Greg Sanders

This blog opposes a military strike on Syria

My grounds are fairly straightforward. We don’t have the backing of a major Arab ally, let alone a major regional organization or the U.N. Security Council. The first is certainly not sufficient but that we lack it is terrifying. In Libya our initial action did have the backing of the Security Council and we got support from the Arab League to go further. That support weakened as time went on, to be fair, and similarly I will note that the verdict is still out on Libya’s outcome.

I’ll also note that while horrific video is out there, let’s get the report from the U.N. inspectors. They’re there; they won’t be attributing responsibility, but it isn’t for the U.S. to judge whether their arrival was sufficiently timely.

Ultimately, while I think there are good political science and economic cases against, I actually found Noah Millman’s breakdown decisive:

Since the creation of the United Nations, the only legitimate justification for the unilateral use of force is self-defense. Nobody alleges that a strike against Syria is an act in self-defense.

Nobody is even seriously defending it under “responsibility-to-protect” which was the justification for the Libyan intervention (and the Kosovo war before that). RTP extends the concept of self-defense to the defense of others. It’s a highly suspect doctrine with obvious potential for abuse – potential that was very arguably realized in the Libyan case. But even this expansive mandate for intervention doesn’t apply to Syria, where we are not proposing to protect the rebels but to punish the Syrian government for its reported use of chemical weapons against civilians.

If we launch an attack on Syria, it will not be under any legal warrant whatsoever. But the entire public justification for an attack is the to punish Syria for a crime of war – that is to say, the justification is the need to uphold international law. In other words, an attack would be an open declaration that the United States arrogates to itself the right to determine what the law is, who has violated it, what punishment they deserve, and to take whatever action is necessary to see it carried out. If that’s liberal internationalism, then I’m a kumquat.

I favor building a legal case against Assad. I don’t believe that will hasten the end of the war, but nor will this bombing.

As ever, I speak for myself and not my employer.

Review: Charles Stross: The Bloodline Feud

There’s a trope in speculative fiction where a comparatively normal person from our world can travel to another place or time where they typically become a hero using the skills, knowledge, and values they picked up at home. It’s a storyline that dates at least back to Mark Twain and a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.  There’s a sub-genre where our hero, rather than being stuck in this other world, actually travels back and forth a few times and may pick up supplies from home. Think Inu Yasha, Adam Strange, or to a lesser extent Escaflowne.

Take that setup, and imagine it were written by John le Carré. In the Bloodline Feud, the alternate dimension has largely medieval technology but is a realistic alternate timeline for Earth with no magic beyond the dimension-hopping conceit. Intervening in this world is prone to draw pushback and other people with this power have had generations to think through how to use it. The result can read like a cross between a primer on developmental economics, a venture capital history, and a crime family drama.

I’m a fan of Charles Stross and in this series, he gives me what I want, good and hard. The world is well thought out, the rules consistent and easy to understand, and the characters act in ways that incorporate the second-order implications of the premises.

Sadly, while I enjoyed the book and read it with increased fervency, I can’t broadly recommend it. The story fascinated me whenever the characters went exploring different worlds, but the parts on intra-family intrigue did not draw me in to the same degree. Similarly, there were a few reveals that were plausible and worked to further the political thriller plotlines, but reduced my interest in a few characters. While the protagonist is not an anti-hero, I wonder if my problem here might be the same reason I’m not as interested in, say, the Sopranos or Breaking Bad: the travails of criminal families only hold so much interest to me. Ironically, the inclusion of this tradecraft is part and parcel of the realism I like.

This won’t be enough to dissuade me, but I’m going to limit my recommendation to those that are actively intrigued by the idea of a thought through tale of an independently acting modern developed world citizen put in a less developed environment with the resources to make a difference. If that does appeal, I’d recommend picking up the omnibus editions if you can get them, as while this was first put out as two separate books, they work better together. I intend to keep up with the series.

Image source: Promotional image from Tor books.

Book source: Merchant Princes picked up by Kate and Omnibus editions picked up by my mother in London. Thanks Kate and extra thanks Mom!

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus: Critique

Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) is the power behind a traveling carnival show that on its surface is past its prime. The young Anton (Andre Garfield) is an ineffective hawker, Dr. Parnassus’s daughter Valentina (Lily Cole) is nearly sixteen and dreaming of an escape to an ordinary middle-class life, and voice of wisdom Percy (Verne Troyer) can only do so much. However, as a belligerent passerby learns, the power of the show is quite real and can send patrons on a glorious adventure through their imagination before depositing them at a soul-endangering choice. The “good” doctor has already made a poor choice or two in the past, and as the film starts, the Devil (Tom Waits) is ready to collect. Magic notwithstanding, the situation seems hopeless before the arrival of a mysterious hanged man (Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp, Jude Law, Collin Farrell).

Heath Ledger’s last film and Terry Gilliam’s latest, the Imaginarium has been out for a few years now, so this post will contain vague spoilers to allow more complete discussion. For those leaving the post at this point, I’ll leave you with a song that gets at the story from Valentina’s point of view.

The stellar cast delivers, the Imaginarium itself shows off Gilliam’s visual genius, and the film contains thought-provoking theological and political critiques. I think the most interesting conflict is between a man largely broken by living with the consequences of his mistakes and another who constantly reinvents himself.

However, the Gilliam makes a critical mistake with increasing  consequence as the film ends: he denies Valentina agency. I think this critique may best come from a film made a few years earlier:  MirrorMask. That film starts with a similar premise: a young woman raised in a carnival environment who desperately seeks escape. She even makes youthful mistakes of spite and at times is dependent on others for rescue. However, the hero of that story consistently maintains agency while Valentina is explicitly objectified as the men of the piece compete for her love and her soul. Even trustworthy Percy says that it’s a mistake to tell her the truth and Tony refers to her as the “prize” without the other characters objecting. I don’t think Valentina needs to be the protagonist nor shouldn’t be allowed to make terrible choices; everyone else certainly does the latter. However, the other characters pursue their own interests while towards the end Valentina largely reacts, bouncing from one patron to another.

The end of the film pivots on the fact that, charmingly, the Devil is a bit too fond of Parnassus to do his job properly. Unfortunately, I’d say the same is true of Gilliam’s plotting. Dr. Parnassus pulls a clever trick near the end, but the story is contorted in order to increase that moment’s importance. I’ll allow the fiendish Mr. Nick to pull his punches, but the big reveal on Tony is over the top, nice guy Anton never grapples with his worst moment, and Valentina explicitly rejects the chance to run her own life.

The price Dr. Parnassus pays and his final relationship with his daughter works, even if I find her end state unsatisfying. I don’t think the problem is that Gilliam is too easy on an alter ego character. Unlike Ghost Writer, which also critiques Tony Blair, I don’t think the film falls apart both morally and thematically if you treat the protagonist as a stand in for the director. Instead, I think the problem is that Dr. Parnassus’s prominence in the end undercuts the arcs of the other characters, a problem that probably would have been avoided if the story had been thought through from Valentina’s perspective.

Source: Think I bought this for myself; correct me if I’m wrong.

Image Source: Promotional image via Wikipedia.

Halt our aid to Egypt

Technorati Tags: Egypt,Foreign Assistance,Massacre

Cutting off aid is mandated by law after a coup. As a general principle, I’m not fond of the executive branch overriding or evading constitutional laws. Nonetheless, I think the administration’s buying time by not making a declaration may have been forgivable if the Egyptian government took the deal that the U.S. and partner nations mediated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

But efforts to prevent the crackdown failed. Jay Ulfelder puts it in quantitative perspective:

According to a story in this morning’s New York Times, the crackdown that began a few days ago “so far has killed more than 1,000 protesters.”

This puts Egypt in rare and sullied company. Since World War II, the world has only seen onsets of about 110 of these episodes, and fewer than a handful of those onsets occurred after 2000: in Sudan in 2003 (Darfur) and again in 2011 (South Kordofan);  in Sri Lanka in 2009; and in Syria since 2011.

Thus, I think we should obey the law and cut off non-democracy building aid to Egypt (which is the vast majority of our aid; even our non-military aid is mostly economic). We need not oppose their attempts to gain IMF aid nor seek sanctions against them, but unless and until the distant prospect of a genuine civilian democratic rights-respecting government emerges we must cut them off as a client.

The expert I trust most on these issues is  Marc Lynch, although I recommend the Arabist for a great collection of regional reactions on Middle East issues, with the note that I will regularly disagree with some of the sources they pull in but it’s important to be aware of opinions you disagree with. Lynch also has his own round up over on Foreign Policy. Now that I’ve laid out my sources, I feel I can safely endorse Lynch’s pessimistic read of the effects of cutting of aid:

These steps won't matter very much in the short term. Cairo has made it very clear that it doesn't care what Washington thinks and the Gulf states will happily replace whatever cash stops flowing from U.S. coffers. Anti-American incitement will continue, along with the state of emergency, violence and polarization, the stripping away of the fig leaf of civilian government, and the disaster brewing in the Sinai. It won't affect Secretary of State John Kerry's Israel-Palestine peace talks and the Camp David accords will be fine, too; Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi can't manage his own streets, and it's unlikely he wants to mess with Israel right now.

The hard truth is that the United States has no real influence to lose right now anyway, and immediate impact isn't the point. Taking a (much belated) stand is the only way for the United States to regain any credibility -- with Cairo, with the region, and with its own tattered democratic rhetoric.

The benefits may go beyond a slow start on restoring credibility, based on my past research on Egyptian aid. Past research by Steven Finkel for the U.S. Agency for International Development (PDF) found that democracy aid can be effective, but tends to be undermined in countries where the majority of aid goes to the military. That result is probably over-determined, but I’ve got one hypothesis I hope to explore in future work: namely that military aid is not apolitical in countries with weak civilian control of the military and in which the military is a major economic actor. Egypt certainly fits that bill on both fronts. While I don’t see them allowing real U.S. democracy building aid again anytime soon, we should stop giving the military an edge against other actors. Should we restore aid at some point in the future, the current approach to Pakistan where assistance is not funneled through the military may be a helpful model. Of course, if we move away from military assistance, that may hurt U.S. arms exports, but I think that’s a correct prioritization.

Finally, on a personal note, I suspect many of the people I met in Egypt, particularly the Coptics, victims in their own right, are now backing the crackdown. Even in those heady post-revolution days when we visited, the military was often above criticism. Moreover, while the Morsi presidency was actively sabotaged on political and economic fronts, his party worked hard to alienate and disempower everyone outside their immediate coalition. However, the coup was ill-advised because wide-spread violence was a predictable - and predicted - effect. With hope for reconciliation off the table and the U.S. distrusted on all sides, we are not in a position to make a positive impact, but we can start by not being complicit in a bloody mistake.

As ever, speaking for myself and not my employer.

Yoko Kanno: Piano Me at Otakon

Yoko Kanno is quite the versatile composer, in addition to being a pianist and vocalist in her own right. Her songs accompany a range of anime, from futuristic bounty hunter misadventures in Cowboy Bebop to slice of the lives of young jazz musicians in 1960s Japan in Kids in the Slope. She is my favorite living composer, bar none, which is why the subject of Otakon 1999 fills me with deep chagrin, as I missed my chance to see her perform back then. Fourteen years later, I had the chance to remedy the mistake.

Getting a pass was an adventure in its own right. Rumor has it that Otakon staffers had to convince her to take a slightly less intimate setting, as they were well aware just how much demand their would be. I feared my chance to be in the room was again lost on Saturday when we arrived an hour and a half early at the pass line only to discover that it was already full. The staffer said there was a limited supply Sunday when the con opened; just be sure to get their real early. I’m perhaps not as spry as I was in 1999, but I am more of a morning person, so I showered the night before, hauled myself out of bed at six, and got spot forty in line. Unofficial lines are a risky process, but this time the fellow fans were good company, the staff were there after the first hour and kept order, and come 9:05 I had tickets for myself and Kate. It was worth every minute.

There were two performers that afternoon. Chiaki Ishikawa, with whom I was unfamiliar, warmed up the crowd with her impressive pipes, and if after a bit of research, I find that I actually like the lyrics to her songs, I may pick up a CD.

Still, for me, the show began in earnest when an associate of Ms. Kanno came out to say that the crowd would be welcome to sing along and to try to match the piano’s range by being loud when the music was fortissimo but quiet and quiet during the pianissimo sections. The crowd was game - our command of the lyrics of even favorite songs was not the best - but we played our part. ‘Play’ is really the key word; Kanno’s set had new arrangements that gave a thrill of recognition, delightful spotlight accompaniment, and played to a crowd that was hers from the start. I didn’t recognize all of the songs, but that may be more a matter of the breadth of her oeuvre rather than indicating brand-new material.

Her piano style was playful as well, using flourishes when it suited the song, like opening number Tank, but was just as capable of rendering thoughtful numbers that I’d have thought of as studio pieces, like Monochrome. Music has always had a direct line to my brain’s emotion centers and the community in the dark of that room gave me chills that I think I last felt at the pre-inaugural concert in 2009. Later, Real Folk Blues proved surprisingly raw and gave me a chance to mourn those I’d lost since first hearing the song.

I think I want to take up piano again, if only for myself. A traditional performance would still have been amazing, but having a chance to be a part of it still makes all the difference in the world. Thanks to everyone who made it possible: Ms. Kanno, her people, the staff, the crowd, and the person holding my hand in the end.

2013 Otakon Plans

We’re getting a late start on things, but have already picked our badges. It wasn’t that hard of a choice as we hadn't heard of anything. Disappointingly, Wolf Children is not a Spice and Wolf sequel. Thus, we both went with Crabby.

The schedule below is tentative. We may decide to shunt things aside for Dealers Room/Artist Alley or go with friends to things that sound cool.  Also, I may work in some Lupin III or Anime Music Videos at random.

I had a few things I wanted to hit Friday evening, but sadly work precluded that.

Saturday

• 1 p.m. Trying to get Yoko Kanno tickets
• 2:30  p.m. 50 years of anime openings (scheduling unclear)
• 3:45 p.m. Ghibli Girls Tribute
• 5:00 p.m . Legend of Korra or Otakon Fan Produced Film Festival
• Dinner
• 10 p.m. Saturday Night Fan Parodies

Sunday

• 10 p.m. Panel to the West
• 11:30 a.m. Ace Attorney All Stars or I want to know more! 30 years of books about anime/manga/otaku or Lining up for Yoko Kanno.
• 1 p.m. Yoko Kanno Concert

2013-03-19 Jaffa (part 1)

Technorati Tags: Jaff,Israel,Tel Aviv,history,museum

Perversely, I have been too busy writing about Israel for work to write about it for the blog. The other complicating factor is that my visit to Jaffa was my favorite tourist site on the trip. The twisty alleys of this city feel ancient. That sense is deceptive; much of it was rebuilt by the Turks after Napoleon's bombardment  and he was only of many conquerors this millennia-old port town has encountered. It resides above a hill to the south of Tel Aviv and was the historic entry port for Jerusalem.

I learned of its history on a museum tour beneath the town’s main courtyard. My timing was excellent; there were only two people on the tour and the guide had the knowledge to sate my curiosity. The second half of the museum was a multimedia-enhanced encounter with the archeological remains of prior civilizations. While Jaffa may be better known for Andromeda’s Rock and for Simon the Tanner’s hosting of Saint Peter, I was most charmed to hear a story of one of the city’s conquests. The local magistrate had broken away from the Egyptian empire when a colleague arrives to resupply him with scores of jar holding food and drink. Come night, their true contents were revealed as soldiers climbed out of their clay shelters and retook the city.

A perhaps more reliable bit of Jaffa history involved grave markers. Some of the city’s Jewish residents had been buried with a menorah carved into the grave cover. The design was what you see on right and had a tripod base.

That wasn’t the only distinctive marker I encountered; tile labels were embedded in the masonry work for many of the homes and stores. The one on the left sat above a monastery and provided some much needed softening for the hard metal door. As the cross indicates, Jaffa was the main place I encountered the other religions of the Holy Land. As previously mentioned, I passed a mosque on the way there and the city itself had a lovely cathedral, the tower of which you can see in the second photograph for this post.

After much wandering about and the tour, I was ready to take Guy’s brother’s sound advice and get lunch at Old Man and the Sea. That restaurant was a place to eat to excess - Guy would approve - and it is where I’ll pick up next post.