Ralph Peters on the Arab Winter

New York Post military analyst Ralph Peters has an intriguing column on the Middle East. His bottom line - the U.S. needs to stay out. See three of his insights:

We’re witnessing a titanic event, the crack-up of a long-tottering civilization. Arab societies grew so corrupt and stagnant that violent upheaval became inevitable.

We don’t even know how many new states will emerge from the old order’s wreckage. But the Scramble for the Sand is on, with Iran, Turkey, treacherous Arab oil sheikdoms and terrorists Sunni and Shia alike all determined to dictate the future, no matter the cost in other people’s blood.

We need to back off from Syria, if for no other reason than a strategist’s golden rule: If you don’t understand what a fight’s about, stay out.

I'd add the aphorism that we don't have a dog in this fight. The rest of the column suggests that Col. Peters takes a dim view of past U.S. actions in the region.

More Straight Talk from Bob Woodward

Here is more from Woodward's NBC News Meet The Press appearance yesterday as reported by RealClearPolitics. 

Well, I think on the whole Benghazi thing, you look at those talking points. And I mean the initial draft by the CIA very explicitly said, "We know that activists who have ties to al-Qaeda were involved in the attack." And then you see what comes out a couple of days later, and there is no reference to this. This is a business where you have to tell the truth. And that did not happen here.

Woodward knows CYA behavior when he sees it. He saw plenty of CYA as a young reporter digging out Watergate.

"This is a business where you have to tell the truth. And that did not happen here." With an election seven weeks away, the truth contradicted Obama's claim that al Qaeda was on the ropes.

Weird Foxy Science

Not all the news we comment on here at COTTonLINE is bad, only most of it. Here is a piece of strange good news from the Associated Press via Yahoo News. First, a quick geography lesson.

There is a chain of eight mountainous islands a few miles off the California coast. The northern five, opposite Ventura and Santa Barbara, have become the Channel Islands National Park. On clear days these are visible from the coastal highway - US 101.

Perhaps the most famous of the eight is one of the southern three: Santa Catalina. According to the Four Preps song lyric, it is 26 miles off the coast of Los Angeles. Now back to the weird science story.

The AP reports that the California island fox population is on the rebound, after nearly disappearing just thirteen years ago. It is a story of a chain of unintended consequences.

Island famers let some pigs go wild, or more likely, some of their wily hogs escaped and became a feral population numbering eventually in the thousands. The pigs then became a food source which lured in a population of golden eagles, flying killers which also preyed on the foxes, eating up most of them.

To restore the balance, the pigs were killed and the eagles were live-trapped and relocated. Meanwhile bald eagles, which don't prey on foxes, have been reintroduced. Foxes without flying predators have made a healthy come-back.

The AP article has a very nice picture of an island fox, a cute cat-sized predator. I suspect some population of ground-nesting bird will now be threatened by the foxes.

Five Benghazi Myths?

Michael Hirsh is chief correspondent for National Journal; here he writes for The Washington Post. His article is entitled "Five Myths About Benghazi." Hirsh finds both Democrats and Republicans subscribing to one or more of these myths.

I don't necessarily agree with all five of his myths. However, if you're following the Benghazi mess you'll find Hirsh's column interesting.

Power Corrupts

Tom Keane writes a column for the Boston Globe. Here he comments on the current Washington scandals.

Rules can be bent or ignored, people are venal, and in the pursuit of what government officials think are good ends, any means become acceptable. Power, as the saying goes, corrupts, and absolute power — and surely, we’re getting close to that point, aren’t we? — corrupts absolutely.

Keane believes the Obama administration has handed Republicans a major opportunity for a come-back.

That would be true if the people who voted to reelect Obama paid attention to the news - with their votes they demonstrated they do not. Many are voting on criteria other than performance in office.

Quote of the Day

Famous Watergate reporter Bob Woodward, speaking on NBC's Meet the Press, as quoted in a  The Wall Street Journal blog about the scandals confronting the Obama administration:

This is not Watergate, but there are some people in the administration who have acted as if they want to be Nixonian, and that’s a very big problem.

What has been called by some the Obama "trifecta" may end up to be a bigger mess than Watergate; and Nixon was bad enough.

Balz Sums It Up

Dan Balz is perhaps the Washington Post's best political writer, among several good ones. In this column he summarizes the current state of the four scandals now confronting the Obama administration.

Balz minimizes one issue but otherwise does a fine job. Like many liberals, he makes little of the Benghazi screw-up, calling it mostly political.

To be sure, Republicans have been those harping on the failure to provide security to Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and his staff. And, yes, the CIA was certainly involved in Benghazi.

Nevertheless, bad State Department judgment certainly is evidenced in allowing an ambassador to be in a dangerous place where he cannot be protected lest another war result. Some imply that was what took place in Benghazi.

I believe protecting the reelection chances of President Obama and the 2016 prospects of Hillary Clinton are much more probable motivations for what, in fact, occurred - for the failure to defend Ambassador Stevens and the consulate.

Worst Scandal Since Watergate

The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan is seriously angry about the current set of scandals in Washington. Let me share with you some of her recent column, she begins:

We are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate. (snip) No one likes what they're seeing. The Justice Department assault on the Associated Press and the ugly politicization of the Internal Revenue Service have left the administration's credibility deeply, probably irretrievably damaged. They don't look jerky now, they look dirty. 

She concludes:

This is not about the usual partisan slugfest. This is about the integrity of our system of government and our ability to trust, which is to say our ability to function.

The whole long column in between is excellent. Noonan calls for a special prosecutor.

Another Battlefield

We've described the Syrian civil war as a war between the Sunni majority rebels and the Assad government to some degree representing everyone else - Alawites, Shias, Christians, Druze, etc.

The government is backed by Shia Iran and Hezbollah (of Lebanon), as well as Russia, for its own reasons. The rebels are backed by the Sunni Arab nations with oil wealth. In other words, it is a battle between Shia and Sunni nations, fought by proxy forces.

The Sunni-Shia conflict is also underway in Iraq as this Reuters article for Yahoo News indicates. It is rare when several days go by without a suicide bombing in Iraq aimed at gatherings of one group or the other, this particular bombing aimed at Sunnis. Sectarian conflict is also prevalent in Pakistan.

The New York Times weighs in with an article saying Syria is splitting into three zones: Sunni jihadi, Shia Government, and Kurd. That works.

Kurds are tired of Arabs of either sect. They are trying to create Kurdistan, cobbled together out of northeastern Syria, northern Iraq, and maybe more if they can pry it loose from Turkey.

Obamacare Already a Problem

Did you believe Obamacare had a chance? One very personal indicator that it doesn't: my long-time neurology physician just announced he is closing down his private practice, effective July 31, 2013.

He plans to look for other work, perhaps as a salaried doctor somewhere. His reason for abandoning an established practice - Obamacare and the uncertainties and costs associated therewith.

So I must find a new neurologist ... bummer.

Quote of the Day

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank, normally a reliable liberal and Obama supporter, writing about the President's current problems. The first sentence of Milbank's column says:

Four months into a fresh four years, President Obama is already assuming the familiar crouch of a scandal-struck second-termer. 

Ouch, that hurts.

They Buy Ink By the Barrel

Do you remember that old Mark Twain adage about not picking a fight with people (the press) who buy ink by the barrel? The Obama administration has done the modern day equivalent - they have pi**ed off the Associated Press by getting a listing of their calls for two months earlier this year.

If there is any journalistic canon that is still honored by virtually all in the business, it is the concealment of the identity of confidential sources. Most first world journalists will go to jail before they violate it.

With the feds getting copies of the AP's phone records, they have infuriated a group of reporters and opinion shapers who were quite pro-Obama and had been so for the last 6 years. Check out the opening two sentences in this New Yorker article:

If the three-strikes rule were in effect, President Obama would be heading for the dugout, bat in hand. First the alleged Benghazi cover-up, then the kerfuffle about the I.R.S. targeting conservative groups, and now the revelation that earlier this year the Justice Department secretly seized two months of phone records involving editors and reporters at the Associated Press.

And the New Yorker likes President Obama, supports him. Imagine what columnists in the (admittedly marginalized) conservative press will say.

Attorney General Eric Holder has been a continuing embarrassment for President Obama. This is likely to be Holder's final screw-up. Don't be surprised if the President is 'saddened' to accept his resignation for personal reasons some day soon.

This event suggests that reporters will start using so-called "burner phones" for anything investigative, if they don't do so already. AP may buy them by the case.

In DC, The Cover Up Is Worse

In Washington, DC, it is said, the cover up is always worse than the offense. I'm sure that is true about the Benghazi screw-up, too. What do I mean? Let me tell you.

Presidents become loyal to their loyal subordinates, perhaps they must. Hence they get involved in helping to cover up those subordinates' errors, committed on the boss's behalf. They shouldn't, but they do. Nixon did.

It is likely that the decision to let Ambassador Chris Stevens and three associates hang out there in the wind unprotected, and as a result be murdered, wasn't made by the President. "Likely," but not certain.

On the other hand, when the final chips fall, I'll bet we learn that at some point the President was involved in discussions about how to cover up that screw-up. In other words, he didn't decide to do the wrong thing, but was involved in deciding to attempt a cover-up of the screwed-up cover up.

In the Benghazi situation, perhaps President Obama wasn't involved in the initial cover up, which was writing the talking points. It is likely he became involved in subsequent efforts to cover up the failed first cover up - the talking points.

That all gets fairly convoluted, I hope you followed it. Oh, what tangled webs we weave ....

SOF in The 21st Century

Wrap your mind around some very different military moves, new ways to project force in far-away places. Think about our army having a couple of guys (or gals, maybe couples) spending most of their careers in a distant land. Think Mongolia or Burundi, maybe Laos, or among the Lapps in far northern Finland.

The model: Lawrence of Arabia. The plan: they are moles who live there but are ours to activate in case of need. How much would it cost to have a couple of SOF guys imbedded in every region around the world? Regions x guys can't equal much cost in terms of the total defense budget. We're talking about maybe what? Maybe one to three thousand moles?

Their role: if something we don't like happens in the region, they do a Lawrence and become an agitator, a trouble-maker, an organizer of local opposition, a conduit through which we pass weaponry into the region. What the Brits in the Great Game called "a political." Maybe once a year they "go away" for a few weeks training back in the States, with cover story.

The plan: if we activate a mole, we immediately begin training replacements for that culture since activated moles may not have much life expectancy. On the other hand, most would spend a lifetime in their region without hearing a shot fired in anger, and retire either in situ as paid information sources or back home, their choice.

These wouldn't be SEAL super-fitness freaks, that would be too conspicuous to maintain on site. They'd try to stay fit but their training would be more in influencing than in shoot-'em-up, more sly "assassin" than "storm the battlements." Their main assignment: to fit in and be friends with influential, charismatic locals. Their cover something that would give them a logical, career-tied reason for being there.

See an article in Breaking Defense for more or, actually, less. I've taken the liberty of extending the ideas mentioned there.

Strategists Compete

Have some fun. Go read a short article entitled "Welcome to the League of Mad Strategists." You'll find it in The Diplomat.

It is an argument for limber, flexible organizations with decision-making pushed down to lower levels. I wonder what Sun Tsu would say?

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Or take a different view of defense policy from a Frenchman, writing in Time, who sees the U.S. doing the same sad things France has done. It makes one wonder if "defense" has become merely a political boondoggle, pork, a way to spend money in legislators' districts?

The IRS and Conservative Organizations Issue, More

Clarification on the legal issues in whether or not an organization can claim tax-free status comes in this article by Joe Klein of Time. In brief, political organizations cannot make this claim, policy advocacy organizations can.

Many of the so-called "tea party" organizations engaged in quite a bit of both policy and politics, I suspect. If this article's explanation is accurate and legally binding, the situation is much more complicated and less clear-cut than at first blush.

Islam Both Problem and Solution?

Daniel Pipes has spent a lifetime studying and writing about the Middle East and Islam. Arguably he knows something about both; his Washington Times article is worth reading.

I believe Pipes' diagnosis of the cause of radical Islam is probably on target. He then argues that moderate Islam is the solution for the problem of violent, radical Islam. I'm not sure I agree with Pipes' solution.

Do You See UC?

As a California native and lifelong academic I have an interest in the future of the University of California, arguably the predominant public university in the United States. If you share that interest, you might read this City Journal article by Heather Mac Donald.

Mac Donald writes at length about the vast resources UC wastes on multiculturalism, to little effect. As she notes, UC is hardly a place overrun with discrimination.

Mac Donald also makes the point that under-qualified minority students admitted to UC in the interests of "diversity" do poorly. They might do well in another setting where they were in competition with students of more nearly similar ability, for example the CSU system in which I spent 30 years teaching.

It's a paradox, the UC system takes students who would do well in the CSU, so the CSU gets students who are under-qualified to compete there. The diversity mania has a cascade of negative effects that probably includes the community colleges.

WaPo Joins the Chorus

The Washington Post's political blog written by Chris Cillizza weighs in with agreement that the "IRS attacks on conservative groups" story will be big, and tough for Democrats.

Terminator, Coming Soon To a War Near You ....

The U.S. Navy is going to launch an entirely autonomous drone warplane from the USS George H.W. Bush, and have it attempt to land on that carrier. The plane will have no pilot either on board or elsewhere operating it remotely.

Am I the only one who sees in this the early stages of the killer robot warfare portrayed in the Terminator movies? We thought that was pure science fiction ... at least when the films came out. See a New York Times article for details.