Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 1098

What Is Holding the U.S. Back from Military Action in Syria

Reportedly facing pressure from U.N. security council allies, the U.S. is considering jumping into the Syrian conflict. The Wall Street Journal's Adam Entous and Julian Barnes report France, the United Kingdom and Israel are leaning on the U.S. to impose some kind of military action in Syria to make sure the country doesn't fall under the control of rising radical Islamist factions once Assad falls. The administration is debating a number of options, including "proposals to bomb Syrian aircraft on the ground and to use Patriot antimissile batteries in Turkey to defend swaths of northern Syria from the regime's Scud missiles," but it's unclear whether or not they'll act on anything. Discussions and ideas are in preliminary stages right now. 

There are some very important things to consider before the U.S. goes head long into another military conflict in the Middle East. The Obama administration has been reluctant to do much of anything in the region as they withdraw the last remaining troops in Afghanistan and try to bring that situation to a tidy end. (Easier said than done, though.) It would also be wise to get approval from either the U.N. security council or NATO before doing anything. Or, you know, they could not do that, according to the Journal:

Administration lawyers also have questioned on what legal grounds the U.S. can intervene militarily without either a United Nations or North Atlantic Treaty Organization mandate, barring a major provocation by Damascus such as an attack on Turkey or Jordan or the use of chemical weapons.

The U.K. and France share the distinction of being permanent members of the U.N. security council with the U.S.; Israel is not a member. It's not clear if the rest of the council would approve any action like it did in Libya.

But the toll the conflict has taken on Syria is also hard to ignore. The number of deaths skyrocketed in the last year up to 70,000, according to the U.N. The images emerging from the country are disturbing. On Saturday, 15 people were reportedly killed following a Syrian military air strike in Aleppo, Syria's biggest city, including nine children. 

       

What Is Holding the U.S. Back from Military Action in Syria

Reportedly facing pressure from U.N. security council allies, the U.S. is considering jumping into the Syrian conflict. The Wall Street Journal's Adam Entous and Julian Barnes report France, the United Kingdom and Israel are leaning on the U.S. to impose some kind of military action in Syria to make sure the country doesn't fall under the control of rising radical Islamist factions once Assad falls. The administration is debating a number of options, including "proposals to bomb Syrian aircraft on the ground and to use Patriot antimissile batteries in Turkey to defend swaths of northern Syria from the regime's Scud missiles," but it's unclear whether or not they'll act on anything. Discussions and ideas are in preliminary stages right now. 

There are some very important things to consider before the U.S. goes head long into another military conflict in the Middle East. The Obama administration has been reluctant to do much of anything in the region as they withdraw the last remaining troops in Afghanistan and try to bring that situation to a tidy end. (Easier said than done, though.) It would also be wise to get approval from either the U.N. security council or NATO before doing anything. Or, you know, they could not do that, according to the Journal:

Administration lawyers also have questioned on what legal grounds the U.S. can intervene militarily without either a United Nations or North Atlantic Treaty Organization mandate, barring a major provocation by Damascus such as an attack on Turkey or Jordan or the use of chemical weapons.

The U.K. and France share the distinction of being permanent members of the U.N. security council with the U.S.; Israel is not a member. It's not clear if the rest of the council would approve any action like it did in Libya.

But the toll the conflict has taken on Syria is also hard to ignore. The number of deaths skyrocketed in the last year up to 70,000, according to the U.N. The images emerging from the country are disturbing. On Saturday, 15 people were reportedly killed following a Syrian military air strike in Aleppo, Syria's biggest city, including nine children. 

       

Someone Actually Wants to Buy Hulu for $500 Million

Hulu owners have an offer on the table from a real person offering real money to purchase the streaming television service, but the price tag is significantly lower than the last time the company was for sale. Reuters reports Peter Chernin -- a former News Corp. president and former Hulu board member -- offered $500 million to buy the streaming service he used to have a hand in running. It would be a roundabout journey for Chernin. He would be taking Hulu off the hands of News Corp. and Disney, the site's current owners. There are other offers on the table, Reuters cautions. Disney and News Corp. may just buy each other out. But the company did reach out to potential suitors last month to gauge interest, so it would seem they prefer the clean break Chernin is offering. Other potential Hulu sales have faltered because buyers weren't sure of the site's continued success, so a bid from a former board member like Chernin would imply he's bullish on the company's potential. 

Their financials have been fairly solid since then, which would help a sale's potential. The last big round of Hulu sale talks happened in 2011, even though it seems like an annual tradition. The site was reportedly courting bids from Apple, Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft at the time and running for a price tag around $2 billion. So, things have fallen off in recent years in terms of the offers received. Who knows if this one plays out. At least they would be keeping it within the family. 

       

The Latest, Kind of Promising Nuclear Talks with Iran Fell Apart

The nuclear negotiations between Iran and the western power brokers appeared to be achieving something. But when the parties emerged from the final meeting of two days worth of talks, nothing had changed and everything had fallen apart. 

Iran spent the last two days negotiating with the P5+1 -- the U.S., Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany -- over whether or not the Middle Eastern country has the right to enrich Uranium or not. The outcome originally looked promising. "Expectations that the negotiations were making progress rose as an afternoon session was extended into the evening," the Associated Press writes. But things faltered somewhere along the way.

When everyone finally emerged from the negotiations, it was clear the countries were still a long way from an agreement. "It became clear that our positions remain far apart," European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton told reporters after the "intensive discussions" concluded. The AFP reports Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russian media the two sides couldn't find a "mutual understanding" as to how to proceed. Iran's chief negotiator said the ball was in the west's court and that it was up to them to decide how to move forward. "We proposed our plan of action and the other party was not ready and they asked for some time to study the idea," Saeed Jalili told a room full of reporters after the talks had ended.

The countries were debating whether or not Iran has the right to enrich Uranium to 20 percent, one step short of nuclear weapon territory. U.N. inspectors are also keen to get inside Iran's Parchin nuclear facility, the site they believe could be Iran's nuclear testing facility. It was the chief subject during the last round of failed nuclear negotiations with Iran. This time around, the western powers proposed lifting some of the crippling sanctions in Iran if the they agreed to abandon their nuclear development. It still didn't work. There's currently no timetable in place for when the groups may meet to discuss this again, but there never is. 

       

The Big Problems with the NFL's Big Gay Player Rumor

Yesterday a rumor about four gay NFL athletes coming out of the closet together seemed to push the gay rights in sports debate to the precipice. Except that rumor was more than a little untrue, and now gay rights in sports advocates are more than a little mad. 

Former Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo is both the rumor's source and its debunker. He told the Baltimore Sun on Friday that a cadre of NFL players were going to come out of the closet together:

We're in talks with a handful of players who are considering it. There are up to four players being talked to right now and they're trying to be organized so they can come out on the same day together. It would make a major splash and take the pressure off one guy. It would be a monumental day if a handful or a few guys come out.

This was a huge jump from Mike Freeman's rumor that one player was debating coming out. And an even bigger jump from Mike Florio's report that NFL executives wanted to know if Manti Te'o was gay. A year's worth of NFL gay rights questions seemingly went up in smoke. Or, they would have. Ayanbadejo kept talking, and the more he said the more it became apparent he was getting ahead of himself when the Sun's tape recorders were on. On CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 Friday night, he told the news anchor the group wasn't really considering coming out together: 

No, actually, what it is is, is there are organizations I'm in contact with, and there are individuals I'm in contact with and collectively we know of some gay players. And these players, some of them are anonymous, some of them we know who they are, but their identity is super secret and nobody wants to reveal who they are, and some of them don't want to reveal who they are, rightfully so because it's entirely up to them what they are going to do.

What we want to facilitate is getting them all together so they can lean on each other, so they can have a support group. And potentially it's possible, it's fathomable, that they could possibly do something together, break a story together.

Four NFL players are not debating coming out together. There might be four NFL players who are gay and still in the closet, and one player might be debating coming out, but Ayanbadejo thinks it would be a great idea for them to come out as a team. They are not talking about how they would come out together this morning around a kitchen table while eating brunch as he led us to believe earlier on Friday. Some people in the gay rights community are not pleased with this development. 

The people running OutSports have been covering the gay athlete beat for years. They've had a good year, too. They just got purchased by SB Nation, providing them with a much larger audience and a network to support them. But they are fighting back against the media who may have gotten a little ahead of itself. Editor Cyd Zeigler's words on the subject: 

 

First, stop believing all the headlines on this issue. I never believed there was any truth to this story, much like I don't believe there's any truth to what Mike Freeman wrote last month. Just wait for the headline that someone has come out; Anything else is just a guess.

Second, this kind of speculation doesn't help anyone. As Davis pointed out, it pushes athletes deeper into the closet and makes them more scared of every move they make. No one wins in this.

Patrick Burke is another gay rights in sports advocate who was not impressed with Ayanbadejo's performances on Friday. He started You Can Play, an advocacy group trying to work past the homophobia present in most locker rooms. He spoke out against the rumor:

Very disappointed in the fact that the NFL rumors were fabricated. Not the way to create change or inspire gay athletes. [Ayanbadejo] been a great, great ally. This is just disappointing to see. Hope its not a setback. Will continue YCP's policy of never commenting on any LGBT athletes we may be in touch with, for any reason.

So, for now, the NFL is back in the same position it was two days ago. The leaps the league made over night when it appeared four players were going to come out together went up in smoke. They would be the first pro athletes to come out and keep playing their sport, had it happened. Ayanbadejo is back where he started, too. He doesn't have an NFL team to play for anymore, but he'll continue his fight lobbying the Supreme Court to make a statement on gay rights. 

       

The College Final Four You Don't Want to Miss

Forget Louisville and the other three basketball teams competing this weekend whose names I do not wish to know because they weren't in my bracket: the real Final Four action is in Rockville, Maryland, where chess teams from Webster University, the University of Texas - Dallas, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Maryland - Baltimore County will battle for collegiate chess supremacy.

The Washington Post has what must surely be the greatest account of inter-school chess politics ever written. You see, UMBC's team was the first in America to offer chess scholarships, and thus recruited a bunch of grandmasters that allowed it to be dominant for years.

This year, however, UMBC's chess director Alan Sherman, the man who built the school's chess program, is already predicting his own team's defeat. Like any good chess player, he is able to see several moves into the future, and what he sees is Webster University, lead by Susan Polgar, winning it all. 

Polgar is a stern task-master, says the Post article:

So intense is her desire to dominate the chess world that she even instructs her players to exercise at the school gym. Physical strength, she said, gives the mind endurance for long matches.

Polgar has many detractors. First, there's the Post, which calls her a "diva" because she's a pushy woman. Second, there's Sherman, who says "many people have a low view of her tactics" but cannot say if Polgar is the A-Rod of chess because he doesn't know who A-Rod is.

Polgar, whose membership in the U.S. Chess Federation was revoked in 2010 (scandal!) used to be the coach at Texas Tech. She switched to Webster in February 2012, as did eight of her players. All six players on Webster's Final Four team are grandmasters, compared to just two on UMBC. Losers. 

While Sherman mopes about his team's chances this year, Polgar is tweeting about how her old boss "forgot" to send back the cup she's sure to win:

Texas Tech forgot to send back the President's Cup. Now the winning team will not have the cup to bring back. 1st time cup was not returned.

— Susan Polgar (@SusanPolgar) April 6, 2013

 

       

The College Final Four You Don't Want To Miss

Forget Louisville and the other three basketball teams competing this weekend whose names I do not wish to know because they weren't in my bracket: the real Final Four action is in Rockville, Maryland, where chess teams from Webster University, the University of Texas - Dallas, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Maryland - Baltimore County will battle for collegiate chess supremacy.

The Washington Post has what must surely be the greatest account of inter-school chess politics ever written. You see, UMBC's team was the first in America to offer chess scholarships, and thus recruited a bunch of grandmasters that allowed it to be dominant for years.

This year, however, UMBC's chess director Alan Sherman, the man who built the school's chess program, is already predicting his own team's defeat. Like any good chess player, he is able to see several moves into the future, and what he sees is Webster University, lead by Susan Polgar, winning it all. 

Polgar is a stern task-master, says the Post article:

So intense is her desire to dominate the chess world that she even instructs her players to exercise at the school gym. Physical strength, she said, gives the mind endurance for long matches.

Polgar has many detractors. First, there's the Post, which calls her a "diva" because she's a pushy woman. Second, there's Sherman, who says "many people have a low view of her tactics" but cannot say if Polgar is the A-Rod of chess because he doesn't know who A-Rod is.

Polgar, whose membership in the U.S. Chess Federation was revoked in 2010 (scandal!) used to be the coach at Texas Tech. She switched to Webster in February 2012, as did eight of her players. All six players on Webster's Final Four team are grandmasters, compared to just two on UMBC. Losers. 

While Sherman mopes about his team's chances this year, Polgar is tweeting about how her old boss "forgot" to send back the cup she's sure to win:

Texas Tech forgot to send back the President's Cup. Now the winning team will not have the cup to bring back. 1st time cup was not returned.

— Susan Polgar (@SusanPolgar) April 6, 2013

 

       

Proposed 2014 Budget Will Fund Asteroid Lassoing

The budget for 2014 that President Obama will propose next Wednesday bears all the hallmarks of a man who no longer has to worry about winning an election. There's something in there to piss off everyone -- except people who love science! Space science.

You see, while the budget calls for tax increases and benefit cuts that should reduce the deficit by $1.8 trillion over the next 10 years, it also gives $100 million to NASA for what SPACE.com describes as:

An audacious program to drag an asteroid into orbit around the moon for research and exploration purposes.

That's right -- we're going to lasso an asteroid. And that's not all! According to Senator Bill Nelson (emphasis on the cool science stuff added): "The plan combines the science of mining an asteroid, along with developing ways to deflect one, along with providing a place to develop ways we can go to Mars."

Obama's budgets have see-sawed when it comes to NASA funding. Though he'd allocated funding to manned missions to Mars in previous budgets (and expressed a desire that NASA focus on Mars exploration), last year's budget cut NASA's funding to its lowest level in four years.

Since then, however, Obama has won the re-election, that meteor thing happened in Russia, and DA14 came perilously close to us, so this is as good a time as any to get those pesky space rocks under control.

 

       

The Future of the Morning-After Pill Is the New Reality of American Catholics

The new Pope is hard at work doing the humble thing and trying to stop sex abuse, but that might not be enough to resolve the gap between the views of the Obama administration — and, increasingly, American Catholics — on contraception and the Church's vehement stance against it. 

Following a judge's ruling that could make birth control available over the counter with no age restrictions within the month, the Obama administration announced Friday night that it will fight a subpoena from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, which is requesting documents about the Obamacare mandate for its lawsuit against the government. The Archdiocese, along with several other organizations, contend that the mandate violates freedom of religion because it requires that employee health insurance includes contraceptives. The White House, which is represented by the Justice Department, says the Archdiocese's records request is "too burdensome to fulfill" as well as "inappropriate." So, basically, it's way too much work and you shouldn't have asked in the first place.

The Obama administration tried to compromise with anti-contraception groups in February by allowing certain religious organizations to opt out of providing for contraception in their insurance plans. The employees would be given separate coverage through a third party at no additional cost to the organization. But this still wasn't good enough for the Archdiocese, which claims it will face $200 million in penalties every year if it refuses to comply with the mandate. 

The Archdiocese's parishioners may not feel quite so strongly. Last month, a New York Times/CBS News poll showed that the vast majority of American Catholics supported at least some form of contraception — nine out of 10, for example, were hoping the new pope would allow the use of condoms to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. Seven out of 10 were in favor of artificial methods of birth control.

The poll also showed that half of those polled thought religious organizations should be allowed to opt out of paying for contraceptives through employee insurance. Last year, though, that number was two-thirds. That's a pretty dramatic decrease in a short amount of time.

Perhaps most telling, eight out of 10 Catholics polled said that when it came to "difficult moral questions," they were more likely to trust their guts than the pope's teachings. Which means if they want to use artificial methods of contraception, they will. Even if the Pope tells them not to and the Archdiocese refuses to follow the current health care mandate. 

       

Wesley Snipes Has Ten Days To File His Taxes

It was easy to forget he was gone, but Wesley Snipes has been in a Pennsylvania jail since December 2010 for failing to file his tax returns. And now he's free! Sort of. He's confined to house arrest until July 19. And just in case he's reading this: being under house arrest DOES NOT get you out of filing your taxes. Get on it!

Snipes was actually released on Tuesday, April 2, but it took this long for TMZ to realize it. CNN reports that he is now in a "supervised residential location in New York," to which H&R Block and Jackson Hewitt are no doubt locked in a head-to-head race at this very moment, each hoping to be the first to offer him a sweet pitchman gig.

Should Snipes find he has some extra time on his hands after filing his 2012 taxes (WHICH HE SHOULD DO RIGHT NOW), he may want to check out this interview with Survivor winner Richard Hatch. It's a nice primer on what not to do after being convicted of tax evasion.