Category: Foreign Relations

US May Prevent Shipments Eurofighter Typhoons to House of Saud

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It appears that the issue here is not technology transfer, but the corruption allegations swirling around the deal that have put the transfer at risk.

The Department of Justice has problems with the roughly $1 billion in “consultancy fees” to Prince Bandar, aka “Bandar Bush”. See here, here, here, here, and here for my earlier thoughts on this.

I don’t see anything happening to Prince Bandar until after January 2009, because of his remarkably close ties to the Bush clan, and truth be told, I don’t see anything beyond embarrassment happening to him until the violent revolution that seems inevitable in the lands of the House of Saud.

Good News on that Pesky Nuclear War thing

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It appears that the US and the DPRK have come to an understanding over a North Korea-Syria connection and Uranium enrichment.

It involves the release of a document where the US makes the charges, and the DPRK acknowleges the US concerns.

Also, Iran has expressed a willingness to enter into talks over nuclear and other issues.

On the latter, the issue has always been more the US than Iran, because of the Bush admin’s insistence on it being a single issue negotiation, with Iranian capitulation being a necessary condition for even that.

OK, I’m Beginning to Like This Guy

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About three weeks ago, I expressed admiration for Pope Benedict XVI for bitch slapping Condi Rice by refusing an audience, and now he’s bitch slapping George W. Bush and ODL by refusing to attend a dinner in his honor at the White House.

I think that there are a number of things involved here:

  • He is justifiably upset about the gross disrespect shown John Paul II on his statements on the Iraq war.
  • He feels that Bush and His Evil Minions™ consistently ignored his concerns regarding the violence directed towards Christians in Iraq.
  • He is far savvier on American politics than was JP II, and realizes that Bush is completely toxic, and that any action that might be considered an endorsement of Bush or his Republican party is simply not in the best interest of the church.
  • He realizes that the Republican party is driven largely by right wing Evangelical Christians who at best consider Catholics only marginally Christians.
  • He also realizes that the future of the Catholic Church in the US is Hispanics, and that Bush and/or his allies are implacably hostile towards Hispanic immigration.

I think that he’s much savvier in the ways of the world than his predecessor.

US Iraqi Occupation Deal Not Near Resolution

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It appears that US and Iraqi negotiators have yet to resolve significant issues involved an occupation enabling agreement, in which Bush and His Evil Minions™ have been attempting an end run on the constitutional requirement that treaties require Senate approval to create an “Iraq forever” framework.

The sticking points appear to be:

  1. The immunity of the US military from Iraqi law.
  2. The immunity of the US contractors from Iraqi law.
  3. The authority to order raids.
  4. The authority to detain suspects.

If you look at these, these are questions of basic sovereignty, and the US wants nothing to do with real power to an Iraqi governing body.

This setback is a very good thing for the US and for Iraq. Neither benefits from continuing occupation.

The Pelosi “Victory” on the Colombia Free Trade Deal is Actually Another Cave to Bush and His Evil Minions™

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The initial reports, that Pelosi’s move to change to House Rules after Bush officially submitted the Columbia Free Trade Agreement, Pelosi will change the house rules, so they won’t be forced to vote in 90 days.

While everyone else was cheering, David Sirota thought that the celebration was premature. He thought that it might not be a way to kill the CFTA, but rather a way to save it.

Well, he has now seen references that the Democrats are actually using the delay to push it out past the elections, so that they can get more votes ( see here and here).

It looks like they are planning for a lame duck session to approve it:

Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) was confident that House leaders would schedule a vote on the trade pact in a post-election session, when wavering members would be more willing to support it. “I think there’ll be a vote in the latter part of November, or early December,” he said, adding it would likely be approved in those circumstances.

Let’s be clear on this. Columbia has been using its government to murder labor organizers, and under Uribe, it continues to do so.

This is not a government that we want to cut this deal with.

Today in Iraq

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It now appears that, as expected religious leaders in Iraq have told Sadr that he does not have to disband the Mahdi militia.

This is not a surprising outcome. Any “disbanding” would only eliminate the already tenuous chain of command, and you would end up with dozens of smaller groups.

Meanwhile, the The Grauniad* appears to have gotten its hands on the status of forces agreement between Bush and Iraq.

It’s technically “temporary”, though it has no expiration date (kind of like the Billion Year Sea Org contracts), and it, “contains no limits on numbers of US forces, the weapons they are able to deploy, their legal status or powers over Iraqi citizens, going far beyond long-term US security agreements with other countries.”

*According to the Wiki, The Guardian, formerly the Manchester Guardian in the UK. It’s nicknamed the Grauniad because of its penchant for typographical errors, “The nickname The Grauniad for the paper originated with the satirical magazine Private Eye. It came about because of its reputation for frequent and sometimes unintentionally amusing typographical errors, hence the popular myth that the paper once misspelled its own name on the page one masthead as The Gaurdian, though many recall the more inventive The Grauniad.”

A Good Commentary on Russia

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Boston Globe columnist James Carroll looks at what might be driving Russia’s hostility to recent NATO actions, and comes to the conlusion that it’s completely justified:

  • The dissolution of the Warsaw Pact was accompanied by a buildup of NATO.
  • Mikhail Gorbachev was assured that if the USSR accepted the reunified Germany’s presence in NATO, there would be no further eastern expansion of the alliance.

Carroll quotes George Kennan describing NATO expansion as, “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era.”

The list of countries that have invaded Russia in the past few hundred years includes, “Poland, the Ottoman Empire, Sweden, Austria, France, Great Britain, and Germany”, though he leaves off the US’s direct military participation in White Russian revolts of the 1920s.

I would argue that Carroll does not go far enough.

If one looks at the Hart-Rudman Commission of the late 1990s looking at coming threats to America, and the behavior of Lynne Cheney, who continuously called for an immediate military strike on China, and resigned when she was created like a crazy aunt by everyone else, inclucing other Republicans, and juxtaposes it with the report that Francis Fukuyama said that “There was actually a deliberate search for an enemy because they felt that the Republican Party didn’t do as well“, I think that this is actually a deliberate strategy.

The Republican party needs an external enemy to succeed, and that this actions taken recently, particularly the missile shield, are part of a deliberate attempt to recreate the Cold War for partisan political gain.

Mark Penn is a Complete Asshole

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It appears that while Hillary Clinton was condemning the Columbia free trade pact, mark pen, in his capacity as CEO of Burson-Marsteller Worldwide, was having meetings with representatives of the Columbian government in order to lobby for the agreement.

Penn subsequently apologized for this, but the Change to Win union alliance is now demanding that Penn be fired by the Clinton campaign:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, April 4, 2008

CONTACT: Greg Denier
Noreen Nielsen
(202) 721-0660

WASHINGTON, DC – The following is a statement from Change to Win executive director Greg Tarpinian concerning the latest revelation that Hillary Clinton’s chief campaign strategist Mark Penn met Monday with Colombia’s ambassador regarding the Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

“It’s time for Senator Hillary Clinton to send her vaunted ‘chief strategist’ Mark Penn packing — back to his job consulting for union busting corporations and anti-labor governments for good.

“We have questioned Penn’s role in the Clinton campaign in the past for his representation of union busting employers like Cintas. At that time, Penn said there was a wall between him and his firm’s representation of union busters. The latest revelation that Penn — whose firm represents the Colombian government in its effort to secure passage of a so-called free trade agreement — is actively involved in securing its passage in the middle of Senator Clinton’s presidential campaign is outrageous. It also suggests that he has been playing a double role – advising the Senator on what to say to curry Democratic voters and advising the Colombian government on what to say to curry a majority of votes in Congress.

“The vast majority of Americans do not believe that we should be granting preferential trade status to a government that coddles death squads that target union organizers. Colombia remains the most dangerous country in the world for union members, where more than 2,200 workers have been murdered since the 1980s by Colombian death squads for trying to form unions while the government has done nothing to effectively stop the murders. It is time for Penn to go.”

A postscript to all this is that Columbia has now fired Burson-Marsteller Worldwide, saying that, “The Colombian government considers this a lack of respect to Colombians, and finds this response unacceptable.”

Bummer of a birth mark, Hal.

Bush Gets Missiles at NATO Conference

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Well, it appears that Bush has managed to browbeat the Europeans into accepting an ABM installation spread across Poland and the Czech Republic, despite the fact that he pissed them off of by publicly lobbying for the admission of Georgia and the Ukraine to NATO, despite the fact that there had been a previous agreement not to do so.

The marvelously named Duck of Minerva makes the point that Bush was talking out of both sides of his mouth, on the one hand claiming that the missile shield is not intended to be used against Russia, and on the other claiming that the membership of Georgia and the Ukraine, “would send a signal throughout the region that these two nations are, and will remain, sovereign and independent states.”

If they need membership to be protected against Russia, then who do they need protection against?

The answer is that this is a deliberate attempt to antagonize Russia, because it is believed to play well for Republicans. Lynne Cheney has been lobbying for recreating what was the Soviet threat for political advantage since the early 1990s.

It’s all the fault of those damn Eskimos!!!

Of course, once again, the Greeks appear to be compensating for what must be the smallest penises in Europe, vetoing Macedonia’s entry into NATO.

Let’s get this clear:

  • Macedonia was never a part of Greece.
  • Alexander the Great was not a Greek.
  • The people of what was then Macedonia did not speak Greek, except for the aristocracy, who were educated in Greek, and might have spoken Greek with more facility than Macedonian.
  • Greece was conquered by Macedonia, by Phillip of Macedon, and then Alexander took over the known world.

Any questions?

U.S. F*^%ing It Up In Pakistan

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First, we enthusiastically back and fund a not-particularly-competent military leader, who spends most of the money we send him on a potential war with India, and now we send “Mr. Death Squad” to lean on a not yet formed opposition government to be more proactive, all while continuing unilateral air strikes in populated areas.

Some selected quotes from the article below:

…

The meeting with Nawaz Sharif, …. have failed entirely. Sharif said that Pakistan would no longer be a “killing field” where other countries pursue their own interests.

…

[with tribal elders] “We told them that whatever differences we have (with the extremists), they can all be solved through the jirga system,” said Malik Darya Khan, one of the tribal chiefs who participated, referring to the traditional meetings of elders to solve disputes.

There also appeared to be an open dispute between Sharif and U.S. officials on how to deal with Musharraf. Sharif said afterward: “We don’t recognize him as the legitimate president.”

Dawn newspaper, in an editorial on Thursday, described the arrival of the two U.S. envoys as “indecent haste.” It added: “It is time Washington gave the new government time to settle down.”

“Bad timing gives the wrong signals, as if they are trying to pressurize the new government when it is in the stages of being formed,” said Shireen Mazari, the director general of Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad.

“The war on terror has be to revisited. The most dangerous thing is that the Americans have succeeded in shifting the center of gravity of the war to Pakistan. We have to shift it back to Afghanistan,” Mazari said.

Pakistani concerns about U.S. activity have been ignited over the last month by a series of apparent American missile attacks on targets in Pakistan. The news that the former commander of the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention camp, where hundreds of Muslim prisoners, many of them Pakistanis, have been held without charge, has been appointed the chief U.S. defense representative in Pakistan isn’t likely to help relations.

Seriously, they could not screw this up more if they tried.

Incompetents Abroad

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Pakistan’s new coalition government is saying that it objects to what it considers the reckless and excessive air strikes of the US in Pakistan.

It’s clear that Musharraf is on the way out, and that this is the policy of the government, so what is the response of the US Military? They accelerate their bombing, because we need to get those last few licks in before the end of Musharraf actually become official.

Does anyone in the White House or Pentagon have a clue as to how damaging this behavior is?

More importantly, does anyone in the White House or Pentagon have any clue about anything period.

The Pope Bitch Slaps Condi Rice

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OK, my opinion of Benedict has improved a bit, though he is still a reactionary idiot.

The title is not mine though, I whole heatedly approve the hed, and will defend it, but that bon mot is not mine, so I cannot take credit for it.

It appears that Pope Benedict XVI has refused an audience for Condolleza Rice.

She had requested an audience in August (you know, in order to play politics with the conventions and the November election).

The pope has denied this request, ostensibly since it was his August holiday, but really for two reasons:

  • Bush and His Evil Minions™ in general, and Condoleeza Rice in particular, were hostile and rude to John Paul II when he sent emissaries out to attempt to prevent the war.
  • Because the US has steadfastly rebuffed requests from the “Holy See” to prevent the ethnic cleansing to of the Christian minority in Iraq.

Condoleeza Rice should not be too upset by this, “Instead of meeting the Pope, Ms Rice had to make do with a telephone conversation with the Vatican’s number two, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who was visiting the US during August on other business.”

So, he won’t talk to her, but his number two will talk to her on the phone.

Girlfriend, maybe he just ain’t into you…You know.

Bush Authorizes “the Furnishing of Defense Articles and Defense Services” to Kosovo

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While not an actual authorization of weapons sales, it does give official approval to more detailed negotiations on this matter.

I support the recognition of Kosovo. The nation of Serbia forfeited any right to the territory when it engage in Genocide, and the ability to support Kosavar security forces is a good thing.

That being said, the fact that I am agreeing with a foreign policy initiative of Bush and His Evil Minions™ does make me feel unsettled.

Once again, I am compelled to make the repeat the wisest thing that I’ve read this century:

But it does inspire in me the desire for a competition; can anyone, particularly the rather more Bush-friendly recent arrivals to the board, give me one single example of something with the following three characteristics:

1. It is a policy initiative of the current Bush administration
2. It was significant enough in scale that I’d have heard of it (at a pinch, that I should have heard of it)
3. It wasn’t in some important way completely f#$@ed up during the execution.

Seriously. I’ve yet to see anything wiser yet, and I’m using the loose definition of the 21st century which includes the year 2000.

So the obvious question is, how will they f#$@ it up?

Old Man McCain Has “Senior Moment” on Iraq and Iran

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Yes, the sick old man, the one whose only claim to the presidency is his knowledge of foreign policy, claimed that Al Queida was being trained by Iran, and Joe Lieberman had to literally whisper in his ear to get him to correct it.

John McCain has no foreign policy experience, he just wants more war all the time, which is what the very serious people inside the Beltway&trade call foreign policy experience.

100 years more war in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and who knows where else this doddering old fool would take us.

Austan Goolsbee Blowback in Canada

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I think that it’s increasingly clear that the leak of this story was orchestrated by Steven Harper and his bully boys, in this case Michael Wilson, ambassador to the US, though the underlying facts, that Goolsbee said it’s just politics, appear to be true.

The fact is that Harper is in charge of an unpopular minority government, and having an election in parallel with the US would probably cut against them, so now is a good time for the opposition to get a no-confidence vote.

The Canadian people are almost as sick of Bush as the American people, and by holding elections near the same time, it makes the choice clear.

Any followers of Canadian politics want to explain why the opposition is not trying to get snap elections?

US Poised to F*&^ It Up Yet Again With DPRK

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So, the US is now demanding some sort of “clear signal” in order for negotiations to proceed.

The problem here is that there are people in political positions, who I won’t name for fear that they will get drunk and shoot me in the face, who believe that negotiations of any sort are a victory for North Korea, and a defeat for the US, so the directives come down to keep erecting road blocks.

The North Koreans are not crazy. They are secretive, in many ways criminal, largely uncaring about the wellbeing of their population, and paranoid, but they are not crazy.

They honestly believe, and have believed for the last 50 years, that the US is planning a sneak attack against them in the hope of decapitating their regime and taking over their country.

Every time there is progress in discussions, and then the US creates another stupid hoop to jump through, it reinforces that belief.

This is well and truly stupid.