Oceans Arising on Edifices of Arrogance

A study published in late November 2012 in the journal Science estimates that the melting of ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland had raised global sea levels by 11.1 millimeters (0.43 inch) since 1992. That represents one-fifth of the total sea-level rise increase in that period. Other contributors include the expansion of the sea water from warming, and the melting of glaciers, as for instance on mountains. In the 1990s, melting of the polar ice sheets in the Antarctica and Greenland was responsible for about 10 percent of the global sea-level rise, but by 2012 the effect had risen to 30 percent.[1] The study does not, however, uncover the underlying cause, or association, lying in a complexity in human nature itself. Our species has vaunted to the top of the food chain and leveraged a brain capable of engineering technological advances that would have seemed magical even just in the nineteenth century, and yet we seem hard-wired to accelerate our course to a self-destructive extinction. This lack of balance is reflected in the increasing extremes in the global climate. In this essay, I begin with the study and steadily work toward uncovering the underlying, subterranean culprit.

In Greenland, melted ice, or water, headed to the Atlantic Ocean. NYT

The study can be interpreted as essentially “firming up” what had been left to guesswork hitherto. “It allows us to make some firm conclusions,” Andrew Shepherd of the University of Leeds said. “It wasn’t clear if Antarctica was gaining or losing ice. Now we can say with confidence it is losing ice.”[2] This is significant because there are hundreds of feet of sea-level rise in the combined ice of Greenland and the Antarctica, and even that sort of rise could occur in even just two centuries. Unlike ice in the sea melting, water from land-ice is added to the sea and thus is particularly salient in the rise in sea-level.

Although correlation is not necessary causation, global emissions of carbon dioxide were at a record high in 2011, having jumped 3% from the previous year. The international goal of limiting the ultimate warming of the planet to 3.6 degrees (F) was all but disregarded at the time as unrealistic, according to researchers at the Global Carbon Project. Slowly falling emissions in some of the developed economies, including the U.S., were more than matched by continued growth in developing countries like China and India. Coal was growing fastest, with related emissions jumping more than 5 percent in 2011 from the previous year.[3]

Moreover, the level of carbon dioxide, the most important heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere, had increased 41% since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Meanwhile, the temperature of the planet increased about 1.5 degrees (F) since 1850. The New York Times reports that scientists expected at the time of the release of the 2011 figures that further “increases in carbon dioxide” would “likely . . . have a profound effect on climate, . . . leading to higher seas and greater coastal flooding, more intense weather disasters like droughts and heat waves, and an extreme acidification of the ocean.”[4] The volume of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in 2013 was 396 parts per million, 2.9 ppm higher than in 2012; this represents the largest year-to-year increase since 1984, when reliable global records began.[5] As a result, "(c)oncentrations of nearly all the major greenhouse gases reached historic highs in 2013, reflecting ever-rising emissions from automobiles and smokestacks but also, scientists believe, a diminishing ability of the world's oceans and plant life to soak up the excess carbon put into the atmosphere by humans."[6] Accordingly, climatologists were predicting more accelerated ice-melt.

To be sure, distinguishing a causal connection from the sort of cycle that was responsible for Greenland being green in Mediaeval times has been the fulcrum of much controversy and debate; it is not as though scientists can treat one earth by increasing the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere while leaving another earth as a control-group and measure the differing climatic consequences. As the philosopher David Hume argued in the late eighteenth century, we actually know much less about cause and effect than we think we do. The human brain naturally that’s a strong positive correlation accompanied by a logical rationale as good enough to pronounce a causal relationship.

Regardless of whether our use of fossil fuels is a contributing factor in the melting of the ice-sheets, that the sea-level was rising even in 2011 and so much of humanity lives within fifty miles of a sea-coast suggests that major dislocations will undoubtedly be necessary within one or two hundred years, and perhaps even sooner given the record-high level of carbon dioxide in the planet’s atmosphere in 2013. As much as a third of Florida could be underwater again—whether it eventuates as a result of a natural climatic cycle or carbon dioxide emissions, or both. That the acceleration in the ice-sheet melting reported in 2012 was five times that which scientists had supposed earlier suggests that the data in from the following year may result in even more dramatic headlines. That the C02 and methane (from leaks in wells and distribution as well as from permafrost melt) levels were not only increasing, but doing so at unprecedented rates, suggests that we humans have literally outdone ourselves. It seems a fantasy to expect prudent measures that would obviate beforehand even just some of the anticipated damage. Even in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. Government could have given Louisiana a financial incentive to rebuild the city further inland, above sea-level. That would have been an easy decision compared with what to do about Manhattan, and yet the unquestioned, knee-jerk response was to rebuild on site.

Accordingly, even the study on ice-melt reported in late 2012 and the report in 2014 of the record increase in C02 in the atmosphere were unlikely to affect public policy significantly, at least in the United States. Enabling such negligence, Andrew Shepherd of Leeds said in 2012: “The signals suggest there is no immediate threat.”[7] Meanwhile, the carbon emissions were actually increasing from the previous year. This represents two degrees of separation from a reduction. The emissions targets in the UNFCCC agreement signed in 1992 had included stabilisations at 1990 levels for some countries and reductions for others by the year 2000.   In other words, we as a species seem pretty clueless, even as we promote ourselves being of the highest and most developed species. 

We are, it can be said, a species of today. The stock markets demonstrate this innate propensity clearly enough. For a complex organism not known for quick evolutionary adaption to a changing environment, it is dangerous to be so “hard-wired” for today when our artifacts collectively can shift a planetary equilibrium beyond its natural cycle. It is not a given that we will be able to rely on our prowess at technological development to make up for our convenient habit of looking on and even making a situation worse. I have personally felt this in momentary lapses of my new-found better diet when I eat one after another chocolate cookie after having fallen with one. My mind succumbs to the fallacy that in having lapsed, might as well open the flood-gates. The next morning, I make myself go running, as if the presumed cause-effect relation might prevent any future lapses. Nietzsche may have been right in suggesting that thoughts are really instinctual urges and reasoning is their tussling for dominance.

As Mark Twain observed, speaking through an angel in The Mysterious Stranger, “Man’s mind clumsily and tediously and laboriously patches little trivialities together and gets a result—such as it is.”[8] Yet so conceited is that mind, and in other matters too. In spite of having a moral sense, and perhaps because of our knowing right from wrong, our “paltry race [is] always lying, always claiming virtues which it hasn’t got.”[8] From an angel’s point of view, homo sapiens—arrogantly self-named here as the “wise man” species—can only be “dull and ignorant and trivial and conceited, and so diseased and rickety, and such a shabby, poor, worthless lot all around”[10] as to be met with utter indifference from the angelic perches so different—the pathos of distance being hollow rather than filled with empathy or even sympathy.[10] Twain’s angel does not mince words. Humans “have nothing in common with me—there is no point of contact; they have foolish little feelings and foolish little vanities and impertinences and ambitions; their foolish little life is but a laugh, a sign, and extinction.”[12] It is not merely the staying power of the moneyed commercial caste that moves us as a species to our own extinction; all of us are complicit.

We have built our mammoth edifices and modern conveniences on such a scale, and we use them as if we were junkies on a drug-fix that we have outstripped our own capacity as a species even to mop up after ourselves. This vulnerability becomes truly dangerous now that we are capable of having a significant impact on the planetary ecosystem, including its atmosphere. Even so, we continue to single our species out as “Made in the Image of God,” and as we preach our moral sense, ignorant of the probability that a more intentionally cruel and self-destructive race has never roamed on the land or swam in the sea. Our reckless conceit, it would seem to all outward appearances, is in such denial of its own existence that we naturally assume we cannot be wrong—that we affirm with such factuality, “I know what I know.” If only the ice on this towering edifice would melt from global warming; if only we could be so lucky.

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1. Gautam Naik, “Polar Ice Melt Is Accelerating,” The Wall Street Journal, November 30, 2012.

2. Ibid.

3. Justin Gillis and John Broder, “With Carbon Dioxide Emissions at Record High, Worries on How to Slow Warming,” The New York Times, December 3, 2012.

4. Ibid.

5. Reuters, “Greenhouse Gas Levels in Atmosphere Surged to New High in 2013, World Meteorological Organization Reports,” The Huffington Post, September 9, 2014.

6. Joby Warrick, "CO2 Levels in Atmosphere Rising at Dramatically Faster Rate, U.N. Report Warns," The Washington Post, September 9, 2014.
7. Gillis and Broder, “Carbon Emissions at Record High.”

8. Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger in The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories (New American Library: New York, 1962), p. 212.

9. Ibid., p. 192.

10. Ibid., p. 172.

11. Ibid., p. 176.

12. Ibid., p. 211.

The Evolution of Just War in Roman Catholic Social Ethics: The Case of Libya

According to The Catholic Herald, there were originally only three conditions laid down by Thomas Aquinas for a just war:

1) “The war must be started and controlled by the due authority of state or ruler – in other words, it can’t be a civil war or a rebellion. This rules out the war being waged by the Libyan rebels, but not the military intervention of the Nato [sic] forces, since that was indeed started by the due authority, not of one nation, but of the United Nations itself.” Here we see what might be called Aquinas’ implicit Burkean political conservatism with respect to established regimes over what in modern terms we call rights of the people to protest and self-governance. Even under Aquinas’ criterion of due authority of state or ruler, the Libyan rebel movement, as distinct from the preceding unarmed protesting, could be rendered as just provided that there is a rebel authority rather than fractured units fighting on their own. Even by this interpretation, the armed rebels may fall short, at least as they were in March of 2011.  Rather than proscribing civil war or rebellion, Aquinas’ criterion could simply be oriented to preventing the unintended additional harm caused by an army in disarray without a clear line of command. In terms of the Libyan rebels, the “unfairness” in a lack of clear command could be interpreted as “unfairness” to the international coalition, whose efforts could be in vain should the rebels refuse to bind themselves under one command. As for the international coalition itself, neither NATO nor the U.N. is a ruler having the due authority of state, for those international alliances or organizations do not enjoy governmental sovereignty. To the extent that the international coalition is based on partners whose militaries are not subject to a common line of authority, the mission may fall short of Aquinas’ criterion. This objection could perhaps be qualified to the extent that the partners meet regularly in common council, whose decisions are adhered to in practice. Other than the objections of the Arab League (and of Turkey in NATO to that alliance taking command), the international coalition may in its conduct have satisfied the criterion. In short, even though both the Libyan rebels and the international coalition could in practice satisfy Aquinas’ criterion here, their qualification is on shaky ground. In both cases, this shortcoming could be overcome by themselves.

2) “There must be a just cause. This wouldn’t include, say, a war for territory, but it would include the protection of a civil population, self-defense and the prevention of a worse evil. The UN resolution emphatically fulfills that condition.” Prime facie, this criterion seems pellucid. However, to the extent that cause can be interpreted in terms of motive rather than outcome, it becomes problematic to assess a given case because it is notoriously difficult, if not impossible, to get into another person’s head. For example, if the Obama administration’s motive, or cause, is to reduce the market’s fears of future disruptions in the oil supply—fears because Libya itself only produces 2% of the global supply—then in terms of motive the cause is not just. However, even here, a “worse evil” could be interpreted as some consumers becoming unable to afford even the gasoline needed to get to work (and the rising cost of food transported to their grocery stores). Perhaps preventing mass poverty (and perhaps starvation and homelessness) could count as counting in obfuscating “a worse evil.” Even so, the protection of Libyan civilians, especially if at the point when they had been unarmed protesters, would be a more immediate prevention of a worse evil because such protection follows directly from Qaddafi’s violent betrayal of his own people. Alternatively, moreover, if the decisive element is outcome or consequence, the fact that hundreds of thousands of Libyan civilians have been spared as a result of the allied bombings would satisfy the criterion. In my view, the criterion applies to both motive and consequence. In the Libyan case, the fact that it took the Obama administration a month to respond militarily—after the protesters had given way to armed rebels and the price of oil had spiked on world markets—can legitimately be used to assess motive from the standpoint of just war theory.  Were Obama’s primary motive the protection of Libyan civilians, he would have intervened when Qaddafi violently turned on the protesters. As Obama himself said, Qaddafi had lost the legitimacy to rule.

3) “The war must be for good, or against evil. Think what Gaddafi said when he thought his tanks were about to roll virtually unopposed into Benghazi: that he would go ‘from alley to alley, from house to house, from room to room’ and that he would show no mercy’. Thousands would have died. Without any doubt, the airstrikes have been against a very great evil indeed.” This criterion is closely related to the second—the criterion going from “just” to “good” (as opposed to evil). The shift here is from just war as under ethical auspices to a theological basis. The book of Job in Hebrew scripture attests to the vital difference between the two. Theoretically, God cannot be omnipotent if conditional on observing an ethical system. In other words, the “good” theologically cannot be held ransom for the “good” ethically. Divinity transcends mere human (i.e., finite) systems. Hence God is said to be wholly other even as it is immanent in the very existence of creation. In terms of the Libyan case, the question of motive and consequence is relevant here too. In terms of motive, is the protection of consumers to obviate an evil, or is it merely a matter of convenience and fairness (to the consumers being impacted by the speculators and fear in the market)? Regarding Qaddafi’s intended action, the sheer magnitude of it could point to it being evil even as a stated threat; it is certainly unethical. However, to treat such suffering itself as pointing to an evil action risks reducing theology to ethics (harm itself to the absence of God). In other words, evil cannot be merely unrequited and unjust suffering. Perhaps the question of evil goes to the intent of the agent of the deed involving treating himself as a god, with the suffering of others being an effect of the conflation of the creature with the Creator. As with the matter of motive more generally, the problem may be in judging another person to be evil. “Thou shalt not judge”. . . but the intensity of inflicting injury tends to speak for itself. Lest our finiteness as human beings render us impotent to prevent or stop evil, we adopt such surrogates as a matter of necessity. In terms of stopping Qaddafi from murdering on a large scale (though are more lives worth more than a few?), the reaction of most of the rest of the world can be read as a rejection of evil, for Qaddafi did seem to take on god-like aspirations in having such power over life and death.

According to The Catholic Herald, “The Church later added two more rules, though St Thomas usually gets the credit for them (and why not?). The first is that the conflict must be a last resort. In other words, every other option must be tried first. In this case they had been. Sanctions, diplomacy, phone calls from Tony Blair to his pal Muammar, freezing of assets, the lot. None of it had any effect. The UN military measures were not only a last resort, they were employed only at the last possible moment, just in the nick of time.” Significantly, “last resort” does not necessarily means “after due time.” The timing of the response, and thus the alternative options available, must surely be impacted by the nature of that which is to be prevented.  For example, if a ruler is violently turning on mass protests, waiting for the go-ahead from the Security Council may not be a justification for not acting immediately. The fact that the Council does not have governmental sovereignty (e.g. five permanent members have vetoes) means that the body is not equipped to act on short-notice. This fact mitigates the claim that a U.N. mandate is morally (or theologically) of value before an evil can be prevented or stopped in its tracks. If the purpose of the international coalition’s intervention in Libya was to protect civilians, a timely response was implied because of the nature of Qaddafi’s action against the protesters. Excessive delay could be interpreted as an implicit complicity in the evil if more immediate intervention was possible. In short, last resort does not necessarily imply delay.

The Catholic Herald describes the last criterion of Catholic just war theory as follows: “Lastly, the war must be fought proportionally. This means that more force than necessary must not be used, nor must the action kill more civilians than necessary. Enormous pains are being taken to fulfil this condition, too. The supposed “smart bombs” they talked about in the first Gulf war (which constantly missed their targets and killed large numbers of civilians) appear to have been in the last 20 years perfected in the most remarkable way, so that tanks can be taken out surgically even inside urban areas without damage to their surroundings (special missiles are used, with a considerably reduced explosive charge).” Here, the purpose of the international intervention is crucial. If the end is to remove Qaddafi because he has lost the right to rule by international consensus, then the no fly zone acts are not proportionate.  However, the actual agreed-upon objective of the coalition (as per the Security Council’s resolution) does not reach regime change. In terms of protecting civilians, that Qaddafi’s forces continued to beat and kill civilians after the imposition of the no fly zone strongly suggests that the coalition’s intervention was not proportional. Divisions within the coalition on this point could thus be interpreted as contrary to just war from the Catholic perspective.

In summary, even though my analysis of the Catholic Church’s just war criteria is generally consistent with the judgment expressed in The Catholic Herald article, my particular stress is on the extent of nuances and  how they qualify the judgment. Moreover, the nuances raise theoretical questions that transcend the matter of just war. Among such matters is that of the relationship between human judgment (and ethical systems) and the divine. Just war theory can be viewed as presumptuous to the extent that it presumes a judgment on matters that transcend the boundaries of human cognition and perception. Even so, as human beings living in human societies, we are as though instinctively drawn to stop what seems to us to be evil to us even if we cannot be sure of our judgments. As is the case more generally on matters where theology meets the ground, we are in the condition of “already, not yet.” Accordingly, a good supply of humility is called for even when we are convinced that we are fighting evil rather than perpetuating it.

On changing theological takes on greed in relation to money and business, see God's Gold, available at Amazon.

Source: http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2011/03/28/the-air-strikes-over-libya-undoubtedly-meet-st-thomas%e2%80%99s-conditions-for-a-just-war/

Lawbreakers at the Mexico-California Border: Appealing to Law

At the Tijuana-San Diego border between Mexico and California on November 25, 2018, a “peaceful march by Central American migrants veered out of control . . . as hundreds of people tried to evade a Mexican police blockade and run toward a giant border crossing.”[1] In response, the U.S. Government shut down the border crossing in both directions and fired tear gas to push back migrants from the border fence. The American media made much of the use of tear gas, with convenient stories from migrants of their kids having been affected. To be sure, the suffering of innocent children is horrible, so at the very least the use of gas is debatable. Yet this focus came at the expense of another on the mentality and conduct of the adult migrants, including parents, largely from Honduras.

Migrants trying to evade a police blockade were not interested in respecting Mexican law. Additionally, an Associated Press reporter saw U.S. agents use tear gas after “some migrants attempted to penetrate several points along the border. Mexico’s Milenio TV showed images of migrants climbing over fences and peeling back metal sheeting to enter [California].”[2] A migrant from Honduras reported seeing “migrants opening a small hole in concertia wire at a gap on the Mexican side of a levee, at which point U.S. agents fired tear gas at them.”[3] Missed in defining the main question as whether the use of gas was necessary or appropriate is the point that a significant number of migrants felt free to evade laws of other countries, and yet while appealing for lawful asylum. Whereas the Mexican government had enabled to law-breaking at Mexico’s southern border, the U.S. Government said no and meant it. Like enabled alcoholics used to manipulating people, running up against the wall of unmanipulatable people can trigger frustration and anger such that even outright force is used. To force oneself into another country over its objections indicates an attitude that presumes that law does not apply to the person.

Living in Phoenix at the time, I witnessed a lot of citizens and legal residents ignoring the law so blatantly that I had the sense that the underlying mentality is one of not being subject to the law. Watching people cross the light-rail tracks even to climb on the train platforms and even climb over moving freight-train cars to cross railroad tracks, not to mention crossing streets between intersections even in traffic, I could discern an arrogance in presuming to be above the law. Interestingly, though police and security guards go too far in trying to intimidate even law-abiding people, rarely had I seen a person committing a blatant act be stopped and held accountable. Once while approaching a light-rain platform, I saw a man run through traffic and cross the tracks to reach the platform in time to catch the oncoming light-rail train. On the train, I mentioned this to one of the several security guards in the car what I had witnessed and who the man is. “The street is not our property,” a guard told me, “so we can’t do anything.” Such convenient impotence! “But he crossed your tracks,” I retorted. Even though the guard had seen even that himself, he did not answer me. What an interesting stance for a security guard to have, especially as the guards presume to be entitled to cluster so much on a car as to intimidate paid customers.

So I contend that the main issue concerning the 3,000 migrants who had been unrestrained by Mexico to be able to reach the border with California is one of attitude toward the law—even valuing the law, even of another country. Considering the size of Mexico, moreover, it is interesting that so many migrants were able to make it to the California border so quickly. Perhaps there is not as much respect for law in the state of Mexico as there are in the U.S. states. Indeed, what unifies diverse populations in the U.S. is in large part an agreement to respect the law. For migrants who have demonstrated in action a mentality (or set of values) that is antithetical to what the U.S. stands for, barring entry (except for legitimate asylum) is arguably prudent as well as ethical. For as I witnessed especially in Arizona, the U.S. at the time had more than enough people without respect for the law. Would it be prudent to add even more? Eventually, the cultures of the states would change, with new default attitudes of law resulting.  

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[1]Maya Averbuch and Elisabeth Markin, “Migrants in Tijuana Run to U.S. Border, but Fall Back in Face of Tear Gas,” The New York Times, November 26, 2018, italics added.

[2] Christopher Sherman, “U.S. Border Patrol Launches Tear Gas At Migrants Over Attempt To Breach Fence,” The Associated Press, November 26, 2018.

[3] Ibid.

Keeping the Palestinian Authority Down at the United Nations

In “defiance of retaliation threatened” by the United States and the state of Israel, the Palestinian Authority announced in November 2012 that it planned to hold a vote in the U.N. General Assembly on the Authority’s request to become an observer state. According to The Wall Street Journal, “(s)uch a designation would give the Palestinian Authority the right over its airspace and territorial waters.” The Authority could participate in General Assembly debates, sponsor resolutions, and nominate candidates for Assembly committees. The Authority would be able to accede to treaties and join specialized U.N. agencies, such as the International Civil Aviation Organization, the Law of the Sea Treaty, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the International Criminal Court. The Authority could thus press charges against Israelis before the Court.
Because 132 states had already recognized the Authority as a sovereign state and the U.S. does not have a veto in the General Assembly, the vote was expected to be in the Authority’s favor. Rather than wade into the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian standoff, I want to investigate the nature of the responses of the Israeli government and the United States to the likely passage.
In retaliation, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said in Israel, “If the Palestinians continue to advance their unilateral move they should not expect bilateral cooperation. We will not collect their taxes for them and we will not transfer their tax revenues.” Had the Palestinian Authority had held a similar position concerning unilateral moves, the Israeli government would doubtless not have held off in its unilateral moves, such as building a wall. Perhaps taxation should be added to the rights of observer states. The hypocrisy alone would justify that, not to mention the threat being made.
I suspect the control over airspace and the membership at the ICC were of particular concern to Israel. Security concerns were a given. Given Israeli influence over the American Congress, I suspect that the Israeli officials would also bristle at Palestinian demands being enforced by an over-arching authority to which Israel was at least in theory subject. That is to say, being held accountable.
Also in anticipatory retaliation, the American Congress “threatened to cut off $500 million in security and economic aid” to the Authority. Here, the American Government having been accustomed to the comfort of its veto on the Security Council no doubt left officials feeling a sudden and as though terrifying loss of control. Hence, as though impulsively, the Congress acted out in a manipulatory fashion to circumvent being in the minority on a vote.

Furthermore, the American threat suggests that the Israeli government might have disproportionate influence in the halls of Congress and in the White House, even given the state’s ally status. The duopoly of two major parties in American politics may be complicit here. The result may be that Israeli interests come before even American interests in American foreign policy.
Concerning both the state of Israel and the fifty United States, it is the tenor of such blatant threats and manipulation that is particularly striking in this story. Might it be that the reactions, particularly if knee-jerk, are in essence cultural—meaning that manipulation and threats have come to be a common feature of human interaction in those states. Rather than being to criticize Israeli or American policy, my point is that the reactions themselves can be indicative of a certain cultural decadence concerning the way certain people “deal with” not getting their way. Beyond the sheer childishness in “taking one’s marbles” if one does not get to make the rules of the game is the sordidness of the mentality that threatens and manipulates as a matter of course. I suppose the real question is how—or even whether—such a value system can be changed. At the very least, one is inclined by the fitting moral disapprobation to see to it that that particular psychology does not get its way, or is at least frustrated in the pursuit of its particular tactics. Making them transparent can be a first step to a better world, at least as among persons.

Source:

Joe Lauria, “Palestinians Set U.N. Vote, Defying Retaliatory Threats by U.S., Israel,” The Wall Street Journal, November 13, 2012.

Jamal Khashoggi: A Double-Agent Killed in Istanbul by Saudi Operatives

The New York Times labeled Jamal Khashoggi “a journalist critical of the Saudi government.”[1] His day job was being a contributing columnist to The Washington Post. Articles he wrote “included criticism of Saudi Arabia’s government. On [October 2, 2018], he entered the [Saudi] consulate in Istanbul and never emerged.”[2] Khashoggi was also a double agent, and it is for this rather than merely critical articles that he was really killed and cut into pieces in the consulate.

After “weeks of Saudi insistence that Mr. Khashoggi had left the consulate, unharmed, hours after entering,” Saudi Arabia’s government announced the “Khashoggi had been killed in a brawl inside the [Saudi] consulate [in Turkey].”[3] According to Turkish officials, the Saudi version was that “Khashoggi [had] died in a botched attempt at interrogation and abduction.”[4] Turkish officials even claimed to have recordings of the torture and killing.”[5]

The whole thing had been a “’’tremendous mistake’ by Saudi operatives acting ‘outside the scope of their authority,” said Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister. [6] What “compounded the mistake,” he continued, would be the attempt to try to cover up.”[7]

It is highly improbable, I submit, that 15 operatives would be sent without the approval of the Saudi government at its highest level. Turkish government officials firmly believed that Khashoggi’s death was ordered at the highest level of the [Saudi] kingdom.”[8] They told the media anonymously “that a team of 15 Saudis flew to Istanbul on Oct. 2 to kill Mr. Khashoggi, most likely on the orders of the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.”[9] Additionally, the former head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service (MI6), John Sawers, observed at the time, “It’s very hard not to point a finger at [the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia].”[10] So, why would the highest level of the Saudi government go so far as to kill a Saudi journalist living in Virginia? Why all the lies? The Turkish Prime Minister picked up on them from the beginning.

I contend, from an anonymous American source, that Jamal Khashoggi was a double agent whom the Saudis killed and cut up into pieces (so as to sneak the remains out of the consulate in Istanbul). Just months earlier, the world witnessed the attempted assassination on British soil of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy who acted as a double agent.[11] So the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia could have considered killing Jamal Khashoggi as the appropriate response.
By implication, the world’s public could see only the lies meant ultimately to hide the fact that the Saudi Government killed a man who was not just a critical journalist who had left the kingdom in more ways than one. Behind the scenes lies the real story in more cases than the public could imagine. Such secrecy has always been a part of governing (and campaigning), but at some level the lies must surely impede democracy. Of course, autocratic governments would naturally be unmoved by such a constraint, but what about the U.S. Government, or at least its military, in keeping the real story hidden even from Americans?

1. Carlotta Gall and Ben Hubbard, “Turkey’s President Vows to Detail Khashoggi Death ‘in Full Nakedness,” The New York Times, October 21, 2018.

2. Emily Rauhala and Anton Troianovski, “The World Has a Question for the White House: When Do Murders Matter?” The Washington Post, October 19, 2018.

3. Carlotta Gall and Ben Hubbard, “Turkey’s President Vows to Detail Khashoggi Death ‘in Full Nakedness,” The New York Times, October 21, 2018.

4. Ibid.

5.Ibid.

6.Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. Mary Papenfuss, “’Compelling Evidence’ Points to Saudi Prince in Khashoggi Death, Says Ex-MI6 Chief,” The Huffington Post, October 20, 2018.

11. Emily Rauhala and Anton Troianovski, “The World Has a Question for the White House: When Do Murders Matter?” The Washington Post, October 19, 2018.

China or USA: Which Will Rule Trade?

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) announced at its meeting in November 2012 that it would host negotiations among its members on “a sweeping trade pact that,” according to the New York Times, “would include China.” The trade agreement would include not only the ten countries that are in the association, but also six other countries that have free-trade agreements with the association. In addition to China, those countries include Australia, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. Half of the world’s population would be included in the pact. Notably absent is the United States. This is no accident, as the Obama administration’s own proposal for an eleven-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership excludes China. In other words, the contending proposals may be more about a “control battle” between two contending empires—the United States and China—than anything else. Moreover, which proposal succeeds could say something about whether China succeeds the United States as the hegemonic super-power of the twenty-first century.

Barack Obama and Wen Jiabao: A contest of wills at the East Asia Summit in 2012.   Jason Reed/Reuters

That the immediate issue was that of China’s inclusion or exclusion can be gleamed from Barak Obama’s statement during one of the presidential debates in 2012. “We’re organizing trade relations with countries other than China so that China starts feeling more pressure about meeting basic international standards.” The inclusion of basic can be read as a slight against China. However, that protecting state-run enterprises as done by China would continue to be allowed under ASEAN’s Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership suggests that what the U.S. takes to be settled in terms of what constitutes the basics of international trade may not have been so settled after all. China could point to U.S. companies being able to deduct expenses on their income tax forms as a form of government aid to the home team. Since at least the mercantilist era in the seventeenth century, governments have carried out industrial policies designed to profit domestic companies and increase tax revenue. Laissez-faire-based trade may not be realistic, considering the myriad ways in which governments interact with business. Regulation itself, in being of a strategic to some firms more than others, could have a differential impact on domestic and foreign firms. It is unrealistic to assume that governments would stop regulating just so the trade is “fair” as well as “free.”

As the twenty-first century was coming into its own, two major economic powers in the world were contending not only for economic dominance, but political hegemony as well. Would it be another American century, or would power follow economic growth over to Asia? The “control battle” itself ostensibly about ordering trade alliances could be an indication that power was about to shift on a massive scale in terms of which economic power would become the definitive superpower.

Source:

Jane Perlez, “Asian Nations Plan Trade Bloc That, Unlike U.S.’s, Invites China,” The New York Times, November 21, 2012.  

The U.S. Military in Iraq: Were Human Rights Ignored?

Philip Alston, a United Nations human rights official, warned the U.S. Government in 2006 that he had received information indicating that Iraqi reports of American troops executing an Iraqi family were true. Five of the victims were children five years old or younger. According to Alston, the troops “entered the house [after a 25 minute gun battle], handcuffed all residents and executed all of them.” He noted that the troops attacked the house in part because they suspected that the family was involved in the killing of two American troops earlier in March, 2006. If this is true, both the vengeful attack and the subsequent investigation by the U.S. military, which concluded that the report of the execution was false, demonstrate what can go wrong when conflicts of interest are ignored.

In his Two Treatises of Government, John Locke writes that government is necessary because victims cannot be trusted to act as judges in meting out sentences in their own cases. At the very least, the aggressors could be expected to receive unduly harsh punishments because of the weight of vengeance on the victims’ judgment. So too, American troops cannot be trusted to take matters into their own hands concerning the shooting of other American troops. Moreover, the U.S. military cannot be expected to judge its own. So too, regarding the massacre of 1,200 prisoners at Abu Salim prison in Tripoli on June 29, 1996, which would prompt the protests that ultimately led to the fall of Qaddafi, the question of an independent investigation even by the rebels themselves should involve making certain that the ex-guards and government officials are not allowed to vitiate an investigation or its verdict. “We want a fair investigation to discover what exactly happened,” Jamal Bashir al-Gorgi said. His brother Faraj was killed. It is the ethical principle of fairness that is so easily discarded from justice when the victims become the victimizers.

Besides the matter of a military, whether African or American, “taking care of its own,” there is a danger, moreover, in having violence itself coming to be tacitly accepted simply because vested interests eviscerate accountability—which itself can foster a culture wherein spontaneous violence is not sufficiently held back from a normative standpoint. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, it could be that the world had become so accustomed to the continued existence of standing armies that violence itself had come to be expected, or at the very least engrained in societal norms. Hence, the U.S. military was thrust into Iraq as a clumsy reaction of vengeance after the terrorist attack in New York City in September, 2001. Incredibly, the military itself was trusted to investigate “its own” while Alston’s letter that was submitted to the U.S. Embassy in Geneva 12 days after the killings in March 2006 was virtually ignored.

It could be that the very existence of a standing army relegates human rights while potential vengeance is given a ready instrument. Indeed, the U.S. is not a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the American union is one of the most militarized alliances in the world—ready to be engaged by a commander in chief who can de facto declare war on his own in spite of the conflict of interest. Perhaps if human rights were more valued in American society, such large standing armies as those in the U.S. would not be necessary. That is to say, perhaps there would be less hatred around the world directed at the American union.

Sources:

Richard Oppel, Jr., “Cable Implicates Americans in Deaths of Iraqi Civilians,” New York Times, September 2, 2011. 

Kareem Fahim, “Rebels Yank Open Gates of Infamous Libyan Prison, Seeking Clues to a Massacre,” New York Times, September 2, 2011. 

Extrapolating from the Arab Spring to Corporate Social Responsibility

Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Atlantic and a myriad of other companies, sees a natural extension or follow-through from the pro-democracy protests in the Middle East and North Africa to more corporate social responsibility. As much as I would like to think that the twenty-first century proffers a new world, I think we have to acknowledge the weight of the political, economic and social strictures that we have uncritically inherited.

The full essay is at "The Arab Spring and Corporate Responsibility."

The Russian Conscience: Human Rights in Syria

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, warned on January 18, 2012, according to the New York Times, “that outside encouragement of antigovernment uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa could lead to ‘a very big war that will cause suffering not only to countries in the region, but also to states far beyond its boundaries.’” A very big war, it would seem, with very big stick, would be the result of “outsiders” stepping in to protect the Syrian protesters from their own government. In fact, the Times reports that “Lavrov said Russia would use its position on the United Nations Security Council to veto any United Nations authorization of military strikes against the government [of Syria].” It made no difference to Lavrov that the United Nations, including the Secretary General, had “repeatedly called for Syria [to] end a crackdown on opposition demonstrators, which Arab League monitors say resulted in hundreds of deaths over the past month.” In other words, the U.N. was officially impotent in being able to act on the basis of its “demand” because one of its members has a veto.

Lavrov’s position forces potential “outside” interventionists to justify their position. I would have thought that stepping in to stop people from being killed is a good thing. Lavrov was insisting it is bad. “If someone conceives the idea of using force at any cost—and I’ve already heard calls for sending some Arab troops to Syria—we are unlikely to be able to prevent this,” he said, “(b)ut this should be done on their own initiative and should remain on their conscience. They won’t get any authorization from the Security Council.” In other words, stopping people from being killed—from their own government no less—is a matter that would weigh on one’s conscience. One might ask Lavrov whether the Syrians killed because of his veto ought to weigh on his conscience. He was undoubtedly putting an absolutist view of national sovereignty before any right of “outsiders” to stop killing that at the very least, given a government’s formal monopoly of lethal force, unfair. Were he to relax his view of national sovereignty, would he still say that stopping the killing would remain on a conscience? There would not be much daylight between insisting even that and saying that interfering with Hitler’s concentration camps (or Stalin’s mass killing of the Polish elite) from abroad would have weighed on consciences. In other words, Lavrov can almost be read as being in favor of Assad’s killing spree, irrespective of national sovereignty needing to be respected for the world of nations to have order.

Of course, it could be objected that there was not much order in Syria at the time, and, moreover, that national sovereignty is not absolute on account of human nature, and that far from weighing on consciences, “outsiders” have a moral obligation to step in to stop killings when there is a reasonable expectation that they would otherwise happen. This obligation can be based on Kant’s imperative that there is a duty to treat rational nature, which humans have, as an end in itself and not merely as a means. This duty presumably includes stopping those people who would otherwise treat others only as means to their own designs. Alternatively, the obligation could be based on Hume’s moral theory, which holds that “immoral” simply is the sentiment of disapproval that humans naturally feel in watching something like a protester being dragged down the street and killed. In other words, what we naturally feel as a reaction to watching footage from Homs Syria is a valid basis for moral action.

Therefore, from both a rationalist and a psychological basis, moral theory can be used to justify the obligation of intervention by “outsiders.” This directly refutes Lavrov’s contention that there is an obligation not to intervene. Were one to talk with the family of a murdered Syrian, which position do you suppose the family members would say concurs with conscience? I’m thinking it’s not good ole Sergey’s. Fortunately, the rest of us can move on, past even our limp, even crippled U.N., to formulate and implement a mechanism with teeth for dealing with governments that engage in wholesale slaughter of their own citizens. Our consciences naturally demand nothing less.

Source:

Ellen Barry and Michael Schwirtz, “Russian Warns That Western Support for Arab Revolts Could Cause a ‘Big War’,” The New York Times, January 19, 2012. 

UN’s General Assembly as Nonbinding on Syria

According to the New York Times, “In a powerful rebuke to Syria’s government, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on [February 16, 2012] to approve a resolution that condemned President Bashar al-Assad’s unbridled crackdown on an 11-month-old uprising and called for his resignation under an Arab League peace proposal to resolve the conflict.” The reporter immediately undercuts his use of powerful by observing that the 137-12 vote (with 17 abstentions) is “a nonbinding action with no power of enforcement at the world body.” The “action” does represent “a significant humiliation” for Assad. I doubt very much if he felt humiliated. His UN ambassador “denounced the resolution as a politically motivated scheme to intervene in Syria by the Western powers and others who ‘would like to settle accounts with Syria.’” Altogether, the first two or three paragraphs of Gladstone’s article can be read in terms of logic as “X, not X.” Of course, the first X gets more attention, so the article gives the impression that the UN did something powerful when in fact the exercise was one of exposing the impotence of the world body.

That the resolutions of the General Assembly are nonbinding even for the UN is perhaps the epitome of self-emasculation. That the Security Council, on which just a fraction of the UN’s 193 members sit at any time, could have resolutions binding on the UN while the GA, on which every member sits, is allowed only non-binding “actions” suggests a democracy deficit in the UN itself—or at the very least a serious problem of priorities. The UN would have more legitimacy were its resolutions that are binding on itself voted on by all of the members—none of which having a veto and thus able to dominate the world body. This change would hardly be earth-shattering, as even “binding” resolutions have trouble finding enough respect to be acted on unless by certain members having a strategic geo-political interest in “volunteering” on the enforcement end. It is striking how Assad’s government can kill over 5000 citizens—whom Gladstone curiously refers to as “an uprising” as if Assad had met rather than led with weapons—and still be a valid member of the UN. I’m not convinced that unconditional love should apply to the organization that has a declaration of human rights, after all.

Therefore, rather than being “powerful” or “humiliating,” the nonbinding resolution of the UN’s General Assembly makes transparent just how bad that world body’s inherent flaws are. This conclusion is utterly hidden in the title that Gladstone went with: “General Assembly Votes to Condemn Syrian Leader.” A better, more realistic title would have been: “A lot of UN members mad at Syrian Government.” Let’s not gild the lily. With global warming and nuclear proliferation each being a viable threat to the continuance of our species, not to mention ourselves in particular regions, we can no longer afford to rely on the UN.

I envision a new world body with a General Assembly capable of enacting resolutions that are binding for still-existing members, none of which has a veto, and a Security Council consisting of rotating members that meets only to handle emergencies (again, no veto). The GA would be authorized to instruct the Security Council how to implement enforcement, using members as it will. Of course, countries would be free to leave the body and face isolation with respect to the benefits that membership provides. Behind this new organization is the realization that our species has stepped onto new land in the twenty-first century. This is not exactly a brave new world of terra firma (the frozen tundra melting in fact). We as a species now know that we can put our entire lot at risk.

We are even beginning to suspect that the historical absolutist interpretation of national sovereignty is now too dangerous, given what damage we can inflict on each other and on our species itself. Even for people not buying into this “new era” thinking, it must be obvious that the UN is an embarrassment and an utter failure with respect to protecting human rights and even ourselves from ourselves. Even just on the surface, a resolution that is non-binding even for the body that does the resolving suggests that the body itself is seriously flawed and deserves to be replaced. Yet as apparent as this reasoning may be, politicians are typically creatures of the status quo and won’t likely make a peep—preferring instead to cite Gladstone’s report of the “powerful rebuke.” Both the rebuke and Gladstone's characterization evince a case of the blind leading the blind. The beguiled followers blindly put still more clothes on the emperor while congratulating themselves on such a fine appearance having been achieved. “It looks good to me,” one blind man says to another. “I quite agree,” the other replies. All the while, the world sleeps, dreaming that it is wide awake.

Source:

Rick Gladstone, “General Assembly Votes to Condemn Syrian Leader,” The New York Times, February 17, 2012. 

A World Eschew: National Sovereignty Eclipsing Climate Change

U.S. President Obama announced after he left the UN global climate conference at Copenhagen in 2009 that five major nations—the United States, China, India, Brazil and South Africa—had together forged a climate deal. He called it “an unprecedented breakthrough” but acknowledged that the agreement was merely a political statement and not a legally binding treaty and might not need ratification by the entire conference.  Essentially, it was merely a statement of the five countries’ respective goals, as if someone had announced, “I want to lose ten pounds.”   The political statement did not meet even the modest expectations that leaders set for this meeting, notably by failing to set a 2010 goal for reaching a binding international treaty to seal the provisions of the accord.  Nor does the plan firmly commit the industrialized nations or the developing nations to firm targets for midterm or long-term greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

Claiming that the conference was a success was not to stop the spin. Obama, for example, said, “For the first time in history, all major economies have come together to accept their responsibility to take action to confront the threat of climate change.” To be sure, the accord does provide a system for monitoring and reporting progress toward those national pollution-reduction goals, a compromise on an issue over which China bargained hard, and it calls for hundreds of billions of dollars to flow from wealthy nations to those countries most vulnerable to a changing climate.  That is, the political statement is not a binding treaty, but the document does lay out a framework for verification of emissions commitments by developing countries and for establishing a “high-level panel” to assess financial contributions by rich nations to help poor countries adapt to climate change and limit their emissions. Lastly, it sets a goal of limiting the global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels by 2050, implying deep cuts in climate-altering emissions over the next four decades.

However, in a news conference, Obama said the accord was only a tentative start down a long road. The accord sets no goal for concluding a binding international treaty, which leaves the implementation of its provisions uncertain. In other words, any developing country can opt in or out of the monitored pot of money, and China may well still view the monitoring aspect as voluntary—meaning to be determined by the Chinese Government what can be examined.  The Chinese had been intransigent on the matter of verification by non-Chinese.  Citing national sovereignty, the Chinese had claimed that the rest of the world should take Chinese law as being a sufficient basis for verification.  This, I submit, is an extremely odd proposition—that people extrinsic to China should rely on Chinese law when the legitimacy of such law stops at the country’s borders.  The statement is telling because it demonstrates how antiquated the Bodinian notion of absolute national sovereignty is in the modern world.  The interdependence occasioned not only by global warming, but also nuclear proliferation and an increasingly global financial system, makes an insistence on the absoluteness of national sovereignty an extremely dangerous proposition.   The fecklessness of the Chinese approach to “verification” and the resulting diluted “political statement” (rather than a treaty) coming out of the conference suggest that we urgently need to thwart the historical insistence from our global vocabulary and institutions. 

The immediate implication is that the veto in the UN Security Council is no longer legitimate.  Further on, the binding nature of international law backed up by international governance structures that do not include vetoes needs to be developed and applied to the domains determined to be rightfully global.  Countries still insisting on the absoluteness of their national sovereignties, such as China on pollution-controls and the US on international criminal law, would have to bend or be boycotted by the rest of the world.   In other words, international relations and economic exchanges ought to be dependent on being subject to a governance structure beyond the nation-state.  If China is left as the only country insisting that nothing can supervene Chinese law, then no one in the world should have anything to do with that country.   In contrast, those subject to a governance structure that supervenes in particular enumerated powers (with sufficient safeguards against their encroachment…given the history of the US) should be able to enjoy benefits beyond the binding nature of such powers, such as privileged positions in trade and visas.   I would argue that governments that insist that their law is insurmountable deserve to be marginalized by the rest of the world.  I write this as an American knowing that the US may well be marginalized under this scenario unless there is some movement on international criminal law (i.e., being subject to the International Criminal Court, which in turn would be given the ability to go into any country and extract defendants).  

The technological development during the twentieth century means that political development is necessary in the twenty-first century.  We are so used to viewing change in terms of technology that we are perhaps unaccustomed to the sort of change that should ensue in order to obviate the new dangers from the technology.   In other words, we need to shift gears in terms of the domains wherein change is expected or thought to occur.   In some respects, we are still in the dark ages, and being in the dark when the planet could come to equilibrium unsuitable for human habitation—whether via carbon or radioactivity—represents a level of danger that ought to move us to action against the default of national sovereignty.  In some respects, we are so primitive; we tend not to see this because we identify change and development with technology.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/19/science/earth/19climate.html?_r=1&hp