Category Archives: Foreign Policy

Keep It Regional

Foreign Policy, Hillary Clinton, Islam, Middle East, Neoconservatism, UN, War

Al Jazeera, “headquartered in Doha,” “is the “broadcaster owned by the state of Qatar through the Qatar Media Corporation.” Toward Syria, the Gulf state of Qatar has adopted the regime-change policy of Saudi Arabia (in particular), the Arab League (in general), John McCain’s, Sean Hannity’s, and as many liberals. While Qatar intensifies its efforts to overthrow Syrian President Bashar, it is, simultaneously, supporting Bahrain’s crackdown on dissent. (An Al Jazeera correspondent out of Beirut was so enraged by the network’s bias that he resigned.)

In the Middle East it all boils down to faction and tribe.

Not so long ago, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, ruler of Qatar, asserted that “Arab countries should send troops into Syria.”

We can agree with the Sheikh that the US has no business in Syria. But good luck to him in handling Arab civil wars regionally. South African President Jacob Zuma’s attempted to deal with Libya locally (in the Continent), but the “gorgon who heads Caesar’s state department” (Hillary) would have none of it.

Not even the African Union, which has a good working relationship with warlords, could keep the Über dogs of war of (America masquerading as “NATO”) from leveling Libya. The rest is history.

Keeping Them Dishonest

Foreign Policy, Middle East, Neoconservatism, Russia, Terrorism

Anderson Cooper is reporting from the Syria-Turkish border (or maybe the bathhouse). Cooper has allowed a brief segment in which The Rebels (our side, of course) are arresting and coercing other Syrians to join their cause, at the point of a gun.

As usual, “Keeping them Honest Cooper” (that’s his slogan) is soliciting the bellicose advice of the Arab neoconservatives. The local chalabies, if you will. (Chalaby was the Iraqi who agitated on American tv for American intervention in Iraq, and fed the New York Times’ birdbrain Judith Miller, now perching at FoxNews, with the “intelligence” she presented to the public.)

Fouad A. Ajami, if I recall, once even called for a Marshal Plan for the Arab countries. Some of the Arab neoconservatives were once close to Bush, and keep reinventing themselves as perfectly legitimate (because not Jewish) agitators for US intervention in the Middle east.

In any case, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told reporters on Monday something that “Keeping them Dishonest Cooper” failed to: “weapons continue to flow to [Syria’s] militant opposition.”

Car bombs were not the norm in Syria; now they are. “At least 55 people have been killed and 372 others injured by two powerful blasts in the Syrian capital on Thursday morning,” reports RT.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov does not rule out the possibility of outside forces being involved in masterminding the Damascus attacks. [Qatar and Saudi Arabia, for sure, and, in all likelihood, the US] “At least some of our partners are doing some practical things aimed at exploding the situation [in Syria] both in a direct and indirect sense of the word. I mean the explosions you have mentioned,” Lavrov commented on the blasts during a press conference in Beijing.
Qatar and Saudi Arabia have admitted that they support Syrian opposition financially. It is believed that Turkey is turning a blind eye on armed groups using Syrian refugee camps on Turkish territory near the border to rest and regroup before moving into Syria.

Just where Anderson is.

Body-Parts Porn Again

Foreign Policy, Just War, Middle East, Military, War

OOPS, GI JOE’S BEEN BAD, AGAIN. Corpse desecration and other crimes against the occupied were said to be the purview of a “few bad apples” in an otherwise stellar American military. For a rarity, the body-parts pornography appears to be quite common. Naturally, every rational individual knows (NOT!) that blame lies with … the L.A. Times for exposing the latest incident of beastly behavior. All the better to deflect from the perps and the King’s comitatus that keeps them in blighted and benighted Afghanistan.

So what exactly are we talking about? Over to the LA Times:

The paratroopers had their assignment: Check out reports that Afghan police had recovered the mangled remains of an insurgent suicide bomber. Try to get iris scans and fingerprints for identification.
The 82nd Airborne Division soldiers arrived at the police station in Afghanistan’s Zabol province in February 2010. They inspected the body parts. Then the mission turned macabre: The paratroopers posed for photos next to Afghan police, grinning while some held — and others squatted beside — the corpse’s severed legs. …

As was remarked upon in “To Pee Or Not To Pee is Not the Question,” “…the truth about the people we are pissing on and pissing off in Afghanistan is quite simple. America’s indisputably brave soldiers have been ordered to, at once, woo and war against a primitive Pashtun population. These Pashtuns disdain the central government we desperately want them to obey. So it goes: We help local groups believed to be patriotic, but, at the same time, end up establishing an authoritarian protectorate they despise.”

Till Debt Do the US Apart

Debt, Economy, EU, Europe, Foreign Aid, Foreign Policy

In “One Nation Under Inflation,” I noted that “America’s debt-to-GDP ratio is larger than the European Union’s.” I was unaware that US debt “is greater than the combined debt of the entire Eurozone and the U.K.”

America’s debt is currently $15.1 trillion, while the Eurozone (which includes France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, the U.K., and others) has a combined debt of $12.7 trillion. (All dollar amounts are in U.S. dollars, and the data refers to closing 2011 numbers.)
The Eurozone is larger than the United States, so America’s debt per capita also exceeds the Eurozone’s. According to the Census Bureau, the U.S. has a population of 313 million, whereas the Eurozone has a population in excess of 331 million.

(Weekly Standard)

Nary a mentioned was made of this apparently minor fact on Fox Business, while the Fox Business anchors discussed Christine Lagarde’s demands for more billions in bailouts from the US to the EU. “More firepower” is how the managing director of the International Monetary Fund described her agency’s requirements.

It’s Lagarde’s prerogative to ask for money to increase her bureaucracy’s sphere of influence. It’s the obligation of the ass with ears who leads the USA to turn her down.

So, it’s not Lagarde’s asking that ought to worry; it’s the fact that, according to Fox News, she expressed confidence that the US would do the “right” thing by her.