The Week In Ridiculousness
November 9, 2012 § 1 Comment
I thought I’d use today’s post to highlight a couple of things going on this week that are so absurd that I had resolved to ignore them at all costs, but since they are burning a hole in my brain I am giving in. And no, I will still not be commenting on anything that Jennifer Rubin has written (which should be the new textbook definition of ridiculous) since I am hoping that if nobody pays any attention to her she will, like my 5 month old son, eventually cry herself to sleep and we will no longer have to listen to her.
Topic number one that I had resolved to ignore is the Kafkaesque exercise in propaganda trial of Israeli military officers, including former chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi, taking place right now in Turkey. The four IDF commanders are being tried in absentia for the deaths of nine Turkish citizens aboard the Mavi Marmara, and in case you are wondering if this trial is a genuine attempt to exercise justice or a political theater of the absurd, all you need to know is that the prosecution is asking for individual sentences of 18,000 years apiece. It might also interest you to hear that the government IHH (ed.. that was a sloppy mistake on my part), which sent the flotilla in 2010, has decided to run advertisements for the trial that are plastered around Istanbul, so you would not be mistaken in thinking that this is closer to a reality show than it is to an impartial judicial hearing. Despite the Turkish government’s best attempts to entice people to come out for its intricately planned modern day gladiator spectacle, the plaza in front of Çağlayan court house has been sparsely populated with only a couple of hundred people who have been competing for attention with Turkish pro-choice activists. The timing of the trial and the government’s efforts to use it to stir up nationalist sentiment are no doubt related to the fact that the AKP and Prime Minister Erdoğan himself are at the shakiest point in their decade-long rule, between the Syrian morass and intra-party tension between Erdoğan and President Gül. Rallying around the flag is the oldest trick in the book and this is a nakedly transparent move in that direction, but it remains to be seen whether it will work. There should be no doubt at all though that this is not a serious effort to get Israel to compromise, will have absolutely zero positive effect on Turkey’s campaign for an Israeli apology and compensation, and is purely and simply about domestic political gain. It is a political temper tantrum, beneath Turkey or any country that purports to take itself seriously. If Ankara were actually interested in a resolution to the dispute with Israel, rather than stage a show trial it would drop its demand for Israel to end the Gaza blockade – which it knows Israel will never agree to and which has nothing to do with Turkey anyway – and work out language on an apology and specific compensation, both of which Jerusalem has indicated it is open to accepting under the right circumstances. It might be too late now that Avigdor Lieberman’s power has been enhanced, but at least a good faith effort would put the ball in Israel’s court. What is going on now, however, is nothing short of an embarrassing and disgraceful spectacle.
Topic number two is the figurative self-immolation of Eric Dondero. For those unfamiliar with his work, Dondero is a former Ron Paul aide who is so upset at President Obama’s reelection that he has decided to personally boycott all Democrats for the rest of his life. What does this mean in practice, you might ask. The answer, in Dondero’s own oh so eloquent words:
All family and friends, even close family and friends, who I know to be Democrats are hereby dead to me. I vow never to speak to them again for the rest of my life, or have any communications with them. They are in short, the enemies of liberty. They deserve nothing less than hatred and utter contempt.
I strongly urge all other libertarians to do the same. Are you married to someone who voted for Obama, have a girlfriend who voted ‘O’. Divorce them. Break up with them without haste. Vow not to attend family functions, Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas for example, if there will be any family members in attendance who are Democrats.
Do you work for someone who voted for Obama? Quit your job. Co-workers who voted for Obama. Simply don’t talk to them in the workplace, unless your boss instructs you too for work-related only purposes. Have clients who voted Democrat? Call them up this morning and tell them to take their business elsewhere.
I read this yesterday, and assumed it had to be a joke. Nobody takes themselves this seriously, right? Not to mention that this is about as insane as it gets, even for a devoted Ron Paul employee who believes that the government is secretly planning to form a union with Canada and Mexico and probably carries Krugerrands with him to the supermarket to buy groceries. As it turns out based on Dondero’s interview in New York Magazine, not only is he not joking but he is more deranged than I could have ever imagined. Read the whole interview for a wonderful snapshot of the mental fever that has seized some folks in this country, but my two favorites snippets are Dondero’s answer to whether he would tap an unknown Republican to perform a complicated and risky brain surgery over a Democrat ranked as the top neurosurgeon in the country – “Simple: Avoid them both. Go to Mexico for your medical treatment. Avoid all the red tape and bureaucracy – and his demand that a Democratic neighbor drowning in a lake would have to yell “Obama sucks” before Dondero would jump into the water to rescue him. That people like this exist make me laugh until it hurts and curl up in a ball and cry at the same time.
What Does Obama’s Win Mean For Bibi?
November 7, 2012 § 5 Comments
As it became clear last night that President Obama was headed for an easy victory, a bunch of people on my twitter feed began speculating – or more accurately, making jokes – about what this would mean for Bibi Netanyahu. The joking actually turned into a serious conversation about whether Obama will somehow punish Netanyahu for his perceived support of Romney and clashes with the president, with some going so far as to speculate that he will tell Netanyahu that no help on Iran is forthcoming. It seems that Netanyahu is worried himself, as he is already clamping down on Likud members who are expressing negative reactions to Obama’s reelection out of fear that it will damage his standing with the White House even further.
Despite what is obviously not a great relationship between the two men, I don’t quite see how Obama’s reelection is going to have much of a negative effect on Netanyahu or the U.S.-Israel relationship at large. This is true for a few reasons. First, as Steven Cook persuasively argued last month, the relationship is institutionalized to the point that personal animosity between the countries’ leaders is not going to have much of an effect, if any. Let’s assume that Obama decides this morning that he wants to put the screws on Netanyahu – what precisely is he going to do? Aid to Israel is controlled by Congress, the joint military and intelligence cooperation is so deeply ingrained that it would take a long time to reverse, and there are deep ties between the two countries at all levels of government, business, and society. There are smaller things that Obama could do on the margins, but the immediate consequences are close to zero.
Second, and I cannot stress this enough, if you think that the myriad of ways in which Obama supported Israel during his first term was just a feint to win an election, then you are falling victim to the same delusion that said Nate Silver and all of the polls predicting an Obama win were deliberately skewing the evidence. Quite simply, there is absolutely nothing to suggest that all of a sudden funding for Iron Dome, joint military exercises, vetoing of anti-Israel UN resolutions, and other similar actions are going to stop now that Obama doesn’t have to worry about senior citizens’ votes in Florida. I will bet any amount of money that there is no drop-off in the administration’s support of Israel in the security and diplomatic spheres, and the folks who think otherwise have a large burden of proof to overcome that cannot be swept away merely by shouting “but he didn’t visit Israel” or “he left Netanyahu waiting while he ate dinner with his family.”
Third, Obama is not very popular among Israelis, and so even if he wanted to punish Netanyahu by trying to interfere in the Israeli election, it just wouldn’t work. Bill Clinton might have been able to sway Israelis when he was president, but Obama does not have the popularity, credibility, or familiarity with Israeli voters to pull of such a move. The fact that Obama was reelected is not going to factor into Israelis’ calculations when they go to the polls, as Brent Sasley helpfully pointed out previously. The idea that Netanyahu now has to be running scared because his hopes to have Romney elected did not pan out is a pretty flimsy one.
Finally, the suggestion that Obama is now going to tell Netanyahu that the U.S. has no interest in confronting Iran makes little sense to me based on previous U.S. actions and Obama’s long record of statements indicating that he views an Iranian nuclear bomb as a real problem. Aside from Stuxnet, crippling sanctions, and an increased carrier presence in the Gulf, Obama has made clear that preventing nuclear proliferation is perhaps the foreign policy issue that he holds most dear. The disagreement between he and Netanyahu over the red line of nuclear capability vs. nuclear weapons is still going to be there, but Obama has held firm to his own timeline so far and he is not going to now somehow make it even more firm because he has been reelected. The bottom line here is that Obama is worried about an Iranian nuclear weapon as well, and he is not going to drop his concerns just because he and Netanyahu do not get along very well.
P.S. For another argument on why the Obama revenge meme is an ill-informed one that focuses on different variables than mine, check out Peter Beinart this morning.
