Conservatives Mobilize Against 'Law of the Sea' Treaty

For those keeping score, this is why I'm not a blind supporter of the Bush administration. When they do something I approve of, I write it, when they don't, I complain about it. This from the NY Sun.

"WASHINGTON - Conservative activists are pressing the Bush administration and Republican lawmakers to reverse their support for an international oceans treaty they claim will limit American sovereignty and empower an international body akin to the United Nations.

They want President Bush to repudiate a treaty called the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, just as he pulled America out of an agreement creating the International Criminal Court and has refused to sign the Kyoto treaty on greenhouse gas emissions. The White House says it wants to see the treaty ratified soon.

Although the oceans treaty may be obscure, it is stirring intense passions among conservatives who see it as internationalism's latest encroachment on American sovereignty.

The treaty has created "another unaccountable, politicized multilateral tribunal," said the president of the Center for Security Policy, Frank Gaffney. The treaty, which came into force in 1994 and has been signed by 148 countries, created an International Seabed Authority to oversee extraction of resources from the seabed. The authority has an assembly, a council, and a secretariat; an International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea was also created to resolve disputes.

More than a dozen groups that helped elect the Republican majority in Congress plan to flex their political muscle during a press conference Friday and denounce the treaty during the three-day Conservative Political Action Conference, which bills itself as the largest annual gathering of conservative grassroots activists from around the country."

Newsmax.com appears to one of the forces leading the charge against the "Land of the Sea Treaty (LOST)". They write:

"U.S. adherence to this treaty would entail history's biggest and most unwarranted voluntary transfer of wealth AND surrender of sovereignty. LOST, which was a product of the Left/Soviet/non-aligned movement agenda of the 1960s and 1970s, created the International Seabed Authority (ISA). ISA is a new supranational organization with unprecedented powers:

The power to regulate seven-tenths of the world's surface area;
The power to levy international taxes;
The power to impose production quotas (for deep-sea mining, oil production, etc.);
The power to regulate ocean research and exploration;
The power to create a multinational court system to render and enforce its judgments!

U.S. national security interests will be severely undermined by several of the Treaty's provisions:

The sorts of at-sea interdiction efforts central to President Bush's new "Proliferation Security Initiative" (PSI) would be prohibited. Communist China has already been citing the Treaty to object to PSI maritime interdiction and boarding of vessels suspected of weapons of mass destruction or terrorism ties;

The treaty effectively prohibits two functions vital to American security: intelligence-collection in, and submerged transit of, territorial waters; 

Mandatory information-sharing will afford U.S. enemies data that could be used to facilitate attacks on this country (for example, detailed imagery of underwater access routes and off-shore hiding places); 

Obligatory technology transfers will equip actual or potential adversaries with sensitive and militarily useful equipment and know-how (such as anti-submarine warfare technology).

The Treaty fails to address, let alone offer solutions to, the most dangerous flashpoints for military conflict facing the world. In fact, Communist China is using its own "unique" interpretation of this Treaty to justify its assertion of control over the strategic South China Sea!

LOST is a prime example of the way left-wing Democrats would like the world to be ordered and run. It is NOT consistent with conservative Republican governing principles and values -- or, more importantly, this country's VITAL INTERESTS."

You'd think that President Bush, who considers himself to be akin to Reagan would be against this thing. Apparently he isn't.

Playing Chess in the Middle East

I’ve often compared the country of Iraq to a chessboard in which we are playing against a conglomeration of enemies under the banner of Islamic fundamentalism/Pan-Arabism. I think my analysis is incomplete. Iraq is a piece on the greater chessboard of the Middle East and Central Asia. Despite the on-going terrorist attacks by al Qaeda regional leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, I believe in a strategic sense, we have firmly taken the Iraq piece. I know it’s not perfect over there but life seldom is and yet it moves on. Anyone that believes a solid victory in Iraq means the end of terrorist attacks is not living in the real world. For all intents and purposes, we’re nearly done with Iraq.

So in the game of global chess, what is our next move? Iran has aligned itself with Russia and China while engaging in limited diplomacy with the European Union. The Iran piece is pretty much blocked. We can threaten but the fact remains that war in Iran is most likely not going to happen. It doesn’t have to. The Syrian piece has been exposed and we are primed to take it.

The road to Syria takes us through Lebanon. On Monday, February 14th, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and at least nine others were killed when a massive bomb ripped through Beirut's fashionable seafront boulevard. According to Newsday.com, “Hariri's killing has already emboldened the Lebanese opposition, which is using renewed international attention on Lebanon to advance its demand for a pullout of the 15,000 Syrian troops here and an end to Damascus' political domination. The opposition lost its most important figure in Hariri, a billionaire and construction tycoon who led Lebanon for 10 years and oversaw the rebuilding of Beirut. But the opposition also gained new momentum and a sense of unity.”

This tragic event has, as Newsday indicated, put the spotlight on Syria’s involvement in the Lebanese Republic. Now without delving into many years of Arab history and how it was mucked up by the Allies re-drawing artificial state boundaries, there is a bit of history here that is relevant to what is going on right now. To start with, Arabs have apparently always questioned the legitimacy of Lebanon being a sovereign nation in the face of their belief that it is actually a part of Syria (which was once a part of Ottoman).

This is the short, short history of Syrian-Lebanese/Middle East relations:

1946: French troops leave Lebanon.
1948: Influx of Palestinians and the establishment of Israel.
1958: Pro Arab Druze and Sunni forces try to overthrow government so as to unite with Egypt and Syria. Conflict ends after US intervention.
1964: PLO founded.
1969: Cairo Agreement signed.
1975: War start between the Lebanese Front and the Palestinians. Left wing parties join in on the side of the Palestinians.
1976: Syria fearing Israeli intervention enters Lebanon to stop the fighting with the blessing of the Arab League.
1977: The Syrians become an occupying force.
1978: The Lebanese front engages the Syrians in an effort to expel them. Israel invades southern Lebanon to combat the PLO.
1982: June 6: Israel invades Lebanon for the second time, and this time centred to both southern Lebanon, and Beirut.
August 21: US mediation convince PLO that they have to leave Lebanon, multinational peace keeping force arrives..
August 23: Bashir Gemayel is elected president..
September 14: Bashir Gemayel assassinated.
September 21: Amin Gemayel, Bashir's brother, is elected new president.
1983: May 17 Agreement signed with Israel, Syria and its allies attack the Lebanese government forces. Lebanese Forces defeated in the Shouf.
1984: Multinational forces leave Lebanon.
1985: Heavy fighting in southern Lebanon starts after withdrawal of Israeli troops. Palestinian-Druze-Shiite coalition defeats Lebanese Forces in the south.
1988: Michel Aoun is appointed head of Lebanese government.
1989: Taif Agreement signed in Saudi Arabia and is rejected by Michel Aoun. Elias Hrawi is elected new president.
1990: After an all out Syrian assault, Aoun orders Lebanese Army to surrender. Aoun is exiled to France.
1992: Elections for the new National Assembly boycotted by the majority of the population, but results are upheld.
1996: Israeli attacks Hizballah in southern Lebanon and Beirut. shelling of Qana 100 civilians killed in UN shelter, 150 were wounded. (Credit cedarland.org)

According to Freelebanon.org, “Since September 17, 1982, Syria has been in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 520, demanding that "all non-Lebanese forces" leave Lebanon. Syria has occupied Lebanon since 1976, when it initially intervened in the Lebanese civil war. Syria has killed hundreds of Lebanese leaders since the early 1980s and then it systematically absorbed Lebanon into itself.

Syria, driven by the idea that Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine (also known as Southern Syria), are part of Greater Syria, has worked for almost three decades, unhindered, to pacify Lebanon, and make it vanish as an independent state. Daniel Pipes in "Greater Syria: The History of an Ambition," has written extensively about the Greater Syria ideology that drove Bashar Al-Assad's father and continues to motivate the new Syrian president.”

Now that Hariri has been assassinated, Kofi Annan is once again calling on Syria to honor UN resolution 1559. “UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Tuesday called on Syria to start withdrawing its troops from Lebanon by April, when he is due to report to the Security Council on the implementation of a UN resolution (1559) urging all foreign troops to leave Lebanon… The resolution, adopted last September, calls for the withdrawal of all remaining foreign forces from Lebanon, disbanding all militias and extending government control over the whole country.

Although the resolution does not specifically mention Syria, Annan said in an initial report in October that aside from a UN peacekeeping force, the only significant foreign forces in Lebanon were Syrian. The report said Syria indicated that it has some 14,000 troops still inside Lebanon.” (Credit xinhuanet.com)

You know you’re in trouble when Kofi Annan starts demanding countries other than the US and Israel actually follow through on UN resolutions.

The rhetoric from both sides is already starting to ramp up. Immediately when the story broke President Bush recalled Ambassador Margaret Scobey for "consultations" in the wake of Hariri's assassination. She may end up going back but right now that’s not a sign that the US is going to spend time considering “diplomatic” solutions to the Syrian problem.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said, "The United States will consult with other governments in the region and on the Security Council today about measures that can be taken to punish those responsible for this terrorist attack, to end the use of violence and intimidation against the Lebanese people and to restore Lebanon's independence, sovereignty and democracy by freeing it from foreign occupation.”

That was followed by a statement from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who said, “We would hope that the Syrian government would take the opportunity of this signal from the United States to review where we are in the relationship and to try to put our relations on a better path.”

Anybody that can understand Bush-speak knows that’s a war cry.

The Syrians are in on the act as well. They of course are pleading innocence and instead are blaming the whole affair on the Israeli Mossad. “All the evidence indicates that the Israeli intelligence service Mossad killed Hariri, since it had previously plotted to assassinate important Lebanese politicians.

The Mossad is trying to help the Zionist army claw its way back into Lebanon, since history has shown that the stability of Lebanon is not to the advantage of Israel.” (Credit Mehrnews.com)

The writing is on the wall and pieces are being moved into position. Whether it is through a large-scale land invasion or through covert operations, the next piece we will take is Syria, mark my words.

U.S. Withdraws Ambassador From Syria

This may be the beginning of the end for Syria's current leadership. From Newsmax.com:

"WASHINGTON -- The United States has recalled its ambassador to Syria amid rising tensions over the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri of Lebanon.

Before departing, U.S. Ambassador Margaret Scobey delivered a stern note, called a demarche in diplomatic parlance, to the Syrian government, said an official who discussed the situation only on grounds of anonymity.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, announcing the move, said it reflected the Bush administration's "profound outrage" over Hariri's assassination.

Boucher did not accuse Syria of being involved in the bombing Monday in Beirut. "I have been careful to say we do not know who committed the murder at this time," he said.

But he said the deadly attack illustrated that Syria's strong military and political presence in Lebanon was a problem and had not provided security in the neighboring country.

"It reminds us even more starkly that the Syrian presence in Lebanon is not good," Boucher said. "It has not brought anything to the Lebanese people."

Boucher refused to describe Syria's rection to Scobey's diplomatic messages in Damascus. Syria has not yet taken any reciprocal action, such as withdrawing its own amabssador to Washington.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, apparently referring to the note Scobey delivered to the Syrian foreign ministry, said the United States has "made it clear to Syria that we expect Syria to act in accordance with the United Nations Security Council resolution calling for the withdrawal of all foreign forces and the disbanding of militias,"

Also, McClellan said, "we also made it clear to Sryia that we want them to use their influence to prevent the kind of terroist attack that took place yesterday from happening."

The administration had earlier condemned the killing of Hariri, a billionaire construction magnate who masterminded the recovery of his country, and insisted that Syria comply with a U.N. resolution calling for the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.

Hariri, like most Lebanese politicians, walked a thin line between criticizing Damascus and deferring to the country that plays a dominant role in Lebanon's affairs.

He resigned four months ago in light of tensions with Syria but was weighing a political comeback. A Sunni Muslim, Hariri was on good terms with Lebanese Christians and was especially close to French President Jacques Chirac, who has called for an international investigation into the assassination.

Assistant Secretary of State William Burns, who heads the Near East bureau, will attend Hariri's funeral, a gesture of U.S. respect for the former prime minister.

The administration did not directly support Chirac on his call for an international inquiry, but the White House said those responsible for the bombing of Hariri's motorcade must be punished."

More on this story tomorrow...

The Royal Rumble in Washington DC

I may never become a professional op-ed writer if I keep comparing modern day politics to pro-wrestling but I can’t help it when they make so damn easy.

There are two schools of thought on our two major political parties. One is that both parties are very different and can never reconcile their differences, as their fundamental core belief systems are so vastly different. Republicans want a smaller government, they want to uphold traditional values and provide for a strong defense (in theory). Democrats want to build upon the New Deal creating a wealth of social service programs with the aim of ending poverty, extend the boundaries of cultural relativism under the guise of civil liberties and utilize an internationalist approach to foreign affairs (in theory). The problem here is that like men and women since the sexual revolution, both parties are suffering from gender role confusion.

First and more obvious is the Democratic Party. There is a rift in the party that may end up driving it further and further out of power. This rift is most actualized in the separation of camps between the Dean-Kerry-Kennedy/Progressive wing of the party and the Clinton/Centrist-New Democrat wing. Essentially this split comes out of ideology conflicting with election strategy. As Karl Rove said recently, “we are a center-right country” and apparently the Clinton’s are savvy enough to know how to reach voters and win elections (how they behave once in office is a whole other matter). Meanwhile, there’s an entire other half of the party that is clinging to their progressive roots with all their might and will not suffer an inch of compromise. These are the Moveon.org folks who just stormed the gates of the DNC palace like virtual Bolsheviks and demanded that the face of the party resemble the philosophy of the party: enter Howard Dean.

Howard Dean has just been elected to be the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He recently stated that, “What I was trying to get across is that democrats, in order to win, have to stand up for what we believe. We are never going to win if we try to pretend we're half republican all the time. The republicans have claimed democrats are pro-abortion. That couldn't be further from the truth. I don't know anybody that's pro-abortion. I do know democrats think women should make up their own mind about what kind of health care they get.” (Credit tv.ksl.com)

Howard Dean is attempting to re-brand the party as fiscally conservative and socially progressive, which if promoted effectively, that message will find an audience willing to listen. He is also attempting to emulate the organizational skills of the Republicans for the purposes of contesting elections in states less likely to vote for a Democratic candidates and thus restore the party to their lost seats of power.

Dean, who was quoted as saying he “hates” Republicans, has paid special attention to how Newt Gingrich and company took control of Washington. Newsmax.com reports, “This past week, U.S. News and World Report's ‘Washington Whispers’ noted that Dean ‘admires Newt Gingrich more than he does Bill Clinton.’ ” Dean also said that Gingrich, “created a real success for the right wing…Clinton, meanwhile, led the Dems into complacency and defeat.” Indeed the battle lines have been drawn and the players are moving into position.

Meanwhile, George W. Bush his running around the White House singing Madonna’s “Material Girl.” This man has the nerve to refer to himself as fiscal conservative. That would be true if by conservative he means recklessly negligent on spending. Now I’m not referring to the money spent on Iraq, Afghanistan or other clandestine anti-terror efforts, which I think is money well spent. I’m referring to his asinine domestic spending programs. One such doozey is his decision to increase spending on abstinence-only programs. Despite recent studies showing the ineffectiveness of abstinence-only education, President Bush proposes to increase funding for said abstinence-only education programs by $39 million, to $193 million. The increase in funds is more than 50 percent since 2004.

Another grand scheme is his marriage initiative. According to Womensenews.com, “The Bush administration proposes to spend almost $2 billion of scarce welfare funds over the next six years promoting marriage. Our total federal welfare budget is less than $17 billion per year, the same amount it was in 1996. In February, the House passed H.R. 4, a welfare reauthorization bill that diverts funds from basic economic supports such as job training and childcare into experimental marriage-promotion programs. Currently, the bill is under consideration by the Senate.”

According to the Cato Institute, “a libertarian research institution, says overall federal spending has increased twice as fast under Mr. Bush as under Mr. Clinton. At the same time, the federal deficit is projected to hit a record high of $427 billion this year.”

This is not small government by any definition that I know of. This is social engineering, which is big in Iran but is not much tolerated by those of us living in the land of the free. This is also fiscal irresponsibility and you know you’ve gone off the deep when even the Cato Institute is admonishing a Republican.

This is what I mean when I say that both party’s roles and underlying philosophies are confused. The Democrats think they are Republicans and George W. Bush thinks that selling our country, via floating debt, to China is good, sound, fiscal policy. However, gender confusion is only half the story in the Washington rumble.

As stated above, there are two schools of thought on our most prominent national political parties. The other school of thought is that both parties are actually the same, with their agendas being to maintain the status quo both in seats of power and on Wall Street.

One example of this dubious, incestuous nature of Washington politics is a story in the Washington Post. They write that, “There's been K Street chatter, our colleague Jeffrey H. Birnbaum tells us, that (Joe) Lieberman (D – CN) could be on an administration list to replace Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in the next year or so.

That would be convenient for Lieberman, whose term is up in 2006, and could give Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell (R) an opportunity to appoint a Republican to the seat for at least a few months before the election, inching the GOP closer to a filibuster-proof Senate.”

What a mixed up mix this all is. The Dems are split and fighting amongst themselves and it won’t be long before potential Republican candidates start vying for position concerning the 2008 presidential election. Indeed you will see backstabbing, dirty tricks, betrayals, double-dealing and the sort of dramatic intrigue that used to make Oliver Stone movies watch-able. It would almost be wild fun to watch if we, liberals and conservatives alike, didn’t suffer from our depraved and toxic system.

"Democracy is the worst system of government, except for all the others." Sir Winston Churchill

Global Warming Treaty Set to Take Effect

First the news, then some perspective.

This from the AP: "NEW YORK (AP) - After seven politically painful years, the Kyoto Protocol finally enters into force on Wednesday, reining in industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases" in a first attempt to control climate change.

The global pact negotiated in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, remains a small step, potentially eliminating only one-tenth of a projected 30 percent rise in worldwide emissions between 1990 and 2010. Its supporters already are looking beyond it, toward bigger steps once the agreement expires in 2012.

Progress will be limited without the United States, however. The world's biggest emitter rejects the Kyoto pact and balks at discussing future mandatory cuts. European environment ministers, key Kyoto supporters, say they will step up efforts this year to win Washington over."

President Bush is often accused of wrecking the environment because he pulled the US out of Kyoto. Let's examine the facts: According to Jean-Francois Revel (he's French mind you) in his book, "Anti-Americanism", "Already in 1997, with Bill Clinton occupying the White House, the US Senate had rejected the Kyoto Protocol by a vote of 95 to 0...President Bush had nothing to do with it."

Revel sites this situation as politically sticky and nearly impossible. He says in his book that, "Here, Clinton's evident intention was to hand Bush a political hot potato at the last minute. If he accepted it, the incoming president would be faced with the problem of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 percent without cutting back industrial production and energy consumption too drastically: an impossible task."

Many American citizens, especially liberals, and Europeans, both in the public and their respective governments point to the Bush administration and cry negligence over the environment. Here's the irony of that according to Revel, "By mid-2001, four years after the Kyoto conference, not one of the 167 other signatories - and not a single European nation - had ratified the protocol."

Lest anyone think that the above statement is irrelevant because we are such wanton polluters, Revel writes, "...nations that are heavy polluters - such as Brazil, China and India - demand that the United States apply restrictions that they themselves don't feel required to observe. In a report published on May 29, 2001, the European Environment Agency noted a worsening of pollution in Europe, mainly because 'transportation is constantly increasing, in particular those modes that are least sustainable (road and air).' "

But wait, this gets better, "Ecologists (say)...that America, with 5 percent of the world's population, is responsible for 25 percent of the world's industrial pollution...but it should be pointed out that America also produces 25 percent of the planet's goods and services, and that the other 167 Kyoto signatories had none absolutely nothing by mid-2001 towards reducing, either collectively or individually, their 75 percent share of world pollution."

This is why I can't take arguments by environmentalists seriously. I'm not saying the Bush administration is without sin. If they were I doubt Christie Todd Whitman would have quit the EPA in Bush's first term. What I am saying is that we should not be shouldering the blame alone as we are not alone in polluting the world. This business in Kyoto is simply a red herring that is throw out into the public forum for the purposes of smearing the Bush administration.

The above line about progress being limited by the US is a joke. Progress will be limited because countries around the world are less serious than the US in environmental matters. They are high on rhetoric, low on action. How positively European.

Multi-Polarity and Oil: Venezuela

I've spent the last few columns lamenting the fates of Africans whom don't seem to register on the radars of any country that matters. However, if you have oil, that's your ticket to ride. If you have oil, you have a large bargaining chip. Oil is why we've allowed Saudi Arabia to get away with murder (figuratively and literally). Oil is one of two ways (the other being nuclear arms) to become a player on the world stage.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union the US has enjoyed some degree of hegemony unrivaled by any country in the world. For reasons too complex for me to get into now, the US has given away a large part of its leverage while at the same time, a renewed, energized and firmly connected world seeks to change the shape of the board the US has been playing on. The European Union seeks to assert itself as the opposition party to US influence in the world at large. Iran and the Saudi Wahabbists seek to drive the US and probably the entire Western world from the Middle East entirely. Russia is grasping ever so tightly to its influence in former Soviet Republics including Central Asia. China seeks to be master of its South East Asian domain and is being tested by the recent North Korean nuclear crisis. All of this in the face of a US administration that is being dragged kicking and screaming into a world that has at once become too small to ignore and too big to control on its own.

This brings me to South America. We often forget about South America because since l90l, we've been employing President Roosevelt's "Big Stick" policy in South America. "Big Stick" comes from an African proverb "speak softly but carry a big stick and you will go far". The expression was initially used to describe Roosevelt's intervention in the Dominican Republic in l905. It didn't end in DR however and to varying degrees in continues today. The "Big Stick" was used most often during the Reagan years to combat the rise of Marxism/Soviet Communism in Latin America. And that brings me to Venezuela.

It is obvious to me that as the prevailing wisdom among the uneducated liberal masses is that there must be peace at all costs; world leaders are seeing a window of opportunity to flex their muscles and challenge US hegemony. President Chavez of Venezuela can't possibly be serious in thinking the US is going to initiate a land invasion of his country. He and his buddy Fidel Castro would have to be equally insane to think we're going to attack Cuba. First off, we had a mandate to go in and depose Saddam Hussein and the world went into apoplexy. Whatever capital we’ve got in the world community right now is not going to be spent on any Latin American country. We’ve got bigger, more pressing issues to contend with in Iran. I believe Chavez knows this and the situation makes for the perfect foil for him to declare independence from US influence.

It’s a pretty good strategy if you think about. Having taken a lesson from North Korea, if you act crazy enough the US will attempt to deal with you. Upon further Google research I found two articles that led to me believe that much of the rhetoric coming out of Caracas is mere posturing in the face of United States that, much like Bilbo Baggins from Fellowship of the Ring, is, “spread thin like butter over too much bread.” Chavez looks like the “big man” of Latin America and the US can’t do much about it because their focus is elsewhere.

To go back to my original statement about oil being the pumpkin coach that brings a country to the First World ball, there are two articles, as stated above, that seem to indicate Venezuela attempting to play the US against Russia.

From Forbes.com: Venezuela OKs Corocoro Oil Field Plan – “Venezuela has approved a plan for U.S. oil firm ConocoPhillips to develop the Corocoro oil field in eastern Venezuela, the state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. said Saturday.

The plan was approved after ConocoPhillips president James Mulva met with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday. The state oil company announced the agreement on its Web site Saturday.

ConocoPhillips planned to start drilling 14 wells at the site in December, but Venezuela put the project on hold amid a dispute over the company's business plan. The field, discovered by Conoco in 1999 and declared commercial in 2002, is a key component of Venezuela's plans to expand oil output.

The plan foresees 75,000 barrels a day in output by 2007, and 120,000 barrels a day by 2009.

"We are going to continue with this project. We are very pleased by the progress recorded by our investments in Venezuela," Mulva said, according to the statement posted on the PDVSA site.”

One story has Venezuela gearing up for an imminent attack and threatening to cut off the oil sales (see Saturday’s post) and yet another has us doing business in those same coveted oil fields.

Meanwhile, over in Russia as per Itarr-Tass News Agency: Venezuela interested in cooperation with Russia's LUKoil – “CARACAS, February 11 (Itar-Tass) - Venezuela is prepared to develop relations with Russia's LUKoil company, its President Vagit Alekperov told Tass on Thursday.

Venezuela expressed interest in contacts with the Russian company at a meeting Alekperov had with Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramires. Both sides expressed confidence that the two companies might discuss concrete contacts this year already, Alekperov said.

Venezuela has unique oil and gas deposits, and therefore, it is of interest to all world oil companies, Alekperov said. The Russian company is interested in oil development in the area of the Orinoco River and the Gulf of Venezuela where tenders are expected in the near future, Alekperov said.

A Memorandum on understanding between LUKoil and the Petroleos de Venezuela companies was signed in November 2004 when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez paid a visit to Moscow.”

This is the behavior of a country that is attempting to position itself as regional leader. Venezuela is using oil the way North Korea is attempting to use nuclear missiles, with the end result being high recognition and place on the world stage. In short, Venezuela is attempting to break the “Big Stick” of the US forever more.

We shall see how this all develops as time goes on. After all, Venezuela has neighbors such as Brazil and Columbia and they’re not so anxious to tell the US what to do with itself nor are they so anxious to embrace Castro as Chavez has.

Chávez arming to fight attack by U.S.

With so much attention on the Middle East and the occasional outburst from North Korea, imagine my surprise when I read this in the Miami Herald:

"Venezuela is shifting its military doctrine to set the United States as its No. 1 enemy, and President Hugo Chávez has spoken of guerrilla warfare, as seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, if U.S. forces invade his country.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has long been known for his harsh anti-Bush rhetoric. But now he's stepping up military plans and weapons purchases to match his combative tone, and he is worrying U.S. policymakers.

Within the past two weeks the leftist populist leader has called himself a ''socialist'' and ''Fidelista,'' and offered a muscular new course for his self-described ''revolution'' on behalf of Venezuela's poor.

''I propose that we move to the offensive, just like the imperialists have moved to the bloody and ruthless offensive. If you don't believe me, look at Iraq . . .'' Chávez told a news conference in Brazil late last month.

''We have to embrace socialism as a thesis,'' he continued, in what observers said was his most direct public reference to his socialist views. He later added that any attack on Cuba or Venezuela ``would be an attack on both.''

The article goes on to say that, "...his latest comments worry U.S. policymakers, mostly because they coincide with his push to obtain new weaponry and forge a new national military doctrine that would prepare his country for a war of resistance against a possible U.S. invasion.

Simultaneously, Chávez has said he is placing the 50,000 soldiers of the military reserve directly under his control and organizing his civilian supporters into armed militias to be known as ``popular defense units.''

However, "U.S. officials have dismissed the idea of a military attack on Venezuela, they have expressed concern over Chávez' new stance since Venezuela remains the fourth-largest supplier of oil to the United States.

Earlier this week, the State Department's assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs, Roger Noriega, challenged Chávez's efforts to create the militias and his purchase of 40 Russian helicopters and 100,000 AK-47 assault rifles.

Noriega told a TV interviewer that the weapons could end up in ''the hands of some criminal and irregular groups'' -- an apparent reference to leftist guerrillas in neighboring Colombia with whom Chávez has been accused of sympathizing.

Vice President José Vicente Rangel responded swiftly to Noriega's comments, saying they had ''the deliberate goal of provoking Venezuela'' and that the new guns would replace old weaponry.

The heightened U.S.Venezuela tensions coincide with new strategies for bilateral relations in both countries.

After years of Washington's trying to avoid confrontations with Chávez, a new U.S. ''policy review'' is expected soon to recommend trying to isolate Venezuela from its neighbors."

I'll bet. Well, it was only a matter of time before our policy of treating Latin America like second class citizens would come back to bite us on the tush. I'll have more on what's been happening in Venezuela on Monday once I do some more research on how exactly this problem came to be in the first place.

Abbas Heads to Gaza to Confront Militants

This from the AP: "GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas will meet Saturday with militant leaders to push them to honor a days-old cease-fire marred by mortar and rocket attacks on Israeli targets, according to an aide.

The Islamic militant group Hamas said it would only stop attacks when it was satisfied Israel would release prisoners and stop pursuing militants.

Abbas' planned meetings with Hamas and the Islamic Jihad faction were the latest sign of his commitment to keeping intact the cease-fire he and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared Tuesday to end 4 1/2 years of bloodletting.

On Thursday, he fired top security commanders after Hamas bombarded Jewish settlements in Gaza with mortars and rockets. And the central committee of his Fatah movement announced a state of emergency in the Palestinian security forces in an effort to prevent new attacks."

Absolute peace is next to impossible between Palestine and Israel. All of the snarky bloggers whom have reacted to the news out of the Middle East regarding HAMAS' reaction to the peace talks between Abbas and Sharon by being sarcastic and pessimistic have as usual missed the bigger picture. God only knows if the majority of Jews and Arabs in the Middle East will ever "get along" and frankly my dear Scarlett, it doesn't matter if they do. What does matter and is evidenced by the above article is that when the terrorist groups like HAMAS attack, the PLO will be there to intercede and appropriately deal with them. In other words, Abbas has to do what Arafat was unwilling to do; oppose the local terrorist. Abbas has to emulate Presdient Eisenhower whom sent troops into Little Rock, Arkansas, to assure compliance with the orders of a Federal court demanding desegregation. If Abbas confronts the terrorists and lives to tell about it, that's the best proximity to peace we can hope for. If you're waiting for the Arabs and the Jews to get together and sing, "We're All in the Same Gang" you are either hopelessly utopian or a student of Ward Churchill (cue rim shot).

Prime Minister Sharon certainly has to keep up his end of the bargain as well. Sharon has to stand strong against the hardliners in his own government that have decided that the Palestinians can't be reasoned with.

This struggle will be long, ugly and bloody, there's no doubt about that. The fate of the Middle East lies squarely with Abbas and Sharon and their ability to stay alive in a sea of radicals where life is cheaper than penny candy.

Lose – Lose Scenario for Women and Social Security

I have avoided this topic like the plague because my expertise, such as it is, is in foreign policy and political strategy. I know next to nothing about Social Security except that I pay into it and someday I’ll draw from it. I’ve heard the pundits pontificate that SS will be bankrupt in 40 some odd years and have listened with only half an ear. When I hear “Iran”, my ears perk up, when I hear “Social Security” my attention turns elsewhere. I’ve listened to President Bush’s proposal to issue private investment accounts to folks under 55 and it seems to make sense to me.

However, I am a male and my concerns are very different than that of my good friend who happens to be a woman. She sent me an e-mail that read, “Why don't you put something on your blog about how none of the SS reform being talked about is going to change one of the main things wrong with SS: it is unfair to women.” Frankly I never thought about it and so off I went to do some of my patented “fast Google research”. Here are the fruits of my labor.

First off, on the question of whether or not Social Security as it stands today is in fact unfair to women, the answer according to the National Center For Policy Analysis is, “Yes and No. Social Security is very generous to the married woman who never works. She is entitled to half her husband's benefit (the spouse's benefit) even if she never paid a dollar of taxes. Social Security is much less generous to the married working woman. The reason: if she works, she can collect either the Social Security benefit or a benefit in her own right, but not both. Many women discover that after paying Social Security taxes for many years, their best option is to accept the spouse's benefit. So they get nothing in return for all the taxes they paid. There are also other problems. A divorced person married for 10 years or more is entitled to full spousal and survivor benefits, while one married less than 10 years is entitled to none. So being short a single day of marriage (9 years, 364 days) can cost a spouse tens of thousands of dollars in lifetime Social Security benefits.” (Credit mysocialsecurity.org)

In America, Women represent a large portion of the national workforce. According to the AFL-CIO, “Since the 1970’s the number of women in the paid labor force has increased by 112 percent. The percentage of children with mothers in the paid workforce has increased 28 percent. Combined work hours for dual-earner couples with children rose 10 hours a week. The gender wage gap decreased by 15 cents to 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. The number of women workers has increased steadily, particularly in the second half of the past century, and continues to grow. Since 1950, the number of women in the paid labor force has increased by more than 250 percent. In comparison, the labor force participation rate of men continues to decline. In 1950 only one-third of the U.S. labor force was female; by the year 2003 that proportion was approaching one-half (46 percent). By 2010, women are projected to account for 48 percent of the total labor force. The number of working women has grown from 5.3 million in 1900 to 18.4 million in 1950 and to nearly 65 million in 2003 and is projected to increase to 75.5 million by 2010. By 2010, more than 62 percent of women will be in the paid work force. In comparison, the labor force participation rate for men has steadily declined from nearly 80 percent in 1970 to less than 76 percent in 2003.” (Credit aflcio.org).

As stated above, so long as women stand by their men, as the song goes, for at least 10 years or more, they are entitled to their spouse’s benefits. Here’s the rub; according to the Equality in Marriage Institute, “(the) total number of divorced adults grew from 4.3 million in 1970 to 20 million today…Younger couples marrying for the first time face roughly a 40-50% chance of divorcing in their lifetime, under current trends…The median length for a first time marriage ending in divorce is eight years…” (Credit equalityinmarriage.org)

So, under our current safety net system combined with today’s cost of living and raising a family, women are encouraged to marry, will most likely make less than their husband, divorce within 8 years and then be cut from receiving retirement benefits. Unfair indeed.

President Bush has proposed privatized personal investment accounts. From what I’ve been able to pick up, it involves the Federal government giving a portion of the current workforce’s retirement money back to them for the purposes of limited and federally regulated investments. There’s more to it than that and to date there’s no solid plan in the congress but that is what the President has been campaigning about this week.

While this plan that the President is campaigning about may seem to make a modicum of sense, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research published a paper in March of 2000 stating that, “There are several reasons why individual accounts would be particularly negative for women. First, because women earn less than men, they benefit from the current system that provides proportionately higher benefits for low earners. This feature would be lost in a privatized system. Because women would tend to have smaller accounts, it is likely that the yield of their accounts would be below average, as they (appropriately) avoid risky investments. For these same reasons, women would find a larger share of their accounts going toward administration. Second, because women tend to live longer than men, they would have to pay more for annuities (guaranteed monthly income) in a privatized system, or face the possibility of outliving their assets. Finally, women are more likely to be hurt by losses in disability and life insurance coverage because they are much more likely to be responsible for children as well as themselves after disability or death.”

The IWRP rejects the claim by the Cato Institute that, “All serious proposals for privatization include a safety net feature that would ensure that everyone’s retirement income is at least at or above the poverty line.”

They counter that, “Not all of the Cato Institutes privatization proposals include such a minimum. Furthermore, it is unlikely that Congress would pass such a dramatic improvement in benefits. Currently Social Security’s special minimum is approximately 85 percent of the poverty line. For workers who have less than 30 years of coverage the benefit gradually decreases and phases out at 10 years. SSI’s maximum benefit for a single individual is even less (about 75 percent of the poverty line) and is subject to means and asset tests.

A minimum benefit at or above the poverty line is, of course, desirable. However, the Cato Institute has provided no estimate of the cost of such a minimum.”

At present, and granted I’m not the expert here; I cannot stand by a policy that seems to so grossly misrepresent women across the board. Women lose in our current system and will stand to lose even more if private accounts pass without the minimum safety benefit. The fact that whatever plan is passed will be optional for the worker doesn’t account for much if the regular American woman isn’t aware of the apparent pitfalls of privatization accounts. One can only hope that as this debate unfolds, the Congress will reconcile the gaping holes in whatever plan they agree to before more damage is hurled upon women in the American workforce.

Loss of the Moral High Ground

In the run-up to the Iraq War, singularly the United States faced many opponents such as France, Germany, China and Russia against a land invasion to oust former dictator Saddam Hussein. Collectively, it was the entire United Nations that objected to the war and Secretary General Kofi Annan stated that this particular pending act of aggression against Iraq was, “…not in conformity with the UN Charter from our point of view, and from the Charter point of view it was illegal." In this statement Annan seeks to admonish the United States from the moral high ground placing the UN as the superior international entity.

Kofi Annan is dead wrong.

All bureaucracy’s are fallible and our own government certainly shouldn’t be throwing too many stones from the glass house on Capital Hill, however, we shouldn’t be lectured either by a vastly inferior and corrupt institution such as the UN.

At present the UN is under investigation for a litany of scandals. First and most prominent is the Oil-For-Food program. Oil-For-Food was instituted in 1996 in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War as a means for letting Iraq obtain humanitarian supplies despite being under sanction for failing to adequately disarm. As we have seen from recent reports, that’s not exactly what was happening.

According to The Australian, “Documents found in Iraq’s old ministry of oil reveal that hundreds of prominent individuals received vouchers to buy Iraqi oil at cut-rate prices and sell it on the open market – at tremendous, often seven-figure, profits.

Those named include not just Sevan but a vast array of Russian politicians, close friends of French President Jacques Chirac (including France’s former minister of the interior), British Labour MP George Galloway, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter and, closer to home, Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

In short, it’s a who’s who list of high-profile anti-war and anti-sanctions voices, all revealed to be shills for Saddam.

But by far the biggest recipient of Saddam’s largesse was the UN. During the program’s existence, more than $US1 billion was kept by the organisation as a fee for administering the program. As one senior UN diplomat recently told London’s Daily Telegraph: “The UN was not doing this work just for the good of Iraq. Cash from Saddam’s government was keeping the UN going for a few years.”

So essentially the story here is that the UN was obstructing the effort to forcibly disarm Hussein in order to continue lining its own pockets with Iraq’s blood money. In addition, one would assume that they also didn’t want the US in Iraq because eventually the lid would have been blown off Oil-For-Food and the UN would be facing down a high degree of shame. Of course that’s precisely what has happened.

Another pockmark on the face of the UN is the sexual exploitation of war refugees in the Democratic Republic of Congo by UN peacekeepers. This from the Weekly Standard:

“01/03/2005, Last month a classified United Nations report prompted Secretary General Kofi Annan to admit that U.N. peacekeepers and staff have sexually abused or exploited war refugees in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The worst of the 150 or so allegations of misconduct--some of them captured on videotape--include pedophilia, rape, and prostitution. While a U.N. investigation into the scandal continues, the organization has just suspended two more peacekeepers in neighboring Burundi over similar charges. The revelations come three years after another U.N. report found "widespread" evidence of sexual abuse of West African refugees.”

According to the AP today, “Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the Security Council on Wednesday to add at least 100 military police to a Congo peacekeeping mission to help prevent sex abuse of women by the U.N. forces.

In a letter to the 15 council members, Annan reiterated his "personal outrage" at the allegations of sexual exploitation of girls as young as 13 by U.N. peacekeepers in Congo. He said the United Nations is actively working to root out the problem, which has tarnished the reputation of the world body and the nearly 65,000 peacekeepers serving in 16 global hotspots.”

I think this falls under the heading of “too little, too late”. This is a far cry from Abu Ghraib as I’m fairly certain that those who were abuse there weren’t 13-year old girls. The shrill cries for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfelds to resign over Abu Ghraib can still be heard from the likes of John Kerry even today. However, I do not hear that same crowd demanding Kofi Annan accept responsibility for the tragic events in the Congo and resign. At least Rumsfeld actually offered his resignation twice to President Bush.

Lastly, for an organization that supposedly trumpets world peace and diplomacy over aggression, they seem to regard Israel in much the same way the Western world regards African blacks…that is to say, not as human beings.

Allegedly, one of the UN’s mandates is to promote tolerance and stand against any sort of racism and one would assume anti-Semitism. However, according to The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), “The U.N. has tolerated and fostered anti-Semitism and anti-Israel propaganda.

• The U.N. has condemned virtually every conceivable form of racism. It has established programs to combat racism and its multiple facets - including xenophobia - but has consistently refused to condemn anti-Semitism. It only was on November 24, 1998, more than 50 years after the U.N.'s founding, that the word anti-Semitism was first mentioned in a U.N. resolution (GA Res. A/53/623).

• "The Talmud says that if a Jew does not drink every year the blood of a non-Jewish man, he will be damned for eternity." -Saudi Arabian delegate Marouf al-Dawalibi before the 1984 U.N. Human Rights Commission conference on religious tolerance. A similar remark was made by Farouk al-Chareh, the Syrian Ambassador to the U.N., at a 1991 meeting, who insisted Jews killed Christian children to use their blood to make matzos, a charge recently (2002) recycled in a Saudi government sponsored newspaper.

• On March 11, 1997, the Palestinian representative to the U.N. Human Rights Commission falsely charged Israel with injecting 300 Palestinian children with the HIV virus.”

There are more systemic problems in the UN and with the “multi-polarity” world at large at this time but my point is that will all of these scandals in mind, it is next to impossible to take the UN seriously as a standard bearer of morality. At best it is a largely dysfunctional social service provider and international grievance court, at worst it’s a league of terrorist enablers and neo-Marxist anti-Semites.

Rasputin Gets a Promotion

This from the AP:

"WASHINGTON (AP) - Karl Rove, the senior political strategist who orchestrated President Bush's re-election campaign, has been promoted to deputy chief of staff, a job that will involve him in most White House policy and not just politics.

Rove will now coordinate White House policy developed within the Domestic Policy Council, the National Economic Council, the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council, although intelligence and other national security issues from those councils will be handled by deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin."

Hot Dog. Nobody voted for Karl Rove. It's one thing to elect someone like George W. Bush and then be let down by his policy decisions, like say illegal immigration. It's an entirely different problem to have policy decisions made by someone nobody voted for or most likely knows nothing about. I doubt most of the voting public have read "Bush's Brain".

President Bush had to go out among the people and sell himself and his ideas. Now it's entirely possible that his ideas were all apart of a brilliant marketing strategy for the purposes of getting a Trojan horse in to the White House, but that's our problem as voters. It is our responsibility to examine the candidate and decide if we're going to pick up what they're putting down. We haven't had that opprotunity with Rove.

I don't like cronyism and I especially don't like someone as powerful as Rove in a position where he can dictate policy. We have an elected congress and a president for that.

The only plus side to this is that with HILLARY on the horizon in 2006 and 2008, conservatives will need Rove to combat what will surely be a bloody electoral battle between whomever Rove annoints and the Clintonistas.

For those keeping score, on this blog I try to call things as I see them without leaning too far to one side or the other. When the GOP does something I do not approve of I write all about it ie illegal immigration. However, I am dead set against HILLARY being the president and I'm not thrilled about the prospect of her having a second term in the Senate. The enemy of my enemy is my friend and with that in mind, this blog will always support the opposing view against any Clinton related story.

If I have to accept Rasputin and a Bush family influenced dynasty in the White House then so be it.

“Hotel Rwanda” and the Politics of Genocide in Africa

I finally got a chance to see “Hotel Rwanda” starring Don Cheadle this past weekend. The movie is about the genocide that was committed in Rwanda in 1994 under the watchful gaze of President Bill Clinton and the United Nations. The story centers on Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who housed over a thousand Tutsis refugees during their struggle against the Hutu militia in Rwanda. “Hotel Rwanda” recounts the horror that plagued that beleaguered country ten years ago. The events at that were some of the worst atrocities in the history of mankind. What made this episode in African history especially heinous is that and in an era of high-speed communication and round the clock news, the events went almost unnoticed by the rest of the world. In only three months, one million people were brutally murdered. The movie shows that had it not been for Paul Rusesabagina, himself a Hutu, the numbers of dead and forgotten Rwandans would have been much higher.

The movie was as tremendous as it was startling. The director of the film, Terry George, does not hold the audience back from the death that envelopes the events depicted in the film. When it is over, the viewer truly has a tangible picture of mans inhumanity to man. There are terribly violent scenes throughout the picture but not in the slasher or “Passion of the Christ” sense. The scenes are blended together between the brutality and indifference of the army, the maddening hate of the militia, and aftermath of the unyielding slaughter of men, women and children. I remember my first reaction to the film once it was over and the audience around me had left, was simply, “Why?”

After gathering my wits about me I began thinking about the institutionalized racism against Africa that has been such an unfortunate part of its history in the world. There is a line at the beginning of the film that explains how the Hutu’s and Tutsi’s came to war against one another. I don’t remember it exactly but according to the Peace Pledge Union website, “Most of the Rwandan population belong to the Hutu ethnic group, traditionally crop-growers. For many centuries Rwanda attracted Tutsis - traditionally herdsmen - from northern Africa. For 600 years the two groups shared the business of farming, essential for survival, between them. They have also shared their language, their culture, and their nationality. There have been many intermarriages.

Because of the nature of their historical pastoral or agricultural roles, Tutsis tended to be landowners and Hutus the people who worked the land; and this division of labour perpetuated a population balance in which Hutus naturally outnumbered Tutsis. A wedge was driven between them when the European colonists moved in. It was the practice of colonial administrators to select a group to be privileged and educated 'intermediaries' between governor and governed. The Belgians chose the Tutsis: landowners, tall, and to European eyes the more aristocratic in appearance. This thoughtless introduction of class-consciousness unsettled the stability of Rwandan society. Some Tutsis began to behave like aristocrats, and the Hutu to feel treated like peasants. An alien political divide was born.

European colonial powers also introduced modern weapons and modern methods of waging war. Missionaries, too, came from Europe, bringing a new political twist: the church taught the Hutu to see themselves as oppressed, and so helped to inspire revolution. With the European example before them, and European backing behind them, it was armed resistance that the Hutus chose. In 1956 their rebellion began (it would cost over 100,000 lives). By 1959 they had seized power and were stripping Tutsi communities of their lands.”

This summation is presented early on the film with a little less detail but the audience gets the point; the divisions among Africans were superficially bred to maintain control of them. The forthcoming genocide is not only the responsibility of those that took part in it but also the Europeans, in this case the Belgians, which fomented these murderous divisions in the first place.

The film states at the end title sequence that the total body count amounted to nearly a million men, women and children, almost all killed with machetes and clubs. However, that’s not the worst part. It has been said that all it takes for evil to win is for good people to do nothing. If that is the definition of triumphant evil, then such was alive and well at the United Nations in 1994.

In the spring of 1994, as the genocide began, the UN--at the insistence of Washington under then President Bill Clinton (the first black President mind you)--began pulling out of Rwanda. The UN left something like 400 or so ill equipped “peace keepers” in place with orders not to interfere in Rwandan business. The UN and Bill Clinton sad idly by and let one million black Africans murder one another. For those keeping score, that is why I’m against the UN, the Clinton’s and the Democrat Party at large.

The problem as I see it is apparently if you are darker than me than your life doesn’t count for nearly as much. Apparently genocide only counts when it happens to people other than Africans. It would also seem that despite all of the apologies and rhetoric from the Clinton and the UN, we are repeating the same mistakes all over again in Sudan.

This from Reuters on January 1st, 2005: “ABUJA (Reuters) - A keenly awaited United Nations investigation into human rights abuse in Sudan's Darfur region does not describe violence against villagers there as "genocide", the Sudanese government said on Monday.

Pro-government militia are accused of a two-year campaign of raping civilians and pillaging villages in the desert region where tens of thousands of people have died and 1.8 million have been driven from their homes.”

According to the International Crisis Group, “Open warfare erupted in Darfur in early 2003 when the two loosely allied rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), attacked military installations. The rebels, who seek an end to the region's chronic economic and political marginalization, also took up arms to protect their communities against a twenty-year campaign by government-backed militias recruited among groups of Arab extraction in Darfur and Chad. These "Janjaweed" militias have over the past year received greatly increased government support to clear civilians from areas considered disloyal. Militia attacks and a scorched-earth government offensive have led to massive displacement, indiscriminate killings, looting and mass rape, all in contravention of Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions that prohibits attacks on civilians.

The civil war, which risks inflicting irreparable damage on a delicate ethnic balance of seven million people who are uniformly Muslim, is actually multiple intertwined conflicts. One is between government-aligned forces and rebels; in a second government militia raid civilians; yet a third involves a struggle among Darfur communities themselves. Its implications go far beyond Darfur's borders. The war indirectly threatens the regimes in both Sudan and Chad and has the potential to inspire insurgencies in other parts of the country.”

And so, countless black Muslim Africans are being raped and murdered and yet the UN as led by Kofi Annan of Ghana sits by and claims it’s not genocide. The UN has issued threats as such and the Bush Administration has been somewhat vocal on what clearly is genocide in Sudan but that hasn’t stopped the carnage.

According to a story from AllAfrica.com dated February 7th, “Reports of unrest continue to flow in from various parts of Sudan's western Darfur region, including abductions, the burning of villages, the disruption of relief operations and shooting, the United Nations mission in the country said today.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and up to 1.85 million others displaced since rebels took up arms in early 2003, partly in protest at the distribution of economic resources in Darfur, which the UN has called the world's worst humanitarian crisis.”

It’s obvious to me that the Western world is patiently waiting for the Africans to wipe themselves out. Africa is a veritable treasure trove of resource delights that are just waiting to pick clean in the name of world trade. Furthermore, it is also obvious to me that those in power would much prefer if the Africans at large were not obstructing their efforts to mine the country dry by…building a civilization there. It’s so easy to just let the Sudanese, the Rwandans, the Congolese, and countless others just destroy one another. It’s easy to reap the benefits of genocide, it’s just not politically correct to say so out loud. I think Nick Nolte’s character (a UN Canadian colonel) from “Hotel Rwanda” sums up genocide and the politics of Africa rather nicely when he stares into Don Cheadle’s face and grumbles, “You should spit in my face…you’re not human, you’re not even a Nigger!”

U.S. Training Iranian Spies

It has begun! According to the below story from Newsmax.com, the US will indeed attempt to instigate revolution in Iran. It's too early to speculate further but I for one am quite excited by the prospect. I think after the Iraq war one thing is certain, full scale wars are not the way to bring a democracy that is sympathetic to the US thorughout the Middle East. Obviously we cannot stand by and allow Iran to have nuclear arms nor should we continue to allow Islamic fundamentalism to fester in any part of the world. Cloak and dagger-type espionage and proxy wars are exactly what is needed in Iran. I just hope it works.

Members of an Iranian group known for its support of the U.S. Embassy takeover in 1979 may now be sought by the Bush administration as operatives for use against Tehran, Newsweek reports in the current issue.

At a camp south of Baghdad called Ashraf, 3,850 members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (People's Holy Warriors) or MEK have been confined but gently treated by U.S. forces since the invasion of Iraq (once they were allies of Saddam against their own country in the 1980s Iran-Iraq war).

Some Pentagon civilians and intelligence planners are hoping a corps of informants can be picked from among the MEK prisoners, then split away from the movement and given training as spies, U.S. officials say. After that, the thinking goes, they will be sent back to their native Iran to gather intelligence on the Iranian clerical regime, particularly its efforts to develop nuclear weapons, report Middle East Regional Editor Christopher Dickey, Investigative Correspondent Mark Hosenball and Senior Editor Michael Hirsh in the February 14 issue of Newsweek.

Some hawks hope they could help to reawaken the democratic reform movement in Iran, which the mullahs have silenced. "They [want] to make us mercenaries," one MEK official tells Newsweek.

Maryam Rajavi, who heads the MEK with her husband Massoud, tells Newsweek her group is what America needs. "I believe increasingly the Americans have come to realize that the solution is an Iranian force that is able to get rid of the Islamic fundamentalists in power in Iran," she says. Rajavi insists the group's former role in terrorist attacks dating back to its support of the U.S. Embassy takeover in 1979 is ancient history. And the MEK is not a Jim Jones-like cult as critics allege, with forced separation between men and women and indoctrination for children, all overseen by the Rajavis' autocratic style. Instead, Rajavi insists, it is "a democratic force." She is demanding that the MEK be taken off the State Department's list of terrorist organizations, their assets unfrozen and their energies unleashed.

Still, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other top State officials remain leery of the MEK, despite renewed efforts to back and fund the group on Capitol Hill. Sources tell Newsweek that the CIA is also resisting the recruitment of agents from the MEK because senior officers regard them as unreliable cultists under the sway of Rajavi and her husband.

A Defense Department spokesman denied there is any "cooperation agreement" with the MEK and said the Pentagon has no plans to utilize MEK members in any capacity.

Pakistan sees Iran Meddling in Area

Pakistan is our most stalwart ally in the War on Terror. I know people think it's the British or even Iraq; Iraq being the big battleground that we are currently fighting but the reality is that Pakistan has been the friend we cannot live without. For example, "Pakistan has already captured around 600 Al Qaeda suspects, most of whom have been handed to the United States, and its forces have fought pitched battles with militants in the tribal region of South Waziristan." (source khaleejtimes.com)

Another aspect of our relationship with Pakistan is its approach to Islam. Pakistan and Turkey are both countries that are attempting to establish themselves as a more innocuous version of a Muslim state. Pakistan is attempting to combine democracy with the tennets of Islam in a sort of Muslim version of Israel. A theocratic democracy or Islamic Republic that does not repress its people. There attempts have not come close to succeeding yet but the intention is there. Turkey however is closer to the model that could be employed in more Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries that are finding a middle ground between Western democracy and Islam.

You don't hear about Pakistan much in the American media so it would make sense that people don't know how invaluable they are to us. Pakistan is more important to the US effort in Central Asia and the Middle East than France, Germany and the United Nations combined. The Democrats are always crying about internationalizing the efforts in the Middle East but they refuse to recognize the other countries, like Pakistan, that are heavily contributing to the effort. I'm sure there's enough blood spilt in Central Asia to appease Senator Ted Kennedy.

"We want to know when Iraqis will go out there and shed their blood like Americans have," stated Kennedy recently. He can rest assured that between the Iraqi's and the Pakistani's, there's enough dead brown people to satiate the foriegn bloodlust of the "anti-war" movement.

As the focus shifts from Iraq to Iran, Pakistan will continue to be a key strategic ally in bringing a beneficial stability to that region. This from the Washing Times:

By Anwar Iqbal
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL

A diplomatic spat in Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan may lead to a bitter confrontation between two Islamic nations, Pakistan and Iran, and adversely affect U.S. efforts to fight the al Qaeda terror network in neighboring Afghanistan.
    
Pakistan's possession of nuclear weapons and Iran's nuclear ambitions makes the situation even more precarious. Last week, Baluchistan's chief minister, Jam Mohammed Yusuf, blamed Iran for fomenting trouble in his province. But on the same day officials in the federal capital, Islamabad, denied any Iranian involvement in Baluchistan.

"Outside forces ... maybe Iran, are involved," Mr. Yusuf told Pakistan's private ARY Television when asked about foreign involvement in Baluchistan. This was the first time a senior Pakistani official had directly blamed Iran for stirring trouble inside Pakistan. In the past, India usually has been blamed for such troubles.
    
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf last month also blamed "outside forces" for exploiting the situation in Baluchistan, after three days of fighting between security forces and rebels killed at least four soldiers.
   
"There are possibilities. Without proof, we cannot accuse anyone. But yes, we know funds and weapons come from outside and activity against Pakistan is encouraged," he told the private network Geo TV.
    
Without naming them, Gen. Musharraf said the same powers were opposed to the construction of the Gwadar port in Baluchistan, which is being built with Chinese help to turn it into a hub of trade connecting Pakistan to Afghanistan and other Central Asian nations.
    
Privately, Pakistani officials complain that Iran is opposed to the construction of the port because Iranians want their ports to be used for this potentially lucrative trade route.
    
Baluchistan is Pakistan's largest province, inhabited by Pashtun and Baluchi tribesmen who have strong ethnic and religious ties to people in Afghanistan. Many Taliban and al Qaeda suspects fled to Baluchistan when U.S. forces defeated the hard-line Taliban regime in Afghanistan in December 2001. Baluchistan also borders the Afghan province of Kandahar, where the Taliban movement was born and where religious groups still have a considerable influence.
    
"Instability in Baluchistan will definitely benefit the Taliban and al Qaeda movements," said Rashid Khalid, who teaches strategic studies at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad. Mr. Khalid contends that if the Pakistani military loses its grip on Baluchistan, there will be no way to check religious militants who have strong pockets inside the province.
    
"It will weaken Islamabad's control, allowing Taliban and al Qaeda suspects to move freely across this large province. They can simply conduct raids in Afghanistan and flee to Baluchistan to hide among local tribes," he said.
    
Mr. Khalid said one way to stop this from happening would be direct U.S. intervention, but with its forces stretched thin in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States may not want to undertake another major responsibility in the region.
    
Baluchistan also is strategically important because of its long coastline, which offers the closest warm-water ports to landlocked Central Asian states of the former Soviet Union, which are rich in natural resources.
    
In his ARY Television interview, Mr. Yusuf indicated that Baluchistan's strategic importance, particularly in the war against al Qaeda, interested "outside powers" in the province.
    
A senior military official in Islamabad, who did not want to be identified, said Iran, which increasingly is worried about being squeezed by U.S. forces based in Iraq and Afghanistan, "sees Baluchistan as a place where it can fight back [against] U.S. influence in the region and hope to create some problems for Washington."
    
But it is not just Iran's desire to resist U.S. influence in the region that appears to have encouraged its interest in Baluchistan. A rapid deterioration in relations with Pakistan also is a factor.
    
The apparent change in Tehran's attitude is particularly disturbing for Pakistan, which has a long history of troubles on its eastern border with India and had always viewed its western border with Iran as secure.
    
Despite Islamabad's contention that it still has "close friendly ties with the brother Islamic country," relations with Iran have deteriorated gradually since the mid-1990s. The first signs of cracks in Pakistan's friendship with Iran appeared in 1994, when Pakistan supported the religious Taliban movement in Afghanistan.
    
Ironically, Pakistan's decision to dump the Taliban after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States worsened relations with Iran because Islamabad joined the U.S.-led coalition against terrorism.
    
Iran sees this coalition as a threat to its national and regional interests. Though happy about the Taliban's removal, Iran blames Pakistan for bringing American troops to its door.
    
Pakistan had very good relations with the secular regime of the Shah of Iran, but the friendship began to decline soon after the clergy assumed power in Tehran.
    
The clergy established the Islamic republic and tried to export the Iranian revolution to other Muslim countries. This threatened Iran's Arab neighbors, run by autocratic rulers with close ties to the United States, dubbed "the great Satan" by Iran's revolutionary leader, the late Ayatollah Khomeini.
    
When Arab governments closed ranks, preventing Iran from exporting its revolution, Tehran turned its focus to non-Arab Muslim neighbors, such as Afghanistan and Pakistan.
    
Iran helped create Shi'ite resistance groups in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet occupation and retained its links to those groups even after the withdrawal of Soviet forces in 1989.
    
Iran's links to Afghan Shi'ites and Dari-speaking resistance groups further increased when the vehemently anti-Shi'ite Taliban movement appeared in Afghanistan and gradually assumed power.
    
Iran tried to court both majority Sunni and minority Shi'ite religious groups. This led Arab states such as Saudi Arabia to undertake a concerted effort to prevent Iran from spreading its influence among the Sunnis. The Saudis funded Sunni groups and religious schools, or madrassas, which later provided thousands of volunteers to the Taliban. Some of these groups also developed links to al Qaeda when Osama bin Laden moved to Afghanistan in 1995.
    
The Taliban initially shunned bin Laden. But soon they and al Qaeda closed ranks, sheltering terrorists of various ethnic and religious backgrounds. Prominent among them were Sunni extremists, particularly the Sipah-e-Sahaba organization, opposed to the Shi'ite influence in Pakistan.
    
As the Taliban and al Qaeda trained Sunni extremists in urban guerrilla warfare, initially with the encouragement and backing of some Arab and Pakistani governments, Iran arranged for similar training for its supporters, also in Afghanistan.
    
"This turned Pakistan into a battleground," said Naseerullah Babar, Pakistan's interior minister at the time. "Thousands of people, both Sunni and Shi'ites were killed." The Sipah-e-Sahaba was particularly vicious and is blamed by Pakistani intelligence for the targeted killing of hundreds of innocent Shi'ites. Among the victims were a senior Iranian diplomat and several cadets of the Iranian air force visiting Pakistan.
    
Iran also blames Pakistan for failing to prevent the Taliban from killing several Iranian diplomats who were captured in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif in August 1998. The diplomats were attached as advisers to the Northern Alliance fighting the Taliban.
    
The activities of the anti-Iranian and anti-Shi'ite groups in Pakistan further strained the country's relations with Iran, and the hope that Islamabad's decision to abandon the Taliban would help improve ties provide futile.
    
The collapse of the Taliban regime brought U.S. troops into Afghanistan, where, in contrast to their reception in Iraq, they face no serious opposition from the local population. This, Iran fears, will encourage a long-term American presence in the region.
    
Iran quietly blamed Pakistan for making it possible for the United States to send its troops to the region by first backing the Taliban and then by providing military bases to U.S. troops for operations into Afghanistan.
    
Tehran's fears worsened two weeks ago when the New Yorker magazine reported that Pakistan helped U.S. intelligence agents enter eastern Iran to identify secret nuclear sites, which could be targeted at a later stage.
    
Despite denials of the report by Islamabad and Washington, Iran has warned the United States not to attempt such an adventure, saying the consequences would be devastating for the entire region.
    
President Bush, however, said on Jan. 17 that he would not rule out military actions against Iran. One day later, then Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice urged the world to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and threatened to refer Tehran's nuclear case to the United Nations Security Council.
    
Vice President Dick Cheney followed suit, and after Mr. Bush's second inauguration in Washington on Jan. 20 said Iran ranked at the top on the list of world trouble spots.
    
The Iranian government reacted by ruling out the possibility of opening talks with the United States while Mr. Bush is president unless there was a major change in policy toward Tehran.
    
"We will use the same language if anyone chooses to use a language of force and threats against us. But if they opt to engage in dialogue, without any precondition, on an equal footing, we will consider that," said government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh.
    
Observers in the region interpreted the statements by the Americans and the Iranians as indicating that there will be no lessening of U.S.-Iranian tensions in the near future.
    
This, they added, could further hurt relations between Iran and Pakistan.

Dean virtually locks up DNC chairmanship

Hot dog! I've been saying since the end of the election and even before that, Howard Dean is the face of the Democrat Party. Emotional, anti-war to point where they endanger the country and economically progressive. I think if the Democrat Party can cure itself of its schitzophrenia then they certainly can assert themselves as an opposition party to be reckoned with. Despite being a conservative, I'm very positive on Howard Dean. I just didn't want him to be the Commander In Chief of this nations military.

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean appears to have virtually locked up the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee, after his last major challenger dropped out of the race and endorsed him Friday night.

Veteran party activist Donnie Fowler, who had been positioning himself as the alternative candidate to Dean, said it was "clear" Dean had the votes to become the new chairman when DNC members vote next week.

"With Howard Dean as its next chair of the DNC, the party will have someone who not only understands change, but knows how to make it happen," Fowler said in a statement.

With Fowler's departure, the only candidate still in the race against Dean is former Rep. Tim Roemer of Indiana, also a member of the 9/11 commission. However, Roemer has garnered few endorsements from the Democratic rank and file, and he has drawn fire from abortion rights supporters in the party's base because of his personal opposition to abortion.

Representatives of Roemer's campaign could not immediately be reached Friday night for comment on his future in the race.

Dean's apparent victory in the DNC race marks a resurrection of his political fortunes after his once high-flying presidential campaign crashed last January in the cold of Iowa and New Hampshire. He has said that if elected DNC chair, he would not make another bid for the White House in 2008.

If elected, he will replace outgoing DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe, who did not seek another term in the party post.

Saudi Arabia to Hold Historic Elections

If this means anything substantial, it is a vindication of George W. Bush's presidency and policies in the Middle East. Sure lots of blood has been shed and I'm sure the W administration didn't go into Iraq for all altruistic reasons but if it becomes the spark that sets Democracy or something like it loose in the Middle East, GW Bush will go down in history as one of the greats.

Choke on that Air America!

"Less than two weeks after elections in Iraq confounded media predictions of failure and showed that Arabs would indeed grab their chance for freedom, Saudi Arabia is set to hold its own historic first round of democratic elections.

The amazing development has gone virtually unreported in the American press, undoubtedly because it adds even further vindication to President Bush's decision to press the Iraqi liberation.

Reporting out of its Riyadh bureau on Friday, however, the Associated Press detailed preparations for the watershed vote under the headline, "Election Fever Catches on in Saudi Arabia":

"The country's first nationwide elections, beginning next Thursday, are only for local councils, with voters electing half of the councils' members," said the AP. "But the ballot is seen as a concrete step in a reform process no one had expected."

"The municipal elections will be carried out in three phases, beginning with the Riyadh region, where about 1,800 candidates will contest 127 seats," the wire service said.

Initially, there was scant interest in the vote, at least until Jan. 29, when the candidates' campaigns began.

"I didn't take it seriously. I regret I didn't sign up," Khaled Muhammad, 26, told the AP. He was visiting an information tent to learn more about the process so he could participate in future elections.

Still despite the slow start, previously unimaginable scenes are now playing out on Riyadh's streets, the AP said.

"For the first time there are forums - daily meetings at candidates' headquarters - where people can discuss social issues away from the control of religious authorities.

"Candidate fliers are thrown into open car windows, and brochures are folded into newspapers. One woman even called a candidate praising his looks and offering to be a second wife."

"Who would have thought that one day there would be candidates' pictures in the streets?" Sulaiman al-Hattlan, a U.S.-educated columnist, wrote for Al-Watan daily. "Who would have thought that one day there would be slogans urging participation in decision making?"

"This is a sign that given an opportunity to open up and adopt new concepts, [Saudi] society will take it," he added."

Fla. Couple Sought on Child Abuse Charges

This is absolutely deplorable. These people should get life behind bars. This from the AP:

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - A couple is being sought on child abuse charges for allegedly torturing seven children who lived with them - pulling out their toenails with pliers, delivering electric shocks and striking them with a hammer, authorities said Thursday.

At least three children were severely malnourished, including twin 14-year-old brothers who weighed just 36 and 38 pounds each - about 80 pounds below the normal weights for their age, police said.

The seven children were removed from the home last month after one of them called an ambulance for a 16-year-old boy who weighed less than 60 pounds and had suspicious injuries on his head and neck. The doctors alerted authorities.

John Dollar, 58, and wife Linda, 51, who live about 70 miles north of Tampa, failed to appear at a scheduled Department of Children & Families hearing Monday. They are wanted on felony charges of aggravated child abuse.

The sheriff's office declined to describe the nature of the relationship between the Dollars and the children, citing privacy concerns. DCF spokesman Bill Daiuto said the Dollars were not the children's biological or foster parents, but he declined to comment on the specifics of the case.

The Dollars and the children moved from Tennessee to Florida in August.

Some of the children showed signs of physical injury, including missing toenails, which appeared to support their claims, Citrus County sheriff's spokeswoman Gail Tierney said. Others said they were also tortured by electric shocks and were hit with a hammer, she said.

Five of the seven children told deputies they were forced to sleep in a locked walk-in closet because the Dollars accused them of stealing food and misbehaving, the sheriff's office said.

Tierney said the children did not attend school and no other adults had regular contact with them, preventing authorities from intervening sooner. Tierney said even two children who appeared not to have been harmed by the couple - another 14-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl - were not able to alert authorities sooner.

"My impression was that they were basically prisoners in this home," Tierney said.

President Bush to Iranians: We Are With You

I've just finished listening to the State of the Union Address by President Bush and there were two obvious themes; social security reform and the exportation of democracy to the Middle East, specifically Iran. This from Reuters:

"Bush called Iran the "world's primary state sponsor of terror" and reiterated his accusations that the country is striving to develop nuclear weapons, a charge denied by Iran. He also promised to "stand with" the Iranian people in their quest for liberty, a veiled jab at the republic's ruling clerics."

Well, now it's up to the people of Iran. If they decide to revolt then I believe we will support the revolution on the ground just as we supported the Mujahideen in Afghanistan against the Soviets. I believe we will stand with the Iranian people and repent for having betrayed the Kurds and other Iraqi's after the Gulf War.

Before the Iraq war the Kurdish leaders held out much distrust for the United States, which they said had "betrayed" Iraqi Kurds at crucial moments in the past, especially during the Iraqi onslaught against the Kurdish uprising in 1991.

If the United States assists in the toppling of the Mullah's side by side with the Iranian people then I believe that will go a long a way in repairing our image throughout the Middle East as being capricious and uninterested in the well-being of Arabs/Muslims/Persians.

In addition, the President's address nearly startled me when he said, "The government of Saudi Arabia can demonstrate its leadership in the region by expanding the role of its people in determining their future. And the great and proud nation of Egypt, which showed the way toward peace in the Middle East, can now show the way toward democracy in the Middle East,"

I think liberals are somewhat correct when they point to Saudi Arabia or Egypt and say that it is hypocritical to export democracy to Iraq but we should leave those two countries to their own tyrannical devices. If he'serious with these assertions then the administration is going a long way in unifying his policy throughout the region. One never knows and we shall see just how serious he is. One must also wonder if "Bandar Bush" called the White House immediate after hearing what was said, with a gun pointed at his head.

And to Syria, in the words of Bill Goldberg, "YOU'RE NEXT!"

Ward Churchill and The Short History of Why We're Not Imperialists

Governor Bill Owens of Colorado has written a letter saying that Professor Ward Churchill should resign his position at the University of Colorado for saying this:

"The most that can honestly be said of those involved on Sept. 11 is that they finally responded in kind to some of what this country has dispensed to their people as a matter of course."

This:

"As for those in the World Trade Center...well, really, let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break."

And this:

"When you kill 500,000 children in order to impose your will on other countries, then you shouldn't be surprised when somebody responds in kind."

The essay goes on to describe the victims as "little Eichmanns," referring to Adolph Eichmann, who executed Adolph Hitler's plan to exterminate Jews during World War II.

Gov. Owens has stated in his letter:

"No one wants to infringe on Mr. Churchill's right to express himself. But we are not compelled to accept his pro-terrorist views at state taxpayer subsidy nor under the banner of the University of Colorado. Ward Churchill besmirches the University and the excellent teaching, writing and research of its faculty.

Ideas have consequences, and words have meaning. If there is one lesson that we hope that all Coloradans take from this sad case - and especially our students - it is that civility and appropriate conduct are important. Mr. Churchill's views are not simply anti-American. They are at odds with simple decency, and antagonistic to the beliefs and conduct of civilized people around the world. His views are far outside the mainstream of civil discourse and useful academic work."

Indeed.

I do not believe Ward Churchill should be fired in defiance of "Freedom of Speech", but rather I believe he should be fire for gross incompetence. As a professional you owe it to yourself and the profession to conduct yourself with class and integrity. As a social worker I cannot go into my clients house and say, "You know, your problems would all be solved if only you'd act less black." I'd be fired faster than I could say "Freedom of Speech" and rightly so. I owe it to my clients to present information and services with a degree of sensitivity. That is Ward Churchill’s failing here, his cataclysmic lack of sensitivity for the victims of 9/11.

It is so easy to be hateful. The Democrat Party seems to live on hate exclusively. Though one has the right to be hateful in this country, you cannot then cry when you suffer the consequences of said hatred. Those whom are the targets of said hatred also have the right to respond in kind, sans violence.

If the views of Ward Churchill are so popular and he, "changes so many minds," as one misguided student said, then I guess he doesn't need his professorship. If he is in such high demand then let him put his wares on the open market that he loathes so and make a living that way. Take your message to the folks and go on tour. Two punk rock icons, Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys and Henry Rollins of The Rollins Band and formerly of Black Flag both go on spoken word tours. The general public has to pay their own money when they choose to listen to both men. That's the difference here. The students at the University of Colorado are at an unfair advantage having to take classes by a man who obviously leaves no room for rational debate. Again, that to me is grounds for firing due to gross incompetence.

Lastly, some perspective is needed here. Churchill is from the "blame America first" crowd that insists our treatment of third world nations around the world are directly responsible for the events on 9/11. Well, let's look at the immediate events that led to 9/11 by examining Afghanistan. The overwhelming theme since the end of World War II was the threat of Communism both worldwide and domestically and every decision we made was centered on that. We made both good and bad decisions and there was a ton of collateral damage incurred during that time and it was unfortunately unavoidable. It was war after all.

One strategy we employed was to drag the Soviets into a war that they most likely wouldn’t win in Afghanistan. That war lasted from 1979 to 1988 and it is the single most important event in modern history. Just as the Soviets were at war with the US by proxy in Vietnam, so were we at war by proxy with the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. We did indeed help train and arm jihadists like Osama Bin Laden because at the time we did not feel the bigger threat was the spread of Islamic fundamentalism. It was a gamble and in the short run it paid off. The Soviets were defeated and the Mujahideen thought themselves to be something like the Highlander. They had defeated a world Super Power and in doing thought it made them a worldwide force of the same distinction. It is this hubris and ego on the part of Islamic fundamentalists that is driving the war we are currently embroiled in.

Now here's the tricky part; the Soviets were out of Afghanistan and a year or so later on November 9th, 1989 the Berlin Wall would come tumbling down marking the end of the Cold War and the subsequent proxy wars in SE Asia, Central Asia and South/Central America. At that time, the United States of America, the country liberals love to call "imperialist", took our crap and went home. That's right, we left Afghanistan. We could have stayed and conquered the place if we had wanted to. We could have left an American presence there on the premise of "nation building" but to really, "plant our imperialist flag" but instead we left the free people of Afghanistan to their own devices. The chaos that followed in the absence of strong leadership led to the Taliban taking control in 1995. The Taliban would be sympathetic to Islamic fundamentalism and Osama Bin Laden right up until the day they were overthrown by the US military 6 years later. It is these events, more so than any other that led to 9/11.

Now what would you have done if you had been president? On the one hand, you're an imperialist, the other grossly negligent. That's some choice. My point is, whatever your political leanings are, one must understand the full complexity of a situation before running off at the mouth willy-nilly proclaiming that everyone in sight is an "imperialist pig" and deserves to burned alive in the fiery wreckage of an airplane turned missile. That is Ward Churchills sin in my mind. He's reduced the last 50 + years of Cold War history to a few meandering and elitist sentences that have no bearing on reality. That more than anything else makes him a bad teacher and he should be fired.

Class dismissed.

Grow Up!

The Democrat Party is a good example of why parents should not beat their children. All one learns from a beating is how much pain you can withstand and said person does not actually change the behavior. The Democrat Party was walloped in the last election in every conceivable way. This is beyond President Bush and Senator Kerry. The Democrat Party lost more seats in the House and the Senate. It would seem from recent remarks made by prominent members of the Democrat Party that they, like beaten children don’t learn from the punishment. They just keep up the same behavior continually testing the limits and the patience of the American people.

When I first started this blog I offered suggestions to the Democrat Party about how they could address their image and reconstruct their overall message to the voting public. In that column I endorsed Howard Dead for DNC chair. Dean at least appears to understand what needs to be done. "We cannot win by being Republican light," Dean said, repeating a line that helped make him a darling of the left in the early presidential race. "We've tried it, and it does not work." Damn right it doesn’t work. We’ve already got Republican light; his name is Senator John McCain.

Creating a clear picture of what the Democrat Party is and what its goals should be, instead of letting Rush Limbaugh do it for them is a step in the right direction. However, much of the voter backlash that occurred a few months ago against the Democrats was a reaction to the ultra-negative and counterproductive message they incessantly screamed from every mountaintop. The good folks in Iraq just conducted the first free election in their history and all the major players in the Democrat Party have to say is:

Ted Kennedy: "The best way to demonstrate to the Iraqi people that we have no long-term designs on their country is for the administration to withdraw some troops now."

Long-term designs? Ah yes, Kennedy thinks we are imperialists in the 1492 sense of the word. That will a go a long way in winning heartland votes.

John Kerry: "It's hard to say that something is legitimate when a whole portion of the country can't vote and doesn't vote."

Yes I see, and will the Senator be asking for a recount from the Civil War, when whole portions of our states didn’t vote either?

Then you have the unofficial spokesperson for the Democrat Party, radio talk show host Randy Rhodes, who says, “The Iraqi elections were a sham…we disenfranchised entire portions of the country…we’ve created the groundwork for civil war!”

None of this worked when they tried this during the election, why exactly do they think it’s going to reach people now?

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi offered a pre-buttal to President Bush’s pending State of the Union Address. Her remarks were the same sort of rhetorical tripe that we heard John Kerry spew on his way to losing the 2004 election. Here is one of my favorite lines:

"Democrats are committed to a prosperity that includes many more Americans in the economic success of our country. By creating 10 million new jobs, we will advance economic security for America's families.”

John Kerry said exactly that during the campaign and nobody believed in then either. Has anyone in the Democrat Party ever actually read “The Limits to Growth”? These people create this pie-in-the-sky world where they can magically create jobs from nothing in a free market economy. A free market economy, mind you, that is increasingly becoming globalized and with that globalization comes competition. We may be the only Super-Power left but we are not the only big dog in the economic yard anymore. And even if we were, draining the coffers to create 10 million federally subsidized jobs is not the answer. Like bridges and tunnels to Manhattan Island, there can never be enough to take care of everyone.

I have a question for the leaders of today’s Democrat Party, how does this help your cause? How does condemning the election in Iraq or making promises you know you can’t keep or being so negative you sound ridiculous, help your party reclaim it’s power in Washington. Fear, Anger and hatred works well if you want to join the dark side of the force but it doesn’t exactly inspire the masses to listen to your point of view.

I think if Howard Dean can keep the anti-war hate-speech down to a dull roar then he will be a fine leader of the DNC. However, nothing he does will matter if the superstars of the party can’t seem to separate themselves from their hatred of President Bush. It’s one thing for bohemians and college kids to hate the man, their children after all, but these are educated, sitting senators and congressmen. I expect better from them.

In short, I will give the Democrat Party the same advice I used to give the ex-drug dealers whom were addicted to marijuana at my last job, “Grow Up!”