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

Category: Foreign Policy

  • A “Red Letter Day” for American foreign policy

    A “Red Letter Day” for American foreign policy

    Are you sitting down? According to Reuters, US Secretary of State John Kerry said that Israel has a national right to defend themselves from Hamas’ rocket attacks from Gaza;

    U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday.”You have a right to go in and take out those tunnels,” Kerry told Fox News. “We completely support that. And we support Israel’s right to defend itself against rockets that are continuing to come in.”

    Yep, aren’t you glad you were sitting down? Not only that, Kerry urged Hamas to accept a ceasefire with Israel;

    Kerry called on Hamas to consider a ceasefire. “It is important for Hamas to now step up and be reasonable and understand that (if) you accept the ceasefire, you save lives,” he said.In a separate interview on CNN, Kerry said President Barack Obama will ask him to go to the Middle East soon to aid in efforts to secure a ceasefire.

    I know, it’s hard to believe, isn’t it? Usually, they like to bully Israel into accepting whatever terms that Hamas dictates to them. I guess they figured that since world wide popular opinion is siding with Israel this time, and they have their hands full with crises like the border and Russia, they could afford to punt one.

  • Two jets succumb to gravity in the Ukraine

    It looks like yesterday a Ukrainian SU-25 fighter was shot down by the Russians, according to Reuters. It also appears that they may have shot down a Malaysian airliner over the Ukraine today, according to AFP;

    “Malaysia Airlines has lost contact of MH17 from Amsterdam,” the airline, still reeling from the disappearance of flight MH370, said on its Twitter account.

    “The last known position was over Ukrainian airspace,” it said, promising more details soon.

    Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said the jet may have been shot down.

    “We do not exclude that the plane was shot down and confirm that the Ukraine Armed Forces did not fire at any targets in the sky,” Poroshenko said in a statement posted on the president’s website.

    Regional officials in Donetsk confirmed the plane had come down near the town of Shaktarsk.

    No reports of the number of casualties yet, though.

    This all comes on the day that the US is planning new sanctions on Russia. According to the New York Times, those sanctions are a bit more than the Euro-wienies want a part of;

    The announcement reflected a decision by Mr. Obama to take more stringent steps than those taken by the United States’ European allies, which have far deeper economic ties to Russia. Meeting in Brussels, leaders of the European Union refused to match the American measures and instead adopted a more tempered plan that blocks new development loans to Russia and threatens to target more Russian individuals.

    The disparate moves suggested a widening gulf in the response to the crisis in Ukraine and may dilute the impact of the American actions. But both sides emphasized their continued solidarity on the basic demands that Moscow halt the flow of fighters and weapons across the border with Ukraine, support a cease-fire and help facilitate the release of hostages held by pro-Russian separatists.

    I don’t think the Russians see a downside to anything they do now.

  • US caught spying on…Germany

    Ya know, with all of the problems that we have with folks around the world, why are we wasting our money and time to spy on some of our allies…especially Germany? From the Washington Post;

    Federal prosecutors in Germany said police had searched an apartment and an office in Berlin in a probe that is apparently focused on a suspect with ties to the country’s military. The raids came days after an employee of Germany’s foreign intelligence service was arrested and accused of selling secrets to the CIA.

    “We have investigations in two cases of suspected espionage, a very serious suspicion,” Steffen Seibert, a spokesman for the German government, told reporters in Berlin.

    I guess it’s because we have so many allies in the world these days, we don’t need anymore. A few months ago we learned that the US intellegence people were listening to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone conversations and now this. From Reuters;

    According to intelligence and political sources, the man admits passing documents to a U.S. contact.

    Those include information about a parliamentary committee looking into allegations by former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden that Washington carried out major surveillance in Germany, including monitoring Merkel’s phone.

  • Mexican Army chopper crosses border

    ROS sends a link to Tucson’s KVOA which reports that a Mexican Army helicopter crossed into the US, the fellows riding on it then fired at Border Patrol and returned to Mexico;

    Art del Cueto, Border Patrol Tucson Sector union president:

    The incident occurred after midnight and before 6 a.m. Helicopter flew into the U.S. and fired on two U.S. Border Patrol agents. The incident occurred west of the San Miguel Gate on the Tohono O’odham Indian Nation. The agents were unharmed. The helicopter went back into Mexico. Mexico then contacted U.S. authorities and apologized for the incident.

    Well, see, they apologized, so we’re cool now. I wonder if Marine Segeant Andrew Tahmooressi ever thought about apologizing.

    By the way, President Polk got tired of the Mexican Army crossing the border in Texas and he sent the US military to Mexico City to teach them a lesson. I guess they forgot that lesson after 168 years. Or maybe they’re hoping that we do invade and take more of their shithole country from them. After all, Polk was a Democrat.

  • Russia moves troops back to Ukraine frontier

    Last month, Russians moved their 40,000 troops from the Ukraine border, but according to NATO, some of those troops are moving back into action, says The Washington Times;

    Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by telephone to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande, voicing strong concern about the Ukrainian military onslaught. Putin said he expects Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to immediately launch his plan to end the violence, the Kremlin said.

    Putin and Poroshenko then discussed details of the peace plan in a phone call – their second conversation this week. Poroshenko’s office said he emphasized the need for introducing effective border controls and quickly releasing hostages.

    Russia has denied Ukrainian and Western allegations that it is fomenting the rebellion by sending troops and weapons into Ukraine.

    I guess it has nothing to do with the fact that we’re all looking at Iraq this week. But, don’t worry, Ukrainians, Joe Biden is on the case, according to another Washington Times article;

    He vowed that America, along with allied partners, would “impose further costs” on Russia if leaders there didn’t quit sending weapons to separatists across the border, NBC News reported.

    Mr. Biden said the United States had already asked Russia to quit sending arms to eastern Ukraine — and that Russia was standing in defiance.

    The White House released a short summary of the leaders’ talks, NBC News reported: “The vice president noted that the United States would work with our partners to impose further costs on Russia if it continued on its current course.”

    I’m sure the Russians are shaking in their boots given the number of empty threats that this administration has flung around over the last few years. So we have Kerry dealing with al Qaeda and Iran and Joe Biden dealing with the Ukraine. What could possibly go wrong?

  • Meanwhile, Back In the Apparently-Forgotten Eastern Ukraine . . .

    . . . a shooting war seems to have broken out.

    This conflict recently appears to have been pretty much ignored by our “wonderful” mainstream media. They seem far more interested in chasing the latest “bright shiny objects” (the VA scandal and the POTUS’’s remarks concerning Syria).

    Here’s a brief summary of what’s been happening in the Eastern Ukraine recently:

    • Ukrainian forces have launched a major effort to retake the eastern Ukraine from pro-Russian separatist militias.
    • Pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Ukraine have resisted, resulting in the beginning of a de facto shooting war.
    • Pro-Russian separatists have attempted to seize the Donetsk airport, currently held by Ukrainian forces. They were repelled, with significant casualties.
    • Ukrainian forces have committed heavy artillery and jet aircraft to hostilities around the city of Slovansk.
    • The self-appointed pro-Russian mayor of Slovansk, Vyacheslav Ponomarev, has stated that a missing 4-man OSCE observer team – who were sent to an area controlled by pro-Russian forces after being told they were not welcome and should stay out – is safe, presumably in the custody of pro-Russian forces. He has promised their release, but did not specify when that would occur.
    • A Ukrainian helicopter carrying 14 – including a Ukrainian General, Serhiy Kulchyskiy – was downed by pro-Russian forces, apparently using a MANPADS.  There were no survivors.
    • Ukrainian forces – including helicopters, armored vehicles, and other combat troops – have moved towards Donetsk. The Ukrainian government has threatened to retake Donetsk by force if necessary.

    Russian forces have not yet intervened. It’s an open question at this point of whether or not they will.

    Some additional details and background can be found in this article from Fox News.

    Yeah, this one’s getting . . . kinda hot.

  • Yeah, That’s Just a F**king Brilliant Idea . . .

    Multiple news sources (Fox News, the Army Times) are reporting that the current Administration is “nearing a decision” on providing training and equipment for “moderate elements” of the Syrian opposition.

    And yeah:  that “training” part means “boots on the ground”.  As in Soldiers/Sailors/Airmen/Marines.  Troops.

    Hey, I get it that Assad is a thug, and hates the US. But the same is true of at least half of the Syrian opposition. And Assad doesn’t have links to al Qaeda, either – like many elements in the Syrian opposition do.

    So I can’t really see how we have any proverbial “dog in that fight”; either way it turns out, we’re all but guaranteed to have a regime running Syria that hates the US.  And a regime led by the Syrian opposition raises the possibility of Syria’s WMD’s falling into al Qaeda’s (or another Islamic extremist group’s) hands.  Frankly, I think we may be better off with Assad the Bastard running that patch of Middle Eastern dirt.

    If you seriously believe that at least some of the arms and equipment we provide to the Syrian opposition won’t end up in the hands of al Qaeda-linked elements – or that we won’t end up training a large number of folks who end up working with or for al Qaeda in the future – I’d like to talk to you about real estate. I can give you one helluva deal on a bridge.

    This is IMO a monumentally stupid idea. Regarding Syria, Shakespeare had it right around 400 years ago: “A plage o’ both your houses.”

  • So, How Are East-West Relations Today?

    Remember how this Administration claimed it would set new directions in US foreign policy?  How this Administration would gain new respect abroad by being more “nuanced” and collaborative in it’s dealings with other nations?  That the world was tired of the US going it alone, like a tactless, blunt “cowboy”?

    Well, seems like things are working out a bit differently than intended. Here’s an article title from that bastion of right-wing thought, the UK Daily Mail:

    Russian prime minister warns Obama is bringing the world to the brink of ‘a second Cold War that nobody needs’

    Here are a couple of short quotes from the article:

    In a videotaped interview published Tuesday, he told Bloomberg Television that ‘we are slowly but surely approaching a second cold war,’ in part because President Barack Obama ‘could be more tactful politically.’

    . . .

    Asked about the now-infamous ‘reset button’ effort that he co-engineered with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in March 2009, Medvedev said the Obama administration has unraveled any Russian good will that may have existed five years ago.

    Yeah, the Russian Prime Minister, Dimtry Medvedev, has an agenda here.  But sometimes you can use God’s honest truth to further an agenda.

    Current relations with China aren’t any better.  The Chinese recently summoned the US Ambassador over recent US public accusations of industrial espionage committed by members of the Chinese military.  Further Chinese diplomatic actions may be pending.

    And don’t even get me started on this Administrations foreign policy efforts regarding the “Arab Spring” uprisings, the Syrian Civil War, Iran, or Korea.

    Yeah, that “nuanced, collaborative” style of diplomacy has really improved things for US interests worldwide, hasn’t it?

    GMAFB.  I’ll be so glad when adults are managing US foreign policy again vice naive tools and/or clueless fools.