Fuck Robert Kagan And Would He Please Now Just Go Quietly Burn In Hell?

politico | The Washington Post on Friday announced it will no longer endorse presidential candidates, breaking decades of tradition in a move that immediately garnered fierce backlash from both employees and outside critics.

At least one editor has already resigned, and the paper’s legendary former top editor Marty Baron publicly rebuked the move as an act of “cowardice.”

The Post is the second major newspaper this week to punt on a presidential endorsement, following a similar decision by the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday at the instruction of its billionaire owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, that led to the resignation of the editorials editor and multiple staffers.

In a note published to the paper’s website announcing the move, Washington Post publisher Will Lewis called it a “statement in support of our readers’ ability to make up their own minds,” writing that it would help the publication focus on “nonpartisan news for all Americans” from the newsroom and “thought-provoking, reported views from our opinion team to help our readers make up their own minds.”

“We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility,” Lewis added. “That is inevitable. We don’t see it that way.”

The Post’s newsroom and editorial team erupted in outrage. Robert Kagan, a neoconservative columnist and editor at large at the Post, resigned in response, he confirmed in a statement to POLITICO. A spokesperson for the Post declined to comment on Kagan’s resignation.

David Maraniss, a 46-year veteran reporter at the paper, publicly called the move “contemptible,” writing in a social media post: “Today is the bleakest day of my journalism career.”

And on Friday evening, nine of the paper’s opinion columnists published a scathing dissent of the decision, calling it “a terrible mistake” that “represents an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love, and for which we have worked a combined 228 years.”

“There is no contradiction between The Post’s important role as an independent newspaper and its practice of making political endorsements, both as a matter of guidance to readers and as a statement of core beliefs,” the columnists wrote. “That has never been more true than in the current campaign.”

"Welp, that's certainly a new type of October Surprise,” Ashley Parker, a senior national political correspondent for the Post, wrote on X.

In a statement, the newspaper's union attributed the decision to billionaire owner Jeff Bezos and said the move "undercuts the work of our members at a time when we should be building our readers’ trust, not losing it."

"The message from our chief executive, Will Lewis — not from the Editorial Board itself — makes us concerned that management interfered with the work of our members in Editorial," the union wrote. "According to our own reporters and Guild members, an endorsement for Harris was already drafted, and the decision to not to publish was made by The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos."

A person close to the decision granted anonymity to discuss it told POLITICO that the decision was made within the Post and did not come from Bezos.

But others were quick to point the finger at Bezos.

Baron, who was executive editor from 2012 until his retirement in 2021, called the move “cowardice, with democracy as its casualty,” writing on X that Donald Trump “will see this as an invitation to further intimidate” Bezos and others.

“Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage,” Baron wrote.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in an X post that the move “is what Oligarchy is about.”

“Jeff Bezos, the 2nd wealthiest person in the world and the owner of the Washington Post, overrides his editorial board and refuses to endorse Kamala,” Sanders wrote. “Clearly, he is afraid of antagonizing Trump and losing Amazon’s federal contracts. Pathetic.”

Lewis’ announcement comes months after the publisher made headlines over bombshell reports alleging that he played a role in a phone hacking scandal while he was an editor at the Sunday Times, an accusation he denies. Lewis had clashed over the scandal with the Post’s then-top editor, Sally Buzbee, who reportedly wanted to cover it.

Facts...

 

One Ring To Rule Them All (My Column from 8/9/24)

 

Why The Techbros Back Trump And Vance Is Their Man In The White House

thebulletin  |  Since the emergence of generative artificial intelligence, scholars have speculated about the technology’s implications for the character, if not nature, of war. The promise of AI on battlefields and in war rooms has beguiled scholars. They characterize AI as “game-changing,” “revolutionary,” and “perilous,” especially given the potential of great power war involving the United States and China or Russia. In the context of great power war, where adversaries have parity of military capabilities, scholars claim that AI is the sine qua non, absolutely required for victory. This assessment is predicated on the presumed implications of AI for the “sensor-to-shooter” timeline, which refers to the interval of time between acquiring and prosecuting a target. By adopting AI, or so the argument goes, militaries can reduce the sensor-to-shooter timeline and maintain lethal overmatch against peer adversaries.

Although understandable, this line of reasoning may be misleading for military modernization, readiness, and operations. While experts caution that militaries are confronting a “eureka” or “Oppenheimer” moment, harkening back to the development of the atomic bomb during World War II, this characterization distorts the merits and limits of AI for warfighting. It encourages policymakers and defense officials to follow what can be called a “primrose path of AI-enabled warfare,” which is codified in the US military’s “third offset” strategy. This vision of AI-enabled warfare is fueled by gross prognostications and over-determination of emerging capabilities enhanced with some form of AI, rather than rigorous empirical analysis of its implications across all (tactical, operational, and strategic) levels of war.

The current debate on military AI is largely driven by “tech bros” and other entrepreneurs who stand to profit immensely from militaries’ uptake of AI-enabled capabilities. Despite their influence on the conversation, these tech industry figures have little to no operational experience, meaning they cannot draw from first-hand accounts of combat to further justify arguments that AI is changing the character, if not nature, of war. Rather, they capitalize on their impressive business successes to influence a new model of capability development through opinion pieces in high-profile journals, public addresses at acclaimed security conferences, and presentations at top-tier universities.

To the extent analysts do explore the implications of AI for warfighting, such as during the conflicts in Gaza, Libya, and Ukraine, they highlight limited—and debatable—examples of its use, embellish its impacts, conflate technology with organizational improvements provided by AI, and draw generalizations about future warfare. It is possible that AI-enabled technologies, such as lethal autonomous weapon systems or “killer robots,” will someday dramatically alter war. Yet the current debate for the implications of AI on warfighting discounts critical political, operational, and normative considerations that imply AI may not have the revolutionary impacts that its proponents claim, at least not now. As suggested by Israel and the United States’ use of AI-enabled decision-support systems in Gaza and Ukraine, there is a more reasonable alternative. In addition to enabling cognitive warfare, it is likely that AI will allow militaries to optimize workflows across warfighting functions, particularly intelligence and maneuver. This will enhance situational awareness; provide efficiencies, especially in terms of human resources; and shorten the course-of-action development timeline.

Militaries across the globe are at a moment or strategic inflection point in terms of preparing for future conflict. But this is not for the reasons scholars typically assume. Our research suggests that three related considerations have combined to shape the hype surrounding military AI, informing the primrose path of AI-enabled warfare. First, that primrose path is paved by the emergence of a new military industrial complex that is dependent on commercial service providers. Second, this new defense acquisition process is the cause and effect of a narrative suggesting a global AI arms race, which has encouraged scholars to discount the normative implications of AI-enabled warfare. Finally, while analysts assume that soldiers will trust AI, which is integral to human-machine teaming that facilitates AI-enabled warfare, trust is not guaranteed.

What AI is and isn’t. Automation, autonomy, and AI are often used interchangeably but erroneously. Automation refers to the routinization of tasks performed by machines, such as auto-order of depleted classes of military supplies, but with overall human oversight. Autonomy moderates the degree of human oversight of tasks performed by machines such that humans are on, in, or off the loop. When humans are on the loop, they exercise ultimate control of machines, as is the case for the current class of “conventional” drones such as the MQ-9 Reaper. When humans are in the loop, they pre-delegate certain decisions to machines, which scholars debate in terms of nuclear command and control. When humans are off the loop, they outsource control to machines leading to a new class of “killer robots” that can identify, track, and engage targets on their own. Thus, automation and autonomy are protocol-based functions that largely retain a degree of human oversight, which is often high given humans’ inherent skepticism of machines.

Wonder If Any If These Imbecilic Demon Worshippers Have Second Thoughts...,