"So today, Britain will urge Europe and Europe will agree to take further sanctions against Iran. First of all we will take action today that will freeze the overseas assets of the biggest bank in Iran, the bank Melli." -- UK PM Gordon Brown
So Bush is a foreign policy dolt? Too stupid to do anything but alienate Europe and other far more sophisticated allies? Once again, has proved himself smarter than this critics, this time touring Europe as a lame duck and achieving all the policy goals set forth for the trip.
While the policy elite thought nothing much would come of this trip, Bush was able to convince Europe's big three -- England, France and Germany -- to drop their happy faces and admit that they have nothing to show for years of diplomacy with Tehran. If they were ton continue on this course, all that would happen is that Tehran would be granted years to move forward with its nuke program.
The latest round of rumors of a US attack on Iran, surfacing in tandem with the trip, no doubt helped to convince the Europeans to tighten up sanctions. Reuters reports that sanctions on oil and gas will likely follow.
The wiley Bush has once again shown that diplomacy works best when there's a big stick involved.
History is one of the best proofs of naivety, and it does a mighty fine job of showing how dangerously naive Barack Obama's talk to anyone, anywhere, without conditions approach to foreign policy is.
Scott Johnson offers up a fine historical lesson at Power Line today, going way, way back to the transcript of a Nixon-Kennedy debate to show just how utterly offbase and dangerous Obama is.
The piece excerpts just one paragraph from each candidate, so do read it all, but just for the record, here are some key phrases you won't see in Obama's rhetoric:
Nixon:
"The President is still going to be president for the next four months and he, of course, is the only one who could commit this country in this period."
"I would not be able wou- would be willing to meet with [Khrushchev] however, unless there were preparations for that conference which would give us some reasonable certainty - some reasonable certainty - that you were going to have some success."
Kennedy:
"I have no disagreement with the Vice President's position on that. ... I would not meet Mr. Khrushchev unless there were some agreements at the secondary level - foreign ministers or ambassadors - which would indicate that the meeting would have some hope of success, or a useful exchange of ideas."
"I think it's important that the United States build its strength; that it build its military strength as well as its own economic strength. If we negotiate from a position where the power balance or wave is moving away from us, it's extremely difficult to reach a successful decision on Berlin as well as the other questions."
And this regarding a nation that had international credibility, unlike the thugs Obama says he'll talk to without condition.
To understand foreign policy, Obama style, just view this clip -- it's less than two minutes long, but if you're like me, it'll stick with you longer than that.
First, it shows us (again) that Obama is nothing new; he's just another deceitful, manipulative politician. Right off the bat, he implies that the Bush admin has not talked to Iran. He knows this isn't true so he doesn't come right out and say it, instead, he says:
Strong countries and strong presidents talk to their adversaries.
He then goes on to say that's what Kennedy did with Khrushchev, Nixon did with Mao and Reagan did with Gorbachev. Two sentences in and already Obama has made two errors deceitful manipulations of the truth -- as if he were some South Chicago hack.
First, obviously, the Bush admin has talked to Iran, both directly and through intermediaries. Numerous such meetings have been held, so Obama's endgame of ...
"We should use that position of strength that we have to be bold enough to go ahead and listing ... are there areas of potential common interest where we can reduce some of the tensions that have caused us so many problems around the world?"
... is a canard. Through our ambassadorial contacts and back channel communications, and through the failed, multi-year diplomatic efforts of Germany, England and France, we know there are no viable areas of potential common interest ... other than our interest in seeing a nuke-free Iran and the mullahs' interest in living to preach hatred another day.
(BTW, what's this "caused us so many problems around the world?" He is, of course, talking about his idea that America's reputation has been hurt by Bush, that blustering about Iran is not making us friends. Who is friends with Iran? Anyone we need to be overly concerned about? And he can't go into what a punk nation Iran is, as he does in this clip, and not be doing the same tough talking Bush has done.)
Second, before Kennedy, Nixon or Reagan did anything with their Russian or Chinese counterparts, years of meetings were held by negotiators on both sides. By the time the leaders met, much was known, much was agreed to. These presidents didn't just storm in for a summit with no prep. Obama is showing his Messianic naivity, his sheer and dangerous faith in his ability to find words no one has found before.
Since that's his approach, and since his ego is so grand, the risks inherent in an unplanned summit are incalculable.
Obama then goes on to ridicule Bush (although he doesn't name him, clean campaigner that he is) for not talking to Iran, which spends "1/100th of what we spend on the military," while braver presidents talked to much more formidable nations.
I want my next president to understand the difference between "formidable" and "conventional." Russia might have been formidable in its Soviet heyday, but it played by the rules, even the rules that governed national deceptions. The danger Iran poses is not one of formidableness; rather, it is its unconventional qualities that pose a threat.
It openly supports terror. Its leaders have a dangerous metaphysical point of view that does not make survival seem like their most important goal. And unlike Russia, which was forever looking for a warm water port, Iran sits on the Straits of Hormuz. Obama tells his audience that Iran is a weak little punk that would not stand up to us if it challenged us seriously.
Of course, Obama is wrong. Iran has challenged us seriously, killing our soldiers, attacking our alliances, and threatening to build a nuke that would become the ultimate terrorist WMD. Unlike Russia, they would have the will to use it. Yet every time Bush talks tough about Iran, he gets called a warmonger by the Dems, and is foiled by their fellow travelers at CIA who screwed up the last National Intelligence Estimate just to limit Bush's options in Iran.
Is all this really going over Obama's head, or is he just posturing to stupid Dem voters, blinded by their anti-Bush, anti-war beliefs?
I know I'm not alone in saying I believe it's the former -- and that's really scary.
Time To Remember The "Global" In The War On Terror
Mark Steyn does it again, summarizing all I've thought about Obama's snitty response to Bush's Knesset (not Parliament) speech, and getting it just right:
Yes, there are plenty of Democrats who are in favor of negotiating with our enemies, and a few Republicans, too – President Bush's pal James Baker, whose Iraq Study Group was full of proposals to barter with Iran and Syria and everybody else. But that general line is also taken by at least three of Tony Blair's former Cabinet ministers and his senior policy adviser, and by the leader of Canada's New Democratic Party and by a whole bunch of bigshot Europeans. It's not a Democrat election policy, it's an entire worldview. Even Barack Obama can't be so vain as to think his fly-me-to-[insert name of enemy here] concept is an original idea.
Increasingly, the Western world has attitudes rather than policies. It's one thing to talk as a means to an end. But these days, for most midlevel powers, talks are the end, talks without end. Because that's what civilized nations like doing – chit-chatting, shooting the breeze, having tea and crumpets, talking talking talking. Uncivilized nations like torturing dissidents, killing civilians, bombing villages, doing doing doing. It's easier to get the doers to pass themselves off as talkers then to get the talkers to rouse themselves to do anything.
And those well-crafted words brings me to what I feel, increasingly, is wrong with our position in Iraq.
I read of the Druze "300" valiantly standing between the ambitions of Syria and Iran to overwhelm Lebanon in order to assume a power position over Israel and give Syria a port for transshipment of weapons from Iran and NoKo, and I think, why aren't we fighting alongside the Druze?
Why don't we have an adequate force on the ground with air support, to stop the advance of the Hezbollah - Syria - Iran front? Why aren't we using our military assets to give Lebanon breathing room?
We're not fighting this short war because we are tied up with the long war. There are similar opportunities in Africa, Indonesia, the Philippines and the Gulf -- like precise attacks on Iran Revolutionary Guard facilities near the Iranian border -- but the long war is limiting our options.
I'm reading Doug Fieth's War and Decision, and going back to the first days after 9/11, we see these bursts of short wars to very much be in the initial response planning. Remember, we are supposed to be fighting terror and those who support terror, not just al-Qaeda. The Pentagon planners envisioned military actions in Africa, Asia and even South America to take out terrorists and their support network.
Then Iraq and Afghanistan turned into long wars.
The fact that they did turn into long wars maybe shows that the short war option may not be viable. Can we strike here and there and change things? If we support the Druze, can we save Lebanon, or will saving Lebanon require another long war?
A good question, for sure, but perhaps the best way to answer it is to try the short war option. Seize the ship with the weapons. Knock out the training camp. Close the bank account. Stop the next Janjaweed attack in Darfur. Capture the terror-king and his henchmen and transport them to some unknown prison for a friendly debriefing.
Do. Do. Do. We are doing a lot in Iraq and Afghanistan; we are converting whole societies bit by bit, allowing them to taste freedom from extremism and tyranny. It's time to do more elsewhere. I don't hear any presidential candidates talking about this, but as we draw down our troops in Iraq over the next few years, transferring authority to a more stable Iraqi government and a better trained Iraqi army and police force, we need to consider "where next?" for our hegemonic military.
We can go anywhere and do just about anything, so let's do hurry up with getting a few tens of thousands of troops available to support freedom and trounce terror in theaters around the globe.
This is not going to be the Global War on Terror until we take it to the terrorists globally.
A friend took issue with Prez Bush's words in Jerusalem yesterday, specifically this part where he spoke about democracy spreading throughout the Middle East.
From Cairo and Riyadh to Baghdad and Beirut, people will live in free and independent societies, where a desire for peace is reinforced by ties of diplomacy, tourism and trade. Iran and Syria will be peaceful nations, where today's oppression is a distant memory and people are free to speak their minds and develop their talents. And al-Qaida, Hezbollah and Hamas will be defeated, as Muslims across the region recognize the emptiness of the terrorists' vision and the injustice of their cause.
He put his concerns into an e-mail last night, and I didn't get a chance to answer him today, so ...
You often tell me, "it isn't so, just because you say it's so..."
This sage advice [Suck up! (I love it.)] can be directly applied to today's comments, and in fact, his entire policy for the region.
"We'll be welcomed as liberators..."
As it happens, we were welcomed as liberators. But that was before Iraq turned John Kerry on us and didn't welcome us as liberators after they welcomed us as liberators. Let me count the countries where people pray that some day they will be welcoming us as liberators ...
"Mission accomplished."
Granted, not a perfect PR moment, but it's been exploited by the Lying Left. They know the mission that was referenced was the toppling of Saddam's brutal, repressive, murdering rein, a mission that had, in fact, had been accomplished.
"Saddam Hussein is proliferating WMDs..."
I'm amazed that as bright my friend is, he still repeats these easily rebuttable lies. He must know that our intelligence matched up against Germany's and England's and Russia's. He must know that his own beloved Bill Clinton thought Saddam had WMDs. He must know that Saddam was squirreling away money he stole from Oil-for-Food, intending to spend it on WMDs the first moment he could. And he must know that Saddam frustrated UN weapons inspectors at every turn, increasing the rationality of the "Saddam has WMDs" position.
And on, and on, and on...
Bottom line, it is not even close to so, yet he continues to say it is so.
So because democracy hasn't spread throughout the Middle East in five short years, we're supposed to give up on the entire concept and leave that entire huge part of the world continue in its totalitarian, Islamo-theocratic dungeon? And leave the future of the world to the jihadists?
We have two alternatives: Hide behind our borders, something al-Qaeda taught us we cannot do, or continue to try to bring liberation and freedom to the oppressed people on our planet. I'll choose the latter.
Barack the Appeaser continued to play the outraged candidate today, saying in North Dakota:
On a day when we were supposed to be celebrating the anniversary of Israel’s independence, [Bush] accused me and other democrats of wanting to negotiate with terrorists and said we were appeasers, no different from people who appeased Adolph Hitler. That’s what George Bush said in front of the Israeli parliament [sic].
Knesset, Barack. Let's just say for the record that the statement is true. Obama has said that he would meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to try to talk out the differences, which is why I loved Bush's comments so much:
Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before.
I also used to think there were magic words. I even wrote them down and presented them to clients older and wiser than me, who basically said, "Nice writing, Laer, but words don't change heartfelt beliefs." And what are the beliefs of Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs if not heartfelt?
Obama carries on:
Now that’s exactly the kind of appalling attack that’s divided our country and that alienates us from the world, and that’s why we need change in Washington – that’s part of the reason why I’m running for president of the United States of America. …
It is now an appalling attack to say someone said what they said? Sorry, but if you're the big harmonizer, Barack, you're just going to have to learn to take criticism a bit better than that. Besides, I don't think the world thinks the less of us for saying that words won't sway terrorists.
Actually, the world is more critical of those who say words can work -- like England, Germany and France, who insisted that their superior diplomatic skills could work where America's position wouldn't. The result: Iran has had three years to advance its nuclear program and the Europeans have accomplished absolutely nothing with all their talk.
The world no doubt also sees Obama's belief that he is so God-given to us that he will be able to do what England, German and France couldn't do as incredibly naive and arrogant. (Funny how those two adjectives so often go together with politicians.) If you've got the magic words, Barack, why not share them with us now? Why wait until after the election? Let's hear 'em!
Of course they're going to have to be a lot better than your magic words on Lebanon, Mr. O.
Yet Obama continues his pout:
I want to be perfectly clear to George Bush and John McCain and the people of South Dakota. If George Bush and John McCain want to have a debate about protecting the United States of America, that is a debate that I’m happy to have any time, any place, and that is a debate I will win because George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for. …
Obama is doing a fine job of tying McCain to Bush, which is the big new Dem strategy, so much so that MSNBC (aka Obama Central) referred to yesterday's Bush speech as "a giant gift to the Illinois senator and his campaign." But most Americans understand what the words "Neville Chamberlain" mean, and see that all Jimmy Carter does when he talks to Hamas is lend a mantle of legitimacy to killers who just keep on killing.
Now Obama wraps it up with the Big Lie:
Now I’m a strong believer in civility and I’m a strong believer in a bipartisan foreign policy [pause for hysterical guffaws], but that cause is not served with dishonest, divisive attacks of the sort we’ve seen out of George Bush and John McCain the last couple of days.
A bipartisan foreign policy? We all know what that means to the Dem frontrunner: A liberal, soft, dangerous foreign policy. The only thing "bi" about Barack's "bipartisan" is that it's going to be as bad for us abroad as it is at home.
President Bush said some of those words today in Jerusalem that drive the appeasers crazy. Marking Israel's 60th anniversary, he said:
"Israel's population may be only 7 million, but when you confront terror and evil, you are 307 million strong, because the United States stands with you."
There it is, the "evil"' word; not "'terror and insurrection," but "terror and evil." Not that the AP story would let such stuff stand, mind you:
Bush made no acknowledgment of the hardship Palestinians suffered when the creation of the Jewish state in 1948 displaced hundreds of thousands, a fact that serves as a counterpoint to Israel's two weeks of jubilant celebrations.
Just as AP makes no mention of the UN charter behind Israel's formation, or the cash payments received by happy Palestinians, glad to sell their worthless land, or the Palestinian terror attacks, or how the Palestinian screwed up of myriad Israeli peace initiatives because they're more interested in war than peace.
Bush also reconfirmed his commitment to trying to create a new Middle East, a commitment so many today find naive ... but few can propose a better alternative.
"From Cairo and Riyadh to Baghdad and Beirut, people will live in free and independent societies, where a desire for peace is reinforced by ties of diplomacy, tourism and trade. Iran and Syria will be peaceful nations, where today's oppression is a distant memory and people are free to speak their minds and develop their talents. And al-Qaida, Hezbollah and Hamas will be defeated, as Muslims across the region recognize the emptiness of the terrorists' vision and the injustice of their cause."
It is easy to laugh that off after five years in Iraq. It's easy to give up, vote for Obama, and pretend the world is a nice place. But leadership isn't easy, and as much as Bush has screwed things up, I still love him for the braveness of this vision.
If we can make it happen, Israel will be here to celebrate its 100th birthday. If not, I fear for these wonderful people and their inspirational nation.
If your heart's a bit sluggish this morning, I recommend a cardio workout and point you to The Progressive, and Amitabh Pal's interview with Jimmy Carter.
After a fawning introduction that irritatingly reminds us that a great number of people think of Carter's last couple decades as "perhaps the best post-Presidency ever in U.S. history," Pal sits down for a heart-to-heart.
Right off the bat, Carter shows that he is incapable of differentiating between terrorists captured on the field of battle and everyday American citizens:
What’s been done in the last seven years is embarrassing to an American. What we have done through our own government is to torture prisoners, to deprive them of their basic rights to legal counsel, even the right of prisoners to be acquainted with the charges against them. Those kinds of things have been cherished as basic principles of American law and American policy for more than 200 years. To have them subverted and abandoned and condemned is just a travesty of justice and a very serious embarrassment to those of us who—as Americans and non-Americans—are committed to human rights.
It's not embarrassing to me; I don't agree with his definition of torture; and I don't think al-Qaeda operatives who defy the Geneva Conventions in every act they do should be offered anything approaching the rights of Americans.
Is there a great commitment to human rights on the part of those of us who think people who blow up babies and crash planes into skyscrapers -- infringements of human rights, if you will -- be kept apart from the rest of us?
Turning to the Middle East, Carter leads off his answer to a question about the Annapolis conference -- the question goes something like this, "Bush's Annapolis ploy doesn't hold a candle to your magnificent Camp David Accords, does it?" -- Carter says:
The Palestinian community has been deliberately divided, one part from another, with support from both the United States and Israel.
That's one incredibly ignorant and biased way to look at it. As I recall, Hamas and Fatah had a shooting war. Each side was armed and funded not by the US or Israel, but by the various Arab nations. They ripped Palestine apart and spilled a lot of Palestinian blood all by themselves doing it, and there was nothing the US or Israel could have done to bring the sides together; that was the work of the Arab nations, and none of them could do a thing about it, either.
Besides, what's wrong with Palestine going crazy and making a fool of itself again? If they do it enough, all the world except for Jimmy Carter and foolish people like writers for The Progressive will see their leadership for what they are: Human scum incapable of running a gas station, let alone a nation.
I wish I could go on; I'm barely touching the surface here, but I must be off for another all-day meeting to prep for my client's Coastal Commission hearing. Feel free to read the piece yourself and add comments below.
Here's a fascinating follow-up to earlier reports concerning NoKo operatives in Syria's since-bombed nuclear facility:
A video taken inside a secret Syrian facility last summer convinced the Israeli government and the Bush administration that North Korea was helping to construct a reactor similar to one that produces plutonium for North Korea's nuclear arsenal, according to senior U.S. officials who said it would be shared with lawmakers today.
The officials said the video of the remote site, code-named Al Kibar by the Syrians, shows North Koreans inside. It played a pivotal role in Israel's decision to bomb the facility late at night last Sept. 6, a move that was publicly denounced by Damascus but not by Washington.
Sources familiar with the video say it also shows that the Syrian reactor core's design is the same as that of the North Korean reactor at Yongbyon, including a virtually identical configuration and number of holes for fuel rods. It shows "remarkable resemblances inside and out to Yongbyon," a U.S. intelligence official said. A nuclear weapons specialist called the video "very, very damning." (WaPo)
So, who shot the video and how did it get smuggled out of Syria? That would be the stuff of a great spy thriller. And imagine what diabolical plot developments would occur to violently alter the life of this guy:
"The United States and Israel have not identified any Syrian plutonium separation facilities or nuclear weaponization facilities," [David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector] said. "The lack of any such facilities gives little confidence that the reactor is part of an active nuclear weapons program."
OK, sure. Let's let the Syrians develop fortified underground uranium enrichment facilities like the Iranians before we take out their reactors. Oh wait. We haven't taken out the Iranian reactors because there have been too many Albrights involved there since the initiation of their program.
Talking To Terrorists: NoKo Aided Syrian Nuke Program
Imagine the progress Syria would have made on its nuclear facilities (left) if Israel hadn't blown them to smithereens (right). Now you finally get to officially imagine how many North Koreans were blown to smithereens in the attack:
WASHINGTON (WSJ) —North Korea was helping Syria build a plutonium-based nuclear reactor, the Bush administration is set to tell Congress, a revelation that could undermine diplomatic efforts to dismantle Pyongyang's nuclear-weapons program.
Speculation about North Korea's alleged role was sparked by a September Israeli strike inside Syria, which targeted what many U.S. government and private analysts believe was a nascent nuclear reactor. To date, neither Israel nor U.S. intelligence officials have made public information about the attack, except for a small number of lawmakers. That's fueled criticism from Republicans who charge the Bush administration with downplaying the matter to avoid hurting talks with the North Koreans.
This week, the Central Intelligence Agency is expected to begin briefing members of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees on the Israeli strike, according to Congressional and administration officials, based in part on intelligence provided by the Israeli government.
The information is expected to confirm that North Korea was helping Syria develop a plutonium-based nuclear reactor similar to the Yongbyon facility North Korea built north of Pyongyang, said an official familiar with the deliberations. The briefings are also expected to confirm that North Korean workers were active at the Syrian site at the time of the Israeli attack.
That's the trouble with trying to negotiate with rogue terrorist states. Obama tells us he'll be very good at this kind of stuff given his messianic aura and all, but one third of the American voting populace notwithstanding, do you think Li'l Kim will fall for that ballyhoo?
No, it's much more likely that the very junior senator from Illinois will fall for Li'l Kim's ballyhoo, coming back from Pyongyang with all sorts of assurances based on his abiding ego, not on any semblance of reality, only to find out that he's been duped.
As for Mr. Bush, he's played a pretty smart game with Pyongyang, not providing too much icing until he gets his cake, but this week's CIA briefing hopefully is signaling a new get tougher approach to the crazies in Pyongyang. This is a regime that engenders absolutely no sympathy from any credible countries, so we have a free hand in dealing with them.
Over the weekend, Obama picked up the endorsement of Hamas, delivered by Ahmed Yousef, chief political adviser to Hamas' Prime Minister:
"We like Mr. Obama and we hope he will win the election. He has a vision to change America."
Let's finish that last sentence: "... to change America's policy in support of Israel and against terrorists and rogue terrorist states."
I read a fair amount of daily media, but I didn't hear about this endorsement until I read it this morning on Power Line. Why do you suppose the big media ... you know the ones that secretly are goofy over Obama but try to cloak it under the threadbare cover of "objectivity" ... didn't see this as a fit story to cover.
After all, they covered every footfall and prattle of Jimmy Carter's little visit with Hamas, didn't they?
Apparently no one has briefed Barack Obama that he is running for president of a country called the United States, which, last time I checked, was the most powerful and influential nation on the power.
Here is the Dem front-runner's response when asked his position on China, Tibet and the Olympics:
"It's very hard to tell your banker that he's wrong," Obama said, after talking about the need to restore America's stance in the world, "And if we are running huge deficits and big national debts and we're borrowing money constantly from China, that gives us less leverage. It give us less leverage to talk about human rights, it also is giving us less leverage to talk about the uneven trading relationship that we have with China." (ABC)
Just because Beijing's sitting on a fat wad of our treasuries, we don't have any leverage at all with them? The fact that they depend on our markets means nothing? Or perhaps the fact that we can exert all sorts of trade and diplomatic pressure because of this little thing called influence?
Unbelievable.
This is Obama on the relatively soft issue of human rights. Imagine Obama going to Tehran to talk to Ahmadinejad if this is all he thinks of the power and influence America. Imagine what he thinks of our capability to achieve victory in Iraq.
And ask yourself, what do you think he'll be able to do to help our economic situation if he's this defeatist about one of America's economic problems?
Like it or not, President Bush got the nation through the tragedies of 9/11, established, put weight behind a new set of foreign affairs policies to deal with the era of global terrorism, and (on his second try) established effective warfare methods against terrorist forces -- thereby presiding over an administration that will have long historical legs.
So why this?
Bush Seeks to Salvage Legacy at NATO and Putin Summits
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush left on Monday for his farewell NATO summit and a final heads-of-state meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin in a bid to salvage a foreign policy legacy frayed by the Iraq war.
Seeking to reassert himself on the world stage in the twilight of his term, Bush will press NATO for more troops in Afghanistan, try to keep up momentum in the alliance's eastward expansion and attempt to ease strains with Russia.
The article goes on to talk about Bush's unpopularity in Europe and world leaders who "are looking forward now to the next president in Washington" -- kind of like the reporter who wrote this report, ya think?
It is true that lame duck presidents with low popularity ratings (which most lame duck presidents have) have trouble getting buy-in to their long-term policy goals, but Bush has never appeared to be a president who is too concerned about his legacy. Rather, he's been a do what needs to be done president, a who cares about the polls president.
Who are the leaders of Europe "looking forward" to, anyway? Another Clinton, whose anti-military mindset led us to the brink of 9/11? A McCain, who can be expected to continue a foreign policy stance not dissimilar to Bush's? Or an Obama, who combines inexperience, an anti-military mind-set and advisors who are pro Arab terrorist (in the sense that they are anti-Israel)?
If this were eight years ago, despite the blue dress hanging in the evidence room, a similar Clinton trip was covered more as a final love-fest, an opportunity for good friends and allies to get together one more time. Interestingly, both Bush and Clinton had controversial missile defense system proposals -- something the media is not reminding us of today. Here's a CNN story from the time:
BERLIN -- Plans by the United States to build a National Missile Defense system threatened to overshadow the harmony of President Bill Clinton's three-day visit to Germany as he received the International Charlemagne Award in Aachen, Germany, on Friday for U.S. contributions to postwar European unity.
That was followed by seven paragraphs about how problematic the missile defense system is (including a defense of the system by Sandy "Stuffed Shorts" Berger), then:
Clinton's lengthy meeting with Schroeder, followed by a late dinner on Thursday night, signaled a deepening personal friendship but a growing number of issues that German pundits fear may threaten strong ties. ...
Clinton is the first U.S. president to receive the Charlemagne award and arrived for church services and an afternoon ceremony in Aachen, the eighth- century capital of Emperor Charlemagne, whose empire at its height stretched from northern Spain to the Elbe in Germany.
Not quite the same tone, eh? No lame duck talk, no looking forward to the next president. And I have to think that if Bush had won a Charlemagne award, the press surely would be awash with talk of American imperialism under the Bush "regime."
No matter how the media sets it up, Bush's goals for the trip are straightforward: Do what he can to advance the NATO membership of Georgia and the Ukraine, and try to get his rogue state missile defense system installed in Europe -- both over the protests of Vladamir Putin. (By the way, the press is not full of article about world leaders "looking forward now to the next president in Moscow" because they know Putin's not going anywhere.)
So let's look back over this story over the next week to see if Reuters and the rest of the world press has once again set up high negative expectations about Bush, only to be disappointed by his success, as they have for eight years now.
My step-dad (Bill) is a retired senior Foreign Service Officer who led a fascinating career and has maintained long-time friendships with some very bright foreign policy folks.
He forwarded this analysis of the current situation in Venezuela to me. It was authored by a Foreign Service acquaintance who Bill holds in very high regard, but he asked that I refer to the author only as "a friend of my stepfather." So with no further adieu:
Finally got around to reading the journalist's note on Venezuela/Ecuador vs. Colombia, which was true when written but explained nothing.
Colombia's civil war began in 1948 and the FARC guerrillas trace their ancestry to that date. Then, it was a group of passionate revolutionaries today it is a 20,000 man criminal enterprise, led by rich thugs who make a fine living from cocaine. Reyes, the FARCs # 2 whom Colombia killed just inside Ecuador, was wearing in his jungle camp a ROLEX worth $10,000.
It's not surprising that Colombia got Reyes, who thought himself untouchable in Ecuador, even using his camp for a classroom for "internationals," among them 10 Mexican students (most died in the air strike).
The most important aspect may have been the "information warfare" bonus. Seizure of Reyes' computers and a notebook at his rainforest office have already led Costa Rican police to a cache of $500,000 in moldy $100s in the back yard of a 79 year old professor an aging Robespierre who kept a rainy day fund for the FARC.
The moral, your e-mail is not secure. In more important places, among them Mexico and Brasil, information from Reyes's files is also being tracked.
So while Ecuador got an apology and Chavez strutted, Colombia and President Uribe won big. Reputable polls show Uribe's popularity has risen from near 60% to 82%. The only dissonant note: President Bush unpopular in much of Latin America, broke s recent sensible silence about Chavez to growl loudly, a welcome diversion for Chavez and for the FARC. [Would he have criticized a Bill Clinton statement in a similar situation? I doubt it.]
None of this means the war on drugs goes well, it doesn't. But Colombia may have won a decisive battle against a shrinking FARC, a good thing.
Mindful of Scotty Reston's dictum that "the American people will do anything for Latin America except read about it," I will stop, before you delete all reference to Latin America from your computers.
But he goes on ...
Hardly anyone in the U.S., with the exception of the Spanish language news media, paid attention to the Venezuela and Ecuador vs. Colombia dust up. Now that their Presidents have shaken hands in Santo Domingo, Latin America will be forgotten, until the next crisis.
Colombia got its man (plus the gift of another of the FARC's top leadership). Most Colombians, who detest the FARC and support Uribe because he vigorously prosecutes the war, think an apology is not a heavy price for striking a hard blow at the insurgency.
For Ecuador, the crisis was about honor. That may sound strange, but history has given Ecuador a losers complex with respect to its larger neighbors. Uribe's apology settles the matter, until the next incident.
The chief protagonist, however, is Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.
That's probably true for Ecuador, but not for Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who has a blood feud with Colombia and President Alvaro Uribe. Chavez will keep on backing the narco-guerrilla FARC, simply because it is a way of striking at the U. S.
Now the FARC, which has just suffered some hard blows, is nowhere near taking Colombia, who democratic [sorry; the text gets messed up here]
Experts say no; the parties want control of the narrative about who is at fault, not fight. Ecuador voted for an OAS resolution that fell short of its demands though the text gave the Correa government satisfaction by noting Colombia's violation of Ecuador's territory. By accepting OAS good offices, Ecuador, which doesn't have the military horses, signaled a desire for peace.
If this were only about Ecuador and Colombia we could be confident the OAS, with a fine record of defusing state on state conflicts, would talk the dispute to death. The real protagonist, however, is Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who has a blood feud with Colombia and President Alvaro Uribe, mostly because Chavez backs the FARC's narco-guerillas as a way to get at the U.S.
In the conventional wisdom, Chavez goads the U.S., knowing that we recognize that hostilities would drive oil prices through the roof and that our forces are tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan. Perhaps that is still true, but his calculations may be changing.
It is important to recognize that Chavez sees himself as the heir of Simon Bolivar, who liberated South America from Spain. In Chavez's mind, he is the new "Liberator," destined to throw off the Yankee yoke. He takes heart from OPEC's success in damaging the American economy but his effort to build an anti-U.S. coalition has not gone well, massive expenditures to support Latin political friends notwithstanding.
Today, Bolivia and Nicaragua are acolytes, while Ecuador and Argentina are friends. Brazil humors Chavez but ignores him when it comes to Brazil's vast ties with the U.S. Elsewhere, he is often detested, for meddling and for his anti-democratic stance. By helping the FARC, which is nowhere near taking power, he has earned the enmity of most Colombians.
Chavez is in a race against time before his popularity runs out at home. Oil production is declining and inflation the highest in the Western Hemisphere. He is about to lose his favorite target, a Bush administration unpopular in much of Latin America.
Our next President, regardless of party, is likely to enjoy warmer relations with the region. A policy of giving Chavez enough rope with which to hang himself could pay off in 2009.
Autocrats in trouble at home resort to foreign adventures. If Chavez recognizes he is on the clock, a war with Colombia may commend itself as a way to drag U.S. forces into the fray, a last chance to mobilize Latin America before declining fortunes and a new U.S. administration cut short his Bolivarian destiny.
None of this, except for trying to bankrupt the U.S. through oil, is rational to us. But in Chavez's Mussolini-style search for glory, war may be logical. Uribe is alert to this possibility; by not responding to Chavez's troops on the frontier, he positioned Colombia to avoid blame, should Chavez initiate hostilities.
That is key, for Uribe and for ourselves -- no ambiguity about who is the aggressor, should Chavez use force. In Latin America, self defense beats pre-emption every time. In saying this I don't want to fall into what Secretary Gates back when he was DDI -- used to tell me was stuff for a "Cassandra column."
What Teodoro Petkoff (Venezuelan guerrilla turned staunch democrat) said may well be correct: "Chavez barks but will not bite." But have shin guards handy, just in case.
Despite some breaks and mysterious repetition, perhaps caused when it was copied and forwarded to me, I thought the piece insightful and worth sharing.
Nicholas Sarkozy might have opened the gates for international leaders to speak out against China's heavy-handed suppression in Tibet, as Pres. Bush "very clearly and frankly" told Chief Commie Hu Jintao over the phone today to knock it off in Tibet.
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush sharply confronted China's President Hu Jintao on Wednesday about Beijing's harsh crackdown in Tibet, joining an international chorus of alarm just months before the U.S. and the rest of the world parade to China for the Olympics.
In a telephone call with Hu, Bush "pushed very hard" about violence in Tibet, a necessity for restraint and a need for China to consult with representatives of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet, the White House said.
After days of silence by Bush as other world leaders raised their voices, it marked a rare, direct protest from one president to another. As if to underscore how pointed Bush was, the White House said he used the call to "speak very clearly and frankly."
That's diplomatic-speak for tough stuff.
The Tibetans are getting what they wanted in their uprising, and the timing is proving to be exceptionally effective. With less than five months until the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, all the world's eyes are turned to a sympathetic people under the thumb of an unsympathetic regime.
Beijing knows there are plenty of repressed people in their country who are watching Tibet's example and considering uprisings of their own, including farmers who have had their land stolen by the central government and the Muslim Uighurs next door to Tibet. What fun for us, watching Communist totalitarians squirm!
From a timing point of view, it's also interesting that all this is coming up as Obama "opens the dialog on race" (i.e., backpedals like crazy from his ranting racist pastor), because at its base, the China-Tibet situation is one of racism, with Beijing as the writer and enforcer of Jim Crow laws.
There's a very interesting report, Jampa: The Story of Racism in Tibet on the International Campaign for Tibet Web site. It cuts through the "equality" patter of the regime to detail Chinese attitudes of superiority over the scores of non-Chinese peoples that also make up a part of the nation's population, using Tibet as the central example. Excerpt:
Today's policies and practice of racism and racial discrimination in Tibet are heavily influenced by the historical development of Chinese perceptions of Tibetans. Chinese leaders, including Sun Yatsen and Chiang Kaishek, promoted racial myths to redefine territorial borders and unify the Chinese nation-state.
Chinese nationalism, embedded in a historiography of Chinese greatness and superiority over all other "barbarian" peoples, provides a backdrop to the current Chinese policy on the control and administration of Tibet. In July 2001, Hu Jintao credited China for ushering in "a new era in Tibet to turn from darkness to light, from backwardness to progress, from poverty to affluence."
Liberation, enlightenment and modernization have been the ideological banners for subjugating national minorities and, far from promoting respect and equitable treatment, fuel pre-existing biases of backwardness, barbarism and primitiveness.
The two Chinese characters that "spell out" China are one that means "kingdom" and one that means "central," and "central" comes first. For several thousand years, the Chinese have seen their civilization as the center of things -- and if you see yourself in the center, then everything else is outside of the center and necessarily lesser.
Granted, Tibet's mystical Buddhist demographic makes the country seem to be an odd, primitive anachronism in today's modern world, but appearances are not reality. Tibetan culture is extremely sophisticated and intellectual; they are not a people or a culture to look down one's nose at.
But that is what China is doing, along with sending in troops to quell the Tibetan's desire to practice their religion without the soul-killing influence of Communist atheism.
To speak out against China on Tibet is to speak much good against much evil -- a classic Bush venue, so it's good to see him add his voice to the rising chorus.
This is a two parter. The first question is to name the country that is the focus of this passage from Reuter's story about the State Department's 2007 Human Rights Report:
This year ___ was classified among authoritarian countries that are undergoing economic reform and rapid social change but which "have not undertaken democratic political reform," the report said.
In ___, controls were "tightened on religious freedom in Tibetan areas and in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and the treatment of petitioners in Beijing worsened," the report said.
"The government also continued to monitor, harass, detain, arrest, and imprison activists, writers, journalists, and defense lawyers and their families, many of whom were seeking to exercise their rights under the law," it said.
"Although the government pursued some important reforms, such as the Supreme People's Court's resumption of death penalty review power in cases handed down for immediate execution, efforts to reform or abolish the reeducation-through-labor system remained stalled," it said.
Did you guess China? Good! (I know; the photos gave it away.)
Now the second question: What did the State Department do as a result of all this?
If you guessed "It removed China from its list of the world's worst human rights violators," you're right! Congratulations! You've won a trip to the gulag of your choice!
Sure, the top ten offenders could give China a run for its money. After all North Korea, Myanmar, Iran, Syria, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Eritrea and Sudan have nothing much to be proud of in the human rights arena. But with a population of 1.3 billion, China can trounce on more human rights in an afternoon than its competitors can falsely imprison, torture or just plain murder in a month of Sundays. (Remember, no praying allowed on Sundays. Or any other day.)
Obviously, there is some pandering going on here -- most likely an effort to encourage China to get North Korea in tow and de-nuked. If moving them down to 11 on the list of nefarious nations helps, it's worth it, especially since China has proven beyond the shadow of a torture rack doubt that it's not going to change its policies whether it's on the list or not.
Before we go, let's do a little exercise in civics with the top ten:
North Korea, Communist dictatorship
Myanmar, Communist junta
Iran, Islamist theocracy
Syria, Islamist dictatorship
Zimbabwe, Socialist dictatorship
Cuba, Communist dictatorship
Belarus, Soviet anachronism, Communist style
Uzbekistan, Soviet anachronism, Islamist style
Eritrea, Islamist dictatorship
Sudan, Islamist theocratic dictatorship
Gee, not a democratic nation, Judeo-Christian or otherwise, among them. What have we learned, class?
China is hard at work transforming its army from one designed to fight long wars of attrition on its soil to one that can project force in short, high-tech wars outside its boundaries, says the pentagon's annual report to Congress on Chinese military activities.
It says that the main short-term focus of China's military build-up is the Taiwan Strait, but that Beijing is also improving its ability to win possible conflicts over resources or territory.
David Sedney, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia, says the international community still knows very little about China's military modernization.
"I think the biggest thing for people to be concerned about really is the fact that we don't have that kind of strategic understanding of the Chinese intentions," said Sedney. "And that leads to uncertainty, that leads to a readiness to hedge against the possibility that China's development will go in ways that the Chinese say it won't."
The 2008 report says China's capabilities are expanding from the land, air and sea dimensions of the traditional battlefield into space and cyber-space.
I'm hoping globalization will mute China's threat, as does Thomas P.M. Barnett:
[W]e can't rule the peace with our Leviathan-heavy force, but they can't rule war with their Leviathan-lite force either, so we must cooperate in extending and protecting globalization to our mutual advantage..
We owe China this strategic understanding before the 5th/6th generations of Chinese leadership hit some of the fish-or-cut-bait moments that must inevitably arise for them in coming years.
Yes, and they owe us an explanation, too, or reports like this from VOC run counter to wishes for mutual cooperation:
China's own military newspaper last week called on Beijing to increase defense spending to make up for what it called "historic shortfalls" in the 1980's and 1990's. China's Liberation Army Daily warned of grave consequences if the spending increases do not continue.
A few demonstrators are out in Miami's Cuban community, marking the blessed end of the dictatorial rule of Fidel Castro, who announced his resignation early this morning.
The news, thus far, has not been met with large demonstrations, either in Miami or Cuba. Perhaps we have learned not to hope for much with Cuba, especially with Raul Castro taking over the government, promising only "modest" reform -- in a country where the average wage is $18 a month!
Speaking in Rwanda -- a country that knows a thing or two about brutal rule -- President Bush was upbeat, calling on the world to help move Cuba towards democracy:
"The international community should work with the Cuban people to begin to build institutions that are necessary for democracy," he said. "Eventually, this transition ought to lead to free and fair elections — and I mean free, and I mean fair — not these kind of staged elections that the Castro brothers try to foist off as true democracy."
If that dream turns out to be just a short way off, I'll be surprised. It's been a long time since the Berlin Wall fell overnight. Despots have adapted, figuring out how to hold onto power in a world that no longer welcomes them.
But even so, a world without Fidel Castro is a better world.
Of course, the Arab world benefits from Palestine's misery because they can blame it all on Israel. But often enough, news comes out of Palestine that reveals that the Arab world also dislikes Palestine for no other reason than that they're a people who are so easy to dislike.
Here's the latest from the Egypt/Palestine border, where chaos has prevailed ever since Hamas blew up a section of the border fence. (Apparently it's OK for Egyptians to put up fences to keep out Palestinians, but not for Israelis to do the same ....)
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) - Egyptian riot police and armored vehicles restricted Gaza motorists to a small border area of Egypt on Saturday, in the second attempt in two days to restore control over the chaotic frontier breached by Hamas militants.
At least 38 members of the Egyptian security forces have been hospitalized, some in critical condition, because of cross-border confrontations, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said. The minister complained of "provocations" at the border, a thinly veiled reprimand of Hamas, and said that while Egypt is ready to ease the suffering of Gazans, this should not endanger Egyptian lives.
Biting the hands that feed them truly has become an art in Palestine.
This is just the sort of nation we can expect when rule is given to terrorists and education is nothing more than indoctrination into hatred and victimization. It will take a generation or more to flush this out of Palestine if the process started tomorrow -- but it's not going to start any time soon.
If, then, Palestine becomes a state, it's going to become a very nasty state -- making me wonder why "solution" is always added to the phrase "two-state solution."
With Hugo (No, yougo) Chavez suddenly appearing to find threats and terrors everywhere -- doing the same ol' dirty tricks the Left accuses Bush of -- will the Leftys' love affair with Hugo falter?
As all of us who read the Leftist polemics know, Bush created hysteria over "non-existent" WMDs in order to justify an attack on Iraq, and has kept the terror over terrorism purposefully pitched at a high level in order to continue expanding his control of government and masking his efforts to shred the Constitution and crush our freedom.
Or something like that.
Now this, from the Left's favorite crackpot despot:
CARACAS [Don't you just love saying "Caracas?" Carrracas. Carrrracasss!], Venezuela (AP) - President Hugo Chavez on Friday accused Colombia of plotting a military attack against Venezuela.
"A military aggression against Venezuela is being prepared" by Colombia, Chavez said. He warned Colombia not to attempt "a provocation against Venezuela" and said his country would cut off all oil exports in the event of a military strike from the neighboring country.
Chavez did not support evidence to support his claim.
Nor did Bush! Or so the Lefties say, anyway, conveniently forgetting so much.
Or maybe it's his old friend Fidel he's emulating; after all, he just accused Columbia of plotting his assassination. Fidel's used that one for years to whip up the anti-American mindset in Cuba -- although I'm sure a substantial segment of the population there merely wonders why it's taking us so long.
In reality, Chavez is behaving more like Saddam Hussein, as if he's preparing his own version of Saddam's disastrous Iran/Iraq war, with Columbia in his sights. Since, unlike Bush who is content to be an 8-year president, Chavez's wants to be a long-term dictator, he may see war with Columbia as his best means to that end -- behaving very much in reality just as the Left imagines Bush acting in their paranoid fantasies.
My, how confusing the Leftist mindset it!
By the way, the always informative Daniel at Venezuela News and Views has a lengthy post that digs into all this and concludes that ultimately, Chavez is unlikely to go to war with Columbia.
"Thank you for the "Voice of the Victims films. The students really liked them, and it means so much to them to hear real stories and not watch a cheesy drama like so many other videos."
— High school teacher.
So Bush is a foreign policy dolt? Too stupid to do anything but alienate Europe and other far more sophisticated allies? Once again, has proved himself smarter than this critics, this time touring Europe as a lame duck and achieving all the policy goals set forth for the trip.
