The real story on the Syrian situation

John Batchelor has it. Anyone who writes to say this isn't the story I'm getting from the BBC, PBS, CNN, FNC, Washington Post and New York Times, I'd reply go to sleep; you're up past your bedtime.

Zenpundit's "Do Oligarchies Create Insurgencies?" and Steve Cohen's report on Russia's parliamentary election

Do Oligarchies Create Insurgencies?

Readers who aren't interested in counterinsurgency warfare shouldn't be put off by the title of Mark Safranski's November 29 essay for his Zenpundit blog; the writing goes to the heart of many matters relating to U.S. foreign policy formulation, brings into focus a little-examined downside of democracies, and at the same time challenges a bedrock assumption of "population-centric" counterinsurgency advocates, whose views came to shape the U.S. prosecution of the Afghan War:

Of democracies that have not or have never needed to fight an insurgency, the supposition would be that liberal democracy represents the best vehicle for satisfying popular demands and defusing grievances. Further, there is an implicit assumption that democracies are functionally better at solving social and political problems and are less aggressive than dictatorships or traditional regimes. Therefore, a a key tenet of pop-centric COIN theory, the need for good governance, tends in practice to become conflated with implementing democratic and liberal reforms of regressive and repressive states, as was successfully done in El Salvador, to win over the loyalty of the population for the state.

I would like to believe that this theory is correct for intuitive and anecdotal reasons – it seems like common sense because our experience is that citizens of liberal democracies lead more prosperous, freer and more peaceful lives and are therefore unlikely to pick up arms against their government. Unfortunately, this reasonable assumption may be shakier than it appears and have little relation to success or failure of a COIN campaign

The essay also brings out a disturbing blip in democratic societies. As Mark notes during the course of his conclusions:

Democracies are janus-faced in terms of insurgency. On the one hand, excepting the French Fourth Republic, advanced liberal democracies in the last century have rarely faced a serious rebellion at home (the 1970′s wave of upper-class Marxist terrorism never exceeded a handful of terrorists). On the other hand, these same democracies have an extensive historical record of provoking insurrection in overseas colonial possessions, fighting insurgencies on behalf of client states or even sponsoring insurgents as proxies against unfriendly states. This uneasily complicated relationship between democratic governance and insurgency mitigates any unstated assumptions regarding promotion of democracy as a natural adjunct of COIN; democracy can be highly subversive of traditional mores or it can manifest itself as intolerant and illiberal majoritarianism.

All in all, the writing is a tour de force; I hope it'll eventually prompt a re-thinking in U.S. military and civilian academic circles and at agencies such as the U.S. Department of State about the long-held U.S. policy of viewing democracy promotion as a panacea. Too often the policy has resulted in American values being twisted to install in other countries U.S.-friendly regimes that only give lip service to democracy and are oligarchical if not downright tyrannical in nature, which always blows back on the USA. The U.S./EU-backed Orange Revolution in Ukraine, which switched out one oligarchical clan for another that was less friendly to Russia to run the country, is a prime example.

The current arguments in policy circles about democracy promotion tend to revolve around realism vs. idealism. (See George Friedman's November 6 analysis for STRAFOR, Egypt and the Idealist-Realist Debate in U.S. Foreign Policy, for a thoughtful discussion of the debate.) Mark's discussion goes much deeper than the debate and yet, with the help of a handy chart he devised, is easy for the less wonkishly-inclined to follow.

On a personal note, pondering Mark's arguments gave me a respite from digesting the unrelenting bad news about the U.S. relationship with Pakistan and the ongoing refusal in Washington to fully confront the fact that NATO has been fighting what is chiefly a proxy war in Afghanistan mounted and managed by Pakistan's junta, not an insurgency. After being immersed day after day, year in and year out, in following Washington's attempts to play ostrich, my frustration has worn me down to the point that I don't know whether I can continue blogging because I'm simply making the same points in essay after essay, year after year.

So to transcend if only for a few minutes a situation I consider so vexing and mull over ideas on 'great' themes was good medicine for me. I was feeling so chipper after reading the essay that I wrote a rather extensive commentary on it for the Zenpundit comment section -- Comment #13, for any Pundita readers who're interested.

Russia

In a not entirely unrelated matter, last night John Batchelor sat down with Steve Cohen, my favorite Russia analyst, to discuss the country's recent parliamentary election. I was in such a terrible mood about the Pakistan-Washington situation that I didn't listen to the show although I'll catch up by listening to the podcast. But John's notes on the discussion, posted at his show's blog in the Schedule section, bring out a very important point that relates to the habit of democracies meddling in the affairs of other nations and for purely self-serving reasons. John wrote:

Tuesday 1035P (735P Pacific Time): Stephen Cohen, NYU & [latest book] Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives, in re: Russian elections:

Russian police still quashing protests; 300 arrests, then 250, including important bloggers who called Putin's United Russia, "the party of swindlers." Who's more surprised, Putin or the West? The West: it portrayed the political system as wholly under Putin's control, which it isn't. Putin's supermajority, 64%, enough to change the constitution, is down in the 50's. Communist Party now doubles to 20%. Yeltsin used tanks vs the Parliament in 1993; now, it's partly liberated for the first time. Also, first time ever that ruling party has lost so thoroughly. On a human level, people start to think that their vote counts.

[John Batchelor comment]: "Putin fixed an election and lost it -- deeply ironical."

A powerful Communist faction wants to transform the CP into a European Social democratic party. Now encouraged. Just (Fair) Russia [party] was formed by the Kremlin to take away votes but now goes its own way; got 35%(?).

Putin's St Petersburg crew? Three groups. 1. 2. Oligarchs. 3. Neolibs, technologist, linked with the West, have acquired power; Alexei Kudrin was the finance minister.

The Kremlin decided to be less heavy-handed than usual; still kept oppo off natl TV. [Kremlin] Worried about developments in other countries: bad elections lead to riots, lead to real opposition. Even Occupy Wall Street has generated nervousness, barred doors and high fences; fear of unseemly protest, demos on ramps that lead up to Kremlin.

Today, John McCain tweeted, "Soon, the Arab Spring will come to Russia."

Russia has jillions of nuclear weapons, so the last thing we want is Russia to be destabilized. Who do these cheerleaders think will come to power -- Thomas Jefferson?

Yes indeed the West and in particular the USA was caught off guard by Russia's healthy opposition movement. Americans were caught off guard because it's almost impossible to get objective news analysis from US sources on Russia unless one follows Steve Cohen's reports on the John Batchelor Show -- and unfortunately, Steve's reports for the show are not on a regular basis.

Instead of news analysis on Russia, Americans get propaganda that's painted Russia's government as a tyranny. So Americans are blindsided again and again by a cadre in Washington, a kind of shadow government, that's oriented not to American interests but NATO/EU interests. Mr McCain is part of that cadre, I might add.

To give you some idea of how it works against American interests to be in the dark about matters Russian, consider how long it took for a route for NATO and particularly U.S. supplies for the Afghan War to be developed that was external to Pakistan. There was tremendous resistance among the 'Get Russia' crowd in Washington to the idea of seeking Russian help, resistance that set back by years the development of the 'Northern Distribution Network' NATO supply routes through Russia and Russia-friendly Central Asian countries.

So billions of dollars worth of military supplies were destroyed or stolen from the Pakistan supply routes, and Pakistan's junta leveraged its control of the route in Pakistan to tamp down U.S. protests against its proxy war in Afghanistan. Exactly how many NATO soldiers and Afghans had to die because of this, God only knows.

But there goes my good mood out the window. The upside is that I am now in just the right frame of mind to finish writing a post I've titled, "Alden Pyle in Pakistan, Part 3."

.

John Batchelor, spreading joy and cheer again -- this time about feds regulating small-town USA out of existence

From his schedule notes for his September 6 show (see the website for link to the podcast for the segment):

Tuesday 935P Eastern Time: Gov. Frank Keating, president and CEO, American Bankers Association, in re: after 2008, the Feds tried to close the barn door but haven't figured out that the horses are outside. The old adage about bad facts make bad law is still true.

Mortgage banker, nonregulated payday lenders and the like, are the malfeasants, not the highly-regulated banks. Congress still writing regulations; average bank has 37 employees; regulations run thousands of pages. Small and medium-sized banks are exhausted, not clear that all of them can continue.

A four-branch bank in Texas is giving up its charter because it's been regulated out of business; is converting to an investment bank and will continue to make exactly the same loans it's been making heretofore.

If these small banks blow away, the towns cease to exist.

The ABA did a study: why the life-insurance industry, state-regulated, had no complaints, while the banking industry has a current unlimited regulator force: over 21,000 people - three banking regulators per community bank.

One of our banks' CEOs told [Keating]: A retired military doctor and his wife moved to this town, they have $100K in liquid assets and put 25% down to buy a house - and because he was late paying a student loan decades ago, the federal regulators have said that giving him a loan would be unacceptable.

Libya, NATO, and the Pottery Barn rule

John Batchelor, host of the John Batchelor Show -- the best news analysis show on the planet -- writes today on his blog:

You break Tripoli

Tripoli is a tragic opera that illustrates how little we have learned since the catastrophes of Kabul and Baghdad.

My information is that NATO and the Transitional National Council at Benghazi have been negotiating with the Qadhafi family for some weeks about en exit with dignity and assurances.

Mustafa Jalil heads the TNC. Since the assassination of the rebel war chief Younes at the direction of the TNC some weeks ago, Jalil has not provided answers about why and how and who.

Now he double-crosses Q and launches the jihadist cells in Tripoli. They behave as expected: hysteria, gun-shooting, boasting, pointing weapons they'd just grabbed as if they were playing video games; no fire discipline, no organization at all, marauding enthusiasts. They even claimed that they had captured Q's number-one thug son, Saif al-Islam.

For twenty-four hours, the speculation in US media was that this is "the end of Q" and that POTUS Obama's peculiar "leading from behind" was a surprise victor. Now Saif al-Islam dashes into the camera at the hotel where the journalists are crowded and under siege -- and he makes a zesty argument that the rebel cells were lured into attacking in order to identify the turncoats. Laughter.

Am told that Qadhafi will now fight to martyrdom -- whether in Tripoli or to the South. The Obama administration's "leading from behind" will now stand a test: how long can it explain anarchy and call it progress toward democracy? Colin Powell's dictum: "You break it, you own it."

Batchelor away tonight, back on the air tomorrow night. See his blog for broadcast details. Stay tuned.

"The devils look the same, no matter the era"

May 4:

Osama Bin Laden's killing caused WABC evening host John Batchelor to cut World War II coverage short
BY David Hinckley
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

WABC evening host John Batchelor was in rural Poland, covering commemorative events at the site of the World War II Auschwitz and Birkenau death camps, when word came late Sunday evening that Osama Bin Laden had been killed.

This was particularly significant to Batchelor because he started his career at WABC (770 AM) on Sept. 12, 2001, pledging to stay on the station until Bin Laden was captured or killed.

So Bin Laden too, Batchelor says from Poland, is his story - and in many ways, he sees Bin Laden as the same story he is covering in the stark, crumbling remains of Auschwitz.

"The stories of Auschwitz and the Hitlerite SS and 9/11 and the jihadists join together for me," he says. "Hitler living in the Führer bunker under the Reichsministry in 1945 and cursing 'International Jewry' in his last will on April 29, 1945. Bin Laden living in a bunker-built compound near a golf course and cursing the Jews and Crusaders with his last videos.

"Two murder cult figures self-poisoned by hatred of Judaism."

Batchelor had traveled to Poland to do two nights of his WABC show from the Auschwitz-Birkenau site. He was covering the annual March of the Living, launched a quarter-century ago as part of Holocaust Remembrance Day on May 1.

But when the Bin Laden news hit, says WABC program director Laurie Cantillo, modern technology enabled him to quickly integrate Bin Laden news, analysis and response into his program. By the time WABC had carried President Obama's Sunday night speech, Batchelor had lined up response at home and abroad.

When his show ended, he joined WABC "Red-Eye Radio" host Doug McIntyre for further analysis.

WABC wasn't the only radio station to carry the speech and analysis. News stations WCBS-AM, WINS and WNYC were there, along with WRKS and others.

It shows, Cantillo says, that even at this most "off" of off-hours, news can happen. It shows that even in the age of 24-hour TV news, Twitter, Facebook and e-blasts, good radio stations can pull it all together with unique immediacy.

Batchelor says good radio, like with covering the Bin Laden raid, is simply a product of working hard and being ready.

"This show staff works together perfectly," says Batchelor, "even on Tieline remote from the banks of the Vistula in medieval Krakow."

Batchelor admits he wasn't sure Bin Laden would ever be apprehended. But now that he has been, Batchelor and Cantillo say he will be extending his WABC stay - because just as the death of Hitler didn't eradicate evil, neither will the death of Bin Laden.

"The devils look the same, no matter the era," Batchelor says. "Now there are other new devils to capture or kill. ... One devil down, many to go, so little time."

Do Sarkozy's actions toward Libya relate to the day the world changed? Pundita turns to the spirit world for an answer.

July 16, 2009: The Day the World Changed

The Spiegel report that accompanies the historic photograph above (tersely credited to "DDP") starts as a snark piece about Russian President Dmitry Mevedev turning on the charm and getting German Chancellor to smile during their meeting in Munich on July 16, 2009. As you can see Chancellor Merkel had done plenty of smiling months earlier:

March 31, 2009: Merkel and Medvedev attend a meeting of German and Russian economic leaders at the Chancellery in Berlin

(Photo: Sean Gallup for Getty Images Europe)

However, the Berlin meeting, which was to prepare for a G20 summit in London, was pro forma. It was the Munich meeting which was the biggie. After clowning around for a few paragraphs Spiegel moved to a discussion of Medvedev's approach to Russia's human-rights issues. Then after a riveting discussion of how to remove grass stains from socks the report finally doles out a few hints regarding the importance of Medvedev's trip to Munich:

The two sides also agreed to develop a common school textbook together. Work on the project is set to begin later this year. If anything concrete comes out of the efforts, it will be a remarkable success. Russians and Germans currently have a very different view of their shared history. A common school textbook could help to promote mutual understanding between the two nations. The chancellor went as far as to praise the way that German-Russian relations had "greatly intensified."
[...]
Andreas Schockenhoff, the German government's commissioner on German-Russian relations, also says that more concrete projects need to be agreed upon in the future. "But the dialogue is getting more and more open," he says.

In what might be the biggest understatement of this young century Schockenhoff added, "Last year, the Georgia war dominated the mood, but this year there is a very different atmosphere of trust."

United Press International was a little more forthcoming about the import of the Munich meeting:

Medvedev in Germany to talk Nord Stream

MUNICH, Germany, July 16 (UPI) -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met Thursday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss energy security and the Nord Stream gas pipeline.

Sergei Prikhodko, an aide to Medvedev, said fuel and energy cooperation were at the top of the agenda for the meeting between the two leaders. He added the talks focused particularly on the political aspects of implementing the Nord Stream gas pipeline, which he described as of "strategic importance not only for Russia and Germany, but for the whole of Europe," RIA Novosti reports.

The Nord Stream gas pipeline would transit along a dual route through the Baltic Sea to Germany. Russia sees the project, and its South Stream counterpart, as an option to avoid politically sensitive routes through Ukraine that transfer 80 percent of all Russian gas to Europe.

Europe, for its part, puts its faith in the Nabucco pipeline, though that project suffers from a lack of firm commitments from potential gas suppliers and financial shortfalls.

Merkel in March said she wants no public funding for the $10.3 billion Nabucco project.[...]

But it was left to John Batchelor to put all the pieces together, which he did in such spectacular fashion that Stephen F. Cohen, the great Russia scholar, was struck speechless for a few seconds.

Finally Dr Cohen said slowly, more to himself than to Batchelor, "I think you might be onto something."

So then everyone around the world who was tuned into Batchelor's radio show began scribbling notes like mad.

Batchelor saw the Munich meeting as a harbinger of the end of NATO as the world had always known it. Unfolding events over the next year showed he was correct. Yet there was no single event, no specific crisis to signal that a massive shift in old alliances was underway. However, with regard to Germany there were at least three situations that taken together were a large factor in Merkel's historic decision to turn over a new page in German-Russian relations, and which had taken years to come to a head.

2008: Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on hold after putting through a call to State to learn whether the CIA would assassinate him for ordering a military strike on South Ossetia


1. The proposed Nabucco pipeline -- proposed to serve Europe as an alternative to Russian natural gas -- and proposed to be supplied with gas by those bastions of stability, "Iraq in cooperation with Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and possibly Egypt." Wikipedia adds helpfully:

Concerns have been raised about the safety of the project. The pipeline will cross through unstable areas of Turkey's Southeast region. In recent years the Kurdistan Workers' Party claimed responsibility for blowing up the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline and the Tabriz–Ankara pipeline in Turkey. ... Gas for the Nabucco pipeline coming from Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan will have to pass near areas of instability in the South Caucasus.

Understand that Washington had wanted Germany to pick up a big share of the tab for funding the Nabucco nightmare, which, when Wikipedia last checked, still hasn't found funding.

2. U.S. and British machinations in Ukraine, which egged on Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko to escalate his cold war with Putin. This included holding Europeans who were dependent on Russia natual gas hostage to the prospect of freezing in the winter, and which threatened to crash a good chunk of the EU economy. And which by 2008 also had something to do with a cold war between the Kremlin and the British foreign office over a joint oil deal involving British Petroleum -- er, "BP."

3. The very same war in Georgia that Herr Schockenhoff delicately alluded to. You remember that war, right? The one where presidents Bush and Putin had to learn while sitting next to each other at China's Olympics that Georgia's president -- the necktie-chewing Mikheil Sakaashvili, installed as Georgia's President in a U.S.-orchestrated putsch ("The Rose Revolution") -- was trying to start World War Three?

Yeah. That war.

There are surely additional reasons not specifically related to the United States -- the economic crisis for one, which brought home to Germans that they couldn't continue bankrolling the expansion of the European Union at the rate they'd done in the past.

And there was simply the fact that a shaking out in alliances was inevitable when it became clear to West Europeans that continuing with the policy of using former Soviet republics to create an ever-expanding front against Russia was threatening to create the very instability on the Continent that had driven European fear of Russian hegemony. The Georgia war was the starkest demonstration that there had to be a realignment of priorities for Europe, even if this caused a major rift with the United States.

And so, when Medvedev showed up in Munich three days after the Nabucco Pipeline Intergovernmental Agreement between Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Austria was signed by five prime ministers with the European Union President Jose Manuel Barroso and Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy Richard Morningstar and Ranking Member of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Senator Richard Lugar looking on and beaming, Angela Merkel said to him -- paraphrasing here -- For God's sake, let's try for sanity.

And with such few or similar words, the small cracks in the NATO alliance widened to a gulf, which finally ushered in the true post-Soviet era.

The question is whether the Libya crisis -- the response of the United States and European NATO nations to the uprising in the country -- is part of a shift in alliances on the European continent, or whether the crisis was in some way precipitated by it.

In an attempt to divine an answer I must turn to the occult on account of the Beeb rolling up much of its operation in Russia, FNC shutting its Moscow Bureau, the ABC and CBS Moscow bureaus shuttered and reporters at CNN's Moscow bureau (if there's even one left) spending their days playing darts and yelling out the window to any Russian who looks like FSB, 'We're NOT spies!'

So give us a moment while we retrieve the Ouija board. [clattering sounds] All right; everyone quiet please because I've never tried this before with people listening in.

Oh Ouija, why did Nicolas Sarkozy decide to invade to Libya on the advice of a philosopher, and does the improved relationship between Russia and Germany have anything to do with the decision, and how can the United States get out of the mess in Libya?

All right; now I wait, and hope the spirit world is in a good mood. The last time I asked Ouija for insight into European affairs I got the spirit of a Prussian general. It gave me plans for laying siege to Paris and a recipe for pickled herring. I used to have a spy at the German embassy here in Washington, a young raccoon with a good ear for German and a gift for acting adorable, but then it bit a caterer -- ssshhh, Pundita! Quiet! [whispering] Just see what I have to go through because the editorial boards of the New York Times and Washington Post want to act like members of the NSC and desks at the U.S. Department of State instead of doing their job -- sssshh! The wedgie's moving!

"I-L-F-A-U-T-S-A-V-O-I-R-D-O-N-N-E-R-U-N-O-E-U-F-P-O-U-R-A-V-O-I-R-U-N-B-O-E-U-F"

"Il faut savoir" -- looks French. So now we have to traipse to a translator program......

Translation: "You have to know how to give an egg to get an ox."

Never what I want to know, always what the spirit world wants me to know. Well, let's see what inspiration we can glean from a French proverb about an egg and an ox. I think this requires a trip in the time machine:

March 17, 2009

Sarkozy wins French NATO re-entry vote
[no byline]

PARIS, France (CNN) -- Opposition lawmakers Tuesday ridiculed President Nicolas Sarkozy for taking France back into NATO's military command after more than 40 years, but were unable to stop the move when it came to a vote.

The National Assembly voted in favor of Sarkozy's plan, 329-238.

Socialist Laurent Fabius, a former prime minister, told Prime Minister Francois Fillon: "You tell us this would mean more independence and more influence. It would probably mean less independence and less influence."

The move did not technically require parliamentary approval, but the president's party scheduled the debate to give opponents a chance to voice their opinions -- and to show a majority backed it.

Asking the National Assembly to vote on the issue also showed how sensitive the matter is in France.

France was a founding member of the NATO alliance in 1949 but it left the military structure in 1966 amid friction with the United States.

"To cooperate is to lose your independence," French President Charles de Gaulle said at the time.

For the next 43 years, even though France selectively participated in NATO military operations, de Gaulle's principle remained the governing cornerstone of French foreign policy.

If Paris took orders from NATO military commanders, it was reasoned, the nation would no longer have complete control of its destiny.

Sarkozy, however, believes the opposite -- that cooperation in NATO is a guarantee of French independence.

Rejoining NATO's military command, he argued, will give France a seat at the table for decision-making.

From its earliest years, the organization's trans-Atlantic ties were strained because U.S. analysts warned that if the European allies failed to increase their contributions to the alliance, they risked losing the support of the United States, according to NATO.

Meanwhile, the European nations felt the United States was trying to dominate the organization, according to NATO.

De Gaulle's 1966 decision meant no French forces could be under permanent allied command and that France would have no participation in defense planning.

In 1995, France rejoined NATO's military committee, which advises NATO's political authorities on military policy and strategy and provides guidance on military matters to NATO's strategic commanders.

While France was still not a part of the military command, it contributed troops and funding to NATO activities, including actions in Kosovo and Afghanistan. Half of all French troops outside the country are assigned to NATO military operations.

Opponents of Sarkozy's move -- who include some members of his party -- believe de Gaulle, not Sarkozy, had it right. They started a last-minute petition drive to stop his march back into NATO.

"With this decision, France will return as a subordinate country and will lose its ability to represent another image in the world," said Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, a member of the French National Assembly.

The president's allies calculate Sarkozy's move will strengthen Europe's hand on defense issues.

"There will be more European weight in the way decisions will be made," said Louis Giscard d'Estaing, a member of the National Assembly's U.S. Friendship Committee. "Therefore, the balance of power between the USA and Europe will be re-established within this French move."

March 17, 2009. Why does that date have a familiar ring? Oh yes; the National Assembly vote on France rejoining NATO happened just a few days before the March 31, 2009 meeting between Merkel and Medvedev in Berlin ahead of the London G20 Summit. Moving ahead in the time machine:

March 22, 2011

Sarkozy opposes Nato taking control of Libya operation
Dissent from Germany, Turkey and Norway leaves question marks over command structure

By Kim Willsher in Paris
(U.K.) Guardian

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has opposed handing over control of the military operation in Libya to Nato, saying the move would send the wrong message to Arab nations.

At a meeting of the North Atlantic Council, Nato's decision-making committee on Monday, the French representative reportedly stormed out after being accused of hindering Nato's involvement in the campaign. France had flatly refused to agree to the proposal, which was later agreed by a majority of member countries.

The German representative is also reported to have left the meeting after his country was criticised for not wanting to get involved.

Turkey, angered that the French president had failed to invite it to Saturday's summit in Paris, refused to give carte blanche for a no-fly zone over Libya.

Western diplomats say Sarkozy angered Britain and the US by announcing French planes were already in the air and ready to attack Libya before many of his allies had even left Saturday's meeting to decide on military action, and before informing his partners.

Afterwards, the French president -- who will be seeking re-election next year -- was congratulating himself for what the French called his "diplomatic blitzkrieg" in pushing through UN resolution 1973 authorising the offensive against Muammar Gaddafi.

However, after Monday's meeting, Norway said it was "suspending' participation of its F-16 fighter jets, which had already arrived in Italy before flying on to Crete, until it had "a clarification of the command [structure]".

Germany and Turkey do not want Nato to carry on the bombing campaign against Gaddafi's forces; Luxembourg, present at Saturday's summit, has said it will only take part if the operation is Nato-led; Italy is "reflecting on the use of its bases" for the operation.

The French foreign minister, Alain Juppé, said Nato was "willing to come to the support of the coalition in a few days", suggesting a role for the organisation that is complementary rather than central.

A French military source told AFP it was a case of "finding a way to get Nato involved without it being seen to head the operation".

While France has been giving the impression it is heading the operation, the military attacks on Libya are, according to Juppé, "an operation co-ordinated by the US in direct collaboration with the French and British authorities". It is being led from US bases in Germany and Italy.

This is apparently the first time London, Paris and Washington have failed to come up with a unified chain of command for the operation. [Pundita note: I think the reporter meant to write "an" operation.]

Laurent Teisseire, spokesman for the French ministry of defence, told journalists: "There is no centralised chain of command at this moment. Everyone is using their own military structures in a co-ordinated fashion."

This unprecedented, three-pronged command is reflected in the different names for the operation: The French are calling it Harmattan (the name of a hot wind that blows over the Sahara); in Britain, it is Operation Ellamy; and in the US, it is Odyssey Dawn.

Le Nouvel Observateur magazine described it as "a boat without a captain".
[...]

I can't buy Sarkozy's stated rationale for opposing a NATO-led military operation in Libya because by his reasoning the Arab world would also be alarmed by any Western-led operation, including a French one.

Yet Sarkozy is no fool. So while it's tempting to chalk up his headlong rush into the Libyan uprising to a response to a humanitarian crisis, or to show his political opponents that France would not be marginalized by NATO membership, or to an attempt to head off a massive influx of refugees, or even a big move in the chess game of oil politics or all the above, I remain perplexed by his very strong initial opposition to NATO control of the Libya operation.

Here I'm reminded of Diana Saluri Russo's January 30 article for the Global Journalist, Is the Foreign News Bureau Part of the Past? She writes:

While some might herald the futuristic era that web-based journalism -- with its blogs, tweets, and YouTube videos -- is bringing to foreign reporting, Tobias Piller, long-time Rome correspondent for a German newspaper, has a different take.

For Piller, relying on nonspecialists and drop-in coverage in place of regular foreign correspondents is, in fact, taking foreign coverage back to earlier days.

“When I arrived in Rome 17 years ago, there was what I would call an older generation of foreign reporting,” says Piller. “It basically consisted of something like a ‘letter from Rome’ maybe every two weeks—an analysis of the country’s curiosities, an analysis of politics now and then, mostly stereotypes. It was basically a generalist’s view.”

As mainstream media replace foreign correspondents with “hot spot” drop-in coverage, outsource to local hires and newswires, and even the Vatican turns to YouTube, Piller says the demand for and faster arrival of information creates a different type of journalism, which often results in a kind of painting in broad strokes.

Piller, who covers Rome for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, cites German confusion about Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s continuing popularity in Italy as an example of what only in-depth, authoritative reporting can offer.

“Germans can’t understand why Italians elect Berlusconi over and over again,” he says. “They say he is a crook, so why does this happen. Or they think Italians have been brainwashed. The fact is that Italy is very complicated. Italians don’t see it so much as black and white. You need to see it from the inside. If you are not an official journalist, you are not able to explain that.”
[...]

I urge you to read the entire article, which is a sobering assessment of difficulties that present-day journalism is posing not only for individual news consumers but also for governments.

Things have come to the point where only the John Batchelor Show and the big news wire services such as Reuters and Associated Press routinely provide ongoing media coverage of regions around the world whether or not there's a crisis or big 'breaking' news story from a region.

That's how John was able to spot the importance of the Munich meeting, and why his audience could appreciate its significance: for years his show had routinely featured reports and analysis on Europe and Russia.

Munich is by no means the only instance when John noted an emerging trend before other analysts and the mainstream press saw it. He can be months and even years ahead of the curve; he's simply a brilliant analyst who's had many years of practice, which doesn't mean he can't make mistakes in his initial estimates of a situation. But no small part of his ability to spot important trends is because he tracks regional developments all around the world, over time.

Yet routine ongoing coverage of world regions is being reserved more and more for online magazines, subscription journals, specialty blogs and message boards; John's radio show is a rare exception in that it's available through a major mainstream mass-media outlet.

Photo Caption from Global Journalist: "Foreign news bureaus, such as this 1930s Associated Press London bureau, used to bustle with energy. Now many foreign bureaus are closing and switching to local reporters.
AP Photo: Uncredited)"

John Batchelor's latest analysis of Libya crisis: financial markets haven't yet priced in worst of worst-case scenarios for Arab revolt

UPDATE January 24 2:00 AM ET
Reporting last night for NBC television news from Tobruk (which is under the control of the rebels), veteran MENA reporter and NBC Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel (who speaks fluent Arabic) said he'd heard that Libyan soldiers who'd defected were guarding the oil wells. Of course that's a very vague report but it comports with a more detailed one provided yesterday at a Filipino website, Manila Bulletin Online. The Bulletin report was put together from AP and AFP wire service reports; I'll skip to the part about oil facilities:

[...] Protesters claim to control a string of cities, from the Egyptian border in the east – where guards at the crossing fled – to the city of Ajdabiya, about 450 miles (725 kilometers) farther west along the Mediterranean coast, said Tawfiq al-Shahbi, a protest organizer in the eastern city of Tobruk.

Ajdabiya is a key city near the oil fields of central and eastern Libya. Protesters and local tribesmen were protecting several of the fields and facilities around the city, said one resident, Ahmed al-Zawi.

Residents are also guarding one of Libya's main oil export ports, Zuweita, and the pipelines feeding into it, he said. The pipelines are off and several tankers that had been waiting in the port to load left empty, said al-Zawi, who said he visited Zuweita on Tuesday morning. [...]

So I think it stands to reason that at least in the region under the control of the rebels, soldiers have defected in large numbers and thus, are probably guarding or helping to guard the wells, at least in that region. As to whether they'll be able to maintain control of the region is another question.
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VOA report on the latest developments in Libya.

See John Batchelor Show website for all the links John provides in the following summary of his Tuesday radio show's discussion of the Libya situation and the al Jazeera video he mentions:

Burn the Wells
By John Batchelor on February 23, 2011 2:37 AM

Spoke Joseph Brusuelas [Bloomberg LLP chief economist], David Kotok [Cumberland Advisors], Pat Lang [Sic Semper Tyrannis blog; former DIA], Larry Johnson [No Quarter blog; former CIA and State], re the threats by Muammar Gaddafi that he will wreck his country and murder Libyans and burn the wells.

The critical detail is what the Libyan anarchy does to the markets. Kotok is very bearish on the markets and said he was longer on cash than at anytime since September 2008, and he wished he had more of the energy sector. Kotok believes oil is a one-way trade to $120 on Brent crude, and it can go much higher.

Pat Lang listened to Gaddafi's speech in Arabic and says that it was even crazier than the English version. We also spoke of the sudden return of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to Riyadh from Morocco [where he was recuperating from health problems] at least nine months early. Trouble in the kingdom, with a protest movement planned for after prayers on Friday.

Pat Lang says the Saudis will crush the Bahrain opposition. At evening's end Joe Brusuelas mentioned that he was surprised and spooked about how bearish Kotok is, how grim and certain of worse he found Lang and Johnson. The market has not priced in the worst-case scenario of the Arab revolt.

The worst of worst cases is that Gaddafi survives, and the EU is forced to make deals with a monster.

See the bottom video, from Al Jazeera, of the screams of horror of women watching Gaddafi goons wandering the streets with clubs.

See here for the podcasts of all the show's segments, and here for the schedule for the show, which provides a synopsis of each segment.

John Batchelor on legal challenge to ObamaCare and Commerce Clause

The following are John's notes on his radio interviews last night on ObamaCare and how the debate on the health care bill folds in with the tricky issue of the Commerce Clause. See the 77WABC archive page to pick up the podcasts on the interviews. See the post at John's site for video and links to background articles on the legal challenge and its ramifications.

Debates about the Clause and its reach are at the heart of many Tea Party issues (states' rights v federal rights -- an old central argument in the USA that has gained steam again and is now boiling over with debates on ObamaCare). So even if you don't reside in the USA this issue might be of interest to you, if your nation is debating the reach of centralized government.

John's guests easily untangle the crux of the issue. I've taken the liberty of putting the points in bulleted format that John summarized:

Commerce Henry Hudson
By John Batchelor
December 15, 2010 12:17 AM

Spoke Larry Kudlow, 77WABC radio and CNBC; Joseph Rago, Wall Street Journal; and Richard Epstein, Hoover Institute, about the Judge Henry Hudson Federal court 42-page ruling that the mandate requirement in the Obamacare law from last March is unconstitutional.

Learned that:

> The Democrats wrote the 2700 pages deliberately to derive the power for the mandate from the Commerce Clause rulings since the Great Depression.

> POTUS Obama and others rejected the notion that the law derives its power to mandate participation and to enforce penalties for non-compliance on the basis of the tax power.

> The Commerce Clause is the predicate. Judge Hudson follows the arguments of jurists such as Randy Barnett that this is a perversion of the Commerce Clause.

> The state does not have the power to force a citizen to participate in interstate commerce when the citizen chooses not to.

This [issue] is fast track to the Supreme Court, where [Liberal] Justice Kennedy will render the fate of the mandate. Am told that if the mandate fails to pass, then the Obamacare package is shreds.

Richard Epstein remarks that in the 15-round prizefight, the opposition force is winning on rounds as the [battle] heads to the Supreme Court.

Wikileaks: Julian Assange likely to be indicted under U.S. Espionage Act

UPDATE December 13
ABC news report today: Espionage Act Presents Challenges for WikiLeaks Indictment "Sweeping Anti-Spying Law 'Makes Felons of Us All,' Legal Expert Says." Report is a good introduction to the complexities in bringing an indictment under the Espionage Act; also it quotes Eric Holder as saying that the Act isn't the only law under which the Justice Department might charge Assange.
******
Assange got sloppy, according to John Loftus, a former intelligence officer and U.S. Department of Justice prosecutor. Sloppy is right; reportedly he released some of the Wikileaks State Department cables to a Hezbollah-run newspaper. Hezbollah is on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations. That means he can be indicted under the 1917 Espionage Act even though he's not a U.S. citizen.

Listen to the podcast of Loftus's conversation with John Batchelor for an explanation of the Act and how it impacts Assange's situation. Or download the show segment (10:00 PM, Friday night).

The conversation is directly after John's interview with Sebastian Gorka about the most likely successor to Saudi King Abdullah -- the very creepy Prince Naif, aka 'The Prince of Darkness.' So it's not as if you'll be bored waiting for the Loftus interview on the podcast.

In light of Loftus's discussion, I suppose I was too jaded in my initial reaction to the State cables leaks, which was to see them as a modern version of The School for Scandal. The situation is considerably more serious than that.

As to whether Assange would try to bully his way out of prosecution by acting on his threat to dump yet more documents: then he'd be looking at the death penalty, explained Loftus, if he was prosecuted under the Espionage Act.

But the world will just have to wait and see whether DOJ brings the indictment or uses the threat of indictment to persuade Assange to cease and desist.

John Batchelor Show Election Center

Constantly updated election results at John's website and live coverage on his show starting 9:00 PM ET. John's show, available online, has the best election/political analysis -- hands down!