Category Archives: foreign policy

Pride and Reluctance

Posted on by
Reply

Two hundred and seventy-six young girls were kidnapped by the terrorist organization* Boko Haram, whose leader is threatening to sell them into slavery, if he hasn’t already.

On the matter of offers from the US, Great Britain, Israel, and a number of others of military help both in dealing with these terrorists and presently in recovering the stolen girls, though, Nigerian pride seems more important than the safety of Nigerian children.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan’s spokesman Doyin Okupe, has said about foreign military aid

Nigeria is a very proud nation. We feel that to subjugate our military under another world power would be to really compromise our integrity.

How is your national integrity, President Jonathan, not already disastrously compromised by your failure to protect even your children and your present inability to recover them?

 

*Aside: Why is it that so many “news” organizations and “journalists,” all of whom pretend to respectability, keep referring to such gangs as “insurgents” or “radical Islamists?” Why are they so desperate to avoid naming these organized mobs for what they are: terrorists?

The People’s Republic of China Escalates

Posted on by
Reply

…and the Obama administration bleats. The escalation comes in the context of a PRC attempt to install a large oil rig near the Paracel Islands in waters claimed by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the Republic of China (note: not the PRC; their claim is nothing other than an illegitimate sea grab).

…about 80 Chinese vessels had moved into an area…. [Vietnamese officials] said Chinese vessels repeatedly rammed into and fired water cannons at Vietnamese vessels, injuring at least six Vietnamese sailors.

Instead of doing anything concrete, Daniel Russel, Assistant Secretary (of State), Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, while claiming to understand the importance of Vietnam to US security interests in the region, offered this, instead:

Competing sovereignty claims in disputed areas, including the Paracels, must be dealt with peacefully, must be dealt with diplomatically, and must be dealt with in accordance to international laws.

He added that the US has no position on the relative merits of any claims in the region.

Of course not.

Ya ta ta, ya ta ta, ya ta ta. Moral relativism. Ya ta ta, ya ta ta, ya ta ta.

All Two of Them

Posted on by
Reply

The IAEA is planning to visit two—count them—Iranian nuclear…sites. Naturally, IRNA, the government-run Islamic Republic News Agency is touting this as fulfilling “a series of demands made by the United Nations nuclear watchdog.”

But of course. We won’t mention all the other sites that Iran won’t let the IAEA visit, much less inspect thoroughly, on this trip. It’s a toothless watchdog, anyway.

Aspects of the visits include

[a] visit [to] a uranium mine and a uranium-thickening facility in central Iranian towns of Ardakan and Yazd on Monday and Tuesday.

And

“Following the visit, Iran will be able to say that the seven agreed measures between Iran and the agency have fulfilled,” [Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Spokesman Behrouz] Kamalvandi said. “Already six steps have been taken.”

Never mind the advanced notice of such “inspections,” during which Iran can manipulate what will be allowed to be seen.

Never mind, either, that even after the “seven agreed measures” there continues to be no discernible effect on Iran’s progress toward nuclear weapons.

The visits, and their predecessors, all take place in a carefully choreographed sequence, with equally set timing, all under Iran’s control. Of course the goodies are being equally carefully choreographed so as to remain hidden from fundamentally incurious UN eyes.

Economic Fears and War

Posted on by
Reply

It would seem that European fears of the damage done by properly thorough economic sanctions against Russia for its invasion and occupation/partition of Ukraine might be overblown. As has been suggested before.

French bank Société Générale SA said Wednesday that a €525 million ($731.26 million) write-down on its Russian business pushed first-quarter net profit down 13%, while Carlsberg A/S and Imperial Tobacco Group PLC both said that falling sales in Russia and a weak ruble had cut profit and would weigh on revenue for the remainder of the year.

“Net profit down,” “cut profit.” Sounds like profits remain. Pretty small potatoes in some circles of sacrifice. That 13% drop for Société Générale, by the way, is to €315 million ($438.76 million) from €364 ($507). The pain…. And

Russia today accounts for only about 5% of the group’s total revenue….

The “damage” done Carlsberg and Imperial Tobacco is similar.

It’s true enough that Europe’s energy enterprises—especially Germany’s—that depend on Russian oil and gas will be hit harder, as well as those enterprises’ customers. But this is a wakeup call concerning the wisdom of depending on an aggressive and territorially acquisitive Russia for much of anything.

It’s an easily enough remedied situation, too, if time consuming.

Taking Their Cue from Wisconsin and Indiana

Posted on by
Reply

Congressman Adam Schiff (D, CA), during an interview on Fox News Sunday, said his party should boycott the House Special Committee being set up to investigate the Benghazi failure and the subsequent stonewalling by the Obama administration and Democrats in the House and Senate. Insisting on knowing the facts of this failure and the associated deaths of four Americans, along with the facts of the coverup, is just election year politicking as far as he’s concerned.

Sure.

The Democrats are looking to cut and run when they can’t get their way. Only, unlike their Party mentors in Wisconsin and Indiana (and the Federal Senate, come to that), this gang won’t be able to shut down the government with their refusal to be a part of democracy. They’ll just expose themselves as spoiled, arrogant brats.

Schiff also carefully elides the simple fact that if President Barack Obama, and Democrats generally (including Schiff), had not stonewalled and outright obstructed the Oversight Committees’ (yes, including the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs, the Democratic leadership of which closed their collective eyes to the matter and refused even to look at it) investigation of the Benghazi failure these past two years, there would be no opportunity for election year politicking with it.

Update: Speaker John Boehner (R, OH) has laid out the structure of the Special Committee–it’ll have 7 Republicans and 5 Democrats, should the latter deign participate.  Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) had held out for an even split of 6 Republicans and 6 Democrats, perhaps setting up an excuse for the Democrats to cut and run again–the committee wouldn’t be “bipartisan” enough to suit her.  This, of course, also contradicts then-Speaker Pelosi’s construction of her 2007 Special Committee on Global Warming, which she carefully stacked at 9 Democrats and 6 Republicans on that early iteration of climate panic-mongering.