What is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?

It’s become a familiar routine, and one that you’d only understand if you were the son of immigrants whose home country is in the news almost exclusively for violence. You wake up, check your phone, and see the news alerts that “something” happened. Some alerts include the names of someone prominent among the dead, and some mention a death toll. You rub your eyes and start to wake up for real.

Now it hits that you’ve seen this scene before, the last time something like this happened, and you’re 2,000 miles and 7 hours behind the news. It all went down while you were asleep. All you can do now is try to react or make sense of it.

A bomb blast exploded in downtown Beirut today. A senior politician in the Western-backed coalition, a close ally and friend of the Hariri family, Mohammed Chatah, was among those dead, along with at least five other people unlucky enough to be going about their day in the same area.

This same story has played out too many other times in Lebanon. As the fires in Syria continue to burn, Lebanon will be prone to flare-ups. Most politicians there find it difficult to remain neutral in a conflict so intertwined with Lebanon’s future, and so affected by larger regional powers, and so they are involved, one way or another.

And the aftermath is always the same. The party targeted will make an accusation. The accused will deny it. The dead will be buried, and life will go in Lebanon.

It’s not that the people have given up hope. It’s not that they are indifferent towards the violence. It’s the feeling of inevitability, of familiarity with what’s about to happen next. And the shrug that says “This has happened before in my lifetime, it’s happening again, and it will happen tomorrow. It’s out of my control.”
Because it sometimes does feel like it’s out of our control. Lebanon’s location, population, and the land it occupies have been both a blessing and a curse. My favorite way to describe Lebanon to friends who haven’t seen it is that you can have a beer on the beach, get in your car, and in an hour you’ll be on top of a mountain. The land is beautiful, and its location is desirable and advantageous. Lebanon is bordered on two sides by Syria, one by the sea, and one by Israel. There are at least six distinct religious groups in the country that constitute sizable minorities, at least 5% of the population each. Two of the largest power players in the region, Iran and Saudi Arabia, hold important influence over large parts of the government and country.

Although the country is known for its lengthy civil war, Lebanon hasn’t fought its own battles. It’s been fighting the battles of the region, of other countries, of powers much larger than its own. The push and pull of the regional cold war, fomented by the interference and king-making of the US government, has frequently played out in Lebanon. The only thing the people of Lebanon have control over is what they choose to do next.

The CIA is competing with the NSA for the title of "Most Secretive Organization in America". Prize unknown.

The release of a 6,000 page Senate report detailing the CIA’s torture and interrogation techniques during the Bush administration is being held up by intelligence officials and their Republican friends in the Senate, on the grounds that the report contains factual errors. Whether there actually are factual errors, we don’t know, because the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee maintain that the only errors the Agency pointed out to them was a “minor” one, which has since been corrected.

Why the Agency would want to stonewall the release of this report isn’t surprising, however. According to those familiar with the it, the report concludes that the interrogation techniques employed by the CIA during the Bush administration did not produce any information that led to the capture or death of any terrorist leaders, and in reality was counterproductive. This evidence would be damning to the proponents of torture, who claim that the country is safer because of these techniques, and that we would not have been able to kill Osama bin Laden and kill or capture any of his colleagues if not for using torture. 

It’s not clear if the CIA is hoping to block the release of the report forever, though. It could be. Another possibility is that the agency could be wrangling for time to present some sort of legal block to the release, on the grounds that the report could endanger national security, although this is unlikely. The most likely scenario, in my opinion, is that it is stalling to build concern around the veracity of the report’s facts, thus throwing the report’s conclusions into doubt right from the get go. It already has allies in the Republicans on the Committee, who have stated their opposition to the report’s damning of their former boss’s national security accomplishments. (A CBS/New York Times poll from earlier this year found that about half of Americans felt that George W. Bush had made the country safer during his presidency). You can bet that they would be making the rounds after the report’s release to fire shots at its findings. 

Which is all the more reason why we should hope that this report sees the light of day sooner rather than later. By revealing to the American people the facts around the effects of torture on our national security, it allows us to not only hold our current leaders more accountable, but make more informed decisions in the future. The same CBS/New York Times poll found that 37 percent of Americans thought waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation” techniques were sometimes justified. The number is less than half, but it’s not small enough, and it is no doubt buoyed by many people’s belief that these techniques have extracted useful information. The report would finally prove that notion to be false, a lie peddled by the organization and administration whose existence and MO depended on the American people believing it. Torturing our enemies not only damages our human rights record, it damages our national security record. It’s time for the current administration to push for this report’s release, hold those responsible for crimes accountable, and help the CIA and the entire country move past this regrettable chapter. 

Yet another drone strike gone wrong

Drone strike kills 15 wedding-goers in Yemen

It feels like we hear this story all too often. A US drone strike in Yemen hit a convoy of cars that were part of a wedding party, killing at least ten and up to seventeen innocent people. Local authorities said the intended target was al-Qaeda operatives. The number of drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen has increased since Obama took office, and although the President has earned praise from many people on their effectiveness in eliminating terrorist threats, these strikes are a mark on his legacy and should be on the conscience of all Americans. They’re tantamount to sham trials and executions.

When an operation is run in this level of secrecy, we lose the notion of accountability. Who’s to blame when an aerial attack goes wrong and innocent civilians on the way to a wedding are killed? In most branches of the US military, attacks on civilians are investigated and there’s (usually) a clear determination as to who’s responsible. They can be investigated, disciplined if necessary and action can be taken to rectify the process. In the ambiguous and hazy environment of drone attacks, however, we don’t have the ability to hold those responsible for mistakes accountable, which makes the future efficacy of these operations extremely discouraging.  

The argument that these strikes are effective in combatting terrorism doesn’t hold sway when you consider the lives of those living under them - it’s a truly frightening existence. To a Yemeni (or a Pakistani), a drone strike is a random killing from the sky. They see no troops on the ground, who have faces and are humans just like them. Their entire notion of the US military is one of indiscriminate and omnipotent firepower, one that frequently cuts down civilians as well as combatants. And these combatants are benefitting from our drone strikes. Every mistake the US military makes that ends up killing civilians can be used as a recruiting tool for al-Qaeda. There is little evidence to show that the fear of a drone strike is dissuading many combatants from continuing the fight. 

It’s up to the US people to hold their government accountable for events like this, and the operations that led to it. If more people understood the consequences of these attacks, the support for them would decline. The American people never voted for this shadow war. They have no one to hold accountable for the mistakes made in it. And they shouldn’t stand by and let it continue. 

A Long Winter for Syrian Refugees

Heavy Snow Hammers Refugee Camps in Lebanon

     Syrian refugees in Lebanon are now having to weather not only a brutal civil war, but an unforgiving winter storm. As we here in the states start to thaw from our own winter storm, frigid weather and snow has hit many areas of Syria and Lebanon, bringing with it tough conditions for thousands. A large number of the approximately 800,000 Syrians who have fled to their smaller neighbor are living in makeshift camps and homes, many of these no more than plastic tarps made to keep out the rain and sun. Temperatures in the Bekaa Valley though, where around a third of the refugees have settled, have plunged to freezing and there’s little the people there can do to weather the storm.
The Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon has escalated in recent months, as more and more people cross the border to escape the fighting. The Syrian government has made important gains in recent weeks and months, but you can expect the inevitable increased funding and resistance from Saudi-funded forces to push back, drawing out this civil war even longer. This isn’t to say that refugees will easily be able to return to their homes after the war is done, either. Whether the Assad government remains standing or not, it’s likely that life will be dangerous as whoever ends up on top works to consolidate power and squash any opposition. This is a common occurrence in countries post-regime change, as the new (or newly affirmed) leadership works to ensure that its hold on power is absolute (after the Iranian Revolution of 1979,  a Khomeini-appointee named Sadeq Khalkhali carried hundreds of political executions, most of them without the benefit of a trial or jury, including a former prime minister).
In the meantime, Lebanon is already strained under the 450,000 Palestinian refugees already living within its borders. Although the refugees have largely carved out communities and camps for themselves throughout the country, the delicate sectarian balance in Lebanon makes it ripe for conflict. So far, thankfully, a tragic event like the Sabra and Shatila massacres hasn’t befallen the vulnerable Syrian refugee communities.
As the conflict stretches on, however, more and more Syrians escape into neighboring countries and there are more and more chances that spill over conflicts will rise. It also becomes increasingly apparent that the true losers in these unforgiving proxy wars aren’t countries or governments, but the people themselves.

On politics and media, and why we might be the problem

Although I’d like to believe that I’m not the kind of person who commentates on the mainstream media, living at home and not working has enabled me to not only easily receive a lot of my news from mainstream TV, but to have the luxury of thinking about how it’s delivered. I’ve come to rely on CNN for its round-the-clock coverage of news stories, no matter how undeserving of coverage they might be, and I take a perverse pleasure in sitting on my couch fuming about how poor I find their reporting.

I get that people like politics. It’s exciting, divisive, competitive, and there’s nothing quite like assigning the blame to the other party. But the media’s reliance on this back and forth between Republicans and Democrats as the only way to frame a news story is a disservice to both its viewership and its own reputation.

Since the launch of the Obamacare website, the bulk of the mainstream news coverage has been on not the merits of the law, including both its successes and shortcomings, but the political impact that the various glitches of the website have had. Whether this is because CNN doesn’t have anyone on their commentary panels that’s a healthcare expert, or because they believe the law is too confusing for their viewers to understand, it’s incredibly frustrating to hear the same rounds of “How will this affect the 2014 Midterm elections?” as the lead in for Obamacare stories. Why don’t we hear about how the law is affecting millions of Americans, good and bad? The main focus for an entire week was that the President’s earlier statement about who could keep their health insurance ended up not being true. However, the focus wasn’t on why people couldn’t keep their insurance, only that the President originally said they could and now they couldn’t. People have been viewing it as a reflection on the President’s credibility — it is, but that’s not the only story. At this point, the President’s credibility only matters in that it would help him win an election. He doesn’t have any more of those, so why does it matter?

Because the media can spin a story based on it. It’s this endless cycle that keeps us in the media’s grip. They only report on things in as much as it gives them a story either six minutes or six months down the road. This isn’t a new characteristic of the industry — it’s always been the case. It’s a business and it needs viewers to continue. So then the problem must be with the viewers. Are people actually interested in things only as CNN presents them?

It certainly feels like the general public’s perception of issues is in scope with the methods that CNN uses to present them. Although unscientific, it’s difficult not to glean a lot of information from Jimmy Kimmel’s experiment of asking people on the street whether they preferred the Affordable Care Act to Obamacare, and displaying the results. Many of the big political issues like Obamacare are very dense and unless a person has studied healthcare policy and economics, they’ll find it difficult to make a reasoned argument for or against the merits of the law. What they’ll instead stand for are the base opinions or values that they themselves hold, or that they’ve been told about by one of the political pundits on CNN. The media knows this, and doesn’t bother seriously studying the issues. It looks at the issues in the same depth that a person understands it.

A example of this approach can be seen in how Governor Chris Christie is mentioned in the media. The focus is more on how Christie is viewed and whether he is seen as pragmatic by voters and Americans, and almost not at all on his policies, his actions, or most importantly his record as Governor. This is in part due to Christie’s ability to make bold and controversial statements that steal the focus from anything that he is doing as governor. He must have found this out early in his career, and has been exploiting it ever since to make a name and image for himself, and not tied down to any ideology that could be attacked by his opponents. The media has gone along with this, as Christie is much more interesting to view in sound bites than in studying the effect his policies have had on poor New Jerseyans, or the state’s schools.

Perhaps the best way to combat these deficiencies of our media is for us to educate those around us as to the issues. This doesn’t mean to convince them of one policy against another, but rather to ensure that the actual policies themselves are studied. This is the only way to ensure that we can clearly see the impact that policies have on us, instead of being distracted by the politics.

Iran nuclear deal is a step in the right direction

The latest round of negotiations between the P5 + 1 countries and Iran about Iran's nuclear program has ended with a proposed deal that involves increased oversight and inspection of Iran's nuclear facilities, Iran's agreement not to enrich uranium over 5% for the next 6 months and neutralize all of their existing 20% enriched uranium, among other things. In exchange, there will be no new sanctions placed on the country for the next 6 months as long as it upholds its end of the deal, as well some relief in gold and oil sanctions and the automobile sector.
Expectedly, the government of Israel and the Republican Party immediately condemned the deal as "dangerous", a "historic mistake". (Maybe Netanyahu is calling it a mistake on Iran's part, because he would never allow nuclear inspectors into his own country...but that's unlikely.) Admittedly, said parties make their living off of fear mongering around Iran and Obama's weak stance in dealing with them, but it's still rather disappointing to see how blindly and religiously these opponents will try to strike down a deal that frankly is a pretty good start. Here are a couple reasons why:

Sets the model for future negotiations, including with other countries

Relations between Iran and the US have been historically fraught with tension and distrust. Any deal that both sides can walk away from with cautious optimism is a good first step for future talks on not only Iran's nuclear program, but other regional issues like Syria. Showing that the two countries can actually sit down with the rest of the Security Council starts to build a level of trust that should carry through to future negotiations. This also bodes well for negotiations with other nuclear or would-be nuclear powers, like North Korea, India, and Pakistan. That's not to say that all the hard work is done, but these negotiations can act as a model and hopefully serve as encouragement to the US and other nations.

Sitting around a table is preferable to fighting a war

The proposed deal that's been struck isn't perfect, and it isn't everlasting, but anything that keeps Israel or the US from leaning towards military action is a good thing. If Iran is able to hold their end of the deal for 6 months, they will weaken Israel and US military hawks' case that a strike on Iran's nuclear reactors is the only way to resolve this situation. Of course, if Iran is seen as reneging on the deal, even if it's only the perception, this will hurt the pro-negotations side.

It helps to re-establish the United States' legitimacy as a partner in international cooperation

Starting with George W. Bush and continuing into Obama's second term, the United States was increasingly seen, especially by the international community, as a unilateral player on the world stage. With the exception of Libya, the US time and time again preferred to go at it alone in dealing with international conflict. This came to a head in September of this year, when Obama threatened military action against the Assad regime in Syria in retaliation for Assad's supposed use of chemical weapons on civilians. Russia stepped up and was able to negotiate a deal wherein Assad's weapon stockpiles would begin to be dismantled under UN auspices. The Iran deal is a chance for the US to once again show that it can function within the UN to achieve its objectives, without resorting to unilateral military action. It's a good first step to showing that the US understands the limits to its power and reach, and the benefits to working with allies within the international community.

The deal on the table right now is a good first step in nuclear negotiations, and has the benefit of encouraging the partners to work together for the next 6 months to not only fulfill their ends of the bargain, but also build trust and a level of mutual respect.

"Lessons in Disaster"

As the drums continue to beat on Barack Obama's seemingly unstoppable march to war with Syria, the comparisons to the run-up to Iraq have unsurprisingly been frequently noted. But while it's easy to congratulate ourselves on remembering that we did end jp fighting an incredibly costly war over complete lies only a decade ago, it isn't enough to insist that we should be "100% sure" of the evidence, as though this is the only prerequisite to bombing Syria.

The importance of studying history is that it allows one to learn from the mistakes of the past, to avoid repeating them in the future. Listening to Obama and Secretary Kerry speak, you wouldn't think that the former is the first American president to have their foreign policy truly shaped by a poat-Vietnam environment, and that the other actually fought in the war and saw first hand the failures of policy development then. What one sees instead is a blatant lack of analytical rigor applied to the argument for attacking Syria. In the last days of his life, McGeorge Bundy, national security advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, and one of the chief architects of the Vietnam escalation, admitted that the lack of such analysis was one of the chief reasons the US failed so spectacularly in that arena. (For a full account of the decision making process that led to American involvement in Vietnam, I highly recommend Gordon Goldstein's Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam, whose title I borrowed for this post.)

So, what is holding back Messrs. Obama, Kerry, and Secretary of Defense Hagel this time? Is it hubris? Their full-throated support and confidence in the effectiveness of military action sounds hollow. Have they considered all options of what could occur in Syria? About what impact a strike would have? About what the end goal will be, and what the options are, if the strikes have no effect om Assad. Do they fully understand the resilience of their enemy? Are they pretending to completely understand the situation and all of the players on the ground? It doesn't sound like they do, when they can only brag that other Middle Eastern or Arab nations like Saudi Arabia and Turkey support military strikes, both of whom do so for purely geopolitical reasons (and because they have actual troops who would benefit from such a strike), and not for any humanitarian reasons at all. It sounds like the politicians rounding up the cattle are suffering from an extreme lack of ability to connect current events to the mistakes of the past. 

It is embarassing to see how much reliance, air time, and deferment has been granted to the architects of the Iraq invasion when discussing Syria. When people like Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Bremer are brought on TV shows talk about why we should invade another country, you have no choice but to stare in wonder at how fully the wool is being pulled over our eyes, and if indeed we ever pulled it off. 

Dear Mr. President...

Dear Mr. President,

I'm pretty disappointed. The level of warmongering and fear-mongering that's been displayed in the media and highest levels of the US government is amazing, and horrific. Everyone from you to your Secretary of State John Kerry to Democratic strategists like Donna Brazile are suddenly emphasizing the need for military action against the Syrian regime as retaliation for an alleged chemical attack that took place last week, killing 300 people. The arguments of proponents of military action are shockingly illogical, and even more so than the literal lies that we were told 11 years ago when your predecessor was making the case to wage war against Iraq. On the other side, there are many, many reasons why military action against the Syrian regime is a bad idea, and here are just a few of them.

First of all, We don't even know what happened yet. The chemical weapons attack that took place last week has not been investigated. We don't have proof yet who used the weapons, or that it even was a chemical attack. The UN inspectors haven't reached the site to conduct an actual investigation, but that hasn't stopped people like Vice President Joe Biden to state there is "no doubt" that the Syrian regime used the weapons. Apparently, "no doubt" to Joe Biden means the argument is based on circumstantial evidence, such as "We know Assad has wanted to use these weapons before". The government actually stated that they have "near-airtight circumstantial evidence.." that the Assad regime performed the chemical attack. You don't sound too confident. 

You haven't indicated that they are prepared to wait until a formal investigation has been completed. The level of urgency that has gripped your administration is, frankly, crazy. 

So even if the investigation shows that Assad did use the chemical weapons...so what? 

I don't mean to sound heartless, or apathetic. Chemical attacks against innocent civilians are reprehensible, and should never be condoned or used, even during war. But consider the facts: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates that more than 100,000 people have been killed since the conflict began (this includes ~40K - ~50K Syrian soldiers and militiamen). There have been attacks that leveled entire apartment blocks and left dozens dead. Why now, Mr. President, has the situation become so dire that you feel compelled to act? You have to admit: your promise last year that a bunch of chemical weapons moving around was a red line for you was a statement worthy of a Mister George W. Bush. The most popular reason that is being cited as justification for this attack is that the US has to remain credible and stick to what we say. But where do we draw the line on that? Will this happen again in the future? It's a truly frightening idea - that you would ignore all logical and strategic arguments against an intervention because you need to stick to your word. 

Lastly (just for this article!), Mr. Obama, you've stated that your goal in military attacks against Syria is not regime change, but to punish Assad for using chemical weapons to attack civilians. This is such a vague, arbitrary and indirect goal that it convinces you must not have gotten your law degree, because they would've kicked you out of law school if you said that. How much does he need to be punished? How do we know that Assad got the message? If he doesn't ever use another chemical weapon again, will you consider your air strikes successful? What if he uses fighter jets to gun down 500 civilians in a town. Will that be okay, or will that warrant another air strike? What if it turns out that the rebel opposition used the chemical bombs? Does that mean you will then have to attack them? Mr. Obama, there are so many obvious questions here that I'm amazed it will only take you two days to find all the answers. 

I could provide you many more reasons why we should truly question what looks like the already decided upon outcome (for example, the legality of a strike without Congressional approval - don't you remember your opinion on this in 2007, when you were still Senator Obama?). By no means are they limited to what I've listed above. And to be clear, there are actually a few reasons why a military strike might be a good idea - but they are far outweighed by the cons. 

I'd be happy to discuss this further with you. Let me know when you have a second free from bombing another country.

Sincerely,

Another pissed off American