P.s. Spike Jones

P.s., it may be that a few of you won't remember music heard three-quarters of a century ago, so, for you, here's Spike Jones, who should never be forgotten.

Turkey’s Domestically Driven Foreign Policy

Here is a great opportunity for Mr. Trump to cooperate with Russia, help Europe and the Syrian Kurds, and hurt the Islamic State if he hasn't been frightened off by bad, and deservedly bad, publicity.

You always hurt
The one you love
The one you shouldn't hurt at all 
(so to speak)
Spike Jones:You Always Hurt The One You love (my memory has Peter Lorre singing the first verse. Lope that's right.)

Turkey’s Domestically Driven Foreign Policy

MARC PIERINI

Ankara faces a number of foreign policy challenges, from the war in Syria to relations with the West. In each case, Turkey’s options are determined by domestic priorities.

February 27, 2017

As citizens of Turkey head to a crucial vote on April 16 on whether to adopt a new constitution, the country’s leadership is facing multiple challenges on the external front: Syria, Russia, the United States, NATO, and the EU. Typically, each of these challenges is closely linked to Turkey’s tense domestic political situation.

With Operation Euphrates Shield, Turkish armed forces are involved in Syria in a rare expeditionary combat mission. Albeit geographically limited (no troops or armor are more than 19 miles from the Turkish border, meaning all resupply, maintenance, and rescue operations are completed within hours), the mission has already taken a substantial toll on soldiers and equipment.

Euphrates Shield is officially designed to fight troops of the self-styled Islamic State and push them away from the Turkish border. This goal has been partly achieved, including through Turkey’s proclaimed capture of the Syrian town of al-Bab on February 24. But the actual aim of the mission is to prevent Syrian Kurdish forces (the People’s Protection Units, or YPG) from reuniting their frightened district, east of the Euphrates River, with their westernmost district of Afrin, as that would give the Syrian Kurds control of most of the Syrian-Turkish border. Ankara’s narrative is that both branches of the Syrian Kurdish organization—the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and the YPG, its military wing—are mere subsidiaries of the Kurdish separatist movement of Turkey, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

This is where foreign policy blends with domestic politics. To succeed in its current domestic strategy of crushing both the pro-Kurdish political party in Turkey, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), and the insurgent PKK to win the upcoming referendum, given the Kurds’ opposition to the proposed constitution, the leadership in Ankara needs international support. That implies convincing Russia and Western powers to drop their support for the Syrian Kurds.

But the reality on the international scene is very different. Both Washington and Moscow crucially rely on the YPG to advance on Raqqa, the so-called Syrian capital of the Islamic State. The YPG troops are remarkably effective and have received military supplies and operational support from the United States and other Western countries. They are also supported by Moscow.

More importantly, in the current proxy war against the Islamic State, the YPG forces are by far the most battle ready and the most successful in combat. Retaking Raqqa without the YPG, as Turkey is demanding, is next to impossible. Neither Washington nor Moscow is likely to risk mixing Syrian Kurdish forces with Turkish troops, a recipe for inevitable trouble and possible failure on the ground.

Ankara is replicating its request on the political front and wants to exclude the Syrian Kurds from the international talks on Syria that have just restarted in Geneva. This, again, is almost impossible, as Washington has consistently argued in favor of their involvement for the sake of lasting peace in northern Syria. Ankara is probably betting on a policy reversal by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump—although, as with other U.S. foreign policy choices, the White House’s next move is anybody’s guess.

In addition, Turkey will face Moscow’s opposition, because Russian President Vladimir Putin clearly stated in September 2015 Russia’s desire to see the Syrian Kurds as one of the pillars of a political settlement. In other words, Ankara faces two major challenges in Syria: a military and a political one.

Yet, Turkey repeatedly boasts about its military operation on Syrian territory and its participation in direct talks on Syria with both Russia and Iran. Turkey has consistently aimed at restoring close cooperation with Russia since a Turkish fighter jet shot down a Russian Sukhoi aircraft in November 2015 and an off-duty Turkish policeman assassinated the Russian ambassador to Turkey in the heart of Ankara in December 2016. This reconciliation has been achieved in part, allowing Turkey to break the diplomatic isolation that followed the extensive repression after the July 2016 failed coup and entertain a proud nationalist narrative internally.

However, seen from abroad, Turkey’s foreign military operation and its diplomatic successes are rather limited and offset by risks taken along the way. In particular, the question arises of whether Ankara has become a pawn in Moscow’s vast chess game aimed at systematically undermining both NATO and the EU, especially in defense and energy.

The Turkish minister of defense declared on February 22 that discussions on the purchase of Russian S400 missiles for Turkey’s antimissile defense were progressing well, which was revealing of the country’s current foreign policy conundrum. If Ankara were to build its entire missile defense architecture around Russian systems, it would associate itself with Moscow and strike two major blows to NATO’s policies: first, by introducing Russian-made systems and accompanying experts into NATO’s second-largest conventional army; and second, by leaving a gaping hole in NATO’s own missile defense shield, to which Turkey has repeatedly committed itself.

One can easily comprehend Ankara’s tactical appetite for such a move, but its strategic implications would be of unfathomable depth, especially if a yes vote in the upcoming referendum gave Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan almost unlimited powers until 2029.

In comparison with these strategic stakes, Turkey’s relationship with the EU now looks almost benign, although greatly significant on the economic and rule-of-law fronts. With the state of emergency imposed after the failed coup, Turkey’s rule-of-law architecture has been so degraded that no progress on the country’s EU accession talks can realistically be expected. Similarly, steps toward visa liberalization—a mutually desirable objective—are impeded by Turkey’s firm priority to keep its antiterrorism law as it is.

Again, a yes vote in the referendum is likely to result in an almost permanent state of emergency and minimal rule-of-law standards. That is nothing that would worry Moscow much, but it would bring the EU-Turkey relationship to a transactional rather than a strategic level. A modernized EU-Turkey Customs Union is likely to become the only flagship project between Turkey and the EU.

All politics are local: Turkey’s current foreign policy choices are dictated by domestic political imperatives. Ankara’s foreign military operations and postures, as well as a key defense decision and deliberate backtracking on progress toward EU membership, are only parts of an internal power drive. The likely winner: Putin, more than Erdoğan.

Pierini is a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe, where his research focuses on developments in the Middle East and Turkey from a European perspective.

Marc Pierini, Visiting Scholar, Carnegie Europe

More from this author...

Turkey’s Gift From God; Turkey’s Impending Estrangement From the West;Capitalizing on Tunisia’s Transition: The Role of Broad-Based Reform

@MARCPIERINI1

Senator Grassly and the Second Amendment

Congress Says, Let the Mentally Ill Buy GunsBy THE EDITORIAL BOARD FEB. 15, 2017 

•   The New York Times

Sen. Charles Grassley, of Iowa, on Capitol Hill earlier this month.Credit Drew Angerer/Getty Images

For all their dysfunction, the Republican Senate and House have managed to act with lightning speed in striking down a sensible Obama administration rule designed to stop people with severe mental problems from buying guns.

My Editorial Contribution

durell douthit

attorney emeritus

2423 francis street

honolulu,hawaii 96815

808/675-8750

And how right you are, O Congress!  The 2nd Amendment  by its very Words and Original Intent perforce applies to homicidal maniacs such as Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa may be.  

None can cite one jot or tittle of the Constitutional excluding homicidal maniacs from the beneficent application of the 2nd Amendment.

What a piece of work is the 2nd Amendment! How noble in reason! In form how express and admirable! In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world. The paragon of Words on Paper. 

How blessed are we that Man is endowed with The 2nd Amendment, and with Mad Senator Grassley!  We now have nowhere to go but Up Into The Heavens!

The United States should take a deep breath, and stop killing Muslims. Killing Muslims is especially unproductive, as the US recent history shows

This is in response to this article:  Trump Pushes Dark View of Islam to Center of U.S. Policy-Making - The New York Times

A friend, son of a theologian, read the entire Quran and came to the same conclusion, that it is inherently war-like and expansionist. A reading of the whole Bible would likely lead one to the same conclusion.  Surely the Crusaders thought that. 

Saudi, in their Wahhabist beliefs, share that view and have spent billions on Madrases throughout Southern Asia and Salafi jihadists in Syria to propagate the view that Sharia is inherently at odds with all other beliefs, and all others are apostate or worse and should be converted, by force of arms if necessary.  

Saudi Arabia, with vast oil money and the corruption that brings, has weakened that view and now cooperates with the West. 

The Islamic State’s main objective is to capture Mecca  and establish Wahhabism as it was originally practiced by Saudi Arabia.  The Islamic State correctly regards Saudi Arabia as lapsed and apostate and a proper object for invasion.  Not incidentally, if the Islamic State were to control Mecca, its claim to be the Caliphate would be greatly strengthened.  See The Kingdom and the Caliphate: Duel of the Islamic States - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 

The United States is at war with the Islamic State to protect Saudi Arabia, since none of its Islamic neighbors has agreed to lend a hand.  The United States has had a cooperative agreement with Saudi Arabia on oil, from the end of WWII.  Up until the First Gulf War, the  Saudi gave the United States a 20% break on the price of oil, which helped propel the United States into global military superiority.

The Islamic State' war on the West (and the rest of the world) is secondary to the war on Saudi Arabia, in the view of the Islamic State; or was until the United States  began bombing the shit out of ‘em.  The United States has now made another longstanding enemy in the Middle East. 

Each member of the Bushco-Obama-Trumpist cabal has had as a core foreign policy to kill Muslims, no matter how the foreign policy is expressed.   Trumpists are the most open about their eagerness to kill Muslims no matter the Muslims' actual beliefs and so the Trumpists are the most likely to unbalance the precarious and existentially necessary peace that has now lasted since the end of WWII, with local exceptions (Vietnam, e.g.). Necessary because of the Bomb.

(for younguns who may not remember

. . . "that man is endowed with a mushroom-shaped Cloud". . . .)

Iran’s religion, for example, is not expansionist, or wasn’t until recently.  See Nasr, The Shia Revival. Expansionism is not an integral part of Shia beliefs, but a reaction to external threats.  Peace with Iran is possible.  Peace with the obesely-rich Saudi is probably possible because it needs the West to buy its oil, but we must stop killing Yemeni and must pay to rebuild that unhappy land. 

Letting the only two Wahhabist states in the world — Saudi Arabia and the  Islamic State -- settle their own differences is a better course of action than trying to protect Saudi Arabia by  killing more Muslims. Killing Muslims has not worked out well for Bushco or Obama, and will not work out well for the Trumpists either.  

Bad for all the world. Sad but, I think, true.  Hope still springs eternal, but not as spritely as it used to do.

           

Everyone has his own ax to grind

Everyone has his own ax to grind:


From The New York Times article:

Instead of challenging this ideology of shame, the left has buttressed it by blaming white people as a whole for slavery, genocide of the Native Americans and a host of other sins, as though whiteness itself was something about which people ought to be ashamed. 

Well, somebody is to blame for "slavery, genocide of Native Americans, and a host of other sins. . . ."  Somebody profited from each sin.  And the sins continue.  Visit Standing Rock.  Listen to the Native Americans.

Somebody profits to this very day.  If you are of Anglo-Saxon heritage, it is likely that you or your ancestors  profited, and if you yourself did not profit, your relative ease and security may well have resulted from an ancestror's profit.

Classism is bad; ducking responsibility for living off the suffering of others is no way to escape classism.  Read the article with a grain of salt, but read it. Though that is not its intention, it shows one way some Trump folks escape responsibility for their rages.

OPINION | CAMPAIGN STOPS

What Happened on Election Day

How the election and Donald Trump’s victory looks to Opinion writers.

A group of Trump supporters calling themselves the Mesa County Deplorables sharing a potluck meal in Grand Junction, Colo., in October. Credit Nick Cote for The New York Times

Stop Shaming Trump Supporters

 By MICHAEL LERNER

COMMENT

2016-11-09T13:17:29-05:00 1:17 PM ET

It turns out that shaming the supporters of Donald J. Trump is not a good political strategy.

Though job loss and economic stagnation played a role in his victory, so did shame. As the principal investigator on a study of the middle class for the National Institute of Mental Health, I found that working people’s stress is often intensified by shame at their failure to “make it” in what they are taught is a meritocratic American economy.

The right has been very successful at persuading working people that they are vulnerable not because they themselves have failed, but because of the selfishness of some other villain (African-Americans, feminists, immigrants, Muslims, Jews, liberals, progressives; the list keeps growing).

Instead of challenging this ideology of shame, the left has buttressed it by blaming white people as a whole for slavery, genocide of the Native Americans and a host of other sins, as though whiteness itself was something about which people ought to be ashamed. The rage many white working-class people feel in response is rooted in the sense that once again, as has happened to them throughout their lives, they are being misunderstood.

So please understand what is happening here. Many Trump supporters very legitimately feel that it is they who have been facing an unfair reality. The upper 20 percent of income earners, many of them quite liberal and rightly committed to the defense of minorities and immigrants, also believe in the economic meritocracy and their own right to have so much more than those who are less fortunate. So while they may be progressive on issues of discrimination against the obvious victims of racism and sexism, they are blind to their own class privilege and to the hidden injuries of class that are internalized by much of the country as self-blame.

The right’s ability to portray liberals as elitists is further strengthened by the phobia toward religion that prevails in the left. Many religious people are drawn by the teachings of their tradition to humane values and caring about the oppressed. Yet they often find that liberal culture is hostile to religion of any sort, believing it is irrational and filled with hate. People on the left rarely open themselves to the possibility that there could be a spiritual crisis in society that plays a role in the lives of many who feel misunderstood and denigrated by the fancy intellectuals and radical activists.

The left needs to stop ignoring people’s inner pain and fear. The racism, sexism and xenophobia used by Mr. Trump to advance his candidacy does not reveal an inherent malice in the majority of Americans. If the left could abandon all this shaming, it could rebuild its political base by helping Americans see that much of people’s suffering is rooted in the hidden injuries of class and in the spiritual crisis that the global competitive marketplace generates.

Democrats need to become as conscious and articulate about the suffering caused by classism as we are about other forms of suffering. We need to reach out to Trump voters in a spirit of empathy and contrition. Only then can we help working people understand that they do not live in a meritocracy, that their intuition that the system is rigged is correct (but it is not by those whom they had been taught to blame) and that their pain and rage is legitimate.

Michael Lerner, the rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue in Berkeley, Calif., is the editor of Tikkun magazine and chairman of the Network of Spiritual Progressives.

And no need to shamea anyone.  Change the World instead!  Quickly!  Before I'm pushing up daisies.

What Obama should do in Syria: a proposal

From the Washington Post article below:

"It is time for the United States to act more assertively on Syria, to further four justifiable objectives:

• to end mass civilian killing; 
• to protect what remains of the moderate opposition; 
• to undermine extremist narratives of Western indifference to injustice; and 
• to force Assad to the negotiating table"

The means proposed to achieve these goals risk more armed conflict with Turkey -- ok by me -- and Russia -- not ok.  Study the proposals, judge them for yourselves,  and let your policy makers know your preferences if you live in a country in which public
opinion matters.

One weakness in the article is that it refers to "the moderate opposition" without saying which groups are included in the group to be protected.

Saudi Arabia would surely want the Salafi Jihadists it has bountifully funded to be included.  The Salafi Jihadists are fighting to establish a Wahhabi government in Syria, and that is not an honorable or acceptable goal.  The Syrian Kurds are both honorable and worthy of the support of all democratic, multiethnic, non-sectarian, and feminist bodies and should be supported as recommended in the article.

If you read co-author Charles R. Lister's “The Syrian Jihad: Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and the Evolution of an Insurgency,” favorably reviewed by the New York Times, you will be reassured.

The Washington Post

Bring Syria’s Assad and his backers to account now

Wounded opposition fighters sit in the back of an ambulance in a government-held neighborhood of Aleppo in Syria on Thursday. (George Ourfalian/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)

By John Allen and Charles R. Lister October 21 at 7:28 PM

John Allen, a retired U.S. Marine general, led the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan from 2011 to 2013 and the international coalition to counter the Islamic State from 2014 to 2015.  Charles R. Lister<2 font="">  is a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and author of “The Syrian Jihad: Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and the Evolution of an Insurgency.”

For 5½ years, the Syrian government has tortured, shot, bombed and gassed its own people with impunity, with the resulting human cost clear for all to see: nearly 500,000 dead and 11 million displaced. Since Russia’s military intervention began one year ago, conditions have worsened, with more than 1 million people living in 40 besieged communities. Thirty-seven of those are imposed by pro-government forces.

While subjecting his people to unspeakable medieval-style brutality, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has sabotaged diplomatic initiatives aimed at bringing a lasting calm to his country. The most recent such diplomatic scheme was trashed not just by Assad, but also Russia, whose aircraft were accused of subjecting a U.N.-mandated aid convoy to a ferocious two-hour attack in September.

Since then, at least 2,500 people have been killed and wounded in eastern districts of Aleppo, amid horrendous bombardment by Syrian and Russian aircraft, and Russia cynically vetoed a U.N. resolution that would have prohibited further airstrikes in the city.

It is time for the United States to act more assertively on Syria, to further four justifiable objectives: to end mass civilian killing; to protect what remains of the moderate opposition; to undermine extremist narratives of Western indifference to injustice; and to force Assad to the negotiating table. The United States should not be in the business of regime change, but the Assad clique and its backers must be brought to account before it is too late. The world will not forgive us for our inaction.

The consequences of continued inaction are dreadful. U.S. policy has never sought to decisively influence the tactical situation on the ground. Unrealistic limitations on vetting and a policy that prohibited arming groups to fight the regime left us unable to effectively fight the Islamic State or to move Assad toward a transition. U.S. policy and strategy on Syria had a major disconnect, in being focused militarily on a group that was a symptom of the civil war without any means to achieve the stated policy objective: Assad’s departure.

The hole in this strategy could only have been filled by a comprehensive train-and-equip program for moderate Syrians to fight the Islamic State and decisively resist regime forces. Sadly, we have allowed this connective tissue between our counter-Islamic State strategy and our policy to remove Assad — the moderate Syrian opposition — to come under sustained attack by the regime and Russia.

For years we’ve said there can be no military outcome in Syria, but the Russians and their allies have pushed the military dimension of the crisis to strengthen the regime’s political position and, in the name of fighting “terrorism,” to systematically eliminate the opposition, including moderate Syrians we judged should be part of the political process of transitioning Assad out. These objectives were derived from our unwillingness to tangle with the regime, and now also the Russians.

The administration’s condemnation of Russia, and its forecast of a Vietnam-like morass for Moscow, seem a misunderstanding of Moscow’s calculus. Russia will determinedly protect its interests by any means, including attacking civilians and U.N. aid convoys. The expectation that Russia will tire of its Syria “quagmire” and become diplomatically pliable ignores reality. Russia has shown a remarkable capacity to dig in behind bad policy and fight under adversity. Ultimately, Vladi­mir Putin’s Russia must be — or at least seem to be — on the ascendancy, as it is in Ukraine, along NATO’s frontier, in Syria and even in Libya. Russia’s repaired relationship with Turkey and improved ties elsewhere further complicate U.S. policy.

Ultimately, this leaves us only two options. First, the United States should encourage and join its European allies in imposing an escalatory set of economic sanctions against Russia and bodies and individuals supporting its military and paramilitary activities in Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere.

The second option is one the Russians believe the United States will never do: Escalate the conflict. The United States must challenge the status quo and end the regime’s war crimes, by force if necessary. This need not require some major pronouncement. Indeed, for now, a quiet warning may be more effective, since a major public announcement would almost certainly polarize the situation further.

For a start, the United States must save Aleppo. Damascus, Moscow and Tehran are razing the city to prepare for an eventual ground assault. As both the CIA and Pentagon have concluded, an opposition loss in Aleppo would severely undermine the United States’ counterterrorism objectives in Syria. The city’s symbolism and strategic value are unmatched, and allowing it to fall would dramatically empower extremist narratives. Groups linked to al-Qaeda would reap the rewards of our shortcomings.

To save Aleppo, the United States and its allies must both accelerate and broaden the provision of lethal and nonlethal assistance to vetted moderate opposition groups. This assistance would aim to empower other frontlines in northern and southern Syria to force pro-regime forces to divert attention from Aleppo. Opposition groups should also be provided with the means to bombard regime military airfields, many of which already lie within indirect fire and artillery rocket range.

Simultaneously, the United States must use existing multilateral mechanisms to push for a new cessation of hostilities in Syria in which flagrant violations will be met with targeted U.S. military consequences. Should such an agreement prove impossible due to the likely intransigence from Damascus and its supporters, the United States should gather a “coalition of the willing” to credibly threaten military action against Assad’s military infrastructure.

Initiating such a sequence would almost certainly result in the eventual use of targeted, punitive force in Syria. Any action should target Syrian military facilities and assets involved in supporting the bombardment of civilians, such as military airfields, aircraft, weapons stores and artillery positions. We should expect the possible intentional co-mingling of Syrian and Russian forces and assets as a deterrent. While this may complicate targeting strategies, we should not miss the opportunity to hit offending Syrian elements and units, while sustaining counter-Islamic State operations elsewhere.

In addition, the United States should consider establishing and supporting a task force of regional Special Operations forces, which could play an advisory role in assisting vetted opposition groups in attacking regime assets.

The credibility of the United States as the leader and defender of the free world must be salvaged from the horrific devastation of Syria. It is not too late to enforce international law and norms. However, we cannot wait for a new administration in Washington. Events are moving too quickly. Bashar al-Assad is not the solution to the Syrian crisis, and he is the least-qualified possible partner in a fight against terrorism, having spent much of the past 16 years aiding and abetting al-Qaeda and, it would appear, the Islamic State as well. Action certainly presents risks, but to allow events to continue to unfold as they are means raising the cost yet further for a future, inevitable U.S. intervention.

The Mushroom-shape cloud

There are a few things to be grateful for:

     -- destruction on the massive scale shown in the article below is mostly confined to parts of the Middle East and not to the whole of  Eurasia, as it was in the last Century;

     -- the United States, Russia, and Saudi Arabia are not the only destroyers in the World today, and they are currently the major mass destroyers; the rest of the world is content to abjure mass destruction, killing "only" relatively small numbers of us at a time, not counting starvation and diseases.  May it be no worse until we become kindly!

    -- we can be tranquil and thankful and proud
For man's been endowed with a mushroom-shape  cloud . . . .Kingston Trio  

 Yes, even here in the middle of the Ocean Most Pacific we can be tranquil while riding the the waves alongside the most destructive collection of instruments of mass destruction the World has yet beheld, for though we human animals be not rational, yet, we be fearful of setting off the first of the last of the mushroom clouds:  good for us!  Personkind's [sic] last best hope be our cowardliness..

Yea, though we be craven, we live to beget more generations -- not, however, a boon to elephants, panthers, jellyfish, and beetles.

I hope if we be sufficiently craven, in a few more thousands of years we may become kindly toward all beings.

My shade will like that, if it comes to pass.

Berlin, 1945; Grozny, 2000; Aleppo, 2016 - The New York Times

Durell