They had a lunatic convention in Madrid yesterday. They weren't certifiable lunatics, of course, but they might as well have been. No matter what their mental state, it certainly made the media sit up and take notice.
One hundred or so senors y senoritas threw off their clothes and threw themselves on the ground in the Spanish capital to protest Canada's annual seal hunt. We're pretty sure there's some sort of symbolism involved here, but we haven't quite zeroed in on what it is.
The lunatics smeared themselves with a red liquid that represented the blood that's spilled during the "massacre" (their word) of seals. Most of them were bare ass naked, but some of the more modest protestors wore red underwear.
"We want to sensitize people to the fact that animals are capable of feeling and suffering like us," said Silvia Toval, "and to protest against the massacre of hundreds of thousands of seals which is about to begin in Canada."
The seal hunt has been a tradition in Canada for 350 years. This year, the nation has approved killing 275,000 seals on the Atlantic coast.
Here's our take: The hunt is brutal. We don't want to see it. Don't even want to hear about it. We don't want to know how sausage is made, either. But we're not going to strip naked in Times Square in some sort of misguided pig protest.
Not after that last time. Look at your own risk, but this is certainly a more photogenic group than those 400+ Marin Count women who spelled out "peace" with their over-fed bodies on a local beach a few years ago. Many of those were in danger of being rolled into the water by concerned environmentalists, if not harpooned by a passing Japanese ship.
The Somali pirates are having a harder time taking merchant ships for ransom. It's not for lack of traffic. The Gulf of Aden, where most of the pirates operate, is one the busiest shipping lanes in the world (with nearly ten percent of world traffic). Each month, 1500-1600 ships pass the northern coast of Somalia. Last year, about one out of 200 ships was attacked. Because of that, the chances of getting attacked were so low that most crews did not pay much attention to it.
But the millions paid out in ransoms for the 42 ships that were taken, had to be paid for. Soon it was costing all ships an additional $20,000 in insurance, fuel and danger bonus costs to transit the 1,500 kilometer length of the Gulf of Aden. Owners incurred additional costs if one of their ships was seized, although insurance companies are willing to offer policies for that as well. So, in the past year, most owners have ordered their captains to prepare their crews for the possibility of pirate attacks while transiting the Gulf.
As a result, most merchant ships are more prepared for pirate attacks. They put on extra lookouts, especially at night, and often transit the 1,500 kilometer long Gulf of Aden at high speed (even though this costs them thousands of dollars in additional fuel). The pirates seek the slower moving, apparently unwary, ships, and go after them before they can speed up enough to get away. The international anti-piracy patrol offers convoy protection, but many ships don't want to halt and wait for a convoy to form. Ships that decide to proceed on their own, take additional precautions.
An example of these precautions can be seen in the experience of a Chinese cargo ship, the Zhenhua 4, last December. Back then, the ship was boarded by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden. The resolute crew retreated to their living quarters and called for help. As the pirates came aboard, the crew fought back with fire bombs and fire hoses, and refused to come out of the living quarters. The pirates fired at the crew, and were apparently perplexed at what to do. Meanwhile, a nearby Malaysian warship dispatched a helicopter, which shot at the pirates and caused them to flee in their speedboats. The crew of the Zhenhua 4 patched up the bullet holes and resumed their voyage.
The resistance on the Zhenhua 4 was no accident. The captain had worked out a drill to resist boarders, and had the crew rehearse it ten days before they were attacked. Moreover, the Chinese were aware that, on October 30th, 2007, a North Korean merchant ship, the Dai Hong Dan, was boarded by pirates off the coast of Somalia. The North Koreans managed to get off a distress message. The ship was in international waters, 108 kilometers off the coast, unloading sugar to smaller boats. This offshore unloading arrangement was supposed to protect the North Koreans from pirates. The pirates were actually armed guards hired to protect the crew from real pirates during this unloading operation. The North Koreans fought back, killed some of the pirates (and lost some crew members) and regained control of their ship.
The Internet have proved an invaluable tool for ships planning for the Aden run. Everyone knows of the measures used by the Zhenhua 4 and the North Koreans, but there are many more ideas that have not gotten much coverage in the mass media. For example, crews now make more use of the fire hoses, and collect large objects (sheets of metal, junked furniture and empty boxes) to be heaved overboard onto the pirate boats. Poles are fabricated for pushing away ladders pirates often use to get aboard. The captains and crew members on the Internet exchange techniques for training crews, and preparing "repel boarders" drills. Sailors that have been aboard captured ships, and spent months in captivity, relate what that experience was like, and let other sailors know what to expect. This encourages the merchant ship sailors to pay closer attention to the drills and techniques to be used to avoid capture in the first place. Captains pay particular attention to the use of speed and maneuvering successfully used to avoid the approaching pirate speedboats. This may not always enable the ships to escape, but it does provide time for the troops to get ready to repel the pirates attempting to board.
These efforts by the crews have led to nearly 250 pirates being captured, in the past six months, by warships that often show up. While half these pirates were simply disarmed and released, the other half were held for possible (although unlikely) prosecution. This pressure is causing the pirates to try different tactics, like more operations at night, and far off the east coast (where ships too large for the Suez canal head south to go around Africa for the Atlantic.) Captains travelling off the east coast have been on the alert since late last year, when a Saudi supertanker was seized as it headed south. That ship was only recently released, after a $3 million ransom was paid. No matter how hard the pirates try, things will never as easy as they were in 2008.
#1
Some enterprising navy needs to fit out a Q-ship with 40mm Bofors and a few .50 cals and send it into the shipping lanes.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/17/2009 13:12 Comments ||
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Sea Marshalls! Two sniper teams per each ship, one fore and one aft, armed with Barrett's and hundreds of rounds of bullet and a Mk-19 for close in, crowded boarding party control.
Imagine that you had fallen into a coma the night Tony Blair was elected, and now woke up during the last days of New Labour -- what differences would you notice around you? The most striking would be the change in women's fashion. Back in 1997 the country was coming out of recession and the downbeat grunge look, and young ladies were starting to wear short skirts and plunging necklines.
Twelve years later and you'll notice the women are dressed more conservatively - far, far more conservatively. Take a tour of any of inner London borough and see how many women are sporting hijabs, jilbabs or niqabs, loan words that have entered the English language since 1997. In many cases these are not women who were brought up in "that culture", but British people who, in their teens and twenties, have chosen to adopt dress that would be considered reactionary in most of the Islamic world, let alone London.
We saw a gaggle (although that collective noun seems slightly inappropriate) of niqab-clad women last week in Luton, screaming abuse at British soldiers who had been fighting for the rights of Iraqis and Afghans to be able to protest freely.
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#1
And there have always been shysters and hucksters and drum-banging loudmouths who have come forward to represent "their community" and feathered their nests, crying "racism" and "libel" whenever a journalist asked how their foreign junkets benefited their community, and threatening unrest and riot whenever they did not get their way.
Is he referring to community organizers and the like?
#2
...A gentleman of my acquaintance spent a total of nearly six years in the Workers' Paradise. I will never forget him telling me that it can be a capital offense to go fishing there.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
03/17/2009 5:33 Comments ||
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#3
I was wondering what the latest twist on "but the workers are SO HAPPY under socialism!" would be. I never thought it would be "because the workers get to eat organic food!"
Keep 'em hungry, keep 'em working their tails off to produce what little food there is, and you don't have to worry about a counterrevolution. They'll be way too exhausted to cause any trouble. Diabolical, true, but as long as the countryside is pretty, the apologists in the West could give a rat's ass.
#6
TOPIX > IIRC NORTH KOREA: COMMUNISM PROVIDES PIZZA TO THE MASSES - OR AT LEAST TO THE COMMUNIST PARTY ELITES!?
* ION NOKOR = KIMMIE, TOPIX > NORTH KOREA HALTS US FOOD AID PROGRAMS + US NGOS ORDERED TO LEAVE NORTH KOREA, + JAPAN MAY APPROVE PLANS NEXT WEEK TO SHOOT DOWN NORTH KOREAN MISSLE?
For the past two years, several hundred left-leaning bloggers, political reporters, magazine writers, policy wonks and academics have talked stories and compared notes in an off-the-record online meeting space called JournoList.
Proof of a vast liberal media conspiracy?
Not at all, says Ezra Klein, the 24-year-old American Prospect blogging wunderkind who formed JournoList in February 2007. "Basically," he says, "it's just a list where journalists and policy wonks can discuss issues freely."
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#5
Wallis and the Sojourners have lived on modest incomes in group houses in the District (DC), while serving the poor there, since at least the early 70s when some friends of mine joined them for a while. They were fully integrated racially and male/female from the start.
In many ways they've been the DC/urban equivalent of Koinonia Farm in Georgia.
Unlike Wright Wallis isn't a hypocrite - he walks the talk, for better or worse. I don't share his politics but he's the real thing and lives what he preaches.
He's also a white guy who's very respected in Black church circles. Shrewd pick on Obama's part.
There is not much one can do when it comes to bad breeding and a total lack of class
By choosing Fort Bragg for her first official trip outside the capital last Thursday, Michelle Obama signaled that she will use her position as First Lady to promote one of America's most deserving causes: our military families. Plainly the families loved it. Just look at the smiles on those children as she read them "The Cat in the Hat."
So it was just a little disconcerting the next morning to hear the First Lady explain how she came to this issue during last year's campaign. "I think I was like most Americans," she told ABC News. "Pretty oblivious to the life of military families. Sort of taking it for granted."
Perhaps Mrs. Obama did take these families for granted. Surely, however, it's extraordinary to suggest that "most Americans" did the same. Certainly not the McCains, the Bidens and the Palins, each of whom had at least one son in uniform. More to the point, the presidential campaign in which she says the issue started "taking shape" for her came nearly seven years into a war that has inspired millions across America to step forward to help our troops.
The informal help includes everyday things such as providing meals or rides for a neighbor or church member whose spouse has been deployed overseas. The Web site AmericaSupportsYou.mil lists many of the more formal initiatives, which range from sending CARE packages overseas to helping homefront spouses find jobs. Under the category "military family support," the Web site provides links to more than 200 programs or organizations.
If the ABC interview was a one-off thing, it would be easy to overlook. But these days the reporting seems to reflect an assumption that if the Obamas haven't done something, nobody else has, either. Certainly the Washington Post did not challenge the First Lady's social secretary when she said, "one idea Michelle had was to have an event for military families — here they are sacrificing so much for the country and many of them probably have never been invited to the White House."
This uncritical reportage does Laura Bush an injustice. In hundreds of ways — picnics on the South Lawn, fund-raising for scholarships for the children of sailors on the USS Texas, unheralded visits with the wounded and families of the fallen, the work she did for military kids under her Helping America's Youth initiative — Mrs. Bush showed our troops and their loved ones how close they were to her heart.
Possibly the difference in treatment owes something to Mrs. Bush's graciousness. Though she had many of her own initiatives — from improving opportunities for Afghan women to giving voice to the advocates of democracy persecuted by Burma's ruling junta — she also picked up some of the work of her predecessor, Hillary Clinton. For example, whenever Mrs. Bush spoke about her Preserve America program for national monuments, she would also give credit to Hillary Clinton's Save America's Treasures initiative.
That graciousness, alas, seems only to feed the orthodoxy that condescends to any American woman deemed insufficiently progressive on the received wisdom. This Stepford Wife treatment was on embarrassing display in a recent New York Times profile of Mrs. Obama. "[I]n a departure from her predecessor," gushed the Times, "Mrs. Obama has also begun promoting bills that support her husband's policy priorities." It repeated the point later in the piece.
Only one problem: It's not true. To mention just two, Mrs. Bush took a lead role in the reauthorization fights for No Child Left Behind and the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Her advocacy included holding coffees in the residence with key legislators, working with Cabinet members, and promoting these policies in high-profile speeches in places from Africa to the National Press Club. It's just flat-out wrong to suggest otherwise, and the Times owes Mrs. Bush an apology.
Alas, as bad as the slights are, the compliments can be worse. In another recent article on Mrs. Obama, the Associated Press did include a paragraph about Mrs. Bush's work on Burma, Africa and so on. That paragraph was introduced by this sentence: "Even Laura Bush, widely viewed as a traditional first lady, broadened the role."
Even Laura Bush. In that gratuitous "even," the curtain is pulled back on the small-mindedness of an entire class.
Michelle Obama is an accomplished professional and the loving mother of two beautiful girls. In the coming years, she will make her own contributions to a more hopeful America. As she does, is it too much to ask our national press corps to find a way to give Mrs. Obama full credit for these achievements without denying Mrs. Bush the credit she deserves for hers?
Posted by: Omoter Speaking for Boskone7794 ||
03/17/2009 10:40 ||
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#1
As it is said, "The people who think they run America read the New York Times. Those who actually do read the Wall Street Journal." The editors of the WSJ are aware of that, even if the NYT's editors are as blind as their readers.
#3
Laura Bush did what she did because it was the right thing to do. Me-chell is casting about for PR opportunities...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/17/2009 12:09 Comments ||
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#4
I'm very fond of Laura Bush. A classy lady and a good woman. Please do not diss this kind woman in my presence. The bodily harm I would be compelled to administer to you is not really worth the amount of incarceration I will be required to suffer thereafter. But suffer it I will.
Posted by: Titus Jung8598 ||
03/17/2009 12:22 Comments ||
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#6
Michelle, Michelle - you really need to get an education about military families. I am the product of one and things have been like this since Washington bedded down his troops at Valley Forge. Capehart housing, base buses, base schools, commissary and the PX/BX, gym, movie theaters, the OC, the NCOC, the ratskeller and other amenities like moving 14 times in 12 years and going to 14 different schools while waiting for you Dad to come home from a 6 month TDY or a 16 month deployment. Sort of like brownie scouts for the girls. They'll love it.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
03/17/2009 13:41 Comments ||
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This is such an appalling article. What is sauce for the goose ..... Now if politicians would only consider taking their own advice from time to time ......... Sadly politicians remain separate from the standards they seek to impose on everyone else. Come the revolution...
Sen. Charles Grassley is so angry over AIG bonuses that he says the executives should resign or kill themselves. In a comment aired this afternoon on WMT, an Iowa radio station, Grassley (R-Iowa) said: "The first thing that would make me feel a little bit better towards them if they'd follow the Japanese model and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say I'm sorry, and then either do one of two things -- resign, or go commit suicide."
The radio clip was also aired on WTOP, a news radio station in Washington.
In response to a POLITICO inquiry, Grassley spokeswoman Jill Gerber clarified Grassley's comments, saying "clearly he was speaking rhetorically -- he meant there's no culture of shame and acceptance of responsibility for driving a company into the dirt in this country. If you asked him whether he really wants AIG executives to commit suicide, he'd say of course not."
"Point being, U.S. corporate executives are unapologetic about running their companies adrift, accepting billions of tax dollars to help, and then spending those tax dollars on travel, huge bonuses, etc," Gerber said.
Grassley's statement was the most over the top among the many expressions of outrage Monday, as the White House and Congress struggle to figure out how to recoup $165 million in bonuses from AIG, which has received more than $170 billion in federal bailout funds.
"With millions of Americans out of work, staying up nights trying to figure out how to make this week's paycheck last until the next, wondering how they'll make the next mortgage payment or pay the overdue tuition bill, these executive bonuses are beyond outrageous," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Monday.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell joined the chorus, saying the bonuses were "appalling."
Trashing AIG has become a no brainer for campaigners. Jim Tedisco, a candidate in the special election for New York's 20th congressional district, says AIG "poster child for Wall Street greed" and wants a state investigation.
Rep. Phil Hare (D-Ill.) went for a play on words, saying: "Clearly, the 'G' in AIG stands for greed. It is outrageous that taxpayers are subsidizing bonuses as much as $6.5 million at a time when working families are struggling to make ends meet."
Nobody else has suggested hara kiri for AIG executives, and Grassley's spokeswoman tried to make clear the senator didn't really mean it.
Posted by: Omoter Speaking for Boskone7794 ||
03/17/2009 02:08 ||
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#1
Twas the Ides of March recently, is it bad to remind Grassley that at least Roman Senators found that suicide was an appropriate ending as the case merited.
#8
Some time ago, I suggested that bonuses for failed executives be limited to a new pair of workboots and cab fare to the Brooklyn bridge. That way they would have two choices for doing the right thing.
#12
For example, TW, I still do field geology surveys but I am pushing 60 and rocks are heavy. I might be willing to give former executives a shot at a helper's position, what with mules and the like being both hard to find and expensive as well as stubborn.
#13
I think those cheap Chinese boots from Academy Sporting Goods would be adequate for starters. No need to spring for the Redwings until we know if they will work or jump.
Bob Shrum is the quintessential slavering Obama sycophant. He is obviously frustrated by the possibilities that may derail healthcare, but in the end without following his own logic his leaps to his only fairytale ending notwithstanding that he lays out the perfect scenario by with the Healthcare reforms will founder.
Bob Shrum
The real danger to President Obama comes not from the knee-jerk nihilism of Rush Limbaugh, but from within the Democratic Party. Obama, who famously observed as a candidate that a president has to be able to do more than one thing at a time, has rejected internal counsel to postpone his healthcare proposal in favor of a single-minded focus on the economy. Recovery is obviously a central test for him. But as he sees it, his mission is not simply to undo Republican damage; it is to achieve the fundamental change, including health care reform, for which he campaigned.
Several of Obama's most impressive economic advisors, including OMB director Peter Orszag and Jason Furman, director of the National Economic Counsel, have argued in the past that national health care should be paid for by taxing employer-provided health insurance. Without endorsing such a policy, Orszag told a Senate committee recently that the idea "should remain on the table." The Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus and Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Widen actually want the health care tax included in a final bill.
But in a debate with John McCain last fall, candidate Obama ruled the idea out of bounds. That's exactly where it should stay. Even in modified form, taxing what McCain called "gold-plated" health insurance policies could doom health care reform once again. Orszag and Furman may have a fine policy point, but let me preview the opposition ad.
Husband at kitchen table: "I thought he was going to fix health care, but now Obama wants to tax our health coverage."
Wife holding newspaper: "They say our coverage is 'gold-plated.'"
Husband: "Well for you last year, it was a lifeline."
Wife: "I just want to keep what we have."
We're told Obama won't stop Congress if it decides to tax employee health coverage. That masterfully kills the proposal without offending its champions. Most liberal Democrats oppose it; Republicans say they won't go along unless Obama explicitly advocates it.
However, this episode reflects a wider danger--the tendency of Democrats to break ranks far more readily than Republicans do under a new President. Baucus, who by gift of seniority runs one of the Senate's most powerful committees, may favor taxing the health coverage of millions; but he opposes the Obama plan to limit tax deductions for the very wealthy to what they were under Ronald Reagan's administration. Does Baucus think Reagan was too hard on the rich? Likewise, while Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin favors Obama's farm subsidy reforms, Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad says he's "opposed to any effort to cut support of the farm safety net." (Never mind that Obama has proposed no change for farmers earning $250,000 or less a year.)
Congressional Republicans also want to scuttle Obama proposals--for reasons that are far less well intentioned. The GOP's leaders calculate that by delaying change, they increase their chances of defeating it. The history of the Clinton health care effort, which dragged on past the early potential of his presidency and into the partisan deadlock of 1994, validates their strategy. Democrats would do well to remember 1994, as well, especially if they don't want to repeat it. Many Democrats who broke with Clinton in the hope of saving themselves were swept away in the Republican landslide that resulted from Clinton's apparent failure. Of course, there will be differences to settle, details to thrash out, and compromises to be made on Obama's agenda. But it's useful for Democrats to heed the adage that if they don't hang together, they will hang separately. The difference is that Obama, like Clinton, will survive the 2010 elections, with two years remaining before he has to face the voters.
Obama understands that postponing major initiatives, however well intentioned, is wrong. No its not Bob. Its perfectly sensible for a number of reasons but you can't see them. A thinly veiled tilt at possible wandering Democrats
Health care reform, for example, is now an economic as well as a moral issue, as soaring costs burden businesses and hobble America's ability to compete and sustain a recovery. I always love the disingenuity of this position. You are going to cut costs by spending more and reducing the quality. Soviet style logic at its best.
Similarly, a new energy policy is not just central to combating global warming; it's also an indispensable spur for the green industries and jobs of the future. Its thoroughly dispensible as a gigantic con.
The one thing that could defeat Democrats in 2010 is Democrats themselves. That won't happen, in my view, because Democrats readily recall the 1994 debacle and because they're led by a President who's already demonstrated his capacity to bend history to forge a path. "Bend History" = Tell a bunch of lies to an unthinking populace who were sucked in by grandiose nonsense which has already been shown to be the carpetbaggery of chicago/allinsky politics that it is
Watching his first two months in office, I don't doubt that the Strategist-in-Chief will listen to advice, weigh the politics and then push through his agenda largely intact. He will change America. I can't wait to hear what talk radio's Mouth Rushmore says about that. If that is what Bob sees after the first 2 months of this administration, then his value as an adviser is signficantly diminished by his obvious inability to distinguish between the facts on the ground and the fantasy in his own head.
Posted by: Omoter Speaking for Boskone7794 ||
03/17/2009 01:35 ||
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#1
If they wish to tax medical benefits provided by employers, they'd better hurry. "Employers" are vaporizing at a rather astonishing rate.
#2
an interesting question is whether Obama wants to have a British style single payer system where the rich can buy their own premium health care or a Canadian style single payer system where the rich are stuck with the national health system (unless they fly across the US border and buy US medical care A la carte
#3
You mean like the public school system Obama's daughters don't attend?
Posted by: ed ||
03/17/2009 8:55 Comments ||
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#4
My friends in the UK tell me of a flourishing "medical tourism" business going to India. That's for the middle class that can't afford the local private practices but don't want the crap service of the NHS and can afford the trip.
AND SO IT BEGINS. We all wondered when it would start - when the new administration would make their move against us as gun owners. Oh, everyone got upset about HR45--I'll bet I got over 100 e-mails warning me about this draconian gun registration bill that had been introduced in Congress.
I was really glad to see Tom Gresham, host of "Gun Talk Radio," an editor, writer, television host on "Self-Defense TV," and one of the foremost gun spokespersons, come out and tell everyone to stop worrying about legislation so absolutely over-the-top--it would never get out of committee.
Tom said save your energy for when we really need it--don't expend it trying to warn everyone in your e-mail list about legislation that would go nowhere.
Now, Tom just interviewed me, and Larry Haynie, owner of Georgia Arms, on Gun Talk --and Tom agrees, now is the time to "...unleash the hounds..." by which he means start e-mailing and writing your senators and congressmen.
Now it has come clear...now we know what they intend to do.
It is an end-run around Congress. They don't need to try to ban guns--they don't need to fight a massive battle to attempt gun registration, or limit "assault" weapon sales.
#6
Nobody seems to be asking why the DOD has stopped selling expended brass for remanufacture. After all, in these difficult times, every source of income must be considered, and all that. Why give up a proven money maker, however small scale?
#7
I'm not sure this has the significance some people are attributing to it. Not saying it doesn't, I just don't get why this is something to get all spun up about.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/17/2009 11:47 Comments ||
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#8
This will raise ammo prices. That's about it. With hyperinflation coming, ammo is still a good investment :-)
#9
Stop all of this rediculous conjecture at once! This has absolutely nothing to do with rounds of bullet. The gummit needs tons of shiny brass for the new courthouse statues and family room miniatures of Barry. It's shovel ready! They'll be manufactured in Indiana India or China, where everything is cheaper. Now everyone, let's get with the reprogram.
#10
Comment, led can be gotten from almost any tire shop, used wheelweights and Lyman #2 are effectively the same thing,
I have several hundred pounds already cast into 1 pound ingots (Lyman sells molds cheap) and several thousand rounds already cast and sitting in sealed mason jars (used and cleaned Mayonnaise Jars) waiting a spare afternoon to load and store.
http://www.lymanproducts.com/lyman/home/
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/17/2009 19:38 Comments ||
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#11
Mayonnaise or Miracle Whip, Redneck Jim? Or do lead bullets not care about such trifles? ;-)
First for the good news: Pakistan is not about to explode. The Islamic militants are not going to take power tomorrow; the nuclear weapons are not about to be trafficked to al-Qaeda; the army is not about to send the Afghan Taliban to invade India; a civil war is unlikely.
The bad news is that Pakistan poses us questions that are much more profound than those we would face if this nation of 170-million, the world's second biggest Muslim state, were simply a failed state. If Pakistan collapsed, we would be faced by a serious security challenge. But the resilience of Pakistan and the nation's continuing collective refusal to do what the west would like it to together pose questions with implications far beyond simple security concerns. They are about our ability to influence events in far-off places, our capacity to analyse and understand the behaviour and perceived interests of other nations and cultures, about our ability to deal with difference, about how we see the world.
Pakistan has very grave problems. In the last two years, I have reported on bloody ethnic and political riots, on violent demonstrations, from the front line of a vicious war against radical Islamic insurgents. I spent a day with Benazir Bhutto a week before she was assassinated and covered the series of murderous attacks committed at home and abroad by militant groups based in Pakistan with shadowy connections to its security services. There is an economic crisis and social problems -- illiteracy, domestic violence, drug addiction -- of grotesque proportions. Osama bin Laden is probably on Pakistani soil.
For many developing nations, all this would signal the state's total disintegration. This partly explains why Pakistan's collapse is so often predicted. The nation's meltdown was forecast when its eastern half seceded to become Bangladesh in 1971, during the violence that preceded General Zia ul-Haq's coup in 1977, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, when Zia was killed in 1988, during the horrific sectarian violence of the early Nineties, through sundry ethnic insurgencies, after 9/11, after the 2007 death of Bhutto and now after yet another political crisis. These predictions have been consistently proved wrong. The most recent will be too. Yesterday, tempers were already calming.
Some of the perpetual international hysteria is stoked by the Pakistanis themselves. Successive governments have perfected the art of negotiating by pointing a gun to their own heads. They know that their nation's strategic importance guarantees the financial life support they need from the international community. More broadly, our understanding of Pakistan is skewed. This is in part due to centuries of historical baggage. Though few would quote Emile Zola on contemporary France, Winston Churchill, who as a young man fought on the North-West Frontier, is regularly cited to explain today's insurgency.
This legacy also includes stereotypes of "Mad Mullahs" running amok, an image fuelled by television footage that highlights ranting demonstrators from Pakistan's Islamist parties though they have never won more than 14% in an election.
For many Britons, Pakistan represents "the other" - chaotic, distant, exotic, dirty, hot, fanatical and threatening. Yet at the same time, Pakistan seems very familiar. There is the English language, cricket, kebabs and curries and figures such as Imran Khan. There are a million-odd Britons of Pakistani-descent who over four decades have largely integrated far better in the UK than often suggested.
It is the tension between these two largely imaginary Pakistans that leads to such strong reactions in Britain. We see the country as plunged in a struggle between the frighteningly foreign and the familiar, between fanaticism and Western democracy, values, our vision of the world and how it should be ordered. Yet while we are fretting about Pakistan's imminent disintegration, we are blind to the really important change.
Recent years have seen the consolidation of a new Pakistani identity between these two extremes. It is nationalist, conservative in religious and social terms and much more aggressive in asserting what are seen, rightly or wrongly, as local "Pakistani" interests. It is a mix of patriotic chauvinism and moderate Islamism that is currently heavily informed by a distorted view of the world sadly all too familiar across the entire Muslim world. This means that for many Pakistanis, the West is rapacious and hostile.
Admiration for the British and desire for holidays in London have been replaced by a view of the UK as "America's poodle" and dreams of Dubai or Malaysia. The 9/11 attacks are seen, even by senior army officers, as a put-up job by Mossad, the CIA or both. The Indians, the old enemy, are seen as running riot in Afghanistan where the Taliban are "freedom fighters". AQ Khan, the nuclear scientist seen as a bomb-selling criminal by the West, is a hero. Democracy is seen as the best system, but only if democracy results in governments that take decisions that reflect the sentiments of most Pakistanis, not just those of the Anglophone, westernised elite among whom western policy-makers, politicians and journalists tend to chose their interlocutors.
This view of the world is most common among the new, urban middle classes in Pakistan, much larger after a decade of fast and uneven economic growth. It is this class that provides the bulk of the country's military officers and bureaucrats. This in part explains the Pakistani security establishment's dogged support for elements within the Taliban.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/17/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
I was about to comment, but the pic does it better.
#3
Separation of mosque and state would do nicely, too. But only if the state got out of the religious ed. business, and religious studies degrees were not allowed to substitute for secular ones, like a high school diploma.
#4
Pakistan has had a skewed existence. It has been sustained by Western powers for all of its miserable existence. Nixon even condoned the rape and murder by West Pakistan in what is now Bangladesh during 1970. The West has perpetually turned a blind eye to its militaritic activites against its neighbors (Afghanistan and India) till Pakis plotted and executed 9/11 on USA. The country continues its backward climb into middle ages. If you see skewed pakistan, it is also because it is really skewed!
Posted by: Big Crinemp9511 ||
03/17/2009 23:59 Comments ||
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The promised reinstatement of Pakistan's chief justice defused a protest movement threatening the U.S.-allied government, but it could still spell trouble for the country's struggling president.
The army is said to have directed President Asif Ali Zardari to defuse the developing showdown with opposition leader Nawaz Sharif and lawyers leading a column of protesters toward the capital Sunday night. But by yielding to demands to restore judges fired by former military ruler and U.S. ally Pervez Musharraf, Zardari may have strengthened democracy in the nuclear-armed nation as it faces daunting security and economic challenges.
"Never before in Pakistan's political history have you had people standing up for the rule of law, for the constitution," said Nasim Zehra, a political and defense analyst. "Civil society has won out."
Musharraf ousted Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry in 2007 after he blocked a privatization deal, investigated the fate of hundreds of people allegedly held incognito by security agencies, and even questioned the legality of the ex-general's rule.
But the move backfired as lawyers, rights activists, liberal media pundits -- as well as the general's political opponents -- mounted a dogged campaign for an independent judiciary that turned the dour, mustachioed judge into an unlikely democratic icon.
The very same constellation has now humbled Zardari.
Israel's next foreign minister looks set to be Avigdor Lieberman, the Soviet immigrant whose controversial policies have been condemned widely by the country's regional neighbours. His critics accuse him of being an Arab-hating racist but he is hailed by supporters as a strongman who will deal harshly with the state's enemies, in particular Iran, which he has threatened to bomb.
Mr Lieberman has threatened to bomb a number of Israel's neighbours, including Egypt, with whom the Jewish state has a peace treaty. During a parliamentary debate last year Mr Lieberman also criticised Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's President, for never visiting the Jewish state. Egypt was the first country yesterday to warn that the appointment could cause more setbacks for the peace process. "We are standing before a negative factor that is likely to damage the peace process, "Ahmad Abul Ghait, the Foreign Minister, said during a visit to the European parliament.
The appointment appeared to be on track though after Mr Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu party, which came third in February's elections, cut a deal with Likud to form a coalition.
Under the agreement Yisrael Beitenu would receive five ministerial posts, including the Foreign Ministry, which its leader is set to take.
Mr Lieberman has proven a divisive figure in Israeli politics, storming to power on the back of his anti-Arab rhetoric. He has called for the bombing of Palestinian commercial centres in revenge for terror attacks inside Israel and suggested that hundreds of thousands of Israeli Arabs should forfeit their citizenship in a land swap, trading West Bank Jewish settlements for Arab areas inside the Jewish state.
The Moldovan-born demagogue has also insisted that Arab Israelis - who are almost all Muslim or Christians - be forced to swear an oath of loyalty to the Jewish state and participate in national service. He has referred to Israel's Arab population - close to 20 per cent of the total - as a potential fifth column.
Binyamin Netanyahu, the Likud leader and Prime Minister-designate, was nervous about handing the key portfolio to a man he sees as his main rival to the loyalty of the Israeli Right, and is still hoping for a last-minute deal with the centre-right party Kadima, whose leader Tzipi Livni is the current Foreign Minister.
Many observers expect Mr Lieberman to tone down his rhetoric once in office, citing his collaboration with the outgoing Government of Ehud Olmert, which he walked out of a year before it collapsed.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/17/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
These MSM people ever do anything but stick labels on their betters?
#3
I've got several emails from Jewish friends/relatives panicking about the far-rightists who will soon be running Israel. I loathe and despise propagandists!
It was probably inevitable that the American left would turn sharply against the war in Afghanistan the moment it was politically opportune. Still, the speed with which it has done so has been breathtaking.
Time was when the received bipartisan and trans-Atlantic wisdom about Afghanistan was that it was the necessary war, the good war, the no-choice-but-to-fight and can't-afford-to-lose war, and that not least of everything that made the invasion and occupation of Iraq such arrant folly was that it distracted us from "finishing the job" in the place where the attacks of 9/11 were conceived and planned.
This was the wisdom candidate Barack Obama was merely regurgitating when, in an August 2007 speech, he promised that his priority as president would be "getting out of Iraq and on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan." True to his word, he has now ordered the deployment of 17,000 additional soldiers to that battlefield.
Continued on Page 49
By Clive Crook Clive Crook of the Financial Times was one of the first highly supportive OPed writers to begin to seriously question Obama and the administration. This is an interesating piece as it discloses that Clive is still struggling emotionally with the disaster he sees intellectually but can't come to admit he was just conned.
A new conventional wisdom is forming in Washington and it spells trouble for Barack Obama's administration. Coming from the president's own side as well as from his enemies, the argument says he has taken on far too much. This has been the theme of a torrent of recent commentary.
The criticism has instant superficial plausibility and it is bipartisan, which makes it dangerous for the administration. But is it fair? I understand the criticism but I think it is not quite right.
The White House felt it had to respond directly at the end of last week. "The truth is that these problems in the financial market, as acute and urgent as they are, are only part of what threatens our economy," said Mr Obama. "And we must not use the need to confront them as an excuse to keep ignoring the long-term threats to our prosperity: the cost of our healthcare and our oil addiction; our education deficit and our fiscal deficit ... We must build this recovery on a foundation that lasts."
Mr Obama's effort to fold the wider agenda of healthcare reform, new investment in education and a quasi-tax on carbon emissions into the short-term plans for addressing the economic crisis is not at all convincing. These are patently separable issues. Moreover, the administration surrendered its credibility this early on when it said, in the words of Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." The administration itself thus declared, in memorably hubristic terms, that it is seizing an opportunity, rather than battling on all fronts because it has no choice. To this point Clive is stating the obvious and quite eloquently. Then he does what Obama does. He creates a straw circumstance [as distinct from a straw man ]
However, suppose for the sake of argument that the administration is right -- as I believe it is -- to want to reform healthcare, bring in a quasi-tax on carbon and invest in an upgraded education system. At the same time we can take it for granted that the overriding short-term priority is to mend the financial system and promote economic recovery: nobody disagrees with that. The crucial calculation is then about momentum on one side and capacity on the other. So Clive has taken a complete leap simply because he thinks its all a good idea. Essentially from here on in then you can't expect too much. But that is the interesting point as Clive struggles with the intellectual contradictions.
The White House is concerned that if it does not seize the moment its wider agenda will be lost. Its initial remarkable popularity, and its majorities in Congress, may not last. At the very least, it must put its plans firmly on the table, preferably with numbers attached, before the politics turns more difficult. This is a legitimate consideration.
Advocates of the wide agenda then have to balance their desire to "seize the moment" against the system's capacity -- administrative, legislative and political -- to deliver.
Has the Treasury been slow to announce the details of its bank rescue plan because it has been distracted by work on those other issues? If so, the administration is failing to prioritise sensibly; you could go further and say it has lost its mind. But this is not the case. Why not? Clive can't answer his own perceptive question.
Why the plan is taking so long to emerge is a puzzle, although a lack of senior manpower in the department is doubtless partly to blame. No its not a puzzle at all when you realize that you have the second string batting and they are undermanned. Lack of talent, focus, competence. Say what you will. It takes supreme incompetence not to see what the problem is and not at least make and attempt at addressing it particularly when the Senate overlooked Geithner's tax faux pas because he was the brightest in the class, the only person who could deal with it.
But the problem is not -- not yet, anyway -- that Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, has other issues jostling for his attention. No its just incompetence
The planning for healthcare reform, cap and trade, and education is on other people's desks. So for all his searching, Clive can't come to the obvious answer.
Legislative capacity is a second bottleneck. In due course, the writing of all this new law threatens a logjam in Congress. The administration knows it will have to pace its congressional agenda with care. This could easily go wrong but for now it is no reason to defer announcing its resolve to move on the issues. So far, that is really all it has done. The $634bn (£454bn, 490bn) in the budget for healthcare reform, for instance, was a declaration of intent, not a worked out proposal making instant demands on Congress.
Political capacity is the real key, and here is where I would question the administration's judgment. Only here??
The prospects for Mr Obama's agenda depend on his ability to marshal political capital and spend it wisely. In the simplest terms, he needs to stay as popular as he can for as long as possible. Once his approval ratings slide -- and they show the first signs of doing so -- he is sunk. This is why the "overload" critique is so significant: not because it is correct on the merits but because it is plausible and bipartisan and will erode his standing with the electorate. Again Clive is absolutely correct. The thing is the slide is already underway showing up in the polls on the programs. The polls on popularity are sliding as well and will quicken pace in a week or so. There isn't enough time. So Clive is hoping there is enough time. There isn't.
Mr Obama came to the presidency uniquely equipped to command and retain the confidence of the country -- not just his own party. He was elected because he was a hit with centrists, and because of exhaustion with a Republican party associated with incompetence and a rigid, divisive ideology. The US wanted to come together and Mr Obama looked the most intent on making that happen.
To a surprising degree, Mr Obama is failing to play to that strength. Why is this surprising? 46% of the population could see through him. Now the rest are catching on. Incompetence, inability to administer, allinsky, take your pick
As I have previously argued, his budget made no effort to keep centrists on board: it enchanted the left of the Democratic party and might have been calculated to infuriate moderate Republicans. Some of the White House's recent political stunts -- such as the plot to anoint Rush Limbaugh, the talk-radio loudmouth, as de facto head of the Republican party -- are old-fashioned Washington politics at its worst: polarising, juvenile and unserious. Correct again Clive.
Mr Obama was supposed to be above all that. This perception was his greatest asset. He has let it depreciate in recent days and the prospects for his ambitious and mostly admirable agenda are diminishing with it. Correct again. It is interesting though to watch Clive struggle with his "hope" and the intellectual perception that it is all a big con. But he just can't admit he was taken in. He still wants to believe. He still has hope. He is not yet in mourning but is close. Sooner or later he will just be totally pissed off that he was suckered.
Posted by: Omoter Speaking for Boskone7794 ||
03/17/2009 01:10 ||
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#1
An Obama policy jam sounds yummy to me. Got bread?
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
03/17/2009 11:47 Comments ||
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#2
I can see the REpublican panick at teh wide ambitious agenda. It will undo all their shinanigans, prevent their rich crooked friends from ever swindling and sucking cash from Americans. These poor fellows will have to deliver 'value' and accept a day's wage like the rest of us. These descendatns of slave owners and money swindlers are done for now at least. Good riddance.
Posted by: Big Crinemp9511 ||
03/17/2009 23:49 Comments ||
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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.
First for the good news: Pakistan is not about to explode. The Islamic militants are not going to take power tomorrow; the nuclear weapons are not about to be trafficked to al-Qaeda; the army is not about to send the Afghan Taliban to invade India; a civil war is unlikely. 
The promised reinstatement of Pakistan's chief justice defused a protest movement threatening the U.S.-allied government, but it could still spell trouble for the country's struggling president.
