The View from Right Field

September 11 – 20th Anniversary

Lots of people will be writing lots of words about the 20th anniversary of September 11.  President Biden will probably talk, inter alia, about how victory over al Qaeda and the death of Osama Bin Laden meant we could get out of Afghanistan.  The Taliban will be talking about how their victory forced us to get out of Afghanistan.  And I am sure former President Trump will have something to say, too.

I will just link to two posts, one that I posted on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, mostly about our visit to Shanksville, Pennsylvania, in 2006.  The other is something I wrote about the movie “United 93” after seeing it, also back in 2006.

The Chicago Tribune Endorses Gary Johnson. I Can’t.

The Chicago Tribune endorsed Gary Johnson for president today.  They noted that they said in March they couldn’t/wouldn’t endorse Donald Trump.  The editorial today listed the reasons they couldn’t endorse Hillary Clinton: the spending, the lying, etc.  (For a complete list, see the editorial.) 

Instead of picking between what they call “such disappointing major party candidates,” the Tribune decided to endorse “a principled candidate.”  The Tribune likes Gary Johnson’s “small L-libertarianism, built on individual freedom and convinced that, on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, official Washington is clumsy, expensive and demonstrably unable to solve this nation’s problems.”  I do, too.

Jeffrey Goldberg on What President Obama Really Thinks About Radical Islam

Following up on his lengthy article, “The Obama Doctrine,” in March, earlier this week Jeffrey Goldberg wrote in The Atlantic on “What Obama Actually Thinks About Radical Islam.”  While in some ways the article seems more about how bad Donald Trump is (as James Taranto says at “Best of the Web,” “[e]verything is about Donald Trump these days”), when Mr. Goldberg gets around to saying what President Obama thinks about radical Islam in private, it’s a lot better than what the President says in public.  In fact, if the President said in public what he apparently thinks in private, Donald Trump would have fewer grounds to criticize the President.

Consider these quotes from Mr. Goldberg’s article this week:

“Early in his first term, Obama … delivered a speech in Cairo that was meant to reset relations with Muslims, but was also meant, he later told me, to challenge Muslims to cease manufacturing excuses for problems of their own making.  He told me recently, in reference to the Cairo speech, ‘My argument was this.  Let’s all stop pretending that the cause of the Middle East’s problems is Israel.  We want to work to help achieve statehood and dignity for the Palestinians, but I was hoping that my speech could trigger a discussion, could create space for Muslims to address the real problems they are confronting – problems of governance, and the fact that some currents of Islam have not gone through a reformation that would help people adapt their religious doctrines to modernity.’”

Orlando: A Few Thoughts

Donald Trump’s proposals with respect to the attack in Orlando don’t make sense and won’t work, but Donald Trump doesn’t have to make sense.  He reflects our anger, and it’s up to us to try to figure out something workable out of what he says.

President Obama tells us that this was a homegrown attack and that it was not directed by ISIS (also known as Islamic State and, the Administration’s preferred name, ISIL {see here}), as if that is somehow supposed to make us feel better.  Which it doesn’t.  It would have been better if it had been directed by ISIS.  Because then we would have a group to target and a way to end the problem.

Islamic Extremism Is More than ISIL and the Goal Is More than Fallujah and Mosul

The battle for Fallujah has begun – again.  Apparently, the theory is that, if Iraqi forces can take Fallujah from Islamic State, that will weaken Islamic State before the expected effort to retake Mosul.  An effort to reclaim Mosul has been talked about for a year.  My guess is that the US is hoping Iraq can take both Fallujah and Mosul before the end of President Obama’s presidency.  If they are successful (or at least getting there), President Obama can say that Islamic State is beaten (actually, the Administration calls them ISIL; more about that later) – or has at least been put on the road to defeat – and he claim a foreign policy success before he leaves office.

Except that would be wrong – for at least a couple of reasons.  First, even if Fallujah and Mosul are retaken, we will merely be back where we were when President Obama took office.  Actually, we won’t even be in as good of shape.  George W. Bush made a lot of mistakes in Iraq, but eventually he figured it out.  Starting in late 2006, the counterinsurgency strategy, the surge, David Petraeus, and Ryan Crocker – plus President Bush himself – turned the situation in Iraq around.  It took us too long to get there, but we got there.  Unfortunately, Iraq today, even if Fallujah and Mosul are recaptured, isn’t in as good of shape as it was in January 2009.

“America Can’t Do Much About ISIS” – And Why

Stephen Biddle, a professor of political science and international relations at George Washington University, wrote in The Atlantic last month that there is not a lot we can do to defeat ISIS in the short run, or even medium run.  Let me quote from Professor Biddle’s article:

“The Islamic State threat is likely to persist, in one form or another, for a long time.  In the meantime, we’re going to be stuck with a policy that amounts to containment and damage limitation, whose shortcomings will frustrate many Americans. …

The real problem, however, runs much deeper than just the Islamic State.  The war in Iraq and Syria pits a host of groups against one another, many of whom are almost as dangerous to U.S. interests as the Islamic State, and many of whom seek the same status of jihadi vanguard against the West that ISIS now enjoys.  ISIS itself achieved this position at the expense of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, with whom it competes actively for recruits and resources.  Even if some U.S.-allied proxy succeeds in conquering the nominal Islamic State capital of Raqqa and pulling down the ISIS flag from its citadel, this is unlikely to end the war, stabilize Syria, or even remove the threat of jihadi terrorism against the United States from Syrian (or Iraqi) soil – it would just open the war to its next phase, in which Islamic State’s rivals compete for the status that group had enjoyed before them. …

The Depressing 2016 Political Season. Donald Trump, Bathrooms, and All.

The 2016 political season reminds me of how I used to feel about Phyllis Schlafly back in the 1970s when she was fighting the Equal Rights Amendment.  Whenever I listened to Mrs. Schlafly, I would strongly disagree with her and almost regretted that we were on the same side with respect to the ERA.¹  However, when I listened to her opponents, I almost liked her again.  And so it is with the 2016 political season.

I have already said that I will not vote for Donald Trump.²  As long as I continue to look at what Mr. Trump himself says, that will not change.  For example, I recently read his big foreign policy speech.  It just wasn’t that good.  Even for something that was supposed to be a serious speech, it was full contradictions and simplistic statements.³  Robert Gates said it well.

The “Combat Boots on the Ground” in Syria that President Obama Promised We Would Never Have Are Apparently Helping

The Wall Street Journal reports that the U.S. is increasing its airstrikes in Syria.  According to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, the increase is coming because the U.S. has increased the number of special operations people in Syria, which has increased the information we have to be able to conduct effective strikes.  More people equals more information equals more strikes and more effective strikes.  Given that President Obama promised to degrade and destroy ISIS in September of 2014, it’s nice that we are finally getting around to stepping up our airstrikes.  It’s too bad nobody thought of doing it earlier – or at least that nobody in charge thought of doing it earlier.

Claiming “Credit”. Getting “Blame”.

Terrorists of all varieties like to claim “credit” for their attacks. ISIS is claiming credit for the attacks in Brussels this morning.  I understand they want to claim credit, but why do we have to use their terminology?  Instead saying this group or that claims credit for an attack, why can’t we say that they are “claiming blame” or, even better, “accepting responsibility”.  It’s our words.  We don’t have to use their phrasing.  We can say what we want to.  And I think “claiming blame” or “accepting responsibility” is a better description of what they did and what we should call it.  Plus, if it ticks them off a little that they are getting “blame” instead of “credit,” all the better.

“The Obama Doctrine”: Why President Obama Won’t Call It “Islamic Terrorism”

As I mentioned on Saturday, The Atlantic has published a lengthy article by Jeffrey Goldberg in its April issue on “The Obama Doctrine.”  Not only is the article definitely worth reading, there is a lot to comment on.

When it comes to terrorism, one of the things President Obama, and his administration, may be most famous for is refusing to call it “Islamic terrorism.”  When Nidal Hassan killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 others at Fort Hood in 2009, while yelling “Allahhu Akbar” (“God is Great” in Arabic), the Administration said it was “workplace violence”.  It took an act of Congress to get Purple Hearts for those who were shot or wounded and to get benefits to their families.