Category Archives: Middle East

UPDATED: Zuming Into Action

Africa, America, EU, Europe, Middle East, South-Africa, War

Kudos to South African President Jacob Zuma for attempting to broker a ceasefire in Libya. Zuma has embarked on his second tour of duty in Libya. The mission? To get Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to say and do the requisite things that’ll pacify NATO’s (aka the USA’s) new allies, also known as The Rebels.

The African Union, which harbors many a mini-warlord, is toiling to get the Über dogs of war of “NATO” (read America) to stop leveling Libya.

Zuma is an interesting guy, as our friend Dr. Dan Roodt, founder of the Pro-Afrikaans Action Group (PRAAG), has pointed out.

UPDATE (May 31): On Libya, Zuma sounds a lot like … me. From “Libya: A War of the Womb”:

If indeed we’re subsidizing “freedom” for the Libyans, and are fighting their battles—then we’ve also increased their impotence and diminished their initiative. Subsidize individuals because you believe they are helpless—and you’ll get more learned helplessness. Besides, what are these Libyans? Wards of the crumbling American Empire? Whatever happened to fighting your own revolutions?

Speaking in Tripoli, Zuma divulged that he and “the tyrant” (the MailOnline’s locution—and idea of impartial reporting) “discussed the necessity of giving the Libyan people the opportunity to solve their problem on their own.”

What audacious idea will Zuma come up with next?

UPDATED: The American People’s House? (Telling Juxtaposition)

America, Constitution, Elections, Foreign Policy, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, libertarianism, Middle East, Nationhood

It was an abomination when Mexican President Felipe Calderon was allowed to address the Congress in May of 2010, and it is an abomination for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to have been permitted to issue forth before a joint session of the American Congress. Calderon, you recall, was toiling tirelessly for the benefit of millions of Mexicans living in the US illegally. From the White House Rose Garden, and then again in an address to Congress, he chastised overrun Arizonans for “forcing our people to face discrimination.”

Netanyahu is not as bad as all that. And both these respective foreign leaders are patriots, looking out for their countrymen.

The American people’s representatives are the traitors here, for it is they who’ve permitted this reoccurring spectacle; it is they who’ve turned the American People’s House into a one-way exchange program for foreign dignitaries.

Whose House is it, anyway?

UPDATE (May 25): Bibi vs. “O’sissy,” via Pajama Media.

Bibi vs. "Osissy"

My Facebook comment in response to the predictable:

“Please quit the tinny robotic, liberal, moral equivalence about the mettle of men: Bibi vs. Obama; Bibi vs. socialist (alleged) rapist. The libertarian non-aggression axiom does not have to turn one into a sissy detached from reality. Or make one a moral relativist. The above image, via a facebook friend, says it all.”

UPDATED: The Triumph of Anarcho-Terrorism

Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Middle East, Nationhood, Palestinian Authority, Technology, Terrorism

On purely utilitarian grounds, it’s difficult to understand the “civilized” world’s almost universal drive to shrink the civilized sphere that is Israel and expand the anarcho-terrorist territory that is the Palestinian Authority. Why in the world would anyone who prizes productivity, industry, and trade push for the eviction of productive, industrious, traders from the “disputed territories,” only to replace them with destructive occupants? Even if you believe this folly serves the cause of justice, you have to admit that ceding territory to the Palestinians is a terrible waste of scarce resources.

In 2008, the US ran a “goods trade deficit with Israel of $7.8 billion.” We still do (link). Why? Because Israelis make and export things, a lot of high-tech things. Other than explosives, animate and inanimate, what have the Palestinians ever made and traded? Why, without Israel, Palestinians would be without electricity. The main market for Palestinian goods (labor) is Israel. Yet the Palestinians keep bombing their economic lifeline.

Since its independence, Israel has demonstrated its capacity for self-governance. Since they began demanding self-determination, Palestinians have proven incapable of the same. Any more territories Israel cedes will soon fall into disrepair, as did Gaza.

The Palestinians can’t feed themselves, although they manage to cannibalize their own and those around them. Still, the so-called civilized world wants to imperil the existence of the those who’ve turned a howling desert into a thriving country, and reward a warring, whining faction of self-styled victims.

Why? It’s a vexing question.

UPDATE (May 24): There is an interesting thread on Facebook. My response will give you an idea of the discussion’s direction:

“Euclid was a Greek mathematician [not an Arab]. I am not sure what Chris means. But so as not to advance something along the lines of the mythistory called Afrocentrism, let me say that “The origins of algebra can be traced to the ancient Babylonians.” And then the Indians, who were subsequently brutalized under some or other caliphate.

As Mises observed, no doubt, the Arabs were great preservers of culture by means of its translation. They were also great copiers too. No doubt there was an Arab civilizational heyday. But innovation was less in that DNA…

Cain Un-Able

Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Middle East, Political Economy, Republicans

What a great title from NPR: “Herman Cain Wasn’t Able On Palestinian Right Of Return Question.” (That is if you know the Hebrew Bible.) It captures this Republican presidential contender’s Palinesque lack of command of basic facts, in general, and in the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians, in particular. The man is not only clueless, but perfectly comfortable in holding court on an issue about which he knows nothing. The last quality is way worse than the first. Check Cain’s insertion of the “compassionate” adjective at the end, vis-a-vis Israel. You can win elections in America armed with a fatuous vocabulary that includes words like “hope, change, compassion, dreams.”

Fox News Sunday’s host Chris Wallace: Where do you stand on the right of return?

CAIN: The right of return? (Pause) The right of return? (Pause)

WALLACE: The Palestinian right of return.

CAIN: That is something that should be negotiated. That is something that should be negotiated.

WALLACE: Do you think the Palestinian refugees, the people who were kicked out of the land in 1948, should be able or should have any right to return to Israeli land?

CAIN: Yes. But under — but not under Palestinian conditions. Yes. They should have a right to come back if that is a decision that Israel wants to make.

Back to — it’s up to Israel to determine the things they will accept. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made it real clear in his statement following the statement that President Obama made. They are wiling to make some concessions. They are willing to give on a lot of things. They are willing to be compassionate.

[SNIP]

I “Liked” Vox Day’s evisceration of the Republicans’ token racial candidate’s economics:

“He is not even close to being a genuine conservative on the single most important issue presently facing the nation. Indeed, both his economic philosophy and his employment record are quite literally Communist. In the fifth of the “10 Planks” of the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx demanded “Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.” In the United States, credit has been centralized in an exclusive government monopoly granted to the Federal Reserve; Mr. Cain was the deputy chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City from 1992-1994 and the chairman from 1995-1996.

MORE.