What is the actual point

Hyper-surveillance, much like torture, is not any good at preventing attacks like this.

The problem with this claim is that the NSA has a far more extensive dragnet covering the Middle East and Europe than it does on Americans. It can and does bulk collect metadata overseas without the restrictions that existed for the Section 215 dragnet. In addition to the metadata of phone calls and Internet communications, it can collect GPS location, financial information, and other metadata scraped from the content of communications.

The dragnet covering these terrorists is the kind of dragnet the NSA would love to have on Americans, if Americans lost all concern for their privacy.

And that’s just what the NSA (and GCHQ) have. The French have their own dragnet. They already had permission to hold onto metadata, but after the Charlie Hebdo attacks, they expanded their ability to wiretap without court approval. So the key ingredients to a successful use of the metadata were there: the ability to collect the metadata and awareness that one of the people was someone of concern.

The response, of course, will be more and more hyper-surveillance.

The FBI plans closer monitoring of suspected ISIS sympathizers, including more wiretaps, as a way to guard against potential threats in the U.S., after the Paris attacks, two U.S. law enforcement officials told CNN.

Because, as we should well understand by now, preventing an attack is not the point of surveillance. Controlling dissent is.

The Garland attack ushered in several months of stepped-up use of 24/7 monitoring on suspected ISIS supporters. FBI Director James Comey has described the period between May and July as one that stretched the FBI's resources, and that isn't sustainable. Dozens of arrests were made, in many cases not for terrorism-related charges if the FBI couldn't gather enough evidence of a plot.

"In some cases we just needed to get people off the streets," one senior law enforcement official said

Any excuse to "get people off the streets."  2016 is going to be an awesome election year.  

The time Buddy Caldwell valiantly defended Louisiana from a non-existent ebola poop train threat

Y'all remember how stupid this was, right?

BATON ROUGE, La. - A judge on Monday afternoon granted state Attorney General Buddy Caldwell's request for a temporary restraining order to block the disposal of incinerated waste from the Dallas Ebola victim's personal items and belongings at a Louisiana landfill.

It has been reported that six truckloads of potential Ebola contaminated material collected from the apartment where the Dallas Ebola victim became ill were brought to Port Arthur, Texas on Friday to be processed at the Veolia Environmental Services incinerator. From there the incinerated material is slated to be transported to a hazardous waste landfill in Louisiana for final disposal.

Caldwell said the unknowns involved surrounding the Ebola virus have the state wanting to proceed with caution.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, "Incineration or autoclaving as a waste treatment process is effective in eliminating viral infectivity." This was well understood at the time. Or, at least, it should have been by the State Attorney General charged with making informed decisions on such matters.   But people were scared and Caldwell saw no reason to relieve them of their irrational fears and instead chose to play up to them on TV.

This episode is worth remembering today for two reasons. First, Buddy Caldwell is on the ballot this Saturday. But that's only important in order for you to understand, when we tell you his opponent is in fact far worse, just how low he sets that bar in the first place.

The other reason we bring this up is, as stupid and reckless Caldwell's ebola fearmongering was, it's nowhere near as stupid and reckless as what Bobby Jindal is doing today.

Gov. Bobby Jindal issued an executive order Monday (Nov. 16) to prevent Syrian refugees from being resettled in Louisiana.

In issuing the order, Jindal referenced last week's terrorist attacks in Paris that killed 129 people and injured hundreds more. The Islamic State group has claimed to be behind the attacks. Jindal said the introduction of Syrian refugees into the U.S. without "proper prior screening and follow-up monitoring could result in a threat to the citizens and property of this state."

As was noted yesterday by multiple news organizations, only 14 Syrian refugees have entered the US via Louisiana this year.  More to the point, though, what is even the purpose of Jindal's knee-jerk exclusionary order? (Assuming, of course, that it is even practical which it is not.) 

Here is Juan Cole writing about the political fallout in France.

French politics has become deeply cynical, and the electorate has lost faith in its leaders. Many politicians will attempt to profit from this climate. Nicolas Sarkozy has already called for more drastic measures to be put in place. Some will also promise salvation by closing borders. They will call for a return to a mythical, good old peaceful France, overwriting the country’s history and its constant and violent flux between reaction and revolution.

To prevent such appropriations and long-term consequences, it is crucial not to jump to simplistic conclusions – as happened after 9/11, an event that has already been invoked many times.

This would be playing right into the hands of the terrorists themselves. A war of civilisations is the very fantasy IS and its ilk are trying to construct. They seek to enshrine divisions between an imagined “us” in the West, standing together for a loosely defined version of democracy, and “them”, attempting to appear a united force in an area torn apart by years of war.

Falling for this narrative would offer IS exactly the false image of unity it wants to propagate. It would also be a dangerous simplification of who ‘we’ are – at the expense of anyone who acts or thinks differently.

 Of course, we are already falling for the xenophobic false narrative in the US. It's what we do.

Anyway, Cole continues.

We can expect these irrational suspicions to appear again after these attacks. Every move made by Muslims in France, will be scrutinised. Some will also point to refugees – even as many are themselves fleeing IS.

In the coming days, weeks and months, it will be crucial that we avoid lapsing into that fear. If we do, we will only summon more fear and paranoia, incur ever more stringent laws limiting liberties for all, and inflict more pain through discrimination and segregation on those already suffering from exclusion. All these things will in turn provide further recruitment propaganda for extremist groups.

Again, the obvious point, we're talking about refugees fleeing from ISIS themselves.  If we have already identified ISIS as the enemy, what is the purpose of turning our back on its victims?  Would Senator Rubio have sent his own parents back to Castro's Cuba? He seems to say yes.

Had Bobby Jindal been Governor of Louisiana under the Spanish dominion would he have turned away the first boatloads of Acadian immigrants seeking asylum from British terror?  It so happens they're digging them up this week so if he wants to send them back, now is his chance.

Either case is every bit as absurd a notion as Buddy Caldwell's grand stand against the incinerated bedclothes of a corpse. But it's what our politics demands in 2015. 

Not that this is anything novel. It's also what our politics would have demanded in 2003. Because nobody ever remembers anything that happens and nothing ever changes. 

Business is good

The business is blowing up people and stuff.

Stock prices for Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman set all-time record highs last week as it became increasingly clear that President Obama was committed to a massive, sustained air war in Iraq and Syria.

There's also the business of "training moderate rebels" whatever a moderate rebel might be.  We do know the moderate rebels will be trained and armed in one of the world's most repressive and extremist countries. 

U.S. officials said a critical component of the plan to train and equip the Syrian insurgents, who have received only modest American backing so far and have failed to coalesce into a potent fighting force, was the Saudis' willingness to allow use of their territory for the U.S. training effort.

"Now what we have is a commitment from the kingdom of Saudi Arabia ... to be a full partner with us in that effort, including by hosting that training program," a senior U.S. official told reporters in a conference call.

The Saudi decision came to light after Obama spoke by phone earlier in the day with Saudi King Abdullah.

It's important to keep in mind that we're training and arming these people, in part, because we like to be able to say we're not putting very many "boots on the ground."  This is good for morale because we aren't putting as many of our soldiers in harm's way.

But it's also good for business because of who we send instead of soldiers.

Analysts say hiring contractors is a way to avoid deploying such forces.

David Johnson, a former Army lieutenant colonel who is executive director of the Center for Advanced Defense Studies in Washington, said contractors aren’t considered “boots on the ground” in conflict zones.

“The government always seeks to minimize boots on the ground to reduce domestic political risk,” he said in an email. “The American people and media do not consider a paid contractor to represent them in the same way that they do a soldier.”

Using contractors, who, most studies show, are cheaper than soldiers, trims the official presence and still accomplishes the logistical and security objectives, he said.

Defense contractors have plenty of experience in Iraq. During the U.S. occupation, thousands of armed security contractors and support personnel worked alongside foreign and Iraqi troops to help stabilize the country.

Experience.

That is good for business even if it means your business does only one thing.

Destroying what Obama calls the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant won’t create an effective and legitimate Iraqi state. It won’t restore the possibility of a democratic Egypt. It won’t dissuade Saudi Arabia from funding jihadists. It won’t pull Libya back from the brink of anarchy. It won’t end the Syrian civil war.  It won’t bring peace and harmony to Somalia and Yemen. It won’t persuade the Taliban to lay down their arms in Afghanistan. It won’t end the perpetual crisis of Pakistan. It certainly won’t resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

All the military power in the world won’t solve those problems. Obama knows that. Yet he is allowing himself to be drawn back into the very war that he once correctly denounced as stupid and unnecessary — mostly because he and his advisers don’t know what else to do. Bombing has become his administration’s default option.

Because it isn't necessary to "solve those problems" so much as it is to just make sure you get to stay in business.

Though the militants of ISIS would undoubtedly be horrified to think so, they are the spawn of Washington. Thirteen years of regional war, occupation, and intervention played a major role in clearing the ground for them. They may be our worst nightmare (thus far), but they are also our legacy—and not just because so many of their leaders came from the Iraqi army we disbanded, had their beliefs and skills honed in the prisons we set up (Camp Bucca seems to have been the West Point of Iraqi extremism), and gained experience facing US counterterror operations in the "surge" years of the occupation. In fact, just about everything done in the war on terror has facilitated their rise. After all, we dismantled the Iraqi army and rebuilt one that would flee at the first signs of ISIS's fighters, abandoning vast stores of Washington's weaponry to them. We essentially destroyed the Iraqi state, while fostering a Shia leader who would oppress enough Sunnis in enough ways to create a situation in which ISIS would be welcomed or tolerated throughout significant areas of the country.

When you think about it, from the moment the first bombs began falling on Afghanistan in October 2001 to the present, not a single US military intervention has had anything like its intended effect. Each one has, in time, proven a disaster in its own special way, providing breeding grounds for extremism and producing yet another set of recruitment posters for yet another set of jihadist movements. Looked at in a clear-eyed way, this is what any American military intervention seems to offer such extremist outfits—and ISIS knows it.

Probably, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Blackwater and Northrop Grumman know it as well.  They've been in this business a long time. And it's still quite good to them.  

The terrorists won

Mobile has surrendered.

What to do when your Mardi Gras organization shares a name with a terrorist group that's recently made a lot of news? AL.com reports today that the Order of Isis, a krewe in Mobile, Alabama, has decided to go by its acronym, OOI, as its members were getting harassed for wearing "Isis" T-shirts in public:

It's all very rational and serious

The rush to bomb the shit out of whatever

The news media may already be in the process of exaggerating the public’s desire for military action, which could accelerate the cycle in which politicians perceive a public desire and rush out to meet it, thereby feeding the perception that more aggressive action is both necessary and inevitable. As you watch all the coverage, keep in mind that the media loves war. It’s too simplistic to say this is just because it attracts readers and ratings. War is everything the news thirsts after: it’s big, it’s important, it’s historic, it’s dramatic, it’s full of conflict and excitement and uncertainty.

Therefore Obama will say comforting things to us tonight.  That way we'll all feel really good about ourselves when we bomb the shit out of whatever anyway. Unless he wears an ugly suit. Then we'll all be really mad.  We'll still drop some bombs, though.