Category: 08 Wild Cards

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Journal: Correction To Spinney Piece Makes It Stronger

08 Wild Cards
Chuck Spinney Sends

All … Please be advised, a reader from Toronto correctly informed me that I made a serious error of fact in my last piece in Counterpunch, “Obama as Moral Dupe: Will Erdogan Blink?”

I stated that the threat to sink any Gaza aid ship or escorting warship carrying Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan was made by Deputy of Staff Uzi Dayan. In fact, Dayan is not the currrent Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army, but a former DCS. He is now a member of Likud Party in the Knesset. He is not a member of the Netanyahu government, however.

Therefore, the threat to sink any ship carrying Erdogan was not technically made by the Netanyahu government. However, given the fact that Dayan is a member in good standing of the Israeli generals club; the fact that being Moshe Dayan's nephew, he is a prominent member of the Israeli military aristocracy; and the facts that the Jerusalem Post and Army Radio are known mouthpieces for the Israeli Government, I suspect this threat was an exercise in “strategic ambiguity” to hype tensions in the hope of deterring the Erdogan government, while leaving the door open for the Netanyahu government to distance itself from the remarks, should that become necessary. It is also possible Dayan had domestic political reasons for making this statement. And, of course, he may have been a loose cannon.

Whatever the case, imagine a prominent US senator saying the US must take a military action that could kill the prime minister of a rival country, and the President taking no action to disavow those remarks. I have searched the internet to find a statement disavowing Dayan's comments by the Netanyahu government and found none to date.

I should have included wording to this effect — and paradoxically, I think a correction these lines would have made my argument stronger, because it is more illustrative of the kind of psychology at work in a march to a folly reminiscent of that in 1914.

Also, apropos the question of Erdogan blinking, the Turks do not seem deterred and on the contrary appear to be ratcheting up the pressure, if the following quotes attributed to Turkish President Gul in this Ha'aretz report are accurate.

“On Friday Turkish President Abdullah Gul told the French daily Le Monde that Israel must make amends to be forgiven for a commando assault on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, including apologizing for the attack and paying compensation.

Gul added that if Israel made no move to heal the rift, then Turkey could even decide to break diplomatic relations.

In an interview published on Friday, Gul said the Israeli attack at the end of May, which killed nine activists, was a “crime” which might have been carried out by the likes of al-Qaida rather than a sovereign state.

“It seems impossible to me to forgive or forget, unless there are some initiatives which could change the situation,” Gul was quoted as saying by Le Monde.

Asked what these might be, he said: “Firstly, to ask pardon and to establish some sort of compensation.” He added that he also wanted to see an independent inquiry into the botched raid and a discussion on lifting Israel's blockade of Gaza.”

In my opinion, statements like Dayan's and Gul's illustrate how this crisis could evolve in to a more serious crisis than the Cuban Missile Crisis. I say more serious, because in the Cuban crisis, both sides had militaries armed with nuclear weapons that we now know were controlled by rational civilian leaders, whereas in this crisis is inherently more unstable, because only one side has nuclear weapons, and that side's politics are dominated by the military, its political and military leaders have a belligerent history preemptive wars, and it has a national outlook that is governed by an increasingly disconnected sense of self-righteous victimhood that has, in Henry Siegman's words, lost its moral imagination. An the other side is equally stubborn and it senses it has the moral high ground. And the US is in this up to its neck, because it has tight connections to both sides of the quarrel.

Sorry for any confusion caused by my mistake.
Chuck Spinney

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Journal: The Loss of Moral Imagination–Israel AND the USA

08 Wild Cards
Chuck Spinney Recommends

Henry Siegman, the author of this article in the Israeli daily, Ha'aretz, is a distinguished Jewish American.  He  has written some of the most thoughtful and cogent criticisms of Israel's occupation policies, prominent among these are Israel's Lies and The Great Middle East Peace Process Scam, both published in the London Review of Books.

Israel’s Greatest Loss: Its Moral Imagination

If a people who so recently experienced such unspeakable inhumanities cannot understand the injustice and suffering its territorial ambitions are inflicting, what hope is there for the rest of us?

By Henry Siegman, Ha’aretz, 11 June 2010

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/israel-s-greatest-loss-its-moral-imagination-1.295600

Henry Siegman, director of the U.S./Middle East Project, is a visiting research professor at the Sir Joseph Hotung Middle East Program, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is a former Senior Fellow on the Middle East at the Council on Foreign Relations and, before that, was national director of the American Jewish Congress from 1978 to 1994.

Following Israel’s bloody interdiction of the Gaza Flotilla, I called a life-long friend in Israel to inquire about the mood of the country. My friend, an intellectual and a kind and generous man, has nevertheless long sided with Israeli hardliners. Still, I was entirely unprepared for his response. He told me—in a voice trembling with emotion—that the world’s outpouring of condemnation of Israel is reminiscent of the dark period of the Hitler era.

He told me most everyone in Israel felt that way, with the exception of Meretz, a small Israeli pro-peace party. “But for all practical purposes,” he said, “they are Arabs.”

READ FULL ANALYSIS ONLINE

Phi Beta Iota:  Ha’aretz is our favorite Jewish publication, consistently both honest and intelligent, which one cannot say about any of the mainstream Israel or US (including CNN) media “sources.”  The USA has been infected by Israel, the neo-conservatives being the primary conduit for this fatal disease of moral and mental incapacitation, and the liberal Democrats in turn infected by their counterparts within the two-party tyranny that does not represent 70% of the eligible voters of America, 43% (and growing) of whom have declared their independence from the corrupt and despicable tragic farce called “democratic government” in America.  It is neither democratic, nor a government in the proper sense of the word.

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Journal: Obama as Moral Dupe

08 Wild Cards

 

Chuck Spinney Sends...

Obama as Moral Dupe: Will Erdogan Blink?

By FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY

Counterpunch

A recent article by Patrick Cockburn, one of the ablest reporters covering the Middle East, provides an excellent character portrait of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan. It is certainly consistent with what little I have been able to learn about this fascinating politician. Regardless of what you may think of Erdogan, and he has many detractors (I am not one), he is certainly establishing himself as an influential world leader who must be reckoned with in an emerging multi-polar world.

Cockburn's report is must reading, because Erdogan has maneuvered himself onto the moral high ground in a very serious crisis he did not create. Consider please the following:

By standing tall against Israel's murderous commando attack on the unarmed ship in international waters that was carrying aid to the besieged inhabitants of Gaza, and by promising to be on another ship trying to break the blockade, Erdogan has set an example that contrasts sharply with the latest generation of pusillanimous leaders in the United States. They have refused to condemn Israel's attack, even though a US citizen was among those murdered — thus continuing the pattern of unprincipled moral weakness that began when President Johnson refused to act decisively after the Israelis deliberately attacked the USS Liberty in international waters in June 1967, murdering over 30 American sailors.

Not surprisingly, Erdogan has become the newest bête noire of the neocons.

FULL STORY ONLINE

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NIGHTWATCH Extract: Anti-Piracy Without A Clue…

08 Wild Cards, 10 Transnational Crime

Somalia anti-piracy patrol: Reuters Africa published a report that European Union foreign ministers are expected to extend the bloc's anti-piracy mission off the coast of Somalia for another year next week.

Rear Admiral Peter Hudson, Commander of the European Union Naval Force Somalia, said he expected a new extension of its mandate which expires in December to be cleared at Monday's regular meeting of EU ministers. “Over the last two years, there has been real growth in the area the pirates are operating in, as they become more adventurous, more fearless and more determined to strike merchant ships in the Indian Ocean,” he told a news conference.

Since December 2008, the EU's ‘Operation Atalanta' has protected ships delivering food aid to Somalia and others passing through the Gulf of Aden and near the Somali coast. The task group normally comprises 13 ships, one submarine and four patrol aircraft from ten countries. It is separate from the US anti-piracy Combined Task Force, as well as ships of Russia, Iran and Asian countries.
Naval forces disrupted 59 pirate groupings in the Somali basin between March and May this year, one of the two main piracy seasons of the year, up sharply from last year. Pirates hold more than 350 sailors and 17 ships.

Seminal Article on Maritime Threat & Response (Declined by the US Naval Institute Proceedings as either controversial or inconsistent with the prevailing flag views on reality)

Phi Beta Iota:  Despite twenty years of robust thinking by a few about asymmetric warfare, those in positions of power are still without a clue.  General Al Gray, USMC (Ret), then Commandant of the Marine Corps, got it right in 1989, as did a number of other Marines including honorary Marines Bill Lind and Col John Boyd, USAF (Ret), Col G.I. Wilson, USMC (Ret), still a top mentor on this topic, and Robert Steele, who has disappeared into Latin America.  Illegal parallel structures will continue to proliferate for two big reasons:

1.  Governments are failing across the board–not just the 175+ “failed states” (up from 25 at the start of the Bush-Cheney regime)–but the states of the Americas, Asia, and Europe that are failing to represent their publics and failing to do holistic strategic analytics.  If you screw enough people all of the time, eventually they do something about it.

2.  That lead's to the second half of the equation: the impotence of imperial “state on state” forces in the face of asymmetric challengers that combine morality (in their view), ruthlessness, a willingness to die trying, and a plethora of “surprise” techniques not least being the ability to strike anywhere.

Below are just a couple of references long-ignored by anyone with a modicum of power–as was written in 1997, the gap between people with power and people with knowledge has grown catasclysmic–that was in 1997.  Daniel Elsberg had it right when he lectured Heny Kissinger in the 1970's: given enough power and enough top secret waste products, our political and policy leaders have become like morons, unable to learn from others, however knowledgeable.  Here is the complete quote:

The danger is, you’ll become like a moron. You’ll become incapable of learning from most people in the world, no matter how much experience they have in their particular areas that may be much greater than yours” [because of your blind faith in the value of your narrow and often incorrect secret information].

See Also:

1989 General Al Gray on Global Intelligence Challenges

1990 Expeditionary Environment Analytic Model

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH Extract: Anti-Piracy Without A Clue…”

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NIGHTWATCH Extract: AF IO Not Up to Speed…

08 Wild Cards

Afghanistan: An explosion in Arghandab District, Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan killed at least 39 people and injured 73 others, Afghan officials reported. The Taliban attacked a wedding party on Wednesday evening.

Comment: This attack is noteworthy for two reasons, in addition for its savagery. First is the Taliban still are fighting to control or to maintain their position in Arghandab District, after six years. The second point is there are no anti-Taliban demonstrations by the locals over the deaths of non-combatant civilians, as there would be if a NATO attack had killed the civilians. Such attacks violate Mullah Omar's code of conduct published last year, but there is no outrage or punishment mechanism, it seems, for rogue Taliban operations.

Another event reported today is that the Taliban executed a seven year old child in Helmand Province for cooperating with the Afghan government. Again, no demonstrations or outrage.

The US and NATO are paying lots for Afghan information operations specialists, who need to pay closer attention.

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Journal: Here’s a Great Idea–Lets Piss Off Turkey

08 Wild Cards, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Peace Intelligence
Chuck Spinney Recommends

CHUCK SPINNEY SENDS:

The American sources in the attached report of the New York Times blast Turkey, essentially because it refuses to be a US lackey.  Even the report’s title drips with contempt and reflects a myopia that is typical of the ego centric view of the perquisites of empire held by the American foreign policy establishment, including the mainstream media. The report's wishy-washy “on the one hand this, on the other hand that” style feeds this overall impression.

Any rational observer of Turkey knows that big things are happening in that country and its part of the world. 

Turkey has a large growing economy, is populated by more than 70 million hard working, industrious, increasingly well educated people.  It sits on an ocean of fresh water in a parched area of the world — Israel, Iraq, and Syria especially want access to water Turkey controls.  Turkey does not even use all its arable land, yet it is a major food exporter in a region of food importers, and local meats, vegetables, grains, and fruits are of the highest quality. The country is metamorphosing into a energy pipeline crossroads, and the Bosporus is the most heavily traveled waterway in the world.

Turkey is a secular democracy, and although many, no doubt a majority of its people are religious, there is very little religious fundamentalism, certainly less proportionally than is evident in either Israel, Iran, or the United States.  By an large Turkey’s historic traditions of religious tolerance seem intact — I was recently surprised to learn that there is still a substantial Jewish community in Istanbul that speaks a dialect of 15th Century Spanish at home and Turkish in professional life  (a relic from the time when the Ottoman Empire gave sanctuary the Jews in Spain who were persecuted by the Inquisition).  I met a member of this community, a prosperous businessman with a magnificent yacht, and he impressed as being Turkish through and through.  Interestingly, he told me he was pursuing an offer dual citizenship from Spain (sort of a right of return being instituted by Spain) but had no interest in accepting his automatic offer of citizenship by Israel.

Regardless of whether Turkey eventually enters the EU, it is a country that is moving and being sucked into a regional vacuum left by the collapse of the Soviet Union.  Part of this movement is caused by policy, but part of it is caused by the impulse of unpredictable events. 

The Turks, to their credit are trying to make the best of this by forging a regional good neighbor policy with all their neighbors, and until recently, this included Israel.  To this end, the Turks have, among other things, opened the border for visa free movement between Turkey and Syria, tried to broker a peace deal with the Syrians and Israelis (which the actions of the Israelis scuppered), made overtures of friendship to Armenia, been active in the Black Sea Initiative (basically an effort to protect the environment and delineate the rights and responsibilities of the states bordering on the Black Sea), made commercial overtures toward Iraq and Iran,  and most recently, in partnership with Brazil, launched an innovative initiative to defuse the Iranian nuclear problem (which the Obama Administration is petulantly trying to scupper). Meanwhile the Turkish government has been trying to reduce tensions with its own Kurdish minority in eastern Anatolia. While this is a serious problem (and I don’t pretend to understand it), Kurdish separatism and outside agitation by Kurdish insurgents based in Iraq (with some indirect Israeli and American support) and Iran, as well as a history of heavy-handed policies to limit the Kurdish autonomy, all contribute to it.  On the other hand, it is also important to acknowledge the fact that Kurds have every right to participate in the Turkish economy and culture as individuals, should they choose to exercise it. And many have done so.  One finds Kurds living throughout Turkey, in harmony with their neighbors, working and living prosperously.

Interpreting Turkey’s actions negatively through the lens of America’s imperial pretensions, together with our knee-jerk support of every outrage perpetrated by Israel, is implicit in the statements by the American sources in this report.  This attitude is a prescription for making trouble with a proud and independent people whose most recent actions have been focused on a policy of promoting regional comity.

Oh, and one other point — Turks are among the most gracious and welcoming people I have ever met, but push a Turk into a corner, where he perceives he is being treated unfairly and has no face saving exit, and you will have a real problem on your hands. 

June 8, 2010

Turkey Goes From Pliable Ally to Thorn for U.S.
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and MICHAEL SLACKMAN

ANKARA, Turkey — For decades, Turkey was one of the United States’ most pliable allies, a strategic border state on the edge of the Middle East that reliably followed American policy. But recently, it has asserted a new approach in the region, its words and methods as likely to provoke Washington as to advance its own interests.

The change in Turkey’s policy burst into public view last week, after the deadly Israeli commando raid on a Turkish flotilla, which nearly severed relations with Israel, Turkey’s longtime ally. Just a month ago, Turkey infuriated the United States when it announced that along with Brazil, it had struck a deal with Iran to ease a nuclear standoff, and on Tuesday it warmly welcomed Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the Russian prime minister, Vladimir V. Putin, at a regional security summit meeting in Istanbul.

Turkey’s shifting foreign policy is making its prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a hero to the Arab world, and is openly challenging the way the United States manages its two most pressing issues in the region, Iran’s nuclear program and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Turkey is seen increasingly in Washington as “running around the region doing things that are at cross-purposes to what the big powers in the region want,” said Steven A. Cook, a scholar with the Council on Foreign Relations. The question being asked, he said, is “How do we keep the Turks in their lane?”

FULL STORY ONLINE

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NIGHTWATCH Extract: US-Israel-Turkey-Hamas

02 Diplomacy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Iran, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices

Israel-Turkey-Hamas: Four ships from the Gaza-bound flotilla that was raided on 31 May Israeli naval forces have arrived at the port of Ashdod, Israel, accompanied by Israeli warships, Al Jazeera reported.

According to Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the Israeli soldiers that intercepted the Gaza-bound aid flotilla acted in self-defense, and violence aboard the Mavi Marmara, one of the aid ships, was instigated by those aboard the ship, The Jerusalem Post reported 31 May. Ashkenazi said passengers aboard most of the ships were activists but the Mavi Marmara, the only ship on which violence took place, was sponsored by what he termed an “extremist organization” the Turkish non-governmental organization Insani Yardim Vakfi.

International Reaction: Every country in the world that pays attention to the Middle East or contains a mosque has condemned or denounced Israel. Pakistan has called for Muslim countries to act in concert in peaceful coercion of Israel.

NIGHTWATCH Comment: NightWatch assesses that US diplomacy for a Middle East peace plan is the actual target of the Israeli naval action. Israel has just demonstrated that the US cannot control Israel, undermining any confidence Arab countries place in US promises relating to Israeli behavior. Israel refuses to be bound by US promises.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH Extract: US-Israel-Turkey-Hamas”