Category: Europe

Out of the Mouth of der Spiegel

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Jürgen Habermas, writing in der Speigel, understands the problem with the proposed changes in EU organization:

The failed referendums are a signal that the elitist mode of European unification is, thanks to its own success, reaching its limits. These limits can only be surmounted if the pro-European elites stop excusing themselves from the principle of representation and shed their fears of contact with the electorate.

This is the basic problem. You create a, “referendum over a treaty that is too complicated to be understood,” and when it fails, the solution is to eliminate the democratic element of the decision making.

Georgia Daily Update

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First, let’s go meta and explain why no nation on earth should trust Bush and His Evil Minions™ in a diplomatic context:

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has also been noticeably absent on the diplomatic scene, having failed to interrupt her holidays to fly to Tbilisi in support of the Georgian government.

This is actually easily understood. She’s an academic, which means never allow reality to alter your view of the world, and never cut a vacation short.

In any case, the Russians have officially declared an end to military operations, though there is clearly some combat still going on.

Hopefully, it will die down in the next few days.

Of interest is the fact that Georgia must remove its troops from the area and sign a binding renunciation of force against both South Ossetia and Abhkazia.

If they don’t get that, then the Russians are saying, “no deal”, and if they do get that, then Saakashvili is done as a political force in Georgia.

I think that he’s done in any case.

Interestingly enough, I see a pattern of tribalism in this description of Georgian Mikheil Saakashvili’s comeuppance.

Specifically, it appears that much of his credibility in terms of the actions that he has taken, and the west’s view of him, come from the fact that he got his law degree at the George Washington University Law School, and when he purged the civil service and universities, he replaced them with other western trained personnel.

When I look at coverage he has received, and for that matter the coverage of other leaders of dubious records, it appears that those old school ties make a very big difference as to who the press covers what they do, particularly when it is less than savory.

Getting Georgia’s War On

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First, read Getting Georgia’s War On in The Nation, if just for the revelation that that Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze made an “investment call” to bank managers and analysts.

The original offensive had been planned for some time.

Additionally, it appears that Russia was the first to call a Security Council meeting, but their proposal, which called for both sides to , “renounce the use of force”, was rejected by Georgia, the US, and the UK.

I think that the best historical analogy out there is care of Attaturk:

1836 to 1848
Georgia = Mexico
Russia = The United States
South Ossetia = Texas

It really is clear that the Ossetians hate the Georgians, and that the desire for independence is very real, though the ability is only because of Russian support.

Meanwhile, Russia is rolling east from South Ossetia, and west from Abkhazia, and they are demanding the disarming of troops along both borders.

Again, this is calling on the the Kosovo precedent, and I think is a sign that one of the goals of the Russians is the elimination of the Georgian army as a meaningful force.

Certainly their capture Georgia’s Senaki City and enterry into Zugdidi Town, roughly 40km in Georgia from the Abkhazian border seems to confirm this.

On the bright side, Dmitry Medvedev has stated that the military operation in South Ossetia is nearly over, which should indicate a reduction of optempo shortly.

You can read a summary of official Russian losses, and they seem very light, though the loss of the Tu-22, by which I assume they mean Tu-22M Backfire, not the earlier Blinder, has to to hurt.

Jed Lewison notes that top foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, is a paid lobbyist for a foreign government, the Republic of Georgia, he claims not to lobby for them any more, but his firm still gets fees from them, and that much of his lobbying were his highly successful efforts to turn McCain into an unthinking Georgia evangelist, though given McCain’s Russo-phobia, it probably took less than a golf game to do that.

Georgia on my Mind

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It appears that Georgia has “pulled out” of South Ossetia, though I think that any realistic assessment would say that the Georgian army was expelled from the breakaway province by the Russians.

In the Security council, it’s clear, for now at least, that Russia will not allow any resolution through that calls for a cease fire.

I would also note that Putin has described the Georgian assault on the capitol of South Ossetia as, “Genocide”, and it’s clear that he has his eyes on the precedent set in Kosovo, where crimes against humanity were used to justify the creation of Kosovo as an independent state.

Things are also heating up in the other break away region of Abkhazia, with Russian troops being sent there to reinforce the positions there, moving elements of its Black Sea fleet to the Abkhazian port Ochamchire, and there appears to be an assault on the Kodori Gorge, which was reconquered by Georgia in 2006.

Ukraine is saying that it may bar Russian ships that have participated in this operation from their ports for the duration of hostilities.

There are reports of a Russian Blockade of Georgia, which has been denied by the Russians…sort of:

Russian warships are not planning to block shipments of oil from Georgia’s Black Sea port of Poti, but reserve the right to search ships coming to and from it, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said on Sunday.

Also, it appears that the Russian navy sank a Georgian missile boat.

Honestly, the only sympathy I have for the Georgians is the very real possibility that Mikheil Saakashvili was led on by the US, much in the manner that Saddam Hussein was before the first Gulf War, because it is clear to me, and Thomas de Waal writing in the Guardian agrees, that this was largely the direct result of actions by Saakashvili

Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili seems to care less about these people than about asserting that they live in Georgian territory. Otherwise he would not on the night of 7-8 August have launched a massive artillery assault on the town of Tskhinvali, which has no purely military targets and whose residents, the Georgians say, lest we forget, are their own citizens. This is a blatant breach of international humanitarian law.

Moscow cares as little about the Ossetians as it does the Georgians it is bombing, regarding South Ossetia as a pawn in its bid to bring Georgia and its neighbours back into a Russian sphere of influence. Ordinary South Ossetians have also been cursed by a criminalised leadership which would long ago have lost power had they not been the rallying point for defence against Georgia.

I think that it’s clear that Georgian calls for a cease fire will fall on deaf ears in Russia for a while, and we have a report that Russia is demanding the removal of Saakashvili, the article, in classic WaPo form describes him as having been democratically elected, but ignores the election fraud in the last election, along with brutality against the opposition and the destruction of an opposition TV station.

It also appears that the Russians are advancing past the borders of Ossetia. They appear to be advancing on the Georgian city of Gori.

Georgia Shells South Ossetian Capitol, Escalation Ensues

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I’m not sure why Georgia chose this time to start shelling South Ossetian capital of Tskhinval, but this sort of behavior has elicited the expected Russian response, and they have started sending additional “peacekeepers” to the region.

The Guardian has an interesting analysis, if just because it avoids the common wisdom available on a Google News search that somehow the Georgians shelling a city full of women and children is Russian aggression.

Their analysis is that this was a well planned offensive, and that they hoped to catch the Russians off balance, with Putin in Beijing for the Olympics, and it now appears that they were wrong:

Observers had little doubt that the operation to take South Ossetia back under Georgian control bore the hallmarks of a planned military offensive.

It was not the result of a ceasefire that had broken down the night before – it was more a fulfilment of the promise the Georgian president, Mikhail Saakashvili, had made to recapture lost national territory, and with it a measure of nationalist pride.

((emphasis mine)

It appears that the US has been aggressively supporting and training the Georgian army for some time, and this may have contributed to Saakashvili’s belief that he could get away with it.

I’m wondering if this isn’t a screw up, and that Bush and His Evil Minions™, particularly Cheney, might have been looking for something like this just before the election, for electoral benefit, but their boy in Tbilisi pulled the trigger too early.

Russia Looking to Move Bombers to Belarus

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They are looking at basing missiles and bombers in Belarus the anti-missile installation in Poland.

It’s not surprising. As I’ve said before, the location is better at shooting down Russian missiles, than it is for shooting down Iranian missiles, which is the stated purpose.

It appears to me that there is a policy by Bush and His Evil Minions™ to antagonize Russia in the hopes of recreating a cold war, which might favor Republicans electorally.

Truman’s Aphorism on Phony Republicans Applies to Germans Too

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As our 33rd president of the United States once said, “When people have the choice between a real Republican and a fake Republican, they’ll choose the real thing.”

It appears that Kurt Beck, head of the German Social Democrats, and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, their most likely candidate for premier in the next election, are discovering just how right Truman was.

They are unable to do anything to lower Angela Merkel’s popularity, and the party is now hemorrhaging members to the “Left Party”, created from trade unionists and the ashes of the old East German communist party.

If they have any chance of returning to power, they will necessarily have to be in coalition with the Left Party, and probably the Green Party too, but the LP would require more concessions, if the GP’s time in the coalition is any indication.

The LP would likely require a roll back of some of the anti-worker and anti-safety net policies of Shroder, which are a much bigger deal than the GP’s focus on environmental issues.

There is also a pensioner party forming to resist cutbacks in government pensions which may grab a few seats in the next elections.

Will Belgium Split?

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There have always been tensions between the Flemish (Dutch speaking) and Walloon Belgians, and this article implies that the cultural and linguistic difference may push Belgium to a breakup.

This, and the repeated attempts by the Quebecois to secede, are very good examples of how a multilingual society is a dysfunctional society.

Without the language issue, both nations would be among the most tolerant and unified societies on earth.

Karadzic: Holbrooke Promised No War Crimes Trial

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Between a Karadzic and Holbrooke, I won’t venture a guess on who to trust, as I’ve never believed that Holbrooke’s casual slip about Valerie Plame was unintentional.

Holbrook could have promised this, or he could have not promised this, or he could have said it in a private moment with no intention of following through with his promise.

I don’t know, but I do not trust Richard Holbrooke.

Weakening New Labour May See Return of Old Labour

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It looks like following a Labour drubbing in Glasgow, Gordon Brown’s hometown, we are starting to see labor return to policies that benefit working folk, at least to the degree that they are absolutely forced to do so.

Labor has agreed to lower the age for the full minimum wage to 21. Previously £5.52 had applied to workers over 22, with those from 18-21 getting £4.60, and those from 16-18 getting £3.40.

Additionally, Brown acceded to demands for increased parental leave and to limit private contractors in the NHS.

It appears that in addition to the pasting taken in the Glasgow election, Labor’s campaign donations have shrunk, and so the party is more dependent on affiliation fees.

I sincerely hope that this is a death knell for the “third way” corporate suckups.

Euros Look to Man Rate ATV-ARV by 2020

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They intend to make the automated cargo vehicle a manned space capsule in the next 12 years.

The ESA is already working on the Advanced Return Vehicle (ARV), which add a 1.5 tonne return capability to the existing Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), and the manned vehicle would be similar to the ARV, though it would likely have a smaller propulsion section, as it would not be expected to boost the space station orbit.

IP Legislation Gone Insane, Chapter LVXXIII

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Armin Meiwes, who killed and ate a voluntary victim Christmas in 2001, has succeeded in obtaining an injunction against the release of a horror film, because it is based on what he did.

He claimed that the film infringed on his, “Personality Rights”, which in Germany is something in between privacy rights and the “right of publicity” that is used against Elvis impersonators:

The Court looked into the degree to which the pursuit of artistic freedom interfered with the personality rights of Meiwes. It found that artistic freedom was not so powerful a right that it allowed for someone’s life to be made into a horror film.

Meiwes advertised online for someone to be killed and eaten by him. Bernd Jürgen Brandes responded to his advert and tried to join Meiwes in eating his own severed penis before being killed and eaten.

Meiwes was arrested and in 2004 convicted of manslaughter. Prosecutors then changed their case and asked for a retrial in 2005, questioning whether Brandes was in a fit mental state to have given his consent to the killing.

Meiwes was convicted of murder and is serving an eight and a half year jail term. Reports have emerged that in prison he has become a vegetarian.

I guess it’s refreshing to know that the internet doesn’t have a monopoly on really sick sh#@.

Economics Update

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While the Federal Reserve is afraid to say the word, it appears from their latest report that we are seeing stagflation.

Jobless benefit claims just spiked above 400,000, up 34,000 from last week to 406,000, the highest reading since March.

Again, let me note that the weekly numbers have a lot of noise, but this news still sucks.

What’s more we have increasing evidence that the downturn is not “decoupled”, but is effecting other economies, with consumer and corporate confidence in Europe coming in well below expectations.

Not surprisingly, the bad news out of Europe, which points to interest rate moderation there, has bolstered the dollar.

Some real estate numbers came out today, and they are not good.

home sales fell 2.6% from may, and are now at an annual rate of 4.93 million/year, the lowest rate since 1998.

If you are wondering what might happen when mortgage rates rise, you should break out the popcorn, because it looks like that show might be starting soon. Rates went up 0.37% last week to 6.63% for a 30 year fixed mortgage.

Because of all this, I am not surprised thatthe number of vacant homes has remained at more than 2.2 million.

Energy was flippity floppity today, with oil up by about a dollar, and retail gasoline prices down again.

Radovan Karadzic Arrested

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Pity the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague doesn’t have the death penalty

Bosnia’s Serb wartime president, Radovan Karadzic, one of the world’s most wanted war criminals for his part in the massacre of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995, has been arrested, Serbian President Boris Tadic’s office said on Monday.

Amazing how soon it happened after the EU gave the Serbs a reason to catch him. You see, the, “EU has made delivering indicted war criminals to the Hague a precondition for Serbia’s membership.”

Stealth Ain’t Rocket Science

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The basic physics behind it was discovered by a Russian mathemetician in the 1960s, and now we see Dassault completing a completely autonomous flight of a stealthy UAV, the AVE-D (D for discretion, stealth in French).

It’s actually a fairly impressive feat. It taxied to the runway, took off, executed a series of aerial maneuvers, landed, and taxied back to its parking space without human intervention.

Yeah, they all look pretty much the same….It’s the laws of physics that do this.

JSF: It’s All About the Benjamins

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It’s the Dutch, so it would actually be Guilder, or Euro, Meijer, or Snip, or Geeltje, but in any case, the the kickback scheme that has the Netherlands as a JSF customer is now up for negotiation.

Basically, Dutch industry got a lot of offsets as a part of the F-35 deal, and the Dutch government is supposed to get a percentage of that revenue back from the defense contractors.

The problem is that the deal is not fully fleshed out, and the government is now asking for 10.3% of all revenue JSF related orders through 2053 as opposed to their original figure of 3.5%, because the falling US dollar will reduce public revenues in this scheme.

This may explain why the government is going through the charade of reexamining the procurement decision on the JSF, asking to look at the Eurofighter Typhoon (refused to respond with proposal), Dassault Rafale (Refused to respond with proposal), and SAAB Gripen.

They are using it as a lever to get more money out of their private defense contractors.

Tanker Saga Update

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Northrop Grumman is now saying that it will complete all 4 system design and development (SDD) tanker airframes by the end of 2009, even with the hold for the rebid.

This is in stark contrast to Boeing, where they are so far behind schedule for their 767 tanker for the Italian Air Force, that hief of the defense staff, Gen. Vincenzo Camporin, will refuse to meet with Boeing executives at the Farnborough air show.

The tankers are already over 3 years late.

More evidence as to why EADS should be the winner on this.