The Arab Sprung
Fighting broke out in Yemen’s capital, killing at least 38 as President Saleh, who has refused to step down after promising to, tried to take on a powerful tribal leader:
The escalating clashes came after Saleh refused to sign a U.S.-backed deal, mediated by Gulf Arab neighbors, that offered immunity from prosecution under a timetable to step down within 30 days and transfer power to his vice president.
The United States has ordered all its non-essential diplomatic personnel out of the country:
There are worries that Yemen, already teetering on the brink of financial ruin, could descend into a failed state that poses a major risk for regional security and its neighbour Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter.
…
U.S. President Barack Obama has called for Saleh to sign the deal but analysts said Washington has little leverage in Yemen even though it has sent about $300 million in aid to help prop up Saleh’s government.
“What options do we have to force a resolution? Almost zero,” Barbara Bodine, a former U.S. ambassador to Yemen, told Reuters.
Saleh said on Wednesday he would make no more concessions to those seeking his departure. But the capital of the country of 23 million has begun to feel like a city at war.
Robert Worth and Laura Kasinof of the New York Times write:
The United States, which has worked closely with Yemen on counterterrorism, is now considering pushing for United Nations resolutions or even sanctions against Mr. Saleh and his family members, to pressure him to sign the agreement.
…
American officials are finding they have little leverage with a president who seems to believe he can outfox his opponents — and perhaps secure a bailout from Saudi Arabia — despite the dire situation in his country, much of which is in open revolt and where several provinces are beyond his control.
…
It is not clear whether Mr. Saleh realizes that the current crisis is far more serious than anything he has faced before. Yemen’s economy is collapsing, and its largest tribes are on the brink of armed rebellion. Mr. Saleh may soon run out of the money he needs to maintain his followers’ loyalty.
The Voice of America writes that the instability in Yemen is bound to help al-Qaeda. “U.S. intelligence officials believe al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is now the most significant terrorist threat to the United States, and analysts say the Yemen-based organization is benefiting from the violence and turmoil in that country.” Some analysts believe that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is planning to launch an attack on the United States.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Edmund Hull also served as the acting coordinator for counterterrorism in the State Department and says al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is likely to launch another attack on the United States …
Analyst Zimmerman says the terrorist group seeks to recruit and train local citizens to commit terrorist acts. “Not only is it attempting to execute spectacular mass casualty attacks against the U.S. and American interests, but it is also trying to encourage would-be recruits to execute smaller scale attacks,” she said.
Meanwhile, Arab News says that Saudi Arabia is prepared to “defend its borders” against threats from Yemen:
Speaking to reporters after opening a conference on military trials and councils in Tabuk, Prince Khaled hoped that the Yemenis would apply their senses to overcome the country’s present crisis.
Taken together the news reports suggest that diplomatic efforts to resolve the Yemeni crisis have been largely unsuccessful. The country bordering Saudi Arabia may be on the brink of civil war — a conflict which can only benefit al-Qaeda. They also call into question Saudi Arabia’s ability to influence the direction of the “Arab Spring.”
Bloomberg writes:
The kingdom has emerged as the leader of a new rejectionist front that is determined to defeat popular demand for reform. One would have expected Iran to lead such a front, but instead it is America’s closest Arab ally in the region that is seeking to defeat our policy. Though the president made no mention of Saudi Arabia in his speech, in the near term, dealing with the kingdom is the biggest challenge facing the U.S. in the Middle East.
…
Saudi rulers have made clear that they find U.S. support for democracy naive and dangerous, an existential threat to the monarchies of the Persian Gulf. If the U.S. supports democracy, the Saudis are signaling, it can no longer count on its special bond with Riyadh (read: oil).
The Saudi threat is intended to present U.S. policymakers with a choice between U.S. values and U.S. interests. The idea is that either Washington stays the course, supporting the Arab people’s demands for reform, and risks a rift with Saudi Arabia, or it protects that relationship and loses the rest of the Middle East.
It is possible that the Obama administration, having tried to straddle the middle, will wind up losing on both counts. Thus far it’s diplomacy in Yemen has neither managed to direct the Yemeni crisis nor deflect the threat from Saudi Arabia in the geopolitical sense. Instead of facilitating a diplomatic settlement in Yemen, the administration finds itself watching a possible civil war unfold. What was once Saudi Arabia’s backyard has now become its front line.
There are now reports that Saudi Arabia is circling the wagons:
The Gulf Cooperation Council, which is kind of like ASEAN but is looking more and more like NATO, is thinking about increasing the number of troops in the group’s joint military force, which is known, rather apocalyptically, as the Peninsula Shield.
The New York Times:
Invitations to Jordan and Morocco this month to apply for membership in the Gulf Cooperation Council are aimed at strengthening the security of the monarchies in the Gulf, political analysts and diplomats say.
…
Analysts say the turning point came when Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbors saw how the United States dealt with the fall of the Egyptian regime.
Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center and a fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy in Washington, said: “The Saudis worried that if the U.S. was able to turn its back on one of its closest allies in the region when former President Hosni Mubarak left, will they do it again if unrest erupts somewhere else in the region? Who will they throw under the bus next?”
Elliot Abrams at the Council on Foreign Relations argues that Saudi Arabia has drawn a final defense line around the monarchies in the area. It will allow the “Arab Spring” to come no closer than that:
My theory is this: for the Saudis, it’s fine if citizens of a fake republic like Tunisia or Egypt demand a real republic with real elections and democracy. But they draw the line at monarchies: kings have to stay in charge. So they lecture the kings of Morocco and Jordan to be careful about too many reforms (if the rumors are correct), and invite them to join the Club of Kings that is the GCC. Presumably financial benefits will follow, so long as the kings don’t play around with any experiments that might give Saudi subjects ideas of their own. And in Bahrain, they put down a revolt that might have brought constitutional monarchy—though admittedly that situation appears far more complex in the eyes of Saudi royals, as the Bahrainis who would be empowered are Shia whose success might give Saudi Shia unacceptable ideas about their own fate.
The situation presents a dilemma for Washington: from an objective point of view it can’t afford to stop in the middle. Either the Arab Spring succeeds completely in democratizing the region or its old alliances in the region are destroyed completely. The problem is the administration has not seen it as a real dilemma. By attempting to be on “both sides of history” the administration may achieve neither of its goals and in fact obtain the worst of all worlds. Its attempts to split the difference may deliver the entire region to turmoil while destroying the entire fabric of its old alliances.
President Obama’s current strategy, though he may not have considered it, implies that he either has to win the whole kahuna or lose it. This setup is known as the “Gambler’s Ruin” problem. “Consider a game that gives a probability a of winning 1 dollar and a probability b = 1-a of losing 1 dollar. If a player begins with 10 dollars, and intends to play the game repeatedly until he either goes broke or increases his holdings to N dollars, what is his probability of reaching his desired goal before going broke? This is commonly known as the Gambler’s Ruin problem.” The difficulty is that you can’t quit while you’re ahead. Either you get the N dollars or go broke trying.
For any given initial holdings, if we increase our upper target from … to some larger number, we see that our probability of going broke before reaching that number also increases. If we have no “quit while we’re ahead” target, and simply intend to play the game indefinitely, our probability of eventually going broke approaches 1, which presumably is why this problem is called the gambler’s ruin.
One way to think about the situation is that, despite President Obama’s rhetoric about “false choices,” he really must choose between two mutually exclusive outcomes: an authoritarian Middle East and a democratic one. If he puts all his weight behind a democratic Middle East the final result must be the end of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. On the other hand if he wants to preserve the current alliance structure, it must spell the end of the Democratic Middle East. But if he keeps trying to support the princes and promote the Arab Srping he will sooner or later realize that the price of keeping the princes in power is that they must be kept in power.
But if he supports the rebels half-heartedly, then Washington will lose the leadership of the democratization movement to groups like al-Qaeda. In that case, Washington loses on both counts. Al-Qaeda gets to benefit from the Arab Spring and the president gets to destroy his network of alliances. It would be interesting to know whether Washington sees the choices in these terms. Probably not. When it comes to a fork in the road, it usually takes it.
“No Way In” print edition at Amazon
Tip Jar or Subscribe for $5
It looks like the Obomination has lost another ally in the War on Islamic terrorism.
It wasn’t much of an ally but still….
What is that now? Egypt, Tunisia, Libya ( although the Duck of death is a recent convert to the WoIT and is a bigger loss then most realise it is possible to argue that he was never a ‘switch’ and just left the dark side as a temporary expedient) So he is ahead of Carter on points. Three, perhaps with more to come?
Excuse me but I see this as retrograde movement.
All Hillary has broken loose “on twitter”.
…-
“US State Department Advisory: Get the Hell Out of Yemen, Now!”
“The State Department has just put this advisory out on twitter:”.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2725251/posts
The Saudis are seeking stability through a alliance of conservative kings. This was Metternich’s policy with the Quadruple Alliance. Obama is coming across as far less competent than Palmeston and the Liberals of the early 19th century. He is the Liberal Emperor Manque, another Napoleon III. There was a third choice.
It was the one pursued by the Cheney wing of the Bush administration and inspired by Sharansky and the Neocons, an Oldies group available on late night TV ads by K-Tel and AKA “The Adults In Charge.” Support conservative pro-American leaders in the short term while proving yourself a Strong Horse powerful big dog and reliable ally but work to change the Arab culture so that democracy when it comes will reinforce those alliances.
To pull off the cultural change plan the US would have needed to confront the real source of the threats to regional stability and progress. We would have needed to eliminate the Iranian regime. By failing to do so and insisting that the war is simply an enhanced legal problem the Obamists have focused on responding to isolated events. To switch to a medical analogy we are treating symptoms while ignoring the cause of the problem, and now we are being overwhelmed by the outbreak of infections.
Some autocrats such as the kings in Morocco and Jordan, might have supported the internal peaceful modernization of their people. What the Obama policy has done is drive them into the hands of the reactionaries in Riyadh.
Because what the world needs now is another murderous, despotic, kleptomanic, unstable, failed, Arab state!!
(I’d add, “that threatens the existence of its neighbors,” but I don’t think it would fit on a T-shirt.)
If…then…
Way too much linear logic. Way too Western.
The best way to get the Ara
er, hit the wrong button combination.
The best way to get the Arabs to recognise that holding Proposition A and Proposition not A in their heads is not conducive to passing on one’s genes is to stir the pot and let them fight it out.
To extend the phrase: my tribe against the king, my king against the GCC, my GCC against wotever.
America has no position on this, until the last man is standing.
ADE
W, I just don’t see how you can take any notion of a democracy movement coming to power in MENA seriously.
Egypt’s chance for that was terminated with extreme prejudice by the Muslim Brotherhood and the military coup 80 years ago Egypt had a parliamentary democracy of sorts and, as far as I understand it, quite a signficant educated competent elite, many of them Coptic Christians. That was back in the ’20s and ’30s.
If they held the reins of power and couldn’t defend the system against fundamentalist terrorists they darn sure aren’t going to be able to any serious reforms now.
“What options do we have to force a resolution? Almost zero,” Barbara Bodine, a former US ambassador to Yemen, told Reuters.
It seems to me that Barbara Bodine, in some sort of ambassadorial position in either Kuwait or Bagdad, either directly or unwittingly, led Sadamm Hussein to believe that he could get away with invading Kuwait. Perhaps, she does not have as firm a grasp of the realities as she may think.
“What options do we have to force a resolution? Almost zero,”
HB, we are talking about different things. In the case of Kuwait, we were talking about protecting our investment in oil producing facilties.
In the subject under discussion, we are talking about societal change in cultures that do not have a concept of society.
In such latter cultures, the selfish gene will exact its terrible price.
ADE
Hangtown Bob,
That was April Glaspie, not Barbara Bodine in Iraq.
Roy
8/Hangtown Bob
It seems to me that Barbara Bodine, in some sort of ambassadorial position in either Kuwait or Bagdad, either directly or unwittingly, led Sadamm Hussein to believe that he could get away with invading Kuwait.
That was April Glaspie, US Ambassador to Iraq, who led Saddam Hussein to believe that was the case. Barbara Bodine, on the other hand, was the US Ambassador to Yemen who demanded the relaxed rules for readiness which allowed the USS Cole to almost be destroyed on a refueling visit to Yemen. She did this even though she was repeatedly warned that an attack of this nature was being planned. Do a search on “USS Cole + April Glaspie + John P O’Neill” for the story. (O’Neill also tried to warn about the 9/11 attack on the WTC but was ignored – he died in the attack himself).
Bodine was later assigned to Iraq to assist L. Paul Bremer in screwing up the post-Saddam rebuilding of that country. Like most of these State Department hacks, she is a gift that keeps on giving…
H B, I believe you’re thinking of April Glasbie. But one woman diplomat is much like another. How much contemptuous criticism did George W. Bush take for promoting democracy in the Middle East? Why has no one mentioned that Obama is not pushing the Saudis on the democracy bit because of oil? That would be nothing but the truth, unlike the vicious slander that Bush started the Iraq War for oil. More oil would have been forthcoming by treating with the Iraqis. The media is half-insane with rage and suppressed horror that Bush may have got it exactly right. Or, if he was wrong, that Obama is making the same mistakes but even more ineffectively. The picture may become clear when the first Al Qaeda government takes over a Middle East kingdom with some oil and starts threatening to send a constant stream of suicide bombers to the US. What’s Zero going to do then? Invade a Middle East nation to install democracy?
Let’s partition Yemen in three: American region, Chinese region, and tribal region. America and China can move in forces to fight al Qaeda and Somali pirates. Sell 100 year property leases to US commercial and private interests. Schedule a plebescite for reunification for 100 years from now.
Have a nice day.
April Glaspie.
Otherwise, great post RS.
Bush did promote democracy in the middle east. The result was Hamas and Hezbolla. Why would we think that any of the rest of this will turn out any different?
So we are promoting democracy because, after all democracy is democracy and that is the good and proper thing to promote. Good thing our leaders know which end is up in these chaotic times eh?
In such turbulent times I look for moral clarity to my favorite philosopher Marx (the other one)
“Well, Art is Art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know”
Comedian-in-Chief John Stewart said that Reagan created the Taliban — I guess we’ll just have to suck up to damage we’ve done to the peace-loving Muslim hoards and beg for mercy. Obama seems to think it’ll work.
Sorry, that should have been “Jon” — I get those Scotsmen mixed up sometimes.
Note:
Amb. Bodine was the officious “bit*h” who ordered FBI Special Agent John O’Neill’s travel visa revoked, so he couldn’t return to Yemen to continue his search for those responsible for 911. He was getting too close, and upsetting the diplomacy. Sad.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/knew/
HtB @ 8,
The U.S. ambassador you are mixing up with Bodine was April Glaspie.
W,
Whether the so-called Gambler’s Ruin process leads to a zero account balance depends entirely on how close the probabilities of winning and losing are to 0.5. If the probability of winning is much higher than 0.5, there is no inevitability of bankruptcy; that’s why there can be Warren Buffets.
Tharkun @11: This Bodine lady sounds like a real piece of work. Thanks for the details.
Geoffgo @18: Thanks for adding to her file.
Where does State get these people? Are they even part of the United States?
W: excellent thread and I wish I could disagree. But the truth is, fencesitters lose their n***s, middle-of-the-roaders get squashed. The speed and certainty with which these fates arrive is a function of the energetics of the situation. If MENA were populated by rational people, Hopey could get away with some of this. But it’s not; not now, anyway. So he’s cooked, and it’s all happening in fast-forward.
Last “thought”: the ripple of revolution across MENA is enabled to a degree by the comm technology revolution (old news, I know). But that is just a common catalyst. It does not provide unifying and integrating social power. The fact that some kid in Bahrain or Morocco or Jordan can send his friends a cell-phone video of demonstrators being shot in Damascus may get them riled enough to bring down the monarchy. But there is no corresponding communications capability to let that kid share across his network –and a much wider, necessary network– the resources needed to stand up a replacement government that will keep the lights on and the bread in the stores. So the Twitter thing is great at breaking s***, not so good at building new sustainable infrastructure. I hope I’m wrong.
Emperor Obama has assembled his Czars, reviewed the governments
in the Middle East and found all of them wanting – except Iran. He has issued this imperious assessment both privately and publically. It is clear that he expects tangible results from this pronouncement.
The world trembles at what will happen next.
19. Corrections
Actually casinos limit bets and hence payoffs because the math doesn’t support you.
They do have the odds in their favor…
But recognize that a run of bad luck still can happen ( see “The Good Thief” ) and wipe them out.
Finite amounts of capital get blown up by infinite sequences.
Real world gambling never gets too far away from 50:50 odds because the illusion of success ends up destroyed.
With it goes motivation to play — and lose to the house.
52:48 would be suitable for slots…
The beauty of slots is that they are inherently bet limiting. That, and the speed of repetition causes the player to bled down their pile time and again — without too much human intervention.
Massive bets with such odds will some fine day string up into a lethal run against the house.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0281820/
“he really must choose between two mutually exclusive outcomes: an authoritarian Middle East and a democratic one.” What a joke! The outcome maybe “Democratic” for a very short time period but will become ether the Authoritarian or Religious with a façade of Democratic elections, BH0 knows this and it suits him (and all Democrat leaders here) just fine. BH0 has made America the LOSER in the world and more and more people are seeing it unfold, true freedom loving people now have no protectorate to look to the Eagle does not fly for Truth, Justice or Freedom any longer it now only lashes out with its claws is spasms of unclear motive and intent OBL was forced on BH0 otherwise Libya is the new template of American power projection… Impotent and half hearted.
OT but finally here’s a book that Obama should buy! Courtesy of small dead animals a link is provided to the definitive tome on Socialism Written by A. Hunter Solomon this book is “A comprehensive itemization of leftist contributions to humanitarianism, prosperity, liberty and society.”
A sample review says it all. “It’s so deep, so profound, I was as speechless as the book is textless, it can’t be put in words.” -Sylvia Gadabout
20/oMan – Where does State get these people? Are they even part of the United States?
With the obligatory disclaimer that “yes, there are thousands of loyal, patriotic Americans working for the US State Department…”, however, at the highest policy and management levels they are essentially TWANLOC (Those Who Are No Longer Our Countrymen – as poster Subotai has termed them).
The “culture” of the institution of State is thoroughly elitist, oligarchic and globalist. They don’t view their job so much as representing the people of the USA, but rather more as managing us so we don’t interfere with their agenda. As others have put it, they don’t represent us to the rest of the world – they represent the rest of the world to us. At their core the answer is no, they really aren’t part of the American nation.
RE: Bodine & O’Neill
Not to defend Bodine, (or to criticize O’Neill) but O’Neill was bucking more than an ambassador. Much. He was in trouble at the FBI for various reasons, which under Freeh was moving more aggressively into international venues. Bodine was the messenger. The message came from somewhere within the system, which for reasons too complicated to go into here, was against O’Neill.
(BTW, RE oM@20: Glaspie was born in Vancouver British Columbia (with long grey ponytail in last graphic I saw). Bodine was born in St Louis, graduated magna cum laude from the University of California, Santa Barbara and belongs to Phi Beta Kappa. In a (cynical) way, I guess it’s classic.)
blert @22,
What you say is true enough if the odds are close to 50:50, but the great gamblers like Titanic Thompson (Alvin Thomas) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic_Thompson construct their own odds through practice, their observational skills and knowledge base; and they don’t bet unless the odds heavily favor them. Same for the Buffetts and serious traders of financial instruments. There is no Gambler’s Ruin at the odds they utilize. Perhaps you would want to say they aren’t gambling, but still they can lose on any one play, hence I would claim they are simply the best gamblers.
Trying to look on the bright side, in the end BHO’s moronic policies may be somehow salutary for the US and the West. They were monsters, but at least some of them were marginally our monsters… Under BHusseinO, not so much.
Alliances with the filth of Islam have given us millions of Muslim immigrants spreading the virus of Islam on our soil, and periodic love notes to the infidels like Beirut Marine barracks, 9/11, Bezlan, 7/7, AQ Khan, Mumbai, and Bali, etc. We never should have rewarded and revived the Islamic monster with trillions in Western loot, millions of tons of food aid, desalinization technology and medicine, or hundreds of billions more in armaments. It is not too late to place a noose around their necks by gradually removing the Muslims from the oil, but it will take a complete alteration of circumstances to convince Western leadership that the Muslims are as poisonous as I believe they are.
But the Muslims, despite their swelling war chests and their shiny hardware from the US, Russia, and China, are still floridly incompetent when it comes to the basics of survival in their bunghole countries. Without tens of millions of imported non-Muslim workers to do the work the Muslims refuse to, their desalinization plants stop functioning, their cars stop running, their electricity stops flowing, their food disappears, and they are left with nothing. A quick gesture using a few hundred missiles could completely destroy their water supplies, their refineries, and their avenues for foodstuffs — the Muslims could do nothing about it. So let’s look on the bright side — they can seriously harm us, but we can annihilate them using a few hundred conventional missiles.
Until our policies fundamentally change (lol) here’s a short list of what Barry O’Bama has accomplished in a mere couple years… The Muslim “allies” that are now transforming into outright vicious enemies of America are, so far:
Tunisia
Egypt
Yemen
Iraq (once it is ceded back to al Sadr and Iran)
Afghanistan (once it is ceded back to the Taliban, Iran, and Pakistan)
Turkey
Pakistan
Up and coming enemies:
Saudi Arabia
Kuwait
UAE
Qatar
UAE
Saudi Arabia
GOOD WORK BARACK!!! Keep it up. You have unwittingly taken us down a very positive pathway where too many years and too much blood, sweat, and tears have been wasted on the cactus heart of Islam. Your stupid policies have nevertheless helped to clarify exactly how poisonous, hateful, treacherous, and all-out scummy the Muslims actually have been all along. No more holding hands walking down the garden with the head sphincter of Saudi Arabia (and no more bowing too!), no more “Religion of Peace”(tm) BS shoved down the throats of the victims of Jihad, no more “Muslim outreach”, no more “Nasa’s top mission making Muslims feel good about their contributions”. You have helped show us how evil, but also fragile, these enemies actually are. For that you deserve our thanks.
The mathematics of gambling has a theorem called “Gambler’s Ruin.”
If the odds are in your favor, bet small and bet often. That way you avoid risking your pile of chips and going broke.
If the odds are in favor of the other player, your best play is all in. If you win, quit.
If the odds are even, the player with the bigger pile of chips is most likely the one to win eventually as the player with the small pile has a larger probablity of going broke first.
In either case, avoid slot machines unless you own the casino.
As to Yemen, I just wish I didn’t have to care. Culturally, it is ungovernable by ANYONE. Our play should be to keep them disorganized and confused but retain the ability to reach in and kill any threats promptly.
It should be added that in financial “betting,” there is a trade-off between the risk of ruin (bankruptcy or paralyzing drawdowns) and achieving maximal capital accumulation at a given future time. Ralph Vince http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Portfolio-Mathematics-Formulas-Allocation/dp/0471757683/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306434791&sr=1-3 has written about the issues involved and developed a metric (optimal f) for determining bet size when optimal accumulation is the objective. In practice, a prudent trader chooses bet sizes far smaller than optimal f, in order to decrease the risk of ruin even when the odds on each bet greatly favor him.
Interesting times indeed. Forcing State’s hand in Yemen while the Saudis push and counter women’s rights via facebook.
From FoxNews:
A campaign on Facebook is calling for Saudi men to beat women who plan to drive cars in a protest next month, AFP reports.
“The Iqal Campaign: June 17 for preventing women from driving” advocates a cord be used to beat women who plan to drive. Women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia.
Some 6,000 people have “liked” the campaign on Facebook.
It was created in response to female activist Manal al-Sharif, who created a page calling for Saudi women to defy the driving ban on June 17.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/05/25/saudi-facebook-campaign-calls-men-beat-women-drivers/#ixzz1NUA4rbpJ
To All those Arab spring cheerleaders i.e BHO and his minions, your dream of Arab spring will turn into Arab winter, or more likely to Western nightmare sooner than anyone imagined. If you think Iran is a problem now, wait until this fall when Egypt turns Islamist, and before that watch Turkey’s June elections once Erdogan gets one more term add Turkey into the axis of Islamo-fascist combined with IRAN.EGYPT,HAMAS and more.
Good job B.Hussein Obama, you were able to push middle east into chaos or more
precisely into a blaze.
How in the world did America “lose” or “turn its back” on Egypt?
Other than sending in the Fifth Fleet, what in the world could we have done to cause and effect anything in the Egyptian uprising? I hear this bruited about all the time. I don’t get it.
We can’t even get this guy in Yemen to do anything.
they did not like the george bush ham
they do not like obaman scam
they do not like us as we am
they do not like us, uncle sam!
25. tharkun
20/oMan – Where does State get these people? Are they even part of the United States?
The “culture” of the institution of State is thoroughly elitist, oligarchic and globalist. They don’t view their job so much as representing the people of the USA, but rather more as managing us so we don’t interfere with their agenda. As others have put it, they don’t represent us to the rest of the world – they represent the rest of the world to us.
…………..
This pretty much defines the culture at Columbia University in NYC. I don’t know about the other ivys. Perhaps someone else could comment on that.
The main challenge is regional politics is to come out on top the senior partner. When Mubarak’s weakness was revealed the choice was to either to prop him up and keep him there or come in at the head of the new wave. Diplomats are there to tell you — early enough — which wave to surf.
But when an administration is caught essentially unprepared, it cannot come in at the head of the new wave. It spends a lot of time, in fact, recognizing the new wave, figuring out who to deal with. The emphasis on “engagement” means that for Syria and Iran at least, means the waves we knew about were told to cool it, but the wave which broke over Egypt and now threaten to engulf parts of the GCC the US is now trying to get hep with.
Having denied itself the weapon of subversion in ‘enemy’ autocracies, can the administration rush to the head of subversives in ‘friendly’ autocracies? In other words, what does it actually mean to be on the “right side of history” when the team heading for the goal isn’t yours?
Here’s the specific question: where in the Middle East is US influence likely to emerge enhanced? In Egypt? Libya, KSA, Yemen, Bahrain, Israel? The core problem is confusion over what constitutes “vital interests”. Is democratic rule? Or is influencing the regime in power? Because that interest has not been categorically defined there is enormous confusion over who is friend and foe. One way to restate the state of “having it both ways” is to admit “we still making up our mind who our friends are”.
It’s a genuine dilemma and it will take its toll.
“In either case, avoid slot machines unless you own the casino.”
The best advice I have found at the Belmont Club. If you just have to ply, do it smart. Remember Odds have nothing to do with slot machines. Nothing random in a slot machine, at least not in the last several decades. Nothing mechanical either. When you pull that lever, you start up a routine in a microchip. ALL the slots in a casino are netted.
The “system” the locals use takes advantage of the programming. Go into your favorite casino. Get a free drink and a comfy seat and start watching the Quarter slots. The slots are on timers, set to pay out a little bit if they haven.t been played in a while. This is to make the fresh mark that just sat down think it’s a lucky seat, slot or just their day. The slot will give up a fruity, sometimes a bar or stars. That is to give the fresh mark house money to start with. The house ain’t worried, knowing it will get it back.
Don’t hit more then once. Put in your 5 quarters pull the lever and either collect your 28, 30 or 35 dollars and go back to your free drink. Or lose and go back to your free drink. Under no circumstances stand in front of a slot and feed it.
w/36, there is enormous confusion over who is friend and foe
Worse, there is enormous confusion over whether we ourselves are friend or foe.
It’s all a consequence of having decided we needed a james dean or marlon brando sort of moody, role-playing, self-conscious personality in the oval office. We didn’t like Nixon and we didn’t like Carter so we blended them and got what we got, including his staff of gibbering clintonoidal moral idiots.
We can’t have such –we need plain and simple in the preasidency. We can provide complex interpretations of the person, but what we need to be complexly interpretating has to be a sturdy, simple design. Otherwise we are all hanging out the windows of the tower of babel, screaming and shaking fists at each other.
I think the only way forward via the Arab Spring is to own it. Maybe the end state should be a region where every country more or less resembles something like Lebanon or Iraq, with confessional parties, but which have some resemblance to democracy. Something that can evolve into a better state.
That is a very ambitious goal to aim for and will require enormous resources. So the perfect Arab Spring would have been one which began in Syria and Iran. Then, you could launch an Arab Spring in Egypt and KSA secure in the knowledge there were no rival nation states which could seize the initiative from you. There would be much greater latitude to shape the democratic forces without other nations messing things up.
For some reason they are trying it in reverse order. The allies first and Syria and Iran last. Well, let’s see how that works.
Here’s the specific question: where in the Middle East is US influence likely to emerge enhanced?
Interesting question and very tricky, since previous US influence in the area has been pretty tiny to begin with, except perhaps with Israel, oh, well, Kuwait and UAE, maybe, and then Iraq and Afghanistan, and you call it for Pokiston. Hey, has Obama ever even mentioned Turkey?
Obama’s contribution to US statecraft is to reduce US influence either explicitly or by being a clown, and why not the results are the same.
Mr. Stoicheion @ 37
Every gambler has a system, do they not?
Some of them even sound plausible, as your’s does.
Best of luck with that, or should I say, I wish you a lack of randomness.
For Israel, in the trenches of this fight since always, most of these difficulties are resolved.
You have no such thing as interest other than your own survival. At the end that is your responsibility. No moral code or political system is going to give you that. You are yourself the end game. That includes more than military or polical might. It includes the individual looking to the next cancer therapy or better way to recycle waste water. It even includes the Haaretz lefty who never stops complaining.
Nobody can escape, there is nowhere left to go. Israel is the last bastion for the Jews. It is a historical gambit still under heavy attack.
So I have seen many criticisms of US Jews on this website. I can understand that you gave us McCain/ Palin last time. I did not vote or support Obama but c’mon that is the alternative? Where are conservative republican leaders on the level of Netanyahu?
28. Morton Doodslag: As tempting as it is to blame it all on Obama, there is plenty of blame to go around. The MSM for not vetting this poser, the people who voted for him without finding out who he really was (and he made that pretty clear if you only did a little research), Ayers, The state of Illinois, SNL/ Jon Stewart devotees , etc.
Put an idiot in charge of your village and you get chaos. I never saw the appeal of BHO, none whatsoever.
I believe the only way to win in ME is not to play. The Muslim religion does not allow escape or evolution. The only modernizations have come from without, bought with petrodollars. If not for oil, they would all be riding donkeys and squatting over holes to pee (many still do) It is a virus that should be erradicated. We don’t have to kill them, just stop supporting them. They will destruct on their own.
Under the heading, “The Faith Divide”, Eboo Patel and Samantha Kirby have written an article in The Washington Post:
“America should be ready to partner in Middle East”
I disagree, and wrote a “comment” to that article citing the most obvious reasons I could think of.
s/42, anyone who looks at Netanyahu’s career –esp the huge reforms he sold and then made work in his finance minister stint –means if anyone else is gonna have one, then we’ll need yours. Send him over when you can?
And seriously, McCain is no glamorboy, and he’s half rino, and ran for office like he’d agreed to throw it to Obama, but you can’t seriously equate him to an Obama type, can you? I mean, the one is merely sub-optimal, the other is a catastrophe we’ll feel forever IF we survive his rule.
#45…I have trouble with “Copy and Paste” on my HP Laptop…..anyway, here’s what I managed to get done:
…..”This American totally disagrees.
The very concept of “Partnership” is alien to the Middle East. Daily we Americans witness ethnic, tribal, familial, nationalistic, religious, linguistic, and even gender based belligerance and savagery nurtured for countless generations….doubtless, the origin of these incessant disputes is often forgotten.
If it weren’t for the well known windfall created by that Accident of Nature called…..petroleum…the Middle East would have none of the urbanization, mechanization, communication so ostentatiously visible today. Let’s see “partnership” among these Midde Eastern nations exhibited among themselves for the betterment of the lives of….. the…..Palistinians …which no Arab country is willing to absorb. How about some “partnership” among themselves? It simply won’t happen.
Haven’t we Americans learned that our relations with just about every government in the Middle East [...at least in the 20th and 21st Centuries....] are complicated by mazes of disputes….and frought with examples of “…what can we get from out of the Americans?….let the Americans take care of (…)”.
Bales upon bales of American cash credited in one way or another to Middle Eastern Governments…..has been seen to have accomplished….what, exactly? When?
Afghanistan, Pakistan……what benefit has been shown to us Americans by their “partnership” with America?
The ends envisioned by this article are a lovely Oz-like chimera hovering always just barely out of reach.”
““““““““““ ““““““““““`
This is a pet theme of mine….that we Americans are being double- and triple- played by these, mostly artificial, countries in the Middle East (…MENA, if you will…)who’re using us, very skillfully, beyond our understanding.
It is an interesting question of how a nation can own a popular revolution within another nation? Certainly POTUS missed an opportunity with Iran and is currently disregarding the second chance with Syria. However, the events within Egypt were relativley organic, it was POTUS’ naive efforts to “own” or take credit which decreased US influence with both the people and the Saudis. Pros known when to play.
I have begun to wonder why we refer to these events as the Arab Spring. Autumn is the season of change. Maybe we should define this period as the Arab Fall and then we can see what pops out of the ground next spring.
cg/4r5, the Israelis are asked to roll the (perhaps loaded, how can anyone know?) dice on their personal physical survivals, uproot a half million of six million, move them onto the other’s neighborhoods, jumble all civic life and routines and structures, while the Palis are asked to say and mean a few words, such as ”I accept Israel”, in the secure knowledge that the Jews will never even consider doing to them what they’ve sworn to do and tried to do and have failed only by superior resistance to do, to them.
I agree with you –if THAT is ‘balanced’, what on earth can be unbalanced?
PS, two things, those 1967 borders created the 1967 war, and two, why doesn’t Samantha Powers & the state dept opine that the ‘right to protect’ could be extended to Pali (and Egyptian, and others) children, who are being 24/7 psychically traumatized from age two onward by horror films of Jewish monsters coming to eat them alive?
s @ 43: I never saw the appeal of BHO, none whatsoever.
oh come on now, surely you felt that thrill run down your leg at the idea that we would finally have a black president and dispel some of that three century old bad karma?
his main appeal was that he lacked most of the specific faults of first Hildabeast and then John McCain, it’s like he was born to be Hobson’s choice.
by the time of Obama, I was already disillusioned. mine came in the Clinton follies. I thought 99% of even democrats would take one look at that clown and send him back to Arkansas impeached, but with a hearty slap on the back. when they didn’t, and instead dreamed up excuses galore – my idea that the American electorate, at least the democratic side, was even nearly rational, was gone.
I mean look what we missed, five years of President Algore!
the questions then are, how long have they been this irrational, and what does one do with it now? I suppose this is more along the lines of my own education, than any other real change in the universe.
Yemen had value to the West until 1967 when the port of Aden was a British Protectorate. The Brits left Aden in 1967. Now Yemen is just a hornets nest, of interest only to the hornets. Why poke an American finger in there when the only possible consequence is to get stung?
Obama doesn’t even have the native grace to quit yapping when a host country’s national Anthem is being played in the presence of that country’s head of state (UK and Queen Elizabeth). Does he shut up when the Stars and Stripes is being played in the U.S.? Someone as innately boorish and graceless as this should not be let loose outside of his own backyard, ever.
There may indeed be a coherent and gainful U.S. policy to develop for the Middle East. The current U.S. administration is so strange and so alien to basic human nature that they could not and should not attempt to develop one.
Sd@42: Where are conservative republican leaders on the level of Netanyahu?
GOP Kingmaker? Roger Ailes:
All the 2012 candidates know that Ailes is a crucial constituency. “You can’t run for the Republican nomination without talking to Roger,” one GOPer told me. “Every single candidate has consulted with Roger.” But he hasn’t found any of them, including the adults in the room—Jon Huntsman, Mitch Daniels, Mitt Romney—compelling. “He finds flaws in every one,” says a person familiar with his thinking.
“He thinks things are going in a bad direction,” another Republican close to Ailes told me. “Roger is worried about the future of the country. He thinks the election of Obama is a disaster. He thinks Palin is an idiot. He thinks she’s stupid. He helped boost her up. People like Sarah Palin haven’t elevated the conservative movement.”
April Glaspie is an interesting case in hindsight. She was accused of not being sufficiently specific in telling Saddaam about the US interest in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, thus indicating he could go ahead. I don’t know what she said–she testified to Congress about it but that was a long time ago–but the idea that a crazylikeafox guy like Saddaam, who really WANTED to invade Kuwait and could be presumed to be subject to wishful thinking could be put off by something less than a gun to his head is nuts.
However. Either she was mushy and didn’t say anything about the US going all medieval on his ass, or she was quite specific.
In the first case, she would have been speaking as liberals like us to speak to our enemies; pleasant and non-confrontational and with due respect to their own interests and histories of oppression by us. So we have war. Umm. Disconnect there. Liberals caused war….
Or she was speaking quite clearly and the butthead didn’t care.
In which case, what’s the fuss?
Though some Belmont Clubbers don’t want to hear this, I believe the Russia-Israel reapproachment of recent years is in part driven by Israeli fears that Washington’s checks in the region won’t cash anymore, and therefore the Jewish State needs new partners if not real friends like the American people.
Of course, the U.S. would have to be in total financial collapse before Congress would touch Israel’s $2-3 billion in aid a year, but that’s really not the point. The real issue is what a collapse of American power elsewhere, caused by the reckless overspending in Washington, would do to the sentiments and war readiness of Israel’s neighbors. I do think for now Israel holds a huge edge, but it’s a question of how crazy the Hezzies who’ve turned southern Lebanon into a giant rocket launching pad want to be.
Of course, for far too long the Randy Scheunemanns of this world have run along as if there were no connection between all their advocating for American client states and empire and the bloated budget deficits they pretend to decry as Republicans.
Arab spring=Muslims murdering Muslims for tougher Islamic law.
Oh yea, I’m way off course on this one.
The media talking heads seem to be fulsomely unaware that Yemen isn’t ‘next door’ to KSA — it’s INSIDE, too.
Millions of Yemenis provide the blue collar labor force all over the Kingdom — everyday.
Their mutual international border is as open as ours with Mexico.
THAT’S why the Kingdom is freaking out.
15 of the 19 maniacs of 9-11 were YEMENIS – not Saudis – traveling on KSA papers. This weird status was established by the original monarch to reward his military allies.
And, of course, OBL is a Yemeni by blood. It is by one’s father that you’re known and bonded.
So Yemen is always ground zero for AQ.
Like Pakistan, Yemen has been playing both AQ and America for fools.
—–
Back in the day naval authorities remarked upon the power of a fleet that never sailed as a threat merely by existence.
Tirpitz is an example. She caused Britain fits for years while not doing much of anything.
A fleet in being…
—–
AQ is a threat in being…
It is being used to give the West fits — AND to milk the West of protection monies — in the guise of helping.
But the LAST thing Araby wants is a resolution of this back-burner jihad. On current trends, all looks good.
—–
Bruno Napolitano, Arizona’s gift to the Beltway, has perverted the TSA into a grope-down squad. The Undie-Bomber has won by losing. That the plan always was to lose the pawn… never seems to click with the brainiacs in D.C.
—–
Hence, one can argue that world wide jihad today is all push-pull. They push our buttons and pull our legs.
Washington is high on denial.
Detox is going to be brutal.
@52
“Obama doesn’t even have the native grace to quit yapping when a host country’s national Anthem is being played in the presence of that country’s head of state (UK and Queen Elizabeth).”
Don’t you know who he thinks he is?
Thanks to BFTP for the line “Obama is coming across as far less competent than Palmerston and the Liberals of the early 19th century.”
The Spring has sprung
The bells have rung
The people have quit cheering
Obama shrugs
He’s out of hugs
He’s no longer endearing
The Arabs see
That such as he
Is just a weak horse gelding
As the collapse
Calls for perhaps
Some riveting or welding
To keep intact
Obama’s pact
To topple all dictators
But now they know
It’s all for show
Obama’s small potaters
The Arab Spring
Was thought to bring
The end of the Israeli
But Obie ain’t
Their patron saint
And sure ain’t no Disraeli
54. Richard Aubrey
The interaction that counts was filmed. He was intimidating her by his manner and voice.
She was unable to pull a Bibi on him.
It was Thatcher who implanted the insta-spine in Bush. They’d had a long scheduled meeting that just happened to occur very shortly after Saddam invaded Kuwait.
After her position statement, Bush became a new man and stepped to the microphone.
Please, do go back and look at how soft and fuzzy Bush was in the first days — and then WHAM. ( Thank you ma’am.)
It comes down to ex goat-herder gazillionaires and maniac dictators vs maniac mullahs.
In the long-run, they’ll all blow themselves up and possibly the world anyway.
In the short-run, at least the goat-herders and maniac dictators want to enjoy their virgins while they are still alive.
no contest
I’ll take Strange Bedfellows for $1000 Alex:
What do Sarah Palin and George Soros have in common?
Randy Scheunemann
RE: Palin’s new home in Scottsdale, I heard that she may plan a Senate run for Jon Kyl’s vacated seat in 2012. FWIW, I think Palin would be an effective Senator. But now the gossip is that she has ‘fire in the belly’ for something greater.
Supposedly Palin parted way with Scheunemann earlier this year. Randy always denied being the source for the New York Times stories trashing her on the campaign trail after McCain’s people tried to pin their loss on her. But curiously, he had effectively zilch to say regarding his lobbying for Georgian interests in D.C. prior to the 08/08/08 war.
Soros sure did seem to co-opt McCain though very well. Young McCain wanted American troops out of Lebanon. Old McCain wants American troops in Libya.
Walt 59,
Your servant Sir.
blert
Thanks for the info on Glaspie vs. Saddaam.
So the lesson to be drawn here is not to send a woman on a diplomatic mission to a hard guy? Or not to send somebody who is not, himself or herself, a hard guy?
And where do we find the hard guy at State?
In any case, hard guys are bad. But one might have prevented a war.
That’s a toughie.
If Israel has term limitations, perhaps we could borrow Bibi.
–well, Putin’s longtime meta-theme is that only Russia can provide regional security. With Obama driving the Sauds AND the Israelis toward Moscow (and the G8 invited Russia into Libya today, to mediate) looks like all a Russian strongman needs to be right is an Obama across the sea. And with China vacuuming up Pakistan and around central Asia, and preparing to trade us our own Afghan expeditionary force for an arms embargo against Taiwan, we may soon be able to keep social justice funded simply by mothballing the USN –if we get to keep it that is.
Ambassadors are appointed by presidents. Glaspie was appointed by GHW Bush, a ‘respected Arabist’ and the first woman ambassador to an Arab country.
Was the appointment part of a deeper game? I don’t have enough information to have an opinion but my ignorant guess would be that Bush Sr liked the idea of breaking barriers. Little did he know. Which is commentary on post-modern and pre-9/11 foreign policy coming from this country.
YBR @62: Jeff Flake will be the replacement for Jon Kyl. Sarah Palin is well-liked in AZ but that does NOT give her what it takes to defeat a well-liked
native son in the GOP Primary.
ybr/67, JR Nyquist has reports in his web archive that his informants tells him Saddam was pointed at Kuwait by his Kremlin arms supplier, then in the midst of a supposedly collapsing USSR –purpose being defensive, to tie USA up in a sand war just in case NATO was to get any bright ideas during the Russian tranformational vulnerability.
But since you and i enjoy scraping the bottom of the barrel of what might be back there in the shadows, did you catch this a couple days ago? Note the employer of one of the traders is ‘Arcadia’, meaning Arcadia set the fuse on the gasoline price panic of the spring and summer before the 08 election.
Note Mitsui started-up Arcadia and sold it to Fredriksen the Norwegian multibillionaire oil-tanker and container shipper HQ’d in Cyprus.
Now note Mitsui has a 10% interest in the BP Macondo well. What a strange coincidence, i’d say.
–a pointer to more Arcadia background? Sure, right here, be sure and read all four short decade-old press releases, found in the far back pages of search.
So, there you have a few links (among many, many from diverse angles) telling of the same people attacking, perhaps innocently (*cough*), the US oil industry both politically thru consumers before the election, and then two years later directly against domestic ”new” BIG supply –and (via the moratorium) operations and industrial capacity too (as ten major rigs have since pulled out of Obama’s Gulf of Mexico prison waters and taken Asian and African contracts).
Could be this.
***
I don’t want to bore, but there is a BOP-investigation tale that needs to be aired — but i’ll let it go for awhile so you can scan these links if you are, like the guy on the roof, so inclined.
wonder what caused my #69 to be ‘held in moderation’, wretchard? I’m still trying to learn the ropes –and i’m a slow s-l-o-w learner! Izzit a certain number of hyperlinks? One could stay under that number if one knew what the number was –is.
The Saudi threat is intended to present U.S. policymakers with a choice between U.S. values and U.S. interests. The idea is that either Washington stays the course, supporting the Arab people’s demands for reform, and risks a rift with Saudi Arabia, or it protects that relationship and loses the rest of the Middle East.
Something I don’t get – why not just tell Saudi Arabia to pound sand? Just what are they going to do? Once upon a time the US needed the military base there, but they balked at it being used to support the Iraq invasion, so that got moved to Qatar. Plus Kuwait and Iraq itself are perfectly good sites. They’re no longer needed to counterbalance Iraq, and there is no longer any need to protect their oilfields from Iraq either. They’re dependent on the US for weapons. You reckon they’ll go to Russia for planes and tanks? KSA and Iran hate each other anyway so there isn’t much chance they’ll side with them.
Sure, they can cut oil production – but this isn’t the 70s anymore, the world’s supply is more diverse now. And they need the money too much to really turn the screws.
Why maintain the pretense that they’re an ally? If they’re not helping, cut them off. What am I missing? Can anyone think of a credible diplomatic or otherwise threat that KSA could actually back up?
RE: April Glaspie
Wikileaks has released the July 25, 1990 cable by US Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie in which she reported her meeting with Saddam Hussein over the Kuwait crisis. Saddam had summoned her.
The cable’s text supports Glaspie’s accounts of the meeting and exonerates her from the charges by her political enemies in the US Congress that she inadvertently gave Saddam a green light to invade Kuwait.
What happened to April Glaspie?
The veteran diplomat awaited her next assignment, later taking a low-profile job at the United Nations in New York. She was later shunted off to Cape Town, South Africa, as US Consul General. Nothing has been heard of her since her retirement from the diplomatic service in 2002. It’s almost as if she has become a non-person.
RE: Jeff Flake (born in Snowflake, AZ founded in 1878 by Erastus Snow and William Jordan Flake, Mormon pioneers and colonizers)
12 of the 16 Mormons members of Congress are Republican ( obviously excluding Harry Reid who I didn’t know was Mormon.) One of Flake’s political issues is corporate welfare.
70/Ltw – Why maintain the pretense that they’re an ally? If they’re not helping, cut them off. What am I missing? Can anyone think of a credible diplomatic or otherwise threat that KSA could actually back up?
In addition to the economic factors regarding the fungibility of oil in the world market and the geopolitical risks of the Saudi oil fields coming under the domination of our enemies, e.g. Iran, al Qaida, China, et al., there is a tremendous domestic political blackmail risk to our ruling elite classes from the Saudis. They almost literally “own” vast swaths of them.
For decades they’ve bought, bribed or otherwise funded powerful notables in academics, business, media, science, lobbyists, the legal profession, and of course Congressmen, Senators, Presidents & ex-Presidents, diplomats and various other “civil servants”. (This list is by no means exhaustive.) The benefits the Saudis derive from these arrangements run the full gamut from relatively innocuous favors to punishable legal or regulatory shenigans to full-out treasonous betrayal of our country’s vital national interests.
Saudi money has bought and corrupted such a significant number of the Ruling Classes that they now have the power to destroy careers, put people in prison or otherwise cause extreme trouble for them should the details of these arrangements be revealed. They’ve got too much dirt on too many to diss… /g
Headline this morning:
“G-8 Offers $20B for Arab Spring”
How wonderful is that? Is “Arab Spring” a racehorse or perhaps is it real estate, a nice oasis that contains a water source? What will we do with it once we own it? Feed it, train it, pump it? Maybe G8 is providing money and stipulating that the springers use it to buy food and weapons systems from us?…one needs to be well fed and armed to fight the Juice.
68. Dave;
Sara will not run for Senator of ANY state. That is wishful thinking by the Left.
Palin scares the crap out of Liberals. She scares the establishment, both (D) and (R) even worse. Look at how many crooks she either ran off or put in jail in Alaska. D.C. fears her because if elected, she will do the same thing there.
Right now I figure 525 of the 535 elected Congress critters are dirty. All it would take would be turning the FBI loose on them. Right now the FBI is kept on a short leash because both (R) AND (D) want it so. That is why the establishment picks both candidates. They are heading off at the pass anyone that will upset the apple cart.
Politics is about dividing the loot. Ever since the first city was built Society has been divided into workers and planners. Workers LIKE working. There is a lot of satisfaction to be found in a job well done. Planners LIKE planning, there is much joy in a plan being guided to fruition. Sine Roman times there has been a “middle class”, which is where those on the way up or down dwell.
This all works swell so long as everybody does their part. Problems arise when planners plan poorly, workers get lazy or the middle class contracts, creating social stagnation. When any of those happen, Society undergoes turmoil.
Right now in America, the Planners are fooking up. The voters (workers) will either adjust or replace the planners.
The Planners are isolated from the workers and very few see any problem.
OT – Blagojevich trial
There was quite a bit of discussion a while ago on the boards about Blago’s arrest, Rezko, Patrick Fitzgerald, etc.
Blago has now taken the stand in his own defense, and will be cross-examined following the Memorial Day weekend.
The trial has come to a point where the Feds putting Tony Rezko on would likely result in guilty verdicts (Blago was already found guilty on a single count at his prior trial).
I was a big Patrick Fitzgerald booster early after Blago’s arrest. The more cynical among us were opining that Fitz intervened prior to the Senate appointment to protect Obama and his crew. I disagreed, mostly because no one in Illinois history has done more to clean up corruption than Fitzgerald, and that certainly reflected well on him.
To all the cynics even more cynical than me – doubt has crept into my mind about Fitzgerald, and if the Feds don’t put Rezko on to nail Blago… Fitzgerald doesn’t seem all that exemplary these days.
51. Josh :”oh come on now, surely you felt that thrill run down your leg at the idea that we would finally have a black president and dispel some of that three century old bad karma?”
No, I don’t have any white-man’s guilt.
52. westerncanadian: “Why poke an American finger in there when the only possible consequence is to get stung?”
Sounds like a good argument for deploying a large can of Raid.
65. Richard Aubrey : “Or not to send somebody who is not, himself or herself, a hard guy? And where do we find the hard guy at State? In any case, hard guys are bad.”
I respectfully disagree. Diplomats need to be clear and unambiguous, IOW hard fellows. Why negotiate from a position of weakness if you are the US representative. If they truly understood ME culture they would know that weakness is despised and power is respected, even, possibly more so, in what is said. If only we could clone John Bolton. Hmmmm.
Speakeasy.
I know it. You know it. Anybody important know it? Hell, talking about the Glaspie thing means that “just talk”, “just negotiate” doesn’t keep the hard guys from attacking. Cognitive disconnect.
The folks at State and any number (98%+) of the chattering classes don’t want to hear it.
The story of April Glaspie, the ‘respected Arabist,’ is a clear indication of two lessons learned – or not: staffing diplomatic circles with people who ‘understand’ Arabia is arguably a prerequisite, but hardly a guarantee of success, and, second, ‘understanding’ Arabia is not necessarily an intellectual accomplishment so much as it is an exercise in tolerating a cultural suite of unstable psychology driven by religious radicalism.
April Glaspie got chewed up and spat out by history, which is not to ‘broaden the argument to the point of triviality’ (excellent phrase oMan from previous thread) but to note the systemic dysfunction in the fabric of foreign policy in the ME that almost ensures individual failures. Glaspie was an intellectual, put in charge of waterboarding a fidgety Strong Man. Poor appointment.
70. Ltw
It must have been a fast news day…
Because you’ve apparently never came across the story of Chinese missiles sold to KSA and Iran.
If we were to follow your notion…
Red China would set up shop the very next day.
That is, after all, what the Libyan campaign is all about. The Duck of Death was cutting Europe off ( France, Britain, et. al. ) and hooking up with China.
But European refineries can’t take just any oil — they are dialed in to Libyan sweet, light crude.
Why do you think Brent light went on a tear?
YBR
“The cable’s text supports Glaspie’s accounts of the meeting and exonerates her from the charges by her political enemies in the US Congress that she inadvertently gave Saddam a green light to invade Kuwait.”
Well, seeings how she wrote the cable…
The cable doesn’t prove anything beyond self-serving story telling.
She was destroyed by the video recording — apparently performed by Saddam’s crew.
Watching her kowtow to Saddam completely destroyed her diplomatic career.
Saddam was actually running the whole invasion idea past her…
And she acted as if America would stand aside — very much in the manner of the Peanut in 1980 when he invaded Iran.
Kuwait’s alienation of the USN — turning down a prompt ‘joint exercise’ was the height of folly. It’s something that they won’t be repeating anytime soon.
Folks, if China breaks out of containment the number of nations sitting at the UN will decline markedly. Beijing is as much a control freak as Putin could ever be.
Pakistand is literally riding the tiger.
China intends to absorb the Near-Abroad.
Fiji permitted Indians to immigrate and handle those pesky commercial tasks. Today, Fiji is 50:50 Fijian / Indian.
In fifty years time the SCO belt will be at least 50:50 Han and whomever.
A massive new Chinese diaspora is under way.
B@80: Saddam was actually running the whole invasion idea past her…
I think so too, but one can make the argument…
And she acted as if America would stand aside — very much in the manner of the Peanut in 1980 when he invaded Iran.
I don’t disagree – completely, so much as just putting the wikileaks context out there, which fleshes out an historic moment in history. Glaspie got outplayed by the wily one. Wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time. As I said, poor appointment.
Since we sometimes here deal with wheels within wheels….
Had a conversation with a field-grade–chance met–about 1995. Said that, before Desert Shield, you (stateside units) couldn’t get an MRE to save your life and every native arab-speaker got called up from wherever he was to someplace else.
So, going with this, perhaps Glaspie took one for the team. Bush I apparently needed a hostile action to put together coalition and take care of biz. Saddaam was presumed to be going ahead and a stern warning, known as gunboat diplomacy or sabre-rattling, might have the unfortunate consequence of convincing him to stay home. So Glaspie was instructed to be non-committal at most.
Just sayin’.
Saudi Arabia Scrambles to Limit Region’s Upheaval
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia is flexing its financial and diplomatic might across the Middle East in a wide-ranging bid to contain the tide of change, shield fellow monarchs from popular discontent and avert the overthrow of any more leaders struggling to calm turbulent republics.
From Egypt, where the Saudis dispensed $4 billion in aid last week to shore up the ruling military council, to Yemen, where it is trying to ease out the president, to the kingdoms of Jordan and Morocco, which it has invited to join a union of Gulf monarchies, Saudi Arabia is scrambling to forestall more radical change and block Iran’s influence.
The kingdom is aggressively emphasizing the relative stability of monarchies, part of an effort to avert any dramatic shift from the authoritarian model, which would generate uncomfortable questions about the glacial pace of political and social change at home.
Saudi Arabia’s proposal to include Jordan and Morocco in the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council — which authorized the Saudis to send in troops to quell a largely Shiite Muslim rebellion in the Sunni Muslim monarchy of Bahrain — is intended to create a kind of “Club of Kings.” The idea is to signal Shiite Iran that the Sunni Arab monarchs will defend their interests, analysts said.
“We’re sending a message that monarchies are not where this is happening,” Prince Waleed bin Talal al-Saud, a businessman and high-profile member of the habitually reticent royal family, told The New York Times’s editorial board, referring to the unrest. “We are not trying to get our way by force, but to safeguard our interests.”
I always took the Glaspie thing at face value – as of that date we really didn’t much care if Kuwait was the 51st state of Iraq or not, we were good buddies with Iraq for standing off Iran, if mildly irritated that they were also funding jihad against Israel. She only followed policy and direction, and frankly I personally didn’t care then and don’t care now if Kuwait is the 51st state of Iraq or not (and if I’m ignorant of some reason why that matters, I await enlightenment).
After the fact, maybe GHWB needed a distraction … for his son Neal up on banking charges. So he started a huge buildup, not particularly intending to push the button, but once you put 600,000 men and equipment in action it’s hard to just call them home again, and sooooooo we attacked. The whole thing was perhaps something of an accident. My view. That it incidentally put our filthy kafir boots in transit on the holy dirt of Saudi Arabia and gave one Osama bin Laden a focus for his dyspepsia, was then just another of those accidents. So it goes.
I don’t blame Ms. G for any of that. In fact, when all is said and done, perhaps this is the best of all possible worlds.
The Surge Got Lucky – Barbara Bodine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfqxKWKdyXo&feature=fvwrel
S@74:
Palin scares the crap out of Liberals. She scares the establishment, both (D) and (R) even worse. Look at how many crooks she either ran off or put in jail in Alaska. D.C. fears her because if elected, she will do the same thing there.
No, she wouldn’t. That’s not the way it works. Washington fears nothing, let alone Palin. Palin would be ‘contained’ either publicly or privately. The Lone Cowboy/Cowgirl who saves the world from itself went out with Kissinger.
The clean-up has to start in Congress. It’s less sexy and the venues are smaller but Congress is the heart and foundation of domestic policy, which requires a lot of clean-up.
The presidential venue is foreign policy. Palin should be evaluated on her potential for providing authoritative and effective leadership that supports and resonates with the desire of people to live free. Seldom do the presidential campaigns address foreign policy in any meaningful or considered way. The Dems will force debate on fiscal up or down policy and the GOP will find something else to privatize.
Palin would have made an excellent Senator.
84. Josh: Just like the scene in The 13th Warrior, where Wolfgar’s man instigates a fight against the prince’s largest henchman to prove a point. Well it did work on Col.Daffy with Bush II. Cagey, them Bushmen.
Read a report from the NY Times of all sources saying that in Egypt nostalgia for for the old days is already starting esp. amongst the older people. The police have been neutered so it is not safe to be out after the sun sets anymore. Money and the things you buy with it are drying up. The difference is from too little to close to nothing. The thrust is kind of something like, the young punks overthrew the regime but now have no idea or knowledge of what to do next. Another, they’ll start a war and my kids will have to fight in it, I know what that is like and they don’t.
It is starting to look like that most of the Arab countries do not have enough of a middle class and/or knowledge base to sustain or complete an even half way revolution. The economics of the world being what they are throwing money at the Arabs for either peace or oil is not sustainable. The black swans are in the trees and they are pooping on the cars.
85/13times – The Surge Got Lucky – Barbara Bodine
In that video Bodine provided a stark demonstration of the adage “It is better to keep silent and be thought a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt”.
It is clear that she possesses very little understanding of what “the Surge” actually was. Her ignorance is surpassed only by her hubris and condescension.
“That’s not the way it works. Washington fears nothing,”
Your evidence please. Washington ( politicians and K streeters) fear losing power.
One of the ideas being kicked around is reducing Congressional attendance to once or twice a year. Let them telecommute. It’s much more difficulte to do shady back room deals over the internet. One certainly cannot hand out brown bags full of 100 dollar bills. Plus being at ‘home’ will mean seeing their constituency on a daily basis. That will allow the Congress critters to see what is happening in the real world.
Back in the day, when I ran a cube farm,the manager in the next office over had a picture of Washington D. C. It had Connecticut Ave on the bottom, along with 16th street, Foggy Bottom, Embassy Row, the Dupont Circle area and Urban sprawl right up to thr Potomac and the Canal. Chain Bridge and River road were about 3/4 up the picture. Then you had about a 1″ gap follwed by the Golden Gate Bridge. Everything past the Potomac was labeled “The rest of the world”. It was meant to be a joke, only it wasn’t funny. It was real.
What scares the Politicians is getting sent back to the sticks were they came from.
Sara also scares the establishment because she doesn’t get it. She doesn’t fear being sent home. She won’t go along to get along. Sara as POTUS means Congress will either clean themselves up or suffer her attentions.
As far as POTUS and foreign policy, It only seems like POTUS Controls it. That is because every administration since FDR has allowed State to run foreign policy. That means a dozen or so intertwined families. The Senate is supposed to control foreign but they have never really shown much effort.
s@91: She won’t go along to get along.
Your evidence please.
If elected, Palin will be President, not King.
Pedestals are not comfortable places to be – for either party.
The President has appointment authority. Clean-up at the Cabinet level can start there – along with restructuring to provide tighter coordination with the intelligence agencies.
Josh.
One reason for resisting Iraq in 90-91 is that Saddaam invaded a sovereign country. That, under Westphalia, is a no-no. And he was lining up for SA. Another no-no.
Things have changed. Failed states are no longer considered untouchable as Westphalia did not consider the concept.
I vaguely recall the Neal thing. Figured it was one of those things everybody did until a prosecutor took a particular interest in one person. Or perhaps it was one of those things which were legal but so arcane that simply talking about it in simplistic terms made the perp look like a poor-box robber, and defending himelf would cost him a ton of money and slime anybody associated with him.
Wasn’t there some Wall Street mogul who copped a plea to spare his brother a jail term for some ginned-up prosecution where he failed to prove a negative?
Very suspicious of the headline-grabbing prosecutions of the malefactors of great wealth. Ought to be a real crime there, someplace.
“Though some Belmont Clubbers don’t want to hear this, I believe the Russia-Israel reapproachment of recent years is in part driven by Israeli fears that Washington’s checks in the region won’t cash anymore, and therefore the Jewish State needs new partners if not real friends like the American people”
As a long term trend this more robust relationship bewteen Moscow and Jerusalem will grow. However, there are bumps, like for example, the expulsion last week of the Israeli Military attache for espionage. What was interesting about this case was that Moscow did try to play this down.
Moscow wants and needs Israeli unmanned vehicles, it also wants influence in the region, and thus is hedging its bets there with closer ties with Israel.
(I assume that with their old client states, Egypt, Syria in flux, it needs to take a hard look at its goals in the region, and how to acheive them.
As for Israel, Moscow is also a hedge. And a way to deal with Iran. In fact, the key job of the Israeli Ambassador to Russia is Iran, Iran and Iran.
This emerging and gowing Moscow/Jerusalem relationship is by design very opaque.
We get glimpses, a meeting here, etc…but regarding the larger set of goals involved, one can only speculate…
RA @ 93: One reason for resisting Iraq in 90-91 is that Saddaam invaded a sovereign country.
He claimed otherwise, and what do all those lines in the sand mean anyway, left behind by the British Empire specifically to keep them all weak, and even if it violated Westphalia, let the Westphalians enforce it. Of course the real reason was more about the threat to SA, and not even that we were that in love with the royals but that the idea of having Iraq, Kuwait, and SA all under one owner, started to scare some of our state department career types almost sober.
As for Neil (pardon my spelling) and bank follies, as in many business cases it’s not necessarily the most guilty who get the most prosecution, in fact it seldom is, Enron was a rare case where some really sleazy perps were actually convicted, but there must be a thousand guys walking around NYC today who were ten times as crooked and pocketed ten thousand times the money that Neil Bush ever saw.
“He claimed otherwise”
He would, wouldn’t he? What he had to go on was that Kuwait and Iraq were both part of the same Ottoman administrative region called, iirc, a “vilayet”.
Since the Ottomans (Dave Barry would call them “Tootmans”)chose wrong, the lines have been as they were since about 1918 or the immediately following map exercises.
There have been sovereign countries with shorter provenances. The Koreas and the Vietnams and the Germanies come to mind.
Yeah, having Saddaam owning directly or by threat all the Gulf oil would have been a problem. When you figure the effect on second-tier economies of bumping up the price substantially, the possibility of instability is acute.
So, whatever the real motivation or the ostensible motivation, imo, Gulf I bought some peace and stability for awhile.
“Your evidence please.
If elected, Palin will be President, not King.”
http://juneauempire.com/stories/092607/sta_20070926011.shtml
Speaker of the house, crook, republican.
How many other congress critters keep bags of cash in their freezer? Was Jefferson the only one?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abramoff_Indian_lobbying_scandal
How many more Abramoff types are running the halls of Congress?
Vote for Sara and find out.
The only way to remove corruption from Congress is to go after it. Find it, perp walk them and hold a trial.
So far, the only candidate with a history of catching crooks is Sara Palin. Cain projects that aura so he might be the alternative to Sara. The others will just demand a cut, or for the resident, a bigger cut.
That is what I mean by go along to get along. As you well know. Sara has the personal integrity to refuse a cut of the loot to look the other way. That scares the crooks.
Remember, those that escaped the Abramoff thangie did so because they traded favors with those higher up the food chain. Sara won’t play that game. Remember, she resigned from the Governors office because the attacks on her were interfering with her ability to do the job the taxpayers hired her to. Personal Integrity. Something that makes the establishment nervous.
I don’t think history provides simplistic, neat, examples. And, I think Obama told the truth when he said there are elites who hate Israel. And, have worked behind the scenes to weaken her. Heck, in May 1967, LBJ got on the phone with Ben-Gurion, and told him “in no way should Israel fight!” LBJ’s excuse was that America was involved in one war, in Vietnam, and The White House didn’t want Israel involved in another “quagmire.” LBJ was shocked when it took 6 days for Israel to knock out all the arab Syria, Jordan and Egypt, from contention. (And, yes. Jumped the gun and destroyed the Eygptian air force pro-actively.)
George W. Bush, with Condi in assendancy, over Cheney, in July of 2006, LIED to the Israelis to get the cooperation you saw. But Israel had already decided NOT to get involved INSIDE of Lebanon!
As to the UN, it was started by FDR. It’s an American “idea.” It was meant to fill in for the FAILED League of Nations. (It’s still an EPIC FAIL!)
But, ahead, it will be an issue with voters come November 2012. It seems some of the democrats in Congress seem to be aware of this.
So, for the time being, Oama will try to “swim it back.”
Meanwhile, in Yemen, the men are addicted to a narcotic drug they chew. And, in eygpt, the show trial of Mubarak is going to lead to disaster. (Plagues?)
The next war in the Mideast won’t be territorial. (Unless the Saud’s can grab Libya.) And, I don’t see Assad stepping away from Syria, either. Which means leaders in Yemen and Libya can hold their horses … as they watch what transpires.
Getting food to the egyptian people to forstall massive starvation, ahead, however, looks nigh near impossible. Maybe, the russians will throw them a life line? (Any promises you read in the papers, however, are just propaganda. And, won’t amount to actual deliveries of anything, if I had to guess.)
What cards will Obama play in September? He may want to talk of being a part of the “quartet,” but Americans don’t really care for partnerships with the british, french, and russians. If a leg falls off the chair … what politician, now, will race in and force Israel into the sea? (I’m just asking.)
Obama’s been known to find it close to impossible to make timely decisions.
But what happens, ahead, in September, will be key to understanding the direction the White House is willing to make it’s gamble on. (And, it will be key, too, to watching if eygptians starve. Or not.) Their tourist trade is lost. And, here you have to key in what happened in Japan. Not just America.
ra/96, …and alas, set up the oil-for-food crime syndication of the UN, and got the Rich boys up and running.
carol herman.
Where are the Russians going to get an Egypt’s worth of spare wheat? Their harvests have been lousy and if they pony up money, nobody’s harvests have been good. Come to think of it, I haven’t heard of Australia’s agriluck. Anybody know?
s@97: So far, the only candidate with a history of catching crooks is Sara Palin.
From the link re the Pete Kott conviction:
“I [Palin] was shocked by some of the revelations that came out in the trial and I can understand why many Alaskans feel betrayed.”
Local law enforcement and the FBI deserve the credit for bringing and executing this case – not the governor.
Abramoff and Jefferson were both tried, convicted and are serving time (Jefferson might be out.)
Couple of points to consider briefly, which I think are important, but I don’t want to bore the readers with another Palin dust-up:
Alaskan politics have been notoriously corrupt since forever. Ted Stevens never saw the inside of a jail. Not even the Palin Princess could make that one happen.
Given the extent of the local corruption, one might conclude that the malfeasance among the politcos would have to reach a high level of contempt and, yes, hubris, before being brought down. This Kott character seems to have qualified on that score. No subtlety. Those types generally go down.
Wiki has a fairly comprehensive listing of political scandals at the federal level. Some are still out there but the egregious ones are doing time or retired.
Except for the criminals who orchestrated the financial crisis of 2008. And Palin ain’t bringing them down. The financial sector is not just too big to fail, it’s too big to f^ck with.
ybr/101, and the powers that be are aware of the sentiment you express in that closing sentence, and earlier this week tossed you a scrap –
search [ suits filed oil futures manipulation ] (i’d link it but i already did last night and it got moderated to Obli Vion).
anyhoo, the January-May 2008 period is the complaint, and the perps were with and dealing with a trading outfit name of Arc*dia (insert a in place of *), which may not be but could have been mentioned in the ‘rich boys’ link in #99 above.
jump ahead two years to April 2010, the Gulf of Mexico blowout, and see that a 10% partner in that well, M*tsui (insert i), is lo and behold the same company that started up Arc*dia, later to spin it off to the Norw*gian (insert e) billionaire Cyprus-based shipping magnate whose two traders, ex-BeePee men both, were sued earlier in the week.
I’d mention names but the spam editor might moderate it on outta here like last night.
***
Learn mushmore by close-reading wiki of P-e-t-e-r S-u-t-h-e-r-l-a-n-d
–which will also throw light all over the Irish case an interest in which you’ve evinced. You want the honors-loaded eurocrat, not the eponymous arteests and such.
buddy@102:
I might be wrong but try posting the links again. See what happens.
In my own mind I think the BP gulf spill was dirty – all the way around, but I don’t see the Palin connection, except to note that I deal with her political career in an intentionally moderate manner to avoid inflaming the passions that surround the subject. (I might be wrong about that too since political passion is peculiarly American, but it’s my preferred approach.) And I can’t understand your last paragraph. If DSK and/or Peter Sutherland are the ‘honors loaded eurocrat’, I certainly agree, but I have no clue who the eponymous artists are to whom you’re referring.
ybr, sorry, mush writing. I meant to allude to the financial collusion finally beginning to fall under a sort of light, selective, investigation, now that the 2010 election and Obama becoming the butt of SNL jokes is sinking into the relevant watchdog bureaus at home and abroad.
The Clinton era legislation back doors that came suddenly into play in early 2008 –the ‘dark pools’ that allowed anonymous wrecking of commodity markets by untouchable fronts such as the rich boys link @ #99 talks of. So a voter, panicked by gasoline and oil run ups far faster than he’d ever imagined and with no end in sight, emerges into the September Bank panic (the TBTFs losing 70% of mkt value in two weeks), followed by the LEH bankruptcy shock at mid-month, and faith an begorrah we are losing GDP, shedding jobs, passing TARPs and electing Obamas.
So re those guys getting sued a few days ago for their part in that Q1 Q2 08 commodity rip, i was trying to relate via the Arcadia (boy that’s some) coincidence, to the 2010 oil blowout, and via Peter Sutherland, directing on the boards of both BP and Goldman Sachs, the bookends of the 2008 and 2010 referred-to incidents –and much else related to that now-ebbing (?) UN IPCC AGW Copenhagen cap n trade attempted world takeover.
In being brief, i’m near-idiotically shortening and de-contexting, but that’s all i can do unless i go to Wall of Text.
But do read the Sutherland wiki –and gaze upon the visage of the 21st century’s version of the last century’s Shiva World Destroyers, and read the solid packed paragraphs, the hundreds and hundreds of words, doing nothing but listing his awards and honors, given upon him by the vasty numbers of ancient organizations of the great, which have in concert shaped the fantastical chiaroscuro dream world that to merely cope with a day longer fast becomes the noblest ambition.
The current U.S. administration is so strange and so alien to basic human nature that they could not and should not attempt to develop one.
I think you are in luck. They will not.
We will be driven by events for the next two and a half years. Assuming we get lucky in ’12. And pardon me for heresy but I think Palin is the answer. Why? Because she played a very good game of B ball. She gets winning against opposition. And she has skin (her son) in the game. It concentrates the mind. As always we shall see. It is what makes the future so interesting. You can’t be sure what will happen.
89. toadold
Your answer is here (good chart near the bottom if you don’t want to read the whole thing):
http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/sft2.htm
It explains why the Saudis have to import white men to keep the electricity flowing.
MS@105: Because she played a very good game of B ball.
That is a different angle. Primal. If Palin is to fulfill a public role in that capacity she must savvy up. Criminal behavior where bags of money are exchanged is not on a par with the hyper-concentrated ‘long game’ of the international players described in bl’s Rich Guys link. I do not know if Obama is a fellow traveler with the internationalist set, is being cavalierly outplayed at the Long Game level, or is trying to walk some sort of tightrope, as I think Bill Clinton tried to do.
The debate on this site has been that the Abramoff/Jefferson/Kott faction with bags of money is chump change relative to the long term damage inflicted by the ‘rich guys.’ Palin has to be prepared to engage, one way or another, at that level, with those people, all of whom make a Kott look like small time Mayberry RFD. Naivete is not an affordable luxury in any career.
buddy@104: I see your @69 (five links – all clean! (moderated once because a story was linked to a marginal site – I think?)) came through. I noticed from the first link:
And although the plays have rarely been successfully prosecuted by regulators, they have diminished in U.S. markets amid years of heightened scrutiny and high-profile investigations since the collapse of Enron.
“It feels like a blast from the past,” said a veteran U.S. oil trader who requested anonymity.
CFTC bringing the charges? That would be your old pal Gary Gensler wouldn’t it? Think he’s found religion?
Maybe ‘our’ problem is that we are not honest with ourselves. Our ‘allies’ and our ‘enemies’ alike jail or even execute people for excercising what we think are essential perogatives of a free people.
Our excuse is that our ‘enemies’ also want to come over here and blow up our buildings and our ‘allies’ don’t. If more citizens of our ‘allies’ (Saudi Arabia Pakistan and Egypt) contributed to 911 than our ‘enemies’ ( Iran, and formerly Iraq) maybe the logic is wrong.
We have what I would call brothers in the world. England. Israel. What I have seen of the Philippines. Those are people that we actually trust.
Just musing.
j/108, maybe the logic is wrong –recurring theme thru-out the thread. wretchard’s post of the Walt Kelly toon offers a possible name –the Pogo Principle (?) where illogic and wrong logic, though at surface similar landscapes, are atop two opposing tectonic plates –the floater being illogic learning and lifting, the sinker being wrong logic swallowing itself.
***
I’m with m simon on palin. She’s bona fide. the problem conservatives have with her, imho, is the nature of conservative is incremental –trend directions being the goal of change, and ‘let’s just relax and try to maintain property values’, while Palin is revolutionary and she might set off riots.
so, the GOP says we aren’t Rehab Nation needing to bottom-out before we can turn, and the TEA says, wrong, that is precisely what we are and bouncing off an unmistakeable bottom is the only way we can turn.
And Palin, tho she could never discuss such primordial cognition, is an athlete who still runs –as in, wearing sneakers and hitting the pavement –clearly demonstrating she plans to keep the Palin bottom manageable and well-defined.
***
ybr, re GG getting religion –one can hope, but busting a $50 million theft by what amounts to an outside mechanic hired by a cutout, is one small step for a man, while the hundred trillion bonfire where the global aristocracy is methodically destroying a century of peasant progress, now busting THAT would be the great leap for mankind.
Unasked for Advice for the Palin campaign team: Do not radicalize the fan support. To win, Palin needs that broad swath of the country omitted in the drawing described by stoi upthread (between Washington and San Francisco, which I’ve actually seen.) If those folks even sniff carnival or caricature or cartoon or rock star, they’ll walk away. In a heartbeat. We’ll see what the money decides during her tour.
(And I apologize for bringing up the subject again. I saw a Senate opportunity and thought it would be a good fit at this stage in her professional life. I would also advise her to take up swimming. Long term impact on joints and ligaments from pounding pavement can be crippling.)
RE: CFTC lawsuit – they’re asking for triple damages which is $150M. I *think* (should probably think some more) that the symbolism exerts a dampening effect on the more egregious players, which has of course the benefit of increased confidence in the larger venue of markets and regulatory agencies.
http://www.bing.com/search?q=dod+financial+terrorism+report&go=&form=QBRE&qs=n&sk=
The re-upped Patriot Act being all over the news, one wonders at what point the interests in perpetual terror premiums on a barrel of oil start to moot any hope of ever getting shed of it.
Starts looking like the drug wars, where the cops and robbers neither one would have it any other way.
Say on the Fox crawler that the Honduram tyrant Zelaya –tossed out in a tea-party-ish coup a couple years ago –is ‘coming back to power’. No explanation offered anywhere on the news sites –just that he’s back in. So i went a-searching and up pops this:
http://www.cpj.org/2011/05/one-media-executive-killed-in-honduras-another-wou.php
–which, if you read it, identifies what likely brought him back, but breathes not a word of there being a right side and a wrong side of the journo attacks. You have to figure THAT part out for yourself.
Feh. Depressing as all hell.
111/buddy larsen
I didn’t see the Fox announcement, but if it actually said Zelaya was ‘coming back to power’ that’s probably incorrect. At least for now, it’s simply a case of him being allowed to return. In addition, it’s not primarily these attacks which are enabling this, it’s that the Obama administration and its thug leftist allies (Chavez et al.) have forced the OAS (Organization of American States) to penalize and ostracize Honduras diplomatically and economically. Zelaya’s return is the price for easing these sanctions.
The long term plan, of course, is the classic leftist destabilization of Honduras and the supplanting of their constitutional government with a leftist regime that will be more compliant and useful to the elites’ new order a la Chavez’ Venezuela or Ortega’s Nicaragua. This recent spate of attacks is probably a component of those developing destabilization efforts rather than ordinary mayhem, with the intent of intimidating the country’s media and discrediting the legitimate government.
Now that Zelaya’s back we can expect to see protests, demonstrations and crowds violence start ramping up. We’ve seen all this before, throughout the past century. Marxist revolution is coming back to Latin America, with a vengeance. I agree with you that it’s depressing as all hell, but the really bad aspect of it is that it’s our own corrupt leadership and their international institutions which are enabling these leftist thugs.
P.S. – One personal gripe of mine is the persistence of the brazen lie told repeatedly by the Obama regime and the media that Zelaya was forced out in a “coup”. There was no coup. There was, however, an attempted coup, by Zelaya himself, that was thwarted by the Honduran legislature, their Supreme Court and their military, all following their constitution. They were the ones following the rule of law.