Defectors who were senior officials in the North say it is a myth that China is unconditionally on North Korea's side. They suggest that China may have summoned Kim not in order to side with him but to get an explanation of the sinking of South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan. One North Korean defector said, "China may want hear Kim's explanation before making its final decision about how to deal with the Cheonan issue."
Another defector said, "To South Korea, it might seem to be China which accepted Kim's wish to visit, but it could be the other way round. It may be that China called up Kim to get a responsible answer." Hwang Jang-yop, a former secretary of the North Korean Workers' Party, recently said China apparently does not want to give massive aid to North Korea. "If Kim goes to China to request economic aid, Beijing will definitely demand something in return, which is highly likely to be economic reforms and an end to hereditary succession."
Within the Communist Party of China, there is apparently a great deal of resistance to letting Kim's third son Jong-un succeed him for fear that this would lay the Chinese model of socialism open to ridicule. Beijing is said to be unhappy that Pyongyang keeps demanding help without accommodating the Chinese model of economic reform and opening.
Defectors said what China wants is for North Korea to carry out Chinese-style reforms whoever leads the country, so it can develop stably under Chinese influence. They said Beijing could use the Cheonan disaster as catalyst to apply more pressure.
All this is nonsense, and I post it so that you can see the nonsense.
China is not pressuring the Norks. China and Kimmie are on the same side. China has no intention of disciplining Kim, to the contrary, they're coordinating strategy. Right now the strategy is to put pressure on Bambi and the ROK President Lee and thereby bully them into concessions -- like, for example, restarting the 6-way talks with direct negotiations between the Norks and the U.S.
Seizing the land at Mt. Kumgang, sinking the Cheonan, testing nukes, testing long-range missiles, and staging other provocations are part of this strategy. It's done to unbalance us. They got concessions from George Bush, and Bambi isn't nearly as tough as GWB, so they think they can get more concessions. They'll continue to push, and allowing the sinking of the Cheonan to go without a response will embolden both Kim and the Chinese to push even harder.
China proclaims its good faith as it indulges and supports Kim. It proclaims its good faith as it continues its buildup against Taiwan, a buildup of a blue-water navy, and a build-up in Tibet and at the approaches to India. Gee, you think China is up to something?
Yes they are. China intends to be the super-power of the 21st century. It has a plan to get there. Weak American presidents make that easier.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/05/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Not to mention a strange new alliance protruding with Russia. All though, there is a difference between Mahjong and Chess.
#2
ION CATE CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > [Spacewar.com]VIETNAM SPENDS BILYUHNS ON ISLANDS AMID CHINA DISPUTE, Regionally disputed SOUTH CHINA SEAS ARCHIPELAGOES, inlcud but not limited to SPRATLEY'S + PARACELS.
#3
As soon as it happened I thought there was a Chinese hand in the sinking. They set to gain, whatever happens.
Im sure Japan aint too happy with whats going off , no wonder their folk reneged on Okinowa and are so keen on defence progs
Posted by: Oscar ||
05/05/2010 6:15 Comments ||
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#4
Yes, but the Chinese don't want it to get out of hand. A little miscalculation like the Serbian secret police with the Black Hand played in 1914 could have similar consequences of destroying economic and political ambitions.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/05/2010 13:45 Comments ||
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#6
there is a difference between Mahjong and Chess.
The chinese elite don't play mahjong. They play Go, in which the objective is to surround the opponent so as to highly limit his moves, while controlling / influencing as much territory as possible.
#7
ECONOMIST.com > SCARING THE SALARYMEN: FEARS OF FOREIGN TAKEOVERS MAY SPUR CHANGE IN CORPORATE JAPAN | CHINESE FIRMS BUY JAPANESE ONES.
Chinese companies are SUPER DUPER HUNGRY TO ACQUIRE, LEARN SKILLS-N-TECHNOLOGIES from around the World.
* PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM/BHARAT RAKSHAK > CHINA GETTING AGGRESSIVE - ECONOMICALLY, NAVAL, AND NUCLEAR; + INDIA SET TO LOSE 90,000 SQUARE KILOMETERS TO CHINA, ASIAN WATER SECURITY THREATENED [PRC's new Tsang Po River dam project as affecting INDJUH'S BRAHMMUPUTRA RIVER].
** WMF > US EXPERTS: REGIONALLY DISPUTED SOUTH CHINA SEAS ISLANDS, RESOURCES NOW AN IMPORTANT "NATIONAL CORE INTEREST", STRATEGIC MILPOL FRONT FOR CHINA AS TIBET AND TAIWAN. TRANSFORMATION OR RESTRUCTURING OF PLAN, PLAAF, AND PLA SECOND ARTILLRY ROCKET FORCES FOR SUSTAINED LR OPERATIONS IN EAST ASIA AND WESTPAC.
* SAME > SOUTH KOREAN MEDIAS: KIM JONG-IL IN CHINA TO OFFER NORTH KOREAN DE-NUCLEARIZATION IN EXCHANGE FOR INCREASED CHINESE ECONOMIC ASSISTANCE AND CHIN-APPROVED INTERNATIONAL ASSISTANCE. CHIN SUPPORT, DIPLOMATIC PUSH FOR RESUMED SIX-PARTY TALKS WIDOUT RETALIATION AGZ NORTH KOREA FOR "CHEONAN" INCIDENT???
Most people know about the individual mandate in the new health care bill, but the bill contained another mandate that could be far more costly.
A few wording changes to the tax code's section 6041 regarding 1099 reporting were slipped into the 2000-page health legislation. The changes will force millions of businesses to issue hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of additional IRS Form 1099s every year. It appears to be a costly, anti-business nightmare.
Under current law, businesses are required to issue 1099s in a limited set of situations, such as when paying outside consultants. The health care bill includes a vast expansion in this information reporting requirement in an attempt to raise revenue for an increasingly rapacious Congress.
Continued on Page 49
#2
If the Republicans do not win enouhg seats and roll this back in the Fall, then revolution is coming. People are going to die, especially politicians that imposed this, if that happens.
Posted by: No I am the other Beldar ||
05/05/2010 9:53 Comments ||
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#4
"the term "payments" includes gross proceeds paid in consideration for property or services"
If I read this correctly, required then for:
Rent, Utilities (Electrical & Nat. Gas), Fees (Storm-water, Sewer, Garbage Collection, etc.), Municipal/County/Township Taxes for 'Services', Fire Protection Inspections, Elevator Inspections, Snow-Plowing (where we are anyway), LP/Fuel Oil Refills, yadda-yadda-yadda.
All would be considered 'payees'.
Jeez-Louise!
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
05/05/2010 13:10 Comments ||
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#5
i see this as a new 'jobs program' think how many IRS personnel will be needed to verify the forms. Business will hire additional workers to comply with filing all these forms.
almost like something out of the movie Brazil
Posted by: abu do you love ||
05/05/2010 13:15 Comments ||
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#6
I have my 'screen magnifier' already, Abu.
Probably because I'm getting older, though.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
05/05/2010 14:03 Comments ||
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Posted by: ed ||
05/05/2010 14:10 Comments ||
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#8
I believe this is part of a stealth implementation of a VAT.
This will not be an immense burden on business. In fact it will make life easier. In the past companies had to decide whether a vendor is or is not a 1099 vendor at vendor set up. Now all vendors will be 1099'd. The hassle will be obtaining and entering the EINs, but after that is done, the problem will lie with the IRS which will receive and have to process the 1099s.
Send them in paper, not electronically. And send in your tax return handwritten with amounts to the cent.
#2
The father owns a 200 acre farm and a palatial (white marble) home in Karachi. As a former Air Vice Marshall of the Air Force and Director of the Civil Aviation Authority, he is part of the elite. The kid would have grown up surrounded by servants. He has an MBA from a US university.
But we will be told that poverty breeds jihadis.
Posted by: john frum ||
05/05/2010 18:14 Comments ||
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#3
I see a prominent Hellfire target
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/05/2010 21:58 Comments ||
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We know now that the car bomb in Times Square was an attempted Islamic jihad attack. But the mainstream media, following its usual pattern, is once again denying, minimizing, or obfuscating this fact. Who knew the media are also experts at Taqiyya?
Posted by: ed ||
05/05/2010 15:43 ||
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President Obama is now learning how the loosening surveillance laws put in place under President Bush has exposed Americans to greater threat from Islamo Fascist sleepers. These sleepers are terrorist who also are American citizens or citizens of countries not normally considered part of the front on the war on terror. First we had the American citizen turned radical cleric, Anwar al Aulaqi. His communications with American citizen Major Nidal Hasan eventually led to the Ft Hood massacre were 14 human beings had their lives snuffed out in the name of Allah.
Since al Aulaqi is American, it has become evident from news reports since the Ft Hood massacre that the liberals inside the Obama justice department had decided to terminate all investigations into al Aulaqi, leaving Hasan free to commit his heinous acts of mass murder (see here, here and here for details on the evidence against the Obama administration -- more here on Ft Hood from RCP). al Aulaqi was also in contact with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day underwear bomber who nearly killed 300 people in the skies above Detroit, MI. There is a case to be made that, if team Obama had not taken their eyes off al Aulaqi, the Christmas Day bomber would have been detected and possibly stopped.
At least we would have known enough to not read the attacker his rights and allow is fellow sleepers the chance to go underground and continue to their targets here in America.
So it is no surprise that the suspect behind the NY Times Square bombing attempt is also an American:
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced early Tuesday that an arrest had been made in the failed Times Square car bombing, saying that Faisal Shahzad, a 30-year-old American, was taken into custody at John F. Kennedy International Airport as he tried to fly to Dubai on Monday night.
Authorities said Shahzad, who is of Pakistani origin and lived in Connecticut, had paid cash for a Nissan Pathfinder that was found packed with explosives Saturday night on a tourist-crowded block in midtown Manhattan. The vehicle was set ablaze but failed to detonate.
Officials located Shahzad after a sweeping two-day investigation that yielded what senior Obama administration officials described as a flood of international and domestic clues suggesting a plot involving more than one person.
"It was clear that the intent behind this terrorist act was to kill Americans," Holder said at a rare middle-of-the-night news conference at the Justice Department, nearly three hours after the suspect was pulled from an international flight that had already left the departure gate.
This is the basic fault with the liberal view that the threat of government listening in on citizens in communication with known or highly suspect terrorists is not as great as the threat of political misuse of such surveillance. The checks and balances for the surveillance powers put in place by President Bush and ratified at least 3 times by votes in Congress provide plenty of protection from misuse, if the 4th Amendment hypochondriacs on the far left cared to pay attention.
Al Qaeda is not stupid, and in fact are extremely opportunistic. It has been no secret that the Obama administration planned to be less vigilant, dialing down the reactions to potential threats. It has also been well known the liberals wanted to reinstate the barriers of investigating terrorism around US citizens.
So al Qaeda took the natural path and changed its strategy to one of recruiting basically clean individuals who can move about the US with ease -- especially true of US citizens. In this way they have less chance of success on an individual basis, but greater overall chance of success as their human weapons increase in number and agility.
It will not take long for al Qaeda to adjust their approach to improve the detonation procedures for their bombs -- the only thing which saved 300 people from dying in the skies over Detroit on Christmas Day, and the only thing which saved those people in harms way in Times Square this weekend. Team Obama needs to reject the liberal madness and denial about being at war and get back to protecting the people. Else he will be a one term President who failed miserably.
#1
I think it was George Carlin who rants about calling things a "near miss". The more appropriate headline would have been "Obama Administration Suffers Another Near Disaster from Islamo Fascists."
#2
Lots of conflicting reports today on whether Faisal Shahzad was on any sort of watch lists.
This has created some confusion among the left.
Some want to blame Bush on the theory that Bush's actions created a terrorists. Others want to blame Bush on the theory that Faisel wasn't put on a no fly list back in 2004. Still others seem to want to blame Bush on the theory that Faisel was a victim of the Bush caused housing bubble collapse. It is even possible a very few are coming to their senses and realizing that the Jihad isn't going away because of Obama's biog or words.
Posted by: lord garth ||
05/05/2010 10:59 Comments ||
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The New York Times piece posted here yesterday reported that the man who sold him the house that subsequently went into forclosure was visited by Homeland Security/the FBI afterward, who asked him about Mr. Shahzad. Normal procedure, they told him it was.
George LaMonica, a 35-year-old computer consultant, said he bought his two-bedroom condominium in Norwalk, Conn., from Mr. Shahzad for $261,000 in May 2004. A few weeks after he moved in, Mr. LaMonica said, investigators from the national Joint Terrorism Task Force interviewed him, asking for details of the transaction and for information about Mr. Shahzad. It struck Mr. LaMonica as unusual, but he said detectives told him they were simply checking everything out.
#5
ION DAILY TIMES.PK/FREEREPUBLIC/DRUDGEREPORT > AHMADINEJAD: OSAMA BIN LADEN IN WAHISNGTON, NOT TEHRAN.
"Since AL-AULAQI is American" [AL-AWLAKI, etc.] > HMMMM, HMMMMMM, wehell, unless I've missed something MOUD HAS JUST PERSONALLY, STRONGLY + BROADLY INFERRED, WIDOUT OUTSIDE PRESSURE OR SOLICITATION, THAT OSAMA IS A BUSH = US/US GOVT. PARTNER + PROXY???
MOUD also read, RADIC ISLAM'S SETBACKS in AFPAK, ETC. IS DUE IN PART BECUZ OSAMA = "THE GREAT/IRON SHEIKH OF ISLAM + THE PROPHET" IS IN REALITY A US SPY???
WHICH IN TURN ALSO INFERS THAT ON 9-11, THE USA OR ELEMENTS THEREIN ATTACKED THEIR OWN MAJOR CITY NYC, + [helped]KILLED 3000 OF THEIR FELLOW AMERICANS???
The Obama administration has revealed - for the first time ever - the size of the U.S. nuclear arsenal in detail. This information was a closely guarded secret for more than 60 years. By unloading such sensitive information, President Obama is responsible for deliberately exposing a chink in America's defensive armor. The Land of the Free is less secure for it.
On orders from the White House, the Pentagon on Monday released the exact number of nuclear warheads as the 189-nation nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference got under way in New York. The U.S. nuclear stockpile now stands at 5,113 warheads, down from a high of 31,255 in 1967. Never before has the United States allowed either friend or foe access to such precise information about our nuclear assets - and for good reason. A healthy dread of these awesome weapons has deterred aggression against the American homeland and kept the nation safe.
Disarmament officials and purported peace activists claim the frank U.S. disclosure will elicit similar openness on the part of other nuclear powers, leading them to follow suit. We're not so sure that neighborhood bullies will decide that giving away state secrets is the cool thing to do on the nuclear playground. While revealing the size of the stockpile might earn some diplomatic plaudits for an approval-seeking Mr. Obama, surrendering such information constitutes shortsighted defense policy.
Contrary to Team Obama's pipe dream of a nuclear-free world, the unfolding international trend is toward uncontrollable nuclear proliferation, not reduction - especially in the Third World. It's hardly breaking news that nations that wish us ill profess platitudes of peace while quietly developing their own nuclear capabilities. Foremost among them is the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday called on treaty signatories to punish nations that threaten other countries with nuclear weapons. This was a thinly veiled snipe at the United States.
The Iranian despot has perfected his role as puppet master on the world stage. Relentless denunciations of America's nuclear posture played into the U.S. decision to release its long-guarded nuclear secrets as American treaty negotiators sought to pre-empt Iran's demand that existing nuclear nations provide more accountability for their nuclear materials. Mr. Ahmadinejad has pulled Mr. Obama's strings, goading the United States along the path of disarmament, all the while moving his Islamic regime inexorably toward possession of the mullahs' own nuclear weapons. In the game of power politics, Mr. Obama is clearly out of his depth.
This is not a minor issue. As former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John R. Bolton has warned in this paper, "If Washington will not continue to hold the nuclear umbrella that has provided strategic stability for so long, other countries will begin making divergent decisions about how to protect themselves, including, for some, the possibility of seeking their own nuclear weapons."
In an ideal world, a nuclear umbrella wouldn't be necessary, but ours is hardly an ideal world. Nature abhors a vacuum, and as America surrenders its mantle as the world's foremost superpower, other nations will rush forward to pick it up. Providing America's adversaries with precise information about our military capabilities only assists their strategy against us. If he had any useful experience, Mr. Obama would know that - assuming he's not weakening America on purpose.
#1
The article does not deal with the essential problem: Pakistan is a country whose very own existence, and the priviliges of its establishment, depend on keeping its population fanatically Muslim.
They are a heterogeneous country with important components being both bellicose, in difficult terrain and with little sympathies for rteh ruling Punjabis. Remove Islam and they will question why they should stay in Pakistan. Remove jihadism and the "we have to stay united againt the filthy Kaffirs" and they will secede.
The only solution to Pakistan's protuction of jihadis is dismemebering it. Homogeneous countries wouldn't need islamism to survive.
Frontpage Interview's guest today is Nicolai Sennels, a Danish psychologist who worked for several years with young criminal Muslims in a Copenhagen prison. He is the author of Among Criminal Muslims. A Psychologist's Experience from the Copenhagen Municipality.
Worth reading.
Posted by: ed ||
05/05/2010 15:47 ||
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Isn't that all, pretty much, what western liberals call "hate speech?" NTTAWWT...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/05/2010 16:27 Comments ||
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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.
The Obama administration has revealed - for the first time ever - the size of the U.S. nuclear arsenal in detail. This information was a closely guarded secret for more than 60 years. By unloading such sensitive information, President Obama is responsible for deliberately exposing a chink in America's defensive armor. The Land of the Free is less secure for it. 
