**UPDATE**: Earthquake Relief in Pakistan
In a previous post, I called for the U.S. to do everything it could to help earthquake victims in Pakistan. I said it would improve the image of the U.S. in the nation whose
madrasas birthed the Taliban and whose population is general radicalized and anti-American - i.e. an ideal breeding ground for terrorists. Indeed, persons involved in the London bombings were linked to Pakistan.
Well, this is another, "I told you so."
U.S. helicopters have flown 2,500 sorties, carried 16,000 passengers and
delivered nearly 6,000 tons of aid. Just as importantly, the Chinook has become
America's new emblem in Pakistan, a byword for salvation in an area where until
recently the U.S. was widely and fanatically detested. Toy Chinooks (made in
China, of course) are suddenly popular with Pakistani children. A Kashmiri imam
who denounced the U.S. in a recent sermon was booed and heckled by worshippers.
"Pakistan is not a nation of ingrates," a local businessman told me over dinner
the other night. "We know where the help is coming from."
The extent of the U.S. military's assistance, well-known to Pakistanis,
barely registers on the radar screens of most Western news outlets. That's a
pity, because it overlooks one of America's most significant hearts-and-minds
successes so far in the Muslim world. The assistance also illustrates
another frequently overlooked fact: When it comes to foreign aid, the Department
of Defense is one of the biggest contributors, and what it provides is something
no other country can replicate. (WSJ)
**UPDATE**: U.N. Investigation of Hariri Murder
The
NYT offers a scathing indictment of the U.N.'s dovishness regarding Syrian interference in Lebanon. The article begins:
Syria is getting away with murder in Lebanon, and the United Nations Security Council is letting it happen. (NYT)
This is the part where I say, "I told you so."
Might Liberals Someday Wake Up to the Perils of Global Governance?
For decades now, conservative activists and libertarian-types (and some liberals) have been the primary voices of caution against the dangers to national sovereignty posed by global governance. Time and time again people like
Thomas Sowell,
Tom DeWeese,
Cheryl Chumley, (all fine folks at
Capitalism Magazine), and
Alex Jones - to name just a few - have warned us about the often subversive encroachment of the New World Order.
Yes, much of the howling about world governance is laced with paranoia and shrill rhetoric. (In that case, its a wonder such warnings haven't been more commonplace in America's newspapers and on the 24-hour news channels.) Nevertheless, it can only be said that wanton negligence, purposeful tunnel-vision, and selective opportunism have allowed things to get as
far as they have.
Might liberals be coming around now, or might they in the future?
Hilariously (IMO), it is Wal-Mart that ignited their fires recently.
Union leaders, politicians and anti-globalization activists have used the courts and zoning laws to keep big-box stores like Wal-Mart out of their neighborhoods.
This week, those retailers will head to Hong Kong to try to persuade negotiators to fashion a trade pact that would make it more difficult for governments to restrict foreign-owned stores, banks and telecommunications companies.
These retailers say they are not making a back-door attempt to undo various countries' laws.....But critics, who include state Sen. Liz Figueroa (D-Fremont) and Los Angeles City Councilman Eric Garcetti, call the move a stealth attack on grass-roots democracy. They fear that the proposals to change the WTO's 1994 General Agreement on Trade in Services would make it easier to attack dozens of U.S. laws designed to restrict the growth of big-box retailers. (emphasis added) (LAT)
Sounds awfully similar to the complaints issued in the articles that I linked to above doesn't it?
For example:
The Global Compact Center and its Responsible Investment Initiative are
thinly veiled attacks against capitalism that, left unchecked, will result in a
ceding of private and sovereign national oversight and regulatory powers to the
global government. (CapMag)
Ironically, even environmentalists - who are among those
most responsible for the massive growth in world government over the last few decades - are not lamenting the incursion of global governing institutions across national and local boundaries.
Campaigners today delivered a petition to the World Trade Organization Director Pascal Lamy during trade talks taking place at the Hong Kong Convention Centre.
Through the petition citizens ask the WTO not to undermine the right of individual countries, in this case European countries, to take appropriate steps to protect their farmland, environment, and consumers from the risks posed by genetically modified food and crops.
Ronnie Hall, Friends of the Earth International's trade campaigner and one of the report's authors said, "The myth of unfettered free trade as a solution to poverty needs to be exploded. Regional and bilateral trade agreements running in parallel are as untransparent and harmful as the WTO." (emphasis added) (ENS)
Unfortunately though, it seems that liberal tunnel-vision on the issue of global governance is not likely to abate any time soon. (As untransparent and harmful as world government is more like it). While I agree with Mr. Hall's statement entirely, it seems liberals still do not recognize global governance itself as a problem, but only global capitalism as they see it. The opposite though might also be said of conservative free-traders who support the WTO but lament organizations like UNESCO.
"What we need now is a halt to trade liberalization negotiations and an urgent review of the impacts of international trade rules on poor people and the environment," Hall said. (ENS)
Like I said, selective opportunism.
I will end this post with a quote from Cheryl Chumley:
The idea of ceding authority to the global government is never one that should be taken lightly..... (CapMag)
Letter to an American Soldier
Be sure to read this letter from Vasko Kohlmayer, an American citizen who defected from communist Czechoslovakia at the age of 19 and now works in London.
Letter to an American Soldier(Hat tip:
The American Thinker)
U.N. Must Broaden Its Investigation Into the Hariri Murder
In a way, two of today's top international headlines define a major part of the legacy of the United Nations - that of too much talk and too little action.
While the U.N. "wrestles" with whether or not to broaden its inquiry (
NYT) into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri (
Scottsman), the people of Lebanon are mourning the death of yet another murdered Lebanese politician who made a name for himself by speaking out against the Syrian occupation of and interference in Lebanon (
AlJazeera). This week's assassination marks at least the fourth believed to be linked to Syria since Syrian troops pulled out of Lebanon this Spring (
RCP/NYP).
Now more than ever, the U.N.
must broaden its investigation into the murder of Rafik Hariri, and into the damaging role that Syria almost certainly continues to play in Lebanon today. If it doesn't, Syria will have little motivation to keep its bombs out of Lebanese politics.
****UPDATE****
As of 12/15, the U.N. has extended its investigation into the death of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, but denied Beirut's request to
broaden the probe. (
ABC)
Hope Keeps Progress Going in Iraq
There are a number of things that are essential to maintaining progress in Iraq - economic development, improved security, and so on. Economists, politicians, and polemicists can measure these those things day in and day out, make speeches about them, and lobby for more and more of them. In the end though, none of that would be enough.
There is something else. Something less tangible, something incalculable, that drives Iraqis to contiue to vote
en masse in the face of threats to their life and leads patriotic men to daily return to the recruiting line outside of a police station that only yesterday was the sceen of death and mayhem.
It is something that did not exist in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, and indeed, that Saddam knew must be eliminated in its entirety for him to maintain his death-grip. In doing so, Saddam managed to subdue, for almost 40 years, a nation of 25 million people who I can attest are some of the most intelligent, determined, and hard-working people on Earth.
It is something I witnessed first-hand on the road to Baghdad, April 20th, 2003. We had stopped our convoy on the side of the highway so everyone could grab a bite to eat. Slowly, the locals had gathered all around us, almost crowding us, anxious to speak to an American soldier or maybe just to see if we were really human. (Prior to the war, rumors were spread that U.S. GIs were robots or machines of some sort.)
An old man, probably in his 60s, joined a group of younger men huddled around our Humvee. I'll never forget the look in his eye, his shaking hands, or the words he said. "I love Bush!" he said. "I hate Saddam. With Saddam, no freedom. Now, we have freedom."
His English was limited and broken, and his statement obviously topical and simplistic to some degree. It was those last two sentences though that I can't forget. "With Saddam, no freedom. Now, we have freedom."
It occured to me that this man probably could not remember a single day of freedom in his life. As I stared at the frail old man, I imagined he might not live much longer. I wondered to myself, "If he and I both died tomorrow, would it have been worth me coming to Iraq?" Then I imagined living, myself, having never known a day of freedom. And it was then I felt that, if that old man and I had both died the next day, his one day of freedom would have been worth my dying for.
Two articles reminded me of that story and reminded me of what it is that truly drives Iraqis to get up every day and risk their lives on the chance that they might find something worth getting up for the next day.
It is
hope. Hope for a better tomorrow. Hope for a better future for their children. Hope, now that the Butcher of Baghdad is no more.
This hope was most recently reflected in an ABC poll of Iraqis in which:
7 out of10 feel their lives are going well, 2/3rds believe life in
Iraq will improve in the next year, 76 percent of Iraqis said they were
"confident" the vote would produce a "stable government".
However, only 44 percent of Iraqis said they believe things are going well
in their country, while 52 percent said they felt the country was "doing badly."
In February 2004, 39 percent of Iraqis said they believed the U.S.
invasion was wrong, but that number has risen to 50 percent. Accordingly, the
percentage of Iraqis who now oppose the U.S. presence jumped from 51 percent to
65 percent. (UPI)
"To Saddam's prisoners, U.S. abuse seems 'a joke'" - The Daily Star of Lebanon"Defying terror to vote for future" - The Boston Globe
"Hands Off Our Water" Say Great Lakes States
Here's a doozy for ya.
Recently, the 8 Great Lakes States, along with two Canadian provinces, signed an agreement that would prevent all other states in the U.S. from having access to the water in the Great Lakes, which holds 90% of the U.S.' fresh water. (
Forbes)
The governors of the states are of course playing this up as an issue of 'conservation' and 'environmental protection', but one can't help but detect a hint of stinginess here.
I'm not saying I disagree with their actions - I'm undecided - but its no more ethical to wrap one's self in environmentalism than it is to wrap one's self in the flag, if that is indeed what they are doing. To do either on dubious terms cheapens those legitimate causes.
The Great Lakes have always been the concern of the Environmental Protection Agency. Worth noting is that there are already at least 140 federal programs to protect the Great Lakes - programs paid for by ALL U.S. TAXPAYERS, not just those of the Great Lakes states. On top of that, the Great Lakes states are now asking U.S. taxpayers to ante up another $300 million in new spending on the Great Lakes. (
NYT)
U.S. Paying for Good News in Iraq?
There has been a big stink recently about the
U.S. allegedly paying Iraqi newspapers to print news stories about the positive things U.S. Forces are doing in Iraq.
So I wondered to myself.... If paying Iraqi newspapers to recognize the positive achievements of U.S. Forces in Iraq is not acceptable, how else might we get this important message to the people of Iraq?
My first thought was to simply import U.S. newspapers into Iraq.
Then, alas, I came to my senses and realized what a
stupid idea THAT was!
Texas Longhorns in the Big XII Championship
What the hell are you doing reading this blog right now!?
You should be watching the Texas Longhorns whoop up on the Colorado Buffalos in the Big XII Championship game on ABC right now!
www.mackbrown-texasfootball.com
Progress for Democracy in the Middle East
Two recent headlines highlight the progress of democracy in the Middle East of late.
In Saudi Arabia, women were permitted to vote and run in elections for the first time. Two women were elected to the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce board - the first elected female officials in Saudi Arabia's modern history. (
Los Angeles Times)
Egypt has also held historic elections, though the elections were tainted by violence and allegations of fraud as was expected. (
BBC)
And now, the president of the United Arab Emirates has announced plans for that country's first elections. (
BBC)
