[The Nation (Nairobi)] The future of conflict and the future of Kenya's defence establishment depends on its preparedness to face the new challenge of unconventional conflict. The winds of change are blowing, driven by a radically altered geopolitical situation, an evolving information-oriented society, and advancing technology.
Military institutions are by their very nature conservative. History has shown that success has often sown the seeds of future failure. Kenya can ill-afford to follow in the footsteps of those who have rested on their laurels and failed to stretch their imaginations.
The threat caused by Somalia's extremist militants, the Harakat al Shabaab al Mujahideen (Arabic for "Movement of Warrior Youth"), more commonly known as al Shabaab is real. The group has occasionally threatened to attack Kenya and its neighbours. This threat became manifest with the twin bombings in Kampala a fortnight ago. The attack bore the hallmark of its ally, the al Qaeda.
On July 20, the group ambushed a Kenyan patrol contingent and wounded several of our security personnel. With these attacks, the insurgent group should no longer be dismissed as a ragtag militia.
The group is an off-shoot of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which splintered into several smaller groups after its removal from power by Ethiopian forces in 2006. The group became fully operational from January 19, 2007 under the leadership of Sheikh Mukhtar Adan Eyrow Robow Abu Mansoor. One of its current leaders is Moktar Ali Zubeyr.
The group describes itself as waging jihad against "enemies of Islam" and is engaged in combat against the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and African Union Mission to Somalia (Amisom). It has reportedly "declared war on the United Nations and on Western non-governmental organizations" that distribute food aid in Somalia, killing 42 relief workers in the past two years.
Al Shabaab has various foreign fighters from around the world, with recent media reports citing Egyptian and Arab jihadists as the core elements training Somalis in sophisticated weaponry and suicide bombing techniques.
With the group not organised and therefore unable to wage a conventional warfare, Kenya's security forces should not wait for them at the border in order to engage them. They should employ a Hybrid Warfare. This involves a mix of direct and covert counter-insurgency operations — pushing the group, scattering it, and partitioning the country into sectors manned by various international occupation forces until the nation is pacified.
With UN approval, Kenya should work with neighbouring countries like Ethiopia and Uganda in restoring order in Somalia.
The international community will come in handy in delivering the requisite and appropriate equipment.
These actions should be real and objective and devoid of past adventurism for them to gain support of the country to be 'liberated'. The Transitional Federal Government (TFG) experiment has failed. Similarly, the involvement of some nations in the conflict, notably Eritrea and some Egyptian elements, should be condemned.
Egypt has a long-standing policy of securing the Nile River flow by destabilising Ethiopia, widely seen as the major threat in the Nile basin to its hegemonic use of the Nile waters. This it does by keeping Ethiopia busy in other theatres and diverting its attention from the important international resource.
According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a leading global authority on security issues, restoring the rule of law in Somalia will have a multiplier effect, the leading being putting to an end the piracy menace in the Indian Ocean/Arabian Sea. Piracy has resulted in the increase in cost of transportation along the high seas bordering the Somali coastline and threatens global petro-energy security.
Analysts say international efforts should, besides sending warships, focus on financial networks recycling the tens of millions of dollars of ransoms paid every year.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2010 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: al-Shabaab
#1
Kenya should be afraid
they will go after Kenya and there is such a huge Somali diaspora there they can hide easily
The problem won't go away until the UN first contains then neutralises it.
Containment: Recognise Somaliland and Puntland as separate states. Give aid money directly to the governments instead of the TFG.
Neutralise: Once the north is buttressed you can make some attack on the south using AU troops - but vastly increased numbers. Maybe call on the nearby French Foreign Legion in Djibouti for help
#2
Kenya should not be afraid. Kenya should get mad.
Calling on the UN won't solve a damned thing. The AU forces might be helpful, particularly the Ugandan ones given the recent bombing in Kampala, but I wouldn't count on them for much.
Yes, allow Somalialand to become a recognized nation-state. Offer Puntland that status for the future if the tribes there cooperate and clean al-Shabaab out (and stop the piracy).
But Kenya will have to take the bull by the horns. The attack on the Kenyan patrol was an act of war. Treat it as such. Fire up the Kenyan military, get their ducks in a row, and have them come across the border to stomp al-Shabaab good and hard.
Lather, rinse, repeat as necessary.
The US could help with intel and logistics. A couple drones would do wonders. Perhaps the Indians would want to help.
Point it, Kenya has to take care of this, not the UN. The UN is useless.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/26/2010 13:33 Comments ||
Top||
#3
yes the UN is worthless in this matter (actually worse than useless because they hinder good actions and assist and reward bad ones)
I don't know about the African Union though. They might be worth something here.
The Org of Islamic States will probably be in the useless or worse category also.
Posted by: lord garth ||
07/26/2010 16:01 Comments ||
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#4
Kenya is not the final objective. Zimbabwe and South Africa are the endgames. Diamonds and gold. Turning out the Amish cutters in Antwerpen and commandeering the mines. One must always follow the money.
Originally posted to Rantburg May 31, 2010. Reposted, with minor edits, per request.
by Steve White
The sinking of the South Korean navy corvette Cheonan this spring was and remains an act of war. The investigation conducted by South Korea, careful and painstaking, makes clear beyond any reasonable doubt that elements of the North Korean Navy sank the ship. The countries of the Pacific, from Japan to the U.S., considered their response. We went to the U.N. We are staging new exercises. We tightened sanctions. We have talked with the Chinese to withdraw their support of Kim Jung-Il.
All that was important. None of that mattered.
What matters is this: our enemies have taken our measure. We are undone. To borrow the inscription on the wall: Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin. We have been weighed and have been found wanting.
The North Koreans, the Chinese, the Iranians, the Pakistanis, and the Russians understand what we have become in two short years. In that time we went from having a resolute leader who somewhat understood the world and who somehow managed to move a divided country to doing what was right in Iraq, to now having an irresolute, inept leader who puts politics ahead of both understanding and principle. In a country that remains as sharply divided as before, this is a recipe for disaster. We have been looking for that disaster to unfold in the Persian Gulf, but it may well unfold instead on the Korean peninsula.
South Korea has a well-trained military but is saddled with generals who look to American generals for guidance and approval, and political leaders who are as feckless and unprincipled as our own. The South Korean people, liberated from authoritarian rule just a generation ago and only now enjoying the fruits of their labors as a new, first-world country, not only do not want a war with the North -- they cannot conceive of it. They see the confrontation with their northern cousins more like the 'sitzkrieg' of France versus Germany in early 1940. That is not stable, but they do not see that.
Bad as that lack of vision is, what is worse is that the left side of the South Korean political divide is more strident then that of America, hard as that is to believe. Their Left is as willing, indeed more so, to sell their own country down the river as is our own.
That means that South Korea does not have the inner confidence to solve this problem and will instead look to the United States. Does anyone think that Barack Obama possesses the wisdom, political will, and leadership necessary to manage the new menace that North Korea insists on being?
No.
We know it. Our enemies know it.
We know that a full, conventional war in South Korea would be horrific, which is why we shy away from it. We understand that the city of Seoul, home to ten million people, is essentially held hostage by North Korean artillery. North Korea could use weapons of mass destruction. It could infiltrate the south with commandos who could attack military bases or further the attacks on civilians. It would be cold comfort to the people of South Korea to see hundreds of thousands of their own citizens dead, dying and wounded in a war that they eventually would 'win'.
We also know that 'winning' a war with North Korea means occupying it, and that in turn means feeding the survivors. Those survivors may not be grateful for being 'liberated' from an army-first policy of juche, no matter how many concentration labor camps are emptied. Most of the North Korean people are but a couple hundred calories per week away from abject starvation. A peninsular conventional war will quickly wreck -- indeed, it must do so -- the transport, electricity and storage that provides the little amount of food that North Korean civilians eat. They know it; their leaders have used food as tool of political control. It is exquisite and masterful, the consummate demonstration of absolute power that should land those responsible in Dante's eighth circle.
So the North Koreans should welcome us as long as we can quickly feed them, correct?
No.
Never mind the enormous logistics of occupying North Korea. Never mind that the same terrible infrastructure will hamper any relief effort. Never mind issues such as finance and reconstruction. The North Korean people have been taught for sixty years that we are the enemy. Starvation, fear, and brutality have been institutionalized. The people have been told that they are the pinnacle of human achievement, that the South and Americans are ogres, and that juche requires their absolute adherence to the Dear Leader. Some of that, much of that, will stick. North Koreans lack initiative and do not respond well to the modern, western world. We will not be welcomed even if we were to occupy the North quickly.
Nothing goes right in planning a war, something that Iraq taught us, and while Iraq also taught us that patience and continued re-examination will eventually find a strategy that will work, there is no one in Washington today with those qualities. North Korea will fall apart, the misery will be as absolute as one can imagine, and thanks to the western press and the western Left (as Journolist shows us, those are one and the same), America will be held responsible.
One might argue that we would not occupy North Korea. The South Koreans would have the same problems as we; the cultural barriers are almost as profound, and they too are defined as the enemy. Nor could we count on any assistance from China. China has its own plan, and allowing North Korea to be occupied is not one of them.
Even before one considers a North Korean defeat, we must recognize that China has many ways to aid and abet a North Korean attack without being so direct as to invite retaliation. China believes that the 21st century belongs to them much as the 20th century belonged to the United States and the 19th century belonged to Britain. China patiently seeks hegemony in the Western Pacific.
If using North Korea to start a war so as to push us from that region will succeed, that is what the Chinese will do. If starting a war so as to discredit us in the eyes of the rest of the world will succeed, that is what they will do. If using the threat of a war can cause American leaders to concede and buckle, that is what they will do.
China likes North Korea the way it is. China could easily fix the problems in that unhappy land. Just a few train-loads of fertilizer and food a month would fix the chronic malnutrition. Instead they permit North Korea to buy missile parts and weapons. China could restrain Kim Jong-Il with a telephone call. Instead they permit him to sink South Korean naval ships.
North Korea does little without Chinese approval. China approves.
China wants us out of the Western Pacific. They want the Japanese tamed. They want oil, markets, strategic depth and the freedom to take on their next adversary, India. North Korea is a tool that can be used and discarded as is convenient.
China must defeat America. They can't do that militarily; Chinese leaders have watched our military in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they know that today, their 1990s era military can't defeat ours. They have learned one fundamental rule about our victory in Iraq: never, ever give the United States time to move its military to a location half-way around the world and set the order of battle.
They have learned that instead they must defeat us politically and more importantly, psychologically.
They are well on their way.
The United States thought it was electing a post-racial, post-partisan 'cool cat' when it elected Barack Obama. It quickly discovered that the elected administration, and its supporters in the press, academia and labor, had decided that, as the Newsweek cover proclaimed, "we are all socialists now". America must be brought down in their eyes so that it can be rebuilt in a statist, more authoritarian, communalist, 'progressive' republic that worries about building a 'New America' and ignores the rest of the world. Call that what you like, that is what they have worked for since the twin goblins of Bolshevism and Fascism rose from the ashes of World War One.
A fair portion of this was organized by the Soviets; one need not see a Red under every bed to understand that the Soviets guided a substantial part of the radical, western Left and used it to subvert Europe and America. China is happy to pick up these tools for use alongside their own.
North Korea is a tool. The reconquest of Hong Kong is a tool. The threat to invade Taiwan is a tool, as is the occupation of Tibet, the threat to India, the arming of Pakistan, the provision of nuclear plans to Iran, the oil deals with Chavez, and the co-opting of Burma.
China has used the North Korea tool well. Through three American administrations, Clinton, Bush and now Obama, it has demonstrated that the United States is inconsistent and irresolute. We try to cut deals, we try to negotiate, we seek to involve regional powers. We apply sanctions that are easily circumvented. We continue to ask China to use its 'good will' to 'influence' North Korea.
How they must laugh in Beijing.
With virtually nothing at risk, China demonstrates that it is dangerous to trust the United States. George Bush was as responsible as any; witness the weak response to the capture of our patrol plane and the removal of North Korea from the terrorist list. Barack Obama continues the fumbling.
Now South Korea knows that the United States isn't completely behind it as it decides to respond to the sinking of one of its own warships. Indeed, what would the U.S. do if the attack had been against an American destroyer? Would we demand satisfaction from North Korea?
George Bush could have, though our country might not have followed him.
Barack Obama? Demand satisfaction?
Our allies notice, as do our enemies. It is no coincidence that Iran threatens nuclear war, that Hugo Chavez increases the torment of his own people, that Burma cancels elections, that Pakistan sponsors terror attacks against its neighbors, that Syria provides Hezbollah with long-range missiles, and that Russia plans a reconquest of old Soviet states.
No other country will counter this. Europe is delusional. Britain is weak. Israel is increasingly on its own. India is threatened and not powerful enough to respond outside its own region. Japan is in a long term economic decline. Other regional powers, from Brazil to Turkey, have seen what is happening and have decided to cut their own deals.
The sinking of the Cheonan makes clear to the world that the U.S. will not stand behind its ally in responding to an act of war. The South Koreans will not respond on their own. They understand that in the end, they must live with China, and that now China is the strong horse. South Korea over time must move closer to China, and that means moving away from us.
Now that the point has been made, the Chinese may well discard Kim Jong-Il and the Kim dynasty. They may install a new warlord and quietly install a Chinese model economy in the North. They can prepare their client for a new job.
What does Korea say about the U.S.?
We are wanting.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/26/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
WMF > US SHOCKED: US DID NOT EXPECT US-ROK NAVAL EXERCISE IN YELLOW SEA TO LEAD TO EMERGENCE OF INTERNAL CALLS IN BEIJING DEMANDING POWERFUL EXPANSION OF THE PLA.
* SAME > "LE FIGARO" EURO-MEDIA: "NORTH KOREA, CHINA. + THE US NAVY" ARTICLE WARNS THAT NORTH KOREA'S NEW NUCLEAR, OTHER MILITARY THREATS AGZ THE US-ROK MILITARY DRILL IN YELLOW SEA MAY LEAD /INDUCE THE FINAL END OR BREAK-UP OF THE DECADES-LONG FRAGILE STABILITY + MILITARY ARMISTICE ON THE KOREAN PENINSULA.
* SAME > CHINA FEARS ANY UNILATER SUPPORT BY BEIJING IN FAVOR OF MORE STRINGENT OR SEVERE UN-LED SANCTIONS AGZ NORTH KOREA OER THE "CHEONAN" WARSHIP INCIDENT WILL INDUCE THE FINAL ECON + STATE COLLAPSE OF NORTH KOREA, + RESULT IN NORTH KOREA TURNING AWAY FROM CHINA TOWARDS THE US + SOUTH KOREA + JAPAN. CHINESE FEARS OF A PERMANENT, ANTI-CHIN US, JAPAN PRESENCE OR INFLUENCE IN NORTH KOREA, ANTI-CHINESE KOREAN REUNIFICATION.
* SAME > RISING CHINA "CONTROLS" APPROXI ELEVEN MAJOR OIL FIELDS IN IRAN + LIKLEY MORE IN FUTURE. FEAR BY BEIJING THAT A US-ISRAELI ATTACK + INVASION ON IRAN, LT MIL OCUPATION WILL EVENTUALLY THREATEN CHINA'S ENERGY SECURITY VEE US-WESTERN DOMINATION + CONTROL OF CHINA'S EXTERNAL ENERGY SOURCES.
#2
I'm not sure I can add anything to what Joe just said, but here are a couple of thoughts.
1- Just in board terms, this good piece of work by Dr. Steve shows us one way to put to rest copyright issues. I've been posting here, although not heavily, for seven years, and my one big takeaway is that there is a lot of writing talent and a incredibly diverse array of knowlege that the regulars can bring to bear when they have the time. To pick two examples, I'd really like to see an opinion piece by tw or Frank. We don't need no steenkin' NYT.
2- Turning to the article: I always enjoy making fun of the Sun King because he's so self-important, but my real concern is that he's going to get us all killed. People who know a lot more about money than I do use the term "discovering the price." The Norks now have this piece of pricing data: the penalty for sinking a South Korean destroyer is a harsh talking to. Which has to lead them to the question: what's the price for sinking a USN vessel? Or for lobbing a few artillery rounds into Seoul? A reasonable extrapolation from what they know now suggests the same result: nothing will happen.
The problem isn't so much that the Sun King is ignorant and indecisive, although those traits certainly don't help. The problem is that what he knows is wrong. I do believe he thinks that he can solve a real-world problem by giving a speech about it. If that's right, then our contingency plan for responding to the Norks is a good speech on national TV, courtesy of the TOTUS. This is a truly physically dangerous situation.
Posted by: Matt ||
07/26/2010 14:55 Comments ||
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#3
I do believe he thinks that he can solve a real-world problem by giving a speech about it
It always worked real well when he was a "community organizer".
In business you'll occasionally see a manager who's been promoted beyond his competence trying to do his last job rather than his current job. This is because he knows how to do his last job and that's where his comfort zone is. This doesn't usually last long, as the manager in question ignores his real duties and ends up being fired.
The best we can do is vote in a new Congress to block Obama for the last two years of his term and try to minimize the damage.
#2
Banks are sitting on hundreds of billions in reserves. Households are desperate to accumulate savings. Corporates are sitting on trillions in cash holdings.
When banks don't lend and households don't spend, companies won't hire. We're in for a hellish few more years.
#4
The Fed keeps trying through word and deed to generate inflation - it is the way to pay off debt through 'confiscation' of savings, and to generate more unsustainable 'bubble' economic activity (thus kicking the painful can down the road.) If they succeed in avoiding 'deflation' they will be doing nothing but leaving a nasty boil to fester rather than lancing it and allowing it to drain and heal.
#6
The Fed keeps trying through word and deed to generate inflation
More likely that they don't have the faintest idea of what to do now.
Reminds me of late 2008-early 2009, when there were s.t. like 7 radically different approaches taken in succession to failing financial institutions (Bear, Lehman, AIG, Merrill etc).
#7
The problem the Fed and the gummint have is that the rubes have decided (mostly) to stop playing along...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/26/2010 11:21 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Yep, I personally, am OUT.
No more money for the casino on wall st.
I can find better things to do with 12% of my paycheck than stick it in there an watch it go down every month.
I don't know if I'll ever let them lure me back into the securities market. With the trillions that have gone up wall street's nose in the last few years why do they need my little pittance too?
#4
"So, exactly how is she a nut? Details, please."
That is a lot to ask. Asking for substantive facts from today's generation regarding such generalizations is just too much for their little brain waves to handle specifically.
#5
She seems a little hyper-religious to me.
But it doesn't really matter what I think, I don't live in Nevada. Just the way she comes off to me, I'm guessing that vibe turns off more than a few people in the center and that's what the race is all about. Libs will never vote for her no matter what her platform is, conservatives will vote for her no matter what her platform is, cause she's the Un-Harry. It's all about the center and if you come off as a religious stick in the mud you aint gonna get the center vote. Kick and scream all you want, but you cant win without the votes, and you can't get the votes without the moderate center.
#6
She does seem to be unusually serious about her religion, which would make her a nut to a lot of people. She does not seem to be very skilled at the art of campaigning (which I might regard as a feature rather than a bug.) Reid is pretty slimy, regardless of political position (and I have no use for most of his positions.) And of course, virtually any 'out' party candidate is preferable to any 'in' party candidate - gridlock is the closest we can get to a friend in DC.
#7
Yeah, President Reagan was a nut too per the center.
If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.
Ronald Reagan
and so was George Washington don't ya know...
"To the distinguished character of patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian" [May 2, 1778, at Valley Forge]
#8
One thing she supposedly proposed that really turned me off was suggesting that drug abusers should be treated in a program run by the "Church" of Scientology. There's religion and there's pseudo-religious con jobs.
#9
"Yeah, President Reagan was a nut too per the center."
Reagan had a lot of personal charm. You also have to remember that today's electorate is very different from the electorate 30 years ago. The cumulative effects of the 1965 immigration reform and Reagan's 1986 amnesty have seen to that. Could Reagan win today?
#11
Having said the above, anybody who votes for Reid due to Angle's devout faith is really a bigot, because Reid is a religious nut, whose religion happens to be socialism. Given that socialism affects our day-to-day lives much more than Christianity, you'd really have to be an anti-Christian bigot to vote against Angle on account of her intense devotion. Unfortunately, that bigotry characterizes a good chunk of the American electorate, thanks to decades of attacks from the glitterati.
No. Reagan was a pro-defense cold warrior with an unstinting focus on the long game. Americans today are far less interested in foreign policy, much more myopic, much less willing to bear any burden/pay any price to ensure the survival and success of liberty than they were a generation ago.
The equivalent of Reagan's robust defense of US interests today does not exist. It would have to be someone as independent of the job-destroying rightist zealots as he/she is of the statist, union-riddled and crony capitalist left.
Nobody's figured out how to get corporates and banks to stop sitting on their trillions in cash hoards and start hiring and promoting real job growth again. Anyone without a credible plan for doing so will inevitably disappoint, and cause people to become as disenchanted as they are now with both Barry and the GOP.
#15
Nobody's figured out how to get corporates and banks to stop sitting on their trillions in cash hoards and start hiring and promoting real job growth again.
That one is easy, lex: provide a stable and predictable business environment for at least four years where the majority of the rules are guaranteed to be unchanged. Businesses will not commit funds if the situation is too fluid. Right now we've got major tax rules changes (the Bush thingies ending), major paperwork changes (the 1099 filings for purchases over $600), major required benefits changes (Obamacare), and possibly CardCheck and Cap'n'Trade through backdoor regulatory changes, since the Congressional route didn't work.
Bottom line, until they know what the costs will be, businesses cannot decide whether or not to invest in increased or new production and the people to staff it.
Whew! I was concerned for a moment there, Asymmetrical Triangulation. That's why I generally include the bit I'm responding to at the top of my post. I started doing that because I was having to apologize too often.
#2
Worse than Carter. Barry's deficits are an inversion of the GOP "starve the beast" strategy: when service on the debt eats up a third or more of the budget, it's inevitable that defense spending will be slashed. To the bone.
Skeptics of the above need look no further than Cameron's government across the pond. And he's not even a military-hater like the World President Wannabe.
#3
I don't know if there was a military installation anywhere that didn't have the sign up: "I've been doing so much for so long with so little that I can now do anything with nothing." The Carter years were bad, but things didn't actually improve until Reagan's second term. The Clinton "Peace dividend" cuts left us unprepared for fighting the two wars we're currently engaged in. The world is a dangerous place. It's even more dangerous when you're unarmed, and your former allies don't trust you to follow through on what you say.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/26/2010 10:57 Comments ||
Top||
#4
They've been doing "More with less" for so long they can almost to anything with nothing!
Oh I read the paper this morning, and I've seen it again and again,
As the oil spreads to the beaches, where the sea-walls fail to retain.
And the sons of Mary still dither, while Martha's sons still toil,
And ignore the bureaucrat mandates, and strive to recover the oil.
And hist'ry repeats before us, as we struggle with the past in vain,
The lesson still stands before us, and Kipling he saw it plain.
The Treasury's printing out paper, our gold and silver replaced
But it cannot appease the builders, nor the Gods of the Marketplace
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, have told us down through time,
That you first have to slaughter the meat-beast, before you intend to dine.
And hist'ry repeats before us, as we struggle with the past in vain,
The lesson still stands before us, and Kipling he saw it plain.
Our troops are set forth to conquer, in Iraq and Afghanistan
While our leaders refuse them their honor, or even a vic'try plan
And invaders trouble our borders, seeking our wealth to pay,
A rich lazy nation's yielding, and that danger will not go away.
And hist'ry repeats before us, as we struggle with the past in vain,
The lesson still stands before us, and Kipling he saw it plain.
The chattering classes bicker, and struggle for the power's reigns
The recession widens and deepens, while more succumb to the strain.
And the Old Issue stands before us, dwarfing our hearts and brains,
Hear the reeds of Runnymede weeping, as we bow down to take up our chains.
And hist'ry repeats before us, as we struggle again and again,
The lesson still stands before us; Kipling he saw it plain.
#1
And this past month has appeared in prose a related essay I call "The Oligarchy vs. the People of the United States", but which the author has called America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution
RTWT.
An excerpt: Once an official or professional shows that he shares the manners, the tastes, the interests of the class, gives lip service to its ideals and shibboleths, and is willing to accommodate the interests of its senior members, he can move profitably among our establishment's parts.
If, for example, you are Laurence Tribe in 1984, Harvard professor of law, leftist pillar of the establishment, you can "write" your magnum opus by using the products of your student assistant, Ron Klain. A decade later, after Klain admits to having written some parts of the book, and the other parts are found to be verbatim or paraphrases of a book published in 1974, you can claim (perhaps correctly) that your plagiarism was "inadvertent," and you can count on the Law School's dean, Elena Kagan, to appoint a committee including former and future Harvard president Derek Bok that issues a secret report that "closes" the incident. Incidentally, Kagan ends up a justice of the Supreme Court. Not one of these people did their jobs: the professor did not write the book himself, the assistant plagiarized instead of researching, the dean and the committee did not hold the professor accountable, and all ended up rewarded. By contrast, for example, learned papers and distinguished careers in climatology at MIT (Richard Lindzen) or UVA (S. Fred Singer) are not enough for their questions about "global warming" to be taken seriously. For our ruling class, identity always trumps.
When pollsters ask the American people whether they are likely to vote Republican or Democrat in the next presidential election, Republicans win growing pluralities. But whenever pollsters add the preferences "undecided," "none of the above,"
or "tea party," these win handily, the Democrats come in second,... and the Republicans trail far behind. That is because while mostof the voters who call themselves Democrats say that Democratic
officials represent them well, only a fourth of the voters who identify themselves as Republicans tell pollsters that Republican officeholders represent them well. Hence officeholders, Democrats and Republicans, gladden the hearts of some one-third of the electorate -- most Democratic voters, plus a few Republicans.
This means that Democratic politicians are the ruling class's prime legitimate representatives and that because Republican politicians are supported by only a fourth of their voters while
the rest vote for them reluctantly, most are aspirants for a junior role in the ruling class. In short, the ruling class has a party, the Democrats. But some two-thirds of Americans -- a few Democratic voters, most Republican voters, and all independents -- lack a vehicle in electoral politics.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
