I got a note from Japan this morning. The JG has landed, and his time in the Fleet has commenced. I am relieved that his travel by air on 9/11 and landing on Friday the Thirteenth passed uneventfully. I am now able to go back to worrying about other things.
The radio is briefing me on a clandestine CIA program to provide arms to the rebels. Small arms, they are careful to point out. They did not mention if these are the ones from the other clandestine CIA operation in Libya; you have to forgive me if I am a little uncomfortable with the cavalier way all this information is treated.
Since the Age of Snowden, it is not unusual to see things with advanced classification markers on the Huffington Post or the Daily Beast. It is quite disconcerting, but then there is a lot to be disconcerted about these days.
A pal out on the Front Range is watching the sheets of rain pour down, scouring the burn areas and flooding the plains below. He mentioned that his reading of the august Financial Times (no classified information there) suggested President Obama needed this to be his best week, if he were to ameliorate the damage of last week, which the worst of his term in office.
I would not say that the big speech on Tuesday convinced anyone about anything in particular, but in keeping with the way things work, he has at least succeeded in moving Syria policy disaster onto a slow track, and back into the capable hands of Secretary of State Kerry.
Considering that we have essentially out-sourced the foreign policy of the United States to a former KGB Colonel, I guess it is safe to change the subject to something else. I mean, we did Syria for almost two whole weeks, and it is about time to get back to dithering about the economy.
White House press secretary Jay Carney said the President wants to push forward with economic policies that the White House believes will grow the middle class.
I am dubious about that. There is plenty of money in the system; Mr. Bernanke has been printing it up like crazy. The problem is that no one seems to want to do anything with it. Waiting out the Administration is going to make for some very slow news days over the next three years, but there are plenty of things to pivot about.
Although the White House would prefer to us to pivot back home with the President (why do I think of an exercise session with Richard Simmons? Sorry!) I wanted to share a little bit about the whole Responsibility to Protect (R2P) thing, just in case we have to pivot back in some other totally unexpected direction.
It is another of those really nice ideas that came up at the 2005 World Summit to address mass atrocities. It had been simmering through the international consciousness since the mass killings in Rwanda and the brutal ethnic cleansing in the Balkans.
The United Nations mandate identifies to whom the R2P protocol applies, which is to say, nations first and regional and international communities second. On that principal, each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from the Four Big Ones: genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.
The international community, through the United Nations, also has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means to help protect populations.
The R2P protocol specifies that “collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, be conducted through the Security Council on a case-by-case basis” and “in cooperation with relevant regional organizations as appropriate, should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities manifestly fail to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.
The protocol was reaffirmed in 2006, and codified in a 2009 report issued by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Critics pointed out that the protocol was subjective, and undermined national sovereignty. The Secretary General embarked on some magical thinking, and explained that since it was the responsibility of the nation state to remedy the problems first, it actually strengthened the state’s sovereignty.
I dunno. Seems like circular thinking on his part, but that brings us around to Mr. Obama’s decision to intervene, and then not intervene in Syria. I thought this was really important a couple days ago, and I guess it is. The President’s justification is clear enough, but doesn’t appear to meet the requirements of the international agreement about mucking around in the affairs of other nations, and does not specifically address Weapons of Mass Destruction at all. A war crime is a war crime, after all, and there are plenty of them to go around, Syrian Government and Rebels alike.
Nor is there any provision for America to be the cop on the world beat, but as with everything this Administration does, we are off on another rabbit chase before anyone can really figure out what happened, or if what was asserted is really from the teleprompter or just off the cuff.
Two weeks was long enough for that, I guess, and now we are pivoting back to the economy or something. Or the Debt Ceiling. I thought we already did that, didn’t we?
I swear, trying to follow what these people are up to is positively dizzying. Could it be intentional, or are they really just this disorganized?
Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303