Blogging the democratic revolution
While the whole world, myself included, has been focused on the withdrawal of U.S. forces from its base in Uzbekistan, something interesting has been going on in the upper hierarchy of the Uzbek government relating directly back to the Andijon massacre. If you’ll recall, President Karimov blamed the entire uprising as being organized by radical Islamist militants. This story was backed by Russia and China. But as I explained, and this is what everyone else keeping tabs on this story knows now, is that the protestors were pissed off because the government was trying 23 businessmen who made up a…
I have always said that the reason President Mbeki of South Africa won’t intervene in Zimbabwe is because he is Mugabe’s ideological admirer. Government-backed land redistribution in Zimbabwe only resulted in formerly white commercial farms going unused. Famine set in, and when international donors sent food aid, Mugabe’s government seized it. The government in South Africa has always been making attempts at “racial justice,” but it has been generally by market means. They want to have at least 30% of the land tranferred to black farmers by 2014, though only an estimated 5% has switched hands fairly. So what happens…
Breaking news – Colombia has jammed Telesur, the pan-American Chavez TV Station, because of its glorification of Colombia’s murderous FARC narcoterrorists. Colombia is at war with these animals. They just murdered at least a dozen policemen, see here, note that President Uribe was ‘visibly shaken.’ Now, at war, they’re acting it. It’s another sharp blow for Hugo Chavez and his Masterplan For The Takeover Of The Americas. Colombia is having none of it. Go, Colombia!
It happened after Hurricane Mitch struck Central America in 1998. Nine billion dollars in reconstruction aid was promised by donor governments and corporations, yet less than 50% of it actually materialized. In 2003, a devastating earthquake his Bam, Iran, in which 26,000 people died. I still remember the images, and I still remember that over $1 billion in relief aid was pledged. Yet less than $120 million showed up. And remember the tsunami that rattled the world in December 2004, when we saw unprecedented generosity on behalf of the people of the world? Our respective governments tried to match up…
Alek Boyd has a good essay describing in detail all the suspicious meetings around machinery ahead of the August 7 Venezuelan local elections. The circumstantial evidence suggests that the fix is in. Read all the way to the end, where he has some interesting speculation about the real role of the Chavista International Youth Festival. I’ll give you a clue: They are up to no good. Read it here.
It’s as if the mighty impact of CAFTA that we all worked so hard to achieve has really started to yield something. Veneconomy, in a brilliant essay here, noted the signs of stinging defeat it rained on Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. Suddenly all his oil billions are meaningless compared to the vast opportunity of the great Gringo market up north. What’s Chavez’s oil billions compared to the U.S.’s trillion-dollar buying market? Who wants charity when they can have something way bigger and own it free and clear, no strings attached, through honest two-way trade? National sovereignty? Get it, for real,…
…against humanity. The vicious Marxist dictator slave-marched thousands of Miskito Indians on a death march to ‘re-education camps’ that killed hundreds in the sweltering Atlantic jungle. He did it to force communism on them and to prevent them from joining the resistance. Now, with the glorious CAFTA passed, Nicaragua’s government has grown stronger and the human rights organizations are growing bolder. This is a great day for democracy, a mass murderer is getting called to account. This goes to show that the justice moves around the Americas are real, and do not just apply to thugs on the right. They…
The lessons of history never fail to escape the minds of some. Hitler raged on about his goals in the most overt manner while the rest of Europe believed that one invasion after the other would be enough to appease him. Likewise, the government of Iran, best known for its chants of “Death to America,” is beginning to remove the UN seals on its nuclear reactors while maintaining that the energy will only be used for peaceful purposes. This program has been secret for 18 years, who really believes that? Who really believes now that North Korea’s secret program, even…
Adam Gurri is hosting this week’s carnival of revolutions! Check it out, along with the Iran week in review.
John Garang is ÄnowÅ an ex-rebel leader from the south of Sudan, where millions have lost their lives in a systematic genocide committed by the government. In a peace deal worked out between the two sides, Garang was sworn in as Vice President of the country and the situation was looking hopeful. Well, scratch that. Tens of thousands of people are flooding the streets of Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, enraged by the death of John Garang, who led the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army rebels for more than two decades. Mr. Garang was sworn in as Sudan’s first vice president less than…
Look at the search results from the past hour to this website, and tell me there aren’t people out there who love Yulia just as much as we do. 01 Aug, Mon, 09:33:24 Google: Yulia Tymoshenko Pictures 01 Aug, Mon, 09:33:49 Google: Yulia Tymoshenko nude 01 Aug, Mon, 09:34:57 Google: Yulia Tymoshenko pictures 01 Aug, Mon, 09:36:28 Google: pics of Yulia Tymoshenko 01 Aug, Mon, 09:37:15 Google: Yulia Tymoshenko pictures 01 Aug, Mon, 09:37:30 Google: Yulia Tymoshenko photographs 01 Aug, Mon, 09:38:57 Google: In a Ruined Country david samuels 01 Aug, Mon, 09:41:48 Google: pics of Yulia Tymoshenko 01 Aug,…
All communist regimes are characterized by shortages. In Venzuela, the government suddenly announced it was suspending all steel exports, creating a new commodity shortage on world markets. But the export gate might not be where the real shortage is. I am wondering if investment-starved Venezuela simply cannot produce the steel it used to produce. It’s only a matter of time before this happens, it may be happening now. Veneconomy sees something more sinister and directional – they argue that Venezuela cannot possibly use the extra steel it produces, at least not for awhile, and will probably end up with stacks…
Hear that poofing sound? It’s the showering, shattering of electronic pixels as one by one, British Intelligence destroys al-qaida Web sites. The move cuts critical communication lines among terrorists. Suddenly they can’t plot and giggle together through sinful Western Internet technology. They’ll have to go back to inscribing on Stone-Age tablets or something. Or give up terror altogether. In war, it’s not enough to just cut financing lines and indoctrination houses like madrassas – communication lines are important, too. It’s so in any war. Britain and the U.S. should have done this a long time ago. This is war and…
GatewayPundit has a letter from Zimbabwe. The locals there are terrified. Houses are being razed left and right and those homeless must sleep in the freezing weather. Soon, all houses will be razed or taken over by the state. The writer argues that genocide is coming. The letter-writer warns that this isn’t business as usual in Africa, it’s something new and truly evil. They need help. Read it here. Hat tip: Instapundit
The best part about CAFTA is upon us – Hugo Chavez has come out screaming on Venezuelan television about CAFTA’s passage. And why shouldn’t he scream about our CAFTA victory? A rich El Salvador, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica are the last things Chavez wants to see. It’s bad enough that these democracies are friendly with the U.S. – now they have free trade rights, too, and as nations they have embarked on a great regional mission to become as rich as America. Why shouldn’t they be? They’re our friends. But for Chavez, it’s pain upon pain.…
Yesterday Robert posted an entry, Pro-Mubarak Thugs Beat Up Kefaya Protesters, dealing with the attempt by democracy activists in Egypt to hold a rally and Hosni Mubarak’s violent reaction. There is also an article in today’s New York Times (registration required) on this, so I won’t go into the details. I wanted to add that there are some new photos of the attacks on protesters. You can see them here and here. (Hat tip: The Arabist Network) I would like to suggest that now is a good time for President Bush to announce that the United States is ending its…
A reader named “Cynic” made a response to my post, The Atlantic Monthly on Yasir Arafat, which raised both a valid factual point and an argument that needs to be rebutted, to explain why it is wrong. Cynic wrote: What is known and not discussed is that the State Department went along with the Arab League and the EU, in the 80s, and ???????elected???????? Arafat, and his PLO, as sole representative of the Palestinians. Now had this not come about, how many lives could have been spared? Imagine if the the families of the dead and the maimed could take…
Fidel Castro’s goons were in for the surprise of their lives when a whole neighborhood in Havana rose up and beat them back with sticks when they tried to confiscate a barrio TV set. A line was crossed. Nobody gets between Cubans and their TV sets. Nobody.
Fausta at BadHairBlog, citing someone named ‘Cake Eater’ has a truly marvellous comparison of the efforts of the McCartney sisters to break the back of the vile IRA terrorists, versus the non-efforts of too many Muslim “moderates” to halt the Islamofascists among them. it’s been speculated that it’s because these moderate Muslims are afraid to speak up, for fear that the Islamofascists will turn on them. Well, it appears that six women—who loved a man as a brother and a fiancee—proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back when it came to the IRA. Robert McCartney, a Belfast…
Any time Danny Glover, Babs Streisand or Michael Moore open their big Hollywood mouths, the media come running, happy to feed these bawl-babies with free publicity. But let Puertoriqueno singer Ricky Martin, declare his intention of improving the U.S.’s image abroad, particularly among Arabs, using his experience as a Boricua, and these media suddenly go silent, desperately silent. To heck with that. Ricky Martin is out to spread democracy and I am going to say something! Check out GOPinion’s full story about this admirable young man here.
Developing countries almost never have civil society organizations, making them vulnerable to tyrants who are always happy to fill the void with … tyranny. Rare indeed are the PTAs, the Elks, the Kiwanis, the Ladies’ Auxilliaries, the Neighborhood Watches, the Surfriders’ Foundations, the Explorers’ Club, the Roadrunners – and all the much-maligned but critically necessary spontaneously organized private groups that are the building blocks of democracy. So it was a joy to read that in determinedly democratic El Salvador, our new CAFTA ally, Salvadoran locals got together to clean up the beaches. And had wild exuberant Latin American fun together,…
It’s the biggest demonstration since the August Recall Referendum. Chavez sicced the firehoses on the thousands of demonstrators. Miguel Octavio has the story and the first dramatic photos here. UPDATE: Daniel has further information here. And Instapundit has taken note, too. UPDATE: Associated Press reports that rocks and bottles were hurled at the thousands of opposition marchers by two dozen chavistas screaming insults. UPDATE: Reuters reports that the chavistas blocked the marchers and set piles of garbage on fire.
Jim Hoft is rounding up all the news on this. In other news, the candlelight vigil against terrorism being organized by Egyptian bloggers was cancelled. Big Pharaoh posts his reaction. Egyptian Sandmonkey is also feeling melancholy, and so is Karim Elsahy. Better luck next time guys, I wish it would have worked out.
An exceptional example of good journalism, the current issue of the Atlantic Monthly has a front cover article on Yasir Arafat, “In a Ruined Country: How Yasir Arafat Destroyed Palestine.” It is very detailed, and I think it would be especially enlightening to those who haven’t followed Arafat closely over the years, but even if you have it is worth reading. Written by David Samuels, it is based not simply on documentary records but on a series of interviews with old Arafat companions following his death. This is what makes it entertaining. You can’t read it online without a subscription,…
The Iranian regime for decades has been a state sponsor of terrorism, both domestically and internationally. Concern is ever the more mounting after the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who may have been involved in, or even the leader of, the 1979 embassy hostage crisis. But how directly involved is the Iranian regime in funding and aiding terrorist groups? Apologists might say that the regime’s money trail and links to groups like Hizb’allah and Islamic Jihad are too obscure to trace and may not even exist at all. Well, they’re apologists, what do you expect? Even if there was ever evidence…