"Let's face it," said Rahm, "when we've lost David Gregory, who's next? Oprah?" He jabbed a finger at Barry. "Time to bust some heads. You stand up at the State of the Union and start naming names, all the folks who have let you down, who have let America down--"
"I think a more... nuanced approach is required,," said Axelrod, digging into a box of peanut brittle that John McCain had sent over. "You stand up at the State of the Union, acknowledge the applause, maybe flirt a little with Pelosi, and then you say, `I get it, Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Citizen. I understand why you keep rejecting everyone I campaign for. I'm doing all the right things, all the good and just things, but I've moved too fast--"
"Yeah, I've moved too fast for you iceberg lettuce eating, community college morons to keep up with," said Barry. "I should have explained things in one-syllable words. Maybe put up some graphs--"
"Um, that might be a bit too confrontational," said Axelrod, peanut brittle crumbs quivering in his moustache. "The main point you should stress is that you have heard their voices, and you intend to do better. Of course, you haven't and you won't, but it sounds good. I can send out a blast-memo to the usual stooges at the networks."
"I don't like the idea of admitting that I was wrong," said Barry.
"You're not really admitting--"
"If I say I intend to do better, that implies I haven't achieved perfection," said Barry. I barked. Barry patted my head. "See, Bo understands Euclidean Logic. Bo doesn't like your non-confrontational approach." I barked again. "Done deal," said Barry. "No backing down. No wee wee."... Go read it all. Good doggie!
Posted by: Mike ||
01/27/2010 12:40 ||
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January 25, 2010: The Taliban and drug gangs have hit a snag with their media campaign against the American and NATO use of smart bombs. For the last few years, the Taliban have been using human shields to protect themselves from the smart bombs. The civilian deaths that followed caused the foreign troops to change their ROE (Rules of Engagement), to limit the use of the bombs when human shields were in play. Civilian casualties, from smart bombs declined, and Afghans began to notice that even more civilians were being killed by Taliban bombs and attacks.
So the Taliban came up with a new idea; getting a ban on foreign troops raiding Afghan homes at night. The Taliban and drug gangs had no trouble persuading local journalists to run with this (bribes or death threats were applied), and now the Afghan media is full of heart wrenching tales of women and children terrified when American or NATO troops charge in after midnight. There were no stories published about how those night visits often catch bad guys asleep, and enables troops to make arrests without any gun battles. NATO has responded by issuing new rules restricting the use of night raids.
Not surprisingly, one of the biggest gripes combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have is the Escalation of Force (EOF) and Rules of Engagement (ROE) procedures they must follow when faced with enemy action, or the threat of enemy action. These rules have gotten more complex year by year, although there have been some attempts to simplify the complications (if that makes any sense.) Put simply, the ROE/EOF stuff is there to limit civilian casualties, while fighting a foe that wants dead civilians (for their propaganda impact). Al Qaeda even has an official name for this; "involuntary martyrs." The U.S. buzzword is "collateral damage."
Naturally, there's a big difference between the ROE/EOF stuff that is regularly delivered to the troops (who are supposed to demonstrate that they have memorized them), and what actually happens in combat. For all the ROE/EOF exhortations directed at the troops, there is also an escape clause. That is, you are always allowed to use any force necessary to protect yourselves. This does not negate ROE/EOF, and if you kill a bunch of civilians, there will be an investigation. If you cannot make some kind of case that you fired in (what appeared to you at the time to be) self-defense, you will get punished. The troops know this, the brass know this. No one is sure if the lawyers, who are sometimes brought in to help out with the periodic ROE/EOF training sessions, know this. Lawyers are generally considered the enemy, since they tend to spend most of their time telling you what you cannot do in combat (whether you're fighting for your life or not.)
Troops who have spent more than a year in Iraq or Afghanistan have come to believe that the biggest problem with ROE/EOF is that the people who create this stuff have done a very bad job of explaining the cause and effect of it all. While the troops can understand that, "killing civilians" is usually counterproductive, the brass rarely go to any great lengths to explain the thinking behind the long list of ROE/EOF things you can, or cannot, do. There is a belief that the ROE/EOF is not well thought out, and the lawyers are sent in to lecture the troops in an attempt to hide that fact. Definitely a credibility gap here.
Abdul Malik al-Huthi's third initiative towards the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia can only be described as a new game and one of the ongoing Huthi ploys against Yemen and Saudi Arabia. The Huthi talk about a truce with Saudi Arabia is something that should not be given any attention, or even considered, and in fact this is a new condemnation against the Huthis, and a confession admitting that they were the ones to attack and target Saudi territory.
In the statement attributed to Abdul-Malik al-Huthi he said that they [the Huthis] are prepared to withdraw from Saudi territory, however the question here is; what territory do the Huthis occupy in the first place from which they can withdraw from?
It is well known that the Huthis are fighting a guerilla war, infiltrating and fleeing, and so they are not a regular army. However it is clear that the Saudi message reached the Huthis; this message is that the violation of Saudi Arabian territory is something that cannot be tolerated under any circumstances.
The greatest mistake that any Arab country can make is accepting the mergence of protuberances along its borders, whether this is armed groups or others, serving foreign objectives and threatening the security of Arab states. The Huthis are an example of this, in the same manner as other groups that hijack the state, exploiting a very old message, in the same manner as what Hezbollah is doing in Lebanon.
In the [audio] tape attributed to Abdul Malik al-Huthi, and in which he proposed the new initiative, he also put the blame for the war on Saudi Arabia, saying that it would have been better for Saudi Arabia to go to war with Israel, rather than the Huthis. This is the same logic that is employed by Hamas against Egypt, and the same logic employed by Hezbollah against Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and this is also the same logic employed by Ahmadinejad, and the Iranian official and media statements, in justifying the violations of the sovereignty of Arab states, and particularly when defending the Huthis.
Therefore the new Huthi truce is nothing more than an attempt to escape the conflict with Saudi Arabia in the hopes of preserving what remains of their forces, especially when they see international support for Riyadh's right to defend its territory and international support for Yemen during its present crisis, and above all else they have noticed an Iranian failure to defend them, or even alleviate the pressure on them.
It also appears that the Huthi initiative came as a quick response to the statement made by Saudi Assistant Defense Minister, Prince Khalid Bin Sultan, to the effect that Saudi Arabia plans to establish a military base in the Jizan region. As a result of this, the Huthis felt that the Saudi movement against them was serious and well-planned and had a serious message, namely to ensure that what happened [with regards to Huthi infiltration] would never be repeated under any circumstances.
Therefore it is imperative that there is no leniency or sympathy for the Huthis, otherwise who can guarantee that there will not be a seventh war in Yemen, and who can guarantee that the Huthis will not once again attack Saudi Arabian territory, or kill Saudi border guards, as they did previously, especially as their storing of weapons -- whether this is inside Saudi territory or in the border region -- is an indication of the Huthis evil intentions towards Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and that they are a new group in the mould of Hezbollah. Therefore the conclusion of this talk is that the Huthis cannot be trusted whatsoever, even if there is a true.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/27/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
You only consider "negotiations" when you are losing. Why negotiate if you are winning.? Stick it in and lean on it till he coughs up blood.
And Arabs word is worthless anyway. What was Arafat's word worth? Hizbollocks, ever known for their integrity ? Is Hamas a stickler for points of honor?
Screw 'em. Lean on it.
Posted by: the Horseman ||
01/27/2010 0:34 Comments ||
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#2
One important phrase.....
The greatest mistake that any Arab country can make is accepting the mergence of protuberances along its borders
now, how about.....
The greatest mistake that any Arab country the USA can make is accepting the mergence of protuberances along its borders
see California.
#3
What the hell does "mergence of protuberances" even mean? It sort of looks like English, but I don't think it actually is. The combination of bulges, maybe? Still doesn't make any sense.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
01/27/2010 12:03 Comments ||
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#4
Mitch that should have been "E"mergence of protuberances.
Think enclaves of furriners infiltrating your border (Arizona, California, etc.) They can be militarily oriented to actually take over the land or they can be purely cultural / ethinc immigration with the same underlying purpose. (See Chinese in Siberia)
In anycase the result is the loss of control / sovereignty over those areas (aka protuberances)
"Anybody who says we don't have to do anything, we can just keep on doing what we're doing, has got their head in the sand. Social Security and Medicare are both cash negative today. They are both headed for insolvency. Those who say we don't have to do anything, they are guaranteeing a disaster."
Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND)
In the last presidential election, the issues before the country were President George Bush and the war in Iraq vs. the promise of change via a young and untested Democratic Senator from Illinois named Barack Obama. The Federal Reserve and the banking industry were not even factors in the election.
Today the Federal Reserve and the bailouts for the largest banks are the central issues in American politics. The upset defeats of Democrats John Corzine in New Jersey and Martha Coakley in Massachusetts, following the earlier Democratic loss in Virginia, were driven by the public's growing disgust with the management of the economy.
The 2010 elections promise to be the most contentious and significant since the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828. For those of you who missed that particular episode in American history, Jackson was the first American leader who was actually chosen by popular vote and not selected by the nation's founders or their offspring. And one of the key issues which drove the hero of New Orleans into the presidency was popular anger at the central bank.
The 2010 mid-term elections and the general election in 2012 likewise promise to see the unseating of an entrenched elite and the start of an extended period of political instability in America. Below we discuss why a "yes" vote for Ben Bernanke may doom members of the Senate in both parties who are up for re-election to defeat in November.
The White House is telling members of the Senate that a vote in support of Ben Bernanke will not be a political liability. Indeed, in meetings and telephone calls, President Obama is urging a "yes" vote on Bernanke as a way to support the recovery of the US economy. The White House also claims that the defeat of Bernanke will be bad for the financial markets.
But wait a minute. Fewer than 1 in 5 Americans support the re-nomination of Chairman Bernanke, a remarkable poll statistic since few members of Congress much less most Americans have any idea about the job responsibilities of Bernanke and other Fed governors. More, Chairman Bernanke was a Bush appointee, and then reappointed by Obama, so he is associated with two unpopular political figures. His confirmation is being managed by Linda Robertson, the former chief lobbyist of Enron. Chairman Bernanke is toxic measured in any political terms and is perceived as more friendly to Wall Street than Main Street by a 2 to 1 margin.
A vote for Bernanke is an endorsement of all financial policies undertaken from 2007-2009. These issues are not going away, and will remain salient for the foreseeable future, especially as credit remains tight and the real economy continues to shrink. Indeed, the negative impact of the Bernanke years could doom President Obama and many incumbent members of the House and Senate. And while the markets might initially react negatively to a defeat of Chairman Bernanke's re-nomination, the impact of his continued service at the Fed in the weeks and months ahead may be far more problematic, both for global financial markets and political careers. Balance at the link.
Since December 2007, when the current downturn began, the ranks of federal employees earning $100,000 and up has skyrocketed. According to a recent analysis by USA Today, federal workers making six-figure salaries - not including overtime and bonuses - jumped from 14 percent to 19 percent of civil servants during the recession's first 18 months.'' The surge has been especially pronounced among the highest-paid employees. At the Defense Department, for example, the number of civilian workers making $150,000 or more quintupled from 1,868 to 10,100. At the recession's start, the Transportation Department was paying only one person a salary of $170,000. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees were drawing paychecks that size.
All the while, the federal government has been adding jobs at a 10,000-a-month clip. Between December 2007 and June 2009, federal payrolls exploded by nearly 10 percent. Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time in pay and hiring,'' USA Today observes, during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector.'' And to add public-sector insult to private-sector injury, data from the Office of Personnel Management show the average federal salary is now roughly $71,000 - about 76 percent higher than the average private salary.
Needless to say, it isn't only at the federal level that government pay and perks increasingly outstrip those in the private sector.
In Ohio, a joint reporting effort by the state's eight largest newspapers found that even in a time of severe budget cuts, one expense government leaders have not cut is pensions for their workers.'' The annual public pension tab in Ohio, currently $4.1 billion, is growing by around $700 million per year. Retirement incomes for the most experienced government employees top out at 88 percent of their active-duty pay,'' writes James Nash of the Columbus Dispatch. Unlike most private-sector workers, whose retirement is driven by the strength of the stock market and 401(k) plans, government employees' pensions are guaranteed.''
Moreover, government retirees in Ohio enjoy taxpayer-provided health care, and in many cases can retire at 48. Especially egregious are double-dippers'' - public employees who retire'' and get a full pension while returning to work and collecting a paycheck. In 2009, double-dippers were paid nearly a billion dollars by Buckeye State public-pension systems.
Ohio is hardly unique. A public-pension tsunami is beginning to inundate government budgets at every level. As more and more of taxpayers' earnings are confiscated to fund outsize public-sector benefits, the backlash from the private sector will only grow angrier and more intense.
We are about to get run over by a locomotive,'' warned California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in his State of the State address this month. Over the past decade, he said, pension costs for state employees swelled 2,000 percent - but revenues only increased 24 percent. The state has had to come up with funds to close that gap - funds diverted from our universities, our parks, and other government functions.''
Public-employee unions fiercely defend their pay and pensions, but even union-friendly Democrats are starting to acknowledge the inevitable. The deal used to be that civil servants were paid less than private sector workers in exchange for an understanding that they had job security for life,'' former San Francisco mayor and California Assembly speaker Willie Brown recently wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle. But we politicians, pushed by our friends in labor, gradually expanded pay and benefits . . . while keeping the job protections and layering on incredibly generous retirement packages . . . Talking about this is politically unpopular . . . But at some point, someone is going to have to get honest about the fact.''
A showdown is coming, and more likely sooner than later. Taxpayers will put up with a lot, but their patience has its limits.
#1
--- The core of the problem is that the public cannot afford to pay much longer for the GIGANTIC defined-benefits public pensions their rulers have bound them to by contract.
--- Unfortunately the writer did not give of total the expected future liability for public pensions. He just mentioned recent annual outlays.
--- IANAL & AFAICT, the only way out is bankruptcy of the public organizations who have gotten into this fix, and turning over the obligation to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which at some point, will also require a taxpayer bailout.
--- Just recently was published the news that the majority of union workers in this country are now working for the government. This happened as union workers for the private sector have lost their jobs.
--- Someone remind me of why unions of public employees are legal in the first place? When that happened, taxpayers lost their ability to run their own governments.
#3
Hey,,, pensions in the private sector have been taken over by creditors when under bankruptcy... IANAL, but AFAICT there is no obligation for creditors to do this. Go to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. web site & read some of the entries. Many of them read like this: The PBGC stepped in because the pension plan faced abandonment after the company, in bankruptcy, sold substantially all of it assets to buyers unwilling to assume the plan.
It is lunacy for anyone to assume the liability of a defined-benefit pension plan without a huge pile of cash to lessen the pain. It is lunacy for state & local governments to attempt to support such. As we will see.
#4
Anguper Hupomosing9418
I take it you and I speak a different variant of English....
Nobody covered the pensions of United etc...
They were garnished by the bankruptcy judge to pay off the corporation's creditors.
None of them covered the United workers.... rather robbed them....
Ex-NBA player rips Haiti, compares country to 'homeless men'
Updated Jan 27, 2010 1:35 PM ET
Paul Shirley has probably become public enemy No. 1 in Haiti and elsewhere.
The former NBA player posted a long column online in response to the earthquake disaster in Haiti in which he criticized Haitian citizens and said he won't donate to relief efforts.
"I haven't donated to the Haitian relief effort for the same reason that I don't give money to homeless men on the street," he wrote. "Based on past experiences, I don't think the guy with the sign that reads 'Need You're Help' is going to do anything constructive with the dollar I might give him. If I use history as my guide, I don't think the people of Haiti will do much with my money either."
And he didn't stop there, even writing a letter to the people of Haiti.
"Dear Haitians," he wrote, "First of all, kudos on developing the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Your commitment to human rights, infrastructure, and birth control should be applauded.
"As we prepare to assist you in this difficult time, a polite request: If it's possible, could you not re-build your island home in the image of its predecessor? Could you not resort to the creation of flimsy shanty- and shack-towns? And could some of you maybe use a condom once in a while?"
He also asked what's being done to prevent this tragedy from happening again, using New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina as an example.
"We did the same after Hurricane Katrina," he said. "We were quick to vilify humans who were too slow to respond to the needs of victims, forgetting that the victims had built and maintained a major city below sea level in a known target zone for hurricanes. Our response: Make the same mistake again. Rebuild a doomed city, putting aside logic as we did."
Shirley has been dropped as a freelance writer for ESPN for his comments on Haiti.
#4
Haiti was a deeply messed-up place long before the earthquake. That's far more the fault of a long series of kleptomaniac tyrants than of the people unfortunate enough to live under their misrule, but let's be generous and say it's a debatable point.
This is not the time to be saying what he said in that way. Whatever flaws Hatian culture may have did not cause the earthquake. This earthquake caused 200,000+ deaths in a population of 10 million--that's over 2% of the population wiped out in less than an hour. Total casualties, of course, are much higher. Holding your tongue at a time like this is not "political correctness," it's simple decency.
Remember Michael Moore complaining that the 9/11 terrorists should have attacked a city in a state that went for Bush? Remember Kos cheering the murder of Americans in Fallujah? Remember all those sick bastards who cheered 9/11 and said we deserved it? Disgusting, weren't they? No class, right?
This is just as bad.
Posted by: Mike ||
01/27/2010 19:47 Comments ||
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#5
I disagree Mike. He doesn't blame them for the earthquake although he makes a wrong assertion that a 7.0 quake could be prevented like NoLa being built in a known flood plane. Different issues. Comparing this guy to Kos or fat Moore is way off the mark. Matter of fact his basic points are what I hear many well thought out people say every day. Haiti is a cesspool, I blame both its leaders and its people and their culture or lack there of. I also blame all those well-intentioned but foolish folks who keep enabling them with blind donations and no accountability.
#6
What BH6 said. sorry those folks got the short end of the stick when the quake hit, but there didn't seem to be a lot of self directed effort in looking for survivors and such; just wandering around and wondering about when is the help gonna get here? Comparisons to post katrina N.O. are warranted, no self support, just looting, chaos and hands out for help whining.
#2
Not a good decision. Mexico is the house next door that a murderer could easily get out of, cross the border, exact revenge on witnesses to the US crime and then go back into Mexico. If in a US Penitentiary, no worries. We just raise the tarriff on imported tomatoes to cover the cost of the criminals that the Democrats import in from Mexico.
#3
A better idea is to, under American management, outsource our more expensive medical care to Mexico. Things like US built extended care facilities, nursing homes and hospices.
They are nonsensically expensive in the US, and generally deliver a low quality of care, with a low ratio of caregivers to patients. Mexico has a lot of English speaking, qualified medical personnel, a good legal environment, few government regulations, etc.
So instead of grandmother lying in her own feces and urine for eight hours a day, while staring at painted brick walls for entertainment, for $500 a day, she gets two or three people watching over her and taking care of her needs, cooking fresh food, talking with her and keeping her clean, etc., for about $50 a day. And if she needs medical care, she gets it promptly, as well as low priced surgery and prescription drugs.
I came across this quite by accident, Jim Cramer's article on MSN's 'Top Stock' titled, 'If Obama pipes down, we might be all right'.
While I didn't take any real notice of the article stub on the Top Stock page at first (I was browsing the page content), I happened to notice the EXTREME dichotomy between comments on the articles. Most articles were averaging 1 or 2 comments, while Jim Cramer's article garnered 461 COMMENTS!!!
I set about reading several pages of comments and came away scratching my head. It's enough of a curiousity that I'm posting it here, interested to read other RBer opinion on this. There are a couple of kneejerk reactions I have to this, but there seems to be something deeper that caused this MAJOR reaction to Cramer's article on an otherwise hardly-noticed MSN page.
If you're curious about it as well, please add your .02 on it.
#2
Hmmm. Does it have anything to do with the site MSN? Is that a site for left-thinking surfers? I don't go there and don't know the usual speel of comments. But it seems that that site attracts moonbats versus patriots.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
01/27/2010 9:18 Comments ||
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#3
The problem ignored by most of these types and only vaguely hinted at by most commenters is that our problems were not caused by capitalism. They were caused, and exaggerated, by corporatism (aka crony capitalism, rent-seeking, fascism)
It is the system where big corporations like GS and Bear and Citi make their money by gaming the political system rather than playing in the true free market world that has caused this mess.
Regulations should basically enforce fairness and transparency in the market, NOT, look to prop up some at the expense of others, even when those others are the ones paying you off with campaign money.
One thing you find out pretty quickly when dealing with beltway press is that Rahm Emanuel is a source for most of them, and that they're generally unwilling to criticize him lest they blow up one of their best sources of White House spin. So, it's rare that a journalist (in this case the Wall Street Journal's Peter Wallsten, recently arrived from the LA Times) runs a non-lapdog profile.
Most amusing to me was the fact that he finally got the goods about Rahm's famous Veal Pen tirade, when Rahm showed up at the Common Purpose meeting and lambasted the liberal interest groups because MoveOn was running radio ads against Blue Dogs. Previously it had been reported that Rahm called them "f*#king stupid," even though the scuttlebut was that Rahm said they were "f*#king retards." It's a tight-lipped crowd to penetrate, and nobody wants to get zapped from the meetings for talking to the press. But Wallsten managed to get the story: Looks like he may have tangled with the Common Purpose Crowd, possibly the CBC. Is it under the bus time for Rahm?
#3
Fking Retarded ...considering the audience, isn't that something of a racist term? The scales of "exceptionalism" must have at long last fallen from Rham's Type A eyes.
#5
Retards are fair targets for the mainstream left, Besoeker. It ties into the whole hate-on-Downs Syndrome thing they were hot on during the Palin freakout. Part and parcel of the eugenicist element of the pro-abortions crowd.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
01/27/2010 11:57 Comments ||
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#6
Retards are fair targets for the mainstream left, Besoeker. It ties into the whole hate-on-Downs Syndrome thing they were hot on during the Palin freakout. Part and parcel of the eugenicist element of the pro-abortions crowd.
Posted by Mitch H
Quite right Mitch. I quickly I forget. Abortion prevents those harmful greenhouse gas and Zyklon B oven emissions.
#7
P2k, not sure about the source of that quote...but I do know that one favorite of this gang o' idiots, Alinsky, once famously said "I feel confident that I could persuade a millionaire on a Friday to subsidize a revolution for Saturday out of which he would make a huge profit on Sunday even though he was certain to be executed on Monday."
#10
Retards are fair targets for the mainstream left, Besoeker. It ties into the whole hate-on-Downs Syndrome thing they were hot on during the Palin freakout. Part and parcel of the eugenicist element of the pro-abortions crowd.
When identified before birth, 92% of children with Downs Syndrome are executed before birth... oh, I'm sorry: their pregnancies are terminated. Often this is because the pediatrician bombards the mother with half-facts, anecdotal information, and outdated research about people with Downs syndrome. It's deliberate genocide, plane and simple.
The Democrats are 100% all about this sort of thing. It's a hangover from the old progressive eugenics craze of the 30's, which Hitler put an end to by simply being more progressive than anybody else - and Emanuel has a point, because they haven't thought it through all the way. If people with Down's aren't desirable and have no right to life, how about people with Ashbergers? OCD? Bad eyesight? If there is such a thing as a "gay gene," how much do you want to be we see something like 92% in another category? Will it be genocide then?
I have a daughter with Downs syndrome. She is very sweet, pretty, and as far as I can tell (she's still very young) intelligent enough. When I lived in San Francisco I constantly surrounded by people with less to offer the human race than her... most of whom would think that her existence is "unfortunate."
In Appraising Obama's Foreign Policy: From Hope to Audacity, Zbigniew Brzezinski, described Obama's, and his, world view which he characterized as "reconnect(ing) the United States with the emerging historical context of the twenty-first century."
To this end, he writes Obama "has comprehensively reconceptualized U.S. foreign policy with respect to several centrally important geopolitical issues". I shall comment on each of these in turn.
Islam is not an enemy, and the "global war on terror" does not define the United States' current role in the world;
This has always been America's policy. Even Bush 44, with his neocon stalwarts, refused, after 9/11, to identify the enemy as Islam. He avoided naming the enemy by declaring "war on terror". He went so far as to declare Islam, "a religion of peace".
What Obama has done differently was to publicly praise Islam, at the expense of truth and to bow down to its titular head, the King of Saudi Arabia. He has moved from tolerance to overt partnership.
But a form of partnership has existed between Britain, US and the Arab oil interests ever since last century's thirties. The British worked with the Arabs in the Middle East to thwart Germany's expansion there all at the expense of Jewish settlement rights. In the late seventies Britain, with the complicity of the US brought about the downfall of the Shah because the Shah wanted to have an independent oil policy and not one controlled by Britain.
According to "A Century Of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order", by William Engdahl, a German historian.
Their scheme was based on a detailed study of the phenomenon of Islamic fundamentalism, as presented by British Islamic expert, Dr. Bernard Lewis, then on assignment at Princeton University in the United States. Lewis's scheme, which was unveiled at the May 1979 Bilderberg meeting in Austria, endorsed the radical Muslim Brotherhood movement behind Khomeini, in order to promote balkanization of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. Lewis argued that the West should encourage autonomous groups such as the Kurds, Armenians, Lebanese Maronites, Ethiopian Copts, Azerbaijani Turks, and so forth. The chaos would spread in what he termed an 'Arc of Crisis,' which would spill over into Muslim regions of the Soviet Union.
So not only was this scheme intended to protect British oil interests in Iran, it was also intended to put pressure on the Soviets.
In a Counterpunch translation of interview of Zbigniew Brzezinski in Le Nouvel Observateur (France) 1998, Brzezinski took pride in having brought on the Russian defeat in Afghanistan by supporting "some stirred up Moslems", the Mujahedeen, and dismissed the idea that "Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today". He said,.
Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries.
Pres Reagan continued this policy of working with Islamic fundamentalists when he rescued Arafat and his minions from total destruction by the IDF in Beirut. What other reason could there have been other than to use them one day to put pressure on Israel to return to the '67 armistice lines.
Present Clinton also co-opted Islamic fundamentalist, this time from Kosovo, to dismember Serbia in order to reduce the power of Russia.
Obama's policies totally reflect this mentality in his downplaying the "war on terror" and overplaying "engagement". Obama wants to deal with each Moslem country as though it was not part of the whole of them, as though they aren't all followers of Islam as represented by the Koran or "The Holy Koran" as he refers to it.
Saudi Arabian fundamentalism has invaded Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Europe, US and parts of Africa. It has influenced the Muslim Brotherhood which is attempting to overthrow Egypt. Al Qaeda is an outgrowth of such fundamentalism. Iran with its Shiite brand of Islamic fundamentalism has taken over Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza at least politically if not religiously. Iraq with its 60% Shiite population could fall to them and already Turkey is cozying up to them.
Yet Brzezinski and Obama maintain "Islam is not an enemy" even while the fundamentalists and the Arab street attack America as the Great Satin and not Russia.
Remember that Brzezinski was a founder the Trilateral Commission along with Rockefeller, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and has attended meetings of the Bilderberg Group. Thus he strongly favours World Government and its institutions as does Obama. Nation states, such as Israel, are in their way. They find common cause with Islam because Islam too favours its own version of world government, namely, the Caliphate.
the United States will be a fair-minded and assertive mediator when it comes to attaining lasting peace between Israel and Palestine;
This conflict is so politicized as to make it impossible for anyone to be "fair minded" or "even handed" or any other liberal balm. While these notions sound great, they both ignore the facts and the law. You cannot do this and reach a "just" solution.
The US and Britain are just as determined to undermine Israel as they were the Shah and for the same reason, oil. How can they be "fair minded" or trusted?
"assertive mediator" is an oxymoron. Mediation is not arbitration. The role of the mediator is to help the parties reconcile their differences without coercion. To assertively mediate is to coerce. Obama certainly has been coercive to Israel. But all US administrations have been coercive to varying degrees. The difference being that Obama intends to impose a solution if he can.
Brzezinski and Obama propose that
1. "Jerusalem has to be shared, and shared genuinely".
2. "a settlement must be based on the 1967 lines, but with territorial swaps"
3. "US or NATO station troops along the Jordon River".
4. "Palestinian refugees should not be granted the right of return to what is now Israel."
He argues that
"It is important to remember that although the Israeli and Palestinian populations are almost equal in number, under the 1967 lines the Palestinian territories account for only 22 percent of the old British mandate, whereas the Israeli territories account for 78 percent."
How could a man of his experience be so wrong. Israel together with Judea, Samaria and Gaza comprise 22% of the Mandate. The rest was given to Jordan in 1922. Now the international community wants Israel to divide up the 22% remaining, leaving even less for Israel than the 22%.
He wants the refugees "to be resettled within the Palestinian state. They number in the many millions. How could Judea and Samaria possibly accommodate them. Imagine how destabilizing that would be. I venture to say that the present Arab inhabitants would be the most vociferous opponents to such an influx.
Would it not be a better solution to resettle them all in Jordan. Not only is Jordan Palestine, its population is 60% Palestinian. Thus there would be no need to divide Jerusalem or put foreign troops along the Jordan.
the United States ought to pursue serious negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, as well as other issues;
The US, even under Bush, has been unwilling to really challenge Iran, preferring to talk them out of their agenda. Obama made engagement with Iran, a political platform. After a year of trying to engage Iran in a most humiliating manner, he has achieved nothing. And yet Brzezinski is still beating the same drum. Give it up already.
What might the "other issues" be? Presumably, Middle East hegemony.
How much hegemony is he or Obama prepared to concede? If none or very little, there is no point in negotiations. Besides, what would Saudi Arabia and Egypt have to say about this, to say nothing about Israel.
Brzezinski argues
But it is still possible, perhaps through a more intrusive inspection regime, to fashion a reasonably credible arrangement that prevents weaponization.
It would not be conducive to serious negotiations if the United States were to persist in publicly labeling Iran as a terrorist state, as a state that is not to be trusted, as a state against which sanctions or even a military option should be prepared.
Sanctions must punish those in power -- not the Iranian middle class, as an embargo on gasoline would do. The unintended result of imposing indiscriminately crippling sanctions would likely be to give the Iranians the impression that the United States' real objective is to prevent their country from acquiring even a peaceful nuclear program -- and that, in turn, would fuel nationalism and outrage.
Obama is following this prescription to a "T", without good results I might add. He is even unwilling to seriously support the opposition with words to say nothing of deeds.
the counterinsurgency campaign in the Taliban-controlled parts of Afghanistan should be part of a larger political undertaking, rather than a predominantly military one;
He wants to engage with "receptive elements of the Taliban" arguing that "the Taliban are not a global revolutionary or terrorist movement, ... they do not directly threaten the West." But they do host al Qaeda who is a threat.
His prescription is to enlist the majority Afghans to defeat them. Does this not oppose the idea of engaging them? Will this plan work? The US has been trying for the last five years or so to build up Iraqi forces to maintain order. Many believe that were the US to withdraw from Iraq as Obama intends, that the Iraqi forces would not be able to do so. So much more so, for Afghanistan.
Brzezinski recognizes that the support of Pakistan is a prerequisite but recognizes how difficult this would be.
Given that many Pakistanis may prefer a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan to a secular Afghanistan that leans toward Pakistan's archival, India, the United States needs to assuage Pakistan's security concerns in order to gain its full cooperation in the campaign against the irreconcilable elements of the Taliban.
Will this result in ceding Afghanistan to the fundamentalists? Pakistan wants to focus the war in Afghanistan rather than Pakistan and thus has different objectives to those of the US. So the US will have to reconcile her objectives with those of the Pakistani's, to gain their cooperation.
the United States should respect Latin America's cultural and historical sensitivities and expand its contacts with Cuba;
Is that another way of saying that the US should accept that they are socialists?
the United States ought to energize its commitment to significantly reducing its nuclear arsenal and embrace the eventual goal of a world free of nuclear weapons;
Coming from the master of real politique, that's quite a fantasy.
in coping with global problems, China should be treated not only as an economic partner but also as a geopolitical one;
improving U.S.-Russian relations is in the obvious interest of both sides, although this must be done in a manner that accepts, rather than seeks to undo, post-Cold War geopolitical realities; and
a truly collegial transatlantic partnership should be given deeper meaning, particularly in order to heal the rifts caused by the destructive controversies of the past few years.
#1
Uh - excuse me? Can't even figure out what's going on here, other than sheer idiocy, of course. The idea of Bambi conceptualizing anything more important than which tired cliche to employ in his next soporific and brainless public address is laughable.
ISLAMABAD US covert organisation Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) notorious reputation to eliminate its enemies' is known well to the world and its intensive efforts, which have been underway since long, to form a vicious alliance with Israel and India have finally begun to show.
For the last couple of years, the United States has been immensely pressurising Iran to curtail its nuclear programme. However, after Iran has refused to succumb to Western pressures regarding UN-brokered deal about uranium enrichment and has placed certain conditions on nuclear fuel swamp, US and its Western allies are desperate to tighten the noose around the country. A prosperous nuclear Iran is seen as a major threat to US and Israel. To curtail this threat, both the countries have intensified ties with India and are using Afghanistan as an outfit to tame' Pakistan, Iran and China as well. To mention the most, Iran has lately confronted assassinations and abductions of its nuclear scientists.
After the assassination of prominent Iranian nuclear scientist Dr Massoud Ali-Mohammadi on January 12 last in a motorbike explosion in Tehran, the Speaker of Iran's Parliament Ali Larijani categorically accused Israel and CIA of the heinous killing. We had received clear information a few days before the assassination that the intelligence service of the Zionist regime, with the cooperation of the CIA, were seeking to carry out a terrorist act in Tehran,' Larijani had told a news agency, a day after the killing took place.
Another nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri at Malek Ashtar University in Tehran was abducted while he was on his way to Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage in June 2009. Iran had accused US of involvement in the abduction.
Back in 2007, Times Online reported that Ardeshire Hassanpour, a nuclear physicist, had been assassinated by Mossad, the notorious Israeli intelligence agency.
Hassanpour reportedly worked at a plant in Isfahan that produced and processed Uranium Hexafluoride gas required for enrichment of uranium in another Iranian plant. Rheva Bhalla of Stratfor, the US intelligence company, claimed then that Hassanpour had been targeted by Mossad and that there was very strong intelligence' to suggest that he had been assassinated by the Israelis, who have repeatedly threatened to refrain Iran from acquiring the nuclear bomb.
Apart from that, as reported by US Homeland Security Newswire and local Indian media, Israel and India, in December last year, had a series of meetings of joint defence working group focussing counterterrorism and intelligence sharing, delivery of weapons and enhancement of cooperation in research and development. Chinese news agency Xinhuanet's report quoted a defence official privy to the meeting as saying that the main focus of the talks was on enhancing the counterterrorism cooperation based on intelligence sharing in the wake of Mumbai terror attacks.
More importantly, this meeting followed a low-profile visit of Israeli Chief of Defence Staff, Lt Gen Gabi Ashkenazi to India earlier in the same month, during which he had met the top brass of the Indian armed forces. According to the news service, these developments can be evaluated in the pretext of reports that India has bought military hardware and software from Israel worth $8bn since 1999, making India the biggest buyer of Israeli arms across the globe.
Given that the US barely sees any signs of success in its so-called war on terror in Afghanistan, US and Israel are encouraging Indian military and economic presence in Afghanistan to serve the purpose. While Pakistan is asked to do more' the US and India, with the help of pro-American Afghan government, are all set to engage likeminded' and moderate Taliban into talks, to use them for destabilising Pakistan and Iran. Under the scenario, the situation deems fit into what is described by some analysts as FINISH plan, abbreviated from financial ruin, infrastructure destruction, nuclear scientists elimination, Indian hegemony, seizing of physical nuclear weapons and harassing Pakistan's leadership and its public.'
Posted by: john frum ||
01/27/2010 05:48 ||
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Around this time last year, U.N. leaders decided that the best way to cut rampant corruption in its ranks was to aggressively ... stop looking for it.
They yanked funding for a special anti-corruption task force that the U.N. created in 2006 after the infamous oil-for-food scandal. They promised that they were just consolidating the task force into an existing U.N. division, not killing its investigations.
Move along, folks! Nothing to see here!
But we suspected the U.N. task force had been too successful, that it had mightily embarrassed U.N. leaders and member countries.
Remember, the task force had exposed about $630 million in allegedly tainted contracts. Its work led to criminal convictions of a U.N. employee and a contractor, and disciplinary actions against 17 other U.N. employees. It triggered the suspension or banishment of more than 45 private companies from the contracting process. There were scores more investigations in the pipeline.
So what has happened since then? Exactly what we feared. The Associated Press reported recently that the U.N. has "cut back sharply" on corruption and fraud investigations, including five major cases in Afghanistan, Iraq and Africa. It dismissed most former task force investigators and the highly regarded leader of the unit.
And then there was this astonishing paragraph: "Over the past year, not a single significant fraud or corruption case has been completed, compared with an average 150 cases a year investigated by the task force. The permanent investigation division decided not to even pursue about 95 cases left over when the task force ceased operation, while another 80 unfinished cases have languished."
Not a single significant case.
U.N. officials insist insist! that their commitment to root out corruption is undiminished. "The investigations division, I am convinced, is doing a very good job, and is continuing the good work," U.N. management chief Angela Kane told the AP.
Not a single significant case, Ms. Kane.
Here's what else that AP investigation found:
Several task force reports involving accusations of major theft or embezzlement by U.N. staffers languish on the desk of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
The few investigators who remain are hamstrung, using a standardized form to interview witnesses, rather than relying on case-specific examination techniques and pointed questioning.
Officials changed guidelines so that U.N. staff members can get away with fraud, embezzlement or theft, simply by quitting their jobs.
For years, U.N. leaders snoozed while Saddam Hussein skimmed money and shoveled out kickbacks to U.N. officials and 4,700 companies worldwide. That was embarrassing to the U.N., but apparently not as embarrassing as all those future cases of bid-rigging, bribery and corruption that the special task force would ferret out. So it's nap time again.
U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice told the AP that the loss of the task force "remains a source of concern to the United States." It's a lot more than that. It's a worldwide disgrace.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Since December 2007, when the current downturn began, the ranks of federal employees earning $100,000 and up has skyrocketed. According to a recent analysis by USA Today, federal workers making six-figure salaries - not including overtime and bonuses - jumped from 14 percent to 19 percent of civil servants during the recession's first 18 months.'' The surge has been especially pronounced among the highest-paid employees. At the Defense Department, for example, the number of civilian workers making $150,000 or more quintupled from 1,868 to 10,100. At the recession's start, the Transportation Department was paying only one person a salary of $170,000. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees were drawing paychecks that size.
In Appraising Obama's Foreign Policy: From Hope to Audacity, Zbigniew Brzezinski, described Obama's, and his, world view which he characterized as "reconnect(ing) the United States with the emerging historical context of the twenty-first century."
Around this time last year, U.N. leaders decided that the best way to cut rampant corruption in its ranks was to aggressively ... stop looking for it.
