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 Change Iran, Right Wing News, Red State, Power Line, Gateway Pundit, Hugh Hewitt, Atlas Shrugs, and Boker Tov, Boulder. Follow those links! Unfortunately, there was an audio problem so no file or transcript will be available. Meaning I have to go by memory or notes.…
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 an air strike against an identified, isolated safe house. ???????Tips and intelligence from Iraqi senior leaders from his network led forces to al-Zarqawi and some of his associates who were conducting a meeting approximately eight kilometers north of Baqubah when the air strike was launched.…
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 “spider web” of illegality was really all that secret, huh? Many of these countries have already acknowledged that they allowed flights to stop on their territory. A lot of this has been shown through cross-checking travel logs. The biggest accusation, however, is that some of…
… 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 for some of the most revealing and raunchy swimwear you’ve ever seen! Only if you’re a radical Islamist, anyway. Don’t bother with the sunscreen, this new line does the job for you. Last time I checked, the beach was for having some fun in the…
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 problem has been almost impossible to counter because high consumer demand has driven up prices, which has in turn made it a much more valuable cash crop compared to other agricultural products. For years, the U.S. government has tried to wipe out the supply…
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. Until now he has been. The Bolivarian Revolution has marched on and on without impediment. It’s quickening pace has led people to believe in his self-fulfilling prophecy. What is never taken into account is that his actions must inevitably provoke a reaction. The same has…
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 past few years. Serious threat or publicity play? You decide. All I know is if I were a male Russian teenager, I’d be rushing to join this club. RUSSIA’S most famous party girl has formed a political youth movement that could undermine one of her…
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 station broadcasted a mock of its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and they apparently got peeved. BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) – Hundreds of Shiite Muslims enraged by a TV comedy that mocked the leader of Hezbollah took to the streets of southern Beirut on Thursday night, burning car…
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 Iraq. Up until now it has always been simply on the political level, with parties haggling over minister portfolios and nominations. Now the politics have converged with the violence. With the tough issues coming to the forefront, such as disarming sectarian militias, distribution of oil…
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 Trade Organisation this year, 11 years after it began applying. Vietnamese officials want to finish talks with the Geneva-based WTO in July. The new agreement is the latest in a series of business deals and diplomatic steps by Hanoi to integrate its fast-expanding economy into…
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 without delay and open its nuclear facilities to international inspection. On Iran, the ministers “re-affirmed the basic and inalienable right” of all countries to develop, produce and use atomic energy “for peaceful purposes, without any discrimination and in conformity with their respective legal obligations,” said…
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 squads supplied by Iran have continued the extra-judicial killings. 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…
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 America seemed poised to begin a virtuous cycle of economic progress and improved democratic governance, overseen by a growing number of centrist technocratic governments. In Mexico, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, buttressed by the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, was ready for…
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 detained democratic opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Her jail time is supposed to be over on May 27th, at which point she would be thrust back onto the political scene. Will she be let out? Gambari offers us some clues as to what is…
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 capabilities and can defend itself if it is exposed to American danger.” He believes that 1) “Hezbollah has reason to believe that a conflict between Iran and Israel is a near term possibility.” And 2) “Hezbollah believes that the conflict will be of sufficient magnitude…
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 Israelis can get it if the Islamists will give it, and if they will give it sincerely. That doesn????????t look even remotely likely any time soon. I asked Yossi Klein Halevi if it was even possible to be optimistic under the circumstances. He said ???????I????????m…
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 a state so small defend itself an build a proper economy? What about EU membership? These are the questions that will be answered in the coming days, months, and years. So I will not bother with them now. It will come. Peaceful self-determination is a…
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 maligned regime as part of an earlier incentive design to halt uranium enrichment. Given that Presidenti Ahmadinejad has already refuted the offer before it has even been presented, doing such a thing wouldn’t make sense. The U.S. may not be officially at war with Iran,…
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 keywords in our statistics, “Iran”, “sexy”, and “women” are in the top ten. I’ve noticed that these words are generally used in the same search string. As good looking as Persian women are, they only seem to lose out in the search to one woman:…
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 results during last year’s parliamentary and presidential elections. A Mubarak tool was chosen to oversee the case of opposition leader Ayman Nour. Two prominent judges were stripped of their immunities and put up for disciplinary hearings after correctly alleging that last year’s elections were…
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 so surprising. It is part of a new, huge diplomatic effort underway by the Bush administration in collaboration with other regional powers to show certain rogue regimes (i.e. North Korea & Iran) that they do not have to fear invasion. This is actually the next…
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. But many wondered what kind of normality it was. The handling of events by authorities, and especially the way they were brought to an end, suggested a lack of control amounting to a crisis of governability. Although for the families of the victims the impact…
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 go to show, however, that the world is a complex place and the administration isn’t single-mindedly ideological when it comes to foreign policy. The reasons for this move therefore have little consideration for democracy, and everything to do with how the attainment of nuclear weapons…
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 ???????? Russia, China, France, Britain, and the United States ???????? with the sole purpose of maintaining stability and collective security. Global order was at the top of the agenda. Human rights may have received its rhetorical due, but ???????never again??????? proved to be empty in substance.…