June 2007 Archives
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Africa [HEART] America!
Filed under: Africa
The Associated Press reports:
As first lady Laura Bush tours the world's poorest continent, a new report charting global attitudes shows America's image sagging around the globe - but not in Africa, where the Stars and Stripes still symbolize strength and wealth. In fact, America is more popular in several African nations than even in America. "The American society is a model of success that is a dream to Ivorian youth," says Mohamed Diarra, a 30-year-old in Ivory Coast, where some 88 percent of the population holds a favorable view of the United States - the highest in the world according to Pew Global Attitudes report. Ivory Coast, Ghana and Kenya hold America in higher regard than the fourth-highest national admirer of America: The United States itself, where about 80 percent of respondents held a favorable view of the country.
This is a real eye-opener for the Americaphobes. Not only is the myth of American arrogance dispelled (Americans aren't the country that loves America most) but so is the myth of America being hated by the third world it supposedly exploits. First Albania, now Africa . . .
Click through the link to read the rest of the wonderful news!
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redditObamagate?
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Ordinarily Publius Pundit would not concern itself with workaday scandals in the presidential election campaigns, but this one bears mention because it involves the blogosphere. The Techpresident blog reports that Barack Obama may have been given preferential treatment by the powerful Facebook website when it launched a new operating platform. Techpresident states:
When Platform launched, Obama was the only candidate with an application. Why didn't John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Ron Paul, or anyone else get in on the possibility of reaching 20 million or more Facebook users and potential voters? Almost all of the candidates have Facebook profiles, MySpace pages, and YouTube channels, yet Obama was the only candidate with an application on Platform's opening day. While these applications aren't that difficult to make and might take about eight hours to build, they aren't something a coder puts together in an afternoon. This means that they had knowledge of Platform before it launched and had been given access to Facebook's API in time to build an application, yet it's clear from our reporting that the other campaigns weren't contacted. Why wouldn't Facebook offer this opportunity to all of the campaigns?
Click through to read the excellent extended analysis by Techpresident.
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditFeel Free to Comment
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Unfortunately, over the past few days Publius Pundit experienced some technical difficulties related to SPAM which created obstacles to commenting. We believe we have now resolved these problems and comments can now be posted efficiently; please note, however, that now you need to enter the word "publius" into the special box below the comment field as an anti-SPAM measure. We apologize for any inconvenience and continue to welcome all views in the comments section of our posts. We also encourage anyone interested in writing at greater length to submit an article for publication consideration using the contact information it the sidebar.
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditIs TV Political Analysis Biased? Cast your vote now!
Filed under: Media
If you turn on your TV this Sunday morning in New York City, the nation's leading media marketplace, you'll be offered a range of choices in political analysis from the four major networks. You'll get (1) "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos from ABC, (2) "News Sunday" with Chris Wallace from FOX, the eponymous pair (3) "Chris Matthews" and (4) "McLauglhin Group" as well as (5) "Meet the Press" with Tim Russert from NBC and finally (6) "Face the Nation" with Bob Shieffer on CBS. Matthews and McLaughlin each have half-hour programs, the others have a full hour.
Three of the six hosts -- Matthews, Stephanopoulos and Russert -- are former operatives of the Democratic Party. Matthews was a speech writer for Jimmy Carter, Stephanopoulos was a campaign manager and adviser to Bill Clinton and Russert was a lawyer for the Democrats in the Senate as well as an advisor to Mario Cuomo. John McLaughlin, the only counterpart with Republican credentials, was a speechwriter for Richard Nixon and a writer for the conservative National Review magazine. Schieffer and Wallace are career journalists with no prior service for a party in their backgrounds. So only one of the six hosts is Republican functionary whilst three are Democrats (and those three control 2.5 of the 5 total hours of programming, fully half the time available, whilst the Republicans own just 0.5 hours of that time -- five times less than the Democrats have). Conservative viewers might find that disturbing. What's more, in a wider study of journalists, MSNBC reported that it had "identified 143 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 16 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties." Those are overwhelming numbers, and very disturbing to conservative viewers.
On the other hand, the Media Matters think tank studied the guests hosted by major network Sunday shows and found that they tended to over-represent conservatism compared to liberalism. So it could be that crafty conservative networks are using left-wing hosts to conceal a conservative agenda, or it might be that devious left-wing networks are using right-wing guests to conceal a liberal agenda. Then again, maybe the idea of bias is all in our imagination.
Whether TV news analysis is biased or not is a question of interest to Publius Pundit, since it determines the quality of information about emerging democracies and dictatorships that the public will receive. What do you think? We'd like to know! (Your thoughts in the comment section are also most welcome). del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditUnrest in Iran over Fuel Rationing
Filed under: Iran
“Toop, Tank, Feshfesheh, Ahmadinejad Koshteh Sheh”. “Guns, fireworks, tanks, Ahmadinejad should be killed”. This is the slogan shouted by dozens and dozens of exasperated Iranians, during a violent protest against fuel rationing. Of all Persian Gulf countries, Iran is one of the leading producers and exporters of oil.
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditChavez touring Russia, Iran and Belarus
Filed under: Venezuela
Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez started a six-day tour of Russia, Belarus and Iran during which he plans to discuss the possibility of buying weapons.
"Russia and Venezuela remain strategic partners in the energy sector, and this visit should serve to strengthen this cooperation," Chavez said at the opening ceremony of the Simon Bolivar Cultural Center in Moscow today. "Lukoil is already in Venezuela, and Mr. Bush doesn't like it," Chavez said.
Venezuela has already purchased some US$ 3 billion worth of arms from Russia, including 53 military helicopters, 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles, 24 SU-30 Sukhoi fighter jets and other weapons.
In Belarus, the Venezuelan leader will probably discuss a plan to buy an air defense system equipped with radar and antiaircraft missiles.
Chavez then travels to Tehran for talks aimed at further deepening his ties with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is one of Venezuela's closest allies outside Latin America. Chavez dismissed speculation that he would sign an agreement with Iran to develop nuclear weapons.
"We don't need an atomic bomb, because we already have one: it is called the Venezuelan people,'' he said in a televised speech to thousands of supporters at a political rally in Caracas. "That has the force of 100 atomic bombs." (Reuters, APF )
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditWhich Would YOU Prefer?
Filed under: Middle East ~ Russia
You know how those moonbat left-wingers have been urging us to close down the GITMO prison camp and extend lots of wonderful civil liberties to the pack of crazed terrorists housed there that wish to murder us in our beds? Well, now they've got something new to consider.
Hours ago, Russian special forces assasinated Ruslan Odizhev, a releasee from GITMO who the Russian government views as "extremist." Reuters reports:
Odizhev, born in 1973, was included in a report earlier this year by the New York-based Human Rights Watch on the alleged abuse in Russia of seven former inmates of the Guantanamo Bay prison after Washington handed them back to Moscow in 2004. The FSB had placed Odizhev on its wanted listed in 2005 for allegedly helping to organize a raid by Islamic rebels on Nalchik when more than 100 people died.
Now you tell us, dear reader, is Mr. Odizhev better off with his freedom in Russia or without it at GITMO? Which position would you prefer to occupy? And when will the left choose to expend as much energy criticizing what the Russians have done as they did attacking George Bush?
As is so often the case, things are far from being as simple as the moonbat left-wingers would like to have us believe!
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditTony Blair to become new Middle East peace envoy
Filed under: Middle East
The outgoing British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, will be moving to Jerusalem to become the special envoy to the Middle East for the ‘International Quartet'. Representatives from the diplomatic grouping of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations agreed on the appointment at a meeting in Jerusalem on Tuesday. The post of special envoy had been vacant for more than a year.
"I think that anybody who cares about greater peace and stability in the world knows that a lasting and enduring resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian issue is essential," Blair said. "I have said on many occasions, I would do whatever I could to help such a resolution come about."
Blair's new post will be based in Jerusalem, with a potential second office in the West Bank. A major part of his job will be working with the Palestinians on security, economics and governance.
On Wednesday, the newly selected UK Labour Party leader, Gordon Brown, will succeed Blair as Prime Minister.
World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder welcomed the appointment of Blair. "I have found him extremely fair and he would make a wonderful envoy," Lauder told a press conference in Brussels.
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditIran is Running out of Gas!
Filed under: Iran
MSNBC reports: "Angry Iranian motorists lined up for gasoline for hours on Wednesday after the world's fourth-largest oil exporter imposed fuel rationing, sparking chaotic scenes and the torching of at least two pump stations. One Iranian news agency, Fars, said 12 gasoline stations were set ablaze in Tehran after the government's announcement late on Tuesday, but only two could be independently confirmed [one shown above]. Seeking to rein in soaring consumption and costly imports, the government on May 22 raised the liter price by 25 percent to 1,000 rials (11 U.S. cents) but rationing was delayed."
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditMerkel: The Mother of All Protest Babes?
Filed under: Europe ~ Protest Babes
The BBC reports that the above image "appears on the cover of the Polish weekly Wprost, and is titled 'Stepmother of Europe'" and that "a Polish council overseeing ethics in the media said the montage overstepped 'the limits of good taste.' The mocked up image shows Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski and his twin brother, President Lech Kaczynski, nuzzling at [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel's chest." The Beeb explains the background thusly:
Ahead of the Brussels summit Poland demanded a boost to its EU voting rights at Germany's expense and threatened to refuse to sign up to a new EU treaty because it would give bigger countries such as Germany too much decision-making power. Poland eventually persuaded Ms Merkel, whose country oversaw the summit as the current EU president, to insert a clause into the treaty postponing the introduction of the voting system until 2014. In arguing for an extension of the vote system the Polish Prime Minister raised Poland's World War II suffering under Nazi Germany. And a day after Berlin said it wanted to heal the tensions exposed during the summit, Jaroslaw Kaczynski told Polish public radio "something very negative" is happening in Germany. He went on to compare modern-day Germany to the Nazi era of the 1930s but said Europeans did not dare speak out. "Like in an era which has already passed, the large majority of Europeans didn't have the courage to talk about it, it is the same today," Mr Kaczynski said.
It seems Europe is just one big happy family after all! And there's obviously much Americans have to learn from them as far as cultural sophistication and savoir faire are concerned.
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditNew Kurdish party in Iraq
Filed under: Middle East
Former minister Arshad Zebari has established a new political party called Freedom and Justice Party.
Zebari opposes the group leaded by Jalal Talabani (Iraq's President) and Massoud Barzani - Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) leader. He accused them of stealing "the will and options of the Kurdish people, seized their national will by force, spread corruption and embezzlement in Irbil, Al-Sulaymaniyah, and Duhuk and encroached on Arab provinces and governorates such as Mosul, Kirkuk, and Diyala, causing a sedition and war between the Kurds and their fellow Arabs, Turkomen, Christians, and Yezidis in a frantic attempt to divide Iraq and ignite fights between Iraqis." (article published by Al Quds Al Arabi, UK, 25 June 2007)
He further suggested that these leaders are eager to sell everything, including the Kurdish cause as long as they get fat paychecks from Iran, US or Israel. Is this the beginning of an internal tribal kind of strife among Kurds?
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditA year later - Gilad Shalit is still captive
Filed under: Middle East
A year ago today, Hamas, the Army of Islam and the Popular Resistance Committees kidnapped Cpl Gilad Shalit. It was one of the most successful Hamas&Al Qaeda actions against Israel.
Ever since 1948 radical Palestinians and Muslim Arabs do what they most enjoy: undermine the signed agreements with Israel, send as many suicide bombers as possible (and here gender is irrelevant) attack Israeli towns and villages with Qassams, smuggle weapons and kidnap Israeli soldiers.
Hamas is no different than Fatah and these two are no different than al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Jemmah Islamyiah, and the list can go on and on. What all want is the destruction of Israel. The only difference is that some terrorist gangs say it out loud, others don't.
The Media Line reported that "New reports in Israeli media say the missing soldier is being kept in a room beneath a highly fortified building in Gaza that is booby-trapped. An Israeli television channel reported that Shalit is in a two-room suite 15 meters below the surface and accessed by a ladder lined with explosives. The channel's sources – said to be Hamas – claim Shalit has a "cordial" relationship with his guards who are under orders to treat him fairly"
What do Arabs say about it? They come with new talks initiative! In the end Israel will have to come up with a new security strategy since the present one is clearly not working in its benefit.
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditAussie cleric: We hate Israel!
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What brings Sunni and Shiias together? Take a guess. If Israel is your answer you're right.
Sheikh Kamal Mousselmani -- head of the Supreme Islamic Shia Council of Australia announced this new alliance, its support for Hezbollah and hate towards Israel.
For more about Islamists in Australia read here and here.
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditMansour Dadallah: Osama Bin Laden is Alive and Kicking
Filed under: Central Asia
That may not be true, but it is worrying that the Talibans are still very active despite the NATO troops presence. Not only that but they seem to have enough financial and logistical resources to launch their own radio station.
You can read more about it here.
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditSicko Indeed! You Just Can't Trust the New YorkTimes
Filed under: France
The New York Times becomes more disturbingly unhinged with every passing day. You would think that the recent change of power in the U.S. Congress, a wet dream for the Times for ages now, would at least help them pause and take a breath, but no such luck.
Take, for instance, A. O. Scott's recent review of Michael Moore's latest opus documentary, Sicko. The review begins like this:
It has become a journalistic cliche and therefore an inevitable part of the prerelease discussion of "Sicko" to refer to Michael Moore as a controversial, polarizing figure. While that description is not necessarily wrong, it strikes me as self-fulfilling (since the controversy usually originates in media reports on how controversial Mr. Moore is) and trivial. Any filmmaker, politically outspoken or not, whose work is worth discussing will be argued about. But in Mr. Moore's case the arguments are more often about him than about the subjects of his movies.
It appears not to have occurred to the moonbats at the Times that exactly this same thing could be said about U.S. President George Bush -- but the Times never says it.
The review then goes on to discuss the charming qualities of Moore's "valentine" to the nation of France "where the government will send someone to a new mother's house to do laundry and make carrot soup." Both the Times and Moore are enamoured of the French socialist healthcare system, but neither one of them cares to notice the country's recent presidential elections, well documented here on this blog. In those elections, the landslide winner prevailed by recognizing that French socialism was ruining the country, and that the French needed to modify it in the American direction.
Can you imagine what the Times would have said about a film called "Sicko" directed by Rush Limbaugh and saying about the French what Moore says about America? Apparently, the dichotomy is to be explained by the fact that, in the Times view, it is OK to tell ridiciulous lies (Scott -- what kind of person chooses to refer to himself as "A.O."? -- prefers the phrase "may be overstated") as long as you are doing it for the right reason, but a moral outrage to do it for the wrong reason. And they wonder why their revenues are down!
Meanwhile, it seems, the Times would like to redefine the term "democracy." As the Times would have it, the term will no longer mean giving the people what they want, but rather giving them what wise folks like the Times and Mr. Moore know they need. You know, the way Napoleon did for France.
It's quite true, of course, that if such loathesome drivel as the New York Times constitutes the nation's "paper of record," then we are indeed a "sick" society. And perhaps the solution for us does lie in copying France -- in that country, the New York Times does not exist and, come to think of it, Michael Moore isn't French either, now is he?
UPDATE: Back on May 21st, Publius Pundit reported on the upsurge in torture tactics by the crazed dictatorship in Iran, with numerous photos. Today, the Times finally ran the story with the same photograph, on page one of its website, as if they were telling the world a breaking story. Better late then never, we guess. So much for the "paper of record."It's easy to find examples like this, in every aspect of the Times' "coverage." For instance, on June 24th the Times ran a travel piece on Bali and mentioned its famous restaurant Naughty Nuri's without saying a word about its chief claim to fame, a special Martini that is well-documented in the blogosphere. Instead, the Times hyped a microbrew. It's almost as if the Times is willing the blogosphere out of existence. Its so-called guide to the Russia blogosphere is utterly pathetic, listing only one Russia blog, and it's been a dead link for many months now. The blog's live link hasn't been posted to for more than six months.
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditAnnals of HRC Fraud at the UN
Filed under: United Nations
The Associated Press reports that the UN's sham human rights entity, the 47-member so-called "Human Rights Council" in which the US is only an observer, has "agreed to continue their scrutiny of Israel while halting investigations into Cuba and Belarus." The action immediately drew fire in the U.S. Congress:
An influential Cuban-American member of Congress, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, said she would seek to halt US funding to the council because of the '"hopelessly flawed" rules exempting Cuba and Belarus and targeting Israel. Ros-Lehtinen, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said she plans to offer an amendment to the Foreign Operations Appropriations legislation that is scheduled for a vote later this week by the US House of Representatives. "To its shame, the UN Human Rights Council celebrated its first birthday by giving gifts to Fidel Castro, the authoritarian regime in Belarus and the enemies of the democratic state of Israel,'" she said."The United States cautions that a biased, permanent agenda on the occupied Palestinian territories, and the arbitrary elimination of two vital country mandates, Cuba and Belarus, raise serious questions about the institutional priorities of the Human Rights council," US Ambassador Warren W. Tichenor said.
The very notion that Israel, a vibrant democracy surrounded by fanatical religious dictatorships seeking to hurl it into the sea and the only nation ever formally censored by the HRC, is a bigger threat to human rights than the totalitarian dictatorships in Cuba and Belarus is a crude slur on the intelligence of every person whose tax dollars fund the United Nations. How can the UN possibly claim any moral legitimacy to address human rights issues if it proceeds in this manner? The saddest thing of all is that this salaciously fraudulent enterprise is actually a replacement of another UN group that was so corrupt it had to be abolished.
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditRussia and Belarus: Same Difference?
Filed under: Belarus ~ Europe ~ Russia
In 2002, two years into the "presidency" of Vladimir Putin and three years after he became Prime Minister, Russia had the world's third-highest rate of suicide among teenagers and was one of only four countries in the world with a teenage male suicide rate above 30 per 100,000. Recently, with nearly a decade of rule by Putin under its belt, a study confirmed that (based on 2004 data) Russia and its sister state Belarus are in the top three in the world for overall suicide rate in the general population, with a rate of suicide per 100,000 people three times higher than that in the United States.
Russia also has a divorce rate over 30% higher than that of the United States, placing it in the world's top three in that category as well -- once again right next to sister state Belarus. The Russian divorce rate isn't surprising if you know that Russia's rate of domestic violence is also stratospheric, with one Russian woman being murdered by her husband every 40 minutes for an average of 14,000 such killings per year -- whereas in the United States, with twice the population Russia has, the figure is only 1,200 per year. This means Russia's rate of spousal homicide is nearly 30 times greater than America's, and makes it suprising that Russia's rate of divorce isn't even higher. The explanation may be that it's somewhat difficult to file for divorce when you are six feet under.
Many might find it surprising that Russia is keeping company with lowly Belarus in these categories. After all, isn't Belarus a Byzantine quagmire governed by a madman, whilst Russia is a surging economic dynamo governed by a beloved patriot? But of course, the image that Russia is really different from Belarus is sheer poppycock. If the people of Russia really loved their leader to the tune of 80% as public opinion polls claim, would they be killing themselves in droves and beating their wives to death with blunt instruments? It seems unlikely. And how could they love a leader who presides over the net loss of up to a million Russians from the population every year and an average wage of $3 per hour? What's far more likely is that the propaganda machine operated by the proud KGB spy who rules Russia is more effective, being financed by oil revenues Belarus doesn't enjoy, and creates a better illusion. And that's perhaps the most disturbing Russian reality of all.
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditDevelopment boom in the Gulf
Filed under: Middle East
For the second time this year, Emirates the Dubai-based international airline, placed order for eight additional Airbus A380s, bringing to 55 its total order of this advanced double-decker aircraft.
"Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, Chairman and Chief Executive, Emirates Airline and Group, signed the Letter of Intent with Airbus President and CEO Louis Gallois, at the Paris Air Show. The deal is worth an estimated US$2.6 billion in list prices."
Also the real estate industry is booming in the Arab Gulf states. For more read here and here.
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditRussia is New Jersey
Filed under: Russia
The Opinion Mill blog posts a provocative map which renames the American states according to the countries whose GDP they match. Under this analysis, Russia is New Jersey. To see a larger version of the map, click here.
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditIs Russia Supplying Attack Aircraft to Syria?
Filed under: Europe ~ Middle East ~ Russia
The Jerusulem Post reports:
Russia has started delivery of top-of-the-line fighter jets to Syria under a new deal estimated to be worth US$1 billion, a newspaper said Tuesday -- but the report was quickly denied by the state arms trader. The business daily Kommersant said that Russia had begun delivering five MiG-31E jets under a deal apparently negotiated during Syrian President Bashar Assad's trip to Moscow last autumn. Commenting on the report, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said in a statement that "all of Russia's deals in the sphere of military-technical cooperation comply with international law and Russia's obligations under various treaties and United Nations resolutions." He would not elaborate. But Sergei Chemezov, head of state arms-trading monopoly Rosoboronexport, flatly denied the Kommersant report. "Russia has no plans to deliver fighter jets to Syria and Iran," Chemezov said at a Paris air show, according to the Interfax news agency. Russia has shrugged off US and Israeli criticism of its previous weapons deals with Syria and Iran, saying the deals complied with international law.
The photo above, taken from the Kommersant story linked to in the quote, is captioned: "In Syria, even children love Russian military hardware, and they have ever since the Soviet MiG-17 (in the photo) took part in the 1973 war against Israel."
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditBush in Albania: Can you feel the love tonight?
Filed under: Europe
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditPooty-Poot Wants his Mommy
Filed under: Russia
It was not a great week for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. First the G-8 gathering in Germany piled on the criticism of his anti-democratic moves, then not only did the U.S. reject his proposal to place its missile defense system in Azerbaijan but Iran immediately stabbed him the back, announcing that it viewed the system as a threat to its security and claiming the Kremlin had already backed down on the installation. And then, showing clearly that Russian can be brought to heel with a sharp rap on the nose, Captain's Quarters reported that the second phase of Russia's response to the Bush plan to install defensive missile systems in Eastern Europe also blew up in Putin's face, and he immediately backed down again:
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditSyria's terror goes unhindered
Filed under: Middle East
Future Party parliamentarian Walid Eido was killed yesterday together with his son, bodyguards and few by standers by a car bomb. The assassination took place in Manara district located alongside Beirut's Corniche. One of NBN news anchor did not notice that the microphone is still on and made some shocking comments: "What took them so long to kill him?" (referring to Eido) she asked her co-worker. She also said "I wonder if Ahmad Fatfat is next" and "We have had enough of them." (referring to Siniora's anti-Syria government)
*NBN fired the woman and her co-worker and apologized for the mistake. Actually NBN merely apologized that the mic was on.
These terrorist attacks are designed to further destabilize the state. Syria is maneuvering on two fronts: 1) in Beirut it continues to target prominent anti-Syrian politicians, journalists and activists
2) outside the capital it uses Palestinian terror groups such as Fatah al Islam, al Qaeda affiliated cells etc In this respect Nahr el Bared is an example. In each refugee camp are literally more than dozen of terror sunni groups (small operative cells affiliated with Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and groups like Esbat al-Ansar, Lebanese Jund as-Sham which means - Soldiers of Syria -- being based in Ein el Hilwe etc) - for the right price some may and few already did help the Syrians. After all they have nothing to lose.
You will find more about the math behind the assassinations here.
Meanwhile the Lebanese army does a wonderful job fighting Fatah al Islam at Nahr el Bared.
Such acts profoundly divides an already split society on sectarian, religious and ethnic lines.
We will have to wait for the International Tribunal to do some justice, but till then the country might slip into chaos. Middle East politics are impossible to predict, but the situation in Lebanon looks grim.
*NBN is Nabih Berri's TV station. Nabih Berri is Speaker of Parliament, Amal's leader and one of Syria's closest allies in Lebanon. Amal is part of the 8 March movement alongside Hezbollah, Free Patriotic Movement, the Syrian Social Nationalist party, Marada, etc)
**Naharnet too provides a translation of the incident -- read it here
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditAuf Wiedersehen Fatah
Filed under: Middle East ~ Palestine
The news continues to filter in as the triumph of Hamas in the Gaza strip becomes apparent, culminating with the Palestinian government being dissolved by President Mahmoud Abbas this past hour. Fatah is running with its tail between its legs (quite literally -- 40 Executive Force soldiers loyal to Abbas had to blow up a section of the Israeli-constructed Gaza-Egyptian wall to escape Hamas), much to the dismay of the Western governments who trumpeted Abbas as the heralded moderate in post-Arafat Palestine. It seems his time is dwindling as a serious power broker in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict or in Palestinian internal affairs (the tally for Abbas brokered cease-fires to be ignored the next day is in the teens).
The casual observer will be quick to judge on lines of the media created zero-sum game between Islamist Hamas and Moderate Fatah (capitalized due to caricatures). While the adjectives may be comfortingly simple, the reality has always been faith-based militants with a panache for service and charity against white mustaches primarily interested in diverting funds to Swiss bank accounts and sending their children to Paris. While Hamas isn't nearly as popular as reported, Hamas has created a following extremely devoted to their principles, while Fatah generated support primarily by bullying and defacto generational transposition.
While Fatah was birthed out of the loins of the pan-Arab, Nassir-led movement, it was reared by the slimy hands of Yassir Arafat, who personally siphoned off over one billion dollars of international aid and lined the pockets of those around him. Arafat's malignant spirit still casts a dark shadow over a group that has continued to mimic his policies of graft and kleptocracy. While the money laundering continued, Fatah sunk in a cesspool of its own political bankruptcy, leading to the dismal showing in the 2006 parliamentary elections that may be regarded in the future as the institutional revolution of Hamas.
In the short run, the collapse of the Palestinian government and the split between a Fatah dominated West Bank and a Hamas dominated Gaza will be disastrous. But in the long term, this may speed up the precipitous decline of Fatah, a shell of a party that long ago abandoned its platform of secular socialism in favor of an unhealthy dose of bureaucracy and corruption. The only hope can be that a true moderate party, more responsive to the Palestinian people, will arise during the slow bleed of Fatah's death.
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditDid somebody say "Lusitania"?
Filed under: Russia ~ Venezuela
The International Herald Tribune reports this morning that:
Russia is planning to sell at least five diesel submarines to Venezuela, a newspaper reported Thursday -- a deal that would be certain to anger Washington and further strain already chilly U.S.-Russian relations. The business daily Kommersant said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was expected to sign the deal during a trip to Moscow starting June 29. It said that the initial contract would envisage the delivery of five Project 636 Kilo-class diesel submarines, and that Russia could also supply four state-of-the-art Project 677 Amur submarines later. A spokesman for the state arms-trading monopoly, Rosoboronexport, refused to comment on the report.
The response from the Bush administration appears to be a truly devastating one, echoing the Cuban missile crisis. Perhaps we're going too far, but it's clear we've just got to put forth an appropriately strong message to them Rooskies. So yes, you guessed it . . . we're sending in the Kwanster
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditComes a Humanitarian
Filed under: Russia
If somebody had told you twenty years ago that within five years the mighty USSR would collapse like a house of cards and the cold war would end, you probably would have laughed at them.
Suppose they'd then told you that less than a decade after the collapse, the people of Russia would freely elect a proud KGB spy as their second-ever president, and sit idly by whilst he (1) assumed control over the national media, (2) abolished local elections and elections to the upper house of parliament, (3) jailed his leading rival (in Siberia, no less) and quite possibly (4) blew up a couple of apartment buildings full of innocent people to justify war in Chechnya and ordered contract hits on a series of public critics of his regime. Probably, you would have called for the men in white coats, wouldn't you?
And what if they then told you that right after all that happened Russia's most famous living dissident, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who spent time in the GULAG and was then exiled for daring to criticize the murderous regime of Josef Stalin (who killed at least as many Russians as Hitler), would happily accept a prize for "humanitarian activity" from that very KGB spy, having earlier invited him over for a spot of tea and posing for photo op (as shown above) and not saying a single word about the creeping return of a Stalinesque regime, but only: "Our bitter national experience can yet help us in a possible repeat of unstable social conditions. It will forewarn and protect us from destructive breakdowns." In other words: Don't worry, be happy! That "humanitarian activity" for which he was rewarded by the KGB spy? In the words of the Washington Post, it was having "praised Putin for working to restore a strong state and echoed the president's accusations of Western encroachment."
What would you have said then? Maybe you'd have thought about that movie "Bridge on the River Kwai" and the scene at the end when the British officer, played by Alec Guinness, suddenly realizes he's spent the whole movie helping the Japanese to win World War II. Maybe you'd think, gee, I bet that sometime right before he kicks the neo-Soviet bucket Solzhenitsyn is going to have a look on his face just like that British officer had just before he got shot and fell on the dynamite plunger by accident.
Well, he will if there's any justice in the world, anyway.
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