We just bombed Syria. The twitter search on “Syria” is going wild. Reliable sources mostly say it’s a developing story. I guess we’ll know more tomorrow.
569 thoughts on “We just bombed Syria.”
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We just bombed Syria. The twitter search on “Syria” is going wild. Reliable sources mostly say it’s a developing story. I guess we’ll know more tomorrow.
Comments are closed.
Has Putin asked for a refund for the resources Russia burned rigging our election yet? (/stupid silly tag)
I suspect that Trump has put the Chinese leader in a very awkward position. I had expected that they would get along well on a personal level. On my end (not following Syria closely) I would have at least waited until the Chinese leader left.
Hope that the mission was carried out with competence and that our allies don’t have legitimate grievances with the way it was carried out.
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Personally, I don’t think that the US can be the world’s police officer. However, voices on the Left and Right disagree with me. Not having followed this matter closely, maybe there is justification for this action. My instinct, though, is that it is not something I would do without at the very least, strong support from most of the US allies.
JD
I wondered if the timing with the Chinese leader was deliberate. Possibly North Korea and the shadow of potential military action there was discussed. Our actions in Syria might help lend a certain credibility to the idea that the administration isn’t bluffing about [a willingness to use] force.
Don’t know.
Re: North Korea
It may be a message for China to deal with North Korea or else you never know what might happen.
Also a contrast with the former administration on the consequences of crossing red lines.
CNN will quickly come out against the bombing; after all, what is so wrong with letting a despot continue to murder babies with nerve gas?
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Mark Bofill,
It is ultimately a moral question, and one which Mr Obama refused to answer. If CNN wants to debated the morality, I suggest they invite Nikki Haley to discuss it live… no phony editing. The worms won’t, of course.
But CNN did not “come out against the bombing”, neither quickly nor not.
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In the mean time, there are those on the “alt-right”
who think the whole chemical attack was faked, apparently to deceive the president.
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My opinion is the use of chemical weapons transcends other questions regarding the outcome of the war. We should have responded in 2013 militarily too, IMO. The political will wasn’t there, though.
Carrick,
Let’s watch what happens at CNN over the next week or so.
SteveF, you did say “quickly”. 😉
I’d be careful about wearing that partisan hat too tightly, it tends to disrupt blood flow…
For an event that was bound to happen sooner or later, the usual doubters (CNN?) don’t seem to know what to think yet. I’m thinking sarcastic thoughts about the folks who find it impossible to agree with anything the ‘other’ side does, instant case for example.
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I agree with SteveF that it will probably take CNN a couple of evenings of cocktail parties to decide what to make of this.
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While we’re at it, has anyone else noticed that Gary Cohen is thinking that Glass Steagall should return?
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There can be benefits to an administration which is not doctrinaire.
That said, I’m sure we will be able to find individual commentators on CNN decrying the attacks. I wouldn’t count that as a positive result on your prediction.
Also, Ann Coulter and other Trump supporters have already “come out against the bombing”.
j ferguson:
Well no, that wasn’t what SteveF said. He’s predicting that CNN was going to “quickly come out against it”. I’m looking at their page right now, and what they’ve written seems pretty responsible. It doesn’t look like equivocation or waffling either.
Here’s one take, from the NY Times, on why Assad was willing to risk making a chemical attack at this point.
The lack of US response in 2013 (in my opinion) probably was included in his calculations.
Don’t understand the thinking of people who would use this gas if they were already in a winning position, very strange. More so the treatment of those suffering. Clothing is supposed to be removed, which it obviously was not, People managing Sarin poisoning should avoid contact with the clothing and the skin of patients, not put stethoscopes on them. Oh well, not sure it is more humane to be blown to bits than poisoned to death, they both sound pretty gruesome. Clothing bagged might also keep traces of the gases used to determine their nature??, maybe not.
Bombing always makes me queasy. Whether it’s necessary or not… queasy. That makes it difficult for me to even form opinions about whether its right or not– I can’t put away my queasiness.
Obivously, I belong neither in the military nor the executive office.
Carrick,
“I’d be careful about wearing that partisan hat too tightly, it tends to disrupt blood flow…”
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Well, I guess the mostly brain-dead staff at CNN is a strong argument for this effect. I may be less partisan than you think; I’m mostly opposed to those who think the majority should be able to dictate exactly what everyone can and can’t do. Which, these days, mostly means opposition to ‘progressives’.
Carrick,
Ann Coulter often has weird takes on policy issues; this is just one more.
angech,
“Oh well, not sure it is more humane to be blown to bits than poisoned to death, they both sound pretty gruesome.”
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This is a false comparison, on a couple of levels. First, attacking a military airbase, and specifically targeting the infrastructure which keeps the base operational is not quite the same as dropping Sarin on civilian populations. Note also that the attack on the airbase is a retaliation for the Sarin attack, not something that Trump dreamed up for no reason. Second, being ‘blown to bits” sounds a little quicker than death by convulsion and suffocation. Which would you choose?
It is nice to see that the left’s unending harping about how “Trump is in Putin’s pocket” has been so clearly confirmed over the past 24 hours.
SteveF:
Based on how you often react to things, I’d say “somewhat more partisan than you think”. 😉
Ann Coulter responded as I predicted she would. Thing is—part of why Clinton lost was because she was perceived as a war-hawk.
Not voting for Clinton because she’s a war-hawk, doesn’t mean you necessarily don’t favor military intervention though. Clinton is so damned inept at pretty much everything, I wouldn’t trust her to organize a raid to the refrigerator let alone oversee an operation that puts our military in danger.
I think Assad saw this chemical attack as an expression of his political power. I think his calculations would have worked out exactly as he expected, had Trump not ordered the airstrike.
This is a rare case of lucidity for this young administration.
SteveF:
Indeed–one purpose of the air strike was to remove Assad’s capability for attacking his population. In the US, fighter planes are seen as strategic weapons, in small countries like Syria, they are strategic weapons. Syria, of course, has no capacity to replace their planes when they are destroyed, so destroying Syrian jets has a much bigger effect on the balance of power than destroying a US jet.
But regardless, equating an attack intended to injure or kill their own population with attacking and destroying the instruments of war used to kill their own population… calling that just a “false comparison” is being very charitable here.
Trump reacted exactly as he should have… and I suspect very much not in keeping with Assad’s expectations.
The two aren’t necessarily linked of course. Putin helped to some degree getting Trump elected. But it’s not clear he was trying to helping Trump or trying to hurt Clinton.
I honestly think Russian interference in the US elections was a response to their belief that the US was interfering in Russian and Ukrainian elections from the days when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. (For the record, I think we probably interfered to some degree, but are being scapegoated by the Kremlin to a larger degree. People couldn’t honestly disapprove of fixed elections… could they?)
lucia (Comment #160947): “Bombing always makes me queasy.”
Me too, in general. But this was specifically against an isolated military base, not some mixed-use target surrounded by civilians.
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SteveF (Comment #160950quoted angech
“Oh well, not sure it is more humane to be blown to bits than poisoned to death, they both sound pretty gruesome.â€
and replied
“This is a false comparison, on a couple of levels.”
I agree that to compare Assad’s gas attack on civilians to our attack on a military base would be a false comparison. But I read angech’s comment as saying that we seem willing to tolerate Assad blowing up his people but not gassing them. I don’t see a lot of difference there. Bombing civilians often leads to slow, painful deaths from injuries and being trapped in collapse buildings.
I munged this up. I meant to say (before the edit button disappeared) that:
In the US, fighter planes are seen as tactical weapons, in small countries like Syria, they are strategicweapons.
Carrick,
“I think Assad saw this chemical attack as an expression of his political power.”
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Do you have any evidence of this? I just figure killing his political enemies is ‘what he does’.
SteveF,
Last night on twitter all sorts of people were posting all sorts of odd ball theories for which they had zero evidence.
There were people whose pet theory is Trump is Putin’s puppet saying this proves he is Putin’s puppet. Others saying this obviously proves they were wrong. Some were saying the Assad didn’t use the chemicals. Others were saying….
Reliable sources reported that we bombed, and held back on most the ‘interpretation” or various theories.
I figure it’s going to take at least a week for anyone claiming any sort of conspiracy theory to collect data to support it. Right now, they are just claiming whatever they think supports what they already though before Trump sent the cruise missiles.
SteveF–I said “I think” so it’s my opinion of Assad’s motivations.
I did link something that is approximately along the lines I am thinking:
The Grim Logic Behind Syria’s Chemical Weapons Attack.
It doesn’t appear Assad attacked enemies who had the capacity to fight back so much as a vulnerable sector of his population who couldn’t fight back. That was likely deliberate as was the timing to coincide with the negotiation process.
Carrick
Oh. I’d say she and I are both pretty good at raiding the refrigerator. By the looks of him, so is Trump. 🙂
In other news, I hear we have a new Supreme Court Justice. Eventful times.
Mike M,
“I don’t see a lot of difference there. ”
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Nerve gas attacks are almost certain to produce lot of collateral deaths. Precision targeted bombs tend to hit their target, and not much else. To the extent the the Syrian regime has carpet bombed civilian populations with ‘dumb bombs’, there is maybe not so much difference with nerve gas, but I believe the use of nerve agents has been long prohibited by treaty, and as of 2013, according the the Arms Control Association:
Lucia,
“I’d say she and I are both pretty good at raiding the refrigerator. By the looks of him, so is Trump.”
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You beat me to it.
Mark Bofill,
The only question now is if a realistic sound system can be installed on Ginsberg’s embalmed body if she passes over the next few years. 😉
SteveF: “To the extent the the Syrian regime has carpet bombed civilian populations with ‘dumb bombs’, there is maybe not so much difference with nerve gas, but I believe the use of nerve agents has been long prohibited by treaty,”
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Good point. The administration seems to be saying that our bombing was a limited attack specifically in response to a treaty violation. There is a very strong case to be made in support of that. But if it is the beginning of an intervention on one side or against the other, I have a problem with it. In that case, there is no great difference between gas and what Assad had been doing and we would be entering exactly the sort of quagmire that Trump promised to stay out of. Much of the press are implying that this is the start of such an intervention. I suspect it is wishful thinking on the part of the press. But I don;t know if what they are wishing for is an intervention or Trump breaking a promise.
Steve, Heh. What an image to put in my head. Thanks a lot buddy. :p
Mark Bofill,
I’m sure Ginsberg would agree to it before death. 😉 But what the heck, how many people have seen Lennin in his
‘tomb’?
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I find Ginsberg continuing to serve on the court (without embalming) even more disturbing than some kind of speakerphone system.
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As she most likely would prefer to be replaced by a liberal, she probably should have retired 3 years ago.
I think she has and will continue into the mental decline that is typical of Alzheimer’s. The public lapses– saying things judges ought not to say and which she has spent years knowing she should not say suggest that sort of mental decline.
One of the features of Alzheimers seems to be unwillingness to accept one’s lost mental acuity. So I’m guessing that she won’t even resign if the next administration is liberal!
Kicking a judge off the Supreme Court is a political act and I doubt they’ll be able to get enough justices to do it for loss of mental fitness. Unlike a heart attack or coma, people will always argue mental fitness. Unless her children are concerned and intervene, I doubt her decline will be enough to get all doctors or even most doctors to diagnose that she’s no longer competent to deal with her own affairs and the Senate will never bring itself to kick her off. I would be surprised if her kids intervene unless things get really bad.
So: unless she actually suffers a physical collapse, she may be on the court until she dies.
Ginsburg: It is clear to me that under the basic law requiring judges to be impartial and fair that Ginsburg should recuse herself from all cases involving substantial issues argued by the Trump administration. For instance, here is Ohio law:
“Canon 3: “(E) Disqualification.
(1) A judge shall disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding in which the judge’s
impartiality might reasonably be questioned, including but not limited to instances where:
(a) The judge has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party or a party’s lawyer, or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding;
….
Canon 4:
A Judge Shall Avoid Impropriety and the
Appearance of Impropriety in all of the Judge’s Activities
(A) Positions of Influence. A judge shall not allow family, social, political, or other relationships to influence the judge’s judicial conduct or judgment.
….
I am assuming that the federal courts and most state courts have similar prohibitions. I realize that she will never disqualify herself for her obvious bias and that it is unlikely that the rest of the Court will remove her, but under black letter law, she should not be sitting in judgment on cases involving the Trump administration.
I would also note that the standard in Ohio is not impartiality in fact, but whether impartiality might reasonably be questioned. Under Ohio law recusal would not even be a close question.
JD
Not trying to be ghoulish, but still- her life expectancy looks like it’s another 7.4 years without looking at factors beyond her age and gender. She might outlast Trump’s administration even if he wins a second term.
[Edit: hmm. The blackboard doesn’t like the link. Well, darn. Cut and paste if you want, http://life-span.healthgrove.com/l/85/84%5D
How can Trump bomb Syria without authorization from Congress?
Some of us don’t think 84 is all that old.
J,
Wince. Now I really do feel ghoulish. Most humble apologies sir.
MikeN
Obviously he did. Presumably you want to know whether doing so is legal. I’m sure we’ll hear arguments about this over the next several months. I’m nowhere near qualified to say.
Well… it not all that old. Nevertheless Ginsburg is showing ‘signs’. But the thing is: decline with Alzheimer’s can be quite slow. And even long after it’s crystal clear someone is out of it, they can linger several years. So even if I’m right about her state, she could be on the court for quite some time.
Mark,
When I was 36, I worked with a secretary who was 19. One day I heard her discussing a guy who her older sister was dating who was really old.
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He was 27.
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I know a guy who’s 98. He does take naps but otherwise he’s close to 100%. He and his 90 year old wife spend their summers in Maine on their trawler, and not in a marina. Moorings or at anchor in the hundreds of suitable coves up there. They gave up the 44 foot Hallberg-Rassey Sloop two years ago – the sails got to be too heavy.
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Her mother died at 108. She’d finally had enough.
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Having said that, Alzheimer’s can strike early and more frequently after 75. My Dad’s dementia was fairly pleasant. It was undeniable about the time he hit 85. Once it was apparent, we were able to look back at things he’d done that were symptomatic of it at least 8 years earlier, mostly reluctance to do things which he usually had loved and increasing paranoia.
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So Ruth Ginsberg could be on her way, but 84 is an insufficient gauge.
J,
Thanks. Abruptly I feel positively juvenile, which is probably highly appropriate anyway considering the typical quality of my remarks around here. 🙂
Mark, I would never have guessed.
Lucia,
Since justices don’t have to do anything but vote on cases, I think it would take a huge decline for Ginsberg to be obviously incompetent. Other justices would know, of course, but even if they tried to convince her to step down, I don’t thing they can do much more. I am sure she plans to outlive the Trump administration, even if it is 8 years. Even if she becomes grossly incompetent, nobody is going to force her out.
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JD Ohio,
I am pretty sure SC justices are exempt from conflict of interest rules. Her obvious dislike of Trump no doubt makes her compromised, (it is clear the thought of Trump makes her unable to control herself) but in practice I doubt it matters…. in any important case, she would be voting against him anyway.
lucia:
Well compare it to Obama and Libya. Obama not only ordered attacks on foreign soil, but it involved US warfighters entering hostile territory. I would have said putting our fighters at risk crossed the line where it needed Congressional approval.
About the only time Obama asked for Congressional approval (e.g., September 2013) was when he likely didn’t want to act and was looking for political cover.
j ferguson,
One of my high school classmates died of Alzheimers which she came down with in her late 40s. Very sad; but it happens.
Yep. When we go to dancing lessons, I make it a habit to learn all the guys names. Seeing if I can remember new names is my informal test for myself. I never used to really try to remember names. So I remember them better now than I used to. But … it’s a self test.
If a country bombs a base in the US, we would consider it an act of war right?
If Syria did use chemical warfare, and this is a pretty small if, then Trump’s hand was forced.
His position on OS intervention was when American Interest’s , not the world’s, was involved i.e. when America was attacked.
Though not an attack on America directly allowing the willy-nilly [carte-blanche] use of chemical warfare threatens to be an extra danger to all people in the world, a bit like the use of nuclear weapons. Think North Korea, Iran, Pakistan and Israel.
While impossible to fully stop this sends a message that indiscriminant use by anyone except the big boys will not be tolerated.
As used in Japan chemical warfare is capable of killing and injuring large numbers of people with relatively small devices.
If Syria did do this and got away with it then accidental use in the Ukraine might have been next.
Bluff, counter bluff, sabre rattling and diplomacy.
In Sophie’s world the characters came alive out of the book. Here I feel like a live person going into a book, as must we all.
MikeN,
Sure. Not certain what your point is. Can you explain?
Lucia John F,
My dad was able to hide his mental decline for four or five years. After that he just coulden’t get by on his own without help. Ruth Ginsberg will have unlimited help.
The US Senate confirmed Neil Gorsuch’s appointment to the Supreme Court on Friday.
SteveF, the Constitution says Congress has the power to declare war, yet Trump has now committed war against Syria without Congress’s declaring war.
The New York Times is moving into McClatchy territory:
Syria Strike Puts U.S. Relationship With Russia at Risk
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/07/world/middleeast/missile-strike-syria-russia.html
MikeN:
Um… no he hasn’t. Not even close.
Wondering happened to “America first” here.
Russia clearly isn’t all that interested in a real relationship with the US to start with. And our interests don’t particularly align with them in any case.
>Not even close.
Would you consider it an act of war if Syria bombed a base in Tennessee?
MikeN,
An act of war does not constitute a war.
angech,
An in outher breaking news, the sun is projected to rise tomorrow. If the Republicans wanted someone with views on the Constitution and the law consistent with their voters desires, then they had no option but to eliminate the filibuster. I predict the filibustering of legislation will also soon be eliminated. There is no way the Senate will compromise on significant issues (budgets, taxes, health care, treaties,etc). If there will be any semblance of a normal legislative process, then the filibuster will have to go.
MikeN,
I suppose if there were a missile attack on an airfield in Tennessee which was being used to launch nerve gas attacks on people in Cleveland, then there would be a reasonable case to be made for that missile attack on the airfield.
Of course those who think a nerve gas attack on Cleveland is not so bad, or none of our business, would probably object to a missile strike on the airfield. You can (many do) prefer to do nothing in the face of atrocities against civilians, but I can see no good rational for not acting in the case.
SteveF,
We all knew Jim’s mom did her best to hide– we could even spot specific things she did. But we knew she had seriously declined long before she went to an Alzheimer’s facility. She lived with her husband, who loved her. And that was enough help– food was on the table, groceries bought, etc. Things weren’t up to snuff in many ways– but still, they preferred being home. It was possible for her to be there. So she was.
When Jim Sr. collapsed from the cancer, we first had them go to an assisted living facility. But she just couldn’t stay there. (She would literally try to escape– crawling because she couldn’t walk well.)
So I know how people can ‘hide’ and how much more than can ‘hide’ if they have help.
You are correct that Ginsburg will get lots of help. That’s why my prediction is she will remain on SCOTUS until she literally collapses or dies.
SteveF,
You say your dad was able to hide his affliction in the beginning. Are you sure he knew? I ask because I’m not sure my dad realized he had this problem in the beginning. We noticed it initially with increasing problems with automobile navigating. He’d pass the Illinois drivers tests, but they didn’t involve detours. He knew north side of Chicago and suburban areas cold, but if there was a detour from familiar streets and he was forced to drive a parallel, he’d get confused when he got to the crossing that he needed to turn on.
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He continued to play (Tenor Sax) dance jobs well into the onset of navigation problems. He played a gig in Hinsdale and wound up driving around in Austin while having decided the compass in his car no longer pointed north. The police stopped him, escorted him to a police station, got a cab which brought him home and he and Mom retrieved the car the next day.
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I got to town a week later and found nothing wrong with the compass.
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He didn’t seem to understand that he was the one with the problem.
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I found another symptom in his checkbook registers. Historically his handwriting (engineering lettering) looked like engraving. It was tiny and precise, every ‘g’ looked exactly alike. When I was trying to come up with a basis which would keep the taxman at bay when we sold their house and couldn’t find his records of home improvements (I finally did and they too were meticulous), I had the cost of the place when they built it, but then went through his old check-book registers looking for contractors. This worked. But in doing it I saw his handwriting start to deteriorate in 2008 about same time as navigation problems began.
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I suspect that there are all sorts of combinations of symptoms of decline, some of which are obvious and others less so.
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One of the more amazing was assembling the saxophone. He lost his ability to put the horn together reliably while he was still playing dance jobs. I went along on one of these. He wouldn’t let anyone touch anything. A tenor has the main body, a separate neck to which the mouthpiece is attached and a reed which is clamped to the mouthpiece and is where the sound is generated.
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the time I was there we got him to hit the head and while he was gone I put it together. that worked. next time, I laid out the components on a table in front of him and when i’d hit on the right arrangement he did it himself. So we took a picture of the way the parts had to be arranged on a table, and this worked for another year. He also got rides to the jobs.
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One would think that if he couldn’t get the horn together he wouldn’t be able to play, but not so. He was very good and continued to get better (more creative improvising) right up to the time the bands he played with came to feel that he was too unreliable to count on unless they had a couple of other saxes.
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I used to talk to him about this and he just could not understand why he was having these problems.
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There were years where we’d sit down for breakfast and we’d have to show him how to use the fork and knife, once per meal and then he’d be ok, same with glass of orange juice. next meal it was same thing. it drove Mom nuts.
j ferguson,
My dad had lost his capacity to do basic arimetic, and so could not even attempt to balance his chech book. He compensated for this by transferring (just a phone call) about $50,000 from his IRA account to be sure he would not overdraft. He also hid the fact that he was making substantial undocumented loans ($5,000 to $10,00 each) to friends. One guy owed him $25,000, which he never intended to pay back. When my sister discovered this (while trying to figure out his finances) she fairly well exploded… and was shortly pounding on that ‘friends’ door; my sister is small but scary, which my nephews will attest to.
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I believe my dad knew he had lost capacity, but was absolutely unwilling to admit it. Moving him to assisted living was difficult. After he started getting lost and picked up by the police, we were pretty much forced to move him to a confined facility. He was by that time extremely incompetent, but understood enough to know that moving to a confined facility was the end: through tears, he said “My life is over.”
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Each time I would take him on an outing (lunch, a visit to check on the Branch Office, etc) it was as if he had never seen any of it before… “Wow, how long have you had a boat?”…. even though he had seen it 50 times or more. At the end, all normal behaviors (eg. you don’t eat from the serving plate), were gone, and he became aggressive and difficult to handle. It is probably the worst way you can die.
SteveF (Comment #161002): “”If there will be any semblance of a normal legislative process, then the filibuster will have to go.”
Either that, or the Democrats will have to decide to not be a unified “just say no” block. I am sure that Trump, Ryan, and McConnell would be perfectly happy to pass things with the help of a bunch of Democrat votes and the Freedom Caucus voting “no” with the rest of the Democrats. But I am not optimistic that the Dems will regain enough sanity to do that.
If Shumer & Co. had any sense, they would have let Scalia be replacing by a highly qualified conservative (Gorsuch) while making it clear that when the time comes to replace Ginsburg, they will insist on a moderate. Then they could have stood their ground against a conservative replacement for Ginsburg without appearing obstructionist. Now they will have no say at all in the next appointment.
Re: Ginsburg Declining Mental Acuity with Age
One way to determine whether Ginsburg is declining is to listen to her performance at oral arguments. I am pretty sure the Supreme Court hears multiple cases when oral arguments are scheduled. If she can handle oral argument, her mental faculties are probably adequate. If not, there is a problem. If anyone has time, he or she can either read or listen to the oral arguments here. https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/oral_arguments.aspx
Also, if the level of her participation in oral argument has declined that could be another indication of age-related decline.
JD
For people who haven’t seen it McMaster and Tillerson gave a briefing Thursday evening. Transcript here.
I think in this case we have intel of the planes leaving Shayrat base, delivering bombs in Khan Sheikhoun, then returning to Shayrat. We communicated to the Russians (and probably to the Syrians) before the attack, giving them sufficient time to evacuate if they choose. I think this is why human loss of life was minimal. HR McMaster, if anybody in the world understands it, understands the impact of battle is not measured by the number of ears that you collect. The US military and civilian leadership should be credited with the decision making that went into the measured response to Syria’s actions.
The decision to attack is consistent with the US maintaining its stature in the world as a country that will keep its word when other country’s violate their treaties, as well as being consistent with our value system that we will not tolerate chemical attacks on civilian populations by other nations.
I think blame for this chemical attack must start with Assad and Russia, but Obama’s inaction must be blamed too.
After ignoring the “red line in the sand” after the 2013 attack, then simply ignoring and pretending the at least four Syrian chemical attacks in 2014 did not exist, send a message of a US president that was more interested in his prestige (wouldn’t want to lose face after all) than in the best interests of the country.
In this case, Assad’s government committed actions that were in blatant violation of international treaty. It appears to me the US actions were consistent with our promised response. I am not thrilled that we entered the war in this way, but I do support our President here. I think he made the right choice, both on the level of both pragmatic US interests and on the level of US standing on the side of human decency.
Carrick: Thanks for the briefing link. Didn’t know that Russia agreed to destroy the weapons. Looks like Tillerson and McMaster did a good job explaining what they did.
JD
And we find this tidbit in the news:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2619735/
“Chinese President Xi Jinping has agreed to boost cooperation with the U.S. on trying to persuade North Korea to abandon its pursuit of long-range nuclear weapons, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Friday.”
JD: “Didn’t know that Russia agreed to destroy the weapons. ”
I don’t believe they were given a choice. They could stay in the path of the bombs or they could move.
DB, absolutely—that is very interesting.
Mike M,
I think the Senate democrars are betting all the elderly justices will stay until a Democrat is in the White House or Democrats have 51 seats in the Senate. I’d say their odds of winning that bet are at least 50%. If they lose the bet, the consequences for the ‘progressive’ agenda will be dire, because they have for a very long time relied on the SC to basically create progressive ‘laws’ from the bench that can’t be challenged by elected representatives. If there is a clear majority on the court who reject the concept of a ‘living constitution’, then many liberal sacred cows, none of which are consistent with the actual words of the constitution, could go to the slaughter. It’s a high risk high payoff bet.
Yes Carrick, I saw an excerpt from McMasters briefing where he said that they had avoided bombing a serin gas storage facility at the airbase. That indicates that US intelligence has always known that the chemical weapons were not all destroyed. Obama, Susan Rice, and John Kerry appear to have all misrepresented the state of affairs. What is most striking however to me, is that unlike Bush, whose foreign policy decisions were always heavily vetted in the press, Obama’s never were. He was simply always believed and amplified by the press.
SteveF: ” It’s a high risk high payoff bet.”
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Your analysis may well be correct. But that does not make Shumer’s strategy any less foolish. Forcing the Republicans to kill the filibuster does nothing to reduce the risk or increase the payoff. They will need both the White House and the Senate for the bet to pay off. If control is split, no appointments will be made and the only way the Dems win is if their justices outlive the Republican justices. Given the ages of the current justices, that likely won’t give them control until there are just 3 justices left. But if Ginsburg or Bryer dies or retires while the Republicans are still in control, the Dems will be powerless to do anything.
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My guess is that what is really going on is that Shumer calculates that if he is extreme enough, the Dems will be able to raise more campaign contributions.
David Young—I think it’s a bit more complicated than that. There certainly were critics of Obama in the press, some of it reached the point of simply being rabid, it was so extreme. And I don’t think there really was that much for them to actually report on:
After the failure of US intelligence in Iraq, I think the US intelligence is much more cautious about equating structures with the presence of chemical weapons. Here, we basically had the presence of WMD confirmed—our military tracked the planes leaving Shayrat base, tracked them as the planes delivered their payloads in Khan Sheikhoun, had confirmation that the payload was sarin nerve gas, and saw the planes return to Shayrat base.
So we know a this point without doubt what those structures house. But it’s not clear we anything more than suspected they either housed, or used to house, WMD before April 4, the date of the attack.
It happens we suspected they still retained or were recreating a limited chemical warfare capability, even while they destroyed something like 1300 tons of the stuff. The press isn’t very good with nuance (which is like saying the Sun isn’t very dark, in terms of Captain Obvious statements), so they did’t communicate well concerns that all of the stockpile hadn’t been depleted. But that’s what we get for having a third-rate press.
On the other hand, I don’t see how the Russians could possibly have not known there were chemical weapons being stored at that base. There were, as Russia confirms, Russian solders there. It’d be hard to hide something like that in plain site.
Russia was a signatory on the deal to remove the Syrian chemical weapon stockpiles. All the evidence points to them colluding with Syria to help Syria return a chemical weapon capability. So not only did Syria break international treaties it’s likely that Russia did too
That’s a really big deal. Russia’s credibility comes out almost as damaged as Syria’s. And they can thank President Trump for that. He made the call that pulled off the curtain and exposed this to the world.
Crediting Obama for the collapse of his own foreign policy with unmasking Russian/Syrian end violations is a cynical bit of contortion. This Trump showing that emperor Obama was a liarvto America and callous to the Syrians suffering under Assad.
Mike M,
The point of the filibuster attempt was to fire up the base, who want only 100% opposition to Trump. The Democrats probably figure the more fired up their base, the more likely that base will turn out to vote in the off-year election (where turnout among democrat voters is usually low). If they can get past 2018 without losing more than 1 or 2 seats, their chances of gaining control in 2020 are much better.
Carrick (Comment #161019)
“Here,we basically had the presence of WMD confirmed—our military had confirmation that the payload was sarin nerve gas.”
Simply not true. Fake news Carrick. Shame.
The identity of the gas[es] used is not known, only speculated on.
Airfield bases store airplanes, they do not make or manufacture nerve gases.
US intelligence is certainly not going to tell you or the newspapers where the Syrians make and store and deploy their gas weapons.
Nor are the Russians.
You can draw conclusions, but submit them as “speculation” unless you are privy to the real facts.
“It happens we suspected they still retained or were recreating a limited chemical warfare capability,” that’s better.
“After the failure of US intelligence in Iraq”
There was no failure, The US wanted to go to war and kept pushing the line that the Iraqis had WMD so they could go to war. Along with Blair and Australia.
Now that was obvious to everyone at the time.
I like the Private Eye response to these change in circumstances.To paraphrase.
We, the media of the USA may have given the impression that the so called POTUS, illegally elected on racist, homophobic, sexist, narcissistic and nepotistic policies is totally unfit to run this country and should be impeached on the grounds that he has no saving qualities.
We know admit in the light of his glorious victory in Syria that he is a paragon of virtue, a feminist, a true leader of this great nation whose every twitter is true literature and apologize for those of our journalists, now sacked, who dared write anything derogatory about him. He is a true liberal etc, etc.
All journals and newspapers.
I like the Private Eye response to these change in circumstances.To paraphrase.
We, the media of the USA may have given the impression that the so called POTUS, illegally elected on racist, homophobic, sexist, narcissistic and nepotistic policies is totally unfit to run this country and should be impeached on the grounds that he has no saving qualities.
We now admit in the light of his glorious victory in Syria that he is a paragon of virtue, a feminist, a true leader of this great nation whose every twitter is true literature and apologize for those of our journalists, now sacked, who dared write anything derogatory about him. He is a true liberal etc, etc.
All journals and newspapers.
Question: I would like to know what is the source for the nature of the chemical. Al-Qaeda, ISIS or somebody else? One does not need chemicals to kill civilians, a well aimed bomb is sufficient. I wish the Americans had made sure before the strike.
PEHarvey. postmortem of two victims by Turkish government.
J ferguson. Thanks.
angech:
Shame? lol. You’re a trip.
So lets see… You said fake news which implies that among other things that something is not true, but then you immediately contradicted yourself by claiming it simply wasn’t known only speculated on.
That wouldn’t make it fake news, that’d make it speculative news.
What McMaster has said is “we have a very high level of confidence that the attacks were carried out by aircraft under the direction of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. And we also have very high confidence that the attacks involved the use of sarin nerve gas.”
And then, as J Ferguson points out, we now have autopsy evidence from victims.
We also know the symptoms, which are entirely consistent with sarin nerve gas and not consistent with other chemical agents the Syrians have used in the past (e.g., mustard gas).
If you have an alternative hypothesis for a substance that
* could be manufactured in Syria in large quantities,
* has actually been manufactured and used in the past,
* and that therefore they already have the technical know-how to make,
* and which can dispensed via that delivery mechanism,
* just happens to have the same exact symptoms of sarin nerve gas,
* could mimic sarin gas well enough to fool a medical examiner performing autopsies,
by all means toss it out here for us all to look at.
Well as it just happens, the US has already confirmed that the sarin gas was being stored on that base. From McMaster’s statement (transcript & URL above):
So as it happens, airfield bases also fuel, munitions, even bunkers for the pilots. And if it’s that particular airbase, they also store poison gases there.
Well, as early as 1998, Bill Clinton gave a speech detailing the evidence for Iraqi WMD. Transcript here.
He was hardly interested in going to war with Iraq. If anything he created the climate for the war by his failure to take effective action against al Qaeda BEFORE 9/11 occurred.
But it was absolutely an intelligence failure. By all accounts, it really was the “majority opinion” in the US intelligence community that Iraq really possessed significant stockpiles of WMD. I personally know people who were on “the other side of the wall” who were absolutely convinced that Iraq had significant stockpiles of WMD. They were completely wrong, but I assure you they really were sincere in their beliefs.
Now, the desire by certain parties for a particular outcome from the intelligence probably led to distortions of the intelligence findings. But even that’s an example of an intelligence failure.
I don’t think it has been proven of disproven that the Iraq WMD’s were moved to Syria. Probably with Russian assistance. There are plenty of witnesses that claim this to this day. It’s easy to conceive reasons why parties on both sides might not want this scenario proven….or disproven. I think the simplest explanation is probably true…incompetent intelligence….but there’s more proof of this than the Bush and Blair lied meme.
Carrick (Comment #161028)
“fake news implies that something is not true.”
claiming it wasn’t known, only speculated on is not a contradiction.
Fake news obviously must be able to include speculation where things are not known because quite often such speculation will be untrue.
You know this to be true.
Unfortunately the Americans have not carried out any of the autopsies despite having “very high confidence that the attacks involved the use of sarin nerve gas.â€
If you have an alternative hypothesis for a substance by all means toss it out here for us all to look at.
Mcmaster also said “there were also measures put in place to avoid hitting what we believe is a storage of sarin gas there so that that would not be ignited and cause a hazard to civilians or anyone else.”
I guess no-one has said that the rebels could have had a Sarin gas storage that was hit by the bombs did they? Hint, read the newspapers. The Americans obviously believe that such an effect is possible, see above. Now I do not think it is a very credible explanation but is an explanation that you cannot disprove , only speculate on. Which is false news.
While it is good to be on the good side, which you are in this debate, and I agree with the bombing of the airbase, this is only on the grounds that Trump had to do this to show displeasure with Assad on the grounds that he was the most likely perpetrator.
Trump had to bomb him with or without proof.
Obviously it is better to claim very high confidence when you order a bombing that could contravene international law.
Even better when you have concrete grounds for such a claim.
chuckrr: Limited materials… possible. I think the general belief is a large-scale transfer would not have been possible without leaving traces behind.
The production facilities would have been found. The storage facilities would have been found. The “Bush and Blair lied meme” itself amounts to a lie that gets carelessly repeated—there’s no evidence for it and plenty of evidence against it.
But I should emphasize the problems with the intelligence findings wasn’t limited to just the objective fact that we didn’t find large stockpiles of WMD in Iraq:
Probably most importantly, were errors in methodology in which intel information was synthesized and disseminated. Too much emphasis on the “latest” new intel, no effort to determine whether “yesterday’s news” had been reliable…this built up over time a picture that was overly optimistic about how reliable the intel was (that is, when the intel turned out to be bad, the users weren’t informed, it just stopped being touted in e.g., the presidential daily briefs.)
We also used sources that we didn’t vet ourselves and which turned out to be completely unreliable (Curveball most famously).
But what I was referring to above, is the mis-classification of structures as WMD related that turned out to be used for entirely peaceful purposes. The bombed milk factory is a famous example of that, both the in the initial errors, then the counter factual CYA statements made afterwards by US officials.
With Syria we are again seeing verdict first and investigation later.
It could have been a rebel weapons depot was bombed releasing the gas as Russia and Assad claim, or another possibility was a staged event by increasingly desperate Al Qaeda jihadists who are known for their disregard for innocent human life.
Remember the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident?
“Three-and-a-half million Vietnamese died in the years that followed, and then 20 years later it comes out that that was all complete fiction.”
Or how about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction? Funny we never found any. The Middle East wouldn’t be such a disastrous mess if America had not meddled in it.
Never trust government reports without independent investigation. America and Israel have been set on a regime change in Syria for decades. Now they want to Balkanize it.
Seymour Hersh investigated the earlier chemical gas attack and concluded it was not from Assad. I find him more reliable than government statements, There hasn’t even been an investigation of the current gas attack yet as the area is considered too dangerous.
Seems to me this is an open invitation to ISIS or al Qaeda , who have shown total disregard for civilian life, to mount a false flag operation and have the US attack Assad for them as it will be immediately assumed it was by Assad. Why on earth would Assad use poison gas when he was winning and would known the consequesncies?
Apparently 13 wars in 30 years at a cost of $12.4 trillion is not enough. Got to keep up the threat level to justify nearly $600 billion a year on “defense” spending.
Adrian,
Wow, thanks for all your insights. How is that cold fusion commercialization program going? I am sure your keen analytical sense of the world (as your above comments illustrate) will identify when the next cold fusion breakthrough will happen. I am on pins and needles till then.
angech, sorry but this even more muddled than your first effort.
Honestly, I’ve never thought “fake news” was a useful term, generally it seems to be used to write-off evidence that people don’t like. But you aren’t even using it in a consistent manner, so I’m left thinking you don’t have a clear idea what it’s supposed to mean either. So I’d suggest finding a better term.
Anyway, simply because something isn’t known with absolute certainty (there aren’t actually many empirical things known with complete certainty) doesn’t make it speculative.
Speculation involves thinking about things that are possible, but don’t have confirming evidence available. Here there is plenty of confirming evidence, the idea that the Syrians used sarin gas on their population is well beyond the point of speculation.
The idea the rebels did this on the other hand… that is totally rank speculation: There is no evidence the rebels had access to sarin gas, no evidence they had the capacity to deliver it (no warplanes, no airbases for starts). And it’s rank speculation that it was anything besides sarin gas… there is plenty of evidence it’s sarin gas (so again … not speculative) but none it is another chemical agent. You’re left making speculative claims to counter non-speculative claims on my part you’re trying to characterize as purely speculative. No irony there.
Pretty much all I think needs to be said about this, unless you can find a shred of evidence to back up any of your wild claims.
I like Scott Adams’ analysis.
The Syrian Air Base Attack
Posted April 7th, 2017 @ 8:32am in #syria #Trump
As I blogged yesterday, the claim that Assad ordered a chemical attack on his own people in the past week doesn’t pass my sniff test. For Assad to order a gas attack now – while his side is finally winning – he would have to be willing to risk his life and his regime for no real military advantage. I’m not buying that.
But let’s say the world believes Assad or a rogue general under his command gassed his own people. What’s an American President to do? If Trump does nothing, he appears weak, and it invites mischief from other countries. But if he launches 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian military air base base within a few days, which he did, the U.S. gets several benefits at low cost:
1. President Trump just solved for the allegation that he is Putin’s puppet. He doesn’t look like Putin’s puppet today. And that was Trump’s biggest problem, which made it America’s problem too. No one wants a president who is under a cloud of suspicion about Russian influence.
2. President Trump solved (partly) for the allegation that he is incompetent. You can hate this military action, but even Trump’s critics will call it measured and rational. Like it or not, President Trump’s credibility is likely to rise because of this, if not his popularity. Successful military action does that for presidents.
3. President Trump just set the table for his conversations with China about North Korea. Does China doubt Trump will take care of the problem in China’s own backyard if they don’t take care of it themselves? That negotiation just got easier.
4. Iran might be feeling a bit more flexible when it’s time to talk about their nuclear program.
5. Trump’s plan of a Syrian Safe Zone requires dominating the Syrian Air Force for security. That just got easier.
6. After ISIS is sufficiently beaten-back, the Syrian government will need to negotiate with the remaining entities in Syria to form a lasting peace of some sort that keeps would-be refugees in place. Syria’s government just got more flexible. It probably wants to keep the rest of its military.
7. Israel is safer whenever an adversary’s air power is degraded.
On the risk side of the equation, we have the possibility of getting into war with Russia. I’d put those odds at roughly zero in this case because obviously the U.S. warned Russia about the attack. That means we knew their reaction before we attacked. And it was a measured response of the type Putin probably respects. I expect Russia to complain a lot but continue to partner with the U.S. against ISIS.
If it turns out that the sarin gas attack that sparked this military action didn’t come from Assad, it doesn’t much matter. President Trump will bank all of the benefits above even if the attack turns out to be a hoax. We know Assad had some chemical weapons at one point, and probably used them. No one will be crying for Assad if the attack was unnecessary. And realistically, the public will never be 100% sure who was behind the attack.
I doubt this is the first step in a larger plan for war to depose Assad. But if Assad thinks it might be, we have a stronger position over there.
I’m not pro-war, so this military action alarms me the same way it alarms most people. But objectively speaking, the risk-reward ratio for this attack on Syria’s air field was exceptionally good. You rarely see so many benefits arise from one limited military action.
I thought President Trump would hold off on military action in the service of regime change. That still seems to be the case. But once our intelligence services traced the plane that allegedly dropped the gas back to a specific air base, it opened the option that Trump took. I didn’t realize that our military knows what every aircraft in Syria is doing at all times. That’s impressive, bordering on hard-to-believe.
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/159300836386/the-syrian-air-base-attack
SteveF,
You will be delighted to know LENR is progressing well with several new replications. Rossi is expected to demonstrate the QuarkX this Summer and BLP says they will have a working prototype of the SunCell then too.
What this has to do with Syria escapes me but then you seldom make sense to me.
Carrick, Thanks for the additional information. Like a lot of things in the Muslim world, its complicated. The one constant seems to me to be that the focus of warfare and violence in the modern world is the Muslim world. But wait, I thought it was the “religion of peace” according to Obama and Theresa May.
It’s too soon for that again.
[Edit: Let’s not.]
Adrian,
“Rossi is expected to demonstrate the QuarkX this Summer and BLP says they will have a working prototype of the SunCell then too.”
.
Absolute rubbish. You want to make friendly bet, say US$1,000 to your favorite charity (or mine)? I say neither of these scams are commercialized in 5 years or less. What say you?
.
BTW, you never make sense at all.
David Young,
“I thought it was the “religion of peace†according to Obama and Theresa May.”
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George Orwell would br proud; Obama has finally captured the true essence of “1984”.
The New York Times has a rather critical article of Obama’s handling of Syria. Pretty much everybody sane is agreeing now Obama’s attempt to negotiate with Assad was an abject failure.
(The fact that Russia undercut everything we tried to do might explain part of that.)
David Young:
I’m pretty sure Bashar al-Assad is a secularist, as is the Baathist party in Syria. Ironically, their constitution even guarantees freedom of religion.
Rex Tillerson was on Face the the Nation.
He’s not letting Russia off the hook for their role in the chemical gas attacks this year.
Anyone who truly believed Assad gave up all his CW’s please raise your hand. Nobody ever believed this. The previous administration would of course claim this to deflect until it was disproven.
Obama’s Syria policy was a disaster. Bad Middle East outcomes are par for the course though.
It is truly mysterious why Assad would do this. Perhaps he wanted to show Trump was weak as well but it seems way too many paths to bad outcomes to be executed.
It has become very akward for the media to run simultaneous stories of this and the Trump is a Russian stooge soap opera. They haven’t even tried to explain their cognitive dissonance here.
Carrick, Give me a break. Virtually everyone in Syria is a Muslim. Assad’s problem is that his tribe is a very small percentage component of Syria’s population. Can you show me an instance where Assad questions any doctrine of Islam? Assad certainly takes a lot of aid from Iran which is clearly an Islamic state and a supporter of terrorism. If you want to point to a secularist, the president of Egypt qualifies as did Mubarak, but Obama preferred the Muslim Brotherhood, a terrorist organization. The guilt of Obama in the Middle East goes very deep. He encouraged islamists and refused to lift a finger to support our allies while promulgating the big lie that Islam was a “religion of peace.”
The interesting question here is why the criticism of Obama didn’t emerge earlier in the media? They in general repeated the Obama line especially on the Iran deal, where Ben Rodes led the propaganda effort. Iran is a sponsor of terrorism and supports wars all over the Middle East including in Syria.
You also need to be aware that the Baath party was founded by a French educated socialist and had deep links to European Fascism from the beginning. The Baath party has always advocate the completion of the final solution in the Middle East.
Tom, your point is a good one. If Trump is a stooge for Putin, why did he order a missile strike that he knew would anger the Russians? The Russian collusion story has always been a political ploy to delegitimize Trump. There is no evidence so far despite a 9 month investigation and lots of wiretapping of Russians and incidentally Trump associates. It shows how desperate the Democrat party and the press is to validate their hatred of Trump. Surest indication there is nothing there is Adam Schiff’s strange silence ever since he saw the evidence of surveillance of Trump associates and their unmasking, which we now know was done by Susan Rice and probably shared broadly.
David Young:
I don’t think you’d argue that a country that was dominantly Christian, that engaged in nefarious behavior, would necessarily reflect on Christianity the religion. So I’m not sure why I’m supposed to give you a break for what amounts to illogic here.
If you really think that simply being Muslim drives this, then ask yourself why AREN’T the roughly 1.4 billion Muslims worldwide engaged in similar activities. Because they aren’t. Clearly other things, like Arab identity is involved besides or in addition to being Muslim. Any sensible person should be able to see that is true.
That’s about as sensible an argument as me asking you to show me where any despotic leader from a Christian nation questions any doctrine of Christianity. Which is to say it’s not.
Anyway—if you want to claim Assad is doing this in the name of Islam, you need to produce the evidence for that, and not try and get me to prove a logically unrelated fact.
Well let’s see… Syria takes money from Iran, which is theocratic, and that proves … well nothing actually, other than Syria is willing to take Iranian money.
Why did you bring this up? It’s not at all related.
And the Baath party had strong ties with the German Nazi party. So it’s not a surprise they advocate the final solution.
Interestingly enough, Syrian Baathism wasn’t strictly Muslim in its early days: It has its roots in secular Arab identity. There were Christians involved in the Syrian Ba’athist movement too. And that persisted in the Iraqi Ba’athist party as well, up until its fall in 2003.
The Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz was a Christian for example.
Carrick (Comment #161034) “Honestly, I’ve never thought “fake news†was a useful term, generally it seems to be used to write-off evidence that people don’t like.
Prefer your first effort
“Carrick (Comment #161028) fake news implies that among other things that something is not true,”
When I prejudge [assess] issues I prefer to take a wider view of things.
For instance Trump might get a lot of good things done even though he has some traits most people feel abhorrent and is richer than us and seems to have a good time.
You seem to be stuck in the notion that nothing he does can possibly be right.
I am just enjoying the ride. I feel that this may be one of those cases where somebody starts out with a low approval and just gets better. It will be fantastic if I do a European Holiday with a bunch of Americans along and they spontaneously say what a great President we have. Like back when Bill was in. Last time I heard any vocal support and pride.
Anyway The good doctor has been reprimanded, values, what were they? are being restored in America and fake news runs rampant .
Speculation involves thinking about things that are possible, but don’t have confirming evidence available.
“There is no evidence the rebels had access to sarin gas,”‘
So that means,in your own words, that we can speculate they did have sarin gas access?
no evidence they had the capacity to deliver it
So that also means,in your own words, that we can speculate they did have the capacity to deliver it.
After all, as you said, one must have no evidence to be able to speculate.
“(no warplanes, no airbases for starts).”
Well we could try logic here I guess instead of speculation. Sarin gas can only be delivered by warplanes and from airbases? I must correct the Wiki entry.
As Scott Adams said, a sarin gas attack by Assad doesn’t pass the smell test.
See https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/06/nyt-retreats-on-2013-syria-sarin-claims/
Well gosh Adrian, Sarin itself doesn’t pass the smell test, does it?
angech, I was objecting to your use of “fake news” because it it you don’t have a consistent definition. All I’m saying, do as you like.
That’s obviously a false statement on your part.
I am saying the decision for the limited airstrike was a good one which contradicts this.
As a widely repeated somewhat puerile word yes. As something with any meaning, not so much.
Yes. And it’s speculation because there is no evidence to support it.
We can also speculate that Tinkerbell was behind the gas attack.
The evidence is the sarin used to kill the people in Khan Shaykhun was delivered by bombs from warplanes. The rebels have neither.
Feel free to update the wiki entry if you think it is news that sarin can be delivered with that mechanism.
Adrian: “As Scott Adams said, a sarin gas attack by Assad doesn’t pass the smell test.”
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I don’t see why anybody would care what Adams has to say on this subject. I don’t see that he has any particular insight into the thought process of a murderous dictator. Nor does he have any particular knowledge of the military and political situation in Syria. Assad has been ruthlessly and deliberately killing civilians throughout the conflict. The sarin attack is consistent with that.
.
It is clear that Assad miscalculated as to the U.S. response. That hardly proves that he did not order the attack. It only proves that he is not some evil genius and is capable of making a mistake. There are a number of reasons why he may have misjudged. He got away with it before. Perhaps he reads the Western press and figured he had nothing to worry about since Trump is a craven idiot and an isolationist to boot. Perhaps he assumed, as many Western commentators have, that for the U.S. to act at all would inevitably lead to intervening more broadly. If he believed that, and that there is no way that Trump will intervene more broadly on the side of ISIS, then he could have concluded that he was safe. Or maybe he was silly enough to think that Trump is in Putin’s pocket.
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The smell test argument amounts to setting up and then demolishing a straw man,
[drive by]
Is the world better off with Assad in power?
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Fall of Assad means even more power vacuum of the kind jihadists exploit? Probably a contingency to deal with, even if it’s not a planned event.
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Is Assad a cynical pawn to keep the Sunni-Shia divide festering ( and so preclude jihadist unity against the US )?
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Was bombing the snack bar at the airport a cynical ( and apparently effective ) ploy to take the focus off the nuclear option confirmation of Gorsuch?
Turbulent
The “drive by” seems to be several rhetorical questions. Whether it is or it is not, you need to clarify the question by filling in “X”:
Is the world better off with Assad in power relative to X being in power?
I seriously doubt it. But I realize some might suspect the Democrats would stoop to such a thing. After all, they’d done a pretty good job embarrassing themselves in various and sundry on the Gorsuch nomination and would likely have wanted people to stop paying attention to their humiliating defeat on the nuclear option. The thing is: I don’t think they would have the technical prowess to either launch a real sarin gas attack or to fake one and then get Trump to bomb. So I really doubt they did that. But I could see why some might think they’d be tempted to do so if they were competent enough to pull it off.
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Yeah, I’m affraid that X=0 would result with X then tending to Daesh.
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Apologies for verboten rhetoricals, though behind them are real possibilities.
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While brutal dictators are affronts to civilization, particularly in this instance, his removal, without a massive ground force to ensure a reasonable transition, means chaos which Daesh would exploit.
.
That chaos may occur anyway. I don’t think the American public or Middle Easterners would abide another US intervention.
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George Friedman says our goal is to prevent unity opposition to the US ( meaning a large IS ). Fomenting Sunni-Shia divide is the most obvious fissure to keep the region divided.
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Since the air strike caused minimal damage ( seems to be the snack bar only ), it was symbolic only. The question is for whom? It might have been for multiple audiences. It could have accomplished both a message to Assad, a message to ‘get tough’ voters who don’t actually understand or want the ground invasion that actual get tough policy requires, and also provide cover and distraction.
Mike M.,
What Scott Adams wrote was logical. Pick hoes in the logic if you can. I read that the CIA instigated the civil war in Syria so blaming “murderous dictator” (elected) Assad for the deaths is a bit one sided. The main difference between us is that I don’t believe the government stories/ propaganda until they are independently verified.
Civil wars tend to be bloody. The American civil war certainly was.
.
Slightly off topic but interesting. The NYT reported there was a paper in 2012 that linked sarin to Gulf war syndrome. What was news to me was “Nearly half of the 700,000 service members who were deployed in 1990 and 1991 for the gulf war have filed disability claims”
Presumably the civilians who were nearer the bombed gas storage sites were just collateral damage and don’t count.
Paper Links Nerve Agents in ’91 Gulf War and Ailments
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/14/us/paper-links-nerve-agents-in-91-gulf-war-and-ailments.html
Turbulent Eddie
Of course bombing will always distract from other stuff. But it’s hard to imagine Trump or Republicans would want to distract anyone from anything about Gorsuch getting nominated. And, in fact, Trump is tweeting quite regularly about Gorsuch trying to keep that on the news radar.
Getting his nominee confirmed was a major victory for Trump– and a major campaign promise. He bombed — creating a distraction from his victory– despite the fact that it was not in his interest to create a distraction from that story.
Lucia,
I agree with you.
I doubt the general population either understands or cares, that the nuclear option means that with Supreme Court Justices now serving ~25 years, a two term President could pack the court for a generation.
Adrian: “What Scott Adams wrote was logical. … The main difference between us is that I don’t believe the government stories/ propaganda until they are independently verified.”
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A logically demolished straw man is still a straw man. Adrian implying that others are credulous is a laugh. I do not automatically believe what the government says. But unlike Adrian, I am also skeptical of other sources. It seems clear that sarin was released during a Syrian government attack; what some dispute is who was responsible.
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Chemical agents are of little use against well trained, well equipped soldiers. Gas masks are ineffective against agents like sarin. To use chemical agents in combat requires well trained, well equipped personnel. They are weapons of terror that can be very effective against civilians. It makes no sense for rebels to make or use such weapons. There is no evidence that the Syrian rebels have done so or even have such capacity. On the other hand, the Syrian government has manufactured and used such weapons. There is really only one logical conclusion here.
Because Assad’s use of sarin seemed particularly unwise and pointless it is worth examining other possible sources, false flag operations, etc. However speculating without evidence is also pointless. The rebels being in a bit of desperate situation would benefit from the US going after Assad so they have motivation. Our IC seems to believe it was Assad and (allegedly) have evidence of Syria’s jets being in the area so unless someone finds some evidence, it looks like just a boneheaded move by Assad.
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The only thing I can think of is Assad is using mental warfare (fear of CW) to demoralize his enemy and judged no response was forthcoming from the US. I find it highly unlikely future large scale CW attacks were ever in the plans.
.
The US strike is equally pointless from a military perspective. Giving your enemy verbal warning of a “surprise” attack kind of defeats its purpose. The US strike seems symbolic. Demonstrating CW is a red line for this administration, and also confirming Trump is unpredictable.
Adrian
I think most the population isn’t paying that much attention to this. But there is a a fraction who voted for Trump precisely because they hoped he would appoint a conservative justice and they are very glad that the GOP went for the nuclear option. So: yes some care. And some very much want Trump to add conservative justices to the court. I think there are enough of these people that it’s one of the reasons he won.
Mind you: there are others who very much don’t want him to pack the court with conservatives. But I think on this topic, the sway went in the direction of votes for Trump and against Hillary who would have nominated someone the democrats liked.
Mike M.
Heh.
It seems we are heading towards Supreme Court justices only get appointed when one party controls both WH and Senate. The left is never going to confirm anyone from a Republican president at least until after they get their vengeance. The Senate may go just as scorched earth as the House. Raw politics and no semblance of pretending otherwise.
MikeM.,
What strawman was demolished?
.
“It seems clear that sarin was released during a Syrian government attack;”
What evidence do you have Assad did it?
Hersh, who investigated the prior attack says the gas came from Turkey and the NYT has dropped saying it was Assad.
.
I don’t know, but I certainly don’t trust the government who decided to bomb Syria before in investigation even started.
Credulous is believing the government tells the truth.
Tom,
Had the Republican’s not gone with the nuclear option, we would have been headed to not appointing any justices even if the same party controlled the Senate and the WH. Well… unless 2/3rds of the Senate was in the same party as the president. If that happened, we might slowly see a count down of justices 9,8,7,6…..
Then all of a sudden a president gets to appoint a whole bunch. Whooo hooo!
Obviously, that would be a ridiculous situation.
Lucia,
“Mike M.
Adrian implying that others are credulous is a laugh.
Heh.
.
What do you think I am credulous about that’s wrong?
Adrian: “What strawman was demolished?”
Adrian: “What evidence do you have Assad did it [attacked the rebels]?”
Adrian: “What do you think I am credulous about that’s wrong?”
.
Maybe Adrian is playing dumb?
In other news – thou shalt not get caught committing adultery in Alabama and try to remain in office. Gov. Bentley expected to resign this afternoon.
I see Mike M can’t answer me. Please quote my exact words if you now do.
.
In other news, China has just deployed 150,000 troops to the border of N.Korea.
Tom Scharf,
I don’t think you’ve been paying intention. Harry Reid and the Democrats had already done that. See, for example, the original passage of the ACA using a technicality to bypass a filibuster and zero Republican votes. Even when the Republicans controlled the Senate, Reid was able to keep most inconvenient bills from reaching Obama’s desk. As a result, Obama vetoed very few bills.
Adrian,
Silence is not evidence of winning in this case. I suspect most readers here just ignore you.
DeWitt Payne,
If Mike M, does reply I will demonstrate that he is mistaken,
Which is likely why he has not replied. A fact for which I for one am duly grateful.
Let it go Adrian. Nobody wants to go through that pointless exercise again.
The WaPo is skewering Obama and his knob polishers by the way.
Susan Rice’s claim that Obama got Syria to ‘verifiably give up its chemical weapons stockpile’
Rating, 4 pinochios. Is that a first? Better late than never I guess.
https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/WashingtonPost/Content/Blogs/fact-checker/StandingArt/pinocchio_4.jpg
heh.
Then there’s this:
Politicians who were wrong on the ‘red line’ should just admit it
Trump even got in on the action of factual reporting “The reason you don’t generally hit runways is that they are easy and inexpensive to quickly fix (fill in and top)”. Exactly correct, Mr. President (or surrogate on your tweet account). The planes are what count… Assad can’t replace those.
Tom Scharf:
I don’t agree at all. There wasn’t a point to human casualties here so the warning gave them time to move personnel, but the equipment obviously would have taken longer (e.g, ammo bunkers and fuel depots that were blown up, good luck moving that in 90 minutes). As I’ve mentioned before, if anybody understands the futility of grading your success by the number of trophy ears you collect, it’s McMaster. We win wars by destroying the ability of the adversary to conduct war not by killing random individuals.
(The exception here is the killing of skilled individuals such as scientists & engineers who are engaged in the war fighting…)
Syria lost about 20 aircraft which is a big deal—Syria has no ability to replace their lost aircraft.
Clausewitz recognized that there were three ways in which a war could be lost: On the battlefield, logistics, and in a loss of public support. A military tactic that changes the direct of public discourse is every bit an effective one as one that leads simply to a limited victory on the ground.
Scorched earth = end of Senate legislative filibuster. Personally I do not want to see this or we will see legislation whiplash every time power changes hand. The filibuster is a good low pass filter on legislation.
Adrian Ashfield
You are credulous in that you seem to believe Rossi is advancing ….something.
Carrick,
It’s pointless “militarily” in that it will not make a difference in the outcome of the rebel/Assad conflict kinetic wise. Syria can buy new aircraft from their benefactors. I agree that it inflicted pain and hopefully enough to make it clear that CW’s are not worth using in the future. I’m not saying it wasn’t worth it, just that it is more strategic than tactical, so we probably agree more than we disagree.
Tom Scharf:
Actually, because of the economic sanctions, they cannot buy new planes. 20 planes represents roughly 10% of their total fixed-wing air force.
Carrick: “Actually, because of the economic sanctions, they cannot buy new planes.”
But can’t they get planes from the Russians?
I agree that this is a non-trivial loss for Assad.
If you and I are correct that Assad was behind the attack, then we will see chemical attacks stop. But if the wild speculators that Adrian believes are right, then we will see lots more false flag chemical attacks to bring down retribution on Assad.
Carrick,
It appears that they haven’t recently bought NEW planes, they get old planes from Iran. Is Iran’s provision of planes to the Syrians constrained by sanctions?
.
More to the point, if the Syrians want to maintain any sort of continuity in their operations replacement planes have to be very similar to what they’ve been flying or there will be delays due to retraining. Or get the Russians to fly their missions for them with modern equipment.
Lujcia,
“You are credulous in that you seem to believe Rossi is advancing ….something.”
.
Well there have been a couple more replications but I understand those don’t mean anything to you.
.
Only time will tell. If I’m credulous for saying wait and see, what will you be if he demonstrates the QuarkX this Summer and starts to sell working reactors?
Adrian
More? That would imply there was at least 1 replication before.
Mike M:
I’m pretty sure Russia is participating in the embargo against the export of military planes to Syria.
Yes I agree with this logic.
j ferguson:
The Iranians are also being embargoed, so I think that’s unlikely to happen.
You need a lot of other stuff too…compatible diagnostic tools and training how to use them, compatible communications, etc. Even if it’s nominally the same aircraft, it needs to be outfitted for the Syrian air force usage.
I think that has already been happening to a large extent. I would expect that continuous operation over the last four years, and the lack of replacement parts, to have a toll on the Syria air force. Without Russia they are screwed.
I doubt Russia would okay missions involving poisonous gases, so oddly Assad make have shot himself in the foot here.
The filibuster was wounded by the democrats sneaking around it to shove through Obamacare. It was mortally wounded by the near complete destruction of the filibuster by Reid and Schumer to ease through Obama’s extremist appointees and judicial nominees. The Republicans pointed out that the minority party doesn’t get to decide just how dead the filibuster actually is.
Lucia,
“More? That would imply there was at least 1 replication before.”
.
Yes. Apart from the Lugano report, Parkhomov replicated the Hot Cat, entirely independently, years ago.
You didn’t answer my question.
.
I’m not alone. See http://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/uk-should-be-generating-research-into-world-changing-cold-fusion-system-1-4400376
Adrian,
You asked why people think you are credulous. I told you. You are now supplying more evidence of your tendency to believe things that are not plausible.
Yes. I know you are not the only credulous person out there.
As for your question
My answer is: I’ll be 58 years old.
Carrick (Comment #161019)
“—our military tracked the planes leaving Shayrat base, tracked them as the planes delivered their payloads in Khan Sheikhoun, had confirmation that the payload was sarin nerve gas, and saw the planes return to Shayrat base.”
Unfortunately your comment is at odds with the incident that followed. The US military could not even confirm who was flying the planes.
“‘ senior US official said the US is now convinced Russia controlled the drone. The official said it still isn’t clear who was flying the jet that bombed the hospital, because the Syrians also fly Russian-made aircraft.”
The fake news is that you say they confirmed the payload was sarin nerve gas hours before anyone was even aware that a gas attack had occurred. The payload did include bombs which did kill people but you imply it was only sarin gas. Shame on the false news you keep peddling.
Yes there were bombs. Yes they probably had sarin in some of them but you do not know this. Yes a warning had to be made. No it is not an excuse to invade Syria and butcher even more people.
If America had not tried, very hard, to topple Assad in the Arab spring. Had it not supported ISIS sympathizers and ISIS itself in Syria against Assad it would not now be in this absurd situation.
Speaking of which, I have to admit: I’d hoped Lockheed Martin would have demonstrated progress with their compact fusion reactor by this point. I’m ready to concede that I no longer believe they’ve cracked it.
lucia (Comment #161092)
“what will you be when he demonstrates the QuarkX and starts to sell working reactors?”
I doubt the answer will be anywhere near “I’ll be 58 years old.”
Carrick, pax. I give up on being antagonistic. Just grumpy and overworked. No comments for a week and none to you for yonks. Feel free to fire both barrels though.
Carrick,
” If you and I are correct that Assad was behind the attack, then we will see chemical attacks stop.
Yes I agree with this logic. ”
.
After the Gulf of Tonkin and the Iraq war, you are being unduly credulous in believing the government story before there is a full investigation.
Hersh actually did an investigation, unlike the writers here, and concluded the first attack was not by Assad.
We don’t know who made the second attack yet, but logically it is more believable it was done to persuade the Americans to attack Assad. Another false flag operation would be immediately greeted by “It was Assad.” It looks like American, Israel and Saudi all want to see Syria Balkanized.
What would Assad, who was already winning, gain by taking that risk for so little military advantage?
angech,
He asked what would I be if he did “QuarkX” this summer.
I this summer will either be 58 years old or dead no matter what he does.
Rossi’s named something QuarkX, and possibly he’ll demonstrate something he calls QuarkX this summer and he’ll likely call that some sort of replication. Of. Something. And some credulous people will consider it a replication. Of. Somethign.
Lucia,
Don’t be dead. 🙂
.
Well, as always I’m waiting breathlessly for the next opportunity to see the Quack 3.0 or whatever. I wish I could figure out Rossi’s secret for handling people. I mean, I’m late on a deadline once a year and management instantly becomes suspicious that I must be screwing around on their dime. It flat out amazes me that this guy can keep going year after year without ever delivering anything to anybody, apparently.
mark bofill,
I think his secret is identifying sooooper credulous donors at the outset. Others who believe him haven’t actually given any money.
Mm. Probably so. I don’t think I want to make use of that technique after all. That’s not good people skills, that’s borrowing against a future prison term.
Thanks Lucia.
Lucia,
“Rossi’s named something QuarkX, and possibly he’ll demonstrate something he calls QuarkX this summer and he’ll likely call that some sort of replication. Of. Something. And some credulous people will consider it a replication. Of. Somethign”
,
No, it is not any replication. It is a new high temperature device currently about 2 cm long by ~6mm diameter that provides 20 Watts of energy out. It is apparently capable of 100 Watts but has been scaled back for reliability and control. According to Carl-Oscar Gullström’s paper the COP is >thousands.
.
Your age has nothing to do with my question. You are being closed minded to the possibility of a revolutionary discovery. Unfortunately pathological skeptics like you have resulted in inadequate funding for research in LENR.
Rossi was right when he stated no experiment would convince the keptics, only the sale of working reactors.
I don’t think the media has figured out that there being no real strategy for Assad in Syria, is actually not a change in strategy for the US, ha ha.
.
This is one example of hindsight showing that there are “act now before it is too late” times for foreign policy. We painted ourselves into a corner here and there aren’t any appealing options. A no-fly zone is problematic with the Russians, etc. Assad winning is much better than ISIS winning.
.
I didn’t personally disagree with the “let Syria destroy itself, they aren’t our friends” strategy that Obama effectively used. It went sideways when it poured over the border. The big error was getting out of Iraq too fast, and Obama will be on the wrong side of history with this one, snicker. Lesson learned: If you want to contain a conflict, you need forces to do it.
.
I have never been a big fan of Obama of course, but he executed a reasonable strategy that had foreseeable risks. Those risks didn’t pan out, so fair or not Syria, ISIS, and Obama are indelibly linked in the history books. The recent Coptic Christian church bombings in Egypt are further examples of this failed strategy still going sideways. Obama should just man up and admit this was a disaster. It is noted that is was “successful” in that few Americans have been killed.
Adrian
And yet, it is a correct answer to the question you asked.
Experiments that worked and could be replicated by others would convince skeptics. Sadly, that was not the case for Rossi’s. My guess is he knows it will never be the case for any of his experiments.
You are free to give your money to fund it. But. You. Don’t. (Yeah. I get it. You have your reasons not to give it money. And so you don’t. We get that.)
Adrian,
It’s almost as if the dawn is breaking. Inadequate for what. – can we construe this to mean that you are finally preparing yourself to admit that LENR doesn’t work.
That would be a great first step. It would be even better if you didn’t lay the blame for the fact that the LENR unicorn isn’t real on our lack of gullibility and unwillingness to enrich stray con men like Rossi. But baby steps are fine – this is progress.
Congratz.
Tom Scharf,
“Assad winning is much better than ISIS winning.”
.
I don’t think the neocons, with heavy prodding by Israel, will let Assad win.
Only last year, America and Saudi agreed to let 9,000 ISIS fighters out of Mosul and gave them safe passage,with their arms, to Syria. America fighting ISIS in Syria has been lukewarm at best.
Sign of the Apocalypse: UK students planning to take politics A-level now have Ayn Rand on the curriculum.
.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/apr/10/new-age-ayn-rand-conquered-trump-white-house-silicon-valley
Adrian: “Rossi was right when he stated no experiment would convince the keptics, only the sale of working reactors.”
.
That is the statement of a fraudster. Proper experiments would certainly convince the skeptics. But stage managed demonstrations only convince the gullible. Since Rossi never had any intention of doing anything else, he made the above statement to keep the gullible on the hook as long as possible. Working reactors have been a year away for what, 5 years? 10? I am impressed that he has managed to keep the con going this long.
Lucia,
The case for Palladium/D is easier to prove. There have now been hundreds of experiments that prove Pons & Fleischmann were right, but the majority of skeptics still don’t believe it. So you are wrong.
.
The Ni/H has been replicated but doesn’t have the depth of replications to prove it.
I have stated all along that the correct approach is to wait and see, but you think that is being credulous. You have apparently made up your mind that it doesn’t work and the only thing that would alter you opinion is the commercial sale of reactors. Not a very scientific approach.
.
http://www.unconv-science.org/pdf/7/parkhomov-en.pdf
http://www.e-catworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/ExcessHeatInLAH-Ni_Stepanov_English.pdf
Mike M.
You are clueless. You don’t understand that Rossi can’t get patents to protect his invention & so can’t describe the details.
You have no idea of the many experiments that have been carried out but spout ignorant opinion.
.
I have zero desire to discuss this with you.
Adrian Ashfield,
Your critical thinking skills are deficient and so is your claim I am wrong.
Too bad you don’t take it then. Because you’ve said a lot more than than “wait and see”. You’ve claimed replications exist. You’ve claimed those of us who don’t believe this are wrong.
I’m happy to wait and see provided no taxes I pay are used to fund this. But I’m also not going to
On the contrary. I’m willing to let empirical evidence guide my judgement. I’d be happy with working experiments that could be replicated by others.
Lucia,
You claim I lack critical thinking skills, and that you would believe empirical evidence.
What were wrong with the two replications I linked?
I suppose you will answer with something irrelevant like your age to prove your thinking skills.
.
You were wrong. Academia and bodies like DOE still do not believe LENR is real and refuse to even look at papers showing that it is.
.
Adrian,
I’m afraid you are exhibiting “assigning homework before doing your own ” behavior. You haven’t explained what’s right about them first. You have merely posted links.
It is my view that you need to first explain why the information at these links you posted is convincing before you demand that others explain why it is unconvincing. That way, you can learn and grow.
angechIf you want to criticize things I actually said and you want me to engage with you, my first rule is you either quote or accurately paraphrase the things I said that you want to criticize. You don’t get to make up things that I didn’t say and criticize them as if you were criticizing things that I did say. Pax indeed.
For example you said
No. I never said any such thing. Nor did I reference any such story.
What I actually did was outline what evidence was used to determine that the Syrian government was responsible for the gas attacks. I never gave a timeline for when the determination was made, nor do I have any idea what the timeline was.
My own comments were from days after it was know to be sarin gas and the US had confirmed that the Syrian government was involved. There is nothing inconsistent or “fake” about that.
The part that is fake is you made up a timeline that was never presented by me, then criticized me for that.
Speaking of “fake news”, you just made this up from whole cloth.
We can determine which type of craft were used, the Syrian airfare is the only air force in the region who flies that type of (extremely antiquated and in that sense unique) aircraft. If you’re saying we have to have a picture of the pilots in the cockpit and determine his nationality before we can say that was the Syrian air force, then you’re just being a wanker, because apparently that’s all you got.
We know beyond any shadow of doubt, as does everybody else, including your friends the Russians who choose to lie about it, that the Syrian air force dropped munitions on Khan Sheikhoun, and that this attack coincided with the widespread release of sarin gas.
I do not think this is a reasonable comment on your part. I gave a basis above for why I believe this to be sarin gas, and why I believe the Syrian air force to be responsible.
You can lecture me on what I know or don’t know, but you don’t get to do so, and look reasonable yourself, without at least addressing the facts that strongly favor the conclusion that the Syrian government was responsible for this attack.
Lucia,
You said you would believe empirical evidence. In particular replications of Rossi’s work.
I linked two papers. I don’t need to explain them. They describe what was done and the results. They are REPLICATIONS.
If you don’t believe them, tell me why.
I forecast you would come up with an irrelevant answer.
FWIW,
This accurately describes me at this point, yes. If LENR isn’t actually being used for something, someplace, somehow, then there must be a reason. The simplest reason in my view is that it flat out doesn’t work. So yes – show me somebody actually using it for something and I’d find that persuasive. Till then, I’m afraid that con men like Rossi have spoiled the tentative good faith I’d extend towards the claim of a scientific breakthrough in this field. LENR claims have worn out their welcome. I won’t look at faked up experiments any further, nor go looking for the error in sloppy experiments. These guys can go make something that works, and make it work profitably, if they want me to believe.
Tom Scharf:
I’m often the first (as many have noticed) to criticize Trump when I think he is wrong-footed, which has been frequent during his first 100 days, but I don’t think this is one of those times.
I believe the attack on the air base was very strategic in nature and had objectives other than simply rendering the Syrian air force ineffective. In fact, I would argue, given the complex circumstances, rendering the Syrian air force ineffective would have been the wrong objective:
In the days after Assad (which will arrive sooner or later), we need the Syrian government to remain effective at defending itself. Stripping away that capacity would result in crippling the ability of that government to function as a government. That does nobody any good except ISIS.
I think the prime strategic goal here is to get Russia to agree to move beyond Assad. Since they are the main reason Assad’s staying in power, that is really the best direction moving forward. Essentially we’re giving Russia an ultimatum—align with this loser president Assad, or align with the US. If Russia picks Assad that tells us everything we need to know about Russia’s true intentions in terms of future detente. That is, it was a sham from the start.
And I think it was a terrible strategy, with foreseeable negative outcomes. The destruction of Syrian chemical weapons accord is just as brilliant a pact as Neville Chamberlain’s Munich Agreement.
Syria engaged in at least six different chemical attacks after the red line was crossed and before this latest, highly visible, attack. Obama’s strategy seemed to be to ignore those attacks, shrug his shoulders that things hadn’t worked out quite the way he was expecting them to, then move on.
Are we trying to understand the musings of a 14 year old? Not intended to be rhetorical.
Tom,
Thanks for that. It almost lost in the noise there. 🙂
Adrian Ashfield (Comment #161108),
These papers are scarce on both details and results. They are interesting anecdotes, but they don’t come close to the level of evidence needed to support such extraordinary claims.
The results are based on comparing electrical energy in to heat out, with the latter reported to be about twice the former. That requires careful measurements and calibrations. Neither paper provides any details on measuring the energy input. At least the Parkhomov paper says they did controls, but details are not reported.
In the Parkhomov paper, the calorimetry seems to consist of eyeballing the level of water in the device, pouring in water by hand to keep the level constant, and assuming that the amount of water poured in is equal to the amount evaporated. Hardly convincing. The Stepanov paper seems to have better calorimetry, but no control experiments and only reports results on one experiment. If they could really replicate their results, there would be multiple experiments reported.
There are good reasons to be skeptical besides the extreme theoretical implausibility of the claimed cause. Why do they only get energy out as long as they put energy in? That is suspicious. If what they claim is indeed happening, then once the reactor reaches operating temperature, the reaction should sustain itself. Also, people have been studying H and D dissolved in metals for decades. Why has no one noticed their samples getting hot?
Sounds like they did a bunch of experiments, got one or two where they got the desired result, and report those “successes”. A better bet is that they screwed something up in those experiments.
j ferguson,
If you mean Adrian, I suspect so. Clearly, he does not want to tell us why he finds the material he links convincing.
Adrian it is.
Lucia,
How many replications does it take to persuade you?
You claim you believe empirical evidence but clearly you don’t. Rossi was right. You were wrong.
.
There are thousands of papers here showing LENR is real, http://lenr-canr.org/ but apparently you need someone to predigest them for you and I don’t have time for that.
.
I’ll leave you to your handful of loyal followers. I’ve got better things to do than read many of the insulting comments on this thread.
If there is wholesale blocking of executive appointments or laws, then removing the filibuster is useful. The two are separate, as the Senate goes into executive session to consider the appointments.
The Republican filibusters were mostly about side issues, and not objections to the nominees, including that Reid was ruining other Senate procedures like not letting them offer amendments. Now Democrats were blocking, and still are blocking, many nominees, to the point where they are considering changing the 30hr rule to just 8 hrs.
How can you rule out that the Syrians bombed a rebel cache of sarin, and this destruction is what caused some people to get sick?
Adrian
If you want to explain why you find the ones you linked convincing, do so. Otherwise, don’t. Repeating the claim but never explaining why you find even one of the papers you link convincing is wasting our time. If you chose to leave rather than continuuing to try to force us to waste our time while you refuse to carry the burden of supporting your claims, that’s fine with me.
MikeN,
How can we rule out leprechauns? It’s simply not a plausible scenario.
DeWitt, that is the Syrian government’s claim. I don’t think it likely, but the details Carrick provides above allow for it. It also looks like they or the Russians covered it up, bombing a hospital where the victims were being treated.
MikeN–we’d need to see the map of causalities. Very unlikely that the rebels have access to sarin gas, and I would bet the pattern of casualties is wrong for that scenario.
If I find something, I’ll share.
What would be different about the casualties?
Adrian relying on the number of papers to somehow tip the scales is like relying on a 97% consensus to tip the scales. If it is the weight of paper that creates the credibility of a position, then a toilet paper warehouse could be the source of the next great breakthrougj, since toilet paper comes in lengthy rolls of sheets that have a massive cumulative weight in large numbers. Or think of the weight of climate alarmist papers. Lenr and climate hype, while each are weighty and massive, lack the utility of tp. Rossi has scammed enough people to make a decent living. The chance of a lenr reactor coming to market is equal to me winning the lottery…and I’m not buying a ticket.
MikeN: It would be in the difference in geographical distribution, as well as you’d have an identifiable building that was “ground zero”. In the absence of that we just have the circumstantial evidence: The Syrian government has used sarin gas before, but there is no documented evidence that the rebels possessed it.
Here’s the White House briefing paper, which discusses some of the evidence for it being Syrian aircraft delivering the poisonous gas.
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3553049/Syria-Chemical-Weapons-Report-White-House.pdf
I thought the casualty count was in the dozens. I don’t think you can identify a ground zero with a small count, outside of Northern Russia.
“White House gaffe on Hitler and chemical weapons draws ire” says the bbc. Reading further, “White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer has apologised after declaring that Adolf Hitler did not use chemical weapons during World War Two.”
Interesting that someone should apologize for a factual statement these days. The response in some quarters has been excitable to say the least. I get that millions were gassed, but I still don’t believe that counts as chemical use as a weapon (any more than hanging prisoners would count as using rope as a weapon). As kids we were taught that Hitler didn’t use chemical weapons. I guess in the new reality that is no longer politically correct.
Regarding LENR I feel sorry for Adrian, who appeared on a different topic and was immediately jabbed about his LENR position, which had nothing to do with the subject at hand.
A live stream of the blackboarders monitoring a Rossi experiment would be pure gold, I reckon. If the experiment passed that it could pass anything.
MikeN,
The idea that rebels were making sarin is ludicrous. You can’t make it in your kitchen or bathroom. Consider the sources of that accusation, Russia and the Syrian government.
http://warincontext.org/2013/12/11/how-easy-is-it-to-make-sarin/
MikeN:
You’re way off with your numbers. Wiki lists 75-100 dead and 300-557+ injured. If the numbers had been really small, that would be consistent with a single, accidental release.
But I don’t think you are understanding what I’m talking about in terms of the distribution of causalities.
If it’s a single source, you’ll see a dispersion relationship with most of the fatalities occurring near the rebel cache of sarin gas
fairy dust, and leprechaun gold, and a plume like distribution of decreasing severity of injury in the dominant wind direction. The ground zero will be identifiable as a structure. And you’ll end up typically with less lethality for a given concentration of gas, because the heat from the explosion of the depot results in combustion of most of the sarin gas.If it’s a gas attack from planes, there will multiple sources associated with each bomb, target locations will ideally be flat open hard surfaces (roads or plazas), and you’ll see a much broader distribution of mortality. If the bombs are sophisticated (these were probably Soviet or Russian in design), the effective release height is not at ground level, and you end up with wider kill-region too. (Think of a bomb hitting the ground, exploding and releasing a plume of gas upwards.)
As I’ve head it described, for chemical-gas bombs, the amount of explosive is much smaller, of a different type than in a conventional bomb so as to not neutralize the poison gas (e.g., you want a low-heat contained immolation rather than a true explosion). You want a hard surface like a road because that way the most of the energy of the detonation is directed upwards, which improves the efficiency of the dispersion of the gas by more than a factor of two (typically you have a logarithmic wind profile near the ground…as the plume punches higher into the atmosphere, it experiences large wind speeds, which help distribution the poison gas).
Plus you pick the timing to maximize lethality. Early morning is ideal, because most people are still in their homes, and because typically the winds will be light, but picking up from the overnight lull, so you get a “good” wind-borne plumb. This attack occurred around 6:30 AM which is pretty close to optimal conditions for a deliberate chemical attack.
An expert can look at the distribution of samples of the gas from the sites, as well as look at the characteristics of the crater, to determine quite a bit about the delivery mechanism. There have been a series of measurements over the years studying the plume from known chemical explosions as well as the characteristics of the craters (here is one open-source publication to give you a sample), which are used to generate empirical models or validate numerical codes.
Anyway, the US document that I linked previously claims an open source video/images of one of the craters in a road surface from the chemical attack, as well as open-source satellite photos demonstrating a lack of significant damage to surrounding structures. That’s exactly the pattern you should see if it’s a chemical bomb.
DeWitt’s argument I think is a very strong independent source of confirmation. There’s no evidence that the rebels have the capability or knowledge on how to make sarin gas but Syria has used it on their population multiple times previously.
Russia has made a series of self-contradicting claims about rebels access to gas, including using images from Syrian attacks on the rebels as proof of rebel attacks on the Syrians.
I have no patience for a country that enables wide-spread attacks on its civilian population. As I have pointed out, this is not internationally recognized as a sovereign right of a nation, so responding to a chemical attack cannot be seen as a violation of that nation’s sovereignty. Maybe now that Trump has broken with Putin on this issue, we’ll see less knob-polishing of Putin from the right-wing press. Breitbart sill loves Putin, last I checked, so maybe not.
Adrian Ashfield : “Rossi was right when he stated no experiment would convince the [s]keptics, only the sale of working reactors.”
Working reactors would be compelling.
So would self-sustaining operation — once initiated, use the generated heat to provide the electricity to maintain the correct operating conditions. As far as I can tell, all demonstrations to date continually supply energy from an external source. If adequate excess energy is being produced, it should be possible to disconnect from the external energy source, and continue to operate indefinitely with a dissipative load.
Let me ask the reverse question — what would it take to convince you that this approach is *not* working?
DeWitt, thanks for the Woodward article. It appears to be very useful and information. It does raise a couple of noteworthy side issues. First, how could someone with as much credibility as Hersh, get it so wrong. (If this was a major focus of mine, I would check Hersh’s defenses of his conclusions.)
….
Second, it shows the pervasiveness of ignorance and superficiality with respect to the issue of global warming. (Problem renamed as climate change so that all climate issues and change can be more easily attributed to CO2.) In a comment Woodward states:
“There are a multitude of parallels to this mindset where in spite of a preponderance of hard evidence pointing to one conclusion, a number of self-described skeptics support an alternative conclusion. Climate-change deniers would be the most obvious example.”
….
This is really a preposterously stupid statement. Anyone who would go beyond superficialities would know how biased “mainstream climate scientists” are. Second, anyone who uses the term “denier” in reference to climate change is basically announcing how stupid and intolerant he is in this field. There are many areas where people reject the evidence. (GMOs for example) However, for political reasons the term “denier” [why not use the term “rejectionist” to label people that are claimed to impervious to sound reasoning and facts]is basically reserved for the climate change field to heap moral condemnation and scorn on people who believe that CO2 is not a moral issue and probably not a huge practical problem. It is uninformed statements like this made with certainty that caused me to take such an aggressive stance in my most recent post. Polite reason doesn’t seem to work with anti- CO2 advocates who are suffused with a false sense of moral superiority and claimed sophisticated knowledge.
JD
Lucia,
A recent post of mine was put in moderation. Hope you can free it.
JD
The NYT attempts to work out competing Russian narratives:
.
Trump’s Shift on Russia Brings Geopolitical Whiplash
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/11/world/europe/russia-putin-trump.html?_r=0
.
“Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director for Hillary Clinton’s campaign last year, said the shift in tone in recent days did not mean there was not collusion during the election. “Everything we believed happened in the election could be true — Putin wanted him to be president and the administration took the action it took last week,†she said. “It could all be part of the master ruse — or Putin could be upset about it.â€
.
Master ruse – right. We are back to the theme of the alleged biggest incompetent idiot to ever be elected also being the Wizard of Oz. Powerful narrative.
The neo-McCarthyism that the dnc is enabling is even loonier and more cynical than the original. The quality of thinking behind it is no less shallow than climate extremism or UFO believers. The only people seeking to undermine the legitimacy of the 2016 election are democrats.
Carrick (Comment #161137): “… That’s exactly the pattern you should see if it’s a chemical bomb. … There’s no evidence that the rebels have the capability or knowledge on how to make sarin gas but Syria has used it on their population multiple times previously.”
Very interesting. Thanks, Carrick.
.
Carrick: “As I have pointed out, this is not internationally recognized as a sovereign right of a nation, so responding to a chemical attack cannot be seen as a violation of that nation’s sovereignty.”
Even if it were, Assad gave up any such claim in the agreement signed after the 2013 attack.
HaroldW (Comment #161138): “Working reactors would be compelling.
So would self-sustaining operation”
Another thing that would be compelling would be systematic quantitative studies of the effects of various parameters: the source of H2 gas, pressure of H2 gas, amount of nickel, temperature. Such studies are an essential part of the scientific method. But to do that would require controllable, quantitatively reproducible results. They don’t seem to have that, just occasional results that qualitatively resemble other occasional results.
.
HaroldW: “Let me ask the reverse question — what would it take to convince you that this approach is *not* working?”
An excellent question for Adrian.
Carrick, I thought you meant something like that, but I figured wit a low casualty number you couldn’t differentiate. If the number is higher that makes sense.
>this is not internationally recognized as a sovereign right of a nation, so responding to a chemical attack cannot be seen as a violation of that nation’s sovereignty.
Whether it is a violation or internationally recognized, it is clearly an act of war.
MIT professor disputes the White House report on Syrian sarin attack.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_Vs2rjE9TdwR2F3NFFVWDExMnc/view
John Yoo says Congress’s power to declare war does not limit the President in fighting wars.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/446692/trump-syria-strike-constitutional-presidents-have-broad-war-powers
MikeN—Read it. Honestly, I found it to be pretty amateurish. Extremely chatty, with not much substance in the main narrative. I never heard of Postol, but I suspect if I tune into MSNBC, I’ll get my fill, till they shift focus to the next anti-Trump topic.
One of the things people who do forensics for a career make a bit point about is being careful in the conclusions you draw about sites that might have been tampered with. In the case of the bomb crater, Postol is making a huge deal about the crushed metal pipe, which is just frankly stupid on his part.
We don’t know if the pipe even has anything to do with the crater, or the bomb. It could have been placed there later for unrelated reasons, or it could have been ejecta–my assumption actually–then returned to the bomb site later when they were cleaning up. Endless speculation is possible.
The only part we can definitively discuss and draw conclusions with the crater itself. But he did virtually nothing with that, no yield model, no estimate of type of explosive, nothing. Looking at it casually, I’d say it’s consistent with not being a high-energy explosion, which by the way is the only claim that was made about the crater in the intelligence briefing.
Postol claims the report “cannot be correct”, but he’s spent his time talking about the pipe—which isn’t even mentioned in the intelligence brief by the way—and spends virtually nothing on addressing the actual claims of the brief. (I’d guess if the pipe were really pinned between the ground and the explosion it would have been shattered into 1000 pieces… like the rest of the bomb carcass was. The fact it was nearly intact suggests to me it was originally ejecta.)
He also bizarrely comes out against the the 2013 sarin gas attack being from the Syrian government—it’s as if the 600 metric tons of chemical agents that were collected from the Syrian government and disposed of, never happened.
When one builds a forensic scenario, you don’t get to choose which facts to include in isolation from the rest. Postol doesn’t seem to know about anything about that, either with this or with the August 2013 attack. There are alway going to be ambiguous elements to any scene, but the pieces have to fit together in the end, and that eliminates a lot of what otherwise could be ambiguous.
I remember him being a big name at MIT, not in a political way like Noam Chomsky, but can’t recall in what context I’d heard of him.
He mentions several times about IF the crater hasn’t been tampered with.
I recall Postol’s name from Gulf War days, when he questioned the reports of Patriot anti-missile systems effectiveness against SCUD missiles. His Wikipedia article suggests that he was correct in this criticism, though another article provides a more nuanced view.
MikeN:
But you have to assume it’s been tampered with—there’s a frigging warning sign stuck in it.
From other views, his “pipe” doesn’t even look like a pipe at all; I’d suspect, more likely, it’s a curved metal plate curled up by the blast force and heat, which was later manually dragged in the crater, then partially covered over by rubble from the street.
Figure.
=====
Edit: Looking at another angle, I think the metal is not covered, it’s sitting on top of the crater. Figure 2
=====
Quite obviously the crater’s been tampered with. You’d have to be a complete idiot, or something a lot worse, to assume it hadn’t been.
Among the physical evidence he chooses to ignore by the way, (I gave a non-exhaustive list above) is data for the flight path of the craft that attacked the city contemporaneous to the chemical gas release .
HaroldW—thanks. From what I can tell with that report and this one, Postol seems to be pretty economical with the truth: He uses facts only when they cooperate with him and no where else.
Postol writes that he located the crater using Google Earth. That seems to be a pretty good trick unless he has access to a Google Earth with an aerial photo fresher than June, 2014, which is the month of the one my Earth Pro displays for this location. Maybe Cousin Vinnie could lend him a hand with this.
.
I suspect that he meant to write that he had used Google Earth to display the site of the crater based on other information that he had.
.
Or maybe someone gave him a current aerial and he’s just trying to be cute.
.
I agree with Carrick that Postol’s style seems a bit loose for what purports to be a forensic report.
Fake news 1 Postol
“Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology, and National Security Policy Massachusetts Institute of Technology
I am responding to a White House statement claiming intelligence
findings about the nerve agent attack on April 4, 2017 in Khan Shaykhun, Syria. this White House intelligence summary was released April 11, 2017.
I have reviewed the document carefully, and I believe it can be shown, without doubt, that the document does not provide any evidence whatsoever that the US government has concrete knowledge that the government of Syria was the source of the chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun, Syria at roughly 6 to 7 a.m.
on April 4, 2017.”
Fake news 2 Postol
Figure 8 shows the improvised sarin dispenser along with a typical 122 mm artillery rocket and the modified artillery rocket used in the sarin attack of August 21, 2013 in Damascus.
A mistake surely you need airfields and planes to attack with S
At that time (August 30, 2013) the Obama White House also issued an intelligence report containing
obvious inaccuracies. For example, that report stated without equivocation that the sarin carrying artillery
rocket used in Damascus had been fired from Syrian government controlled areas. As it turned out, the
particular munition used in that attack could not go further than roughly 2 km, very far short of any boundary
controlled by the Syrian government at that time. The White House report at that time also contained other
critical and important errors that might properly be described as amateurish. For example, the report
claimed that the locations of the launch and impact of points of the artillery rockets were observed by US
satellites. This claim was absolutely false and any competent intelligence analyst would have known that.
The rockets could be seen from the Space-Based Infrared Satellite (SBIRS) but the satellite could
absolutely not see the impact locations because the impact locations were not accompanied by explosions.
These errors were clear indicators that the White House intelligence report had in part been fabricated and
had not been vetted by competent intelligence experts.
This same situation appears to be the case with the current White House intelligence report. No competent
analyst would assume that the crater cited as the source of the sarin attack was unambiguously an
indication that the munition came from an aircraft. No competent analyst would assume that the
photograph of the carcass of the sarin canister was in fact a sarin canister. Any competent analyst would
have had questions about whether the debris in the crater was staged or real. No competent analyst would
miss the fact that the alleged sarin canister was forcefully crushed from above, rather than exploded by a
as “not a slamdunk.â€
See also this for more details.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/assessment-of-white-house-intelligence-report-about-nerve-agent-attack-in-khan-shaykhun-syria/5584867
.
As I said, don’t trust government reports without independent verification. American policy has been for regime change in Syria for many years.
Israeli policy, that drives American policy in the region, is to Balkanize Syria.
Adrian –
That’s Dr. Postol’s analysis, linked earlier by MikeN.
I fully agree with your point about “don’t trust government reports without independent verification.”
HaroldW, if you had read it first you would have seen that it contains “more details.”
And even more, don’t trust outsiders who are historically pushing ideological points and have been discredited in the past. Assad and his pop have a history with wmd gas attacks. He got away with using gas after the 2012 Obama deal. Sarin is not easily obtained, apparently. And “faking” a sarin attack? Please.
Lucia,
After this sort of irrational comment:
.
“I’ll leave you to your handful of loyal followers. I’ve got better things to do than read many of the insulting comments on this thread.”
.
I think it would save everyone the time spent writing perfectly reasonable comments about how cold fusion is a scam if you would take him at his word and block this crazy from commenting. He very seriously needs help, but not with physics.
Adrian –
I did not find “more details” at your link than at MikeN’s. They appear to be identical in content, with minor formatting differences.
Perhaps Dr. Postol subsequently provided some additional analysis?
HaroldW
Sure. But that’s doesn’t mean “do trust non-government reports that have no independent verification.”
Lucia,
Yes. It’s unsettling that we’ve seen so much slanting (at a minimum) of reports that nothing may be taken for granted.
Things were a lot simpler when I was younger and more naive, trusting in many authorities.
Harold W.
My mistake. I had not scrolled down past where I thought it had ended.
.
hunter.
Hersh stated that the earlier attack was a false flag too and gave the origin of the gas.
It is totally illogical that Assad would use sarin for no particular military advantage.
It seems the Syrian strike and the big bomb in Afghanistan served as a worldwide warning America hasn’t given up attacking other countries despite Trump’s earlier statements.
The Russian defense of Assad is persuasive.
http://i1.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2017/04/sub-mrz041517-color_orig.jpg?resize=580%2C421
Adrian Ashfield: “It is totally illogical that Assad would use sarin for no particular military advantage.”
It is illogical to assume that a dictator carrying out a war against his own people would make all decisions based solely on military advantage.
Upthread, Carrick (Comment #160939) provided a link that goes into the sick logic of Assad’s attacks on civilians. So you don’t have to look for it: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/06/world/middleeast/syria-bashar-al-assad-russia-sarin-attack.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=b-lede-package-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
From the link: “For years, at least since it began shelling neighborhoods with artillery in 2012, then bombing them from helicopters and later from jets, the Syrian government has adopted a policy of seeking total victory by making life as miserable as possible for anyone living in areas outside its control.”
Obama gave us the worldwide catastrophe of his and Hillary’s “Arab spring” which gave us ISIS, instability in the Muslim world, a weak Iraq a strong Iran and an embattled destabilized Syria. And millions of refugees That far too many loons see as needed immigrants. That said, cleaning up the dog excrement policy will not be helped by idly watching wmds be used against people. The options available, thanks to 8 years of feckless policy making, are few and poor.
“For years, at least since it began shelling neighborhoods with artillery in 2012, then cutting heads off, the Syrian rebels have adopted a policy of seeking total victory by making life as miserable as possible for anyone living in areas outside its control.”
For those who forget Syria 7 years ago was a thriving, tolerant society with lots of semi modern cities and a good standard of living. While I sympathize with the majority Sunni who were to some degree oppressed the price of true freedom was the slaughter and misery of millions. No Gandhi approach here which might have been possible over time.
The only thing that saved Assad was that the rebels decided to expand in Iraq as well using American weapons designed to attack Assad. What genius came up with that idea should really be given the Darwin award.
angech,
Nominations for your great Darwin Award idea might be a real challenge. Not.
So who, some 8 years ago, was in charge of American policy and was calling for am Arab Spring to bring hope and change to the Middle East?
Mike M.
It was illogical considering the risk of it bringing American involvement.
Both sides behave badly in a civil war. It is the nature of the beast.
.
The NYT article was a one sided attack by a supporter of Hillary, who had a fair hand in starting ISIS by first supporting them and then attacking Libya.
.
The fire bombing of Tokyo killed a 100,000. Many in Dresden too, not to mention Nagasaki and Hiroshima. I guess those babies weren’t as beautiful as the Syrian ones that were killed.
.
My main point was that America attacked Syria before an investigation to prove Assad was responsible for the sarin attacks. There seems to be increasing evidence that he wasn’t. It was American and Israeli policy to remove Assad, so it rather looks like it was used as an excuse to do what they wanted to do anyway and to show America was still prepared tu use force.
As Albright said, what’s the point of having the most powerful military force if you don’t use it?
The evidence supporting the idea Assad didn’t do this time what he had done in the past is flimsy at best. Repetition of the Assad is innocent story doesn’t make it more credible. Actually acting on the prior Administration’s “red line” policy….even after so many years…is probably a good way to start pulling back from the drift towards large conflagration. Blaming Israel just seems sort of predictable and shallow. Almost as worthless as when some blamed the civil war in Syria on climate.
hunter,
What do you find difficult to understand here?
“My main point was that America attacked Syria before an investigation to prove Assad was responsible for the sarin attacks.”
.
It took 20 years for the truth about the Gulf of Tonkin to surface.
How many million Vietnamese did America kill based on an outright lie?
Adrian,
If you want people to think your main point is merely the first sentence in the following, perhaps you ought to omit all the other claims which– evidently, are not your “main point”.
Or even if they aren’t your main point, perhaps you should find a critical thinking cell in your head and realize that if you make these multiple other claims, people are justified in responding to them and they will. Coming back with an argumentative reply asking them what is so “difficult” to understand and editing out all the other stuff you said… well… sorry. No one is going to think that cuts it.
In fact, you made several claims including some that amount to conspiracy theories about motivates. You can try to wave away criticism of that by saying only the first sentence is your “main point”. But people the criticism of your conspiracy stuff is still warranted.
Or at least people who can think critically will know it’s warranted.
>The only thing that saved Assad was
Not the only thing…
The truth of Tonkin is that it apparently really did happen. Are you now going to blame Lincoln for Ft. Sumter? And when you toss our a bunch of points I get to respond to them. It will be fascinating to learn of your take on 911.
Lucia,
“If you want people to think your main point is merely the first sentences in the following, perhaps you ought to omit all the other claims which– evidently, not your “main pointâ€.
.
It was my main point. If America had a record of being truthful and the intelligence used being right, it might have got a pass. But history shows that America shoots first before thinking, if it suits the government. If that sentence was not the first and only one, it was because I was answering points made by others.
.
I also find the hypocrisy about the beautiful Syrian babies killed, ignoring the far greater number America has killed, is annoying, but you are right that is irrelevant.
You complain about conspiracy theories. Mainly I wrote about history. I don’t have to make things up. You really don’t think America did those things?
Regardless of your reason for making those points, responding in a snide way that insinuated Hunter has not understood you was juvenile on your part. He had every right to engage points advanced.
I’ve never said you or anyone saying something about Syrian babies was irrelevant. So I have no idea why you are prefacing that with “you are right”.
It doesn’t matter what you think you “mainly” wrote about. You advanced conspiracy theories and people get to respond to those.
Which things? Are you asking me to engage your conspiracy about Israel? Or the one about US motives? Please clarify your question– if you are able to do so.
hunter:
The first incident was real. The second was apparently mis-classified radar ghosts. It’s a different type of warning actually—governments just like people occasionally are mistaken, and that’s why it’s important to have a range of inputs.
Declassified document here which covers a lot of what is known about the incident(s).
By the way, this particular documents shows how paragraphs and pages are properly marked, and what markings get added when the document gets declassified. This came up with the Clinton email server fiasco, so I thought I’d point that out.
hunter:
Maybe a few pieces of information here or there that could be interpreted in such a fashion, but I think, overwhelmingly, the bulk of the evidence, arriving from multiple independent sources, strongly supports the conclusion that Syria was responsible for yet another gas attack on their own populace.
Being “economic with the truth” isn’t a redeeming feature.
Lucia.
I wrote: “My MAIN point was that America attacked Syria before an investigation to prove Assad was responsible for the sarin attacks.”
Read hunter’s reply again . He ignored that completely.
.
You wrote: “I’ve never said you or anyone saying something about Syrian babies was irrelevant. So I have no idea why you are prefacing that with “you are rightâ€.
What you said earlier was: “If you want people to think your main point is merely the first sentence in the following, perhaps you ought to omit all the other claims which– evidently, are not your “main pointâ€.
.
You wrote: “You advanced conspiracy theories and people get to respond to those.”
What did I write about that you consider a “conspiracy theory”?
..
AA: You really don’t think America did those things?
Lucia: “Which things?
..
All the many wars.
Adrian
He engaged points you did make which is entirely fair. He is not required to engage every point– not even the one you wish to inform us is your “main” one.
Uhmm… which in no way implies that I’ve suggested someone saying anything about Syrian babies is irrelevant.
I am mystified. I am aware we have fought wars. My father in law and grandfather fought in WWII. So: yes, I think we have fought wars. I have no idea why you are asking this.
Adrian,
.
You need to read what you write.
.
America shoot first? Not in our Revolution, not sure about 1812, Fort Sumter’s a wash, politics don’t you know. Late to Spanish American war. We were even later to both WW1 and WW2, and clearly didn’t shoot first in either. Nor in Korea, nor really in Vietnam, nor Croatia, nor Iraq one; but yes, you have a case for Iraq two, and maybe Syria, but then only if the facts as you suppose them to be don’t support the conclusion that the Syrian government did the Sarining. I doubt if I’m the only one who finds Dr. Postol’s piece unconvincing.
You might also consider the possibility that because a government has misrepresented something in the past doesn’t mean another government necessarily misrepresents something now.
Is the term twaddle still in use where you live?
Adrian, by whose standards was a “full investigation” not done? And who performs the “full investigation” and who decides if it was done. Perhaps you think there is a special Judge Judy who decides if Assad was innocent this time of not gassing his people. I trust President Trump and his security team more than I trust Putin, Assad, or Judge Judy.
j ferguson,
He’s a conspiracy nut. Not worth it.
SteveF,
14 years old, and not very smart either.
Has anything been heard from Kenneth Fritsch? He had a serious operation a few weeks ago. I’ve been worrying about him.
hunter (Comment #161271)
” Nominations for your great Darwin Award idea might be a real challenge. So who, some 8 years ago, was in charge of American policy and was calling for am Arab Spring to bring hope and change to the Middle East?”
Americans?
Obama was in charge but policy initiatives had to have come from the Defense forces and CIA one would imagine.Presidents are pawns in these situations.
It was still one dumb move to support the Syrian rebels [read Sunni/Saddam/ISIS with guns and mobile equipment after just having toppled Saddam and expecting them to cooperate.
Reality?
Russia wants and will get Syrian oil in perpetuity.
The policy does not seem to have changed one iota, they just put bigger blinkers on.
Conspiracy theories ? never ascribe a conspiracy when plain human stupidity could be the cause.
Logic of Empire (1941) Heinlein declares: “You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity”.
Hence Carrick and Trump right to blame Assad.
Proof?
We don’t need no proof.
However I hope I would admit to being wrong when real proof comes along.
j ferguson,
I searched comments. His last one was on March 30. I hope he’s ok.
J ferguson, Lucia,
IIRC, he said multiple bypass surgery. My wife and I were discussing on Saturday the tragedy of all the knowledge lost when a someone passes. Best to pass on what you can. I too hope he is OK.
.
j ferguson: WRT Adrian, I hope for his sake you are right. I believe he has claimed to be retired.
Lucia,
” All the many wars.
I am mystified. I am aware we have fought wars. My father in law and grandfather fought in WWII. So: yes, I think we have fought wars. I have no idea why you are asking this.”
.
AA: You really don’t think America did those things?
Lucia: “Which things?”
AA: All the many wars.
.
America has fought 13 wars in the last 30 years at a cost of $12.4 trillion. (ref Jack Ma in Davos)
hunter,
America shot first in the Iraq war. (2003)
America shot first in the still on-going Afghanistan war. Afghanistan had little to do with 9/11 apart from giving bin Laden sanctuary. None of the attackers in 9/11 were Afghans, they were Saudis.
America shot first in Libya, thanks to Hillary.
America helped start the civil war in Syria and later shot first. Another regime change disaster.
.,
America was not attacked in any of the above. Now apparently having WMD is sufficient cause for America to attack countries it doesn’t like. Why shouldn’t that give other countries the right to attack America, who has the greatest number of WMD, particularly as shown above, America is the initial aggressor and a country needs WMD to prevent this?
angech:
Oh what sophomoric crap. And that’s being kind.
Sorry, but there’s already been plenty of real proof offered. You’ve simply failed to engage any evidence from the start start. Nobody is fooled.
Adrian: “Now apparently having WMD is sufficient cause for America to attack countries it doesn’t like.”
Certainly in the case of Syria it looks like “using” not just “having” WMD. I have not really understood the difference between killing people nicely and using gas. They’re still dead.
Should Team America have intervened here? (“Attacked” in your parlance.) I think it is moral to do so. There’s an old argument against the existence of the theist’s god – BOO. Benign Omniscient Omnipotence. I formulated by own version when I was about 12; it was obvious that the god I was taught about every day in school did not cohere with events in the real world. If the god of my headteacher Mr Solley had the three characteristics of BOO then there should be no suffering.
Applying this to the temporal powers, if you have knowledge of a crime and the ability to prevent it, you must act, even if it makes you unpopular. Bombing the runway was the right thing to do. It was measured. What you have not mentioned about these wars is that the west fight with the aim of minimising civilian casualties – oft exploited by our enemies.
j ferguson:
Since it’s mostly just unsubstantiated opinion—other than a wild theory about a piece of twisted metal that may or may not be related to the device used to disperse the gas—yeah, I’d hope any independent thinker would find it unconvincing.
The one piece of quantitative work Postol presents relates to estimates of lethality downwind (diffusion study). In his model, he assumes the wind speeds are equal to the reported meteorological wind speeds. Unfortunately, ground wind speeds are slower, and typically in a different direction than elevated wind speed:
The wind direction very typically is in a different direction on the surface compared to the elevated geostrophic winds, and approximately follows an “Ekman spiral” in planetary layers between the surface and the top of the planetary boundary layer (see, Section 5.3.4 of this link .)
You would need to run a meteorological code to accurately predict how the gas plume associated with the explosion diffused. Unfortunately, what Postol has presented isn’t interesting even for back-of-the envelope estimates.
He has neither population models, a map of causalities, nor a plausible toy model for gas diffusion. So basically he has nothing.
Why did he include it then? Well, most of the document is just photos with scant analysis performed to justify their inclusion, the full intel brief from US intel, which is nearly as long as his own ramble, so what Postol actually produced himself is quite thin. I would surmise he wanted to pad his few pages of rambly text with something that looked like an actual analytic model. Like he’d done some actual analysis himself.
If you have a map of causality, a population model, and a model of atmospheric diffusion, this would tell us quite a bit the height of the plume and mass of the toxin causing the lethal effects, and in turn that would provide information on the device or devices that produced the causalities looked like but good luck to anybody expecting Postol to elucidate any of this.
I think he is using the same tactics employed by the Russian government, namely he wants to “muddle things up” so that no clear picture of culpability emerges. Interestingly, one of the first places his report appeared on was unsurprisingly Russian’s propaganda station, RT.
Carrick: I read that as Angech agreeing with you. Maybe I’m too slow. Was he not equating villainy with conspiracy and saying that the nefarious dictator was actually dumb enough to use gas, calculating that Trumpy wouldn’t act?
Jit:
I think the idea of free will mucks that argument up.
If humans are permitted to choose, most of our choices will increase our suffering relative to to the path the deity would choose for us. One might ask what the purpose of our creation, if we’re just to be dutiful robots lacking free will.
And, it’s not clear that no suffering is possible even with no free will is involved or optimal choices are always made, in a universe where resources are finite. A best choice might minimize universal suffering, but finite resources themselves must produce suffering.
(The Stoics would argue in any case that most suffering is caused by our response to our circumstances, rather than by the circumstances themselves.)
I think this particular bombing was very measured compared to what one might expect if a second chemical attack is made. It’s achieved a number of ends, including making both Russia and Syria look rather impotent. If we take seriously the belief that Syria did this to show the power they had over their population (“look–no matter how savagely we treat you, the West will not help you”), then this has totally undermined in one swift act that argument.
I’m always delighted when my government actually does something competent, for once, especially given the glaring lack of competence on Obama’s part on foreign policy, starting with his mishandling of Libya and Iraq, followed by his inability to act in Syria when events required a US response.
Jit:
I’m pretty sure he was just being sarcastic: “However I hope I would admit to being wrong when real proof comes along.”
My emphasis. I think he was equating my arguments with having no argument.
Regarding the problem of evil, my 12-year-old self probably lacked a little nuance. I maybe pictured the Universe as a vast version of the school playground, with god as a sort of uber-powerful dinner lady banning things like British Bulldog and generally keeping order.
There are philosophical backwaters re the PoE that I’ve got lost in before.
Adrian, your definition of “shooting first” is not well rooted in reality. Sort of like lenr
But I digress. Unless you are a 911 truther the reality is that Afghanistan Taliban assisted Al Qaeda with 911. Most people consider 911 a “first strike”. And you did not answer my question about “investigation”.
Jit (Comment #161298): “Certainly in the case of Syria it looks like “using†not just “having†WMD. I have not really understood the difference between killing people nicely and using gas. They’re still dead.”
Syria has long been party to an international agreement banning chemical weapons. Just a few years ago Assad signed a treaty with the U.S. promising to not use chemical weapons and to destroy the ones he had. That provides a legal basis for a U.S. response to Assad’s use of chemical weapons, even if there is no moral difference between that and his bombing of civilians.
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Jit: “if you have knowledge of a crime and the ability to prevent it, you must act, even if it makes you unpopular.”
That is only true if there is an actual crime as defined by the law (using chemical weapons), not merely something that is wrong (bombing civilians).
Mike M., there are standards of behaviour that transcend laws, I reckon.
Have you heard that psychological experiment where the subject, er, victim, is put in charge of a lever that will take a runaway train into a siding. On the track with their ear defenders on are x workers. There is one in the siding. If you switch the tracks, the person in the siding dies – but you save the x on the track. It’s an interesting thought experiment.
The runaway train is not an agent and cannot commit a crime. But it is usually right to kill the 1 in the siding (I think the average number for x is something like 6 before the subject would switch tracks and kill 1 – I may be mistaken on this).
To add to which, I understand a warning was given, enabling evacuation of personnel.
Jit (Comment #161308): “there are standards of behaviour that transcend laws, I reckon.”
Of course there are. But, absent laws, you do not have the right, let alone a duty, to impose your standards on me.
I don’t see what your thought experiment has to do with this.
Jitt,
“What you have not mentioned about these wars is that the west fight with the aim of minimising civilian casualties – oft exploited by our enemies.”
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Oh yes?
MILLIONS more killed and wounded in Iraq, Libya and Syria than if America had stayed out. Half a million children died in Iraq as a result of the embargo on drugs. That’s more children than died in Hiroshima. Ms. Albright commented “We think the price was worth it.”
Whole countries were destroyed.
As for deliberate, how about the firebombing of Tokyo & Dresden. Atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima?
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Just what good have the 13 wars done in the last 30 years compared to the cost in blood and treasure?
Mike M., I mention the runaway train because you implied that we can’t act unless there’s a crime:
“Jit: “if you have knowledge of a crime and the ability to prevent it, you must act, even if it makes you unpopular.â€
That is only true if there is an actual crime as defined by the law (using chemical weapons), not merely something that is wrong (bombing civilians).”
(maybe I misunderstood.)
Adrian – since one can never tell what the cost of inaction is, this is a moot point. The idea has to be to act “for the greater good” come what may.
Jit: “I mention the runaway train because you implied that we can’t act unless there’s a crime”.
I never said anything of the sort. If I have to explain that, then the explanation would be a waste of time.
Carrick,
“Since it’s mostly just unsubstantiated opinion”
Short of a proper investigation no one knows.
Your page of waffle does nothing to prove otherwise.
Adrian Ashfield:
If this is as good as it gets for you, perhaps you should find something else to do with your time.
Carrick,
It is a waste of time to debate with someone impervious to facts like you.
lol.
On it being a waste of time to debate you, I absolutely agree.
Carrick,
The only person who knows for sure if Assad used poison gas is Assad himself. No one on this blog does. Your opinion is just that. After a proper investigation (if one is done) others will know. Being impervious to facts of course you can’t have a factual discussion.
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You remind me of former CIA director George Tenet saying the intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s WMD was a “slam dunk.â€
Assad didn’t fly the planes and load the bombs. He would have ordered someone else to do it. The pilots who flew the mission and the ground crew that loaded the ordnance on the aircraft had no idea what they were carrying? Not likely.
More fatuousness.
Adrian millions did not die in Iraq, Syria and Libya due to American military action. And who made 911 attacks? Enquiring minds want to know.
DeWitt, yep. Remember Hitler and his ghost armies? The dictator doesn’t always know himself.
Adrian can’t say anything intelligent, so he resorts to child-like insults.
Carrick,
Why would you engage such rubbish? (not rhetorical) The guy is a conspiracy nut… cold fusion hasn’t been commercialized because of opposition from “vested interests” in fossil fuels, all physical scientists are conspiring to ignore cold fusion, the USA enters many wars to ‘capture peteoleum’, etc, etc. It is ALL 100% wacko.
MikeM, is there something in the Chemical Weapons treaty or 2013 Syria agreement or elsewhere that says other countries are authorized to bomb countries that violate the terms? Has the Security Council passed a resolution authorizing action against Syria?
MikeN: “is there something in the Chemical Weapons treaty or 2013 Syria agreement or elsewhere that says other countries are authorized to bomb countries that violate the terms? Has the Security Council passed a resolution authorizing action against Syria?”
Unlikely, not as such, and I don’t much care. Violating treaties should have consequences.
MikeN,
“Has the Security Council passed a resolution authorizing action against Syria?”
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Putting aside any reference to morality, it falls in the general range of ‘real politic’ Does one respond to war crimes against civilians, or not? If not, why not? I have talked with some people (especially in Europe) who are willing to tolerate horrific war crims against civilians without acting. I am not so willing.
Hunter,
“Adrian millions did not die in Iraq, Syria and Libya due to American military action.”
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I said killed and wounded. Not counting the half million children killed by the drug embargo, the prestigious medical journal The Lancet, estimated that over 600,000 Iraqis had been killed as a result of the invasion as of July 2006. Millions including wounded (~x10 deaths), and that’s just for Iraq.
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America targeted water treatment plants, sewage plants and power station because “we had run out of targets.” God knows how many died because of that.
MikeM, you wrote:
Now you say violating treaties should have consequences, and are inventing a legal basis to impose your standards.
MikeN: “Now you say violating treaties should have consequences, and are inventing a legal basis to impose your standards.”
Nonsense. There is no “invention” of a legal basis and no unilateral imposition of a standard, since the standard was agreed to by treaty. There was pressure put on Syria to agree to the treaty, but that was with the approval of the UN Security Council. The only thing imposed unilaterally was the punishment. Unfortunate, but there is no option that is both realistic and effective.
Adrian, who blew up the WTC?
Mike M, you said
“That provides a legal basis for a U.S. response to Assad’s use of chemical weapons,”
Now you concede that you are imposing a punishment without any legal basis.
Jit (Comment #161300)
Carrick: I read that as Angech agreeing with you.
“Hence Carrick and Trump right to blame Assad.”
Spot on.
“he was just being sarcastic: “However I hope I would admit to being wrong when real proof comes along.â€
Not at all, I know that you would do the same thing in the unlikely event that you are wrong.
After Russia’s actions in the Ukraine I do not expect Russia to admit to any guilt or complicity.
It comes down to if a senior Syrian Officer or a senior Turkish ISIS
….officer were to fess up with some documented proof.
MikeN (Comment #161329): “Now you concede …”
You need to work on your reading comprehension.
MikeN,
As Carl von Clausewitz stated, war is a mere continuation of policy with other means. I also think you are suffering under the illusion that there is such a thing as international law.
Nobody declares war anymore.
https://www.quora.com/What-defines-an-Act-of-War
hunter,
“Adrian, who blew up the WTC?”
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“The September 11 attacks (also referred to as 9/11)[nb 1] were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda on the United States” Wikipedia.
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“al-Qæda and sometimes al-Qa’ida) is a militant Sunni Islamist multi-national organization founded in 1988[26] by Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam,[27] and several other Arab volunteers who fought against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda
Note they were good guys when they were fighting Russia in Afghanistan, armed and financed by America. They have this strange concept of not wanting foreign forces in their land.
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Ir wasn’t the government of Afghanistan any more than than the Ku Klux Klan represent America’s government.
angech—my bad. Yes, if evidence came out the other way, I would certainly not keep arguing the same position. If I had found Postol convincing, for example, I would have been siding for him.
Regarding MikeN’s comments, here is how I view it. I’m obviously not an international law expert, so I probably have some of this not quite right:
I would describe “sovereignty” as the power invested in a nation to govern itself without outside interference.
Sovereign acts are acts that are internationally recognized as within the scope of the sovereignty of a nation, for which there is no justification for international interference on.
Acts that are not recognized as having sovereignty include genocide, and the use of weapons on mass destruction on one’s civilian population. That means international interference can both be anticipated, and that the international interference is justified, as long as the response is proportional in some sense to the non-sovereign act.
I would view an act of war (a “hostile act”) as illegal interference with the internal affairs of a nation, that is violations of national sovereignty.
So if Syria gassed its own people, it cannot look for redress for an international response to that act, because as long as that response was proportional to the non-sovereign act by Syria, the country or countries involved in the response were within their internationally-recognized rights to respond. That is the (proportional to the criminal act on the part of Syria) response cannot be viewed under international law as a hostile act.
There is, as far as I understand, no basis in international law that requires the United States to get the approval of all, or even a majority, of the other nations before it responds in a proportional manner to a non-sovereign act by another nation.
Getting approval by the United Nations to respond to a non-sovereign act is a highly political act, and as such, I really don’t see it conferring much in the way of moral authority. Basically it just means the other nations are saying ‘we recognize your right to respond to this non-sovereign act’. That just gives you some cover that the other nations won’t view your actions as themselves illegal.
I don’t want to disrupt the interesting conversations going, but I’d like to mention an article in Harvard Political Review, “Should You Believe in Climate Change?” It attempts to draw a parallel to Pascal’s wager, constrasting “immeasurable” benefits with “insignificant” costs. [h/t Barry Woods on Twitter]
I believe that opinion pieces which posited “existential threats” to humanity, or that we have only N months to “save the planet”, have been major reasons that the climate change discussion has been both so polarized and nugatory. [And indeed convinced me that it was not being debated as a scientific question.] This most recent article, with its false dichotomy, along with the claims of “immeasurable”/”insignificant” costs/benefits, is just more claptrap along similar lines.
HaroldW: ” … This most recent article, with its false dichotomy, along with the claims of “immeasurableâ€/â€insignificant†costs/benefits, is just more claptrap along similar lines.”
Absolutely correct. The article really just assumes that which it seeks to prove.
The logic of Pascal’s wager actually leads to the conclusion that we should put a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere, so as to avoid a new glacial period in the current ice age. That would truly be a massive environmental disaster that can be avoided at little cost. But I do not advocate doing that, since Pascal’s wager is silly.
HaroldW,
The article you link to completely misses the actual argument against draconian reductions in fossil fuel use: The cost looks to many to be far higher than the risk of high future cost. It is more than a little amusing that the article chooses to frame the argument as a fundamentally ‘religious’ question (using Pascal’s wager)… because for the green left IT IS! The humor is probably lost on them; the green left does not want to address (or even hear) the real, and very rational, argument against their green agenda… it is stupid and counterproductive public policy. They can’t get past the assumption that they are absolutely (even religiously) correct.
DeWitt, I agree with you regarding international law. It seems to me others are taking the position that war is acceptable/mandatory when countries do things I don’t like, justified by international law/rules of war.
Carrick you write
In summary we have, international interference is not justified on all acts which are not recognized as ones where international interference is justified. You appear to be picking and choosing which acts you like and don’t like, and the level of appropriate response, and are claiming a legal authority for it. I think you are wrong about the need to go the Security Council in these instances but have not read the relevant treaties. In general the UN charter requires Security Council approval.
One other thing. I was asking not with regards to Security Council, but whether the bombing constitutes an act of war that Congress should declare. Leaving aside John Yoo’s argument that we are misunderstanding the clause, it is clear to me that it is an act of war to bomb an air base regardless of the nature of the action to which you are responding.
MikeN:
I’m pretty sure I made it clear I was differentiating acts that are considered sovereign versus those that are not. This isn’t a differentiation I made based on personal preferences, it’s one that I believe is made by international law.
Pretty sure it is not true that a nation must consult with the UN Security Council before it can act, in situations like this. With Russia being a **** about Syria, in any case, nothing would ever get done.
I don’t think there’s any issue, unless the President wants to declare war, or send combat troops into Syria.
It’s not like the Syrian government, with their…something like 18,000 regular forces left and roughly 100 serviceable military aircraft, are planning on invading the US. Even at full strength, it is an army with a long history of badly humiliating defeats and and a reputation for total corruption and incompetence.
There are things I fear about Trump, but an invasion of the US by Syria, provoked by his actions, is not really one of them.
By the way, here’s a rather blunt assessment of the state of the Syrian army and air force.
It’s interesting to consider that this army, in the nearly 100 year history of modern Syria, has never had a single recognizable military victory. There are likely more young Syrian males hiding out in Europe, waiting for the war to end, than there are left at home.
The purpose of many militaries in the 3rd world is to suppress their citizens, not to actually engage foreign powers. A great example of this was Argentina during the Falkland Island war. When actually confronted with Great Britain the Argentine military folded badly. Which led to the final demise of the military led oligarchy that had dominated Argentina for decades. The only success the Argentine military had experienced was in kidnapping torturing and killing Argentinians. Syria seems to follow that pattern well.
On a different note, much needed H1B reform is on the horizon.
In the form of an executive order.
It’s interesting how much progress Trump can make on his agenda simply by writing executive orders to enforce existing law. Talk about low hanging fruit.
There’s almost no point to a wall now, even if you thought it would work.
Carrick,
“It’s interesting how much progress Trump can make on his agenda simply by writing executive orders to enforce existing law.’
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Sure, and he has hardly touched the surface of what he can do under existing immigration law. The law is very clear about not harboring and sheltering illegal immigrants, and every local and state official involved in the “sanctuary” movement is a multi-time felon who should be sitting in prison, not in office. Same for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants: multi-time felons. The problem is that no president has been serious about controlling illegal immigration since 1986 (nor before!) when the then 2.7 million illegals were suddenly declared ‘legal’. Immigration under the 1986 law, which required verification of legal residency for employees, has simply never been enforced. You might be able to guess the effect of the 1986 amnesty on illegal immigration since then.
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Other countries do not have the kinds of problems we have with illegal immigrants because those other countries make it essentially impossible for illegal residents to do any of the things that they can do in the States: open a bank account, rent an apartment, get a driver’s license, be formally employed (not paid in cash under the table), etc. The problem could be solved instantly by passing a law that enforces required legal residency for all the activities only residents should be doing. Politicians have chosen not to.
SteveF,
I agree that treating illegals as if they were legal isn’t so good. The EU does have a similar problem if I understand it. France seems to have granted citizenship to all of its colonials which enables them to live in Paris, culture be damned. Additionally they have to absorb citizens of any other country in the EU which has greatly increased numbers of unemployed in some cities and for sure number of pickpockets and criminals with all sorts of other skill-sets.
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Pickpockets in Paris are so brazen that we sat behind a group of them on the Metro dividing their take. Their schtick was having an adult seek signers to a petition supporting peace in our time in the vicinity of the Eiffel, while children went through the signers’ pockets. We couldn’t identify kids’ ethnic origins but their French was not so hot.
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I would think that the vast majority of our non-immigrant-status crime is home-grown. Something to consider is that the illegals may decide it is in their best interest to maintain a very low profile crime-wise lest they be sent somewhere less amenable, like their homes for example.
Under the law, the government is required to not give ANY visas to Indians, because they are not taking back criminals.
Companies hold seminars about how to get around the rules on H!B visas, like where to post ads so you can claim you looked for Americans to do the job.
Carrick, I don’t think something is called an act of war or not an act of war based on the quality of the other country’s military forces. Russia and China do make it difficult to get UN support for wars. That is why I asked if there was anything authorizing action in other treaties or the Syria chemical weapons agreement.
MikeN:
There’s also no phrase “act of war” in our constitution. So what’s your legal theory on when the President has to seek permission from Congress before he can exercise his constitutional duties as CNC?
I would suggest permission is required when he is putting our troops in harm’s way, or that there’s a strong probability that the action will lead to military conflict. Neither of these conditions are present here.
Carrick, what about ordering up an action which is going to cost money?
Carrick: “I would suggest permission is required when he is putting our troops in harm’s way, or that there’s a strong probability that the action will lead to military conflict. Neither of these conditions are present here.”
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For the most part I have found your comments re Syria to be spot on, but I think you are mistaken here. The Constitution places no such restrictions on the President. Such restrictions would be meaningless. Any military action places troops in harm’s way, so that would block all action by the President. There is no meaningful way to independently assess whether there was a “strong probability” of a particular response, so that would not provide a bar to any action by the President.
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The Constitution clearly permits the President to act as Commander in Chief in defense of the nation. It places just one direct restriction, now obsolete, on such action: the President may not on his own issue a formal declaration of war. That is hardly an oversight since direct restrictions are placed on the power of individual states to wage war. I think it is clear that when it comes to defense Congress can only restrict the President indirectly by means of appropriations and limiting the raising of troops.
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I suspect that the Framers would have done things differently had they anticipated a large standing military with a global reach. But they did not. Possibly unfortunate.
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Edit: Congress has the power “To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water”. I forgot the ones that are even more obsolete than declaring war.
Carrick, that’s the question I’ve been trying to get answered. John Yoo suggests it is irrelevant, something no one else has said, though MikeM agrees here.
>I would suggest permission is required when he is putting our troops in harm’s way, or that there’s a strong probability that the action will lead to military conflict.
On what basis is this why permission is required, vs anytime you engage in military action? The placement of troops in Saudi Arabia was not likely to lead to military conflict, at least after the Gulf War was over, yet it ended up with 9/11.
I’m not comfortable with the idea that you don’t need permission from Congress to bomb small countries but you need it for big wars.
Feels like you are engaged in living constitutionalism and writing into the Constitution what you want things to be.
Carrick: ” So what’s your legal theory on when the President has to seek permission from Congress before he can exercise his constitutional duties as CNC?”
MikeN: “that’s the question I’ve been trying to get answered. John Yoo suggests it is irrelevant, something no one else has said”
It has been accepted since at least the Eisenhower Administration that the President can launch nuclear missiles without consulting Congress. I have never seen that seriously challenged, not even by those claiming that Trump’s retaliation against Syria was unconstitutional. So it seems like the argument is that the Constitution allows the President to launch thousands of nuclear armed ICBM’s but prohibits him from launching a few dozen conventionally armed Cruise missiles. Sounds to me like special pleading.
MikeM, this is the first I’ve heard of this unquestioned authority to launch nukes. Do you mean after a war has started, no need to get special permission?
Carrick, I would put a rule at defensive engagements. I am open to the idea that there is no permission needed other than Congress can refuse to fund.
Lucia, what do you think of Theodore A. Postol critique of the American narrative regarding the Syrian chemical incident?
MikeN: “this is the first I’ve heard of this unquestioned authority to launch nukes.”
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Are you too young to remember the Soviet Union? Real question. I found your statement hard to believe until I realized that what was normal for geezers like me would likely seem odd to a later generation. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_football and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-emptive_nuclear_strike.
MikeN: “I am open to the idea that there is no permission needed other than Congress can refuse to fund.”
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By that, do you mean the John Woo position that I summarized above (Comment #161366)? I think it should be remembered that until fairly recently (post WW2), Congress having the power of the purse was a major constraint on a President taking military action. That changed with the establishment of a large permanent military with global reach.
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My argument as to how the Constitution works on these issues was not meant to endorse such as how things should be, only to state how things are. I think that the lack of restriction on presidential war making power is problematic in many ways in today’s world. But I don’t see a good way to fix it, or at least no way that won’t risk disastrous unintended consequences.
I should have added that expecting the congressional power of the purse to throttle war-like actions by the president is probably unrealistic. Who is going to cut off the funds once our ‘troops’ are into it?
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Some may remember Teddy Roosevelt’s essay with the Great White Fleet. He wanted to send the fleet on a circumnavigation but lacked the funds. He asked congress, but nothing doing.
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He did have the money to send the fleet half way around the world. He did.
MikeM, I do not agree that it is generally accepted that the President can launch nuclear missiles without consulting Congress, without a war already happening, perhaps just a missile launch. I find it hard to believe that a Congress that passed the War Powers Act during the Cold War would agree with that.
The John Yoo position is also not generally accepted, and as far as I know isn’t even recognized as something that’s a possibility, even though that is what is happening in practice.
MikeN: “I do not agree that it is generally accepted that the President can launch nuclear missiles without consulting Congress, without a war already happening, perhaps just a missile launch. I find it hard to believe that a Congress that passed the War Powers Act during the Cold War would agree with that.”
But Congress did. In my experience, Congress critters are perfectly comfortable with being inconsistent. Show me a mainstream opinion that says the President does not have the power to launch nuclear missiles. More recently, after Trump got elected, a Democrat Congressman introduced a bill to remove that power from the President. It went nowhere.
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MikeN: “The John Yoo position … isn’t even recognized as something that’s a possibility, even though that is what is happening in practice.
Well, if it is what is done in practice, it is obviously a possibility. No President has ever accepted the War Powers Act as being constitutional.
Regarding missiles, I’d always assumed the thinking was that in the event of a situation where a fire / no fire decision had to be made about launching missiles that there probably wouldn’t be time to consult Congress. But maybe that was just me making stuff up to rationalize the situation to myself – now that I think about it I really don’t know where my thinking on this came from.
The debate has generally been between President can attack without authorization from Congress for reasons X but not Y, but maintaining that only Congress has the power to declare war. Yoo is essentially saying this is a meaningless provision, the President decides, Congress has no say. Other than Yoo, I don’t think I’ve heard anyone else take this position, or even acknowledge its existence(though National Review of course published it).
MikeM, of course the President CAN start wars, launch missiles, including nukes. The congresswoman was trying to change that for nukes, which already require an extra cabinet member I think. The issue has been that only Congress has the power to declare war, and thus the President would be violating the Constitution to launch nuclear weapons without consulting Congress. If Trump decided to launch nukes at Russia, I don’t think it would be universally recognized as within his Constitutional power.
jferguson:
As long as he is spending money consistent with congressional authority, he is fine. But it’s a good question of what is meant by “consistent”.
I think if Congress were to fund the Sixth Fleet operations in the Mediterranean (it has) and the use of personnel and equipment with the authority given by congress, then the President would have the authority to use the missiles in the manner he used them. He would not have the authority to sail the fleet to the Mediterranean for purposes of engaging in hostile acts, without congressional approval and appropriations, as a counter example.
MikeM:
I think what matters more is constitutional law—for which the final arbiter is the Supreme Court—rather than—meaning no slight—merely the uninterpreted words on the pages of the Constitution. Our founding fathers could not possibly have been written the Constitution in such a way to foresee every possible scenario presented to us by history, so even for “originalists”, interpretation of the laws is required for our government to continue to function.
What I understand the SCOTUS to have found consistently is that the president does not have an unlimited sole authority to authorize hostile acts, nor to authorize funds for hostile acts, but he does have unlimited authority to wage war, once the acts are authorized and funded by Congress.
I believe it is clear that the Constitution meant for the President and Congress to share the power to go to war, though perhaps in different ways than it is interpreted today, in order to preclude its abuse by the President. A good example of extreme abuse is Truman’s attempted use of the US military to nationalize the steel mills in 1952, using the steel strike as a pretext. Without the balancing power of the judicial branch, our government might have gone a very different direction at that point in time.
Truman’s order was struck down in Sawyer 1952.
In the case of nuclear weapons, I would assume at least implicit congressional authority to use the weapons in a defensive manner, since the only use for the weapons would be in response to, or in anticipation of, a nuclear attack. In the same vein, I would expect it to be possible for Congress to limit the use of these weapons to certain prescribed scenarios, and if it came before the SCOTUS, I’d expect that their rights would be upheld.
mark bofill: “I’d always assumed the thinking was that … there probably wouldn’t be time to consult Congress.”
I am pretty sure that is the reason, with respect to nuclear missiles and other actions that might be needed to protect the country. If the President has one power, he has the other; at least barring some specific restraint.
Carrick: “What I understand the SCOTUS to have found consistently is the president does not have an unlimited sole authority to authorize hostile acts …”
If so, please tell me where I can find those decisions. I am pretty sure there aren’t any.
Carrick: “… nor to authorize funds for hostile acts”.
Of course not. Only Congress can authorize funds.
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Carrick: “I believe it is clear that the Constitution meant for the President and Congress to share the power to go to war, though perhaps in different ways than it is interpreted today, in order to preclude its abuse by the President.”
By giving Congress control of the purse. If there is more than that, show me where it is in the Constitution.
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Carrick: “A good example of extreme abuse is Truman’s attempted use of the US military to nationalize the steel mills in 1952”
That is a ridiculous example, since it has nothing to do with the issue at hand.
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Carrick: “In the case of nuclear weapons, I would assume at least implicit congressional authority to use the weapons in a defensive manner”
I fail to see the difference between “implicit congressional authority to use the weapons” and “authority to use the weapons derived from his position as President.
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Carrick: “I would expect it to be possible for Congress to limit the use of these weapons to certain prescribed scenarios, and if it came before the SCOTUS, I’d expect that their rights would be upheld.”
Congress could try. My guess is that the Court would side with the President. Of course, in the case of nuclear weapons, it would be moot.
Thanks Mike M.
Re: Power of Congress to declare war.
This is very muddled. There were many federal court decisions that avoided on ruling on the legality of the Vietnam War. See http://www.bing.com/search?q=supreme+court+decision+on+gulf+of+tonkin+resolution&qs=n&form=QBLH&sp=-1&pq=supreme+court+decision+on+gulf+&sc=0-31&sk=&cvid=3C751DD6744F45B6B67FA4F5813FA82A and law review article referenced at link entitled “A Strange Silence: Vietnam and the Supreme Court”
In Atlee v. Laird (August 1972), the Supreme Court, under an old statute, had to review a 3-judge panel which had found the issue not to be justiciable, and all the Supreme Court did was state: “Judgments affirmed.” with no opinion. I just skimmed the article, but it does appear that, insofar as Vietnam was concerned, the Supreme Court had little to say about the extent of Congress’s power to declare war.
JD
>but he does have unlimited authority to wage war,
No, they haven’t said that.
>only use for the weapons would be in response to, or in anticipation of, a nuclear attack.
There are other uses, for example when they were actually used.
Niels A Nielsen (Comment #161371)
“what do you think of Theodore A. Postol critique of the American narrative regarding the Syrian chemical incident?”
There are people who are pro Assad anti American and people who are pro American anti Assad.
Postol’s view just puts forward the Syrian/Russian perspective with little extra proof. It is expected that there will be articles like this. It is interesting because it apparently comes from an American at an American University whose field of study is US security.
Unfortunately he has form in the debate.
As such he has been easily dismissed here.
What is needed is 10 such professors from different universities or some proof of the pipe being an actual mechanism.
Eg American, Syrian or Turkish ordinance in the form of such pipes being used to store gas ready for delivery.
Does Postal provide proof/pictures? Does the UN have proof/pictures? After all if such weapons exist the UN must have an idea or description of them.
What is American Sarin stored in, if they have it?
What is Turkish Sarin stored in, if they have it?
Not to mention the Syrians.
Nobody knows.
angech and Niels A. Nielson,
The question Postol and the Russians don’t answer is how would the rebels obtain Sarin in the first place? As I pointed out above, they don’t have the facilities to manufacture their own. That pretty much leaves stealing it from a Syrian government facility. I would rate the probability of that to be vanishingly small. It would also mean that Syria had stores of Sarin that they didn’t declare and transfer to the Russians for destruction. That is a violation of the 2013 agreement.
I doubt that the US has stocks of Sarin weapons any more, much less would transfer them to Syrian rebels when we won’t send them heavy conventional weapons. There is no evidence that Turkey has Sarin weapons.
Nerve agent properties: https://www.opcw.org/about-chemical-weapons/types-of-chemical-agent/nerve-agents/
Pistol is offering the equivalent of a UFO or 911 truther argument.
hunter,
Indeed. The piece of metal in the crater is like the scraps found at Roswell. At Roswell, though, the pictures I’ve seen of the scraps are clearly the remains of a radar corner reflector from a weather balloon.
MikeM:
Sullivan 1952.
Article I, power to legislate.
It has everything to do with the issue at hand. Constitutional law is not just an extension of statutory law. Constitutional findings can have profound effects over a broad range of scenarios.
Truman claimed broad executive powers in his conduct of US involvement in the Korean War. The court found he had exceeded his powers because his seizure of the steel mills amounted to legislation, which lies solely within Article I powers.
The ultimate point is that the President cannot legislate, and use of his war powers must be consistent with that restriction. And the authorization of hostile acts to any sane observer would clearly be an example of “legislation”. Congress can delegate part of that authority (within other constitutional limits) to the President, so this can get “muddled” as with the attacks on Libya (which I personally think was over the boundary) or with the attack on a Syrian airbase, designed in such a way as to minimize causalities.
MikeN:
It doesn’t get much simpler: Article II makes the President Commander in Chief.
JD Ohio:
Absolutely. I would argue that “muddling” is inherent in constitutional law: Different rights are often in antagonistic relationship with each other, and things can get pretty muddled at the boundaries between them.
It’s not news to anybody here that the SCOTUS is highly political, so it’s not surprising to see court decisions that move around a bit as to where the boundaries between presidential power and congressional power resides. A liberal court would naturally give Johnson more leeway than it might allow Richard Nixon for example.
Carrick: “And the authorization of hostile acts to any sane observer would clearly be an example of “legislationâ€.”
I think you are pulling my leg. The Constitution clearly gives the President far more latitude with respect to national security than in domestic policy.
Mike M: I would say the powers with respect to the use of military force are clearly and intentionally divided between the President and Congress.
Even with regard to the command and conduct of the US military, there is a division of responsibility. See Article I Section 8 for example, which deals with Congress’s role in establishing military regulations, for example.
>And the authorization of hostile acts to any sane observer would clearly be an example of “legislationâ€.
Not to me. Unless you are giving extra import to ‘authorization’ when he is the one being authorized.
Assuming you are correct, could you point out where Congress delegated to the President the authority to bomb Syria?
Also, the Supreme Court has been disapproving of the delegation of Congress’s powers to the President. The line-item veto was struck down on that basis.
MikeN:
>but he does have unlimited authority to wage war,
No, they haven’t said that.
It doesn’t get much simpler: Article II makes the President Commander in Chief.
You also said Supreme Court interprets the Constitution. They haven’t said the president has this authority despite Article II. Indeed, you previously said President should follow a Supreme Court ruling against his war actions. So at most you could mean unlimited authority to wage war except for anything the Supreme Court rules is invalid.
hunter (Comment #161388)
Postol is offering the equivalent of a UFO or 911 truther argument.
True .
DeWitt Payne The piece of metal in the crater is like the scraps found at Roswell.
–
“I doubt that the US has stocks of Sarin weapons any more”
–
My government right or wrong?
-They have to have stocks. If not to use them to learn how to protect against them.
I believe that both Turkey and America should and would have Sarin stocks, De Witt.
Terrorists without G
overnment backing made them in Japan. Probably easier than making Ice for a chemist.
Ed Whelan argues against John Yoo on declaring war. I think he is misrepresenting Yoo’s argument as activist, but more posts are coming.
http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/446909/war-powers-syria-trump-john-yoo
angech, read about Johnston Island. There is a lot about this that cannot be public knowledge but the truth is better than you suggest.
angech: “Terrorists without Government backing made them in Japan.”
When working with hazardous chemicals, amount matters. The Japanese terrorists made a few liters, to be released in confined areas. Making industrial scale amounts is a different kettle of poison.
MikeN: “Ed Whelan argues against John Yoo on declaring war.”
But Whelan does not seem to have understood Woo’s argument, which is very much originalist in nature. And Whelan’s argument seems to imply that the President can do nothing at all without Congressional approval. But that can not be correct since the *states* can take military action when “in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay” (Article 1, Section 10). Until he clarifies that, I do not find his argument convincing.
I think the real problem comes from trying to apply an 18th century document in the 21st century. Usually, that means less power for the executive and the federal government than the living constitutionalists would like. In the case of military action, it leaves the President with more power than we might like. I am with the originalists in both cases.
Angech and Dewitt regarding Postol,
I have grown increasingly sceptic about information from American Intelligence authorities over the years (because of Iraq, wikileaks etc.). I’m not sure whose interests they serve and why. Sometimes I think theu don’t know the answers to those questions. Telling the truth sometimes seems very low on the list of priorities.
Maybe Assad did what he is accused of here, I don’t know, but I think a large dose of scepticism is in order and watching and reading the MSM I see only gullible commentators.
Here’s a rare exception (if The Nation is regarded as MSM)
https://www.thenation.com/article/the-chemical-weapons-attack-in-syria-is-there-a-place-for-skepticism/
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/14/did-al-qaeda-fool-the-white-house-again/
Niels,
Skepticism about things said by the government and intelligence community is a good policy. But in this case, it seems that there is good reason to believe that we are actually being told the truth. It is reasonable to withhold judgement until a more public inquiry is completed. But it is unreasonable to simply assume that the government is lying and that others with an axe to grind are telling the truth. It seems to me that those questioning the official line re the recent chemical weapons attack are looking for an excuse to say things like “Trump, perhaps sensing political advantage, rushed to execute a unilateral and illegal military response.”
Dewitt, why would “The rebels” who control large amounts of resources, money and even land not be able to acquire sarin gas when a small religious sect in Japan could? The argument in your article is weak. “The rebels” used sarin gas in Syria in 2013, according to the UN:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-crisis-un-idUSBRE94409Z20130505
The New York Times seems to grudgingly agree.
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/06/nyt-retreats-on-2013-syria-sarin-claims/
Mike M:
Congress can legally delegate, to a limited extend (see counter examples here), a portion of its constitutional powers to the President.
As an example, we see that with regulatory agencies that the Executive Office shares oversight over, because Congress ceded part of their responsibilities for writing regulation to the EO.
In this particular case, I think Trump’s actions fall well within the War Power Resolution. (Obama in Libya I think did not.)
Mike N:
Okay, well I said interpret, not rewrite.
Niels:
Granted. Gulf of Tonkin and the mis-reporting of intelligence to the policy makers is another example. First public report here.
It’s pretty incredible just how much evidence was suppressed by the intel community (and never shown to policy makers) that contradicted the governments’ “wanted outcome” that there was a second Bay of Tonkin incident on August 4. Notably the key evidence people found convincing for an actual incident on the 4th turned out to involve both a mistranslation and a misleading combination of two separate communications that did not imply what the combined intercept said.
But I think we can arrive at the conclusion about Syria being responsible for the latest sarin gas attack from multiple sources though.
According to the Syrian government and their surrogates in Russia, actually. I’ve not seen credible reports from any other source, and these aren’t really credible.
I’m willing to buy that the rebels used chlorine gas.
Carrick, Carla Del Ponte and the New York Times are not the Syrian government or their surrogates in Russia.
Who are the multiple sources from which “we can arrive at the conclusion about Syria being responsible for the latest sarin gas attack”?
Niels A. Nielson,
Hersh is not credible on this.
http://warincontext.org/2013/12/11/how-easy-is-it-to-make-sarin/
Note that Aum Shinrikyo was operating in peacetime Japan with relatively easy access to the technology necessary, not a less developed country with a raging civil war.
So where is the rebel plant? Who are the chemists and chemical engineers? Real questions. We know for a fact that Syria had production facilities and stocks of sarin in 2013. They turned over 1,300 tons of sarin, mustard gas and all the precursor chemicals to the Russians for supervised disposal after the attack in August, 2013.
DeWitt: “Hersh is not credible on this.”
Hersh has a history of breaking major stories. He also has a history of making wild claims with little evidence. Anything Hersh reports should be doubted until confirmed.
Dewitt, as I said, I don’t know if Assad did this or the jihadists, but I don’t buy your argument that it must be Assad because the jihadists wouldn’t be able to produce sarin gas. It is not necessary to produce it to use it and in fact I think your japanese example shows that it is indeed possible to produce it with relatively small means. War causes some restraints and shortages but it also often makes people quite inventive. Additionally, the Sunni-jihadist “rebels” have friends all over the region, thousands if not millions of friends who would love to help overthrow Assad by eg staging a false flag attack. They could also turn to friendly states like Quatar, Saudi Arabia and even Turkey.
If it was so easy to rule out that the rebels could be responsible for a chemical sarin attack in Syria, I think UN representative Carla Del Ponte is smart enough to know that and she would not conclude that “rebels” were likely behind the 2013 sarin attack and not Assad. And I definately think the New York Times would not hesitate for a second to list the 2013 sarin attack as one of Assads atrocities if it was that obvious.
I’m just saying that I don’t buy your certainty that the latest attack, let alone the one in 2013, could be blamed on Assad. Who benefits? Not Assad. Assad has no doubt done very evil things but I remain very skeptical that he is behind this latest attack – or the one in 2013.
That the New York Times does not ascribe the 2013 incident to Assad is a clear sign that the evidence must be very, very weak that he did it. And If Assad was not behind the 2013 attack (a fair chance of that at least) then the blame for the latest attack could at least possibly lie elsewhere as well, no?
Niels A. Nielson,
The New York Times is not a reliable source. It hasn’t been for years now. Nor is a single UN representative.
Has the WaPo backed off from this article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nearly-1500-killed-in-syrian-chemical-weapons-attack-us-says/2013/08/30/b2864662-1196-11e3-85b6-d27422650fd5_story.html?utm_term=.52f086701713
Did you read the whole article I linked? Apparently not. Making sarin is just the first and easiest step. To get mass casualties, you need to weaponize it. That’s hard. Aum Shinriku largely failed. Their delivery method was plastic bags with holes poked in them at the last minute in an enclosed space. Only twelve died and 40 were seriously injured. By the way, the estimate in the linked article was that it would have required 2,000 lbs of sarin in multiple warheads to cause the approximately 1,500 deaths and many more injuries in the August, 2013 attack. See map: https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2013/08/31/National-Security/Graphics/w-DamascusB.jpg
The assertion that the rebels did it to themselves is completely without credible evidence. There is plenty of evidence from the Obama administration and amateur videos, whether you believe it or not, that the Assad regime planned and executed the August, 2013 attack.
The Carla del Ponte allegation that the rebels used sarin occurred in May, 2013 before the August, 2013 attack:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/united-nations-confirmed-that-us-supported-rebels-were-using-chemical-weapons/5583988
Suspicions and no proof. That’s convincing! /sarc
The argument from incredulity is a well known logical fallacy. It’s a corollary of the wider argument from ignorance fallacy. If something makes no sense, it’s likely you don’t have all the information.
The argument can also be turned on its head by saying that it makes no sense for the rebels to use sarin on themselves because it makes no sense for the Assad regime to use sarin in the first place so no one should believe it.
Carrick, are you saying that Congress delegated to the President authority to conduct the attack on Syria but not Libya in 1973?
MikeN:
The big problem is there’s a 60-day limit, which Obama exceeded.
Neils:
Wondering what a “strong, concrete suspicion” looks like and why anybody would regard that as credible.
The only claim I know that had any substantive basis came from the Syrian government, who claims to have recovered two canisters of poison gas. That’s never been independently verified, which makes it look suspiciously like a government fabrication.
Before you said the problem in Libya was that fighters were at risk. Now you say it’s a 60 day limit.
It looks to me like
1) You approve of the Syrian action for humanitarian reasons.
2) You do not want the President to have unrestrained authority to start wars
4) You are struggling to reconcile these and are making up standards to allow for them all.
MikeN,
I think some of the confusion here is that Carrick has muddled the question of what is constitutional with the War Powers Resolution, while ignoring whether the latter is constitutional (it isn’t).
Another possible source of confusion: What do you mean by “Libya in 1973”?
Neils:
And half-dozen chemical attacks in between… rebels also? The rebels seem to love to kill their own people. Funny they maintain their loyalty with all of that.
Anyway, we’ve been through that one above. The Grim Logic Behind Syria’s Chemical Weapons Attack..
I think you have a very naive view of how the Syrian government operates against its own people. Assad operates using terror against his own people and he particularly benefits from it when there is no credible response from the west.
Plus his military capability is significantly impaired. Chemical weapons is one of the few strategic advantages he has against his own populace.
MikeM, War Powers Resolution in 1973. Carrick said Libya no, Syria yes due to that plus the Constitution. Whether the War Powers Act is constitutional in limiting the President is irrelevant because here the claim is that it is authorizing war.
Dewitt, as I said, the jihadists don’t need to produce sarin gas to use it. According to a Turkish MP the materials for the august 2013 incident passed over the border from Turkey.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/sarin-gas-materials-sent-to-isis-from-turkey-claims-mp-eren-erdem-34286662.html
No, I dont’t think so. The argument is poor when turned on its head. The jihadists know full well the confirmation bias of western media and politicians. They will believe almost anything as long as it conforms to their world view.
Maybe, but I don’t see the credible evidence Assad did it either.
MikeN,
Since WWII, Congress has a long history of not interfering with Presidents who take military action without consulting Congress. Ronald Reagan invaded Grenada without being authorized by or consulting with Congress. Bill Clinton sent troops to Bosnia. It’s not just Tonkin Gulf, it’s a long list. Trump’s action is, therefore, not without many precedents.
Niels,
Read Carrick’s post above. That looks like evidence to me unless you think that everyone in the US government is lying. In which case, there’s not much point in further discussion.
MikeN:
I think you’re not even trying to be rational now.
From the point of the War Powers Act, there is a 60-day limit. It’s in the bloody law and until/unless that time-limit gets struck down by the SCOTUS, the president is bound to it. So that is the biggest issue he faces in this case.
From the point of view of whether there is implied authority for the president to act, a single action design to minimize risk to American soldiers and to minimize enemy casualties is more likely to meet that threshold than hundreds of sorties into enemy territory.
Both are an issue for Libya, the second is a matter of opinion until it is legally tested by the courts, but I think the first is a immediate fact of law. Obama exceeded his delegated authority in Libya by violating the 60-day time limit.
Neils:
I’m afraid you’re having a 9/11 truther moment here. As I pointed out, there were way more than two chemical attacks on Syria’s population.
And the idea that the rebels could have committed so many atrocities against their own population, and their own military forces (attacks have occurred against both), just so western diplomats could tsk tsk and turn their backs on the matter, that’s totally risible.
I’m not sure what the rebels are supposed to be getting out of this that is commensurate to the risk that they totally alienate the people they are supposedly fighting for.
Carrick, if Obama had stopped in Libya after 50 days, was this war OK under the Constitution because of the War Powers Act?
You said War Powers Act wasn’t just limiting the President, but authorized the President to act. Congress delegated their power to him to make war, specifically in Syria but not Libya.
Carrick: “From the point of the War Powers Act, there is a 60-day limit. It’s in the bloody law and until/unless that time-limit gets struck down by the SCOTUS, the president is bound to it. ”
I believe we are now at 9 consecutive presidents (6 R, 3 D) who have refused to admit they are bound by the War Powers Act. At least two (Clinton, Obama) have violated it without consequence. Even when presidents act in a way that is supposedly required by the War Powers Act, such as by submitting a report to Congress, they make it a point to make it clear that they are doing so because they choose to, not because they have to.
The only way that Act will make it to SCOTUS is if Congress brings suit. Congress has never chosen to do so. So the reality is that the Act is meaningless until and unless SCOTUS upholds it. It’ll never happen.
.
MikeN: “if Obama had stopped in Libya after 50 days, was this war OK under the Constitution because of the War Powers Act?”
The War Powers Act is irrelevant to whether a presidential action is constitutional. Congress can not delegate a power they don’t have.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #161425): “Since WWII, Congress has a long history of not interfering with Presidents who take military action without consulting Congress.”
That history goes back 200 years to the First Seminole War, fought in Spanish territory by a U.S. army led by Andrew Jackson during President James Monroe’s first term.
Please, Carrick and Dewitt, I’m not denying that Assad, Isil, Turkey, Al Nusra and virtually all parties in the Syrian conflict have engaged in chemical warfare. And multiple times each. Why is it that you need to put words in my mouth?
Whose idea is that, Carrick? Not Mine. It could be a false flag attack, it could be Assad, or who knows maybe it was a conventional bomb hitting a chemical weapons depot. Why am I a “truther” because I’m skeptical of the MSM treating it as a fact carved in stone that Assad is behind the latest chemical attack in Syria? Give me a break.
There is no point in arguing with people who resort to name-calling. I’m done.
Niels A Nielsen
The irony is rich here.
For Syria to deliver a Sarin attack it took a [secret] manufacturing plant at least 3 stories tall [So where is the Government plant? Who are the chemists and chemical engineers? Why did Trump fail to bomb or identify it? Note these are real questions De Witt , not Fake questions.], an airfield and planes to deliver from Carrick [no one has found a trace of the gas release device at ground zero] an attack on a small group of people.
Why would they bother?
No strategic reason given for such a desperate measure.
On the other hand we are told delivery is so easy the Rebels could have walked around with a bunch of thick balloons or plastic bags and poked holes in them.
The logic wins both ways.
Desperately evil all faiths embracing super rich megalomaniac hides production centers from Partners, the best Intelligence agencies the USA has and the United Nations and brings forth super mega weapon to decimate a vicious village packed with children leaving no trace of the weapon.
On the other side supported by the ultra poor Saudi Arabia, the best weapons the poor Americans can give and living on food coupons shipped in by the Turks in exchange for oil the villagers use bows and arrows in their battle against the evil oppressors.
–
No one denies that a chemical attack with a nerve gas [unidentified] took place during a Syrian bombing raid which gives an obvious conclusion that it was a stupid Syrian decision using a Syrian Chemical weapon.
A false flag operation is a much, much, much lower possibility.
Nevertheless these are the only two scenarios given by the opposing sides.
Evidence is futile at this stage. A bit like Tour de France doping. Whichever side did it will hide it as much as possible.
Some documentation and knowledge exists somewhere.
Anyone privy to such knowledge will find it very hard if not impossible to see the light of day.
angech, over looked in your post is how the former Administration chose to deliberately ignore the post 2012 line in the sand “foreign policy triumph” gas attacks by Syria.
MikeN:
I personally think he exceeded his legal authority in this case. The notable part about the 60 day limit is it is a clear violation of statutory law. It is the sort of thing that could—with a Congress filled with non-cowards—could get you impeached. Obama knew his audience.
I thought I pretty clearly gave you my opinion—if the act is limited in scope, such as with Syria or Vietnam pre Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (where no US personnel were engaged on the ground)—then the President is within both his War Power Acts and constitutional powers.
I have the opposite opinion, probably, of MikeM regarding the constitutionality of the WPA. I believe that he thinks Congress can’t claim authority on something they don’t have constitutional authority on.
However, I think they have the constitutional authority here to authorize hostile actions, which I think the president lacks, but have improperly delegated that authority to the Executive Office.
Obviously this would need a SCOTUS opinion at some point. The question is “how do you get politically to that point?” I think the president would have to gravely overstep his constitutional authority before Congress would be willing to act.
DeWitt:
Oh I agree. I think there are at least two reasons at play though:
One, Congress has typically agreed with the President’s actions and so are reluctant to interfere, secondly, the political ramifications for interfering are generally going to be more significant than then consequences of allowing the President to exceed his constitutional authority in these particular cases.
angech,
1,300 tons of chemical warfare agents and precursor chemicals were transferred to the Russians in late 2013 or early 2014. International observers from the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons were present. I believe that’s sufficient proof that manufacturing and storage facilities and personnel existed in Syria at that time. IMO, it’s likely that some still do. Wikipedia has a link to a map that identifies the locations. I don’t know the provenance, however.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria_chemical_weapons_program
Here’s another article with more details:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/05/middleeast/syria-sarin-chemical-weapons-explainer/
So much for Carla del Ponte’s opinion.
Niels A. Nielson:
False flag—faking nearly 100 deaths and 300 wounded plus the other forensic data recovered on the scene—is exactly a 9/11 truther level of conspiracy theory.
Conventional bomb hitting a chemical depot is at least a plausible scenario, but doesn’t fit the known facts: That the bomb that is “ground zero” struck in the middle of a street and not in a building, and contained a limited amount of explosive.
I do think you have to consider the technical challenges of making sarin gas in the war zone, and I find implausible, without a lot more evidence, the theory that it was (for example) smuggled over the Turkish border.
With respect to Syria, we know as a fact they had sarin gas because they surrendered large stockpiles in 2014. We know they have the technical knowledge to manufacture more. We know they have the appropriate delivery mechanisms. And we know on the morning of the attack at least one Syrian plane flew over the site of the attack at the time of the attack and that it was capable of delivering the gas in the form of a bomb.
So: means, motive, opportunity. I think it is a slam-dunk that the Syrian government was responsible for this act. It’s not an issue with being credulous, it’s more an issue of taking the time to look at all of the evidence together and ask which scenarios are credible and which ones can be eliminated. I don’t see any other credible scenario than the Syria government, which by now has been documented in numerous chemical attacks on its own population.
By the way, the OPCW has confirmed the use of sarin gas at Khan Sheikhoun.
http://derechointernacionalcr.blogspot.com/2017/04/opcw-confirms-sarin-exposure-during.html
As the CNN article I linked above points out, Sarin is usually a binary agent because it has a short shelf life. That is, two components, methylphosphoryldifluoride and isopropanol containing isopropylamine to bind the HF released in the chemical reaction to make sarin ( isopropyl methylphosphonofluoridate), are used. I realize this is the argument from incredulity, but really, nobody in their right minds would store the two components in the same building. Not to mention that even if you did, and someone dropped a bomb on the building (which, as Carrick pointed out, didn’t happen), it’s unlikely that the chemical reaction to make sarin in any significant quantity would happen.
Carrick’s OPCW link contains a link to an addendum by Postol.
He makes much of the (apparently) inadequate protection worn by people photographed at the impact crater: “If there were any sarin present at this location when this photograph was taken everybody in the photograph would have received a lethal or debilitating dose of sarin. The fact that these people were dressed so inadequately either suggests a complete ignorance of the basic measures needed to protect an individual from sarin poisoning, or that they knew that the site was not seriously contaminated.”
But doesn’t “serious contaminat[ion]” depend upon the interval between when the photograph was taken, and the original event? The toxin will dissipate over time, surely.
The photographer was the only survivor and she’d left town right after taking the photos.
HaroldW,
http://www.dw.com/en/after-syria-why-the-chemical-weapon-sarin-is-an-invisible-and-indiscriminate-killer/a-17124208
Look at the pictures of people treating the Aum Shinrikyo victims as well as the UN inspectors collecting samples in Syria. In the picture from Japan, I see what looks like even less protection than the picture Postol references. Sarin hydrolyzes to inert compounds fairly quickly, depending on the temperature and humidity. It’s also highly volatile, so if there had been a wind blowing, it would have dispersed to non-toxic concentrations fairly quickly.
DeWitt,
Given the Japanese photo you cited, it seems that whatever point Postol was trying to make, isn’t valid. [I assume that, as his position is that the US acted precipitately, he was attempting to cast doubt on whether chemical weapons were used.]
Carrick, you keep jumping around. If Obama had stayed within the 60 day limit, was he OK constitutionally?
I am trying to see how you think the War Powers Act authorized an attack on Syria.
Looking at the picture and title I figured this one probably wasn’t worth reading, ha ha.
https://theintercept.com/2017/04/22/why-they-march-science-and-scientists-are-now-under-attack/
.
Choose your martyrs more carefully activists.
Tom: I read a few paragraphs and skimmed the rest.
Leaving the great man aside, there was this from a dragonfly expert:
“Trying to understand how, when and why they evolved helps us understand where the planet is now and where it’ll be in the future,â€
…which is not only wrong, it summarizes what is wrong with a lot of science these days. There is a necessity to somehow make science relevant. Dragonflies evolving in the Carboniferous is not relevant to now and won’t tell us anything about the future. I prefer the notion of letting scientists research stuff “cos it’s interesting.” Don’t try to sell us some rubbish about how relevant it is.
Another scientist opines something like “the land isn’t just broken, our relationship to the land is broken.”
I do not really know what is being marched for or against here.
That sounds more like religion than science.
I didn’t read the full article, but I did a search for vacc and vaxx on the page. No mention. The anti-vaxxers are an anti-science problem that not only crosses ideological lines, but is also of more immediate concern than global warming or creationism. So once again, we have politics in disguise.
No hit on GMO either.
Tom, Jit —
Judith Curry has a post up with many interesting takes on the “March For Science”. Too many good links to copy.
.
But I’ll mention a paragraph in this article:
Tom that is an interesting article. So unless one agrees with the most extreme take on climate one is a d3n137 and is to be banned or worse. My take away is that this is a group largely after 2 things: power and money. Anyone not agreeing with their demands is”anti science”. Of course that didn’t go down so well with my daughter whose science grant funded employer paid their employees to attend and called me from DC.
MikeN:
The 60 day limit is a statutory limit, so it’s not a constitutional question per se. Obama likely broke statutory law in his Libya action.
In addition, I believe Obama did exceed his constitutional authority, but I don’t think Trump exceeded his in his limited action in Syria.
I’m tired of going in circles here, so let’s give this a rest.
DeWitt Payne:
Yep. The whole argument by Postol on the protection is completely moronic. Likely he knows what he said was completely false when he wrote it.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #161444)
“http://www.dw.com/en/after-syr…..a-17124208 Sarin hydrolyzes to inert compounds fairly quickly, depending on the temperature and humidity. It’s also highly volatile, so if there had been a wind blowing, it would have dispersed to non-toxic concentrations fairly quickly.”
Pity you did not read the article, DeWitt
“Under 20 degree weather, the amount of time that sarin lingers in the air ranges from two to 20 days.”
You might also correct your earlier comment
DeWitt Payne (Comment #161437)
“1,300 tons of chemical warfare agents and precursor chemicals were transferred to the Russians in late 2013 or early 2014.”
I believe the agents, some originally supplied by Germany for peaceful chemical uses in 2004 onwards were transferred to the Americans for destruction 600 tonnes of the worst. Others were handled by the Norwegians British and private companies. Not the Ruskies.
Finally the contradictions keep being repeated. Sarin, a binary gas, so dangerous you would not store the two parts together, yet if you bombed it it would not mix and cause a problem. So dangerous you die in 10 seconds and so do people touching you yet it goes away quickly and safely when it recognises the people touching you to be helpers, a bit quantum that.
Fitting the style of argument that holds two contradictory views at the same time and expresses whichever one is convenient for the current argument.
I had another laugh at the picture of the labeled vials of sarin gas in the third link. Carrick obviously did not look at it either.
Needing planes, bombs and airports to deliver yet able to be carried around in a box of 20 ml vials by rebels.
Thank you for the links and laughs, it is a shame neither of you actually read them or looked at them apart from the Cherry picks.
For working instructions refer to the instruction leaflet.!
Written in English.
Throw and run would seem appropriate.
Or death assured on breaking glass.
Perhaps that’s why it is in English rather than Arabic.
Perhaps it was an April fools day picture.
angech,
The two to twenty days refers to a closed container. In the open air, you also have wind and eddy diffusion to disperse the agent. If you spill something volatile on the ground, it doesn’t stay around two to twenty days even if it’s chemically stable. It’s irrelevant who destroyed the sarin and other chemical weapons. The 1,300 tons referred to precursor chemicals as well as the final product. You don’t need a bomb to accidentally mix chemicals. Containers can leak, break or be otherwise damaged.
Munitions and mixing and filling equipment were also destroyed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_Syria%27s_chemical_weapons
French elections today! Should be interesting. Macron, Le Pen, Melenchon.. Who is your favorite to win?
angech,
A pleasant change to see some sanity once in a while.
DeWitt,
Sarin is ‘volatile’ only relative to some other nerve agents, which have evaporation rates a couple of orders of magnitude slower than Sarin. This military report describes the vapor pressure as a function of temperature: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a500820.pdf
At 20C the vapor pressure is about 1.9 mm Hg (about 2.5% of atmospheric pressure). This puts the rate of evaporation near 10% to 20% that of odorless mineral spirits, certainly slow enough that any porous materials (like clothing) could potentially present a hazard for several days if initially wet with Sarin. Non-porous surfaces would dry pretty quickly (hours).
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Of course, hydrolysis probably also limits how long the stuff will hang around (depending on temperature and % RH), but I sure wouldn’t want to be in the area of a Sarin attack for a long time after the fact… at least a week or two, since a fatal dose is in the range of only a milligram, vapor or liquid. A single breath of air with only 10% of the saturated vapor pressure concentration is fatal, as is a couple of minutes at <1% of the saturated vapor pressure. It is bad stuff.
Mark Bofill,
I doubt the far-left candidate has much of a chance. He is calling for confiscation of all income over ~US$400,000, making noises about steep annual taxes on accumulated personal wealth (current wealth taxes range up to 1.8% per year), and calling for close ties between France and countries like Cuba and Venezuela (paradises of liberty both). France is already among the most heavily taxed countries in the world, with total taxes at ~52% of GDP. The taxes the far left candidate wants would push total taxes to ~60-70% of GDP or higher.
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But other than that, it looks wide open.
SteveF,
I’d think so, sure. Coming out of Hollande’s term I’d imagine they’d be ready for a course correction. I haven’t been keeping good track of what’s been going on over there politically though.
I don’t know whether or not I ought to go look at poll favorites or not at this point. I’ve lost confidence that polls predict elections right now.
SteveF, there are four candidates, and any two could make the runoff. If the far left guy makes the runoff against Le Pen, then everyone might vote for him just to keep out Le Pen. It may also be her best chance of winning the runoff to face off against him. We might have a sex reversed US election repeat. Every reporter will be upset if the other two make the runoff.
MikeN,
Well. There are four realistic looking candidates. I’m under the impression there are several others, but yes.
[Edit: There are 8 total? No, there are eleven (11)]
angech—omg.
So you believe it stays in the atmosphere, at lethal concentrations, not affected by the wind, never diffused, nor as a volatile chemical does it react to anything, including moisture nor sunlight… for 20 days.
Sure sounds like you’re describing an inert chemical. Possibly a even solid since wind doesn’t seem to affect it.
I believe you may be mixing up sarin with sodium salt.
If it is trapped like inside of a building, in a room where there is no solar exposure and low atmospheric moisture, 20 days is certainly possible for measurable levels (but we can detect levels perhaps 1e6 below the minimum pharmaceutically relevant concentration, so that tells us nothing interesting, except that you can tell whether somebody’s used it). Hypothetically a person could concentrate it and up symptomatic (e.g., by wiping off furniture with a rag), but I’d suspect that’s true for days, rather than weeks.
In the atmosphere, it diffuses rapidly due to wind and turbulence (in a city, mechanical turbulence is an important source of atmospheric mixing). Probably this is the chief source of degradation of the chemical’s efficacy in most scenarios.
It reacts strongly to moisture. Early morning, you have dew on the ground and high RH near the surface, so we’d expect it to degrade rapidly.
And there is sunlight, so all of the mechanisms for degrading the chemical were present.
What I’ve heard is main reason most western countries never kept stockpiles of sarin is the effects are are too unpredictable (probably more useful as a terroristic weapon than as a tactical weapon), it is relatively expensive to produce, and it has a relatively short shelf-life–as a result, binary VX seems to be preferred.
I think Syria always planned on using its chemical weapon stockpiles against its own people, in a terroristic manner, so the calculations worked out different for them.
Mark, polls at one point had the four within a four percent range with a 7.5% margin of error.
The expectation is Le Pen makes the runoff and then loses the general.
SteveF:
Sure, I wouldn’t want to go into this area, without adequate protection anyway.
Nor would I want to run into a building while it’s burning either.
First responders are willing do both, of course. They put their lives at risk, in order to save other people’s lives, regardless of whether it’s a gas attack or a fire.
Yes the people seen without adequate protection were taking risks. I’m sure they knew it. Possibly some of them paid the ultimate price for it too.
Thanks Mike, Steve. We should know more in an hour or two.
Again, here is the relevant text from the OPCW release:
We know now that sarin gas was present at the site, from multiple sources with very different political agendas.
So if you’re a scientist, you use the fact that people are running around without falling over afterwards to tell you something about the effects of a release of sarin gas into the environment.
You don’t use “on the label” information to determine that when the environmental effects aren’t consistent with your understanding, that clearly it must be all a big hoax. Because clearly you know a lot more than reality does about reality.
I can’t think of a better demonstration of the capture of “science” by the progressive left than this march “for” science. It is yet another warning shot to anyone with non-enlightened views that their careers will suffer if they don’t think the correct political thoughts.
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I am personally disgusted by the whole affair and hope it remains a fringe part of science. It has become increasingly hard to maintain my respect for academic science when these things occur without a lot of push back from core scientists. What are they supposed to do, protest against protesting?
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I don’t see an attack on scientists that wasn’t already a part of the science/policy interface that has always existed. What I see is scientists attempting to misuse their authority as scientists to push an activist political agenda. Their expertise in chemistry or physics means exactly nothing to me with respect to how they view Trump and his policies. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Their attempt to use their “science” degrees as a means to diminish the views of those who oppose their political views is embarrassing to the profession and is fueling the anti-elitist forces that created Trump in the first place. How can they not see that? Nothing screams elitist louder than a core scientist who is paid by the taxpayers telling the knuckle dragging taxpayers their trailer park political views are immoral. So entitled.
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This does long term damage to the profession of science and how the public views it. I have always been a science advocate, and if the current inhabitants of academia believe only certain views should be allowed, I will look the other way as it gets defunded. This type of activity makes me actively want to defund it.
SteveF,
Relatively low volatility is probably why there were so few deaths in the Aum Shinriko attack on a subway station. Weaponized sarin in a rocket warhead, OTOH, would be released in a cloud of small droplets. That would evaporate a whole lot faster because of the increased surface area as well as making skin absorption much more likely and wouldn’t settle on the ground very fast either.
In some of the articles I skimmed, there were reports of first responders, doctors and journalists dying after being exposed after arriving on the scene shortly after the attack.
The reports of first responders and others dying was for the August, 2013 attack.
Based on actual votes in sample precincts, Le Pen is projected to come in first with 24.3%, with Macron second at 21.4% (both go to the final vote). Fillon (main stream candidate) got 20.3%, and far left candidate Melenchon got 17.9%.
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Macron’s voters will likely be joined by most of Fillon’s and Melenchon’s, making Macron the clear favorite in next month’s run-off. Probably close to 60% of French voters would never vote for Le Pen…. unless there are a series of Islamic terrorist attacks between now and the runoff.
It appears that the second round of the French elections will be between Le Pen and Macron. Macron is a more or less center-left. Fillon, the center-right candidate looks to finish third. At least it won’t be between Le Pen and Melenchon. Fillon is reported to have given his support to Macron, who is leading Le Pen by a large margin in early polls.
My bet is that Macron will be no more effective than Hollande. But France won’t be leaving the EU under him unless the EU falls apart over Italy and Spain.
Wow, the projected vote totals keep changing! LePen and Macron are still projected to advance. Fillon has already conceded defeat and asked his voters to vote for Macron. Socialists have done the same.
DeWitt Payne, there were causalities among the first responders in the more recent attack too:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/06/the-dead-were-wherever-you-looked-inside-syrian-town-after-chemical-attack
This gives a number of personal attacks, that no doubt some will no doubt dismiss as propaganda.
The article places the number of attacks on hospitals and clinics as between eight and ten. This is consistent with the use of chemical weapons by the government, if their intent is to disable the medical infrastructure of the rebels:
Due to the community medical emergency, more doctors would be in the facilities at this time, so bombing them would result in the deaths of relatively more doctors. A very nasty group of people were behind this.
It looks like it was safe to enter the zone in about two days after the attack. I figure we’ll hear more over time… The attack occurred in a war zone, so the details are taking a while to leaks out.
Steve, the fourth candidate is not the Socialist Party candidate. His support seems to correlate with Le Pen, so there may be a Bernie type effect of some supporters going to Le Pen. However, her number looks too low to win the runoff, while Trump started with a higher base.
Carrick,
If you were a psychopath, that’s actually somewhat logical. Create casualties and then bomb the hospitals. But they went overboard in 2013. Now they’re back to doing things on a smaller scale so that the fellow travelers and dupes in the West might be able to give them cover.
Make that useful idiots instead of fellow travelers.
DeWitt Payne: In my mind, you have to be pretty much a psychopath or sociopath to chemically bomb your own civilian population or otherwise intentionally inflict large-scale harm on them. Military targets would be one thing. This is a different scale and is already monstrous in dimension to me.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #161437
“1,300 tons of chemical warfare agents and precursor chemicals were transferred to the Russians in late 2013 or early 2014”
Not true. From your very own Wiki attachment.
The destruction of the most dangerous chemical weapons was performed at sea aboard the Cape Ray, a vessel of the United States Maritime Administration’s Ready Reserve Force, crewed with U.S. civilian merchant mariners. The actual destruction operations, performed by a team of U.S. Army civilians and contractors, destroyed 600 metric tons of chemical agents in 42 days.
Secretary of State John Kerry declaring on 20 July 2014: “we struck a deal where we got 100 percent of the chemical weapons out.
100% out by the Americans, not the Russians.The Americans under a joint OPCW-United Nations mission [established to oversee the destruction process]arranged the transfer from the Syrians,They never went to the Russians.
I think you should acknowledge this comment was Fake News, no dodging the issue.
Did anybody else feel queasy at 600 tonnes of lethal
chemical agents being dumped overboard [after hydrolysation] in the Mediterranean?
No Greenpeace when you need them.
angech,
Oh, puhleeze. As I said, it’s irrelevant who destroyed the sarin, but I admit that it wasn’t the Russians. That’s hardly relevant to who gassed the Syrians.
The products of hydrolysis of sarin in, say sodium hydroxide solution, are sodium fluoride, sodium phosphate, isopropyl alchohol, methanol and whatever organic amine that was in the isopropyl alchohol. Only the fluoride salt is particularly toxic in high concentration. Fluoride is present in sea water at the ppm level. Phosphate would act as a fertilizer and the amine and alcohols would be readily eaten by microorganisms in the ocean. IOW, as long as the hydrolysis solution is diluted sufficiently before putting it in the ocean, it’s not a problem. It’s likely less a problem than the sewage stream from the ship.
Just to interject a light note, here’s an Onion piece about a crisis at the Berkeley campus.
Now back to more serious topics…
The NYT reports that “the political establishment was rallying behind Mr. Macron, warning of the dangers of a victory by Ms. Le Pen’s far-right National Front, though few analysts give her much of a chance of winning the May 7 runoff”
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Eye roll.
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Was this meant to be satire? It’s hard to say. Far be it for mortal man to question the wisdom of a political “analyst” in 2017. Warnings of impending (unspecified) doom if opponents win is sounding a bit repetitive. It will be hilarious if they once again miss the story this time and get it wrong, after all everyone the analysts know would never vote for Le Pen.
HaroldW,
The onion piece was hilarious.
Tom Scharf,
The political “establishment” in France are those who support the EU. After all– that’s the established situation. To them, the possibility of leaving the EU is a danger– and if Le Pen wins, that just might happen.
Of course, those wanting to leave the EU don’t consider leaving it a “danger”. They consider that a “hope”.
There are some other dangers related to the monetary system, debts and so on. But I’m not entirely sure danger can ever be entirely avoided.
I can’t begin to guess who is going to win this election.
I think the bigger question about the Syrian chemical weapons disposal process was whether they eliminated Syrian’s capability for producing new chemical weapons. I’ve seen claims that only about 1/2 of the production capability was eliminated.
Secondly, a lot of the chemicals they disposed of were very old, and likely not be be particularly effective. The US might even have done Syria a favor by getting that old junk off their hands.
You also don’t need 1300 tons of chemical weapons to attack your own population for state-terrorism purposes. This large stockpile made sense when they were facing Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, when you were talking about hundreds of thousand of soldiers facing each other across WWI-styled trenches, and you needed a chemical warfare deterrent.
For the occasional mass murder of your own population, you don’t need such a large stockpile. I have absolutely no doubt about Assad’s willingness to do just that.
I’m the furthest thing from an expert on French politics. I’m just entertained that journalists seem to be mindlessly repeating Trump coverage and the first instinct is to go directly to character assassination of supporters. No wonder people hate journalism today.
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The Atlantic (Le Pen’s supporters are trailer trash xenophobes):
“Meanwhile, whatever remains of the working class has largely shifted its support to Le Pen, who preys on its insecurity by invoking foreign threats. Living in areas with low economic activity and with low levels of education were the two strongest demographic indicators for voting Le Pen”
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The Intercept (Le pen’s supporter’s are racists):
“Marine Le Pen Is What Happens When You Try to Meet Racism In the Middle”
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It worked so well with Brexit and Trump, might as well use the same plan.
Tom Scharf,
The Intercept writer…. what an idiot.
He gives endless examples of how ever party is anti-Islam, but then seems to blame this all on the National Front. As if somehow, all the anti-islam feeling in all those other parties– from far left to far right is “really” just a notion of the “far right”. It may well be that anti-islam sentiment is stronger on the far right, but given all the examples he gave, it seems to be embraced over the full left-right spectrum. Possibly as French as camembert.
For what it’s worth, I spent junior year in college in France. There was a fair amount of islamophobia there at the time. I can’t speak for the percentage– but it was hardly invisible.
Somehow nobody is bring up misogyny in the French election for some reason, ha ha. Perhaps HRC can go over and show that she is “With Her”.
Tom, Madeleine Albright is no doubt explaining that there is a special place in Hell for women who do not support Le Pen.
Maybe all the PC lefties think Le Pen is a guy in drag… no, wait, that would make (him/her/it) even more worthy of support!
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Probably they just don’t like her politics. Of course, if I don’t like Elizabeth Warren’s politics, I am declared a hater of women… which would likely surprise my daughters.
Followup post about John Yoo’s declaring war argument.
http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/446970/yoo-trump-war-syria-constitution
Still ignores the original understanding of declare war part of Yoo’s argument.
MikeN,
Paulsen begs the question of original intent of the meaning of ‘declare war’. His argument assumes his conclusion.
As you say, Paulsen fails to engage this statement by John Yoo:
Thanks for the link, MikeN.
Paulsen insists on misrepresenting Woo’s argument. He claims that Woo bases his argument on actual practice, rather than the text of the Constitution. But Woo’s argument is based on the text and only uses actual practice to illustrate why that interpretation makes sense. Paulsen never addresses the constitutional part of Woo’s argument. I find an argument unconvincing when it has to rely on misrepresenting the opposing argument.
As MikeN points out, Paulsen ignores Woo’s argument that declaring war is a different thing than authorizing war. The distinction is not new; it existed in the 18th century when the Constitution was drafted.
Paulsen claims that the President has the power to “respond to sudden attacks on the nation, rescue Americans already in peril from foreign force’s acts, or protect the nation in a truly emergency situation”. Where does he get that list? It is not in the Constitution. So we can not know that other powers are prohibited.
Woo has it right. Congress has the power to decide what military resources are available to the government. It does that via authorizing funding, troop levels, equipment etc. The President has the authority, as Commander in Chief, to use those resources to deal with foreign threats. That includes, but is not limited to, the purposes listed by Paulsen.
Paulsen also neglects the biggest difference between than and now, a large standing military force. That didn’t exist before WWII. One could argue, somewhat circularly, that Congress wouldn’t continue to authorize its existence if it weren’t meant to be used.
The 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force could probably be stretched to cover the attack on Syria as well.
DeWitt: “Paulsen also neglects the biggest difference between than and now, a large standing military force. That didn’t exist before WWII. One could argue, somewhat circularly, that Congress wouldn’t continue to authorize its existence if it weren’t meant to be used.”
That is certainly a big difference. One could also argue that the existence of such a large standing military requires tighter constraints on executive authority than provided by the Constitution. 18th century armies could be raised and equipped quite rapidly if needed, so the presidential power as commander in chief could be restrained by limiting the military resources available to the President. The modern military is so complex that a large standing force must be maintained in case it is needed. That puts an awful lot of power at presidential discretion. It makes me nervous. But I do not see a ready solution.
Although this particular social science shark jumping has been occurring for a while, I include this to affirm it hasn’t stopped.
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How Do Students’ Racial Backgrounds Affect How They’re Taught Math?
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/04/racist-math-education/524199/
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“Yet a new paper disrupts those narratives by examining an unaddressed element of the equation—namely, the ways in which “whiteness†in math education reproduces racial advantages for white students and disadvantages historically marginalized students of color.”
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I can say that when my wife had her short experience teaching algebra in high school they actually had a politically correct math problem book with names / diagrams changed to show the rich and culturally diverse world math lives in.
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Nothing particularly wrong with social scientists spouting off race theories, that is what they do. What is wrong is this getting national coverage without any critical thinking applied.
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Of course, Islam is a religion and political party, not a race.
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Any who are inclined, help me square the circle on this.
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I listen to Sam Harris, who appears quite reasoned. I read Bernard Lewis who pointed out long ago the demographic trend of Islamization of Europe. And I can’t help but conclude that Islam is quite at odds with secular constitutional law.
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Liberty, equality, and fraternity?
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Submission precludes liberty.
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Dhimmitude precludes equality.
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The Umma and Ulema preclude fraternity.
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As Sam Harris says, Islamic fundamentalism is only a problem because of the fundamentals of Islam.
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This has nothing to do with the adherents! They are fellow humans – it is the ideas that are poisonous and anathema to modern liberal society which advances reason and understanding.
Ok… I don’t know what this means
There are some very real problems with lack of fair access to good education in the US and the world. I don’t think “deconstructing and discarding the white frame of mathematics education” is the way to solve the more pressing problems. Of course, I could be wrong.
DeWitt, 2001 AUMF can’t cover Syria. If it were against ISIS maybe. The Congresswoman who voted no, argued that it could be used to invade Iraq, which was ridiculed at the time. Then Rush Limbaugh argued that it covered an attack on Iraq, making her no vote look reasonable.
“respond to sudden attacks on the nation, rescue Americans already in peril from foreign force’s acts, or protect the nation in a truly emergency situationâ€. Where does he get that list?
That is a reasonable list of things that would not involve starting a war.
MikeN,
That’s an assertion, not a fact. I doubt that a court would ever rule on it as it would be a dispute between the President and Congress, which courts rarely, if ever, take up.
Yet another assertion. Bombing the Syrian airfield hasn’t started a war with anyone either.
MikeN (Comment #161503): “That is a reasonable list of things that would not involve starting a war.”
I agree that it is a reasonable list, although I am not sure it is exhaustive. But Paulsen claims that is an exhaustive list of what the Constitution allows. My question as to where he finds that list in the Constitution.
John Yoo’s article was structured with the original meaning of ‘declare war’ at the end. Normally, I would expect him to start with that and have the practice thru history reinforce it. Instead, he appears to throw it in as an afterthought, like it is so obvious it need not be argued. I see it as the most important detail, and no support is given for it. It leads me to think he has nothing to support it, particularly given Yoo’s legal experience. Paulsen in turn doesn’t highlight it as absurd and outside the realm of possibility and leaves it out entirely. Leads me to think he has no rebuttal.
I don’t know if they commented on the use of sarin, but the UN Human Rights Council is concerned that repealing ObamaCare violates various treaties.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/r/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/04/25/Editorial-Opinion/Graphics/103_17_ACA_Repeal_Request_for_Information.pdf
MikeN –
Wow, just wow. Since when has it been “the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standards of physical and mental health”?
I’m beginning to think that the UN serves no useful purpose.
The irony of a UN that condemns US efforts to reform a tragically flawed Obamcare as a violation of human rights while ignoring genocide and calls for genocide and even encouraging the same against Israel is rather harsh and bitter.
I suppose it is better to have a UN than not have one, but I imagine if we funded it at 25% of the current level we would receive all the benefits we currently get. Whatever those are, ha ha.
Harold W,
“I’m beginning to think that the UN serves no useful purpose.”
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I suppose the UN does some good things, but on balance, I think they do real barm. I suggest that the US explain we want them out of NY within 2 years, and we will withold financial support for all politically motivated activities…. which seems to be mostly what the UN does. I suggest Bejing, Caracas, Havana, or perhaps Pyongyang as more appropriate cities for the UN to be based.. These garden spots would present tbe UN with the real world consequences of the leftist rubbish they constantly peddle.
Look at the current membership of the UNHRC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Human_Rights_Council
Included are such paragons of human rights as Cuba and Venezuela, not to mention most of the African countries that are members.
Middlebury. Berkeley. Portland. Non-violent responses to violent protests (or even anonymous threats) seem to be counter productive at this point. It’s spreading and escalating. Somebody needs to take a stand that Antifa black hooded anarchists aren’t in charge of public events.
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I don’t see anyway out except a violent confrontation with police which they seem to be inviting. Of course they will declare themselves the victim of such “abuse”, but I don’t think they will get much sympathy in reality.
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Unfortunately what now seems to be happening is right wing extremists are organizing to provide “protection” that is not being provided by left leaning local governments. This is a big mistake because it really works politically for the right anyway, there can be no clearer case of hypocrisy on tolerance. This is a gift to the right.
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It is curious because the MSM and left establishment (Warren / Sanders) are no fans of these actions, they know it plays poorly with the public. The NYT keeps printing sympathetic views to this craziness, but the comment threads show even its readers are having none of it for the most part. They basically created this monster by selling the meme that all right wing speech is hate speech.
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Here Berkeley’s chancellor rationalizes the suppression of speech in the name of student safety as if these are mutually exclusive.
Berkeley Is Under Attack From Both Sides
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/opinion/berkeley-is-under-attack-from-both-sides.html?_r=0
For what it’s worth, a French ministry concluded that sarin was used and that it was developed by the Syrian government.
Damascus responds that this report is “deception and fabricated lies” which “leaves no doubt about France’s involvement in this crime and its direct participation in the aggression against Syria.”
Tom, 4chan folks managed to identify one of the guys wearing a mask who was attacking people with a bike lock. Has upset some of the antifa crowd that they can’t attack with impunity now.
Part 3 of ‘declare war’. Still ducks the specific point but covering the originalist argument.
http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/447068/syria-war-trump-yoo-hamilton-history
Black hoods, huh. At least the Klan had the sense to wear white.
MikeN,
Covering his interpretation of the originalist argument. Not to mention that we are not at war with Syria.
The Red Guards are the group most like the black-hooded speech suppressors/thugs of the Left. Both the Chinese and American groups share intolerance, simple-minded superficiality and violent mob mentalities.
JD
JD Ohio,
True, but different from the Klan how? I see perfect correspondence other than costume. The Red Guards, IIRC, didn’t bother with disguises.
Apparently there was a left/right mob fight at Berkeley on April 15th. The left is apparently up in arms because one of the black clad mask wearing bottle wielding people in the fight scrum who got punched was a….girl. How dare they! I think both participants need to affirmatively say yes before the punching starts. All good fun until someone starts bringing knives and guns.
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It is a bit humorous that now that the right crazies have started to engage in battle, the mayor has decided that vigorous law enforcement is now warranted, we can’t have the black bloc endangered.
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The Berkeley mayor has some curious things to say today:
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“It’s not lost on me that I’m Berkeley’s first Latino mayor. I have been outspoken against the Trump administration,” he said. “I have to wonder if the mayor was white, would we see such hate. (from right wing protesters)”
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Yes mayor, it’s all about you and your particular identity. There are no possible legitimate grievances worth discussing. We have got to be reaching peak PC at this point.
Dewitt Payne: “True, but different from the Klan how?”
To me I see more Red Guard because the Red Guards were students, and the Klan membership was not strongly associated with students.
JD
JD Ohio,
You do have a point there.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #161533): “”Not to mention that we are not at war with Syria.”
Right. Paulsen’s entire argument seems to turn on the silly assumption that any use of military force is equivalent to a declaration of war.
I don’t see anything silly about it. If someone bombed a base in America, I think most people would consider it an act of war. The reason we are not at war is because Syria hasn’t fought back, and Trump is not continuing to fight.
MikeN,
The bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese was an act of war, a declaration by other means. The bombing of the Syrian air base was not. It was, in naval terminology, a shot across the bow rather than a broadside. If you can’t see the difference, I doubt I could explain it to you.
Of climate interest. The NYT promised after the election to provide more viewpoints and one of the things they did was hire Bret Stephens. He starts trying to slay sacred cows in his first column. He humorously compares climate certainty to Clinton election certainty.
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Climate of Complete Certainty
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/opinion/climate-of-complete-certainty.html?_r=0
If I recall correctly it was due to bungled Japanese logistics that Pearl Harbor was attacked before the Japanese declaration of war was delivered. An act of war is not a declaration of war per se. Obama made a red line. Trump out some teeth in it. International relations are very much a free for all historically. There are few if any hard and fast rules or definitions for anything.
Tom, climate activists are calling for a boycott of NYT because of Stephens. Hilarious.
The arrogant shallow reactionary climate believers are such transparent intellectual cowards.
Comments seem to be 3 to 1 negative unfortunately.
On the other hand there are a very large number of comments.
Seems to be the start of a thaw in MSM reporting towards Trump, An occasional piece without too much knocking, a new view commentator. Oh well , probably won’t last.
Any of you guys with access to the paper should put in a positive comment. If you want to, of course.
Re: Bret Stephens:
Watts Up With That has an article about the alarmists discussing cancelling their subscriptions to the NYTs because it has dared to present an alternative viewpoint. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/04/29/green-fury-over-nyt-hiring-a-lukewarmer-columnist-brett-stephens/
….
To those who have wondered why I described the Left so negatively in my recent blog post here, this is part of the reason. People like this are beyond rational discourse. The only way to have any small hope of breaking through the echo chamber is to figuratively whack them on the side of the head with a baseball bat.
JD
NYTs: From Brenda responding to Teasel in Stephens column that I just stumbled upon: ” I did not subscribe to the NYT in order to be patronised by a columnist with nothing more to offer than straw-man caricatures. Characterizing those who oppose eminently sensible public policy positions as “skeptics” is the last straw. Subscription cancelled. ”
Comical ignorance.
JD
JD there was a brief boycott by NOW 20 years ago of NYT for using Rush Limbaugh in an ad.
Maybe one of you understands this. There seems to be a great bunching of panties on the left over one possibility which appears to be a part of Trump’s tax proposal. It has to do with a carry-through which would allow an individual’s tax to be paid at the corporate rather than the individual rate at GREAT savings, surely an evil loophole.
Suppose one were to be an architect, and the only well-paid one in the universe. Our hero wants to take advantage of this opportunity. First he tells his employer that he is forming an LLC and henceforth will be a contractor and no longer an employee, and the employer will pay his LLC not only his pay but the with-holding and other emoluments (what a great word – it even sounds oily) which were a part of his burden as an employee, which of course the employer will no longer bear.
Of course our hero will now need to find his own medical plan because presumably he will no longer qualify for his employer’s group plan.
Now assuming this all works out, our hero as embodied by his LLC is now a contractor and can pay his taxes at the new corporate rate of 15%.
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What’s wrong with this?
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In dark antiquity (1993), a friend had become a contract employee for reasons that seemed congenial both to him and his employer. But there was a problem. The IRS didn’t like this and told him that a contractor with a single client was an employee and this arrangement was not allowed. So friend needed to come up with another customer. But he couldn’t. And not only that, the folks with whom he had the contract didn’t want him back as an employee.
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So my take is that panties are bunched for nothing because unless you can come up with a second customer, you can’t be an employee masquerading as an LLC, so this big loophole isn’t legal.
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Have I got this confused? If I haven’t, Jared Bernstein and a bunch (oops, there’s that word again – I suppose Times and Post writers can be a bunch just like panties) of the writers at the Times and the Post haven’t comprehended the entire enchilada.
j ferguson,
I suspect the devil is in the details. If your work is under a well defined contract, I suspect there would be no problem with the IRS. My first consulting contract consumed about 80 days per year (in Brazil), and the contract was very clear about me being an independent contractor, allowed travel expenses, mutual agreement on schedule of consulting, that I was free to contract other customers (which within a year or so I did).
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WRT the new tax law, I strongly suspect that small corporations, LLCs, etc will ultimately be excluded from the lower corporate rate. Otherwise the hit to the treasury would be ”yuge’; it would be great for me personally, but I really doubt it will ever happen.
JFerguson, right now certain companies can file as SCorp and pay taxes under the individual income tax instead of the corporate tax. A lower corporate tax rate would change this back.
The scheme you speak of happened regularly under the 91% tax rates. It also already happens to avoid Medicare taxes. John Edwards saved tens of thousands a year with it.
SteveF, the problem with the IRS seems to arise when it’s more like 2,000 hours a year, in effect full time and there is only a single contract – no other customer, you are an employee in all respects masquerading as a business.
I’ll have to think some more about this but as i remember the advantages my friend thought he would get were greater cash flow and (he thought) more opportunity to expense things like trip to office which otherwise would not have been deductible.
He did this without unusually devious intent (being a bit simple in this sort of thing) but the deal was that the IRS would sit still for this for about 18 months and then you had to either find another customer or be an employee.
and top bracket in 93 wasn’t 91%, not that I would have known from direct experience.
J Ferguson: Independent Contractor
….
If you only have one “client”, you are in a tough spot to claim independent contractor status. On the other hand, if you are looking for other work and marketing yourself, that would help even if you only had one client. If I was advising someone, I would say there is no bright line (biggest test is “right to control” test), but if it was strongly advantageous, I would say to go out and offer yourself on the cheap and get a number of other gigs.
Here is a link discussing IRS tests. http://www.twc.state.tx.us/news/efte/appx_d_irs_ic_test.html
JD
JD,
What you say above is pretty much what I thought. It shows what nonsense this stuff about Trump’s tax suggestion [changing how owners of businesses are to be taxed via a carry-through to make new corporate rate accessible] will create a storm of new LLC’s created solely to enable high paid employees to become contractors and be taxed at the business rate.
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Your link seems directed more toward the concern of employers but the permanency test was the one i was thinking of. If you are a contractor to a single company for an extended period and don’t provide these services to anyone else, the IRS is going to see you as an employee, LLC or not.
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The left seems all awash with how Trump’s plan will let high paid people avoid the higher personal income tax rate. I continue to feel that so much of what i read is blinded by agenda.
I sat through a diatribe on pbs tonight addressed to the evil of not taxing funds earned overseas by US corps who haven’t ‘repatriated it. In my naive view, I thought this money might then be invested over their possibly to grow the business of the US company in a way that would ultimately redound to our interest. Maybe the present scheme has advantages. Or possibly not?
JD,
Offering yourself on the cheap? How do you think your regular employer is going to go for paying your LLC $875/hour while you (the LLC) are doing gigs for ‘competitors’ for $135? I smell conspiracy if anything like this was tolerated. I’ve often wondered if there is any risk to charging one customer at one rate and another a much higher rate? But that’s a whole other topic.
I just get restless when i watch someone like Jared Bernstein who ought to know about the subject we’re discussing blathering on PBS about the coming scourge of phony LLC’s performing as employees to get the corporate tax rate should Trump’s idea be adopted.
He’s a smart guy. I can’t believe he doesn’t understand why it won’t work except in some extreme cases.
J Ferguson: “Offering yourself on the cheap? How do you think your regular employer is going to go for paying your LLC $875/hour while you (the LLC) are doing gigs for ‘competitors’ for $135? I smell conspiracy if anything like this was tolerated.”
….
I was simply talking about the 93 situation. If hirer wanted contractor to work, hirer should be happy if contractor worked for less for others and hirer was able to avoid becoming an employer. It is not unusual for the law to tolerate or even encourage fictions. In essence, a one-owner LLC is a fiction encouraged by the law. Have not followed the Trump tax proposals at all, so I have no comments on how LLCs or something else might affect his tax plan.
JD
j ferguson,
Many owners of small corporations function both as a statutory employee and as an owner who receives a share of net profits. This has a large impact on self employment taxes. So long as the salary earned as an employee is fair and reasonable based on job function and time spent, the IRS should not have any problem with it. A test is if you could hire soneone to do those same job functions at a similar salary. If so, then only the compensation received as an employee is subject to Social Security and Medicare taxes, and the rest as profit… which passes through to the owners untaxed, but is then subjected to regular personal income tax rates. If the combination of C-corporation tax rates plus dividend tax rates falls below the individual incone tax rate (on ordinary income), then S-corps and LLCs would just reorganize as C-corps and distribute profits as dividens to get a lower net rate.
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I doubt net taxes on the owners of small businesses are going to be reduced by more than any corresponding drop in personal tax rates; a significant portion of total federal income taxes are paid by these (relatively few) individuals…. and that is not likely going to change much.
SteveF, I have no problem whatever with what you describe.
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my problem was with the press’s supposition that highly paid employees (not themselves employers) would create LLC’s, become contractors, and then pay their taxes at the lower corporate rate since they were now business owners not employees.
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As JD mentioned, the law allows ruses of some kinds, but I think the IRS is pretty clear that if the new LLC doesn’t work for any other company, then it is an employee. Thus the liberal assault on Trump’s idea objects to a probably already illegal application of it.
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The effect is to object to a straw man.
This is what I’m referring to:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/upshot/under-the-trump-tax-plan-we-might-all-want-to-become-corporations.html?_r=0
The one that gets me is Rahmstorf.
“Professor Stefan Rahmstorf, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research in Germany, is the latest scientist to write publicly to the New York Times detailing his reasons for cancelling their subscriptions.”
Beyond that fact that what Stephens writes is quite reasonable, why does a research scientist get so involved with an editorial author?
Unwittingly, Rahmstorf self identifies his bias and makes his research suspect.
T. Eddie,
I think the problem with the Times is that so many of its readers believe that whatever they read in it is the absolute truth. I’m going to brunch in an hour with a group some of whom believe that if they say they read something in the Times, even if they clearly didn’t understand it, they have capped the discussion.
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I think the item I linked above is as good an example of a straw man I’ve ever seen. My guess is that its author has no idea that the scheme he describes won’t fit existing IRS rules.
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I’m reminded of all the squawking about loss carry-forward. I preferred income-averaging but I guess Reagan didn’t.
Let the climate extremists keep demonstrating that they are intolerant loud thuggish bigots who refuse to permit even the mildest criticism. Much less actually debate. The Potsdam Institute had been pushing the most alarmist nonsense dressed up as science for many years. Of course they will squawk. What is amazing to read are the arrogant cowards at competing lefty publication a writing bizarre calls to ignore the NYT over this mild and thoughtful article. Snowflakes indeed.
Trump has some ideas for businesses.
C-Corps with lots of profits are taxed at high rates and their dividends paid are taxable.
S-Corps don’t pay taxes in most cases, and the profits are taxed at the owners rate.
If Corporations were taxed at 15%, you see a bunch of small businesses reboot as C-Corps ignoring state corporate taxes.
The real answer here is not Trump’s idea but to not tax C-Corps and pass through the income to its owners. And stop taxing dividends as well. Limited Partnerships, they issue K-1s, get about the same deal as S-Corps, but keep in mind there are tax differences that pop up between the two.
What we have at this time is the Romney effect. He paid like 11% of his income in Federal taxes because I believe the favored status of qualified dividends. If he had to show ordinary income from pass through (was dividends) income, he’d have paid at his marginal rate which was much higher. So there was a rich guy, owning stock that paid low taxes.
Corporate tax revenues have shrunk, ask Sanders. Eliminating the corporate tax puts us in a better position to compete. Foreign companies would see the advantage of headquartering here. We do capitalism, so they say.
The biggest stumbling block here is liberals. I don’t think tax revenue is lost with my idea. It is just placed on the stock owners. If you want to see the market rocket. Give this idea a try.
If you are passing thru the income to shareholders, then the corporate tax has just been increased, and the C-Corp is now an S-Corp.
MarkN:
Most of the time an S-Corp pays no income taxes. But important exceptions exist. That’s what I am proposing for C-Corps. Their dividends are no longer taxed. The C-Corps income is shown as the shareholders income who report it as taxable income.
TE,
“….. why does a research scientist get so involved with an editorial author?”
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Umm… maybe because he is much more a green political activist than a scientist. He publishes what amounts to little more than wild eyed speculation…. always predicting utter doom unless we stop using fossil fuels immediately. He’s nothing but a hack.
Ragnar, what I meant was what was the corporate tax would become personal tax at a higher rate. What would be the difference between S and C?
I have run a S-Corp for 20 years. All income minus business expenses passes through to the shareholder(s). So my business gets effectively taxed at my federal income tax rate. My S-Corp doesn’t pay any federal taxes as I recall (except employee taxes, etc.). The main point is a personal / business liability wall for the most part. I’m no expert, I use an accountant.
We have entered an alternate reality when people start calling the NYT climate skeptics. This is simply social pressure to adhere to ideological purity tests. This kind of stuff would drive me crazy if I was in the blue tribe. I’m sure someone could give examples of the red tribe doing this exact type of behavior, but it seems more prevalent on the left.
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The NYT’s will likely go all guilt complex and publish a few scathing climate articles to prove their bonafides.
MikeN,
S corps have a limited number of shareholders, and who can become a shareholder may be severly restricted by a sharholder’s agreement. Foreign nationals who are not subject to US income taxes (that is, non-residents) can’t be s-corp shareholders…. they can’t receive profits as a ‘pass-through’ as in an s-corp…. because that could lead to an s-corp which operates in the USA but is not subjected to taxes on profits. There is no possibility any of this will change much; s-corp pass-through income provides a substantial share of all ferderal tax revenue, and any changes in federal tax law will not drop the net rates paid by s-corp (or LLCs) shareholders below the normal income tax rates.
The feds are going to get their money one way or the other. The more convoluted the tax system is the more it can be manipulated by the best and brightest. I’d prefer a more transparent system. Consumption taxes look good on paper and a VAT seems OK….on paper. I just could never get myself to trust a VAT that DC could dial up any time they felt like it.
And now for something completely different.
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Pot is taxed at 22% in CO. $1.3B in sales in 2016, up 30%. $200M in tax revenue, about 1% of the annual budget. Unsurprisingly they want to increase it 2% next year.
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When I was there a couple weeks ago there were 8 dispensaries within a 2 mile radius (near a college campus, ha ha). Once other states start seeing these revenue numbers my guess is marijuana will be legalized in a wave over the next decade. WalMart Weed is on the way, groan.
Tom, once that happens, these companies will get sued like Big Tobacco.
Tom,
And this is different from an income tax how? As long as Congress has to vote for a tax increase, there is, IMO, zero difference.
DeWitt: “And this is different from an income tax how?”
Chiefly in that the VAT is hidden, so it is easier to increase it.
In addition to what Mike M says, it is dialing it up in sub percentage increases which doesn’t seem like much. Also that dial movement is likely to only go one way, as with the majority of our “temporary” tax increases. But I get your point, it may not make any difference in reality.
Big tobacco has got to be thinking really hard about marijuana farming. Growing pot is like growing gold. Tobacco in cigarettes costs about $0.25 per gram. Pot sells for ~100x that. YMMV.
Mike M,
“Chiefly in that the VAT is hidden, so it is easier to increase it.”
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Absolutely, that is the biggest difference. In many places with heavy VATs, it is unlawful for a retail seller to break out the tax burden, so less sophisticated voters often do not even understand why everything costs so much. I am presently in Brazil, which has a grotesque VAT-like tax structure, where national, state, and local VAT-like taxes snowball to essentially double the price of every product relative to prices in the States. A W-2 is a wonderfully informative document… you know how much tax you are paying. There is nothing similar with a VAT…. it is hidden, so it is politically easier to increase. I am 100% opposed to a VAT; it represents almost unlimited moral hazard for politicians.
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A VAT is also the most regressive tax that exists (outside the stupid Obamacare ‘tax/penalty’). The VAT is horrible for poor people. Of course, since I am a despicable right wing Trump voter, I wouldn’t dare mention the negative impact of a VAT on the poor.
Tom,
Like gambling and smoking, pot will injure mostly those who are less capable of evaluating it’s negatives. I find it very sad. I also find it quite illegal under existing Federal law, which clearly takes precedence over State and local laws. Either the existing law should be enforced or repealed. Ignoring the law undermines the rule of law in general…. is it OK for me to ignore fraud laws? I think not. Tacit acceptance of widespread lawbreaking is destructive in any country.
Assume the corporate tax rate is 35%. That’s round one. Round two taxes dividends at an assumed rate of 15% to the people who receive them. These 2 numbers should not be added together as the corporation might pay dividends only on what’s remaining after paying the 35%. They might pay any percentage of what’s left over including zero. Dividends can be tax favored. But in many cases we can say the tax rate is 35% which is higher than most people’s individual Federal rate and sometime higher.
So I suggesting we eliminate the double taxation and lower the rate by copying the S-Corp rules. General Mills cannot be an S-Corp under the current rules. There would be details to attend to with my suggestions. What about foreign owners of our companies? Withhold Federal taxes from their share of the income. Many foreign countries do the same thing when we invest in their companies.
The idea is to eliminate our corporate tax while not getting rid of all that tax revenue. Adjustments can be made. Perhaps having a higher tax rate to the individual for their share of the corporations income. That would more of a revenue neutral idea than a principled reason. The better tax treatment qualified dividends get can be argued to be because of the double taxation. Eliminating the corporate tax and double taxation might require this higher rate on dividends adjustment.
With a corporation no longer paying income taxes, more money is available for employees and shareholders who are paying taxes. More money for expansion and research. This elimination of the corporate income tax might raise the value of all those 401(k) accounts that are taxable upon distribution. This might help retirees out while they pay more income taxes. Every time a public corporation is wounded by a liberal cause, some people lose some value in their 401(k) accounts which means that money lost, is never going to be taxed by the IRS. All these justice warriors against corporations, hurt tax revenues collected by the government. Because the corporations are us. We are the owners.
It’s a good thing to have states experiment (ha ha) with legalized pot before the feds do anything. I guess Colorado and others are sanctuary states. It will be interesting to see what it looks like 20 years from now, but my guess is the number of states that will give up that revenue stream after taking the first hit will be zero, it’s incredibly addictive to cash strapped bureaucrats.
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I don’t see a lot of threat here since it’s already been widely available for 60 years on the black market, but I am not blind that 300M stoners might make America….less great.
Unfortunately, the use of drugs has outstripped alcohol with respect to the causation of traffic deaths. See http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/drug-use-passes-drinking-fatal-crashes/8rnuPBHA2vpw8whkmzL78N/
JD
Driving while blitzed on pot is going to be a big problem. Although as I recall the biggest challenge for a lot of stoned drivers is driving too slowly and meticulously….. But it won’t take many who go into a frenzy to cause big problems. I think record assassin is derived from hashish.
hunter,
Thirty years ago, the cops used to pick the guys driving bigger cars very carefully and 5 mph below the speed limit as likely drug haulers northbound on 95.
It’s good for the rest of us, I guess, that CO will have all this experience with pot blitzed drivers so the rest of us know what to expect when it comes to our states.
>Tacit acceptance of widespread lawbreaking is destructive in any country.
So is enforcement of widespread lawbreaking. If too many people see a law as invalid, then enforcing it will put them against the cops.
MikeN,
So perhaps if 10% of the public thinks shoplifting is OK that means shoplifters shouldn’t be prosecuted. If a law is widly unpopular, it should be easy to change.
The funny thing about CO pot legalization is the illegal market is still very much present. Cheaper to buy without the sales tax, and no license fees.
I think the driving on drugs article was a bit misleading. Pot stays in your system for 30 days and the article only stated drugs were found in the system, not that they were impaired while driving. It also used a sweeping category of anything.
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“About 43 percent of drivers tested in fatal crashes in 2015 had used a legal or illegal drug”
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Pot impairs driving much less than alcohol IMO but I’ve never seen any real data on it, but it impairs it. I imagine some properly administered drugs make one a better driver.
SteveF,
All VAT proposals I’ve seen include a rebate like the Earned Income Tax Credit. Cutting spending to reduce the deficit is no longer sufficient or even possible. We can’t grow our way out of it either. The current federal debt level is one of the reasons growth is so slow. We need higher revenue so the government can pay down the debt. A VAT is far less damaging to the economy than progressive income taxes. If we continue with business as usual, the next recession will be soon and will likely double the federal debt again.
It’s an interesting economic situation in CO with an already active black market. If the government taxes it too highly people will go to the black market for cheaper prices.
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What seems to have happened is that now that * growing * it has become legal, agricultural sciences are kicking in and quality has risen sharply. GMO pot. I read that Mexico won’t even ship pot to CO anymore because they can’t compete on quality. America first! Buy American!
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Legal marijuana is finally doing what the drug war couldn’t
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/03/legal-marijuana-is-finally-doing-what-the-drug-war-couldnt/?utm_term=.dbd8bf046b11
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I’m sure the usual process will occur. The USA will work out all the science, then Mexico will execute (steal) it with lower labor costs. A window of opportunity exists here. Make no mistake, this industry is ripe for innovators. Investing in pot is likely a growth industry (ha ha, couldn’t stop myself).
SteveF, I don’t think it is a good thing to have people trying to avoid cops handing out speeding tickets. Even immigration enforcement against small business employers of illegals has this problem, putting people against law enforcement.
MikeN: :I don’t think it is a good thing to have people trying to avoid cops handing out speeding tickets.”
Huh? Please explain. I can not come up with any way to parse that sentence other than that you think it a bad idea for people to obey the speed limit. Sarcasm? But I don’t see how that works either.
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MikeN: ” Even immigration enforcement against small business employers of illegals has this problem, putting people against law enforcement.”
People, specifically law breakers, will always be pitted against law enforcement. Please clarify.
DeWitt,
“We need higher revenue so the government can pay down the debt. A VAT is far less damaging to the economy than progressive income taxes.”
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We need both higher taxes AND big (really big) cuts in entitlement spending. We need to target tax scams like “carried interest” which lets fund managers pay taxes on huge earnings at 15% instead of 35+%.
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I do not see why a VAT is less “damaging” than income taxes. If you institute a VAT and some kind of VAT forgiveness for the poor, you still end up taxing the middle class and upper middle class at ever higher rates, while the very wealthy just smile and say “thank you”. A VAT will only worsen the growing discrepancy in earnings between the top 1% and the rest. I don’t see that as a good thing.
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The fundamental problem is that politicians will not cut entitlement spending. Servicing the growing debt is already taking a substantial fraction of total tax revenues, and the debt will become unsustainable within a decade or so. Politicians want only one thing: reelection, and they don’t appear to give a $hit about the future of the country.
MikeN,
“I don’t think it is a good thing to have people trying to avoid cops handing out speeding tickets. Even immigration enforcement against small business employers of illegals has this problem, putting people against law enforcement.”
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Not much more I can say than “wow”.
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Enforcing the law always pits criminals against the police. This is a very normal thing, not a very bad thing. People who knowingly hire illegal aliens should be convicted and sitting in Federal prison. If laws against employing illegal aliens were enforced, then there would be very few illegal aliens in the country today. Travel much outside the States? Most other countries do not have this problem, because they actually enforce the law. (Australia tossing out thousands of Kiwi’s, for example.)
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If politicians in “sanctuary cities” were prosecuted as the felons they are under Federal law, there would be a lot fewer illegal aliens. If multiple-entry illegal aliens faced prison time (they are in fact felons) instead of just deportation, there would be far few illegal aliens. Nobody is serious about enforcing immigration laws. Or drug laws, for that matter.
> law breakers, will always be pitted against law enforcement. Please clarify.
Yes they will. I’m assuming that lots of people are speeding, a very high proportion. This group will be pitted against law enforcement. I think the crime here is a low level crime and not worth the cost of having the group be against law enforcement, even if it is for a small time and against traffic cops.
An extreme case would be Ferguson, where the police force was being used to generate revenue and writing up tickets for all sorts of code violations like grass is too long.
SteveF,
An income tax penalizes saving, discourages investment and innovation and ultimately results in a lower standard of living.
http://www.investorguide.com/article/11831/consumption-vs-income-tax-which-has-a-larger-impact-igu/
The income tax would, of course, have to be drastically lowered or eliminated if a VAT is introduced.
European countries with VAT’s have less income inequality than the US.
http://fortune.com/2015/09/30/america-wealth-inequality/
Entitlement spending isn’t going to be cut. Complaining that it’s too high is a waste of bandwidth. Income inequality isn’t going to be fixed by tinkering with the current tax code either.
DeWitt,
“European countries with VAT’s have less income inequality than the US.”
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The Europeans tax their economies at up to twice what the US does, and most of that is spent on wealth transfer which reduces income inequality. Has nothing to do with the economic efficiency of the VAT.
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“The income tax would, of course, have to be drastically lowered or eliminated if a VAT is introduced.”
Europe has both high income taxes AND high VATs. Passing a VAT would not eliminate income taxes, any more than income taxes have been eliminated in Europe.
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WRT entitlement spending: I am pretty certain that entitlement spending will be cut…. it is simply unsustainable at current levels without European-like tax rates. Later eligibility for Medicare and Social Security benefits, steeper monthly costs for medicare, etc are just about inevitable. I don’t see much support outside Hillary land for European-like tax rates.
SteveF,
So? I see zero support for cutting entitlement spending among elected officials. That means higher taxes have far more support.
SteveF,
If you include state and local taxes, we are paying near European levels of taxes.
http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/total_revenue_2016USrn
In 2016, GDP was estimated at $18.6E12 while federal, state and local revenue was $6.5E12 or 35% of GDP compared to around 40% for Europe.
DeWitt,
“I see zero support for cutting entitlement spending among elected officials.”
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Of course. They only want to get re-elected right now. When there is no other alternative, they will be forced to either raise taxes steeply, make steep cuts to entitlements, or make less steep changes to both. I suspect it will be both.
DeWitt,
Within that “40%” for Europe you have everything from 20-something % to 60 something %. It is the the ~50% and up range that funds the most generous welfare states.
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Another key difference is that while the people in NY and Caleefornia pay higher net taxes, in Florida I do not. In Europe, there are fewer options except for the very wealthy, who take up ‘residence’ in places like Monaco and Jersey. I think it may be difficult to get an accurate apples-to-apples comparison on overall tax burden, but I know for certain that people in most of Europe pay astronomical prices for all sorts of goods which are pretty cheap here (eg US$5.60 per gallon for gasoline).
Human Rights Watch says
“”The organisation has revealed that the Syrian military deployed chemical weapons just five days before the April 4 attack at a town 15km southwest of Khan Sheikhoun. This attack did not cause deaths, but did cause injuries to dozens of civilians and rebel insurgents.
Syrian forces also dropped nerve agents twice in mid-December near the eastern Hama towns of Jrouh and Al-Salaliyah, an area controlled by Islamic State. A rebel-affiliated activist and local residents say 64 people died from chemical exposure in these attacks on December 11 and 12.”
Amazingly despite the reputed use of Sarin in these claimed attacks nobody said a word until now??
‘Its analysis concludes it was most likely a KhAB-500, a Soviet factory-made air-dropped chemical bomb, specifically designed to deliver deadly sarin gas.”
More fake news dragging in the Russians now?
I thought we “”knew” the Syrians built and delivered them all by themselves.
Next please.
angech:
Oh, it has been reported. McMaster even discussed them in his press conference, albeit briefly.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/13/international-concern-over-claims-of-chemical-weapon-attack-in-syria
SteveF:
The number is around 60% for marijuana.
I think you are underestimating government inertia and the influence on the process from businesses that profit from the current laws.
Wednesday 14 December 2016 attack
Thanks Carrick.
Any reason why the first one provoked no response and the more recent one such an outcry?
The reports are similar and the sites were rebel occupied?
Carrick,
Do you think it is OK for people to ignore laws they don’t like? Do you think that politicians should pick and choose what laws to enforce and which to ignore? I honetly see that as a step in the direction of ‘arbitrary and capricious’.
SteveF,
(If I may interject…) There are many laws still on the books which are not enforced (and ignored). For example, I have no doubt that many unmarried persons in VA engage voluntarily in sexual intercourse without being charged with fornication.
I do agree with your comment that it is extremely poor policy to have laws which aren’t enforced, or are enforced arbitrarily against those whom DAs consider “bad guys”. I would far prefer to have the law changed — in the present case, remove marijuana from whichever list of proscribed substances it currently resides. It is, of course, a difficult job to draw a line here, but it seems to me (and to voters in many states) that marijuana should be on the “legal” side of the line.
angech: “Any reason why the first one provoked no response and the more recent one such an outcry?”
Because the Obama administration studiously ignored it, just as for all the other attacks over the last few years.
I agree with Mike M. I think it’s pretty clear that our sociopathic former president Obama was more concerned about his legacy than he was a few hundred Syrian lives.
But I think the bigger reason is social media—this latest attack occurred in a region with good cell coverage. The video and stills from maybe 100 different people are hard to refute. Of course, even when the evidence is totally incontrovertible, that doesn’t stop some people from denying that it happened.
SteveF—our country exists because of civilian disobedience, and, we have a history of resisting what we see to be unjust law. In fact we exist as this nation because of that.
When a law is unjust, I think it means that law is causing more harm than good. Obeying the law in that case might cause greater harm than resisting the law and refusing to acknowledge it.
I’d say the way this works is as a tension between our rule of laws and the populace that these rules of law are supposed to serve. As I see it, when the laws are poor or non-uniformly enforced, drug laws and speeding are examples that come to mind, this leads to an increase in social resistance.
If we as a society just decided we weren’t going to obey any laws except under the threat of punishment, it would go very badly for us. I don’t think that’s happening here… most of us willingly obey just laws, and do so, regardless of whether there is a civil threat against us.
We need that to function as a society. I would say that unjust laws threaten our system of government, and are damaging because they put the populace in a position where they feed obligated to ignore that law.
I think the harm starts and ends with the bad law, and people refusing to obey bad law is just a natural social consequence of the bad law.
Carrick,
The problem is what is an “unjust law’. Mike’s example of aVA statute against sex between unmarried people is an example of a law that should long ago have been revoked. That it has not been is as damning a commentary of the legislature of VA as I can imagine. The issue is the unwillingness to do the heavy lifting of getting laws revoked. So long as unenforced laws remain on the books we are all subject to arbitrary prosecution.
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I have often thought that a constitutional ammendment requiring a 25 year automatic sunset, unless explictly renewed, would be a very good thing. Of course, where there is widespread disagreement (as with marajuana) about a law’s legitimacy, such a sunset requirement would be contentious, but the argument could then not be ignored, as it is now. I want only the rule of (reasonable) law, and not the arbitrary flouting of law. That way lies chaos.
Carrick,
I am aware of our revolutionary history. The second ammendment is but one of the results.
I don’t understand why several of you think a VAT is some sort of stealth tax that could be raised at any time without issue. Since a VAT is a consumption tax, much like a sales tax, any increase would result in immediate retail price increases. An income tax is far more stealthy, IMO.
DeWitt P: “I don’t understand why several of you think a VAT is some sort of stealth tax that could be raised at any time without issue.”
….
The reason is that to the many mathematically challenged American voters large increases in a VAT tax would appear to be small. For instance, if you increase a VAT tax from 9% to 10% that is a large increase but it would go above the heads of most voters who would look at like it was a small one percent or penny increase. For example, in Ohio, I remember when the sales tax was 3%. Now it is generally 7%. This type of tax is very susceptible to long-term gradual increases that over time become very large.
JD
JD Ohio,
Again, this is different from the income tax how? If you raise the top rate, a percent or two it affects very few people.
A VAT in the US would start at a lot higher than 9%, probably 20% or more. Otherwise, exporters wouldn’t get much benefit compared to European countries.
DeWitt,
Sales taxes are stated explicitly, and everyone who makes a retail purchase is informed of the rate. (I was informed of the sales tax rate four different times today.) VAT’s are hidden, in that the tax is never declared at point of retail sale. Such a declaration is in fact impossible, since the retailer has no information about the taxes that have already been paid by all the various business entities between the production of various raw materials and the finished goods sold to the final consumer. A sales tax is open and honest. So it pisses voters off. A VAT is hidden, and designed to be invisible to most voters. That is why politicians who want to raise taxes like VAT’s so much.
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I have been many places where heavy VAT’s are common. They cause very high retail prices… with no clear explanation that the cause of high prices is high taxes. Voters often blame “greedy” companies for high retail prices, while the blame should be on politicians.
You want to raise the same amount of money as a VAT? Then a heavy sales tax does exactly the same thing…. except voters would then know why the retail price is high, and vote the bums out. Congress will NEVER pass a national sales tax.
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By the way, many millions of foreign nationals vacation in the USA because of low retail prices for clothing and consumer goods. It is common for people to arrive with large empty suitcases, and return home with them filled with purchases. Jack up retail prices via a hefty VAT, and many would just stay home.
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Please explain why you think a W-2 form or a completed 1040 is ‘stealthy’.
Stevef,
Don’t you frequently get the opportunity to ‘recover’ VAT, say coming out of Canada, or UK? We tend not to buy much on our foreign trips so the opportunity seldom makes sense, but I vaguely remember that the amount of VAT is shown on the receipts for things we might have bought.
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it could be that this isn’t all the VAT which the thing has accumulated on it sojourn from raw materials.
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WOT, we were introduced to another couple at a soiree on Sunday. I asked SWMBO today what she thought of them.
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“We have less than nothing in common.”
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I take this to suggest that we may not be seeing them again.
SteveF,
A high sales tax invites a black market. That’s why the FairTax wouldn’t work. Look at cigarettes in New York City. That idi0t de Blasio wants to increase the price of a pack of legal cigarettes in NYC to $13. Cigarette smuggling is already big business. It’s estimated that more than half of all cigarettes sold in NYC are smuggled. Eric Garner, who died as a result of a choke hold while resisting arrest, was selling smuggled cigarettes.
There’s no reason why a US VAT couldn’t require labeling the amount of the tax for each product.
A W-2 or 1040 is stealthy because you only know how much you paid. With a VAT, you know everyone else is paying the same amount when they buy something.
DeWitt P: “Again, this is different from the income tax how? If you raise the top rate, a percent or two it affects very few people.”
…..
This virtually never happens. In practice income tax rates seem to be raised at least 4 or 5%, and are always highly publicized. What happens with sales taxes is that everyone has their own special interest and a library, for instance, will seek an increase of .0025. It will then say, it will only cost the average tax payer $75 per year. Unmentioned are the many small increases in the past, and the many small increases in the pipeline that all add up to large increases.
SteveF makes a good additional point that the VATs are hidden at the point of the sale.
JD
DeWitt,
“A high sales tax invites a black market.”
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Just about as as much as does a high VAT (remember the millions who “shop the USA” due to high local VATs at home). The NY tax on cigarettes invites smuggling because the product is legally available close by.
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j ferguson,
Some countries do offer foreign nationals VAT recovery when leaving (at least partial) but certainly not all do.
JD Ohio,
Not necessarily. Otherwise you couldn’t recover the VAT you paid for items that you plan to take out of the country before use. There’s hoops you have to jump through, but there are stores that provide the data on the VAT. So the information is available. If food products can be labeled with their nutritional information, providing the VAT amount would be trivial. It could be much like the information on state and federal gas taxes on gas pumps.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/destinations/2014/06/19/europe-shopping-vat-refund/10751983/
On stealth income taxes:
See, for example, the Alternative Minimum Tax passed in 1982. Before 2013, the AMT exemption was not indexed for inflation. So taxes went up in real dollar terms without the politicians having to cast a vote. The same would be true for any progressive income tax where the brackets were not adjusted for inflation. That’s not necessary with a consumption tax.
SteveF,
Tourists bringing clothes back with them from the US is chump change. In Italy, VAT evasion was estimated at €37E09 in 2014 and €90E09/year in total tax evasion.
DeWitt,
Want a friendly bet? I say neither a VAT nor a national sales tax will be passed in the next 5 years.
@Steve F
This I am not understanding. There is free movement of citizens of Australia and New Zealand to live and work in either country. Migration of Kiwis to Oz led to (then) Kiwi PM Muldoon’s quip “[by migrating to Australia] New Zealanders were raising the average i.q. of both nations”.
Seth,
They apparently fail a ‘character’ test: http://www.ozkiwi2001.org/2016/08/deportation-of-new-zealanders-from-australia/
SteveF (Comment #161627): “If laws against employing illegal aliens were enforced, then there would be very few illegal aliens in the country today. Travel much outside the States? Most other countries do not have this problem, because they actually enforce the law. (Australia tossing out thousands of Kiwi’s, for example.)”
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Rubbish. You seem to be saying that you can go to Canada, look at people, and tell if they are in the country legally. In fact, Canada, U.K., and Australia all have large numbers of illegal immigrants.
https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/key-topics/illegal-immigration
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_to_Australia
The numbers appear to be a factor of 5-10 lower than in the U.S., relative to population. I don’t think the lower numbers are due to enforcement against employers; I lived in Canada for 25 years and never heard of an employer being sent to prison for employing illegals.
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I can think of a bunch of reasons other countries have fewer illegals. Canada, at least, has a refugee policy that is so generous that many people just claim questionable refugee status. Canada and Australia have much more sensible legal immigration policies. Part of the reason the U.S. attracts so many illegals is that it is the U.S. And finally, the big reason: None of those other countries share a border with Mexico.
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By the way, the Kiwis deported from Australia were legal immigrants. Made them easy to find.
SteveF,
No bet. There is little chance that the US government will do anything sensible, like a major reform of the obviously broken tax code, until there’s an actual catastrophe. I’m advocating for what we should do, not what will actually happen.
MikeM:
The very long (3200-km) border with a economically & politically backwards southern neighbor is unique to the United States.
I agree with SteveF that better enforcement of existing lawa helps (and is probably more moral in the long run), but it’s probably not a panacea, given the United State’s relatively unique geographical circumstances.
Ted Oslon has written a column in the Washington Post declaring the Border Adjustment Tax is unconstitutional. Income tax is OK, but this would be an income tax that excludes some expenses making it not income.
MikeN Border Tax —
Here is the other side. https://taxfoundation.org/ted-olson-constitutionality-border-adjustment/ Semi-complex legal questions that I have no interest in looking at now.
JD
MikeN: “Ted Oslon has written a column in the Washington Post declaring the Border Adjustment Tax is unconstitutional.”
Olson’s column can be found at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/if-retail-politics-doesnt-kill-this-1-trillion-tax-the-supreme-court-should/2017/05/03/4a623b42-2f77-11e7-9dec-764dc781686f_story.html?utm_term=.6a2279d7e4b0
It seems pretty silly to me. Olson writes “U.S. businesses that use imported materials or components thus effectively would pay two taxes: a tax on their U.S. income — their U.S. revenue minus their costs of goods sold — and a second tax on the cost of their imported materials and components”. Looked at that way, the “second tax” is a tariff, which is clearly allowed.
There is also a key fact pointed out in the link JD provided: The corporate income tax is an indirect tax, not a direct tax, and was found to be constitutional before the 16th Amendment was ratified. That causes Olson’s entire argument to collapse.
If you want to become a New Zealand citizen and you are over 50, you have two options:
1. Invest $1M in New Zealand and stay there 6 months / year.
2. Invest $10M in New Zealand and stay there 1 month / year.
Pay to play. I really don’t have much of a dog in the fight over illegal immigration, but what I can see is that almost everyone who wants cheap immigrant labor is not threatened by this influx, or directly benefits. There seems to be a new trend where anyone who benefits financially from a policy change declares it a “moral issue”.
Bret Stephens is at it again
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Climate of Unintended Consequences
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/opinion/climate-policy-ethanol.html
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Nobody is going to convince me the NYT has seen the light here, but The Exorcist scene where (fake) holy water is thrown on a possessed child and she screams “It burns!” comes to mind.
I think most of the global warmers are against the idea that ethanol is useful for global warming policy.
Mike M,
There are lots of countries where you can’t do much of anything without documentation proving legal residence. Eg, open a bank account, get a driver’s license, buy a car, rent an apartment, get a job, etc. These countries make life extremely difficult for illegal residents, and no suprise, they have very few. Suddenly enforcing laws that have been ignored for a long time (felony to knowingly employ illegals) is extremely difficult politically. That doesn’t mean it should not be done. It’s either that or chase after and deport millions of illegals, which is even more difficult. There are no policy panaceas if politicials refuse to enforce laws. The last immigration “compromise” was to legalize 3 million or so, and then start enforcing employment rules (proof of legal status to work). The second part was promptly ignored, of course. Shockingly enough, the rate of illegal immigration increased after the last round of legalization of millions.
MikeM,
Yes, tariffs are clearly constitutional (see for example tariffs on sugar). That doesn’t mean they are good policy. It also doesn’t keep other countries from retaliating, which they likely would. I very much doubt the “border adjustment” tariff will be enacted, and if it were, it would do a lot of economic damage.
SteveF: “There are lots of countries where you can’t do much of anything without documentation proving legal residence. Eg, open a bank account, get a driver’s license, buy a car, rent an apartment, get a job, etc. These countries make life extremely difficult for illegal residents, and no suprise, they have very few.”
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No doubt the USSR had nearly zero illegal immigrants. That does not mean that we should emulate them. But I agree that we should enforce laws against knowingly hiring illegals.
SteveF: “I very much doubt the “border adjustment†tariff will be enacted, and if it were, it would do a lot of economic damage.”
Total number of industrialized countries worldwide without a border adjustment: One. I don’t see why reducing that to zero should be a problem.
“Knowingly hiring illegals”
Current regime is you are not allowed to think someone illegal because the government has sent a no-match letter regarding paperwork of a new hire.
If these no match letters were taken seriously, hiring of illegals would be limited to side deals. EVerify isn’t even needed.
MikeN: “Current regime is you are not allowed to think someone illegal because the government has sent a no-match letter regarding paperwork of a new hire.
If these no match letters were taken seriously, hiring of illegals would be limited to side deals. EVerify isn’t even needed.”
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Interesting. A few minutes of searching led me to: http://www.immigrationcompliancegroup.com/employer_compliance_worksite_enforcement_page3.php
There are good reasons for not using a no-match letter alone as evidence someone is illegal. But an employer who does not take the letter seriously risks a $10,000 fine per employee. It is not clear if the government follows up on such cases, or on cases where the no-match can not be resolved.
It does seem that this provides a potential route to reasonably effective enforcement without expanding the heavy hand of the government.
SteveF,
Employment of an illegal alien is normally a misdemeanor, not a felony. Harboring an illegal alien is a felony. State and local authorities are not required to enforce federal law, so ignoring the presence of illegal aliens by state and local authorities does not break the law. Failure to honor a federal warrant of arrest, however, would be illegal.
http://www.fairus.org/issue/the-law-against-hiring-or-harboring-illegal-aliens
Allowing government to selectively enforce laws can only lead to biased enforcement. Many of the HOA disputes that go nuclear are due to selective enforcement of HOA rules. My HOA says “no parking on driveways overnight”, ignored by 80% of residents who have so much stuff they use their garages as storage.
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Chance of removing that rule is zero, but the chances of me having to rip up one of my driveway concrete pads for $500 because it has a 2 inch vertical gap is 100%. And after I cut the roots of the tree causing this, they tell me I must replace the tree if it dies. It can be a bit difficult to accept lawyerly interpretations of HOA rules when large sections are completely ignored.
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I doubt this incident has any malicious intent, but if you give that power to someone who does, it can be explosive.
Miake M,
The boarder adjustment tax in those countries is to make up the difference between domestic production subjected to a VAT and inports, which are not. Since we don’t have a VAT, I suspect our import duty would lead to retaliation.
DeWitt,
Hiring multiple is a felony. Please clarify the difference between harboring and providing sanctuary.
SteveF (Comment #161680): “The boarder adjustment tax in those countries is to make up the difference between domestic production subjected to a VAT and inports, which are not. Since we don’t have a VAT, I suspect our import duty would lead to retaliation.”
A distinction without a difference. At present, our exporters pay taxes in both countries while Mexican and Chinese exporters don’t pay taxes in either. We need to fix that. Retaliation is a bogeyman since a trade war would be devastating to our main trade partners but merely inconvenient for us.
Under Bush, the government sent out an edict that the no-match letters would now be stop employing until the paperwork is cleared up. A federal judge reversed this.
Mike M there is clearly a difference. If untaxed, goods from the States would in Europe cose fare less than goods produced in Europe paying VAT along the way). European goods subjected to an ‘adjustment tax’ entering the states from Europe would be priced out of the market.
SteveF: “there is clearly a difference”
I don’t see it. With the border adjustment, U.S. goods going to Europe pay a roughly 15% tax at the border and European goods coming here pay a 15% tax at the border.
There is certainly a difference from the present. But that is merely leveling the playing field.
SteveF,
do you think European goods would arrive here burdened with their accumulated VAT?
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I don’t.
In the UK, VAT is charged at point of sale of the finished product. VAT is not charged cumulatively through the production system. For example, VAT is not charged by a sub-contractor building and supplying sub-assemblies to the final assembler.
j ferguson,
No they do not. They are sold in Europe for a higher price than here.
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Mike M is mistaken about ‘leveling the playing field’. US manufactured goods (in principle) are subjected to a tax that matches the local VAT. European goods arriving here have no similar tax burden, but our domestically produced goods don’t either. If an ‘adjustment tax’ were applied to European goods with no comparable VAT burden on US produced goods, that would be nothing but a protectionist import duty to keep European goods out. Which I am pretty sure violates a bunch of existing trade agreements.
Not sure that makes sense, SteveF. The VAT burden falls on the consumer on all purchased goods. Whether US goods are charged a tax on entry to the EU or not, they would still be subject to VAT at point of sale.
Seth Roentgen (Comment #161689): “In the UK, VAT is charged at point of sale of the finished product. VAT is not charged cumulatively through the production system. For example, VAT is not charged by a sub-contractor building and supplying sub-assemblies to the final assembler.”
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That would be a sales tax, not a VAT. But I am pretty sure the U.K. has a VAT. Maybe they do it like Canada. A business pays GST (Canadian for VAT) on everything they buy and charges GST on everything they sell. Then they subtract the GST they paid from the GST they collected and remit the difference to the government. To the consumer, it ends up looking just like a sales tax. They did it that way so that the tax would not be hidden from the consumer.
SteveF (Comment #161690): “US manufactured goods (in principle) are subjected to a tax that matches the local VAT. European goods arriving here have no similar tax burden, but our domestically produced goods don’t either.”
Again, a distinction without a difference. Taxes are paid on domestically produced goods that are not paid on European imports. That the taxes are something other than a VAT is immaterial.
For reference on UK VAT,
https://www.gov.uk/vat-businesses/how-vat-works
Does sound like the Canadian system.
DaveJR,
That is not how a VAT works; you are describing a sales tax, and US produced goods would be subject to a sales tax, but that is not the actual situation. Read your link.
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Mine M,
Utter rubbish. You don’t know what you are talking about.
DaveJR (Comment #161691): “The VAT burden falls on the consumer on all purchased goods. Whether US goods are charged a tax on entry to the EU or not, they would still be subject to VAT at point of sale.”
Good point that in the end it does not matter whether the VAT is paid at point of entry or point of final sale, it ends up being the same.
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DaveJR (Comment #161698): “For reference on UK VAT, https://www.gov.uk/vat-businesses/how-vat-works
Does sound like the Canadian system.”
That sounds almost exactly like the Canadian system.
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In replying to Seth Roentgen (Comment #161689) I wrote: “That would be a sales tax, not a VAT.”
Actually a VAT is one of many types of sales tax. What we call a “sales tax” in the U.S. should properly be called a “retail sales tax”.
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SteveF (Comment #161699): “You don’t know what you are talking about.”
Perhaps. But since I have no idea what SteveF is talking about, I can not either reconsider or defend myself.
Mike M,
I own a manufacturing company. Our products use raw materials and components, some domestic, some imported (including some from Europe). We pay no sales taxes or VAT on any purchase of raw materials or components. We sell almost always to companies and universities; those sales are exempt from (retail) sales tax. Where our products are sold outside the States, most often through a local distributor, they are ALWYS subjected to local taxes, including VAT, where one exists. Since we paid no VAT during production or at sale to our distributors, when our distributors make a sale of our products, they pay the full VAT on their selling price…. They can’t claim any credit for VAT previously paid, because none has been paid.
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Contrast this to a European manufacture selling in Europe. In that case, VAT would have been paid and back-credited all along the production and distribution process. The total VAT paid for products made and sold in Europe and comparable products made in the States but sold in Europe, is the same.
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If there were a border adjustment tax, then unlike a VAT, that adjustment tax would only apply to imported products. Domestically produced products would never pay that tax. This gives a domestic producer an enormous advantage over foreign producers of competitive products. As proposed, the border adjustment tax is fundamentally different from a VAT; it is in fact nothing but a re-named import duty, and clearly in violation of existing multi-lateral and bi-lateral trade agreements.
SteveF,
Sanctuary cities do not, as far as I know, harbor illegal aliens. They jut ignore them. Harboring was defined in the section of the law I quoted above and requires some positive action by the guilty party.
DeWitt,
Sure, that is always the argument. But those local governments are treading a very fine line. When the INS informs a local jurisdiction that they are holding an illegal alien (for other crimes), then releasing that person, rather than transferring to INS, is arguably “knowingly providing safe harbor” to an illegal alien. Releasing a known illegal alien seems to me a “positive action”. If it could be shown that a release ‘accelerated’ after notification by INS, so that an illegal alien could not be caught, then that would seem to be a very clear violation of immigration law. I would be shocked if sanctuary city governments are not releasing people early to avoid capture by INS.
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The truth is that these jurisdictions don’t want federal immigration laws enforced, and take action to ensure they are not enforced. It’s just more willful lawlessness on the left, which seems, sadly, ever more common.
SteveF,
If INS wants someone retained by local government, they should issue an official warrant. An informal notification cuts zero ice.
Baltimore DA suggested that attorneys consider that illegal immigrants face deportation when they decide whether to prosecute.
MikeN,
That would seem to be actual “harboring” of illegal aliens. I am a little surprised the US AG has not issued any warnings to those instituting ‘dual’ rules for prosecutions (favoring illegal aliens).
In Boston an illegal who killed two doctors was previously sentenced for bank robbery to 364 days to avoid deportation.