Thursday 21 July 2016
Photo, left:
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-hosts: Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal Editorial Board & host of Opinion Journal on WSJ Video. Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents.
Hour One
Thursday 21 July 2016 / Hour 1, Block A: Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal Editorial Board & host of Opinion Journal on WSJ Video; Mona Charen NRO; in re: . . . There are benefits to trade, immigration. A strong US presence in concert with our allies; a strong internationalism of the last half-century. He doesn't have much confidence in the American people to compete, to grow our economy – it's a fearful and cramped vision of the US in this world. Unusual for a Republican to adopt that the same kind of fears as his Democratic predecessor. Still, this is how Trump sees the world. Trump’s speech: ” I am your voice!” — speak for yourself, pal.
Thursday 21 July 2016 / Hour 1, Block B: Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal Editorial Board & host of Opinion Journal on WSJ Video; Mona Charen NRO; in re: Mrs Clinton about to pick a VP? Might be Tim Kaine, who's a stolid, uncontroversial person, from a state she needs to win (Virginia), and he speaks fluent Spanish. She can count on her opponent’s being so horrifying to many voters that she can garner votes from the Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders crew. Also Tom Vilsac – former Ag Secy, from Iowa, was an adoptee.
Thursday 21 July 2016 / Hour 1, Block C: Eldridge Colby, CNAS, in re: . . . US “presence” refers to two versions: 1. and 2. Actual visible, physical presence. During the Cold War, US mil capacity was so massively superior that DoD just said, Hey, we’re there. We hold that in the current era when adversaries are so powerful that presence alone isn’t enough, that we have to show a capacity to win in war-fighting. Two kinds of forces: forward presence (South Korea, e.g.); and surge forces from outside theater, come in with decisive war-winning capabilities. We’re concerned that forward presence forces isn’t just showing the flag, but have them fore the opponent in a way to open himself up to a counterpunch. Further if he has to act more brazenly that will catalyze political support. Need a Baltics (and eastern Poland) force to oblige Russia, if it invades, to make a major, nasty, brazen push. Force them to expose themselves and take losses. . . . US has prepositioned material in Norway.
Thursday 21 July 2016 / Hour 1, Block D: Eldridge Colby, CNAS, in re: our stockpiles of guided munitions are too low. Need not all be A+ quality. China has been bldg. hoards that could be devastating to the US. Need not only aircraft but a way of protecting airbases, eke carriers, which will be under ferocious attack. Capability to reload at sea: subs can realistically carry ltd numbers of missiles; rail gun interesting and shrinking munitions. Not to have to steam all the way back to the US to reload. Sea-basing.
Hour Two
Thursday 21 July 2016 / Hour 2, Block A: Rita Cosby, WABC senior news director, from Cleveland and the GOP convention hall; in re: packed house here; am a few hundred yards away from Ivanka Trump, who’s speaking and introducing her father. Excited mood in the room; he’s very popular here with his base
Olli Heinonen, Belfer Center via FDD, in re: IAEA, Iran, report. Iran can revert to very bad in behavior in eleven years, not fifteen. Obama on breakout time: about thirteen years. Thinking of year ten – and how to prepare for that in the interim. Very short. What counts here is the number of centrifuges, how many they install and how many they have in tock and can swiftly install. Ergo, we need to set up a verification system very different from what we have to day. Could be as little as a few days’ notice that we actually get. Ten years hence they'll have a much more robust mfrg and production, and “snap-back” will be more difficult. The result of the Obama deal is that the US has legitimized Iran’s nuclear program, and regional actors are heading toward having their own nuclear programs. When you negotiate a complex agreement, must understand terms. “Nuclear material stock” - what does this mean? We don't know. “Nuclear material inventory” is an IAEA phrase, but not the same thing as in the documents.
. http://www.defenddemocracy.org/media-hit/olli-heinonen1-legitimizing-irans-nuclear-program-with-a-broader-conclusion1/
http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/26779/euiran_nuclear_cooperation.html?breadcrumb=%2Fexperts%2F2107%2Folli_heinonen
http://jcpa.org/one-year-iran-nuclear-deal/
http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-denies-existence-of-secret-document-on-iran/
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAN_NUCLEAR?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
http://fdd.cmail20.com/t/r-l-ghuxc-djjujturll-p/
Olli Heinonen is a Senior Associate with the Managing the Atom Project at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. His research and teachings include: nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, verification of treaty compliance, enhancement of the verification work of international organizations, and transfer and control of peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Before joining the Belfer Center in September 2010, Olli Heinonen served 27 years at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. Heinonen was the Deputy Director General of the IAEA, and head of its Department of Safeguards. Prior to that, he was Director at the Agency’s various Operational Divisions, and as inspector including at the IAEA’s overseas office in Tokyo, Japan.
Thursday 21 July 2016 / Hour 2, Block B: Blaise Misztal, in re: Turkey & the implications for U.S. foreign policy. Professional class in Turkey in extreme anxiety; no good options. Erdogan opposes credit cards as usury. Wants women at home with three children; wants a “pure generation.” Mosques called people into the streets to support Erdogan during the coup; he called the coup “a gift from God” so he could rearrange society. Has purged 60,000 people from the state apparatus. He [falsely] accused Fetullah Gulen of being the coup mastermind. Will Obama overrun the US rule of law to give Gulen, apparently innocent, to Erdogan? Is this comparable to Iran in 1979? Probably more 1980s Lebanon: civil war or prolonged violence. Now that the mil is gutted, PKK may step up attacks. ISIS and its ilk have freely infiltrated and may strike out. Can't find 60,000 people that fast; whom did he draw on to assemble this? He subscribes to the Rahm Emmanuel school of not letting a crisis go to waste. Always paranoid. Kept list of those he believes not to be loyal to him. Did the Russians tip him off? They're desperate to break up NATO and create [chaos]
http://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/turkey-coup/
http://www.defenddemocracy.org/media-hit/schanzer-jonathan-the-fight-against-isis-will-suffer-because-of-turkeys-coup/
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/troubling-forces-unleashed-in-turkey
http://www.wsj.com/articles/turkey-faces-its-iran-1979-moment-1468797632
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/the-coup-attempt-is-bad-news-for-turkeys-democracy/2016/07/16/8d357d28-4b64-11e6-bdb9-701687974517_story.html
Blaise Misztal is the director of Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) national security program. He previously served as the project’s associate director and senior policy analyst. At BPC, Misztal has researched a variety national security issues, including Iran and its nuclear program, cyber security, stabilizing fragile states, and public diplomacy in the 21st century. He has testified before Congress and published op-eds in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, The New Republic, and Roll Call. In addition, Misztal wrote and directed the 2009 “Cyber ShockWave” simulation that aired on CNN. Prior to joining BPC, Misztal spent a year as a Nuffield Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford University. He was selected as a future leader by the Foreign Policy Initiative in 2010 and named as a national security fellow by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in 2011. Misztal is currently completing his Ph.D. in political science at Yale University, where his research focuses on the relationship between democracy, liberalism, and social stability. He holds an M.Phil. in political science from Yale and an A.B. with honors from the University of Chicago.
Thursday 21 July 2016 / Hour 2, Block C: Omri Ceren, in re: Al Qaeda, Iran report. H We have no idea. Al Q has planted itself in Central Asia, is taking money and resources from South Asia, and moving them through Iran to destabilize the region The Obama Adm has been systematically downplaying this. Headline: Al Q using Iran as a base. Obama said, ”You'd have to be a conspiracy theorist to believe this” – then two weeks later Treasury confirmed the story. Whenever State gets asked if al Q has assets in the US, it wriggles out of answering. Since Fri we find that Iran launched a fourth round of missile tests, which shd have triggered sanctions; also other similar deeds; also al Qaeda; and also the secret side deal with Iran – so Washington announces “symbolic sanctions”? Note also judge’s order to arrest Velyati, who’s deeply implicated in rhe 1984 bombing and deaths in Buenos Aires. He was Iran’s foreign minister at the time of the attack and now is a top advisor to the Supreme Leader. Why is he travelling to SE Asia now? Because the SL sent him.
Note the Weekly Standard report by Jenna ____: Yes. The rule is that this Adm looks the other way on Iranian bad behavior to avoid having to act. But a Treasury expert said this was done as the absolute minimum. Now one of the al Q guys was intermediary with Iran; he was sanctioned but Iran wasn’t. Some people have been following this intensely for a decade, including Tom Joscelyn. The Washington trends: a very real group of people who argue, although perhaps don't believe, that Iran and al Qaeda are antagonists. Totally inaccurate; used by those who want to advocate for closer ties between Iran and the US – many in NSC, in State in think tanks, and they write a lot. Until recently, even State acknowledged that Assad was “symbiotic” with Sunni groups. Iran and its proxies have a very deliberate strategy of working with extremists to squeeze out the moderates. When the US was fighting in Iraq more robustly, Iran was supplying Sunnis terrorists with tools to fight. Terror has an address. https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl0523.aspx ; http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/al-qaeda-us-sanctions-225871
Omri Ceren is a political blogger and The Israel Project senior advisor. Ceren came to international attention when he uncovered that Human Rights Watch military analyst Marc Garlasco was an "avid collector" of Nazi memorabilia and published the information on his blog Mere Rhetoric. Ceren's blog focuses on the cultural, geopolitical, and economic aspects of the struggle between Western civilization and political Islam. Ceren is currently a doctoral candidate in Rhetoric at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh.
Thursday 21 July 2016 / Hour 2, Block D: John Hannah , FDD, in re: Turkey & Iran. The anxiety of the secular class has never been higher; even the education dept his being swept clean. Is this permanent? Yes, great peril; the light is going out, Mosques going full blast 24 hours a day calling people in the street. Nothing to do with restoration of democracy. And Egypt? The Ikhwan is celebrating, as is Hamas. Victory for Islamists. El Sisi had tens of millions in the street, while the Turkish coup-generals had no one behind them, not even most of the military. Is Turkey going the way of 1979 Iran? A legitimate fear – it's all inside the head of Erdogan; a la Putinism. We seem to be looking at a level of great violence in the streets. Thjs coup wasn’t the cause of the problem; it's a symptom. A systematic march thorough all the major institutions of Turkish society; look for full consolidation of Turkish dictatorship at hyperspeed. Supposed to be a bulwark of democracy of NATO – now the opposite. The second-largest NATO army is on a downward trajectory and completely ineffective. We’re potentially in for real trouble; and also imagine what Russia and Iran may do. Will the US extradite Gulen? I think not.
John Hannah is senior counselor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where he brings two decades of experience at the highest levels of U.S. foreign policy. During the first term of President George W. Bush, he was Vice President Dick Cheney’s deputy national security advisor for the Middle East, where he was intimately involved in U.S. policy toward Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, the peace process, and the global war on terrorism. In President Bush’s second term, John was elevated to the role of the vice president's national security advisor. In his previous government service, John worked as a senior advisor to Secretary of State Warren Christopher during the Bill Clinton administration, and as a senior member of Secretary of State James Baker's Policy Planning Staff during the presidency of George H. W. Bush. Outside of government, John has served as deputy director and senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He has also practiced law, specializing in international dispute resolution.
Hour Three
Thursday 21 July 2016 / Hour 3, Block A: Michael Rubin, AEI, and author of the just-published Kurdistan; in re: Turkish and French terrorism. Erdogan has purged the universities and organization s of everyone who's not in his constituency; sending tens of thousands packing. Sense that Erdogan has gone off the rails; he’s put the economy on hold, told women not to have Caesarian sections; rise of “honor” crimes. Of the tens of thousand arrested, many will end up dead. “Emergency “ laws forbidding prayers at their funerals. Erdogan: either US extradites Gulen or I won't let you run anti-ISIS runs from Turkey. . . .I’m now very concerned about war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. IRCG killed a Bahraini school teacher; highly dangerous. Nice: think of Europe vs US. Many who fled Islamist dictatorships tend to be more secular and fled to the US, whereas those in Europe were fleeing secular dictatorships; and then there’s also the history of colonial oppression. Pakistani elites can be cosmopolitan; they think they’re safe in their bubble, like a frog slowly being boiled. This is Kurdistan’s moment, but it probably will end up not like Slovakia but like South Sudan.
https://www.aei.org/publication/could-there-be-a-coup-in-turkey/
http://www.aei.org/publication/turkey-coup-erdogan-what-comes-next/?utm_source=paramount&utm_medium=email&utm_content=AEITODAY&utm_campaign=071816
http://www.aei.org/publication/seven-lessons-from-the-nice-attack/?utm_source=paramount&utm_medium=email&utm_content=AEITODAY&utm_campaign=071816
http://www.aei.org/publication/extradite-gulen-really/?utm_source=paramount&utm_medium=email&utm_content=AEITODAY&utm_campaign=072016
http://www.aei.org/publication/turkeys-air-force-behind-coup/?utm_source=paramount&utm_medium=email&utm_content=AEITODAY&utm_campaign=071916
http://www.aei.org/publication/erdogan-has-nobody-to-blame-for-the-coup-but-himself/?utm_source=paramount&utm_medium=email&utm_content=AEITODAY&utm_campaign=071916
Thursday 21 July 2016 / Hour 3, Block B: Malcolm Hoenlein, in re: Zarif is extolling the Iran deal, how Iran can return to full-scale enrichment in eleven years. Attacked US as impotent and unable to do a damn thing about Iran. Have a centrifuge to enrich at fifteen times current speed. . . .
Thursday 21 July 2016 / Hour 3, Block C: Brett Arends, ; John Fund, NRO, in re: Trump shouted through the entire hour’s performance; was dreadful. Did he know that we invented microphone s a hundred years ago? Castro-like. Over 75% of Americans thinks we're on the wrong track; 50% think we're under imminent danger of attack. Speech is quintessential Trump. The election will turn o: How many terrorist attacks between now and Nov, and how many massive gaffes will Trump commit? Many persons turned their credentials over to others and repaired to the bar, thus filling the room with Trump supporters. Complete cynicism of the voters toward their elected leaders. He spoke of crime rising in inner cities; that was true in the 1980s. True, unmanaged immigration from Mexico and Islamic terrorism. Originally, Trump joked around on stage, was likeable; that was essential to his campaign and it was all gone tonight.
Thursday 21 July 2016 / Hour 3, Block D: Aaron Klein, Breitbart Middle East bureau chief; and Bill Whalen, Hoover, in re: Donald Trump’s speech. It's not 1968; but trump used a 1968 remark, “I’m a law and order candidate” – Ho Chi Minh is not in Hanoi, Prague hasn't been invaded . . . True, but there’s unrest overseas and the public wants tough leadership. In ’68 Nixon spoke of forgotten Americans; Trump did today. He was shouting 90% of the time. His voice lowered on the topics of children murdered by illegal aliens; also about evangelicals – “Maybe I don't deserve Evangelical support,” He rarely went off the teleprompter. Code Pink interrupted the speech. He said it was average Americans vs the elites. He doesn’t quite grasp time clock with speeches. He was tough on immigration. Mentioned the word “Republican” just three times in the hour-plus. His theme was people who thing k the country is becoming unhinged. Many Cruz supporters, esp delegates, who say they no longer support Cruz because of his behavior yesterday. No mentions of abortion; gave a shout-out to LBGTQ and got cheered—that was his first ad lib.
Hour Four
Thursday 21 July 2016 / Hour 4, Block A: Robert Zimmerman, behind the black, in re:
Thursday 21 July 2016 / Hour 4, Block B: Robert Zimmerman, behind the black, in re:
Thursday 21 July 2016 / Hour 4, Block C: Daniel Goldman, Georgia Tech, physics, in re: Tail use improves performance on soft substrates in models of early vertebrate land locomotors. In the evolutionary transition from an aquatic to a terrestrial environment, early tetrapods faced the challenges of terrestrial locomotion on flowable substrates, such as sand and mud of variable stiffness and incline. The morphology and range of motion of appendages can be revealed in fossils; however, biological and robophysical studies of modern taxa have shown that movement on such substrates can be sensitive to small changes in appendage use. Using a biological model (the mudskipper), a physical robot model, granular drag measurements, and theoretical tools from geometric mechanics, we demonstrate how tail use can improve robustness to variable limb use and substrate conditions. We hypothesize that properly coordinated tail movements could have provided a substantial benefit for the earliest vertebrates to move on land. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6295/154 (1 of 2)
Co-authors:
Benjamin McInroe
Henry C. Astley
Chaohui Gong
Sandy M. Kawano
Perrin E. Schiebel,
Jennifer M. Rieser
Howie Choset
Richard W. Blob
Daniel I. Goldman
Thursday 21 July 2016 / Hour 4, Block D: Daniel Goldman, Georgia Tech, physics, in re: Tail use improves performance on soft substrates in models of early vertebrate land locomotors. In the evolutionary transition from an aquatic to a terrestrial environment, early tetrapods faced the challenges of terrestrial locomotion on flowable substrates, such as sand and mud of variable stiffness and incline. The morphology and range of motion of appendages can be revealed in fossils; however, biological and robophysical studies of modern taxa have shown that movement on such substrates can be sensitive to small changes in appendage use. Using a biological model (the mudskipper), a physical robot model, granular drag measurements, and theoretical tools from geometric mechanics, we demonstrate how tail use can improve robustness to variable limb use and substrate conditions. We hypothesize that properly coordinated tail movements could have provided a substantial benefit for the earliest vertebrates to move on land. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6295/154 (2 of 2)
Co-authors:
Benjamin McInroe
Henry C. Astley
Chaohui Gong
Sandy M. Kawano
Perrin E. Schiebel,
Jennifer M. Rieser
Howie Choset
Richard W. Blob
Daniel I. Goldman