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

Category: Foreign Policy

  • Ominous rumblings from Chavez

    Maria Anastasia O’Grady writes in the Wall Street Journal from Venezuela the most troubling reports;

    Over the course of five days in Caracas last week, I couldn’t help but notice the ubiquitous image of President Hugo Chávez peering down from hundreds of his campaign banners that read “Vote against the devil; vote against the empire.” The nationalistic message denouncing President George W. Bush and the U.S. blanketed the capital.

    On election night, as it became clear that more votes had been cast for Mr. Chávez than for candidate Manuel Rosales, the president appeared on the balcony of Miraflores, the presidential palace, to proclaim that “the devil who tries to dominate the world,” had suffered another defeat.

    The red-clad Chávez dramatically recited from the Lord’s Prayer and then borrowed from it for his own prophesy. “Thy kingdom come,” he bellowed, and thereafter, “the kingdom of socialism.” The ailing Fidel Castro reportedly sent a short message from Havana congratulating Mr. Chávez and noting that “the victory was resounding, crushing and without parallel in the history of our America.”

    Couple this with Socialist winning elections in Equador and Uraguay and Daniel Ortega winning his election in Nicaragua. And then back it all up with Chavez’ endless petro dollars after nationalizing his oilfields. So if we somehow defeated the Islamist facists today, tommorrow we’d be shifting our focus to the south.

    It’s been my opinion for some time that Chavez has been taking advantage of the Middle East War to build himself up a power base and become the new Simon Bolivar. Most of the Central Americans I know think of him as a big joke, but with his non-stop flow of cash, his need to stay in power, and our current immigration problem, he’s becoming a bigger threat to us than the Arab terrorists.

  • Thank you, Captain Obvious

    Robert Tracinski had a really spot-on piece in the WSJ’s Opinion Journal called Captain Obvious to the Rescue yesterday and since no one has picked up on it yet, I thought I’d just add a link and a teaser;

    In my student days back at the University of Chicago, there was a campus comedy troupe modeled on Second City, their more well-known uptown uncle. The U of C group was pretty funny, if in a somewhat bookish way. (Who else does a comedy routine based on “Oedipus Rex”?) One of their funniest bits was a recurring skit about a superhero named Captain Obvious. In each scene, a character would face a mundane problem, only to be “saved” by the banal and utterly unhelpful advice offered by Captain Obvious. “I’ve locked my keys in my car. What am I going to do?” “Well then,” replies Captain Obvious, “all you have to do is open the door to your car, and then you can get your keys.” Each scene ended the same way, with Captain Obvious proclaiming, “No, don’t thank me. It’s all in a day’s work for Captain Obvious.

    I’ve been reminded of this skit many times since, because I frequently hear the same kind of advice being given in Washington. Take, for example, the recommendations offered, to much fanfare, by the Iraq Study Group.

     

  • Iran’s Holocaust forum

    I really tried to ignore this, since it’s just plain ignorant for ayone to believe that the only reason Israel exists is because of the deprivations of the 30s and 40s. Jews have been persecuted throughout their history but the narrowminded anti-Zionists have given the world something to get behind together.

    I’ve read the other blogs, like Little Green Footballs, where everyone has said everything about these tiny-brained bigots much better than I could have ever done. I’m simply amazed that the media is treating this like it’s a normal event – like it’s good for us to hear a different opinion on every subject – including the opinion that Israel doesn’t have the right to exist because there was no Halocaust.

    Now I’m not Jewish, but I have to reason to doubt that the Halocaust happened. I’ve been to Dachau and Bergen-Belsen and I could smell the death in the air decades after the Halocaust. I’ve been to the mass grave containing the bodies of over 700 displaced Eastern Europeans behind the barracks at Wildflecken.

    Since the premise of this whole exercise is the expression of free speech, and the free exchange of differing ideas, let’s all go to Iran and discuss whether Mohammed really existed or not. Let’s see how long that discussion would last.

    It sort of reminds of the Democrats hiding behind their “loyal opposition” facade, claiming to not be anti-American, just exchanging ideas. All it really is, in both cases, is undermining order and peace in the world with hate. REAL hate speech not that imagined sort that makes the newspapers in this country.

    I wonder how the Left feels standing shoulder-to-shoulder with human punchline David Dukes.

  • Adios, Kofi the Boob

    Kofi Annan couldn’t help but endear himself further to the anti-American wing of world opinion. Blaming the US and our President for his own greed and complacency, Annan warned, hypocritically, I might add, that “The Security Council is not just another stage on which to act out national interests”.

    I guess it’s the stage where we act out our personal interests, instead. Like Security Council members who were paid off to protect Hussein’s regime from the inevitable. When a great, lumbering oaf like the UN under Annan has refuses to act as they’ve refused to act against Hezbollah, as they’ve refused to act in support of the refugees of Darfor, as they refused to act to save Rwandans, as they’ve refused to act to wrestle Somalia from the al-Quada warlords, as they let Bosnians and Kosovars languish under their respective oppressors.

    I think it’s just a little bit strange that Annan relied on the United States, soley, to bring peace to the world in his early years, in Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, East Timor, etc. while the rest of the world joyfully tagged along with just enough support to call it a UN mission, but when a real threat has raised up, and huge amounts of cash was exchanged, the UN suddenly draws up in the fetal position and then criticizes the US for acting with a cobbled-together coalition.

    Shame on you, Kofi. How many people have died for your legacy of peace at any cost? 

    Jules Crittenden has the transcript translation of what Kofi meant to say. Funny stuff.

  • Arabs states contemplate MAD

    An AP story assures us that the Arab states who are contemplating their own joint nuclear program to oppose Iran’s program are just to insure peace in the region.

    We get quotes like this one;

    Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, told reporters after the closing session that the group did not want to be “misunderstood,” saying its aim “is to obtain the technology for peaceful purposes, no more no less.”
        “Gulf states are not known for seeking hegemony or threatening power, they seek stability and peace,” he said.

    Stability and peace, huh? Then why are they allowing Iran to get out of control now? Why haven’t the peaceful Arab states brought the hammer down on Hezbollah? These peaceful Arab states don’t even curb their own populations from entering into the fray in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet we’re to believe that they want nukes for peace?

    Imagine the oil-rich sheiks holding the world hostage to their oil prices under a nuclear umbrella. Or a nuclear exchange between Saudi Arabia and Iran with missiles crossing the Persian Gulf tanker traffic.

    Maybe it might be easier and safer for the Arab states to get on board with the rest of the world and stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons instead of trying to enter into a mutually-assured destruction scenario. We’ve already seen what price these regal savages put on the lives of their subjects – as long as the leadership of these kingdoms are safe, none of their “common folk” will never be safe.

    ADDED: Maybe if the Arabs stop some of this from happening, I’ll believe they want peace;

    Mohammad Abd al-Hamid Srour moved missiles across southern Lebanon under cover of a white flag. Hussein Ali Mahmoud Suleiman used the porch of a private home to fire rockets. Maher Hassan Mahmoud Kourani dressed in civilian clothes, hid his Kalashnikov in a tote bag and stored anti-aircraft missiles in the back of a green unmarked Volvo. The three men, all members of Hezbollah, were captured by Israel during last summer’s war.

    Now their videotaped interviews form part of a remarkable report by retired Lieutenant Colonel Reuven Erlich of Israel’s Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. Relying heavily on captured Hezbollah documents, onsite and aerial photography and other first-hand evidence, the report shows how the Shiite group put innocent civilians at risk by deliberately deploying its forces in cities, towns and often private homes.

    Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, has accused Israel’s military of “indiscriminate warfare” and “a disturbing disregard for the lives of Lebanese civilians.” Mr. Erlich demolishes that claim, and in the process shows the asymmetric strategy of Islamist radicals.

     

  • The growing threat

    Taking his cue from the Democrats and the islamofacists, Kim Jong Il has decided to start making demands on the US, too. Since the paranoid North Korean strong man thinks the US may have nukes in the South, he’s decided he won’t participate in negotiations to reduce his threat to the region with his missiles thought to be assembled with baling twine.

    It’s been said that the American people always get the government they deserve. In this case, the American voter has been hornswaggled into electing a government that has broadcast a defeatist message. In response, every tinpot dictator in the world is taking the opportunity to take swats at us.

    It is reminiscent of the post-Reagan years when every blowhard with a forum was calling George Bush a wimp. Even nickel-plated Manuel Noriega thought he could get away with ignoring a local popular election of a President that wasn’t his choice for the job and killing a US Marine and his wife. Forced into a corner, GHW Bush launched an invasion of Panama and eight months later had to send troops to Saudi Arabia to push Hussein out of Kuwait.

    All because the media and the Democrats in Congress tried to defeat a Republican in the court of world opinion. This President is getting backed into a corner, too. Not only by impudent third world maniacs, but also at home with stupid and ill-conceived study groups that can’t shoot straight, Congressional Democrats who talk out of both sides of their mouths, and second-guessing Congressional Republicans rushing to the Left and calling themselves moderate.

    The media is calling for bipartisanship which is really a call for moving the whole country Hard Left and moving our troops out of the Middle East just to vindicate their morally bankrupt 60s anti-war policy.

    So what’re all of these rocket surgeons going to do when George W. Bush explodes into action, when he’s forced to neutralize the Korean threat, the Syrian threat, the Iranian and the Venezuelan threat with the force of arms? Worse yet, what’ll they do when he doesn’t do anything?

  • Whistling past the graveyard

    An AP story records how bad the Iraq Study Group’s report really is;

    “This report is a recognition of the limitation of American power,” said Abdel Moneim Said, head of Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic studies in Cairo. “In the short term, America will highly suffer the loss of its reputation and credibility in the region.”

    The only limitation to American power is the extent to which we’ll endanger non-combatants. If we had the same disregard for human life as the jihadists, they’d all be smolder piles of ashes by now. And as far as suffering the loss of our reputation and credibility; there’s something worse than being the “Great Satan”? We lost our reputation and credibility in the region back when Jefferson started battling the Barbary pirates.

    Mustafa Bakri, an outspoken critic of the U.S. and editor of the Egyptian tabloid Al-Osboa, told a state-run television show that the report indicated “the end of America.”

    Now that’s really whistling past the graveyard. It’ll take more than a bunch of Iron Age savages to bring this country and this culture to it’s end. We’ve withstood much worse than anything this odd collection of goat ropers can dish out. That statement alone ought to make the Administration pull out all of the stops for about a month over there. The insertion of about two more combat brigades complete with aerial support ought to teach the Arab Street a thing or two about our limitations.

    The Iraq Study Group’s report was the top headline in many Arab newspapers on Thursday, including the Egyptian opposition daily Al- Wafd, which declared: “Bush confesses defeat in Iraq.”

    AP must be writing news stories in Egypt, too.

    “Al-Qaida must smell victory, but its a negative victory that comes from the defeat of America in Iraq,” Said of the Al-Ahram center said.

    In Jordan, Al Arab Al Yawm editor-in-chief Taher al-Adwan suggested that Iran could “fill the vacuum” in neighboring Iraq if Arab countries don’t step up and counter U.S. failures.

    “Will the noise of this bullet (the report) reach the Arab capitals, especially the neighboring countries … to push them to formalize a unified Arab position toward Iraq and fill the vacuum by Iraqi national forces who are against the occupation and the Iranian influence,” he wrote.

    So I guess there are some Arabs who see the danger in our premature departure. Let’s hope other Arabs hear them through the caucaphonous prehistorical chants of their “leaders”.

     

  • Two from column A and one from column B

    The Iraq Study Group gave their report to the President this morning, and since they leaked their report last week, there are no new surprises. It demonstrates how useless these “bipartisan” commissions have become;

    As expected, the panel’s recommendations attempt to cut a middle path between demands by many Democrats for a firm timetable for a U.S. withdrawal and President Bush’s insistence that U.S. troops remain in Iraq until the job is done.

    How do you compromise on the right answer? I know it’s popular to subscribe to the platitude that there are no more right answers, but obviously, that’s just wrong. You can’t compromise on the answer to the math problem 1+1=?, just like you can’t compromise on the answer on how to be successful against the dark forces arrayed against us. Either we are or we aren’t.

    Democrats can’t even agree on a strategy. In Newsweek this week, Silvestre Reyes, the incoming Intelligence Committee chair said;

    “We’re not going to have stability in Iraq until we eliminate those militias, those private armies,” Reyes said. “We have to consider the need for additional troops to be in Iraq, to take out the militias and stabilize Iraq … We certainly can’t leave Iraq and run the risk that it becomes [like] Afghanistan” was before the 2001 invasion by the United States.

    So which is it, guys? More troops like Reyes says or a withdrawal like the Baker Commission suggests?

    And as I said in earlier post, this “quick reaction force” to support the mobile training teams left behind in Iraq just won’t work. It didn’t work in Viet Nam and it won’t work in Iraq. It’s be like supporting the San Francisco police department from Oregon – it’s too far to be a deterrent. And what is the QRF going to do when it’s not needed?

    This reminds me of the 9/11 Commission report that never really decided anything except that they all agreed that someone brought down the World trade center on September 11th, 2001. They had no real recommendations, they never pointed a finger at the real culprits, and no real workable solutions to prevent the inevitable future attack. Because the whole report was a compromise between competing political factions, rather than a report from experts on the subject.

    The report is no different. Attempting to reach a political compromise on what action we should take to win in the Middle East, this “study group” has only muddied further the waters. I’d like to take the study group, put them in body armor, give them a rifle and send them out to patrol in Baghdad – maybe then they’d have a better idea as to what our troops need, because the answer isn’t in some regurgitated campaign commercial.