The Atlantic

#Kissinger criticizes the #Obama Doctrine, talks about the main challenges for #Trump, and explains how to avoid war with #China:
0►https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/12/the-lessons-of-henry-kissinger/505868

“Americans think that the normal condition of the world is stability and progress: If there is a problem, it can be removed by the mobilization of effort and resources, and when it is solved, America can return to isolation. The Chinese believe that no problem can ever be finally solved. Therefore, when you talk to Chinese strategists, they talk about process rather than ad hoc issues. When you talk to U.S. strategists, they generally try to look for solutions. [..] To Beijing, a solution is simply an admission ticket to another problem. Thus, the Chinese are more interested in trends. They ask, “Where are you going ? What do you think the world will look like in 15 years ?”

The Lessons of Henry Kissinger: Trump [may] react to a terror attack in a way that suits their purposes
►http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/12/the-lessons-of-henry-kissinger/505868

HK: But at some point, events will necessitate decision making once more. The only exception to this rule may be nonstate groups; they may have an incentive to provoke an American reaction that undermines our global position.

JG: The threat from isis is more serious now?

HK: Nonstate groups may make the assessment that Trump will react to a terror attack in a way that suits their purposes.

C’est Jeffrey Goldberg qui explicite “ISIS”. Kissinger répète “nonstate groups”.

The Audacious Plan to Save This Man’s Life by Transplanting His Head
▻http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/09/the-audacious-plan-to-save-this-mans-life-by-transplanting-his-head/492755

transplantation de... tête

Did Jesus Have a Wife ? - The Atlantic
▻http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/07/the-unbelievable-tale-of-jesus-wife/485573

https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/2016/06/08/Opener/1920.jpg

... the master key to one of the strangest scholarly mysteries in recent decades: a 1,300-year-old scrap of papyrus that bore the phrase “Jesus said to them, My wife.” The fragment, written in the ancient language of Coptic, had set off shock waves when an eminent Harvard historian of early Christianity, Karen L. King, presented it in September 2012 at a conference in Rome.
...
She said that if her own panel of experts agreed with the skeptical reviewer, she would abandon her plans to announce the find in Rome. She knew how high the stakes were, for both history and her own reputation. Some of the world’s most prestigious institutions—the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louvre—had been hoodwinked by forgers, and she didn’t want Harvard added to the list. “If it’s a forgery,” she told The Boston Globe, “it’s a career breaker.”

Il y a de tout dans cette histoire : Dan Brown, la Stasi, tous apôtres (enfin prèsque), des services secrets et plein de mystères de Berlin-Ouest pendant le mur ... à mourir de rire.

#Berlin #religion #faux

A Psychologist Analyzes Donald Trump’s Personality - The Atlantic
▻http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/the-mind-of-donald-trump/480771

https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/issues/2016/05/16/0616_Cover_RGB_nopgno/large.jpg

I might have phrased Singer’s question this way: Who are you, Mr. Trump, when you are alone? Singer never got an answer, leaving him to conclude that the real-estate mogul who would become a reality-TV star and, after that, a leading candidate for president of the United States had managed to achieve something remarkable: “an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul.
...
”Trump’s personality is certainly extreme by any standard, and particularly rare for a presidential candidate; many people who encounter the man—in negotiations or in interviews or on a debate stage or watching that debate on television—seem to find him flummoxing. In this essay, I will seek to uncover the key dispositions, cognitive styles, motivations, and self-conceptions that together comprise his unique psychological makeup. Trump declined to be interviewed for this story, but his life history has been well documented in his own books and speeches, in biographical sources, and in the press. My aim is to develop a dispassionate and analytical perspective on Trump, drawing upon some of the most important ideas and research findings in psychological science today.
...

#USA #politique #psychologie

The Problems With DNA Evidence and Testing - The Atlantic
▻http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/a-reasonable-doubt/480747

https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/2016/05/WEL_Shaer_DNA1-2/facebook.jpg?1462893775

The forensic technique is becoming ever more common—and ever less reliable.

#test #ADN

The Science of Genes and Heredity Is Constantly Changing - The Atlantic
▻http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/genes-are-overrated/480729

https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/2016/05/CULT_Comfort_Mukherjee_Art_Web/facebook.jpg?1464104665

Only about 1 percent of our genome encodes proteins. The rest is DNA dark matter. It is still incompletely understood, but some of it involves regulation of the genome itself. Some scientists who study non-protein-coding DNA are even moving away from the gene as a physical thing. They think of it as a “higher-order concept” or a “framework” that shifts with the needs of the cell. The old genome was a linear set of instructions, interspersed with junk; the new genome is a dynamic, three-dimensional body—as the geneticist Barbara McClintock called it, presciently, in 1983, a “sensitive organ of the cell.”

The point is not that this is the correct way to understand the genome. The point is that science is not a march toward truth. Rather, as the author John McPhee wrote in 1967, “science erases what was previously true.” Every generation of scientists mulches under yesterday’s facts to fertilize those of tomorrow.

“There is grandeur in this view of life,” insisted Darwin, despite its allowing no purpose, no goal, no chance of perfection. There is grandeur in a Darwinian view of science, too. The gene is not a Platonic ideal. It is a human idea, ever changing and always rooted in time and place. To echo Darwin himself, while this planet has gone cycling on according to the laws laid down by Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton, endless interpretations of heredity have been, and are being, evolved.

#gènes #génome #ADN

The Anti-Shia Movement in Indonesia

▻http://www.understandingconflict.org/en/conflict/read/50/THE-ANTI-SHIA-MOVEMENT-IN-INDONESIA

(Jakarta, 27 April 2016) The convergence of a non-violent hardline campaign against Shi’ism with a new determination of pro-ISIS groups to wage war at home is increasing the possibility of violent attacks on Indonesia’s Shi’a minority.

The Anti-Shi’a Movement in Indonesia, the latest report from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), examines the history of anti-Shi’a movement in Indonesia and the reasons for its newfound intensity. Three distinct groups are involved: Saudi-oriented Salafis who see Shi’ism as a deviant sect; a conservative fringe of the large Muslim social organisation Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) that is worried about competition from Shi’a schools, especially in East Java; and those influenced by ISIS propaganda that Shi’a are enemies who must be killed. The last is by far the smallest but several anti-Shi’a plots have already been foiled by police.

Le rapport au format PDF :
▻http://file.understandingconflict.org/file/2016/04/IPAC_Report_27.pdf

B. Saudi Arabia and the Salafis in the 1980s

At the same time that the Iranian revolution was causing concern in government circles, it was triggering a reaction in Saudi-supported Salafi circles. Chief among the Salafi-Influenced groups was Dewan Dakwah Islamiyah Indonesia (DDII), an organisation established in 1967 by Muhammad Natsir, the former leader of Masyumi. DDII’s link to Saudi was clear: it served as the Indonesian representative of Rabitah Alam Islami (World Muslim League), the Mecca-based organisation dedicated to strengthening Saudi Arabia’s cultural and religious influence in the Muslim world through the propagation of Wahhabism.39

DDII’s da’wah agenda was related as much to Saudi Arabia’s geopolitical interests as to the local context. In the 1960s and 1970s when the Saudi leadership was preoccupied with curtailing the in uence of Gamal Abdul Nasser’s “Arab Socialism”, DDII focused on combating Commu- nism in Indonesia, just as Soeharto was purging the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).40 Once Nasserism failed, the Iranian revolution threatened Saudi Arabia’s supremacy as the leader of the Islamic world. The Saudi government began to use various charity organisations to curtail Iranian influence by supporting anti-Shia campaigns, and DDII soon adopted this agenda. One scholar writes:

No doubt encouraged by their Saudi and Kuwaiti sponsors,[DDII] polemicized against Shi’ism as a fatal deviation from Islam and published an unending series of anti-Shi’a tracts and books. Their activities appeared to be focused increasingly on perceived threats: threats from within (Shi’a, Islamic liberalism) as well as threats from without: the Christian and Jewish threats to the world of Islam.41

In 1982, DDII’s monthly magazine, Media Dakwah, published what appears to be its first anti-Iran/anti-Shi’a article entitled “Iran Ready to Wage Ideological Invasion”. In explaining the threat of Khomeini’s Shi’ism to Muslim countries, the article argued that the imamah doctrine propagated by Khomeini entailed an expansionist ambition to “conquer the entire Islamic world [and] rule over the entire 900-million population of Muslims in the world”.42

The anti-Shi’a campaign during this period was characterised by intellectual challenges to Shi’a doctrines, often by distorting them in a way designed to incite fear and hatred among Sunnis. The focus on the imminent danger of revolution may have reflected Saudi support, but it was also a way that DDII could present itself as a “friend” of the government in the context of Soeharto’s wariness of Islamic movements. DDII was established as a non-political movement precisely to avoid the fate of its predecessor, the Masyumi party. The 1990s saw the campaign change into more direct political lobbying for a ban on Shi’ism.

Quelques réactions à l’article de Goldberg #Obama_doctrine qui a été perçu par certains comme l’expression publique de la doctrine stratégique d’Obama pour les quelques mois restant de la fin de son mandat :
►http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525

A noter, par exemple un article de Patrick Cockburn dans The Independent titré « Comment Barack Obama a tourné le dos à l’Arabie saoudite et à ses alliés sunnites » manifestement content du tournant que cela semble annoncer dans la politique étrangère américaine :
▻http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/barack-obama-saudi-arabia-us-foreign-policy-syria-jihadism-isis-a6927

Commentators have missed the significance of President Barack Obama’s acerbic criticism of Saudi Arabia and Sunni states long allied to the US for fomenting sectarian hatred and seeking to lure the US into fighting regional wars on their behalf. In a series of lengthy interviews with Jeffrey Goldberg published in The Atlantic magazine, Mr Obama explains why it is not in the US’s interests to continue the tradition of the US foreign policy establishment, whose views he privately disdains, by giving automatic support to the Saudis and their allies.

Et la conclusion :

It will become clearer after November’s presidential election how far Obama’s realistic take on Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan and other US allies and his scepticism about the US foreign policy establishment will be shared by the new administration. The omens are not very good since Hillary Clinton supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003, intervention in Libya in 2011 and bombing Syria in 2013. If she wins the White House, then the Saudis and the US foreign policy establishment will breathe more easily.

Et puis une réaction pour le moins agacée, celle du prince Turki bin Faysal, en personne, ancien chef des services de renseignement saoudiens et ex-ambassadeur de l’A.S. aux USA qui proteste de sa fidélité comme allié des USA et de la lutte implacable des saoudiens contre le terrorisme et tout ça et tout ça puisqu’il a armé les « combattants de la liberté » qui luttent contre Da’ich :
▻http://www.arabnews.com/news/894826

No, Mr. Obama. We are not “free riders.” We shared with you our intelligence that prevented deadly terrorist attacks on America.
We initiated the meetings that led to the coalition that is fighting Fahish (ISIL), and we train and fund the Syrian freedom fighters, who fight the biggest terrorist, Bashar Assad and the other terrorists, Al-Nusrah and Fahish (ISIL). We offered boots on the ground to make that coalition more effective in eliminating the terrorists.
We initiated the support — military, political and humanitarian — that is helping the Yemeni people reclaim their country from the murderous militia, the Houthis, who, with the support of the Iranian leadership, tried to occupy Yemen; without calling for American forces. We established a coalition of more than thirty Muslim countries to fight all shades of terrorism in the world.
We are the biggest contributors to the humanitarian relief efforts to help refugees from Syria, Yemen and Iraq. We combat extremist ideology that attempts to hijack our religion, on all levels. We are the sole funders of the United Nations Counter-terrorism Center, which pools intelligence, political, economic, and human resources, worldwide. We buy US treasury bonds, with small interest returns, that help your country’s economy.

Avec un jeu de mots « Da’ish »/"fahish" ("obscène" ai-je trouvé, mais les arabisants me corrigeront).

#Obama_doctrine / partie 2 :
►http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525
Selon Goldberg, le jour où Obama a décidé de ne pas bombarder la Syrie aurait été une libération pour lui, non seulement contre des penchants bellicistes à Washington, mais aussi de la pression de certains alliés. Obama se plaindrait d’ailleurs régulièrement en privé, auprès de conseillers et d’amis, du fait que des alliés au Moyen-Orient cherchent à exploiter la puissance militaire américaine ("ses muscles") au profit de leurs petits intérêts sectaires :

I have come to believe that, in Obama’s mind, August 30, 2013, was his liberation day, the day he defied not only the foreign-policy establishment and its cruise-missile playbook, but also the demands of America’s frustrating, high-maintenance allies in the Middle East—countries, he complains privately to friends and advisers, that seek to exploit American “muscle” for their own narrow and sectarian ends.

Une manière de laisser entendre que cette pas si sûre attaque chimique de la Ghouta en 2013 par Damas (ép.1) aurait pu surtout servir les intérêts « sectaires » de ces alliés ?
Une manière peut-être aussi de bien faire comprendre, aujourd’hui, aux Turcs et aux Saoudiens notamment, qu’il n’y aura pas jusqu’en novembre de « boots on the ground » américaines en Syrie au service de leurs « intérêts étroits et sectaires »...

Selon Goldberg le sentiment à la Maison blanche est d’ailleurs que les think tanks washingtoniens se chargent surtout de la faire de la retape souhaitée par leurs financeurs pro-israéliens et des pétromonarchies arabes :

A widely held sentiment inside the White House is that many of the most prominent foreign-policy think tanks in Washington are doing the bidding of their Arab and pro-Israel funders. I’ve heard one administration official refer to Massachusetts Avenue, the home of many of these think tanks, as “Arab-occupied territory.”

Belle vacherie, en passant, de Goldberg que d’oser appeller, en se couvrant derrière un « officiel » anonyme, le Thinktankland de Washington un « territoire occupé par les Arabes »...
voir la remarque de @kassem ici : ▻http://seenthis.net/messages/468777

#Obama_doctrine / partie 1
Allez, je me lance dans le commentaire, en espérant faire des émules...
L’article, déjà signalé par @kassem, dont la matière première sont des interviews d’Obama, est consultable ici : ►http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525
Au tout début de l’article Goldberg nous dépeint une administration américaine en août 2013 persuadée, notamment Kerry, de la nécessité de faire payer amèrement à Assad les 1400 morts de l’attaque chimique de la Ghouta orientale censé avoir tout juste eu lieu. Le tout, bilan humain et responsabilité, considéré comme des faits indiscutables par le journaliste.

In the Damascus suburb of Ghouta nine days earlier, Assad’s army had murdered more than 1,400 civilians with sarin gas. The strong sentiment inside the Obama administration was that Assad had earned dire punishment. In Situation Room meetings that followed the attack on Ghouta, only the White House chief of staff, Denis McDonough, cautioned explicitly about the perils of intervention. John Kerry argued vociferously for action.

Puis retour en arrière sur le désaccords au sein de l’administration US quant au degré d’investissement dans la guerre en Syrie. Parmi les plus chauds partisans d’un investissement militaire plus fort en Syrie, bien sûr Samantha Power et son devoir d’ingérence humanitaire ("responsability to protect") mais aussi Hillary Clinton, selon Goldberg. A ceux-là Obama aurait opposé son principe du « don’t do stupid shit », en clair pas un soldat américain au sol pour réitérer les « conneries » de Walker Bush.
Ce principe du « don’t do stupid shit » n’admettant selon les confidences d’Obama que deux exceptions : les intérêts vitaux américains et, bien sûr, la sacro-sainte sécurité d’Israël :

only a handful of threats in the Middle East conceivably warranted direct U.S. military intervention. These included the threat posed by al‑Qaeda; threats to the continued existence of Israel (“It would be a moral failing for me as president of the United States” not to defend Israel, he once told me); and, not unrelated to Israel’s security, the threat posed by a nuclear-armed Iran.

[Donc ça n’empêchait pas de droner autant qu’on veut au Yémen notamment conte la fameuse menace d’al-Qaïda (AQPA), exception au principe dûment revendiquée, mais aussi de financer des groupes proxies en Syrie, au risque de renforcer la cousine d’AQPA en Syrie : al-Nousra...]
Ensuite Goldberg revient sur la fameuse ligne rouge d’Obama, censée avoir été franchie en août 2013. Adel al-Jubeïr persuadé que cette fois-ci Barack va y aller et puis Merkel qui fait savoir qu’elle n’en sera pas, le vote négatif au Parlement britannique et enfin la visite surprise de James Clapper à Obama pour lui rendre bien clair que si des éléments « robustes » soutenait la thèse de la responsabilité de l’attaque à Assad, ce n’est tout de même pas un « slam dunk ». Bref, plutôt sûr, mais pas vraiment quand même... Genre, s’il avère que c’était faux, je refuse d’endosser, Mister president !

Obama was also unsettled by a surprise visit early in the week from James Clapper, his director of national intelligence, who interrupted the President’s Daily Brief, the threat report Obama receives each morning from Clapper’s analysts, to make clear that the intelligence on Syria’s use of sarin gas, while robust, was not a “slam dunk.” He chose the term carefully. Clapper, the chief of an intelligence community traumatized by its failures in the run-up to the Iraq War, was not going to overpromise, in the manner of the onetime CIA director George Tenet, who famously guaranteed George W. Bush a “slam dunk” in Iraq.

Goldberg nous rapporte ensuite la déception de Valls, Abdallah II de Jordanie, l’émir d’Abou Dabi, et des Saoudiens en la personne d’al-Jubeïr, quand ils apprennent qu’Obama va demander l’autorisation préalable du Congrès.
Tiens, et les Israéliens, qui avaient pourtant fourni obligeamment de supposés enregistrements audio d’Assad au moment de cette attaque, ils en pensaient quoi ?
Epilogue de ce 1er épisode, Godberg nous évoque Obama à l’initiative du deal avec Poutine lors d’un sommet du G20 : abandon des armes chimiques contre abandon des frappes - ce n’est pas cette version là que l’on connaissait !

Amid the confusion, a deus ex machina appeared in the form of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. At the G20 summit in St. Petersburg, which was held the week after the Syria reversal, Obama pulled Putin aside, he recalled to me, and told the Russian president “that if he forced Assad to get rid of the chemical weapons, that that would eliminate the need for us taking a military strike.”

Et finalement qui a quand même gagné dans ce deal ?

The removal of Syria’s chemical-weapons stockpiles represented “the one ray of light in a very dark region,” Netanyahu told me not long after the deal was announced.

En passant rien sur la neutralisation probable par les Russes de deux missiles tirés - on ne sait trop par qui - vers la Syrie, et qui pourrait bien avoir été une invitation claire de Vladimir à Barack à se cantonner à la diplomatie plutôt qu’au hard power...

The Obama Doctrine
►http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525

Dans cet article Israel ce n’est pas « les Juifs » mais Israel et c’est très bien ainsi, mais pourquoi les pays du Golfe c’est « les Arabes » ?
Parce que c’est #Jeffrey_Goldberg

“A widely held sentiment inside the White House is that many of the most prominent foreign-policy #think_tanks in Washington are doing the bidding of their Arab and pro-Israel funders. I’ve heard one administration official refer to Massachusetts Avenue, the home of many of these think tanks, as “Arab-occupied territory.””

Via angry arab