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

Category: Foreign Policy

  • Albright: troops are the problem

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    Aaron Daye/The Gainesville Sun

    From Gateway Pundit, a view of our war against terrorism from Madelaine Albright – who has never seen the war against terror;

    …”The American forces are both the solution and the problem,” she said. “They are like fly paper that attracts everybody who hates us.”

    No, you cow, the problem is that you did nothing in the Clinton Administration to stem terrorism. You ignored them when they bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, the Khobar Towers, the African embassies and the USS Cole. When Haitians ran off the US Navy from the pier with machetes. When there was no retaliation for dead Rangers and Delta operators in Mogadishu.

    Apparently she’s right about one thing – the troops are like flypaper that attract everyone who hates the US – domestic haters like Albright, too.

    But that probably wasn’t the most convoluted thing she said;

    Albright said. “Now that’s quite a statement, because it means I think it’s worse than Vietnam – not in the number of Americans who died or Vietnamese versus Iraqis, but in terms of those unintended consequences. And the biggest unintended consequence in Iraq is Iran. I think one might say that Iran has actually won the war in Iraq.”

    Yeah, ’cause  Vietnam had “intended consequences” – the communists in this country wanted the North Vietnamese to win and take over the entire southeast Asia. The Islamic Republic has been one of the main causes of violence in the world since Jimmy Carter tried to look the other way. What did Albright and Clinton do to stem their influence in their eight years?

    How about since Maddy has already conceded defeat to Iran we just give her up to them. Funny how she doesn’t offer any solutions her candidate (Hillary Clinton) might bring us – just criticism.

  • See no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil

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    Photo from CNN

    The images of the three monkeys leapt into my mind as we’re all treated to a replay of the three Congressmen standing on the roof of Saddam Hussein’s palace and preaching to us ignorant Americans that Hussein was more trustworthy than our own president. from the Weekly Standard;

    The controversy ignited on September 29 when Bonior and McDermott appeared from Baghdad on ABC’s “This Week.” Host George Stephanopoulos asked McDermott about his recent comment that “the president of the United States will lie to the American people in order to get us into this war.”

    In an interview with CNN’s Paula Zahn, Bonior was asked if he trusts Saddam Hussein;

    ZAHN: Representative Bonior, do you trust Saddam Hussein?

    BONIOR: Well, of course, Saddam Hussein has committed some very bad atrocities while he has been in public office, and we all know that. The question is not whether or not I trust Saddam Hussein. The question is whether I trust impartial observers, like Mr. Blix from the United Nations, to come in and make a good judgment.  

    So we shouldn’t have questioned the trustworthiness of Saddam Hussein, but it was fine to mistrust the US President. Sweet. Apparently, Hussein’s money for propaganda was well spent. I’d remind the reader that the actual invasion of Hussein’s Iraq wouldn’t happen for another five months after this trip – in the “rush to war”.

    Well, now it turns out that the trip was financed with profits from Hussein’s corrupt manipulation of the Oil For Food program – meant to feed Iraqis affected by the UN’s 1991 sanctions against the country. The money from the Hussein regime flowed through his agent in the US, Muthanna Al-Hanooti. Ed Morrisey of Hot Air writes;

    Bonior, Thompson, and McDermott apparently didn’t know about Al-Hanooti’s connection — but they don’t appear to have asked, either. Instead, they got snookered into a ploy by Saddam to buy some American dissent at a time when our nation still reeled from the deaths of 3,000 people in a terrorist attack. Wouldn’t the possibility of exploitation have crossed their minds — and shouldn’t the three Congressmen have asked the FBI to check out Al-Hanooti at the time?

    Al-Hanooti appears to be an official of CAIR, according to Debbie Schlussel and Michele Malkin. From Ms. Schlussel;

    Today, Al-Hanooti, a former chief of CAIR-Michigan was indicted for acting as a spy for Saddam Hussein in America. (And–shocker–he has a second wife and family in Iraq.) To me and anyone who followed the story and read a newspaper, that isn’t news. In fact, the indictment is far too little, far too late. The indictment says that a trip taken by three Congressmen–liberal Democrats Jim McDermott, David Bonior, and Mike Thompson–to Iraq in 2002, was funded by Saddam Hussein, using a third party to arrange the financing, and Al-Hanooti to put the trip together. Again, not news, since I wrote about it repeatedly on this site and also in The New York Post as far back as 2003.

    Baldilocks says this explains why George Galloway was in an extra-pricky mood when he was being questioned by Norm Coleman about the Oil-for-Food Program – he knew he wasn’t the only dirty politician who’d benefitted from Iraq’s new-found largesse. I’ll bet that if anyone ever shakes that fig tree, we’ll be up to our necks in corrupt politicians who benefitted from that “humanitarian program” administered by the UN.

  • Colombia discovers FARC uranium

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    Photo from Miami Herald

    The Miami Herald writes that the Colmbian government has discovered a stash of “impoverished” (to quote the MH’s article) uranium;

    Colombian authorities said they seized up to 66 pounds of low-grade uranium hidden off the side of a road in southern Bogotá on Wednesday, which the Colombian Defense Ministry said belonged to FARC guerrillas.

    The Defense Ministry said the discovery adds weight to the evidence found in a laptop belonging to slain guerrilla leader Raúl Reyes, which showed the rebels were interested in buying and selling the uranium on the international underground market.

    But the 30 kilograms of uranium found in plastic bags dug about three feet from a road in southern Bogotá was ”impoverished,” the ministry said, and in that state could not have been used to make a radioactive bomb. Authorities were waiting for further analysis to determine how dangerous the material found really is, Armed Forces commander Freddy Padilla told a news conference late Wednesday.

    Well, this at least lends credence to the quality of the intelligence that Colombia has gleaned from Raul Reyes’ laptops.

  • Chavez not a McCainiac

    A few weeks ago, we read that the terrorists of FARC were hoping for an Obama victory, yesterday I wrote that a Democrat Congressman turned up in FARC computers as a collaborator with the terrorist organization. Today’s news brings word that Chavez, Venezuela’s terrorist-supporting, anti-American demagogue, announced he’s not supporting a McCain candidacy (Reuters link).

    Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a socialist and fierce U.S. critic, warned on Tuesday that relations with Washington could worsen if Republican candidate John McCain wins this year’s presidential election.

    Chavez said he hopes the United States and Venezuela can work better together when his ideological foe, U.S. President George W. Bush, leaves the White House next year, but he said McCain seemed “warlike.”

    “Sometimes one says, ‘worse than Bush is impossible,’ but we don’t know,” Chavez told foreign correspondents. “McCain also seems to be a man of war.”

    Chavez — who has called Bush “the devil”, “a donkey” and ‘Mr Danger” — accuses the United States of having imperial designs in Latin America and says the White House has plotted his overthrow.

    I guess Chavez wasn’t paying attention in 2004 when Osama bin Laden came out for a Kerry presidency. American voters don’t like being told by foreigners how we should vote.

    The Jawa Report writes that Chavez is meddling in Peru now, since his revolution isn’t catching on in Venezuela.

  • China’s Olympics; what would JC do?

    In 2000, the Olympic Committee, rightly or wrongly, awarded China the 2008 Olympic games. The Clinton Administration applauded the decision as a path to improved openness with the oppressive communist government – an oppressive government that has resisted openness for decades. No, it wasn’t the Clinton’s fault, it was the entire West’s fault for continuing to reach out to civil rights violators – China, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Zimbabwe and so on.

    Every time someone heads from the West to confront the Chinese on their human rights record, the government throws a bunch of activists in prison just to show the West how little respect they have for our idea of human rights. They make small concessions (today Media Spy reports that the Chinese can now watch BBC – big whoop) and the liberal statecraft adherents applaud loudly. Ignoring completely the horrors that occur almost simultaneously – like the missing Monks in Tibet as reported by Wind Rose Hotel, or the stepped up “patriotic reeducation” of Monks reported by the Vodka Pundit.

    Protests erupted in Olympia, Greece yesterday to force the Olympic Committee to reconsider their decision – a little late. France’s President Sarkozy hinted at a boycott of the Olympics, according to the Liberal Blogger – a little late. Realizing that they might have a public relations nightmare looming, the Chinese went so far as to offer troops to Australia to suppress any protests there (according to my buddy Mike at Lamplighter who turned me on to this whole post) – a little late.

    I’m sure Australia sees the protest problem as reason enough to allow armed foreign troops on their soil – not. China sees the solution to the PR problem as more applied force. They’ve controlled their own population for decades with force and starvation so why not offer the benefit of their experience to Australia, right?

     Lamplighter‘s Mike, in a second post, condones an Olympic boycott that brings me to the title of this post – the JC I’m talking about is Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter organized a weak boycott against the Soviet Union when they hosted the Olympics in 1980, the year after they invaded Afghanistan. The boycott worked so well that the Soviet Union immediately withdrew from Afghanistan – eight years later.

    The Soviet Union was so intimidated that they boycotted our own Olympic hosting in 1984 and their boycott didn’t stop the United States from deploying medium-range nuclear weapons in Western Europe either.

    I oppose a boycott of China’s games as ineffectual – just like I thought Jimmy Carter’s boycott would be ineffectual. I’m no sports fan, and I won’t watch not a moment of the Olympics, but using the Olympics as a political tool is just as ridiculous as the hacks who told us that holding the Olympics in China would improve human rights there. If anyone learns anythin, it’ll be those athletes and fans who go to China and see how repressive the government is for themselves. If anything, a boycott would make the western world look like impotent buffoons – like Jimmy Carter made us look in 1980.

  • FARC Fan in Congress

    The editorial board at the Wall Street Journal writes a bit about Massachusetts Congressman James McGovern and his relationship to Colombian terrorist group FARC;

     A military strike three weeks ago killed Raúl Reyes, No. 2 in command of the FARC, Colombia’s most notorious terrorist group. The Reyes hard drive reveals an ardent effort to do business directly with the FARC by Congressman James McGovern (D., Mass.), a leading opponent of the free-trade deal. Mr. McGovern has been working with an American go-between, who has been offering the rebels help in undermining Colombia’s elected and popular government.

    Mr. McGovern’s press office says the Congressman is merely working at the behest of families whose relatives are held as FARC kidnap hostages. However, his go-between’s letters reveal more than routine intervention.

    Of course, the article continues, Representative McGovern attempts to undermine the policy of this government to avoid dealing with illegitimate actors like FARC. He treats the blood-soaked narco-terrorists as if they are a rational entity and condemns the elected Colombian government then tries to jam up the Uribe administration into a negotiation plan they might otherwise avoid. he also suggests safe havens for the terrorist leadership. What part of “war against terror” doesn’t McGovern understand?

    Where in the Constitution are the Congress members authorized to conduct our foreign policy? This type of behavior borders on treason – McGovern is acting in the interests of himself and his own agenda, not in the interests of the entire nation. He should be censured and removed from his seat – then tried for treason.

  • Where is the World for Tibet?

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    Photo from WTOP/Associated Press 

    The Chinese government official news service called on China to “crush” Tibetan resistance today (link from Adelaide Now);

    Turning a blind eye to appeals for dialogue with Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, the People’s Daily, mouthpiece of the ruling communist party, said the “Dalai clique” must be shattered.

    “China must resolutely crush the conspiracy of sabotage and smash ‘Tibet independence forces’,” the newspaper said in an editorial.

    Earlier today, China said the death toll in rioting in Lhasa had risen to 19, including one police officer, from the previous official toll of 13 civilians, and that 623 people had been injured.

    Tibet’s government in exile has put the “confirmed” death toll from a week of unrest across the Himalayan region and neighbouring provinces at 99.

    CNN reports that Nancy Pelosi has discovered that the world is stunningly silent on the brutal repression China inflicts on Tibet;

    U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday criticized China for its crackdown on anti-government protesters in Tibet and called on “freedom-loving people” worldwide to denounce China.

    “If freedom-loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China’s oppression in China and Tibet, we have lost all moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world,” Pelosi told reporters.

    “The situation in Tibet is a challenge to the conscience of the world.”

    Too little, too late. The Chinese absolutely dismissed Pelosi’s pleas (Bloomberg link);

    China’s government said it has international support for its actions in Tibet and rejected a call by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for a probe into its claim the Dalai Lama has been behind unrest in the capital Lhasa.

    The governments of almost 100 nations have conveyed or shown support for China’s moves to safeguard the sovereignty and stability of Tibet, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in a written statement, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported. China opposes any encouragement of attempts by the Dalai Lama to seek independence for the Himalayan territory, he said.

    Commenter to this blog and blogger from The Spanish Pundit, Nora, wrote this in the comments section;

    In Spain here we have been labeled as “theoliberals” for blogging about Tibet and blaming China for the repression. What is more, those same people who has labeles us, have also began accusing us of wanting the return of the Lamaism, which was really a theocracy, a very hard dictatorship.

    But critisizing Communist China and the decissions it has taken about the repression in Tibet has NOTHING to do with that… But of course, they support the “Chinese legality” and so the repression.

    So I guess the European Left has never heard of the right of people to self determination. Uyghur American Association president Rebiya Kadeer called for the world to pay attention, to feel a measure of outrage and come to the aid of Tibetan people (Radio Free Asia link);

    “His Holiness the Dalai Lama has dedicated his entire life to the peaceful promotion of legitimate aspirations of the Tibetan people for cultural autonomy and survival,” she said, referring to the exiled Tibetan leader.

    “The world community cannot turn a blind eye to the obstinate refusal of the Beijing regime to fully engage in open, serious, and meaningful negotiations with leaders of Tibet and East Turkestan,” Kadeer said, using the Uyghurs’ own name for China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

    Where is the world?

    “Russia has repeatedly declared that it views Tibet as an inalienable part of China, and considers the resolution of relations with the Dalai Lama to be an internal matter of the People’s Republic of China,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

    Mark Malloch-Brown, Britain’s minister for Asia, Africa and the U.N., said Western governments are reminding China that its handling of the unrest could damage its international standing.

    “This is a China engaged with the world which is using the Olympics to demonstrate a new openness and it risks all of that collapsing in on it if it is seen as being the enforcer of a crackdown on Tibetans,” he told British Broadcasting Corp. television.

    Demonstrators have rallied in support of independence-minded Tibetans in several cities in Europe, Asia and Australia.

    Demonstrators? We had few hundred of them here in DC this week – instead of demonstrating at the Chinese Embassy (straight up Connecticut Avenue from where ANSWER, Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, et al. began their protests on Wednesday) they protested the liberation of brown people. Protests across the world against the communist Chinese government which is actually engaged in murdering it’s citizens, and not a peep from the United States save Nancy Pelosi and John McCain.

    Bloodthirsty Liberal writes;

    There’s the cold, hard truth about the rest of the world, people (which many of you profess to love more than your own country). As much as your little heart aches for Tibet, they couldn’t give a Fuquan.

    Maybe if the Chinese repudiated communism and declared their love of capitalism, the Left (and Putin) would get off their collective fat ass and give a sweat for Tibet.

  • Chavez targets Globovision

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    Howard Yane/AP Photo

    The Miami Herald reports this morning that Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has threatened to allow television network Globovision’s license expire in November – the same tactic he used against RCTV last year when that network was forced to the internet from broadcast television.

    President Hugo Chávez’s dismantling of the critical press looks to be continuing as the leftist leader whips up public support to shut down Globovisión — less than a year after he refused to renew the license of the country’s most popular TV station.

    Chávez has called Globovisión, a 24-hour news channel, ”an enemy of the Venezuelan people,” and one of the owners has been verbally attacked. Fervent government supporters have called on the national tax office to investigate the station. Hundreds rallied outside of its offices last month.

    Chavez’ memory must be as short as his legs – closing RCTV was what angered students and inspired opposition to his rewritten Constitution in a referendum last November. Closing Globovision may the thing that drives him from office.