Bad Mistake: Gates and SOFAs

Reading Mr. Gates' memoir, Duty.  He talks about negotiating a status of forces agreement with Iraq and making a very bad mistake:  tell the Iraqis to go talk to the other nations with which the US has status of force agreements. 

What could go wrong with that?  Surely everyone is happy to have US soldiers on their land, aren't they?

No--everyone the Iraqis talked with complained about the behavior of US troops and the aggravations of their sofas  SOFAs.

Just a reminder of how a smart man, surrounded by smart people, who spent his career trying to understand other nations, could lapse into self-satisfied smugness about American virtue.

What the Past Was Like--59 Years Ago

I stumbled across the program for the 12th Youth Forum, held in NYC in 1954.  The first pages are the text for a speech delivered by Mayor Robert Wagner.  Beginning at page 11 is the actual program.  Panel subjects were:

• How can the United Nations be improved to deal with the problems of international peace?
• How can the United States strengthen her policy toward her friends, her foes and neutralist nations?
• How can the United States best protect itself against the dangers of subversion and still maintain civil liberties? (The panel chairman was a 15 year old Martin Peretz, I assume the Peretz who went on to fame as owner of New Republic.)
• Do current educational practices prepare youth for effective participation in American democracy?
• How can youth and adults meet the challenge of juvenile delinquency?

The panel chairs and co-chairs were balanced by sex, and the panel leaders seem to have been as well (though some unisex names).

Among the speakers and guests were the Philippines envoy to the UN, Wagner, the heads of NYC police, education, and schools, Sam Levenson, a comic, and representatives of three of the NYC sports teams (Jackie Robinson, Whitey Ford(!), and Kyle Rote, plus media types. There were delegates from youth organizations (Scouts, Boys Club, CYO, PAL) and religious organizations, and delegations from high schools in the city.

What struck me?  The seemingly inclusive nature, at least for 1954, more inclusive than I think the time is given credit for.  The prominence of religious organizations.  The seriousness of the subjects--I doubt there's any comparable youth level discussions today.  The dominance of a "communitarian" agenda and the absence of any libertarian one.

My Feelings on Syria--the Obama Doctrine

I'm as ambivalent about Syria as I am on most things, but I'd urge my representatives in Congress to support limited military action in response to the use of chemical weapons.

Seems to me we want to raise the costs of the use of such weapons anyway we can, both now and for the future.  I'd even recommend a corollary to the "Obama doctrine:" anytime and anywhere we determine that chemical weapons have been used, the perpetrators of such use may be struck by our military forces. (Did you know there was an "Obama Doctrine"--I didn't until I checked wikipedia.)

Having said that, I'm assuming our military has identified targets, the destruction of which will thread all the needles of the obstacles critics have raised:  minimum harm to civilians, maximum harm to those involved in the use of the weapons, least degradation of Assad's command and control over such weapons, most painful to Assad, etc.

[posted prematurely]  

Question of the Day?

"I wonder how the Cuban Missile Crisis would have gone down if Kennedy and Khrushchev had relied on Twitter instead of diplomatic cables?"

From a KevinDrum post noting Russia responded to the latest explosion in Syria via Twitter.

The Gnomes of Zurich

This post at Calculated Risk suggests, to me, the gnomes of Zurich are back.  It's a question of which way they jump: help the EU or not.

The War Powers Act and Libya

Congress and the President are in a fight over the application of the War Powers Act to Libya.  A thought strayed through my increasingly empty mind the other day: I wonder if the flyers are getting combat pay.

This morning the paper reveals they aren't, they're getting "imminent danger pay", something of which I've never heard and something which apparently applies to military in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and other places. It may oversimplify things, but until they get combat pay, I'm okay with not calling it "hostilities".  And meanwhile I suggest Congress look into the need for "imminent danger pay".  We haven't had many troops killed in Turkey in the last few years that I can remember.

One Reason To Follow International Politics

I blogged about my interest in politics, specifically international politics back in the Cold War days.

The Archives does a document of the day, and yesterday's was a reminder of why it was easy to stay interested in foreign policy back in the 50's. It was a photograph showing the effects of a nuclear blast on a house a mile away.  Not only did we have Cold Wars (the Berlin airlift) and Hot Wars (French Indo-China, Korea) but we had nuclear and thermonuclear testing, all of which filled the news columns.

The Ride of the Valkyries--and the Furies?

Maureen Dowd writes about the idea that the Obama people who ended up pushing for the no-fly zone were women: Rice, Power, Clinton.  She missed the fact that two of the people commanding the effort were Major Gen. Margaret Woodward and Rear Adm. Peg Klein.  For Furies, see this.

A Political Scientist (International Relations) on How To Arrange a Marriage

Dan Drezner passes on a great lesson in marriage planning, dressed up as commentary on Libya.

US as Scapegoat

We seem to be fulfilling our destiny: every nation has a destiny and ours is to become a scapegoat whenever dueling parties within a country (i.e., Muslim pols and secular pols) amp up the heat.  That's my takeaway from this study.  Remembering the  politics of what we used to call the "Third World", I can well believe it.  Nehru and Sukarno, the leaders of the third world, used to beat up on the U.S. regularly.

Food Costs

Charles Blow has an op-ed piece in the Times with a table comparing the Mid-East nations (and the US) on various metrics: age of population, inequality of income, food expenditure, Internet penetration, level of democracy. Overall, there's not much difference between Tunisia, Egypt and the other countries. But on food costs, defined as spending on food consumed at home, as a percentage of household spending, the US is down to 6.8 percent (based on the 2011 Statistical Abstract). Most of the other countries, except Israel and the small oil-rich ones,  run from 20 to 45 percent. 

I suspect this is misleading, however, in that in US the 6.8 percent includes lots of processed food, while in the Mid East the 20+ percent is more raw materials, like flour, beans, rice, olive oil and similar ingredients.  So fluctuations in the price of agricultural commodities hits them much harder than in the US>

Not Your Father's GOP--Authority from the UN Charter!!

Some Republicans are turning over in their grave at the first two sentences of this Politico post:

"If Congress had rejected his request for authorization to liberate Kuwait, George H.W. Bush probably would have sent combat troops in anyway.
The most senior members of the former president’s national security team, here for a Thursday night event to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the first Gulf War, said Bush was already intent on moving ahead after August 1990 because he believed the United Nations charter gave him the authority he needed."

The occasion was a reunion of George H.W.Bush's cabinet to talk about the Gulf War. All those people who think the UN is taking over and that politicians believe the UN Charter and foreign treaties supersede American rights now have something to point to.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47928.html#ixzz1BgX1vkQR

A Juxtaposition

In today's Post there was a report that some hotel workers had their assignments changed because someone didn't want them working on the same floor where the party of  an Israeli cabinet officer had rooms. They were Muslem, apparently.  Separately an update on Richard Holbrooke's last words mentioned the names of an attending doctor and surgeon, one possibly Arab and one born in Pakistan.  One wonders what would have happened if the Israeli cabinet minister had been injured in a traffic accident and rushed to the ER where Holbrooke was treated.

How Many Years Since WWII?

Who knew there was a commander of the German military for the US and Canada? link 

More on Wikileaks and State Department Cables

Here's a story on the background to the Wikileaks episode, describing how the State Department linked up to the military's secure SIPRNET.  It doesn't change my previous feelings about the need to track the usage history of each person authorized to access the network.

As a side note, back in the day at ASCS we were on the distribution list for State department cables, or at least some subset of them. Some were "Secret", some were not.  Because I didn't have a security clearance I didn't routinely see them, but they came into the records management shop under some arrangement with the defense preparedness people in the agency.  As I write, I'm becoming aware of how foggy my memory is, or perhaps how foggy my original understanding was.  Were these cables from agricultural attaches, perhaps, and not defense related at all?  Maybe.

The Blinkered Conservative

Scott at Powerline has a post attacking Obama's foreign policy in regard to nuclear weapons, and other issues.

Based on my recent reading about Reagan's negotiations with the Soviets, I don't think Reagan would have much problem with Obama's view, particularly his: "...I will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons..."  That's precisely what the Ronald the Great wanted.

Deja Vu All Over Again

There was a movie release in 1981 called "Rollover", in which the ticking bomb is the question:  will the Arab oil barons rollover their investments in US bonds. Sounds like current concern over whether China will keep buying US bonds.

Prognostications of the Future

Kagan and Kristol foresaw the future in a book published 10 years ago. Via Tom Ricks The Best Defense, here's a look back.

[Needless to say, they were about 95 percent wrong, and totally missed bin Laden.  But then, no good liberal would ever pay attention to any book which got the future right--what would be the fun in that.]

Problems in Madagascar and Globalization

The NY Times has an article on how the new regime in Madagascar, a biologically unique island,  is lax on logging of its forests. What struck me was the picture showing loggers, one of whom is wearing what looks to be an American football jersey with the number 72.  I don't know how the jersey arrived on the man, but it's another indication of how interconnected we've become.

Being on the Receiving End of Voice of America

Or, information dissemination activities like VOA. John Pomfret at the Post has an article on China's attempts to spread its influence by a Voice of America style effort.

The stations don't broadcast outright propaganda, but rather programming with a Chinese focus and flavor, tailored for local audiences. In Galveston, the format mixes China-centric international news, talk shows about the status of China's women and a healthy dose of gangsta rap -- all in English.
In New York, China's official Xinhua News Agency is moving its North American headquarters from a small building in Queens to a sprawling office complex in Times Square. It will soon have more than twice as many bureaus in the United States as any Western news agency has in China.

What I found interesting were the cultural misunderstandings which the Chinese have to overcome in order to communicate with us.  Reminds me of past discussions of the problems the US government, and large corporations, have had in operating abroad.  (Supposedly Chevrolet's Novas were a flop in Mexico because the name meant "no go", etc. etc.