Monthly Archives: February 2013

Cowed by Terrorism

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Apparently, terrorism works in Europe.  With Bulgaria having officially determined that Hezbollah was behind the terrorist bombing of an Israeli tour bus in Burgas on the Bulgarian Black Sea last summer, we’re getting some…interesting…responses in the rest of Europe.  These responses center on European continued hesitancy to declare Hezbollah a terrorist organization, as other nations outside of Europe (and one and a half within the EU (the UK is only willing to designate, euphemistically, the “military arm” of Hezbollah a terrorist organization) have done.  We’re getting, for instance, things like the following.

The European Union’s Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (!), says,

The terrorists who planned and carried out the Burgas attack must be brought to justice…the High Representative underlines the need for a reflection over the outcome of (Bulgaria’s) investigation.

She can’t say the word “Hezbollah,” and since it was only Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian (the bus driver) who died, there’s still time, and need, to “reflect” on the meaning of the murders.

EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator Gilles de Kerchove, expanded on this reluctance:

There is no automatic listing just because you have been behind a terrorist attack…It’s not only the legal requirement that you have to take into consideration, it’s also a political assessment of the context and the timing.

It’s true enough that terrorist butchery has political overtones in the terrorists’ purposes, but responses to such murders have no politics at all involved—there are only morality and the duty of a government to protect its citizens.

Former French intelligence official Claude Moniquet adds

Calling it terrorist would limit France’s ties with Beirut and put French targets and personnel in Lebanon at risk of retaliation.  The Bulgarian report doesn’t alter this realpolitik. There were always plenty of smoking guns.

It’s important to avoid annoying terrorists, lest the latter turn their ire on us.  And there’s the standard offer of excuses for this carpet knightery.

Even the newspapers seem more interested in ducking and covering than in meaningful response.  Sylke Tempel, editor of the German magazine Internationale Politik, told the New York Times,

There’s the overall fear if we’re too noisy about this, Hezbollah might strike again, and it might not be Israeli tourists this time.

There it is again: don’t offend the terrorists; they might hurt us next.

All of this reminds me of Spain’s withdrawal from the war on al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan in direct response to a terror bombing of a Madrid railroad station.

Indeed, Europe’s reluctance to angrify Hezbollah is an old and venerable policy.  Spiegel International Online notes (the first link above),

For decades, European governments have preferred to avoid confrontation with Hezbollah as long as its terrorism was not directed at continental targets.  In spite of a 1983 Beirut bombing that killed 58 French peacekeepers and 241 American Marines, deadly attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets in Buenos Aires in 1992 and 1994 (which Argentine prosecutors pinned on the group), and its military support for the embattled Syrian regime of Bashar Assad (whom the EU has repeatedly called upon to step down), Brussels has resisted naming Hezbollah a terrorist outfit.

The problem is that this timidity does not affect only Europe.  Like paying the kidnapper’s ransom, it puts the rest of us at risk, also.  It rewards the terrorists for their actions rather than contributing to their destruction.

Dell

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Much is being made of computer maker Dell’s decision to go private and the implications that has for the PC in a rapidly changing personal computing device industry.

Another thought occurs to me on this.  Perhaps Dell thinks they’ll be more agile as a private company in this age of excessive regulation of anything and everything not private.

What’s Being Kept Hidden?—Update

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In response to Senate Republicans holding up his SecDEf nominee’s confirmation yesterday, Obama released (at least part of) his answer.

Obama didn’t make any phone calls the night of the Sept 11 attacks on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, the White House said in a letter to Congress released Thursday.

“During the entire attack, the president of the United States never picked up the phone to put the weight of his office in the mix,” said Senator Lindsey Graham (R, SC).

He didn’t talk to anyone in Libya, he didn’t talk to his own Secretary of State, he talked to no one in his own defense establishment—not his Secretary, not any of his generals.

Ann Althouse speculates on why he’s tried to keep all of this hidden.

I think he is ashamed. Here’s what I’ve been assuming happened: It looked like our people were overwhelmed and doomed, so there was shock, sadness, and acceptance.  But then the fight went on for 7 or 8 hours.  The White House folk decided there was nothing to do but accept the inevitable, and then they witnessed a valiant fight which they had done nothing to support.  It was always too late to help.  It was too late after one hour, then too late after 2 hours, then too late after 3 hours….  When were these people going to die already? After that was all over, how do you explain what you did?

It’s not only shameful for the man, this timidity, this defeatist attitude, if accurate, is shameful for our country.  And it’s a reason our enemies—Iran, northern Korea, the People’s Republic of China, Russia—so plainly don’t take anything our government says seriously.

What’s Being Kept Hidden?

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Former Senator and Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel’s confirmation is hanging in the balance.  Senate Republicans are holding up a floor vote on his confirmation until President Barack Obama is more forthcoming about his involvement—or lack—in the Benghazi debacle in which an American ambassador was murdered by terrorists.

Naturally, the Democrats are unhappy.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV) said

Chuck Hagel had nothing to do with the attack on Benghazi.  There are serious consequences to this delay.

Yet, with those consequences, Obama continues to delay and to stonewall.  All he’s allowed to be released so far is a letter from his counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler, to three Republican senators averring that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Libyan President Mohamed Magariaf on his behalf the night of the attack.  ABC News had this portion of Ruemmler’s letter:

This intensive response, which was directed by the President, included 13 meetings of interagency Principals and Deputies within a week of the attack and involved continuous outreach by senior administration officials to the Government of Libya, including by the President and members of his Cabinet.  As to the specific question in your February 12 letter, Secretary Clinton called Libyan President Magariaf on behalf of the President on the evening of the September 11, 2012 to coordinate additional support to protect Americans in Libya and access to the Libyan territory.  At that time, President Magariaf expressed his condemnation and condolences and pledged his government’s full cooperation.  The President spoke to President Magariaf on the evening of September 12th.

What did Obama do in this “outreach?”  What did he instruct Clinton to say to Magariaf on his behalf?  Why didn’t he make the call himself?  What did he say on the 12th?  Did he do anything else?

I have to ask: what is there in Obama’s behavior the day of the attack and that night—other than his decision to absent himself from the White House in favor of a campaign fundraising trip to Las Vegas, I mean—of which he’s so ashamed that he’s willing to blow up the confirmation of his own nominee in favor of keeping it hidden?

Update: Sorry–this should have been published over two hours ago; a software glitch prevented that.

Some Thoughts on the Politics of Missile Defense

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I’ll leave aside the technical difficulties of a missile defense; these are just engineering problems, most of which have already been solved, with the remainder having solutions understood and under development.  I’ll only write about some of the political factors involved in our country defending itself.

I operate in this post from this First Principle: we formed the social compact that created the US explicitly to do two things: one is to protect individual liberty and facilitate an environment within which each of us also could satisfy our individual responsibilities.  The other is to protect our nation as a whole from outside disaster.  A corollary to this is the defense of our friends and allies, since their health, independence, and freedom contribute to our own and so facilitate our defense.

A missile defense system is intended to support that second imperative—national defense—and missile defense in Europe (and in eastern Asia when the alliances can be arranged) is a component of that.

There are a number of objections to our having an active, and forward, missile defense capability.

  • Russia is also critical of the plan, which it believes is really intended to counter its missiles.
  • While it might seem logical for the US to want to have a defense against Russian missiles, it’s not so simple.  A new missile defense system aimed at Russia could undermine the balance between the nuclear powers, prompting Moscow to add to its arsenal and build up its own defenses.
  • [P]lans have gained momentum in Europe with the signing of basing agreements in Poland, Romania and Turkey, as well as backing by NATO.  But Russia, while initially welcoming the plan, now strongly opposes it, especially the interceptors in the final stage.  Russia fears those interceptors could catch its intercontinental missiles launched at the US.

Aside from my (minor) meme that if the Russians don’t like it, it must be a good idea, whatever “it” might be, there are a number of reasons why these objections are silly.  Say, arguendo, that our anti-Iranian missile defense system does have the capability of countering Russian missiles.  This isn’t at all farfetched, since the end-stage of our missile defense system includes a capability against all ICBMs (Russia’s included).  The Russians don’t have any intention of attacking us or our allies.  Do they?  Since they…do not…their plaint that a defense system might interfere with their non-existent attack is a non sequitur.  Besides, if they do attack, our government has a duty to shoot down those missiles—as well as to respond with the total defeat of Russia and their war.

Deploying a functional missile defense system could push the Russians into adding “to its arsenal and build[ing] up its own defenses?”  They’re already doing that.  However, even in our current economic strait, this is an arms race Russia cannot sustain.  Russia’s economy is too dependent on oil and gas exports, and that economy already is failing (and not only due to falling oil and gas prices on the world market).  They don’t have the money.  Besides, this is a rerun of a play we’ve already seen under identical circumstances: the failure of the Soviet Union and its subsequent dissolution was contributed to heavily by their effort to sustain a missile and missile defense effort in the face of our earlier, Reaganite missile defense system development.

  • [R]elocating missile interceptors planned for Poland and possibly Romania to ships on the North Sea, could be diplomatically explosive.

If setting ourselves to defend ourselves and our friends and allies is diplomatically explosive, that’s a problem for those with plans to attack us, not for us.

  • It [Europe-based missile defense] would undermine prospects for further cuts in nuclear weapons—a priority for President Barack Obama—and could also hurt US-Russian cooperation on other issues of international importance.

We’ve reduced our nuclear capacity below military viability, already.  We should be rebuilding/modernizing, not engaging in further cuts.  Beyond that, this is another red herring.  Stipulating a need for further cuts anyway, a viable defense against nuclear (missile) attack can only facilitate a willingness to reduce or eliminate expensive, no longer viable weapons systems.  When facing an effective defensive system,  there are two major options: overwhelming it with massive numbers—an enormously expensive option—or improving penetration aids and developing offensive systems that bypass the defenses.  The latter option doesn’t require much of an investment in nuclear weapons.

Moreover, Russia isn’t cooperating with us on anything, so there’s nothing here to hurt.  See their active obstruction of our, and of international, efforts to stop the Iranian nuclear weapons development program.  See, also, their active support for, and consequent blocking of efforts to curb or replace, a Syrian régime that has butchered 60,000 of its people in the last 18 months.  After Afghanistan, their “cooperation” won’t be even be necessary there, and as it is, it’s an iffy cooperation: they’ve already tried to get Kirghizstan to stop letting us use their bases, and we had to greatly increase the rent to be able to continue.

OK, one technical item:

  • Romania [is] a poor location for an interceptor to protect the US.  …the Polish site would work only if the US developed capabilities to launch interceptors while an Iranian missile was in its short initial phase of powered flight.

However, Romania is well situated to defend Europe from Iran—or Russia, or China.

Additionally, intercepting missiles during boost already is under development, and this isn’t as difficult (relative to interception in any other phase of flight) as it might seem (only detection and reaction times are somewhat compressed).  Missiles still boosting are not yet at maximum velocity (they are still boosting), and they’ve not yet released their warhead(s), which greatly increases the interception problem, nor have they yet released their decoys and other countermeasures, which also greatly magnify the interception problem.

There are no coherent political reasons for not deploying an effective, and extensive, missile defense system around the world.