Thursday 29 August 2013
Photo, above: In Uganda, a Karamojong man enters the shaft of an artisanal mine in Rupa, close to the town of Moroto. Gold mining became an alternative source of income for some members of the Karamojong community after their traditional way of life–cattle rustling–started to vanish. Image by Marc Hofer. Uganda, 2011. See: Hour 4, Block B, Mark Schroeder, Stratfor, on Uganda.
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents.
Thursday 29 August 2013 / Hour 1, Block A: John Fund, National Review Online, in re: 285 vs 272 in British Parliament, House of Commons, opposing military intervention in Syria in response to the apparent use of chemical warfare against civilians on August 22. In the US, two Members, a Republican and Democrat, are circulating separate letters to Pres Obama: "You need to get Congressional authorization before sending troops overseas." What are US interests here? Seems to be that the president over a year ago drew a "red line" on the matter. Britain and Canada decline; French are backing down; going it alone with no ally and without Congress? Support for this in the US is below any similar activity in memory.
JF: There's no role for Congress in Syria because it's "special," i.e., has too many Republicans.
Obama Embraces the Imperial Presidency British prime minister David Cameron has recalled Parliament from summer vacation for a special session on Thursday, where there will be “a clear government motion and vote on the United Kingdom’s response to chemical weapons attacks,” Cameron promised on Twitter. President Obama has a different view. The U.S. government’s Voice of America reports: “Pressed about calls for congressional authorization, White House spokesman Jay Carney Tuesday indicated the president believes consulting with congressional leaders is enough.” Oh my, how liberals have learned to love the imperial presidency they used to so scorn when Richard Nixon or George W. Bush was in office. Last night, I appeared on Lou Dobbs Tonight with Mary Anne Marsh, a Democratic consultant whose clients have included the late Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, our current secretary of state. Armed with the latest Democratic talking points, she dismissed any need for Obama to consult with what she dismissed as “a special Congress.” Marsh is worth quoting at length:
There is a special Congress that we’re dealing with right now that has the lowest popularity rating in history and Republicans who overwhelmingly would oppose taking any action. The president of the United States cannot be handcuffed by the same Republicans that are holding the rest of the country hostage on every other issue. That is wrong.
She then dismissed the fact that President Bush sought a vote authorizing combat operations in Iraq in 2002. He won approval from both houses, including a hostile Senate controlled by obstructionist Democrats. That was clearly “a special Congress.” But Marsh was unimpressed with that argument: “President Bush was clearly looking for political cover — he got it. And so many of the people who voted for those wars now regret it.” That makes no sense. What if we wind up regretting . . . [more] . . . Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist that there was a clear distinction between the U.S. president’s authority as commander-in-chief, which involved “nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces” and that of the British king, who could declare war unilaterally. How ironic it would be if this country were to be plunged into a possible “war of unintended consequences” by the actions and will of a single man while the British prime minister thinks it important to consult with and receive support from his nation’s elected representatives before undertaking such a momentous act. In 1781, the British troops at Yorktown had their band play the tune “The World Turned Upside Down” as they marched out to surrender to George Washington. Sadly, it appears the tables are now turned as we pay less heed to prudence and the rule of law than our monarchical forebears do.
Thursday 29 August 2013 / Hour 1, Block B: Quentin Hardy, NYT, in re: Young Tech Sees Itself in Microsoft’s Ballmer Those in mobile and cloud computing, which Microsoft has not taken full advantage of, know that they could one day face similar problems.
Thursday 29 August 2013 / Hour 1, Block C: Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re: For the first time since arriving on Mars engineers have allowed Curiosity to drive itself.
The 1-ton Curiosity rover used autonomous navigation for the first time on Tuesday (Aug. 27), driving itself onto a patch of ground that its handlers had not vetted in advance. The robot will likely employ this “autonav” capability more and more as it continues the long trek toward the base of Mars’ huge Mount Sharp, NASA officials said. In autonav mode, Curiosity analyzes photos it takes during a drive to map out a safe route forward. The car-size rover used this ability on Tuesday to find its way across a small depression whose fine-scale features were hidden from Curiosity’s previous location.
Astronomers have identified a star almost identical to the Sun, except that it's 4 billion years older. They've dated this old age by the amount of lithium detected in the star.
The competition heats up? An Iranian news release today says that researchers at a local university have “designed and built” a manned spacecraft. Sounds dubious to me. I suspect what really happened is that these Iranian university researchers did some work outlining their proposed design, and this has now been translated into a “built” spacecraft.
Thursday 29 August 2013 / Hour 1, Block D: Victor Davis Hanson, Hoover, in re: In Syria, Pres Obama now trying to save face, not lives. Intervention in Syria Is a Very Bad Idea Syria is turning out to be a sort of Spanish Civil War of our age, with Hezbollah and Iran playing the role of fascist Italy and Germany, and the Islamic nations and jihadists that of Stalin’s Russia, as the moderates disappear and the messy conflict becomes a proxy war for greater powers, with worse to come. There were always problems for the Obama administration intervening in Syria besides the usual bad/worse choices in the Middle East between authoritarianism and Islamic extremism and the president’s own preference for sonorous sermons rather than rapid action. For all of 2012, Barack Obama ran on the theme that he had removed the last troops from Iraq and soon would do the same in Afghanistan. So a third intervention in Syria was not to be a campaign talking point, especially after Benghazi. Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and John Kerry were all on record saying that Assad’s Syria was more or less reforming, the nuances of its newfound moderation missed by the supposedly swaggering Bush administration. Lead from behind in Libya had led to Benghazi, not an empowered Arab Spring.
Our record elsewhere is no better. The Muslim Brotherhood certainly did not turn out to be “largely secular” or uninterested in political power. The Egyptian economy is a disaster. Asking the Arab League and the U.N. — but not the U.S. Congress — before intervening in Libya also proved a model for nothing, especially after we hoodwinked the Russians and the Chinese at the U.N. into voting for a no-fly zone and humanitarian aid, only to offer no ground support to the Libyan rebels. I doubt Russia and China will vote for any such similar U.N. resolution for Syria.
U.S. influence in the Middle East and North Africa is at a new post-war low. That Iran supposedly plans to send 4,000 fighters to Syria suggests that it is not too afraid of anyone threatening its nuclear facilities or of the supposedly crushing oil boycott. There is no guarantee that American air support or close training might not end up in some sort of American ground presence — the only sure guarantee that so-called moderates might prevail should Assad fall. Of course, any costly intervention would eventually be orphaned by many in the present chorus of . . .
Hour Two
Thursday 29 August 2013 / Hour 2, Block A: Robert Satloff, Washington Institute, in re: Syria, Egypt, peace process.
Bombing Syria: What's the Goal? As Washington considers military action in Syria, the temptation will be to pursue a limited punitive response to regime chemical-weapons use, rather than a campaign to achieve the administration's stated goal of Bashar al-Assad's removal. Giving in to that temptation would be a mistake. For the second time this summer, events in the Middle East have afforded President Obama an opportunity to correct errant policies. In Egypt, the administration eventually did the right thing – promoting the American national interest by holding its nose (to cite Les Gelb’s appropriate metaphor) and maintaining links with the Egyptian military after the overthrow of President Muhammad Morsi. But Washington arrived at this policy only after coming dangerously close to identifying U.S. interests with the survival and well-being of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is about as counterproductive and self-defeating an approach as one could imagine. The administration now faces a second test in Syria, where Bashar al-Assad’s regime and its Iranian sponsors apparently believe they can put a stake . . . [more]
In Egypt, US Is Better Off Doing Nothing Given the administration's reluctance to act in Syria and other hotspots, President Obama is wise not to diminish US influence further by cutting ties with the Egyptian military. "Doing nothing" is often as important as "doing something." President Obama sent a powerful message about US strategic priorities when he offered verbal condemnation but no meaningful punitive action against Egypt's rulers for their violent crackdown on protesters supporting ousted president Mohammed Morsi. With the United States facing bad options in bad circumstances, Obama's was also the right choice. US-Egypt relations, in their modern incarnation, were born 40 years ago during the October 1973 war, when Secretary of State Henry Kissinger launched an Egyptian-Israeli diplomatic initiative, which produced a historic peace in 1979. Washington became the indispensable partner to both the region's leading democracy (Israel) and its most powerful and populous Arab state (Egypt). The result of Kissinger's success has been four decades without an inter-state war in the Arab-Israeli arena. While the region has known horrific terrorism and conflict triggered by sub-state actors like Hezbollah, the threat that dominated strategic thinking since the 1940s -- old-fashioned conventional war -- was made a thing of the past. US aid to Egypt not only maintained this tenuous peace but cemented a broader bilateral relationship that included security cooperation, counter-terrorism coordination, and preferential treatment to US ships transiting the Suez Canal and US planes overflying Egyptian territory. Over the years, Americans justifiably sought more from this deal. Regionally, . . . [more]
Thursday 29 August 2013 / Hour 2, Block B: Fouad Ajami, Hoover, in re: Egypt, Syria. The British House of Commons has declined to help the US in military intervention in Syria: "A sad day for Britain." The American position in the Middle East has collapsed; an isolationist president: threatened Iran and didn’t follow though; harsher on our friends than enemies. American leadership is missing, Pres Obama thought we could do without it. This crisis is of Pres Obama's making. Russia: has disabilities, is trying to be a great power. No one can step in to our place – I'm afraid we are an indispensable nation. The Ottomans protected the regional peace, then the British, then the Americans – now no one does. This has been an unusual presidency: the Obama phenomenon had a sort of cultish charisma, almost un-American; he squandered our power in the region. Turkey: on the Syria-Turkey border – Erdogan's faith in Pres Obama has left him alone, holding the bag; Turkish position is not strong, is fundamentally flawed. Turkish reluctance to engage in Arab lands.
Excising the ‘Cancer’ in Egypt The knives -- or more properly the scalpels -- are drawn in the Egyptian public square. The liberal forums and the state media are suddenly filled with discussions of illness, with the workings of cancer, with the way diseased cells spread unless “excised” and the tumors removed. Hail the surgeons who perform the needed operations. They must be possessed of steady hands and be precise; they must do their work and check again to make sure that the damaged organs are completely removed. “Istisal,” surgical removal, is the word of the day among erstwhile decent men and women, who express their fondness for the removal of tumors. In the fairly independent forum Al Masry Al Youm, a well-known commentator, Tarek El-Ghazali Harb, sees “total excision of the Muslim Brothers as the only proper cure.” It is a “satanic group,” the Brotherhood, allowed to “prey on a weak Egyptian body whose immune system . . . [more]
Thursday 29 August 2013 / Hour 2, Block C: Tony Badran, FDD, in re: Hezbollah, Lebanon, Syria. Teheran calls all the shots with Hezbollah; won't waste that asset vs Israel for no utility. Holds a second-strike capability should Iran be targeted; meanwhile, Iran puffs out its chest and says, If Shi'a are damaged, we'll use Hezbollah to hold Lebanese Sunnis hostage, and/or Israel. US regional allies looking at Syria in strategic terms, as a battleground and test for balance of power in the region, are incredulous that the US can’t lead and won't support its allies there. This further degrades US power in the region – in the ummah, everybody supports the strong hors, and the US is now the weak horse. Russia is now comfortably installed in Beirut, but Lavrov backed off immediately when it looked as though the US might attack. If this strike story is just a stop on the way to another Geneva conference, then the Russians will take full advantage. US needs to respond very forcefully – but its msgs have been isolated from Syria [in a real sense]; need a broader strategy anent Syria, incl the removal of the Assad regime. If the Tomahawks fly and it's over in 24 hours, it al blows over. If more, then it may shift the balance of power on the ground and lead to decapitating the regime. Note difference between rhetoric and capability. Think of the SS New Jersey under Reagan.
Hezbollah Holds Lebanon’s Sunnis Hostage It didn’t take long after last week’s car bomb in Al-Roueiss for Hezbollah to lay out its plan of attack. The group immediately announced a retaliatory campaign against Sunni targets under the guise of targeting so-called “takfiris” in Lebanon. Hezbollah-allied media have specified by name the areas where the group is likely to launch operations with the help of its friends in the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), as well as sympathetic security services. More ominous, however, were Hezbollah’s accusations against former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, the Future Movement, and its Sunni base, charging them with inciting, supporting, and harboring terrorist groups supposedly directed by Saudi intelligence chief, Bandar bin Sultan. While some Lebanese politicians tried to temper domestic tensions by laying the blame for the bombing on Israel, Hezbollah quickly turned to its domestic rivals and rolled out its talking points right out of the gate. Speaking to Al-Manar TV at the site of the car bombing, Hezbollah MP Ali Ammar set the tone: “those who conspired against the resistance during the July [2006] war and who still pave the way to cover terrorist operations to cease these practices. . . . It’s not the resistance that is attracting terrorism, rather it’s those who . . . [more]
Assad Calls Obama’s Bluff The timing was probably not a coincidence, falling as it did on two anniversaries. August 18, 2011, was when President Obama first demanded Syrian president Bashar al-Assad step aside, and August 20 last year was when Obama warned that the use of chemical weapons would “change my calculus.” It was a year to the day after Obama’s warning that Assad launched what is to date the regime’s largest chemical weapons attack. At least a thousand people are dead, likely more, in several Damascus suburbs and outlying towns. The video reports . . . [more]
Thursday 29 August 2013 / Hour 2, Block D: Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re: Have to give the Egyptian army credit for operating better than most predicted; now there's a movement among the young members of Muslim Brotherhood, who say that Badhi (MB spiritual leader) sold hem out and spuriously called for violence. Secular people appts by al Sis to the new govt are accomplishing more than was assumed possible. Over all, the army is a stabilizing force, People want the violence to end; need to get he economy back on a good footing. Hamas: weakened by the failure of the MB, but is active in Sinai in gun-running and smuggling. Has lost support and income from Iran. Qatar has backed off; Hamas is more isolated, have 600 terrorists in Sinai operating. Hamas is never more dangerous than when it's weakened.
Hour Three
Thursday 29 August 2013 / Hour 3, Block A: Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re: Ds to Commons to ask for support in military intervention in Syria concerning chem. weapons; with no constitution, the Labor (opposition) rises to ask the Prime Minister to abide by the Parliament's refusal; the PM accedes. The US, with a Constitution obliging the president to consult with Congress, so far has a president who declines to do so. Khamenei said that it was time to withdraw the 12,000 IRGC members from Lebanon.
Thursday 29 August 2013 / Hour 3, Block B: Amos Yadlin, Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) director; member of IDF General Staff; in re: militarily, no question but that the US can go it alone. Obama Adm trying to look different from Bush; Congress's rejection is a blow to his reputation, he has to decide to go alone or do nothing. Now it’s a political issue. Is this similar to post-WWI, with the collapse of borders? Surprising that the artificial borders (Jordan, Syria, Iraq) Sykes-Picot Agreement is still holding. Israel was smart enough not to be part of the Syrian civil war. What will be US strategy vis-a-vis Syria? 1, Deterrence – ltd strike to punish and change calculus of using chem war. Assad will hold regime survival as critical and will not react against Israel. 2. If the US strategy is wider and he goal is to remove Assad, then when he sees his end he may think that attacking Israel will help him. We see that the US has picked the first. / Taking the scope of US attack to be bigger and bigger, then Hezbollah and Iran, out of the game right now, will react; but the US has picked the first mode. While the Syrian civil war is internal, Assad has he advantage; if Turkey, US, other, join in, Assad will lose.
Thursday 29 August 2013 / Hour 3, Block C: Dan Henninger, WSJ, in re:
See: http://www.fastweb.com/nfs/fastweb/static/UUS/FINAL-Shopping-Sheet [dot] pdf
Thursday 29 August 2013 / Hour 3, Block D: Blair Glencourse, Accountability Lab, in re:
Corruption and accountability are still Liberia's biggest challenges A decade ago on August 18th, 2003, the Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement brought Liberia’s 14-year civil war to an end. As this small West African country faded from the international headlines, a new era of hope began. Deeply entrenched networks of corruption were a central cause of violence, and Liberians sought to move away from the past and towards a clean, accountable government that put the rights of its citizens before the self-interest of its powerholders. Ten years later, this vision is under threat and with it the stability of a country that is central to US and global interests in the region.
Under President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first female head of state in Africa and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011, the government has made a series of reforms to address the country’s corruption problems. These have ranged from dismissing tainted civil servants, to pushing through new strategies for reform, to passing legislation to address graft. The budget has been opened up, business regulations have been streamlined with management of natural resources becoming a central focus. Liberia was the first African state to comply with EITI rules governing extractive industries for example, and the first West African country to pass a Freedom of Information Act to support more transparent government. Recently, the government signed up to the Open Government Partnership and committed to a series of ambitious goals to help make itself more accountable. However, Liberia is still far from a well-functioning society with secure peace and sustainable development. Nearly 7,500 thousand UN troops remain stationed around the country to prevent violence; the population has no public provision of clean water, sewerage or electricity; and over 76 percent of the population still live on less than $1 a day. Late last year at the UN High Level Panel on the post-2015 Development Agenda, President Johnson Sirleaf herself stated that corruption in Liberia has become “systemic and endemic”, and Liberia was ranked towards the very bottom of Transparency International’s recent Global Corruption Barometer. At the root of Liberia’s problems is a deep lack of accountability. Since 1822 when repatriated American blacks arrived in Liberia, the legitimacy of political actors in the country has been derived not from the delivery of services to the public or responsiveness to constituents, but from participation in deeply entrenched patronage networks. This system has perpetuated itself . . . . [more]
Hour Four
Thursday 29 August 2013 / Hour 4, Block A: Mark Schroeder Stratfor.com, in re: THE POST-CHINA 16 / INTRODUCTION TO THE PC16. As a maturing China moves beyond the low-end manufacturing and export-led model that defined its dramatic three-decade rise, a new group of countries is emerging to assume that role in the global economy. The outlines of this group, whatwecallthePost-China16,or“PC16,”areonlynowcomingintofocus.Indeed, the specific countries may change and the precise roles they play in this transition — their success in following the path China has trod — remain to be fully seen. Even though the movement of two indicator industries — garment manufacturer and mobile telephone assembly — signals change, this is a transition that is as yet pre-statistical; few if any reliable trade numbers or volumes now exist to plot the contours of this shift. But it is, Stratfor has concluded, a shift that is already well under way. The Post-Cold War world rested on three pillars: the United States, Europe and China. China played a unique role in that world. Starting between 1978 and 1980, China entered the global market; it became the center for the fabrication of low-cost consumer goods, feeding the United States and Europe products at substantially lower prices than if the products were manufactured domestically. China’s advantage was lower labor costs. As a result, more and more of the world’s industrial base shifted to China over time and products that fed industrial production, particularly energy and industrial commodities, flowed into China at increasing rates.
It is important to understand the rough sequence of China’s emergence, as it will help understand what is happening in the countries that Stratfor has designated as the candidates to succeed it: the PC16. China layered industrial growth, aligning it with the capabilities of its workforce. At the beginning, the focus was on entry- level production, requiring limited workforce sophistication. Thus, China excelled in garment manufacture and simple assembly work in electronics, for example. Success in this area generated more sophisticated workers, more investment capital and, over time, significant foreign direct investment. It was the layering process that made China the center of global industrial growth for a generation.
Thursday 29 August 2013 / Hour 4, Block B: Mark Schroeder, Stratfor, continued:
Ethiopia Ethiopia traditionally has had a large agricultural industry but stands out as a candidate for investment in other sectors because of above-average growth and a noticeable growing interest in low-end manufacturing. Between 2011 and 2012, Ethiopian gross domestic product grew by an average of 7.8 percent, more than twice the global average of 3.6 percent. There has also been a notable increase in textile and footwear exports since 2010. Foreign direct investment has also been on the rise in Ethiopia, increasing by 338 percent from 2009 to 2012 when it reached $970 million. . . .
Tanzania Tanzania’s population of more than 47 million, combined with wages as low as $44 per month (though it can be as high as $221 per month in the mineral and aviation sectors), gives investors a large, cheap labor pool. Dar es Salaam serves as a large commercial base and an international bulk and container port on the Indian Ocean. Infrastructure development and expansion of the port will likely be necessary to fully support an expanded manufacturing base, but investments are being made toward that goal. And the ongoing development of some of the
Uganda Interest in Uganda is emerging from as far afield as Sri Lanka, Turkey and China. Uganda’s low wages, the existing mining industry and the expanding infrastructure connections with its larger coastal East African neighbors are helping Uganda move beyond natural resource exploitation and into manufacturing. Already Sri Lankan firms are investing in power plants in Uganda to power future textile mills (taking advantage of its cotton production), and mobile phone manufacturing has become an important piece of a slowly diversifying economy.
Thursday 29 August 2013 / Hour 4, Block C: Sid Perkins, Science Climate, in re:
CLIMATE ScienceShot: Arctic Warming Twice as Fast as Rest of World 2012 earns dubious distinctions in many climate categories
EARTH ScienceShot: Why Did Sea Level Drop in 2010? A new study fingers Australia
Over the past 10 years at least, sea levels have been rising relatively steadily. This is mostly due to melting glaciers and ice sheets, and is a natural — if detrimental — consequence of global warming. The rate of ocean level rise has been a little over 3 millimeters per year (about 1/8th of an inch per year)… until last year. The rate of increase suddenly reversed itself in 2010, and the sea levels actually dropped a bit, by about 6 mm. What happened?
CLIMATE Fixing Climate Not So Easy Cutting methane, soot may not limit short-term warming as much as previously thought.
Thursday 29 August 2013 / Hour 4, Block D: Henry I Miller, M.D., Hoover & Forbes.com, in re: "Embracing GM Crops" (The Times of India) - India has enjoyed signal successes with genetic engineering in agriculture, but its relationship with this environmentally friendly, wealth-enhancing technology may be coming to an end. At the very least, it is in disarray, the victim of activists' scaremongering and government pandering. The recommendations of a technical expert committee (TEC) forwarded recently to the Supreme Court are absurd. The TEC has called for an indefinite moratorium on field trials of genetically engineered ("genetically modified" or "GM") crops until alleged deficiencies in the government's regulatory and safety systems have been addressed. The truth is that the cultivation of these plants in 2012 on a record 170.3 million hectares worldwide (by more than 17 million farmers) caused not a single mishap” not an ecosystem disrupted or a person given a tummy ache. During the past decade, widespread adoption of an insect-resistant, genetically engineered crop called Bt-cotton, which contains a bacterial protein toxic to pests, has drastically reduced the use of chemical pesticides in cotton fields, enhanced food security and improved farmers' bottom line. It took 15 years (1982-97) for cotton yields in India to increase from 200 to 300 kg/hectare, but the availability of Bt-cotton boosted yields from 300 kg/hectare to over 500 kg/hectare during just 2002-08. Economists Graham Brookes and Peter Barfoot estimate that Bt-cotton boosted India's economy by $9.4 billion from 2002 to 2010 and by $2.5 billion in 2010 alone. Nevertheless, radical activists have made bizarre, . . . [more]
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Data from a NASA airborne science mission reveals evidence of a large and previously unknown canyon hidden under a mile of Greenland ice. The canyon has the characteristics of a winding river channel and is at least 460 miles (750 kilometers) long, making it longer than the Grand Canyon. In some places, it is as deep as 2,600 feet (800 meters), on scale with segments of the Grand Canyon. This immense feature is thought to predate the ice sheet that has covered Greenland for the last few million years. "One might assume that the landscape of the Earth has been fully explored and mapped," said Jonathan Bamber, professor of physical geography at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, and lead author of the study. "Our research shows there's still a lot left to discover." Bamber's team published its findings Thursday in the journal Science. The scientists used thousands of miles of airborne radar data, collected by NASA and researchers from the United Kingdom and Germany over several decades, to piece together the landscape lying beneath the Greenland ice sheet. A large portion of this data was collected from 2009 through 2012 by NASA's Operation IceBridge, an airborne science campaign that studies polar ice. One of IceBridge's scientific instruments, the Multichannel Coherent Radar Depth Sounder, operated by the Center for the Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets at the University of Kansas, can see through vast layers of ice to measure its thickness and the shape of bedrock below.
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