Blogging the democratic revolution
I was fortunate enough to participate in a conference call with Natan Sharansky hosted by the Heritage Foundation. As you all have probably guessed, I’m a big fan of his book, The Case For Democracy, so this presented a very unique chance to get a question in. I was joined by several heavyweight bloggers Regime…
Sorry for the lack of posts today everyone — we’re packing up the house and moving to Spain. Today is the last day that the packers are here, so posting will resume tomorrow!
The New York Times publishes the announcement by Gen. George Casey at a press conference alongside U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and Iraqi Prime Minister Jawad al-Maliki: ???????Ladies and Gentlemen, Coalition Forces killed al-Qaida terrorist leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi and one of his key lieutenants, spiritual advisor Sheik Abd-Al-Rahman, yesterday, June 7, at 6:15 p.m. in…
According to Dick Marty’s report on secret CIA flights and prisons on the European continent, fourteen countries were complicit in either allowing or turning a blind eye to the CIA’s activities. That’s right, fourteen countries. Including the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Most of the important European Union countries. Interesting. Doesn’t sound like this…
… in the Islamic world! That’s right everybody, it’s summer and the time has come for the latest in beach fashion being bought by babes from as far-flung as Turkey to Saudi Arabia. Last year, this triggered a three post sensation due to the wide interest in the subject. And for good reason. Prepare yourselves…
Drugs are bad. I’m not talking about the kind people smoke to chill out after work, though. I mean the stuff people snort and waste their entire lives trying to get more of. Snow. Blow. Crack. Cocaine. It ruins families, drains investment and productivity from the economy, funds terrorist groups, and supports authoritarian regimes. Yet…
The unqualified success that Hugo Chavez has had at picking apart Venezuela’s democracy, buying political support with oil, getting his men into office in other countries, supporting terrorist groups, and pressuring political opponents has led many to think that a tidal wave of totalitarian leftism is sweeping the southern continent — and that it’s unstoppable….
President Putin might want to watch out! A colored revolution may be brewing in his own backyard, as the protest babes advance on him. This babe, who represents the most decadent kind of freedom (my favorite kind), is setting up a youth group as an alternative to the many pro-government ones set up over the…
This hardly has to be said… but here’s another example of fanatical Islamists going nuts over humor. It’s just like the Danish cartoon controversy. Someone does a parody and suddenly hundreds of people are out on the streets causing trouble! The usual suspect, Hezbollah, is behind the latest street rioting in Lebanon, where a television…
No more than three days ago, I wrote: On the political level, despite all of the killings, things have chugged along slowly but surely. Of these developments, however, the most interesting and perhaps the most important has always been the breakdown of the Shiite alliance as each party pursues its own interests in the new…
Vietnam is the latest in a string of countries to negotiate a trade pact and open up its markets to U.S. companies: Vietnam and the United States have signed a new trade deal which will open the Southeast Asian country’s markets in virtually every sector. It paves the way for Vietnam to enter the World…
From the news: PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia (AP)–The Nonaligned Movement, the world’s biggest bloc after the U.N., emphatically backed Iran Tuesday in its nuclear standoff with the U.S., and condemned Israel for occupying Palestinian lands. Meeting in Malaysia’s administrative capital, the foreign ministers of NAM member nations also demanded that Israel accede to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty…
The road to forming a new Iraqi government, from the elections in December last year to its actual formation no more than a week ago, splintering between the country’s different ethnic and religious groups has been everyone’s concern. Sunnis attacking Shiites, and vice versa. Even with the end of the insurgency, the development of death…
Read this entire article in the latest edition of Foreign Affairs. But if you don’t, then you should at least see the following, which is relevant. It is written by Jorge Castaneda, once Mexico’s foreign minister, regarding to two different lefts in Latin America. A TALE OF TWO LEFTS Just over a decade ago, Latin…
Ibrahim Gambari is the man behind the scenes in Burma lately. He’s the undersecretary for political affairs over at the UN, and on a recent trip, he was actually allowed to meet with the leaders of the military junta. Even more, he was the first foreign diplomat in a very long time to meet with…
Confederate Yankee posts an interesting statement originating from Hezbollah in Lebanon, and looks at what it might mean. “Hizbollah is not a tool of Iran, it is a Lebanese project that implements the demands of Lebanese,” Kassem said in an interview in the Hizbollah-controlled southern suburb of Beirut. “Iran is a big country with real…
A quote from Michael Totten’s latest dispatch from Ramallah: ???????What do you think about the prospects for peace now that Hamas won???????? I said. ???????The Israelis have an opportunity,??????? he said. ???????A piece of the puzzle was missing before. Permanent peace must have the signature of the Islamists. Now the Israelis can get it.??????? The…
Montenegro is no longer the suffix of Serbia. With an overwhelming turnout, just over the required 55% needed votes were cast in favor of independence, making it the last country to break away from the core of what once was Yugoslavia. There are a lot of issues here. Will the Serbian unionists fight back? Can…
As part of a new, despot-pleasing goodie package, the European Union wants the United States to sell Iran new airplanes so that it can modernize its decades old fleet. They already fell for this once — back in 2005, the Bush administration signed an order allowing the U.S. to sell aircraft spare parts to the…
The discussion began here at Publius when A.M. Mora y Leon linked to a piece at the new Foreign Policy blog, commenting that whenever there are searches for sex material, the vast majority of them come from domain extensions that pertain to highly Islamist countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Just going through the top…
Like a world-class military, Egypt’s judges are highly professional and technocratic — ardent defenders of the law. That’s why, over the past year, thousands of them have taken to defying the Mubarak regime which has, in turn, sought to corrupt and strangle the institution of the judiciary. They were prevented from overseeing the counting of…
The New York Times is reporting that the Bush administration is considering holding negotiations for a peace treaty with North Korea. To many, this will be a shock. After years of six-way talks to try to convince them to abandon their nukes, it comes to this. However, if you read Publius, this may not be…
The Financial Times describes the gang riots that have taken Sao Paolo by storm: Life in S????o Paulo returned to something like normal by the middle of this week after prison riots and attacks on police and property orchestrated by organised crime left 132 people dead and 53 injured between Friday night and Tuesday morning….
As you might have heard, the United States resumed diplomatic relations with Libya, one of the most totalitarian countries in the world. To even begin trying to account for how this matches up to the stated “Bush Doctrine” of promoting democracy, and how it will benefit the people of Libya, boggles the mind. It does…
The United Nations was not intended to prevent genocide in Darfur. It was not to swap oil-for-food, depose of rogue regimes seeking weapons of mass destruction, or fight avian flu. It has never had the means or accountability mechanisms available to do so. It was created by the victor powers of World War II ????????…