Non-hawks speak out

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) have coauthored a letter to President Obama cautioning against any rush to war.    With the impending visit tomorrow of Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu, this is very timely.

Here is the text of the letter, which has been endorsed by a liberal and peace groups:

“What the President has to tell the Israeli leadership is: ‘Look, if you’re going to sign us up for a protracted military conflict that you can start but cannot finish, we’ve got to be in on it from the beginning.  And we say diplomacy is what we need to do now…The United States, the strongest military on Earth, should never be in a position where it is not in control of its own destiny.  The fact is, we cannot let even an ally, an important ally like Israel, drag us into war that we think diplomacy can serve better in.”

Rep. Ellison also commented that “We just got out of one war, we’re trying to get out of another one, we do not need a third…diplomacy is the right option. . . .  No one says diplomacy is easy, but going to war would be catastrophic."

Ellison also said that many Israeli generals and military experts also believe “an attack on Iran would be destabilizing for them and the wrong way to go.”  And, as I noted in a comment to yesterday's post, a poll of Israeli people found that only 19% support a military strike against Iran without U.S. support and 42% support a strike with U. S. support.

In addition, our Joint Chief of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey says that the Iranian leadership is rational in its international dealings and that they can be negotiated with.  That is not to say that they are always truthful or forthcoming but that they are not wild, crazy people who would act rashly.   Every move, every statement they make is carefully calculated for its effect.   That, in itself, is more hopeful than if we were dealing with a crazy despot like Kaddhafi.

Of course, the hawks disagree and warn that we cannot risk an irrational move from the Iranians.

Ralph

Obama recycles optimism

With improving economic indicators, President Obama is sound a new note of optimism about the improved economy -- and taking some credit for his policies helping to make that happen.

This, of course, is a winning strategy -- as long as the improvement holds up.  The risk is that soaring fuel prices, economic crisis in Europe, or worsening tensions in the Middle East may turn this around between now and November.

For the time being, however, here is the good news as compiled into today's AJC.

1.  Incomes rose 0.7% in the third quarter compared with earlier estimates of a 1.9% drop.

2.  Consumer spending rose 2.1% in the fourth quarter, spurred by a jump in purchases of autos and other long-lasting goods.

3.  Jobs .   Companies have stepped up hiring, and the unemployment rate has dropped for five straight months to 8.3%.

4.  Manufacturing.  Factories boosted output;  December was their strongest month of growth in five years.

5. Consumer Confidence rose to its highest point in a year.

Sounds good -- if it will just continue.     

And could we please at least push the line that these improvements came in spite of the Republicans doing everything they could to prevent any success for the president?

Ralph

War Hawks are at it again

Our fear-mongering, testosterone-poisoned Congressional Hawks are sharpening their claws and trying to ramp up war fever, timed two days before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits President Obama on Friday.

Trying to paint President Obama into a corner, and perhaps set the stage for a campaign issue for the next six months, a group of hawkish senators, led by Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, are pushing a senate resolution that, in effect, puts the senate on record as willing to back the president if he decides that it is necessary to bomb Iran.

This comes on the heels of a thinly veiled campaign by the White House to tamp down just such war fever, releasing a series of statements that include doubts from our intelligence groups that Iran is actually working on a nuclear bomb, as well as Iran's presumed retaliatory direct attacks on Israel and terrorists attacks on U. S. personnel and interests throughout the Middle East, especially in Afghanistan.  The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, went so far last week as saying that bombing Iran would not "be prudent."

In response to the senate hawks, the Air Force Chief of Staff, General Norton Schwartz, has now asked the obvious question:   Just exactly what do you hope to accomplish by bombing Iran?  If they are in fact working on a bomb, it would clearly be in their deep underground facilities beneath a mountain that would be impervious to bombs.   What is the national security objective?

The prudent course seems to be continuing sanctions, diplomacy, efforts at talks, and covert activities to disrupt their computer-controlled centrifuge systems.    From all I've read, my best guess is that the Iranians are not yet working on actual weapon systems or yet concentrating uranium to weapons grade (it requires many times more concentration than does fuel for nuclear power plants, which they are making), but that they are doing all things short of that to be prepared to move more quickly if they do decide to make a bomb.

The hawks say if we wait until they do, it will be too late.  They also, being hawks, think that the U.S. must convey a threatening level of power and the willingness to use it.   They think Obama's approach comes from -- and conveys -- weakness.

Gen. Schwartz also pointed out that the Pentagon has complete plans for just such attacks on Iran, if it should become necessary, as part of their preparedness strategy;  and President Obama has been given a full range of options from the military standpoint.

There are other considerations that the hawks ignore, however.  For example the effect on the larger Muslim world of the United States attacking yet another Muslim country, inflaming the image of us as the imperial power.   After all, much of the anti-American feeling in the Muslim world is related to our backing Israel -- which is a nuclear power in the Middle East and their enemy.  It didn't help either that we were behind the coup that overthrew Iran's elected socialist government and put the Shah back in power.   The Shah was then eventually overthrown in a coup that resulted in the present theocracy that rules Iran.

Did we learn nothing from the hawk's leading us into a misadventure in Iraq?   Are we going to let them do it all over again?

Ralph

David Brooks on the GOP primary field

Conservative columnist for The New York Times, David Brooks, wrote yesterday about the effect of the radical right wing taking over the Republican party and its moderate incumbents changing their stripes in order to get re-elected.   He cites Senators Orrin Hatch and Richard Lugar as examples.

". . .  it is worth pointing out that this behavior is not entirely honorable. . . . to kowtow to the extremes so you can preserve your political career.  But, of course, this is exactly what has been happening . . .  [Right] Wingers fight to take over the party, mainstream Republicans bob and weave to keep their seats. . . .

"Under [the extreme's] influence, we’ve had a primary campaign that isn’t really an argument about issues. It’s a series of heresy trials in which each of the candidates accuse the others of tribal impurity. Two kinds of candidates emerge from this process: first, those who are forceful but outside the mainstream; second, those who started out mainstream but look weak and unprincipled because they have spent so much time genuflecting before those who despise them.

"Neither is likely to win in the fall. Before the G.O.P. meshugana campaign, independents were leaning toward the G.O.P. But, in the latest Politico/George Washington University Battleground Poll, Obama leads Mitt Romney among independents by 49 percent to 27 percent."

Ahhhh . . .   how sweet it's going to be.

Ralph

Religious freedom

For all his protestations to the contrary, Rick Santorum does not believe in religious freedom.

As I understand it, and as I think most scholars understand it, it means that our government is neutral with regard to any particular religion, while protecting the rights of all to practice their own religion or their lack of religion.

There are a few limits that would restrict some claims to how that religion is practiced, including the general principle that it cannot supercede other laws or trample on others' rights.  For example, a claim that human sacrifice is part of their religious rites would not be tolerated.   Claims that using illegal substances (like peyote) is part of Native American religious rites is a murkier areas that may require adjudication by the courts.

But the essence of neutrality was the core of John F. Kennedy's landmark declaration in 1960 when his Roman Catholicism became an issue in the presidential campaign.   He said:

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

Rick Santorum said that this makes him want to throw up.   He seems incapable of understanding that official neutrality is what guarantees personal religious freedom.   He should think about the possibility that, if we allow him to impose Roman Catholic beliefs, then he would be susceptible at some other time to a president who might want to impose Muslim beliefs on him.

Some of us still want our democratic nation to be defined in the reality-based world.  Santorum apparently does not agree.   If he gets nauseated by Kennedy's noble statement, he would probably barf his insides out at my contention that our nation's founding principles stem far more from Enlightenment ideals than from Christian beliefs, although there are certainly some principles shared by both.

Ralph

Santorum outdoes himself

Did you have any doubt that Rick Santorum does not inhabit the "reality-based" world?

His know-nothing crowd may eat it up -- it's what they want to hear.   But surely he must be losing any support he might have ever had among thinking Republicans and Independents.

Here's his latest:

"We need to look at the situation with gas prices today.  We went into a recession in 2008 because of gasoline prices. The bubble burst in housing because people couldn't pay their mortgages because they were looking at $4 a gallon gasoline."

Duh . . . what can you say to something so utterly divorced from reality?

Ralph

Best actress Oscar

Some years they really should award two best actress or best actor awards -- because two people so richly deserve it that it seems cruel for one to wind up as an "also-ran."   One such time was 2006, when Phillip Seymore Hoffman won Best Actor for his portrayal of Truman Capote over Heath Ledger's equally stunning (I would say superior) role as Ennis Del Mar in "Brokeback Mountain."

This year it was two marvelous actresses.   Meryl Streep won as Margaret Thatcher in "Iron Lady" over Viola Davis' extraordinary performance in "The Help."   I was passionately hoping that Davis would win, just as a I had been for Ledger to win.

 Yes, I know that Meryl Streep has been nominated for 17 Oscars and that it has been over 20 years since she won the last of her three.  But, as great as Streep is at what I have come to think of as "impersonations," I am always aware of watching Meryl Streep be marvelous.  Never for a minute did I lose the thought that I was watching her impersonate Julia Child or Margaret Thatcher, as brilliant as she was in both.

In contrast, in watching "The Help" for the third time last week, there was just no question in my mind that Viola Davis was Abilene down to the very core of her being.

That's the difference.  Streep impresses me with her brilliant impersonations.   Davis is the character.   The same was true of her other nominated role in Doubt.   The same was true of Hoffman and Ledger.   Hoffman gave a brilliant impersonation of Capote;  but Ledger just simply was Ennis.

For the record:  Davis was voted Best Actress by her peer actors in the Screen Actors Guild award.

Ralph