Today, there is a heartbreaking picture of a little boy in all the papers of the world. All the pundits are using it to attack Barak Obama and all the leaders of the free world about why they have not stepped in and done something about the war in Syria. Of course all the noise is coming from the same people who will attack Obama if he sends American troops to rescue this child and his fellow sufferers. What you have to understand about this war, like all wars, is that they are as much political combat as they are military conflict.
When Obama drew a line in Syria the Right attacked him. When he didn’t cross that line the Right attacked him again. Now that he isn’t attacking Assad the Right is attacking him. If he says he loves his mother and kisses babies, the Right will attack him. That’s what the Right doers. They think it’s their job as the loser party to attack the President. The Left isn’t that different except when they lost the election to Bush they tried to keep a functioning government going. They didn’t stop governing just so Bush would look like a failure. He did that all by himself.
So why doesn’t Obama do more to solve the Syrian mess. Maybe because he looks at the Iraq mess and the Libyan mess and doesn’t want to see either of them happen again. Assad is a dictator, a war criminal, an abuser of human rights and whatever else you can name but right now he is the only chance of Syria having any kind of central; government. Until we find someone to replace him we can be assured that crushing him will result in just what has happened to Iraq and Libya, two countries that for all practical purposes no longer exist.
As free as the Congressional Right is with its criticism of Obama’s policies in the Middle East, no one in that abject mess of an organization has managed to come up with anything like a better idea. There are many possibilities that have been explored. One suggestion that sounds short term plausible but smells of long term bad history, is to send a mass of American troops to overrun ISIS and then withdraw, so as no to seem to be an occupying force. Ultimately that’s what we did in Iraq and Libya and look where that got us. You can’t leave an area and its people undefended and not expect someone else to occupy it.
The best-case scenario; a no fly, no strike, area where people can live peaceably, without worrying about being bombed or strafed. This would, at least, reduce the refugee problem somewhat. John Kerry has been hard at work trying to get an agreement with Russia to work with us in this regard and of late the announcement has been made that such an agreement is in the works. Now the major problem is implementation, not a simple matter between two nations that love to grind their teeth at each other.
What you say? It looks like nothing will work. Well, maybe nothing will. Right now only one section of the American brain trust is trying to solve the problem of the Middle East. The Right is only trying to take advantage of the Left’s failures there. So far the Right have offered zero solutions. Maybe if they got up off their partisan asses and tried to act like patriots instead of politicians, we would be a lot farther along a path to a safe and secure Middle East than we are now.
*****
Ransom or leverage? I get a strong impression that the Right doesn’t really know the difference. That’s okay because there are any number of things the Right doesn’t have a clue about. Some Republican pulled up a picture of a shipping palate with a pile of money on it amounting to $400 million. The GOP party hacks immediately jumped to the conclusion that we were paying that money to Iran as ransom for some Americans that were being held in Iran. But is that actually what was happening?
Well, let’s see. We recently signed a nuclear contract with Iran, which stipulates that we are to release the money we froze in our banks that actually belonged to Iran. That’s right, it’s Iran’s money that we had grabbed in the sanction crackdown. But we never paid it all back. Earlier this week there was a great deal of political discussion about this on Morning Joe. But no one on the highly partisan program seemed to understand the difference between ransom and leverage.
For those of you who also don’t understand; ransom is when you pay your money to the other guy to release your brother. Leverage is when you hold back the other guy’s money until he releases your brother. See, it’s a question of whose money it was in the first place and that makes a huge difference. You can shade it any way you like but there was no ransom paid. It was all their money. If you can’t figure this out, you don’t belong in the discussion. That goes for Joe Scarborough, Mike Steele and even, it seems Katty Kay. If the GOP wasn’t clutching at straws, they might have grabbed onto the truth. My seven-year-old granddaughter understands this. It’s impossible to conceive that Joe Scarborough really doesn’t.
*******
Now let’s talk about VP Mike Pence’s state of Indiana where in West Calumet an entire housing project is going to be demolished because of lead in the soil and water. Children are popping up with huge lead readings in their blood. The housing project was built 44 years ago on the site of a facility that used or manufactured lead. For those of you that remember Love Canal in Buffalo, it sure looks like a reprise of that disaster where state officials refused to admit that they had built a housing project on poisoned land.
It’s already too late to help the thousands of children who have been poisoned by his disaster but there is, at least, a housing solution for the affected families. The State of Indiana must build a new, safe housing project where these people can move their families and they must do it now! Is Pence up to it? Probably not!
*****
Glenn Greenwald writing for The Intercept, has come out with a nasty attack on the Clinton’s for accepting money from the various Arab states whose principals of freedom and liberty don’t match up to his. He makes a pointed attack on gifts from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, The United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Brunei and any other Arab state he can remember. Greenwald’s problem with these many millions of dollars in donations seems to be that none of these states function with his, or practically any American’s idea of freedom. It is true, all are in constant violation of the human rights of their citizens and all, by our standards are sub-human in their religious decision-making. Accepted. But so what?
Greenwald’s point seems to be that Clinton backers ignore the national faults of the donors because of the good works that the Initiative does around the world. In this Greenwald is completely wrong. No one is excusing these religious fanatics because they are giving huge sums of money to a viable charity. We just recognize that whether or not the Arab states give the money, they are not going to change their restrictive outlook just to please us, so it’s better that they give the money to the Clinton’s charity than they spend it on yachts loaded with hookers and cocaine.
Anyone who knows anything about charitable giving understands that a large percentage of it has nothing to do with helping anyone. At its highest echelons, charitable giving is all about connection and prestige. When the Koch’s give money to Lincoln Center they make damn sure that their name is featured on a building just so everyone knows that they are a couple of good hearted guys who are only trying to give us all a nice place to see a show.
The big problem with the money flowing into the Clinton Initiative seems to be the possibility of some quid pro quo that may be attached to the gifts. There is always a quid pro quo in big giving. However, it is almost never the awarding of a contract and almost always the connection that is made in the process or the aftermath of the gift. Hillary was just finishing up as Secretary of State and getting ready to run for President when many of these gifts were given. As such she was or could be an important connection for the givers, be they individuals, organizations or countries. But believe it or not, more important than Hillary was Bill. Bill Clinton is the quintessential mover and shaker of our time. It’s Bill’s personality that enabled this massive charity to come together and grow into the giant it is in the impressive amount of time it took to coalesce. And that’s what Bill Clinton does. He connects people; very rich people and very important people and they give him money for those connections. And whether you want to accept it or not that’s what all big giving is about.
Bill Gates dumped a mind-boggling fortune into the Gates Foundation but then he accepted even more from rich guys all over the world. Why? Gates isn’t holding office. No but he has a little black book that is probably almost as big as Clinton’s. That’s how the charity game works and because of the end result it’s fine with everybody – except when someone is running for office and the other side thinks it is losing. That’s where we are now. And Greenwald is enough in need of a story, to fall into the Trump fantasy of the Clinton’s doing something wrong. What’s really funny is that Donald Trump has admitted bribing officials all over the place to get his shoddy buildings to pass inspection. This is a guy who lived his life as a crook and a con man so it’s very easy for him to believe that everyone else is in the same bag. Greenwald not understanding how the big gift charities work and desperate for a story, has bitten the apple and now wants us all to leave paradise and face a world where Trump rules.