Briefs

Formula for Profits
Delegates to the UN's World Health Assembly were blindsided by US opposition to a resolution encouraging breast feeding and condemning misleading promotions of infant formula; apparently they forgot that breast milk is free and that infant formula is the product of a $70 billion industry.  Ecuador, threatened with trade sanctions and suspension of military aid, had to withdraw its sponsorship; other developing nations faced similar threats.  The final, slightly weakened resolution had to be sponsored by Russia.

Kavanaugh
Susan Collins says she won't vote to confirm a Supreme Court candidate who shows "hostility" to Roe v. Wade.  Rest assured that Kavanaugh will show no hostility at all until he votes to overturn it.  Given that readiness to overturn Roe was a requirement for inclusion on the list of jurists the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation prepared for Tr*mp, Collins should have opposed all of them from the start, including Neil Gorsuch.

NATO
While insisting that all NATO members rapidly increase their military spending to 2% of GDP, Tr*mp strongly suggested the extra money be used to patronize American military contractors.  In truth, 2% of GDP seems a very reasonable expenditure for defense, and the US could set a good example by reducing its military spending to 2% of GDP (from 3.5%).  Do we really need all that overpriced hardware to combat jihadists wearing suicide vests?

Foreign . . . policy?

Vulcan mind meld?

 

Can Tr*mp even find Qatar on a map?  Pretty clearly, "his" generals neglected to mention the two enormous American military bases there before he launched the tweetstorm that created his latest international dumpster fire.

To anyone who has been paying attention, the Saudi problem with Qatar is clear: Qatar maintains lines of communication with Iran.  Saudi accusations that the Qataris "support terrorists," including IS and al-Qaeda, are the height of hypocrisy.  Al-Sisi may be more justified in his dislike of Qatar, based on Qatari support for the Muslim Brotherhood: after brutally overthrowing the Brotherhood's democratically elected government in Egypt, al-Sisi might not feel much confidence in the organization's renunciation of violence back in the 1970s.

So, Tr*mp's profound geopolitical ignorance has left America's military and foreign policy establishments scrambling to clean up his mess, even as they scramble to close the rifts he created with NATO allies on his recent European trip, and his alienation of the British arising from his responses to the terrorist assault on London.  He's already antagonized Mexico and Canada — even Australia!  Who's next?  (Probably not Russia.)

It helps to remember what "America First" meant the last time it was a popular political slogan: isolationism — and "peaceful co-existence" with the Nazis.

Afghanistan

Tr*mp's "foreign policy" consists of listening to "his" generals.  The generals want another 5000 troops to "stabilize" the country — not to win, mind you — we couldn't win with Obama's far larger "surge" — but just to delay losing the war until they're all "honorably" retired.  Who knows?  It might even lead to a round of negotiations!

Attempts at negotiation to date have been fruitless, largely because neither side seems to have much to offer the other.  Well, it's time to think outside the box.  Here are some ideas that just might work:

• Afghan government will be decentralized, with regional chieftains and warlords retaining their local power and meeting in a traditional loya jurga to make decisions that affect the nation as a whole.

• All foreign forces will leave Afghanistan, with Afghan leadership committing to subdue or expel foreign Islamist forces, including IS and al-Qaeda.

• NATO nations will contract to purchase the entire Afghan opium crop, thereby maintaining the Afghan economy and sharply reducing the availability of opioids on worldwide markets.

• Afghanistan will contract with multinational corporations based in NATO countries to exploit its deposits of rare earths and other minerals, creating cash incentives for all parties to the negotiations.

• The West will commit to end all efforts to influence Afghan religious practices, and let the Afghans handle their own political corruption problems in whatever ways they see fit.

A general consensus has emerged that "nation building" does not work, and that attempts to foment cultural revolutions in the Third World create nothing but chaos and antagonism.  If the West can live with Saudi Arabia under Sharia law, it can extend the same courtesy to Afghanistan.  Cultures change at their own rates, each in accordance with its own needs.

I'll pick up my Nobel Peace Prize in person, provided I can fly first-class.

Ukraine

Hey!  What's happening in Ukraine, which has been out of the news for a week or so?  Answer: nothing good.  The alleged "cease-fire," you may recall, never even started, and the people of eastern Ukraine still are suffering.

The root of the Ukraine problem was the needless and provocative expansion of NATO into the former Soviet sphere of influence.  What was the point?  Well, it seems likely that western capital, seeking new markets, was hesitant to move into eastern Europe without its private army coming along.  A NATO commitment to the former Soviet republics, no doubt, improved the "business climate."  Ukraine under Yanukovych was looking eastward, and it's hard to believe that the Maidan "revolution" (coup) arose spontaneously.

Granted, the Yanukovych government in Ukraine was thoroughly corrupt — but there's not much evidence that the Poroschenko government is noticeably better.  In the meanwhile, the Ukrainian conflict has provided NATO (read USofA) with ample justification for locating tanks, aircraft, and other weapons in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.  It is understandable that the Baltic states feel threatened by Russian activities in eastern Ukraine, but it also is understandable that the Russians feel threatened by the plan to locate NATO missile batteries in Poland.  Are the missiles "purely defensive" (and aimed at Iran), as advertised?  (Can you kill a man with a deer rifle, even though he's not a deer?)

Why would anybody want to be president of the USofA these days?  Socrates probably was right when he posited that anybody who actually wants power shouldn't have it.  Whoever we wind up with, though, will be faced with a world of trouble, in large part created by his or her predecessors.

Turkish Elections

Turks will be going to the polls this weekend, in an election that is likely to determine the future of their country, and have major consequences for US foreign relations.  Recip Tayip Erdogan, who has become increasingly Putinesque over the past decade, is hoping to win a 60% majority in Parliament, enabling him to change the Turkish constitution and solidify his power.

As a NATO member, Turkey is a vital participant in US Middle East operations.  The US looks to Turkey as a partner in its struggle against ISIS (aka etc. etc.), but that partnership has not been what the US might have expected before Ergogan's Islamist party came to power.  It well may be that Erdogan feels more comfortable with ISIS across the border than the Kurds, and his participation in the war against ISIS has been sorely lacking.

As Iraq fragments into Shi'a, Sunni, and Kurdish sectors, and the likelihood that the Kurds finally will achieve the Kurdish homeland they have aspired to for at least the past century, Erdogan feels increasingly threatened by the PKK and other Kurdish nationalists in Turkey.  Personally, I believe that the Kurds deserve a homeland, including Kurdish Iraq, Kurdish Syria and, ideally, Kurdish Turkey as well.  It is understandable that the Turks are unwilling to see a significant chunk of their country pulled away to become part of greater Kurdistan, but tacit support for ISIS by the Erdogan government can only help to further exacerbate conflict in the Middle East.

It also is in the best interest of the US for the secularists who led Turkey since the days of Ataturk maintain essential political influence.  If the current election gives Erdogan the ability to aggrandize his increasingly autocratic power, we all are losers.

..........
Later:
Great news!  Not only did Erdogan not make his 60%, he lost his parliamentary majority!  Better yet, the biggest gains were by the pro-Kurdish HDP (People's Democratic Party), which made significant outreach to secularists, gays, women, and others not comfortable with Islamism.  Hooray!

More Short Subjects

 Ukraine

Russian troops at the border!  NATO jets patrolling the Baltic states!  The Donetsk People's Republic!  Be afraid!  Well, don't be that afraid unless you're an Ukrainian who soon will be living with IMF imposed austerity measures while paying more for Russian natural gas.

All I see is a lot of posturing.  There is no way in hell Russia and NATO will slug it out physically over some antiquated manufacturing plants and wheat fields.

India

It looks like Narendra Modi's BJP party will be pushing the Gandhi family's Congress party aside in the current election cycle, despite Modi's previously undisclosed wife and that little matter of the slaughter of Muslims up in Gujarat back in 2002.  Will Modi govern as the consummate capitalist, the Hindu nationalist, or some combination of the two?  We'll wait and see.

Speaking of Gujarat, I like to point out to people that Muslims often are victims as well as perps (and not only to each other.)  In the Central African Republic, the Christians seem to be the real crazies, for example.  Then there's Cambodia, where the Buddhists are the bad guys.  Then again, there's Palestine.  'Nuff said.

Flight 370

I've read that the missing Malaysian airliner has done more for CNN's ratings than anything since Bush bombed Baghdad.  I will admit I'm curious to know what actually happened (my personal crazy hypothesis involves hacking the airliner's software), but sometimes it happens that you just don't get to know what you want to know.