Obama’s almost-hostage crisis
The Pakistani Government announced that it would put Raymond Davis, who the US says has diplomatic immunity, on trial for shooting two men that were attacking him.
Davis, who says he acted in self-defence when he shot the men on a busy street last month, has been charged with double murder and faces possible execution.
The case has triggered a major diplomatic row between America and Pakistan after Washington insisted he had diplomatic immunity and must be repatriated.
The article in the Daily Mail noted that Davis may be at the center of a struggle between Pakistan’s ISI and the CIA. “Relations between the spy agencies took a blow in December, when the CIA station chief in Islamabad was forced to leave the country after his name was published in a court filing over drone attacks. Davis’ case made matter worse.”
Davis appeared to challenge the competence of the Pakistani court over him. ABC News noted that at his arraignment “the handcuffed Davis, however, refused to sign the document and instead presented to the judge a written notice declaring diplomatic immunity”. He is now being held in a jail housing 4,000 Islamic militants, although his actual cell is segregated.
A mission by Senator John Kerry to “repair relationships” that was reported by Boston.com appeared to have borne no immediate fruit. “The Obama administration dispatched Senator John F. Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to Pakistan last night to try to repair deteriorating relations after the arrest of a US Embassy worker who shot two Pakistani motorcyclists dead.”
Meanwhile, the NYT reports that Pakistan is demanding data on CIA contractors. The NYT reported that if the US was prepared to give Pakistan what it wanted that the whole issue could be amicably settled. A Pakistani source was quoted as saying, “the official said that the American and Pakistani intelligence agencies needed to continue cooperation, and that Pakistan was prepared to put the episode in the past if the C.I.A. stopped treating its Pakistani counterparts as inferior.”
The White House has asked Pakistan to release Davis “in accordance with the Vienna Convention”.
“Davis was received by the government of Pakistan as an employee of the embassy and he was granted diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Conventions,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters.
Carney did not say how the administration would respond if the Pakistanis refused. But the world can rest assured that it is in good, decisive hands.
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A mission by Senator John Kerry to “repair relationships” that was reported by Boston.com appeared to have borne no immediate fruit.
I read this too quickly, thought it was referring to John F. Kerry as a boring fruit. On a reread I see this was not the meaning, as is only proper as why would any good journalist waste ink on something so obvious.
But the world can rest assured that it is in good, decisive hands.
Pokistonii hands, or is this sarcasm?
/sarc
. . . . crickets . . . .
If this goes through, it’ll be open season on U.S. diplomats and Embassy staff.
George W says ‘miss me yet?’
The Wan is being defeated in the main theatre of battle: the ISI civil war.
Tendering the intel over to the ISI = complete strategic defeat.
Pure and simple.
We may need to keep our battle fleet in play — meaning that it is lost for other duties.
The MSM will let this fade as best is possible, but this is even worse than the embassy fiasco in Tehran.
This time ’round our diplomat is being fulsomely targeted by a notionally allied state actor: Islamabad itself.
The Wan always told us he’d always take sides with the ummah. Here is inaction in action.
Where will the Wan seek asylum?
My guess is that the President’s engagement queue is now fully saturated. It’s lagged now, because he has to respond to about a dozen fully blown crises in a time-sliced manner, while the actors in each crisis simply focus on their own slice in near real-time.
1. Wisconsin and the midwest Red states;
2. Afghanistan;
3. Egypt;
4. Libya;
5. Iran;
6. Bahrain;
7. Yemen;
8. North Korea;
9. the Federal shutdown of government;
10. Pakistan
all on the boil and developing fast.
And looming right on the horizon
1. Saudi Arabia;
2. Energy prices;
3. Bankruptcy of California, Illinois, etc
4. Collapse of the Euro;
5. the bond markets;
6. court challenges to Obamacare;
7. DOMA
He’s responding in penny-packets to challenges like Pakistan in ways guaranteed to make them bigger. Because what he knows, and perhaps all he knows, is “kick the can down the road”, there is no closure to anything anywhere.
So the engagement queue is likely to grow ever longer, which means the lag will grow to the point where problems proceed essentially unengaged. At this rate, the administration will have the equivalent of a nervous breakdown inside of a two months.
If something like a terror attack happens, Obama will essentially be down on the canvas, looking, like Primo Carnera during the Max Baer fight, for the truck that just hit him. He needs to simplify, consolidate, shorten lines. This is what every chess player does when he finds himself in an impossibly tricky situation. But that requires a sense of strategy; to understand where to simplify, what to hold, where to fall back. And like Niall Ferguson said, the problem with President Obama is not only that he doesn’t have a strategy, he doesn’t even know he needs a strategy.
His campaign background may now be working against him, as is his lack of executive experience. He is now in a situation where it is not about talking points, not about looking good behind a podium. It is about actually be able to do something. And so far, it seems like he doesn’t have a clue.
your democrats at work
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110224/ap_on_re_us/us_congressman_mental_health
he’s grrrrrrrreat!
b @ 5: Here is inaction in action
I think that should be a Republican-issued bumper sticker in 2012, a picture of Obama and the slogan, “Inaction In Action”. And you get a royalty!
Davis is the walking dead. Maybe this will get the CIA off it’s useless ass and reach into the JFK playbook. Biden will play although I don’t see a Warren anywhere.
7. wretchard
the Wans’ priority is no JOOS building on the west bank, doncha know?
Wretchard, I’d bet that Berry has no idea what an OODA Loop is. Probably thinks Col. Boyd is the guy who invented the 3 wood.
Bad: Being captured by islamocrazies in Pock-i-stan.
Worse: Being captured by islamocrazies in Pock-i-stan with “Obama” in the White House.
In 2008, Obama grandly stated “… the Taliban is more powerful than any time since we invaded Afghanistan. If I become president, that’s going to change.”
Give the man props for telling the truth. The Taliban is now more powerful than any time since Obama became president… And we just surrendered in another valley which Obama had previously pronounced as critical to our war efforts. Betrayal of America. Betrayal of truth.
He stabbed Mubarak in the back. He utterly failed to anticipate this Libyan calamity, despite over a month of lead-up. The fact that thousands of Americans, (whatever their loyalties may be as dual citizens of Libya and the USA – what exactly are we talking about, here…?) are now caught in Libya is evidence (as if we needed more) of profound incompetence. The dingy they tried to evacuate with is a metaphor for this traitor president’s administration.
In the “Big Picture” I don’t know how anyone can deny that supernatural forces are not at work in the world (and has been for several years now), I mean come on man! how did someone like “0bama” get to be President and be this incompetent? How could the US fall so far so fast??? three or four years ago no one could have seen things going this bad this fast not even the worst critics would believe what is happening today would be happening!!! AND IT SEEMS TO ONLY BE GETTING WORSE…
Why does your list leave out the number one critical Obamidential task of predicting which teams will make the NBA post season? Get real here.
Referring to engagement queue: w@7
w @ 7: you forget his #1 item this week, ending defense of the defense of marriage act, which rose to #1 because otherwise he simply couldn’t get the social secretary that he so desperately needed. not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Maybe Wimp in Chief would be a better description of the One. He is indeed merely the second coming of Jimmy Carter in blackface. Perhaps I’m mistaken on this, but isn’t imprisoning an accredited person with diplomatic immunity considered, by Holy International Law that is Sacred to all Transnational Progressives, an act of war? As I understand it you can take them into custody and to the embassy and demand that they leave the country, but you can’t stick them into one of your own jails for trial on any kind of charge at all.
Once again, is this not an act of war?
Did John Kerry remember his “magic hat?”
to understand where to simplify, what to hold, where to fall back
Obama always got along by knowing when to walk away, now he has to run. Can we get Kenny Rogers for the second half?
We had a professional and an amateur to choose between. Whatever you think of John McCain, except for immigration, is there one policy issue that he would not have handled better?
This regime is entering the stage of decay when functionaries start carving off fiefdoms and running their own for profit shows with an eye to the future.
Tcobb,
You didn’t read the fine print in the Vienna treaty, “Does not apply to anyone found later to be being working for the US CIA.”
Personally I’d start grabbing Chinese and Russian embassy drivers and letting them wake up like Michael Douglas in a Mexican graveyard. I’d grab Pakistanis also, only not let them wake up.
When does the “adult leadership” in the Democrat party get involved?
Is there anyone left, a single man with the stature to get involved with the White House chaos? Would he be Bill Clinton (joking, of course)? Maybe Joe Manchin someday, but he’s pretty Junior for the role (and had no foreign policy experience).
A few years back, the MSM was gloating about the dearth of old school Republican leaders. Today, the GOP has leaders a plenty, anyone of who would be 10x better than the foreign One now occupying the Oval Office. The Democrat party has no one with national or international credibility left. Not one ex-President, not one senior Senator, no one. The Democrat political leaders are universally seen as left-wing political hacks by most Americans, and as fools by our adversaries.
Yet, without “someone” to step in, the Obama White House takes the nation down the drain, from crisis to crisis, from misstep to misstep, and from foolishness to chaos. With the world burning, the left churning, and Americans yearning for some hope, Obama’s crew thought “nullification” of the “Defense of Marriage Act” was just the distraction America needs now. Obama’s bold actions on “don’t ask don’t tell” and DOMA must be just the hope American’s seek, and just the leadership the world hopes for.
That about sums up Obama’s incompetence. American’s will soon learn what the word “fear” means, and it’s not Bush or Cheney or Haliburton or Guantanamo or Global Warming. Fear is a wholly incompetent President and a leaderless country.
Old Salt
Bravo on #7 , Mr. Fernandez
What will the boy wonder do if the Pakis behead Davis on Al Jazeera?
Why does your list leave out the number one critical Obamidential task of predicting which teams will make the NBA post season? Get real here.
The ability to focus on an irrelevancy in the middle of uproar is the mark of two kinds of men. One type is represented by the Duke of Wellington, who at Waterloo, heard Lord Uxbridge beside him say that he had lost a leg to a cannonball.
There was also a British airborne officer called Digby Tatham-Warter, who found himself in Arnhem in desperate staits. But for some reason he had his umbella, which he was never without. And he led charges against the German army, pistol in one hand and umbrella in the other.
The other type of person is the man who has lost it and focuses on irrelevant details to keep his mind off the impending disaster which may be upon him at any moment. The archetype of this is Fagin, in Oliver Twist. Waiting for the awful sentence, Fagin distracts himself by focusing on trivia.
I think the NBA and Motown are an escape. The President is really feeling the heat, and genuinely wants to be somewhere else. Unfortunately, and like Fagin, the present will not go away. And in the background he hears the hammer of doom beating ever more intensely. At some human level, you have to feel sorry for him. He is where only a Wellington or a Tatham-Warter should be. But he is neither.
Where’s Sheriff Joe when you need him?
7) w,
“This is what every chess player does when he finds himself in an impossibly tricky situation”
Not every chess player. Young immature players will just knock over the board.
Now that the American embassy is evacuated, Obama is going to send a STRONGLY WORDED LETTER to Gaddafi.
He might even have to resort to kicking him off the UN human rights commission.
Watch out, evildoers!
w,
Don’t forget about the Mexico-border-drug cartels, and Venezuela
I have put many uncomplimentary titles upon the current POTUS. But as time progresses, as to anything having to do with foreign policy, perhaps the term “deer in the headlights in chief” might be the most appropriate.
The ability to focus on an irrelevancy in the middle of uproar is the mark of two kinds of men.
Khadaffy – however his name’s spelled – seems also to belong to the latter category.
@Wretchard 22 makes salient points concerning the two types of distractable leaders. But unfortunately it isn’t Obama that will feel the hammer of doom (whether or not he hears it). It’s poor Raymond Davis …
#25. Teresita
Oh please Teresita, I have no doubt that teh One has more balls than that. He could threaten them with not being invited to his next birthday party, something that would make any career diplomat tremble and wet their undergarments.
W. think Mexico border issues should be added to your list!!
{O.T. This has become my favorite web site.}
Wretchard nailed it in his No. 22.
Who conceded that Davis is CIA anyway? Was there proof or a paper trail? Would it have been possible to deny the connection and get away with it? At least publicly?
And where is the outrage from the Plame crowd who screamed bloody murder when their fictional dingbat superspy had her “cover” blown?
Bog-standard Islamic law. An infidel may not harm a Muslim, even to defend himself against an attacy by that Muslim. Ergo, under Sharia self-defense is murder.
#22 Wretchard wrote:
“I think the NBA and Motown are an escape…”
Yes and no. Obama has always enjoyed the perqs of the job – shoulder rubbing with the rich and famous. I wish the rich and famous had the wherewithall to twist off the spigot — to voluntarily rufuse to meet with him, to deny him the fame hit — but that would be out of character for them.
Why the president feels that Motown — one of the most successful music businesses of all time — needs his burnishing is beyond me. How nice if the president would make one gesture towards common Americans — send your kids to public schools, get rid of 10 limos with flags or donate Air Force One to the Salvation Army or attend a convention of truck drivers or plumbers — something! — even if only a symbolic something — to show solidarity with everyday Americans. Mowtown, the NBA, the Superbowl — they don’t need Obama’s seal of approval. I can only guess that Obama doesn’t understand America at the lowly level of goal and process where most Americans live; the pride warehouse workers take in safety records, the sales marks hit, monthly revenue goals reached — all this is beyone Obama. I think he really only understands the knife-fight of party politics.
The misadministration back channeled the admission to the NY Times.
When the ISI leaked it to Pakistani publications Washington lifted the cone of silence.
http://tinyurl.com/5wywhjq
Folks, I’ve seen it all before: this is perfect Gonnabee behavior.
What you’re not seeing is the scream-fests, the absolute raging rants that are certain to be happening when the prince is humiliated by events.
—–
As for the Duck of Death — It must be apparent to all that his personal druggist and physician has bailed out.
So now we hear the inner despot in his fulsome roar:
“Quack, quack, quack…”
Reasonable people stop going to certain places. No matter how much the pay.
Nice analogies at #22 wretchard. But I’ll add, not an analogy, but a different view of Obama’s indifference and isolation. I claim that Obama is a pathological narcissist; that’s not a trivial psychological state but a severe pathology.
What it means is that he lives, completely, in a ‘virtual reality’; that is, a fictional world of which he alone is the author. A kind of bubble-world made up of only what he wants in it. The reason- is that Obama cannot, psychologically, interact with the real world and with real people – as it is in itself, as they are in themselves. That is – he can’t interact on a one-to-one equal level with real events and real people.
Obama’s whole ‘modus operandi’ is geared to Control Others. He cannot interact with anyone unless he feels that his interaction is an Act-of-Control over them.
So, he’ll misinform (lie). Constantly. He’ll emotionally manipulate you. If you hesitate or question – he’ll accuse you of: racism. Or political bias. Or ethnic bias. Or..ignorance. Whatever – it’s your fault.
The only reality for Obama is one which he feels in full control of – by his control of you. That means that Obama must remove himself from direct interaction with others and with the world; he retreats into a world-of-words. Rhetoric. Words.
If Obama feels he can’t control you or a situation… Then, it literally ceases to exist for him. I mean that. It doesn’t exist. So- the demonstrators in Iran a year ago weren’t amenable to His Control. Therefore, they didn’t exist. Same thing in Egypt. Same thing in Libya. And, Obama will always side with the Winner in a foreign situation..so that he can, in his fictional world, tell himself that He Controls it all. He has to wait to see who is winning.
He has no principles, no commitment to any sense of human rights or democracy. His only base..is feeling in Power.
Then, he’s totally unable to think about or deal with intellectual issues. Such as policies and programs. It’s important to note that Obama leaves all the reasoning actions, all the analysis, all the planning, all the thinking – to others. He can’t immerse himself in this area because ‘policies, thoughts, programs’…aren’t amenable to charm, lies, manipulation. They are objective ‘things’..and don’t react to his smiles.
He’s intellectually empty. He has no clue what to do either internally in the US or in foreign relations. His ideas are only what he’s been fed by the dominant people in his life: his socialist mother, grandmother and wife.
What I’m puzzled about – is where are his advisors? Why aren’t they doing as they usually do – and telling him what to do and say? Given that Obama MUST side with The Winner..and he and the advisors are uncertain about who is winning – are they waiting? But – don’t his advisors have any principles to follow? Any morality?
To solve the Davis problem is to finally decide Pakistan policy. The standard response to a violation of Vienna by a foreign power is to simply jail double or triple the number of Pakistani diplomats on capital crime charges — and trade them for Davis. The reason this can’t be done is US policy in the region is predicated on the good will of Pakistan.
The most obvious dependency is Afghanistan. An entire fighting force is in a landlocked theater, dependent on Pakistan for access to the sea. This gives Pakistan enormous leverage over Obama. Moreover, Obama, in betting on Afghanistan, has staked his political credibility on something the Pakistanis can deep-six. For both military and political reasons, the Pakistanis have Washington over a barrel.
But the problem is that Obama’s policy has been wrong from day one. The Middle East, not Af-Pak is the is key theater. And in Af-Pak, Pakistan is the main problem. It’s a double inversion.
The logical way out would be to make Afghanistan an economy of force operation and craft a policy in which Pakistan is essentially confrontable. And I have a feeling Pakistan will have to be confronted anyway, despite kicking the can down the road, and it had better be planned for rather than forced upon one.
But Obama won’t do it. He won’t do it, not for any strategic reason, but to keep his stupid talking point alive. “End 9/11 where it began … blah, blah, blah” which makes no strategic sense, probably not even to him. It’s strategic only because he’s stuck with a pig in a poke and can’t be seen abandoning it.
Nevertheless, Obama will have to confront Pakistan anyhow. They’ll probably try to buy Davis’ freedom, but that only feeds the beast. Someday, sometime, Pakistan will go too far or ask for too much. And then it will be Egypt all over again and a katabasis to the sea.
Then they’ll warm up the teleprompter and the PR machine and trot out all the sickening phrases. “We warned … have long anticipated … our core principles … it would always be difficult … the almost impossible legacy left to us by the past administration … acted with great honor … meeting to discuss … let me be perfectly clear … turn hostility into opportunity … discussing sanctions … emergency meeting by the Security Council …” all the meaningless, empty and self-deluding oratory which only a cynic could utter, unless of course he actually believed it, which would be worse.
Davis could turn into a Black Swan. Or he could just be fed to the wolves. The probability is that he will be ransomed for more secrets, more weapons, more money, more access, by a system that knows only “let’s make a deal” and “how much have I lost this time? Quick let’s raise taxes. It’s the only responsible thing to do.”
Reasonable people stop going to certain places. No matter how much the pay.
Cambodia-level Genocide and Boat People disasters result from the forced retreat of civilization.
Civilization retreats under weak American Presidents, see: Carter, 1979 – Iran, Afghanistan, Angola, Nicaragua – losing one country per continent per year.
I think of Obama during the campaign. To try to cover for his lack of foreign policy experience they cooked up the 300 foreign policy advisors, his ‘mini State Department’ as the NY Times gushingly tried to pawn them off as, who supposedly were giving him the most serious of all possible support.
Well, we all know the only decision a 300 man committee could ever come to was who brings the donuts to the next meeting, but it was a sign of the man’s brilliance don’t you know?
Then Russia invaded Georgia. Any one of us could have written down on a napkin a quick response, “we deplore the invasion and insist Russia stop its attacks and withdraw”, etc., etc. Obama couldn’t even muster that. On the first day he froze and said nothing.
Then, on the second day — no doubt advised by his 300 experts he made the ludicrous suggestion that we take it to the Security Council, apparently forgetting — or perhaps not caring about — Russia’s veto power on that august body of do nothing windbags.
It took Obama 3 days to come up with a statement any competent person could have written on the first. By then, he was three days behind the loop. It is the story of his foreign policy.
will the joint chief of staff allow our military to be sacrificed to no purpose? – af/pak
A Democrat President would be lionized by the Left for throwing a CIA contractor under the jingle art paint-and-shiny-metal festooned bus. Our military and intel services, not so much, but their expectations of this WH have been incrementalized downward these past couple of years; they’d probably be relieved just to lose one contractor to avoid a nasty showdown that makes their impossible missions more difficult. Probably by now the most hardened Americans serving in theater know we’re going to have to cut our losses and work at saving face for our country before exiting, on account of the weak Obama regime.
My guess, though, is that the WH will order significant concessions behind the scenes to “save Davis” in order to save face for Obama with the mushy impressionable “centrist/independent” vote, because it’s much too pretty to mess up before his next campaign. [Or did he never end the first, hard to tell.]
Wretchard @ 22, A great set of stories, but the foundation of your post is that Obama actually cares. I think you are projecting your own innate goodness on the man. I don’t think there is any evidence that American interests are important to him. If he cared for American lives, there would be a carrier group in the Med a while ago.
There may a complex psychological reason for his behavior a la ETAB, but whatever the reason he just doesn’t give a damn. And brushing up on his golf game should be fairly high on W’s list @ 7.
#40. wretchard
To solve the Davis problem is to finally decide Pakistan policy. The standard response to a violation of Vienna by a foreign power is to simply jail double or triple the number of Pakistani diplomats on capital crime charges — and trade them for Davis. The reason this can’t be done is US policy in the region is predicated on the good will of Pakistan.
Its time to stop pretending that Pakistan is not the enemy. There really is no point to the US being in Afghanistan. The poison lies in Pakistan. It always has.
Turn off the the aid to Pakistan and it will crumble. Its time to tell them they either need to shape up or find another sugar daddy.
But the other sugar daddies might not be anywhere as nice as the one they have now. If they think the Russians or the Chinese are going to be better they are going to have a violent impact with reality.
#22 W “I think the NBA and Motown are an escape. The President is really feeling the heat, and genuinely wants to be somewhere else. Unfortunately, and like Fagin, the present will not go away. And in the background he hears the hammer of doom beating ever more intensely. At some human level, you have to feel sorry for him. He is where only a Wellington or a Tatham-Warter should be. But he is neither.”
MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN!
Wretchard @7: “And so far, it seems like he doesn’t have a clue.”
Let us hope that we don’t experience an attack of zombies on top of everything else. Then we would really be in the deep.
Davis is covered by diplomatic immunity–free him or throw out the Pak diplomats from all NATO nations and end all aid.
Pak is not a threat to America–Pak is a threat to India–let them deal with it.
The only interest we have in the CENTCOM region is that no one state control the price of oil.
AQ is a tiny gang that Elliot Ness would have destroyed in the Chicago days.
We need to apply game theory–tit for tat.
Mainly we need to end aid and handouts to states in the ME who do not obey our will in fine detail.
When we ask them to jump they should all say ” how high–sir” or lose their handouts from the US taxpayers until they come to heel. After which we will trust but verify day by day.
As far as China is concerned the only countries that count are Iran and KSA, our agent is Turkey–to help us bring Iran to its economic sense–the alternative is China hegemony in the region.
We have only 2 sets of allies
1/ NATO
2/ The Angloshere– US,Canada, UK, NZ, Australia- through ECHELON
Boyds OODA cycle is great for operations– within a clear strategy– which means FOCUS
–the focus must be American fundamental interests–that is all.
Is this the same turkey that wouldn’t allow the us to monitor iran?
the same turkey that’s breaking the embargo on iran?
thinking people would like to know.
More on the Duke of Wellington, and another crisis- Waterloo-, and another concert- actually, the Duchess of Richmond’s ball, on the eve of the same. (from The Birth of the Modern, by Paul Johnson)
“Wellington was anxious to conceal the weakness of his position and his own anxieties and that is why he encouraged the Duchess of Richmond to give her famous ball on the 15th of June. She said to him: “Duke, I do not wish to pry into your secrets….I wish to give a ball and all I ask is, may I give my ball? If you say, “Duchess, don’t give your ball” it is quite sufficient, I ask no reason” “Duchess, you may give your ball with the greatest safety, without fear of interruption.”
… “he was busy receiving messages and dispatching orders throughout the dancing and was off to the front, after two hours sleep, at 5.30 am the next morning.”
Any alien nation that attempts to undermine the cohesion of NATO is taking a very serious, tragic and potentially terminal risk.
The main role of the C in C is to communicate the Focus of strategy as it applies to fundamental American interests.
The operational OODA factors should obviously be classified.
America is waking up fast to the dangers of foreign entanglements.
Jefferson
“Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto”
The Duke of Wellington wore civilian clothes at Waterloo but reportedly disliked umbrellas in combat.
Slowly, like something in the Labrea Tar Pits, information rises about Barry at Occidental.
He was a member of a revolutionary students group.
It’s tempting to try and compare the Duchess of Richmond’s ball to Obama’s Motown reception, but the parallels are ludicrous. And they fail not on the differences in personality, technology or circumstance, but in attitude.
People thought about life, death and world affairs differently in 1815. Maybe because they lived in a world of infectious diseases, painful dentistry and a real attachment to the soil and community, the shadows were darker and the lights were brighter than they are today. Without our modern distractions and entertainments, the people of that day had perhaps no other choice but to endow life with meaning. To live “for King and Country” was to make life bearable through a purpose that we have now forgotten or declared unnecessary.
The emotional intensity of correspondence from that period is striking. It was almost as if they had more to live for; and perhaps they did.
That’s why Richmond’s Ball is such a haunting historical vignette. We can imagine the scene, the beautiful ladies, the handsome officers — so many of whom would not be alive in 48 hours, unaware that outside the light of the chandeliers, a dispatch as swiftly as horse could carry it was rushing to end the moment.
Despite Wellington’s promise not to spoil the Duchess of Richmond’s ball news that Napoleon was advancing required his immediate attention. He reacted to events as he found them, not to spin them — that was term little known then — but to gain a measure of control over the fates. “Napoleon has humbugged me, by God; he has gained twenty-four hours’ march on me,” Wellington said, and proceeded to calculate where he might meet Napoleon with advantage. It would be Waterloo.
The officers said their goodbyes. Some were unable to change back into uniform and fought at Waterloo in “evening costume”. General Sir Thomas Picton, for one, led his division the next day in civilian clothes and top hat.
Wellington was to observe that you never could foresee the future. At best you could provide for it. Perhaps some part of him knew, even before he learned of it, that a fatal message was bearing down on that brief interlude of laughter; he knew because it always does. At the Duchess of Richmond’s Ball, but probably not at Motown, the unknown was always the expected guest. And men stood booted and cloaked half-consciously waiting for it. Wellington wrote:
They were always ready to live — and if die, well that was part of it — and we moderns cannot entirely congratulate ourselves as better simply because we believe we can party in world forever safe, so we think, from the summons in the night.
7. Wretchard.
“So the engagement queue is likely to grow ever longer, which means the lag will grow to the point where problems proceed essentially unengaged. At this rate, the administration will have the equivalent of a nervous breakdown inside of a two months.”
The total list of things that could go wrong would take up more than one page at this point but Wretchard has given me the sum of all my fears. The Obamites breakdown will cost us how many lives world wide?
The Brits wouldn’t have won Waterloo alone, they had german mercenaries, the “Chattis” from Hesse, that they already employed during the american war of Independance (I discovered that tonight)
We (the USA) need to disengage from the Pak “tar-baby” and coordinate far more effectively with nations whose interests do *not* fundamentally conflict with ours. Triple-Y-alliance–Yankees, Yehudis, and Yindoos–for the win!!
I don’t want to go out on a limb here, but who really gives a flying F*&K for the “dual-national” Libyan-Americans? I gave up my Indian citizenship and returned my Indian passport immediately after my (at Monticello) naturalization ceremony, where one is required to “renounce all allegiance to any foreign prince or potentate”–who are these creeps?
Yes, Obama is losing it. He’s actually hiding in the White House. But of course the media are obfuscating for him. I saw a clip of Obama shaking hands with factory workers at a plant in Ohio before the midterms and for just a second he dropped the mask and you could see from the look on his face that he was ashamed and humiliated. Almost like he was being silently mocked by the workers. It would be interesting to hear the true backstory about some of these appearances.
And during his brief statement about Libya (with Hillary by his side) a few days ago he had two or three twitches on the right side of his face before he settled into reading the statement. The pressure of his own incompetence/failures is getting to him. The media is desperately trying to hide his and his administration’s meltdown.
In the spirit of my warlike stance on the previous thread, I think this Pakistan issue is a no-brainer. The U.S. must demand that Pakistan release our diplomat NOW. If they don’t, then we MUST round-up all Pakistani diplomats and throw them into jail until further notice.
There is absolutely nothing to be gained by allowing them to diddle with the concept of diplomatic immunity for one more day. Either there is such a thing as diplomatic immunity, or there isn’t. End of story.
The U.S. will gain NOTHING by appearing to be weak or even rational.
The Code Pinks and anti-American Euros shot their wads by attacking George W. Bush. Let them attack Obama, or not. Who cares?
I’m tired of all this talk that the U.S. is weak or doomed. We just need to get off our asses and threaten to use our force.
However you look at him, Obama is an very odd duck. I am convinced that he has no idea how to make decisions under uncertainty. Up to now, his way of dealing with uncertainty has been to remove it using the Chicago Fix.
In our peculiar modern world, there are formal approaches to making decisions under uncertainty that many of us learn, but nothing teaches like experience. Obama has nothing in his lawyer training about risk management, risk assessment, the concept of Regret, simulated decision games, the inclusion of appetite for risk and the effect of different circumstances etc. etc. More importantly he has never had to make real life decisions under uncertainty where the consequences of a wrong decision will be very hard to bear.
I think his inability to function under uncertainty is one reason why the engagement queue can only grow longer. Obama is never going to cross anything off that list unless outside events do it for him. This is a problem that grows bigger with every event that comes along. When does it get so big that the US becomes dysfunctional? How does the US fix that dysfunction if it occurs? These questions are echos that keep repeating themselves whenever Obama fails to be President.
True, Westerncanadian. Compare and contrast GWB’s rigorous training in exactly those subjects, and how he dealt with each days agenda post 9-11, hit the sack every night at 10, and slept like a bay. How is Obama sleeping these days, I wonder?
Wretchard @ #7 said: “He’s responding in…ways guaranteed to make them bigger.” (our manifold problems). That’s his strategy. That’s what he’s been hired to do, to cause chaos. And if a CIA, former special forces guy doesn’t come home, well, it will be a less popular job next year.
And he is a very odd duck indeed, in fact I think he is a unique duck, a species of one. So I am very suspicious of all the glib psychoanalysis that is done on him. He is not knowable. Deal with his deeds.
The U.S. will gain NOTHING by appearing to be weak or even rational.
Well that is not true. Looking weak almost always is a bad idea but looking rational usually is a good idea. There can be reasons to rattle a cage, Kissinger hinting that he barely had Nixon under control or Reagan tapping the microphone and announcing nuclear war, but even that should be calibrated. If planned it can even work to appear weak and be underestimated. The key is to do that when you are the hunter and not the hunted.
Why not just start carpet bombing Pakistan? We can set aside for a moment the moral arguments about killing hundreds of thousands or millions of non-combatants. It is true that they do not love us more for showing restraint. The Left’s argument about Bush having generated enemies and how Obama would gain us support or at least safety through mutual respect is discredited. Machiavelli was right about love and fear. RaviT is right about our long term interests. Hopefully over time a strong and stable India will emerge that will ally with the US to balance China.
At this time though we can’t simply start a war with Pakistan because both India and us have to much to lose. India doesn’t want Pakistan destroyed at this time in a war with the US.
First they don’t want to deal with tens of millions of refugees and internal convulsions. At best it would be a replay of the humanitarian disaster that accompanied Partition. About one million people may have died as Hindus and Moslems were uprooted and butchered each other. That is a raw wound that does not need rubbing.
If the US did destroy Pakistan it would have to destroy the nuclear weapons, or if Pakistan was in danger of dissolving then India would have to sieze or destroy them before they disappeared. Doing so would probably require the use of nuclear weapons, and if Pakistan launched a nuclear strike then there would have to be retaliation. The big problem is that India is downwind of Pakistan. So even if Pakistan was crushed the consequences to India would be catastrophic.
Another reason the US has to act carefully is that we have given the Pakistanis not just one CIA hostage but around 100,000 Americans in Afghanistan. There are three ways into Afghanistan, through Iran to the West, through the Stans to the North (under Russian sufferance), and through Pakistan to the South and East. We need to either withdraw our troops ASAP or secure a corridor from the sea to Kandahar. This became obvious last year when supply convoys through the Khyber Pass were being hijacked. To secure a route would mean occupying a corridor through Baluchistan. That would not only mean a likely war with Pakistan but also would directly challenge the Chinese presence in the port of Gwadar.
We cannot simply wash our hands of the place and isolate it. If left alone they will gather and train and craft weapons and attack again. We went to Afghanistan ten years ago because leaving them alone does not work. We need a firm steady forceful long term plan to control the littoral and enforce some level of cooperation from the approximately 200,000,000 Moslems between the North Arabian Sea and the former Soviet lands. We need a plan to pry the nuclear weapons from Pakistan, because they do not make death less likely or increase stability. To that end I would use every tool in the book. Once we have achieved that goal then we can work with the Indians to create a more tolerable and tolerant future for the region.
Re getting rough with Pakistan, Pakistan has a very close and time-tested relationship –including military –with China. This is a world-historical relationship (Pakistan in 1950 among the first to recognize Red China and demote the China title claim of the Kuomintang in Taiwan) that the MSM has never bothered to inform the American people on –not even when it and the Senator Diane Feinstein faction were busily borking out of office (on the basis of the ‘general’s coup’ critique), the pro-American Mushareff. One wonders if Feinstein ever put 2+2 together (maybe when Paki stocks and bonds turned over signaling an end to the rise of the large pro-western english-speaking middle class) re her marching orders to turn up the Mighty Wurlitzer and play this estimable gentleman leader off the stage. And now of course, we see why it was done –as if it was ever in the least difficult to figure out.
***
wretchard –re that excellent #54, take a look at the week’s Nyquist –he’s on perzactly the same meditation.
Unity and Continuity in Men and Nations.
((snip
If America became a socialist state and was entirely opposed to capitalism, would it still be America? The Polish writer, Jozef Mackiewicz, once asserted: “There is no Polish state in the guise of the Polish People’s Republic. The Polish People’s Republic is not a continuation of the history of Poland but a continuation of the history of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.” [P. 136, The Triumph of Provocation].
What happens when we radically transform a country or a person?
…[my ellipse]
In his book The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Nations Miguel de Unamuno began his discourse on unity and continuity by marveling that a man should want to be someone else. “I can understand one’s wanting to have what someone else has, his wealth or his knowledge,” wrote Unamuno. “But to be someone else: that’s something I don’t understand.” After all, being someone else signifies the death of oneself. This violates the inborn desire of every person to continue as themselves. Notice how defensive a person becomes when someone attempts to change them. The same is also true of nations subjected to radical reform. Such nations typically resist.
…[ibid]
In this formulation Unamuno is not glorifying war. Instead, he strikes a blow against mawkishness and effeminacy. “If a philosopher is not a man,” wrote Unamuno, “he is anything but a philosopher; he is above all a pedant, and a pedant is a caricature of a man.” In Unamuno’s philosophy, such is also a coward who is afraid to acknowledge the essential tragedy of existence; namely, that the body must die; that the world is full of discontinuity and disunity (i.e., fragility); that the kingdom of truth and beauty, the realm of the soul, is not of this world. Only then do we have the courage to defend those things that are truly permanent, granting authentic unity and continuity to men and nations.
As a postscript, by way of illustration, let us consider an actual occurrence in the life of Miguel de Unamuno. The story is recounted in Antony Beevor’s history of the Spanish Civil War, The Battle for Spain, that Unamuno, having initially supported the nationalist rising was grieved to see the savage butchery and abuses of the nationalists. Upon the platform of his own Salamanca University (of which he was rector), he stood before a crowd of nationalist dignitaries (including Gen. Franco’s wife) and said: “All of you await my words. You know me and are aware that I am unable to remain silent. At times to remain silent is to lie. For silence can be interpreted as acquiescence.” He then referred to the preceding speaker, Professor Maldonado, who had recommended the “scalpel of fascism” as the national cure. In response to this, the one-eyed and one-armed General Millan Astray had shouted “Long live Death!” About this Unamuno said, “And I, who have spent my life shaping paradoxes, must tell you as an expert authority that this outlandish paradox is repellent to me. General Millan Astray is a cripple. Let it be said without undertone…. General Millan Astray would like to create Spain anew, a negative creation in his own image and likeness; for that reason he wishes to see Spain crippled as he unwittingly made clear.”
Gen. Astray screamed in response, “Death to the intelligentsia! Long Live Death!” According to Beevor’s account, the general’s body guard pointed his submachine gun at Unamuno’s head. The Falangists and army officers drew their side arms, and took aim. Unamuno calmly continued to speak: “This is the temple of the intellect and I am its high priest. It is you who profane its sacred precincts. You will win, because you have enough brute force. But you will not convince. For to persuade you would need what you lack: reason and right in your struggle. I consider it futile to exhort you to think of Spain.”
Realizing that Unamuno was about to be lynched, Gen. Astray directed the philosopher to take the arm of Gen. Franco’s wife and depart under her protection. Later Unamuno was placed under house arrest and executed. “If a philosopher is not a man,” he had written, “he is anything but a philosopher….” The defense of unity and continuity is, in part, a defense against violence. It is also a militant stand, speaking truth to power; that is, to preserve the unity and continuity of ourselves.
To change a country into something opposed to what that country once was, formerly, is to break with the necessities of continuity. Such is the prerogative of revolutionaries, fanatics, and raging social misfits. Disciples of violence all, they talk of a better world, but they affect only death.
end snip))
***
i really should not have chopped it up like that. but it’s so apropos the situation we are in, i wanted to paste a sample and try to gen some interest.
The Brits wouldn’t have won Waterloo alone, they had german mercenaries…
But of course, Marie. British strategy was always to rule the waves and maintain at least one ally on the Continent. Well, back when they had such things as navies and strategy any way.
Marshal Blucher and his Prussians arrived in the nick of time –Napoleon had just launched his never-beaten Imperial Guard up the hill, when in the distance could be seen Blucher’s vanguard.
There’s disagreement as to what cost Napoleon the battle –the spreading sound and word of Blucher with fresh troops already engaging the far flank, or the prone regiments of Wellington just over the hill-brow out of line-of-sight, whose presence was only known to the Guard when on command they stood and vollyed at close range –which broke the momentum of the advance, and soon the will of the entire armee as the front of the never-beaten Guard began to stream back down the hill.
So there were two cascading effects, the decisive could have been either or both.
***
Some years later, Marshal Blucher married his horse. well, look it up.
Once again we have to question the mass-media information system that led people to believe that a vote for Obama was OK. This system told them that he was new, capable, oratorically supreme. The relatively fewer conservative media pointed out his origins, his voting record, his experience base, his cohorts in the past.
How many voters now regret their decision but are still wondering how they arrived at it? Will they be wiser next time around?
Victor: 49. Mainly we need to end aid and handouts to states in the ME who do not obey our will in fine detail.
I have suggested that very thing, with respect to a certain state in the ME that continues to pour concrete on the other side of the 1949 Armistice line, and they turn around and call me a neo-Nazi. Hopefully the rules against making ad hominem attacks will prevail.
Nyquist
Denninger
Spengler
Wretchard
The Four Horsemen
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
As President, Obama evokes JFK during and immediately after Bay of Pigs. A template disconnected from reality crashing against the waves of hubris, foolishness, and false bonhomie.
But we’ve been doing that in the ME for years (absent the false bonhomie).
The foreign policy bullets developed by Victor above have many appealing elements.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Life is filled with loneliness, misery, suffering and unhappiness. And it’s all over too quickly. – Woody Allen
59 Promethea: The U.S. must demand that Pakistan release our diplomat NOW. If they don’t, then we MUST round-up all Pakistani diplomats and throw them into jail until further notice.
Can’t do it. The US has separation of powers, and is a nation of laws. Obama made a shit sandwich by doubling down in Afghanistan and now it’s time to eat it. When we get our forces out of there we can wash our hands of foreign aid to Pakistan. But not until.
Obama’s Daniel Pearl. With any luck his show trial and murder won’t be on Your Tube.
OTOH, if diplomatic immunity collapses, look at the justice we can perform on the UN.
This incident is a classic Paki shake down. Wrechard has it pinned. There will be ransom paid. But, whether it emboldens and increases the hostage taking by the Paki’s is to be seen.
Because the Middle East will not change soon but America can, I would focus on the 0bama Problem. 0bama not only appears weak and indecisive he is weak and indecisive! The Great 0bama Train Wreck continues. When gas reaches $5 per gallon the Great Train Wreck will be a Great Fiery Train Wreck.
Nixon was booted out of office for much lesser indiscretions. I think it is time for democrats to have their “Watergate.” The conservative legal wizards should hammer away at the 0bama Problem until they find a way to legally boot 0bama from Office – and end the Great 0bama Train Wreck.
IMHO it occurred to me that Obama has been rolled by the big banks so that they paid no price for their greed but were offered more money. Large international corp and unions have done the same, GE, GM and SEIU as examples. They all realized they were dealing with a person who had no clue how the world worked or any ideas of his own. Look at his chief of staff, he played O to further his own power and now is mayor of Chicago. The result has been other companies and banks who don’t have this kind of power ran as fast as they could. They became really afraid of what the govt might do to them if they did what they were ask to do by hiring more workers or making more loans. They will not do anything as long as O is in power. The same result is playing out the ME. Notice how quite Israel has been. They are just waiting until O is gone.
“I don’t know how anyone can deny that supernatural forces are not at work in the world (and has been for several years now)”.
I don’t know how anyone that believes in supernatural forces is allowed to walk the streets like they were sane or sumpin. Feburary is a short month. You shouldn’t have gone through your meds already.
Hope* has faded, jilted, abandoned.
What’s Fear* to do?
“The slogans on placards gave the West plenty of cause for hope,…”
The music has died ……
…-
“Sex, brothels and the REAL tyranny threatening the Arab world: Islamic fundamentalists are already imposing their own brutal puritanism”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1360799/Sex-brothels-REAL-tyranny-threatening-Arab-world.html
“Hope* is charming, lively, blue-eyed wench, & I am always glad of her company, but could dispense with the visitor she brings with her, her younger sister, fear*,…”
H/T Elia
Teresita @69: “a certain state in the ME that continues to pour concrete on the other side of the 1949 Armistice line”
Look, I hold no brief for the Israelis. They can be stupid, and stubborn.
But the “1949 armistice line”? Really! The Arabs gave up the results of 1948-9 when they attacked again in 1956 and 1967. If there’s anyone on Earth higher in stubbornness and stupidity, it’s the sand people.
Israel is, for better or worse, our friend. We chose that, and we shouldn’t be forced against our will to change. Israel should have annexed the “West Bank” and Gaza long ago and expelled or killed the indigenous population. You don’t hear much about East Prussia today, do you?
The Arabs appealed FOUR TIMES to the Laws of War. By those ancient laws, the “1949 Armistice line” has no meaning. I’m surprised that you would refer to it, since you are generally sharp.
The hour is late, and the pieces are being maneuvered on the board. Nothing on the stage of world events happens by chance, the outcome having already been designed. Unfortunately, we are not able to foresee our role in advance or the impact of our decisions and actions.
Our nation’s leader teaches us to cower in our dens, expecting others to provide us with entitlements, when we are entitled only to adversity. Soon we will be entitled to much, and able to afford little.
While brave men and women are sacrificed on foreign soil, for some tenuous connection to national interest or freedom, those who risk nothing are promised all of the Blessings of Liberty at no cost.
The danger is not in one man, but in those who willingly follow, those who are beguiled by the siren song of receiving more than they produce. Those who fail to grasp the ultimate tragedy of human endeavor, our inability to purchase the perfection of the garden from which we were summarily dismissed.
The red-faced union man screamed “why would you vote against your self-interest?” It occurs that thieves are also motivated by self-interest. It was not in self-interest that Blucher marshaled the retreating Prussians and marched to support Wellington at Waterloo. He promised to stand on the left flank and he did, even after his earlier defeat by Bonaparte.
The appearance of the Prussians marching on to the field was too much for the beleaguered Imperial Garde. Indeed, La Garde recule, Sauve qui peut!
We are born with an expiration date, already determined. Gandolf summed it up nicely when Frodo said “I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish that none of this had ever happened.” His reply “So do all who have carried its burden, but that is not for us to decide. All there is to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you.”
WesternCanadian “Obama has nothing in his lawyer training about risk management, risk assessment, the concept of Regret, simulated decision games, the inclusion of appetite for risk and the effect of different circumstances etc. etc.”
The Ego Supremo has been known to tell people to the effect “he really doesn’t a Chief of Staff, or a speechwriter or this or that because he can do the job himself better”. He don’t need no stinkin training. We elected the Best don’t you know.
While Americans in Libya were desperately trying to flee death in Libya and Davis awaits an almost certain death in a Pakistani Jail, our brilliant leader in the White House danced the night away at yet another White House concert, this time for Black History Month. At tomorrow’s White House party, it will be Gladys Knight and the Pips performing. Bring on the Kobe Beef and let only the best champagne flow. Time to partee! Ya the One is focused like a laser beam at all those disasters piling up in the engagement queue.
wretchard @ 40: ” Obama’s policy has been wrong from day one. The Middle East, not Af-Pak is the is key theater. And in Af-Pak, Pakistan is the main problem. It’s a double inversion.”
Well, you are right about “Obama” and his policy – AND you are right that the policy has been wrong from day one – but Day One was September 12, 2001, and “Obama” didn’t invent the policy.
The enemy is Arabia and Pakistan. I imagined in September and October 2001 that we would raise a land force of 80-100 divisions and proceed to conquer, occupy, convert and otherwise reconstruct the enemy in the usual manner. It MIGHT have been a cheaper and equally acceptable substitute to detonate 4 W76 warheads over Tora Bora in December 2001, without comment.
The fact that we did not do this, and that we are farther than ever from so doing, does not mean it was the wrong policy. It is STILL the only end to the war other than surrender, and sooner or later it is what we will do.
Afghanistan is worthless, and it is especially not worth the healthy bones of one Pennsylvanian grenadier, to coin a phrase.
Gokart Mozart But the “1949 armistice line”? Really! The Arabs gave up the results of 1948-9 when they attacked again in 1956 and 1967.
Point of order: 29OCT56 Israel invaded Egypt:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis#Early_actions_in_Southern_Sinai
05JUN67 Israel hit Egypt’s air force in a Pearl Harbor type raid before their forces set one toe in Israeli territory, then took out planes from Jordan, Syria, and Iraq.
#77 gokart-mozart
I agree with you; I’m surprised that teresita goes in for the coy phrasing ‘a certain state in the ME’. In her heart of hearts I think she knows it’s wrong to beat up on Israel for not being perfect.
Wretchard 22: “And in the background he hears the hammer of doom beating ever more intensely.”
Have you ever seen the O’Neill play, “The Emperor Jones?” A short time into the play, the drums of the natives pursuing the “Emperor” begin to beat and, per the stage directions, continue through the rest of the play, even when the curtain is down for a change of scene. It is chilling.
Here’s what will happen if the principals see to their own best interests (Obama his and the Pakistani government their own skins and coffers, ISI power, and national pride):
The US will quietly give more money and “cooperation” to the kidnapping government. Because Pakistan can’t be seen handing over their quarry to the US, even for an American trial, due to inflamed public opinion, and because Obama and the DOJ really don’t want Davis and what his prosecution and either sentence of Not Guilty or Guilty would engender here and over there, the incarcerated Davis will suddenly have an attack of acute appendicitis and there’ll be nothing the doctors can do to save him. It’ll be just one of those unfortunate events.
Reports that Davis had an appendectomy some years back will be buried. Too.
t/81, search “spoiling attack” –and its relation to “strategic depth”
stoicheon @ 75. Down, boy. Whatever happens to be going on, naturalism is self-refuting. By espousing it you acknowledge that you know bupkus about reality. A little more humility would serve you well.
If the CIA operative were declared to be a ‘double agent’, then it would be perfectly reasonable to expect that he had voluntarily put himself at risk of being ‘thrown under the bus’. The won could then just walk away… no decision necessary. That would solve a lot of problems.
I would not be surprised in the least.
tom
I hate the old westerns. They have and still do indoctrinate us in the belief that it is evil to shoot first. It reminds me of the slogan I saw on a billboard the other day.
If at first you don’t succeed, try again…except for sky diving!
So, how about nukes? Do we wait until nuked before we fire back? How long do we wait?
I wish people that wanted to remove themselves from the gene pool didn’t expect me to go along with them. I like my genes, thank you very much.
gm/77; The Arabs appealed FOUR TIMES to the Laws of War
…many would say, FIVE –Araby’s Axis alliance as Act I to the 1948 war as Act II, and then so on from there.
Considering the nature of Act I, and according to those ancient laws of war, Jews could have burnt the cities of Araby to the ground in revenge. But didn’t of course, and has always defended against attacks in all liklihood equally eliminationist, had they succeeded.
And yet still, there are those who paint Israel as the villain. The human mind is very, very flexible indeed.
emrys: “I like my genes, thank you very much.”
Form-fitting or just broken in?
Meanwhile the tension in East Asia increases. N.Korean diplomats are under orders to beg for food directly from countries they are stationed at. As they ever do the rumours dribble out of N. Korea but the tension seems to be ratchiting up and the Norks are censoring the news about revolts in the Middle East. The South Koreans are starting to scramble on the reoginization of their Military for serious business.
I was tired an my eyes were blury and I read a headline as “Obama Squeaks” instead of “Obama Speaks.”
emrys: “I like my genes, thank you very much.”
button down: “Form-fitting or just broken in?”
===
Designer or off the rack?
ybr/92; Designer or off the rack?
Designer or off the wrack?
#22 wretchard- Re leaders occupying themselves with footling busywork at the expense of the weighty matters at hand: a great example of successful and failed leadership can be found in Roland Huntford’s “Scott and Amundsen” (aka ‘The Last Place on Earth’). “Scott of the Antarctic” as he became known after his death, was a classic example of the ill-at-ease commander who obsesses on minutiae while the big picture goes to hell, and is also prickly and resentful of capable underlings whose help he interprets as encroachment on his own prerogative.
From the beginning, it should have been obvious that Scott was not suited to command an expedition to the South Pole. After his first, feeble attempt on the Discovery, he had to go back to his Naval career and immediately botched things when put in command of the Albemarle.
Like Obama, Scott benefitted from influential patrons who covered up his mistakes and furthered his career, until he arrived rose to a position where he had to perform or perish. I wouldn’t rate Obama as high as Scott, however; Scott had genuine virtues, among which was physical courage and willingness to endure pain – the soft-handed hedonist in the White House wouldn’t have been capable of cleaning up the husky dogs’ crap on the Terra Nova. But Scott and Obama share the aura of the loser in command; Scott invested thousands of pounds on cockamamie contraptions like the motor sledges, which were far too complex and delicate to do what they were meant to do, while deliberately ignoring the less glamorous yet effective methods like dogsleds and skis, which had been proven to work. It reminds me of Obama ostentatiously turning his back on drilling for oil or making use of coal, in favour of egghead green solutions to energy needs which cost a fortune and don’t deliver.
93. Designer or off the wrack?
Haute couture or hot, cuter?
Re Obama, it’s been apparent from early on that he’s in over his head and could have a visible meltdown soon– as if those who know haven’t already seen it– but it also seems evident the puppetmeisters and even Pinocchio himself are pleased with the consequential diminishment of America and building chaos. There are sums of money and power to be gained with shifting economies, markets, and alliances, destabilization and insecurity. Could all of the ensuing strategic re-positioning, even to America’s detriment, be on account of incompetence and/or Obama’s throwback politics– has the world of the shakers, shapers and movers been Left to chance? Not a chance, in my estimation.
HL/95; re ‘not a chance’ –notice how the WI protesters –the second wave, not the teachers themselves so much, are all using the line, “the rich bailed out Wall Street and now are trying to make US pay for it”?
Note that altho the protesters are union-tight with the Obams and vice versa, meaning that presumably the obams would have come into office running down the class enemies with a vengeance, the ONLY prosecution of the ”13 bankers” or the Dunbar Number of conspirators has been Bernie Madoff, who ran a scheme so obviously protected by the SEC (remember Harry Markopolos?) that he just went ahead when the blow-off came around, and more or less walked in to a police station and confessed.
Even Mozilo got a walk just the other day –the red-handed generator of not just liar loans but made up liar loans. Made $500 million on just the part he admitted to, and got fined $50 million, or a dime on the dollar –and now doesn’t even have to lay around in Club Fed (laughing it up with the other goodfellas for 18 months) before he gets to dig up the coffee cans and retrieve the other $450 million.
So, yes indeedy, pretty damn slick –the Dems cooking that hot potato all the while bitterly lamenting the rich people’s potato monopoly.
bl@93: Designer or off the wrack?
Boot cut or a subtle boat flair?
HL@95: Obama in over his head
So was Bush. The difference is that Bush was connected – the last of the Washington dynasties. The gossip I read is that Bush was furious when Hank Paulson informed him of the pending financial collapse in Oct 2008. The false bonhomie of friends letting down friends. Wall St clearly won that round. Should Bush, the consummate insider bear criticism for failing to keep tabs on his friends?
Old ground so I’ll leave it there. If the Bloomberg memo (Linked earlier by bl) finds traction, the street anger could be critical and the Obama administration will be vulnerable. (I am assuming that none of these negotiated deals for ‘unwinding’ the derivatives portfolios can be renegotiated, but some lawyer should be looking into that.)
I agree – to a point – that the Executive should … execute leadership. All of the Washington executives have stumbled in the ME, with the exception of Reagan who, it can be argued, benefited from a desire to see Carter gone. As it were.
Executives must be held accountable for lack of leadership, but in the particular case of the ME, I see equivalent failures, at a bare minimum, from the policy/INTEL groups, failures possibly better described as inchoate if not incoherent background noise indicating unresolved policy issues, starting but not ending with the purpose of engagement in Afghanistan.
It seems that the USA government is in over its head.
But that’s presuming any of us have any clue what is going on.
Speaking just for myself of course.
PS on #96 …and selling the whole nine yards of duckbill platypus dodo bird apparatus to their armies of the idiots, Lock Stock and Barrel. Ya gotta hand it to ‘em –for brazen they set new standards.
Just close you eyes and imagine a day of statehouses in all fifty states today full of people screaming –in return for a dab more of walking-around front-money –for MORE political dominance by and of the very people who have sold them down the river and strangled their futures in the crib.
Now open your eyes. WTF ??? It AIN”T a bad dream?
96. So, yes indeedy, pretty damn slick –the Dems cooking that hot potato all the while bitterly lamenting the rich people’s potato monopoly.
It’s a big food fight, all right. Even were we to hoard our few remaining spuds, tho’, undocumented aliens and space cadet socialists will trick us out of them, at least acc. to this cute cartoon. Moral: make potato vodka for everyone (except the kids) and be happy?
YBR, I’ll see your “boot cut or subtle boat flair” and raise you “Polly Ester or Dan M.?”
HL@99: YBR, I’ll see your “boot cut or subtle boat flair” and raise you “Polly Ester or Dan M.?”
I think that depends on whether we’re talking Brodie in her Prime or Billie the Beauty Queen.
And then there’s this:
The divide separating real from wannabe revolutionaries.
Thematic narrative, flight of fancy, or some version of reality. I have little way of knowing.
But I think young people – the world over – are more alike than not.
I love your commenters, enjoy them all immensely, very jealous,
Are any for sale? Maybe I could steal some?
Gentlemen and you to Fernandez, enjoy reading you, enlightening indeed.
Paki: intelligence agency ISI demand the CIA account for all CIA contractors in Paki, “scores working behind our backs,” ISI PROMISES “we wont tell taiban; Pinky Swear”.
Paki prepared to put Davis behind them if CIA stopped treating its ISI as inferior, lying traitors, terrorist sponsors, two timing, two faced SOBs
Our plan if Davis case goes south:
http://warintel.blogspot.com/2011/02/pakistan-risks-covert-cyber-war-davis.html
Big Thank you.
Gerald
Anthropologist
gerald Anthro,
We’re not for sale, but some of us rent cheap by the hour.
How the blog world goes round and round, How I got here, I requested the blog post.
So this is going to be a blog post, requested by another blogger, on Twitter, in response to a tweet I put out copying a comment by Richard Fernandez, another blogger, on his own blog.
http://cannoneerno4.wordpress.com/2011/02/26/my-take-on-pakistans-violation-of-diplomatic-immunity/#comment-11970
Gerald
Anthropologsit
Anthropologsit: (noun) a three dimensional device, shaped in profile much like the lower case letter “h”, constructed usually of wood, metal, and/or plastic, sometimes fabric-trimmed, which is employed by Anthropologists and others to enhance comfort via transferring high-psi “standing” to low-psi “sitting” body weight, i.e., from the feet alone to the greater area including the entire anterior flank from roughly the scapular or “mid-back” area to the tarsal complex (“feet”), though primarily to the anterior sacroiliac structure, often referred to in the slang as the “butt”.
The collapse of diplomatic immunity will at last allow us to treat UN officials as they deserve to be treated. This should be celebrated: decades of abuse by a corrupt ruling elite will end with their destruction.
Re: 14. CharlesWhite
“In the “Big Picture” I don’t know how anyone can deny that supernatural forces are not at work in the world (and has been for several years now), I mean come on man! how did someone like “0bama” get to be President and be this incompetent? How could the US fall so far so fast??? three or four years ago no one could have seen things going this bad this fast not even the worst critics would believe what is happening today would be happening!!! AND IT SEEMS TO ONLY BE GETTING WORSE…”
Simple… Just substitute teaching kids how to think with tauchy-feely ideology and within few generations you will have a relevant chunk of population eager to elect a tauchy-feely preacher. An example: friend has a daughter who is a Harvard educated lawyer. When O was a candidate she was talking about him with baited breath and as his major qualification presented him being a pres. of HLR. When I ask where can I read at least one of his articles the request was met with blank stare quickly morphing into derisional rage.
bl@105: let me help you out: iow, pear-shaped.
Rolls right off the tongue.
@105 and “Anthropologsit”
Buddy Larsen owes everyone an anthrapology (for making some of us rub two brain cells together
)
Buddy Larsen owes each of us a store stocked with loofahs and scented oil?
At last a sustainable economy.
Upthread I misspelled a word:
boot cut or subtle boat flair
“Flair” of course in the context of a pant cut is “flare” but I let the original stand as a reference to style rather than cut.
But the repeated use of “baited breath” is almost as sly as “rouge actors/states/players.”
One who waits with bated breath anticipates the future with fear. One who waits with baited breath anticipates the future with pleasure.
Rogue states are scoundrels, often by nature, but for purposes of creating a more persuasive political struggle tend to identify with various leftist ideologies, of the “rouge” palette.
Dealing with the world around us is dealing with inconsistency and too often the inconceivable. It strikes me as inconsistent to condemn Obama for an inadequate skill set that is driving this country into an inconceivable state of vulnerability; while at the same time attacking public unions, which contribute to middle class strength and ultimately the long-term viability of the country, as the only remaining asset that can survive a leaderless Washington, short of physical violence and institutional breakdown.
The “roll off the tongue” version: priorities.
(The slightly longer version: is alienating a large chunk of the middle class a good long-term strategy for retaking the Oval Office in 2012? Issues of public unions, and the educational subset, have been fully deconstructed. The question is: is now the time? So close to The Great Bank Heist of 2008 and the more recent Bloomberg memo? I’m not seeing any strategic depth on the right that would provide “leadership” any less vacuous than that coming from the Obama administration. The Other Issue being, of course, I’m not on the Memo Distribution List.)
YBR, pear-shaped is fine if one is the apple of one’s BF eye. Rolls on the tongue, yum!
You think rent-seeking public sector unionists contribute to middle class strength and viability? I say thank Calvin they do not as yet comprise the bulk of the bourgeoisie, else both they and we go down– “collectively.”
We’re not experiencing a leaderless Washington. Obama-Pelosi-Reid know exactly what they’ve done and would do again, given the chance; they are determined to build and maintain their union-green-grievance perpetual motion money machine that corrupts the political process and cranks out donations to their campaigns keeping them in power via bureaucratic salaries, benefits, pensions, subsidies, stimulus largesse and welfare capital transfers from the public-at-large to them and a public subset of beholden constituencies.
Some Republicans and more libertarians are beginning to get a clue, however– finally, at last!– that the machine doesn’t even work on paper (maybe none of them took HS physics, or perhaps they had impossible-to-fire bad teachers–). The Democrats’ self-serving fantasy doesn’t need just tweaking or an overhaul by the public employee middle classes who’re demanding the impossible and immoral, it needs to be smashed like a lob to nasty Mac. Americans need to get their vigorous game back on (including me
).
rp@112: You think rent-seeking public sector unionists contribute to middle class strength and viability?
I was waiting with baited breath for someone to pick up on that line.
Their salaries feed back directly into the domestic consumer economy.
Contributing to growth of markets that used to be dominated 70% by consumption; unlike high frequency trading desks which are now estimated to generate 50% to 70% of all trading volume.
Unlike corporate revenues generated overseas, and untaxed.
Pear-shaped it is.
ybr/111; re I’m not seeing any strategic depth on the right that would provide “leadership” any less vacuous than that coming from the Obama administration
Pardon me, may i call you an ambulance?
…here’s Voting For The National Interest, Not Self-Interest by Michael Barone, quoted on instapundit:
The recoil in 2010 against the Obama Democrats’ vast expansion of the size and scope of government seems to have a cultural or a moral dimension as well. It was a vote, as my Washington Examiner colleague Timothy P. Carney wrote last week, expressing “anger at those unfairly getting rich — at the taxpayer’s expense.”
Those include well-connected Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs that got bailed out and giant corporations like General Electric that shape legislation so they can profit. They include the public employee unions who have bribed politicians to grant them pensions and benefits unavailable to most Americans.
A government intertwined with the private sector inevitably picks winners and losers. It allows well-positioned insiders to game the system for private gain. It bails out the improvident and sticks those who made prudent decisions with the bill.
Modest-income Americans think this is wrong. They want it fixed more than they want a few more bucks in their paychecks.
…to which Instapundit appends: “Traditionally, most Americans have opposed crony capitalism and corruption. But people in Washington have tended to misunderstand what’s behind this, interpreting it as a negotiating strategy rather than a values question.”
***
So, see, it’s simple –”values” that are as far away from every one of the current DC occupation army’s can’t help but, no matter what, irregardless, ipso facto, sho ’nuff, GOTTA be far better. electing a ham sandwich would be a 100% improvement.
***
heh –thanks all for mercy on the #105 –when a typo is hilarious one can be pretty certain it’s 3:00 a.m. and one is once again drowning in the deeply shallow well of doom.
***
re ybr/111′s ‘rouge’ vs ‘rogue’ –Belmont a few years ago entertained a trollishly persistent absolutist continually accusing USA of a ‘rouge’ foreign policy. His handle was ‘Double Standard’. People started replying to ‘rouge foreign policy’ addressing him as ‘Doable Studnard’ and such –which even over months never failed to be ever more stupidly hilarious to at least one reader. It don’t have to be funny, it just has to be 3:00 a.m.
ybr/113; the observation re spending on consumption has to have some quantification applied or it goes to tautology. For example, we’d all be billionaires if only the govt sent everyone a check for a billion bucks –so why not? ‘cuz the unit value would plummet of course, unless the dollars were every single one coming out of hard-money reserves.
related, as is, the theory would hold at least the water in it, if every dollar transferred from taxpayer to public employee returned a dollar’s worth of work that would need doing anyway, using private-sector productivity as the standard. As is, the figure is probably closer to fifty cents worth of work that mostly would not need doing anyway –another great hidden dollar discounting machine.
bl@114: Pardon me, may i call you an ambulance?
Only if you promise it gets here before the budget cuts reach $100 billion, or I’ll make it easier, $80 billion, do I hear $78 billion?
I’m thinking Pyrrhic victory.
But for the sake of comity, I’m willing to give it time. (I’m not waiting with bated breath however.)
bl@115: the observation re spending on consumption has to have some quantification applied or it goes to tautology
I would if I were defending public unions, which I am not. (But the same argument for quantitative validation can be made against ‘trickle down’ – might need a bigger napkin.)
I am making a case for timing of priorities and relative magnitude of impact.
Now is a poor time.
Compared to the 40%, excuse me, 100% bailout of AIG portfolio that went directly into GS, Citigroup, DeutscheBank, etc, the union stuff is small cheese.
So since two wrongs make a right, the question is only as to the proper size of the second wrong?
…but i see your point, that national emergencies are better handled in series than in parallel. Point taken –the ideal beats the normative every time.
bl@117: So since two wrongs make a right, the question is only as to the proper size of the second wrong?
The Wall St issues collapsed from overt corruption, fraud, and deceit – on a massive scale that left – what is it? – $600 trillion worth of ‘unwound’ derivatives in the global economy.
The unions worked the system to get the best deal for the membership. They played hardball and – up until now – they won, to paraphrase our current President.
I’m not seeing two wrongs. I’m seeing massive and arrogant corruption on a global scale (regulatory agencies essentially worthless) versus political street hardball – all perfectly legal. The public unions will have to be ‘unwound’ (compensation discrepancies should be delinked from collective bargaining, which I suspect is the objective behind the less public negotiations outside of WI), but you gotta admire the skill.
116. Compared to the 40%, excuse me, 100% bailout of AIG portfolio that went directly into GS, Citigroup, DeutscheBank, etc, the union stuff is small cheese.
No, it’s all cheese, from the Wall Streeter Swiss-holed accounts to the union Muensters and Wisconsin (other state budgets and comity) shredded. Our wheys and means union operators are all extra-sharp corporatists in practice (union political ads and functioning as subsidiary of the Democratic Party, Inc.) who’ve churned a cottage industry of politician/ benefit and vote-buying into the Jack-ing of America.
Just grate.
well there’s no topping that. it is not apples and oranges but a pair jam smeared all over what we were bread to believe.
BA@119:
Pretty gouda.
The hyper-charged emotional rhetoric leaves me edgy.
Brie-ing into the wind – or downstream in some cases.
bl@120:
Oh dire. The fuzzy logic approach to problem solving.
The Ultimate We.
Constituent parts need not scream.
“You” have been canned.
A-si-a-go in my immediate future.
Connie: Oh, Professor, you’re full of whimsy.
Professor Wagstaff: Can you notice it from there? I’m always that way after I eat radishes.
I will never understand GWB’s requirement of Musharraf to “ditch the medals”. Was that a requirement for Egypt’s or Libya’s military dictators?
I don’t think the US would be in this predicament if the previous administration had supported Musharraf a whole lot better than it did–much as I do respect GWB.
Interesting.
So GWB sends a message that tries to ‘demilitarize’ a foreign government wrt western standards, which, in effect, delegitimizes same government via local cultural signals.
Interesting.
One might be inclined to make a similar comment about the modern western military. Clusters and bars do seem to … abound.
re 81. Teresita
29OCT56, 05JUN1967? The relevant dates are 26JULY1956 and 22MAY67. The blockage of an international waterway is legally recognized as an act of war. Egypt initiated the war both times, the but unlike the star wars remake, the good guys shot first. Much to your chagrin.
You said you were in the Navy?
…also pretty plain, Nassar had forced a withdrawal of buffering UN units in the Sinai and Gaza –a two month staged withdrawal was agreed to, but with a month still on the clock Nassar abruptly demanded they all be gone in 48 hours (the cover story was that the UNEF home govts were up to something). Coupled with his buildup in the Sinai approaches, he clearly intended to come across the border, or else he would not have sacrificed surprise to clear the UN units. Being unwilling to attack through the blue helmets, he was forced to give the surprise ultimatum , and at the shortest amount of time physically doable, 48 hours. Meantime he was blockading the Straits of Tiran, bottling up the Gulf of Aqaba and denying Israeli freedom of the seas via that waterway, and was moving assault divisions forward through the ”officially demilitarized” Sinai, when the IDF attacked.
So, to say Israel started the war is to say all those actions taken by Nassar not only did not mean he intended war, but that those actions actually proved he did NOT intend war, and furthermore that it was more reasonable for Israel to believe that, rather than to believe instead that the blockade, the advancing tank armies, and the remiltarization on the heels of the UNEF being literally chased off the Sinai, probably meant that Nassar was already in the process of an attack, and simply intended to make as much ground as possible before the shooting started.
Dimona was coming on line. Nasser had a patron. His bellicosity was entirely oriented towards thwarting a nuclear Israel which would then be a daunting foe.
The intent was to hammer and anvil Tel Aviv: Syria and Egypt were in tandem with the USSR funding the operation.
Israel won the campaign at the first stroke. The Arabs figured that mobilization was a prerequisite for Israel. It wasn’t. She secretly ‘mobilized’ her air force and took out the opfor at extreme range. Nasser had concentrated his planes at bases thought to be out of range. This meant that his ground defenses were minimal and that the planes were out on the runway. Everyone now knows that they weren’t out of range — and were destroyed very quickly.
The Israeli tank brigades then did their thing under complete air cover. Opfor machines were mostly taken out by the IAF. I still remember one photo of an entire Egyptian brigade destroyed by air attack. It had no meaningful organic air defenses.