Syrian Intervention: Just Another Brick in the Military-Industrial Complex

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Syrian Intervention: Just Another Brick in the Military-Industrial Complex

[230] RIP Ibrahim Mothana, George Galloway on Intervention, and Gitmo Torture

[230] RIP Ibrahim Mothana, George Galloway on Intervention, and Gitmo Torture

[230] RIP Ibrahim Mothana, George Galloway on Intervention, and Gitmo Torture

[230] RIP Ibrahim Mothana, George Galloway on Intervention, and Gitmo Torture

[230] RIP Ibrahim Mothana, George Galloway on Intervention, and Gitmo Torture

[230] RIP Ibrahim Mothana, George Galloway on Intervention, and Gitmo Torture

‘Humanitarian Intervention’ in Central African Republic

Over at the Huffington Post, I interview Chris Coyne, professor of economics at George Mason University and author of the recent book Doing Bad By Doing Good: Why Humanitarian Action Fails, on the humanitarian interventions in Central African Republic.

Here’s an excerpt:

Q: What was your reaction to the Obama administration’s decision to increase support to French and African troops in CAR?

Chris Coyne: Given what I know, it is very predictable. For the past several months the U.S. has been pushing back on UN intervention because of the cost of UN peacekeeping missions. I believe the U.S. would have to pay somewhere in the range of 27 percent of the costs of the peacekeeping mission based on the formula the UN uses. This push back occurred despite the fact that violence was already in full effect and well known. So one way to read the U.S. commitment of resources is as a relatively cheap way to placate the growing push for the UN to intervene. Making a lump sum payment to “support” French and African troops is cheaper than paying a percentage of a very costly peacekeeping mission. People keep pointing out how the U.S. has no strategic or economic interests so that this is purely a morally-based assistance. But in my review the push back by the Obama administration over the past several months shows that it is not about some higher moral principle, but responding to political incentives (cost of UN peacekeeping mission vs. lump-sum payment).

Q: This is an extremely limited intervention compared to other recent actions (Balkans, Libya, etc.). What difference might this make?

CC: Well, the U.S. has limited exposure right now. The worst case scenario is that $ 100 million is lost or wasted. In the scheme of things this is not much money and U.S. citizens won’t even know about it. Best case some kind of peace is established and then the U.S. government can take partial credit for supporting the effort. More broadly, beyond the U.S., right now the goal of the intervention seems to be to achieve some semblance of peace. But from everything I have read it isn’t that easy. Like most conflicts similar to this this there are no clear “good” or “bad” sides. Further, both sides have weaponry. So there are no clear victims and criminals. In my view, the worst case would be if mission creep sets in and peacekeeping becomes nation building.

Q: Have humanitarian interventions of this sort worked in the past? What does the record say?

CC: The record is mixed. A big problem with the attempts to “measure” success is that different people have different definitions of success.  There is an existing academic literature that looks at peacekeeping missions and judges success based on whether there is a reoccurrence of conflict.  In the literature these are referred to as “traditional peacekeeping” missions since they are relatively narrow and not focused on things like nation building, elections, etc.

The empirical literature finds that traditional peacekeeping missions are effective in preventing conflict if they take place after a ceasefire has already been negotiated by the parties involved. “After” is the key word because there is evidence that peacekeeping missions that take place before a ceasefire is negotiated has no effect (or a negative effect).  Since there is no preexisting ceasefire in CAR, the existing empirical literature would seem to indicate that achieving sustainable peace will be difficult.

Q: What do you expect to come out of the increasingly interventionist approach from the U.S., France, neighboring African countries, and the international community?

CC: I can only speculate, but I predict continued violence and continued “outrage” by the international community. I believe the UN is calling for a peacekeeping force in the range of 7,000-9,000 troops.  Right now there are about 1,600 French troops there. Some humanitarian aid will be delivered but this isn’t surprising — if you spend $ 100 million, some aid is bound to get there, right? More broadly, I expect lots of “discussion” by the “international community” about the need for “political will” to respond not just to the CAR situation, but future situations as well.

Read the whole thing here.

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‘Humanitarian Intervention’ in Central African Republic

[230] RIP Ibrahim Mothana, George Galloway on Intervention, and Gitmo Torture

[230] RIP Ibrahim Mothana, George Galloway on Intervention, and Gitmo Torture

Humanitarian Intervention Challenged

Humanitarian Intervention Challenged
http://img.youtube.com/vi/tMqK3uS1FVk/0.jpg

Read more about Humanitarian Intervention Challenged and other interesting subjects concerning World News Videos at TheDailyNewsReport.com

US-NATO "Humanitarian Intervention" in Syria: Towards a Regional War?

US-NATO "Humanitarian Intervention" in Syria: Towards a Regional War?
http://img.youtube.com/vi/cGYTM9-DSEI/0.jpg

Read more about US-NATO "Humanitarian Intervention" in Syria: Towards a Regional War? and other interesting subjects concerning World News Videos at TheDailyNewsReport.com

Ed Asner Breaks the Set on 9/11 Truth, the Hollywood Left, and Syria Intervention

Ed Asner Breaks the Set on 9/11 Truth, the Hollywood Left, and Syria Intervention

Gloves Come Off: Israel Lobby Goes All-In for Syrian Intervention, While New York Times Self-Censors

Today’s the day I knew was coming.  Despite the fact that Jodi Rudoren mistakenly said that the Lobby would maintain radio-silence about Obama’s plan to strike Syria, I knew she was wrong. And she was.  Today, Obama pulled out all the stops and the Jewish leadership responded: virtually all the major organizations announced their support for military intervention.

This statement by the hawkish, pro-Israel Conference of Presidents highlights the real reason for the turnabout:

…Failing to take action would damage the credibility of the US and negatively impact the effort to prevent Iran from achieving a nuclear weapons capacity.

So, Syria is really a sideshow.  It’s a sort of precursor to war against Iran.  That’s the main attraction and all Israel or the Jewish leadership cares about.  All the mumbling about setting a moral example and parallels between Syria and Jews being gassed by the Nazis is a smokescreen.  We want the Ayatollahs and we want ‘em bad.

Aipac will let loose a lobbying barrage that will leave few members of Congress uncertain about which way they’re expected to vote (unless they’re prepared for a primary challenge from an amply endowed pro-Israel opponent).  It’s safe to say that Obama is going to win this round handily.  This will allow him the first opportunity in his presidency to bring the full force of U.S. military might on a Middle Eastern country.  You’ll recall a prior president who enjoyed that opportunity twice.  Obama will score a big gain in his popularity ratings.  Americans love a good Shock and Awe display.  But they will soon come down to earth and wonder what we’ve gained from raining cruise missiles on Damascus.  The answer will be: precious little.

An interesting sidebar to this story is a neat little bit of N.Y. Times self-censorship that M.J. Rosenberg noted.  In this story, the following passage originally appeared, but then mysteriously disappeared, apparently a product of pre-emptive censorship:

Administration officials said the influential pro-Israel lobby group Aipac was already at work pressing for military action against the government of Mr. Assad, fearing that if Syria escapes American retribution for its use of chemical weapons, Iran might be emboldened in the future to attack Israel. In the House, the majority leader, Eric Cantor of Virginia, the only Jewish Republican in Congress, has long worked to challenge Democrats’ traditional base among Jews.

One administration official, who, like others, declined to be identified discussing White House strategy, called Aipac “the 800-pound gorilla in the room,” and said its allies in Congress had to be saying, “If the White House is not capable of enforcing this red line” against the catastrophic use of chemical weapons, “we’re in trouble.”

In its own explanation, the Times noted that the second paragraph had already appeared in an article the day before.  Thus the paper was apparently trying to avoid redundancy.  The public editor, Margaret Sullivan, falsely stated that the entire quotation had appeared previously: “the quotation remains in the earlier article.”  It hadn’t, as I said.  So why not retain the first paragraph?

I’d have thought the first paragraph was dropped both because it referred to Eric Cantor as Jewish (fear of the “A” word), and because it explicitly notes the muscular role Aipac was planning to play in the intervention debate.  Aipac is notorious for not wanting its fingerprints to appear publicly.  It prefers to operate off the radar as much as possible so when the shit hits the fan, it can’t be blamed for policy failures.

M.J., who worked for Aipac for ten years and knows the organization pretty damn well, believes there were explicit conversations between it and the Times and that it made its displeasure known at the negative portrayal in the offending passage.

On a related matter, yesterday the Russians announced that their early warning tracking system picked up a mysterious missile launch in the Mediterranean.  The trajectory took the missile from its launch in the central Mediterranean to its fall in the eastern Mediterranean.  Within hours, the Israeli government confirmed that it had launched a “Sparrow” missile in a routine test.  The Sparrow is the missile used to test the Arrow anti-missile system.  It’s the missile which the Arrow hunts and kills.

Frankly, there is something fishy about this story.  Israel never intended for the launch to be public.  But Russia called Israel’s bluff and did so.  Either the Israelis tested a far more ambitious weapons system and lied about it being the Sparrow; or else they launched a missile as a shot across Assad’s (and Russia’s) bow, warning them that Israel would unleash its missile cache to defend from and respond to any Syrian attack.

Haaretz reporters, writing on behalf of their government sources, say Israel never dreamed of using the test as a warning to Syria.  Again, I don’t buy it.  If they didn’t, and the original government version of this report is true, then Netanyahu is an incredibly naïve figure who ratcheted up tension in a tinder box situation without even realizing how a missile test would be received by Israel’s enemies.  Israel’s leadership is many negative things, but certainly not naïve.

Even if you accept the government version of events, the Israeli military exhibited extraordinary stupidity.  It lit a match in an oil refinery.  Luckily the whole place didn’t blow up.  It could have.

Global Research

Gloves Come Off: Israel Lobby Goes All-In for Syrian Intervention, While New York Times Self-Censors

Protesting a Syrian Intervention – New York City

Posted by Luke Rudkowski on Sep 2, 2013

In this video we show you the anti Syrian war protest that happened in NYC on August 31st 2013.

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Protesting a Syrian Intervention – New York City

Syria intervention: the 5 questions MPs should ask | Frank Ledwidge

Both David Cameron and the intelligence community know they have to get this right. MPs can help by asking these questions

The miserable ghost of Iraq hangs over us, and once again the reliability of intelligence assessments on chemical weapons may provide the foundation for another controversial decision to go to war. During Thursday’s debate in parliament, the prime minister will base his case for intervention in Syria on an assessment agreed by the joint intelligence committee. He may not call it that, but when he refers to “intelligence”, that is what he will mean.

Sounds familiar? It is. Whilst the procedures have been tightened up, this was the process that brought us the Iraq war and its various dossiers. What Cameron will present will be the results of hundreds of hours of debate and argument by intelligence collectors (spies of one kind or another), analysts and their managers. The intelligence community is well aware that this time they need to get it right.

The job of intelligence analysts is to turn information gained (“collected”) into assessed intelligence. They work a bit like journalists except that they never, or should never, cross the line into recommending policy. Their analysis of any given piece of information will comprise two main elements. There will be an assessment of the reliability of the source of the information. There will also be an assessment of the accuracy of the information itself, based on what the analysts know, or what can be confirmed.

The government seems clear that it has evidence of Assad government responsibility for the attack on eastern Ghouta near Damascus. We do not yet know what this evidence is. Some of it may be “open source” intelligence (known as Osint), meaning essentially media reports which have been analysed by government experts. In the absence of agents (human intelligence or Humint) within the Damascus regime, it is likely that the bulk of secret intelligence relied on will be sourced from signals intelligence (listening to phone calls, radio messages and so on), known as Sigint. The problem with Sigint is that whilst collecting and decrypting it is fairly straightforward, what it actually means (analysis) is rather more challenging.

It was the misinterpretation of Sigint that sank Colin Powell’s career when he presented it as evidence of Iraqi possession of WMD. A complicating feature here is that much of the relevant Sigint seems to be coming not from British, French or US intelligence assets, but from Israel, specifically the elite 8,200 signals unit. This need not invalidate the intelligence, but we should know.

So what questions should MPs ask about this intelligence? Here are five lines of approach:

1. What is the exact nature of the intelligence the government is relying on to support its conclusions?

What does it say? How specific is it, for example, with respect to orders given, and personnel involved in the attacks of 21 August?

2. Is the intelligence taken from single or multiple sources?

If multiple source, from which countries does the intelligence originate? How much of it is Israeli in origin?

3. How have British analysts graded the reliability of the source/sources of the key intelligence reports?

Sources are usually graded A-F. How have British analysts graded the information from those sources? This is usually graded 1-6.

4. What level of unanimity is there in the British intelligence community about their conclusions?

What dissent is there? Were there caveats and what was the nature of those caveats? Has there been a full “red team” (taking an opposing perspective) analysis?

5. What similarities are there between the analyses of the leading countries involved, France and the US?

Are their analyses drawn from the same sources? Is there a dissenting voice in the western international intelligence community? What is the nature of that dissent?

It is worth remembering that our intelligence analysts are competent, professional people who are in no way keen on being implicated in another intelligence debacle. This is important because backs will sensibly have been covered. The prime minister will have been extensively briefed on any reasonable doubts. For that reason, this time, MPs may get answers if they ask the right questions. Without those answers, discussion of legality and justification will be pointless.

• Syria


• Middle East and North Africa


• David Cameron


• Foreign policy


• Military


• Ministry of Defence


• Chemical weapons

Frank Ledwidge

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Syria intervention: the 5 questions MPs should ask | Frank Ledwidge

Fierce Selloff in Emerging Market Currencies; India Intervenes to Stop Plunge in Rupee; Brazil Steps Up Real Intervention; Root Cause of Crisis

I’s hard not to laugh at the irony of recent central bank currency actions.

• After complaining for years about the strength of the Real, the Brazilian central bank stepped up intervention actions hoping to stop a plunge in the currency.


• Turkey now attempts to attract capital after taking measures for the past four years to stop the flow of money into the country.


• In India, the central bank seeks to stop a plunge in the Rupee which is at a record low of record low 58.95 to the dollar.

The Wall Street Journal reports Emerging-Market Currencies See Turnaround After Hefty Losses

The South African rand and other emerging-market currencies reversed course to gain against the dollar Tuesday after suffering heavy losses earlier in the session.

These currencies have plummeted rapidly in June, dragged down by expectations the Federal Reserve will taper its bond-buying program later this year. Ultra-accommodative U.S. monetary policy had helped drive investors to seek higher yields in emerging markets in recent years, analysts say.

India’s central bank dove into foreign exchange markets Tuesday to stop the rupee’s slide at a record low of INR58.95 to the dollar. Pressured to attract capital to the country, a top Indian economic official promised a new round of measures to allow foreign investment in currently restricted parts of the economy. The rupee pared losses against the dollar but still fell 0.3% on the day to trade at INR58.34 per dollar.

Turkey’s central bank on Tuesday announced new measures to attract capital after spending much of the past four years trying to stop too much money from flooding into its economy. That helped to stem the lira’s fall to near a multi-year low against the dollar as police moved in on protesters in Istanbul. Turkey’s capital measures echoed Brazil’s move earlier this month to eliminate a 6% tax on foreigners’ bond investments.

Brazil’s central bank stepped up intervention in the face of the rapid currency depreciation that began on May 28, with a series of foreign exchange swap auctions, including two on Tuesday.

Emerging Market Assets Suffer in Fierce Sell-Off

The Financial Times reports Emerging market assets suffer in fierce sell-off.

Emerging market currencies, stocks and bonds suffered a fierce sell-off on Tuesday on rising investor concerns over the prospect of the US Federal Reserve reining in its programme of bond-buying to drive down long-term interest rates.

The South African rand and the Brazilian real touched four-year lows against the US dollar on Tuesday, and the Indian rupee fell to a record low. Even relatively robust countries like the Philippines and Mexico – long favourites of investors – have been hit by a spate of selling.

The FTSE Emerging Markets index fell 1.7 per cent on Tuesday, taking its decline since its May peak to more than 10 per cent. Shares in Brazil – one of the four big emerging markets – closed 3 per cent in São Paulo on Tuesday. That pulled Brazilian shares into bear market territory – a drop of more than 20 per cent from a peak this year.

Both international and local currency emerging market bonds have been pummelled, sending borrowing costs higher.

Benoit Anne, a senior strategist at Société Générale, said central bank money had arguably inflated a bubble in emerging markets, which was now unravelling as investors priced in a change in Fed policy. “This will not be a short-lived sell-off,” he predicted.

Emerging market fund managers have also been hit by investor redemptions. Asset managers that focus on international bonds last week suffered the biggest investor withdrawal since mid-2007, according to EPFR. Emerging market equity funds were hit with the biggest redemptions since 2011. 

Cause of the Selloff

Both the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal pinned the blame on the possibility the Fed would stop its QE programs later this year.

I rather doubt that is the cause, and I also doubt the Fed is going to stop QE any time soon.

Instead, I propose this is what happens when bubbles burst. And a huge part of numerous bubbles was widespread belief the growth in China and India will last forever. Hot money plowed into emerging market countries and also commodity producing countries.

Australia is another casualty of the coming bust of China. For details please see Australian Dollar Plunges as Home Loans Dive; Australia Insolvencies Hit Record; Worst is Yet to Come.

To be sure insane amounts of liquidity fueled various bubbles in stocks, in bonds, in emerging markets, but with the global economy rapidly slowing, and with much of Europe in an outright economic depression, the Fed is not that likely to curtail QE soon.

If the Fed does slow QE, it will not be because the US economy is strengthening, but rather realization by the Fed (not admitted of course) that various stock and bond market bubbles pose serious economic risks if allowed to grow bigger.

Root Cause of Crisis

By the way, all this extremely volatile currency action, as well as various equity and bond market bubbles, can be pinned entirely on central banks, fractional reserve lending, and lack of a gold standard.

Mike “Mish” Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com 

Mike “Mish” Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis

Fierce Selloff in Emerging Market Currencies; India Intervenes to Stop Plunge in Rupee; Brazil Steps Up Real Intervention; Root Cause of Crisis