#1
I'm confident there are several San Francisco gay brigades who would like nothing more that be impaled upon Islam's ... sword, yes, sword or at least give them a little ... head: Namely, their own.
Carroll isn't necessarily that moderate. Right after the 9-11 atrocity he published a column about how evil profiling was. I wrote him a polite email challenging the need for TSA to be searching Lutheran grannies and Fijian football players and he never had the courage to reply.
From the way he really does not address Iran's crimes against humanity, he still seems to be stuck in the same groove rut.
#4
The following quote from Mark Steyn, in a essaylast weekend, is funnier and more to the point than Carroll's entire piece:
There are, he declared, no homosexuals in Iran. Not one. Where are they? On a weekend visit to Kandahar to see the new production of "Mame"? Alas, there was no time for follow-up questions.
Oh well. The strange italicized semi-paragraph at the bottom of Carroll's column makes me feel better about my own proofreading skills, at least.
Clever bit of writing by Roger Simon on whether Al Gore, had he been elected President in 2000, would have invaded Iraq to remove Saddam. Roger says yes and explains why.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/03/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
I doubt Roger is right this time. Gore might well have come to the same conclusions as Bush regarding the need to invade, but he would not have had the courage to act on it, and incur the disapproval of people.
That said, I am now starting to conclude that the US should not enter into any war unless it is done by Dems: it is tragic how many deaths and how much suffering is unnecessarily caused by lack of unity and political infighting, and I strongly believe Repubs would have supported serious Dem actions far, far more than the Dems support Repub actions.
#3
Like the House Republicans went after President Clinton's sex life instead of supporting the war against fascism in Serbia?
Look, in retrospect I think the Serbs had a point. If I could look back and find a single Republican pointing to the danger of backing muslims in Bosnia instead of frothing at the mouth over a White House intern I would concede I had missed something obvious to the received wisdom of the day.
#4
it is tragic how many deaths and how much suffering is unnecessarily caused by lack of unity and political infighting, and I strongly believe Repubs would have supported serious Dem actions far, far more than the Dems support Repub actions.
The donks, (JFK, LBJ, and Clinton's mentor, Fulbright, took us into Viet Nam. And the trunks by and large supported them, Morse notwithstanding. But when support collapsed it was all donk with only New Englanders like Aiken joining them.
The party of the president won't matter. The donks will oppose the war because it gets in the way of their efforts to bribe the voters with new programs. It's been true since the War of 1812. The only wars the donks and New Englanders have really supported were the Revolution, the Civil War and WWII. They won't support this one until they find out the Wahabbis want to end abortion on demand.
#5
Not only would Gore not have invaded Iraq, but Gore would have left Al Queda and the Taliban in power in Afghanistan. Gore is still stuck on Vietnam and doesn't believe the U.S. is capable of carrying out those types of operations.
#8
Intersting how pretty much everyone was thankful Gore wasn't elected back in the day, and now his image has been transformed into "he would have done the same thing, the good stuff at least". I know that's not what Roger Simon is saying but I've heard it before.
I do not think Gore would have gone into Afghanistan. I do not htink he would have done anything militarily. He might have done something serious regrading alternate energy and perhaps border protection. That might have had long term positives we can't fathom at this point. But he certainly wouldn't have invaded anything.
Harry Reid isn't the only one who's decided our soldiers are making a worthwhile sacrifice for freedom. Here's Obama:
. . . they embody the spirit of those who fought to free the slaves and free a continent from a madman; who rebuilt Europe and sent Peace Corps volunteers around the globe; because they are fighting for a better America and a better world.
So how come Obama wants to pull them out? It's a mystery. Let's give it a read, and see if we can pluck out a clue. . . .
Too long to reproduce in full, too good to excerpt. It's a righteous fisking. Go read it all.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/03/2007 09:19 ||
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By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
The Washington Times | 10/3/2007
If Americans have learned anything about the United Nations over the last 50 years, it is that this "world body" is, at best, riddled with corruption and incompetence. At worst, its bureaucracy, agencies and members are overwhelmingly hostile to the United States and other freedom-loving nations, most especially Israel.
So why on earth would the United States Senate possibly consider putting the U.N. on steroids by assenting to its control of seven-tenths of the world's surface?
Such a step would seem especially improbable given such well-documented fiascoes as: the U.N.-administered Iraq Oil-for-Food program; investigations and cover-ups of corrupt practices at the organization's highest levels; child sex-slave operations and rape squads run by U.N. peacekeepers; and the absurd, yet relentless, assault on alleged Israeli abuses of human rights by majorities led by despotic regimes in Iran, Cuba, Syria and Libya.
Nonetheless, the predictable effect of U.S. accession to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea better known as the Law of the Sea Treaty (or LOST) would be to transform the U.N. from a nuisance and laughingstock into a world government: The United States would confer upon a U.N. agency called the International Seabed Authority (IA) the right to dictate what is done on, in and under the world's oceans. Doing so, America would become party to surrender of immense resources of the seas and what lies beneath them to the dictates of unaccountable, nontransparent multinational organizations, tribunals and bureaucrats.
LOST's most determined proponents have always been the one-worlders members of the World Federalists Association (now dubbed Citizens for Global Solutions) and like-minded advocates of supranational government. They have made no secret of their ambition to use the Law of the Sea Treaty as a kind of "constitution of the oceans" and prototype for what they want to do on land, as well.
Specifically, the transnationalists (or Transies) understand LOST would set a precedent for diminishing, and ultimately eliminating, sovereign nations. It would establish the superiority of international mechanisms for managing not just "the common heritage of mankind," but everything that could affect it.
In the case of LOST, such a supranational arrangement is particularly enabled by the treaty's sweeping environmental obligations. State parties promise to "protect and preserve the marine environment." Since ashore activities from air pollution to runoff that makes its way into a given nation's internal waters can ultimately affect the oceans, however, the U.N.'s big power grab would also allow it to exercise authority over land-based actions of heretofore sovereign nations.
Unfortunately, the Senate has been misled on this point by the Bush administration. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte claimed in testimony before the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee last Thursday that the treaty has "no jurisdiction over marine pollution disputes involving land-based sources." He insisted, "That's just not covered by the treaty." Worse yet, State Department Legal Adviser John Bellinger, said, "[LOST] clearly does not allow regulation over land-based pollution sources. That would stop at the water's edge."
Thank goodness for Sen. David Vitter, Louisiana Republican, who caustically observed, if that were true, "Why is there a [LOST] section entitled 'Pollution from Land-Based sources?' " He went on to note there is not only a section by that name, but a subsequent section on enforcement concerning such pollution.
Few senators have more immediate reason to worry about LOST's dire implications for our sovereignty than Mr. Vitter and his Democratic colleague, Mary Landrieu. It is inconceivable that their state's crown jewel, New Orleans, would be in business today even in its diminished, post-Katrina condition had the United States been subject to this Treaty when that devastating hurricane hit Louisiana and Mississippi.
Enforcement of the unprecedented commitment not to pollute the marine environment can be compelled via LOST's mandatory dispute resolution mechanisms. The U.N.'s Law of the Sea Tribunal is empowered to "prescribe any provisional measures" in order "to prevent serious harm to the marine environment." States parties are required to "comply promptly with any [such] provisional measures."
Surely, the sovereign act taken in an emergency situation which dumped into the Gulf of Mexico vast quantities of toxic waste that had accumulated in Lake Pontchartrain after Katrina would have been enjoined in this manner. Does any senator want to assure such interference in our internal affairs in the future?
Scarcely more appetizing is LOST's empowering of a U.N. agency to impose what amount to international taxes. To provide such an entity with a self-financing mechanism and the authority to distribute the ocean's wealth in ways that suit the majority of its members and its international bureaucracy is a formula for unaccountability and corruption on an unprecedented scale.
To date, the full malevolent potential of the Law of the Sea Treaty has been more in prospect than in evidence. If the United States accedes to LOST, however, it is predictable that the treaty's agencies will: wield their powers in ways that will prove very harmful to American interests; intensify the web of sovereignty-sapping obligations and regulations promulgated by this and other U.N. entities; and advance inexorably the emergence of supranational world government.
Twenty-five years ago, President Ronald Reagan declined to submit our sovereignty to the United Nations and rejected the Law of the Sea Treaty. If anything, there are even more compelling reasons today to prevent the U.N.'s big power grab.
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is the founder, president, and CEO of The Center for Security Policy. During the Reagan administration, Gaffney was the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy, and a Professional Staff Member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, chaired by Senator John Tower (R-Texas). He is a columnist for The Washington Times, Jewish World Review, and Townhall.com and has also contributed to The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New Republic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The Los Angeles Times, and Newsday.
#1
Even if we continue to participate in the UN, there still needs to be applied to the organization a strong containment strategy that limits all further expansion of its existing jurisdiction. Given the chance it would become another EU, if not far worse.
#2
What the hell is wrong with Buish - first the open borders crap and his refusla to enfoirce immigration law, then the mexican trucks, now the LOST - and his staff LYING about it!
#6
It's a pity that the 9-11 terrorists picked the WTC instead of the UN building. If nothing else, all of the hateful little nations of the world would be compelled to vote that they wanted UN Headquarters to stay in the US.
Me, I think it would be grand if moved to Beijing.
#9
Lest we fergit, the USA, and ONLY THE USA, was has is and remains charged since WW2 to ensure the UNO "works". Try as it may, despite its Cold War rhetoric not even the USSR honestly wanted to change this US-only responsibility.
With most Sunni factions now seeking a deal, the big questions in Iraq have been resolved positively. The country remains one, it has embraced democracy and avoided all-out civil war. What violence remains is largely local and criminal.
From Prospect Magazine, a Brit journal, a great and positive review of the situation in Iraq, and why we're mostly to the point where Iraq -- and we -- will win the fight. Too long to quote in full so read it at the link or download the PDF.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/03/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
I don't think we are to the point of WINNING in Iraq. Rather, we are getting to the point where we can allow Iraq to find its own path without Rwanda-level genocide. Maybe. It seems to me the country is heading towards self-partitioning, and even though there have been and will continue to be, a lot of sectarian murders, it shouldn't get into the millions. I hope.
We are getting to the point where the kids think they are big enough to go off on their own. We'll have to let them - and pray the State Trooper doesn't come to the door at 3 am. The cell phone call from them saying they wrecked the car but aren't hurt, or even asking for bail money, we can handle.
We aren't going to like how Basra and the south turn out - but there really isn't much we can do about it (short of invading Iran, and we lack both the political will and military resources to do that right now.) Sunnistan will stumble on, with some painful adjustments to the neighborhoods in the Baghdad area. The Kurds will be a bigger issue to the Turks and Iranians than to the rest of Iraq. I don't think any of them will be virulently anti-American, though like most of the world, they will talk that way.
It won't be like Japan after WWII. Or Vietnam. More like Korea. Not a loss but only kind of a win, for now. Learn our lessons and prepare for the next round, wherever that turns out to be. There WILL be another round.
#2
The argument of this articlethat with nothing more to resolve from political violence, Iraqis can now settle down to gorge themselves at the oil troughis based on two premises: Sunni acknowledgement of the failure of their insurgency and the need to reach an accommodation with the new Iraq, and a conjunction of interests between the coalition on one hand and the Kurds and Shias on the other.
And a third, that when not otherwise constrained Arabs don't prefer to resolve the inevitable conflicts of daily life through gratuitous violence.
#3
Still, an interesting read. It even made me peruse the author's books at Amazon, via Fred's portal, of course. Bartle Bull. Interesting name, eh, wot?
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/03/2007 11:19 Comments ||
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#4
TOPIX > GETTING IT: THE WAR IN IRAQ IS OVER + USA HAS WON IN IRAQ AND MIDDLE EAST. Articles - Spetzies have gener lost - only a question of 'em realizing it. USA not leaving Iraq, and Islamists-Insurgents + Iran don't have the power = armed force nor enuff CamelKazes to make the USA leave. Next US stop IRAN???
I still say 'tis PREMATURE, but IMO Radical Islam is intent on waging a final battle/campaign for Iraq proper.
In world news, there's a harmonic convergence of golden anniversaries in progress. The upcoming 50th anniversary of Sputnik joins the 50th anniversaries of the Edsel, "West Side Story" and the publication of "Doctor Zhivago." As the Sputnik anniversary arrives, bear in mind what a bucket of bolts the first artificial satellite was -- little more than a radio transmitter, it looked like something a 16-year-old made in metal shop for a school play. America's Explorer I, which followed Sputnik I into orbit a few months later, was also a bucket of bolts. Although even with its rudimentary instruments and vacuum tubes -- remember, humanity landed on the moon before the invention of the pocket calculator -- Explorer I discovered the Van Allen belts. And of course the Edsel was a bucket of bolts, an odd snoot being the least of its problems.
Although the great technical achievement of 1957 -- the artificial satellite -- and the main consumer-industrial product of that year -- the Edsel -- seem crude in retrospect, great artistic achievements of that same year, such as "West Side Story" and "Doctor Zhivago," seem magnificent in retrospect. You have to know the history of Broadway musicals to understand what an original and significant work Leonard Bernstein's "West Side Story" was, although you need not know that history to appreciate the music, lyrics and dialogue. "Doctor Zhivago" numbers among the greatest books ever written, and that's even if you can't grasp how much better the poetry sounds in Russian, as Russian speakers assure us. Boris Pasternak summed up all his experiences in the dashed hopes of the Russian Revolution in the tragic story of a poet who loses his muse-love. Pasternak then declined the Nobel Prize for literature because, being a critic of the Kremlin, he knew he would never be allowed back into the Soviet Union if he went to Sweden to accept the prize. And, like Zhivago, he died too soon, passing away just two years after the book was published. "Doctor Zhivago" became an international bestseller -- When was the last time the top-selling book of the year was great literature? -- and was made into one of the last really good Hollywood movies, three hours long and actually faithful to the book! . . .
Now think what has happened in technical and artistic trends in the 50 years since 1957. Scientific endeavors have made fantastic strides in quality, complexity and significance. Consumer product quality has increased dramatically -- new cars are packed with features unknown in 1957 yet are far safer and more reliable, and the cell phone in your pocket and the computer you're reading this on, to say nothing of the Internet it's transmitted over, would have been viewed as supernatural by the engineers who built Explorer I. At the same time, the quality of art has plummeted. There hasn't been a musical of artistic merit to open on Broadway in many moons -- right now, it's all vapid dreck. (In fact, I think the show "Vapid Dreck," based on a remake of a remake, opens at the Brooks Atkinson soon.) And although good books are still written, what truly great novel has been produced in the past decade or two? Fifty years ago, technical stuff was buckets of bolts and art was splendid; now, the technical stuff is splendid and the art is in poor repair. This tells us something -- I just wish I knew what.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/03/2007 13:29 ||
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#1
Art and literature has been divided much like music, between real artists and musicians, and "performers". The art, literature and music industry pays the big bucks to performers, yet sees the real talent as minimum-wage bums.
The first cracks in the dam are appearing with the Internet, however, where talent is starting to get out to the public without being stymied by the conglomerates. This at least gives them a start, before what they create transcends the Internet.
Artists, especially, who embrace technology, are creating works beyond traditional mediums that challenge the senses and imagination.
Whereas at the start of the 20th Century, artists prowled insane asylums looking for surreality, as imagined by the mentally ill, some today are again looking to perception and the mind itself for ideas. Call it "phenomenological art", using illusion and scientific phenomenon to create works that captivate the mind.
#2
The big picture is that the masses got involved in both. When it comes to the arts the arts were suddenly geared for the taste of the masses to ensure higher grosses, etc. This naturally means many critics will be unhappy even while the box office grosses went through the roof (see Star Wars). This is the same thing that has happened with food and beer (see McDonalds, Budweiser) and technology (Windows).
You will still have select works of art that put the critics into spasms of glee (see Woody Allen, and Apple's iPhone) but the bulk of the stuff is geared for the masses.
#1
Alex, who launched surprise attacks on neutral counties without a declaration of war?
FDR invaded the French north African territories of Morocco and Algeria with out any declaration or Congressional authorization while maintaining diplomatic ties with the neutral Vichy France.
#2
P2K - I pointed that out to my historian wife, when you first introduced it to me a few days ago, and she said (in essence), "Do you believe everything you read on the Internet?"
Now I believe you're correct, but my better half is going to need some sort of historical reference beyond an intellectual at Rantburg with a reference to a historical name. (That'd be you.)
You wouldn't happen to have a reference handy, to save me a bunch of Googling? Besides, all that would yield would be more stuff from the Internet!
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/03/2007 13:12 Comments ||
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#3
Just wiki for the relationship of the US and Vichy France. The listings of Declarations of War by the US are also online. You don't see France in there. Get your historian a copy of Rick Atkinson's An Army at Dawn and read of the intrigues trying to give the fig leaf of cover to the invasion. Read of the fighting not between Americans and Germans, but between Americans and Frenchmen. It's also a damn good read on the "Greatest Generation's" fumbles and errors when trying to do something no one in the group had ever done before.
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.
