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

Category: Foreign Policy

  • Cuban police crack down on meeting

    This story will probably get a lot less coverage than Cubans being able to buy cell phones and computers, even though it’s much more indicative of the real life in Cuba than the sudden granting of permission to buy microwave ovens (AP/Miami Herald link);

    Cuban police violently broke up a dissidents’ meeting, leaving at least two people in need of medical treatment, opposition sources said Monday.

    At least 30 people were detained briefly after a weekend raid on the home of well-known dissident Jorge Luis “Atunez” Garcia Perez in the central city of Placetas, opposition leader Martha Beatriz Roque said in a communique sent to journalists by fax.

    Veteran dissident Elizardo Sanchez said he independently confirmed the details of the raid and that all who were detained were later released.

    At least two people needed medical care, including one man who required a head X-ray, and were later sent home, said Sanchez, head of the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation.

    “This is the most violent police action we have seen in many months,” he said.

    In other Cuba news, Fidel Castro claims that Obama’s plan to maintain the 50-year-old embargo against the Cuban government will hurt Cubans (AP/Miami Herald link);

    Former President Fidel Castro says Sen. Barack Obama’s plan to maintain Washington’s trade embargo against Cuba will cause hunger and suffering on the island.

    I think Castro’s got it a bit wrong. The Cuban government causes hunger and suffering on the island. They can trade with the other 160 nations in the world, not being able to trade JUST ONE shouldn’t make a difference – especially since communism is the answer to all of Man’s problems.

    The AP/Miami Herald article doesn’t mention Castro’s endorsement of Obama, probably so they don’t damage his run at the White House in Florida, but the Telegraph does;

    The former Cuban president gave a qualified endorsement to Mr Obama whom he described as “the most-advanced candidate” in the race for the White House.

    Last week Cuba announced that they needed about a half-million houses to ease a housing shortage – how could that happen with the perfect planning of the communist government? So their plan is to build 14,000 Barbie houses every year (do your math – to get to a half-million homes at that rate, it’d take nearly 40 years) (Reuters link);

    Set to begin in September, the program will use polyvinyl chloride from a petrochemical facility to be built with Venezuelan aid at a refinery in Cienfuegos, Prensa Latina said.

    “Cuba will produce more than 14,000 houses annually with polyvinyl chloride, thanks to a bi-national project with Venezuela,” project director Julian Alonso told the news agency.

    Cuba is said to need about half a million homes to provide sufficient housing for its people.

    The Ladies in White, a Cuban dissident organization and a support group for the wives of imprisoned political prisoners, has written to Obama in the mistaken belief that Obama will help get the 55 political prisoners they represent released. (yet another AP/Miami Herald link)

    ‘We have great hope that you can contribute to the immediate, unconditional liberation of the 55 who are still in horrible prison conditions, with serious health problems,” the group wrote to Obama.

    One of the founders of the Ladies in White, Miriam Leiva, said Sunday that representatives of the group living outside Cuba traveled to Miami to deliver the letter, and spoke with Obama for a few minutes.

    ”This has nothing to do with the presidential race or support for one candidate or another,” she said. “We are not political. The only thing we hope for is the liberation of our prisoners and improved well-being for the Cuban people.”

    Obama has said that he’ll talk directly to Raul Castro and lift travel and remittance restrictions for Cuban-Americans, which only seems like a good idea, but will only prolong the communist government’s grip on the island. Val Prieto at Babalu Blog disputes Obama’s plan.

    Guantanamo detainees are more free than most Cubans.

  • Bush to meet with al-Bashir

    This morning the Washington Post worries that President Bush isn’t being hard enough on Sudan for their behavior against the residents in Darfur;

    Sometime in the next few weeks, a special envoy of President Bush plans to meet with Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, whose government sheltered Osama bin Laden and pursued a scorched-earth policy in southern Sudan that resulted in more than 2 million deaths.

    Bashir’s government has been accused by Bush of participating in a “genocide” in Darfur, the only U.S. government use of such a strong accusation. Yet Richard S. Williamson’s visit to Khartoum follows a series of direct contacts by senior Bush administration officials with the Sudanese president, including Secretaries of State Colin L. Powell and Condoleezza Rice, Rice’s deputies, and several special presidential envoys.

    Bush has spoken to or exchanged letters with Bashir on numerous occasions, underscoring how White House policy has departed from his pointed public call to shun talks with radical tyrants and dictators.

    Of course, the Washington Post totally ignored the Darfur emergency during the previous administration. The only news we got of the situation there was from Christian missionaries because the “main stream” press didn’t figure anything that happened in Africa was important enough for the Clinton Administration since they did so poorly in Somalia.

    Things like Darfur are more in line with the UN’s charter, though,, rather than the US policy. But, the UN is too busy getting their armed forces laid according to the Gateway Pundit;

    We’re from the UN and we’re here to help.

    The BBC reported:

    Children as young as six are being sexually abused by peacekeepers and aid workers, says a leading UK charity.
    Children in post-conflict areas are being abused by the very people drafted into such zones to help look after them, says Save the Children.

    The most shocking aspect of this abuse is that most of it goes unreported and unpunished, a new report argues, with children too scared to speak out.

    The UN has said it welcomes the report, which it will study closely.

    Yeah, like they studied the report on the oil for food program.

    The world is supposedly enraged because we “unilaterally” dealt with Saddam Hussein, yet they expect us to unilaterally deal with Kosovo, Bosnia, Sudan and now the Sudan.

  • Jimmy Carter makes leap from pest to traitor

    I’d wager that Americans are generally tired of being treated to the spectacle of an aging ex-President meandering the world, undermining our own foreign policy. His latest antics may cross the line from Jimmy Carter being a mere pest to his being a traitor. According to the Guardian, Carter urged our European allies to break with the US and ignore the common sense policy of ignoring the bloodthirsty thugs of Hamas;

    Referring to the possibility of Europe breaking with the US in an interview with the Guardian, he said: “Why not? They’re not our vassals. They occupy an equal position with the US.”

    The blockade on Hamas-ruled Gaza, imposed by the US, EU, UN and Russia – the so-called Quartet – after the organisation’s election victory in 2006, was “one of the greatest human rights crimes on Earth,” since it meant the “imprisonment of 1.6 million people, 1 million of whom are refugees”. “Most families in Gaza are eating only one meal per day. To see Europeans going along with this is embarrassing,” Carter said.

    Or, dimwit, Hamas could care a bit about their own people and lay down their weapons and stop killing their people outright. They claim to be the representatives of their people, but they’re just another in a long succession of tyrants who oppress Gazans. The problem isn’t US policy or European policy – it’s Hamas and their refusal to join the modern world.

    But Carter wasn’t done. The Times Online, reports that Carter went ahead and gave away national security secrets;

    Israel has 150 nuclear weapons in its arsenal, former President Jimmy Carter said yesterday, while arguing that the US should talk directly to Iran to persuade it to drop its nuclear ambitions.

    I’m pretty sure that he knows how many nuclear weapons Israel has because of security briefings he received while President. That should persuade Americans that Carter will violate every law that exists to resurrect his legacy after ignoring and later lying about warnings the US government gave him to avoid meeting with Hamas. And talking with Iran worked so well for him in 1980 didn’t it?

    I read his memoir “Keeping Faith” and it became clear to me two decades ago that, despite the public perception of Carter as a decent well-intentioned man, Carter is a megalomaniac bent on rehabilitating his reputation at any cost. Proof that it’s working on the international stage is those buffoons in Oslo awarding him a Nobel Prize.

    Of course, we certainly can’t throw him a dungeon somewhere, but we can put him in a soundproof display case in the Carter Center until he finally shuts up.

  • Biden ignores history

    This morning’s Wall Street Journal Opinion Journal carries an answer from Joe Biden to Joe Lieberman’s opinion piece the other day entitled “Democrats and our Enemies“. Biden’s piece “Republicans and Our Enemies“. While Lieberman took a realistic look at actual events and the reaction of Democrats in the modern world, Biden’s “opinion” grasps at straws – to believe Joe Biden’s version, one would have to suspend rational thought;

    On George Bush’s watch, Iran, not freedom, has been on the march: Iran is much closer to the bomb; its influence in Iraq is expanding; its terrorist proxy Hezbollah is ascendant in Lebanon and that country is on the brink of civil war.

    Beyond Iran, al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan – the people who actually attacked us on 9/11 – are stronger now than at any time since 9/11. Radical recruitment is on the rise. Hamas controls Gaza and launches rockets at Israel every day. Some 140,000 American troops remain stuck in Iraq with no end in sight.

    Because of the policies Mr. Bush has pursued and Mr. McCain would continue, the entire Middle East is more dangerous. The United States and our allies, including Israel, are less secure.

    What Biden fails to discuss is the fact that the US is unable to pursue a rational foreign policy because the Democrats are conducting their own foreign policy independent of the Administration and independent of their constitutional authority.

    When three Congressmen stand on the roof of Saddam Hussein’s palace on the eve of his defeat and declare that Saddam Hussein is more trustworthy than our own government’s leaders, what message does that send? When the Speaker of the House passes on false messages between foreign governments. When a presidential candidate threatens our allies and promises to coddle our enemies. When two presidential candidates make public foreign policy proclamations while privately telling our foreign partners to disregard their words.

    Biden goes on to sell out his foreign policy experience for the cheap political trick;

    The election in November is a vital opportunity for America to start anew. That will require more than a great soldier. It will require a wise leader.

    Actually, electing Barack Obama won’t be a move towards “start anew” – it’ll be a return to the failed foreign policy of the 1970s, the policies of Nixon and Carter when US prestige in the world took a nose dive. When Iran first became a threat to world peace.

    Here, the controversy over engaging Iran is especially instructive.

    Last week, John McCain was very clear. He ruled out talking to Iran. He said that Barack Obama was “naïve and inexperienced” for advocating engagement; “What is it he wants to talk about?” he asked.

    Well, for a start, Iran’s nuclear program, its support for Shiite militias in Iraq, and its patronage of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

    Iran isn’t interested in “engaging” anyone who opposes them. For more than three years, the world has been “engaging” Iran over their nuclear program, Hezbollah and Hamas to no avail. Now because the “liberal” world coddles Iran and it’s clients, they’ve become more powerful than ever. Democrats in Congress are absolutely afraid of Ahmadinejad after the way Iran brought down Jimmy Carter.

    Biden goes on to dream the impossible dream;

    Instead of regime change, we should focus on conduct change. We should make it very clear to Iran what it risks in terms of isolation if it continues to pursue a dangerous nuclear program but also what it stands to gain if it does the right thing. That will require keeping our allies in Europe, as well as Russia and China, on the same page as we ratchet up pressure.

    “Conduct change” worked so well with North Korea, didn’t it? North Korea used the umbrella that the Clinton Administration and Jimmy Carter provided to conduct their nuclear program out of sight of the world. Biden acts as if Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas can be trusted to change their behavior – even though we’ve plenty of recent examples that people like them don’t change behavior, they just manipulate the world and continue with their bad behavior.

    Since the last seven years have been difficult, Biden and the Democrats use that an excuse to bolster the illusion that the Bush policies have failed – and so Biden draws the poorly-considered conclusion that if Bush policies have failed, we have to do the opposite. There’s no indication that Bush policies have failed, to begin with. The US is single-handedly reversing thirty years of failed foreign policy in regards to the Middle East – it’s not an easy or quickly finished chore.

    Biden makes outrageous and unsupported claims that our enemies are stronger than ever before – the only reason they’re at all strong is because half-witted, imbecilic political terrorists like Biden keep giving them hope that we’ll eventually cave in to them.

    UPDATE: While we’re on the subject of talking with our enemies, what’s up with Obama not taking time to talk to our generals or our troops? TSO at The Sniper has a Vets For Freedom video that asks that question.

  • How to Raise Fuel Prices

    I stumbled across this at BitsBlog. I don’t see any step that was missed…

    Create shortages in the oil markets by ensuring domestic oil supplies can never be used. This will force us to get oil from the least stable spots in the world, thus forcing not only higher prices, but forcing us to fund people intent on destroying us.

    Regulate domestic suppliers out of business with NIMBY, and enviro-whackjob policy, and regulations and of course, the great leveler, taxes.

    Make sure that no new refineries are built over a period 30 years, to meet the need.

    Mandate that everyone buys only governmentally mandated formulations of gasoline, thus creating shortages of the ingredients.

    More at the BitsBlog

  • Yo Soy Un Hombre Sincero

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    Today is Cuba Solidarity Day;

    May 21 has great historic significance as it falls within a two-week period in which Cubans throughout the island remember those that have suffered under the Castro regime while struggling for freedom and human rights.

    Sign the petition to release Cuba’s prisoners of conscience and stop by Babalu Blog to learn about “the most dangerous man in Cuba” and here to read the President’s Proclamation. This blog always stands with the Cuban people, wherever they live.

    Henry Gomez bestowed upon me the title of honorary Cuban a few months back, a title I’m very proud of, so stop by and give him my best.

    Other blogs supporting Cuba Solidarity Day;

    Hos Report
    A Colombo-Americana’s Perspective
    Babalu
    Pains Feeder
    e the people
    Brandon’s Puppy
    Fausta’s Blog

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  • A lesson in there, somewhere

    A couple of articles caught my eye today while reading the news and my blogrollees. From Buttle’s World which pointed me to Talisman Gate who writes that Al Qeada admits that it’s beat in Iraq;

    A prolific jihadist sympathizer has posted an ‘explosive’ study on one of the main jihadist websites in which he laments the dire situation that the mujaheddin find themselves in Iraq by citing the steep drop in the number of insurgent operations conducted by the various jihadist groups, most notably Al-Qaeda’s 94 percent decline in operational ability over the last 12 months when only a year and half ago Al-Qaeda accounted for 60 percent of all jihadist activity!

    He includes a chart that needs no translation;

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    Well, that was from last Thursday.

    This is from today’s McClatchey newspapers under the headline Iraqi Troops Welcomed in Sadr City for First Time;

    Iraqi security forces entered Baghdad ‘s Sadr City in large numbers on Tuesday for the first time since followers of anti-American cleric Muqtada al Sadr agreed two weeks ago to let them in.

    No U.S. troops accompanied the Iraqi forces. The agreement specifically barred Americans from entering the Shiite Muslim enclave.

    In a symbolic gesture, representatives of Sadr and a group of tribal sheiks met the Iraqi forces with a copy of the Quran, the Islamic holy book, to welcome their presence into the city.

    Today I read this from CNN;

    The commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia’s Force 47 told reporters in Bogota Monday — a day after surrendering — that “the solution is not through war. There must be dialogue.”

    artfarcgetty.jpg

    Nelly Avila Moreno, center, alias Karina, is escorted by soldiers after surrendering.

    Nelly Avila Moreno, 45, whose nom de guerre was Karina, said she and her longtime male companion made the decision jointly to abandon the FARC group, based in the jungle, at 5 a.m. Sunday.

    She said pressure from Colombian soldiers had been key to their decision, and she called on her fellow rebels to follow her example.

    So I guess there can be victories against terrorists by keeping pressure on them and taking the war to them. I don’t expect the word to be broadcast across the country, but there’s still a lesson in there if anyone is willing to look for it.

  • J-Post: Bush plans Iran attack

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    The Jerusalem Post reports that, according to Israeli Defense officials, President Bush plans an attack on Iran before he leaves office;

    US President George W. Bush intends to attack Iran in the upcoming months, before the end of his term, Army Radio quoted officials in Jerusalem as saying Tuesday.

    The official claimed that a senior member of the president’s entourage said during a closed meeting that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were of the opinion that military action was called for.

    However, the official continued, “the hesitancy of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice” was preventing the administration from deciding to launch such an attack on the Islamic Republic.

    I figure Iran has a few months to think about it, though. I suspect that any attack would come after the November elections but before a new President takes office to blunt the political impact. Given the fact thatthe president waited until after the midterm elections in 2006 to announce the “surge”, it only makes sense. It may also complicate any plans that Iran’s clients have for the inevitable attack on US interests in 2009.

    Of course, the next few months will become an opportunity for Iran to reverse it’s current slide toward conflict and president Bush won’t have to use the hammer on them. But, it’s Iran choice, isn’t it?