Thomas Lifson Something appears to be going on inside the ruling circles of Saudi Arabia. Which means that something is up among the various branches of the Saud family, with its thousands of princes. On this family rests ownership of the world's largest pool of oil and the balance of power in the Middle East, not to mention the principal funding of radical Islamism.
James Lewis a few days ago noted the sudden departure of Ambarassador Sultan Al-Turki and speculated it might have something to do with worries over Iranian pilgrims soon to arrive in large numbers for the Hajj (which begins the day after Christmas). Al Turki has a background in the Saudi intelligence services, and might have been called back to handle a possible Shia challenge to Sunni guardianship of Mecca and Medina, source of legitimacy for the Sauds.
No country today is as misunderstood as North Korea. Journalists still refer to it as a Stalinist or communist state, when in fact it espouses a race-based nationalism such as the West last confronted during the Pacific War. Pyongyang's propaganda touts the moral superiority of the Korean race, condemns South Korea for allowing miscegenation, and stresses the need to defend the Dear Leader with kyeolsa, or dare-to-die spirit--the Korean version of the Japanese kamikaze slogan kesshi. The six-party talks are therefore less likely to replicate the successes of Cold War détente than the negotiating failures of the 1930s. According to early reports from Beijing, the North Korean delegation appears more confident than ever. It has clearly been emboldened not only by its accession to the nuclear club, but by the awareness that Seoul will continue providing food and financial support no matter what happens.
This support is not meant to expedite unification, which South Koreans are happy to put off indefinitely. Nor has it much to do with concern for starving children; by now everyone knows where the "humanitarian" aid really goes. No, the desire to help North Korea derives in large part from ideological common ground. South Koreans may chuckle at the personality cult, but they generally agree with Pyongyang that Koreans are a pure-blooded race whose innate goodness has made them the perennial victims of rapacious foreign powers. They share the same tendency to regard Koreans as innocent children on the world stage--and to ascribe evil to foreigners alone. In other words, it ain't called "the Hermit Kingdom" for nothin'.
Though the North expresses itself more stridently on such matters, there is no clear ideological divide such as the one that separated West and East Germany. Bonn held its nose when conducting Ostpolitik. Seoul pursues its sunshine policy with respect for Pyongyang.
I don't know enough about Korean culture to say for sure, but this theory sure seems to fit the facts.
I've had three or four reasonably close acquaintenances who were Korean, and I never sensed any sort of racial attitude from any of them. On the other hand, these people were South Koreans who had immigrated to the US--so I suspect that, like my own Scots and Irish and French and German ancestors, they were the ones who moved here to get away from all that Old Country stuff.
Posted by: Mike ||
12/24/2006 09:02 ||
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another reason to withdraw US forces
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/24/2006 9:41 Comments ||
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They share the same tendency to regard Koreans as innocent children on the world stage--and to ascribe evil to foreigners alone.
Given that they have been the battleground for over a 1,000 years between the Chinese and Japanese and then in the last 50 years between the East [China/Soviet] and West [US], its not too hard to grasp the xenophobic undercurrents. Take a look at someone else in the same strategic situation, the Belgiums. They certainly turned out to be an open tolerant society that exudes successful multi-culturalism and graceful relations with the US too. /sarcasm off
Regardless, the troops should have been pulled 10 years ago.
#4
Every time I state that I think America should pull its troops out of South Korea immediately in front of my Korean friends over here, I get the "staring down at my shoes because I know I've made a mistake" response. The South Koreans are happy as hell to knock America all they want--just as long as they have Uncle Sam sitting here with 37K troops holding the nuclear umbrella over their heads.
They pay $790 million per year to support our troops, the stationing of which costs us at least $3 billion, and that doesn't include a hell of a lot of our expenses. If we were smart, we'd tell the South and their anti-American president Roh that ANY further anti-American demonstrations would be considered prima facie evidence of a desire for the US to leave and we would act accordingly. That crap would stop in a major league hurry because the South DOES NOT want our troops to go.
The Korean people aren't stupid by any means. Deep down they know damned well that we're the best friends they EVER had and the ONLY ones who don't want something from them. Right now they've got Japan demanding a nub of rock off the east coast called Dokdo, and the Chinese making noises about how parts of Korea that were Chinese during the Gorhyo dynasty really should be given back to China. Both claims are serious, too, and Korea on its own couldn't hope to fight off the Japs much less the Chinese. Without our help they're screwed and they know it. That's why you've had street protests against the SK Government attended by big numbers of Korean ex-Secretaries of Defense and retired flag-rank officers of all services. These people aren't living in some dream world; they KNOW South Korea is in a tough neighborhood and can't go it alone.
That said, the South Koreans hate to be dependent and there is this romantic attachment to the idea of the North as the repository of the "real" Korean culture. There's also, as I have posted before, the deathly fear of having the North collapse and having the South stuck with the bill for reunification; that's what really scares them.
They're in an uncomfortable spot and the path of least resistance for them is to a)kiss up to the North, and b)be as rude to us as we'll allow them to be so as to show they're "standing on their own." So, as long as we'll let them do it, they'll spit on us in public and kiss our butts in private. Sounds like a lot of the rest of the world, no?
Posted by: mac ||
12/24/2006 15:30 Comments ||
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They consider themselves a special breed among mankind, and yet they are perfectly okay with the starvation of thousands, even millions of their own. It makes no sense.
In fact, it is lunacy, and yes, time to bring our troops home.
Gauhar is allegedly the ghostwriter for Perv's book "In the line of fire"
By Humayun Gauhar
Things are not always what they seem, I said last Sunday. There is reality and there is manufactured reality. Manufactured reality is a sort of illusion that creates a certain public perception in order to justify a particular project. For example, a particular virus can be let loose (and I dare say, has been) that causes an epidemic in an area. Then the sole manufacturer of the antidote moves in and conveniently provides the medicine and rakes in billions. Thank you very much!
There is more. There is manufactured reality and there is also manufactured foul. The term comes from the game of polo where players create a situation in which the other side unknowingly and foolishly commits a foul without realising it. Its a trap that opponents fall for. The Argentines started it but soon the authorities got wind of it and banned it. Now, if a referee feels that one side is trying to manufacture a foul, he intervenes. In world affairs too there are manufactured fouls to justify some action, usually nefarious. Cast your mind back to 1991 when the US ambassador to Iraq, April Gillespie, got Saddam Hussein imagining that if he attacked and occupied Kuwait he could get away with it. Saddam fell into the trap but after occupying Kuwait came the realisation that the United States would have none of it. If Saddam had done it of his own volition and wished to hang on to Kuwait, what was there to stop him from pressing on and reaching Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, in 36 to 48 hours and then striking a deal withdrawal from Saudi Arabia in return for Kuwait? Instead, he just sat in Kuwait while the USA took days first to build a coalition, get UN approval and then build up its forces in Saudi Arabia before it attacked Iraq and liberated Kuwait. Beautiful: first have a place occupied and then liberate it and earn billions of dollars from the Saudis, Kuwaitis and other gullible Arabs in return. Purpose? Not just the billions of dollars, though capitalism-gone-mad loves it, but the destruction of Iraqs arsenal that the same USA had provided it in its war against Iran (which too it almost certainly instigated by encouraging Saddam to attack a country in revolutionary turmoil), and to establish military bases in Saudi Arabia.
But where is the referee in world affairs? Well, its supposed to be the United Nations, but as a peacekeeping and conflict resolution institution it has failed miserably and has become a tool of US foreign policy. Most of the time it conveniently passes resolutions authorising America to undertake military intervention or slap economic sanctions on countries that need to be brought to heel. When it doesnt, as with the second 1993 attack on Iraq, the USA simply ignores the UN and ridicules it. According to the The Observer of London, outgoing UN secretary general Kofi Annan expressed frustration at the power the US wields over the UN in his parting speech So much for the referee.
Now consider the events of September 11, 2001 the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the crash of a commercial jetliner over Pennsylvania. Many writers (including this one), commentators and filmmakers have often wondered how someone sitting in a cave in Afghanistan with his kidneys attached to a dialysis machine could have pulled off such an audacious thing. And how could the USA, which monitors every phone conversation in the world and whose satellites can film a peasant girl in Sri Lanka picking tea or the number plate of a car on a road in Africa, have missed this one? American actor-director Michael Moore tried to question the assertion that Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda had the capacity to plan and pull off something like 9/11, but was effectively ridiculed with the help of the US and western global media which works in tandem with US foreign policy. Now comes a documentary called Loose Change, apparently released on the Internet but which I saw on DVD. If you havent seen it, I suggest you waste no time and go buy it or rent it from your local video shop and see it as soon as you can.
Loose Change too has been made by Americans and questions all US government assertions about 9/11. It makes no judgments; it only provides some historical background prior to 9/11 and backs what it says with official documents and films. For example, back in 1962 the US was planning terrorist attacks on its base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including replacing a commercial flight with an unmanned commercial jetliner and crashing it over the water near Cuba, in order to justify an attack on Cuba. Kennedy turned it down. The US has the ability to hijack planes from the ground. They show films of how buildings collapse in a concertina effect when explosives are strategically placed in it so that surrounding buildings are not damaged. The Twin Towers collapsed just like that. They show in slow motion flashes in both building as floors collapsed one after the other, suggesting that they were from explosives strategically planted inside the towers earlier. Inexplicably, explosive-detecting dogs were withdrawn from the WTC days before 9/11. There were $200 billion worth of gold ingots kept in the basement of the Twin Towers. They disappeared some days before 9/11, apparently because someone had prior knowledge of the attacks. An American billionaire, Larry A. Silverstein, purchased the WTC on July 24, 2001, and included terrorist attack in its insurance policy. The shares of American Airlines and Boeing dropped dramatically due to an inordinate number of put options being placed on them starting September 6, 2001.
Im getting ahead of myself. Osama bin Laden was secretly taken like a VIP to an American hospital in Dubai for treatment on July 4, 2001, where the local CIA chief met him. Osama started life as a CIA agent. Is he still one? American military and intelligence authorities practiced many simulated plane attacks like 9/11 before 9/11. There is no evidence of a jetliner having crashed in Pennsylvania except a hole in the ground no parts, no wreckage, no bodies. The same goes for the plane that purportedly crashed into the Pentagon no parts, no bodies, no nothing. The US government claims that everything was vaporised. They show that it could not have been at the heat generated and suggest that the hole in the Pentagons wall could have only been a cruise missile. As to the planes that hit the WTC, the calls made by passengers from mobile phones just could not have been made at those heights in those days and the recordings that have been released are manufactured, as indeed is the recently released recording from the cockpit black box of the Pennsylvania plane which claims that the passengers rushed the cockpit. If they have even a 10-second recording of someones voice, they can manufacture audio tapes that sound just like him hence so many recordings of Osama and Zawaheri saying exactly what the US administration would like them to say. Many of the hijackers identified by America are alive and well and living and working in other countries which suggests that someone took control of the planes from the ground. The WTC planes too were vaporised yet the passport of a hijacker was found virtually unscathed in the rubble. How come that was not vaporised too? There is more, much more.
Loose Change has to be seen to be believed. It will certainly leave you wondering. What about the callous deaths of so many Americans? Do you know what? Frankly my dear, they dont give a damn.
Posted by: john ||
12/24/2006 07:59 ||
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His father, Altaf Gauhar, was the PR man for another Pak dictator - General Ayub Khan
Posted by: john ||
12/24/2006 8:03 Comments ||
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Allegedly General Ayub Khans biography, Friends, Not Masters, was ghost-written by Altaf Gauhar.
And Perv choose the nutcase son to write his own "autobiography"...
Posted by: john ||
12/24/2006 8:06 Comments ||
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It's a Conspiracy! Deep laid, dark plots! Islam is under attack!
Btw, "loose change" was very appropriately aired on prime-time on the main sat/cable french documentary channel, for the 2006 anniversary of 9/11.
#4
I'm telling you, the sooner we create the Islamabad Crater, the better.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/24/2006 11:24 Comments ||
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Personally, I *love* conspiracy theories. They are like old Rube Goldberg machines but made of 'facts' and truthiness instead of common gadgets. It is disheartening to see how gullible and stupid my fellow humans are, though.
Forwarded to me and others from "Bucky."
SINE PARI
John P. Pryor
is a trauma surgeon at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a major in the U.S. Army Reserve Medical Corps. He has just returned from a tour of active duty in which he was the general/trauma surgeon for the 344th Combat Support Hospital in Abu Ghraib, Iraq.
Today the warning came over the radio: "Urgent litter coming in by ground." I immediately went to the Emergency Treatment Room (ETR).
"IED, Marines," was all the nurse said as I walked in, IED meaning "improvised explosive device." The hospital staff went into full swing. These people are at the end of a yearlong deployment here. They are experienced, hardened, and cool under pressure, their activities programmed and efficient. I took my position at the head of bed number one, put my head down, and waited.
Within a few minutes, the litter team burst into the ETR. The patient's arms dangled off the stretcher with bone exposed, and I immediately knew that this was going to be a bad one. When the litter was pulled beside the bed, I saw the full extent of what I was up against. Driver, I thought to myself. Drivers always seem to get the full force. There is a pungent smell of gasoline and burned flesh.
By ANSHEL PFEFFER
It's hard to understand what there was to be gained by Saturday night's summit at the prime minister's residence in Rehavia that couldn't have been achieved over the phone or via emissaries. Abu Mazen can't deliver the two things that Israel wants most: a serious undertaking to stop firing Kassam rockets and the release of Shalit. Hamas, which holds Shalit, and Islamic Jihad, which continues to launch Kassams despite the so-called cease-fire, have no interest in doing Abbas any favors and he has little ability to enforce his will. Olmert might want to bolster Abbas's position by granting him a few concessions, including the release of Palestinian prisoners, but his precarious political position doesn't allow him to take any significant steps.
After a summer of costly operations in Lebanon and Gaza failed to free of any of the three abducted soldiers, there is no way that Olmert can go first in any prisoner swap. Israeli public opinion just won't stand for it. In the end, despite holding out for a few weeks, the Palestinians had to make do with a few amorphous promises to set up a committee on the prisoners, "unfreeze" some of the Palestinian money being held by Israel, and ease restrictions on movement in the West Bank which were anyway preconditions for the meeting. In the absence of any concrete achievements, this couldn't have come at a worse time for Abbas; facing an all-out civil war between his Fatah and Hamas, the last thing he needs is footage of him being kissed twice on each cheek by Olmert. It's hard to see how his new friendship with Olmert is going to add to his popularity or make it any easier to reach a deal with PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.
So why did Abbas make the trip? Olmert has little to gain from a meeting with a chairman who can deliver nothing. He might say in every speech that he's interested in advancing the diplomatic process, but in reality, the last thing Olmert has time for is another fruitless round of talks, wasting valuable months while the Iranians get closer to a nuclear capability and Kadima's support continues to evaporate. But both leaders had no choice. The only thing propping up Abu Mazen is the financial and diplomatic support of the international community. If he wants to remain in the good graces of US President George W. Bush, he has to publicly distance himself from Hamas and make a show of talking to Olmert. This was the message conveyed last week by British Prime Minister Tony Blair when he visited the region.
Most likely, neither Bush nor Blair will be able to change Olmert's political fortunes. He does, however, need their support to ward off pressure to enter negotiations with Syria, and to provide Israel with the diplomatic cover it needs while it tries to find a way of meeting the Iranian threat. Bush and Blair have problems of their own and they desperately need to show their colleagues and electorates that they can also bring peace to the Middle East. Well, if not peace, at least some more optimistic pictures than those coming out of Baghdad every day.
Suppose for a moment that the birth in Bethlehem that Christians celebrate this week never happened --that it is, as the secularists would have it, mere mumbo jumbo, superstition, a myth. In other words, consider it not as an event but as a narrative. You want to launch a big new global movement from scratch. So what do you use?
The birth of a child.
If Christianity is just a myth, then it is, so to speak, an immaculately conceived one. On the one hand, what could be more powerless than a newborn babe? On the other, without a newborn babe, man is ultimately powerless. For, without new life, there can be no civilization, no society, no nothing.
"The world has collapsed," announces a BBC newsman in a new movie. "Only Britain soldiers on." Europe in 1940? No, 2027. Adapted from P.D. James' dystopian novel, Children Of Men is set on a planet in which humanity is barren. That's to say, it can no longer reproduce. And you'd be amazed at how much else collapses with the fertility rate.
You might have a hard time finding ''Children Of Men'' at your local multiplex. It's a more pertinent Christmas movie this holiday season than ''Bad Santa 3'' or ''The Santa Clause 8,'' but Universal seems to have got cold feet and all but killed the picture. In an enthusiastic review in Seattle Weekly, J. Hoberman observed: "Universal may have deemed 'Children' too grim for Christmas, but it is premised on a reverence for life that some might term religious." Granted, he's in the godless precincts of Seattle, that last bit of the sentence -- "some might" -- seems a tad qualified. Obviously, Christianity has a "reverence for life." So too does Judaism: all that begetting the eyes glaze over at in the Old Testament, going right back to God's injunction to be fruitful and multiply.
Continued on Page 49
#3
Read the book. Here's my Amazon review (2-star):
Author P.D. James starts with an interesting thesis in this dystopian novel: due to an unexplained, worldwide infertility crisis, there have been no children born for a generation. Society begins to unravel as it ages, and in the Britain of the near future democracy has been abandoned in favor of a 'Warden', Xan, who will keep the lights on, evacuate the outlying lands and allow civilization to come to a quiet end. Sex has become meaningless and people spend their remaining time in pointless pursuits. Against this, the protagonist Theo Faron, a frustrated academic, becomes involved in a plot over a rumor that there might be a fertile woman left in the world.
Unfortunately there are substantial problems with the characters. The biggest one: Theo Faron is a most unsympathetic protagonist. He's completely selfish and unlikable, and in the second half of the book it becomes clear that what motivates him in the end, similar to Xan, is possession of the woman. He's nothing more than an over-educated, pessimistic, nihilistic Neanderthal. The smaller characters in the conspiracy likewise are dull, dimwitted fools. I had much more sympathy for the Warden who was actually trying to manage an orderly implosion of the society that had been given to him.
Author James is an excellent technical writer -- the descriptions of people and places sing. The pace, though moderate, never drags. At the end though you're left with wondering, "it was all about ... THIS?"
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/24/2006 13:02 Comments ||
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Sounds about as cheerful and uplifting as Nevil Chute's "On the Beach". Same ending, too.
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.
