Egypt, and North Africa, and many other places as well.

AM:  And, if we further examine Obama’s vision to fundamentally transform America, let’s document what he has achieved so far:

·         Our national debt is now $16.9 trillion, an increase of over $7.3 trillion dollars since the Bush era.

·         Gas prices have been significantly higher since Bush handed the reins over to Obama.  When Bush left office, the price was $1.74.  The prices steadily climbed to sustained prices well over $3.50 per gallon directly related to Obama policies .

·         There have been numerous green energy bankruptcies following billions of federal subsidies, while coal and oil production is curtailed.

·         The percent of our working population actually employed is at 63.2% (as of August 2013 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics), the lowest in over 30 years.  And many who are “employed” are in less than 40-hour a week jobs.

·         There are now 8,786,049 Americans on disability.  That number relative to the number of Americans who actually work is four times greater than 45 years ago.

·         As of December 2012, 47,791,996 people in America are on food stamps.  This is what Senator Sessions had to say about the situation:

Despite this fountain of federal funds [about a trillion annually], 1 in 3 children still live in poverty in our nation’s capital. Two in three children live in single parent homes. In nearby Baltimore--another city governed by liberal policies for decades--1 in 3 residents are on food stamps and 1 in 3 youth live in poverty. Americans are committed to helping our sisters and brothers who are struggling, but we are seeing the damaging human consequences of our broken welfare state.

We spend a trillion dollars each year on federal poverty programs. That’s more than the budget for Social Security or Defense. But poverty seems only to increase. Something is wrong. Compassion demands that we change.

·         Then of course, we have Frankenstein’s monster, that is, Obamacare, ready to take residence and to wreak havoc in our communities.  Even though many joked about it, Pelosi’s prophesy is coming true:  we had to pass it before we could know what was in it.  And, the closer we get to fully understanding what is in it, our economy further contracts because the costs far exceed any marginal benefits.

Old Gadfly:   This is all pretty gloomy.  And, despite Pacepa and Rychlak’s warning about “transforming campaigns of lying, defamation and historical revisionism,” is there not one good thing that has resulted from Obama’s vision to fundamentally transform America?

IM:  Well, the “hope” part so far has fallen short for the 8 million or so who have dropped out of the work force and for the many more millions that depend upon the government for food, housing, and healthcare, with no hope of getting beyond these circumstances.

AM:  Yes, but Obama has kept his word about change.  He just never explained in detail what this change entailed.  Unfortunately, as more Americans begin to realize what they unleashed with their vote, they may regret also knowing it is difficult, if not impossible, to put the genie back in the bottle.

Old Gadfly:  Excellent analysis, AM and IM.  IM’s opening observation is supported by very strong evidence.  What we see happening is well beyond engineering sentiment—it is disinformation in full display for those among us who are not Copernican drones.