North Korea! eehard Goes Hawkish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is it just me, or is anybody else getting sick and tired of North Korea and its half a fucking retard dictator Kim Jong Il?  Yesterday, he and his backwards ass country fired a long range missile that flew over Japan and then fell harmlessly into the Pacific Ocean.  I know that I would not be to pleased to be a Japanese citizen even if North Korea was just shooting off fireworks.  I find it amusing that the North Korean state run media proclaimed that the communications satellite launch was a complete success and that the sweet songs of the Dear Leader were being broadcast from space.  To bad the poor dumb bastards in North Korea don’t have any electricity to listen to Dear Leader’s rendition of Mama Mia.

Ordinarily I don’t want my country interfering with the affairs of another state.  But North Korea has got to go.  In its present form it represents a clear and present danger to its neighbors and the rest of the world at large.  North Korea is the bully in the playground of the world and I am sick and tired of it kicking sand in our faces.  Nothing is more indicative of this than North Korea’s missile launch hours before President Obama’s speech on weapons proliferation in the Czech Republic yesterday.

Former President George W. Bush invaded the wrong damn country.  We should have shocked and awed that little kimchi eating son of a bitch!  The easiest way to take care of a bully is to punch him in the mouth.  We should have put a precision guided missile up Dear Leader’s ass! That, along with the upper echelon of North Korea’s command structure, and a million foot soldiers would have went home to their mothers.

As much as I hate to admit it, North Korea got exactly what it wanted.  By disguising an obvious weapons test as a satellite launch, North Korea can avoid United Nations sanctions, which Russia and China would veto anyway.  This puts President Obama in a precarious position.  How does he avoid the appearance of being weak?  He can’t get what he wants from the United Nations and he can’t act unilaterally.  But what he should do is to let Dear Leader know that we know what his game is and that if he wants to continue down this path we haven’t forgotten how to go cowboy!  And to remind him that our missiles don’t fall harmlessly anywhere.

The Sarah Palin Chronicles! 10

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sarah Palin’s Foreign Policy Follies

By Romesh Ratnesar Saturday, Sep. 27, 2008 Time

 

It takes a hard heart not to like Sarah Palin. She has a winning personal story. She can be poised, charming and funny. As she showed at the Republican National Convention, her ability to deliver set-piece speeches — a big part of the job for all politicians, but especially Presidents — is considerable. On balance, she’s probably an asset to John McCain. But we should stop pretending that she is ready now or anytime in the forseeable future to be Commander-in-Chief.

I reached this conclusion after watching the foreign-policy portion of her disastrous Sept. 25 interview with Katie Couric. A number of commentators, including The Atlantic’s James Fallows and Slate’s Christopher Beam, have said that Palin resembled, in Beam’s words, “a high-schooler trying to BS her way through a book report,” which is an insult to both high-schoolers and B.S. Palin’s answers were hesitant, convoluted and at times — like when she appeared to suggest that Vladimir Putin might be preparing a one-man airborne invasion of Alaska — downright loony.

But the more worrisome responses were the ones that betrayed her lack of curiosity about current events and reliance on bumper-sticker wisdom over complex thoughts. There were moments, in fact, in which you wondered whether she had been paying any meaningful attention to the world outside Alaska before McCain picked her as his running mate a month ago. (See photos of Sarah Palin on the campaign trail here.)

Set aside her strange imagining of Putin’s flight path and her failure to remember that her tutor Henry Kissinger actually supports talking to Iran (which McCain also forgot during Friday’s Presidential debate). Though less YouTube-able, two other moments in the CBS interview stood out as even more troubling. The first was when Couric asked Palin whether she believes “the Pakistani government is protecting al-Qaeda within its borders.” This was Palin’s response:

I don’t believe that new President Zardari has that mission at all. But no, the Pakistani people also, they want freedom. They want democratic values to be allowed in their country, also. They understand the dangers of terrorists having a stronghold in regions of their country, also. And I believe that they, too, want to rid not only their country, but the world, of violent Islamic terrorists.

There’s nothing inherently incorrect about that answer: Zardari, whose wife was assassinated by al-Qaeda, isn’t in league with Osama bin Laden, and the vast majority of Pakistanis oppose terrorism. The trouble is that the same could be said about nearly every country in the world. But anyone who has picked up a newspaper in the last few months knows that Pakistan is now home to al-Qaeda’s top leaders and is the staging ground for the dramatic increase in suicide bombings in Afghanistan — and that elements of its security services are indisputably aiding that cause. Afghanistan’s President, Hamid Karzai, said this week that “the murder, killing, destruction, dishonoring and insecurity in Afghanistan is carried out by the intelligence administration of Pakistan, its military intelligence institutions.” Just last month, the top U.S. Commander in Afghanistan, David McKiernan said, “Do I believe there has been some complicity on the part of organizations such as the ISI over time in Pakistan? I believe there has been.” In fact, it’s precisely the Pakistani government’s unwillingness to go after militants along the Pakistan-Afghan border that has prompted the Bush Administration to authorize raids by U.S. commandos into Pakistani territory.

In short, most foreign-policy hands — including members of the current Administration — would have given Couric the exact opposite answer that Palin did. If U.S. officials once praised Pakistan’s cooperation in the war on terror, they almost never do now. But Palin doesn’t seem to have noticed.

Then there was her pained, and painful, response to Couric’s questions about the Bush “freedom agenda” — the goal of spreading democracy in the Islamic world. Predictably, Palin repeated standard Bush platitudes about making “every effort possible to help spread democracy for those who desire freedom, independence, respect for equality. That is the whole goal here in fighting terrorism. It’s not just to keep the people safe, but to be able to usher in democratic values and ideals around this, around the world.” That theory, though, has been discredited by the debacle in Iraq and years of inconvenient outcomes in the Middle East, in which elections have brought to power parties that are more extreme, not less. As a result, the Bush Administration abandoned the lofty talk about transforming the region roughly, oh, three years ago. Couric pressed Palin on this:

Couric: What happens if the goal of democracy doesn’t produce the desired outcome? In Gaza, the US pushed hard for elections and Hamas won.

Palin: Yeah well especially in that region, though, we have to protect those who do seek democracy and support those who seek protections for the people who live there. What we’re seeing in the last couple of days here in New York is a President of Iran, Ahmadenijad, who would come on our soil and express such disdain for one of our closest allies and friends, Israel … and we’re hearing the evil that he speaks and if hearing him doesn’t allow Americans to commit more solidly to protecting the friends and allies that we need, especially there in the Mideast, then nothing will.

Couric’s question was beyond difficult — it’s the most vexing question that has faced US policymakers over the last seven years. What do you do when democracy produces results you don’t like? There’s no good answer, but there are many ways to grasp at one. Palin could have said that elections are only one component of democracy; that bringing extremist groups into the political process helps to moderate their behavior; that extremists tend to lose support once in power, because they don’t know how to govern. She could even have said, Those are the breaks — we don’t get to choose.

Instead, she changed the subject to the threat Iran poses to Israel. Why did she do this? Was it because she didn’t want to acknowledge that democracy sometimes produces undesired results? Did she calculate that, since Gaza shares a border with Israel, she could use it as an opportunity to turn the discussion to Iran, where McCain and Obama disagree? Or did she just not know what Couric was talking about?

If she didn’t, that’s understandable. Most Americans are not particularly interested in the nuances of politics in Pakistan or the Middle East. But we should expect our leaders to be fluent in at least the basics of foreign policy. So far Palin is still struggling for words.

The Bear and the Dragon!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                     

Aside from this being a wonderful book by Tom Clancy published in 1991. This piece has nothing to do with literary matters.  The metaphors in the title should be obvious.  This is about Russia and China!  China’s staging of the Olympic Games announces to the world that “We’re here!”  And Russia’s invasion of Georgia screams “We’re Back!”  And what can America do about it?  Absolutely nothing!

With America’s military bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan there is no military option available.  All we get is Gorge W. Bush’s hollow rhetoric and meaningless empty threats directed at Russia.  Alexander Putin is laughing his ass off right now.  He did to Georgia what Bush did to Iraq.  I guess that W. could look into the eyes of the Devil and see something good.  At least to his credit McCain said “When I look into his eyes I see KGB!” 

Meanwhile, the Chinese have spent millions, perhaps a billion dollars putting on the Olympic Games.  We have borrowed billions of dollars from the Chinese to prosecute the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And what do we get?  Bridges falling into the Mississippi River is what.  I recently wrote a piece called The United States of China.  Just like in Texas Hold Em poker, the holder of the chips can cash in anytime he/she wants to.

It is imperative that our next president have the temperament to engage the Russians in diplomacy.  And the judgment to get our economy under control so that we can to bring down the deficit and reclaim our independence from Chinese money.  Our next president must also look forward to a renewable energy policy that stops the flow of over seven-hundred billion dollars to oil rich countries.

Our list of problems is long and it will not be an easy row to hoe.  But I know that America can do it.  In part, based on the next leader we choose.  To me the choice is an obvious one.  I’m going to go with the one who wants to do things differently.  I’ve had enough of doing it the same old way!

Hypocrisy 101

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Suffering through a brief period of writer’s block I couldn’t decide on something serious or something funny to write about today.  But then our great leader along with another member of the Axis of Evil appeared on the White House Steps.  George W. Bush at the podium and Condoleezza Rice by his side commented on the ongoing clash between Russia and Georgia.  That’s the country Mr. McCain, not the state.  So there is no need for a surge in Atlanta.

With unmitigated gall, Bush lectured to Russia about its illegal invasion into Georgia.  He also stated that humanitarian aid will begin tomorrow.  We are beginning aid operations to another country faster than we did to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.  Oh and how about the invasion of Iraq Mr. Bush?  Did Mr. Putin Criticize you when you started your illegal war?  Shouldn’t you extend him the same courtesy?  After all, he is the de facto president.

You’re also dispatching Secretary Rice to France to confer with the French President before she goes on to Georgia.  So the French are no longer a collective group of wussies?  I thought you executed an executive order banning the term “french fries.”  Or do we like France again because it has a hottie for a first lady?

Anyway, for you to stand in front of the White House and lecture someone else about making war while you are currently fighting one reeks of the foul stench of hypocrisy!  You do not have the credibility to make such pronouncements.  Nor the moral authority…