Seoul - The US faces a dilemma going into the next round of six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons: how firmly to press North Korea for details of proliferation of its nuclear technology to foreign clients.
Ahead of the Thursday meeting in Beijing, the issue has assumed critical importance with revelations of an Israeli raid early this month on a Syrian base where North Koreans were suspected of imparting not only know-how but also materiel needed for Syria to develop nuclear warheads.
"The US government has some evidence, but they seem to be deciding now is not the right time to talk about it," says Kim Tae Woo, senior research fellow at the Institute of Defense Analyses, affiliated with the South Korean defense ministry.
Indeed, US officials have said almost nothing publicly about what was going on at the base near the Turkish border in northern Syria that according to media reports prompted Israel first to send in commandos and then to bomb it.
Mr. Kim believes that Syria's goal was to get "the technology for enrichment" of uranium, and that North Korea probably supplied uranium fluoride the gaseous substance from which emerges the highly enriched uranium needed for nuclear warheads.
North Korea's expertise in highly enriched uranium raises another issue for negotiators to consider at the upcoming six-party talks: the exact status of North Korea's highly enriched uranium program.
The chief US envoy, Christopher Hill, says he hopes for "clarity" on the issue at this week's six-party talks at which North Korea's envoy, Kim Kye Hwan, is to list in detail all aspects of his country's nuclear program.
A top North Korean official acknowledged the existence of the program to a delegation to Pyongyang led by Mr. Hill's predecessor, James Kelly, in October 2002, but North Korea since then has denied anything to do with enriched uranium.
This week, North Korea may get around the issue of highly enriched uranium, according to analysts here, by admitting that it received advice, and perhaps some centrifuges, from Pakistan in the days when the Pakistan nuclear program was run by the since-disgraced physicist A.Q. Khan. North Korea can then say it never did anything more to develop warheads with uranium and the Pakistan relationship was short-lived and no longer exists.
North Korea may have more difficulty, however, explaining what was going on at the Syrian base. "The Israelis must have had pretty good evidence," says Robyn Lim, professor of international relations at Nanzan University in Nagoya, Japan. "The US had to have been told in advance of the raid, and the Turks would have to have known in advance as well."
But why would North Korea have a team at the Syrian base while six-party talks are about to resume? "The connection with Syria is ongoing business," says Mr. Kim of the Institute of Defense Analyses. "It's not something that can be disconnected. The US must have been aware of that information for a long time."
Indeed, Syria maintains strong relations with North Korea. A Syrian delegation visited Pyongyang last week. "There's no doubt Syria has long been interested in the enrichment of uranium," says Kim. "The Syrian delegation in Pyongyang was probably talking about both nukes and missiles."
Professor Lim, a former Australian intelligence analyst, says while North Korea will "pretend to come clean" at the talks, the presumption is the North continues to export missiles to Middle Eastern countries and may well have also been selling nuclear secrets. She sees North Korea as participating in the talks for the sake of the enormous aid that's promised if the North convinces the US, South Korea, China, Russia, and Japan that it has abandoned its nuclear program. "The talks are designed just to keep enough aid flowing to prop up the regime," she says.
Analysts doubt, however, that the six-party talks will fail despite the issues of proliferation and highly enriched uranium. North Korea has already shut down its five-megawatt reactor at its nuclear complex at Yongbyon where it's believed to have made up to a dozen warheads, including one that it detonated last October in its only nuclear test to date.
Mr. Hill "will have no other option" but to raise the issue of proliferation in the talks, says Kim Song Han, a professor at Korea University. Nonetheless, he says, the priority will be to make North Korea disable its Yongbyon facilities, which made warheads with plutonium at their core. "If the US pushes North Korea to be more detailed," Professor Kim says, "North Korea will react very harshly."
This week's talks will help set the stage for next week's North-South Korean summit in Pyongyang at which South Korea's President Roh Moo Hyun is to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. Mr. Roh says he wants to pursue a "peace system" with North Korea while talking only briefly about the nuclear issue since it's already "being resolved."
Kim predicts North Korea will go through with disablement of its facilities at Yongbyon but remains "pessimistic" about dismantlement the final stage and is not certain if inspectors will ever see facilities elsewhere, including the site of the underground nuclear test.
Posted by: tu3031 ||
09/26/2007 11:12 ||
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#1
Why does anyone believe that the Syrians would want to buy technology and raw materials from the NorKs to make bombs? Surely the Syrians would pay much more for one or two warheads, all they really need anyway.
#2
WTF would we expect here with the Norks? They do not honor agreements, they lie and obfuscate. That is their way of doing business. The problem is not the Norks. They are the given in the problem. The real problem is in our State Department, who are either clinically delusional, or they are actively siding with the enemy.
Agreements made with the Norks are made with the result of propping up a corrupt, documented systematic inhumaine regime. We know better but we keep doing it, and giving our hard earned treasure to despots. In the meantime, millions of people are suffering and dying under this regime. This situation is insanity.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/26/2007 15:52 Comments ||
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#3
Bush's "Axis of Evil" speech pretty much had things pegged.
#4
Radical Islamism's agenda is very closely tied to control and occupation of physical land. IMO it is agz Radical Islamist interests, and in many ways even mainstream Islam, to destroy Israel but not occupy or control the land of Israel. PUNDITS > claim that NORTH KOREA's actions, iff proven true that it is in a nucdev alliance wid Iran and or Syria, indics that NK may be desperate enuff to desire to break free from Beijing's control. IT IS UNCLEAR WHETHER BEIJING GAVE ITS APPROVAL FOR THIS ALLEGED ALLIANCE, OR NOT. STRATEGYPAGE > opines that Kimmie and Party is slowly but steadily losing its control in Govt, Army, and over the general population due to never-ending domestic crises. HUTSHELL > KIMMIE MAY NEED NUKES TO FORESTALL A FULL CHICOM TAKEOVER OF NK + REPLACEMENT OF KIM FAMILY DYNASTY???
#5
Joe, NorK nukes are no deterrent to the Chinese. During the Cold War, we used to wonder what the Chinese would say if we killed 300,000,000 of them in a nuclear first strike. The consensus was that the 800,000,000 survivors would say "thank you, we needed the extra space."
Another great example of the narcissism of the Clintons is described in Ann Althouse's article: Bill Clinton: the world will love us again if we elect Hillary . But the Daily News, reporting this, says "Yet none of the leaders the former President cited will back him up." So what are you saying, Bill Clinton's a liar? Oh, my.
But what does this lie/exaggeration/statement imply? Bill Clinton thinks we want to have the President that leaders of other countries will love the most, and we will believe that Hillary Clinton will inspire world love. That's all rather odd.
The Rantburg thread included a number of pungent comments including the one below which sums it up very well:
#1
the narcissism of the Clintons really states things well. I have never seen two more self-absorbed individuals who are mesmerized by their aspirations of power.
James Taranto, "Best of the Web," The Wall Street Journal
Ed Koch makes an excellent point about Columbia president Lee Bollinger's "dialogue" with Iran's titular president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:
I am . . . distressed that the heart of Bollinger's objections related to Israel and Ahmadinejad's call for its destruction. Of course, that is important, especially to Jews and certainly to me, and to the world as well. But I would have preferred a question on Ahmadinejad's call for the destruction of the United States. Bollinger could have said, "with respect to the U.S., shortly after your election in October 2005, you called for a global jihad aimed at destroying the U.S., saying 'Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism?' You went on to say, 'You should know that this slogan can certainly be achieved.' " Bollinger, a Jew himself, gave Ahmadinejad ammunition to be used among Islamic supporters that the battle at Columbia was primarily a battle between Islam and the Jews, and Ahmadinejad had bravely stood up to the mocking of the Jewish Bollinger.
Congress signaled its disapproval of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with a vote Tuesday to tighten sanctions against his government and a call to designate his army a terrorist group.
The swift rebuke was a rare display of bipartisan cooperation in a Congress bitterly divided on the Iraq war. It reflected lawmakers' long-standing nervousness about Tehran's intentions in the region, particularly toward Israel--a sentiment fueled by the pro-Israeli lobby whose influence reaches across party lines in Congress.
Has the Associated Press adopted a policy of regarding the arguably anti-Semitic and indisputably controversial anti-Israel views of Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer as factual?
It is true enough that Iran poses a more immediate threat to Israel than to the U.S. But the effort to marginalize concern about Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons as the narrow worry of the "pro-Israeli lobby" is troubling on several levels.
Even putting aside humanitarian considerations, does anyone seriously believe that it would serve U.S. interests, or indeed that it would not be anything less than a devastating blow against them, if a hostile and fanatical power succeeded in incinerating an American ally?
Even putting aside Israel, does anyone seriously believe that possession of nuclear weapons would not make Iran a bigger threat to U.S. interests in the region, or that an arms race between Iran and Arab states serve America's interests?
And returning to humanitarian considerations, what does it tell us about America's political, intellectual and journalistic culture that some would dismiss the threat of a new Holocaust as the narrow concern of a political pressure group?
Posted by: Mike ||
09/26/2007 16:48 ||
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#1
Had they strung him up at Columbia on TV, it wouldn't bother me a bit. Ahmadinejad wants to see the destruction and end of the West. His regime is killing American soldiers. He is our enemy.
#2
Ahmadinejad is the enemy of every sane person, Infidel and Muslim alike. It is exactly his combination of megalomania and support for terrorism that is ushering Islam towards its total annihilation. The Arab world's deafening silence over Ahmadinejad's cries for genocide and jihad will be the death of them all.
#3
Zen, that is still a bit remote, in the future, even if near future. Depends...
Nutjob and his puppet master mullah (Khawhatever), both being megalomaniacal, may go first not for Israel or US for that matter, but Gulf countries and KSA. To get oil leverage so to speak, and esentially wreck it for everyone by trashing infrastructure. And it may be him who would boom Mecca (somebody will, that's almost for certain).
Speaking at the National Press Club Tuesday evening, CBS "Evening News" anchor Katie Couric pulled back the curtain on her personal views of both the war in Iraq and former Evening News anchor Dan Rather.
Everyone in this room would agree that people in this country were misled in terms of the rationale of this war, said Couric, adding that it is pretty much accepted that the war in Iraq was a mistake. Everyone in this room == National Press Club. Thank you for your cooperation, Katie.
Ive never understood why [invading Iraq] was so high on the administrations agenda when terrorism was going on in Afghanistan and Pakistan and that [Iraq] had no true connection with al Qaeda. Doesn't understand how to keep her career going forward, either.
Further, Couric said the Bush administration botched the war effort, calling it accepted truths that it erred bydisbanding the Iraq military, and leaving 100,000 Sunni men feeling marginalized and angry...[and] whether there were enough boots on the ground, the feeling that wed be welcomed as liberators and didnt need to focus as much on security. She added Id feel totally comfortable saying any of that at some point, if required, on television. Sooo it's W's fault that Hussein had stocked them up for an insurgency and Iran continued the effort. Check.
The former Today show anchor traced her discomfort with the administrations march to war back to the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The whole culture of wearing flags on our lapel and saying we when referring to the United States and, even the shock and awe of the initial stages, it was just too jubilant and just a little uncomfortable. And I remember feeling, when I was anchoring the Today show, this inevitable march towards war and kind of feeling like, Will anybody put the brakes on this? And is this really being properly challenged by the right people? And I think, at the time, anyone who questioned the administration was considered unpatriotic and it was a very difficult position to be in.
Couric referenced comments made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Mondays The Charlie Rose Show, and said she actually agreed with Ahmadinejad on one point. Oftentimes Westerners dont really understand fully the values of this particular culture, said Couric. And I think the jury is still out as to whether democracy can really thrive in Iraq.
Couric, a native of Arlington, Virginia, was at the Club to discuss Democracy and the Press for a recording of The Kalb Report, a public affairs series hosted by journalist and scholar Marvin Kalb. The series is sponsored by George Washington University, the National Press Club and Harvards Shorenstein Center. People in the audience included Courics parents, Evening News executive producer Rick Kaplan, Shorenstein Center founder Walter Shorenstein and NPRs Dan Schorr.
Couric also weighed in on the lawsuit recently filed by Dan Rather against CBS, in which Rather alleges he was unfairly squeezed out of CBS by network executives following a controversial 2004 story about President George W. Bushs Texas Air National Guard service record. After evidence emerged that the storys primary documents were possibly faked or forged, Rather stated on air that if I knew then what I know now, I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question.
Couric took Rather to task for his reporting. There were things in there that were quite egregious in terms of how it was reported, she said. And sloppy work is sloppy work They did not dot their Is and cross their Ts when it came to that story And our job is to get right.
Posted by: gorb ||
09/26/2007 16:09 ||
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#1
And then there is the point that only those people in that room give a flying phuck about what she thinks feels.
#5
She's a lightweight given the wheel at the last moments before network news crashes into the rocks and sinks for good.
News junkies go to 24 hour cable for news. During emergencies even the Networks tap the 24 hour cable stations. The only reason the 11 news survives is inertia and Rather put a stake into that and Couric was put into position to ensure it's death. Network news is a pride business not good business so it takes a while to disband.
Sweet Jesus, Moose...how the hell am I supposed to get any work done tomorrow, seeing as how that pic is going to make it an absolute necessity that I gouge out my eyes with a salad fork right now?
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
09/26/2007 23:43 Comments ||
Top||
This is rather long -- but well worth the read snip
Al-Qaeda Insurgency: Destination - Islamabad
Domination in these territories has allowed al-Qaeda the haven necessary to rebuild its training and planning infrastructure as well as replenish its human resources. After a few short weeks of basic military training, Taliban conscripts are sent in waves across the border to battle US and Coalition forces in Afghanistan.
However, al-Qaeda has no designs on investing in regaining that territory. There are no resources for them there and a more formidable, if reduced, military force to be reckoned with. One whose defeat of the terrorist group drove them into Pakistans border regions to begin with. Al-Qaedas designs are not back towards the west, but rather onward deeper into the heart of Pakistan.
While al-Qaedas Pakistan insurgency has been largely waged in the FATA region, its territorial aims are by no means limited to it. Rather, al-Qaeda seeks control of all of Pakistan, including its military, weapons and economic capabilities. Al-Qaeda has been executing this strategy one territory, one victory at a time. And it now closes in on Islamabad.
Indeed, an analysis by the Pakistani Interior Ministry warned Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf of precisely this. The New York Times reported that the 15-page internal Pakistani document warned Musharraf that the influence of the extremists is swiftly bleeding east and deeper into his own country, threatening areas like Peshawar, Nowshera and Kohat, which were considered to be safeguarded by Pakistani government forces.
The Interior Ministry document said that Peshewar endures the highest number of terrorist incidents, including attacks on local police, and that in Bannu and Tank regions, police are patronizing the local Taliban and have abdicated the role of law and order. snip If interested, read at site
The cricket twenty twenty world cup final provided a few hours of relief to what is becoming an increasingly beleaguered Pakistani civil society. While the loss hurt, one can only marvel at the resurgence of the cricket team and its youthful new look. Unfortunately, this moment of relief and relaxation passed only too quickly and once more we were confronted to the increasingly unfathomable political circus that is taking its toll on the citizenry, with road blocks, police actions, and histrionics all around. All norms of rational behaviour have long disappeared and the increasingly visible feature seems to be a growing intolerance of "the other" by all and sundry. Even the lawyers, claiming to lead the fight for freedom and democracy, are descending into abusive tirades and mudslinging countered by fisticuffs and paint slinging.
As if all this was not enough to push one either over the edge or into a state of deliberate disconnect from politics, we have had the US now brazenly accepting their interventionist role in our domestic politics to ensure the success of so-called "moderates". Of course, by their very intervention they may well ensure the success of "the other" but one cannot rationalise with an irrational and extremist mindset of the American neo cons lead by Mr Bush. However, rumours now abound that the reason the US favours "the lady" is because she has agreed not only to allow the US an unhindered access to the tribal areas in terms of military action, but also to re-open the file on Dr Khan. One hopes these are only rumours; otherwise we are in for some dangerous times, given that the US long-term intent towards Pakistan has never brought a promise of the positive for our nation. Even a cursory study of the history of US relations with Pakistan can confirm that claim.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: john frum ||
09/26/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
All norms of rational behaviour have long disappeared and the increasingly visible feature seems to be a growing intolerance of "the other" by all and sundry. Even the lawyers, claiming to lead the fight for freedom and democracy, are descending into abusive tirades and mudslinging countered by fisticuffs and paint slinging.
And then he goes off showing what a TOTAL AND COMPLETE LOON he himself is!
Her organization has a remarkable number of very attractive young "researchers". One of them, Miss Maria Kiani, seems to have caused the hospitization of the British Defence Attache to Islamabad, Brigadier Andrew Durcan, due to her "research" with him in the bedroom.
He was recalled to London when the honeypot operation was discovered.
Posted by: john frum ||
09/26/2007 6:09 Comments ||
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#3
"given that the US long-term intent towards Pakistan has never brought a promise of the positive for our nation"
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him fly.
#4
If ever there was a place where the fuse has been lit, it's Pakistan. Their background for violence is legendary. It's the failings of the third world all rolled up into one. Pakistan, I look into the crystal, and I see only chaos.
An opinion written by Nibras Kazimi, Visiting Scholar at the Hudson Institute
Last weeks murder of Sheikh Sattar Abu Risha was tragic, but not catastrophic. His death does not change the vastly improved situation in Anbar Province, since his role in its pacification was exaggerated from the beginning. Anbar stabilized for a variety of reasons that had nothing to do with Abu Risha or Americas counterinsurgency efforts theresomething that the U.S. military command has yet to figure out. Abu Risha found himself in the limelight at the right time and place, and the Americans fighting the terrorists in Anbar seized upon him as the poster-boy of a new strategyempowering Iraqs defunct tribal structurethat they had hoped would make belated sense of the positive transition and would allow them to claim credit, and medals, for it. .
I believe the insurgency failed because it had bad ideas and unrealistic expectations. When the price paid by the local population for these ideas and expectationsfighting the Shiites and re-establishing Sunni hegemonybecame too steep, Sunnis turned against the insurgents and tried to find shelter, yet again, under the central government. This latter trend is the one that should be reinforced: Sunnis should be encouraged to throw in their lot with the New Iraq, rather than falling back into the tribal identities of Iraqs past.
Tribes are now part of Iraqi folklore; they dont matter anymore. We found out the hard way, said Abu Seif, a man who once sold me on his own importance as a tribal leader from Anbar. This was said to me recently at an office in Amman, where Abu Seif now manages his business affairs.
A long time ago and in a career far, far away, I had turned myself into a tribal expert, focusing specifically on the tribes of Anbar, and the ones that surround Baghdad. Consequently, I had to often deal with tribal leaders, or sheikhs. . The U.S. should work with tribal leaders but shouldnt exaggerate their importance. . It is one thing to be proud of ones tribe I take pride in being a NakhaI but its a whole different matter to take orders from ones nominal tribal sheikh. These social structures have been fraying under the myriad forces of sedentarization, urbanization, nation states, sectarianism, land reform and dictatorship to the point where tribal sheikhs are now rendered a quaint, savage aristocracy that the men in powernow wearing Western suitswould tolerate and do small favors for.
Tribal leaders held on to some lingering prestige accorded to them by their ancestry; their dress and mannerism harked back to romanticized notions of Arabian chivalry. The tribes turned into job placement agencies; the sheikhs would petition the powerful over low-grade government jobs for the desperate young men who still came to them for help.
Thats how the sheikhs held on to their social relevance, by becoming a 'civil society' lever between a small segment of the population and the all powerful, all benevolent welfare state, much like the neighborhood mukhtar does. They are useless for mass mobilization, and could never rival a civil society institution such as the religious hawza in Najaf; something that was clarified by the failure of tribal chiefs, and the politicians who relied on them, at the polls.
Abu Rishas story was the stuff of powerful narrative: a pro-American tribal sheikh who had courageously confronted Al-Qaedas menace and eventually evicted them from his province, but was then killed by a treacherous bomb planted by the terroristsAl-Qaedas Islamic State of Iraq took credit for it. In war, icons are invented and Abu Risha was such an icon: he looked authentic and trim in his flowing Arabian robes, said the right things, and was always available for media comment. But he was creature for an American audience rather than an Iraqi one, and his American minders fell into the trap of believing their own propaganda. Interestingly, Abu Rishas tribe is numerically insignificant by Dulaim standards, and only number in the hundreds. .
There had been many sheikhs in Anbar who wanted to be part of the new Iraq from the very beginning, men like Abu Seif or the CIAs guy, Sheikh Majid. Later, others confronted Al-Qaeda head-on: credible leaders like Sheikh Nasr Abdel-Karim al-Mikhlif (of the Albu-Fahed tribe in Anbar, held a PhD in Agriculture, one of the few tribal sheikhs in Iraq who could claim a level of authority over his tribe) and opportunists such as Sheikh Usama al-Jeryan (of the Karabilah tribe in Qaim), only to be killed off by Al-Qaeda. . None of these men achieved Abu Rishas fame, simply for the fact that he had better timing, and an American audience willing to be charmed. .
As one Iraq observer put it to me, tribes are a barometer of power; they swarm around whoever has the upper hand. The danger now is that the Americans are trying to resuscitate a clannish social system that had withered away in Iraq, and turning it into a power in of itself. .
Maybe whats important here are tribal tactics in warfare, rather than the institution of a the tribe itself: the insurgency had imposed its terror (and control) on Iraqi society by being very up-close and personal: they knew the name, address and genealogies of those who stood against them among their own kind, and would strike out at them from the shadows, in a way similar to how Saddam's totalitarian regime worked, which isn't surprising since many insurgents worked in Saddam's security organs. The U.S. military had been trained to target regimental colors rather than individualsits a depersonalized method of war, seemingly in place to make the act of murder more palatable to Western sensibilities. But an insurgents willingness to kill was made easier by knowing who he was going to kill; punishing the alleged individual guilt of the victim. What succeeded against Al-Qaedas methods was the tactic of turning cousins on cousins: all of a sudden America had allies on the ground who fought in the same way Al-Qaeda was fightingthey made it personal.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
09/26/2007 10:30 ||
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#1
Interesting. Those of you who've been to that part if the world, what say you?
Lebanon failed to elect a President Tuesday, continuing its drive along the abyss. A new parliamentary session is set for October 23, with the hope that a two-thirds quorum can finally be assembled by then to choose a successor to outgoing President Emile Lahoud. But his term runs out on November 24, and the chances of finding a compromise candidate, sources in Hezbollah tell me, are nil.
The same sources tell me that Hezbollah will never compromise with the March 14 movement, which it considers an American puppet. The March 14 movement is a political bloc that has promised to disarm Hezbollah and take to trial the murderers of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. The same Hezbollah sources told me that an interim administration that shares any part of the March 14 agenda is also not acceptable to Hezbollah , which controls a third of the seats in the parliament.
How determined is Hezbollah to block the election of a President? "We will do whatever it takes to keep a pro-American President from coming to office," Hezbollah said.
What that means is that aside from refusing the two-thirds quorum needed to elect a President in parliament, Hezbollah is considering an attack on the French U.N. contingent in southern Lebanon. The aim of such a move would no only be to convince the French to stop meddling in Lebanon, but also to serve as a response to France's implicit threat to bomb Iran if Iran does not stop its nuclear development.
Hezbollah has no obligation to tell me the truth, but I have little doubt that if provoked it would turn over the table and plunge Lebanon into another civil war. Hezbollah is stronger than the Lebanese army, and its threats are not idle.
During the last 25 years the indelible red line for Hezbollah has been keeping its arms. It says it needs them to drive the last Israeli forces out of Lebanon a small slice of land called the Sheba Farms and force Israel to release its remaining Lebanese prisoners of war. But it's more than that. Hezbollah 's military is its raison d'etre. If Hezbollah gives up its arms, it is just another party in the dog's breakfast of Lebanese politics.
Israel's September 6 bombing of Syria has further incited Hezbollah . "They hit something, but, come on, it wasn't nuclear," a Hezbollah source said, refuting rumors in the press the Israelis had hit some sort of North Korean nuclear shipment going to Syria.
Hezbollah didn't offer any evidence, but they believe the September 6 Israeli strike was an attack on a missile shipment and possibly a prelude to an Israeli attack on Iran and Hezbollah .
None of it bodes well for the election of a President and that's about the one thing the American Embassy in Beirut and Hezbollah agree on. On September 24 the embassy issued a warning to Americans living in Lebanon that the potential for violence is high.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/26/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
I have enjoyed the french rhetoric since Sarkozy was elected, but do not believe they/he are serious. This would be a good place to show strength by changing the ROE for the French troops in regards to Hezbollah.
#2
Sarkozy hates and despises Chirac. Alo he doesn't come from the circles where are issued the French elites but from Hungary so I suspect he is not too keen on the Gaullist policy of friendhip with dictators like those who were opressing his father's country....
The White House is looking at deterring the Iranian nuclear program with new sanctions. What measures have been proposed?
Cutting off two-thirds of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's name any time he is mentioned in the press So his name matches his stature, I suppose.
Revoking the country's membership in the axis of evil
Ceasing production of monogrammed "U.S. & Iran: A Perfect Match" matchbooks
Miss America not including Iran on world tour
Jesse Jackson to be sent, without an interpreter, to negotiate I like this one best because it will have the most positive effect of all the proposed sanctions. For us, anyway.
Copyrighting the phrase "The Great Satan" and suing Iran every time it is used to refer to U.S. For a million-billion-trillion ... Euros.
Putting restrictions on how much Iran is allowed to hate the U.S. at any given moment
The behavior of the Paulnuts on the Mackinac ferry, noted by David, is a common consequence of pacifism and extreme libertarianism. Both think the state at war is the worst thing in the world. (Extreme libertarians think the state doing most everything else is also bad.) Mostmaybe alllibertarians acknowledge a right to self defense. But in the modern world this cannot be done by militias. It requires a military industrial complex, with all the attendant consequences. Some libertarians accept this fact (while proposing modifications). Extreme libertarians do not; therefore they support self defense only in theory.
In any actual situation, the prospect of the state at war is so monstrous that the pacifist/extreme libertarian must prettify or deny the threat, and abuse Cassandras. Thus 9/11 was an inside job, the war on terror is a project of warmongering Jews, Giuliani stole WTC gold, etc., etc.
The honest pacifist/extreme libertarian would say, I will not fight, for any reason, at any time. If evil triumphs, so be it. It will be less evil than my fighting would have been. I at least have preserved my rightness. But that is a hard saying, hence these maneuvers.
Ron Paul is a pencil head, leading a jacquerie of wicked idiots.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/26/2007 09:28 ||
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A lot of "libertarian" leadership has gone to drinking the kool-aid these days. It is no longer a party of federalist thinking people.
While true, war is an option that most people do not relish, it is still something that needs done. Much like cleaning a clogged toilet after a bad bout of food poisoning. It is yucky, but needs done or the problem will get worse and stink up everything.
#2
And there have been honest pacifists. However, many are intellectually dishonest slackers who want to enjoy the benefits of society but reject doing the heavy lifting and try to rationalize their shortcomings by obstructing and interfering with those doing the actual work at hand.
#3
One of the reasons I almost never vote libertarian anymore even though I consider myself in the libertarian wing of the GOP...no common sense left amongst the national libertarian party....the pro open-borders crowd coupled w/no real platform for combatting islam leaves them in the gut pile imho. Plus, trying to legalize every illicit drug under the sun doesn't bode well for the longevity of that party. Ron Paul's a dork to btw.
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
#5
Extreme libertarians think the state doing most everything else is also bad.
Let me get this out of the way. First, any ism taken to its extreme can be dangerous. Second, Ron Paul is indeed a pencil head.
With that said, most Libertarians believe that the governments primary objective is protection of its citizens' rights. And that it may be neccessarry that those protections include force. Also, in maintaining those liberties justifiable Offensive force is not counterintuitive to their core principles. That is wholley differnet then pacifism.
Finally, theres something the Republicans should consider if they want to attract the largest swing voter block in the coming elections. Libertarians advocate smaller government, lower taxes and maintaining freedom. Apparently, those are some principles that many of the Neo-conservatives and Country Club Pubs have abandoned.
#6
The problem with libertarians is they tend to have no sense of self-preservation. If you create a perfect libertarian country with open borders and no foreign policy you will soon have a socialist tyranny. Logically it's not a difficult leap into the future to understand yet so many of them simply don't see it because they desire the pure libertarian near-anarchy where everyone does good despite human nature.
I believe those that consider themselves little "l" libertarians see this problem, unfortunately they do not control the Liberterian party, they prefer to influence the Republicans at this point.
A review of someone else's review of an essay on human nature. A bit abstract and philosophical, but it points out some fundamental flaws in the hard Left's basic world view.
. . . as they strike me, many of these points are remarkable for what they reveal about the capacity to deny the most obvious realities where these are thought to be inconvenient.
His [Pinker's] life's goal... is "the old-fashioned one - illuminating human nature". But the belief that there is such a thing as human nature, and that it is innate, has proved incendiary.
Not even just debatable. Incendiary. Something that is so manifestly, so glaringly, true that it cannot be contradicted without falling into one kind of nonsense or another is incendiary. Are we to suppose, then, that human beings have no materiality, or that as material beings they have no biological or physiological make-up? To ascribe a nature to them is to say no more than that, in virtue of the species they belong to, they have certain characteristics - both capacities and needs - and that these characteristics enable them in certain ways and also constrain them in certain ways. If we had no nature we should be able to reinvent ourselves at will. Though we do sometimes speak of people reinventing themselves, the reinvention takes place on the basis of the abilities and within the constraints I've referred to. No human being suddenly turns him or herself into a mauve elephant and disappears through a concrete wall . . . .
. . . the idea that nurture is more important than nature isn't the same thing as belief in a blank slate. It might make sense in some context, or on some issue, to say that nurture is the more important influence - for example, on what language a person grows up speaking - but that doesn't mean there was nothing there (naturally) in the first place, such as the capacity for language. Second, the stuff about the possibility of change is badly formulated. If we have a (human) nature, then we are able to change in certain ways and we aren't able to change in certain others - that's all. So we can invent modes of transport that get us around much faster, become more, and also less, tolerant, come to think of ourselves or cease to think of ourselves as divinely created; but we can't turn into mauve elephants that disappear through walls, or turn into beings free of all emotion, of fear, hope, love, anger, ambition etc. Third, if our (human) nature blocks off a certain kind of change, then that's what it does. What matters is whether it's true that it blocks that kind of change, not whether you think it's a bad or non-progressive thing for it to block it. If you say that it can't block it because it would be bad for it to do so, you're saying that the truth is defined by your political priorities and not by the way the world actually is - a morally dangerous path to set out upon. It's true that you can't get a human being to live for long on an intake of one calorie per day. This denies us the possibility of stretching a given quantity of food resources much further than they presently stretch. So we have to work within that constraint. There's no percentage in saying that it's reactionary to claim people need more than one calorie per day. They just do need it. And, as it happens, it isn't reactionary to insist that there are these basic needs that human beings have for nourishment. The next step is to say the needs ought to be met (so long as they aren't cruel or vicious ones) - the very opposite of a reactionary demand. Which brings us to the next point:
The Blank Slate [Pinker's book] argued that believing in human nature doesn't make you a rightwing anti-egalitarian. That doesn't mean, however, such a nature actually exists.
No, it doesn't make you a rightwing anti-egalitarian. It's one obvious basis for a philosophy of universal human rights - the idea that we share a common human nature, and by virtue of it common needs, common capacities and fundamental interests. These interests ought to be protected. Granted, the fact that a common human nature provides the intellectual basis for a justification of universal rights does not by itself show that there is such a common human nature. But there is one - as any open-eyed consultation of historical, anthropological and cultural evidence will vouchsafe. We can argue about what traits it includes and what traits it doesn't - a really important area of argument - but the denial of there being any human nature at all is wasted breath. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
09/26/2007 08:01 ||
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#1
With all due respect to Pinker---E. O. Wilson did it first, and he did it better.
#2
Third, if our (human) nature blocks off a certain kind of change, then that's what it does. What matters is whether it's true that it blocks that kind of change, not whether you think it's a bad or non-progressive thing for it to block it. If you say that it can't block it because it would be bad for it to do so, you're saying that the truth is defined by your political priorities and not by the way the world actually is - a morally dangerous path to set out upon.
I would suggest that the refusal to abandon moral or cultural relativismeven when it is contradicted by all external evidenceis one of those things that liberals incorrectly identify as a fundamental component of human nature when it is really just a contrived mindset. Little else can explain how liberals reject the notion that they would be the first to die under Islam's sword.
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.
Lebanon failed to elect a President Tuesday, continuing its drive along the abyss. A new parliamentary session is set for October 23, with the hope that a two-thirds quorum can finally be assembled by then to choose a successor to outgoing President Emile Lahoud. But his term runs out on November 24, and the chances of finding a compromise candidate, sources in Hezbollah tell me, are nil.
The White House is looking at deterring the Iranian nuclear program with new sanctions. What measures have been proposed?
. . . the idea that nurture is more important than nature isn't the same thing as belief in a blank slate. It might make sense in some context, or on some issue, to say that nurture is the more important influence - for example, on what language a person grows up speaking - but that doesn't mean there was nothing there (naturally) in the first place, such as the capacity for language. Second, the stuff about the possibility of change is badly formulated. If we have a (human) nature, then we are able to change in certain ways and we aren't able to change in certain others - that's all. So we can invent modes of transport that get us around much faster, become more, and also less, tolerant, come to think of ourselves or cease to think of ourselves as divinely created; but we can't turn into mauve elephants that disappear through walls, or turn into beings free of all emotion, of fear, hope, love, anger, ambition etc. Third, if our (human) nature blocks off a certain kind of change, then that's what it does. What matters is whether it's true that it blocks that kind of change, not whether you think it's a bad or non-progressive thing for it to block it. If you say that it can't block it because it would be bad for it to do so, you're saying that the truth is defined by your political priorities and not by the way the world actually is - a morally dangerous path to set out upon. It's true that you can't get a human being to live for long on an intake of one calorie per day. This denies us the possibility of stretching a given quantity of food resources much further than they presently stretch. So we have to work within that constraint. There's no percentage in saying that it's reactionary to claim people need more than one calorie per day. They just do need it. And, as it happens, it isn't reactionary to insist that there are these basic needs that human beings have for nourishment. The next step is to say the needs ought to be met (so long as they aren't cruel or vicious ones) - the very opposite of a reactionary demand. Which brings us to the next point:
