Nineteenth-century radicals loathed Russia above all other states because it had a quasi-religious mission to preserve autocracy at home and promote reactionary regimes abroad. To true believers, the “Third Rome” of Christian tsarism defended the divinely ordained old order against the threats of liberalism, socialism, nationalism and modernity.
After reading Nick Cohen’s relay of Pat Buchanan’s words about Vladimir Putin, it turns out that I am a part of a movement characterized as the “militant secularism of a multicultural and transnational elite.”
* * *
Ya ha!
I have found my place.
You know my lowest common denominator standards:
— Compassion | Humility | INCLUSION | Integrity —
Buchanan, if he’s now enamored of Putinism, and Putin, who would seem by the show of affection proffered in weapons deliveries and benevolent shadowing, remains committed to Bashar (The Butcher) Assad may be counted on for the grossest callousness, pride, exclusion, and — no secret where so many secret and nepotist arrangements would seem to be involved — corruption.
The same as (gasp!) Al Qaeda.
OUR problem, me hearties, me droogies, me Facebook best buddies from Riyadh to Islamabad, is that whether having to do with Assad vs. the Islamist Edge or Putin vs. Obama, it would seem similar mentalities wish to occupy the same space or shine in the same lights — not exactly atypical of “malignant narcissists” — while driving everyone else into misery or just plain out of their mirrored spheres!
THEIR problem, Mr. Obama, Mr. Putin, may have to do with escaping their own glorious selves. Of the two, Obama, being of the Christian compassionate honest humble and generously inclusive democratic and open society west, may lay claim to having done less harm in the short term than his superpower counterweight; Putin, however, would do well to look over the Assad combat doctrine and its effects on once disinterested Syrians who have by the effects of extensive bombing and indiscriminate fire been turned out of their homes or cheated of their lives while the Al Qaeda affiliates’ advance seems to have remained out of range and sight of the same.
Post-Soviet Syria was post-Soviet Putin’s to influence and transform.
Well, some, I suppose, both milk the cow and starve it until it keels over.
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In Putin, the past fights mightily with the future.
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In my own recurring themes, Putin and I might share the appreciation of what I call “19th Century Modern”, an aristocratic and noble notion reinforced by the appearance of affluence and wealth. Living in the 19th Century with 21st Century appointments and appliances seems to me pretty cool, although I’ve had to stuff my mansion into a cabin (or cottage) based in about 1,000-sq.ft. of garden apartment walk-up, and things are not looking so good for drives in the country and claret before one or another of the ever glowing electronic hearths.
Still, the situation here is 19th Century (Modern), and it’s pretty good but for the worry.
For the narcissist, reparative or malignant (guilty, I confess, of one or the other or a bit of both), there’s much to recommend it and one may bet on the intelligentsia’s buy-in, Georgian brick, ivy, tweed, and elbow patches and all.
So is the fighting about castle and keep?
It could be so, at least symbolically.
It takes a castle, a manor, a very many of them to create and sustain a great language and culture. If perhaps in his mind, his peacock charm, ambition, dreams at night, and hail fellow well met — and now and then stabbed! — President Putin has had to step back a century, the same may serve to remind of the magic of that era as well.
* * *
It’s almost Christmas.
Winter returns tonight to my home in western Maryland — ice and snow, wool blankets and sweaters, steaming pots of tea (someone else in the family got the samovar) — so I may offer this bit of in-solidarity to my unknown Muscovy doppelganger, reasonably appointed and of good temper: let’s enjoy the show because, sooner or later, for Christianity or fashion designers, for the Jews who work harder for humanity than anyone else, and for humanity served, we’re going to have to do something about Syria and soon, and we don’t want it to be either of the two pariahs busying themselves this evening with the other’s destruction.
Location: Fort McNair, National Defense University (5/23/2013).
For the serious (aided by coffee, perhaps), I’d advise watching the more complete ABC News presentation, but, at a glance, they’re close to parity. The applause and heckler interruption takes place at about 49 minutes, and while it seems that portion has made the rounds, the complete video tells a much, much greater and more thoughtful story.
After the heckler, at around 56 minutes, Obama notes, “We face down dangers far greater than Al Qaeda. By staying true to the values of our founding, and by using our constitutional compass, we have overcome slavery and civil war and fascism and communism.”
Obama’s not only right on that score, but one would have to watch with hate in the heart and a fair dose of internally-generated paranoia to demonize him as some kind of remote international socialist Muslim. All of that just isn’t there in the breadth, depth, and expanse of the national security presentation.
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The ABC News page supporting the one hour and ten minute clip reports seven tweets and 84 Facebook shares, a pathetically low number for a remarkably candid and comprehensive speech by President Obama on national security, related legal practices, and the drone program that has been in the news recently with the assassination of Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud.
At about 38 minutes, Obama sums up basic concepts in his foreign policy:
Target actions against terrorists;
Effective partnerships;
Diplomatic engagement and assistance.
Notably, while speaking of terrorism generically, Obama goes on to address the American relationship with its Muslim complement.
“As we guard against dangers from abroad, we cannot neglect the daunting challenge of terrorism from within our borders . . . today a person can consume hateful propaganda, commit themselves to a violent agenda, and learn how to kill without leaving their home . . . the best way to prevent violent extremism is to work with the Muslim community, which has consistently rejected terrorism . . . . These partnerships can only work when we recognize that Muslims are an integral part of the American family . . . . In fact, the success of American Muslims and our determination to guard against any encroachments on their civil liberties is the ultimate rebuke to those who say that we are at war with Islam.”
“We cannot resolve someone else’s civil war by force.”
“On that terrible night, the world saw the terrible nature of chemical weapons . . . a violation of the rules of war.”
In 1997, the U.S. Senate ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention . . . 189 participating governments . . . representing 98 percent of humanity . . . .
“We know the Assad regime was responsible . . . fired rockets into 11 neighborhoods . . . . Senior figures in the Assad regime reviewed the results of the attacks . . . .”
“When dictators commit atrocities, they depend on the world to look the other way . . . and forget . . . .”
” . . . not only a violation of international law, also a threat to our security.”
“I will not put American boots on the ground in Syria.”
” . . . targeted strikes to deter the use of chemical weapons . . . .”
” . . . over the last two years . . . diplomacy, sanctions . . . credible threat (to get) Putin to urge Assad to join the international community . . . give up chemical weapons . . . .’
“I have asked the members of Congress to postpone the vote on whether to (strike Syria).”
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That’s less how I heard it and more how I scribbled it (with really bad handwriting).
Nonetheless, Obama made clear that eleven neighborhoods suffered chemical weapons attacks, that senior figures in the Assad regime reviewed the results of those attacks, and that the Administration was considering a limited, targeted strike specifically to deter the regime’s use of chemical weapons in the future.
In response to Putin’s offer, Obama requested the postponement of a Congressional decision on the matter, garnering time for diplomacy and for the UN to present its findings Syria’s chemical weapons use.
Obama noted he had ordered the military to maintain its current posture and ability to respond.
One more partial quotation: ” . . . that’s what makes America exceptional — humility with resolve.”
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With live television and “live streaming” in “webcasting” the second row seat to history becomes the front row seat, and that advance in technology fairly invites one to report a little even knowing someone else already has the complete transcript, complete and completely accurate quotations, but, nonetheless, if you haven’t read it here first, you just about could.
Perhaps the two boys are playing an old game with old cards and broken chips.
“I see you lost some states there,” says one.
“The cause lost some states, but, you know, people don’t change much. They’re still ours, and I see there’s more like them on the table.”
* * *
It’s an evil old game cooked by one party with crude assumptions: the other cannot walk away; the other cannot win; the other is there for beating and controlling; the stakes will be useful, pleasing, but of themselves are not important.
Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Thursday the United States — which, in addition to being one of his country’s chief adversaries, has led the push to punish Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government over chemical weapons — has no right to make “humanitarian claims (given) their track record” in Iraq, Afghanistan and at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Putin said this week that any one-sided action would be rash. But he said he doesn’t exclude supporting U.N. action if it’s proven that the Syrian government used poison gas on its own people.
“Leaning forward” is one of Donald Rumsfeld’s favorite expressions. An old cold-war term, familiar to soldiers and spies, it means the willingness to be aggressive, to take risks. “I want every one of you to know how forward-leaning we are,” the secretary of Defense told a room full of Marine generals and Navy admirals at the North Island Naval Air Station, near San Diego, last month.
This morning’s live feedfrom Fox featuring President Obama and Prime Minister Reinfeldt stunned me, really, as being the most open, most candid, most off-the-cuff press conference I’ve been aware of since the inauguration.
In it, Obama talked about Syria every which way — either he couldn’t get away from the subject or the reporters could not — including asserting that a transition from the Assad regime seemed impossible given the tens of thousands of civilian lives taken by the regime. Obama then noted that President Putin seemed to disagree with that logic, thereby throwing the policy-on-Syria hot potato to Putin who may look increasingly disingenuous and transparent clinging to his lines on behalf of Bashar and Maher al Assad.
If the “center will not hold” will there be a center?
When I started receiving the CTC Sentinel (from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point) I don’t believe I was vetted in any way but, so my impression was, on a controlled list for a publication neither secret nor to be redistributed.
Again, that was some years ago, and here I may be merely befuddled, paranoid, whatever.
Over the years, I’ve kept reference to CTC to myself and partially for the effects of its “granularity” — the detail in reported relationships — involved in combat arenas from Afghanistan to Somalia. Such material, I thought, wouldn’t tell anyone involved on any side of “field operations” what they didn’t already know, but it would suggest how deeply American defense intelligence and analysis gets into societies of interest, and that may have promoted some resentments in my social networks.
A few weeks ago I had cause to ask CTC (Facebook) about distribution and got back this answer: “We publish all of our research in the open source (on our website and in social media), and from there, we don’t have any control over its distribution.”
So there.
Short of subscribing to Jane’s, taking lonely walks (in the rain) around Foggy Bottom, and hanging out in Georgetown (now that I’m 90 minutes northwest of all of that — way out of town!), I think the following two links to Combating Terrorism Center and Foreign Policy (Magazine) reports are pretty good — and granular.
Rebels have been told by these states that they must endorse the SMC and its politics to gain access to future arms shipments.[5] Recently, the United States, the United Kingdom and France have all indicated that they will channel money and possibly weapons via the SMC.[6]
The SMC has provided wildly varying estimates of the total number of fighters in its member groups. In June 2013, Idris claimed to control 80,000 fighters, but days later an SMC representative insisted that the true figure is 320,000.[7] In practice, a meaningful headcount of rebels is almost impossible to make, both due to the scarcity of reliable information and to myriad problems of definition.[8] There is no disputing, however, that most of Syria’s large rebel factions have chosen to publicly align themselves with the SMC, recognizing it as the best way to tap into Gulf, Western and other support.
I’ve maintained that Syria has been for decades in Russia’s sphere of influence — and across quite a few military, political, and trade issues — and rightly in the post-Soviet period should have been of concern to Russians. It may have been so but with the Assad regime and society overall still difficult and remote in its own right.
As an aside here, the spy games popping up through Manning, Assange, and Snowden (oh my!) have been a much obscured part of the Islamic Small Wars throughout the range. For Pakistanis, “ISI” is ever on the lips but equally off the radar and inscrutable; for Somalis, the Al Qaeda types come and go — I got my first online news glimpse in the Islamic Courts Union era and my last somewhere between Al Shabaab and a separate raid on kidnappers that raised a lot of unanswerable questions, starting with, “So how did you guys (SEALS) know who, where, and when?”
The world “behind the curtains”, from diplomatic missions to intelligence operations coursing through every sector of state-defined societies is immense, and it’s foolish to think that those hidden hands (plus eyes and ears and mouths) are not playing around in Syria.
Indeed, these are the best of times for the writers (and movie producers) of spy thrillers.
* * *
At stake in Syria, perhaps beautifully so, is a test of the definition of political and social obligation to others.
It’s much easier to express that when children, displaced persons, and refugees are the subject of whatever topic may be at hand: such are the victim of horrific circumstance and a portion of the soul of the world evident in the NGOs and the United Nations and all who support them comes out to do its thing, which is being helpful in the absolute worst conditions.
The spectacle of jets flown against neighborhoods, mass beheading, savage, if symbolic, cannibalism, and, finally, the taboo of chemical warfare brings something else into display, and it confronts these two incredibly unique men, President Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama with exactly what each might detest or fear most: differentially, a test of conscience on one hand, and a test of courage on the other: however, neither the former nor latter involve Syrians per se.
Instead, they involve the political grammars and structures on which the present has arrived, and in light of the savagery exhibited in Syria, as much seem to have grown old and to be moving out of favor.
I’ve been deliberately oblique in this last section, but fit to context, I think the poetry about right.
According to opposition figure Ayman Abdel-Nour, Al-Assad told the Syrian media recently that the regular army’s inability to take the city of Daria near Damascus after 120 days of non-stop shelling was because of the presence of foreign contingents fighting in the city, including Israelis and US commandos, for example.
However, the regime itself has been involved in forming the armed groups and of being a key mover in some of them. During the first year of the uprising, the regime released more than 60,000 prisoners by presidential decree, which facilitated the creation of the armed rebel groups and served its interests in painting them as criminals and former prisoners.
Nearly 47 amateur video clips reportedly filmed on the morning of the attack and showing the impact on civilians had been authenticated by French military doctors, according to the intelligence. French evidence gave details of other suspected chemical attacks, in the towns of Saraqib and Jobar in April, which now appeared to have killed about 280 people, the report said.
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