It's hard finding an original take on this Imus business but step forward Pravda :
In a clear sign of its intent to reign in dissident American media personalities, and their growing influence in American culture, US War Leaders this past week launched an unprecedented attack upon one of their most politically 'connected', and legendary, radio hosts named Don Imus after his threats to release information relating to the September 11, 2001 attacks upon that country.
Via Australia's Tim Blair, who welcomes the Reverend Jackson, the National Organization for Women et al (Sharpton) to the ranks of neocon "US War Leaders". As Pravda continues:
To the US War Leaders, Don Imus represented the most serious threat, to date, of the growing assault against them by America's media personalities threatening to expose the truths behind the events of September 11, 2001 and the Iraq/Afghanistan Wars; and to such an extent that another American media personality, Rosie O'Donnell, has expressed concern that US Military Leaders could actually imprison Mr. Imus.
If this is true, Karl Rove has got his mojo back.
Posted by: Mike ||
04/16/2007 09:12 ||
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#1
From Pravda - It is expected, also, that the US War Leaders actions against Don Imus will have a further chilling affect upon other American media personalities questioning their authority, such as the popular US movie actor, Charlie Sheen, and who was one of the first to question the events of September 11
Oh, Pleasepleaseplease chill Charlie Sheen!
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/16/2007 12:50 Comments ||
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#2
Weren't Cheney and Rove both born in 1947 in Roswell? Don't you see? They are both part of a larger alien conspiracy!
The Wilsonians are suicidal; it is they who built the underclass which will destroy themâŠand perhaps us. It is they who control the press, academia, and the legislatures. They think words count more than actions, and that words can easily be re-written as they go along. For just one example, take their betrayal of so many hopes with the signing of the Treaty of Sevres in 1920. That doesn't work? Why it's back to the table for further dialogue and the Treaty of Lausanne.
And now? Now we have that nitwit Pelosi traipsing off to Tehran, and the American Congress inviting the Muslim Brotherhood in for tea and the British press condemning Israel. The Turks and Kirkuk are lobbing bombs and shoe bats at one another. Such is the diabolical and quite logical end of Wilsonian "dialogue." Now we know from where the expression "the chattering classes" emerged.
The Jacksonians are our only hope. The question is, what proportion of them remains? For sure, you can't make a Jacksonian into one of Wilson's talking heads. But perhaps, in the interests of self-preservation, some of the Wilsonians will taste reality and condescend to put on Jackson's facade, at least until the worst of the slaughter is over.
#4
Is Pelosi Wilsonia, or, is she Jeffersonian? A Wilsonian beleives in spreading US values, albeit by multilateral means, per Mead, while Pelosi seems closer in some ways to a pacifist Jeffersonian.
On the other hand, where does someone who believes in spreading US values by unilateral means, but whos not antiimmigrant, and who sees value to doing things for foreigners, and is even multilateralist to a limited extend, like the more moderate Weekly Standardish neocons, fall on that spectrum. Id say more Wilsonian than Jacksonian.
Esp when the multilateral institutions are hostile to the Wilsonian project of spreading democracy, its hard to say whos a Wilsonian? Those devoted to the international agencies above all, like some liberal Dems? Those who react with hatred to the international institutions, but support the rest of the Wilsonian project,like the more rightwing neocons? Those who lean mainly toward the substance of the Wilson project, but will tolerate the UN, like the moderate neocons? Or those who explicitly value the UN, but will be unilateral with reluctance, like the Clintonian liberal hawks?
Id say at this time the weaknesses of the Mead scheme are as great as its strengths. Unless one is just using it for namecalling.
#5
Missed the point as usual LH. The model refers to two generalized mindsets: action oriented optimist vs. talk oriented pessimists. No model covers everything - as you well know.
#6
Keep in mind what this article is calling "Wilsonian" is somewhat different from WRM's version(s).
WRM had "right" Wilsonians (the closest we have are neo-cons) and "radical" Wilsonians (more the One-World type). While the latter would overlap with the people this article is describing, many of the latter aren't really Wilsonian at all, more say soft-core Marxists.
1. Cows
2. The Constitution
3. The Ten Commandments
Cows: Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that our government can track a single cow born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she sleeps in the state of Washington? And, they tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around our country. Maybe we should give each of them a cow.
The Constitution: They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it has worked for over 200 years, and we're not using it anymore.
The Ten Commandments: The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments posted in a courthouse is this: You cannot post "Thou Shalt Not Steal," "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery", and "Thou Shall Not Lie" in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment
#2
Near the bottom are two utube videos touting the conspiracy theory that one US sub bumped into it and another torpedoed it because they were afraid the Kursk was going to attack the first one that bumped into it. Interesting stuff, but all sorts of illogical behavior had to follow if you are to believe it. Does anyone know if any good debunking has been done here?
#4
something lost in teh translation, it seems :-) "View boats in the nose."??
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/16/2007 5:10 Comments ||
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WAFF.com > Russia to complete EIGHT BOREI-CLASS Boomer subs by Year 2017. First of BOREIS may carry only 12 SLBMS [BULAVAS] but later versions may carry up to 16; + LENTA.RU > Russia to buy dozens of KA-50 BLACK SHARKS + KA-52 ALLIGATOR attack/combat helos.
#6
The Russian submarine Kursk was named after a gigantic tank battle near Stalingrad in July, 1943 in which the Soviets repelled a massive, two-pronged German attack and turned it into a rout. The Germans lost 350 tanks in a single day! The name had emotional value to the Russians akin to our battles of Midway, or the Alamo, or Bunker Hill.
The Kursk was the latest in Russian submarine technology, with a double-wall titanium hull designed to attack NATO aircraft carriers. The vessel sank while on maneuvers on August 11, 2000. Shadowing U.S. subs detected an enormous explosion on sonar. The sub crashed to the bottom in 350 feet of water, but several of the crew survived in the stern of the ship, although they suffocated within a few hours.
The Russians had several theories, including collision with a U.S. sub, or a new NATO secret weapon, but I am going to treat it as another failure of quality control, with a twist. You may recall the Russians were very reluctant to accept help from the U.S. or Norwegians, and I think thats because the quality control problem was with their new secret weapon!
The BBC broke a story a year after the sinking with a theory that highly volatile hydrogen peroxide propellant had caused the explosion of a torpedo, which then exploded adjacent warheads. Western navies gave up on using hydrogen peroxide as torpedo fuel because it was too dangerous. Finally, almost two years after the disaster, the Russians admitted a practice torpedo had malfunctioned, and blamed the hydrogen peroxide fuel. How convenient: it fit right in the British theory!
But the official story also diverts attention from the early rumblings in the Pentagon that the misfire was not a practice torpedo, but the Russian VA-111 Shkval (Squall) torpedo. A Russian website set up by the families of the Kursk crew states, The tests of upgraded VA-111 ("Shkval") torpedo with a rocket propulsion are supposed to conduct on the submarine. It explains the presence onboard of two experts of "Dagdizel" military plant. Naturally, the family website notes that Russian officials categorically deny the rumor.
Wait a minute! A rocket torpedo? Yes. 200 miles per hour, underwater. No ship could avoid it, outmaneuver it, or outrun it. Cavitation is bubbles of water, which can damage propellers or pumps when the bubbles collapse. A supercavitating torpedo creates, and maintains, a bubble inside which the torpedo zooms along, without hydrodynamic drag.
And the morale of the story is Whether it was a cheap practice torpedo, or an amazing 200 mph underwater rocket, the declining budgets and resulting declining quality standards of the Russian Navy caused the loss of their newest and most technologically advanced - submarine. And they were so embarrassed by the facts, it took them two years to reveal them!
A quality control fable by Bobby, prepared in August, 2003, and based on an article in Scientific American and research of related web sites.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/16/2007 6:25 Comments ||
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"Us"? The Alamo was a battle of Texans versus Mexico.
#8
I'm still sad to see that good sailors died due to Russian corner cutting and bad technology. Seems to be a recurring theme in the Russian military.
#9
Yep, Darth - another story included this summary -
The History Channel provided the real story of the K-19, which had two catastrophic accidents killing some 36 crewmen. An American submarine expert concluded that Soviet subs were a more advanced design than ours faster, could dive deeper even had better torpedoes. But I digress. The Soviets were hard pressed to keep up with the Americans, so schedule pressures drove their ballistic missile submarine program. The K-19 is just one example of the resultant problems.
The American submarine expert concluded the quality control problems offset the superior traits of the Soviet submarines. Roger Mudd (after Walter Cronkite but before Dan Rather) says there are 17 nuclear submarines at the bottom of the ocean. I am aware of two American submarines the Thresher and the Scorpion, which sank in 1963 and 1968. Thirteen (76%) are Soviet.
BTW, the Thresher (at least) suffered from another quality problem - the failure to adequately test the sub before commissioning it.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/16/2007 13:04 Comments ||
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Roger Mudd ... says there are 17 nuclear submarines at the bottom of the ocean.
I'm sure the count is far higher than that. There is at least one PRC nuke sub on the list. The Russians lost two "Delta" class nuke missile submarines - one in the Atlantic, and one in the Pacific. A Russian sailor who defected to the US in 1988 said the Russian Navy had lost at least one nuke submarine a year ever since 1962. Most of that could be rumor, but I'd guess the number is much closer to 30 than 15.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/16/2007 18:31 Comments ||
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There's also at least 1, possibly 2, French nukes on the bottom.
A long time ago there was a pretty good scifi/adventure novel that had the premise that in 1968 there was a secret submarine "shadow war" fought in the Med and mid-Atlantic. Wish I could remember the title and find a copy these days.
But that means French conservatism not American, which would be highly radical in French terms.
Tooling along the Rue de Rivoli, I meet an old friend who conscripts me on the spot to attend a dinner given by French politicos and journalists for their visiting American counterparts. The U.S. guests have already met with the staff of the three foremost candidates for the French presidency, but it has been decided not to seek a meeting with the campaign of M. Jean-Marie Le Pen, of the National Front. As an adamant foe of the tradition of Petain and Poujade, I don't especially object to this fastidious etiquette. But it can be taken to extremes. (Jane Kramer's essay from Paris in last week's New Yorker had Le Pen as an offstage character only, as if in homage to the Greek drama, and the accompanying cartoon of the candidates simply omitted his blustering, vulgar visage.)
This is a bit silly, because the most salient fact about the French elections is the degree to which they show a France that is moving steadily to the right. "Sixty-five per cent to the right, in fact," as I am told by Louis Dreyfus of the Nouvel Observateur. Only 30 percent of even the dwindling blue-collar electorate can now be counted upon to vote Socialist or Communist. The surprise "centrist" figure in the contest, Francois Bayrou, is an upper-crust Catholic from the elite ranks of Giscard d'Estaing's rump conservative faction. The front-runner, Nicolas Sarkozy, is a "law-and-order" hard-liner who promises to get tough with young Muslim slum-dwellers and rioters. The superficially glamorous Socialist, Segolene Royal, who got the nomination only by forcefully repudiating her party's Old Left, has pitched herself as the spokeswoman for the holy trinity of the tricolor, the Marseillaise, and Joan of Arc. M. Le Pen smirks broadly and says that everyone is moving his way in one form or another. And he isn't completely bluffing. There is a reason why the French Communist Party, which used to dominate the working class, the unions, and much of the lumpen intelligentsia, is now a spent force that represents perhaps 3 percent of the electorate. And that reason, uncomfortable as it may be, is that most of the Communist electorate defected straight to the National Front.
All this comes at a time when the French political elite is discredited and enervated to an amazing degree. There is general agreement that the country cannot afford any more featherbedding, but the Socialist program is only the most egregious in promising to pay people more than they earn. Anti-Americanism has reached a point of diminishing returns. (!!!) A society that has benefited hugely from EU subsidies now resents the very bureaucracy at whose tit it has so long nursed. Amazing insularity is demonstrated in almost every presidential debate, with Mme. Royale the most astonishing in her apparent innocence of a world beyond the landlocked French district of Poitou of which she is regional president. (In the latest of many gaffe-strewn interviews, she seemed to be blissfully unaware that the Taliban was no longer the official government of Afghanistan.)
Le Pen may still be proven wrong next weekend in his overconfident assertion that people will vote for the real thing rather than a surrogate. Sarkozy, and others, may draw his fangs by stealing his voters. I don't think it is sufficiently appreciated that France has now become the most conservative major country in Europe, where different defenses of the status quo are at war only with different forms of nostalgia and even outright reaction.
#3
More on what will impact the election from MSNBC:
French flee stagnant economy
Clusters of migrant workers mount the trains crowded carriages, leaving their families and filing across the border to work at jobs more plentiful and lucrative than at home. These hungry young men and women are not from lands riven by war or financial ruin, but from France one of the worlds richest countries, and straining to stay that way. Their knapsacks bear laptops or bottles of champagne, and their transport of choice is the Eurostar train, zipping them beneath the English Channel to London, a city radiating growth and opportunity.
Some 2.2 million French people are believed to be living abroad today half of whom are under 35, and half of whom dont plan to return to France until retirement. This globalized electorate is attracting candidates attention, in a campaign where Frances shrinking role in the world economy is among voters greatest preoccupations.
Half of French households live on less than $1,990 in income per month. Unemployment hasnt fallen below 8 percent since 1984. Public debt has quintupled since 1980 to fund a welfare state that more people depend on for survival. Imports are spiking and fueling a ballooning trade deficit. France was among the top 10 richest countries per capita a generation ago todays its slipped to 17th place.
France is now on the cusp of change, choosing a new president who will be expected to yank the state-dependent economy out of its doldrums but probably wont. Some of the freshest economic ideas are coming from Francois Bayrou, a champion of the average guy riding on disillusionment with the left-right paradigm. Bayrou, polling in third place, would allow businesses to hire two employees free of payroll taxes and social charges for the first five years a shocking proposition here. But he would govern by consensus, a formula certain to bury bold reform.
#4
Some of the freshest economic ideas are coming from Francois Bayrou, a champion of the average guy riding on disillusionment with the left-right paradigm.
Yup - another advocate of the *Third Way* gets lionized by the media. What a crock.
#5
France now the most conservative country in Europe
Huh? It's the Danes who are in the fight. It's the Danes who are pushing back on the those seeking the subvert their culture. It's the Danes who've stood by America. Actions speak far better than words.
#7
The article did say the most conservative major country in Europe, Procopius2k, but I had to shorten the headline somehow. It's the very last sentence of the article. Then too, French conservatism isn't like American -- in fact I have to wonder if current Danish behaviour isn't actually pretty radical in modern European terms.
According to Mostafa Chendid of the Danish Islamic Society (Islamisk Trossamfund), not only Muslim women but other women too should wear a veil. Why? Because five up to ten percent of all men cannot control themselves when they see a woman without a veil.
Mostafa Chendid is considered to be the successor of Ahmad Abu Laban, one of the imams who was involved in the affair around the notorious Danish cartoons. Ahmad Abu Laban was one of the leaders of the delegation that traveled around the Middle East and that had added three drawings to the original cartoons in its report to «give a clearer picture of the climate against Muslims in Denmark». Mostafa Chendid is doing well to become just as famous as his predecessor, and the interview that he recently gave to the Danish weekly newspaper Weekendavisen certainly isn't going to reduce the controversy around his person.
Earlier he had already succeeded to draw attention to himself by saying, on International Women's Day, to Jyllands-Posten (that's right: the newspaper with the cartoons) that not only Muslim women, but all other women too, should wear a veil. Of course, this resulted in a lot of reactions, and as a matter of fact his remarks in Jyllands-Posten were the direct reason for the interview with Weekendavisen, where he repeated them once more and commented on them. He said for example that wearing the veil is a woman's duty to God, because that is what the Koran says. However, that doesn't mean that he thinks that a woman with a veil is a better person than a woman without a veil.
According to him the veil also serves as a signal: women with a veil are «not for sale». Moreover, the veil protects against rapes, he says: in the US for example, every half minute a woman is raped, and according to him that is because women continuously tempt men by going onto the streets without a veil. Maybe not all men have a problem to control themselves when they see a woman without a veil, and perhaps there is only a problem with five to ten per cent of the men, but he says that is nevertheless enough for all women to wear the veil.
When asked whether men shouldn't cover themselves too, so they do not seduce women either, the imam basically evaded the question. Perhaps the journalist should have gone even further and asked if it wouldn't be much simpler if the men would stay inside and weren't allowed to go out unless accompanied by their wife or a female family member. After all, it's the men that are the problem, not the women. To me it seems rather bizarre that women should walk around with a veil because men can't control themselves. No doubt, it there wouldn't have been a prophet but a prophetess, Mostafa Chendid never would have set a step outside his door! Maybe it would have been better for Islam's image too if he wouldn't do that anyway.
#1
According to Mostafa Chendid of the Danish Islamic Society (Islamisk Trossamfund), not only Muslim women but other women too should wear a veil. Why? Because five up to ten percent of all men cannot control themselves when they see a woman without a veil.
No, Mostafa. Infidels don't seem to have this problem. It's only the muslim men. What's wrong with muslim men? Is allan not strong enough to provide the spiritual strength to resist temptation?
#6
Perhaps a "knee to the package" at the first sign of "misinterpretation of foxy girls" wardrobe would help the misguided 5-10% mature past the emotional level of a 6th grader.
Mooselimb's god is an imaginary creature. ALL imaginary creatures are weak. So are their followers - at least in the head.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/16/2007 18:43 Comments ||
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#9
Because five up to ten percent of all men cannot control themselves when they see a woman without a veil.
To hell with all those expensive veils. Just kill that "five up to ten percent of all men" who have so much difficulty controlling themselves. After all, such impulsive types are bound to be troublemakers anyway.
What Chendid's statement really represents is a threat. Nowhere does he see any need for men to be more honorable in their conduct. Instead, he essentially green-lights the violent sexual abuse of women and, as usual with Islam, blames the victim for the crime. This skank is no different from Australia's al-Hilali and his "uncovered meat" bullshit.
If Denmark has any sense, they will reach the same conclusions and deport this scumbag pronto.
#10
Because five up to ten percent of all men cannot control themselves when they see a woman without a veil.
Matthew 18:9(KJV) "And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire."
#11
"not only Muslim women but other women too should wear a veil. ... Because five up to ten percent of all men cannot control themselves when they see a woman without a veil."
I've got a better idea.
All women should carry a gun and know how to use it. Then, if those so-called "men" won't control themselves, we'll do it for them.
Bring it, assholes.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/16/2007 22:37 Comments ||
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The problem is not Muzzies who cannot control themselves when it comes to women. The problem is the control that the rest of us exercise when it comes to Muzzies.
Last week, I wrote about Minneapolis Community and Technical College, which is planning to install facilities to help Muslim students perform ritual washing before daily prayers. It's a simple matter of extending "hospitality" to newcomers, says President Phil Davis -- no different than providing a fish option in the college cafeteria for Christian students during Lent.
MCTC is apparently the first public institution in Minnesota to enter this unfamiliar territory. Where is it looking for guidance?
Dianna Cusick, MCTC's director of legal affairs, is overseeing the project. She referred me to the Muslim Accommodations Task Force, whose website she is using as a primary resource (www.startribune.com/2617). "They've done all the research," she said.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/16/2007 10:25 ||
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AS a Minnesotan, I have a basic question. Given that the bedouin didn't have enough water to bathe 5 times a day, and given that they rubbed their skin with sand instead of water:
1) Where do these fricking rules come from? (Certainly not from Mo)
2) Are these guys saying the Bedouin rubbed their genitals with sand when they couldn't get any water?
3) Why are we trying to accomodate religious rules that aren't applied in their original countries?
4) What makes you think they keep making up rules just to pull your chain?
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
04/16/2007 11:31 Comments ||
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Are these guys saying the Bedouin rubbed their genitals with sand when they couldn't get any water?
True Grit
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/16/2007 12:58 Comments ||
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#3
Frozen Al, this FANTASY like the BURQUA and praying seven times a day are all made up by FANATICS. So MCTC is ENABLING extremists. Which makes me wonder why so many Muslim extremists are attending a technical collgege? Probably going to make that next big scientific advance for the Arab/Isamic world. I wonder where these graduates are going to get a job?
#4
No accommodations. Period. This is voluntary proto-dhimmitude and will only inspire a host of new Muslim "needs" whereby they will jerk us around endlessly. Do they have siestas for the Hispanic students? Does the cafeteria serve dinner at 10:00PM for the Italian students? These idiots need to take some pointers from the Somalian cabbie situation. Muslims will conjure up artificial crises where there are none so long as it causes more trouble for the Infidel. Enough of this horseshit!
Frozen Al,
They come from Hassan Mohamud, Imam of St. Pauls Al-Taqwa Mosque and President of the Somali Institute for Peace and Justice. And theyre just not required to wash their feet if you catch my drift.
The World Bank released its files in the case of President Paul Wolfowitz's ethics on Friday, and what a revealing download it is. On the evidence in these 109 pages, it is clearer than ever that this flap is a political hit based on highly selective leaks to a willfully gullible press corps.
Mr. Wolfowitz asked the World Bank board to release the documents, after it became possible the 24 executive directors would adjourn early Friday morning without taking any action in the case. This would have allowed Mr. Wolfowitz's anonymous bank enemies to further spin their narrative that he had taken it upon himself to work out a sweetheart deal for his girlfriend and hide it from everyone.
The documents tell a very different story--one that makes us wonder if some bank officials weren't trying to ambush Mr. Wolfowitz from the start. Bear with us as we report the details, because this is a case study in the lack of accountability at these international satrapies.
#1
I was wondering how the loathsome parasites at the WB would take to the ascendance of a guy like Wolfowitz. The only time I ever walked out on a social event involving close friends was when a despicable WB staffer from Pakistan barfed up offensive comments not long after 9/11. People who are astounded and offended at the UN or other more high-profile int. orgs living high off US taxpayer funds while promoting the most despicable anti-US feelings and memes wouldn't believe the poison to be found among WB staff. I would think having Wolfowitz as prez would drive these people (further) insane.
Hat tip Instapundit. Up till now I thought jihadis were cheap! A fascinating calculation, whether or not Alaa's assumptions are correct.
To launch and maintain a terror campaign on the scale that has been going on in Iraq requires enormous resources. This may sound a platitude but it is surprising how few are those who really realize the full import of this fact. There is a big difference between simply acknowledging some fact and truly realizing it. On a T.V. program that I have just been watching, Mr. Mohammed Al-Askari, the consultant for the Iraqi Ministry of Defense stated that according to estimates in the ministry the average car bomb costs about US $100,000. So if you estimate the cost of only this favorite weapon of the enemy with a rate of at least five per day, this amounts to $500,000/day. Add to that the cost of other operations and of financing and maintaining a clandestine army of tens of thousands, paying salaries, bribes etc., feeding, housing and all kinds of logistics, maintaining and management of foreign networks and the transport and smuggling of thousands of Jihadists from places as far as Europe, not to mention Arab and Moslem countries; just compare all that effort with the cost of even the simplest family undertaking, such as organizing some trip or holiday; and the dimension of the financial aspect might dawn upon you.
The U.S. army maintains about 150,000 troops in Iraq, the numbers on the enemy side, most certainly, are not less than this figure if not much higher. If we estimate that the cost of the upkeep of the average terrorist is only one tenth of his American counterpart including the cost of weapons, operations, logistics etc., which is surely an underestimate, we conclude that the budget of the insurgency is consequently 10% of the American budget of the war. And we all know that this budget is almost $100 billion annually. It follows that the insurgency requires at least $10 billion annually. That is almost a quarter of the annual budget of the Iraqi State that has been recently announced with much fanfare as being one of the biggest in our history. This kind of financing is orders of magnitude beyond the means of any local Iraqi group. No amount of kidnap money, extortions, thefts; or even the amounts looted previously by the Baathists can provide such finance.
#1
This makes some unfortunate assumptions, that can't be backed up with hard data. For example, a stolen car, filled with leftover Baathist munitions, is hardly going to cost $100,000.
#2
I'm not so sure, 'Moose. We've had a lot of stories about stolen car shipments funneled in via Syria, and the Brit sailors were reported to have been investigating a ship filled with stolen cars when the Iranians picked them up. I also presume that these cars have been packed with more munitions than just a random assortment of 5-year-old Baathist leftovers to create the damage they have.
A few months ago, Washington circles saw Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as "Tehran's man" in Baghdad. Today, Tehran circles label him "Washington's man" in Baghdad. Maliki's government has the unenviable task of keeping the Americans in, when they don't want to stay - and the Iranians out, when they want to come in.
Some Americans blame Maliki for doing nothing to hasten the departure of U.S. troops, for not decreeing a blanket pardon of Baathists (regardless of what they did during four decades of despotic domination), and for rejecting federal schemes that could lead to the disintegration of the Iraqi state. They also criticize Maliki because he refuses to share out Iraq's oil income as if it were loot among thieves. These American critics want Maliki to throw Iraq to the wolves so that Jack Murtha and Michael Moore can prove that toppling Saddam Hussein was wrong.
Maliki's Khomeinist critics in Tehran have their own beef. The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) recently called Maliki "too pro-Arab." In plain language, that means he emphasizes the Arab identity of the majority of Iraqi peoples - rather than their sectarian affiliation, as Tehran would prefer.
Last month, Ali Khamenei, the top mullah in the Khomeinist system, attacked Maliki in a roundabout way. He recalled that many leaders of the new Iraq spent years in Iran as exiles, and he implied that it was payback time. Last week, the mullahs showed their anger by refusing to let Maliki's plane pass through Iranian airspace on its way to the Far East.
Maliki has offered no favors to the mullahs. He visited half a dozen capitals in the early stages of his premiership - but pointedly avoided Tehran. He also turned down Tehran's offer of hosting a regional conference on Iraq, preferring to hold the exercise in Baghdad and then, later this year, in Cairo.
Maliki has also given the green light to a crackdown on Shiite militias and death squads, serving notice that the war of the sectarians must end. Within the next few weeks, he is expected to further anger Tehran by dropping from his Cabinet all five Sadrist ministers, who are beholden to the Iranian regime. Tehran indicated its displeasure by activating its networks in Iraq to organize last week's demonstrations in Najaf.
Despite months of pressure from Tehran, Maliki has also refused to scrap the maritime-inspection mission of the Coalition forces under a mandate from the United Nations Security Council. (The 15 British sailors captured by Tehran last month were operating on that mission.)
Tehran wants the mission terminated for two reasons:
* First, it wants to impose total control on the Shatt al-Arab, a waterway between Iran and Iraq, thus violating the 1975 Algiers agreement that established the thalweg (the deepest channel in the river) as the frontier. This would quickly translate to Iranian control of access to Iraq's 75-kilometer-long Persian Gulf coastline - turning the Iraqi ports of Basra, Um-Qasar, Al-Bakr and Fao into strategic hostages.
* Second, the Islamic Republic fears that the United Nations might, at some point, use the inspection mechanism against the Islamic Republic in the showdown over the nuclear issue. (Recent Security Council resolutions would allow the monitoring of Iranian naval traffic in the Gulf to continue from Iraqi bases even after the U.S.-led Coalition has left.)
The Maliki government has also made moves to reassert Iraqi sovereignty over chunks of the border with Iran that had become no-man's land or seized by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG). Shortly after Saddam Hussein's fall, the IRCG captured the Zaynalkosh salient, some 700 square miles, and built a number of fortifications there. The Maliki government has refused to accept this open theft of Iraqi territory.
Tehran is also sore that the Maliki government has re-imposed visas for Iranians, making it more difficult to smuggle Khomeinist agents among thousands of pilgrims who travel to Iraq each day. Worse still, the Maliki government has arrested, or acquiesced in the arrest of, almost a dozen senior IRGC officers, including two generals still held by the Americans in Baghdad.
The most important cause of Tehran's anger, however, is Maliki's strategic vision of Iraq's relations with the Western democracies. The mullahs want Iraq to become a theater of historic humiliation for the West, especially the United States. They hope to see the Americans running away, not withdrawing in the context of an agreement with a friendly Iraqi government. They want the credit for chasing away the Americans to go to Tehran and its Iraqi allies, notably Muqtada al-Sadr.
Maliki, however, wants the U.S.-led coalition out of Iraq only when the new Iraq is capable of defending itself against its enemies, including the Khomeinist regime in Tehran. Beyond that, he wants to maintain a strategic partnership with the Western democracies in the interest of Iraq's economic development. Both the mullahs and the Jack Murtha Democrats hate Maliki because he is working to prevent their respective dreams from coming true.
The mullahs dream of that "last U.S. helicopter" taking off from a Baghdad rooftop, spelling the end of American hopes of bringing decent government to Iraq. The Murtha Democrats may not want a humiliating American defeat in Iraq but would like something that looks like one. Only perceived defeat in Iraq would give their party something with which to unite its base and make a bid for the White House next year.
It may be a coincidence. However, each time Democrats throw a poisonous arrow at Maliki, they are followed by mullahs doing the same the next day. Maybe Maliki is doing something right?
#1
Within the next few weeks, he is expected to further anger Tehran by dropping from his Cabinet all five Sadrist ministers, who are beholden to the Iranian regime.
"you can't fire us!...we quit!"
kinda makes their withdrawal statement in the other posting a little more clear and less worrisome, don't it?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/16/2007 8:02 Comments ||
Top||
#2
As far as I can determine the Zaynalkosh salient is territory sandwiched between the Kurdish Autonomous area and Iran. It's Kurdish populated and presumably the Kurds want the Iranians out.
"We believe these three individuals are innocent." The words, soberly spoken by North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, bring to an end the unjust prosecution of the three former Duke lacrosse players. "We have no credible evidence that an attack occurred."
The motives of the "overreaching" prosecutor, as Cooper called him, are obvious: Prosecuting three white men on charges brought by a black accuser helped him win black votes he needed in an election. The motives of those who rushed to believe the charges -- and continued to believe them 366 days after DNA testing implicated none of the players -- are something else.
The "Group of 88" Duke professors, journalists for The New York Times and the Durham Herald-Sun, and heads of black and feminist organizations all seemed to have a powerful emotional need to believe. A need to believe that those they classify as victims must be virtuous and those they classify as oppressors must be villains. A need to believe that this is the way the world usually works.
Except it doesn't. Cases that fit this template don't come along very often. In this country, black-on-white crime is far more common than white-on-black crime (black-on-black crime is far more common still). You won't see the characters exercised by the Duke case looking at the recent case of three University of Minnesota players accused (whether justly or not) of rape -- they happen to be black.
This need to believe that the victim class is always virtuous and the oppressor class is guilty is widespread, and perhaps growing, in this country and abroad. It is particularly strong among those lucky enough to get paid to observe the way most people work and live -- academics, journalists, apparatchiks of advocacy organizations.
We can see the impulse in the rejection by the Public Broadcasting System of a film about moderate Muslims confronting Islamists. PBS says the film isn't ready yet and was tainted by the presence of two conservatives -- imagine! -- on its board of advisers. But lurking behind PBS's decision, I suspect, is a distaste for Muslims who embrace the values of Western oppressors along with sympathy, or something like it, for the Islamist victims.
Or consider two events in Britain. First, the Ministry of Defense's decision, since rescinded, to allow the sailors and marines who groveled before their Iranian captors to sell their stories to the press. After all, they are victimspeople placed in the line of fire in what many consider an unjustified war.
At just about the same time, another pillar of the establishment, the BBC, canceled a documentary on Pvt. Johnson Beharry, who was awarded the Victoria Cross for his heroism in Iraq. The story, a BBC source said, was "too positive." Or it would antagonize Muslims or war opponents. Beharry, you see, although a West Indian by origin, has joined the oppressor class by serving heroically.
Meanwhile, far from Britain, in Littleton, Colo., some citizens are trying to prevent the erecting of a statue honoring Navy SEAL Danny Dietz, a local son who died while serving heroically in Afghanistan. It sends the wrong message, these worthies argue, to honor someone wielding a gun in a community that suffered a massacre in its high school in 1999. That's an argument that only makes sense if you suppose that Dietz was in the oppressor class, no more morally worthy than the maniacs who murdered their fellow students and teachers.
This urge to see the victim class as virtuous and the oppressor class as villainous leads people in countries like the United States and Britain to sympathize more with our enemies than our defenders. This is not new.
"England is, I believe, the only country in which, during a great war, eminent men write and speak publicly as if they belonged to the enemy," said Lord Salisbury a century ago. Now you can add America to the list.
"Before I left for Iraq," John McCain said in a speech last week at the Virginia Military Institute, "I watched with regret as the House of Representatives voted to deny our troops the support necessary to carry out their new mission. Democratic leaders smiled and cheered as the last votes were counted. What were they celebrating? Defeat? Surrender? In Iraq, only our enemies were cheering."
McCain just doesn't get it. Our enemies are virtuous victims. We are the evil oppressors. Just like those Duke lacrosse players.
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.
