The Greek Austerity Face Off + Globalized Afghanistan + Cracking Yemen -- This is World War IV

A quick rundown this Friday morning of some critical storylines heading into the weekend. 

First, the state of play between Greece, representing the forces of humanity, versus the eurozone, representing the forces of austerity in defense of an exhausted neoliberal paradigm which worships Mammon, or as Naked Capitalism's Yves Smith says, "Mr. Market."

After arriving at impasse on Wednesday, the parties are reported to resume technical negotiations today. Landon Thomas Jr. and Jack Ewing have a good DealBook piece, "Greek Debt Standoff Awaits a Decisive Move," that forecasts a Cyprus-like conclusion to the showdown: capital controls to keep Greek banks from collapsing, but creating a two-tiered euro, with the Syriza-led government eventually kneeling before Mammon and accepting the austerity diktats.

A growing number of analysts think that Mr. Schäuble, Mr. Dijsselbloem and Mr. Draghi are advancing a combined strategy that aims to wait Greece out.

The thinking goes like this. Say “no” politely, but repeatedly, to Greece’s request for a financial rescue package. As conditions deteriorate, cut off access to emergency loans for the bank’s troubled financial institutions.

If that happens, Greece would have to impose capital controls to help prop up the banks, leading to economic disarray and prompting a public outcry. The Greek government would then be forced to accommodate Europe.

“Game theory only works if the other side wants to keep playing with you,” said Adam Lerrick, a sovereign debt expert.

Under this theory, Greece does not leave the euro, Mr. Lerrick said. A majority of Greeks reject such an outcome.

Instead, the country becomes quarantined within Europe, with Greeks prohibited from removing large sums from banks and sending cash abroad. Such was the case with Cyprus in 2013.

Confidantes of Mr. Varoufakis say that, all along, he has been wary of such an approach — which is why he is pushing so hard for a €10 billion lifeline. With the money comes breathing room to put his government’s plan to work. “Time is our most precious commodity,” he has said repeatedly.

But why not capital controls and default? Why don't Thomas and Ewing game out this scenario? It seems to me that if Greece gets as far as Cyprus in placing limits on banking then why not go whole hog and default? The pressure will then be on Germany and other proponents of hardball within the eurozone as Mr. Market freaks out.

This morning Yves Smith is hedging her bets. In "Fog of Negotiations: Greece and Germany Make Friendlier Noises, Restart Talks, But Press Reports Diverge," she pulls back from her default forecast of yesterday. She has a colleague who is well versed in the German press, and this colleague, normally pessimistic, is telling her that the chances of a forthcoming deal are good -- 60/40 or even 65/35. So the normally cynical Smith is basically punting for the time being.

Next, let's go to Afghanistan where a big story ("U.S. Is Escalating a Secretive War in Afghanistan: Data From Seized Computer Fuels a Surge in U.S. Raids on Al Qaeda," by Matthew Rosenberg and Eric Schmitt) provides a look at what U.S. war-making is going to be in the next decade regardless of the outcome of the vote on Obama's Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against Islamic State. Despite the announcement of the end of combat operations in Afghanistan at the end of last year, nighttime raids conducted by coalition Special Operations forces with their Afghan counterparts against Taliban and Al Qaeda targets are going gangbusters; drone strikes too:

The spike in raids is at odds with policy declarations in Washington, where the Obama administration has deemed the American role in the war essentially over. But the increase reflects the reality in Afghanistan, where fierce fighting in the past year killed record numbers of Afghan soldiers, police officers and civilians.

American and Afghan officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing operations that are largely classified, said that American forces were playing direct combat roles in many of the raids and were not simply going along as advisers.

“We’ve been clear that counterterrorism operations remain a part of our mission in Afghanistan,” Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said on Thursday. “We’ve also been clear that we will conduct these operations in partnership with the Afghans to eliminate threats to our forces, our partners and our interests.”

The raids appear to have targeted a broad cross section of Islamist militants. They have hit both Qaeda and Taliban operatives, going beyond the narrow counterterrorism mission that Obama administration officials had said would continue after the formal end of American-led combat operations last December.

The tempo of operations is “unprecedented for this time of year” — that is, the traditional winter lull in fighting, an American military official said. No official would provide exact figures, because the data is classified. The Afghan and American governments have also sought to keep quiet the surge in night raids to avoid political fallout in both countries.

“It’s all in the shadows now,” said a former Afghan security official who informally advises his former colleagues. “The official war for the Americans — the part of the war that you could go see — that’s over. It’s only the secret war that’s still going. But it’s going hard.”

Criticisms of Obama's new AUMF center around its non-repeal of the super-broad "Al Qaeda and associates" 9/11 AUMF and its lack of any geographic boundaries. The ISIS AUMF does sunset in three years, but without the repeal of the 9/11 AUMF what it effectively does is globalize Afghanistan. A precedent is going to be established for super-stealthy Special Operations units -- "Afghan and American officials said the raids over the past few months had been carried out by the elite commandos of the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan’s main spy agency, and members of a mix of American military Special Operations units, such as Navy SEALs and Army Rangers, and paramilitary officers from the C.I.A." -- a Schutzstaffel to terrorize the planet. This has been the fantasy of war planners all along.

Finally -- quickly -- Yemen is being cracked, like Libya, with the blessing of the United States, which led the rush of Western embassies out of the country the other day despite ongoing negotiations, brokered by the United Nations, between the Houthis and other parties to form a new government. Rod Nordland, who usually toes the State Department line but also finds a way to slip a paragraph or two into his stories that give the reader an idea what is really going on, writes, along with Shuaib Almosawa, in "In Yemen, Militants Are Increasingly Isolated" that

Many saw the move as intended to pressure Yemen’s power brokers to come to an agreement. Although the embassies cited security concerns as the reason behind the closings, they came amid relative calm in Sana, the capital, even on the anniversary of its Arab Spring revolution, with peaceful pro- and anti-Houthi demonstrations.

The British and American embassies in Sana were closed Wednesday, with the last diplomats from both embassies withdrawn. The German Embassy was also closed, a security official said, although its diplomats had not yet left. France urged all its citizens in Yemen to leave and said that the embassy would close Friday.

Nordland, working again with Shuaib Almosawa, reported yesterday that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) captured the "Yemeni National Army’s 19th Brigade after heavy fighting at its headquarters in the Baihan District of Shabwa Province, an important oil-producing area in southeastern Yemen."

This is all about the Saudis who are unwilling to have the Houthis formalize their control of Yemen. Now, instead, we will get yet another cracked state with a civil war raging. This is what the U.S./Saudi axis specializes in. We are going to have to start calling it what it is: World War IV.

Crisis Averted for the Time Being

This Monday morning it is apparent that the U.S.-Russian deal, brokered over the weekend, to rid Syria of its chemical weapons is a huge defeat for the warhawks. Two stories limn the plaintive cries of the warmongers as they rail at the failure of Obama to launch a strike: Anne Barnard's "Deal Represents Turn for Syria; Rebels Deflated" and Peter Baker's "Brief Respite for President, but No Plan B on Syria." Here are two essential quotes from each. First, Peter Baker:

Most lawmakers on both sides of the aisle just want the issue to go away. Indeed, the White House recommended to lawmakers that they move on to other subjects. The White House itself pivoted its public message back to economic issues on Sunday. Mr. Obama and Congress face critical deadlines in the next few weeks to keep the government open and avert a default. 

The prolonged process of finalizing a disarmament plan and putting it into effect over the course of a year would take Syria off the front burner for a while and could give Mr. Obama an opportunity to avoid action altogether. Senior administration officials made the case last week that the process itself serves as a deterrent because Mr. Assad presumably would not use his chemical weapons in the interim.

This supports the analysis provided on the Moon of Alabama blog. Western backing for the Syrian opposition will be slowly, gradually unwound. Crisis averted.

The rebels can read the handwriting on the wall. Here is Anne Barnard:

Bashir Hajji, a field commander with Liwaa al-Tawheed, a rebel group affiliated with the loose-knit, Western-backed Free Syrian Army, said the agreement had strengthened the growing suspicion among rebels and “civilians who want salvation” that the United States, which has not substantially delivered on promises to strengthen their forces, actually aims to prolong Mr. Assad’s rule. 

“The international community is providing a new chance for Assad’s gangs to continue the criminal play in Syria,” he said.

Thanks to Russia's masterly move in providing Obama an avenue of escape from the warmongers in his own administration and the foreign policy establishment, a wider war has been avoided. To deescalate the crisis Russia took advantage of the overwhelming antiwar sentiment of the general populous that was effectively blocking Congress from granting Obama an Authorization for the Use of Military Force. Bush II had invaded Iraq despite huge antiwar rallies across the globe. The Russian diplomatic initiative was a necessary part of the solution. Leaders, for the most part, don't respect the people they govern.

So, for the time being, chalk up a win for democracy and the people.

Will the AUMF Pass Congress?

In trying to predict how Congress will vote on granting the Obama administration Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against Syria, a good place to start is with the same question people should be asking about the chemical attack on August 21 on a Damascus suburb, "Cui bono?"

Who benefited from the gas attack? Certainly not the Syrian government. The opposition had everything to gain in perpetrating the attack because it provocatively crossed a red line that Obama had previously laid down. Since the Obama administration has been publicly predicting the collapse of the Assad regime for some time, and since it has a covert program in Jordan to train and arm rebels, and since the United States has worked to block United Nations investigators from entering Syria at the invitation of the government to assess the possibility that chemical arms were used in the Khan al-Assal massacre (the UN inspection team was in Syria last month to investigate Khan al-Assal when they were sidetracked by the East Ghouta chemical attack), the obvious conclusion to draw is that a chemical weapons attack -- any chemical attack -- would be blamed reflexively on the Syrian government.

But who benefits if Congress passes the AUMF? Certainly not the American people, who will have to pay for and fight any conflict, and not any senator or congressman or congresswoman who votes for it, whether Democrat or Republican, because he/she will likely, based on the overwhelming opposition so far to another foreign military intervention, face a spirited primary challenge. The only beneficiary in the U.S. body politic, besides the overarching "National Security State" with its weapons manufacturers and think-tank pundits and surveillance chiefs, is the Obama administration.

Why would the Republican-controlled House do anything to benefit Obama? The answer is that it wouldn't. That's why it is safe to say that the AUMF won't clear the House. There are some who argue that AIPAC is all powerful and money rules the roost in D.C. and Congress is totally venal. But we have a recent example where this wasn't the case -- sequestration. Republicans were willing to sacrifice the military in order to achieve across-the-board budget cuts.

The result in the Senate is anyone's guess. My sense is that despite Obama's upcoming Tuesday speech and all the over-the-top inflammatory rhetoric of Secretary of State John Kerry -- saying that this vote is the country's "Munich moment" or that Assad refuses to negotiate when it is in fact the United States and its ally the Syrian National Coalition that refuses to negotiate -- the public will not shift its anti-war stance.

Senators are more insulated than those who serve in the House: their terms are longer and they can raise money more easily. There will be senators who will stick with Obama thinking that they can weather the storm of voter disgust. But will there be enough to get the AUMF out of the senate? The Obama administration can make no missteps. All the news coming out of Syria has to go the administration's way. There has to be a positive response to Obama's call for war from the White House. People suddenly have to soften to John Kerry's brazen warmongering. Rand Paul's filibuster has to fizzle.

That's a lot of stuff that needs to break the warhawks' way. This doesn't mean it can't happen. The state is powerful, and there's always the possibility of a watered-down AUMF squeaking through. But at the end of the day, even if an AUMF in some form emerges from the Senate, you're still left with a No vote in the House. Shenanigans in any House-Senate conference are almost guaranteed. Assuming Obama waits this long to launch the Tomahawks, the United Nations report on what happened in East Ghouta should be available by then.

AIPAC vs. The American Public

At the end of this morning's story "House Leaders Express Their Support for Syria Strike," by Mark Landler, Michael Gordon and Thom Shanker, finally comes a mention of the reality that Obama and his war cabinet are trying to subvert:

The calendar is Mr. Obama’s enemy: Many members from both parties are still back in their districts hearing from constituents, and the feedback, based on numerous interviews, is overwhelmingly negative. 

On Tuesday, however, a powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, threw its support behind military action in Syria, citing the need to send a strong message to Iran and the militant group Hezbollah, both of which support Mr. Assad.

Any gauge of sanity and basic fairness, given the decade-plus ongoing foreign occupations following 9/11 and the recent Snowden revelations of an omnipresent surveillance state that has metastasized since then, has the American public clearly in the right on this issue. Public opinion was wrong to support Bush II's invasion of Iraq, but Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld & Co. were shrewd in their use of the fear and anger 9/11 created to sow enough confusion with their bogus intelligence to pull off the crime (so far) of the century.

Now is a different time. We're coming to the end of the 9/11 era, which also happens to be the end of the Arab Spring. People might have looked the other way on Libya because of a heady rush caused by toppling Arab dictators, but no mas. The 2012 Benghazi attack put to rest the fallacy of a problem-free intervention.

The American citizenry has been treated to a series of budget crises by a divided national political class. And suddenly that political class is coming together, but not to fund a public works project or expand early childhood education. No, the national political leadership is joined in an embrace of the Obama request for an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). In other words, folks, you get to carry and pay for guns but you get no butter.

And the public understands the screwing it's getting. Support for bombing Syria has not grown since the Obama team has "flooded the zone" and the nation's fourth estate has resumed its role from the run up to Iraq's invasion -- cheerleader for illegal warfare and megaphone of tendentious intelligence. It is unquestioned in the Western media that the Syrian government is responsible for attacking the Damascus suburb of Ghouta. The unverified death toll of 1,400 is unquestioned as well. Pleas to "Save the children!" are made incessantly by beautiful, young cable news anchors. But despite all this American public opinion is unmoved.

This is not to say that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) doesn't have a few tricks left to pull on us. Opinion might tilt a few points in the direction of launching the Tomahawks. But I don't think so. I think this will be a clear case of "which side are you on?" The 10-7 vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee augurs a divided Senate. But the real challenge for AIPAC and other warhawks will be in the House.

If the AUMF passes the House of Representatives, given everything that we've been through since the millennium, I think it's safe to say that electoral democracy is officially dead in this country.

Cable News Bloodlust

Away from the Internet since Saturday, I relied on a steady diet of cable news for my information. My mother, who is a resident of an assisted living facility, usually has her television tuned to CNN, but she bounces regularly to MSNBC and Fox, as well as the local PBS affiliate. So I got what I think is fairly representative sampling.

And I don't know why I was shocked but I was. The obscene war lust and crass propaganda was appalling. First off, there is a complete acceptance, absent any caveats that the assessment is being provided by intelligence agencies that assured us that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, that the Syrian government is the perpetrator of the chemical weapons attack two weeks ago. No exploration of the possibility that the rebels might have launched such an attack despite the fact that there is ample reporting saying as much. No discussion of why John Kerry is always getting out in front of the UN chemical weapons investigation team, first by falsely claiming that their efforts to collect samples in East Ghouta was a waste of time because of Syrian Arab Army shelling, and then by saying that hair and blood samples from first responders to the Ghouta attack tested positive for signatures of sarin, even though a signature of sarin is very different from sarin exposure itself (see yesterday's excellent "Moon of Alabama" post for a discussion of this).

But worst of all are the crude appeals for violence on behalf of children being victimized by the brute Assad. Ann Curry provides the most excessive, ludicrous example of this. It's a rhetorical specialty of the humanitarian bombers: We have to blow up children to save the children. While Curry discussed her harrowing visit to the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan she shared a split screen with rotating still images of refugee children. It was like watching a SPCA commercial.

There were a few bright spots. CNN interviewed Congressman Alan Grayson (D-Florida) a couple of times and each time he absolutely destroyed -- completely silenced -- the talking-head warhawks. To paraphrase: "It's a civil war. Sending in cruise missiles is not going to enhance our credibility or send a message to Iran or save any children. It's going to cost a billion dollars -- money that should be spent here at home -- and not do anything but make things worse." Congresswoman Janice Hahn was also excellent. To paraphrase: "When I attended Labor Day picnics and parades people kept coming up to me saying, 'Whatever you do, don't send us into another war.' "

In addition to being absent from the Internet, I was also away from the New York Times for Sunday and Monday. Dipping back in today, it's apparent to me that going to Congress with a blank-check Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) Obama is looking to make a much larger strike than he has been calling for in public. There is no doubt that what is being contemplated by the elites who run the show is an open-ended military engagement that will likely last for a generation or two. Take down Syria, mop up Hezbollah, go after Iran. It's hard to understand where they see the support in the general populous for this Battle of Armageddon. There is certainly support among the rulers of Saudi Arabia and Israeli Likudniks. But among your average Democrat and Republican? No, absolutely not. It's baffling. Are elites that out of touch? Apparently.

The problem we have as citizens of this country is that we have no effective institutions to communicate our will. Congress is bought and so are the ever-shrinking unions. We can vote the bums out but it's usually too little and too late. And when new representatives get to D.C. -- what Nader called "corporate occupied territory" -- it's hard for them not to be quickly compromised.

There's still a possibility that enough Tea Party Republicans and Progressive Democrats -- fearful for their own survival -- will ban together and block the AUMF in the House. That's our best bet. It might seem fruitless, but practice some civic faith and take time to either write or call your Senators and Congressional Representative.