December 2007 Archives

2008 Perspective: America, Resurgent

Filed under: US Elections

Publius Pundit wants to wish all its readers a prosperous, safe and very happy New Year!

O beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain.
America, America, God shed his Grace on thee,
And crowned thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea!

In the December issue of Commentary magazine, Peter Wehner, until recently the director of the White House office of strategic initiatives and currently senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., and Yuval Levin, a fellow at Center, offered up an early Christmas present to America. Confounding the nutroot naysayers, Wehner & Levin showed that across a wide spectrum of social indicators, America is making breathtaking progress:

Crime, especially, has plummeted. According to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), the rates of both violent crime and property crime fell significantly between 1993 and 2005, reaching their lowest levels since 1973 (the first year for which such data are available). More recent figures from the FBI, which measures crime differently from the NCVS, show an unfortunate uptick in violent crime in the last two years -- particularly in cities like Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. Even so, however, the overall rate remains far below that of the mid-1990's.
Teenage drug use, which moved relentlessly upward throughout the 1990's, declined thereafter by an impressive 23 percent, and for a number of specific drugs it has fallen still lower. Thus, the use of ecstasy and LSD has dropped by over 50 percent, of metham-phetamine by almost as much, and of steroids by over 20 percent.

Then there is welfare. Since the high-water mark of 1994, the national welfare caseload has declined by over 60 percent. Virtually every state in the union has reduced its caseload by at least a third, and some have achieved reductions of over 90 percent. Not only have the numbers of people on welfare plunged, but, in the wake of the 1996 welfare-reform bill, overall poverty, child poverty, black child poverty, and child hunger have all decreased, while employment figures for single mothers have risen.
Abortion, too, is down. After reaching a high of over 1.6 million in 1990, the number of abortions performed annually in the U.S. has dropped to fewer than 1.3 million, a level not seen since the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, which legalized the practice. The divorce rate, meanwhile, is now at its lowest level since 1970.

The moonbat America-haters were left with only two responses to these devastating facts: lies and suppression. Neither worked.

The nation's Moonbat of Record, the New York Times, tried first to hide these facts from their readers. No such luck. It's brilliant conservative columnist David Brooks pointed them out to readers in his column. Stymied, the Times turned to boldfaced lies, reporting in a breathless "news" item that divorce rates were skyrocketing. But speedily to the rescue rode Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers of the Wharton School, who forced the Times to print an op-ed article exposing their fraud. Divorce rates are dramatically down, not up. (Outrageously, the Times neither linked to their news story in the online version of the column nor appended a correction to the news story itself). And by the end of the year, as we recently reported, the Times was announcing the addition of a second right-wing pundit to its stable of columnists.

America, more than any other country that has ever existed, is capable of learning from its mistakes, of reforming and improving, of reinventing itself. More than any other country, it looks forward to the future, and therefore shapes it. If you are lucky enough to be ushering in the New Year in the United States, consider yourself fortunate to be able to gaze upon the brightness of our future prospects. With due diligence on the part of her people, America will remain the world's beacon light of liberty throughout all human time.

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Bursting the Obamaballoon

Filed under: US Elections

CARI.Obama.gif Remember how some of us thought that when the Berlin Wall fell and the USSR collapsed, this meant that the people of Russia would then be able to show their true colors and build a civilized, democratic nation that would not terrorize the planet any longer? It's amazing how naive and just-plain- stupid that attitude seems now, as we watch the people of Russia freely elect a proud KGB spy as their leader and allow him to reestablish an imperials neo-Soviet state, isn't it? When will we ever learn?

Writing in the Washington Post, an Iranian expat named Reza Aslan tries to help us, by brutally bursting the bubble-gum bubble that is Barack Obama. He points to the argument made by such as Andrew Sullivan, Dominique Moisi and the editors of the Boston Globe:

Imagine that a young Muslim boy in, say, Egypt, is watching television when suddenly he sees this black man -- the grandson of a Kenyan Muslim, no less! -- who spent a small part of his childhood in Indonesia, taking the oath of office as president of the United States. Suddenly, the boy realizes that the United States is not the demonic, anti-Islamic place he's always been told it was. Meanwhile, all around the Muslim world, other young would-be jihadists have a similar epiphany. "Maybe Osama bin Laden is wrong," they think. "Maybe America is not so bad after all."

The possibility that this little Muslim boy will do exactly what Osama bin Laden would do, namely to attack all those supporting Obama in the U.S. as traitors, just as he attacks all the Muslims who support the U.S. in Iraq, and redouble his efforts to destroy us, seems not to occur to any of these brilliant pontificators.

Aslan states that he knows differently, from his own personal life experience:

As someone who once was that young Muslim boy everyone seems to be imagining (albeit in Iran rather than Egypt), I'll let you in on a secret: He could not care less who the president of the United States is. He is totally unconcerned with whatever barriers a black (or female, for that matter) president would be breaking. He couldn't name three U.S. presidents if he tried. He cares only about one thing: what the United States will do.

In other words, if Obama intends to sell out to Osama and bring U.S. policy into line with Al Quaeda's agenda, then sure, Osama will love him and call off his jihadists. But he'd do exactly the same thing right now if George Bush were willing to be so obliging. Otherwise, imagining that "new face" is going to change anything is wildly patronizing to the Islamic fanatics, exactly the type of insult that electing Obama is meant to supposedly cure. Ironic, isn't it? Of course, maybe accommodating America's enemies is exactly what the left-wing editors of the Boston Globe want. But that's an issue for another day.

It seems that the sages don't recall history very well, either. Aslan does, though:

When the idealistic Democrat came to Iran in 1977 to ring in the new year with Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the country's much-despised despot, throngs of young, hopeful Iranians lined the streets to welcome the new American president. After eight years of the Nixon and Ford administrations' blind support for the shah's brutal regime, Iranians thrilled to Carter's promise to re-brand America's image abroad by focusing on human rights. That call even let many moderate, middle-class Iranians dare to hope that they might ward off the popular revolution everyone knew was coming. But at that historic New Year's dinner, Carter surprised everyone. In a shocking display of ignorance about the precarious political situation in Iran, he toasted the shah for transforming the country into "an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world." With those words, Carter unwittingly lit the match of revolution.

The next thing you knew, our embassy staff in Tehran was being held hostage. So much for all the good will flowing from America's "new face."

Aslan castigates the Boston Globe for its childish assessment:

In their glowing endorsement of Obama, the editors of the Boston Globe noted that "the first American president of the 21st century has not appreciated the intricate realities of our age. The next president must." True enough. But such "intricate realities" are not best dealt with through "an intuitive grasp of global politics" -- Obama's chief asset, according to the Globe -- but through an intimate knowledge of those realities and of the nuanced responses necessary to address them. Obama may possess all the intuition of a fortuneteller. But as chair of a Senate subcommittee on Europe, he has never made an official trip to Western Europe (except a one-day stopover in London in August 2005) or held a single policy hearing. He's never faced off with foreign leaders and has no idea what a delicate sparring match diplomacy in the Middle East can be. And at a time in which the United States has gone from sole superpower to global pariah in a mere seven years, these things matter.

If we can't get over our silly idea that a single magical event will solve all our problems, then those who operate without any such illusions -- like Vladimir Putin and Osama bin Laden -- will continue to victimize us.

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The New York Times Raises the White Flag

Filed under: US Elections

Ding-dong, the witch is comatose.

Ravaged by a plummeting stock price and circulation, brought on by egregious errors in turn caused by its crazed ideological blindness, the New York Times appears to have raised the White Flag of surrender.

It has agreed to have not one but two right-wing columnists and hired -- of all people -- William Kristol of the Weekly Standard to fill the second spot. As the Times notes: "In a 2003 column on the turmoil within The Times that led to the downfall of the top two editors, he wrote that it was not 'a first-rate newspaper of record,' adding, 'The Times is irredeemable.'"

First, owing to the Jayson Blair apocalypse, the Times was forced to appoint an Ombudsman, and now this. These are the wages of left-wing fanaticism -- ignominious failure and humiliation. But who knows? If the Times continues down this road, it might once again entitle itself to the nation's respect.

For anyone willing to bet it's intelligent enough to do so (and to let Kristol write what he really thinks about the Times in its own pages), there's a bridge in Brooklyn I'm offering cheap . . .

Predictably, the moonbats and nutroots are going ape. If you can believe it, they're actually complaining that there is "no word on whether the Times will follow Newsweek and 'balance' Kristol with a progressive columnist."

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Vladimir Frolov: Neo-Soviet Propagandist

Filed under: Russia

Vladimir Frolov received his first degree from the Moscow Defense Institute of Foreign Languages and a Ph.D. in political science from the Moscow Diplomatic Academy. He was an operative of the Russian government, working at Russian Embassy in Washington D.C. before serving as the Deputy Staff Director of the State Duma Committee on Foreign Affairs and Counsel to the Deputy Chief of the Presidential Administration for Foreign Policy. If you Google Frolov, one of the top 10 hits you will get will be my blog La Russophobe's previous expose of his outrages, linked to above.

These days, among other things, he continues to be an operative of the Kremlin at its nasty little propaganda blog known as "Russia Profile." Recently in that forum he wrote, reacting with slobbering glee to Time magazine's "Person of the Year" designation of Vladimir Putin:

Putin has a lot to do with Russia's coming back from the cold. The Putin presidency will be remembered for the country's economic resurgence. Since the financial meltdown of 1998, Russia's gross domestic product has grown more than six fold, while incomes have increased by a factor of four in less than 10 years.

There's only one little problem with this statement: Every single word is utterly false.

Not only has there been no such level of economic growth in Russia, but even if there were it would have absolutely nothing to do with with any polices of the Russian dictator.

Michael McFaul (on Slate magazine) and Michael Weiss (on the Pajamas Media blog) have already blown to smithereens the idea that any of Putin's actions helped Russia grow. In fact, to the contrary, McFaul argues that Russia would have grown far more without Putin. So there's not much more to say on that topic except to point out Frolov's flagrant dishonesty (or simply ignorance) in failing to even mention the indisputable points they make.

But that is almost besides the point, because one doesn't reach the question of how much credit (if any) Putin should get for Russian growth until one first determines whether any such growth has in fact occurred. Frolov, as is the Russophile wont, gives no source material for his claims whatsoever. But buried at the bottom of a discussion forum reacting to Frolov's remarks, after the breathless comments of a couple of rabid Russophiles (including a Russian and a non-Russian stock broker who earns his living convincing foreigners to put their money into Russia), Ira Strauss does. He lays bear the fundamentally fraudulent nature of Frolov's claim that Russia in truly devastating critique:

"Since the financial meltdown of 1998, Russia's gross domestic product has grown more than six fold." That would be more than a 20 percent annual growth rate. Yet Russia's annual growth rate claims are less than half that amount. What can explain such a huge discrepancy in Russia's statistical pretensions?

It recalls Mark Twain's saying: "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics."

When misleading claims feed on one another and applause lines abound without correction, one has to wonder why. Putin's Russia has talked a good game. Its media have given an echo effect to its self-applause lines -- an effect the people and regime were accustomed to in Soviet times, conspicuously absent in the Gorbachev-Yeltsin era. Perhaps some people find it helpful as a kind of therapy. Reality is a more painstaking matter.

A week ago in the Wall Street Journal ("Russia by the Numbers," December 17, 2007), Stephen Sestanovic laid out an honest corrective to the nagging falsehoods perpetuated about the Russian economy. For one thing, much of the boasting is based on using purchasing power parity numbers (PPP), which are useful for approximating living standards, but tell nothing about international economic clout. In global trade, Russia remains insignificant except for its oil and gas. For another thing, even in PPP terms, Russian per-capita income under Putin "has gone from somewhat less than a third of the level of France and Italy to somewhat more than a third." Putin used to bemoan that "it would take 15 years of 8 percent economic growth for Russia's per-capita income to equal Portugal's." And today? "With all its growth Russia is gaining ground, but the absolute gap between the two countries is only modestly narrower than when Mr. Putin first compared them -- just over $12,000 then, just under $11,000 now."

There is more change in the boasting and the spin than in the numbers.

The gap between the United States and Russia is, on the other hand, even wider today than it was in 1998.

The really sad thing here, as anyone familiar with Russia knows only too well, is that one can't really be sure whether Frolov is spewing these ridiculous lies because he's evil or because he's stupid. He could just as well be a paid propaganda agent of the Kremlin as an ignorant neo-Soviet cretin, totally brainwashed by the Kremlin's propaganda assault. And it's hard to decide which alternative is the more gloomy harbinger for Russia's future.

On top of all that dishonesty, Frolov doesn't say one single word -- not one word -- about Russia's profligate recent history of human rights abuses, leading for instance to a seemingly endless string of convictions -- including for state-sponsored murder -- by the European Court for Human Rights. So even if Russia had experienced magnificent growth, and even if Putin were personally responsible, that wouldn't necessarily be good for Russia as a country: Stalin and Hitler might have had wonderful balance sheets for a time, but they both destroyed their nations.

And while Frolov blithely labels Putin's foreign policy merely "increasingly assertive" commenter Stephen Blank of the U.S. Army War College explains how bizarre that incantation really is:

Mr. Frolov's characterization of Russian policy achievements is far too rosy a scenario. The sad fact is that while Russia has undoubtedly been more assertive on the world stage, it has also been more obstructionist in its policies. The country ends 2007 perhaps richer, but more self-isolated than before. The deliberate stoking of nationalist, chauvinistic rhetoric warning of enemies at the gates, generated for domestic purposes, is now exacting its cost.

Russia has both created a mutant strain of crypto-fascist racism and xenophobia at home and then provoked a new cold war with a country that has an economy 12 times larger than Russia's (as well as many allies, whilst Russia has none to speak of) abroad. It has, in other words, brought the Soviet Frankenstein back to life -- and Frolov is delighted.

One failure, it seems, is not enough for him. With "friends" like that, Russia needs no enemies.

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Benazir Bhutto, Freedom Fighter, RIP

Filed under: Pakistan

A spokesperson for the al-Qaeda terrorist network has claimed responsibility for the death on Thursday of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto: "We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat [the] mujahadeen," Al-Qaeda's commander and main spokesperson Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid told Adnkronos International (AKI) in a phone call from an unknown location, speaking in faltering English. Al-Yazid is the main al-Qaeda commander in Afghanistan.

They got her! The world must bow its head in shame for not protecting her! Those who disparaged her during her life must crawl away into the dark shadows from which they came. She gave her life for her country. We here highly resolve that she shall not have died in vain! Just look how the malignant forces of dictatorship fear the power of democracy. Their only -- puny, pathetic -- response is violence and murder. They know they cannot win any other way. But their craven actions only redouble and intensify the fervor for freedom, and seal their fate to follow all the other failures from the annals of dictatorship into the dustbin of history.

Slate has a photo essay on her courageous life as well as a diary she wrote for them back a decade ago when she was struggling to find a new path for her country. Michelle Malkin has a rundown on all the news related to the killing, including the furious hatred of some in Pakistan for Bhutto and for democracy and for the United States. She writes: "They tried and failed when she returned to Pakistan in October. They tried and failed with a baby suicide bomber. Yesterday, they stopped a 15-year-old with a bomb packed full of nails trying to kill her. Today, they succeeded. Dammit, dammit, dammit."

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John McCain has Legs: Does he know how to use them?

Filed under: US Elections

CARI.McCain.gif As we've previously reported, despite flying low under the radar John McCain has made impressive strides towards victory in securing all the major newspaper endorsements in the forthcoming Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primaries. Now, he's doing amazingly well on a poll being run by uber-blogger Michelle Malkin. Michelle simply asks whether her readers would vote for McCain if he's the nominee, and "yes" is leading 57% to 43% with over 8,500 votes having been cast. This is remarkable because the poll is part of an article trashing McCain for his stance on immigration, which seems to be a litmus test for Michelle. The poll has actually been drafted to reflect this bias, with three different "no" choices and only two "yes" options. And McCain is still winning! This clearly shows the man has political legs. The question now is, does he know how to use them? In any case, his performance ought to strike fear in to the heart of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, since McCain has forcefully called for Putin's ouster from the G-7. You can cast your vote in Michelle's poll here.

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Free Oleg Kozlovsky!

Filed under: Russia

My latest installment on the Pajamas Media mother blog reviews the Kremlin's use of military conscription to silence Oleg Kozlovsky, a leading opposition political figure whose story I've already mentioned here on Publius. Please check out the article and leave a comment in support of Oleg, a heroic figure struggling against overwhelming odds to defend the last vestiges of democracy in Russia who needs out help desperately. You can find further updates about his status on my blog La Russophobe.

Also of great interest is a new piece on Slate from scholar Michael McFaul which takes Time magazine to task for its outrageous mischaracterization of Vladimir Putin's record in connection with its "Person of the Year" award. Pajamas editor Michael Weiss led the way on this story, but McFaul is an establishment figure whose word will have devastating consequences for Time's prestige. The blogosphere is really kicking MSM's butt on this one big time, and that's not the half of it. I reported some time ago that Time's reporter had made an embarrassingly stupid error regarding Putin's age whilst interviewing him. What even I didn't dare imagine was that Time would attempt to hide this error from its readers when it published the interview, but this turns out to be exactly what they tried. It's truly outrageous, and ought to disqualify Time from any further consideration by serious-minded people, at least where Russia is concerned. As Publius readers know, I took Time to task a few weeks ago on Pajamas for its horrifically biased Russia coverage, and this is now clearly the straw that broke the Russian bear's back.

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The Ugly American: Jack R. Van Ens

Filed under: US Elections

To be fair, if your parents name you Jack Ens, it's pretty much guaranteed you're going to grow up to be a jackass.

Even still, though, Jack R. Van Ens achieved a new low in the annals of American ignorance with a column published on Christmas Day in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Identified weirdly as a "dramatist, historian and author" without any university affiliation (or any other kind of association -- a web page I found says he "portrays Thomas Jefferson for students in grades K-12 so that they may learn Jeffersonian virtues," seems like the Inquirer forgot to mention that and may indeed be somewhat hard up for experts these days), Jack Ass (using the graphic shown above left) opines that current U.S. President George Bush should have been more like his predecessor George Washington, who "negotiated with his military aides" rather than giving them orders. Apparently, if Washington's men didn't feel like fighting that day because it was kinda chilly or they were feeling rumbly in their tum-tums, then good old Grampa George would give them the day off and tuck them in nice and cozy under their blanky-wankies, and make them feel better. That sort of thing. And America was all the better for it, as opposed to being ruled over by George Bush, who "doesn't negotiate [but] forges ahead with his mind made up." It's a pity that Jack Ass doesn't give one single vivid specific example of Washington ever doing something like this, but it's clear we can trust him that it really did happen (because he's a scholar with such clearly defined credentials). Still, it's a pity because it makes it harder to forget that to the extent there was any negotiating it could well have been because the ragtag, underpaid, under-equipped, untrained "army" that Washington commanded might have mutinied at any second if there wasn't, which wouldn't exactly support Jack Ass's point.

Maybe I'm an idealist, but is Christmas Day really the time for partisan bashing of the president? What in the world is in the water over there in Philadelphia, anyway? I thought they were supposed to be the "City of Brotherly Love." Not even on Christmas they're not? Maybe W.C. Fields was on to something. After all, people are fleeing the area in droves; when Kennedy was elected the state of Pennsylvania had 32 electoral votes, but by the time Bush was re-elected they had only 21. In the 2000 census Philadelphia had 1.5 million people; in 1940 it had nearly 2 million. Showing their diversity and love of democracy, 80.44% of the people of Philadelphia voted for Democrat John Kerry in the 2004 election where Republican Bush won a majority of the country's support.

But let's not dwell on that. Instead, let's take Jack Ass on his own terms, and evaluate the substance of his argument fairly. Granted, it's hard to do it without bursting out laughing and rolling on the floor in hysterics. But, let's try. Click the jump to follow along, won't you?

1. Jack Ass says that George Bush should have had more of an open mind in dealing with the Iraq Study Committee. Apparently, he thinks that's what George Washington would have done. This is an odd idea to say the least, and it's highly ironic that it would be set forth in a Pennsylvania paper -- because when George Washington illegally and unconstitutionally used American soldiers to crush the Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania, one of the most hypocritical acts in all of American governance (because the rebels were acting just like Washington did when he refused to be governed by Britain), Washington didn't even meet once with any kind of "Study Committee". Nor did he ask Congress's permission before he used American soldiers to attack other Americans, though Bush did ask for permission before using our forces to attack our enemies by invading Iraq.

2. Jack Ass writes: "When someone crosses the president with an opposing view, Bush digs in his heels, rarely retreating." But isn't this exactly how George Washington reacted when some folks suggested he should give up his slaves, and felt the U.S. Constitution shouldn't be written to allow them to be held?

3. Jack Ass asks: "What happens when Washington's wise listening and negotiation skills are missing?" He answers his own question by stating: "A president then leads unilaterally." Unilaterally? Does he mean "unilaterally" the way George Washington received the votes of every single member of the Electoral College without exception, eerily similar to the type of "mandates" received by the Politburo members in the USSR? Perhaps Jack Ass doesn't know it, but Bush has signed virtually every single piece of legislation that has come out of the Congress during his years in office. He also may not know that Washington bribed voters silly with barrels of grog on election day in order to achieve his magnificent mandates.

4. Jack Ass wonders: "Why didn't Washington strut his military stuff like Napoleon would a few years later? Many colonials would gladly have crowned him their benevolent dictator." Actually, it took more than six years after the Revolutionary War had been won for the people of the United States to decide they even wanted to form a single country, much less that they wanted George Washington in charge of it, so that's one reason this so-called "historian" may have overlooked. It's quite true though, and to George Washington's eternal credit, that he didn't do what "Democratic" president Frankenstein D. Roosevelt did in 1940, seek a third term in office (nor did Washington lie to the country about his physical condition like FDR did, nor did he try to pack the Supreme Court, nor did he build concentration camps and chuck Japanese people into them like FDR). Jack Ass doesn't have a word of criticism for FDR, nor a word of praise for Bush for not being as bad as Frankly D. Rotten.

Jack Ass is quite right, though, in saying that, based on Washington's Sovietlike mandates, he certainly could have done what FDR did, and more (America has a disturbing anti-democratic tendency to elect generals president -- Jackson, Grant, Eisenhower, etc.). Instead, he stepped aside and literally forced America to become a democracy when the door was open for dictatorship. For that alone, to say nothing of his winning a war against the world's only true superpower of the time, Americans rightly worship the ground Washington slept on -- even though it's rather filthy ground indeed.

But Jack Ass is forgetting two things (that is, if he isn't a total moron who never knew them in the first place because he spends all his time dressing up like slave-owner Thomas Jefferson, who only became president because of highly dubious dealings in the House of Representatives and then went on to unconstitutionally buy a third of North America without permission):

First, nothing remotely like 9/11 occurred on Washington's watch. When the Civil War broke out, Abraham Lincoln (who hadn't been elected with a majority of the popular vote) suspended the constitutional right of habeas corpus and played fast and loose with democracy in so many ways that it's hard to understand how he managed to avoid impeachment. Most of all, he unconstitutionally sought to abolish slavery by "proclamation," suggesting that an American president can change the text of the constitution just by deciding it should be so (remember, Washington owned slaves and the founding fathers wrote a constitution that allowed slavery, which is why the constitution had to be amended to abolish the institution after Lincoln was assassinated).* Maybe George Bush has gone too far in seeking to protect America from terrorism. Many people would agree that he has. But for Jack Ass to suggest that Washington would have acted differently is the worst kind of intellectual dishonesty imaginable. There's absolutely no evidence he would have.

And second, George Bush was re-elected in 2004 with a majority of the popular vote. Unlike in Washington's time, women were allowed to vote, and so were black people. People were well familiar with Bush's leadership style, and with the fact that there had not been one single incident of domestic terrorism since 9/11. So, what Jack Ass should have been doing (if anything) was to point his finger not at Bush but at the people of the country, condemning them rather than the president.

But, you see, this cowardly little Jack Ass microbe didn't have the guts for something like that. So, instead, he simply relied on propaganda.

On the whole, I have to say, I wouldn't rather be in Philadelphia.

*Footnote: You can argue if you like that Lincoln was only trying to abolish slavery in the South, not the North, so it wasn't unconstitutional because the South wasn't part of America any more. Except that you can't, because Lincoln said it was, and in fact that was why he was fighting the war, not to free the slaves. Besides that, Lincoln did nothing after the "proclamation" to amend the Constitution to abolish slavery in the North, something that only happened after he'd been killed. So either he was a maniacal racist, and just using slavery as a weapon of war, or else he thought the "proclamation" was enough.

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Boston is the New Vancouver

Filed under: US Elections

I'm always surprised at the superficial manner in which some idiots insist on seeing the devaluation of the U.S. currency. It has many benefits.

Reuters reported earlier this week, for instance, that Boston's film industry is now booming as it steals a huge number of Hollywood features away from such formerly attractive locations as Vancouver, Canada. Boston has cleverly combined an aggressive set of tax incentives with the falling value of the U.S. currency and marketed itself as a far more attractive location space for movies than Canada (it's a much older city with far more character and charm than anything Canada has to offer).

Result? This year's revenues from movie productions are more than double what the state got last year, totally a whopping $125 million in direct investment alone. How many more millions will the state reap when tourists start seeing sexy locations displayed in projects like "The Lonely Maiden" starring Morgan Freeman, Christopher Walken, William H. Macy and Marcia Gay Harden (or Denzel Washington's "The Great Debaters" or the Mick Jagger-produced "The Women" starring Meg Ryan) and flock to check them out?

(Good times are rolling in Boston, as right now they city is dominating both professional basketball and football with their Celtics and Patriots.)

Sure, the falling dollar means Americans can't so easily afford Japanese video games and televisions -- but it also means a strong incentive will be created for Americans to enter fields where previously they have been displaced by foreign competition. Jobs will be created, and American money will stay in American hands

Even as we speak, the government of Russia is locked in a desperate battle with inflation, a beast which threatens to price ordinary people right out of every market in the country -- and one of the reasons is the way Russia's currency has appreciated because of the rising price of crude oil. Russia has to stockpile most of its revenues from oil against the need to buy foreign currency and keep the ruble from fanning the flames of inflation into a conflagration.

So the next time you hear some dolt blabbering about the horror of a falling dollar tell to go to . . . a movie theater (maybe even one in Russia)!

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Merry Christmas, Everyone!

Filed under:

"There were, in the same country, shepherds, abiding in the fields and keeping watch over their flocks by night. And lo! An angel of the Lord appeared before them, and the glory of the Lord shown round about them, and they were sore afraid. But the angel said unto them: 'Fear not! For behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day, in the City of David, a Savior -- tis Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: You will find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger!' Then there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and singing: 'Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace among those with whom He is pleased."

-- The Holy Bible, Luke 2:8

Publius Pundit wishes all our readers a Merry Christmas (and a Happy Hanukka)!

Lebanese partygoers pause for a photo in Beirut. Young Lebanese have flocked home for the holidays regardless of recent unrest.

Dr. Clifton Chadwick points out that "a Group of 138 Sunni, Shiite and Sufi leading Muslim scholars have addressed warm Christmas greetings to Christians around the world, a message notable both for what it said and the fact that it was sent at all. The greetings called for peace on earth and thanked church leaders who have responded positively to their invitation. The message, as the dialogue proposal made in October, was unprecedented because there has not been until now such a large group of Islamic scholars that could draft a common letter. While individual Muslim clerics have exchanged holiday greetings with Christians in the past, nothing on this scale has been possible before. 'Al Salaamu Aleikum, Peace be upon you, Pax Vobiscum,' the greetings letter began in Arabic, English and Latin. The text is available on the group's website A Common Word."

Oh and by the way, did you know Santa Claus has a blog?

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Manuela Paraipan's Postcards from the Front Lines in the MidEast

Filed under: Middle East

Return of the Dark-Eyed Maidens (The Tequila Girls)

Screw political correctness.This is insane. Killing people just to get laid? What kind of a religion is that anyway?!

There is some good news, though. Not all Muslims have been struck blind, deaf and dumb. Read what Hasan Mahmud has to say about Sharia.

Wishful Thinking

President Ahmadinejad explained the philosophy behind the Hajj (pilgrimage): "If we would delete the ultimate objective of establishing a global system from the Hajj rituals, the remainder would be deeds devoid of a soul."

Most figured out by now what the goal is, but its good to keep it in mind.

"Iran is a prosperous country which bridges Asia to Europe and can be a good friend for the ASEAN member states."

"Ahmadinejad told a summit of Gulf heads of state of December 4 that Tehran wants to create an economic bloc and joint security pact with them to promote peace and prosperity in the region. In a televised speech during which he referred to the region as Persian, not Arabian, he warned the Gulf leaders that any security problem in one state would affect all countries. GCC members Saudi Arabia, Oman, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar share Western concerns about Iran's nuclear program and some have maritime border disputes with Iran."

Ahmadinejad: Iran needs 50,000 centrifuges to supply fuel for one year to a power plant. He said that Iran continued industrial production of nuclear fuel in spite of ill-wishers' will and that Iran does not fear UN sanctions.

Stratfor has more on the subject.

"Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei appointed an IRGC committee to restructure Hezbollah's military and intelligence wings. The committee includes top names on the US most wanted terrorists list." Hezbollah said such reports are not true and that Sheikh Nasrallah is still in charge. Between Nasrallah and Naim Qassem, the former is preferable.

"Iran tested a newly-developed ballistic missile on the day of the Annapolis conference. The Ashoura missile has a range of 2,000 kilometers and is capable of reaching Israel, US army bases in the Middle East and eastern European cities. It uses solid fuel instead of liquid fuel, giving it a significantly faster launch sequence which is harder to detect."

Ayatollah Khamenei: "The Iranian nation has named this year as the year of Islamic solidarity. The peerless epic of Hizbollah created in the 33-day war, the prudent resistance of the Iraqi Nation which led to the formation of a parliament and a government not favored by the occupiers, the astonishing patience and perseverance of the legal government of Palestine and its self-sacrificing people and many other signs of the revival of Islam in Muslim countries are all accused of being linked to Iranism or Shi'ism in order to impede the unanimous support of the Muslim world. The future belongs to the Muslim Ummah and each and every one of us may contribute to the nearness of that future proportionate to the amount of responsibility or capability we have."

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THOSE BASTARDS!!! Now, Vladimir Putin's Neo-Soviet Russia is Using the Draft as a Weapon against Dissidents

Filed under: Russia

One of the brightest lights of hope in Russia, such as the benighted country is these days, is a young man named Oleg Kozlovsky, leader of the youth opposition group Oborona ("Defense"). That's Oleg above, being arrested by some of dictator Vladimir Putin's goons during a protest march. Oleg is routinely tailed, bugged and harassed by the Kremlin's secret police and he struggles heroically to organize opposition to the neo-sovietization of Russia. My sources tell me that a few days ago the Kremlin orchestrated getting him fired as the latest act of retaliation for his valiant work. It's worth nothing that Oleg is also a blogger (Russian language).

Now, it's being reported (English language link) that Oleg has been Shanghaied (Russian language link) into the Russian army, infamous for its hazing rituals known as dedovshchina that have led to the deaths of many young military recruits. It's good news in the sense that Oleg now has clear proof that he's getting under the Kremlin's skin, and good news too in that if the world rallies to his cause he can leverage this thuggish action into real power, a pathway to becoming the Russian Mandela.

But immediate action must be taken by Western leaders to block the Kremlin from snuffing out the life of this magnificent Russian hero -- or indeed doing something even worse than killing him (one victim of dedovshchina had to have his genitals amputated). If the West does not act now, the Kremlin will take it as a signal that it can do as it pleases, and all hell will break loose in Russia.

This is the moment of truth.

It's outrageous enough that Russia, a country claiming to be benign and peaceful, is still practicing universal military conscription. But the use of that process selectively as a weapon against dissidents -- in the same way that the Kremlin uses selective enforcement of the tax code to harass businessmen like Mikhail Khodorkovsky -- must not be tolerated by the civilized world. In light of increasingly detailed reports about Vladimir Putin's personal corruption, these actions take on all the aspects of actual barbarism.

Putin's Russia has now crossed the Rubicon. We drive it back, or our children take the consequences. It's that simple.

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Vladimir Putin is Time Magazine's "Man of the Year"

Filed under: Russia

Time Magazine, 1938
Man of the Year: Adolf Hitler

The magazine reported: "What Adolf Hitler & Co. did to Germany in less than six years was applauded wildly and ecstatically by most Germans. He lifted the nation from post-War defeatism. Under the swastika Germany was unified. His was no ordinary dictatorship, but rather one of great energy and magnificent planning. The 'socialist' part of National Socialism might be scoffed at by hard-&-fast Marxists, but the Nazi movement nevertheless had a mass basis. The 1,500 miles of magnificent highways built, schemes for cheap cars and simple workers' benefits, grandiose plans for rebuilding German cities made Germans burst with pride. Germans might eat many substitute foods or wear ersatz clothes but they did eat."

Time Magazine, 2007
Man of the Year: Vladmir Putin

The magazine reported: "When this intense and brooding KGB agent took over as President of Russia in 2000, he found a country on the verge of becoming a failed state. With dauntless persistence, a sharp vision of what Russia should become and a sense that he embodied the spirit of Mother Russia, Putin has put his country back on the map. And he intends to redraw it himself. Though he will step down as Russia's President in March, he will continue to lead his country as its Prime Minister and attempt to transform it into a new kind of nation, beholden to neither East nor West."

Clearly establishing its journalistic brilliance, Time's correspondent interviewed Putin and began by stating: "The first question is something I'm curious about both as a man and as a journalist. You were born in 1946. I was born in 1948. We're of the same generation." Putin responded: "I could not have been born in 1946, because my father was wounded in the war, my mother survived the Leningrad blockade. They had lost two children and could not think of starting to have children straight away. That's why I was born a little later, in 1952." Readers may remember that a short while ago I exposed the nature of Time's coverage of Russia in detail on Pajamas Media. Pajamas editor Michael Weiss has a brilliant piece on the blog right now exposing the ridiculous fraud that underlies the suggestion that Putin's actual policies have altered Russia's standard of living or position in the world.

They don't even know how old he is? Yup, they don't even know as much as that.

As bad as they are, though, the Kremlin is far worse. Putin responded to Time's invitation to dispel American misconceptions about Russia by stating:

I don't believe these are misconceptions. I think this is a purposeful attempt by some to create an image of Russia based on which one could influence our internal and foreign policies. This is the reason why everybody is made to believe [that Russians] are a little bit savage still or they just climbed down from the trees, you know, and probably need to have the dirt washed out of their beards and hair.

Yet, Putin's press secretary responded to Time's Putin designation by stating: "It's very good news for us, very good news. We treat it as an acknowledgment of the role that was played by President Putin in helping to pull Russia out of the social troubles and economic troubles of the 1990s."

So which is it? If the designation by one of America's highest-circulating magazines is praise, then how dare Putin claim America is propagandizing against him? And if it is condemnation, then how dare the Kremlin lie about it so brazenly?

Oh and, by the way, just for the record Mr. Putin: Your country has the fifth highest murder rate in the world and the second highest rate for murder of journalists. Those are facts nobody can deny. So, in fact, your country actually is "a little bit savage." Some people might even say a lot.

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Saudi Arabia - A Paragon of Humanity

Filed under: Middle East

Manuela Paraipan brings us up to date on the Saudi quagmire:

Although our reader Josh Fogel asked Kim to write about the Saudis, I hope he won't mind if I bring everyone up to date on the the House of Al Saud instead. Here's a rundown on recent events in the Kingdom:

Arab News informs us that King Abdullah has pardoned the 19-years old girl who was gang raped 14 times in the town of Qatif almost two years ago.

The Qatif General Court judges sentenced the rape victim to 90 lashes for being in a car with a man who was not a relative at the time of the rape. The judges were upset when the story got out in the international media. Being divinely inspired (how else?) they arrived at the conclusion that 90 lashes is not enough so they raised it to 200. From 10 months in prison the rapists got from 2 to 9 years. Not enough if you ask me! Along the way the girl's family, husband and lawyer were threatened and harassed. The Saudis clearly did not want to hit the headlines with true stories from the wonderland Kingdom so no wonder they were mad as hell.

"The pardon (explained Justice Minister, Abdullah bin Muhammed) did not mean the king doubted the country's judges, but instead acted in the interests of the people .The king always looks into alleviating the suffering of the citizens when he becomes sure that these verdicts will leave psychological effects on the convicted people, though he is convinced and sure that the verdicts were fair," the Minister added.

For more on Saudi Arabia and its track of (dis)respecting human rights, please check CDHR.

What else have the Saudis have been up to lately?

In November King Abdullah bin Abd Al-Aziz, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, met with Pope Benedict at his request. Then he invited Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to attend the Hajj ceremony in Mecca as a "special guest." He did not do it out of love for Ahmadinejad, that's for sure.

The Mid East Daily News reported in early November that "Prime Minister Gordon Brown reached a meeting of the minds with visiting Saudi monarch King Abdullah on issues that included the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and U.S. President George W. Bush's plans for a Mideast peace summit. More controversial issues that British voters wanted raised, such as human rights and questionable trade deals were not raised during the meetings.The Serious Fraud Office was investigating reports of bribery and other crimes relative to a multi-billion deal between Saudi Arabia and British defense giant BAE Systems, when the Saudis demanded that the investigation be closed or the deal would not go forward. Many Brits were dismayed that the government opted for the economic rather than the ethical option."

It's hard to fault the logic of the sale, announced last week, of $20 billion in U.S. arms to Saudi Arabia, with trinkets going to the smaller Gulf states. The wisdom of the deal is another matter.

For more on Saudis spreading terror to both East and West, please check out Dr. Nisan Mordechai's study, JihadWatch.org, and a piece by an Egyptian journalist on the connection between Wahhabism and terrorism.

There lot to be said about Saudi involvement in Lebanon, but here is an interview that highlights the most important cross roads of Lebanon's history, Saudi Arabia's plans for Lebanon and the US-Saudi relationship at the time.

Recently, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) introduced the H.Con.Res. 194 expressing the sense of Congress regarding the failure of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority to properly implement education reforms aimed at reducing the cultural roots of terrorism. Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) introduced the H.Con.Res. 262, pointing out the failure of the Kingdom to revise its textbooks and to remove the intolerant and violent references towards non Sunnis and non Muslims all together.

The immediate and extremely visible consequences of Bush holding hands with King Abdullah: Thanks to the US dependency on Saudi oil, Wahhabi have billions to keep the "freedom fighters" and themselves fat and full of hate towards the "imperialist" US and the "Zionist" Israel.

The conclusion is that Wahhabis hate pretty much all the rest of the world with a zeal worthy of Hitler. Let's hope that sooner rather than later they will reap what they have sown.

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Understanding "Putin's Plan" for Russia

Filed under: Russia

Writing in the Moscow Times Leonid Radzikhovsky (pictured), who hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy ("Echo of Moscow") radio, offers some penetrating insights that help us understand the underlying mechanisms by which the dictator Vladimir Putin intends to rule over Russia throughout his life. Having done so, in classic Russian fashion, his train of brilliance then hurtles off the tracks and into a bottomless abyss.

Radzikhovsky writes:

Dmitry Medvedev, who was "elected" by President Vladimir Putin, is one of the few people in Putin's close circle who does not have any connections, as far as we can tell, with the Federal Security Services. This creates a whole series of problems regarding his chances of becoming the next president. In the United States, for example, new presidents don't have these problems. After elections are held, they accept the oath of office and new cabinets are formed. Moreover, the question "Will the new president be able to manage the old bureaucratic apparat?" is never posed. But in Russia, the situation is entirely different because the security services are the most important element of the vertical power structure. It has enormous political and economic power with few, if any, checks and balances. The media from time to time publish certain scandalous leaks, but they can't influence events in any significant manner. Even government officials admit that it is difficult to speak about an independent judicial system. Moreover, the State Duma, as far as I remember, never once investigated a matter related to the security services. The FSB answers to only one person -- the president. Does the FSB really answer to the president or is it the other way around? The answer to this question can be found not in clearly written laws or organization charts, but in personal relations as well as secret coalitions and side agreements. Presidential powers, as provided by the Constitution, laws, decrees and tradition, are enormous. But in a closed administrative system, where so much carries the stamp of "top secret," the president must be very careful in how he deals with the FSB and other security organizations. He must know their top brass well and be able to trust them. Putin, who has many years experience working in the FSB, knows how to work with security and intelligence officials, but Medvedev, it would appear, does not.

So Putin achieves much by appointing a "successor" who has no ties to the FSB. First, he can market such a person to the West as being relatively benign, even a liberal improvement over his own draconian and much-criticized rule. But at the same time, such a person can never have any "real" power in Russia, even if Putin ceased to exist much less with him in the prime ministry (which Putin has now formally accepted after receiving the blessing of Russia's pope, Alexei II), because it is the secret police who really run the country. Even if Medvedev, a pure sycophant who would never conceive of such a thing, decided to take a different course than Putin, his orders would simply not be obeyed. Understood this way, Putin's plan is not at all "fraught with risks" as some mainstream media might have it.

Or even Radzikhovsky himself, ironically. He concludes by asking: "If Putin understands that Medvedev is weak in this area, why did he choose him as a successor?" His answer shows he hasn't been listening to himself, a common Russian problem:

One can assume that Putin does not want the security services to gain any more power than it has already amassed and, thus, he may have looked to Medvedev as a sort of counterbalance to the siloviki. But Medvedev hardly serves as a counterbalance to the siloviki if he never worked there and doesn't have his own people in place at the top. Medvedev has only one link to the security services -- Putin himself. The challenge for Putin is to somehow subordinate the FSB to Medvedev. But in what capacity will Putin be able to do this? This is the big question facing the country.

Actually, the only big question facing the country is how long Putin will wait after the presidential "elections" early next year before launching a new round of draconian crackdowns by which he seeks to recreate the USSR as nearly as possible. How long will the Moscow Times, for instance, be allowed to publish? How long before unification with the maniacal strongman Lukashenko in Belarus? How long before Russian soldiers are in Georgia and/or Ukraine? How long before, and this would be the final knell of doom for Russia, Radzikhovsky's radio station goes suddenly silent.

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Chavismo Without Chavez?

Filed under: Venezuela

The former foreign minister of Mexico, Jorge Castaneda, now a political scientist at NYU, has a piece in the New Republic analyzing Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. He believes we will now see increased radicalism and recalcitrance from Chavez, including going ahead with planned reforms regardless of the popular will, and that this opens a window of opportunity for Chavez opponents:

According to most accounts, both [former defense Minister General] Baduel and the military high command forced Chavez to accept his defeat under certain conditions, and threatened to remove him if he refused. One can easily contemplate a scenario whereby many chavistas would prefer to remain in power, pursue both the socialist and populist policies of the past few years, continue to considerably enrich themselves, and maintain more independence from Washington than in the past, but without the endless domestic and foreign conflicts generated by their current leader's personality and excesses. They might prefer to follow the path of what many are calling "chavismo without Chavez." This course is all the more likely if it turns out that the Caracas caudillo simply cannot sit still or remain silent. The opposition's victory on December 2 ushered in a new stage in Venezuelan--and Latin American--politics. But it did not determine where things will head. Much will depend on what the Venezuelan people decide--but part of the likely upheavals will also stem from what the rest of the region, Europe, and the United States do. For the moment, they do not seem to have a clue about what to do with Chavez.

Will this be yet another foreign policy opportunity missed by the Bush administration as it continues to obsess over the Middle East?

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Putin Shuts Down the Presidential Election Before it can Begin

Filed under: Russia

The Other Russia opposition group reports from Russia than over the course of the last week, following the announcement that dictator Vladimir Putin would support the "election" of his sycophant Dimitri Medvedev as his successor, three major contenders for the presidency have been forced to drop their bids. First there was Garry Kasparov, pictured above. Other Russia reports:

According to Russian law, a potential candidate must gather at least 500 supporters (an "initiative group") in one place, gather their signatures, and announce his or her candidacy in their presence. Kasparov had intended to do just that, and had already booked an appropriate venue. Shortly before the meeting was to take place, the management revoked their contract, citing technical reasons. Bulinov believes the actual reason was administrative pressure, noting that one initiative group had already been held in the facility on the 9th, and another was scheduled for the 14th. Opposition groups have frequently encountered these situations, where a private venue receives a threat from above, and backs out of previous agreements. Bulinov asked the CEC to note Kasparov's special situation, and proposed two possible solutions. The first was for Vladimir Churov, the director of the CEC, to step in and protect landlords from political threats to their business. The second was to allow the United Civil Front to relocate their initiative group. Both requests were denied, and the activists were told that a change of venue requires a five-day notice. Unfortunately, the last day to begin a presidential campaign is December 17th, less than 5 days away. Left with no legal means to announce his candidacy, Garry Kasparov has opted to rescind his name from the roster. As an act of protest, and to demonstrate his support, the leader of the Other Russia coalition will continue campaigning unofficially. He has already begun collecting signatures from around the country, and is raising grassroots support.

The Associated Press added: "Meanwhile, Kasparov's wife and daughter were detained at St. Petersburg's airport Wednesday as they tried to board an international flight, Kasparov's supporters said. They were released after having their documents checked and after the flight had departed."

Next came "Vladimir Bukovsky [pictured, right], a famed writer and human rights activist." Other Russia states:

Ekho Moskvy (Echo of Moscow) radio reports that the Soviet dissident's attempts to form the necessary "initiative group" have been blocked. According to Russian law, a group of at least 500 people must meet to put forth a candidate. Bukovsky, who had fled the Soviet Union in the 1970s, returned to Russia this year to pursue a presidential campaign, and has been a critic of President Vladimir Putin. At the last minute, the hall Bukovsky's supporters had booked backed out of its contract. The administration of the "Korolevsky" (King's) concert hall told Roman Dobrokhotov, the leader of the "We" movement, that they had submitted to pressure from the FSB. The Russian security agency apparently had a "chat" with the management. Fortunately, Bukovsky's application to the Central Electoral Commission had listed an alternate address, and he still plans to announce his candidacy on Sunday.

Finally there was Alexander Donskoi (pictured, left), who Other Russia says is "facing even firmer resistance, and is now behind bars for what he says are political reasons." They report:

On December 14th, Aleksandr Donskoi, received notice from the "Severny" (Northern) Cultural Center that they could no longer host his initiative group. In a letter, the management claimed that the building needed emergency repairs, and that it was "necessary to turn off the electricity on the 15th, 16th, and 17th of December." Donskoi's supporters believe the actual motives were political. Donskoi, who is the mayor of the northern city of Arkhangelsk, has had problems ever since he announced plans to stand for president in February. All of a sudden, numerous investigations of corruption and perjury began to surface. The mayor was accused of falsifying his university diploma, and using his status as mayor to improve his business dealings. In September, he was sentenced to a year's imprisonment and fined 75 thousand rubles. Since August, he has been behind bars for a third charge he calls bogus: abusing his power of office, and using city resources to hire private security for himself and his family.

This comes right on the heels of the political murder of one of Other Russia's activists and the