Category Archives: foreign policy

The UN Misspeaks Again

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The United Nation’s International Court of Justice, in a non-binding “advisory” opinion, says Great Britain should give up its territory in the Indian Ocean.

the United Kingdom carved up Mauritius illegally when it ended its colonization of the Indian Ocean islands and must “bring to an end its administration of the Chagos Archipelago as rapidly as possible.”

Sadly, this is typical of the knee-jerk anti-West bias that has overrun the UN over the last several decades.  It is, also, another useless mouthing of that biased body that is better left ignored.  Great Britain should continue quietly going about its business in its territory—wherever that territory might lie.

No Delay

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European Council President Donald Tusk, whose contempt for the Brits and their move to free themselves of the European Union is well known, now is insisting that Great Britain just willy-nilly delay its exit past the current legally mandated 29 March date.

European Council President Donald Tusk said that keeping the current divorce date at March 29 would be risky, as a revised deal is not in sight and businesses are worried about a chaotic exit under a “no deal” situation.

Perhaps a no-deal Brexit would be risky, but it would be considerably less risky, though, than adhering to the (failed in Parliament) “deal” imposed on a too timid British Prime Minister Teresa May that would leave the Brits in servitude to the EU.

Nor will it be as chaotic as the moles of Brussels make it out to be.  While London-based financial companies, for instance, are opening branches in continental capitals (particularly Berlin), they’re not pulling up stakes.

So far, May is showing some new-found backbone and staying on schedule.  She needs to maintain that; Brexit, deal or no deal, must occur on time.

Full stop.

Update: Sadly, this is more typical of May’s backbone:

Prime Minister Theresa May will allow parliament to vote to delay the U.K.’s exit from the European Union if lawmakers reject her divorce agreement next month….

One More Reason

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…for Great Britain to go out from the European Union.

Donald Tusk, European Council President:

I’ve been wondering what that special place in hell looks like for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan of how to carry it out safely.

To which Guy Verhofstadt, European Parliament representative for Brexit negotiations, added

I doubt Lucifer would welcome them, as after what they did to Britain, they would even manage to divide Hell.

Tusk also said

“our most important task is to prevent a No Deal scenario”, Mr Tusk stressed.
But he said that Brussels would make “no new offer” to the UK….

There seems to be no “sketch of a plan” because the Brits expected—naively, it turns out—that the EU would negotiate in good faith rather than demanding punitive conditions for the Brits’ impudence, and now the EU refuses to negotiate at all.

Tusk, and Verhofstadt, have given the Europeans’ game away.

Foreign Meddling

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More European nations have recognized the Guaidó government as the legitimate government of Venezuela following the passing of those nations’ Sunday deadline for Maduro to schedule free elections with no action by Maduro (though left unaddressed is the conundrum of how Maduro could schedule anything if he’s not the legitimate head of government).

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin demurs.

…domestic issues should be solved by Venezuela and its people. “Attempts to legitimize usurped power” constitute[] “interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs….”

Two things make Putin’s position risibly hypocritical.  One is the idea that calling the Guaidó administration a usurped power is itself a blatant interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs.  The Venezuelan legislature—the legitimately elected one, not Maduro’s puppet show—constitutionally asserted its authority and with that authority swore in Juan Guaidó as interim President, pending free elections of a new President and legislature.

Take careful note of that: the legislature swore in a temporary President, not a President-for-life as Maduro’s henchmen have done.

The other thing is the right and duty of a people—acknowledged in so many words in our Declaration of Independence, but entirely applicable to all peoples—when faced with a Government embarked on a long train of abuses and usurpation [that] evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism…to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Again, contra Putin, the Venezuelan people are exercising their right and duty to solve Venezuela’s problem.

It is the right and duty of all other free nations to support the Venezuelan people’s effort.  It is the right and duty of all other free nations to block despotic nations from interfering with these people’s quest for freedom.

Full stop.

German Intransigence

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Last Tuesday, the British Parliament voted to send Prime Minister Theresa May back to Brussels to renegotiate the status of Great Britain’s Northern Ireland border with the Republic of Ireland, which is part of the Brit-EU exit agreement that the Parliament had earlier rejected.  The same day, the Parliament also rejected an attempt by Labour to delay by nine months the actual departure of Great Britain from the EU, leaving the date set at 29 March.

European Council President Donald Tusk said through his spokesman

The backstop is part of the Withdrawal Agreement, and the Withdrawal Agreement is not open for renegotiation.

That’s standard fare for the EU, which never has negotiated in good faith and which has all along faced a negotiator, in May, whose heart never has been in leaving the EU.

It’s Germany, though, that not only refuses outright to renegotiate a small aspect of that failed departure agreement, now is directly interfering in the domestic affairs of Great Britain.  The nature of the current “agreement” would

keep Northern Ireland (and by extension the UK) in the EU customs union in order to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland.

A hard departure would take all of Great Britain (and by extension Northern Ireland) out of the EU and its internal free trade/free movement of goods and people zone altogether.  That might necessitate customs checks and border entry stations.

Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Mass:

We will not allow Ireland to be isolated on this issue.

Never mind that the only ones isolating the Republic of Ireland on this issue are Germany and the EU.  It gets worse, though.  Jürgen Trittin, Co-Chairman of Germany’s Green Party’:

It’s clear that we won’t accept a militarized border in Ireland[.]

Leaving aside the cynically constructed straw man nature of this claim—no one is talking about militarizing any border, only of the possibility of setting up customs stations—whether Great Britain chooses to “militarize” any of its borders is strictly a domestic matter for the Brits to decide.  They cannot, after all, station troops anywhere along any of their borders except on their side of them.  Trittin knows this.  (Beyond that, this ban also is a blatant interference in the internal affairs of the Republic of Ireland for the same reason.)

Aside from that, Trittin’s bar would result in…what, exactly?  What does Germany, or the EU, propose to do were the Brits to decide to “militarize” its border with the Republic of Ireland?  What concrete steps is Germany implying it, or the EU, would take to enforce its bar on the “militarization?”

Plainly, it’s an empty threat, intended only to intimidate and, worse, to meddle in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation—and so vindicating that nation’s decision to leave such an entity as the EU.