Category Archives: Middle East

War-Party Prattle

Elections, Iran, Israel, Middle East, Republicans, War

Other highlights (or lowlights, rather) from the CBS/National Journal GOP Debate, which may elicit rhetorical reprisals from my readers:

IRAN: Newt Gingrich exercised his wit in suggesting that Obama had exhausted all the ways to be dumb about Iran. I disagree, but then I am not a neoconservative, and I do not experience a vicarious delight when my country’s military and government bombs, boycotts, and generally bullies barely developed countries. As a prelude to war, Newt was willing to entertain covert operations, co-operation with Israel, but war to break the Iranian regime would be best.

Ron Paul reminded all that war powers were vested in the congressional cockroaches, and warned against Iraq-like war propaganda against mad A-Jad. Still a peculiar idea, if to judge by the facilitator’s facial expression.

Rick Perry, who had taken his meds for the occasion, wanted to shut down the Iranian economy (all the better to starve its people). Good going for a goon.

The Other Rick advocated funding the pro-democracy movement. (With what? Monopoly money?) Santorum also believes that foreign aid creates jobs (although not in Iran). (By logical extension, RS, can you perhaps explain why Republicans assert that the assorted stimulus initiatives have failed to create jobs? How does their source of funding differ from that of foreign aid? Oops; you’re talking to the hand, Ilana Mercer. Not that his inquisitors would ever ask, but RS is incapable of explaining away that “minor” lapse in logic.) RS liked the idea of covert activity targeting Iranian scientists, and advocated the only thing with which I agree: the unleashing of computer viruses on nuclear programming. (See “Cyber-Warfare: Is It Libertarian?”)

Water-boarding babe Michele Bachmann warned of a nuclear conflagration involving Israel. As much as libertarians prefer to pretend otherwise, this is a reality the tiny country should entertain, as no one else is willing to face it, and many even delight in it.

MORE to come.

UPDATED: And the Anti-War Winner Is …

China, Elections, Foreign Policy, Middle East, Military, Republicans, War

Jon Huntsman. In the CBS/National Journal GOP Debate, the former Utah governor articulated the best foreign-policy vision. “I say this nation’s future is not Afghanistan. This nation’s future is not Iraq. This nation’s future is how prepared we are to meet the 21st century competitive challenges, that’s economic and that’s education and that’s going to play out over the Asia Pacific region, and we’re either prepared for that reality or we’re not. I don’t want to be nation building in Afghanistan when this nation so desperately needs to be built,” Huntsman added.

Huntsman is nothing if not consistent on the foreign-policy front. As I pointed out following the FoxNews/Google debate, Huntsman has “managed to distill a foreign-policy vision better than the rest.” Earlier in September, commenting on the foreign-policy pose Huntsman struck in Florida, I gave the governor points for the libertarian momentum he was gathering by “brilliantly commandeer Ron Paul’s argument for divesting from Afghanistan.”

Huntsman stood out from the crowd in his stark common sense on China too, both because Ron Paul’s positions were not solicited, and because, had they been solicited, Paul would have rambled. Naturally, Huntsman, a former ambassador to China, is not Sinophobic, as all the other candidates are, and grasps that a trade war with China will hurt consumers in the US. No one mentioned the delicate issue of continuously dissing our largest creditor.

National Journal’s correspondents—they provided coverage like the real pros they are—write: Huntsman’s foreign policy experience has largely been overshadowed during the campaign, but he has made his mark for urging the country’s complete withdrawal from the Middle East. It’s a position that’s to the left even of President Obama.

More to follow.

UPDATE: Regarding the Facebook thread. Spare me. Did I say JH was the answer? Ridiculous. I said he articulates very well the American exhaustion with war and intervention abroad. You can’t just expect that, b/c you and I know Paul is better on the issues, everyone else knows the same. Ron Paul has to be able to explain why he is better. Has he done so?

I am not sure why individuals take commentary on a political performance as undying support for a candidate. Sigh. It isn’t; it’s a commentary about a performance.

Springtime in Israel

Economy, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Middle East, Technology, Terrorism

The crazies are threatening it on the north (Lebanon & Syria), the south (the lovely Egyptian revolutionaries), and the east (the Palestinian Authority, Jordan and beyond), but, as the US and most of Europe decline, Israel’s economy flourishes. Here are Israel’s fiscal fundamentals, courtesy of Bloomberg.com:

• GDP growth of 4.8 percent this year
• A raised credit rating of A+
• Very low unemployment
• “60 companies traded on the Nasdaq Stock Market, the most of any nation outside North America after China.”
• “The largest number of startup companies per capita in the world.”
• A ranking of “third in terms of projected growth this year among MSCI’s list of 24 developed economies, after 6 percent for Hong Kong and 5.3 percent for Singapore, according to the IMF.”
• “Israel’s exports are high-added value exports like informatics and technology”: This means the stuff the Israelis make adds real value and jobs, unlike Obama’s state-manufactured jobs, which are a result of moving money around.

SADLY, that thing we in the US celebrate and anticipate—the Arab spring—threatens commence, innovation and economic prosperity in the region’s most productive oasis. Some “spring” …

Murder On Her Mind (Libya Had Paid for Lockerbie)

Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Islam, Just War, Middle East, Military, Neoconservatism, Propaganda, Terrorism, The West, War

The following is excerpted from “Murder on Her Mind,” now on WND.COM:

“We came, we saw, he died,” cackled Hillary Rodham Clinton. The gorgon who heads Caesar’s state department was gripped by a paroxysm of joy when a CBS News reporter informed her that Col. Muammar Qaddafi had been executed. ‘Veni, Vidi, Vici’: ‘I came, I saw, I conquered’ is attributed to Julius Caesar in 47 B.C.

The hilarity unfolded on October 20, 2011. Backed by American drones and French fighter jets above, our Libyan buddies, “the rebels,” apprehended Qaddafi as he fled his hometown of Sirte en route to Misrata, both on the Mediterranean Sea. As they lynched their former leader on camera, the rebels emitted their version of Hillary’s blood-curdling riff: ‘Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.’ Sophisticated enough to film their ‘justice,’ these atavists had no qualms about tearing into a defenseless individual before summarily shooting him in the head. …

The war in Libya was Hilary’s special project. As in Greek mythology, it all began with three Gorgon sisters. Medusa’s posse included Samantha Power (special assistant to the president and member of his National Security Council), and UN Ambassador Susan Rice. The women devised the casus belli for this war, and cultivated the ‘angels and demons’ Disney production, which starred an evil dictator who was killing his noble people, and three amazon warriors, who—high on estrogen-driven paternalism—rode to the rescue.

Human Rights Watch is tracking the blood sports in Libya as best it can (for the NTC is as transparent as the emperor in the White House). And there’s a lot to laugh about.” …

The complete column, “Murder on Her Mind,” is now on WND.COM. READ IT.

My book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” is available from Amazon. (Don’t forget those reviews; they help.)

A Kindle copy is also on sale.

Barnes and Noble is always well-stocked and ships within 24 hours.

Still better, shipping is free and prompt if you purchase Into the Cannibal’s Pot from The Publisher.

UPDATED (Oct. 28): Blood Feud? On the column’s WND Facebook Wall, some individuals have alluded to the proper way to exact justice on Col. Muammar Gadhafi. The implication is that Gadhafi needed killing, but not public lynching. I’m an Old-Testament kind of gal; everyone who reads this column, knows this about me. But I’m for justice, not a program of pogroms targeting all the men in the world the US deems to be bad.

Read the BBC News excerpt below. History tells us that the Libyan leadership had taken “responsibility for the bombing in 2003 and paid compensation to the victims.” It also handed over the “two Libyans suspected of organising the incident in 1999 for trial in The Hague.”

The Anglo-American axis agreed to these terms; it agreed that Libya had paid for Lockerbie. Primitives carry on a blood feud for eternity. And untrustworthy snakes go back on their word. How inspiring would it have been had the Egyptian springsters, over whom almost all media (libertarian too) slobbered, and the Libyan “rebels,” began their “democracy” with a show of forgiveness: Let their old dictators retire in ignomy. Leave them alone. Why kill them? (Mubarak is next, you know it.)

Via BBC New:

After the 1988 bombing of a PanAm plane above the Scottish town of Lockerbie, which the US blamed on Libya, the Gaddafi regime was shunned by much of the international community.
But it underwent a dramatic rehabilitation by taking formal responsibility for the bombing in 2003 and paying compensation to the victims.
Two Libyans suspected of organising the incident were handed over in 1999 for trial in The Hague under Scottish law. In 2001 one of the suspects was found guilty of killing 270 people in the bombing.
The UN lifted sanctions, and Libya’s subsequent renunciation of weapons of mass destruction further improved relations with the West.