Thursday, August 28, 2014

ISIS, Assad And The Sopranos- How A Mafia-Style Mentality Could Serve Obama Well In Syria


"When you're bleeding a guy you don't squeeze him dry right away. Contrarily, you let him do his bidding, suavely. So you can bleed him next week and the week after."  
-Christopher Moltisanti                                          

                                                                                         
When thinking about ISIS, Assad and what the US should do in Syria, I keep coming back to this epic quote from The Sopranos. It's helpful because it shows the mindset of a thug: how a true mafia man- a member of the organized crime family- handles their affairs and treats their adversaries.

In this particular quote, Christopher is explaining to the younger guys who haven't been made yet how to handle an unruly "client." Chrissy warns them not to go overboard with their initial punishment, instead telling them to act strategically with tomorrow in mind.

Translation: Don't just kill the guy up front: manipulate the situation, bleed him slowly so he survives long enough to pay off in the long run. Let him do his bidding.

This is how the US, and more specifically, Barack Obama, should approach Syria.

After all, mass-murdering dictators and barbaric jihadists play by a different set of rules. They don't respect diplomacy or international law. As a result, we must treat the thugs of ISIS and Assad the way Christopher and the family handles organized crime. We must think strategically. We must not squeeze them dry right away. We must bleed them slowly with tomorrow in mind.


WHY WE CAN'T WORK WITH ASSAD

Following the gruesome, stomach-churning execution of James Foley, the drumbeat to war against ISIS is growing louder. Americans want revenge. They want justice. They want to punish ISIS for the unthinkable act of terror they've committed against us by beheading one of our own for all the world to see.

But it isn't just the American people who want a pound of flesh from ISIS. Obama himself is considering airstrikes in Syria to take them out where they are strongest. He has already approved surveillance flights to map out ISIS positions and potential targets, a precursor to a bombing campaign.

Unfortunately, this is a big mistake.

While it's true that in order to defeat ISIS we must hit them in Syria, their stronghold, doing so will only create more problems.

First off, by striking ISIS in Syria the US would be indirectly aligning with Assad. This is exactly what Assad wants. We would be doing him a favor by rushing to his defense and acting as his personal air force. We would effectively be saving the presidency of a man whom the US has repeatedly said "must go."

In addition, by aligning with Assad- a maniacal tyrant who has killed well over 100,000 Muslims- we would further alienate moderate Muslims all across the Middle East. This will only cause more anti-American sentiment and support for ISIS, as they would become the only perceived defender against Assad and American aggression.

Secondly, it would represent a massive flip-flop and geo-political embarrassment for the US. After all, almost exactly a year ago Obama was about to bomb Assad for crossing his chemical weapons "red line." Now we're going to work with him?


On a broader scale, what message would it send to the rest of the world if the US worked hand in glove with a butcher like Assad? A man who gasses and barrel-bombs his own people? We would lose whatever amount of international legitimacy we have left.


ACT LIKE A SOPRANO

If working with Assad to strike ISIS in Syria is off the table, what could the US do instead?

Simple: act like a Soprano.

Don't squeeze ISIS dry right away by striking them in Syria. Instead, continue to slowly bleed them in Iraq. Continue to arm and aid the Kurds and work the Iraqi military to beat ISIS back. We've already seen how this strategy can be successful. Just look at the joint-coalition effort to re-take the Mosul Dam.

Because military action can only achieve so much, we must also continue to pressure and guide the new government in Baghdad, making sure they are being inclusive so that Sunni, Shia and Kurdish members are all represented equally at the table. This is key to forming a long-lasting, strong Iraq- one with stability and security that can act as a buffer in the region against ISIS and future jihadists groups.

By hitting ISIS in Iraq we will eventually force them to retreat into Syria. This is a win for the US as it places them directly on Assad's doorstep. Now they are even more of a problem for Assad than they were before. He can no longer pit them in a proxy-war against the Free Syrian Army or other jihadist groups like Jabhat Al Nusrah. Instead, he will now be forced to confront them head on.

This would be great news for the US because by forcing ISIS and Assad into a prolonged battle, both sides will be bled slowly, the casualty numbers driven into infinite oblivion.

We were provided a glimpse of what a full-blown ISIS versus Assad war would look like just this past week at Tabqa Airbase. Thousands of ISIS fighters managed to storm Tabqa and secure it from Assad forces. While it was a major victory for ISIS and an embarrassing defeat for Assad, it was costly for both sides.

In the Tabqa battle, some 346 ISIS fighters were killed along with roughly 200 regime soldiers. Hundreds of others were wounded on both sides. Another 200 regime soldiers were taken prisoner by ISIS and later executed in the desert.

(Also, keep in mind that ISIS has seized heavy weaponry from Tabqa and now likely possesses MANPADs, or shoulder-mounted rocket launchers capable of taking down low-flying aircraft. Imagine if they were able to shoot down a US jet conducting airstrikes in Syria or take our military personnel hostage.)



While forcing ISIS and Assad to kill each other is a sadistic strategy, it is a much better option than conducting airstrikes in Syria, putting boots on the ground or working with Assad.


THINK LONG TERM

Obama can't act like a diplomat in Syria. The rules of diplomacy, international law and basic respect do not apply to barbaric jihadists and mass-murdering dictators. To defeat thugs like ISIS and Assad, Obama must take a page out of the Sopranos' playbook and act like a mob boss.

Obama should heed Christopher's advice: don't squeeze ISIS dry right away with airstrikes in Syria. Don't be consumed by the short-term need for immediate justice for James Foley's death. That will come in time.

Instead think strategically. Think about tomorrow and the next day- the long term. Continue to hit them in Iraq and force them to flee to Syria where they will have to take on Assad. Send them into a prolonged war. Let them do their bidding.

In the meantime, step up US support for the Free Syrian Army so that they are strong enough to defeat whomever emerges victorious from the heavyweight bout between ISIS and Assad.

By following this plan, Obama will save us from the indignity of having to work with Assad and also save us from the unintended consequences of having to conduct airstrikes in Syria or put boots on the ground.

The strategy is laid out for Obama.

All he has to do is abandon the lofty rhetoric and act like a Soprano.

Friday, August 15, 2014

Hands Up, Don't Shoot- How Ferguson Became The Canary In The Coal Mine For Police Militarization In America


Between Israel's bloody war with Hamas, the brutal crusade by ISIS to reshape the Middle East and Russia's continued aggression in Ukraine, it's easy to focus our collective attention on the global chaos happening around us, while at the same time overlook what's taking place right here in America. 

Not anymore. 

With the recent shooting of an unarmed African American teen by police in Ferguson, Missouri and the subsequent crackdown that has ensued, the domestic news blinders have been lifted. Suddenly, international headlines typically reserved for foreign wars and political conflicts have shifted from Israel, Iraq, Syria and Ukraine to the heartland of middle America. 

The spark that lit the flame of unrest occurred on a Saturday afternoon earlier this month when Ferguson police gunned down an innocent college-bound teenager by the name of Michael Brown, littering his body with nearly a dozen bullets in broad daylight.

But what has catapulted the small-town tragedy into a global news event is how the police have responded to civilian protests demanding justice for Brown's death.

They've used rubber bullets and tear gas to suppress peaceful demonstrators. They've arrested and assaulted journalists. They've illegally told reporters and civilians not to record video with their cell-phones. 

Aside from the egregious violation of civil liberties, the most worrying development of the crackdown is how the police have appeared and acted like soldiers, not law enforcement, treating the streets of Missouri as if they were the streets of Kabul or Baghdad.

Instead of black shoes, the "police" are wearing boots. Instead of blue uniforms they're wearing camouflage and swat gear. Instead of holding batons in their hands, they're armed to the teeth with assault rifles. Instead of keeping their side-arms in their holsters, they're pointing sniper rifles directly at civilians, literally drawing a red dot on their chests as targets. They're riding in armored trucks and humvees with machine guns mounted on the roof, ready to fire at will.

Simply put, they are no longer police. They are a menacing, hyper-militarized militia, treating innocent civilians as "enemy combatants," not American citizens worthy of protection.



A SHAMEFUL DOUBLE STANDARD

While the exact circumstances of Michael Brown's death remain unclear (police claim he reached for an officer's gun, an eye-witness says he did not), what cannot be disputed is the horrific, shameful response to the shooting by the Ferguson police. 

First off, the police let Brown's body lie in the street for hours after his death, showing a repulsive lack of respect reminiscent of how pro-Russian separatists disgracefully treated bodies in the aftermath of the Malaysia Airlines crash over eastern Ukraine earlier this summer. 

To make matters worse, nearly a week after Brown's death, the police have still yet to charge the officer who killed Brown with a crime. This is the driving force motivating protesters to demonstrate against police. 

Simply put, they are seeking justice. 

The elephant in the room, which many cable news outlets have tried to gloss over, is the racial divide that exists at the center of the stand-off between protesters and police. 

The city of Ferguson is 67% African American. The Ferguson police force is 94% white. 

Because that statistic alone isn't evidence of racism, it's important to compare the Ferguson protests to others that we've seen recently in America. 

For example, take the Bundy Ranch showdown in Nevada from earlier this year.

When federal authorities threatened to take Cliven Bundy's cattle because he hadn't paid grazing fees for over 20 years, a far-right, anti-government militia rushed to Bundy's defense, pointing sniper rifles at government forces and vowing to "take them down" if they dared to proceed. 


And what did the federal agents do when threatened with violence by an all-white militia?

They backed down, of course. 

But in Ferguson, unarmed African Americans protesting the death of a teenager are tear-gassed, assaulted and arrested. 

The stark contrast between how authorities are treating the Ferguson protests versus how they handled the Bundy Ranch showdown is painfully obvious.

When confronted with white, heavily armed anti-government militias, the police walked away. When confronted with unarmed, peaceful African American protesters with their arms in the air shouting "hands up, don't shoot," they bombarded them with tear gas, rubber bullets and a military force fit for warfare in Baghdad.


WHEN THE WAR COMES HOME

After a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the battles fought in the Middle East are returning to American soil. 

Leftover military equipment from Kabul and Baghdad has been brought home, funneled to local police to use seemingly however they see fit.

As a result, American police are shifting from law enforcement to a paramilitary force, outfitted with heavy weaponry and machinery intended to fight terrorists, not unarmed civilians.

The problem here, aside from the obvious anti-democratic transition of law enforcement from those who protect and serve to those who intimidate and terrorize, is that it adds hostility and instigates fear and distrust in the hearts and minds of civilians.

The police are no longer here to protect us. They are here to provoke, antagonize and terrify us. 

On a broader scale, what's happening right now is Ferguson reminds us that we Americans are not exceptional. We are not morally superior to so called third world countries or immune to the type of police/civilian conflicts normally reserved for places like Egypt or Gaza or Iran.

In fact, in many ways we are no better than Mid-East dictators who crack down on peaceful protesters routinely. The fact that suburban Missouri looks like Tahrir Square during the Arab Spring is a testament to that harsh reality.

Most terrifying of all is that this isn't just taking place in Missouri. It's happening all over the country. And unless we take a stand against the hyper-militarization of American police, we're staring at a future where cops are extinct and soldiers take their place. And they won't just use their superior military equipment to suppress and terrorize peaceful African American protesters in suburban Missouri. 

They'll use it against all of us. Everywhere. 

Sunday, August 10, 2014

Yes, We Tortured Some Folks. We Spied On Them, Too


Earlier this month, President Obama dropped an unexpected bombshell when he admitted, nonchalantly, that the United States "tortured some folks" after 9/11. 

The statement came as such a shock because up until that point no US President had even uttered the word "torture" in the post-9/11 sense, let alone acknowledged that it took place.

Similar to the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII, the fact that America tortured our enemies during the "war on terror" has been such a hideous skeleton in our historical closet that we've collectively suppressed it from memory, vowing never to speak about it again.

But no matter how hard we try to whitewash our shameful past, we cannot escape it.

From the horrors of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay to a laundry list of unknown CIA "black sites" in between, it's clear that America committed war crimes in the wake of September 11th.

We beat detainees. We water boarded and electrocuted them. We dragged them on leashes like dogs and laughed as we did it. We forced them to endure psychological hell; blindfolding them and stripping them of their clothes and then blasting deafening music into their ears non-stop until they went mad. We used sleep deprivation, isolation, darkness and barking dogs to send them over the edge. We subjected them to severe heat and severe cold and then hung them by their wrists and arms in "high stress" positions for hours on end.

We didn't just torture them, we humiliated them. We stole their humanity. 

The "them," in this case, are hundreds- if not thousands- of Arab men who were swept up in the "war on terror." While some were indeed guilty, many others were innocent, detained indefinitely and tortured despite the fact they had never been charged with a crime.


Obama's admission, although unexpected, was an important first step in coming to terms with the sins of our past. Not only was it a direct rebuke of the Bush-Cheney horrors of post-9/11 but, more importantly, it was an acknowledgement that America had done something wrong and we were finally owning up to our mistakes in an attempt to ensure they never happen again.


ON TO THE NEXT

While Obama deserves credit for coming clean about one aspect of our shameful past, he is also refusing to admit the truth about another.

For nearly twelve years, the United States has operated in secrecy as a de-facto 21st century surveillance state. Beginning with George W. Bush in the days after 9/11 and continuing deep into the second term of Barack Obama, the powers of government spy agencies have grown exponentially, while the rights of citizens have been trampled on in the name of security. 

The government's cause is noble: to protect Americans from terrorists who will stop at nothing to carry out attacks either on our soil or against our interests worldwide. However, in that pursuit of total security we have allowed our civil liberties to be eroded to the point where they are barely recognizable anymore, forcing us to question what kind of democracy we claim to adhere to.

Our cell-phones are tracked and they have been for years. Our emails and text-messages and social media posts are monitored and mined for information. Our meta-data is swept up in a digital dragnet without our approval, stored indefinitely in a vast, expansive database in the Nevada desert.

However, if it weren't for Edward Snowden all of this would remain unknown. The intelligence apparatus would continue to gobble up information in secret, while Americans would continue to live in blissful ignorance with no knowledge of the government invading their privacy and violating their 4th Amendment rights. 



WHO IS WATCHING THE WATCHMEN?

Much like Bush and Cheney lied to the public about WMDs, the present day Intelligence Community is lying to the public about spying. 

As the Snowden leaks have proven, the NSA has been monitoring the communications of everyday Americans for years now, never once acknowledging that it takes place or asking us for our consent.

They've lied about it too. 

Just weeks before the initial Snowden leaks surfaced, then-director of National Intelligence James Clapper lied under oath to Congress when he said the NSA did not "wittingly" collect any type of metadata from Americans, even though they most certainly were.

President Obama has also been less than truthful about spying. When the Snowden leaks were raging, he kept saying "just trust us." Even today, Obama continues to claim that the NSA does not read our emails or text messages, another talking point proven false by the Snowden leaks.

In terms of the stages of recovery, when it comes to spying our Government hasn't even progressed past the first hurdle. We are still largely in denial.


LONG ROAD AHEAD

One of the core philosophies of any democracy is the right of the people to self-correct and progress. All democracies are fluid, subject to change if the people deem it necessary. 

However, if we keep our sins in the dark and refuse to confront them, they drift into nothingness, exiting the collective consciousness like they never happened. This lets off the perpetrators of injustice scot-free and leaves those in power eternally susceptible to committing the same mistake in the future. 

When we torture, or spy, or do something morally unjust that goes against our ideals and principles, we must first acknowledge that it took place. Only then can we begin the long journey of self reflection that comes with repenting our sins and ensuring they never happen again.

Unfortunately, the path to enlightenment is long in the making. Establishment forces fight to the death to make sure the truth isn't exposed so that they can continue to operate with impunity, wielding the power they refuse to let go of.

It took a decade for a US President to admit we tortured some folks after 9/11, so it probably won't be until the year 2020 that a US President admits we spied on them, too.