Monthly Archives: April 2015

Right

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Sydney Seiler, Deputy DNI Mission Manager for North Korea and the US envoy to the six-nation talks on northern Korea’s nuclear weapons program, had some…advice…for that nation.

[He] said Tuesday that North Korea should learn from the emerging nuclear deal with Iran that Washington is willing to engage its adversaries if it has a “credible” partner to negotiate with.

It’s certainly true that northern Korea can be expected to learn from the emerging nuclear deal with Iran. They can see what can be had through negotiating with credulous partners.

Another parallel that northern Korea can surely recognize, according to Seiler; although not in the way he meant:

Seiler said there has been no sign in the last two years that Pyongyang is willing to de-nuclearize….

Indeed. Just as there’s been no sign in the last several years that Iran is willing to stop its nuclear weapons program before getting the bomb, also “despite sanctions and diplomatic isolation.”

Then Seiler, as is typical of this administration, exposed himself. Badly.

North Korea “may not have learned any lesson” from the Iran talks, and if it had, “we would perhaps [have] seen it earlier.”

No, northern Korea has learned one very valuable lesson from the Iran talks: stonewalling works. We’ll see in short order whether northern Korea learns the follow-on lesson: using Iran’s technique for handling credulity pays dividends.

It just doesn’t get any more feckless than this.

Protect People, Not Borders?

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That’s what Maximilian Popp, over at Spiegel Online International, thinks. The caption of the lead image is this:

The mass deaths of refugees like those seen this weekend on the European Union’s external borders is not a consequence of politicians looking away. We are in fact causing the problem with our Fortress Europe policies.

The capsizing of a refugee boat with the loss of the lives of hundreds was not caused by European policies, whether national or European. Neither was the murder of seven Christians on another refugee boat by their Muslim fellow refugees. Those were caused by a boat captain’s error and by Muslim murderers.

Sure, to some extent, incidents like those beg the question. But Popp is presupposing the wrong problem.

The mass deaths of refugees at Europe’s external borders are no accidents—they are the direct result of European Union policies.

Why are these refugees flooding the Mediterranean, the land bridges into Europe, or flooding the US’ southern border? They think there’s a much better life to be had in Europe and in the US. It’s as simple as that. EU policies have nothing to do with that, except to the extent that EU policies create an economic, political, and social environment that makes it possible for a man to realize his and his family’s full potential, instead of being held back by the barbarism of the environments these folks are fleeing.

 

A nation must first exist, and then it must first protect its own people, must first secure its own people’s prosperity. It must protect its own borders. Only when a nation has secured itself can it have any means of helping refugees. If borders aren’t protected, and protected first, nations won’t exist, and so there will be no entity extant with the capacity to help refugees. Indeed, rather tautologically, there will be no refugees, only people roaming and searching. And no place for anyone to search for other than “not here.”

No nation has an obligation to let anyone in who demands it, or even who simply comes across its border, no more than does a homeowner have an obligation to allow anyone in through the door, or window, who wants it or succeeds in the penetration. Allowing such a thing would directly destroy the house, and the nation.

A nation, and the men who are that nation, have a Judeo-Christian obligation to help those less fortunate—refugees here—certainly. But that help is best done, not by encouraging the flood of refugees, but by helping them at their source: correcting the barbarism in their originating environment, helping the people of those nations develop—and implement—the policies that will foster an economic, political, and social environment that will allow them to prosper where they are.

Until that’s done, the flood of refugees will only continue, the prosperity of their target nations will be drained away, and there will be no means of helping them anywhere. After that’s done, even after a good start has been made, there still will be a flow of refugees, but it will a trickle easily managed by the receiving nations. And that trickle will have far fewer incidents of boat captain error or of refugee on refugee murder.

Hillary Clinton’s “Reset”

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From Thursday’s The New York Times comes this lurid tale of money and women.

Beyond mines in Kazakhstan that are among the most lucrative in the world, the sale [to Rosatom of a Canadian company with uranium-mining stakes stretching from Central Asia to the American West] gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States. Since uranium is considered a strategic asset, with implications for national security, the deal had to be approved by a committee composed of representatives from a number of United States government agencies. Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then headed by…Hillary Rodham Clinton.

As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.

2009-2013, you’ll recall, was Hillary Clinton’s term as Secretary of State.

There’s this additional money:

And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr Clinton received $500,000 [that pay disparity, again] for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.

Clinton’s response to this? Here it is, through her National Press Secretary, Brian Fallon:

[No one] has ever produced a shred of evidence supporting the theory that Hillary Clinton ever took action as secretary of state to support the interests of donors to the Clinton Foundation.

Notice that. She didn’t deny the NYT‘s reporting, she wholly ignored the question of her involvement in the turning over of American uranium mines to Russia, instead all she had was a “You got nothin’ on me, copper.”

Clinton’s “Reset” button for Russia actually translates from the Russian as “overcharged.”

She’s overcharged for, indeed. For Americans. Cheap, though, for Russia.

But we–and she–are just haggling over her price.

A Saudi Cease Fire

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Recall Libya and Europe’s ejection of Muammar Gadhafi from power. Shortly into the air campaign supporting Libyan rebel efforts, that campaign nearly ground to a halt because the Europeans—really—ran out of ordnance to drop on Gadhafi and his loyalist forces. The Unites States had to step in and rearm the European forces in order for the campaign to continue.

Earlier this week, Saudi Arabia called a halt to its air campaign in support of the just-overthrown government and against Houthi terrorists in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia declared late Tuesday that strikes against the Houthis would transition to a mostly political phase, but left open the possibility of using military action to halt the spread of the militants.

This was followed the next day by the Houthis continuing their advance, including capture of the government forces’ brigade headquarters in Taiz, the country’s third largest city, and it had been immediately preceded by the terrorists’ capture of a major seaport, apparently in preparation for receiving Iranian seaborne arms shipments.

The US isn’t rearming/resupplying the Saudis as far as I can tell. This bodes ill for the Saudis and for Araby in general—and for Israel, on the back side of Araby from Iran—in the coming confrontation between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

I hope I’m being overly paranoid. The Saudis also released a statement:

…the new phase of operations “will support the Yemeni government on the ground as it works toward building a stable and secure Yemen[.]”

We’ll see.

Update: It appears the Saudis, or at least their coalition, are resuming airstrikes against the Houthis.  If true, this would be to the good.

An alternative reason for the ceasefire may be this:

The Obama administration told the Saudis the military campaign should be wrapped up quickly because it was no longer having the desired effect, senior US officials said. In the private messages, the administration said the campaign risked escalating into a broader conflict….

The “broader conflict” which President Barack Obama fears is one with Iran.  Never mind that someone needs to stand up to the Iranians and halt their expansion and their hegemonic dreams, and the Obama administration hasn’t the heart for it.  Never mind, too, that the Yemeni situation is only a small part of those dreams, and Iran is unlikely to force the question here.  Yet.

Signals

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An aircraft carrier has been sent to join the little flotilla sailing up and down the Gulf of Aden, and the Obama administration is very adamant about what it’s there for.

State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf insisted Tuesday that the US ships were “only” there to “ensure the shipping lanes remain open and safe”—and “not to do anything in terms of those Iranian ships.”

Regarding the premise that we intended anything serious in the waters off Yemen, like intercepting Iranian ships delivering weapons to their terrorists in Yemen, Harf was indignant:

That is blatantly untrue—so this discreet movement of US assets is for a discreet purpose.

President Barack Obama repeated the premise through his Press Secretary, Josh Earnest:

…the ships are in the region primarily to “protect the freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce.”

No, the signaling is quite clear, and Iran has received the message. Obama is so desperate for his “deal” with Iran regarding the latter’s nuclear weapons program that he’s perfectly willing to watch Iranian arms shipments to terrorists in the Middle East from close up. He’s perfectly willing to put our sailors so close that they can see the Iranian sailors biting their thumbs at us.