#1
"...won't be effective unless the Taliban's own ability to escalate from Pakistan can be disrupted."
Wapo urges US to attack Pakistan to break escalation cycle. Sort of.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
07/06/2008 10:40 Comments ||
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#2
Actually, Afghanistan always had a lot more bad potential than Iraq ever did.
That is, Pakistan has 51 MILLION males, 15-64 years old (CIA factbook), which means that they can keep up a steady stream of suicidal dumbasses almost without limit. Even if only .1% (point one percent) of these are willing to fight, this is over 5 MILLION men. .01% (point oh-one percent), still 5 HUNDRED THOUSAND.
Even if you take just the retards, mental cases, and utter losers, you still have a huge potential unconventional army that needs killing for Afghanistan to be stabilized.
And this is why Afghanistan is a serious problem. Since almost half its border is shared with Pakistan, thankfully much of that border is impassable. However, even to properly defend the passes between the two countries would take a huge number of soldiers.
And make sure the same population that thinks polio vaccine is an evil infidel Western conspiracy also treats any vaccine for it the same. Let nature take its own course.
You split Pakistan. Pakistan's very existence and much more important, the money and mpower of its elites depend on Pashtuns, Sinds or Balochs forgetting their national differences 'and where the money goes) because "we are all Muslims". Therefore Pakistan's elites have an interest in radicalization. Split Pakistan and that interest disappears.
#6
JFM's on the right track, but first we need to give Pakistan (and primarily the Pashtuns) a dose of what it means to be on our "dirty stick" list. Napalm and ARCLIGHT the valleys leading into Afghanistan until a Galopagos Tortoise wouldn't have a problem handling the grade, and a buzzard would have to pack a lunch to cross. Take out the major cities of Pakistan with old-fashioned bomber raids reminiscent of Germany and Japan during WWII. Rip their "military" apart so badly that a half-dozen Boy Scouts armed with blunderbusses could defeat them. Divide what's left between Afghanistan and India, and the deal's done. The world will be a better place.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/06/2008 18:55 Comments ||
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#7
Afghanistan is a conventional ethnic civil war, unlike Iraq. The West backed the Tadjiks, Uzbecks and others, against the Pashtuns because of the Osama/Taliban factor.
This means it is not amenable to the solutions used in Iraq and is in my view, unsolvable in the medium term. And in long term will be solved by one ethnic group comprehensively defeating the other at great human cost, or by some kind of partition. A taboo subject in our UN worshipping world.
After a reasonable notice period, we should walk away from Afghanistan and let them sort it out themselves.
When Boeing chose Chicago over Seattle, Dallas and Denver as its corporate headquarters, there was rejoicing in the city. The Boeing symbol on our West Loop Skyline is one sign that we have made it as a global city.
We regret Boeing losing key defense contracts as we do losses by the Cubs and Sox.
Boeing pretends to be a good corporate citizen supporting Chicago arts groups and community organizations with grants. The company is listed prominently in playbills and annual reports.
But Boeing also abets torture. It is, after all, a defense contractor as well as a provider of civilian passenger jets. It is locked at the hip and the bottom line with the U.S. government.
Despite our pride in Boeing as a global corporation, it is as amoral as the German corporations that aided Hitler. Only money and contracts count with Boeing. As Freep likes to say: "Dinosaur Media Death Watch."
#2
Well I'm surprised! From reading this extract I could have sworn this was the NYT. Looks like they have some competition in their race for the bottom.
#3
This isn't an editorial, this is an op-ed piece. Dick Simpson is a nut-ball professor at the University of Illinois Chicago.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/06/2008 12:59 Comments ||
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#4
Boeing shoulda moved to Wichita...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/06/2008 13:49 Comments ||
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#5
Sun-Times Media Group... #1 in the Chicago Area Business 'Dead Pool'
This Op-Ed would not have appeared if the Sun-Times Editorial board were not in lock step on it.
#6
This isn't an editorial, this is an op-ed piece. Dick Simpson is a nut-ball professor at the University of Illinois Chicago.
Where's his office? Would be ripe for a little civil disobedience. What would he do if a bunch of well-dressed conservatives were to have a sit-in at his office?
The dismissal by the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) of the complaint against Maclean's magazine and columnist-author Mark Steyn was the right decision.
The complaint, under the hate message provision of the Canadian Human Rights Act, was brought by Mohamed Elmasry, president of the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC).
It may be fairly surmised that the CHRC did not rule in favour of Elmasry and the CIC -- given the record of its past rulings being almost without exception in favour of complainants -- because the defendant was the widely read Canadian weekly newsmagazine, and its publishers would have appealed any decision against it.
The reason complaints of the sort brought against Maclean's are not dismissed out of hand by federal and provincial human rights tribunals is due to section 13(1) of the Human Rights Act, and similar codes in provincial statutes.It reads in part that any communication 'likely to expose a person or persons to hatred' can be prosecuted on the 'prohibited ground of discrimination.'
Section 13(1) covers the same ground as does the hate-propaganda Section 319 of the Criminal Code. The difference is that anyone taking offence has recourse under the human rights act provision -- a National Post editorial explained -- to 'have an investigation launched and force a fellow citizen to undertake a legal defence, without having to comply with the rules of due process or the evidentiary standards that prevail in an actual courtroom.'
Freedom of speech
CHRC and its provincial counterparts should never have been given authority to prosecute matters relating to freedom of speech protected by the Canadian constitution. Those who insist that free speech is not unlimited and the Canadian tradition in this respect is somewhat different from that of the United States, are not denied recourse to law by bringing their complaint under the Criminal Code to a court properly constituted where the rights of all parties are fairly treated.
The problem with the CHRC's use of section 13(1) to put a chill on free speech has been known for some time, and decried mostly by those of conservative persuasion subjected to the farcical hearings of the human rights tribunals.
But it took the clownishness of the CIC complaint to make it amply clear to an increasing number of Canadians why the censorious provision of section 13(1) is a blot on Canadian democracy.
There is irony here that it took Elmasry and his cohorts in the CIC to lodge their complaint of no merit against Maclean's, and in the process put the human rights tribunals in the dock of public opinion as no other previous complainant had done.
Through the ages clowns have served many purposes apart from providing humour.
Shakespeare and Moliere used clowns to illuminate absurd situations, to expose the emperor when he is without clothes or when the law is an ass, and to make clowns utter words others would dare not say out of propriety or fear of reprisal.
This is what the CIC cohorts did as clowns for Canadians, revealing to them the scandalous redundancy of the Human Rights Act section 13(1). It is now for Canada's Parliament to do the right thing by revoking the section and saving Canadian democracy from dishonour as a result of its use.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/06/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
This whole thing is quite a stain on Canada.
What was that aphorism? "The dark curtain of fascism is always descending on the US, but only seems to actually fall on Europe" or some such.
Given what I think could be called our own constitutional crisis (usurpation of war power, treaty power, and direct defiance of ennumerated powers by the SCOTUS), it's sad to see how Canada has beclowned itself all these years.
Some of the best citizens of both nations continue to risk all to promote, inter alia, the rule of law in benighted regions of strategic importance - while back in North America, the rule of law looks a lot more tattered than it has in modern times .....
#2
Simple: loser pays. Sue those islamist a-holes for the legal fees and lost work time. Liens agains their property, garnish all wages, etc.
Thats one of the major the problems with the system - there is no penalty for the losers that bring false charges. (Another one is the presumption of guilt)
#3
I gather the HR process is inquisitional; the accused is expected to accept pre-determined guilt, and then abjectly seek mitigation. What year is this?
If you listen to the left and the prevailing conventional wisdom amongst the chattering classes, all the talk is about how the "current administration", devout Christians, and conservatives in general are eroding our freedoms.
But in reality, the opposite is true. It is secularists and leftists who are largely responsible for erosions in human freedom today. And the examples are boundless. This bit with the HRC in Canada is only the most recent example, others include:
-Speech codes and mandatory 'diversity training' in the education industry, particularly at the undergraduate level but not limited to there
-the hyperregulation in the EU which includes jail sentences for critiquing Islam, gay marriage, etc., and has in effect made it illegal for devout Catholics to practice medicine, in some cases - with said hyperregulation being some day instituted here being one of the most desired goals of the left leaning party here in the U.S.
-a so-called 'free' press in the U.S. which is almost entirely populated with far-left anti-Christian ideologues and which has no compunction about abusing their Constitutionally protected status to affect the outcome of elections
-leftists living in the West coddling and making excuses for leftist dictators like Robert Mugabe because they are absolutely terrified to have ANY person whose politics are left of center portrayed in even the most remotely negative fashion, for fear the stigma may reach themselves some day
etc.
Meanwhile, the film industry is making movies like "V" which attempt to portray conservatives and devout Christians as the ones guilty of commiting these sorts of things when the opposite is actually going on.
The words "projection" and "transference" leap to mind immediately.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
07/06/2008 5:45 Comments ||
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#5
"In psychology, psychological projection (or projection bias) is a defense mechanism in which one attributes one’s own unacceptable or unwanted thoughts or/and emotions to others. Projection reduces anxiety by allowing the expression of the unwanted subconscious impulses/desires without letting the conscious mind recognize them. The theory was developed by Sigmund Freud and further refined by his daughter Anna Freud, and for this reason, it is sometimes referred to as "Freudian Projection"[1] [2]" - wiki
When the founding fathers declared our independence, they could not have imagined that, 232 years later, the United States would be so spectacularly dependent on foreign countries.
In 1973, when OPEC imposed its oil embargo, U.S. oil imports composed 30 percent of our needs; today, they make up more than 60 percent, with a growing proportion of that crude coming from the world's least stable regions. At around $145 a barrel, the United States, by my calculations, will spend more on imported oil this year than it will spend on its own defense budget, and much of that money will flow into the coffers of those who wish us ill.
Since oil dependence is so unappealing, you'd think that energy independence would be an easy sell, especially on this Fourth of July weekend. Energy independence does not mean that the United States must be entirely self-sufficient. It simply means reducing the role of oil in world politics -- turning it from a strategic commodity into merely another thing to sell.
Is energy independence a pipe dream? Hardly. In the electricity sector, the mission has already been accomplished. Remember President Jimmy Carter in his cardigan during the oil crises of the 1970s, urging Americans to save electricity? It took us just one decade to wean the electricity sector from oil. Today, only 2 percent of U.S. electricity comes from oil, according to the Energy Department. Could we do something similar with transportation, where American cars and trucks still gulp oil-based fuel greedily? At least four very different countries -- dictatorships and democracies alike -- are already making serious headway toward that goal. It's past time to pay attention to their example. No mention of nukes for electricity; must be a tree-hugger.
The first country, surprisingly enough, is Iran. The Islamic republic has lots of crude but little capacity to refine it, leaving Tehran heavily dependent on gasoline imports. The country's blustery president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is fully aware that this is Iran's Achilles' heel and worries that a comprehensive gasoline embargo could cause enough social unrest to undermine his regime.
So Ahmadinejad has launched an energy-independence program designed to shift Iran's transportation system from gasoline to natural gas, which Iran has plenty of. 'If we can change our automobiles' fuel from gasoline to [natural] gas during the next three-four years,' he said last July, 'we won't need gasoline anymore.' His plan includes a mandate for domestic automakers to make 'dual-fuel' cars that can run on both gasoline and natural gas, a crash program to convert used vehicles to run on natural gas and a program to convert Iranian gas stations to serve both kinds of fuel. According to the International Association of Natural Gas Vehicles, more than 100 conversion centers have been built throughout the country: Iranians can drive in with their gasoline-only cars, pay a subsidized fee equivalent to $50 and collect their newly dual-fuelled cars several hours later. Ahmadinejad's plan, which has been largely ignored by the West, means that within five years or so, Iran could be virtually immune to international sanctions. So we someone should bomb the refineries sooner, rather than later. The refinery needs to have an unfortunate accident ...
While Iran is moving quickly toward energy independence, Brazil is already there. It's a striking turnaround; three decades ago, the country imported 80 percent of its oil supply. But since the 1973 Arab oil embargo, the Brazilians have invested massively in their sugar-based ethanol industry and created a fleet of vehicles that can run on the resulting fuel. According to the Sugar Cane Industry Union (Unica), 90 percent of the new cars sold this year in Brazil will be flexible-fuel vehicles that cost an extra $100 to make but can run on any combination of gasoline and ethanol.
Lest anyone think that can't be done in the United States, many of those new cars are made by General Motors and Ford. All it really takes to turn a regular car into a flex-fuel one is a fuel sensor and a corrosion-resistant fuel line.
Discovering how to make hydrocarbons and carbohydrates happily cohabit in the same fuel tank isn't all that Brazil has done; it has also increased domestic oil production. But we don't need to do that, sez the author.
Its efforts have not only broken the yoke of Brazil's oil dependence but also insulated the country's economy from the pain of the current spike in global oil prices. Gasoline prices have nearly doubled elsewhere since 2005, but in Brazil, they have been almost frozen. This year, more ethanol will be sold in Brazil than gasoline. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? So it's Brazil's fault there's no corn for people?
Like Brazil, China has decided to replace gasoline with alternative fuels. But unlike the United States and Brazil, where the favorite substitute is ethanol, China has embraced a different alcohol: methanol. Several provinces in China already blend their gasoline with methanol, a clear, colorless liquid also known as wood alcohol, and scores of methanol plants are currently under construction there. The Chinese auto industry has already begun to produce flex-fuel models that can run on methanol. Shanxi, a province in central China that produces much of the country's coal, has even issued stickers granting cars that use pure methanol free passage on the province's toll roads. How Capitalistic!
The distinction between methanol and ethanol is just one letter (but then, so is the difference between Iran and Iraq). Both biofuels should be in our basket of options. True, ethanol packs more energy per gallon and is less corrosive than methanol. But methanol is cheaper and far easier to produce in bulk. While ethanol can be made only from agricultural products such as corn and sugar cane, methanol can be made from natural gas, coal, industrial garbage and even recycled carbon dioxide captured from power stations' smokestacks -- an elegant way if expensive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Israel offers a fourth testament to what leadership, ingenuity and audacity can achieve. Last year, it launched an electric-car venture designed to turn Israel -- which obviously has some tensions with the region's big oil producers -- into an oil-free economy. Israelis will soon be able to replace their gasoline-fueled cars with battery-operated ones, which they'll plug into the hundreds of thousands of recharging points planned to be erected throughout the country. Israeli motorists, the government hopes, will be able to swap their batteries in a matter of minutes at dedicated stations or recharge them at home or at work. 'Oil is the greatest problem of all time -- the great polluter and promoter of terror,' said Israeli President Shimon Peres, the project's political patron. 'We should get rid of it.'
For each of the four countries, knocking oil off its pedestal is no longer a theoretical proposition but a reality in the making. But despite the lip service our own politicians pay to the need to reduce our oil dependence, none of the solutions offered by Iran, Brazil, China and Israel are even under consideration in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Just go down the list. Natural-gas vehicles are nowhere to be seen. Brazilian sugar-cane ethanol is barred from the country by a steep 54-cent-per-gallon import tariff, courtesy of ethanol protectionists and their representatives in Congress. (No tariff is imposed on imported oil, of course.) For similar reasons, flex-fuel cars sold in the United States are certified to run only on ethanol, keeping methanol and other viable biofuels off the market -- even though they are cheaper and can be made from a wealth of dirty, nasty, dangerous, CO2-producing coal and biomass resources. The kind of electric cars deployed in Israel have never returned to U.S. showrooms since General Motors' mass crushing of its EV1 -- the subject of the documentary 'Who Killed the Electric Car?'
It's time to get serious. Policies such as 'drill more' and 'drive smaller cars' all keep us running on petroleum. At best, they buy us a few more years of complacency, while ensuring a much worse dependence down the road when America's conventional oil reserves are even more depleted -- whether or not we drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Too bad they have to be selective in their policies of 'many parts to the solution'.
The hard truth is that real energy independence can be achieved only through fuel choice and competition.
So let's remember the old saying: When in a hole, stop digging. If every new car sold in the United States were a flex-fuel vehicle and if millions of Americans could plug in their electric cars, gasoline would be facing fierce competition at the pump and the socket. Moreover, our money would have migrated from Exxon to Pepco, from the Middle East to the Midwest -- as well as to scores of poor, biomass-producing countries in Africa, Latin America and South Asia, including the few countries that don't yet hate our guts. This, and no other, is the road to independence.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/06/2008 07:20 ||
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#1
Soory, wrong category. Would some kind soul please clean up my mess?
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/06/2008 7:37 Comments ||
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#2
Brazilian sugar-cane ethanol is barred from the country by a steep 54-cent-per-gallon import tariff, courtesy of ethanol protectionists
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.
When the founding fathers declared our independence, they could not have imagined that, 232 years later, the United States would be so spectacularly dependent on foreign countries. 
