Private Mars Rocket II

It's been a while since I've delivered a rant about the current political situation, so, on Thanksgiving Eve I'm going to do so and get it out of my system.

Obeying Illegal Orders:

It is perfectly legal for somebody, even active duty or retired military, to counsel serving military personnel that they should not obey an illegal order. MAGA can (and alas probably will) bluster otherwise until the Sun goes supernova, but that fact remains. Although Senator Kelly and others didn't say it, a prime example of an illegal order would be the ongoing attacks on unarmed boats off of the Venezuelan coast. There is no legal justification for these attacks, as we are not at war with Venezuela. Speaking as somebody who has personally conducted counter-narcotics operations in those waters, there is no practical justification either.

In fact, Trump's apparent attempt to drum up a war with Venezuela is illegal and unconstitutional. The Constitution requires Congress to declare war precisely because it was, in the age of monarchy, common for the King to start a war and then demand his people support it.

Lindsey Halligan, Comey and Leticia James

First, the law appears to be clear. A President gets to appoint an interim US Attorney for 120 days, then the district court appoints somebody. They MAY appoint the same person the President did, and they usually do, but if that person is fired, especially because they won't undertake a bogus prosecution, then the district court gets to appoint somebody else until the President and the Senate agree on a person.

Second, the general case against these two is weak at best. This is why only idiot hack like Lindsey Halligan would even attempt to prosecute. Halligan is, in fact, Exhibit A as to why US Attorneys should be Senate-approved.

MAGA principles, or lack thereof

A principle is "a fundamental truth, law, or belief that serves as a foundation for a system of behavior or reasoning." MAGA clearly doesn't, or if they do, the only principle appears to be "whatever stokes my anger." Most people, by about the age of five or so, figure out that's no way to go through life.

Having cleansed my palate of political commentary, for those that celebrate, please enjoy your Thankgiving.

Comes news late yesterday that the US joined Israel in bombing Iran. The Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy (tm) called and here are my thoughts. (Please send the usual amount.*)

Yes, this was an unconstitutional act by Donald Trump. The Founders were very scared of a King or other Executive deciding to unilaterally go to war and dragging the country along for the ride. Just to head off the commentariat: there was no Congressional declaration of war or authorization for use of military force and an Iranian attack was not imminent. However, since this Congress at least seems willing to hand over all governing to Trump, nothing will be done about this.

At the moment, Israel has beaten the shit out of Iran. (That's a technical military term.) Israel has also demonstrated that their spy services can operate with impunity inside Iran. The later will undoubtedly cause some sleepless nights for the Iranian leadership. So although a quick pot-shot at a US target can't be ruled out, I suspect Iran's focus in the short term will be shoring up their defenses. In the mid-to-long term, Iran can and will retaliate against the US at a time and place of their choosing. To be clear, any military target Iran chooses to hit would be fair game.

I have no idea how this will play out in Iran. The regime has many internal critics and the Supreme Leader is no spring chicken. However, generally speaking, getting bombs dropped on your head does not endear you to the bomb-dropper.


* For the sarcasm-impaired, "the usual" is my email getting flooded with requests for me to donate money urgently.

I've violated my no-politics-on-LinkedIn rule today to talk about Friday's meeting between Zelensky and Trump. I'm doing so because I think it illustrates the failure mode of a common negotiation tactic in real estate, namely change the deal at closing. Let me illustrate with a less-controversial but real-world example.

At a previous employer, we were buying some specialized equipment - equipment only two companies in the US could provide. They had given us a quote for approximately $116,000. Just before we met with the sales rep to sign the contract, a real estate person told me "watch and learn. I'm going to save the company $16,000."

So the sales rep came in, made his presentation and handed over the contract. Mr. Real Estate said, "this is great. Reduce the price to $100,000 even and I'll sign it right now." The sales rep politely said, "no, I can't do that. The price is the price."

The sales rep did this for two reasons. First, he knew that his sole competitor was, if not higher then his bid, only slightly lower. Second, the $16,000 reduction was more than his profit on the deal and there was no reason for him to buy our business. Spoiler alert: we signed the original contract and paid exactly what it called for, not a penny less.

Thus unto Trump and Zelensky. First, Zelensky knows that whatever deal Trump thinks he has with Putin will become significantly less favorable to the US between now and the deal signing. Second, any deal that doesn't have meaningful security guarantees for Ukraine isn't worth the paper it's written on.

Two morals of this story. First, a negotiation is a two-way street, and not understanding what the other party needs will lead to failure. Second in the immortal words of Kenny Rodgers, you need to "know when to run." Zelensky is apparently familiar with the song.

Three random items, related only by being things I found:

1) The Bookshelf Cafe News interviewed me. My favorite quote from the interview? On being asked, "What advice would you give to a writer working on their first book?" I said, "Finish the book! Many writers start a book and abandon it or get stuck in a revision loop."

2) Here's a miserable dude who seems to want to inflict his misery on others: Meet Matthew from Knoxville! - Matthew, meet the internet!

3) On Syria: Personally I think Assad would look good hanging from a streetlight by a meat hook. Alas, he's now in Russia, hoping that Putin doesn't decide he would look better after being thrown out of a window. I do think his government's collapse in Syria points out to a "feature" of dictatorships - their collapse is gradually, then all at once.

I've not written a lot about the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. But to tie in with this article noting that Israel does not have a plan for how to end the war I've decided to put my thoughts in one spot so I can refer to them later.

First, Hamas and Israel have done and are doing horrible and wrong things in this war. Hamas launched an attack on Israeli civilians with maximal brutality. Hamas, knowing that this attack would invite a counterattack, made absolutely zero effort to protect it's own civilians. None of their vaunted tunnels were used to protect civilians.

Israel, in their counterattack, made little if any attempt to prevent civilian casualties, and in at least some cases appeared to target civilians. Also, the lack of a plan to end the war is both a practical and a moral failure. Lastly, Israel's policy under Netanyahu of playing off Hamas and the PLO to weaken both created the conditions for this war. Nobody's hands are clean in this.

As a practical matter, the US has no leverage against Hamas. They don't need or want anything from us. We do have some leverage against Israel. We have some obvious short-term leverage in that Israel needs US munitions. Potential economic sanctions are a longer-term leverage. Both tools are limited and slow to take hold.

The war in Israel is, to use a technical term, a shitshow. We in the US can attempt to influence events, but at the end of the day Israel has to resolve the problem.

On the occasion of the latest war in Israel, I find that more than two things can be true.

1) Killing civilians, taking them hostage or kidnapping them is wrong.

2) Israel's policies in Gaza and the West Bank are morally wrong and clearly counterproductive.

3) No good will come from this war.

4) The political struggle in Israel which provided an opening for this war will have to be resolved.

As reported pretty much everywhere, The Kerch Bridge, pride of Russia and the most secure route into Crimea from Russia, got hit with some kind of large bomb over the weekend. The bridge is badly damaged - most importantly for Russia's war effort, it's unclear as to the health of the railroad portion of that bridge.

Russia's response to that incident came today. They fired a large number of cruise missiles into Ukraine, aiming some at electrical infrastructure and some at apparently random civilian targets. The explicit explanation for these attacks was to punish Ukraine for crossing a Russian red line. This explanation was gleefully applauded by Russia's defenders, including Wily Coyote, International Super Genius. Said genius also expects Russia to, Any Day Now, expand their war by attacking NATO. (With whose army and how said army would do any better against NATO then Ukraine is unclear. But then, in Coyote-world, Ukraine is still losing the war.)

The link to domestic violence is this. In domestic violence situations, if the victim fights back, then they must be punished even more vigorously by the abuser. The link between that behavior and Ukraine is clear - Ukraine is resisting and therefore must be punished.

In both cases, this punishment rarely works. Once the victim has decided to fight back, they will continue to do so until they can't.

Certain right-wing blogs I monitor and now China blame the Russia - Ukraine war on NATO expansion. Let me be clear - blaming NATO for the war in Ukraine is like the abusive husband blaming his wife's black eye on her not having dinner ready when he wanted it. The abuser had no reason to hit anybody, and NATO was not a threat to Russia.

Quote from this article: "you can’t train leadership qualities like character and integrity. You can identify people with them, you can nurture those people, and you can mentor them, but you can’t teach those qualities or train them. They are either there or they aren’t."

One of the things which has baffled me about the Russian attack on Ukraine is how clueless it has been. There has been a very strong assumption that Ukrainians were going to fall apart like a cheap suit. I've also been confused about the willingness of the various Russian sources I've seen to believe the bullshit justifications for this attack.

This article discusses the anti-Ukrainian bigotry that seems to be endemic in Russia. It's well worth a read.