Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Peter Foster: The demons in Krugmanomics
Paul Krugman’s affection for markets fell as he became obsessed with inequality, market instability and catastrophic climate change
Nobel economist Paul Krugman is due to address the Economic Club of Toronto Wednesday on whether the United States has “mortgaged its future.” If Mr. Krugman is true to form, he will tell his audience that it has not mortgaged its future enough. What is desperately needed is more government borrowing and spending.
Mr. Krugman is a Nobel-winning trade-policy academic economist who, over the past couple of decades, has gone increasingly to the liberal dark side, as evidenced in his columns in The New York Times. What seems to have driven him completely over the edge is a combination of Bush Derangement Syndrome and an evangelical desire to prove that Reaganomics was a failure. He criticizes Barack Obama for not going far enough. He hates Republicans with a passion and is Keynesian to the core. Thus he can only interpret the failure of government stimulus as evidence of “cowardice” or “lack of political will.”
Like most liberal moralists, Mr. Krugman demonizes his opponents as not merely wicked and/or stupid/and or venal, but also “furious” because he is so right and they are so wrong. On election night 2008, he and his even more uncompromisingly liberal wife, Robin Wells, who is also a Princeton economist, had a party at which effigies of their enemies were burned. Salem, anyone?
Mr. Krugman constantly concocts conspiracies of the rich to grind the faces of the poor. He calls anti-Keynesians “The Pain Caucus.” He is currently lashed to the mast of not one but two sinking ships, the USS Keynes and the USS Draconian Climate Policy.
Modern American conservatism, he has written, “is, in large part, a movement shaped by billionaires and their bank accounts, and assured paycheques for the ideologically loyal are an important part of the system. Scientists willing to deny the existence of man-made climate change, economists willing to declare that tax cuts for the rich are essential to growth, strategic thinkers willing to provide rationales for wars of choice, lawyers willing to provide defences of torture, all can count on support from a network of organizations that may seem independent on the surface but are largely financed by a handful of ultra-wealthy families.”
Maybe he should check out what causes the Rockefeller, Carnegie, Pew, Hewlett and Packard foundations are actually promoting. It certainly isn’t climate change denial.
Mr. Krugman’s Nobel Prize for work in international trade and economic geography was widely praised. Early in his career he was a fan of markets and free trade, and attacked “popular” economists such as John Kenneth Galbraith, Lester Thurow and Robert Reich, who catered to economic misconceptions beneath a cloak of liberal good intentions. However, that cloak in the end proved too attractive not to try on.
Mr. Krugman’s affection for markets has declined as he has become obsessed with inequality, market instability and catastrophic climate change. He doesn’t think consumers can be trusted to make the “right” choices any more, and has taken to the remarkably annoying habit of condemning free marketers as people who believe that people are always rational and markets perfect. Then again, straw men are easy to torch.
Mr. Krugman’s take on the ongoing crisis is remarkable not merely for wishing to keep doing more of what has failed, but his blindness to the role of government policy in its creation. Fannie and Freddie? Mere bystanders who only decided to help blow up the system “late in the game.” Greece? It’s all the euro’s fault.
Anthropogenic global warming has become an article of religious faith for Mr. Krugman, which has required him to go through astonishing convolutions in the face of growing evidence of corruption. Climategate? A “fake scandal.” Remember those emails about a “trick” to “hide the decline”? According to Mr. Krugman this was an “anomalous decline.” Well, no. The decline was in actual temperature readings which failed to concur with the proxy data from tree rings. These had to be “hidden” because tree ring data were essential to the credibility of the poster child “hockey stick” graph that presented the twentieth century as a thousand year anomaly. The decline had to be hidden because it exposed fake science.
The former free trader now thinks that carbon tariffs might not be such a bad idea, and since cap and trade represents an alleged “market solution” to the catastrophe-to-come, the conservatives who (successfully) opposed it are, in Mr. Krugman’s view, hypocrites.
Mr. Krugman leans towards the global salvationist posturing of Lord Stern, whose climate review is a monument to perverted cost-benefit analysis. “Stern’s moral argument for loving unborn generations as we love ourselves may be too strong,” Mr. Krugman has written, “but there’s a compelling case to be made that public policy should take a much longer view than private markets.”
The problem is that it doesn’t.
The evil of Mr. Krugman’s opponents is all embracing. He has written that “[T]hose who insist that Ben Bernanke has blood on his hands tend to be more or less the same people who insist that the scientific consensus on climate reflects a vast leftist conspiracy.” You see the connection? Leaving aside the blood libel, if you oppose further corruption of the monetary system you are clearly also a climate denier. And why doesn’t America have universal public health care? Simple, it’s due to “The legacy of slavery, America’s original sin.”
Once Mr. Krugman’s intellectual inspiration was Adam Smith. Now it’s Naomi Klein.
Nobel economist Paul Krugman is due to address the Economic Club of Toronto Wednesday on whether the United States has “mortgaged its future.” If Mr. Krugman is true to form, he will tell his audience that it has not mortgaged its future enough. What is desperately needed is more government borrowing and spending.
Mr. Krugman is a Nobel-winning trade-policy academic economist who, over the past couple of decades, has gone increasingly to the liberal dark side, as evidenced in his columns in The New York Times. What seems to have driven him completely over the edge is a combination of Bush Derangement Syndrome and an evangelical desire to prove that Reaganomics was a failure. He criticizes Barack Obama for not going far enough. He hates Republicans with a passion and is Keynesian to the core. Thus he can only interpret the failure of government stimulus as evidence of “cowardice” or “lack of political will.”
Like most liberal moralists, Mr. Krugman demonizes his opponents as not merely wicked and/or stupid/and or venal, but also “furious” because he is so right and they are so wrong. On election night 2008, he and his even more uncompromisingly liberal wife, Robin Wells, who is also a Princeton economist, had a party at which effigies of their enemies were burned. Salem, anyone?
Mr. Krugman constantly concocts conspiracies of the rich to grind the faces of the poor. He calls anti-Keynesians “The Pain Caucus.” He is currently lashed to the mast of not one but two sinking ships, the USS Keynes and the USS Draconian Climate Policy.
Modern American conservatism, he has written, “is, in large part, a movement shaped by billionaires and their bank accounts, and assured paycheques for the ideologically loyal are an important part of the system. Scientists willing to deny the existence of man-made climate change, economists willing to declare that tax cuts for the rich are essential to growth, strategic thinkers willing to provide rationales for wars of choice, lawyers willing to provide defences of torture, all can count on support from a network of organizations that may seem independent on the surface but are largely financed by a handful of ultra-wealthy families.”
Maybe he should check out what causes the Rockefeller, Carnegie, Pew, Hewlett and Packard foundations are actually promoting. It certainly isn’t climate change denial.
Mr. Krugman’s Nobel Prize for work in international trade and economic geography was widely praised. Early in his career he was a fan of markets and free trade, and attacked “popular” economists such as John Kenneth Galbraith, Lester Thurow and Robert Reich, who catered to economic misconceptions beneath a cloak of liberal good intentions. However, that cloak in the end proved too attractive not to try on.
Mr. Krugman’s affection for markets has declined as he has become obsessed with inequality, market instability and catastrophic climate change. He doesn’t think consumers can be trusted to make the “right” choices any more, and has taken to the remarkably annoying habit of condemning free marketers as people who believe that people are always rational and markets perfect. Then again, straw men are easy to torch.
Mr. Krugman’s take on the ongoing crisis is remarkable not merely for wishing to keep doing more of what has failed, but his blindness to the role of government policy in its creation. Fannie and Freddie? Mere bystanders who only decided to help blow up the system “late in the game.” Greece? It’s all the euro’s fault.
Anthropogenic global warming has become an article of religious faith for Mr. Krugman, which has required him to go through astonishing convolutions in the face of growing evidence of corruption. Climategate? A “fake scandal.” Remember those emails about a “trick” to “hide the decline”? According to Mr. Krugman this was an “anomalous decline.” Well, no. The decline was in actual temperature readings which failed to concur with the proxy data from tree rings. These had to be “hidden” because tree ring data were essential to the credibility of the poster child “hockey stick” graph that presented the twentieth century as a thousand year anomaly. The decline had to be hidden because it exposed fake science.
The former free trader now thinks that carbon tariffs might not be such a bad idea, and since cap and trade represents an alleged “market solution” to the catastrophe-to-come, the conservatives who (successfully) opposed it are, in Mr. Krugman’s view, hypocrites.
Mr. Krugman leans towards the global salvationist posturing of Lord Stern, whose climate review is a monument to perverted cost-benefit analysis. “Stern’s moral argument for loving unborn generations as we love ourselves may be too strong,” Mr. Krugman has written, “but there’s a compelling case to be made that public policy should take a much longer view than private markets.”
The problem is that it doesn’t.
The evil of Mr. Krugman’s opponents is all embracing. He has written that “[T]hose who insist that Ben Bernanke has blood on his hands tend to be more or less the same people who insist that the scientific consensus on climate reflects a vast leftist conspiracy.” You see the connection? Leaving aside the blood libel, if you oppose further corruption of the monetary system you are clearly also a climate denier. And why doesn’t America have universal public health care? Simple, it’s due to “The legacy of slavery, America’s original sin.”
Once Mr. Krugman’s intellectual inspiration was Adam Smith. Now it’s Naomi Klein.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Presidential Race Made Easy - This POTUS is a one timer
Presidential Race Made Easy
In the weeks ahead, I shall be in Europe to speak on American politics. What will I say to old Europe? Well, I shall give them my broad view of American politics and end with the present election cycle in which I believe Barack Obama will be retired to private life, though he cannot really conceive of private life. He will continue his public life as he has for all his adult life. That is how Democrats live. He will be a community organizer to the world, as Bill Clinton has become, in the words of MSNBC, "President of the World: The Bill Clinton Phenomenon."
Both sound ridiculous but do any Democrats ever retire to private life today? They are always taking on noble causes, which is to say, illusory causes. Harry Truman retired to private life and Lyndon Johnson, but not Bill Clinton or Al Gore or, for that matter, Jimmy Carter. The other day, Jimmy wrote an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times saying we had lost the drug war and he was now smoking while listening to the Grateful Dead onto death. Perhaps he is not listening to the Grateful Dead and possibly he is is not smoking marijuana, but I lost interest at about the third sentence. He might well have said almost anything. He has been latching onto fads for 30 years, anything that will keep him in the ink. The reflective life is not for him. It might cause him to become aware of what a miserable president he was.
His miserable presidency is key to any summation I make of current American politics. The standards of leadership have declined abysmally, especially in the Democratic Party. In its upper tiers, there is not a person who could match Truman, Adlai Stevenson, John Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, to say nothing of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The 1960s generation - the Clintons, Gore, John Kerry, et al. - were a bust. They quite possibly set the stage for an even more inferior generation led by Mr. Obama. Think of it. From Mr. Carter to Mr. Obama, the Democrats have led a motley string of trivial figures onto the national stage.
The Republicans have done markedly better. Richard Nixon, though flawed, led the opening to China, a tremendous achievement worth revisiting for those who have forgotten, and they can do it by reading Henry Kissinger's new book, "On China" (Penguin Press, 2011). What is more, Nixon and Mr. Kissinger managed affairs with the prickly Soviet Union remarkably well, until along came Ronald Reagan to finish the job without firing a shot. Reagan was a giant (known to liberals as a bumbling clown), and the two Bushes who followed him did not do badly, either. They were in the tradition of Truman and Dwight Eisenhower - prudent stewards of American interests.
That brings us up to this election cycle. At any other time, Mr. Obama would be challenged from within his party. Teddy Kennedy challenged Mr. Carter, and I had anticipated Hillary Rodham Clinton doing so this time, but now she says she won't. Mr. Obama will run and lose to the Republican nominee, but who will the Republican be?
Before the summer is out, Mitt Romney will pull ahead of Mr. Obama by 10 points. But that will not give him the Republican nomination. He will have to fight for it. Rep. Michele Bachmann will make a terrific race of it, pulling most of the tea party vote. If the tea partyers are as energetic as they were in 2010, she has a very good chance. Then there is Tim Pawlenty. His policies are sound and even exciting in this time of near bankruptcy, but he has no natural constituency. People forget that Ronald Reagan did not search out his constituency. It had been building for years. He was strong in 1976 and overwhelming in 1980 based on his support from the tea party movement of his day, the conservative movement. Mr. Pawlenty, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul are all looking for a movement, and I do not think they will find one.
Then there is Texas Gov. Rick Perry. By the end of July, we shall know if he is running. I think he will. Can he line himself up with the core of the Republican Party, which is still the conservative movement? It is made up of the religious right, the limited government types, the strong foreign policy advocates and, for want of a better term, the Reagan Democrats. He was a Democrat, as was Reagan. He has governed a state and it possesses the most vibrant economy in the union. It also has enormous talent. It is the new California. This will be an exciting nominating process and a very dirty presidential race. A community organizer with union support vs. a statesman (or stateswoman), but we all know who is going to win.
Copyright 2011 Creators Syndidate, Inc.
In the weeks ahead, I shall be in Europe to speak on American politics. What will I say to old Europe? Well, I shall give them my broad view of American politics and end with the present election cycle in which I believe Barack Obama will be retired to private life, though he cannot really conceive of private life. He will continue his public life as he has for all his adult life. That is how Democrats live. He will be a community organizer to the world, as Bill Clinton has become, in the words of MSNBC, "President of the World: The Bill Clinton Phenomenon."
Both sound ridiculous but do any Democrats ever retire to private life today? They are always taking on noble causes, which is to say, illusory causes. Harry Truman retired to private life and Lyndon Johnson, but not Bill Clinton or Al Gore or, for that matter, Jimmy Carter. The other day, Jimmy wrote an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times saying we had lost the drug war and he was now smoking while listening to the Grateful Dead onto death. Perhaps he is not listening to the Grateful Dead and possibly he is is not smoking marijuana, but I lost interest at about the third sentence. He might well have said almost anything. He has been latching onto fads for 30 years, anything that will keep him in the ink. The reflective life is not for him. It might cause him to become aware of what a miserable president he was.
His miserable presidency is key to any summation I make of current American politics. The standards of leadership have declined abysmally, especially in the Democratic Party. In its upper tiers, there is not a person who could match Truman, Adlai Stevenson, John Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, to say nothing of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The 1960s generation - the Clintons, Gore, John Kerry, et al. - were a bust. They quite possibly set the stage for an even more inferior generation led by Mr. Obama. Think of it. From Mr. Carter to Mr. Obama, the Democrats have led a motley string of trivial figures onto the national stage.
The Republicans have done markedly better. Richard Nixon, though flawed, led the opening to China, a tremendous achievement worth revisiting for those who have forgotten, and they can do it by reading Henry Kissinger's new book, "On China" (Penguin Press, 2011). What is more, Nixon and Mr. Kissinger managed affairs with the prickly Soviet Union remarkably well, until along came Ronald Reagan to finish the job without firing a shot. Reagan was a giant (known to liberals as a bumbling clown), and the two Bushes who followed him did not do badly, either. They were in the tradition of Truman and Dwight Eisenhower - prudent stewards of American interests.
That brings us up to this election cycle. At any other time, Mr. Obama would be challenged from within his party. Teddy Kennedy challenged Mr. Carter, and I had anticipated Hillary Rodham Clinton doing so this time, but now she says she won't. Mr. Obama will run and lose to the Republican nominee, but who will the Republican be?
Before the summer is out, Mitt Romney will pull ahead of Mr. Obama by 10 points. But that will not give him the Republican nomination. He will have to fight for it. Rep. Michele Bachmann will make a terrific race of it, pulling most of the tea party vote. If the tea partyers are as energetic as they were in 2010, she has a very good chance. Then there is Tim Pawlenty. His policies are sound and even exciting in this time of near bankruptcy, but he has no natural constituency. People forget that Ronald Reagan did not search out his constituency. It had been building for years. He was strong in 1976 and overwhelming in 1980 based on his support from the tea party movement of his day, the conservative movement. Mr. Pawlenty, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul are all looking for a movement, and I do not think they will find one.
Then there is Texas Gov. Rick Perry. By the end of July, we shall know if he is running. I think he will. Can he line himself up with the core of the Republican Party, which is still the conservative movement? It is made up of the religious right, the limited government types, the strong foreign policy advocates and, for want of a better term, the Reagan Democrats. He was a Democrat, as was Reagan. He has governed a state and it possesses the most vibrant economy in the union. It also has enormous talent. It is the new California. This will be an exciting nominating process and a very dirty presidential race. A community organizer with union support vs. a statesman (or stateswoman), but we all know who is going to win.
Copyright 2011 Creators Syndidate, Inc.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Personal thoughts on the Af-Pak issue
Thoughts on AF-Pak since it will be a campaign issue and is already beginning to be something of an albatross on the Presidents neck. The Problem with the situation is that we are being told that they are in a counter insurgency engagement, but the fact remains it is anything but this and no one has the balls to step up and tell the American People that this is a study in patience if we want to be able to say we have a "WIN" in our books, but what is a win?
Also, The reason this is not a counter insurgency is by its very nature it cannot be called such as we are fighting Afghans in Afghanistan and not foreign fighters like we did in IRAQ which was a counter insurgency operation. In Iraq we made the cost of fighting us outweigh the prize of holding neighborhoods and towns that weren't there's in the first place or to in easier terms to understand why would they fight and die for land that they have no connection to? THis all brings us back to the AF-Pak and what are we doing there? what are our goals? what do we hope to obtain by staying?
We have A leader in Karzai who is absolutely playing US against them and is weak outside of Kabul and without our DSS and contractors would be dead in minutes, so anything he says cannot be trusted nor should it be as he is a puppet and nothing more.
In addition to a weak government the dirty secret no one reports is the fact we have never held any ground successfully in AF-pak, but that doesn't mean we don't try its just that we cannot hold ground that is not willing to be held, which is apparent by the lack of assistance form the population and unwillingness in large numbers to support our efforts.
What to do? Not sure, but one thing is for certain. We will not come out clean on this and perhaps the best option for the untied states is to pull back and allow the bloodshed that will come one way or another once we leave.
Also, The reason this is not a counter insurgency is by its very nature it cannot be called such as we are fighting Afghans in Afghanistan and not foreign fighters like we did in IRAQ which was a counter insurgency operation. In Iraq we made the cost of fighting us outweigh the prize of holding neighborhoods and towns that weren't there's in the first place or to in easier terms to understand why would they fight and die for land that they have no connection to? THis all brings us back to the AF-Pak and what are we doing there? what are our goals? what do we hope to obtain by staying?
We have A leader in Karzai who is absolutely playing US against them and is weak outside of Kabul and without our DSS and contractors would be dead in minutes, so anything he says cannot be trusted nor should it be as he is a puppet and nothing more.
In addition to a weak government the dirty secret no one reports is the fact we have never held any ground successfully in AF-pak, but that doesn't mean we don't try its just that we cannot hold ground that is not willing to be held, which is apparent by the lack of assistance form the population and unwillingness in large numbers to support our efforts.
What to do? Not sure, but one thing is for certain. We will not come out clean on this and perhaps the best option for the untied states is to pull back and allow the bloodshed that will come one way or another once we leave.
US Stocks Slide, Led by Energy; Vix Spikes - CNBC
US Stocks Slide, Led by Energy; Vix Spikes - CNBC
Once again the President speaks and the financial worlds tumble..
Once again the President speaks and the financial worlds tumble..
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Monday, June 13, 2011
“All this celebration of democracy is just bullshit,” says one senior intelligence officer
Christopher Dickey
Email
With regimes falling across the Middle East, America's spies have lost one of their most valued allies in the war against the jihadists: dictators. Christopher Dickey reports for Newsweek International.
Among American spies there's more than a little nostalgia for the bad old days. You know, back before dictators started toppling in the Middle East; back when suspected bad guys could be snatched off a street somewhere and delivered to the not-so-tender mercies of interrogators in their home countries; back when thuggish tyrants, however ugly, were at least predictable.
It's not a philosophical thing, just a practical one. Confronted by the cold realities of this year's Arab Spring, many intelligence and counterterrorism professionals now see major dangers looming near at hand, while the good news—a freer, fairer, more equitable and stable Arab world—remains somewhere over the horizon. "All this celebration of democracy is just bullshit," says one senior intelligence officer who's spent decades fighting terrorism and finds his job getting harder, not easier, because of recent developments. "You take the lid off and you don't know what's going to happen. I think disaster is lurking."
To be sure, Osama bin Laden has finally been terminated, but the impact of that single operation on Al Qaeda and its affiliates may have been both overrated and overstated by a U.S. administration anxious to score political points. If, as claimed, bin Laden was still directing operations, what were they? No actual plots have been publicly identified. "Bin La den needed killing, and I am glad he is dead," says another veteran American operative--let's call him Mr. Mum, because he's not authorized to speak on the record. "But bin Laden is what he was: this old guy who got lucky on 9/11, sitting in a crappy little room watching a crappy little TV and trying to pretend that he mattered." Over the weekend news broke that another Al Qaeda leader, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, got killed by local forces at a checkpoint in Somalia. He'd plotted the bombings of US embassies in Africa in 1998 and the U.S. government had put a $5 million price on his head. But as one Somali security official put it, “This was lucky. It wasn’t like Fazul was killed during an operation to get him. He was essentially driving around Mogadishu and got lost.”
Members of the Obama administration leaked a story to The New York Times last week saying the U.S. actually has stepped up operations against al Qaeda-related groups in the midst of Yemen's chaos, "exploiting a growing power vacuum in the country to strike at militant suspects with armed drones and fighter jets." But some say the claim sounds suspiciously like an administration that's in the dark, whistling. "I think it's more signaling than fact," says Princeton University's Barbara Bodine, a former U.S. ambassador to Yemen. And in the meantime the chances of killing the wrong targets in such raids go up astronomically. "With the loss of intelligence cooperation with Yemen, we are trying to cut back the jihadis as much as possible," says terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman of Georgetown University. "But where it used to be surgical, it's now much blunter."
“All this celebration of democracy is just bullshit,” says one senior intelligence officer… “You take the lid off and you don’t know what’s going to happen. I think disaster is lurking.”
Over the long term, in fact, the key to defending Americans and U.S. interests from attacks by jihadists is either to insert spies into their organizations or to persuade people who are already inside to talk. Aerial surveillance and communications intercepts are useful, but solid information from human sources is vital, whether you're targeting specific terrorist leaders or trying to disrupt operations in other ways.
The Americans have spent long years building liaison relationships with key figures in the military and intelligence apparatuses of countries across the Middle East who might deliver that kind of detailed information. But now, says Christopher Boucek of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "the Libyans, the Tunisians, the Egyptians, the Yemenis—they are either gone or going." And a particularly cruel irony, as a former CIA station chief in the Middle East points out, is that these relationships were so focused on catching a handful of terrorists that they missed the oncoming tidal wave of popular revolt. "What intelligence is supposed to do is be ready for things like this," he says.
The thought is underscored by Edward Walker, a former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs who now teaches at Hamilton College in New York state. "We became far too overreliant on those networks," he says. "When you are totally dependent on local intelligence organizations, you tend to protect them." In the process America becomes blind to what the regime will not see.
A quick tour of the counterterrorism horizon suggests just how unprepared the CIA, the Defense Department, and other U.S. government entities are for the post-Arab Spring world, and how hard it will be for them to rehabilitate their old techniques for fighting terrorism. For almost 30 years, U.S. intelligence relied on Hosni Mubarak's Egypt as a key ally, and the pivotal figure in that relationship was Gen. Omar Suleiman, director of the country's General Intelligence Services, commonly called the Mukhabarat. "He's philosophically Western and a cultured man, and he was a linchpin," says Mr. Mum.
The partnership became a top priority in the 1990s, when Egypt faced a serious terrorist threat led by Ayman al-Zawahiri—the man who eventually joined forces with Osama bin Laden to create what is now called al Qaeda. In the Clinton years the CIA used its global reach to track down members of the organization, then sent them to Egypt for interrogation that often extended to torture and, in some cases, execution. From Egyptian jihadists picked up in Albania and elsewhere, the Mukhabarat and the CIA gleaned important information about the inner workings of al Qaeda. But the United States compromised its moral standing by accepting "with a blink and a nod" Egyptian assurances that no torture would be employed, says Walker, who was the U.S. ambassador to Cairo at the time. In any event, the intelligence gathered wasn't enough to stop al Qaeda's 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
The "rendition" program continued in close cooperation with Suleiman after the 9/11 attacks, but the Bush administration evidently pushed hard for the kind of intelligence it wanted rather than the kind it needed. One captured Qaeda operative, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, was tortured by the Egyptians until he confessed there were operational links between his organization and Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, although in fact there were no such links. "They were killing me," al-Libi was quoted as telling the FBI later. "I had to tell them something."
When the popular revolt against Mubarak hit Egypt this January, it caught everyone off guard, not only the octogenarian dictator himself but the CIA and even the Mukhabarat. It's not entirely the CIA's fault that it failed to see the approaching storm: For all the supposed cooperation, the Egyptians had always tried to prevent the Americans from investigating popular dissent inside Egypt. "There was a pretty clear line drawn," says Mr. Mum. Part of the price of cooperation against international terrorists was enforced ignorance about domestic unrest.
But when Mubarak fell, he took his longtime intelligence chief down with him. As the protests grew in Tahrir Square, the old man moved—with more than tacit approval from the United States—to name Suleiman his vice president and likely successor. But the crowds in the street refused to sit still for any such thing. Suleiman has been out of intelligence work, as well as politics, ever since. No one can say who might replace the ousted Mukhabarat chief as Egypt's link to the U.S., and it's not just a matter of his job title. "All intelligence liaison is based on personal connections," says Georgetown's Hoffman. "Before, you were working with people who were focused on the international terrorist threat and focused on their mission. Now, if they are focused at all, it's on the internal threat, and their mission is saving their jobs. And many of them will see having anything to do with the United States as toxic."
The disruption is even greater in Libya. British and American intelligence forged close ties in the 1990s with Tripoli's veteran spymaster, Musa Kusa. The relationship became tighter still after 9/11 and played a vital part in Muammar Gaddafi's "rehabilitation" in Western eyes. Counterterrorism made strange bedfellows: Gaddafi was obsessed with stopping Libyan jihadists who had tried for decades to murder him and overthrow his regime. The U.S. was focused on the same group because Libya was the home country of many recruits to al Qaeda's ranks in Afghanistan and Iraq. But early this year, Gaddafi suddenly released hundreds of hardened jihadist fighters from his jails, claiming they'd been rehabilitated. "We have no idea where they are," says Carnegie's Boucek, who interviewed some of them at the time. But when the popular revolt against Gaddafi began, America, Britain, and France took the lead in providing air support for the rebels. Kussa quickly defected to London, depriving the West of its No. 1 Libyan intelligence channel. And now there are reports out of Mali and Algeria that quantities of sophisticated weapons, including shoulder-held surface-to-air missiles, are making their way from looted Libyan arsenals into the hands of al Qaeda factions deep in the desert.
The situation is no less precarious in Yemen. In recent years, America has deployed advisers there, working to build up the elite counterterrorism unit of the country's Central Security Organization, commanded by a nephew of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Last week the dictator was in Saudi Arabia, convalescing from injuries sustained in an explosion at his presidential compound on June 3, and he seemed likely to remain in exile. His relatives are still on the ground in Yemen, but at this point there's no way to say whether they will concentrate their firepower on anti-regime protesters, on rival tribes, on each other, or on all of the above. One thing seems certain: They probably won't expend much energy or ammunition against the jihadists who call themselves al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
The terrorist group isn't likely to seek out any such confrontation. The fact is that the wildly spreading instability that has accompanied the Arab Spring is custom-made for the jihadists' needs. "Al Qaeda thrives in weak or failing states, not failed states," says Boucek. "They are dependent on a certain amount of things working. They don't want to live totally off the grid. And the space that is best for them is a place where the central government is weak but not totally collapsed." At the moment, only a few of the Arab world's wealthiest monarchies—most notably Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates—seem to be safely outside the semifailing category.
Which is why the Americans have once again turned to Riyadh as their discreet and indispensable ally. In Yemen particularly, the Saudis have their own operatives on the ground and many tribal leaders on their payroll. The kingdom's main objective—to stabilize Yemen while eliminating al Qaeda—is much the same as Washington's. But can Saudi Arabia really resist the region's seismic change? If the country is about to erupt as Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria have done, would local intelligence services know? Would the Americans? The record is far from encouraging.
Christopher Dickey is a columnist for The Daily Beast and Newsweek magazine's Paris bureau chief and Middle East editor. He is the author of six books, including Summer of Deliverance, and most recently Securing the City: Inside America's Best Counterterror Force—the NYPD.
With regimes falling across the Middle East, America's spies have lost one of their most valued allies in the war against the jihadists: dictators. Christopher Dickey reports for Newsweek International.
Among American spies there's more than a little nostalgia for the bad old days. You know, back before dictators started toppling in the Middle East; back when suspected bad guys could be snatched off a street somewhere and delivered to the not-so-tender mercies of interrogators in their home countries; back when thuggish tyrants, however ugly, were at least predictable.
It's not a philosophical thing, just a practical one. Confronted by the cold realities of this year's Arab Spring, many intelligence and counterterrorism professionals now see major dangers looming near at hand, while the good news—a freer, fairer, more equitable and stable Arab world—remains somewhere over the horizon. "All this celebration of democracy is just bullshit," says one senior intelligence officer who's spent decades fighting terrorism and finds his job getting harder, not easier, because of recent developments. "You take the lid off and you don't know what's going to happen. I think disaster is lurking."
To be sure, Osama bin Laden has finally been terminated, but the impact of that single operation on Al Qaeda and its affiliates may have been both overrated and overstated by a U.S. administration anxious to score political points. If, as claimed, bin Laden was still directing operations, what were they? No actual plots have been publicly identified. "Bin La den needed killing, and I am glad he is dead," says another veteran American operative--let's call him Mr. Mum, because he's not authorized to speak on the record. "But bin Laden is what he was: this old guy who got lucky on 9/11, sitting in a crappy little room watching a crappy little TV and trying to pretend that he mattered." Over the weekend news broke that another Al Qaeda leader, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, got killed by local forces at a checkpoint in Somalia. He'd plotted the bombings of US embassies in Africa in 1998 and the U.S. government had put a $5 million price on his head. But as one Somali security official put it, “This was lucky. It wasn’t like Fazul was killed during an operation to get him. He was essentially driving around Mogadishu and got lost.”
Members of the Obama administration leaked a story to The New York Times last week saying the U.S. actually has stepped up operations against al Qaeda-related groups in the midst of Yemen's chaos, "exploiting a growing power vacuum in the country to strike at militant suspects with armed drones and fighter jets." But some say the claim sounds suspiciously like an administration that's in the dark, whistling. "I think it's more signaling than fact," says Princeton University's Barbara Bodine, a former U.S. ambassador to Yemen. And in the meantime the chances of killing the wrong targets in such raids go up astronomically. "With the loss of intelligence cooperation with Yemen, we are trying to cut back the jihadis as much as possible," says terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman of Georgetown University. "But where it used to be surgical, it's now much blunter."
“All this celebration of democracy is just bullshit,” says one senior intelligence officer… “You take the lid off and you don’t know what’s going to happen. I think disaster is lurking.”
Over the long term, in fact, the key to defending Americans and U.S. interests from attacks by jihadists is either to insert spies into their organizations or to persuade people who are already inside to talk. Aerial surveillance and communications intercepts are useful, but solid information from human sources is vital, whether you're targeting specific terrorist leaders or trying to disrupt operations in other ways.
The Americans have spent long years building liaison relationships with key figures in the military and intelligence apparatuses of countries across the Middle East who might deliver that kind of detailed information. But now, says Christopher Boucek of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "the Libyans, the Tunisians, the Egyptians, the Yemenis—they are either gone or going." And a particularly cruel irony, as a former CIA station chief in the Middle East points out, is that these relationships were so focused on catching a handful of terrorists that they missed the oncoming tidal wave of popular revolt. "What intelligence is supposed to do is be ready for things like this," he says.
The thought is underscored by Edward Walker, a former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs who now teaches at Hamilton College in New York state. "We became far too overreliant on those networks," he says. "When you are totally dependent on local intelligence organizations, you tend to protect them." In the process America becomes blind to what the regime will not see.
A quick tour of the counterterrorism horizon suggests just how unprepared the CIA, the Defense Department, and other U.S. government entities are for the post-Arab Spring world, and how hard it will be for them to rehabilitate their old techniques for fighting terrorism. For almost 30 years, U.S. intelligence relied on Hosni Mubarak's Egypt as a key ally, and the pivotal figure in that relationship was Gen. Omar Suleiman, director of the country's General Intelligence Services, commonly called the Mukhabarat. "He's philosophically Western and a cultured man, and he was a linchpin," says Mr. Mum.
The partnership became a top priority in the 1990s, when Egypt faced a serious terrorist threat led by Ayman al-Zawahiri—the man who eventually joined forces with Osama bin Laden to create what is now called al Qaeda. In the Clinton years the CIA used its global reach to track down members of the organization, then sent them to Egypt for interrogation that often extended to torture and, in some cases, execution. From Egyptian jihadists picked up in Albania and elsewhere, the Mukhabarat and the CIA gleaned important information about the inner workings of al Qaeda. But the United States compromised its moral standing by accepting "with a blink and a nod" Egyptian assurances that no torture would be employed, says Walker, who was the U.S. ambassador to Cairo at the time. In any event, the intelligence gathered wasn't enough to stop al Qaeda's 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
The "rendition" program continued in close cooperation with Suleiman after the 9/11 attacks, but the Bush administration evidently pushed hard for the kind of intelligence it wanted rather than the kind it needed. One captured Qaeda operative, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, was tortured by the Egyptians until he confessed there were operational links between his organization and Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, although in fact there were no such links. "They were killing me," al-Libi was quoted as telling the FBI later. "I had to tell them something."
When the popular revolt against Mubarak hit Egypt this January, it caught everyone off guard, not only the octogenarian dictator himself but the CIA and even the Mukhabarat. It's not entirely the CIA's fault that it failed to see the approaching storm: For all the supposed cooperation, the Egyptians had always tried to prevent the Americans from investigating popular dissent inside Egypt. "There was a pretty clear line drawn," says Mr. Mum. Part of the price of cooperation against international terrorists was enforced ignorance about domestic unrest.
But when Mubarak fell, he took his longtime intelligence chief down with him. As the protests grew in Tahrir Square, the old man moved—with more than tacit approval from the United States—to name Suleiman his vice president and likely successor. But the crowds in the street refused to sit still for any such thing. Suleiman has been out of intelligence work, as well as politics, ever since. No one can say who might replace the ousted Mukhabarat chief as Egypt's link to the U.S., and it's not just a matter of his job title. "All intelligence liaison is based on personal connections," says Georgetown's Hoffman. "Before, you were working with people who were focused on the international terrorist threat and focused on their mission. Now, if they are focused at all, it's on the internal threat, and their mission is saving their jobs. And many of them will see having anything to do with the United States as toxic."
The disruption is even greater in Libya. British and American intelligence forged close ties in the 1990s with Tripoli's veteran spymaster, Musa Kusa. The relationship became tighter still after 9/11 and played a vital part in Muammar Gaddafi's "rehabilitation" in Western eyes. Counterterrorism made strange bedfellows: Gaddafi was obsessed with stopping Libyan jihadists who had tried for decades to murder him and overthrow his regime. The U.S. was focused on the same group because Libya was the home country of many recruits to al Qaeda's ranks in Afghanistan and Iraq. But early this year, Gaddafi suddenly released hundreds of hardened jihadist fighters from his jails, claiming they'd been rehabilitated. "We have no idea where they are," says Carnegie's Boucek, who interviewed some of them at the time. But when the popular revolt against Gaddafi began, America, Britain, and France took the lead in providing air support for the rebels. Kussa quickly defected to London, depriving the West of its No. 1 Libyan intelligence channel. And now there are reports out of Mali and Algeria that quantities of sophisticated weapons, including shoulder-held surface-to-air missiles, are making their way from looted Libyan arsenals into the hands of al Qaeda factions deep in the desert.
The situation is no less precarious in Yemen. In recent years, America has deployed advisers there, working to build up the elite counterterrorism unit of the country's Central Security Organization, commanded by a nephew of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Last week the dictator was in Saudi Arabia, convalescing from injuries sustained in an explosion at his presidential compound on June 3, and he seemed likely to remain in exile. His relatives are still on the ground in Yemen, but at this point there's no way to say whether they will concentrate their firepower on anti-regime protesters, on rival tribes, on each other, or on all of the above. One thing seems certain: They probably won't expend much energy or ammunition against the jihadists who call themselves al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
The terrorist group isn't likely to seek out any such confrontation. The fact is that the wildly spreading instability that has accompanied the Arab Spring is custom-made for the jihadists' needs. "Al Qaeda thrives in weak or failing states, not failed states," says Boucek. "They are dependent on a certain amount of things working. They don't want to live totally off the grid. And the space that is best for them is a place where the central government is weak but not totally collapsed." At the moment, only a few of the Arab world's wealthiest monarchies—most notably Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates—seem to be safely outside the semifailing category.
Which is why the Americans have once again turned to Riyadh as their discreet and indispensable ally. In Yemen particularly, the Saudis have their own operatives on the ground and many tribal leaders on their payroll. The kingdom's main objective—to stabilize Yemen while eliminating al Qaeda—is much the same as Washington's. But can Saudi Arabia really resist the region's seismic change? If the country is about to erupt as Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria have done, would local intelligence services know? Would the Americans? The record is far from encouraging.
Christopher Dickey is a columnist for The Daily Beast and Newsweek magazine's Paris bureau chief and Middle East editor. He is the author of six books, including Summer of Deliverance, and most recently Securing the City: Inside America's Best Counterterror Force—the NYPD.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
No Matter What - Obama 2012
No Matter What
By Dr. Walter Williams
Can President Obama be defeated in 2012? No. He can't. I am going on record as saying that President Barak Obama will win a second term.
The media won't tell you this because a good election campaign means hundreds of millions (or in Obama's case billions) of dollars to them in advertising.
But the truth is, there simply are no conditions under which Barak Obama can be defeated in 2012.
The quality of the Republican candidate doesn't matter. Obama gets reelected. Nine percent unemployment? No problem. Obama will win. Gas pricesmoving toward five dollars a gallon? He still wins. The economy soars or goes into the gutter. Obama wins. War in the Middle East ? He wins a second term.
America's role as the leading Superpower disappears? Hurrah for Barak Obama! The U.S. government rushes toward bankruptcy, the dollar continues to sink on world markets and the price of daily goods and services soars due to inflation fueled by Obama's extraordinary deficit spending? Obama wins handily.
You are crazy Williams. Don't you understand how volatile politics can be when overall economic, government, and world conditions are declining? Sure I do.
And that's why I know Obama will win. The American people are notoriously ignorant of economics. And economics is the key to why Obama should be defeated.
Even when Obama's policies lead the nation to final ruin, the majority of the American people are going to believe the bait-and-switch tactics Obama and his supporters in the media will use to explain why it isn't his fault. After all, things were much worse than understood when he took office.
Obama's reelection is really a very, very simple math problem. Consider the following:
1) Blacks will vote for Obama blindly. Period. Doesn't matter what he does. It's a race thing. He's one of us,
2) College educated women will vote for Obama. Though they will be offended by this, they swoon at his oratory. It's really not more complex than that,
3) Liberals will vote for Obama. He is their great hope,
4) Democrats will vote for Obama. He is the leader of their party and his coat tails will carry them to victory nationwide,
5) Hispanics will vote for Obama. He is the path to citizenship for those who are illegal and Hispanic leaders recognize the political clout they carry in the Democratic Party,
6) Union members will vote overwhelmingly for Obama. He is their key to money and power in business, state and local politics,
7) Big Business will support Obama. They already have. He has almost $1 Billion dollars in his reelection purse gained largely from his connections with Big Business and is gaining more everyday. Big Business loves Obama because he gives them access to taxpayer money so long as they support his social and political agenda,
8) The media love him. They may attack the people who work for him, but they love him. After all, to not love him would be racist,
9) Most other minorities and special interest groups will vote for him. Oddly, the overwhelming majority of Jews and Muslims will support him because they won't vote Republican. American Indians will support him. Obviously homosexuals tend to vote Democratic. And lastly,
10) Approximately half of independents will vote for Obama. And he doesn't need anywhere near that number because he has all of the groups previously mentioned. The President will win an overwhelming victory in 2012.
-- Dr. Walter Williams
By Dr. Walter Williams
Can President Obama be defeated in 2012? No. He can't. I am going on record as saying that President Barak Obama will win a second term.
The media won't tell you this because a good election campaign means hundreds of millions (or in Obama's case billions) of dollars to them in advertising.
But the truth is, there simply are no conditions under which Barak Obama can be defeated in 2012.
The quality of the Republican candidate doesn't matter. Obama gets reelected. Nine percent unemployment? No problem. Obama will win. Gas pricesmoving toward five dollars a gallon? He still wins. The economy soars or goes into the gutter. Obama wins. War in the Middle East ? He wins a second term.
America's role as the leading Superpower disappears? Hurrah for Barak Obama! The U.S. government rushes toward bankruptcy, the dollar continues to sink on world markets and the price of daily goods and services soars due to inflation fueled by Obama's extraordinary deficit spending? Obama wins handily.
You are crazy Williams. Don't you understand how volatile politics can be when overall economic, government, and world conditions are declining? Sure I do.
And that's why I know Obama will win. The American people are notoriously ignorant of economics. And economics is the key to why Obama should be defeated.
Even when Obama's policies lead the nation to final ruin, the majority of the American people are going to believe the bait-and-switch tactics Obama and his supporters in the media will use to explain why it isn't his fault. After all, things were much worse than understood when he took office.
Obama's reelection is really a very, very simple math problem. Consider the following:
1) Blacks will vote for Obama blindly. Period. Doesn't matter what he does. It's a race thing. He's one of us,
2) College educated women will vote for Obama. Though they will be offended by this, they swoon at his oratory. It's really not more complex than that,
3) Liberals will vote for Obama. He is their great hope,
4) Democrats will vote for Obama. He is the leader of their party and his coat tails will carry them to victory nationwide,
5) Hispanics will vote for Obama. He is the path to citizenship for those who are illegal and Hispanic leaders recognize the political clout they carry in the Democratic Party,
6) Union members will vote overwhelmingly for Obama. He is their key to money and power in business, state and local politics,
7) Big Business will support Obama. They already have. He has almost $1 Billion dollars in his reelection purse gained largely from his connections with Big Business and is gaining more everyday. Big Business loves Obama because he gives them access to taxpayer money so long as they support his social and political agenda,
8) The media love him. They may attack the people who work for him, but they love him. After all, to not love him would be racist,
9) Most other minorities and special interest groups will vote for him. Oddly, the overwhelming majority of Jews and Muslims will support him because they won't vote Republican. American Indians will support him. Obviously homosexuals tend to vote Democratic. And lastly,
10) Approximately half of independents will vote for Obama. And he doesn't need anywhere near that number because he has all of the groups previously mentioned. The President will win an overwhelming victory in 2012.
-- Dr. Walter Williams
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