What is it that only guys named Stephen can make sense on the news? This time Cohen.

Stephen Kinzer has been making sense in the Boston Globe on Syria and Russia.  Now along come Stephen Cohen to solidify the reputations of people named Stephen wise and thoughtful.

On CNN he discusses Putin with CNN's Michael Smerconish who recycled some talking points that Professor Cohen swatted away.  Please watch the video of a non-neocon getting on TV and doing something that is just not done, like making sense.

The Neutralist always knew what Hilary was and is from 2002

Before the neutralist was The Neutralist, I wrote a column for a now defunct but delightful online magazine.  I won't identify it as the lads behind may not want to be associated with me.

Anyway the column, Winners and Losers in the WOT looked at who had gained or would do well out of the War on Terror.  My entry for herself was,

Hilary: Maybe, maybe not. We all remember the booing in New York. Still, if the war falters and she could claim that she is enough of what her detractors say (begins with "b") and start talking about how badly she wants to fight, hey who knows? You can say that reinventing herself as a warrior queen is out of character, but, truly there is nothing that is out of character for her.

Not all the predictions panned out but I believe this one has.

I am not sure I would vote for Trump and I would not trust him with my savings., but so far he has the edge.  Johnson, is too much of a globalist and for TPP and can't win.

Under no circumstances should Hilary Clinton be allowed near the nuclear button. 

The Donald is channeling the Neutralist

Riding home from an errand, I heard Donald Trump expounding on the radio.  The talk ranged over a number of subjects until it came to defense and our allies.  He made the point that we defend and pay the bill for defending our allies, some of who are wealthy.

On November 1, 2006, the Neutralist noted essentially the same thing.  After World War II,

We ended up supporting our allies and our enemies. We really did not want Japan and Germany rearming so we generously managed their defenses. The American Army became the Japanese Army. The U.S. Air Force served as the Luftwaffe. Those countries, freed from huge defense expenditures, had "economic miracles" that allowed pundits to tell us we should be doing what they were doing. (There are few American intellectuals so poor, that they don't own an inferiority complex about something.) Of course, that advice is no longer given today.

The Neutralist is not seeking a post in a Trump administration.  We shall merely continue to advise at a distance. 

The Turkish Coup is over, who knows what happened in that deep state?

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is finally and irrevocably dead, or so it seems.  The recent coup drove the stake through his heart.

Who did what is murky and the whole "byzantine" nature of the events is, as it is put, "tl;dr" for poor little old moi.

The Neutralist only hopes for some good to come out of this.

It turns out that there are a goodly number of nukes in some state of readiness or unreadiness at the Incirlik air base.  Why they are there decades after the end of the USSR is a question I have no answer for.  We certainly don't think they need to be there at all.

It is increasingly apparent that the Erdogan regime is not in complete agreement with the NATO mission and that is not itself coherent with any precision.

The regime is trying to link an exiled cleric named Gulen to the coup.  That may or not be so, but why does this political operative from another country get to be the biggest charter school guy in the country?

The Turk regime threatened to close Incirlik if we don't turn Gulen over.  the Neutralist would not want to send someone back to Turkey unless the grounds were truly legitimate.

It would be, however, happy circumstance if the Turks have reason to get him back, but only if we can give back the airbase, and bring the nukes home.  That would be a win win win for the US.

The Erdogan regime has been playing the Obama administration like a banjo.  Their deep state is something a lot different from us.

In the immortal words of Martin Mull, "It's too hard to say au revoir, lets just hor d'oevre.

According to the invaluable Colonel Lang, this is much more urgent than the Neutralist thoght.

"Are the King and Queen of Spain tired of reigning?", Napoleon - What to do about Saudi Arabia?

The words above uttered by Bonaparte are instructive of how we should deal with with the Sauds.  On the usual American Tax Day, the New York Times reports a different bit of extortion.  It seems the Saudi clique like criticism as much as Turkish President Erdogan.

According to the Times,

 Saudi Arabia has told the Obama administration and members of Congress that it will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American assets held by the kingdom if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible in American courts for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The Neutralist does see the Saudis point, sort of.  They thought they could get away with anything because they were our oil buddies.

Now they want to punish us.  Are they threatening to stop selling oil.  Don't be silly.  There are a heck of a lot of spigots out there and they want to protect market share.

No, the threat is economic and according to Mish Shedlock, it is empty.  Mish has noted today that the Saudis have told their contractors that everything is going on the cuff.  They are having a liquidity crisis.

Per Mish, "Does Saudi Arabia even have $750 billion. Color me skeptical.

Saudi Arabia’s bluff that it would sell US assets if the Obama signed the bill seems more ridiculous than ever."

So, it is possible if not probable that without a sponsor (us, up until now), the ruling kleptos could experience some of the same punishments they have been happy to provide as entertainment to their primitive populace.  

How awful that would be.  In that spirit, we provide a musical interlude.

We at the Neutralist hope the people who are badly running our country wise up and don't try to save those who were complicit in 911.

That Trump has John Bolton as a foreign policy advisor should be disturbing - His role in government was that of an abusurdicrat

If there is anyone who has been following The Neutralist, they would know that I have spoken kindly about Donald Trump's foreign policy pronouncements.  In fact, they have been the best of all the candidates.  As we have quoted him before,

“Well, we spent $2 trillion, thousands of lives, wounded warriors all over, and Putin is now taking over what we started, and he’s going into Syria, and he frankly wants to fight ISIS, and I think that’s a wonderful thing. You know, I said that a year ago and everybody said oh, that’s terrible. If he wants to fight ISIS, let him fight ISIS. Why do we always have to do everything. But he wants to go in. He wants to fight ISIS. Now, he wants to keep, as you know, he wants to keep your leadership, your current leadership, Assad in Syria. Personally I’ve been looking at the different players, and I’ve been watching Assad, and I’ve been pretty good at this stuff over the years, cause deals are people. And I’m looking at Assad and saying, ‘Maybe he’s better than the kind of people that we’re supposed to be backing.’ Because we don’t even know who we’re backing.”

Sensible and to the point.

So why would he be taking on an unreformed neocon such as John Bolton as an advisor?

David Corn in Mother Jones has a short and to the point look at Bolton who could be European royalty when we analyze what he learns and forgets (that would be nothing).

Bolton, who flirted with the notion of running for president in 2016, has a long history of extreme positions. In 2009, he noted that the only way to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons would be an Israeli nuclear strike on Iran—an option he seemed to endorse. In 2012, he backed then-Rep. Michele Bachmann's call for an investigation of members of Congress supposedly connected to a Muslim Brotherhood plot to infiltrate the US government. This past March, Bolton called for the United States and/or Israel to bomb Iran's nuclear infrastructure.

And, of course, he is still proud of the Iraq debacle.  How  Trump squares that is hard to figure unless he listens to the chickenhawk for what not to think.

John Bolton, the great absurdicrat.

Stephen Kinzer against the grain on Syria.The question is how does this guy get published?

One would not want The Neutralist to become All Stephen Kinzer all the time, but even after being praised on these pages, he is not resting.

In the February 18, 2016 Boston Globe, He has written the article, The media are misleading the public on Syria.  Now, if you are willing to seek out other sources, you may know that there is another side to the story, but you won't find it in the regular press.

According to virtually all the Main Stream Media, Assad lives only to kill his own people and the brave Syrian people are standing up against his oppression unless they are starving in enclaves. Meanwhile, the Russkies are bombing the good rebels as opposed to ISIL or Daesh or whatever it is called this week.

His last article which was discussed on The Neutralist was refreshing.  This one, well it's sticking a thumb into the eye of not just the media, but the government apparatus.  It's the emperor has no clothes on steroids.  With that said, Mr. Kinzer is not really trying to be a firebrand.  His article is nicely laid out.  It can't be helped, the normal press has gone so far overboard that reason seems almost unhinged.

After the Globe article, he appeared on NECN to speak with one of their hosts.  Now New England Cable News is not Fox or CNN, but it was still a happy surprise.  If you get a chance, watch it and see a reasonable man talk sense.

Poor Stephen Kinzer, the lowly, mostly unread Neutralist is rewarding him by making him a Neutralist Fellow

The Neutralist trudges along in obscurity trying to get the nation on board with a humble non-interventionist foreign policy.  We spend almost all our time in the great swamp of despondency, feeling unwanted and unloved.

Then along comes someone to prove to us there is some sanity in the universe.

In of all places, someone made sense in the Boston Globe, an establishment organ if there ever was one.

It was without a sense of urgency that we got to this as it was published on December 13th of last year.  Mr. Kinzer's What a truly conservative foreign policy looks like is not long, about 700 words, but that hardly matters.  It is as direct and to the point as anything the Globe has printed on the subject, which isn't much.

He begins by setting out what American Foreign Policy is,

AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY is based on deep convictions. Those who shape it believe the United States is the indispensable nation that must lead the world; this leadership requires toughness; and toughness is best shown by threatening or using force. Beneath these beliefs lies the assumption that the United States knows more and sees further than other countries.

He then tells us why it is essentially liberal,

Many liberals embrace this dogma. That makes sense. It emerges from the liberal tradition, which imagines that humanity is steadily progressing toward a perfect world in which no one will go hungry, warlords will disappear, diseases will be cured, and people will cooperate for the common good. 

As the few readers of this blog must know, we see such an attitude at best as misguided and at worst, delusional and dangerous.

Mr. Kinzer than gives us the conservative FP.

Conservatism, by contrast, is a live-and-let-live ideology. By nature it is prudent, careful, and restrained. Conservatives do not believe that any country can solve the world’s problems or is called to do so. They want to leave other nations alone, not remake them. That makes restraint in foreign affairs an essentially conservative doctrine. 

It is well stated.  He then asks the question,

Why, then, do so many self-proclaimed conservatives vote for lavish defense budgets, favor maintaining hundreds of military bases around the world, and support foreign wars?

Our good man knows the answer,

It is because they have left true conservatism behind. The vision of an exceptional America, dominating the world and shaping the fate of nations near and far, has seduced them away from conservative values.

Though this is valid as far as it goes, there is a problem with it.  He mentions Taft and Hoover and Ron Paul as real conservatives and he is right.  Most, however on the American right have never been really conservative, at least as far as foreign policy is concerned, even though they claim the label. They never held conservative values to be seduced from.  This is not just sad, it's tragic.

It is a excellent work by the visiting fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University.  He finishes it strongly,

Mainstream conservatism has joined the foreign policy consensus. By helping to push the United States into ambitious nation-building projects, its leaders have abandoned their movement’s founding principles. A true conservative looks dubiously on foreign intervention. Who does not, is none.

As they say, the thing speaks for itself.

Kinzer never labels himself, for all we know, he may not be a conservative and might be appalled that The Neutralist is favoring his article.  No matter.

So, our apologies Mr.Kinzer, but we officially make you a fellow of theNeutralist institute.

We might ask Globe token "conservative" Jeff Jacoby should read What a truly conservative foreign policy looks like.  

All News is Propaganda - BBC Lyse Doucet edition

Driving on errands during the week, the BBC correspondent was talking about the horrible starvation happening in a Syrian town held by rebels and under siege by government forces.  There was some mention that there were towns occupied by Assad's men.

the reporter, Lyse Doucet, oozed concern.  It truly sounded as if an event was occurring that would make Pol Pot blush.

Who could ever think that such a kindly and caring voice was having us on?

I may be wrong as my ride ended soon enough, but my ragtime meter was straining to go to 11.

Sure enough, there was a lot of exposure of the false narrative.  The ever reliable Colonel Lang was on the case,

Now we have the interesting case of Madaya, a rebel controlled town on the Syria/Lebanon border up on the Anti-Lebanon mountain. 

In this piece the author demonstrates that the images being spread across the world by the Western media are demonstrably false.

Particularly annoying are the photos of a pretty little girl claimed to be starving in Madaya.  this girl has now revealed on the internet that she is happily living with her family in south Lebanon.

See the article he references here.

If an article appears on Big News, be suspicious, be very suspicious.

At Antiwar.com Muhammad Sahimi is almost completely right

In today's Antiwar.com, Muhammad Sahimi has an article, What the Islamophobes Won’t Say About the West’s Destruction of theMideast, that almost perfectly reflects the Neutralist's position on the Middle-East.

Mr. Sahimi details the reasons Muslims might not be absolutely happy with the American and allied intervention in the region he hails from.  It is a record we can neither deny nor be proud of if we are honest.

Though the Neutralist agrees, our meddling invites blow back, at least a time out from Muslim immigration is warranted.  This is not because we believe the followers of Islam are all evil, it is because your average US citizen does not deserve a San Bernadino or Marathon bombing or a Fort Hood shooting, even if he or she blindly agrees with the propaganda.

As Mr. Sahimi's case is well made, it only bolsters the case for Neutralism.  We need to withdraw our forces from MENA, let them solve their own problems and when they have sorted it out, resume a relationship on a basis we can all agree on.*

I urge anyone who is not conversant with our adventures in the Middle-East to read the article.

There is a problem I have.  I think he correctly decries the neocons and their attitude, but there is a more nuanced view of the Islamic world that he does not address.  Our country's first foreign war after the revolution was with the Barbary states of North Africa.

These entities would send their raiders to prey on Europe's commercial shipping and after the American Revolution on ours.  The Neutralist has touched on this before.

We have mentioned the words of the Tripolitan ambassador to Jefferson,

The Ambassador answered us that it was founded on the laws of their Prophet; that it was written in their Koran; that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners; that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners; and that every Mussulman [Muslim] who was slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.

Most progressive Americans don't get what that means and some conservatives thinks it means we have an eternal war

That was mainstream Muslim thought in the early 18th Century, why would it not be today?  

The local UCC (Congregational) is the direct descendant of the Puritans, a theocracy as virulent as the Wahabis.  Cotton Mather would have thought abortion nothing other than an abomination. The UCC agreed until 1971.  The malleability of doctrine, that one day something is a horrible sin and the next, choice is not seen as crazy.**

The Muslim, believing the Koran the word of God, sees that it can’t change.  It is a consistent position and no one should blame the believer for holding it.

So the ambassador’s words are, speaking loosely, gospel in the early 1800s as well as the 21st century.

The folks who have the coexist bumper stickers don’t get it.  Trump voters do.  Quite the divide.

The we are the world types see Jihadists a tiny minority and the neocons as forever war. The former don't quite get that the Muslims have not changed with the times and polls show that many of them believe death is proper for Apostasy.

Is there hope?  Yes, but not immediately.  As the local Calvinists no longer preach Old Testament fire and brimstone and no longer burn witches (unlike some people today) it is to be wished that Islamic preachers will emphasize passages such as To You Your Religion and To Me Mine (Qur'an 109:1-6) instead of those more favored by the ambassador.

So time out until we have a better vetting process (assuming we can ever trust our own government to do it honestly) that can weed out the bad apples completely and we need to stay home as well.

*This is not something the Neutralist takes any pleasure in suggesting.  He grew up in a town with a Moslem community in the 1950s.  They had started coming in the early 20th Century.  I cannot speak to the exact level of assimilation, but no one had a bad word to say about them.

Still, there are always people in every society who cannot separate out the good and the bad.  Most Americans by now see Middle-Easterners as troubled at best.  Who cannot understand that the odd Moslem might resent all in the West and not just the neocons.

**Lest any one is wondering, this is not about abortion for or against, just illustrating how an organization can shift when the time comes to get with it.

Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, which is the better dog food?

A Madison Avenue fable from Ben Wattenberg.

Seeking to produce a new dog food, a big corporation set market researchers, food chemists and advertising agencies to work. The experts came up with a new product they were proud of. The dog food sold well, for a while. Then it slumped. Puzzled, the corporate executives commissioned a public opinion firm to see what was wrong.
Soon, the answer came back: "The dogs don't like it."

And this is the story of Jeb Bush, not to mention the rest of the crowd.  They started the race with the same basic message, Don't say too, too much about immigration.  Jeb was the most vocal with his "act of love" quote, but no one was really out there.

So the puppies may not have lapped it up, but they ate the same old because that is all that they had, that is if they even showed up.

So along comes a new brand by an upstart company and les chiens will eat nothing but.  All the other companies are saying, "how can you let the dogs eat that junk.  It don't matter.

The contempt that the old companies had for the consumers was so pervasive they wonder about the market.  That they would go astray with alacrity does not let them question themselves.  Instead, they have even more contempt for the target.

A commenter at Sic Semper Tyrannis, Bill Herschel put it well,

So Jeb Bush etc. declare that we are in a battle of civilizations and blame Obama for not recognizing the fact. Then, after a terrorist attack in California by batsh*t nuts Islamic terrorists, one of whom has immigrated from... you guessed it, Saudi Arabia (doesn't that ring a bell?), Donald Trump respectfully suggests that we take a time-out on Muslim immigration, and the very same people who say it's a battle of civilizations say that he is not an American.

Let us not forget that Trump made the least insane comment about Putin and Syria,

When asked what he thinks Putin is doing in the Middle East, Trump stated, “Well, we spent $2 trillion, thousands of lives, wounded warriors all over, and Putin is now taking over what we started, and he’s going into Syria, and he frankly wants to fight ISIS, and I think that’s a wonderful thing. You know, I said that a year ago and everybody said oh, that’s terrible. If he wants to fight ISIS, let him fight ISIS. Why do we always have to do everything. But he wants to go in. He wants to fight ISIS. Now, he wants to keep, as you know, he wants to keep your leadership, your current leadership, Assad in Syria. Personally I’ve been looking at the different players, and I’ve been watching Assad, and I’ve been pretty good at this stuff over the years, cause deals are people. And I’m looking at Assad and saying, ‘Maybe he’s better than the kind of people that we’re supposed to be backing.’ Because we don’t even know who we’re backing.”

Meanwhile, the rest of the field would want to do something that might risk nuclear war.  It's hard not to look like a giant amidst those midgets.

The Neutralists will say no more now.  With all the money Jeb is spending, you would think one of his hotshots would come up with something to find a pulse.

The Neutralist could use the work.  Jeb, get in touch with me, I will work for much less and promise to get you to 4%.

Stick a fork in him, he's dog food. 

If you are going to be hung as a horse thief, you might as well steal horses.

The title is supposedly an Irish proverb.  Maybe it is, maybe it isn't but  Mr. Trump has got the message, and no other GOPer has.

That old neocon, Limbaughput it nicely,

Everybody, everybody -- now Paul Ryan has joined in -- everybody condemning Donald Trump. The conventional wisdom is that Donald Trump's insane, he's a lunatic, crazy. This is dangerous. This is bad. It's un-American. It's unacceptable. He's gotta go.

Except he's leading. A big problem. Even Dingy Harry -- and, by the way, for all of you Republicans getting on this gravy train condemning Trump, I want to show you what good it's doing you. Dingy Harry: "Donald Trump is standing on the platform of hate, and, I'm sorry to say, hate that the Republican Party has built for him."

You Republicans, you can denounce Trump all day, all week, all month, and the Democrat Party and the media are still gonna say you laid the table for it. You can condemn Trump all you want, but it is not going to buy you any love or respect or admiration from the Drive-By Media and the Democrats. Now, folks, the conventional wisdom is that Trump is scum, that Trump is a reprobate, that Trump is dangerous, that Trump is obscene, Trump's insane, Trump's a lunatic, Trump's dangerous, Trump's got to go. Why join in with that phrase? Why join that crowd? We never fall in with conventional wisdom here.

Listen to NPR and they don't even try to pretend objectivity.  Yeah, they'll quote a Repub saying Trump is off his rocker and when Trump is gone, they'll happily bash the man  they quoted.

So we all agree, Trump is anti-American because of his exclusionary thoughts.  Well folks, for most of our history, that has been mainstream.  Jimmy Carter banned Iranians and that did not disqualify him from a Nobel.

Early American policy was to say the least, discrimintory.

1790 Congress adopts uniform rules so that any free white person could apply for citizenship after two years of residency

Whether that is good or bad, Trump is not un-American even though some geniuses, such as Dick Cheney, Van Jones, Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker may think.  Ah but ignorance is bliss.

At the Neutralist, we do not hate Muslims, but letting them in is not going well.  We hate to be pity party poopers, but the question is begged but if they're so wonderful, why are there so many problems in all of their lands.

Of course, our country is not perfect, but it is ours.  Theirs should be theirs and we should not contribute to screwing them up.  Thus, again the Neutralist mantra, bring the boys home.

As to another possible Mick proverb, provided by the late Social-Democrat of Irish Protestant extraction, John Roche had one.  "Never get involved in the religious wars of churches to which you do not belong."

They accomplished their mission

More news has come out that the two murderers in California were not involved in something "workplace-related" as our misoverestimated  president had mentioned as a possibility.  Their wiping of their digital record the day before says it all.

The Neutralist has not seen any evidence that the duo were controlled by any jihad organization.  They were working on their own.

The softness of the target is what makes it effective.  Some poor fellow who just wants to live life and do his job is now suspect.  "You know Ahmed is the best worker we've had here and gets along with everyone."  "Yeah, they said that about the San Bernadino guy as well."

As the wife appears to have been a radical before she got here, it puts in question the so-called vetting program.  Of course no one believes the administration cares to keep out anyone.

US foreign policy including who we let in is and has been a mistake since forever.

Bring the troops home and secure the border.

Speaking Truth to Stupid

A couple of links from Drudge this morning are the cause of this post.

The first one, Iraqis think the U.S. is in cahoots with the Islamic State, and it is hurting the war in the Washington Post may or may not be correct.  That their is some suspicion is not insane.  There is ample evidence that the Qataris are supporting ISIS and we are their best buddies.

American policy is impenetrable.  One can only wonder at what the administration is doing.  None of it makes sense.

In a post on Sic Semper Tyrannis, a commenter is quoted,

Just trying to keep my scorecard straight. Let’s see. The Americans are using a Turkish airbase to bomb ISIS and protect our allies the Kurds. 

 The Turks are bombing our allies the Kurds while we are using their airbase.  The Americans are supplying human shields for terrorist in Syria who are being bombed by the Russians. 

On the Iraqi side, American air power is being used to protect and support the new Iranian puppet regime in Iraq installed by the Americans after the gulf war.  The Mahdi army that we fought in Sadr City are now advanced element of the Iraqi army we are protecting. 

Officers of “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism” the Iranians are standing next to Iraqi officers who are standing next to American officers all cooperating to kill ISIS soldiers who have been receiving weapons from Americans through American proxies we consider”moderate rebels”. 

Meanwhile, our “enemies” the Iranians are supporting Houthi rebels in Yemen while our “allies” the people who destroyed the trade centers have involved the U.S. in yet another unauthorized war by aggressively attacking the houthis who were helping the U. S. fight Al Queda in Yemen before . 

In the meanwhile “moderate rebels” are undoubtedly being furnished weapons capable of bringing down Russian war planes. So while Russia is bombing ISIS, we are encouraging our proxies to shoot down their planes. 

Will someone tell me whose side we are on today?

It nicely sums it up the bizarre nature of our Mid-east policy.

It was thus refreshing to read the other Drudge Link.  Refreshing?  Heck, it was mind blowing.  Not only was it about someone actually making sense, it was a Democrat and it was in that journal of Neoconism, The National Review.

Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard from Hawaii has called out the folly of our reckless adventurism,

Carter got a hint of just how difficult it may be to sell Congress on such legislation when Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D., Hawaii) suggested that Obama’s decision to place American fighter jets equipped “to target Russian planes” on the border between Turkey and Syria, and his stated opposition to Russian-backed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, could lead the U.S. into a nuclear war with Vladimir Putin’s regime. 

“Russia’s installation of their anti-aircraft missile-defense system increases that possibility of — whether it’s intentional or even an accidental event — where one side may shoot down the other side’s plane,” Gabbard told Carter. “And that’s really where the potential is for this devastating nuclear war.”

For the woman to take on the president, a member of her party, is brave, unless she had permission.  Generally, a politician is guilty until proven innocent, but we live in hope.

Keep talking Tulsi!

Is Obama worse than Assad?

Shocking? Uncalled for? It shouldn't be.

Some talking heads are wising up. They have come to the conclusion that dumping Bashar Assad might not be an act of genius. Every such pronouncement has to be preceded by a formula similar to; “Of course, President Assad is gross, and disgusting, but what comes after might be even worse.”

No one really wants to take it any further because in a point by point comparison, their analysis might lead them to a sort of riff on Henny Youngman's “How's your wife. Compared to what?” How about compared to President Obama.

In his joint session with President Hollande, Obama blamed Russia for the downing of its own jet.

President Barack Obama said the downing of a Russian fighter jet along the Syrian-Turkish border Tuesday is evidence of an "ongoing problem" with Russia's military operations in Syria, and that Turkey had a "right to defend its territory and its airspace."

The president said this before there was much information available. Unfortunately for the narrative, one of the crew-members survived and returned to his base. If the man is to be believed, there were no warnings given as claimed by Turkey.

The plane, even if it crossed into Turkish air space was there only for seconds and did not deserve to be downed. No word from our president if he stands behind his words.

There is no lack of evidence that Turkey is in the oil biz with ISIS. We had been going after the tanker trucks in a most desultory manner. Our air force got around to it on November 16^th and took out 116 trucks. Maybe it was long planned or maybe the Russkies showing us up had something to do with it. Of course that is a small point in the thesis that Assad is a nicer guy. There are bigger arguments in that direction.

If, as our administration would have it, the Syrian Government is a foul regime that we could never support, this begs the question as to why are in bed with the brutal regime in Bahrain?

In the April 13, 2012 Huffington Post, journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, wrote;

Obama has demanded that Bashar al-Assad step-down, slapped sanctions on Syria, and is funding opposition groups in the country. But when it comes to Bahrain, he has colluded in the King's efforts to downplay the civil unrest, distract from proposed reforms and failed to hold Bahrain accountable. This, from a president who promised to restore America's human rights reputation abroad.

Ahmed, it was only a campaign promise. The tradition in the exceptional nation is to break them.

Bahrain used to torture dissidents, but fortunately that has all stopped. Well, no it didn't.  According to Human Rights Watch on November 22, 2015;

“The claims of Bahrain and its allies that authorities have ended torture in detention are simply not credible,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director. “All the available evidence supports the conclusion that these new institutions have not effectively tackled what the BICI report described as a ‘culture of impunity’ among security forces.”

Bahrain is a country where a Sunni Royal family lords it over a Shia population. How come the spreaders of democracy are not calling for elections. Bahrain would claim they have them, but it is only for the lower house and the king appoints the upper house which makes the whole thing a sham. Obama, being from Chicago could only admire such a system. Not that he would sign an executive order...

There is no evidence that Assad supports the brutally corrupt Bahraini regime.

A little bit of water separates Bahrain from another shining example of a human rights non-paradise. Saudi Arabia has been our ally since near forever. Whatever that kingdom's concept of democracy is, they don't like it much. Oh, they have municipal elections, but for the country, if you get the king's vote you're in, literally. He appoints all 150 members of the majlis or consultative assembly.

No one seems to be calling for regime change. Then again, maybe I'm being a little too harsh on the desert monarchy. They are not without grievances and they refuse to take it lying down. The justice ministry intends to sue a person on twitter for comparing the death sentence handed out to a Palestinian poet for apostasy to the punishments handed out by ISIS. Oh such a foul slander!

I'm not sure the quibble. Neither ISIS or KSA have a good word to say about apostasy and will not spare you. One would think the ministry does not have the the sense to be embarrassed.

Though, according to the Independent, the Kingdom has executed 151 victims this year, there is leniency. Blasphemy only gets you flogged fifty times as in the case of liberal writer Raif Badawi. With his ten year sentence, he can contemplate his sovereign's clemency.

Maybe Assad should start handing out death sentences for apostasy and Obama might bow to him too.

Does the Syrian president have a fleet of drones flying over the Levant? That is a is a question to be answered. One might expect if his drone force was having the success Obama's has had, we would have heard about it with a certain prejudice.

Whether or not our drones can hit the broad side of a barn door is not known. They can tag a lot of people, innocent ones. According to the Intercept, about 90% of the drone kills get the blameless. This is a failure rate that would get any CEO fired. The mainstream press should be howling, if we could find them.

It is a heck of a thing if our high tech is more of a human rights travesty than barrel bombs.

Can't say if Assad has a penchant for suppressing whistleblowers but our jefe máximo does. It is something of a hallmark of the administration that promised transparency. Than again, they all do.

In spite of everything above, Assad has never had the bad manners to call for Obama's removal from office.

Maybe some quant can tell us which of the two presidents has more to answer for. All that is nice, but there is one trump that allows Assad extra points. He is not flirting with starting a war with a nuclear power that could turn much of the country into glass. The Syrian president just wants to survive, we are adventuring in Ukraine and the Middle-East against Putin.

None of this should be construed as support for the Syrian regime Of course, President Assad is gross, and disgusting and he can forget ever being awarded the Nobel Prize.

Being against immigration does not mean you hate the foreigner

NPR no longer makes even a pretense at balance.  It doesn't have to.  It is all about sympathy for the poor victims of "Islamophobia" or something.

So this is just to say, one does not need to hate the foreigner to not want them to be here.  That there may be some wonderful folks among the refugees does not mean admitting them is all good.  The undeniable fact is that if no immigrants had been allowed in France, there would have been no Paris bombing.

Of course, one does not need to hate another to not want to have them as neighbors.  I don't hate people who listen to loud music at 3:00 a.m., but I don't want to live in the same apartment.

We have people in the West spouting about how the refugees are salt of the Earth and the terrorists are perverting the faith.  One needs to look to history for what is reality.

When Thomas Jefferson asked the Ambassador of Tripoli in London, Sidi Haji Abdrahaman, by what right the Barbary states took our ships and enslaved sailors and demanded tribute the envoy replied,

The ambassador answered us that [the right] was founded on the Laws of the Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.

Now this would have been mainstream Muslim theology back in the day.  Why would it have changed?  A religion that changes doctrine with the wind is not much of a belief system.  The diplomat said it without trying to soften it.  It was certainly believed in Tripoli, Cairo, Constantinople and kabul as well.

There is no reason to believe it is not the theology to day.  There is no reason to belief your peacefull, professional neighbor, if honest would not say, "Well, yes, I do have a right to enslave you, but it is not in my interest at this point in time."  If he does not say it, if asked, he is being cute.

If the above is true, both for the short and long term, separation is the best and most humane policy.

The Neutralist is open to correction.  If someone can, without obfuscation, reasonably convince me that the Haji was wrong and an aberration back in the day, I am open to hear it.

I suspect I won't be putting a coexist bumper sticker on the car anytime soon.

After Paris, what is to be done?

I write this full in the knowledge that anything I suggest has no chance of happening.  It appears that the present dispensation will continue with a few verses of The Marseillaise and some facebook status pictures of faces with a tricolor background.

So this is just an academic exercise.

Keep in mind, all of what is below is from a neutralist point of view.

First, close the door.  One cannot argue that if there were no Muslims in France that what occurred would have happened as it did.  They can't get in uless they are let in.

Second, all foreigners leave.  Oh gosh, that sounds so Trump, but unless one can prove that their presence improves the lives of the natives, then au revoir.

Third, Stop bugging people in other countries.  France has been bombing in the Middle East for years.  I understand ISIS, from a secular, western point of view is evil, but one should not be surprised when they strike back.  

Fourth, stop propping up Saudi Arabia.  Yeah, I like to drive my car and I know that petroleum is what goes into the tank.  That does not mean if the Saudi so-called Royal Family is removed that there will never be another drop of oil refined in this world.  We may have to spend a extra for it, but being rid of the Wahabis would be a net plus for the world.

Being in the Middle East makes no sense.  The people individually may be okay, but as nations they suck.  Nothing they have did they invent.  Even the numbers they write came from India.  Spreading democracy is a hopeless errand.

The only reasonable policy, and I am not endorsing it, is the Crudsades.  That is, making life safe for Christians and anyone who does not want to bug someone because of their religion.

The Neutralist does not claim to know the exact reasons the US and some EU countries are in the ME.  We don't know why they have let foreigners swamp them. when patrol craft could stop refugees from landing.  All we know is that it is stupid to let it continue.

Just sayin' Relatively speaking Assad's not a bad guy

911 -No involvement by B.Assad

Shoe bomber -No involvement by B.Assad

Tsarnaev bombing -No involvement by B.Assad

Charlie Hedbo -No involvement by B.Assad

Paris attacks -No involvement by B.Assad

This list is not conclusive.  Assad has no hand in any incident.  

The governments of the 'west are run by jerks.  One cannot be kind.

Trump still least goofy presidential candidate

I did not watch the debate but their are enough livebloggers that one can get a flavor of the debate.  This fellow does a good job and his comment

"10:38 While I was eating a snack, I heard Trump say that if Assad goes, the guy who replaces him might be worse. A wise statement."

solidified Trump as the best of the lot.  Still, that adds up to least goofy as only a neutralist FP is a long run winner.

The most sensible comment on that blog was this by Maj:

"And why does every candidate (except Trump and Paul) need to compete for who will be the most eager to start WWIII with Russia? People the Evil Empire ended 25 years ago. Our interests are no longer diametrically opposed due to clashing political ideologies. If anything we should be thinking about allying with Russia for our mutual benefit and against Islamic jihadists."

This is in line with our past posts on centers of order.

What makes sense in Syria-Somebody knows and it ain't the USG

Thanks to Isegoria, I know some of what the War Nerd writes, or at least some good stuff.  The War Nerd is behind the Pando Paywall, and the Neutralist, having never had a successful fundraising campaign, must work on the cheap.

As the Neutralist has noted before, the American media is all propaganda all the time.  As regards Syria, it publishes or broadcasts the mantra of Assad must go while tacitly supporting the entity they consider the enemy in Iraq.  That it is in no sense sane was up until a few short weeks ago irrelevant.

Then something happened that changed everything.  The Russians arrived and acted like they had a viable plan.  Immediately, the media sniped at the Commie Russian intervention.

the War Nerd writes for Pando.  I never warmed to the site.  Maybe it's because there is just too much out there on the web.  More it's attitudinal.  Pando writers are not without a holier than though outlook.  Everyone else is racist and stupid or something.

The War Nerd is a pseudonym, but the persona is of a loser cubicle slave who has a war jones.  A little more endearing than the "we're cool guys and your not" vibe of the rest of the columns.

Anyway, The Neutralist agrees with the words of the War nerd as posted to Isegoria;

Russia is using its air force to try to blast out a viable territory for an Alawite/Shia state along the Syrian coastal hills. Assad’s people are longtime Russian clients and allies, and the Russian air force is helping them maintain their key turf against a much more numerous enemy. It may fail, but at least that’s a reasonable plan.
At the moment, Russia’s planes are focusing on a triangle of Sunni-held territory north of Homs, trying to blast a path for Assad’s weak infantry. If you look at these verygood graphics put together (it pains me to admit) by the New York Times, you can see what a sensible, traditional military move that is. Scroll down to the two maps captioned “Many of the Initial Airstrikes Were Near the Boundaries Between Government and Rebel Zones” and go to the second map. You’ll see a T-shaped yellow zone marking Sunni-held territory due north of Homs, along the key road to Hama and Aleppo.
That’s where the Russian strikes have been hitting hardest lately, in Sunni-held crossroads towns like Ter Maela, right on the M5 highway that runs north to Hama and Aleppo, south to Damascus. That highway is the key to Syria, a kind of spinal cord like the big vein down a shrimp’s back. If the Russians can obliterate Ter Maela’s defenders thoroughly enough to let Assad’s weak infantry (or maybe his much better Hezbollah or Iranian ringers) take and hold these villages, then the Alawites have the makings of a viable state.

At this point Isegoria Interjected; "The US air campaign, on the other hand, does not make much sense:"

If you were to sum it up, it’d go something like this: “Hit Sunni targets east of the coastal hills, but ignore everything to the west; help the Kurds in the north, but grudgingly, as little as possible, for fear you’ll offend Turkey; and while you’re attacking Assad’s enemies, keep reassuring the Israelis that you’re just as anti-Assad as you are anti-Islamic State.”
Sound stupid? It is. It’s a ridiculous compromise adopted to please the Israelis and Saudis, based on the dumb-ass notion that Sunni fighters in eastern Syria are evil sectarian bastards, but the Sunni fighters facing off against the SAA in the west are “moderates.”
It’s true that Islamic State is uncommonly vile, but let’s not lie; the only faction in Syria that even tries to rise above sectarian hatred are the young Kurdish commies of YPG/J. Every other group is sectarian, and militias that start out sectarian only get meaner as they go, by the iron logic of primitive war, where massacre is the norm. And this sectarian taint isn’t new. Syria’s Sunni were chanting “Christians to Beirut, Alawites to the graveyard” long before the fighting started.

Again Isegoria; "Air strikes look clean from air, messy from the ground:"

As a rule, you can tell when the media approve of air strikes by the angle. If it’s all nice clean pilot’s-view of distant explosions, it’s a good strike. If they show you funerals, weeping relatives, blasted apartments, it’s a bad strike. So you can tell, just from the headline — “This Is What the Russian Air Strikes in Syria Look Like from the Ground” — that it’s a bad strike.

Whoever is running American Foeign Policy is not doing much of a job.  This has been so since Bush I.*  Leadership fails sooner or later and even if we got a intelligent administration, it would be but an interregnum until a correlation of forces returned and dumb came back in vogue.

Thus, as Johnny one note we again state, that a neutralist ethos needs to inform our body politic permanently.  The alternative is disaster as is happening now.

So whatever we may think of the rest of Pando, el Nerdos articles are interesting and here is a link if you are inclined to subscribe.  The War Nerd is worth the rest of the site, which is like other progressive sites such as Vox except with a paywall.

*I know everyone loves to hate Reagan, but I suggest you read Suzanne Massie's book on Reagan and Russia, you might think differently about the man.

AJ Schmeltzer and the bogeyman of Syria

Bashar Assad has got to go.  It's almost a mantra of people like John Kerry.  Assad is a big meanie and if he had left at the beginning of the uprising in Syria, the country would be heaven on earth.

Why, Kerry even compared him to Hitler.  Of course, if you have not compared someone to Dolf, you probably have not been in a senior policy position, but we digress.

The media speaks as one on the Syrian president's evil.  It is all ad hominem.  They do give us little of substance, and I'm waiting.

In Massachusetts back in the 80s, a man was convicted of horrible crimes against little children.  The malefactions took place in a secret room on the property.  The secret room was never found, but the hysteria led to conviction and the press was in no way glorious.

I am surprised that Assad doesn't have a secret room.  Well, maybe his police do in that bad neighborhood.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that in this country, all news is propaganda.

The most blatantly stupid piece was Diane Sawyer and the women snipers of Syria.

So what's the point of all this?

Over at the indispensable Sic Semper Tyrannis website of Col. Lang, there is a post by AJ Schmeltzer  that goes into some depth as to Assad and his situation.  Yes he is the strongman of a country in MENA.  Someone has to do the job or you get Libya Iraq as they are now.

Two sections of the post are instructive:

2: In the original protests, Assad initially attempted negotiations, but, partly due to ingrained behavior and partly due to the quite considerably regime casulties even in the "peacefull" phase, supporters of a "forcefull" approach within Syrian security won out, and attempted to solve the issue by force.

3: Temporarly, this put Assad himself between all chairs. The opposition viewed him as a traitor (due to the security organization being very violent despite orders to the contrary) and the security state himself viewed him as a weakling due to his non-violent orders.
The American assistance that "Assad must go", as a precondition of entering any negotiations was, under that background, seen as sheer bad faith by the Russians. Assad could be utilized as a tool to rein in the Syrian Mukhabarat, and he was/is certainly more controllable/civilized then the people actually running the various Mukhabarats, removing him would achieve nothing, other then the Mukhabarat fighting completely gloves off for its own survival.

We see that Assad is not the devil and our press and government are jerks.

As neutralists, we feel a country with such a juvenile outlook as ours should not even have a foreign policy.

World War II will never end!

Went as a guest to a concert put on by the Air Force Concert Band.  It was a good show.  Sort of like the Boston Pops in uniform.

The show celebrated the end of World War II.  It was well done, but when are we going to start having events that feature our glorious post-Big One military adventures.  How come, instead of "In the Mood" and Andrews Sisters songs don't we have cultural celebrations of Korea, Vietnam, both Gulf wars, Afghanistan et al.

Can the Neutralist get support for a mini series, Grenada, that will sort of be like The Pacific or Band of Brothers?

Thought not.

There is not much to celebrate.

At the beginning, there were introductions.  One of them was for the recruiter in case anyone might be interested during intermission or after the show.  Noticing all the white hair and dearth of youth in the audience, her job yesterday was a forlorn quest.