Yearly Archives: 2014

Jimmy Carter’s election prevented a disastrous war in Cuba

  By

Amid post-Vietnam War plans to rebuild relations secretly with Cuba, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger made a sudden U-Turn and began planning for an overwhelming attack on Cuba, following Castro’s intervention in the Angola Civil War, say historians in a new book reviewing a new round of declassified documents (reported on in The New York Times).

Kissinger was furious by early 1976 — as President Ford was seeking his own term after the fallout of Watergate and battling a primary challenge by Ronald Reagan — about the Cuban opposition to the U.S.-supported Apartheid South African military interventions being staged from neighboring Namibia (then Apartheid South Africa’s illegally-occupied territory of South-West Africa). Zaire’s dictator, Mobutu, was also being encouraged by the United States to invade Angola. Communist China — in the middle of more public U.S. outreach efforts — was also providing military advisers earlier than Cuba, but they were being provided to help the same sides of the civil war that the U.S. and its allies had decided to back, because China wanted to oppose the Soviet/Cuban-supported side. Military advisers from the CIA were also on the ground, alongside the South African regime’s advisers. Most of the U.S. involvement in Angola at the time was a secret, whereas the Cuban deployment of advisers and then thousands of combat troops was very public. The U.S. also mistakenly believed there was a much greater level of cooperation between Cuba and the USSR on the intervention than later proved to be the case.

Here’s the BBC summary of the development regarding a proposed U.S. attack on Cuba in response to the Angola situation:

But the newly released documents show he was infuriated by Cuban President Fidel Castro’s decision in late 1975 to send troops to Angola to help the newly independent nation fend off attacks from South Africa and right-wing guerrillas.
[…]
“I think we are going to have to smash Castro,” Mr Kissinger told Mr Ford in a White House meeting in February 1976, adding Mr Ford should defer action until after the presidential election that November. “I agree,” Mr Ford said.

US contingency plans drawn up on the options warned any military aggression by the US in Cuba could lead to a direct confrontation with the USSR.

“The circumstances that could lead the United States to select a military option against Cuba should be serious enough to warrant further action in preparation for general war,” one document said.

The plans were never undertaken, as Jimmy Carter was elected president that year.

 
The bottom line here is that the election of President Carter in November 1976 — in a very hard-fought campaign Ford nearly won — appears to have stopped a U.S. war with Cuba and possibly the USSR itself.

But there are more details (see the full New York Times report) indicating knowledge that the assault might fail to topple the regime, would probably result in the destruction or abandonment of the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, and force huge military adjustments in the Caribbean (especially in Puerto Rico), even if the USSR didn’t enter the war. Even so, that didn’t seem to put much of a damper on the plans, as far as we know, even in light of both the Bay of Pigs fiasco and Cuban Missile Crisis in the not-so-distant past at the time, as well as the recent debacle in Vietnam.

Map of Cuba, Angola, South Africa, and South African-occupied South West Africa. Adapted from Egs - Wikimedia

Map of Cuba, Angola, South Africa, and South African-occupied South West Africa. Adapted from Egs – Wikimedia

ISIS enters Kobani, street combat begins

  By

Today (October 5), ISIS forces captured the southeastern hill overlooking Kobani and breached the town entrance below it (see maps below) as shells rained down inside the town. Fresh U.S. airstrikes the same day appeared to have almost no effect. Syrian Kurdish YPG/YPJ resistance fighters continue to fiercely defend every meter of land, as block-by-block fighting began on the southeast. On the other side of the town, ISIS siege forces continue to tighten the noose and are still pressing up the Aleppo Road to the southwest entrance. Here’s the report from CNN:

ISIS intensified its attack on the city of Kobani as militants took a strategic hill Sunday evening and entered the southeastern edge of the city, a fighter and a media activist inside the city tell CNN.

The sources, who both requested their names be withheld for security reasons, said street-to-street fighting has started in Kobani.
[…]
ISIS fighters overpowered Kurdish forces to take the top and the eastern side of Meshta Nour, the strategic hill overlooking Kobani, the sources said.

A civilian source inside Kobani said there have been heavy clashes on all fronts around Kobani and that ISIS forces had been moved back from a small corner of the city they’d held for two days.

The Kurdish People’s Protection Unit, or YPG, said in a statement that 86 “terrorists” were killed during a 24-hour period and 17 YPG members died.

On Sunday, smoke billowed over Kobani as ISIS sent bombs into the middle of town.

Kobani is now tightly surrounded in a crescent from the Aleppo road on the southwestern outskirts of the city all the way to the eastern edge of Kobani, near the Turkish border, the fighter and media activist said.

ISIS is making inroads despite airstrikes by U.S. and allied forces, including Sunday’s strikes on the eastern outskirts of the city.

The YPG destroyed an ISIS tank in the east of Kobani near Kane Kordan, a large mound on the eastern side of the city, the civilian source said.

ISIS fighters are now about about one kilometer south on the Aleppo road, the civilian source said.

 
Turkey’s parliament voted last week to authorize participation in the coalition efforts in Syria against ISIS, and more than two dozen tanks are still sitting on the other side of the border from Kobani, but no action has been taken yet. Turkish security forces clashed with increasingly enraged Kurdish protesters who are upset over Turkish inaction against the dozen of ISIS tanks and heavy artillery positions pounding away at the town within line of sight. On Saturday, commentator Juan Cole suggested that the Battle of Kobani might prove to be the “Kurdish Alamo.”

Labeled overhead map of Kobani / Ayn Al-Arab, Syria, October 5, 2014. Click map to enlarge or click here to navigate in Google Maps.

Labeled overhead map of Kobani / Ayn Al-Arab, Syria, October 5, 2014. Click map to enlarge or click here to navigate in Google Maps.

Labeled digital rendering, looking eastward, of Kobani / Ayn Al-Arab, Syria, October 5, 2014. ISIS captured the hill on the right, allowing it to shell the town center Click map to enlarge or click here to navigate in Google Maps.

Labeled digital rendering, looking eastward, of Kobani / Ayn Al-Arab, Syria, October 5, 2014. ISIS captured the hill on the right, allowing it to shell the town center. Click map to enlarge or click here to navigate in Google Maps.

Labeled digital rendering, looking northward, of Kobani / Ayn Al-Arab, Syria, October 5, 2014. ISIS captured the hill on the bottom, allowing it to shell the town center Click map to enlarge or click here to navigate in Google Maps.

Labeled digital rendering, looking northward, of Kobani / Ayn Al-Arab, Syria, October 5, 2014. ISIS captured the heights just southeast, allowing it to shell the town center. Click map to enlarge or click here to navigate in Google Maps.

The iron fist of the American prosecutor

  By

The Economist has published a very comprehensive article on “How prosecutors came to dominate the criminal-justice system” in the United States. It’s absolutely worth reading. It looks at mandatory minimums, plea bargaining under threat of insanely huge sentences, “cooperating witnesses” (who have a strong self-interest incentive to lie in court to help prosecutors), threatening to indict witnesses who help the defense, prosecutors seeking celebrity and elected office, illegal withholding of evidence to the defense, excessive caseloads in the court system discouraging trials in favor of pressuring pleas, and more.

24 violations of Islam by ISIS according to over 100 Sunni scholars

  By

To fight rampant Islamophobia, here are 16 pages of Sunni Islamic scholarship on religious violations committed by the so-called “Islamic State”, as assembled and exhaustively footnoted by 126 Sunni Muslim scholars of the religious texts and prominent Sunni Muslim religious and political leaders from at least 40 countries, in an open letter to the leader and followers of ISIS. Their hope is that it will not only serve as a public, internal Islamic rebuttal to the terrorist organization’s assertions of an Islamic State but also sway conservative Muslims who might sympathize with the group’s hardline approach.

Below is 24-point executive summary ahead of the full (and very readable) explications of each violation and news citations of the relevant abuses:

Executive Summary
1- It is forbidden in Islam to issue fatwas without all the necessary learning requirements. Even then fatwas must follow Islamic legal theory as defined in the Classical texts. It is also forbidden to cite a portion of a verse from the Qur’an — or part of a verse — to derive a ruling without looking at everything that the Qur’an and Hadith teach related to that matter. In other words, there are strict subjective and objective prerequisites for fatwas, and one cannot ‘cherry-pick’ Qur’anic verses for legal arguments without considering the entire Qur’an and Hadith.
2- It is forbidden in Islam to issue legal rulings about anything without mastery of the Arabic language.
3- It is forbidden in Islam to oversimplify Shari’ah matters and ignore established Islamic sciences.
4- It is permissible in Islam [for scholars] to differ on any matter, except those fundamentals of religion that all Muslims must know.
5- It is forbidden in Islam to ignore the reality of contemporary times when deriving legal rulings.
6- It is forbidden in Islam to kill the innocent.
7- It is forbidden in Islam to kill emissaries, ambassadors, and diplomats; hence it is forbidden to kill journalists and aid workers.
8- Jihad in Islam is defensive war. It is not permissible without the right cause, the right purpose and without the right rules of conduct.
9- It is forbidden in Islam to declare people non-Muslim unless he (or she) openly declares disbelief.
10- It is forbidden in Islam to harm or mistreat — in any way —Christians or any ‘People of the Scripture’.
11- It is obligatory to consider Yazidis as People of the Scripture.
12- The re-introduction of slavery is forbidden in Islam. It was abolished by universal consensus.
13- It is forbidden in Islam to force people to convert.
14- It is forbidden in Islam to deny women their rights.
15- It is forbidden in Islam to deny children their rights.
16- It is forbidden in Islam to enact legal punishments (hudud) without following the correct procedures that ensure justice and mercy.
17- It is forbidden in Islam to torture people.
18- It is forbidden in Islam to disfigure the dead.
19- It is forbidden in Islam to attribute evil acts to God.
20- It is forbidden in Islam to destroy the graves and shrines of Prophets and Companions.
21- Armed insurrection is forbidden in Islam for any reason other than clear disbelief by the ruler and not allowing people to pray.
22- It is forbidden in Islam to declare a caliphate without consensus from all Muslims.
23- Loyalty to one’s nation is permissible in Islam.
24- After the death of the Prophet, Islam does not require anyone to emigrate anywhere.

 
I learned a ton of new information from reading the whole letter, which can be just as easily applied against ISIS as against bigots who paint Islam with an overly broad brush (despite its natural complexity and disunity).

Thanks to a reader for bringing this document to my attention.

Oped | Reform Islam Vs. the Billionaire Barons

  By

My new oped in The Globalist argues that Islam isn’t inherently backward — as is mistakenly often suggested in Western media — it’s being held back by powerful donors who support extreme versions of it and make those the focus of attention. Here’s an excerpt, discussing lack of doctrinal uniformity in Islam versus the unifying force of money to extreme causes:

Sunni Islam alone has a handful of diverging schools of thought, further splintered by the separate followings of various popular current scholars.

Unfortunately the loudest and perhaps best-organized sub-segment of the sect recently seems to be the engine driving extremist groups all over the world. But even that analysis misdiagnoses and misattributes a centralization that is not really there, beyond a superficial level.

The emerging global networks of fundamentalist Sunni Islamic terrorism of the past 5, 15 and 25 years are linked in practice only because they have voluntarily associated with each other and with a specific brand of the religion.

The networks have co-opted or completely supplanted decades-old movements in places as diverse as Mali or Philippines, which had aimed to address local poverty and institutional inequalities (or obtain independence).

This voluntary association between groups, in countries from West Africa to Southeast Asia, has only been made possible by atypically centralized funding sources that provide seed money and setup advice for local franchises before they are able to become financially self-sustaining.

Most of the franchises have not been able to reach self-sufficiency and continue only by the grace of the startup funders. The rest generally continue to receive advice from the funding sources and remain associated with the other groups for brand value and the attention that comes with it.

These funders — not preachers — are the ones who really shape existing local grievances and separatist movements into a globalized, semi-unified ideology. Without them, the decentralization inherent to Islam would continue to reign.

The efforts to create a caliphate spanning the globe aren’t springing up from the grassroots of abandoned and impoverished desert populations. Rather it springs fully formed from the men bearing suitcases of cash and ideological directives on what must be done and said to keep it coming.

This money is coming from fundraisers in Qatar and Kuwait and donors in those countries, as well as in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and beyond. If those donor networks were broken and permanently dismantled, it would break apart the emerging coalition of co-associating local movements subscribing to a hardline, Islamic globalism.

 
If you click through, I also cite a specific example of a very progressive, high-ranking Muslim leader in Nigeria.

Treasury Dept acts to discourage tax avoidance mergers

  By

Fantastic. The Treasury Department last month began establishing rules to make it significantly harder for U.S. companies to re-locate offshore for tax purposes by taking over foreign companies and registering out-of-country under the smaller entity with access to tax havens or lower corporate taxes. Earlier this year, both on this site and in The Globalist, I criticized Pfizer’s efforts to initiate a tax avoidance merger like that.

This practice, known as an “inversion” (or sometimes “offshore reincorporation”), had rapidly accelerated recently, to the point where the overall number of all such mergers ever attempted by American companies doubled in the past two or so years. While the new rules are just a small step forward — the much bigger problem of European-controlled tax havens, allowing such mergers to make sense in the first place, remains unchanged — it’s a step much more in the right direction than the constant Republican calls to slash corporate taxes to compete with the tax havens, when sensible reforms and regulations are really what’s needed.

There was also another sign that this Treasury Department action was having the intended deterrence effect. A bunch of companies who were in talks or seen as potentially likely to pursue such mergers took a pummeling in the stock market on September 23rd in response to these regulations being announced the day before, since the companies were less likely to make gains than expected.

That’s well deserved punishment, in my opinion, and more still needs to be done. As I argued in my oped in The Globalist in May of this year:

As a matter of fact, U.S. corporations — as profitable as they are — have taken their home nation for a nearly tax free ride for too long. The U.S. tradition of the rule of law that allowed business to flourish cannot be permitted to devolve into a “rule of loopholes” system that just barely stays inside the lines.

Tax avoidance is a cancer on democratic societies. It both undermines confidence in the fairness of the taxation system and erodes the government’s ability to invest in infrastructure and provides services. In the end, that reduces any government’s credibility with its people.

Without the U.S. government’s help, big American corporations would never have been so successful in the first place. We cannot let them get away with chipping away at the country’s tax base even further.

And the corporations should tread lightly for their own good. If such mergers as the one Pfizer proposes are the future of globalization, the American people will continue to feel very abused. Such schemes may eventually produce a backlash strong enough to erase any of the positives.

 
5000-dollar-bill-madison-slider

US Supreme Court won’t stop plan to cut down Ohio early voting

  By

Gregg Levine of Al Jazeera America reported on the abrupt end of Ohio’s same-day registration/early voting combo week and rollback of Sunday voting, after an emergency stay (of a lower ruling invalidating the reductions) by the Supreme Court:

[Tuesday] was to be the first day of Ohio’s “Golden Week,” a six-day overlap between the end of voter registration and the beginning of early voting for the November 4 General Election. But on Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State and allowed to go forward a plan that significantly reduced the number of days voters could cast early ballots.

 
So what was being reduced and who was being affected most by the changes?

The [2005] provisions that allowed voters to register and vote the same day (the ballot counted only if the registration checked out) proved popular in African-American communities, as did weekend voting […] Ohio’s GOP-dominated government moved to cut the number of early voting days to 28, eliminating the Golden Week, some Sunday voting, and limiting operating times of polling stations to reduce availability outside traditional working hours.

 
This goes right back to the points Nate and I discussed on Episode 101 of Arsenal For Democracy, earlier this week, about the Republican efforts to suppress early voting options that benefited minorities.

And what happened when a lower court tried to block the reduction of early voting options on the grounds that it was a violation of the Voting Rights Act because of the disparate impact on minority and low-income voters?

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted rushed an appeal to the Supreme Court…

While his appeal is pending, he received an emergency stay, which allows the new, restrictive rules to go into effect, thereby reducing early voting options significantly in this year’s statewide elections in Ohio. Which is interesting because:

Husted is, himself, locked in a tight election battle with Democrat Nina Turner, an Ohio state senator.

 
Funny how that works. Looks like the Supreme Court just interfered in a close partisan election. Woops.

Levine also warns that this emergency stay may signal an impending second round of gutting the Voting Rights Act, possibly with the effective elimination of Section 2, which relates to changes in voting practice that have discriminatory effects, whether intended or not. The Supreme Court has never issued a written opinion on Section 2 since its amendment in 1982. Last year, of course, the court canceled the geographic formula in Section 4 that required special scrutiny and explicit Federal approval for changes in certain jurisdictions with a history of egregious discrimination.