Twitter has announced a new plan that will allow it to censor users’ tweets on a country-by-country basis if governments object to them. It says the policy is an attempt to keep doing business in countries, such as China, that do not welcome all expression.
On the company’s blog Twitter said it will now withhold offending content within the specific country that censors the language, while leaving it unaltered for the rest of the world. It will also post a censorship notice whenever a tweet is removed.
The new constitution drawn up by Mr Morales’s party and approved in 2009 has legalised traditional justice dispensed by village elders. Community justice can sometimes resemble legalised lynching, featuring stoning, strangulation or burning with petrol. The police do not keep separate records of these acts. Carlos Valverde, an investigative journalist, chronicled 16 such killings in 2009 and 13 in the first half of 2010, including the kidnap, torture and murder of four policemen.
Argentina, which launched a war of aggression in 1982 and lost it, says that Britain should seek a peaceful solution:
Argentina’s foreign minister Héctor Timerman said: “Instead of convening its National Security Council, Great Britain should call Ban Ki-moon and accept the multiple resolutions of the [UN] organisation urging a dialogue on the Malvinas [Falklands] question to reach a peaceful solution.”
The essence of the Obama administration’s “reset” of relations with Russia is this: Before the reset, Russia aggressively fought against western interests, we opposed them, and relations were bad. After the reset, Russia aggressively fights against western interests, we don’t oppose them, and everybody smiles. That’s great, if the smiles are what matter, as opposed to the substance.
Case in point, sanctions against Iran have been starting to bite, and so Russia is trying to get them lifted. Their justification? They have proof, proof!, that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons.
“We have verified data showing that there is no reliable evidence for the existence of a military component” in Iran’s nuclear programme, said Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. . .
“Sanctions have gone way too far. They heavily outweigh what is being done in the sphere of talks. We must push harder on the negotiating track.”
As expected, the Muslim Brotherhood has announced plans to scrap Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel. They plan to do it with a shrewd gimmick:
The Muslim Brotherhood comes up with a neat trick to break the peace treaty with Israel without formally doing so. Egypt’s next likely ruling party says it simply will hold a plebiscite and let the people do it.
I would like to hear what all those people in the liberal intelligentsia who said the Muslim Brotherhood was moderate and non-violent have to say for themselves now. I wish it were true, but wishing never makes it so.
The White House on Monday defended Vice President Joe Biden for saying that the Taliban isn’t an enemy of the United States despite the years spent fighting the militant Islamic group that gave a home to Al Qaeda and its leader Usama bin Laden while he plotted the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Jay Carney’s attempted defense doesn’t even make sense:
“It’s only regrettable when taken out of context,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said of the vice president’s remarks in an interview published Monday.
“It is a simple fact that we went into Afghanistan because of the attack on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. We are there now to ultimately defeat Al Qaeda, to stabilize Afghanistan and stabilize it in part so that Al Qaeda or other terrorists who have as their aim attacks on the United States cannot establish a foothold again in that country,” Carney continued.
This is nonsense. After 9/11, the Taliban was given a choice: side with us or Al Qaeda. They chose Al Qaeda. They are the enemy.
What’s worse, the world is looking for signs as to whether we will stay the course in Afghanistan. This sort of talk doesn’t help; in fact it costs lives. That’s the “context” that matters.
As Daniel Pipes explains, Palestinian nationalism was invented in 1920. When Newt Gingrich cited this historical fact — with his usual tact — a week ago, he was predictably attacked by those whose ideology depends on a long-suffering Palestinian people (and who therefore have done everything they can to ensure that the Palestinian people continue to suffer). But that doesn’t change the historical facts.
THE Red Cross is investigating whether 600 million gamers are violating the Hague and Geneva conventions when they kill and blow stuff up for fun.
Delegates at the 31st International Conference of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Red Crescent raised the concerns over the potential “International Humanitarian Law” violations during a workshop in Geneva.
I would just emphasize that the International Red Cross is a distinct organization from the American Red Cross. The latter is a valuable institution, the former isn’t good for much.
LONG POSTSCRIPT: Glenn Reynolds — where I first saw this story — has pulled back from it, posting a link to what he calls the ICRC response. It says:
[Q.] A few media reported that certain virtual acts performed by characters in video games could amount to serious violations of the law of armed conflict. Is this correct?
[A.] No. Serious violations of the laws of war can only be committed in real-life situations, not in video games.
Sounds pretty reasonable (although note the use of the word “serious”), but this is not a response to the story. It’s from a FAQ dated August 12, 2011. That’s over three months before the conference took place so it cannot address reports of what actually took place at the conference. Moreover, the conference’s daily bulletin issued December 1 reports this:
While the Movement works vigorously to promote international humanitarian law (IHL) worldwide, there is also an audience of approximately 600 million gamers who may be virtually violating IHL. Exactly how video games influence individuals is a hotly debated topic, but for the first time, Movement partners discussed our role and responsibility to take action against violations of IHL in video games. In a side event, participants were asked: “what should we do, and what is the most effective method?” While National Societies shared their experiences and opinions, there is clearly no simple answer. There is, however, an overall consensus and motivation to take action.
From their own report, it seems clear that the article is accurate. The organization’s actual response was appended to the article:
Update: After this story was published, Red Cross International said the organisation would not be discussing the matter any further beyond the initial workshop. . .
“Serious violations of the laws of war can only be committed in real-life situations, not in video games,” Mr Farnoudi told news.com.au.
Okay, I’m glad they’re backing away, but still note the use of the word “serious”. They are evidently sticking to the position that gaming can violate international law, just not in a “serious” way.
For the first time on record, the Chinese Communist party has lost all control, with the population of 20,000 in this southern fishing village now in open revolt.
The last of Wukan’s dozen party officials fled on Monday after thousands of people blocked armed police from retaking the village, standing firm against tear gas and water cannons.
Since then, the police have retreated to a roadblock, some three miles away, in order to prevent food and water from entering. . .
Wukan’s troubles began in September, when the villagers’ collective patience snapped at an attempt to take away their land and sell it to property developers.
“Almost all of our land has been taken away from us since the 1990s but we were relaxed about it before because we made our money from fishing,” said Yang Semao, one of the village elders. “Now, with inflation rising, we realise we should grow more food and that the land has a high value.”
The villagers made the mistake of believing that the government would negotiate in good faith:
In the aftermath, the local government tried to soothe the bruised villagers, asking them to appoint 13 of their own to mediate between the two sides – a move which was praised. . . Last Friday, at 11.45 in the morning, four minibuses without license plates drove into Wukan and a team of men in plain clothes seized five of the village’s 13 representatives from a roadside restaurant.
One of the five later died in police custody.
I wish them well, but without much hope. The Communists can’t afford to let this stand. This won’t end well.
“There is significant anger and resentment and, yes, perhaps sometimes hatred and indeed sometimes an all too growing intimidation and violence directed at Jews generally as a result of the continuing tensions between Israel and the Palestinian territories and other Arab neighbors in the Middle East,” Gutman told the group, according to a transcript of his remarks published in the European Jewish Press.
I’ve heard many leftists make this sort of argument, and, as always, the historical illiteracy is appalling. This has the casual relationship precisely backwards. The conflict between Israel and its surrounding enemies exists precisely because of Middle Eastern Arabs’ long-standing refusal to live alongside Jews.
POSTSCRIPT: It will be good to remember this whenever some superficially knowledgeable nitwit claims that Sunni Al Qaeda could never collaborate with Shia Iran.
As southern Europe looks like an increasingly scary place to keep your money, southern Europeans (particularly Greeks) are looking to get their money into safe havens abroad, such as Switzerland. But if this story is right, the European Commission is negotiating a deal with Switzerland in which Swiss banks would repatriate (that is, confiscate and turn over) funds they hold for Greek citizens.
Obviously this would be a horrible development for Europe (or, more precisely, for Europeans who want to hold assets that won’t be destroyed or stolen by their government), but it’s also astonishingly stupid for the Swiss banks: What is the primary selling point for Swiss banks? Your money is safe there. If your money is no longer safe in a Swiss bank, what purpose do they serve?
They don’t even need to conclude a deal, the mere fact (if it is a fact) that they are negotiating this is enough to destroy confidence in Swiss banks. Who would risk keeping their money there?
On the other hand, it’s great news for the Caymans, et al.
Also, a former member of Al Qaeda has been appointed commander of the Tripoli Military Council. I don’t know exactly what that is, but it doesn’t sound good.
UPDATE: There is a video of a parade (reportedly in Benghazi, although I have no way of verifying that) filled with Al Qaeda flags. I certainly didn’t watch the whole 14-minute video, but I sampled it at random intervals and never failed to find plenty of them.
A member of Saudi Arabia’s royal family increased to $1 million a reward offered by a Saudi cleric to anyone who captures an Israeli soldier to swap him for Palestinian prisoners.
Prince Khaled bin Talal, brother of billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, told the kingdom’s al-Daleel TV station by telephone Saturday that he was raising a previous offer made by Sheik Awadh al-Qarani, a prominent Saudi cleric who promised $100,000 for capturing an Israeli soldier.
Also a reminder of the foolishness of bargaining with hostage takers.
Julius Malema, the 30-year old leader of the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) has attracted growing headlines since 2010 for his calls to nationalize South Africa’s mines, and to emulate Zimbabwe’s land redistribution program in order to rectify a wide wealth imbalance between the white minority, which accounted for 9% of the 50 million person nation according to a 2010 census. Malema proclaimed “The only option is to take the land without compensation, if you refuse to give us an alternative.”
Last month, he was convicted of hate speech for singing an inflammatory anti-apartheid song which translates into “Shoot the Boer” (Dubhula iBhunu) at a ANCYL rally. Are these the harmless ravings of an innocuous radical activist, or an ominous harbinger for South Africa’s future? Current President Jacob Zuma has previously referred to Malema as a future president.
Next year, the ANC will hold leadership elections, in which the next president of South Africa will likely emerge. . . Robert Mugabe turned the breadbasket of Africa into a dysfunctional, violent kleptocracy. If ANC moderates fail to stop Malema’s ascent, South Africa may never regain the optimism of 1995 and slip down the dangerous path Zimbabwe forged in 1987.
The Economist had an article (subscription required) earlier this month about Pakistan’s disastrous electricity shortage. In the middle of the article was a little hint as to why the shortage exists:
Insufficient capacity is not even the biggest problem. That is a $6 billion chain of debt, ultimately owed by the state, that is debilitating the entire energy sector. Power plants are owed money by the national grid and the grid in turn cannot get consumers (including the Pakistani government) to pay for the electricity they use. This week, the financial crunch meant that oil supply to the two biggest private power plants was halted, because the state-owned oil company had no cash to procure fuel.
(Emphasis mine.)
Suppliers aren’t being paid and a shortage results? Imagine that!
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez likely has less than two years to live, his former doctor said, as the ailing firebrand traveled to Cuba for a checkup following cancer treatment.
It’s good (if this is right) that there may be a light at the end of Venezuela’s tunnel, but Chavez can ruin a lot more lives in two more years.
A key player in the Iran-backed plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S. was a senior military commander linked to the slaughter of U.S. troops in Iraq, The Washington Post reported Saturday.
Abdul Reza Shahlai is the cousin of accused plotter Mansour Arbabsiar, 56, an Iranian-American currently in custody and charged with a string of offenses including conspiracy to commit murder and an act of international terrorism. . . The 54-year-old is a commander in Iran’s Quds Force, the body believed to have been behind the Saudi ambassador plot and described to the Post by a US official as “Iran’s arm for supporting terrorists and planning attacks.”
In 2007 Shahlai ran a group of elite killers within the Iraqi militia of the cleric Moqtada al Sadr, who dressed as US and Iraqi soldiers and launched an attack on official buildings in Karbala — a raid which left five Americans dead.
How much of a fool is President Obama? Leaked cables reveal that he wanted to go to Japan to apologize for using nuclear weapons. The apology didn’t go forward because the Japanese government didn’t want it, fearing it would be exploited by opponents of Japan’s alliance with the US.
I’m not sure which is more breathtaking, his historical ignorance, his present-day ignorance, or his disdain for America.
A Ukrainian judge has put Yulia Tymoshenko, who lost the last national election, in prison on trumped-up charges. The probably marks the end of the Ukraine’s experiment with democracy. Democracy only works when the candidates can afford to lose the election; if losing means prison or worse, a peaceful election is too great a risk. Viktor Yanukovych clearly plans not to lose any more elections.
The term “Arab Spring” for the revolutions in the Arab world evokes a sense of optimism, but are things really getting better? Not for Egypt’s Christians. A group of Christians assembled to protest a recent attack on a Church and were attacked by the army and Islamic thugs:
Deadly clashes between angry Christians, Muslims and security forces have dealt a serious setback to Egypt’s transition to civilian rule, the country’s prime minister said Monday, hours after 24 people were killed in the worst violence since the February ouster of Hosni Mubarak. . .
Christians, who make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s 80 million people, blame the country’s ruling military council for being too lenient on those behind a spate of anti-Christian attacks since Mubarak’s ouster. As Egypt undergoes a chaotic power transition and security vacuum in the wake of the uprising, the Coptic Christian minority is particularly worried about the show of force by ultraconservative Islamists. . .
Egypt’s official news agency, meanwhile, reported that dozens of “instigators of chaos” have been arrested following Sunday’s violence, sparked by a recent attack on a church in southern Egypt.
The MENA news agency did not say whether those arrested were Christians or Muslims, but security officials said most of the 24 killed were Christians and that they may have included one or two Muslims. . .
State TV, which has increasingly become loyal to the military, appealed on “honorable” Egyptians to protect the army against attacks as news spread of clashes between the Christian protesters and the troops outside the TV building. Soon afterward, bands of young men armed with sticks, rocks, swords and firebombs began to roam central Cairo, attacking Christians. Troops and riot police did not intervene to stop the attacks on Christians.
Throughout the night, the station cast the Christian protesters as a violent mob attacking the army and public property. At one point, Information Minister Osama Heikal went on the air to deny that the station’s coverage had a sectarian slant, but acknowledged that its presenters acted “emotionally.”
At one point, an armored army van sped into the crowd, striking several protesters and throwing some into the air. . .
The Christian protesters said their demonstration began as a peaceful attempt to sit in at the TV building. Then, the protesters said, they came under attack by thugs in plainclothes who rained stones down on them and fired pellets.
“The protest was peaceful. We wanted to hold a sit-in, as usual,” said Essam Khalili, a protester wearing a white shirt with a cross on it. “Thugs attacked us and a military vehicle jumped over a sidewalk and ran over at least 10 people. I saw them.”
(Emphasis mine.)
There’s video of the armored car attacking the protesters:
As you can see, this is not a fight between protesters and the army, as state television claimed. This was the army driving through crowds of people just milling about.
By the way, the spark for all this bloodshed was outrage by Muslims over Christians building a church.
Police have threatened a Christian cafe owner with arrest –for displaying passages from the Bible on a TV screen. Jamie Murray was warned by two police officers to stop playing DVDs of the New Testament in his cafe following a complaint from a customer that it was inciting hatred against homosexuals.
The nation that invented individual liberty has abandoned the freedoms of speech and religion.
Is America the only country left with a free press? Australia doesn’t have one: an Australian court has found a collection of newspaper articles to be illegal. It violated Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act by expressing improper opinions about who constitutes an Aborigine. The judge also prohibited the republication of the articles, and said he would consider forcing the newspaper to print an apology.
What fundamental rights hasn’t the UK abolished yet? Trial by jury, check. Double jeopardy, check. Freedom of religion, check. Free speech, check. Self defense, check.
Freedom of the press hasn’tbeen exempt from attack by any means, but the British press has still been mostly free. The Labour party wants to change that:
The stupidest of [the Labour Party's] proposals to date will be presented today, when Ivan Lewis, the shadow culture secretary, will propose a licensing scheme for journalists through a professional body that will have the power to forbid people who breach its code of conduct from doing journalism in the future.
They want the government to decide who is allowed to publish and who is not — and they explicitly mean to use the system to silence the people they don’t want publishing.
The real problem in the UK is structural. Since 1911, there have been no checks or balances in the British government. The House of Commons is all-powerful. If the party in power decides to scrap the Freedom of the Press, or any other freedom, no one can stop them.
President Obama’s dealings with Israel have generally been dreadful, but I must give credit where credit is due. According to Newsweek (so you may want to take this with a grain of salt), Obama authorized the delivery of 55 bunker buster bombs to Israel in 2009. This affirmed a delivery schedule determined by the Bush administration.
Walter Russel Mead has a very interesting article on the problem of Pakistan, and why Pakistan may see that problem (or problems, really) as essential to their continued existence as a nation.
John Hinderaker coins the perfect phrase — “opinion police” — for the journalists who claim to be fact-checking, but really are evaluating opinions. This is a pernicious phenomenon that is becoming far too prevalent.
In this particular instance, Hinderaker was complaining about a Washington Post column by Glenn Kessler called The Fact Checker, which reported Rick Perry’s “newbie mistake” on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Kessler said Perry’s was factually incorrect when he said:
I certainly have some concerns. The first step in any peaceful negotiation for a two-state solution for the Palestinians is to recognize the right of Israel’s existence. They have to denounce terrorism in both word and deed. And they have to sit down and negotiate with Israel directly. Anything short of that is a non-starter in my opinion.
Kessler claimed Perry was wrong on all three points. On the first point, he says that Palestinians have indeed recognized Israel, but this is debatable.
For starters, many say that the Palestinians never really changed their charter to remove its anti-Israel language. They argue that merely voting to revoke the charter’s provisions is not the same thing as producing a new charter without those provisions. (Here’s an example of that school of thought.) Personally, I think that what Palestinian authorities did in 1996 or 1998 to revise a document written in 1964 is beside the point. What matters is what they say and do now. Just last month, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas denied the existence of Israel:
The Palestinian Authority will not be recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday, adopting a belligerent tone ahead of his planned statehood bid in September. . .
“Don’t order us to recognize a Jewish state,” Abbas said. “We won’t accept it.”
And this very day, the logo of the Palestinian mission to the UN denies Israel’s existence. In short, Perry’s position is, at the very least, a defensible opinion, not a factual error. Frankly, I think he’s right.
Kessler is even weaker on the other two facets of Perry’s statement. Perry says the Palestinians must denounce terrorism in word and deed. Kessler produces one example of the Palestinians denouncing terrorism in word. He does not produce any examples of the Palestinians denouncing terrorism in deed (okay, I’ll grant that that’s clumsy wording), because there are none to produce.
On the third point, that the Palestinians need to negotiate with Israel directly, Kessler seems to concede that Perry is right. The Palestinians are not negotiating with Israel directly, and haven’t since March 2010. But somehow this point too shows Perry’s ignorance. Kessler doesn’t explain how.
Nowhere in this “fact-checking” piece on Perry’s “newbie mistake” does Kessler demonstrate any factual errors. On the contrary, there is one difference in opinion, and two correct facts. But wait, Kessler talked to three anonymous “experts”, and all three said that Perry sounded remarkably uninformed. Oh, well then.
But wait, there’s more! Kessler concludes that Rick Perry’s campaign is a “fact-free zone” (no facts at all!) because they have never replied to any of his inquiries. Clearly, Kessler is using the word “fact” to mean something entirely different from what it means to me.
POSTSCRIPT: As a reminder that Palestinian rejectionism continues unabated today, note that the logo of the Palestinian delegation to the UN — the very same group seeking blessing for an independent state this week – denies the very existence of Israel.
The Saudis are trying to suppress criticism, in Canada:
Saudi Arabia has hired lawyers to threaten Canadian broadcasters who dare to run a TV ad critical of Saudi conflict oil. . .
Alykhan Velshi, who runs EthicalOil.org, produced a 30-second TV ad comparing the treatment of women in Canada with the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia. . . Saudi Arabia doesn’t like criticism like that, though. They are a fascist state without a free press or any opposition political parties. And now they’ve hired one of the world’s largest law firms, a 2,600-lawyer monstrosity called Norton Rose, to threaten Canada’s media into silence, too.
Rahool Agarwal, one of the lawyers at Norton Rose, has been contacting broadcasters across Canada, threatening them if they air the ad. Already two networks have capitulated in the face of such threats, including CTV, Canada’s biggest private broadcaster. Agarwal has also threatened EthicalOil.org with a lawsuit, too. He won’t say for what — he clearly has no legal case. But the point is silencing dissent. And it’s working.
POSTSCRIPT: The primary culprit here is Saudi Arabia, of course, but Canada has to take some blame for allowing this to happen. If Canada had a better record viz a viz free speech, such threats as these would be less likely to work. As it is, every Canadian broadcaster has to worry about being hauled into a “human rights” commission.
The “mildly Islamic” (as the Economist likes to put it) government of Turkey is rattling its saber against Israel louder and louder. In just the last few days, Turkish newspapers have reported two belligerent announcements from the Turkish government. First, the government announced it was reprogramming its IFF systems to identify Israeli planes as hostile. Second, they reportedly announced that Turkish warships would accompany the upcoming humanitarian/terrorist flotilla to Gaza, and would attack any Israeli warships they encountered outside Israeli waters. The government quickly backpedaled from the second announcement, but it’s hard to be very reassured.
We must not forget that Erdogan’s fingerprints are all over the original humanitarian/terrorist flotilla that started this whole crisis. He wants this crisis; the only question is why. Does he really want war with Israel? If not, what does he expect to gain from his brinksmanship?
A mob in Egypt attacked the Israeli embassy in Cairo, apparently with the blessing of the Egyptian authorities. The mob worked for hours to break in, while police made no effort to stop them.
As an another example of the slow-motion collapse of Turkish civilization under Islamist rule, the Turkish government has ended the independence of the Turkish Academy of Sciences. The members of the academy (and its officers) will now be appointed by the government rather than being selected by merit. Also, in order that it not take years for the political appointees to dominate the academy, the government will more than double the academy’s membership immediately. It would have been better to dissolve the academy outright.
Glenn Reynolds adds, “To paraphrase Tom Wolfe, anti-science fundamentalism is forever descending upon the United States, but somehow it always seems to land on the Muslim world.”
Turkish warships will escort any Turkish aid vessels to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in an interview with Al-Jazeera television on Thursday.
“Turkish warships, in the first place, are authorized to protect our ships that carry humanitarian aid to Gaza,” Erdogan said in the interview. “From now on, we will not let these ships to be attacked by Israel, as what happened with the Freedom Flotilla.”
Observet that the stronger the Islamists grow in Turkey, the worse become Turkey’s relations with Israel.
One of the leaders of Libya’s new regime is a former member of al Qaeda. (At least, I hope he’s a former member.) And, if that’s not unsettling enough, the new regime is starting to round up blacks:
Yesterday also brought news via the Associated Press that rebel forces and armed civilians are rounding up thousands of black Libyans and migrants from sub-Sahara Africa, accusing them of fighting for ousted strongman Moammar Gadhafi and holding them in makeshift jails across the capital. The AP’s Ben Hubbard reports that all of the detainees say they are innocent migrant workers — not a great shock — and asserts that in most cases there is no evidence that they are lying.
I’m glad that Qaddafi is gone, but I wish we’d taken steps to ensure that we weren’t putting something worse in his place.
It’s hard to guess what the government’s true intentions were in the Gunwalker scandal. The ATF claims that it was a strategy — gone horribly wrong — to track illegal guns to the leaders of Mexican drug cartels, but that claim doesn’t make sense since they didn’t actually try to track the guns.
Many have speculated that the ATF’s true purpose in trafficking illegal weapons to Mexico was to buttress the narrative that too many illegal weapons are being trafficked into Mexico (the old 90% lie), in an effort to promote additional gun control regulations in the United States. This theory is supported by a paper trail showing that the same people who ran the ill-fated operation were being asked to provide support for the anti-gun narrative. It’s also supported by the fact that the speculative aim of the strategy, more gun control, is exactly what happened, despite public exposure of the ATF’s misdeeds.
This speculation is increasingly seeming likely to be true, because of the lack of any other explanation for the ATF’s behavior. But Robert Farago has another theory. He says that we should assume that the government meant to do exactly what it did: arms Mexican drug cartels; in particular, the Sinaloa drug cartel.
According to his theory, the US government was concerned that the Mexican government might fall to the Zetas. (That’s the extremely dangerous drug cartel originally formed by mutinying Mexican special forces.) The ATF got the job of supplying weapons to the Zeta’s enemy, the Sinaloa cartel.
It’s an interesting theory. It strikes me as a little less reprehensible than the political theory (at least they would have had a legitimate aim in mind), but even more reckless.
Occam’s razor would seem to support Farago’s theory, but beyond that, there’s not any real evidence to support it. Also, the theory fails to explain why the State Department was also reportedly trafficking guns to the Zetas.
Iran’s supreme leader admonished the West and Israel on Wednesday not to seek advantage from the antigovernment uprisings convulsing the Arab Muslim world . . .
Ha. If only. I doubt the mullahs have anything to worry about on that score.
Passing trade deals is something that “Congress can do right now,” remarked President Obama Monday at a town hall meeting in Cannon Falls, Minnesota.
Not so fast. The truth is that Congress can’t do anything on free trade agreements “right now,” because the President has yet to send the agreements to Congress for final approval, despite receiving recommendations on the agreements from Congress on July 7.
The President often mentions that in January 2009 he inherited a very difficult economic environment. He also inherited three negotiated and signed Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with Korea, Colombia and Panama. The only step left for the Obama administration was to submit the agreements to Congress for ratification: a step yet to be taken.
POSTSCRIPT: At least in regard to Colombia, Congress does need to take some blame. President Bush did send the agreement to Congress for ratification in 2008, and the Democrats who ran Congress at the time refused to hold a vote, for no reason whatsoever.
The United States has apologised for controversial remarks made by a US diplomat who spoke of “dark and dirty” Indians, calling the comments “inappropriate”. US Vice-Consul Maureen Chao told Indian students on Friday that her “skin became dirty and dark like the Tamilians” after a long train journey, according to Indian media — referring to people from the southern state of Tamil Nadu.
When the UN Security Council convened to discuss a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state, Susan Rice — President Obama’s ambassador to the UN — didn’t bother to show up. (More here.)
According to Richard Grenell, Rice rarely shows up to these things.
Mobs of ordinary Egyptians joined with soldiers to drive pro-democracy protesters from their encampment in Tahrir Square here Monday, showing how far the uprising’s early heroes have fallen in the eyes of the public.
Six months after young, liberal activists helped lead the popular movement that ousted President Hosni Mubarak, the hard core of these protesters was forcibly dispersed by the troops. Some Egyptians lined the street to applaud the army. Others ganged up on the activists as they retreated from the square that has come to symbolize the Arab Spring.
Squeezed between an assertive military and the country’s resurgent Islamist movement, many Internet-savvy, pro-democracy activists are finding it increasingly hard to remain relevant in a post-revolutionary Egypt that is struggling to overcome an economic crisis and restore law and order.
What could the Ambassador to England have on his schedule that is more important than attending a celebration and commemoration of a US president? Isn’t this, in part, part of the job? When a foreign country goes out of its way to honor your country, doesn’t that give you a unique leverage that should be capitalized on? Doesn’t it follow that the only way to capitalize on it is to actually be there?
From all reports, Susman was not sick, stricken with illness or involved in a really intense game of Farmville. He simply didn’t show up, as the representative of the United States, to an event honoring one of the greatest presidents in US history.
A political hack, he acted in accordance with his nature — politically. He couldn’t imagine that this could matter to anyone serious. In that he showed the narrow worldview and lack of imagination that characterizes the Obama Administration’s diplomacy.
That sounds right to me. Susman got the job by being one of Barack Obama’s top fundraisers.
Sensing the revolution that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak is slipping from their grasp, activists and opposition groups are pressuring the ruling military council to postpone Egypt’s elections in September amid fears that Islamists and members of the former regime will gain too much power.
The Czech Republic is withdrawing from U.S. missile defense plans out of frustration at its diminished role, the Czech defense minister told The Associated Press Wednesday. . .
“I’m not surprised by the decision,” said Jan Vidim, a lawmaker in the lower house of the Czech Parliament. “The United States has been and will be our crucial strategic partner but the current administration doesn’t take the Czech Republic seriously.”
Vidim’s remarks reflected concern by many in Central and Eastern Europe that the U.S. interest in resetting ties with Moscow could come at their expense.
A series of reports by the Oakland Institute charge that several prominent American universities — including Harvard and Vanderbilt Universities and Spelman College — are investing in hedge funds and companies that are driving African farmers off their land.
They probably figure that if Columbia can get away with stealing land from Americans, no one will care about African farmers.
Turkey’s election results are bad, but they could have been worse. At least the Islamists didn’t get the supermajority that would have allowed them to rewrite the constitution unilaterally. With their numbers they will still be able to rewrite the constitution, but it will have to face a referendum, so they can’t rewrite it as transparently as they would like.
MOST Argentines reacted with a shrug when their government began doctoring its consumer-price index in 2007. Cooking the books cost holders of the country’s inflation-linked bonds at least $2.3 billion last year. But anyone else who needed to know the true inflation rate simply turned to a clutch of private economists who drew on their own price surveys, data from provincial governments and other official statistics. They reckon that inflation is now running at about 25%. That is far above the 10% reported by INDEC, the government statistics agency . . .
Guillermo Moreno, the thuggish commerce secretary, is moving to stamp out the unofficial, but widely trusted, price indices. To do so he has dusted off a decree, penalising misleading advertising, approved by a military dictatorship in 1983. In February he sent letters to 12 economists and consultants ordering them to reveal their methodology, on the grounds that erroneous figures could mislead consumers.
Some of Mr Moreno’s targets refused; the rest were analysed by INDEC, which predictably found their methods flawed. Seven of them were then ordered to pay the maximum fine of $123,000 (all have appealed).
History is repeating itself in the South Atlantic. Argentina’s government, facing domestic problems, has resorted to saber rattling over the Falkland Islands. But this time, the Obama administration is siding with Argentina over our most important ally.
With this latest in President Obama’s long string of insults and injuries against Britain, we are now beyond the realm of mere incompetence. At this point we have to assume that Obama really does have it in for Britain.
In the wake of bloody Muslim attacks on Egyptian Christians, the New York Times informs us:
“By lifting the heavy hand of the Mubarak police state, the revolution unleashed long-suppressed sectarian animosities that have burst out with increasing ferocity….”
No kidding! Did you think a single Egyptian Christian didn’t know this in February? Why didn’t the media report or the U.S. government understand that this was absolutely inevitable and predictable? But the only mentions of Christians were to claim that they were really enthusiastic about the revolution.
Last month, Republican lawmakers wrote to President Obama asking him to promise not to give away our missile defense technology to the Russians — which obviously would help the Russians develop countermeasures. The White House refused to answer.
POSTSCRIPT: The subject of the linked article is a veiled threat by Dmitry Medvedev, but it was sufficiently veiled that I don’t understand it.
The Economist recently printed this letter (subscription required) from the Chinese Embassy in London. It’s really quite astonishing:
SIR – Your criticisms of China in the Ai Weiwei case were unwarranted, show a disrespect for our judicial sovereignty and are an attempt to interfere with our internal affairs (“China’s crackdown”, April 16th). Mr Ai, an artist, has made his comments before, through Twitter and interviews given to Western journalists, and he has travelled abroad to hold exhibitions. These activities were not restricted. Mr Ai is now under investigation for suspected economic crimes. The case is not a human-rights matter nor is it about freedom of speech, but rather it is a question of whether the rule of law should be upheld.
China is ruled by law, not by man; it is not a case of rule by a few. Over the past 30 years of reform China has achieved a great deal, not just in becoming the second-largest economy and improving the living standards of its people, but also in terms of much greater freedoms. Some people in the West assert that China only wants economic reform and not political reform. This is not true either in theory or in practice. . .
The letter goes on in this vein for three more paragraphs, and alludes to China’s respect for the rule of law two more times. It’s quite an amazing feat of chutzpah, since it is not even remotely true.
Case in point: Just a few weeks earlier the Economist ran a story (subscription required) on the death sentence handed down by a Chinese court to Wu Jing, a prominent entrepreneur. The most troubling thing about the case is that no one knows exactly what Wu did:
The case struck a nerve across the country, and not just because of the severity of the sentence and the fame of the accused. What she was convicted of was raising and pooling money outside the official system, which is common among Chinese entrepreneurs. There has been much speculation about why she was singled out. Perhaps it was that her promises to investors of annual returns of up to 80% seemed just too good, to the authorities, to be genuine. It is also possible that she lent on the money she received at even higher rates, and the borrowers, unable to pay, used their political connections to have her arrested.
China’s entrepreneurs are left with plenty to worry about. Many have to rely on a form of financing that now seems to be interpreted by the courts as a grave crime. The distinction between being a successful tycoon and being an enemy of the people has been blurred, a step back to the days when China was communist in more than just name.
Every Arab-Israeli negotiation contains a fundamental asymmetry: Israel gives up land, which is tangible; the Arabs make promises, which are ephemeral. The long-standing American solution has been to nonetheless urge Israel to take risks for peace while America balances things by giving assurances of U.S. support for Israel’s security and diplomatic needs.
Unfortunately, President Obama is now repudiating all those past assurances.
President Obama “clarifies” that when he called for a Israel to pull back to its 1967 borders, he meant “a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967.”
The U.N. nuclear agency is investigating fears from its experts that their cell phones and lap tops have been hacked into by Iranian officials looking for confidential information.
Diplomats tell The Associated press that the hardware apparently was tampered with while left unattended during inspection tours in the Islamic Republic.
This is telling. The IAEA left their stuff unattended while visiting Iran. Unless you’re an idiot (which, I admit, is possible), you only do that if you trust your host.
Frank J is dissatisfied with the quality of our enemies:
America has been in a slump for a long time. We just can’t get our act together and be the shining city on the hill we used to be, and I think a big part of that is terrorists. Not terrorism; terrorists — in that they are our big enemy right now. The fact is, to achieve great heights, America needs a great villain to overcome, and as long as our big enemy is a bunch of primitive thugs servicing themselves in barren compounds, we’re going to be stuck in a rut.
Read the whole thing for a smile.
But seriously, although I enjoy mocking our enemies, I don’t agree with Frank’s thesis. Terrorists do pose an existential threat to our way of life. It’s true that the terrorists and their state sponsors are much weaker than any enemy we’ve faced before, but unlike the Soviets, we have no way to deter them. When they start using nuclear weapons against us (and we’re running out of time to prevent it), they cannot destroy our country, but they can destroy the open society that we hold dear.
In January, the Guardian and Al Jazeera revealed a collection of Palestinian documents that purported to shed light on the Palestinian Authority’s negotiations with Israel. Their reporting on the documents painted the Palestinians as reasonable and the Israelis as intransigent. But both the Guardian and Al Jazeera are openly hostile to Israel, so this may have colored their selection of documents to publicize.
Now an article in the Jerusalem Post does indeed paint a different picture. The Post reports that a full reading of the documents, rather than the ones cherry-picked by the Guardian and Al Jazeera, actually supports Israel and casts doubt on the Palestinians’ offer of concessions. There’s an important caveat: the documents were reviewed by an organization that seems basically unknown.
The article is pretty much unexcerptable, so I’ll pick one example:
THE KEY concession that the Palestinians were reported to have made was control over Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem. Al Jazeera broadcast that the Palestinians had offered to “let Israel keep all but one of the Jewish enclaves it built in East Jerusalem,” referring to Har Homa, and settlements over the Green Line amounting to some 2 percent of the land controlled by Jordan between 1948 and 1967.
But Christians for Fair Witness found that the Palestine Papers did not indicate that Abbas made a counter- offer to Olmert’s August 31 proposal. They revealed documents indicating that the Palestinians had decided ahead of the final Olmert-Abbas meeting on September 16 not to issue a counter-offer at that meeting and that Abbas had been advised by his team to wait to respond until George W. Bush was out of the White House.
A December 2, 2008, memo indicated that in response to Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs David Welch’s question about Olmert’s offer, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told Welch that “We offered a 2% swap that would allow 70% of the settlers to remain.”
But the 2% figure is not mentioned at all in either a September 16, 2008, memo of “talking points” for Abbas at his final meeting with Olmert, or a September 22, 2008, memo of “Palestinian Talking Points Regarding Israeli Proposal.” Therefore, it appears that the 2% figure did not play a part in the Palestinian thinking about possible responses to Olmert’s package offer. Moreover, there is no indication whatsoever of this figure having been presented to Olmert post-September 16, 2008.
It’s a little hard to know what to make of this. The Guardian and Al Jazeera are hostile to Israel. The Jerusalem Post is generally friendly to Israel, of course, but as a western newspaper it is often sharply critical of its government. However it wasn’t the Post that did the analysis, but this unknown Christian organization. I was able to find the September 16, 2008 memo (mentioned above) myself using the Al Jazeera search tool, and it does say what the organization claims. But other documents mentioned in the article were hard to find. I wish a mainstream news outlet would do an independent review.
The US and Pakistan struck a secret deal almost a decade ago permitting a US operation against Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil similar to last week’s raid that killed the al-Qaida leader, the Guardian has learned.
The deal was struck between the military leader General Pervez Musharraf and President George Bush after Bin Laden escaped US forces in the mountains of Tora Bora in late 2001, according to serving and retired Pakistani and US officials.
Under its terms, Pakistan would allow US forces to conduct a unilateral raid inside Pakistan in search of Bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the al-Qaida No3. Afterwards, both sides agreed, Pakistan would vociferously protest the incursion.
Those who pay attention to the Middle East are familiar with the phenomenon in which the region’s villains tell different stories to western audiences (in English) and domestic audiences (in Arabic). They get away with this because the western media almost never reports speeches given in Arabic. Whether this is because they are just too lazy, or because, for political reasons, they don’t actually want to expose these villains, is not clear. (Probably it’s some of both.)
Thus we had the spectacle in which Yassir Arafat was perfectly open about how the Oslo treaty was a ploy for the PLO to gain what it could, after which they would return to war (which is exactly what happened) — but he only said it in Arabic so it was not widely reported.
Fars (Iran’s official news agency) gets its tin-foil hats on:
The US has killed the Al-Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden, in a bid to prevent any possible leakage of intelligence and information about the US-Al-Qaeda joint terrorist operations, a senior Iranian legislator underscored on Monday.
The two main Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas, announced Wednesday that they were putting aside years of bitter rivalry to create an interim unity government and hold elections within a year, a surprise move that promised to reshape the diplomatic landscape of the Middle East.
The deal, brokered in secret talks by the caretaker Egyptian government, was announced at a news conference in Cairo where the two negotiators referred to each side as brothers and declared a new chapter in the Palestinian struggle for independence, hobbled in recent years by the split between the Fatah-run West Bank and Hamas-run Gaza. . .
Israel, feeling increasingly surrounded by unfriendly forces, denounced the unity deal as dooming future peace talks since Hamas seeks its destruction. “The Palestinian Authority has to choose between peace with Israel and peace with Hamas,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared in a televised statement. The Obama administration warned that Hamas was a terrorist organization unfit for peacemaking.
Netanyahu has it exactly right. Hamas is an implacable enemy of Israel; Fatah can’t make peace with both. But, in truth, Fatah has made is clear to those paying attention that it has no real interest in peace with Israel, only in the benefits that accrue from play-acting a part in the “peace process”.
Hopefully, this will be a clarifying moment, and will put and end to our willful blindness toward Fatah’s intentions. For example, the Economist often writes that “the outline of a peace deal is clear”. Sure, it is clear to us, but Fatah (to say nothing of Hamas) doesn’t want the deal. It doesn’t matter if the deal seems reasonable to us; we can’t make them want it.
POSTSCRIPT: It is troubling that Egypt’s interim government brokered the deal. It might bespeak a hostility toward Israel that we expect from the Muslim Brotherhood, but we did not expect from the generals.
Palestinian Authority police Sunday morning shot and killed one Israeli and wounded four others after they prayed at Joseph’s Tomb (Kever Yosef) around 6 a.m. Sunday (11 p.m. Saturday night EDT). . . A group of 15 worshippers from the Breslov Chassidic sect had driven to the site and were returning when they were gunned down by Palestinian Authority police in a jeep.
The PA security forces continued to fire at the cars as they fled.
Remember, the Palestinian Authority (in contrast to Gaza) is supposedly run by the moderate ones.
The weekly instructions to the Chinese media from the censors gives a fascinating look into the stories that the regime sees as dangerous. There ought to be a paper that reports exclusively on these stories.
Sources say President Obama’s new ambassador to Afghanistan will be Ryan Crocker. Crocker, of course, served as President Bush’s ambassador to Iraq, and, together with General Petraeus, oversaw our victory in Iraq.
Two thoughts: First, this is really good news. It’s almost happy-dance good. Crocker is exactly the right man for the job.
Second, it is striking to see Obama re-assemble the entire Iraq Surge team. First Gates, then Petraeus, and now Crocker. I won’t indulge in the obvious snark (get some here, if you want), but I’ll say it couldn’t have been easy for Obama to swallow his pride and do this. Kudos to him.
But the latest guidance on television programming from the State Administration of Radio Film and Television in China borders on the surreal – or, rather, an attack against the surreal.
New guidelines issued on March 31 discourage plot lines that contain elements of “fantasy, time-travel, random compilations of mythical stories, bizarre plots, absurd techniques, even propagating feudal superstitions, fatalism and reincarnation, ambiguous moral lessons, and a lack of positive thinking.”
Mohammed ElBaradei, running for president of Egypt, is pledging to make war against Israel.
Strictly speaking, he made the pledge in the event of war between Israel and Hamas, but renewed war between Israel and Hamas is a virtual certainty — especially if Hamas thinks that Egypt would come into the conflict on their side.
Remember this the next time a talking head speaks of ElBaradei as if he were one of the good guys.
A lot of people worry that some day China will use its enormous holdings of US debt to put pressure on our foreign policy. Well worry no longer, that day has arrived:
Leaked diplomatic cables vividly show China’s willingness to translate its massive holdings of US debt into political influence on issues ranging from Taiwan’s sovereignty to Washington’s financial policy.
China’s clout — gleaned from its nearly $900 billion stack of US debt — has been widely commented on in the United States, but sensitive cables show just how much influence Beijing has and how keen Washington is to address its rival’s concerns.
An October 2008 cable, released by WikiLeaks, showed a senior Chinese official linking questions about much-needed Chinese investment to sensitive military sales to Taiwan.
However, I’m not sure that China’s holdings give them the kind of leverage they hope (and that we seem to fear). With so much of China’s sovereign wealth tied up in US treasuries, I don’t think they can afford to endanger those holdings. As the old saying goes: if you borrow a million dollars, the bank owns you; if you borrow a billion, you own the bank.
Here’s a shocker: the Muslim Brotherhood is proving to be the dominant force in post-Mubarak Egyptian politics. How could anyone have seen that coming. . . ?
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who routinely blames capitalism for many of this world’s troubles, pointed elsewhere in the galaxy for his latest critique, saying Tuesday that the economic system may have destroyed life on Mars.
“I have always said, have heard, that it would not be strange that there had been civilization on Mars,” the firebrand socialist said on Venezuela’s state television. After pausing a moment, he added, “But perhaps capitalism arrived there, imperialism arrived, and finished that planet.”
President Bush had twice as many partners in his anti-Saddam coalition (30) as President Obama (or should I say President Sarkozy) has in his anti-Qaddafi coalition (15).
Bush also had the approval of Congress. But Obama has the approval of the Arab League. (Or at least, he did until the action actually started.)
None of which is to say that Obama’s action is illegitimate. But it’s very interesting how Bush was condemned for his “unilateralism” when he was actually much more multilateral than Obama.
Years ago, back when people still took the Israel/Palestinian “peace process” seriously, my eyes were opened when I read a story (I wish I could find it now) that observed that Yasser Arafat gave dramatically different speeches in English and Arabic. In English he would act like a reasonable partner for peace, but in Arabic he continued to pledge to destroy Israel. He even declared openly that the Oslo treaty was just a ploy, intended to gain Palestinians what they could, after which they would return to war. (Which is exactly what happened.) He got away with this because the western media only ever reported his remarks given in English.
I’m reminded of this when I read of Hamas’s statements regarding the recent slaughter of an Israeli family in the West Bank. In English they decry the murders, claim no involvement, and suggest that an Israeli was responsible. In Arabic they celebrate the murders and laud the Palestinian perpetrator.
The head of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, that thoroughly moderate and indeed secular organization, says that Egypt’s new government should be modeled after Iran’s. He also says that Egypt needs “innocent, honest and brave leaders” like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
If the cause of radical Islamism is resentment over American imperialism and Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, why the violence against Egypt’s Copts?
Why aren’t we seeing any leadership on Libya from President Obama? I know it’s too much to hope for him to approve US action against Qaddafi, like a no-fly zone to keep Qaddafi from bombing protesters. But is it too much to ask for a speech or something? So far nothing.
UPDATE: Well, the president gave a speech condemning the violence. Unfortunately, I don’t see anything in it that would give Qaddafi pause, or encourage the opposition.
Moammar Qaddafi has reportedly fled for Venezuela. Al Jazeera is reporting that military jets are bombing the protesters. Two colonels from the Libyan air force have defected rather than obey those orders.
I didn’t notice this when the story broke last October:
The three American hikers arrested by Iran last year were on the Iraqi side of the border, according to US military documents released on Friday by WikiLeaks, reported the New York Times. The internal US document highlights military grids where the group was detained, which the Times said were on the Iraqi side of the border.
Iran crossed the border into Iraq to abduct three Americans. That is an act of war. Unfortunately, the world is learning that America will brush off nearly any provocation.
President Obama actually offered to approve it, if only the Palestinians agreed to make it non-binding. Abbas refused, apparently deciding that a defeated binding resolution is better than a unanimous non-binding resolution. Good thinking!
Still, the administration was determined to get its anti-Israel on, and followed its veto with a tirade against Israel’s settlements. (On that note, let’s recall that the US and Israel had a deal to extend Israel’s settlement moratorium, but the deal fell through when the US refused to put it in writing.)
Argentina’s relations with the U.S. took a sharp turn for the worse Monday as the country continued to hold military equipment it confiscated last week from a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane sent as part of a training course for local police.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Arturo Valenzuela, called on Argentina to return the property without delay. . . Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman quickly rebutted Mr. Valenzuela and called on the U.S. to apologize for violating Argentine law. . .
Mr. Timerman accused the U.S. of using the plane to smuggle undeclared firearms, surveillance equipment and “various doses of morphine” into the country for ulterior motives. . .
A State Department official familiar with the seizure told Dow Jones Newswires most of the material, which was intended for use in a hostage-rescue course, had been properly declared and previously approved by Argentine authorities.
The only thing that hadn’t been declared was the medication confiscated at the airport, said the official, who asked to remain anonymous because of the delicate nature of the issue.
The medication, including morphine, is part of a first aid kit belonging to an Army medic who participates in the training courses, the official said. The course uses real weapons and live-fire exercises, making it imperative to have medication available in an emergency, the official said.
Glenn Reynolds suggests that this is payback for President Obama skipping Argentina in his South America trip next month, but I doubt it. I think this is most likely all about domestic politics: attacking the United States always plays well, whether it makes sense or not. The fact that the foreign minister personally supervised the confiscation lends additional credence to that interpretation.
The Obama administration was warned of instability in Egypt nearly a year ago:
Early last year, a group of U.S.-based human-rights activists, neoconservative policy makers and Mideast experts told Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that what passed for calm in Egypt was an illusion.
“If the opportunity to reform is missed, prospects for stability and prosperity in Egypt will be in doubt,” read their April 2010 letter.
The correspondence was part of a string of warnings passed to the Obama administration arguing that Egypt, heading toward crisis, required a vigorous U.S. response. Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s 82-year-old dictator, was moving to rig a string of elections, they said. Egypt’s young population was growing more agitated.
The bipartisan body that wrote to Mrs. Clinton, the Egypt Working Group, argued that the administration wasn’t fully appraising the warning signs in Egypt. Its members came together in early 2010, concerned that the Arab world’s biggest country was headed for transition but that the U.S. and others weren’t preparing for a post-Mubarak era.
This makes the administration’s flat-footed response to the crisis even more inexcusable.
Posted by K. Crary 
