Foreign Affairs

Syria: How Global Power Works

Mark Noonan10 Comments

Like this; from the New York Times:

With evidence that powerful new weapons are flowing to both the Syrian government and opposition fighters, the bloody uprising in Syria has thrust the Obama administration into an increasingly difficult position as the conflict shows signs of mutating into a full-fledged civil war.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Tuesday that the United States believed that Russia was shipping attack helicopters to Syria that President Bashar al-Assad could use to escalate his government’s deadly crackdown on civilians and the militias battling his rule. Her comments reflected rising frustration with Russia, which has continued to supply weapons to its major Middle Eastern ally despite an international outcry over the government’s brutal crackdown…

Meanwhile, the report goes on to note that the rebels are being armed by the Turks with assistance from other Muslim powers.  Here’s what is actually going on:

No one outside of the precincts of the West gives a hoot about the sufferings of the Syrian people.  We here in the United States are disgusted with the mayhem and slaughter but people who are not like us don’t care – they only look at the mayhem and slaughter and think, “can I gain any advantage out of it?”.  No amount of moralizing by Obama and Clinton or anyone in the West will make the least impression upon the Turks, Russians, Iranian,  Saudis or anyone else who is so far involved in the war in Syria.  In fact, they’ll probably view such statements as a sign of weakness – figuring that if we really had a pair we’d intervene so we can grab what advantage we want out of the situation.  Holding back and lecturing all concerned is, in the view of such people, the act of cowards.

Russia and Iran want to maintain their Syrian ally.  Iran because it allows Iran to keep up pressure in Israel while also allowing Iran to project power in to the center of the middle east.  Russia because Syria is on Turkey’s southern flank and puts the Turks between two fires if any Russo-Turkish conflict arises…plus it sticks a finger in our eye and Putin (utter fool that he is) thinks that Russia’s proper role is to oppose the United States (the truth is that Russia can only survive in alliance with the United States, but Putin is just too blinded by his Great Russian nationalism to see this).  In service of this goal the Iranians have shipped thugs to Syria for the purpose of massacring Syrians who oppose the Assad regime (probably the very same thugs the Iranians use to massacre Iranians who oppose the Mullah’s regime in Teheran…so, they’re likely experienced killers who no how to choke off a rebellion).  Russia won’t send troops but is clearly sending arms – and in spite of bland words to the contrary, is sending arms which are useful in fighting the increasingly competent Syrian rebels.

Turkey would love to turn Syria in to a satellite State – the Turks, after all, were the imperial overlords of Syria for more than four centuries and while we here in the United States might not know it, the Turks understand that controlling Damascus is just as important as controlling Baghdad if you want to dominate the middle east (this is why Iran continues to press their power in Iraq along with trying to sustain their ally in Syria).  The Turks also have a very long history of enmity with the Russians (there have been, I think, 9 Russo-Turkish wars over the centuries) and so would love to reduce Russian influence in the area.  Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and other States in the area have a vested interest in curbing Iranian influence – and taking out Iran’s key ally in Damascus is worth a lot in Saudi eyes.

Our problem is that we have as President and Secretary of State two people who appear to have zero knowledge of how the world works.  Obama and Clinton seem to think that there is, somewhere, a genuine desire in Syria and in the other players to end the bloodshed.  There isn’t.  There is a desire to win.  Assad wants to win.  The rebels want to win.  Iran wants to win.  Russia wants to win.  Turkey wants to win.  Saudi Arabia wants to win.  All of them won’t win, of course – but they are all fighting for victory as they see it.  We, under Obama and Clinton, don’t want to win – we don’t even know what we want other than an end to the violence; an admirable desire, but violence can be ended in good or bad ways.  Obama and Clinton are ensuring that when the violence ends there is sure to be one nation which won’t have won:  the United States.

Proper American policy in this matter is not to get involved in Syria – we have no dog in that hunt, unless we could grab Damascus and keep it.  That would involve a major military offensive too fraught with risks right now to be envisioned.  So, nothing to do in Syria – but we do have a strong interest in completely ending Syria’s (and, thus, Iran’s) role in Lebanon.  Syria’s armed forces are, naturally, being concentrated on the rebels.  I’ll bet their forces in Lebanon are thin on the ground:  the opportunity is for us eject them completely – ending Syrian domination and at the same time vastly undercutting the ability of the Iran-backed terrorist groups to operate there.  It is a certainty that Lebanon’s Christian population wouldn’t be adverse to a change in Lebanon’s status – certainly in the southern regions of the country, which we are most concerned about as it borders Israel.  A bit of thought and effort and some coordination with Israel and the thing could be done…by the time Syria is able to respond, it would be too late.

Will we do this?  Not a chance – Obama doesn’t even see it.  I doubt that anyone in his Administration does.  So, we’ll get more liberal hand-wringing while the Russian and Iranians battle it out with the Turks and Saudis and the winner of that not only gets Syria, but Lebanon thrown in to the bargain.  Just monumental stupidity brought about by rank ignorance on the part of our leadership.

 

Obama: Can’t Even Do Stupid Right

Mark Noonan76 Comments

Geesh – from the Telegraph:

President Obama erred during a speech at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, when attempting to call the disputed archipelago by its Spanish name.

Instead of saying Malvinas, however, Mr Obama referred to the islands as the Maldives, a group of 26 atolls off that lie off the South coast of India…

Even calling them the “Malvinas” is dumb – that is what Argentine leaders attempting to distract their people call them; doing so in order to pretend that Argentina ever had a legitimate claim to the Falkland Islands.  But if you’re going to kowtow to hack politicians on the make, then at least use the right word, Mr. President.

Just to set the record straight – the Brits have been continuously settled in the Falklands since 1833 – or, to put it in to perspective, about 15 years longer than Americans have been continuously in Nevada.  If Argentina owns the Falklands, then Mexico owns Nevada.  The population of the islands is a bit more than 3,000.  These people mind their own business, make a fairly decent life in their harsh land and express absolutely zero desire to come under Argentine rule.  You have to be one of two things to hold that Argentina should be in control:  an idiot, or a hack politician.  Given Obama’s blunder on the name of the islands, I’d have to plunk down for “idiot”.

This is especially true now that the hacks in Argentina have been sabre-rattling over the islands – threatening a repeat of  Argentina’s 1982 invasion.  For Obama to go along with Argentine pretensions  – which signal that if they attack, we won’t do anything – only helps bring forward a blood letting.  Which, in turn, puts “idiot” more and more indelibly in the mind.

 

“Hello, Is This Thing On?”

Leo Pusateri54 Comments

Obama lifted his political skirt today as the media is now awash in how in a supposedly ‘hot mic’ unscheduled moment he told Russian President Dimitri Medvedev to pretty much ‘chill out’ and that he’d have much more ‘flexibility’ after winning his second term.

The main question to ask here, of course, is “Flexibility to do what?”

Well, perhaps candidate Obama can give us some clues:

In the full video, then-candidate Obama later stated that he is fully committed to the policy as outlined above, and that he will “keep (his) promises.”

But before you go dismissing out of hand the notion that Barack Obama keeps any of his promises, consider this:

Obama promised that health care ‘reform’ will pass; it did so, even though via the auspices of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, we indeed did not find out what was in the bill until it was passed.

During the campaign, then-candidate Obama also promised that under his policies, the cost of electricity/energy will “necessarily skyrocket.”

That too, has become reality.

There are some promises, of course, that Obama chose not to keep; and one could argue never intended to keep. One was that you’d be able to keep your doctor and your health plan under Obamacare; another that the public would never be forced to pay for an abortion under Obamacare; you know, lipstick-on-a-pig type stuff.

But make no mistake. Obama is a dyed in the wool socialist. Any promise he has made that will serve to further his neo-socialist agenda, and in the process compromise America’s economic and military security (remember, America is arrogant and needs to be taken down a few notches), you can bet your bottom dollar (that is, if you have any dollars left when he’s done with the economy) he will keep.

So, sleep peacefully under Obama’s second term, knowing that he fully intends to bring the United States into the community of feckless, neutered, third-world nations.

How’s that hopenchange working for you, anyway?

Obama’s Re-election Strategy

Retired Spook246 Comments

Is Obama trying to lose the election?  The current disconnect with reality and desire to pander to every far left cause has me wondering if Obama is trying to lose, is he just this clueless, or, as Rush noted recently, is he simply confident that he has bought enough votes to assure his re-election?

The keystone pipeline was a no brainer, and could have boosted consumer confidence to a new level resulting in higher approval numbers for Obama, not to mention bringing unemployment down, creating good paying jobs, and stimulating the local economy of many towns along the way, but Obama chooses to pander instead to environmental extremists.

The recent constitutional over reach with respect to religious liberties was another bone-headed move and not very well thought out, although it appears the move may be the first broadside in an effort to shift the political conversation away from abortion to “the GOP wants to ban contraception”.  I guess we’ll find out in a few months if that’s a viable strategy.

The fact that Obama is talking out of both sides of his mouth with respect to the individual mandate in Obamacare, on one hand calling it a tax, and on the other calling it a fine, depending on the audience, was largely overlooked by the MSM. But then his budget director got caught on camera saying this.  So either the OMB Director committed perjury before Congress or the Solicitor General will be perjuring himself before the Supreme Court.  Either way, it should be interesting.

Obama’s allegiance to AG Holder and turning a blind eye to Fast and Furious, would be a huge controversy were it not for complicity of the MSM. To date, no one has been fired, much less prosecuted.

The recent call for significant nuclear disarmament at a time when the threat level is at a post-Cold War high, and the continued indifference to the action in Egypt, Syria, etc., may pander to the far Left, but the majority of Americans have to see these actions as detrimental to America’s future.

Obama proves once again that he is not a serious president by submitting a budget with a deficit that adds another 1.3 trillion of debt, when it was just 4 years ago while campaigning he called Bush unpatriotic for much smaller deficits. When the GOP finally lands on a nominee, the conversation will be about Obama, and not only can he not defend his record, his own words will be used against him to a point that everyone will finally realize that he is not a serious president.

America is slipping into a malaise of mediocrity under his guidance and if he is reelected, we may have federal school officials checking our kids’ lunch boxes for the proper nutrition ……… Oh wait.

This president has abdicated leadership and is the most partisan president this country has ever had. The only things Obama has improved in the last three years are his bank account and golf game.

Thanks to Cluster for most of the content for this post.//RS

“Arab Spring”? Or Jihadi Stench?

Leo Pusateri68 Comments

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, freeze dried, or doing hard time for the past few hours, you know that Colonel Khaddafy Qaddafffy Kadafy Gaddhaffi err…the guy in Libya who perpetually dressed like the bellhop at the Ritz has assumed room temperature. The lamestream media are in the middle of falling all over themselves as if Barack Obama himself pulled the trigger.  Aside from that, it is these two paragraphs in the story that leaves me more than a bit wary (emphases mine):

“It is a historic moment. It is the end of tyranny and dictatorship. Gaddafi has met his fate,” Abdel Hafez Ghoga, a spokesman for the National Transitional Council (NTC), said. Celebratory gunfire and cries of “Allah-o-Akbar” rang out [does that phrase sound familiar to you?–ed] across Tripoli as the news of Gaddafi’s death spread.

Gun-totting rebel fighters went around the streets firing into the sky. Cars out on the roads honked horns and people hugged and kissed each other and sang national anthem. Gaddafi’s body was taken to a mosque in Misrata, a report said quoting an NTC official.

So what’s next?

It is (or should be) a well-known axiom by now that the road to hell is paved with the ‘good intentions’ of liberals, who excel at pie-in-the-sky thinking but have no cognitive connection nor grounding as to how the real world works.  Thus it is with the Obama administration, whose incoherent, unworkable domestic and foreign policies have been proverbial Forrest Gump boxes of chocolates.

The so-called, so-touted, Barack Hussein Obama-approved and supported “Arab Spring” has turned a relatively stabilized Arab world with whom the West could at least dialogue into contumacious, anarchical, “Lord of the Flies” hell holes, in which Sharia-loving, Jihadi-friendly Islamists could not only get a foothold in terms of power, but in the process get their flea-bitten fingers on some pretty sophisticated military technology, including biological weaponry.

At least former Egyptian president Mubarek had the sensibility to turn down the offer of nukes from a rogue state..could anyone be certain that the current regime (if one could call it that) would do the same?  Now in Egypt, instead of a regime that was relatively tolerant of other faiths,  relatively stable, and on co-existing terms with Israel, we now have an Islamo-fascist mob mentality that persecutes and murders Christians, and whose relationship with Israel is on what seems to be an irretrievably downward spiral.  Gaddafi, though a despot, via the school of hard knocks knew his place, and therefore knew not to push the envelope past the point where unmanageable retaliation would have taken place.

In Iraq, great care was taken by President George W. Bush to attempt to ensure that what replaced Saddam Hussein was a western-friendly government that would be an Arabic counter-balance to Iran, Syria and other un-friendly forces in the region; and, to a great extent, that was accomplished (Afghanistan is a different story, but for different reasons).   But to encourage and foment revolution in already western-tolerant Arab countries and hoping that the pieces fall in your favor is not a foreign policy.

It is, in fact, a suicide pact.

Bible Banned at Christian Cafe

Mark Noonan3 Comments

So, a customer comes in to a Christian cafe – in to a Christian cafe – and gets offended that there are Christian statements posted and complains to the police.  The cops, instead of laughing at the fool, actually go to the cafe (I guess there wasn’t a single murder, rape, robbery or jaywalking case to occupy the police in Blackpool that day) and demand the statements be removed.

This is, of course, from Britain…but it is what liberals want to bring here, to America.  Mark my words, they will make it illegal to in any way, shape or form express Christianity in the public square, if they can.

HAT TIP:  Catholic and Enjoying It

Revolt of the Tax Slaves

Mark Noonan24 Comments

From Der Speigel:

The people who could ultimately give Greece the coup de grace are not the kind to throw stones or Molotov cocktails, and they have yet to torch any cars. Instead, they are people like 60-year-old beverage distributor Angelos Belitsakos, people who might soon turn into a real problem for the economically unstable country. Feeling cornered, he and other private business owners want to go on the offensive. But instead fighting with weapons, they are using something much more dangerous. They are fighting with money.

Belitsakos is a short, slim and alert man who lives in the middle-class Athenian suburb of Holargos. He is also the physical and spiritual leader of a movement of businesspeople in Greece that is recruiting new members with growing speed. While Greece’s government is desperately trying to combat its ballooning budget deficit by raising taxes and imposing new fees, people like Belitsakos are putting their faith in passive resistance.

The group’s slogan is as simple as it is stoic: “We Won’t Pay.”…

Greece, like all socialist countries is, of course, over run by moochers.  People who, by one means or another, get all or most of their income via government funding.  Whether its by special tax breaks, government employment or direct welfare payments, a huge number of people (and perhaps a majority, once you total it all up) in Europe either don’t work at all, or don’t work much, or don’t work at anything which creates wealth…but they still manage to live pretty well.  And, meanwhile, it is people like Mr. Belitsakos who have been paying for it all.  And now that Greece’s socialist fantasy has come economically crashing down, the government wants people like Mr. Belitsakos to pony up even more.  And a revolt is brewing.

Do keep in mind that those people you remember rioting from time to time in Greece (and Britain and Spain…and soon to spread elsewhere in Europe) were not hard working, middle class people…they were the moochers who are ticked off that even a small amount of their welfare is being cut.  Around the world a revolution is brewing…those who are hard working, play by the rules and try to do the right thing are starting to wake up and shake off those who have lived off them for nigh on a century.  There won’t be much room for either a George Soros to manipulate governments to make billions, nor for the welfare bum who runs riot when his stipend is cut.

While there is no way for us to shake off our moral responsibility to those who cannot work through no fault of their own, we must all admit that this moral obligation has been much abused.  A gigantic amount of money is siphoned away from the productive in the name of helping the less fortunate, but we know where a large amount (possibly a majority) of it goes:  to over paid bureaucrats, crony-capitalists and people who could darn well work, but choose not to.  The moochers have, by this point, driven us in to bankruptcy…and their only real answer is to demand more from us…and to take it by taxing it, or by devaluing the currency, which steals the wealth we’ve already created.

You know that things are changing when even in socialist Europe, something akin to the TEA Party emerges.  This will be quite an interesting decade, I’m thinking.

HAT TIP:  Dan Mitchell

Germany Wants 50% Default for Greece

Mark Noonan3 Comments

From Zero Hedge:

…the debt rollover plan has imploded and means that the entire Greek bailout has collapsed as some had expected. And now that it is clear that contagion is threatening to sweep through the core, it is back to Germany to prevent the gangrene, no longer contagion, from advancing beyond the PIIGS. However, in order to prevent a full out revolution, Germany’s economic elite has said it would agree to an EFSF expansion and hence installation of European firewall, but at a price: a “controlled” default by Greece and 50% haircuts for private bondholders (as German banks have long since offloaded their Greek bonds).

This means that “Lehman” is indeed here: just like back in 2008 Paulson et al thought they could contain the adverse effects of a Lehman bankruptcy, while the financial system ground to a halt 4 days later when money market funds broke the buck, so now Greece is somehow expected to remain in the eurozone even as it files bankruptcy…

The bottom line appears to be that the Europeans need to come up with $2 trillion to keep their financial system afloat – that is, to keep the bad news confined to the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) and keep it out of France. What Germany seems to want – and it is reasonable – is an end to the Greek problem.  That if this is going to happen, it happens once and for all.  The Greek bondholders lose 50%, Greece gets bailed out…and hopefully Greece manages to get its finances in order sufficiently to service the rest of their debt.

The trouble is whether or not bailing out Greece – even with a 50% “haircut” for bondholders – will really do the trick.  Greece is pretty small potatoes as far as the Eurzone economy goes.  Looming gigantically larger are Spain and Italy.  As far as I can determine, both of those nations are already fundamentally bankrupt and cannot rely upon the private economy to service their debt as their bonds come due.  The only entity out there with the willingness to heavily purchase Spanish and Italian bonds would be the European Central Bank, or whatever financial bail out structure the Europeans come up with.  And where does the money come for that? From the Germans who will have already bailed out Greece and have no spare money left?  From the European Central Bank printing up a bucket of money?  Where?

It is the lack of real money – someone out there with trillions not already committed to some other enterprise – which makes me figure all these efforts to avert collapse are meaningless in an economic sense.  In a political sense, they may help the Ruling Class (European and American) ride out the political storm now through 2013.  The cost will be enormous, but such things never disturb people who are rich, in charge and determined to stay that way.

 

Iran’s Nuclear Facility Unsafe?

Mark Noonan3 Comments

Interesting bit of news from Strategy Page:

…Russians who worked at Bushehr complained of sloppy work by Iranians and a nuclear power facility that is fundamentally unsafe. Perhaps because of this, the government recently announced that 4,000 civilians living near the Bushehr plant would be relocated, at a cost of $10 million…

If the Russians are considering it unsafe, then one has to wonder just how bad it is…the guys who built Chernobyl are scared.  Just great.  Not only is Iran only building the bloody things so they can eventually get nuclear weapons, but they are building them badly, probably much too rushed and we have the risk of a major nuclear accident to add to the risk that those lunatics might get nuclear weapons.

This is the price of not acting decisively.  Iran’s nuclear facilities should have been destroyed years ago…long before any nuclear fuel could get to a nuclear plant which may be unsafe.  It is time for us to stop acting like fools – regimes like that which governs Iran are not legitimate.  They don’t have the right to issue a parking ticket, let alone build nuclear.  It is up to decent people to decide how far such a regime can go…and as soon as it became clear that Iran was bent on nukes, we should have taken the steps to halt the program, even if it meant war.

Now we’re kind of stuck.  We’ve got a President who doesn’t even realize the risks and we’ve got Iran an ace away from having nuclear weapons which can target all of the middle east.  It is just going to get worse and worse because we did not act with firmness an in accordance with American convictions about what constitutes legitimate government.  Just burns me up that the merest application of morality to the Iranian situation would have produced the correct decision…we didn’t and now we’re going to catch it hot.

Corrupt, Thuggish “Palestinian” Regime Applies for Statehood

Mark Noonan29 Comments

From CBS:

Defying U.S. and Israeli opposition, (the ruffians who rule over the West Bank) asked the United Nations on Friday to accept them as a member state, sidestepping nearly two decades of failed negotiations in the hope this dramatic move on the world stage would reenergize their quest for (unfettered rule over a kleptocracy which likes murdered Jews).

Shortly after submitting the application to U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon, “Palestinian” (capo) Mahmoud Abbas was greeted by sustained applause and appreciative whistles as he approached the dais to deliver a speech outlining his (fellow thugs and kleptocrats) hopes and dreams of becoming a full member of the United Nations…(MSM report edited to make it accurate)

Thing is, such a State would fit right in with the UN…seriously, what would be the difference between such a regime and UN stalwarts like Zimbabwe, Syria, Sudan, Iran and Cuba?  Probably get them right on the Human Rights Commission in time to issue some more anti-Semitic statements while ignoring massacre and robbery in other lands.

The bottom line here is not the absurd demand for Statehood, but the fact that we are even part of this corrupt organization.  The United States cannot with honor remain in the United Nations…we have to cut the ties and seek to build a global organization of decent, free nations.  Sticking with the UN is akin to the police making common cause with drug gangs.

In practical terms, all this will do is allow the thugs and thieves of the world – especially those of the Islamo-fascist variety – to be yet more thuggish and criminal.  They’ll be encouraged to steal and kill even more, because stealing and killing is clearly the path to glory in the UN.  Time we were well done with it…and we should start pressing the GOP contenders on how they view our relationship to the UN and how they will propose to reform it, how long they’ll wait, and when they’ll withdraw us from it once the UN proves itself incorrigible.