Law of the Sea Treaty Dead Again

We’ve spoken before about Big Business not being conservative. Here’s more proof, along with some very good news. The Law of the Sea Treaty is dead. Good for America.

Why This Is A Dangerous Treaty

I first became aware of the Law of the Sea Treaty when it was conceived during the Reagan years in 1982, and it seemed like a horrible idea at the time. The idea was that the world’s oceans contain a vast amount of mineral wealth, but because only the rich world has the resources to exploit it, a treaty should be passed to divide this wealth equally among all countries.

The way the treaty works is it divides the ocean floor into zones. Internal waters (like a bay) and up to 12 miles from shore are considered territorial water and are treated as if they are dry land. A country’s sovereignty is complete within that zone (the old zone was three miles). The next 12 miles are considered a continuous zone. Within that zone, countries may impose laws related to customs, taxation, immigration and pollution, but cannot stop navigation. The next 200 miles are considered an exclusive economic zone. Here the state has some rights, but foreign countries may lay pipe or cable and navigate freely. Beyond that are international waters.

This may sound harmless, but that’s not all the treaty does. The treaty includes 320 articles and is over 200 pages long. It establishes a complex regulatory regime that applies to almost every commercial and government activity related to the oceans. This includes the regulation of shipping, the regulation of drug interdiction, and even the regulation of manufacturing conducted in coastal waterways. Moreover, it gives the U.N. unprecedented taxing and permitting authority over international waters. Essentially, this is a U.N. takeover of oceans.

Through these regulatory schemes, the U.N. could impose things like the Kyoto Protocol (on global warming) through the back door, could forced U.S. citizens to pay energy taxes to other nations, and the U.N. could claim the power to regulate U.S. military actions.

Ronald Reagan refused to sign this treaty for similar reasons. The extension of the territorial limit from 3 miles to 12 miles meant U.S. submarines and intelligence ships could be put in danger. He felt the regulatory scheme would stop undersea mining as permits to mine require an application fee of $250,000 ($500,000 at the time), plus the corporation must pay an annual fee of $1 millions to the U.N.’s International Seabed Authority, plus they would need to pay up to 7% of profits, plus they would need to share mining and navigational technology. Moreover, the decision on whether or not to grant such a license would belong to the Seabed Authority, which is controlled by Third World countries. This would give them veto power over all such activities. Reagan believed this was set up to discourage deep sea mining to protect the mining industries on land, which tend to operate in Third World countries. He also objected that the mandatory dispute resolution procedures bound Americans to the decisions of foreign judges and harmed American sovereignty.

Clinton tried to pass this treaty and essentially failed, as did Bush II and Obama. John Kerry has been pushing this in the Senate.

Why It’s Dead

Since two-thirds of the Senate must support a treaty before it can become law, it only takes 24 Senators to stop a treaty. Thirty-four Republicans have now come out in opposition to the Law of the Sea Treaty, which means it’s effectively dead. The charge was led by Tea Party conservative Jim DeMint, who was joined by GOP liberal Rob Portman of Ohio, conservative Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, cow-tipper Mike Johanns of Nebraska, Johnny Isakson of Georgia, and 29 other Republicans. John “my friends” McCain was on the wrong side, as always. Since the treaty cannot get the two-thirds vote it needs, it’s dead, Jim. . . for now.

Who Supports It And Why

Naturally, only Democrats (and McCain) supported this thing, right? Actually, no. The American Petroleum Institute and the US Chamber of Commerce both supported it. API is Big Oil’s lobbying arm and the Chamber of Commerce is Big Business’s lobbying arm. How could they possibly support this, you ask? Doesn’t the loss of sovereignty, the risk to the US Military, the imposition of international taxes mean anything them?

Well. . . no. Their only concern is profit. And by getting all these minerals safely regulated by an international tribunal, they can then go about making money by extracting them. What about the taxes and fees? Well, that’s really your problem, not theirs, because corporations don’t pay taxes. . . their customers pay taxes.

If you ever needed a more clear example of how little the United States of America and you mean to these companies, this is it. They will happily sell you and your rights to a United Nations tribunal dominated by corrupt Third-World governments just so they can make sure they get the monopoly rights on these minerals. Think about that the next time some oil company or some mineral company or any other multinational company comes to you and says they need some law to help them.

These people are not our friends.


P.S. Don't forget, it's Star Trek Tuesday at the film site.

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The Economist Believes In Magic

As I’ve said before, The Economist is a wonderful magazine if you want to see the insanity of liberalism presented in pure form. This time, they go all out to demonstrate how insanely stupid liberal foreign policy is in an article ludicrously titled “How To Set Syria Free.” Watch as they demand that we enter an unjustified war, and then they come up with a plan of action which relies on magic.

The Economist starts by trying to overwhelm your logic with emotion by talking about victims, butchery, dead being buried under cover of darkness, mourners, makeshift clinics, and floors slick with blood. They are trying to paint a picture so emotionally horrible that you put aside your reasoning and just accept that something must be done. Then they say the Syrian people have the “fire of conviction” that they will win, but “the outside world, to its shame, has shown no such resolve.” In other words, victory is inevitable and you are shameful to oppose intervention. These are peer pressure arguments.

Having set you up emotionally, they now give the “logical” case for intervening:

Argument No. 1: Almost 7,000 people have died and “the people of Syria deserve better. . . the world has a responsibility to act.” Uh. For starters, the number is actually half that. And if world-intervention is justified just because people are being killed, then why not invade Brazil? Don’t the 55,000 people killed there each year “deserve better” too? Why isn’t The Economist demanding the world invade Mexico where 30,000 people have been killed in the past few years in a drug war?

Argument No. 2: “[The world] also has an interest. Syria occupies a vital position in the Middle East, jammed between Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, Israel and Lebanon.” Holy cow! That’s the argument? The mere fact that Syria has neighbors is now considered an interest which justifies an attack? What country doesn’t have neighbors? Using this logic, there is literally nowhere on Earth that doesn’t have some vital world interest. And yet these people said we had no interest in Iraq and have no interest in Iran?

That’s it for the justification, by the way. Clearly, the case for intervention is unassailable, so let’s talk about what the world should do.

Right out of the gates, The Economist shows that it has no stomach to do anything real: “shifting Mr. Assad from power as fast as possible is essential.” Talk about a mealy euphemism. We’ve gone from defeating and killing to eliminating to regime change to shifting from power. That sounds like retirement. And it’s ominously passive, like they want Assad to agree to quit. In fact, they do. Observe.

First, they claim that it’s too late for Assad to “negotiate an accommodation” to oversee “an increase in democracy.” In other words, they’re sick of talking and he needs to be taken out -- notice how this flies in the face of their positions on Iraq and Iran where they demand never-ending talk. And why must he go? Because he’s lost the will of the people and if he gave them democracy, they would only use it against him violently. Translation: we can’t not-kill him because if we don’t kill him, the people would kill him, and we can’t have them killing him, so we are forced to kill him. Try figuring that one out.

But don’t worry about an actual attempt to kill or dethrone him, because The Economist doesn’t have the cojones for that. Indeed, watch them crumble.

See, Assad’s military is loyal and is willing to kill civilians. That’s a big advantage which we must overcome. So how do we stop them? “The most direct answer is. . . bombing Mr. Assad’s troops.” This would satisfy “outsiders’ urge to do something to show their outrage.” BUT, The Economist notes, Russia and China will stop the UN from doing that. Also, Syria’s terrain isn’t like Libya and there are no front lines, so The Economist says bombing won’t work. Ergo, take bombing off the list.

What about arming the rebels? That might work, EXCEPT the rebels are disorganized and lack unity and “such a policy would not suddenly turn the opposition into a fighting force.” Also, The Economist warns us that “a country awash with weapons would be plagued by the very violence the world was seeking to avoid.” It then argues that giving the rebels guns would create another situation like Afghanistan, where the flood of guns “helped create the chaos that spawned the Taliban.” This is, of course, ludicrous. First, it was a civil war which spawned the Taliban, not the presence of guns. Secondly, the Syrian regime has more than enough guns to cause this to happen if they fall.

So what do we do? Well, The Economist has the answer. It would be “far better to attack Mr. Assad’s regime where it is vulnerable – by peeling away his support.” Specifically, we need to SOMEHOW convince Russia to stop defending Assad in the UN because that would let us do a bombing campaign (which The Economist already said won’t work). We also need to convince all of the minorities in Syria to rise up as one. Yep. There it is: the Kumbaya Plan.

How stupid can you get?! When faced with a dictator killing his own people, the liberal response is to wish that people would stand up to them. Doesn’t The Economist realize that’s what’s happening in Syria right now and it’s not working? And how in the world can they think this will work when they just said the following a couple paragraphs before about Assad’s advantages:

“One is his willingness to do whatever it takes to put down the rebellion. . . Syrian soldiers are steeped in blood [and] Assad commands crack units and a relatively loyal officer corps.”

In other words, Assad doesn’t care how many people stand up to him, he’ll kill them all. Yet, The Economist’s plan is to hope enough people stand up that Assad gives up? Insane.

And The Economist isn’t done yet. See, to make this happen, “Syria’s fractious opposition must unite. . . with a single voice and credible leader.” In other words, they need a Magic Syrian they can all trust. Then this leader can talk to “the Kurds and Christians who back Mr. Assad.” Oh oh. Wait. The Kumbaya Plan relies on everyone rising up and “isolating” Assad, but now we’re hearing that chunks of the population support Assad? Doesn’t that doom the Kumbaya Plan? Oh, that’s right, the Magic Syrian can heal the sick and bring everyone together.

Then The Economist goes into all-out fantasy mode. Once this Magic Syrian appears, “the Russians would also begin to shift ground.” Why? Because Russia would then know that defeat for Assad would be inevitable, and unless Russia wants to lose a naval base it has in Syria and its arms export business to the country, then it would clearly shift sides. As this happened, naturally, the Syrian military will change sides too because the Magic Syrian is just unstoppable. . . somehow.

So let’s put this together. We need to enter a civil war without provocation because people are dying. And to defeat a military that is willing to kill as many of its own people as needed, we need only hope that a Magic Syrian arises who can unite all the people, including those who have a vested economic and social interest in backing Assad, and can convince the Syrian military and Russians to abandon Assad. And like that, the world will have solved the Syria problem.

Nice work Economist, you’ve solved everything.

Finally, for good measure, while we wait for the Magic Syrian, The Economist suggests that we kind of, sort of ask someone to create a safe haven somewhere near Turkey where Syrians can flee. Why? Because “a free patch of Syria would be powerful evidence that Mr. Assad’s brutal days are numbered.” Yes, refuge camps always defeat dictators.

Idiots.

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Iran: Sanctioning Stupity

I always enjoy it when The Economist presents insanely stupid liberal arguments with a straight face. That’s high entertainment, like exquisite parody. The latest example involves an attempt to explain why Obama is doing just fine in his efforts to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb. This argument is so awful that a child could see the problems with it. But apparently, The Economist can’t.

The Economist’s argument runs like this. First, they claim that Obama is on the verge of solving the Iranian problem because he just signed a measure into law which imposes “sanctions of unprecedented severity.” Yep. Specifically, these sanction will “ban” sales of Iranian oil to Europe, Japan and South Korea, who currently account for 40% of Iran’s sales. It will also “punish any foreign financial institution transacting business with Iran’s central bank.” This is meant to pressure Iran into stopping its development of nuclear weapons and “to show a jumpy Israel that there is an alternative to a military attack.” This is important because a military attack would raise tensions and might not actually work.

Makes sense, right?

Well, that depends on whether or not you keep reading the article. For in the very next breath, The Economist admits that skeptics “are entitled to ask” if sanctions will really work, “given that a variety of sanctions over the past 30 years has failed to change Iran’s behavior.”

Ok, let’s stop right there. This 30-years-of-failure fact tells us that the skeptics have been 100% right for 30 years now and what The Economist proposes has a miserable track record of absolute failure. Hence, the skeptics are more than just “are entitled to ask.” To the contrary, they are entitled to laugh uproariously at this idiotic suggestion. Indeed, what The Economist is doing fits Einstein’s definition of insanity -- doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Also, let’s be clear, this is the same Economist which claims that sanctions against Cuba can’t work but which now says they will work in Iran.

So why does The Economist think these will work? Because these sanctions are different. These are “sanctions of unprecedented severity” (sounds like “rodents of unusual size”). Indeed, according to The Economist, these sanctions will finally hurt the regime because they will stop Iran from selling its oil! Ah ha! Take that you Iranians! And take that too you dirty “Republican candidates” who are cynically trying to “depict Mr. Obama as weak.”

Yep, Obama is great. The end.

Oh wait, there are more words in this article. Words like this: “China, which is Iran’s biggest trading partner and has little truck with sanctions, will probably take up much of the slack created by Europe and America’s Asian allies.” Hmm. So Iran will shift its sales from Europe to China and Iranian sales will decrease by exactly 0%. Interesting. And no one at The Economist thought this might make their description of these as “sanctions of unprecedented severity” suddenly seem rather ridiculous? No one thought that Iran suffering NO economic consequences at all from these sanctions meant their estimate that “the latest sanctions will cause [Iran] more pain,” could perhaps be completely and utterly wrong?

It gets worse.

See, it turns out that this could be bad for Europe and the US: “the fragile economies of Europe and America would suffer if Iran’s oil exports disappeared from the world market.” Now think about this. This means these powerful sanctions will result in ZERO harm to Iran, but could tip the West into recession, thereby weakening Iran’s enemies. Yet The Economist, with a straight face, says this is “nevertheless worthwhile.”

Soooooo, let me see how this logic works. Doing something that hurts you but not the person you want to hurt is worthwhile because it will somehow force them to change their behavior. Hmm. Well, in that light, I think we should shoot pineapples up the rear ends of everyone who works for The Economist. That might just be what’s needed to stop Iran. Sure, I can guarantee you that it won’t actually do anything to Iran and it will certainly hurt the staff at The Economist, but it’s “nevertheless worthwhile” because. . . well, because it is. Problem solved, crack the bubbly!

Idiots.

Anyways, the pineapple sitters at The Economist aren’t done supporting their argument. They say, it’s clear that Iran’s threat to close the Strait of Hormuz is proof that the mere threat of these sanctions has put the regime under strain.

Of course, it’s more likely the Hormuz threat is a direct response to Israel fueling up its jets. But let’s not confuse The Economist with facts or logics as they clearly are not equipped the handle either. Also, for the record, this is the same threat Iran makes whenever something displeases it. They made it during the Iran-Iraq war, in response to the 30-years of ineffective sanctions, in response to UN reports, in response to Gulf Wars I & II, Saudi saber rattling, movies they didn’t liked, etc. In other words, thinking this threat shows a regime under pressure is purely wishful thinking.

The Economist also thinks Iran is worried about the Arab Spring. Of course, it conveniently ignores the fact that Iran already had its spring and the springers lost.

Finally, it suggests offering Iran “a carrot” by telling it everything it stands to gain if it just starts playing nice. This is idiocy. Can they really believe that Iran doesn’t know what it could gain or lose either way and hasn’t made a rational decision that it has more to gain going this route? “Wait Ahmed, you mean the Americans will open a McDonalds in Tehran if we stop trying to kill them? Why has no one told me this before?!”

The Economist also suggests we could promise to enrich their uranium for them. Yay! Never mind that this was only ever a temporary suggestion to slow Iran’s own enrichment and it’s been offered twice, by France the first time and then Brazil and South Africa the second, and Iran laughed it off because they want to build a bomb.

Liberalism is a mental condition and articles like this prove it. No human being with even a hint of intelligence could think that a plan which would do no harm except to the person proposing the plan will cause a bad guy to become a good guy. Yet here it is. I am honestly at a loss for words to describe how stupid this is.

I swear I’ve been punked.

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More Buckets of US Money For Palestine?

Currently, the Obama administration has requested $550 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority for 2012. That request is based on present notions and past reality. Although the head of the Palestinian Authority is Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, all assumptions were based on his retaining sole authority over all of Palestine. But that is simply not the case.

While Fatah may hold nominal leadership of the P.A., it has never fully-controlled the artificial creation called Palestine. Though Fatah has its strongest representation in the West Bank, it had a strong rival in Gaza. It is estimated that Fatah controls about 40% of the Palestinian population while its rival controls approximately the same percentage. The rival is terrorist Hamas. Hamas is Iran-fueled, anti-American and pledged to the destruction of Israel.

Until recently, the American State Department could maintain the fiction that it was dealing only with the duly-constituted government of Palestine, namely the Palestinian Authority controlled by Fatah. Then last May, P.A. chairman Abbas entered into an agreement with Hamas to form a "unity government." The strength of Hamas in the negotiations is evidenced by the recent exclusion of American trained economist and current Prime Minister Salam Fayyad from the future unity government.

For all practical purposes, the United States would now be negotiating with a government that American law says we cannot deal with, let alone fund. The 2006 Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act conditions aid to the Palestinian Authority on its exclusion of any group which will not renounce violence, recognize Israel's right to exist, and abide by current agreements. Until now, the U.S. has also maintained that it is America's policy to abide by the decisions of the Middle East "quartet" comprised of the U.S., Russia, the European Union and the United Nations which require that the Palestinian Authority maintain all agreements between the P.A. and Israel.

It will be well-nigh impossible for the Palestinian Authority to continue to adhere to any of these foundational agreements once Hamas is part of a unity government. Hamas is pledged to its very core to the destruction of Israel. That is its guiding principle. This created a problem of serious proportions during the Bush administration when Hamas won the parliamentary elections of 2006. The "quartet" reacted to this by issuing its firm statement that it would not tolerate any Palestinian government controlled by a terrorist group such as Hamas.

After an angry Hamas seized the Gaza strip from Fatah in 2007, a coalition government which did not place any Hamas members in important executive positions was formed. The pretense continued, but will no longer be viable once Hamas is actually made a formal, active member of the Palestinian unity government. Yet the Obama administration acts as if tomorrow were yesterday, and continues to request aid for a government which will be openly hostile to both the United States and Israel. The vast majority of rocket attacks on Israel are already launched from Hamas-controlled Gaza. It will soon have the entire area to work from.

The chairman of the House Appropriations foreign aid subcommittee, Republican Kay Granger of Texas and the ranking minority member, Democrat Nita Lowey of New York sent a joint letter to Abbas warning the P.A. that forming a government with Hamas would "threaten the provision of United States assistance and support." That prompted the Obama administration to request the $550 million aid package to counter the objections of the subcommittee.

A decision will have to be made, and the potential victim is Israel if Obama prevails. With the exception of the mass-murder part, the President seems far more in tune with Palestine than with our longtime ally Israel. Obama has been openly contemptuous of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It is hard to say at this point how the whole matter will play out. If Congress refuses to fund the new unity government, there is always the chance that Obama will simply issue an executive order diverting funds from other targets and giving them to the Palestinian Authority. The House's sole power of the purse means very little to constitutional scholar Barack Hussein Obama.
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With Friends Like Pakistan . . .

Admiral Mike Mullen recently testified at the Senate Armed Services Committee that our "ally" Pakistan has allowed the Taliban-supported faction Haqqani to become nothing less than an arm of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency. This testimony comes from the outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It wasn't very politic, and it has caused quite a stir.

We have been buoying up our Pakistani “allies” for years, often to the detriment of our much firmer ally, India. The Afghanistan War has opened wounds we either didn’t know we had or thought were healing. Pakistan makes no pretense of being a purely secular state. After all, its capital is Islamabad (“the abode of Islam”). But we counted on the fact that after the first round of Islamists were ousted from power decades back, the military would suppress the major jihadist impulses of the government and the Muslim clerics. They even elected a woman as head of state. It worked for awhile and up to a point.

The war in Afghanistan, a nation which borders Pakistan, has ripped the bandage off the long-festering wound. After successfully driving the largest groups of Taliban out of Afghanistan, we quickly discovered they were being given safe harbor and assistance in Pakistan, particularly the border province of Waziristan. Waziristan is comprised of two administrative districts, North and South, but for all intents and purposes, South Waziristan is an independent state under the very loose administrative control of the central Pakistani government.

Both parts of the province are comprised largely of warring tribes. In the South, the population is largely comprised of Waziris, Mahasuds and Burki. They are not ethnically close to the Pakistani Punjabis, Sindhi or Pashtuns, and consider Pakistan to be an occupying force. In the North, the main tribe is the Darwesh Khel, alternatively known as the Utmanzai Waziris. They are ethnically Waziri, but often at war with the southern Waziris. Unlike the South, which is largely uncontrolled, the North is actually under some direct control from Islamabad, but also unlike the South, the North shares an open border with Afghanistan. In fact, both North and South Waziristan sound a lot like Afghanistan just before the Taliban took over the government.

The battles between the North, the South and the central Pakistani government make this a slippery situation for both Islamabad and Washington DC. The problem that has come to light in recent years is that despite their internal battles, Pakistan and Waziristan are extremely Taliban-friendly. Pakistan makes occasional forays into Waziristan to stamp out open rebellions or arrest terrorists who want to blow up Islamabad. But by their own admission, the Pakistanis are unable to gain effective control of the province.

Though the government of Pakistan is still largely in military hands, those at the top are now more militantly Islamic and bellicose toward India and hesitant toward the United States. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI) has been the recipient of complaints from the White House for its complicity in Taliban-sponsored terrorism since early in the Clinton administration. The army’s failure to gain effective control of the Afghan border regions has also been a source of considerable diplomatic maneuvering.

But it is only recently that a personage as important as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has publicly and clearly called Taliban-supported Pakistani terror group Haqqani a “veritable arm of the ISI.” American-Pakistani relations, already strained, were pulled to near-breaking by the honest words of an American Admiral. The official Pakistani response was very angry, indicating that the government believes America is interfering in internal Pakistani matters. The usual mad Muslims took to the streets in the thousands to warn America not to try to deal with Haqqani on its own (though there was no suggestion from any American official that America has any intention of doing anything faintly resembling acting independently on the Haqqani matter).

All that Admiral Mullen really did was point out the danger of an ally which officially claims to be doing its best, but in reality is at best neutral about Taliban/Haqqani terrorism and at worst, actively complicit. Having the truth pointed out in public caused the Pakistani government to announce that it would not tolerate American attacks on Taliban and Al Qaeda bases in Waziristan without prior permission from Islamabad. This, even though the government admits outright that it has scant control of the border regions. It doesn’t help that the Pakistani government at its highest levels has more leaks than a sieve, and that any forewarning to Islamabad about a pending American attack on terrorist bases would get to the terrorists faster than the drones and the bombs.

This is clearly a thorny problem. But pretending that we don’t know how treacherous Pakistan has been is simply no longer viable. The best example of all was the capture and killing of the greatest terrorist of the last half of the twentieth century—Osama bin Laden. He had been living comfortably in a very obvious compound a mere sixty miles from Islamabad, in a security zone, and practically on the grounds of a nearby Pakistani military base.

When a sophisticated American helicopter went down during the operation, the Pakistani government made sure the first people to get to it were the Chinese military experts. Yet we are expected to believe that our ally didn’t know about bin Laden’s compound, had no idea he was in Pakistan, and was acting in the interest of our alliance by allowing Chinese military operatives to sort through highly-sensitive war-making machinery before allowing the Americans in.

So how does the Obama administration react to the admiral’s statement? Just about as you would expect. It wussed out. Barack Obama has refused to publicly endorse the admiral’s statement, and is presently hiding under his desk. He has sent his better-half, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to soothe the Pakistani savage breast.

Despite recent border incursions from Pakistan into Afghan war zones aiding the Taliban, the Taliban-led attack on the US embassy in Kabul, and attacks on NATO outposts near the border, Clinton failed to address the fact that Haqqani was clearly linked to the attacks. Instead, she met for three hours with the Pakistani ambassador, repeating platitudes about cooperation and vital strategic interests.

This flies in the face of the unrefuted testimony of Admiral Mullen who named names and tied Pakistan and the terrorists together: “With ISI support, Haqqani operatives planned and conducted the truck bomb attack on September 10 which killed five and wounded seventy-seven coalition soldiers. We also have credible evidence that Haqqani was behind the June 28th attack on the International Hotel in Kabul and a host of other smaller but effective operations.”

So what did our brave Secretary of State do? Her department leaked a memo to the Washington Post that said: “Adm. Mike Mullen’s assertion last week than an anti-American insurgent group in Afghanistan is a veritable arm of Pakistan’s spy service was overstated and contributed to overheated reactions in Pakistan and misperceptions in Washington.” She doesn’t contradict the admiral’s statement with any evidence whatsoever, but makes it very clear we mustn’t upset our “allies.”

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A Small Detail But A Large Statement

Last week, the official White House site made a subtle but important change to one of the pictures it has been displaying. Previously, there was a shot taken in "Jerusalem, Israel." "Jerusalem" is now an island without a country, and "Israel" has been deleted from the photo. If Obama can make the victims of Fast and Furious into non-persons, I guess they can turn Jerusalem into a non-capital.

There has been a two-administration battle between Congress's insistence that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and the administration's insistence that such a determination belongs to the executive branch through its constitutional authority to conduct the nation's foreign affairs. As far as the executive branch is concerned through both the Bush and Obama administrations, the status of Jerusalem remains unsettled.

Fair enough. But the White House website has always shown the picture of Jerusalem in conjunction with the word Israel. The photo was a picture of Vice President Joe Biden meeting with Israeli President Shimon Peres in 2010. It was entitled: "Biden and Peres meet in Jerusalem, Israel. Suddenly, Biden met with Peres in Jerusalem, (fill in the blank). Either that, or they met in just-plain-Jerusalem.

The whole brouhaha was set off when American naturalized citizens wanted their passports to read: "Birthplace--Jerusalem, Israel." Before removal of the word "Israel" from the photo, the state department issued a brief statement reiterating the administration's position that "US citizens born in Jerusalem may not have 'Israel' listed in their passports as their place of birth." Yet in another photo, still extant on the website, there is a story about a trainee foreign service officer whose "first assignment will be in Jerusalem, Israel, beginning August 2011."

The closest historical parallel I can think of is the airbrushing out of Nazis loyal to Hitler and communists loyal to Stalin when those same dictators decided that the loyalists had become a drug on their respective agendas. In 2002, Congress passed a law allowing naturalized American Jews to include the word "Israel" on their passports if they chose to do so. The representatives who supported the move claim it had no foreign policy significance whatsoever, and merely addressed the concerns of naturalized American Jews that a simple elementary truth be imprinted on the passports.

There's an old Borscht-belt comedian's joke that somewhat fits the situation. An angry husband comes home to find a man hiding in his wife's closet. He asks: "What are you doing in there?" The man replies: "Everybody's gotta be somewhere." Likewise, every city has to be somewhere. So where is Jerusalem--Mars? The State Department is consistently inconsistent. Its address for the US Consulate is officially in zip code 91002--no country. But in applications for social security deposits and its official guidebook to Jerusalem, it gives "Jerusalem, Israel" as its address.

The department has not been nearly so scrupulous about its unitary authority on diplomatic documents when it comes to other disputed homelands. Since 1994, naturalized Americans from Taiwan have been allowed to state their birthplace as simply Taiwan, or alternatively, Taiwan, China. It seems the State Department is less worried about offending a superpower than it is about offending Jihadistan and the Palestinians. China has never acknowledged Taiwan as a separate nation, and continues to deem it an unlawful breakaway province. Officially, the US does not recognize Taiwan as a formal state or country either, but it's a whole lot looser about what can be written on a passport.

To put another exclamation point on the silliness, the State Department is not nearly so doctrinaire about certain other "disputed homelands" in the Middle East. Naturalized American citizens from the Golan Heights are free to declare Syria as their birth nation. This is in spite of the fact that the Golan Heights have been under Israel's control since 1967, and were formally annexed into Israel in 1981. Before that time, the Golan Heights were Syrian for only twenty-three years, previously having been a French protectorate and part of the Ottoman Empire.

So now the question becomes, "is this change on the White House website a reflection of a genuine difference of position between the executive and legislative branches, or merely a prelude to another Obama apology tour of the Middle East?" It also raises the question "why now?"
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WikiWrap-Up On WikiLeaks

Over the past couple of months, WikiLeaks has been dripping out classified US government documents by the hundreds of thousands. Now that we have a good idea of what they reveal, let’s address the issues.

Point 1: What the heck was the government thinking?

Lost in this whole affair is the first question we should all be asking: how did a nobody Army Specialist, Bradley Manning, download several hundred thousand sensitive documents about two separate wars and 250,000 diplomatic cables (11,000 of which were marked secret or “nofo” meaning they could not be shared with foreign government) to a personal computer so he could hand them over to WikiLeaks? Who designs a system for storing classified documents that allows such wide-ranging access? Moreover, they apparently only caught Manning because he went online and bragged about being the source. How can that be?

This is the real issue that needs to be solved and the total focus on WikiLeaks' founder is a distraction from the real scandal.

Point 2: What revelations?

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of this affair has been the utter lack of revelations. The media claims to have found some, but not a single piece of information produced wasn’t already widely known. Consider these:

● Many governments are run by sexual predators, incompetents or criminals.

● Putin and Berlusconi like to party, as does Gaddafi, who also likes to pout.

● Medvedev is a puppet of Putin, and Russia’s bureaucracy really runs the country.

● Yemen let US troops kill al Qaeda terrorists within their border and tried to pass this sophisticated attack off as having been done by its own primitive security forces with a few US advisors involved.

● Obama used promises and threats to win support for his Copenhagen non-deal deal.

● Mexico’s drug war is not well-focused and is not going well.

● Various Arab states hate and fear Iran, and a couple pleaded with the US to bomb Iran to keep it from getting an atomic bomb.

● Venezuela is not well-liked in the region.

● Iran heavily supported the insurgency in Iraq.

● China is slowly turning against North Korea.

● China authorized cyber attacks against American companies, including Google, and the US Embassy.

● The British royals are inbred idiots who say stupid things.

● Karzai is an erratic jerk who believes in conspiracies and plots but knows little about governing, and his brother is a drug lord.

Anything shocking there? Anything you didn’t already know? I thought not. In fact, the only real revelation of which I am aware is that North Korea managed to send a number of sophisticated missiles to Iran, missiles that are capable of carrying a nuclear payload.

So why is the lack of revelations so interesting? Because it shows us that our government actually is very good at being open and honest with us. And since that is a necessary cornerstone of democracy, this bodes well for our system.

Point 3: Is this disclosure good for democracy?

WikiLeaks founder Julia Assange claims that he leaked this information because secrecy is anathema to good government. To a degree, I agree with that. I am a firm believer in requiring “full disclosure” by government because our government acts in our names and we can only judge our government if we know what it is doing. But the key word there is “doing.”

“Doing” does not include advice given to leaders by their advisors. When you make such advice public, the advisors stop providing complete and honest advice and instead become concerned with how they will appear to the public when their advice is disclosed. That cripples the government because it can no longer get a full picture of its options or the likely consequences of its actions.

“Doing” also does not include information that was provided to the government in a confidential manner. Whether this is corporations sharing trade secrets with the government or individuals turning in neighbors who may be terrorists, allowing the disclosure of such information will prevent people from coming forward with similar information in the future. That prevents the government from getting the information it needs to do its job.

WikiLeaks failed to protect either of these types of information. By turning over private assessments of foreign leaders, WikiLeaks makes it harder for future diplomats to share their private opinions about foreign leaders, which makes it that much harder to spot the potential Hitlers or Ahmadinejads -- which means the US is more likely to work with budding dictators in the future. Likewise, soldiers will now censor their reports, which means the likelihood of casualties (civilian and military) goes up.

WikiLeaks also turned over information that has endangered individual informants. Said a former British military intelligence officer: “Assange has seriously endangered the lives of Afghan civilians. . . the logs contain detailed personal information regarding Afghan civilians who have approached NATO soldiers with information.” This release will prevent future informants from coming forward, and will thereby help terrorists and dictators suppress their people.

Even some of the leading opponents of government censorship have strongly denounced WikiLeaks. Steven Aftergood, editor of Secrecy News, says: “WikiLeaks routinely tramples on the privacy of non-governmental, non-corporate groups for no valid public policy reason. . . this is not whistleblowing and it is not journalism. It is a kind of information vandalism.” Aftergood notes, for example, that WikiLeaks has also published the “secret rituals” of a women’s sorority, “the private rites of Masons, Mormons and other groups that cultivate confidential relations among their members.”

So how can it be good for democracy to have a group of information peeping Toms releasing information that (1) prevents government advisors, diplomats and soldiers from being honest with their bosses, (2) prevents non-government people from sharing information with the government, (3) gets people killed for getting involved with the government, and (4) will make the government much more obsessed with hiding information in the future? If WikiLeaks’ purpose was to open government and make it more responsive, then this is called a “backfire.”

Point 4: What if this had been Bush?

Finally, it is amazing to see the difference between how these leaks are being treated now that they are affecting Obama, rather than Bush. Under Bush, the left was demanding that Bush release the very type of information just released -- they even sued him to get some of it. And they poo-poo’d the Bush Administration’s claims that the release of this type of information would be dangerous.

So they should be happy that this information is finally coming out, right? Wrong. They are treating Assange like a war criminal. They want him hunted down, they don’t even object when people talk about putting him on the terrorist “kill on sight” list. They are happy to believe the rather ridiculous rape charges as true and include that in every mention of his name. They raise no complaints about various governments (possibly including our own) using cyber attacks to keep WikiLeaks offline, nor do they complain when the government leans on and threatens ISPs that host him. It’s amazing how right and wrong changes for the left depending on who is getting hurt.

And let me add another interesting piece to this puzzle. Remember how Obama promised to run the most open government in history and how the left relentlessly pounded Bush for his supposed secrecy? Well get this: last year, the Obama administration marked 54.7 million documents as secret, that’s 10 times the number marked “secret” in 1996 and more than double the maximum amount marked “secret” in any year under Bush. Yet the left says nothing.

I guess “open government” only matter when it’s a Republican president?

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Snookered--Again.

Earlier in the week, our brilliant president got one-upped by third world countries and the canny Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And in the process, we seem to have lost any influence we had with one of our former allies. Turkey is now spitting in America's face as part of a growing Islamic coalition, with the help of socialist Brazil. Well done, Mr. Obama.

The growing crisis of Iran and its influence with its neighbors requires the talents of true experts in diplomacy, particularly the iron fist in the velvet glove. Instead we have the most lily-livered president since Jimmy Carter and a diplomatic corps made of morons, cowards, liars, and an occasional America-hater. It has been reported by multiple sources that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had put her faith in the perfidious Lula da Silva of Brazil to mediate an effort to turn Iran away from further sanctions, and was caught "completely off-guard" when he failed utterly.

One of the weakest and most exploitable traits of this administration is its ridiculously high expectations in its own ability to influence, and its complete lack of backup plans when their expectations are not fulfilled. Not only should Clinton not ever have relied on da Silva to broker any kind of decent deal, but she should have been prepared to tell Iran that if this UN-backed effort failed, we would be forced to act independently in consultation with our NATO allies to force Iran to rid itself of fissionable material, nuclear bomb plans, and missile delivery systems purchases.

But given Obama's track record so far, that threat would have meant absolutely nothing. Obama's knees are weak, and he's well-known for avoiding personal failures by abandoning and humiliating former allies (personal and international). Ahmadinejad has exploited Obama's weaknesses at every turn. He knows that Obama's policy is to speak softly, and carry a nerf bat. The Three Stooges were more dangerous and more believable than anything that is coming out of this White House.

Of course that other canny tyrant, Vladimir Putin, pushed his puppet president Dmitri Medvedev into setting the stage for guaranteed failure by by having Medvedev announce that "Brazil's efforts were the last chance to avoid sanctions." That worked very nicely. And when may we expect those sanctions to go into effect, Mr. Medvedev? At the same time, China didn't even have to pretend it might support sanctions.

Meanwhile, back at the tent, former ally Turkey hopped into the game and announced that in the interests of world peace (God help us), Turkey would accept low-enriched uranium from Iran in exchange for selling Iran fuel-rods of uranium for use in (get this) a Tehran medical research research reactor. Ahmandinejad keeps upping the ante, and with each threat finds an even cleverer way to outmaneuver the wimpy and incompetent Obama State Department.

Obama, a devotee of the United Nations, is going to have a hard time knocking either Brazil or Turkey for stabbing America in the back. The two nations have alternating rotating seats on the UN Security Council, and have innate clout with Obama because of his UN worship. Once again, thanks to the amateur from the South Side of Chicago, America has painted itself into a corner. Even the pro-Obama Los Angeles Times recognizes what a foolish move has been made. Says the Times: America is now in the position of having to "face a choice of rejecting the deal and appearing intransigent, or accepting it, potentially allowing Iran to defuse mounting international pressures through an infinite delay."

Clinton, on the other hand, learned everything she knows from the former Philanderer in Chief, husband Bill Clinton. Thanks to similar diplomatic detours, North Korea today is not only armed with nukes and missile delivery systems, they also have an excellent computer network. A few more Democratic administrations like this, and America will be entirely without a nuclear arsenal to protect itself, and the penguins in Antarctica will be launching 100 megaton hydrogen bombs at us within a couple of decades.

An old and honored diplomatic rule is "never back your opponent into a corner from which he cannot retreat, and from which he cannot advance without all-out attack." Ahmadinejad knows that Obama will retreat all the way into that corner, cower for awhile, and then attack--verbally and verbosely. On the other hand, Clinton-style diplomacy leaves Iran half-way around the world from any corner, and Ahmadinejad would be more than willing to launch an all-out attack to bring on his Islamic version of Armageddon.
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Copenhagen Treaty Collapses

It is ironic that the very week NBC has decided to insert environmentalist propaganda into its programming, their lord and savior, the Obamassiah, has decided to terminate the Copenhagen Treaty with extreme tardiness. So much for environmental dreams.

For those who don’t remember, the Copenhagen Treaty is intended to replace the Kyoto Treat, which expires in 2012. Kyoto is the utopian treaty created by the rabid enviro-socialists at the United Nations with the intent of crippling first world economies to stop “anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” Translated, that means that they want to shackle Western economies to stop evil man from interfering with the environment. Why only Western economies? You know the reason.

In any event, Kyoto was a nightmarish treaty that no rational American wanted to see signed. Which is not to say it wasn’t popular. The third worlders all signed up with glee, because they had to do nothing under the treaty except open bank accounts and wait for Western guilt money to start flowing. The Western Europeans signed up for it because they are led by retarded baboons who despise their own people. American leftists wanted us to sign up for it because they had visions of recreating the paradise that was East German dancing in their heads. . . see if you want a wall between us and Mexico then!

But our politicians knew better. . . they refused. Evil Bush right? Not so fast. Evil Clinton was the first to refuse to send it to the Senate. And polar bears died. After evil Clinton left office, evil Bush too refused to submit it to the Senate. And while he was much pilloried by the Democrats for making the world hate us by keeping us out of their economic suicide club, evil Obama too refused to submit the Treaty to the Senate when he took over.

But evil Obama did something quite clever. He told his less-than-bright supporters that he wanted to submit it to the Senate, but with Kyoto expiring in 2012 and soon to be replaced by Kyoto, it just made more sense to forget about Kyoto and to instead focus on getting Copenhagen signed. They bought it.

Yet, something was rotten in Copenhagen, as we pointed out in THIS October 20 article that you all should have read. . . it will be on the test. Based on comments made by Obama’s chief negotiator, we warned you that it looked like Copenhagen wasn’t going to happen. Not only did Obama demand more cuts from the third worlders than they were expecting -- (and they were not happy about it, let me tell you! It’s one thing to join a suicide club as an observer, it’s another to be expected to participate!) -- but the Westerners were grumbling that they didn’t like the idea that they had to pay the third worlders in exchange for their participation.

We also noted that Obama has refused to agree to the limits the treaty proponents wanted on emissions. And this made everyone sad.

Well, this weekend, our dire prediction came true. Copenhagen went down in non-fossil-fuel flames when a group of Asian world leaders (and Obama) agreed that the Copenhagen Treaty could wait until 2010. . . or even later.

Said U.S. negotiator Michael Froman:

"I don't think the negotiations have proceeded in such a way that many of the leaders thought it was likely that we were going to achieve a final agreement in Copenhagen. . . There was an assessment by the leaders that it was unrealistic to expect a full, international legally binding agreement to be negotiated between now and when Copenhagen starts in 22 days."

Le French, however, weren’t buying it. They blame Obama. Whined French Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo: “The problem is the United States, there’s no doubt about that. It’s the world’s number one power, the biggest emitter, the biggest per capita emitter and it’s saying, ‘I’d like to but I can’t.’ That’s the issue.” Sacre bleu! Sounds like somebody wants to smack Obama with his purse!

Of course, I don’t know what the French are crying about. If they really want to shut down their economy, they can start without us.

In the end, Obama’s historic unemployment rate has convinced him that now is not the time to mess around with leftist thinking. Obama has managed to lose or not save an additional 5.2 million jobs beyond those Bush already managed to not save. And unemployment hasn’t peaked yet. So, apparently, sometimes, saving the world can wait.

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Honduras Update -- Zelaya Will Not Be Reinstated!

The Honduran Congress has decided not to schedule a vote to reinstate Zelaya, after Thomas A. Shannon, the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, twice confirmed on the record that Obama will recognize the election even if Zelaya will not be reinstated.

Republican Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) also has confirmed that he obtained a private assurance of this from Hillary Clinton and Shannon before he agreed to lift his stay on Shannon's nomination.

An angry Zelaya is blaming Obama and Shannon. Said Zelaya supporter and member of Congress Elvia Valle: "The United States is no longer interested in punishing a coup-installed government. [This] has left a bitter taste in our mouths."

Yeah, Kool-Aid will do that. . .


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Obama Agenda: Foreign Policy

Let’s continue our tour through Obama’s agenda. With the resolution of the Honduras situation this week and Obama continuing to dither over Afghanistan, now is a good time to examine Obama’s foreign policy agenda.

Obama was a big critic of Bush’s foreign policy. He claimed it was arrogant and made it harder to “rally international support for our leadership.” He also claimed Bush used foreign policy “as a political wedge” issue to divide Americans -- even though it was actually the Democrats who did that. In the end, Obama promised to “meet with the leaders of all nations, friend and foe” to get the world to rally behind American leadership.

It is, therefore, no small irony that Obama has angered the French by snubbing Sarkosy, angered Britain by snubbing Gordon Brown and by dealing behind Whitehall’s back with Bermuda about terrorists, snubbed the Poles in their commemoration of the invasion of Poland by the Nazis (and by telling them on that same day he would abandon them on the missile shield), started a trade war with Canada, and spat on just about everybody else. Not to mention his indiscriminate giving of gag gifts and his penchant for giving back diplomatic gifts.

In any event, let’s go through his goals and plans:

1. World Liberalism. Right out of the gates, Obama promised a thorough adoption of a number of liberal sacred foreign policy cows. Strangely, things haven’t gone as planned:

Debt Forgiveness. Obama promised to cancel 100% of the debt of the world’s heavily-indebted poor countries. No action.

Fight Global Poverty. Obama promised to spend $50 billion in foreign aid to cut “extreme poverty” around the world in half by 2015. He mentioned this in his 2010 budget as a “goal”, but took no real action.

World Health Aid. Obama promised to launch a Health Infrastructure 2020 to give aid targeted at developing countries health care systems. No action.

Small Business Aid. Obama promised to create an agricultural initiative to create a fund that will provide seed capital and technical assistance to small and medium enterprises. No action.

Tax Havens. Obama promised to create an international tax haven watch list of countries that do not share information returns with the United States. No action.

Climate Change. Obama promised to bring the United States into the suicide pact that is climate change theology. But he disappointed the world by not submitting Kyoto the Senate, and now it looks like the Copenhagen Treaty is in trouble because the Senate hasn’t passed a cap and trade law, and China and India won’t participate in a new treaty until we agree to cut our emissions. No action.

Nuclear Weapons/Proliferation. Obama made several promises vis-a-vis nuclear weapons:

• He promised to strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Yet, one of Obama’s first acts was to authorize the transfer of nuclear equipment to India in violation of the treaty. . . an evil for which Bush was roundly criticized. He then poured salt (or is it SALT 2?) into the wound by letting Hillary state that this arrangement (which violates the Treaty) can “serve as the foundation of a productive partnership on non-proliferation.”

• He promised to seek reductions in US and Russian stockpiles. On April 1, Fools Day, Obama and Medvedev agreed to pursue a new agreement by the end of the year to reduce the number of strategic warheads from 2,200 to around 1,600. Woo hoo, an agreement to agree on an insignificant reduction.

• He promised to stop the development of new nuclear weapons. No action.

• He promised to work with Russia to take US and Russian missiles off “hair trigger alert.” No action. In fact, Russian Presidential Security Council Chief Nikolai Patrushev recently declared that Russia reserves the right to use pre-emptive nuclear strikes on both a “large, regional and even local” scale to safeguard Russia from aggression, and he singled out Obama’s United States and NATO as foes who still pose threats to Russia.

• He promised to institute a global ban on intermediate-range missiles. No action.

• He promised to secure all loose nuclear material within four years and to negotiate a verifiable global ban on the production of new nuclear material. No action.

2. War On Terror. Obama promised to refocus the war on terror (in fact, he has even informally banned the phrase).

End The Use of Torture & Extreme Rendition. Obama promised to stop both torture and extreme rendition. He signed an executive order on January 22, 2009 that claims to end these practice, but really doesn’t. It did however, establish a task force to study these issues. Yipee!

Guantanamo. Obama promised to close Guantanamo and to ensure that the terrorists housed there receive all the rights afforded by international law. On his second day in office, he signed an executive order that promised to close Guantanamo within one year. That won’t happen. White House counsel Greg Craig has been offered as a scapegoat for this failure.

On May 15, Obama also announced that he would keep the current system in place for handling the inmates. In fact, he even tried to strip them of more rights.

Iraq. Obama promised to remove American troops from Iraq by August 31, 2010. There appear to be about the same number of troops there right now as before the surge, and Obama has stated that he plans to keep 35,000 to 50,000 troops in Iraq through 2011.

Afghanistan. Calling Afghanistan the “good war,” Obama promised to send two more brigades to conduct a non-surge surge. He did that and it didn’t work. So now his generals are very publicly asking for 40,000 more troops, and Obama seems incapable of coming up with a plan -- largely because his own party is split on whether or not to continue the war.

Obama also promised to use his messianic powers of persuasion to get the Europeans to contribute more forces and to remove the restrictions those countries placed on the troops they did send. Most of the Europeans right away ruled out sending more troops, and some are discussing pulling out entirely. On September 29, 2009, Obama finally met with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. He achieved nothing.

Pakistan. Obama promised to condition US military aid to Pakistan on their shutting down training camps, evicting foreign fighters, and preventing the Taliban from using Pakistan as a base to strike into Afghanistan. Obama did sign a law placing such conditions on Pakistan’s aid for the next five years. Whether or not this is verifiable remains to be seen.

Anti-Extremist Schools. Obama promised to establish a $2 billion Global Education Fund to “offer an alternative to extremist schools.” No action.

3. Russia. Obama promised to “address the challenge posed by an increasingly autocratic and bellicose Russia” by (1) supporting democratic partners in the region and upholding principles of sovereignty in Eurasia; (2) strengthening the transatlantic alliance so that it speaks with a unified voice to Russia; (3) decreasing the dependence of Europe on Russian energy; and (4) engaging directly with Russia on issues of mutual interest. Um, fail. He slapped down Poland and abandoned Georgia, thereby ensuring that no alternative to Russian gas would be available to Europe. He has done nothing to stop Germany and England from becoming Russian natural gas addicts. And he’s pandered and kowtowed to the totalitarian Vladimir Putin.

4. Middle East. Obama promised a realignment of United States policy in the Middle East. Good luck with that.

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Obama promised that resolving this conflict would be a key diplomatic priority. He also promised to “never distance” the United States from Israel and to support Israel’s right to self defense (including continuing US cooperation with developing an Israeli missile defense system). So far, his diplomatic efforts have lost the good will of the Palestinians: “All hopes placed in the new US administration and President Obama have evaporated.”

He also promised to continue military and economic aid to Israel ($30 billion over the next decade). No action to date.

Iran. Obama planned tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions. Obama promised to offer Iran (1) membership in the World Trade Organization, (2) economic investments, and (3) normal diplomatic relations, if Iran abandons its nuclear program and its support for terrorism. If Iran refused, Obama promised increased economic and political pressure. Iran rebuked Obama’s offer before he made it. He has since ignored Iran. He ignored the uprising by the Iranian people. He has been unable to stop Russia from adding to Iran’s nuclear capability. And now even the French are upset that he's been so weak.

The Arab World. Obama promised to use his unique talents to explain to the Arab world that we “are not at war with Islam.” So far he’s given one speech in Egypt and one in Turkey, claiming that the United States is a Muslim nation. Only 19% of Americans think this will improve our relations with the Muslim world.

5. Asia. Obama plans to seek new partners in Asia, while maintaining strong ties with allies like Japan, South Korea and Australia, and work to ensure that China plays by international rules.

Japan. Japan’s recent elections have resulted in a new government that wants United States military bases removed from Japanese soil.

China. Obama promised to use all tools available to demand that China (1) respect human rights, (2) fight intellectual piracy, (3) end their suppression of Tibet, (4) improve the safety of their products, (5) end their currency manipulation, which “contributes to massive global imbalances and provides Chinese companies with an unfair competitive advantage,” and (6) to end their support of repressive regimes in Sudan, Burma, Iran and Zimbabwe. Other than sending Geithner to beg the Chinese to buy American debt, no action to date.

North Korea. Obama promised to use “sustained, direct and aggressive diplomacy” to handle North Korea, promising to impose “strong international sanctions” against North Korea for any violation of United Nations resolutions. They’ve been shooting rockets into the Pacific ever since. No action.

6. Africa. Obama promised to make Africa a top diplomatic priority. He promised to open consulates in “hopeless corners” of Africa. He promised to immediately take steps to end the genocide in Darfur by “increasing pressure” on Sudan. And he promised to create a Global Energy and Environment Initiative to ensure that African countries have access to low cost energy. No action to date.

7. Latin America. Obama promised to rebuild diplomatic links throughout the hemisphere through aggressive, principled and sustained diplomacy. He promised to promote democracy in Cuba by allowing unlimited family travel and remittances, which he has done. He also promised to offer Cuba normal relations and a lifting of the embargo if Cuba takes significant steps toward democratization, which hasn’t happened.

He also promised (threatened) to rethink trade agreements, saying he will stand firm against agreements that “undermine our economic security” and promised to use trade agreements to “spread good labor and environmental standards around the world.” No action to date.

Finally, he promised to foster regional security through an initiative to cooperate in combating drug gangs. No action to date.


That’s it. Not much to write home about, is it?


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Honduras Explained

With the details of the deal in Honduras finally coming out, it’s time to analyze why Honduras became so important to the international community, what this deal really means, and why this is anything but the “historic” victory that the internationalists claim. This deal has, in fact, exposed the emptiness of the “rhetoric and peer pressure” approach to foreign policy. Expect the world to become a more dangerous place.

Why Honduras Mattered To The International Community

First, let’s explain why Honduras became such a big deal for the international community, and why they chose to support Zelaya despite his attempts to remake himself into a dictator.

• South/Central Americans. All of the Americas panicked when they heard that the Honduran military had tossed President Zelaya out of the country. The reason is simple. Central and South America were dominated by military coups for decades, Honduras included. In the past twenty years, they believed they had finally broken that cycle and become stable democracies. The prospect of a new military coup in Honduras reigniting that cycle scared the entire region. That’s why both left and right condemned “the coup.” This is also the reason they kept insisting that “the negotiations must not reward a coup.”

• The Internationalists. The internationalists, i.e. the effete Europeans who dominate the international talk shop, became involved because they saw this as their first chance to show that their brand of “international peer pressure without resorting to military means” could solve a crisis. In other words, this looked like an easy victory and they needed one badly since they can’t seem to solve anything else (Middle East, Iran, North Korea, Georgia, etc. etc.).

Some have attributed the support for Zelaya by the international community to being simply the support of leftists for a leftist. But that's not correct. Indeed, across the international community (and particularly in South/Central America), both left and right condemned “the coup.” Moreover, despite the MSM rebranding Micheletti’s government as “conservative” (which they always do with their perceived bag guys), Micheletti and Zelaya are both from the same leftist party (the Partido Liberal de Honduras).

In reality, the internationalists needed to support Zelaya because their theory of foreign policy requires that they maintain the unanimity of the international community, and with the South/Central Americans already choosing to support Zelaya, they had little choice. Nevertheless, this choice suited them because it also fit with their instinctual opposition to unilateral action, like throwing out a president, and with their desire to avoid disruption of the international order, i.e. they don’t like change, especially forced change. Not to mention that public perception is everything to the talkers, and supporting the government would have put them on the side of what appeared to be a military coup, which is unacceptable in their circles.

• Team Obama. Obama, who was late to the party, saw this as his first chance to let multilateralism work in South/Central America, with the United States taking a back seat to Brazil and other emerging powers. He thought this was a good way to show that the United States had changed since the end of the Bush administration, and would treat the South/Central Americans as more equal partners.

This is why Hillary Clinton has stressed that this “victory” was the result of diplomatic talk shops set up by Central/South Americans, and why they relied for so long on Costa Rica’s President to negotiate a resolution. Said Clinton: “This is a big step forward for the Inter-American system and its commitment to democracy as embodied in the Inter-American Democratic Charter.”

This “follow the crowd policy” also fit with his seeming utter disinterest in foreign affairs. However, this approach has brought on significant criticism of Obama from that same community, with Brazil’s Foreign Minister Celso Amorim grousing that these negotiations were taking too long. And more recently, Julie Sweig, Latin American Director of the Council on Foreign Relations complaining: “Why didn't they go down there four months ago? I have no idea why we didn't just do this to begin with, other than the fact that we wanted to give others a chance.” Also, Peter Hakim, President of the Inter-American Dialogue, asserts that Obama “made the mistake that multilateralism doesn't mean letting others do the work.” Instead, he argued, the situation needed “intense U.S. engagement.”

These are the reasons why this became important and how the sides were chosen. And while this was not a coup, see prior article, the Honduran government admittedly handled this poorly from a public relations perspective. Given the touchy nature of military coups in the region, they should not have sent the military to arrest Zelaya. They should have sent their equivalent of the United States Marshalls. Secondly, they should have voted to impeach him in their Congress before sending anyone to arrest him. Since their Congress would have done so easily, and it is dominated by members of his own party, few in the international community would have raised an objection (other than Chavez).

Position Of The Parties

Now, let’s explain the position of the international community versus the position of the Hondurans:

• The international community wanted Zelaya restored immediately to serve out his full term -- no restrictions. From their perspective, this was about undoing a military coup, and there could be no compromise. Thus, they took the position that they could not allow any part of that coup to succeed.

• Honduras wanted Zelaya removed from office until he could be replaced by the winner of the November 29 election. Though, in reality, all they really wanted was to stop him from holding a referendum to change the constitution to allow himself to remain in power. This was identical to the process used by the quasi-dictators in Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador, to gut their own constitutions.

The Honduran constitution forbids even the attempt to amend the constitution to allow the president to serve a second term. And not only had Zelaya done that, but he'd acted illegally in attempting to pull it off:

• Zelaya supporters told people to sign the petition to hold the referendum under threat of being denied health care or other government benefits.

• Zelaya violated a Supreme Court order not to attempt to hold the referendum.

• Zelaya illegal fired General Romeo Vasquez, who refused to carry out the illegal order to distribute the ballots and the Supreme Court order to reinstate him.

• Zelaya led a mob that broke into the military installation where the ballots were stored, and told his supporters to distribute them.

Zelaya also was accused of other crimes, though these were not the reason he had been deposed:

• Zelaya’s government was accused of accepting kickbacks and of being involved in the drug trade.

• Zelaya was accused to taking several million dollars from the Honduran Central Bank.

• Zelaya forced all radio and television stations to broadcast his daily speeches.

• Zelaya’s government began monitoring private phone conversations in the country.

The Deal

This entire matter settled late-Thursday after some last minute diplomacy by Thomas A. Shannon, the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs. The deal will be signed Monday. Here is what Honduras got under the deal:

• Zelaya must drop his attempts to amend the constitution.

• The international community will recognize the results of the November 29 election.

• Financial aid would be restored to Honduras.

• The visas of the Honduran leaders are to be restored.

• The international community will send poll workers to help perform and monitor the fairness of the November 29 election.

• A truth commission will be established to investigate the events leading up to and following “the coup.”

That’s everything Honduras wanted.

In exchange, the Internationalists got a promise that a national unity government would be installed by November 5. That sounds like everything the Internationalists wanted, except. . .

Whether or not Zelaya gets restored to the presidency has been left to the Honduran Congress, after a review by the Supreme Court. (According to Shannon, the “when, if and how” will be left to the Congress.) While the Congress backed his ouster five to one, they have signaled that they “will not stand in the way” of this agreement. And there's really no reason they should stand in the way, because they will be defining his power for the last month of the term. For example, it is clear already that control of the army will be transferred from the office of the President to the Supreme Court. Also, his term will not be extended to make up for the six months he lost.

Summing this up, even assuming that Zelaya is returned to “power,” Honduras got everything it wanted. Zelaya was kept out of power from June until mid-November. He must drop his attempts to change the constitution, and he will be stripped of any real power by the Supreme Court and the Congress. There is no mention of any amnesty that would cover the allegations against him. Moreover, Honduras gets its aid restored and returns to the international community none the worse for wear.

Internationalists Try To Claim An Historic Victory

Not surprisingly, the internationalists are calling this a huge victory for international pressure of the talking variety:

• Gushed Hillary Clinton: “I cannot think of another example of a country in Latin America that, having suffered a rupture of its democratic institutional order, overcame such a crisis through negotiation and dialogue.” Yes, the Hondurans won a great victory over you.

• Daniel Restrepo, senior director for Latin America at the White House National Security Council attributed this grand victory to the “recognition throughout Honduran society that, for Honduras to move forward in a sustained way, the election had to be accompanied by international support.” Uh huh, and the fact they got what they wanted and gave up nothing had nothing to do with it?

• Sen. John Kerry (D, Masshole) said this was “an historic accomplishment.” Worthy of a Nobel Prize perhaps?

Yet, it's a phony victory at best. They wanted Zelaya restored to serve out the entire remaining six months of his term. That won’t happen. They wanted him restored unconditionally, that won’t happen. Instead, assuming he is restored, all they got was that he would be re-installed as a figure head for the remaining month of his term. If that’s a victory, I’d hate to see what it takes for them to admit defeat.

In the end, these fools can delude themselves into thinking that they’ve “won,” but troublemakers around the world will see through this Orwellian doublespeak and self-delusion. The lesson here is that the international community was unable to push around a country of 7.5 million people. Their peer pressure strategy crashed and sank against the rocks of an opponent who simply refused to be swayed. Out of ideas, the internationalists did what they always do, they surrendered and then lied to themselves for comfort, declaring their surrender to be what they really wanted from the get-go.

And you can be sure that the lessons of Honduras will not be lost on countries like Iran and North Korea, or on future coup plotters everywhere, who will see this as confirmation of the international community’s weakness. Anyone who declares a total surrender as an historic victory is ripe for the plucking.


** Thanks to Joel for pointing out that my analysis the other day beat the Wall Street Journal, which apparently agrees, by a day.


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The Mouse That Called Obama’s Bluff. . .

Want some actual news you haven’t heard anywhere: Honduras just won. Seriously. Funny that the MSM hasn’t mentioned this. Image, the entire world, standing shoulder to shoulder. . . led by the greatest power the world has ever known. . . guided by the greatest leader that country has ever produced. . . a man so compelling and hopeful that he deserves the Nobel Prize just for being. . . and Honduras just humbled them all.

Here’s the set up: In one corner, we have the current government of Honduras. They tossed their former president (Manuel Zelaya) out of the country when he tried to make himself into a Hugo Chavez-like dictator. (If you don’t know the background, or why this was not a coup, then read my prior article: HERE. I’ll wait for ya.)

In the other corner, we have the world. . . literally. Every other country in the world is doing their internationalist best to demand that Honduras allow Zelaya to return to power.

Here’s the twist: On November 29 of this year, there will be an election in Honduras. That election was already scheduled to take place before Zelaya got expelled, and will be between two men who had no involvement in the “coup.” The winner will become the new President, ending Zelaya's term. Democracy at work.

The current government in Honduras hopes that this election will make the Zelaya issue moot, and that the world will leave them alone thereafter. The international community, however, has loudly proclaimed that it will not recognize the results of that election unless Zelaya is first returned to power to serve out his term.

Except. . . Team Obama has now signaled (very quietly) that they will accept the election and move on. Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooaal!!!!!

Honduras wins! Honduras wins! Honduras wins! Honduras wins!

Oh, the humanity!!!

This represents a truly humiliating moment for Team Obama and for the internationalists. For years, the internationalists have told us that international pressure could solve any problem without the need for evil, dirty force. War was history, international law had killed it. Team Obama bought into that hook, line and sinker, and based their entire foreign policy on talk and hope. Now tiny Honduras, with its seven million people, has exposed that policy in all its gloriousless impotence.

** Update: Speak of the devil, this morning they announced a "deal" where Zelaya gets to appeal directly to Congress (which opposes him 5-1) to be restored. In exchange, we, the US, will recognize the election later this month. Annoyingly, but not unexpectedly, the AP is calling this total surrender an "Obama victory" even though it gives the Hondurans everything they wanted and Obama achieved none of his goals!

Here’s a little background on how this debacle developed. . .

From the outset, every single country in the world declared that they would do their able best to force little Honduras to accept the return of then-President Manuel Zelaya. They would (and did) blockade the country in violation of their treaties and their obligations under the World Trade Organization. They would stop sending aid and tourists. They warned that the coup leaders would be arrested. Chavez threatened to invade (he's a little sweet on Zelaya). All unless the evil coup plotters (leftists now described as “conservatives”) promised to immediately restore Zelaya to power and to submit to his terrible wrath.

And Honduras responded, “Bite me.”

Thus began an interesting series of negotiations between Micheletti, Zelaya and the International Community. (As an aside, as you read this, keep in mind the following quote from Zelaya about Micheletti: “I have no confidence in Micheletti. He changes his attitude from one minute to the next.”)

Micheletti’s Position

From the beginning, Micheletti took the position that Zelaya may not return to Honduras, unless he faces charges for what he’s done -- like stealing several million dollars from the Honduras Central Bank. Micheletti also declared that he will serve out the remainder of Zelaya’s term until the election scheduled for November 29.

On August 28, Micheletti changed his position slightly, saying that he would agree to allow Zelaya to return to Honduras under an amnesty if Zelaya renounced his claims to the presidency. Micheletti also offered to step down as President as part of the deal.

That’s it. Funny, I don’t see the attitude changing Zelaya does, perhaps I’m missing something? Let’s see how Zelaya did. . .

Zelaya’s Positions

Zelaya took the initial position that he needed to be restored immediately to serve out his full term and that the coup plotters had to face punishment for their crimes. He then went about making threats.

July 15: Zelaya asserts that “Hondurans have a right to insurrection.” Hey, who doesn’t?

July 18: Zelaya’s foreign minister, Patricia Rodas, says that Zelaya was returning to wage a “final battle” against those who ousted him. Let’s get ready to rumble!

July 21: Zelaya says that he would return soon and that “It is impossible to sustain a regime with bayonets. The world will not allow it, starting with the United States.” Oh oh, is that reliance on Obama I’m hearing?

July 23: Saying that United States sponsored talks have broken down, Zelaya declares that he will cross the border into Honduras. He dismisses concerns about the possibility of violence.

When the United States warns that it does not support this trip to the border (“Any step that would add to the risk of violence in Honduras or in the area, we think would be unwise.”) Zelaya responds: “Defending our rights is not an act of violence. . . we are going to seek dialogue.”

July 24: Zelaya bravely arrives at the border between Nicaragua and Honduras. . . on the Nicaraguan side. He stays only thirty minutes and only symbolically steps into Honduras. He explains: “I am not afraid, but I’m not crazy either. There could be violence and I don’t want to be the cause.” I guess encouraging an insurrection is not promoting violence?

He goes on to note that: “The best thing is to reach an understanding that respects the will of the people.” Though he also calls on the United States to not accept the results of the November 29 election unless he is restored to power first. So I guess “will of the people” doesn’t mean the Honduran people?

July 26: After Hillary “Yoda” Clinton calls his move “reeeeckless,” Zelaya responds that she should “stop avoiding the issue. Secretary Clinton should confront the dictatorship with force.” So much for not being the cause of violence.

July 30: Man of peace Zelaya suggests that the Honduran military should rebel.

August 1: Zelaya vows to return to power through peaceful means and denies that he’s rallying groups of armed supporters. Assures Zelaya: “We do not use arms. I am not forming any armed military force, although I have the means to do it.”

August 5: Zelaya tells the Mexican Senate: “The United States is the one that really has the power to impose measures that go beyond diplomacy.” Which begs the question, what lies beyond diplomacy? The answer is usually war, isn’t it?

September 21: Zelaya bravely sneaks across the border in the trunk of a car and beats cheeks for the Brazilian Embassy.

September 27: Uber-Pacifist Zelaya, a virtual modern day Gandhi, declares over the radio: “I call on you to mobilize throughout Honduras, and that everyone who can come to Tegucigalpa to fight in the final offensive.” Thereafter, we get an answer to the old hippie refrain: “what if we had a war and nobody came?” Answer: Idiots end up living in other people’s embassies.

The International Community’s Incredible Shrinking Posture

Finally, we take a look at how the international community, led by Barack “The Second Coming” Obama demonstrated its impotence.

July 21: The United States gets off to a muscular start, declaring that it wants “the constitutional order” in Honduras “restored. . . now.” By this, they meant they wanted Zelaya returned to power immediately.

To make this happen, Obama cut $16.5 million in military aid to Honduras -- that will teach them. Obama also revoked the diplomatic visas of the four top members of Honduras’ government, preventing them from clubbing in Miami on weekends. The United States also sent President Oscar “The Grouch” Arias of Costa Rica to negotiate a resolution with both parties.

July 21: Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim adds to the pressure, warning that these talks are taking too long. Another Brazilian diplomat warned that “the negotiations must not reward a coup.”

July 22: The United States ups the ante by warning Honduras that it would impose tough sanction if Zelaya is not returned. Harrumph harrumph.

July 23: Then things start to go squishy. Upon learning that Zelaya was planning to return to Honduras from his luxury suite at the Venezuela Hilton, the United States suddenly announces that it doesn’t support this move: “we think [this move] would be unwise.”

Jose Miguel Insulza, secretary-general of the Organization of American States, added his voice of caution: “It’s important to make an effort to avoid a likely confrontation.” Cluck. . . cluck.

July 24: Hillary Clinton states that: “President Zelaya’s effort to reach the border is reckless.” Cluck. . . cluck. . . bwak!

August 5: The United States heroically softens its stance, stating that no further sanctions would be coming. Run away! Run away! Whimpers Richard “The Vermin” Verma, of the State Department, “we reject calls for crippling economic sanctions and made clear that all states should seek to facilitate a solution without calls for violence and with respect for the principle of nonintervention.” Nonintervention? Except of course, when it comes to deciding who should rule Honduras.

September 21: Zelaya sneaks across the border even after Team Obama specifically told him not to do this. The United States responds by warning all sides to exercise caution, but takes no action.

September 27: In response to claims that the dastardly Honduran military surrounded the Brazilian embassy and “blasted music” at the building (like the US did in Panama), the United Nations Security Council condemns the Honduran government, but takes no action.

And now, Team Obama decides to give in to the mean old Hondurans. So much for the magical power of dialogue.


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