WhirledView

Nuclear Suppliers' Group Rejects India's Bid

by Cheryl Rofer

Many thanks to the New York Times for noting this in their editorial column, if not covering it as news. But they're not alone. It must have been that those 15,000 reporters really had to cover all those great parties at the Democratic Convention last week.

Apparently (from a quick google) India proposed a deal that would allow it to continue to manufacture all the fissile material it could possibly want while getting all and any nuclear materials and technology that another country wanted to trade to it. That was its winning strategy in negotiating a trade agreement with the United States, although the US Congress was less enthusiastic about giving away the store than the administration was.

Looks like a lot of very interesting articles in the Indian press. The usual lamentations about how the rest of the world wants India to give up all its sovereignty, discrimination against nations that don't sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty so that they can make nuclear weapons in secret, and all that other nastiness against innocent India, which is just responding to all those warmongers.

I don't have time right now to write a more detailed post, but I'll try to get back to it this afternoon or tomorrow.

The Breakfast Blues: Have a Croissant!

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Joining a friend for breakfast, I ordered espresso and a couple of croissants at a local restaurant last week. The waitress asked if I’d like some jam. "Yes, please," I said. "That’ll be fifty cents extra," she replied.

Good grief! I thought. I looked around, just to be sure I wasn’t flying at 39,000 feet and paying an arm and a leg for a bag of pretzels. Nope! Still, the pay-per-peanut process is very insidious. Service doesn’t come with a smile anymore. It comes with a bankrupting charge.

Time to take a stand, I decided. "No thanks," I said. "No jam."

But hey! It’s a new era, with profit centers so prolific you can’t find a fee free periphery. Everything comes at a cost used to be a killjoy’s cliché. Now it’s the way things are. A toll booth for every step you take.

By the time I’d stopped mulling over the prospect of principled jamlessness, the croissants arrived, with two absolutely monstrous slabs of butter. I’m talking the equivalent of three or four old fashioned pats per slab. Now putting butter on crispy buttery croissants is like 24/7 air conditioning in Greenland, so I thought of suggesting a trade. No butter. Free jam.

Then I thought of putting the butter in a doggy bag. Ha! Ha! You can’t use my leftover butter to make tomorrow’s batch of pricey croissants! Which, of course, I could have done with the unused jam, I suppose, if I were a doggy bag person, which I haven’t been, ‘til now.

But a doggy bag is better than the dumpster in these days of soaring prices, n'est-ce pas? So: Waste not. Want not. Every lost crumb or smear of jam is as precious as the gasoline that dribbles out of the hose when you extract it from your tank these days. Pure gold or liquid gold, it's a major loss to the gross national product, every smidgen of it.

But after protest comes acceptance. So this is what I expect the menu for le petit dejeuner to look like in the near future:

Sticky unbused table: no charge
Clean table: $3.00
Place mat: $2.00
Naked croissant: $1.00 plate charge
Jam: 50¢
Fraise or framboise: $1.00 extra
Butter: 50¢
Beurre from une vache qui rit: $1.50
Coffee in paper cup: as listed
Coffee in diner mug: $1.00 extra
Stir stick: no charge
Spoon for stirring coffee: $1.50
Lemon peel for Espresso: $1.00 extra
Meyer lemon: $2.00 extra
Cinnamon for latté: $1.00
Double sprinkle: $2.00
Plain espresso snob charge: $2.50 extra
Cheese omelet: as listed.
Omelette française: double list price
Ordering anything in bad French: $5.00
Bon jour! on entry: $2.00
Have a good day! on leaving: 50¢
Surly French frown: no charge
Complaints: $5.00

Oh yes! I almost forgot this: Service non-compris!

The Tinner Files: To Out or Not to Out

By Patricia L. Sharpe

You remember Valerie Plame. She’s the undercover C.I.A. operative with an unblemished record whose identity was revealed by the Bush administration. Why? To punish her husband. That’s Joe Wilson, the career ambassador who, as they say, told truth to power. His investigations revealed that Iraq under Saddam Hussain was not getting yellow cake uranium from Africa. This conclusion undercut the Bush administration’s chief initial argument for invading Iraq. So Wilson had to be shut up, and the classic way to emasculate a man is to rape his wife. Which is what the Bush administration did to Valerie Plame. Metaphorically, of course. But still, very nasty stuff.

In short: the administration revealed the identity of a C.I.A. agent to further its own purposes, with no regard, obviously, for the effect of such a betrayal on morale or recruitment.

Fast forward to the recently disclosed Tinner affair in Switzerland. It seems that the Swiss government destroyed “a huge trove of computer files and other material documenting the business dealings of a family of Swiss engineers suspected of helping smuggle nuclear technology to Libya and Iran.” The infamous “Pakistani bomb-pioneer-turned-nuclear black Marketeer” Abdul Qadeer Khan figures in this story, too.

There’s much more to learn here, no doubt, and I hope it dribbles out, but what I want to focus on is this: the Bush administration wanted those files destroyed to “hide evidence of a clandestine relationship” between the Tinners and the C.I.A., fearing that an open trial would not just “reveal the Tinners relationship with the United States—and perhaps raise questions about American dealings with atomic smugglers—but would also imperil efforts to recruit new spies....”

But! But! But! It was ok to reveal Valerie Plame’s identity. It was ok to smear Joe Wilson, too, which hardly improved State Department recruitment or morale among career diplomats.

In short, the Bush administration will protect intelligence operatives when it serves partisan purpose, but U.S. spies will be thrown to the wolves by their own government when truth gets in the way of policy preferences. I have no doubt that anyone who is smart enough to have been recruited, or has potential for recruitment to the C.I.A., has also managed to put these two stories together and drawn the same conclusions. If you work for the C.I.A. during this administration, you better watch your back in Washington even as you risk your life abroad.

These inconsistencies and contradictions lead me to ask a very important question: what is the real reason for the destruction of those Tinner files? Who else is being protected? The argument for destruction leans heavily on preventing weapons’ designs from getting into the wrong hands. But the destroyed* material wasn’t limited to physicists’ doodles, which may or may not have been helpful to proliferators, the experts not being in total accord here, so that argument too seems a bit specious.

I really hate being cynical. But, over and over again, with the George W. Bush administration, we’ve seen how science and truth have been twisted for partisan purposes and how lower downs have been prosecuted to protect higher ups. In the Plame case, for example, the office of the Vice President was involved, but Cheney escaped prosecution. In the case of the Abu Ghraib torture scandals, the causal chain clearly reaches to the Presidency itself. Similarly, in the Tinner case, I wonder what mis- or malfeasance higher up in the Bush administration is being covered up in the guise of protecting the lower downs?

What is this extremely secretive administration really afraid of?

*It's possible that the U.S. government has copies. In that case, why would the Swiss need to destroy them? Speculations are invited. Also: any ideas as to what the Swiss government might have got from the Bush administration in return for destroying those papers? An agreement not to push for less bank secrecy, for example?

Harriet Tubman

by Cheryl Rofer

I haven't seen anyone else call it out, so I will. The part of Hillary Clinton's speech that really got my nerve endings tingling was the part about Harriet Tubman.

This is the story of America. Of women and men who defy the odds and never give up.

How do we give this country back to them?

By following the example of a brave New Yorker, a woman who risked her life to shepherd slaves along the Underground Railroad.

And on that path to freedom, Harriett Tubman had one piece of advice.

If you hear the dogs, keep going.

If you see the torches in the woods, keep going.

If they're shouting after you, keep going.

Don't ever stop. Keep going.

If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.

Even in the darkest of moments, ordinary Americans have found the faith to keep going.

I’ve seen it in you. I’ve seen it in our teachers and firefighters, nurses and police officers, small business owners and union workers, the men and women of our military – you always keep going.

We are Americans. We're not big on quitting.

Just saying.

Variations on a Russian theme by . . . Rimsky-Korsakov or is it Putin?

By Patricia H. Kushlis

There’s something particularly attractive about 19th and early 20th century Russian music. I think it’s probably the hummable folk tunes and soaring cathedral anthems expressed through the use of peacock-like instrumental colors and complex semi-western tonalities and rhythms. The music sometimes takes on the form of a village dance with numerous verses, variations, repetitions and flights of fancy – perhaps because the Russian composers themselves were self-schooled and, therefore, ignorant of the carefully modulated structures and strictures developed by Western European composers who, albeit, chronologically preceded them.

My current foray into Russian music is Michael Glinka’s “Variation on a Theme by Rimsky Korsakov” – the version for oboe and piano. It’s not technically difficult except for seven staccato low Ds repeated eight times in Variation One. This isn’t to say that I play or will ever really play the piece proficiently, but I’m learning it. The theme restated in all its 12 variations is delightful. Besides a new reed always helps to hit those low Ds without sounding like a duck that's coming down with laryngitis.

The darker side of Russian nationalism: overkill and expansionism

Yet, there’s another side to Russian nationalism that is particularly troubling – and that’s the behavior we’re now witnessing in the Caucasus. At its worst, it is a lethal form of school-yard bullying that I remember seeing all too often during my Moscow days.

Now I know that not all Russians are like that. Some are utterly charming and would foremost like to participate in a stable, economically-viable western oriented life-style in their enormous country that still spreads from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean. But I’ve witnessed the school-yard bully approach too often and been on the receiving end of Russian temper tantrum-like behavior designed to intimidate in government offices, across the negotiating table, in stores, buses, trains and even on my son’s play-ground where a gang of Russian teenage bully boys intentionally burned down the little kids’ newly built log playhouse one afternoon for no apparent reason.

I had thought that this intemperate behavior was the result of having to cope with the realities of life in a disastrous economic system where even most staples could often only be procured on the black market. I had assumed, therefore, that the Russians would get over this uncivilized, and frankly unproductive, approach to treating themselves and others once Communism hit the ashheap.

Wrong.

Coping with the loss of empire and changing deeply held behavioral patterns are apparently far harder than simply shucking off a 70 year old failed economic system.

Further, the Russians have found that it’s far too useful to continue the centuries old divide-and-rule game among the ethnic minorities in their vicinity - whether those still living within the confines of the Russian Federation or those now outside its perimeters.

Sure, it must have been a relative cinch to send the tanks into a small, defenseless, adjacent country that was once under Russia’s thumb where one’s agents had been working assiduously to foment unrest based on ages old inter-ethnic grievances since well before the Georgians obtained independence, this time, in 1991.

A military aside

Although interestingly, Russian defense analysts Pavel Felgenhauer of the newspaper Novaya Gazeta on August 14 and Olga Bozhyeva of Moskovskiy Komsomolets (both analyses courtesy of the Johnson list) the following week independently suggest that the Russian military’s advance into Georgia was not as trouble-free as the Putin regime or Russia’s top brass would like us - or their own citizens - to believe. I’ll bet this part of the story will never be aired on Russian radio or television – but it is circulating in the private print media and on the Internet which is more than what happened in 1979 when the Soviets invaded neighboring Afghanistan.

The Kosovo canard: the pot calls the kettle black

I personally think the Kosovo recognition issue is, and was, a canard. I don’t think recognition of an independent Kosovo was the straw that broke the Russian camel’s back despite what the Kremlin says. I think it also leaves Russia vulnerable to charges from the West – and other not so happily ensconced minorities within the Russian Federation itself – that why not then independence for Chechnya, Tartarstan, Mordvinia or even – horror or horrors – Karelia?

So what if the Kremlin-controlled parliament just voted to recognize the “independence” of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and the Russian government immediately jumped on that bandwagon. That reminds me of the Turkish recognition of the “independence” of Northern Cyprus in 1975. To this day, the Turkish government is its lone supporter and the Turkish Cypriots are far poorer for it.

What this means however, is that Russia will be even more responsible for the upkeep of the two Caucasian smugglers’ dens than previously and that these rather small, scantily populated regions will become even more isolated from the rest of the world than they already are. But maybe that’s what they prefer: better the Russian bear. It’s certainly what they have been led to believe by their Russian “protectors.”

NATO enlargement the trigger

I think the real trigger to the Russian invasion of Georgia was the threat of continued NATO expansion: the possibility that NATO might someday extend its umbrella over Georgia and Ukraine – anathema to the Kremlin. And it wanted to draw a line in the sand before that happened.

Condi’s Inbox

by Cheryl Rofer

Full inbox today. There’s that business in Georgia, and other things piling in as well.

North Korea is threatening to rebuild that cooling tower at Yongbyon if they aren’t taken off the “sponsors of terror” list. That was part of the deal. What happened?

Iraq’s government is now standing up. For removal of all US troops. What’s with that guy Maliki, anyway? Another suicide bombing. Will they get blamed for that, or us?

Pakistan. Where to start? Our woman in Peshawar has her car attacked. Bombing in Baluchistan. The government is collapsing. But they banned the Taliban as a political party. Or is that the reason for the Peshawar attack? Where did they say they’re hiding the nukes?

And Afghanistan. OMG. First the Taliban attacks the French. More about US airstrikes killing civilians. ABC News finds something good: a 6% drop in opium production. More than 90% of the global market, but hey! it’s going in the right direction. But Zalmay? What the hell does he think he’s doing?

More Seriously
The Bush administration has not been particularly skillful at handling crises when they come one at a time. We can hope that Secretaries Rice and Robert Gates will be able to juggle all the bad news that is coming in. You’ll notice I skipped over Russia, Georgia and all that, which has to come high on their priority lists.

What may be good news is that Vice President Cheney will be taking a trip out of the country. But that’s not for a week yet. Presumably he will be loath to start any new wars before he leaves. But who’s vetted his speeches?

Don’t Hurt Women by Deserting the Democrats

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

No one dares to drive around with a bumper sticker saying “Nigger,” but it’s ok to plaster your car with bumper stickers saying “Bitch.” This is the America we live in today. Underground racism may hurt Barack Obama’s chances for the presidency. Rampant, open sexism definitely played a role in Hillary Clinton’s loss of the Democratic nomination.

It’s a bummer. I agree. I backed Clinton. I contributed more than I can afford to her campaign. I seethed at some of the commentary and the refusal of the MSM to recognize the implicit and explicit sexism that blighted her candidacy. Racism has gone underground. Sexism is still respectable.

But the primary is over. Sulking time should be over, too. Above all, the temptation to cut off our noses to spite our faces should be strenuously resisted.

Does anyone really think that John McCain in the presidency will be better for women, now or in the future? Will his Supreme Court nominees be better for women? Will he support legislation that will be better for women and families than Barack Obama will? Is Cindy a super role model for young girls, or are your daughters more likely to be inspired by Michelle? Which as First Lady would relentlessly encourage her husband to enforce existing laws and back new legislation to promote fuller equality for women? Which would push her husband to reform the economic system and help struggling American families?

The answer is simple. If you really care about getting closer to equality for women, you have to vote for the Democrats. You have to vote for Obama.

I can understand how right-leaning independents and some Republicans who were entranced by the nearly successful candidacy of Hillary Clinton might revert to their customary party loyalties, but I cannot see how centrist-to-liberal-leaning women could support John McCain, and I am totally baffled as to how anyone who considers herself a progressive or a Democrat at heart could be so self-destructive as to vote Republican this year.

You may think it’s pay back time for the Democrats, but if Obama loses it will be roll back time for women around the country.

And, for god’s sake, Clinton backers, be glad that Obama didn’t dangle the Vice Presidency in front of Clinton. It wouldn’t have been a dream team. It would have been a ticket to oblivion for Hillary. If, on the other hand, she models herself on Senator Teddy Kennedy, who was so poignantly eulogized last night, she could make as big an impact on this country as any president can. This is no small thing.

So Hillary’s role tonight is to embrace the future, not as successor to Bill, but as her own woman, as a respected successful senator, giving her most enthusiastic supporters no honorable sane choice but to back Obama wholeheartedly. If she can do that, if she can quash any roll call process quickly and gracefully, I will admire her intelligence, wisdom and good sportsmanship. If she doesn’t, if she equivocates and encourages any of her supporters to sulk and switch parties, she’s lost her chance for greatness and her place in history. This isn’t a matter of stepping aside for the male, again. It’s a matter of facing the fact that she lost the primary. Whatever you think of the rules under which the primary was played, the super delegate system was in place and the Clinton campaign wasn’t perfect.

However, I do have one quibble with the Obama people. They didn’t make it easy for Hillary to do the gracious thing by giving Caroline Kennedy a prime time slot to project herself into national politics on the first night. Many highly respected public figures could have introduced Ted Kennedy with aplomb, and if Caroline was going to do so, she shouldn’t have been handed the opportunity to pull an Obama. You know. To give the kind of speech that wowed the delegates and the nation during the 2004 convention, especially one that obliterates the solid Clinton legacy through adulation for the Kennedy mystique. The Clintons, Hillary and Bill, represent the living American Dream that Michelle Obama extolled last night. The privileged wealthy young Kennedys don't.

The Utility of Force

by Cheryl Rofer

The Utility of Force, General Rupert Smith, Alfred A. Knopf, 2007.

Three years or so ago, I asked why we don’t admit that all the technological might of the United States can’t beat those guys emplacing IEDs and hiding in the shadows. That post has continued to get some attention.

I can’t claim to be an expert in military strategy. I know some things about some weapons and like to think that I’m generally a strategic thinker, but I’ve never spent the time to come up to speed on military strategy in particular.

Still, I’ve been fascinated for a long time by those guys unfairly hiding behind trees, often without uniforms, who defeated the British in the late eighteenth century. Even more fascinated by the fixity of attitude that would respond to flexible tactics by insisting that what the other side was doing wasn’t fair instead of looking at those tactics and responding appropriately. Fascinated enough to pick up some elementary precepts from Sun Tzu and Clausewitz.

Industrial war

So that long-ago post was naïve, but now I’m pleased to find that a military guy agrees with me. General Rupert Smith has written a book about how war has changed in the past couple of centuries. He documents the development of what he calls “industrial war,” the sort of war that mobilizes and destroys entire industrial societies, the world wars of the twentieth century, the mental model of war that we have carried into the twenty-first. Napoleon started it, and the industrial culmination, the utilization of the energy from smashed atoms, finished it.“War no longer exists,” as Smith begins his book.