Monthly Archives: April 2017

Op-Eds

We’re Asking The Wrong Questions About Syria

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Billboard with portrait of Assad and the text ...
Billboard with portrait of Assad and the text God protects Syria on the old city wall of Damascus 2006 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As I write this, two key questions remain unanswered, and a third mostly unasked, about a deadly daybreak  attack on Khan Sheikhoun, a northwest Syrian city of (pre-war) 50,000. Hundreds were wounded and as many as 100 killed, apparently chemical weaponry (Turkey’s health ministry believes the agent in question was the nerve gas sarin), on the morning of April 4.

The two most obvious questions are who did this, and why?

The US government (and unfortunately most American media, acting as stenographers rather than journalists as is too often the case in matters of war and foreign policy) have settled on the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad as the culprit. That claim seems very questionable, if for no other reason than that there’s no plausible “why” attached to it.

After more than six years of civil war, the Syrian government has (with Russian assistance) turned the tide. Assad is well on his way to defeating both the Islamic State and the “moderate rebels” (read: al Qaeda) backed by the US, restoring his control over the country.

A chemical attack on  Khan Sheikhoun doesn’t seem to fit into that scenario. Not only does it serve no obvious military objective, but it’s precisely the kind of atrocity that American hawks will latch onto and use as an excuse to continue and escalate the US military intervention in Syria at Assad’s expense.

Cui bono (“who benefits?”) doesn’t always point to the true answer to a question, but in this case it’s reasonable to ask. The Khan Sheikhoun attack may very well have been carried out by the rebels themselves, in an attempt to keep the US entangled in the war, on their side.

Another plausible explanation is that Syrian regime aircraft bombed a rebel facility where the chemical weapons were manufactured or stored, accidentally releasing them. It’s happened before. It’s how a number of American troops, possibly including me, were exposed to sarin during Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

Or maybe it was Assad behind the attack, for some reason beyond the ken of distant observers.

But who and why are the wrong questions. The third question — the  right question — is: Why is the US involved in this war?

The Assad regime has not attacked the US, nor has Congress declared war on Syria. There’s simply no defensive — or for that matter even legal — rationale for a US military presence in Syria. Whatever horrors the civil war there may entail, American military adventurism makes them worse, not better. It perpetuates instability rather than bringing peace.

Donald Trump ran for president on a platform of reducing US military meddling in other countries’ affairs. It’s time for him to follow through and order a US withdrawal from Syria.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Want Privacy? Washington Isn’t Where You’ll Find It.

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On April 4, US president Donald Trump signed a bill repealing some of the previous administration’s rules on Internet Service Providers’ handling of user information. Privacy advocates raised Cain over the legislation, but let’s put it in perspective: The rules in question were only created last October and hadn’t even really been implemented. Internet privacy is going back in time a whopping six months, if that. The sky is not falling.

That said, if you’re worried about Internet privacy, there are steps you can take to protect yours. You probably won’t, but you can.

Why do I say you probably won’t? Because if you’re the average Internet user, you’ve already given away the store when it comes to privacy and I doubt you’re very motivated to change your ways now.

You probably use Google, Yahoo, Facebook and a bazillion other web services that collect and use (or sell) all kinds of information about you. You probably never read any of their terms of service or privacy policies before clicking on “I agree.” Consequently, those services follow you around the web 24/7 so that advertising can be targeted to your needs and desires.

A “secret” that you may have heard before: When it comes to information, you’re more often the product than the customer. That’s been the case since long before the first web site ever went up. Print magazines and newspapers often sell their goods for less than the costs of printing and distribution. They aren’t selling their content to you, they’re selling you to the real customers: The advertisers. That’s why broadcast radio and television are “free” as well.

But if — IF — you are really interested in getting some genuine Internet privacy, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org) has your back with tools and tutorials. You can reclaim at least some of your privacy by tweaking your browser settings, by using EFF’s HTTPS Everywhere and Privacy Badger extensions, and by installing and using a “Virtual Private Network” or the Tor Browser.

Perfect privacy probably isn’t possible, and if it was it would take a herculean effort to achieve. But you’re not noticeably less well off on that front now than you were the day before Trump signed the law relaxing restrictions on ISPs. Admit it — you weren’t going to read your ISP’s terms of service or privacy policy before signing off on them, either.

Audit your privacy situation or don’t. Take steps to improve it or don’t. That’s up to you. And the ISPs and other services will respect your decisions or try to find ways around your wishes. That’s up to them.

But you should never, under any circumstances trust to the government to safeguard your privacy. Not Congress, not the president, and certainly not law enforcement or the intelligence community. They don’t give a hang about your privacy. In fact they labor ceaselessly to compromise it for their own purposes. Whatever else you do, don’t fool yourself into believing government is your friend or protector. You’re on your own, kid.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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SCOTUS: The Nuclear Option is Not Enough

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U.S. Supreme Court building.
U.S. Supreme Court building. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On January 31,  president Donald Trump nominated federal appellate judge Neil Gorsuch to fill a vacancy on the US Supreme Court created nearly a year before by Associate Justice Antonin Scalia’s death.

More than two months later — nearly 14 months since  Scalia’s passing and after 13 months of Republican stalling and refusal to even consider former president Barack Obama’s nomination of appellate judge Merrick Garland — the US Senate is finally set to vote on Gorsuch’s nomination once it clears a final procedural hurdle (more on that below).

Unlike most politically engaged Americans, I have no strong opinion on the character or qualifications of Neil Gorsuch (or, for that matter, Merrick Garland). Because they’re appointed for life, Supreme Court justices tend to develop minds of their own rather than slavishly fulfilling the wishes of the presidents who nominate them or the parties they claim affiliation with.

I do, however, have strong and very negative opinions on the melodrama attending the whole process.

Chief Justice John Marshall was nominated to his position on January 20, 1801. The Senate stalled, declining to confirm Marshall and pushing president John Adams to substitute someone else. The matter dragged on … for seven whole days before a vote. Marshall took his seat on the court less than two weeks after Adams asked him to serve.

Two weeks in 1801, when news traveled at the speed of horse. Fourteen months in 2016-17, when news travels at the speed of light. What’s wrong with this picture?

What’s wrong with it is that the Senate is a dilatory, time-wasting, procedurally hidebound body that these days walks (at a snail’s pace) every action of significance through multiple hearings in front of various committees before acting.

The final procedural hurdle I mentioned above is called “cloture.” It’s a vote to end debate, wrap the matter up and give Gorsuch the Senate’s final,  for real, thumbs up or (or down).

Under current Senate rules cloture requires 60 votes. Republicans, with a bare majority in the Senate and no hope of winning cloture, are threatening “the nuclear option” — a rules change, which only requires a majority, to make cloture itself a mere majority vote.

I don’t think the “nuclear option” is enough. I’m with MacBeth: “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well It were done quickly.”

Instead of changing the cloture rules, why not change the entire confirmation procedure? Put a hard deadline in the rules: On the tenth day following nomination, the nominee receives an up or down vote of the full Senate, period, no exceptions.  Pre-vote committees get that long, and no longer, to do their jobs.

The Constitution calls for the Senate’s “advice and consent” on presidential appointments, not for months or years of screwing around.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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