A great idea and long past time-THE CASE FOR WITHDRAWING FROM THE MIDDLE EAST

 Bugging out is good!

I know I'll never find another Yoo, fortunately

John Yoo has an op-ed piece in the New York Times, you know the scandal sheet that features the merger of neoliberals and neoconservatives to bomb countries and then bring their suffering populations here.

Mr. Yoo, in the Bush administration, claimed the president could legally engage in torture. One would think the great and good might move away from the man who. according to Jon Schwarz of the intercept,

Yoo’s legal reasoning, as he (together with his superior Jay Bybee, who’s now a federal judge) advised the Bush White House, is that “the Department of Justice could not enforce Section 2340A [the federal probation against torture] against federal officials acting pursuant to the President’s constitutional authority to wage a military campaign.” In other words, the president can’t crush a 6-year-old boy’s testicles for fun, but if he thinks some child-testicle-crushing is needed to win the war, it’s totally constitutional.

You too might have thought that the world would have distanced itself from John Yoo, but no, he found a nice spot as a professor at Berkeley.  Wonder what he feels about his place of employment as that Madrassa has no problem with masked thugs suppressing speech.

The good professor's piece at the Times notes his misgivings about our new president.

Yoo has a problem with Mr. Trump on a few constitutional points.

Immigration has driven Mr. Trump even deeper into the constitutional thickets. Even though his executive order halting immigration from seven Muslim nations makes for bad policy, I believe it falls within the law. But after the order was issued, his adviser Rudolph Giuliani disclosed that Mr. Trump had initially asked for “a Muslim ban,” which would most likely violate the Constitution’s protection for freedom of religion or its prohibition on the state establishment of religion, or both — no mean feat. Had Mr. Trump taken advantage of the resources of the executive branch as a whole, not just a few White House advisers, he would not have rushed out an ill-conceived policy made vulnerable to judicial challenge.

So we bomb and torture people in MENA and Yoo is okay with that. Those folks may not harbor affection for us and understandably may want to harm us. The new president may believe that Muslims from disaffected regions may want to do that. Is that in the "constitutional thickets?"
If he were to proscribe the Muslim faith for all who are here legally and are citizens, no one would contest that that was unconstitutional.  People who are not here, well that is another story, and a full complement of the Supreme Court should be the final arbiter, but the idea itself is not at all outside the bounds of reason.

On December 1, The then president-elect outlined his foreign policy,

"We will destroy ISIS. At the same time, we will pursue a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past. We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments, folks," Trump told attendees at the U.S. Bank Arena. "Our goal is stability, not chaos because we wanna rebuild our country. It's time."

"In our dealings with other countries, we will seek shared interests wherever possible and pursue a new era of peace, understanding, and good will."

I am not sure if Trump completely means this.  Rumors of nominating Elliott Abrams as Deputy Secretary of State are not reassuring.  Nevertheless, the quote, while not neutralist, is a better sentiment than anything Mr. Yoo or any neocon has ever come up with.

I hope Trump means it and that we never hear from Mr. Yoo again.

The Z Man thinks about Iran

The Z Man has posted his thoughts about Iran on his blog.  It is a well thought out article and worth looking at.  Of course, the Neutralist likes his thoughts because they are essentially his.

He points out with clarity the truth about our MENA involvement, it has been a loser, and whatever else, we need to leave.

In theory, it is not a terrible plan. America needs out of the Muslim world. Whether or not it is a good idea to turn things over to the Persians remains to be seen, but history is on their side. They have been the dominant people in the region for 5,000 years, give or take.

That "history is on their side" is a good way of putting it.  None of the "right" or "wrong" side of history stuff.  No one can completely predict the future though there are some insightful people.

If history is on anyone's side, it is with a people who take the long view.  That is not most of our countrymen and women where two seconds ago is ancient history.

Oh to be young, Hayat Alvi is shocked we are losing gazillions in equipment

In a Reuters' article, Hayat Alvi, Ph.D. noticed,

The reportedly hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of U.S. weapons, equipment and supplies falling into enemy hands in Iraq, Syria and now in Yemen are more than just signs of strategic failure. Rather, they’re part of a long list of recent embarrassments, including the poor performance of U.S.-trained Iraqi military personnel when Islamic State invaded Mosul last summer, and the Islamic militant army’s confiscation of U.S. military weapons and supplies in the Iraqi territories it has occupied.

The lady is an Associate Professor at the U.S. Naval War College. She specializes in the Middle East, South Asia and Islamic Studies.   There is a picture up of her and though it is fetching, one notices the youthfulness of mien.

Those of us full of years remember the fall Vietnam.  The Vietnamese commies came out of that with a huge tank army courtesy of Uncle Sam.

One good outcome was that, yeah the taxpayer paid for that loss, but after that, we got to forget about the place.  We were done with them and left no forwarding address.

Hayat is too young to get that.  If we left MENA, they ain't coming in a carrier fleet to invade Long Island.

Ms. Alvi makes the case for neutralism,

The United States has unmatched military prowess for invasions and interventions, but fails miserably in post-campaign policies and strategies. It continues to have faith in supposed “allies” in the region, who usually end up undermining the very national interests that the United States is pursuing. This is because the United States fails to take into account that each state and non-state actor in the region — from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to Iran and even Shi’ite militias operating in Iraq — has its own interests and agendas that frequently do not align with the United States. Western powers cannot keep up with these growing complexities, especially in Yemen.

If we can't keep up with the complexities, it is time to say au revoir. 


Hat tip to Parapundit.