This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Foreign Policy

  • Governed by impudent children

    So the verdict is in; Pelosi travelling to glad-hand with Assad was stupid and possibly illegal according to the Washington Post, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal – but, hey, all of the Arabs say it was brave of her. Brave for what? Acting like a tool on the world stage? A tool of the Arabs and a tool of Code Pink and the other mindless drones in the anti-war movement who involuntarily blurt out “Bush Lies!”, “Bring the troops home!” and “Impeach Him!” as if they all had Tourette’s Syndrome.

    So what if she took a message to Assad from Israel that was just manufactured Bullcrap. What’s the big deal? And so what if she claims she confronted the Wahabis in Saudi Arabia about not having enough women in their legislature (yeah, I’ll believe that one – sounds like Hillary’s “I tried to join the Marines” story).  

    What has she done for the cause of peace in the Middle East? A big fat goose egg. Nuthin’. Nada. She got to spend more time than usual on camera while Congress is on break and not rewriting the defense bill that going to get veto’d. That’s it. 

    What’s happening back home? The Democrats are telling the Washington Times they’re not going to impeach the President;

    “The timing is all wrong,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, New York Democrat. “If this were the first two years of his administration I would advocate impeachment. A lot of people at home say impeachment, and I’m sure he committed a lot of impeachable offenses, but think about it practically.”

    Ok, Mr Waddler…oops, sorry, Nadler…what are those impeachable offenses? Name just one off the top of your fat head.

    Rep. Diane Watson, California Democrat, said she hears calls for impeachment from every crowd.
        “They say, ‘Democrats: Do something. Get Cheney, Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales.’ They are saying impeachment. I am hearing that more and more and more,” said Ms. Watson.

    So, what’s the basis for impeachment? When Clinton was impeached, everyone in the country knew what the charges were – lying under oath. What did President Bush do? What has Cheney, Rove or Gonzales done?

    Apparently the people who take their time to talk and otherwise communicate with Democrat Congresspeople are morons and idiots who couldn’t tell the Constitution from constipation. Why don’t you tell your constituents that the President has to do something illegal, like Clinton did, before you can impeach him, dipstick.

    See, all of this is related, the trip to Syria and the mindless gumflapping here at home. This is just Democrats undermining the authority of this Administration to paralyze them – not for national security, not for policy reasons. Just pure political hackery. Like a bunch of little spoiled children who suddenly realized that they are just kids with no ideas, no means and no experience.

    They realize that the President has done the only thing that could have been done all along and they don’t have the gumption to tell their constituents or their paymasters.

    More on Pelosi’s Syria trip aftermath from Little Green Footballs.

  • Just everybody shut up for a bit

    I’m reading Robert Novak’s column in the Washington Post this morning which is just so much hand-wringing over a missed opportunity for peace in Israel.

    The aphorism (originated by Israeli statesman Abba Eban) that Arabs “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity” now can be applied to Israel. Last week’s Riyadh declaration indicated the willingness of the Arab world to consider a peaceful solution. Now, belief here among peace-seekers is that nothing will happen until a new president enters the Oval Office in 2009.

    Gee, I wonder why that is? Maybe it’s because the US isn’t perceived as a reliable broker any longer – not because of President Bush and his cabinet, but because, apparently we have 300 million Secretaries of State these days. Everyone with pocket change to buy a ticket flies off to the Middle East, presents themselves as negotiators, swap recipes and tramples innocent bystanders getting to the microphones to trumpet their accomplishments.

    With this president, it began with Congressman McDermott way back in October 2002 when McDermott announced that Saddam Hussein was more trustworthy than President Bush. I’ll use Larry Elder’s recount of the event;

    Standing in Iraq, McDermott incredibly insisted that Americans “have to take the Iraqis on their face value.” ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked McDermott, “Before you left for Baghdad, you said the president of the United States will lie to the American people in order to get us into this war. Do you really believe that?” Following a rambling reply, McDermott finally said, “I think the president would mislead the American people.”

    How can the world have trust in our word with crackpots like that getting face time? Then you’ve got Hillary Clinton telling the New York Post that the President knew about 9-11 attacks before hand and Cynthia McKinney calling for investigations of the Bush Administration before the dust had settled in New York City on that day?

    We left the South Vietnamese to be slaughtered, imprisoned, and floating around the South China Sea, the Cambodians to the whims of a blood-thirsty tyrant. We left the Shi’ites hanging in 1991 while Hussein murdered them in droves, we left the Somalis in a lurch in 1993, we left the Haitians in as bad or worse condition than they were when Jimmy Carter went there to negotiate (not to mention we scooped up every Haitian we found floating in the Caribbean and stuck them in a Guantanamo tent city for indeterminate amount of time) and now Congress is doing it’s level best to broadcast to world that we’re about to abandon the Iraqis. Why won’t Pakistan do more to stop al Qaida operations in their country? Because they’re sure we’ll pull out before the job is done.

    Who could trust us? We don’t speak with one voice – we speak with millions of voices. Spiro Agnew called them the “nattering nabobs of negativity” and, boy, he nailed it. Free speech doesn’t extend to flocks of hypocrits negotiating our surrender.

    And a note to Blinky, Queen of Botox, Jimmy Carter’s endorsement of your “mission” to Syria in no way reflects favorably.  Although Hezbollah may name a rocket after you.

  • Kidnapping as a foreign policy

    So who’s surprised that the government who’s political leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hostage-taker and kidnapper nearly thirty years ago, is using that same crime today as a bargaining tool? 15 British sailors and marines have become a bargaining chip in Iran’s criminal behavior towards the rest of the world. The rest of the world that has tolerated and turned a blind eye to Iran’s sociopathic antics on the world’s stage for decades.

    The Washington Times reports that Iran will try the 15;

    The Iranian government will charge 15 captured British service members with “illegal entrance into Iranian waters,” Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said yesterday, raising the stakes in his country’s confrontation with an outraged British government.
        Mr. Mottaki told reporters in New York that the matter had already been referred to the Iranian legal system and that the 14 men and one woman, who were captured in the Persian Gulf on Friday, would stand trial.
        “Iranian authorities intercepted these sailors and marines in Iranian waters,” said the minister, who was in New York for an unrelated vote Saturday in which the U.N. Security Council imposed new sanctions against his government.
        British Prime Minister Tony Blair said “there is no doubt at all” that the seizure took place in Iraqi waters.

    The time has come to deal with Iran in the way that they’ve been begging to be treated all these years. They’ve participated in and paid for kidnapping across the globe to get their way, to fund weapons sales and to fill their coffers - their rogue behavior needs to have a steep price for the Iranians beginning today. In fact, a nice little bombing run on their nuclear facilities will give excellent coverage to a rescue raid (we all know that the Brits know where the sailors and marines are being held – the goat herders aren’t that good at disguising their activities). 

    The DC Examiner reports that China and Russia are putting pressure on Iran to comply with UN demands to stop uranium enrichment. I guess the other two sociopaths see where they can hurt by the fallout of a nuclear-armed Iran in a sanction-conflict with the rest of the civilized world. But Iran continues to suspend it’s pledges, according to the Washington Post/AP.;

    In New York, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said, “A few select countries don’t have the right to abuse the Security Council.”

    “The Security Council has to be aware of its own position and status,” he added. “Actions that are illegal, unwarranted and unjustified will reduce the credibility of the Security Council.”

    Mottaki said Iran has repeatedly sought negotiations with the powers that drafted the resolution against the Islamic republic: the five permanent council members — the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China — and Germany. But he accused those countries of lacking the political will to reach a breakthrough.

    Doesn’t even sound like a sane person who has been watching the news lately, does it? In another article, the Washington Post reports that Iran is feeling the financial squeeze from sanctions;

    More than 40 major international banks and financial institutions have either cut off or cut back business with the Iranian government or private sector as a result of a quiet campaign launched by the Treasury and State departments last September, according to Treasury and State officials.

    The financial squeeze has seriously crimped Tehran’s ability to finance petroleum industry projects and to pay for imports. It has also limited Iran’s use of the international financial system to help fund allies and extremist militias in the Middle East, say U.S. officials and economists who track Iran.

    So feeling the walls closing in, the Islamic Republic resorts to the only thing it understands; extortion using the lives of westerners as chits. There’s only one reasonable response to this barbaric behavior. The harsher the better. But, it’ll never happen – the Left and their usual hand-wringing and pleas for civility will stop it. And when the British sailors and Marines are beheaded on YouTube, somehow it’ll be George Bush’s and Tony Blair’s fault. The Left loves to make excuses for bloody tyrants.

  • Haliburton moving to Dubai

    From the Fox News article;

    “Halliburton is opening its corporate headquarters in Dubai while maintaining a corporate office in Houston,” spokeswoman Cathy Mann said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. “The chairman, president and CEO will office from and be based in Dubai to run the company from the UAE.”

    Lesar, speaking at an energy conference in nearby Bahrain, said he will relocate to Dubai from Texas to oversee Halliburton’s intensified focus on business in the Mideast and energy-hungry Asia, home to some of the world’s most important oil and gas markets.

    “As the CEO, I’m responsible for the global business of Halliburton in both hemispheres and I will continue to spend quite a bit of time in an airplane as I remain attentive to our customers, shareholders and employees around the world,” Lesar said. “Yes, I will spend the majority of my time in Dubai.”

    So what’s the big deal? Who’s surprised? Haliburton is an oil services company – the US isn’t interested in drilling for our own oil over here, so why shouldn’t they move to Mid-East? If Congress would get off their dead asses and authorize the US to drill, pipe and refine our own oil again, I’m sure Haliburton will reconsider.

    As the Wall Street Journal says;

    Halliburton’s decision is another sign of shifting alignments in the global oil order. Houston remains the center of the global Western oil trade, yet Dubai has grown in recent years as a rival — a hub for trade, investment and oil-patch deals, especially for national oil firms expanding beyond their home turf.

    Why would a bookseller open a shop in a neighborhood of illiterates? 

  • ETA operating in Bolivia

    Geez, I nearly skipped over this one today from the Washington Time’s Martin Arostegui;

    Members of the Basque terrorist group ETA have been conducting financial and propaganda activities in Bolivia with the knowledge of President Evo Morales, according to Spanish intelligence reports cited by the Madrid newspaper El Pais and the local press.
        Officials in Bolivia have confirmed that six members of the Basque separatist organization traveled to Bolivia and met with high-level officials of the Morales government during the past year.
        According to these officials, Mr. Morales and his vice president, Alvaro Garcia Linera, have had relations with ETA members since 2005, predating Mr. Morales’ 2006 inauguration.
        “Members of ETA have been purchasing homes and creating a new refuge for the organization in Cochabamba, where they move like fish in water,” according to El Pais.
        Cochabamba, which is Bolivia’s narcotrafficking center and contains the country’s main legal coca plantations, is a stronghold of the ruling Movement Toward Socialism (MAS).
        Mr. Morales denied in a Feb. 22 press conference any links with the Basque separatist group, which has been responsible for a number of fatal bombings in Spain. “I personally don’t know anybody in ETA,” he told Bolivian reporters.

    Morales is Hugo Chavez’ man, bought and paid for with Venezuelan petro-dollars. And it seems they’re in the terrorist business now bringing in Basque evil-doers from Spain for a little rest, relaxation and giving them room to train. I guess Zapatero’s capitulation to the Islamists hasn’t insulated him from his own domestic terrorists – as recently as December 30th Basques have detonated a bomb in Madrid in spite of peace talks.

    I’ll bet cash money that the ETA will also operate anti-democracy terrorist training camps in Bolivia to destabilize Latin America at the behest of Chavez and his puppets. Just as the IRA operated training camps in Columbia (in the late 90s) and the Palestinians operated camps in Libya (in the 80s). That’s why, from the beginning of this war against terrorists, I’ve been in favor of wiping out all terrorists from ETA to Shining Path to the Moros. Screw focusing on al Qaida – kill ’em all.

    Captain’s Quarters has a report on our own hunt for bin Laden in Pakistan.

  • Advice from the Oracle of the Ozarks

    Last week, that economic guru Hillary Clinton warned that the sudden drop in market value, had exposed the fact that we’re too heavily invested in Asian growth – specifically that of China. Now, granted, she had turned a $10 thousand investment into a hundred grand in the span of a few days in the 80s, but her understanding of capital and investment markets, if at all like her husband’s seems woefully immature.

    I remember that Bill Clinton declared the business cycle officially dead in 1997 proclaiming that his administration had successfully ended the ups and downs of market investing. Luckily, the brokerage houses didn’t close their doors on the announcement. Within a few years, the markets were headed south during his administration when investors discovered that the Clinton Administration intended to indict Microsoft in March 2000 and despite all of the yammering to the contrary, that administration wasn’t pro-business afterall. 

    Of course they covered up the impending recession with totally unfounded claims that the Republican presidential candidates were “talking down” the markets. The economy was failing because of heavy taxation and a restrictive governmental environment and no amount of “talking up” was going to fix it. Business cycles were saved. 

    I also remember in the eighties when all of the media outlets and Democrats were wringing their hands over the Japanese buying up our real estate. Everyone was so worried that the Japanese would buy up the whole country. Then the Japanese investors took a bath when the bottom fell out of the bond and real estate markets. They lost billions of dollars which impacted their economy heavily causing banking and investment reforms in Japan. And Americans still own the United States. 

    Anyone who had the least bit of interest in the markets over the past few years knows that Asia has been making a load of money for those intrepid enough to invest there. Anyone with any common sense would realize that markets that go up, eventually come down. Pretty simple rule, huh? That’s why I pulled most of my international investments last summer. When markets as volatile as the Asian markets have been cooking for too long, it’s time to get out. Anyone paying attention to the tech market in the 90s knows that. 

    So what if the Chinese are buying our debt in the form of bonds? Bonds haven’t been priced all that well lately and prices have room to fall. Its the Chinese that have to worry, not us. But you can’t explain that to communists – the ones in China or the ones here running for President. 

    And when the Asian market was foundering last week, where did Asian investors put their money? In the US stock and capital markets. 

  • Coup attempt in Venezuela, Iran general defects

    Things have started going our way, apparently. First a short blurb from UPI announcing that a Guardia Nacional officer (not the same as our National Guard, by the way) has been arrested for plotting the overthrow of Ooooo-go Chavez;

    A Venezuelan National Guard general was arrested on charges that he planned the overthrow of President Hugo Chavez, Globovision TV reported Wednesday.
    Gen. Ramon Guillen Davila was arrested Tuesday, according to Venezuelan officials, on charges he had plotted to overthrow and kill Chavez.

    Good news because, generally speaking, in Latin America, if the Army doesn’t approve of what a political leader is doing, that leader either reforms his ways or there’s a new leader. If this General Davilla was popular among the troops, it could stir up some trouble for Oooogo.

    And from the Washington Post, by way of Captain’s Quarters, I read that the missing Iranian general Ali Rez Asgari is in the company of US intelligence agents and singing like a Spring robin;

     Asgari served in the Iranian government until early 2005 under then-President Mohammad Khatami. Asgari’s background suggests that he would have deep knowledge of Iran’s national security infrastructure, conventional weapons arsenal and ties to Hezbollah in south Lebanon. Iranian officials said he was not involved in the country’s nuclear program, and the senior U.S. official said Asgari is not being questioned about it. Former officers with Israel’s Mossad spy agency said yesterday that Asgari had been instrumental in the founding of Hezbollah in the 1980s, around the time of the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut.

    These are important events that may trigger a more successful near-term future in our war against tyrannts and terrorists.

  • Will all of you retired people please stay at home

    I work in an office that has been around for more than 70 years and many of the people that worked here when I started here had been around about half that time. Luckily, they’ve retired. Unluckily, they still come back and kibutz and advise us when their days aren’t as full as they’d like.

    You know what I mean right? After all, we have national examples. Jimmy Carter, for one. I just “googled” “Jimmy Carter criticizes” and got 325,000 results. I guess being the worst president in history isn’t enough for one lifetime.

    Another example is Alan Greenspan who sent world financial markets into a spin last week with his “recession is possible…” comment, can’t seem to shut up. 28 minutes ago, Bloomberg put up a story that reports Greenspan just said that there’s a 1/3 chance of recession this year (whatever the Hell that means) – and they called it “update 1”. Alan, go home and hug your wife and watch some Judge Judy. You have enough money, you don’t need the attention anymore so why do you want to pester us – and poor Ben Bernanke?

    And if that’s not enough, four has-been Senate majority leaders are forming a “bi-partisan” advisory group”.

    The Bipartisan Policy Center, to be announced at a news conference Tuesday, will be directed by former Sens. Howard Baker, R-Tenn.; George Mitchell, D-Maine; Bob Dole, R-Kan.; and Tom Daschle, D-S.D.

    “We’ve all been leaders and you know how difficult it is,” said Dole, who served as both majority and minority leader between 1985 and 1996. “We’re all partisan in a way,” Dole said in an interview Monday, adding they also hope to show that “compromise is not a bad word.”

    Mitchell, who led the Senate from 1989 to 1995, added, “If the four of us can reach consensus in some areas it might have a beneficial effect.”

    What, for Pete’s sake could this cabal of politicians who are no longer in office possibly offer the world besides worthless opions. If I’m subjected to Tom Dascle’s “I’m concerned…” one more time, I’ll have to track him down and put a boot in his behind. 

    You can bet that when I finally retire again, I’ll not pester any-damn-body with my opinions – well, except here, of course.