The French Effect

In less than 10 months, the French people--Parisians, specifically--witnessed the destructive nature of radicalized terrorism under the guise of Islam. Regardless of the view of the which part of Islam, or if any, are viewed as more harmful than other religious or spiritual sects, the major question is: what will the French response mean for the rest of the world

In the wake of the Fifth Republic of France being hit twice, the world sees this as either an opportunity to unify the world under a single goal, much like the goal of Reagan's to oust Hussein from Kuwait in the Iraq War, or to fail to respond correctly to the ballooning epidemic of ISIS. Francois Hollande's quick and decisive reaction saved the French from more catastrophic casualties. The sealing of the borders and the state of emergency has allowed them to protect their people and find and capture the conspirators.

Yet, in light of the information we now know, what will the French governments response. Their immediate response came on Sunday as French fighter jets launched a massive air assault on the capital of the Islamic State, Raqqa. More importantly, what will their goal be now. And would it mean intervention from more nations, including the United States--Frances long time ally and friend, despite the political differences and issues from Bush to now. It's very possible, depending upon the French governments reaction, that news sources have claimed that France may invoke Article 5 of the NATO alliance, which states:

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

This would mean that all member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which includes the U.S. would have to legally intervene on behalf and concert with the French government in which would be necessary for the security of France to be restored. In this sense, the total annihilation of ISIS would only bring the safety of France back to balance.

If they choose not to invoke Article 5 of NATO, their policy on action would dictate a much larger role in the global response to the problem. American candidates would have to either agree to the terms of engagement because an ally of ours was directly attacked, or they would sour the relationship of the Franco-American ties. Particularly, this would hamper any Democratic nominee because of their hands off approach, or Obama Doctrine, would intefere with their goal of achieving a sense of US retreat from world affairs. Unfortunately, this would mean that several key regional leaders would fill the vacuum of power: the Russian Federation, People's Republic of China, and the Islamic Republic of Iran, all of which are opposing to US power, both soft and hard. Their engagement would pin the world into a difference of opinions not seen since the Cold War. Russian agression in the Caucus', Georgia, and east Ukraine would allow for Syria to become a satellite of Russia, Iran could take areas of Iraq and China would be able to beef up its military power in the Asian area without check. These events could only occur if France's decision to ask for a coalition of force to deal with ISIS and the US wouldn't agree to therms under the current Administration.

Either way, the French policy of how they will deal with ISIS, as descrobed by the President and Prime Minister of France, it is an "act of war." It will mean more engagement from French warplanes and highly probable French troops engaging in a war in Syria to defeat, occupy the IS and then  the government of Syria, either under Assad or under a new government. If Assad is removed from power, Russia will complicate these matters since it has engaged in aiding the Assad government.

Only time will tell about how much the French will engage, react, and prepare for war and whether her allies will engage as well or not.

MH17: A State Sponsored Terrorist Attack?

Just around noon today, Malaysian Flight 17 had lost contact with the towers. Moments later, all US news broke in to report that Interfax, a non-governmental news agency based in Russia claimed that Pro-Russian militants and rebels had shot down the flight in an attempt to attack a Ukrainian warplane or barge transporting items to the region.

What does this all mean for the world? With all the passengers and crew--totaling 295 humans, it means that there is a clear problem with the regional stability and the actual conflict that has been fought for months between Russia and Ukraine. The international community, to date, has done excessively little to help or aid in the problem. No UN peacekeepers or peace enforcers--two totally different things--have yet to be sent in. In essence, the world has not acknowledged that any such actions have existed. This is a world issue, with Russia--under the power of Putin, a longstanding KGB officer, it has become a kettle pot of intrigue and devastation as it attempts to rebuild its former bloc states to "protect" itself from the West. (Russia did this in response to the invasions from years past, including the French invasion under Napoleon)

As for America, this poses a unique and horrible outcome. Should this attack be linked to the Pro-Russian rebels and that they were armed with the weaponry built by and funded by the Kremlin, the first hand story of state-sponsored terrorism has been shown. This type of terrorism leads many to believe that through state sponsorship, many action may be carried out with the ability to say, "we had no idea they would do such a thing." Another problem is that reports of the manifest show that 23 Americans were on that flight to Malaysia. Compounded with the notions of terrorism as the Ukrainian Ministry of the Inteiror and Defense Ministry claim, this could pull the United States into a conflict with Russia.

Many will say that this is wrong, citing a casus belli to make or affirm public support for the use of force in the region is not warranted. When this action by the Russian government is far from being just a single reason for just cause.

The Ukrainian government has repeatedly asked for international support for a war that has been in their own backyard. Their European allies have failed them, the US has failed them. The entire world has failed them.

We are at the brink of a regional war that will compound into two regional wars. With the failure of the US Department of Defense and the State Department to actually do something productive in Syria, to the near total loss of Iraq to a Al-Qaeda compatriot called ISIS, who is more radical and irrational than Al-Qaeda, and this global over reach by the Russian government, we cannot keep the peace.

Isolationist views, from the current Administration and from other Senators, would have us not worry, that this will be all fixed when we have no entanglements and no worries about the outside. That refocusing every last resource to doing nothing for the international community would be the best for the country is beyond reprehensible.

I am not saying we should entangle ourselves in the Russian conflict with Ukraine, but if it is a terrorist attack from Pro-Russian  rebels who had authorization from Putin, the deaths of those reported Americans will now be a determining factor.

This could also become a key issue in the November mid-term elections.

The 300 Military Advisors

We all know what happened to the 300 Spartan warriors who gave their life in a valiant, yet quasi-illegal move against the Spartan leaders, to defend their nation off from a massive invasion force of the grand Persian empire.

Today, we are sending just 300 men, military advisors to help a nation, Iraq, retrain and reaffirm that they are incompetent enough to win their own full scale civil war. In many ways, this is quite similar in nature to Darth Sidious/Chancellor Palpatine's massive plot to be the ruler of the galaxy. While we don't have massive naval space ships or laser cannons to demolish each other, it is imperative to note that we cannot do anything of real value to help them.

300 advisors cannot and will not do a damn thing to aid them, even if we agree to do targeted bombing from drone strikes--which was highly controversial when we started to drone strike. Secondly, what can we do?

Here are your options:

A) Nothing at all. This option seems like the most "popular" option because we are war weary and cannot move another muscle to do anything.

B) Avoid the possibility of intervention with standard issue placation of blame for anything that could go wrong. We are the most powerful at doing this option until it becomes so much that we just are blamed into action.

C) Send in "advisors" who will amount to the Spartan 300 and will achieve nothing and allow the government of Iraq fall, which "some allies have called for removal of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki" as USA Today wrote in their piece. Is this viable for an Obama Admin? It's hard to say because we can only do so much before it become too late to do any real action that would prevent another all out war.

D) Follow the ancient Rumsfeld Doctrine and reinsert a proportional amount of troops that is relative to the mission with maximum technology and limited boots on the ground. This doctrine, which was primarily used to invade Iraq in the second conflict that precipitated the original invasion for the 2001 attacks created by the Al Qaeda network. Using this option would actually result in the same current crisis from ISIS and other insurgents 

E) The Powell Doctrine. This option is very powerful, because it expects that your objective is complete and total dominance over your mission, whether it be incursion into a territory or to occupy and control the entire country. While this is a Cold-War tactic and when we used "military v. military" tactics for a 1.5 war concept. Here, the Powell Doctrine could be used to reassert control and would be quick, it would be an investment of possibly a few years because the deployment of the current Iraqi troops would be reassimilated into the training process, the outcome is as unknown as it was when the Rumsfeld Doctrine was utilized, but it could be said that either way, the outcome could be the same. 

While these options aren't the most exhaustive list, and others would or could be an alternative option, these options are probably the most viable options that will be discussed in our current and future cycle of elections. 

DADT: How H.R. 2965 and S. 4023 Changed American Military

Many of my good friends have expressed to me their great happiness to the Repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Policy (original policy). As a political scientist and as a person, it was my duty to understand the nature behind the drive--not just clearly from the motivation by the "minority complex," as I call it. So, I began a detailed research from across the globe and from right here. In my search there are compelling arguments for the successful integration of the LGBTQ community into the highly effective and powerful United State military machine. However, these sources do have a different take since they are from multiple countries that have established such a program for some time and may or may not have the same philosophical and or political cleavages that the US has. 

The overarching theory in the repeal is that everyone should be allowed to go into the military, regardless of sexual orientation, which in the legal language defines it as someone who is confirmed, either by society or self-induced. I agree that all should have the opportunity to serve in our military. Yet, here is the problem: in our society, the trend and tendency for members actively serving and enlisting come from from more conservative and religious affiliations. In the picture, right, from the Heritage Foundation, has compiled a ratio of total proportion of members serving to the population. Any ratio which exceeds 1.0% indicates an overrepresentedness and any below a 1.0% indicates an underrepresentedness of those serving (2007 data, Heritage Foundation). While this is not just the only data that shows the more social climate of military, the previous article on members serving by state opens a possible different trend--which may have counter intuitive meaning to this dynamic problem. The social climate--or more accurately, the political climate--of the military tends to be on the more Conservative/Republican side. While this is not solely true, it tends to be at least the lowest possible majority figure.

But let us get to the bigger picture and the hypothesis that will form by this article. In the understanding of the actual repeal of the DADT Polity, (H.R. 2965 and S.4023), these laws codified as Public Law No: 111-321, did not actually repeal the law, it only allowed the Department of the Defense to circumvent the policy indicated in 10 USC 654 and implement the other policy of all inclusion. So how does this effect the outcome of the military effectiveness? It probably will not pose a great reduction of readiness, however, it will pose a psychological issue. As mentioned before, the tendency for the US military is to be from more religious and conservative values--again, this is not always the case--so in that conceptual lens, it would be possible for any military personnel to actively seek a way to commit a form of genocide within the US military by de facto reasoning.

To understand this concept more, a deeper understanding of the social climatology of American ideals needs to be inspected. In a report by the FBI's on the victims targeted by bias motivation on sexual orientation shows as high percentage of anti-male homosexual bias, the next is the more overarching title of anti-homosexual bias, then anti-female, anti-heterosexual, and finally anti-bisexual bias rounds out the lowest form of bias targets. This data was current in 2007, when speculation on the repeal was beginning. The pie chart, left, shows the overall breakdown of the victim by bias motivation. This data, which shows a high concentration against male homosexuals as targets in general, will transcend to a possible correlation into the military which in itself has a higher propensity to cultivate a stronger culture of what is applicable by law. The change in P.L. 111-321 may eventually change the social climate of the military to be less than the national averages, shown in the chart. Yet, it may be a little late to help.

In it this belief that the bias motivated targets on anti-male homosexuals would indeed pose a direct threat to the lives of those members who serve our country. In that, if the motivation in general, occurs, a form of genocide within the confines of the military may occur. Take for example a male, whom being brought up in religion and of moderate - to high income will have a less likely chance to accept someone who is a male homosexual, than would another male who is brought up in a more secular and "politically correct" nature. In this example, the two male's from differing backgrounds may have gone into the military for differing reasons, but the ideal--prior to P.L. 111-321--would have been to form cohesive groups of their respective ideologies. Expanding it so that by the end of all of it, the person who has more religious and social conservative values will have a higher chance and likelihood to form some psychological need to "eliminate" a problem.

So what am I saying with this? For me it is possible, even highly so, that a person who is against homosexuals serving openly or at all in the military would, in times of war, make the opportunity to have the gay service member be killed in the line of fire without any visible--at that time--recourse. Now this example takes form in an infantry man, but I am not excluding the possibility that officers--who appeal to the same variety of the religious, social conservative male discussed earlier--could fabricate some sort of plan to slowly allow the male homosexuals who serve to be rotated to the front lines in many operations that may not be winnable or have a high probability of death occurring.

As a connector, I would say that while the DADT is a policy that had the intentions to protect, and possibly on some level to discriminate, I feel that the protection of minorities is more capable in DADT than to, as already accomplished, fixate on a new policy that opens more doors and alleyways of bias motivated crimes and the possible link to genocidal tendency that I fear some of my more ignorant conservative military friends will begin to adhere to implicitly or explicitly. While recourse is always an option, it would considerably difficult for someone who is homosexual to seek recourse in such a wide majority of those who are in favor of DADT. My foremost job as a blogger and a political scientist--and even more so as a human, is to protect all from crimes of hate and prejudice.And with that, my feelings on the repeal is negative as it may hurt the LGBTQ community more than help!