Factual Dispatch

It's impossible to discuss extremism (foreign or domestic) without arriving at a somewhat depressing question. Say we win hearts and minds and manage to get a bunch of people in the Middle East, Latin America, or Southeast Asia to give up their arms. We try them for their crimes, they serve their sentences, and then attempt to reintegrate with society. How, given this climate of xenophobia, white-hot outrage, and tribal NIMBY'ism, can those people live a relatively peaceful or productive lives? The world has a long, proud history of punishing the loser of wars, not so much helping them become part of the winning society. But while daunting, it is much more of a Mount Olympus than a K2. Not only is research being done, but rules on how to evaluate the success of those programs are being codified. The USA has studied counter-terrorism/de-radicalization programs in Saudi Arabia, China, Indonesia, Kenya, and Canada (preparing for ISIS recruits allowed to return home), in addition to facing their own problems with returning enemy combatants. Brookings had an excellent roundtable, discussing the limits of our previous heavy handed tactics, being backed up not only by academic research done in Australia, but also policy advocates at the Counter Extremism Project, which draws on both progressive and deep law-and-order perspectives. 

The problem is simple: traditional incarceration without de-radicalization risks that the person you've remanded to custody just radicalizes (or terrorizes) the holding facility they're being warehoused in. The only thing Wardens dislike more than prison riots is religious or political extremism-infused prison riots. So, incarcerated terrorists are generally housed in exclusionary environments, like long-term solitary or SuperMax systems. Even after they've served their time, we don't really know what to do with them. Lawfare has a great look at the patchwork of systems and inconsistent rule applications associated with the "terrorists" that we've released back into civilian life.

The research is making progress. A novel program in Denmark uses a family counseling & community approach to "re-pluralize" the worldview of teenage ISIS recruits who want to rebuild as members of society. Like Mount Olympus in Greece, this is difficult, but perfectly climbable. Understanding the problem that Boeing, the FAA, and Trump created this week? That's easier than having Alex Honnold free climb the Aggro-Crag on Nickelodeon's Guts! Because was this one mountain of a fuck up.

The Air Current published (what I believe to be) the definitive account of the 737 Max, and the chain of events that led to it being grounded worldwide. Jon Ostrower deftly illustrates the short-term thinking, profit chasing, and corner-cutting that led to the creation of Boeing's Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). Essentially, a new piece of software used data from angle of attack sensors, adjusting the plane's nose down which was pushed up by larger engines producing more lift. In the first 737 Max crash, the plane's sensors were disagreeing, producing incorrect data, but Lion Air had not purchased the "added-cost optional package of equipment" that would have provided a warning light to alert the crew of that disagreement. American and the other airlines that kept flying their 737 Max planes until when Trump grounded them, had previously bought the optional package for the planes on their non-budget airline.

While Trump had Boeing's CEO Grima Wormtongue whispering into his ear (to add to Boeing's impressive lobbying history), the rest of the world decided not to wait. Spurred on by China's (admittedly cautious and self-serving) grounding of the plane, almost a dozen international airlines followed suit, joined shortly after by the actual governments of Singapore and Australia. Once India and the EU dropped the 737 Max on Tuesday, the US and Canada were the only countries that still had them in the sky, with Canada leaving the cheese to stand alone on Wednesday. 

With Trump wanting his personal pilot to head the FAA, the crashes being potentially chalked up to negligent homicide on the part of Boeing, Lion Air & Ethiopian Airlines, and the rest of the world counting the hours between China's grounding of the plane and America's, only two groups came away winners from this terrible race of dystopian aviation chicken this week: The Civil Aviation Administration of China, who look just a touch more serious than the FAA at the moment and anyone who shorted Boeing once Lion Air 610 went down. Everyone else on the planet is worse off for this unforced error brought to you by late stage capitalism. 

 Vaguely Dystopian News of the Week: By 2021, your face will be scanned in line for security at 20 airports across the USA, whether you give them permission to or not.Annoying-But-Correct Take(s) of the Week: Our national divide is no longer Left vs. Right, it's Young vs. Old. Also, Laurie Penny is 100% correct, Brexit is is the best example of what even the mightiest of nations can do to itself. "Huh, Interesting" Read of the Week: 538 A.D. was the worst year to be alive. Trust Michael McCormick and Ann Gibbons on this one, plague, ash fog, and a cooling period is way worse than jorts, Sun Chips & Nickleback.Dunk of the Week:

And you may ask yourself, "Well... how did I get here?"T