Intervention

So, a nation that was once a semi-autonomous region of a declining empire has something in between a popular uprising and a coup, bringing in a new government hostile to the nearby large nation with a serious military. Said superpower sends in troops on the pretext of protecting members of its society living in that turbulent nation. World leaders in general react negatively, but there’s not much they can do, as the invading nation has a large military and nuclear weapons, as well as a certain amount of economic leverage.

Of course, by now you have now guessed that I am writing about Grenada.

Grenada? You know, the island nation in the Caribbean off the coast of Venezuela where they grow lots of nutmeg. The one we invaded.

I’ll refresh your memory. Grenada spent a couple of centuries as a British colony before inching its way to independent Commonwealth Nation status in 1974. In 1979 the New Jewel Movement, a Marxist political party, overthrew the elected government and took power. In 1983, a faction of the NJM that thought that the governing group wasn’t Marxist enough had another coup.

At this point the bone of contention with the U.S. was a long runway being built by American, European, and (gasp) Cuban contractors. The Grenadians and Europeans (along with a U.S. congressional investigation) said it was for commercial jets full of tourists. The Reagan administration said it was for military cargo jets full of arms for leftist Central American revolutionaries.

Then there were the medical students. There were a number of U.S. citizens studying at a medical school on the island. When interviewed just before our invasion they said that all was calm and that they were studying for midterms. Reagan decided that they needed rescuing. More accurately, that rescuing them was an excuse that would play well with the slack jawed masses at home.

On October 25^th, 1983 we sent in a military force that also included some troops from nearby island nations. It was pretty much a rollover.

Sidebar: As the invasion commenced, Reagan got a call from British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, telling him that an invasion would be a violation of international law and an unforgivable attack on the sovereignty of a Commonwealth nation. Consider: When the woman who sent her military to the Falklands, the woman who works in a government that includes Her Majesty the Queen, tells you that you are being too imperialist, listen. Reagan lied to her, as was his habit. Maggie found out about the invasion from other sources. So much for the special relationship.

The United Nations denounced the invasion as "a flagrant violation of international law" in a lopsided vote, with some U.S. aid dependent nations abstaining. Reagan made an offhand comment about the vote not upsetting his breakfast.

We installed a friendly government, which prosecuted the former government and handed out 14 death sentences, and all has been quiet since then. Oddly enough, the Grenadians named their new airport after the Marxist leader who had been killed in the coup of the more Marxist Marxists.

Which, of course, brings me to the Ukraine, Russia, and all that. Putin is a few hairs shy of a dictator, but a popular elected one in a country with a long history of one man rule and a combination of paranoia and resentment towards the west. Ousted Ukrainian president Yanukovich was no gift to clean politics either. The opposition that ousted him was violent and is still riddled with fascist elements. There are indications that the U.S. was and is backing the opposition movement. And so on. The situation is short on black and white.

Putin has scored big points at home and has both Europe and Ukraine by the (short hairs) natural gas pipeline, so he’s feeling good about life. He will learn what all invaders learn; the lesson of the dog that actually catches up with the garbage truck he’s been chasing. Once he has the bumper of a huge truckload of stinking political garbage in his jaws, what does he do with it? The markets have spoken, with a drop in the Russian stock market obliterating something like 10% of its value. (Also a rise in interest rates.) The madness of dealing with a factionalized and passionate group of citizens will become apparent soon enough.

For sure, invading other countries is a bad thing. However, John Kerry and others can SMETFO (spare me the false outrage). Kerry’s statement that Russia shouldn’t just invade another country on trumped up pretenses made him the ultimate straight man waiting for the punchline. I’m not just talking about Iraq, or even Iraq and Grenada. The U.S. and Russia/USSR, along with all of the other great powers in their times of power, have spent their time destabilizing smaller countries, fomenting coups, and outright invading. It’s not right, but let’s not look at the Russian invasion of the Ukraine as some kind of sui generis event. And again, with emphasis, spare me the false outrage.

SMETFO 2 – GSA vs. FCS

Perhaps by now you have heard about the lavish conference put on by the General Services Administration back in 2010. The GSA lived large in Las Vegas with hired entertainment, gourmet food, commemorative coins, and hotel selection junkets. The final price tag was $823,000.

Jeffery Neely, the official responsible for this debauch, was hauled in front of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and pleaded the Fifth. Various members of the House, from both parties, took the opportunity to express their shock, disgust, and indignation.

Everybody in Congress is piling on at this point, especially Republicans, who must be secretly rejoicing at this election year gift.

From the Washington Post: Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) called the episode “a stupid and infuriating waste of taxpayer dollars.” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said it reflects the “waste that exists in a bloated federal government.”

Can’t argue with that, really, except that one man’s bloat is another man’s vital project.

I’d like to direct your attention to the Future Combat System. This was a Department of Defense project, cancelled a few years ago, that promised to link military vehicles with a web of real time positioning information, targeting data and communications that would revolutionize warfare. It failed. It failed right out of the starting gate and got more money thrown at it. It couldn’t pass basic tests of functionality. Test results were fudged and more money was budgeted. It kept failing. This went on for years. It was finally scrapped in 2009. The ultimate cost? Roughly $159 billion.

The hardy partiers of the GSA are austere monks compared to the DoD. I did the math.

The GSA would have to throw a lavish Las Vegas conference every weekend for 3,715 years to equal the amount of money flushed down the Future Combat System. Yes, 3,715 years, 52 booze soaked, commemorative coin flipping weekends per year. Imagine that the GSA had existed in the Early Bronze Age (Circa 1700 B.C.E), when wooly mammoths still roamed Wrangell Island. If Neely’s distant predecessor had started out by milking the Shang Dynasty for performing astrologers and birds nest soup, they’d just be hitting $159 billion right now.

I’m willing to bet that at least four out of five members of congress who have sputtered and fumed about the GSA conference also voted regularly to fund and re-fund the Future Combat System. It’s a good bet, because the military contractors who sucked up that $159 billion cleverly spread out the contracting across 41 states. Change that four out of five to 41/50ths.

Oh right, but the Future Combat System was military waste. That’s different. Military spending is special and magic. Members of congress have argued that government spending on infrastructure doesn’t create jobs, and then argued that pointless and wasteful military contracts (located in their states) shouldn’t be cut because they…wait for it…create jobs.

I will wholeheartedly agree that the GSA Western Regions Conference of 2010 was a waste of time and money. However, its cost was a rounding error on the budget of a moderately sized Pentagon procurement contract. Let’s get our outrage priorities straight.

H372 - SMETFO

Here’s a new acronym for you from the Minor Heretic: SMETFO. It stands for “Spare Me The False Outrage.”

A friend just sent me a link to a Fox News piece about a bill called H372, an amendment to an existing law, Title 18 USC § 1752. The bill was just passed into law and signed by President Obama. Fox had one Judge Napolitano in the guest pundit’s chair, speaking ominously about the end of free speech and protest as we know it. I looked it up online and the interwebs are clogged with wails of anguish about it from all over the political spectrum. Mostly conservative, though, with an epicenter of outrage at Fox.

Thing is, the body of the bill is 150 years old. In summary, it makes it a felony for people to break into a Secret Service designated security area with a deadly weapon or to significantly injure someone in that area. Jump the White House fence with a gun in your hand and you could face up to ten years in prison. Try to whack Mitt Romney at a press conference, likewise. If you crash the security party unarmed and stay peaceful it’s a misdemeanor.

H347 leaves the offenses and the penalties the same. It cleans up some of the language, mentioning the White House grounds and the Vice President’s residence. It also adds the words “without lawful authority.” The original bill had sloppy wording that, if taken literally, would prohibit anyone, including Michelle Obama, from being inside the Secret Service cordon. Oops.

However, from reviewing the chatter from Right Blogostan (and even Daily Kos) you’d think that some shiny new intrusion on our 1^st Amendment rights was in the offing. There are enough real violations of the Constitution going around right now without manufacturing bogus ones. See the text of the original bill and the amendment, below.

And SMETFO.

Title 18 USC § 1752 - Restricted building or grounds

(a) It shall be unlawful for any person or group of persons—

(1) willfully and knowingly to enter or remain in any posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restricted area of a building or grounds where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting;

(2) willfully and knowingly to enter or remain in any posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restricted area of a building or grounds so restricted in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance;

(3) willfully, knowingly, and with intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, to engage in disorderly or disruptive conduct in, or within such proximity to, any building or grounds described in paragraph (1) or (2) when, or so that, such conduct, in fact, impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions;

(4) willfully and knowingly to obstruct or impede ingress or egress to or from any building, grounds, or area described in paragraph (1) or (2); or

(5) willfully and knowingly to engage in any act of physical violence against any person or property in any building, grounds, or area described in paragraph (1) or (2).

(b) Violation of this section, and attempts or conspiracies to commit such violations, shall be punishable by—

(1) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than 10 years, or both, if—

(A) the person, during and in relation to the offense, uses or carries a deadly or dangerous weapon or firearm; or

(B) the offense results in significant bodily injury as defined by section (2118)(e)(3); and

(2) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than one year, or both, in any other case.

(c) Violation of this section, and attempts or conspiracies to commit such violations, shall be prosecuted by the United States attorney in the Federal district court having jurisdiction of the place where the offense occurred.

(d) None of the laws of the United States or of the several States and the District of Columbia shall be superseded by this section.

(e) As used in this section, the term “other person protected by the Secret Service” means any person whom the United States Secret Service is authorized to protect under section 3056 of this title when such person has not declined such protection.

The amendment, H372:

 SEC. 2. RESTRICTED BUILDING OR GROUNDS.

Section 1752 of title 18, United States Code, is amended to read as follows:

‘(a) Whoever--

‘(1) knowingly enters or remains in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority to do so;

‘(2) knowingly, and with intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, engages in disorderly or disruptive conduct in, or within such proximity to, any restricted building or grounds when, or so that, such conduct, in fact, impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions;

‘(3) knowingly, and with the intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, obstructs or impedes ingress or egress to or from any restricted building or grounds; or

‘(4) knowingly engages in any act of physical violence against any person or property in any restricted building or grounds;

or attempts or conspires to do so, shall be punished as provided in subsection (b).

‘(b) The punishment for a violation of subsection (a) is--

‘(1) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than 10 years, or both, if--

‘(A) the person, during and in relation to the offense, uses or carries a deadly or dangerous weapon or firearm; or

‘(B) the offense results in significant bodily injury as defined by section 2118(e)(3); and

‘(2) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than one year, or both, in any other case.

‘(c) In this section--

‘(1) the term ‘restricted buildings or grounds’ means any posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restricted area--

‘(A) of the White House or its grounds, or the Vice President’s official residence or its grounds;

‘(B) of a building or grounds where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting; or

‘(C) of a building or grounds so restricted in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance; and

‘(2) the term ‘other person protected by the Secret Service’ means any person whom the United States Secret Service is authorized to protect under section 3056 of this title or by Presidential memorandum, when such person has not declined such protection.’.