Quote of the Day: Anonymous Sources

This sums up my feelings on anonymous sources pretty clearly. You use them when you have no other options, when it is absolutely essential that the information be release and when it the naming of the source might create legitimate safety, employment or other dangers for the source.

This is from New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan:

When sources are nameless, they are also unaccountable. There is no price for them to pay when they get it wrong. But readers — and The Times’s credibility — do suffer. And in some cases, so do the reputations of those The Times is writing about. No “walk-back story” can fix any of that.

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Some questions about the Iraqi crisis

Question 1: Is there any real danger that Bagdhad will fall? That seems to be the focus of a lot of the coverage, but there is no evidence that ISIS has any real support outside the Sunni community and that, once it moves into more Shia-dominated areas, it will be as effective.

Question 2: If Baghdad falls, should the United States re-enter the country? The answer is no. As Bob Dreyfus points out at The Nation, the Iraqis were not sorry to see us leave in 2011, even as we tried to negotiate to keep a small contingent of troops in Iraq:

the Obama administration tried its best to work out a plan for a long-term US-Iraqi security agreement, such as the one it’s implementing in godforsaken Afghanistan now. But those negotiations failed. Ostensibly, they failed because of certain sticking points, such as the demand from the United States that Iraq provide legal immunity to US troops, which Iraqis felt was a violation of their national sovereignty. But the real reason that the talks stalled, and then collapsed, was because the Iraqis didn’t want the United States to stay. Not only did many Sunnis, who might have favored the United States as a stabilizing presence, say that America was an occupying power, but the government installed by George W. Bush and Co., heavily weighted toward extremist, sectarian Shiites with close ties to Iran, didn’t want the United States to stay either. And that’s partly because Iran, which has enormous influence in Baghdad—where its ambassadors are routinely drawn from the ranks of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)—didn’t want any US role in Iraq, and Tehran made its wishes clear to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in no uncertain terms. So, short of toppling Maliki, the United States was out.

Which brings us to:

Question 3: Is this  U.S. problem? No. This is a national — i.e., Iraqi — problem and a regional problem, meaning the regional powers need to be brought to the table (see Dreyfus piece). Who are these regional powers? Well, this is where things get a little uncomfortable, because the Shia majority in Iraq is closely allied with Iran — at least according to the press reports. This means that the Iranians — and the Saudi Arabians on the Sunni side and maybe the Turks, as well — will have to be included in any efforts to attempt the sectarian war — which is what we appear to be dealing with here.

Question 4: What should the United States do? Not much, because there is not much we can do. Can we send in the fighter planes? Sure, but who exactly would we be supporting — a corrupt government that has been consolidating power and looking to exclude Sunnis? The Kurds? What exactly would the impact of American air power be on the fighting on the ground and, just as importantly, the way we are viewed by the so-called Arab street?

Question 5: But Maliki is asking us for help. Doesn’t that count for something? He is asking for it, but does not have the support of his parliament, thanks to a boycott on the part of Kurds and Sunnis, as the Times reports. Heeding his request will appear to the Sunni minority — and possibly to the Kurds — as though we are taking sides in the civil war because the air power will be concentrated on Sunni areas, which brings us back to the answer to question 4.

I pose this as a series of questions because I am obviously not an expert on foreign policy. These are just the questions that come to mind as the crisis ramps up and my own very brief answers. There are other questions still to be asked, but I can’t see how American involvement in what is happening today in Iraq is either in our interests or in the best interests of the Iraqis.

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Driven to distraction

The driver of a pickup truck was issued a summons for careless driving Tuesday after he drove off the road and flipped his vehicle, police reported in a Nixle alert.

The driver, according to the report, reached for something in his truck and took his eyes off the road. The truck veered to the right, hit a pole and flipped. He was unhurt.

That’s the news portion of this post — if you want his name, click the link above. It’s not the point here.

The reason I posted this is that it describes something of which nearly all of us are guilty. I’ve dropped my glasses, changed the radio station, turned to see what my niece or nephew are doing. These brief moments of inattention happen and I’m not sure we can prevent them completely.

But they do pose dangers — to drivers, to passengers, to other cars. We need to be more aware of the potential consequences and do our best to be as focused on the road as we can.

The point is that any of us could have ended up in the predicament our pickup driver found himself in. We need to acknowledge this fact.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.