Focal Points Blog

Enough Islamic State Civilians Are Already Being Killed Without Carpet Bombing, Thanks

Carpet bombing of Islamic State territory called for by Sen. Ted Cruz is inflammatory rhetoric at its worst.

By Russ Wellen, February 23, 2016

Sen. Ted Cruz called for “carpet” bombing the Islamic State despite likely casualties to civilians. (Photo: Matt Johnson / Flickr)

Senator Ted Cruz (Texas -R) has taken much criticism for urging the United States to “carpet bomb” the Islamic State. The humanitarian consequences would be obvious. In a debate of the Republican candidates for president held January 28, reports NBC News, he said he would “apologize to nobody” for that.

“It is not tough talk, it is a different fundamental military strategy than what we’ve seen from Barack Obama,” Cruz said. Cruz appealed to the example of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, which he said featured a higher rate of air strikes.

Arms Control: Worse Than Baby Steps

A baby’s first steps are forward: They can’t walk one step forward, two steps back — like arms control.

By Russ Wellen, February 22, 2016

Nuclear weapons are as much of an emergency for the earth as global warming, but their abolition is treated as if we have all the time in the world. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons )

In the realm of public opinion, nuclear weapons have been replaced by global warming as the world’s greatest existential threat. One can debate which is more of an emergency, but we don’t wish to contribute to any perceived need for them to compete for space in the minds of the public. In his latest Bulletin for the Los Alamos Study Group, Executive Director Greg Mello writes about nuclear weapons:
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Would Sanders Be the Arms Control President We Thought We Were Getting in Obama?

President Obama took the money — for the Nobel Peace Prize — and ran: straight from the arms control he won the award for.

By Russ Wellen, February 19, 2016

President Obama may not have given away the $1.2 million award from the Nobel committee, but that doesn’t mean he should have abandoned his anti-nuclear mission, as well. (Photo: The Official White House Photostream / Flickr)

President Obama may not have given away the $1.2 million award from the Nobel committee, but that doesn’t mean he should have abandoned his anti-nuclear mission, as well.

In an article at Breaking Defense, Mark Cancian, a former top defense budget analyst at the Office of Management and Budget under President Obama, presents a “thought experiment.”

What if Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders becomes president? What would a Sanders defense program look like?

Judgment Day for Austerity in Irish Election

A coalition of leftists and independents may come out on top in the Irish election.

By Conn Hallinan, February 18, 2016

Part of the Fine Gael-Labour coalition’s problem is that it claimed it had no choice but to enforce the savage austerity regime of the European Central Bank, but is trying to take credit for recent improvement in the economy. (Photo: Wikipedia)

What looked like a smooth path to electoral victory for the Irish government has suddenly turned rocky, and the Fine Gael-Labour coalition is scrambling to keep its majority in the 166-seat Dáil. A series of missteps by Fine Gael’s Taoiseach [prime minister] Enda Kenney, and a sharply critical report of the 2008 Irish “bailout,” has introduced an element of volatility into the Feb. 26 vote that may end in a victory by an interesting, if fragile, coalition of leftists and independents.

The center-right Fine Gael and center-left Labour Party currently hold 99 seats, but few observers see them maintaining their majority. Fine Gael has dropped from 30 percent several months ago to 26 percent today, and Labour is only polling at 9 percent. That will not translate into enough seats to control the Dáil, and putting together a ruling coalition will be tricky, particularly when polls indicate that the independent bloc that has picked up 3 percent and is now the number one vote getter. In general, the independents are left or left-leaning.
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Women High on List of Victims of Hillary Clinton’s Hawkish Foreign Policy

Hillary Clinton’s advocacy for women, ostensibly global, is hollow at heart.

By Russ Wellen, February 17, 2016

A line can be traced between the vote for the Iraq War and the enslavement of women, such as Yazidis pictured, by the Islamic State. (Photo: European Parliament / Flickr)

Yesterday Foreign Policy in Focus posted an article by Stephen Zunes on Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy. It’s of sufficient eloquence and importance to spur us to enter the echo chamber and emphasize some of its key points. Professor Zunes points out that “several things about Clinton’s record would make her an unusual standard bearer for” the cause of women. For instance:

Historically, it’s uncommon for women voters — who statistically tend to be more dovish on foreign policy matters than men — to support the most hawkish candidate in the Democratic primaries.

Nuclear Ban Treaty Seeks to Make an End Run Around Nuclear Powers

How would a treaty that declares nuclear weapons illegal work if the U.S. doesn’t sign on?

By Russ Wellen, February 16, 2016

Once nuclear weapons are declared illegal, momentum may build toward their abolition. (Photo: Steve Jurveston / Wikimedia Commons)

It might be news to you, but a treaty banning nuclear weapons is being negotiated. Wait — are nuclear-weapons states signing on? Of course not. Then what’s the point?

As the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), at the forefront of the movement, states in its presentation Ban Nuclear Weapons Now:

The prohibition of weapons typically precedes and stimulates their elimination, not the other way around.

Hillary Clinton Puts Space Between Her and Neocons With Whom She’s Identified

Prominent neocon Robert Kagan’s comfort with Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy should make us all uncomfortable.

By Leon Wofsy, February 15, 2016

Clinton boasts of foreign-policy experience without owning up to how rich in failures and disastrous wars U.S. foreign policy has been in recent years. (Photo: Zimbio)

Sanders called it a “low blow.” Clinton has suddenly laid claim to the Obama legacy and chastised Bernie because he sometimes has taken issue with the President.

Aside from the injustice to Bernie, who has supported Obama while exercising the right to voice disagreements, Hillary has turned matters upside down. It is no secret that the former Secretary of State has been hawkish on foreign and military policy, that she along with the neocons has regarded Obama as “weak.” That’s why the current chief neocon advocate, Robert Kagan, who bitterly opposes any Obama/Kerry effort to try diplomacy instead of greater military force, can say of Clinton: “I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy.” (Kagan’s wife is Victoria Nuland, Hillary Clinton’s Assistant Secretary of European and Eurasian Affairs, who famously said “Fuck the EU” in her eagerness to manipulate “regime change” in the Ukraine.)
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Russian Bombing in Syria May Ensure Decades More Rule by Assad

Russian success in Syria may have a trickle-down effect on its other ventures such as Ukraine.

By Russ Wellen, February 12, 2016

If Russia prevails in shoring up Assad, Putin will leverage that success elsewhere.
(Photo: Thierry Ehrmann / Flickr Commons )

With regards to the ceasefire talks that never got off the ground in Geneva last week, AlJazeera’s Luke Coffey writes that “Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was never serious about a ceasefire, and neither was his partner in crime Vladimir Putin, the Russian president.”

… the recapture of Aleppo would make it highly unlikely that Assad and his cronies would return to the negotiating table. In Putin’s eyes the world is a zero-sum game and in Syria he is winning … not negotiating.

Jeffrey Sachs Blames Hillary Clinton for Our National Security Woes

To economic development expert Jeffrey Sachs, Hillary Clinton is a neocon.

By Russ Wellen, February 11, 2016

Yes, neocons are still around and may have an inside track to the White House once again. (Photo: Wikimedia)

It’s almost unfathomable how much money Hillary and Bill Clinton have made from giving speeches, mostly to financial companies. While that $153 million (according to CNN) was earned since Bill Clinton’s second presidential term ended, it now almost makes more sense to view Hillary Clinton in the class of tycoons who become politicians, such as Donald Trump and Mike Bloomberg.

But it’s not just Hillary Clinton’s speeches to and affiliations with Wall Street that have become a rising crescendo of alarm. At Huffington Post, Jeffrey Sachs, authority on economic development and world poverty, continues to tack left.
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You Too Can Have a Future in Nuclear Destruction

Kids, don't know what career to pursue? Get a masters in nuclear deterrence.

By Russ Wellen, February 10, 2016

The nuclear-weapons establishment has never flagged when it comes to fanning the flames of deterrence theory. (Photo: Steve Jurveston / Wikimedia Commons)

Recent years have seen a string of scandals among those who command and man nuclear missiles silos. Among them have been cheating on tests and drug use. They are considered symptoms of low morale among those working in a branch of military that is seen as having little to actually do and with no future. Of course, for the rest of us, that’s a plus because it means they are not lighting off their ICBMs (the intercontinental ballistic missiles housed in the silos).
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