Archive for the 'Politics' Category

In followup to my “Liberals Say the Darndest Things” where I summarized the jaw-dropping position of the liberals on North Korea (“its all Bush’s fault”), its nice to hear someone step up and say the truth.  Tony Snow steps up (hat tip to Polipundit):

White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters that Bill Richardson, who served as United Nations ambassador and Energy Secretary under Clinton, “went with flowers and chocolates, and he went with light-water nuclear reactors … and a basketball signed by Michael Jordan and many other inducements for the ‘dear leader’ to try to agree not to develop nuclear weapons, and it failed.”

**** SCROLL FOR UPDATES ****

Jihad Watch is reporting that the recent bombing of the commuter rail in Bombay, India, has the appearance of being Kashmir Jihadists.  If so, then we should look for tensions over the Kashmir region between India and Pakistan to heat up again.

Remember the most recent spate of tensions there?  India and Pakistan almost went to war over Kashmir (all the while, the U.S. was courting Pakistan in order to gain assistance with the war in Afghanistan).  While I think that Dick Armitage is mostly a lackey, he apparently managed to suppress the tensions and pull a nuclear India and nuclear Pakistan back from the brink of war.

It would be better for world stability if this was an internal affair within India rather than the work of Muslim terrorists.  Michelle Malkin thinks that this is possible (reference here).

We’ll see.

 **** UPDATE #1 ****

The arrests make it currently look like it is Islamic Terrorists.  From Fox News:

The Indian home minister said on Indian television that authorities had information of an attack but did not know when or where it was to occur.

“There is no information about who is behind these blasts,

See this interesting article over at Fox News on the EU being a “leaderless superpower.”  It is right in so far as it goes (i.e., without a leader).  But the EU is so far from being a superpower that it is really surprising that anyone would have written a piece hinting at such a thing.

A few comments on the EU.  First of all, quoting from the link above:

Europe’s current climate of “Christianophobia

Here is a very, very, very strange post.  It is called the “Dark Side of the Blog” over at MSNBC.com.  One of the examples used as “dark” is of Glenn Reynolds.  The quote on the blog says:

One example that comes to mind is Glenn recently encouraging readers to contact the Egyptian embassy on behalf of an imprisoned blogger.

Um, excuse me?  Once again, um, excuse me?

Encouraging people to contact the Egyptian embassy on behalf of an imprisoned blogger is a “dark” example of blogging?  If so, then “Lord, please let me be a dark blogger who becomes a thorn in the side of the Islamo-fascist Mubarrak who imprisons not only bloggers but Christians as well.”

Here is Zarqawi from the CENTCOM web site (page “What Extremists are Saying“):

“”Why do not you tell them that your soldiers cannot sleep without taking drugs and hallucination pills …

Barbara Boxer, as shown and discussed on The Factor with Bill O’Reilly, July 10, 2006:

“Our soldiers are having to take anti-depressants …”

The context made it clear that she was discussing forward-deployed soldiers and Marines.  In Fact, the always enjoyable Col. David Hunt had to refute this claim.

I also know that our boys cannot have any drugs, alcohol, women or anything else that would interfere with the performance of their duties or otherwise adversely effect them when deployed.  The only thing they can have is tobacco.

There you have it.  Zarqawi and Boxer – extremists.  Boxer slams our boys in harm’s way because they use smokeless tobacco.

Nice job, Barbara.  Do you feel proud?

Here is a link to the current goings-on over Japan and North Korea.  This is a followup post to my “Will Japan go Nuclear?”

Japan is indeed worried, and they are talking big on rethinking a first-strike option for North Korea.  I just have four words for them: they had better not.  They are not prepared, do not have the air force or navy to pull it off, and do not have the missile defense capabilities right now to properly defend themselves from a North Korea missile attack.

They should go nuclear first.  It might take some time (a half a year to a year, I would guess, to make the weapons grade fissile material).  In the mean time, they can be beefing up their offensive and defensive capabilities.  Nuclear capability in Japan is the penultimate strategic defense (and it would forever modify the politics of the far east).  North Korean nuclear capabilities would not hold a candle to Japanese capabilities (I say this based on two things: (1) the availability of fissile material in Japan from commercial nuclear fuel, and (2) the capabilities of Japanese nuclear engineers).

An interesting thing appears in this little article I posted a link to at the top.  We hear this from Christopher Hill:

Still, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill questioned just how influential Beijing was with the enigmatic regime.

“I must say the issue of China’s influence on DPRK is one that concerns us,” Hill told reporters in Tokyo. “China said to the DPRK, ‘Don’t fire those missiles,’ but the DPRK fired them. So I think everybody, especially the Chinese, are a little bit worried about it.”

I am not buying it for one second.  This is bluster from China.  They want the appearance of having tried to reign in Kim Jong Il.  They could do it quickly if they wanted.  Too much aid comes from China across the boarder to N. Korea.  The country would quickly starve without China.

So why did Hill repeat this?  Does he believe it, or does he know better but want the rest of the world to believe that China tried to stop the missile launches?

While Bill O’Reilly was on vacation last week, John Kasich filled in for him.  When discussing North Korea, he had the always sensible Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney and the mostly nonsensical P.J. Crowley on the show.

After the Lt. General spoke, Crowley said something to the effect that he disagreed with McInerney and that he believed that the period of time during the Clinton years had managed to “pull us back from the brink of war and give us a number of years of stability.”

When I first heard this, I was going to post on it but decided not to.  After all, Crowley was security advisor to Clinton and any commentary he makes has a personal side.  The North Korea debacle is largely the responsibility and fault of Crowley and Clinton and the politics of appeasement and ignorance.  We will engage in talky-talk with them, give them things and hope that they don’t lie to us.  So I figured that I would give him some grace.  He was embarrassed and simply defending himself.  We must remember that it was during the Clinton years that North Korea went nuclear.  No matter when they got the technology from Pakistan, the fissile material to actually use in bombs became available during the Clinton years.  This is important to remember.

So having dismissed Crowley as personally involved, it was interesting  to see that over at MSNBC.com, where the Eric Alterman blogs, we see this commentary on North Korea:

The tone of Powell’s tenure was set early in the administration when he announced that he planned “to pick up where the Clinton administration had left off

Note: This post has been updated with Nuclear Japan.

I wanted to wait and think a bit on the North Korea situation before I weighed in.  Here it goes.

There is a history of tension between Japan and North Korea.  North Korea is known to have kidnapped Japanese citizens before, and of course there is the fact that the recent flury of missiles is an expanded repeat of what happened prior to this (Kim Jong Il lobbed missiles over Japan in 1998).

I honestly believe that there is only one solution to Kim Jong Il: it is for Japan and/or Taiwan to go nuclear.  It would be very difficult for Taiwan to go nuclear.  China has too many eyes in Taiwan.  It would be quite easy for Japan to do it.

Japan has not gone nuclear before now because of a number of things (including but not limited to):

1. Being the first and only country ever to to be attacked with nuclear weapons, there is a psychological barrier with the citizens.
2. Japan believes (with good reason) that there is at least to some extent a blanket of protection from the U.S. just as there is with Taiwan.
3. The theory goes that if Japan went nuclear, it would start an arms race in the region.

I do not believe that any of these reasons are determinative.  Go do a Google search on “Japan go nuclear” and read for a while.  There is much discussion available on this subject, but most of it was written after 1998 and well before now (when Kim Jong Il fires more missiles over Japan and supposedly in the direction of the U.S.).  Some of the literature concludes that Japan will not go nuclear (for at least some of the reasons mentioned above).  But with the expanded missile program and several more years to work on nuclear weapons in North Korea, Japan might just be getting a little bit edgy.

It should be noted that there is some degree of enigma surrounding the Kim household and a line of succession.  There is also some speculation on potential mental illness that Kim Jong Il might be afflicted with.  So it is difficult to know exactly what is going on: Is this bluster to show the world that Kim Jong Il is still “the man,” and in charge of his country and that he will be around for some time?  Or is he trying to prepare the country for someone else in succession?

Either way, he cannot be trusted and he has shown that every time he has had opportunity.  Now back to Japan.  Japan knows this and must be thinking hard about the world reaction to the most recent blitz of missile launches.  Sure, the ICBM was a flop.  But all missile programs in history created flops before they created the real deal.

My position on Russia is that the reason for their reticence is that if they were to weigh in and begin to pressure North Korea, they know that they would be mostly ignored.  They are not the player on the world stage that they once were.  They weigh in on the same scales that Germany or France do, not on the scales that the U.S. and China do.  They know this, but it would be quite the public and international humiliation to weigh in and then be ignored.  It would announce to the world what they know but what they do not want the rest of the world to acknowledge; they have become mostly irrelevant.

No one else matters except China and the U.S.  China will not pull the reigns in because they are enjoying seeing the U.S., Japan and South Korea and Taiwan hand-wring over the shinanigans of Kim.  But this might just backfire on them.

The Google search you did above (“Japan go nuclear”) yielded many hits that opined in the negative due to such things as “they would have to reprocess their nuclear fuel to get the weapons-grade Uranium or the Plutonium.”  This objection is nonsense.  It amounts to no more than the objection for anyone going nuclear: you have to create the fissile material through reprocessing.  Okay.  So where is the problem?  This is just a technical issue.  Japan has good nuclear engineers.  Their commercial nuclear program demonstrates that.

Possibly the most interesting of the literature showing up from this Google search comes from a doctoral candidate at MIT, who authored a paper entitled “Why Japan Won’t go Nuclear (yet).”  “Yet” is the operative word here.  Once again, this paper was written prior to the recent spate of missile launches by Kim.

The weakness in this paper, I believe, is that it gives too much credit for public reaction, legislative gerrymandering, and world reaction to being able to stop Japan from going nuclear.  In fact, it seems to me that such a publicly stated intent would be profoundly unwise.  China probably would not allow it to happen.  If it is going to happen, it must do so discretely.  Then Japan would announce it to the world after it had happened — not before.

If Japan does go nuclear, it would signficantly change both the politics and the power balance in the region.  And this, to our favor and the benefit of democracies in the world.

Will they do it?  It is the perfect solution to Kim.  Will the U.S. discretely recommend to Japan that they be going in this direction?  How much backbone does the U.S. have on this matter?  As for an arms race in the region, this won’t matter much if Japan feels that their future existence is at stake.  What person would not run if his life was in danger?  The fact that running is hard work becomes irrelevant when your existence is at stake.

I have just left the mind of a mad man — or a man on dope (“we all live in a yellow submarine … a yellow submarine … a yellow submarine … we all live …” ahem, excuse me; I sort of zoned out).  It is titled “New York Times Report from Ramadi: Evidence of U.S. War Crimes in Iraq.”  It is written by Barry Grey, of WSWS.  Who is WSWS, you say?  Well, none other than the World Socialist Web Site.  Real socialists?  ThaaaaAAT’s RIGHT!  You thought that they only existed on the campuses of American universities and in the democratic party leadership, didn’t you?  There are actually a few left out there, although not in Russia or China (or any other country who has actually tried socialism for any extended period of time).

Well, the title of the article is telling to say the least.  Mr. Grey doesn’t do any investigative work.  He ascribes a position to the NYT, a position in fact which is neither taken by the NYT nor supported by anything in the NYT article.  Either Mr. Grey is a liar and knowingly propagated slander against the Marines, or he was high on dope when he wrote this article.  We will give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he was high.  Whatcha been smokin’ Barry?  Pretty strong stuff, huh?

Let’s tackle this bizzare article piece by piece.  It begins as follows:

A front page article in the July 5 New York Times provides a chilling and damning picture of the daily, murderous violence being perpetrated by US forces in occupied Iraq.

Just so that you know the context, the picture is shown below.

Now then.  This picture could show a deserted part of town, or a slum where homeless people live (here in the states we could certainly show photos like this of inner city ruins), or perhaps it could show how certain city blocks can become a victim of the relocations that occur as a course of war.  What, exactly, it shows, Mr. Grey does not say, except to assert that “it is a damning picture of the daily, murderous violence being perpetrated by U.S. forces in occupied Iraq.”

Maybe its just me, but does anyone see a Marine perpetrating “daily, murderous violence” in the picture above?  Maybe, just maybe, it’s that dope that Barry is smoking.  Good stuff, huh Barry?

Barry continues by citing the NYT article (C’mon Barry, do your own investigative work):

“In three years there the Marine Corps and the Army have tried nearly everything to bring this provincial capital of 400,000 under control. Nothing has worked.

Hmmmm … strange.  Seems like only a few days ago we learned that Ramadi was seeing U.S. and Iraqi patrols for the very first time (or at least, Ramadi was seeing things that they ‘rarely’ saw) in large parts of the city.  But according to the NYT, the Marine Corps has tried “nearly everything.”  Quite a statement of superlative, that phrase.  “Nearly everything.”  Oh well, don’t worry about the facts.  We all live in a yellow submarine.

It just gets better and better.

Barry continues by citing the NYT article on the ethos of the Marines in Ramadi:

“One of the ‘habits of mind’ drilled into the Marines from posters hung up inside: ‘Be polite, be professional and have a plan to kill everyone you meet.’”

This is a bizzare as I can imagine.  Barry seems like a child at an easter egg hunt who is angry that he found an easter egg.  What does he expect?  Marines who have a plan to kill people.  Imagine it!  Actually, the wording is quite clever, precise and intentional.  It says “have a plan.” It doesn’t say to do it in all cases.  And if Barry thinks that there is an ethos in the Marines to kill people who attempt to perpetrate violence against them, he has that absolutely right.  I can vouch for this ethos.  Its there.  I’ve seen it.  But since I have never attempted to kill a Marine, a Marine has never attempted to kill me.  So I have not had any problems with them.  Is Barry shocked that a Marine would have a plan to kill people?  What did Barry’s mommy tell him that Soldiers and Marines do?  Apparently this is a traumatic experience for Barry.

Barry continues:

The Times’ article is far from a denunciation of the US military in Ramadi. It has more the character of an apologia, repeating uncritically the official US line that the people of Ramadi are “caught in the middle” of a struggle between American troops and insurgents—an absurd contention on its face given the tenacity of the resistance and the well-known tenet of counter-insurgency warfare that partisan guerrillas fighting foreign occupation rely on popular support and sympathy against the overwhelming military superiority of the occupier.

So it is all about the sympathy that the Iraqis feel for the insurgents?  It has nothing to do with fear of reprisal attacks?  On the face of it, there is nothing to this claim that the people of Ramadi are “caught in the middle?”  And Barry has not even been to Iraq and interviewed these people?  Barry, put down the joint, dude.  It is clouding your judgment.

Barry continues (apparently, he has not put down the joint yet):

Nevertheless, the very facts reported by the Times make clear that the US is committing war crimes, and that it is doing so in a systematic way and on a massive scale. The vast majority of these crimes go unreported, leaving the American people largely in the dark, unaware of the full extent of the horror being carried out in their name.

Ooooh.  See the twist of the wrist, the sleight of hand?

The “vast majority of these crimes go unreported.”  This means that we take his word for it.  Yep.  War crimes are happening, and on a massive scale.  Want the evidence for his assertion?  Well, it doesn’t work that way.  Why?  Because most of these crimes go unreported.  That’s why.  There isn’t any evidence for them.  We take Barry’s word for it.  Barry takes another toke and then continues:

“The inquiry into the possible executions of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha by Marines has also brought the same lukewarm response. More than three years into the war, many Iraqis say they are no longer surprised by abuses on the part of American troops [Emphasis added].”

Collective punishment, exemplary punishment, the destruction of entire civilian centers—tactics associated in the last century with Nazi barbarism in occupied Europe—are part and parcel of the modus operandi of the US occupation of Iraq. 

We can only respond with a collective ‘what‘?  I thought we were discussing Ramadi and looking at a picture of an empty block in the downtown area?  In fact, we were discussing Ramadi.  But Barry has allowed himself to lose track of the discussion and bring in elements of an incident that has no bearing on Ramadi.  Besides, the investigation being only recently completed, the results of the investigation have not yet been made public, and so Barry really doesn’t know what happened in Haditha.  But Barry has gotten worked up and only now reaches the pinnacle of his rant by screaming:

America’s so-called volunteer army is being brutalized and dehumanized by its involvement in a filthy colonialist war. More than three-and-half years into the slaughter, those young men and women in the military, having initially been bombarded with lies and propaganda, who have been able to retain some moral compass, find it increasingly difficult to continue to do so.

I am wondering when the draft was reinstituted since our Army is only a “so-called volunteer” Army?  A filthy, colonialist war.  Sounds like Marxist propaganda to you?  Well, it is.  Remember that this comes from WSWS — the World Socialist Web Site.

Oh well, Barry continues his ramble for a while; you can read it at your leisure.  Who would actually believe this stuff?  Barry’s dope dream was picked up and reposted by none other than the “Bay Area Independent Media.”  Imagine that.

We all live in a yellow submarine … a yellow submarine … Oh wait, was that all about LSD rather than weed?  Sheesh … my head is spinning.

Which is it Barry?  What kind of stuff are you on?  Care to come on over to the Captain’s Journal and tell us?  Over here, we do not have protest songs, long hair or dope.  You have to bring your own.  E-mails:

sfbay-web@lists.indymedia.org

https://www.wsws.org/phpform/use/comments/form1.html

Iran is taking a hard line position on the U.S.  According to a commentary in the Washington Post (hat tip to Blogs of War):

Two weeks ago, the secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council, dismissing the United States as a paper tiger, said: “Something very important is happening. . . . The Americans are no longer saying that Iran must be deprived of its nuclear rights forever. Iran has accomplished a great thing.”

But we should remember that this commentary is by Richard Perle, and like everything else he writes or says, it is moralizing, preening, self-serving and condescending.  When Richard Perle speaks, it is the “gospel according to Richard.”  This, in my opinion, leads Perle to believe that the Bush administration has “blinked.”  This might just be a fatal error for Perle’s analysis (and for Iran, if they agree).

In fact, there is much behind this decision to go political with Iran.  According to a Washington Post article:

The troubled Iraq war also hangs over Iran diplomacy. Administration officials have little confidence in the intelligence on Iran’s programs, while allies overseas view U.S. actions through the prism of Iraq. That concern has forced the administration to emphasize diplomacy to avoid the breach with its allies that characterizes the Iraq war. 

In hard negotiations, the Bush administration constructed, together with the international community, a package of rewards for dropping the enrichment and reprocessing programs.  Cheney raised an objection to where this might take the U.S.:

Officials said there was essentially no dissent among Bush’s top advisers on joining the talks. The Pentagon raised no objections, and the only cautionary tone came from Cheney, who said that the shift should not lead the administration down a “slippery slope,” in which they end up retreating from their core red line: an end to enrichment and reprocessing — the two paths toward fissile material. The group agreed to hold their red line.

It would appear to me that the Iranian thinking on this is wrongheaded.  There is apparently no desire to rush to war with Iran, especially when these issues are seen through the prism of Iraq.  However, the needed steps have been taken.  The international community has been briefed.  They have been courted.  They have even participated in the development of the package of incentives to lure Iran away from a nuclear program.

When the difficult time comes, that is, when Iran refuses to end the program, and the decision must be made either to end the program ourselves or let Iran go nuclear, the U.S. will say, “we did our best.”  Besides, you were involved just like we were.

Additionally, it gives the U.S. intelligence community the time to QA (quality assure) the information it is giving the administration.

Iran sees this as a win for them.  The U.S. sees this as a win-win.

And so Richard Perle is still on the outside looking in.  Just the way it should be.