The Bugs Bunny "What A Maroon!" Award Returns

It has been some time since the Geek last bestowed the highly coveted "What A Maroon! Award."  This has not been due to a dearth of candidates.  Quite the contrary, the past several months have been awash to the scuppers with moronic policies and the severely intellectually challenged folks behind them.  Simply, there have been entirely too many possibilities to single out just one each and every week.

Fortunately, a person has emerged from the fog of merely inept, incompetent, brain dead wonks and pols inside the Beltway.  Finally there has been an act of such unmitigated idiocy that the Award must be bestowed.

The envelop, please.  Riiippp.  Raise the slip of paper inside.  Read the distinguished name of the winner.

"And, the winner is.....(drum roll.)  Lick lips in anticipations.  "The winner is Hillary Clinton!"  Applause.

That's right, bucko.  The recipient is our most distinguished Secretary of State.  Ms Clinton gets the Award not for her efforts to push back on the eviscerated foreign aid budget.  Nor for her opposition to the cuts to the Foreign Service appropriation.  No.  Those were not moronic.

Well, what then?  Is this belated recognition for Hilary's hard work to bring about the Libyan policy morass?  No, although a strong case can be made for her receiving at least an honorable mention in this area.

SecState Clinton deserves the "What A Maroon!" Award for her recent collaboration with the Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC,) the Turkish proponent of political Islam and historian manque, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, in the area of preventing religious defamation.  In an announcement datelined Jeddah, Ms Clinton and Dr Ihsanoglu declared the US would host a series of meetings to focus on the implementation of a UN Human Rights Council resolution 16/18.

This measure passed by the discredited Human Rights Council last March is intended to combat in an "urgent" fashion the growth of something called "Islamophobia."  While carefully avoiding the use of either the word "Islam" or "Muslim," the intent of the resolution to single out the faith of the Prophet for special protection is clear.  The fifty plus Muslim majority states of the OIC have long pushed for the criminalization of any written, spoken, or graphic consideration of any aspect of Islam in any manner other than the adulatory.  After many failures, the OIC and its supporters such as Russia and China succeeded in getting 16/18 passed by a minority of the HRC members.

It is always essential to keep in mind that the overwhelming majority of the OIC membership is well known for limiting free expression and inquiry.  The same is true of states which have sided with the OIC in its efforts to stifle open expression and the equally free inquiry which accompanies expression.  Some OIC states, such as Pakistan, whose delegation introduced 16/18 as well as its numerous predecessors, has blasphemy laws of the most draconian sort enshrined in law.

It is equally necessary to recall that OIC states such as Egypt are (in)famous for the easy availability of antisemitic billingsgate such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.  Throughout the Muslim states, Judaism is defamed in the worst imaginable ways and in all media.  Christianity is no better treated.  Nor is Hinduism.  Or Buddhism.  Or minority groups within Islam such as the Alawites of Syria.  All religions other than the most mainstream versions of Islam are fair targets for "defamation."  Even the two largest subgroups of Islam, the Sunni and the Shia are willing, even eager, to "defame" the other.

Of course this "defamation" is not seen as such by the Muslims.  To a good Muslim, the other faiths are either bastions of the infidel or expressions of apostasy.  Thus, it is impossible by definition to "defame" them.  Having not submitted to the unique Muslim view of the deity, adherents to all other faiths are fair game for whatever vitriol any Muslim cares to spill forth.

Logically, as the only "true" faith, only Islam merits protection as only Islam can be "defamed" by the vile slanders of the infidels and apostates.  It is not extreme to assert that even the most objective, fact based, well documented assessment of Islam is automatically "defamatory" if it comes from the tongue or pen of an infidel or apostate.  Considered from a Muslim perspective, the HRC resolution and all national policies or actions which arise from its application can serve to protect only Islam as only Islam resides in the realm of true faith.

As a dedicated adherent of political Islam, the OIC Secretary General is willing to do whatever is necessary to advance and protect the interests and position of Islam.  Thus, it is not surprising that he seized upon the Norwegian tragedy to argue that now more than ever the states of the West must move quickly and effectively to turn the theory of resolution 16/18 into legal practice.  The unfortunate reaction of so many in the Western and American elites to the berserker act of Brevik gave added power to Ishanoglu's argument.

The elites in the post-Brevik days continued and amplified their assertion that any criticism of Islam or any linkage of Muslims with terror serves the end of alleged "rightwing extremists" with the results such as those in Norway.  This exercise in absurdity and political correctness automatically plays into the censorious hands of the OIC.  Somehow, even the most objective and well-documented negative interpretations of Islam or the relation between the tenets of the faith and violent political actions are seen by the left leaning elites as being responsible for the action of Brevik.  Without any documentation, the same people argue that a myriad of potential Breviks are lurking all through Western and American societies waiting to be triggered into violence by some less than hosanna laden treatment of Islam or Muslims.

Showing her elite credentials and leftward bent, Ms Clinton signed onto the OIC's gag-the-infidels gambit.  No matter what her intentions are and no matter what the outcome may be, the secretary's agreement to a series of meetings oriented to putting 16/18 into practice gives the Muslim "speechophobic" move a legitimacy it does not deserve.  Her action provides an imprimatur to a resolution which strikes at the heart of the most basic and critical right resident in Western societies.

Free inquiry and expression is a protean right.  It is also a right from which many others emerge.  It is so basic to Western liberties and Western economic, social, political, and cultural development that it is simply impossible to separate free speech from the West as it exists today.  The utter absence of any real free inquiry and expression in the countries of the OIC goes far to explain why these states are comparatively backwards in all respects.

The irrelevance of rights, including that of free expression and inquiry, in Muslim majority states is not surprising.  Islam, unlike other major faiths, has no inherent concept of rights.  Islam is all about duty.  Believers have duties to the deity and to other believers, but, as good slaves, they have no inherent rights.  In sharp contrast, other faiths, particularly those preeminent in the West, not only acknowledge the existence of rights, rights which are inherent to the human condition, but exalt those rights by stating clearly and repeatedly that the exercise of rights requires the concomitant acceptance of duties.

To the faithful Muslim, the Western emphasis on rights constitutes a world through the looking glass.  It is not comprehensible to the good and faithful Muslim with his focus on knowing his duties and executing them with willing joy.  The Muslim has a duty to protect his religion against the words of the infidels and apostates.  His duty goes so far as to seek to prevent the infidel and apostate from sullying the faith by even an honest and objective narrative treatment.  The Muslim has a duty to exalt his faith above all others, which means he is allowed to attack the "false" beliefs.  His double standard is not hypocritical but rather is an honest expression of duties and beliefs.

Ms Clinton is not a Muslim as far as is publicly known.  She is, however, an American.  As a holder of an office of trust and confidence under the Constitution, she has taken an oath of office swearing to protect and defend the Constitution to the best of her ability.  She is a lawyer by education.  Putting the two aspects of Ms Clinton's life together, it must be concluded that she understands the OIC backed resolution is repugnant to the Bill of Rights.

She became a "maroon" of the highest order when she did not meet the demand that the US support 16/18 with any reaction other than gales of derisive laughter.

Why Not Cut Off The UN?

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the new chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee has thrown down the gauntlet.  Well, actually she has tossed several gloves down, but this particular challenge is aimed directly at the bete noir of conservatives, the United Nations.  The one time minister of foreign affairs in the Republic of Korea, Ban Ki-moon, has vowed to meet the challenge in person.  He will appear in the course of hearings scheduled to start later this month.

Ms Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-American representing a district in South Florida, has made her distaste for the UN abundantly clear.  She considers the organization, particularly the Secretariat, to be corrupt, inefficient, lacking in transparency, deficient in honesty, and generally speaking unworthy of the lavish support it receives from the American taxpayer (and his Chinese lenders.)  She has recommended making contributions to the world body purely voluntary as a means of persuading the outfit to clean up its act.

Such a move would cut the UN off at the knees.  Currently the US provides 517 megabucks of the UN's 2.17 gigabuck operating budget.  In addition the US forks over 2.68 billion of the organization's 9.67 billion dollar peacekeeping costs.  That constitutes a whole lot of something for not too terribly much of a return.

Not surprisingly, Secretary General Ban is not in agreement.  While he is more or less willing to admit rather grudgingly that there may have been some problems in the UN during the past, he claims he has made great strides in assuring efficiency, transparency, and an absence of corruption during his tenure to date.  In any event, he seems to say, what alternative is there?

Beyond that cop out defense, Mr Ban appears to think that the only problem the UN has is one of image.  Not unlike the Democratic party following the midterm election, Mr Ban hints at the UN having failed to properly address its "messaging" difficulties.  If only the American public and its (Republican) representatives understood just how well the UN is handling its manifold tasks, there would be no argument over the notion that We the People were getting a very good return on our investment.

Unfortunately the problem is not as simple as Mr Ban believes.  Nor is it simply a matter of UN management. If that had been the case, the 1999 Helms-Biden United Nations Reform Act would have been sufficient to meet American objections and questions.  The problems of UN performance are far more extensive, totally systemic, and in largest measure are the consequence of the organization having been afflicted with a bad case of institutional overreach.

The UN has long strayed from its basic mission, the foundational reason for its creation.  That initial mission was simple to state but very difficult to put into practice.  The purpose of the UN was to preserve international peace by assuring that those countries which broke the peace would suffer severe and immediate punishment by the "international community."  In principle, a state which broke the international peace by unprovoked aggression would face the united effort of member states to restore the status quo ante bellum.

The realities of international politics as expressed in the Security Council made certain that the UN could not address its major mission more than a couple of times--the Korean War and the repulse of Iraq from Kuwait forty years later.  Between the influence of the Cold War on Security Council votes and the many ways in which a state could plausibly present aggressive war as one of a legally defensive nature, the UN failed the hopes of its creators.

In part because of its manifest failure as an instrument of collective security but also as a consequence of the great expansion of its membership during the post-colonial decades, the UN cast about for additional missions.  By feats of (mis)definition, the body concluded that it possessed the authority to intervene in the internal affairs of a member state if that state undertook measures which stimulated a flux of refugees to neighboring countries which threatened instability in those states.  Similarly, the UN determined that it could intervene to address or prevent humanitarian crises contingent upon the collapse of a state or actions by a government which put lives at undue risk.

While the General Assembly, Security Council, and Secretariat were engaged in mission leap, so also were the assorted subsidiary entities operating under the collective UN mantle.  This gave rise to such abominations as the International Panel on Climate Change as well as the aggressive outreach by such bodies as the World Health Organization and the supreme abomination of the Human Rights Council.  Each of these bodies has attempted with more or less success to intrude on affairs formerly seen as the sole bailiwick of sovereign states.

The proliferation of "peacekeeping" missions along with "humanitarian" operations further emphasized the intrusive and expansionist nature of the UN--to say nothing of its increased demands for money.  The result, a consequence not likely to have been intended, was to make the UN appear to have delusions of becoming the very thing denizens of the far, far Right warned against a half century ago--a pretender to world government status.

Leaving aside the philosophical merits of a One World Government, the brute fact remains that the UN is not equipped in any respect to fill that function.  The nature of the Security Council with its Conference of the Victors veto holders as well as the General Assembly with its every country has one vote assure that the UN lacks both the capacity and the perceived legitimacy to operate as even the vaguest sort of super-national government.

What Mr Ban must address--and what Ms Ros-Lehtinen objects to--is the pretense by the UN that it is by right a form of super-national governing body even if not a super-national government per se.  The task for Mr Ban is simply impossible.  There is too wide a perception that the UN has delusions of governmental aspirations for him to counter in a single appearance or even several.

A close reading of the UN record in peacekeeping shows a record which comes far closer to failure than to success.  In the Congo as elsewhere the UN blue helmets have demonstrated a lack of capacity and will to impose or keep the peace which serves to erode the credibility of peacekeeping fatally.  Many of the national contingents assigned to UN duty are poorly trained, poorly equipped, lacking in basic discipline, bereft of effective officers, and overly given to gangster as opposed to military virtues.  That the US should be paying for this is insupportable.

The record in humanitarian operations is not much better.  Haiti is a fine example of how poorly the UN is equipped for major rescue and rehabilitation efforts.  The response to the cyclone in Burma may have been impaired by the local government's intransigence but was still marked by ineptitude at best and flat out blundering at worst.

Mr Ban may be proud of the UN's efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan but there is precious little objective support for this pride.  Domestic political pressures may have forced George W. Bush to relent on his anti-UN stance following the Iraq invasion, but this should not be mistaken as an acknowledgement that the UN was well equipped to do anything meaningful either in Iraq or Afghanistan.  The same applies to Sudan.  American and European diplomacy rather than UN efforts brought about the secession vote in Southern Sudan and have at least limited the Khartoum government's brutal actions in Darfur.

The UN has done nothing to enhance its perceived legitimacy with the ever greater profusion of special tribunals charged with investigation and prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity.  So far, the tribunals seems to have specialized in prosecuting former African dictators and the war lords of former Yugoslavia.  It is not surprising that a belief has grown in Africa to the effect that the tribunals are simply one more neo-colonial apparatus intended to keep Africans in their collective place. The indictment of the current Sudanese president has forced the notion to spread from Africa to portions of the Muslim world.  And, this aspect of UN overreach is bound to get worse no matter which course of action the pre-trial judge in the Lebanese matter goes.

With the exception of those Americans who have an agenda such as the environmental activists and their global warming fellow travelers, or those of the hard Left belonging to the "blame America first" school of thought, there is not much support within We the People for the UN.  This translates into a lack of support for feeding the UN's expensive habits.

At a time when budgetary realities are dismal at best, at a time when the US must cut its defense expenditures regardless of the war in progress, the ongoing threat of violent political Islam, the growth of Chinese ambitions and the military means to support those ambitions, there is very little stomach in the US for largess directed to the lame, anti-American bunch which constitutes the ambition heavy, accomplishment light group called the United Nations.  The correlation of forces runs against Mr Ban and runs for those like Ms Ros-Lehtinen who desire an end to American underwriting of the UN.

Tinkering on the margins of the UN will not solve the problem.  The UN as currently constituted is the problem.  The world may benefit from a credible instrument of collective security, but the UN as it exists today is not that instrument.

Pace President Obama, Secretary Clinton, and others of their ilk, get a grip on reality.  The UN as it exists now is not useful.  It is not useful as a means of preventing or punishing international aggression.  It is not useful as a means of protecting human rights.  It is not competent in the protection of the environment.  It is not even a worthy mechanism of American foreign policy.

At best the UN is a charade.  At worst it is a fraud perpetrated upon people eager for a genuine means of keeping the international peace or addressing the very real problems of the global commons.  Today, in large measure because of its nature and character, the UN is as toothless and worthless as was the League of Nations in 1939.  Like the League it has outlived its usefulness.  It has become an institution not unlike a fly in amber, a fossil of a long dead time, entombed.

As the US took the point in developing the concept of the UN during the dark days of a war which seemed without end at the time, we must now take the lead in developing a credible replacement for the UN.  This is a far more demanding process than simply seeking to force changes on the margins by playing games with our financial contribution to the discredited Circus by the Hudson.  It will demand deep and realistic thinking, prolonged and perhaps bitter debate, but the results can be worth the effort.

In any event we cannot simply stand by as the great golem of the UN shambles and lurches along on its course to self-inflicted destruction.  Our future and that of the world in which we live demands more and better of us.

As Robert Kennedy was fond of asking, "If not us, who?  If not now, when?"

A Tribute To Honesty

Most of We the People like to think honesty is a good thing.  Heck, we may even try to be honest and open in our interpersonal dealings.  Sure, we are jaundiced--with good reason--with respect to the honesty of politicians, advertisers, journalists, and preachers of the frothing mouth persuasion.  In some areas we are even given to joking about the amount of honesty on the part of practitioners.

There is an old saw regarding diplomacy, "A diplomat is an honest person sent to a foreign country to lie on behalf of his own."  This mordant bit of semi-wit is undeserved.  More it is flat out wrong.

Two aspects of a country's foreign relations establishment depend upon blunt candor and utter honesty.  These are diplomacy and intelligence.  While it may be necessary to lie to outsiders in pursuit of the diplomat's or intelligence officer's mission, both must be fully and candidly frank and honest in their reporting from the field.  There is no room for fudging.  No tolerance for heaping sweeteners on underlying sour realities.  The diplomat must tell it like it is regardless of the hopes or fears of the denizens topside.  Any shading, no matter how slight, in deference to what the folks upchannel might want to read is a sin against the national interest.

The WikiLeaks cables demonstrate that our representatives are doing their job correctly.  The reports and accompanying assessments are bluntly honest.  We the People are, therefore, being well served.  The honesty, candor, and quality of the assessments are a very far cry from the sort of diplomatic traffic which passed from overseas to Foggy Bottom thirty and more years ago.  And, that is a very good thing for our country.

Because journalists and even the academic experts quoted in the MSM are apparently unacquainted with history, there has been an unfortunate silence regarding just how superior the leaked documents are in honesty, bluntness, and incisive analysis when compared with the tripe and pablum passing for diplomatic cables during the long dark years following the Republican attacks on the State Department and its personnel during the waning days of the Truman administration.

The shrill cries of "Communist!  Fellow traveler!  Commie dupe!" which echoed in the halls of Congress and through the media of the day served to totally emasculate American diplomats.  Diplomats high and low, accredited to countries great and small, were afraid to put the words of their interlocutors down on paper unless those words were precisely what the most ardent anti-communist in Congress or the press wanted to read.  Likewise, our Foreign Service personnel were scared to death to write an assessment which would not pass muster with the most rabid anti-communist crusaders.

The fear of being hailed before some Senate committee and accused of being the person who "lost" some country or another to the Global Communist Menace assured that the decision makers inside the Beltway--even in the Oval--flew blind, deprived of the necessary eyes on the ground and the counsel of situationally aware professionals.

As a result, American foreign policy for thirty years consisted of aligning the US with each and every authoritarian regime which delivered short term order.  As long as the local heavy promised to oppose Communism in all its many guises and kept a sufficiently strong lid on local discontent, one administration after another regardless of party pretended our "ally" was a staunch bastion of long term stability as well as free enterprise and, well, maybe, some sort of democratic appearances.

This approach--and all the many blunders which came with it--was not so much a policy as it was the default forced upon presidents and secretaries of state by sheer ignorance.  That ignorance resulted from the unwillingness of Foreign Service personnel to be honest, blunt, and candid.  The unwillingness of diplomats to be honest was the direct and completely predictable consequence of the unjustified and quite lethal attacks levied against their predecessors by totally irresponsible and self-seeking politicians riding the great wave of fear--fear of Communism.

The tree of ignorance bore us many poisoned fruits.  In some cases--think Iran--the toxin of these fruit continues to infect the world.  The Iranian object lesson by itself is proof positive of the crucial nature of honest reporting and frank assessments even when such is not welcomed in the rarefied air inside the Beltway.

Fortunately for our country and its interests, the professionals at State left the doldrums of cowardice some years ago as is illustrated convincingly in the WikiLeaks revelations.  Our people abroad are telling it like it is and offering assessments which are trenchant, well founded, and highly useful.  When Secretary of State Clinton argued the cables showed "diplomats doing the work of diplomacy," she spoke a truth of the highest order.

The worst impact of the data dump by Mr Assange's outfit is in its probable chilling effect upon both American diplomats and their foreign interlocutors.  For good and sufficient reason--the fear of future leaks--neither will be as willing to speak or write forthrightly.  While the impact may not be as devastating or long lasting as after the Republican scorched earth campaign of the McCarthy Era of Great Fear, any lowering of the candor quotient will harm our national interests.

The real work of diplomats is no more glitzy or glamorous than is the quotidian tasks of spooks.  It consists of talking to people and reading things.  It requires thinking.  Analysis.  Finally, it demands an ability to write and speak with cogency and effect.  Most of all, the work of diplomats needs intellectual and moral courage.

That is, the diplomat in all times and places must be able to see things as they actually are and not as they might be hoped or feared to be.  Then, the diplomat has to relay the results up the chain of command without any thought as to its impact on one's personal career let alone the opinions of those in Congress or the views of those who constitute the vast beast, the media.

Julian Assange as well as his media enablers at the NYT and other outlets and his source(s) such as the emotional and moral cripple Bradley Manning have conspired to impair the willingness and ability of our diplomatic personnel to do the job we pay them to do.  A job, the cables show clearly, that all hands have been doing with great skill and dedication.

Does The US Have A Secretary Of State?

Pakistan has finally reopened the road line of communication which has been providing a target rich environment for the rocket firers and trigger pullers of Taliban these past several days.  The reopening has come without any credit due the ever absent Hillary Clinton who holds the job title "Secretary of State" but only occasionally acts as if she believes it.

While matters have been accelerating from bad to worse in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, our low profile SecState has been busy preparing for her first trip to the Balkans.  Sure there are American interests in play there, and the frictions between Kosovo and Serbia are real and intractable, but the situation is neither dire nor even particularly worrisome.  There is no apparent requirement for a hands-on secretarial visit.

The mess currently described by the term, "American-Pakistani relations" is of a different breed.  It is a situation which cries out for a highly energetic and engaged secretary of state of the George Schultz or even Henry Kissinger sort.  Clinton should have been on the spot, in Islamabad, in the faces of President Zardiri and his chief henchmen.  It should have been Ms Clinton and not Leon Panetta, Ms Clinton and not Jim Jones, Ms Clinton and not Richard Holbrooke or any of the other reasonably high ranking US officials who carried the word to Pakistan's leaders.

Even if Ms Clinton had not felt personally up to the task, she should have gone as part of a Gates-Clinton tag team.  The presence of the American Defense Secretary at the shoulder of the SecState would have gone very far to convincing the ever reluctant Pakistanis that not only was the US mightily concerned about the lack of effective effort in the purportedly joint effort against the merchants of armed political Islam but, absent a mending of ways in Islamabad, there would be consequences.  Consequences which would not warm the hearts or charm the minds of the irresolute crew at the top of the Pakistani heap.

Using Jones, Panetta, and the others became even less effective the day after Woodward's new book on Obama's war hit the street.  The many, gratuitous insults attributed to these personalities and directed against both the Pakistani government and its counterpart in Afghanistan has rendered their representations in either Islamabad or Kabul risible at best and counterproductive at worst.  If Woodward's account is complete, Ms Clinton refrained from joining the abuse group.

Instead of doing the serious twisting of arms in either Islamabad or Kabul, Ms Clinton has been dining out on tales of how many foreign leaders she knows and just how much they all like her.  While being likable may be a minor requirement for the top US diplomat, it far less important than simply being there.  Being where the action is and where the muscle is most needed.  Being where the primary US national interest challenges are most immediately engaged and starkly threatened.

In Woodward's book, SecState Clinton is reported to have said during a strategy review meeting a year ago that a problem was "your problem."  She made that observation to the president, and it is telling that she did not say "our problem" even though she is reputedly the latest incarnation of what Al Haig once famously characterized as "the vicar of foreign policy."  In that one word, Ms Clinton appeared to be washing her hands of any responsibility for American policy in the AfPak region.

Go it alone is fine--if you resign first.  Unless and until she resigns, Ms Clinton is presumed to be the major player in formulating and executing American foreign policy.  The presumption is predicated in large measure on the simple fact that the president is situationally naive and fundamentally ignorant of the ways in which the game of nations is played.  In comparison Ms Clinton is both experienced and focused.

While presidents can fritter away time, energy, attention, and political capital as the current Guy in the Oval has done (and as Ms Clinton's husband did), this option is not open to the Secretary of State.  This is why able occupants of the office have dirtied themselves in the toe-to-toe slugfests which are so much a part of contentious diplomacy between states which have broadly coinciding national interests but differ markedly on the details.  This is precisely what is happening today in the relations between the US and Pakistan, the US and Afghanistan, the US and its partners in both NATO and the ISAF.

The American led effort has grown massively unpopular among the folks in each and every one of our associates now operating in Afghanistan.  The bad guys, Taliban et al, have resolved to raise the unpopularity level even more by inflicting casualties on the forces present.  The recent fatal attack on the Italian contingent gives one more indicator of both the Taliban operational concept and its effectiveness.

The American "partners" are wavering.  The degree of seriousness is such that Ms Clinton should have been working not only the phones but face time as well.  Unless the administration can keep these allies from "going wobbly" on us, the pressure for an even more precipitous withdrawal will be well nigh irresistible--particularly by a president whose commitment to the war is dubious at best.

Then there is the little matter of the Israeli-Palestinian Authority direct talks.  In a fit of generosity the Arab League has given the US a whole month to get Israel to agree to another freeze on "settlement" construction and restart the talks.  There can be no doubt that dealing with either or both Israel and the PA can be tedious and frustrating in the extreme.  Still there is no alternative, Ms Clinton has to board the shuttle and get on with it.  At this juncture, the stakes are too high (thanks to the ineptitude of Mr Obama) for the job of levering two reluctant (one only slightly and the other very much so) parties to look across a polished table at each other.

Of course, looming in the background is Iran.  Ms Clinton has shared the spotlight with the treasury secretary to announce more sanctions against the mullahs and their minions.  That isn't quite enough.  The US and its more of less allies have run out of options.  Despite tantalizing hints of readiness to come back to the P5+1 talks later this month or perhaps in November, there is no reason to believe this is other than a tactical ploy, a way of buying more time and sowing more uncertainty among some of the P5 group.

We are close to the point where only two options remain: Learn to live with an Iran having an intentionally ambiguous nuclear capacity with all the game changing features that implies or use the "military option" with all the risks and costs that course would mean.  Secretary Clinton once again must be in the very thick of the fray both in the rarefied circles of DC and around the capitals of the world.  Sure enough, talk of war or even consideration of a nuke owning Iran is both scary and productive of uptightness--but that is what SecStates are paid for.  (And what Hilary Clinton assured We the People in one of her most famed campaign ads that she was up to.)

It is a couple of minutes to midnight in much of the American foreign relations portfolio.  Ms Clinton for her own good and that of the country must choose between being a secretary of state or a vice presidential candidate in waiting.  Or, if she believes that Mr Obama will not let her function effectively, she has no honorable option but that of resigning.  If she is not up to the demands of the job, she must stand aside and let someone else take a whack at it.

She is out of choices.  And We the People and our country are running out of time--rapidly.

Insurgency Or Not, Mexico Sure Is Bloody

President Obama and his Secretary of State are on opposite sides of a proposition: Resolved, Mexico today is Columbia of twenty years ago. Ms Clinton took the affirmative yesterday. Today, Mr Obama argued the negative for the benefit of a Mexican outlet.

The Obama view is far more popular in Mexico, particularly with Mexican president Calderon, than is the pessimistic assessment of Hilary Clinton. Equally unsurprising, Ms Clinton's flack stated the secretary had not wandered off the reservation.

Seemingly shoving Mr Obama's rather rosy assessment that Mexico is a vibrant democracy with an expanding economy, the drug thugs went on a tear in Juarez racking up a total of twenty-five corpses making it the deadliest day in that city since the Mexican drug war started. The roughly 6,400 cadavers which have littered the city across the line from El Paso would seem to argue that Ms Clinton is right. That much spilled blood despite the presence of the army, the federal police, a reconstituted local police, a passel of new government programs intended to show the government is present and able to aid in assuring security and prosperity would tend to show the place is no longer under effective government control, and that is a chief criterion for defining the presence of an insurgency in progress.

But the presence of dead bodies and the absence of effective security or basic government services do not on their own show an insurgency exists. An insurgency is an organized political expression of underlying disaffection on the part of a definable segment of the population.

That isn't the case in Mexico--yet.

Twenty years or so ago in Columbia there was an insurgency. FARC was both political in its goal and representative of disaffection. The alliances made between the insurgents of FARC and the several cocaine powered cartels were tactical in nature and did not alter the political color of the insurgent group at first or for many years to follow.

FARC and the cartels used each other with effectiveness. However the combination did stimulate the American response which ultimately saw the Colombian government defeat the cartels and toss FARC almost out of the arena. The awesome amount of American aid including highly pertinent training and critical intelligence support coupled with Colombian political will to bring about the eventual marginalization of FARC until the desperate remnants of the once dread insurgent group were reduced to playing the part of criminals and begging Hugo Chavez for assistance in order to survive. The political agenda of FARC went by the wayside as survival needs took the highest priority. Today FARC is a bunch of brigands without any political will or consequence.

In Mexico the several cartels have not yet demonstrated any notable political character beyond that of establishing safe zones in which they can conduct their activities. To that end the cartels have terrorized and corrupted local governments as well as members of the police, armed forces, and judiciary. Those officials at any level who have proven resistant to bribes or threats have, perforce, been killed--usually in a manner which terrorizes others similarly situated.

Carving out safe zones has been paralleled by inter-cartel fighting to secure turf and its necessary concomitant, a greater share of the forty billion dollar drug trade. The most critical consequence of this focus has been that the majority of the dead have been cartel members or gunslingers. The high profile killing of police, officials, bystanders, journalists, and other non-combatants capture attention and obscure the fact that most of the nearly thirty thousand dead to date have been combatants of one sort or another. This imbalance is not typical of insurgencies in progress.

This is not to say the Mexican soil may not yet sprout a full fledged insurgency, but the probability is low. Regional issues in the states where the violence has been most concentrated have not yet produced widespread disaffection. Nor is such likely to emerge in the near- or mid-term, provided the safety valve of the northern frontier remains open enough. Only if the American border security program becomes far more effective is the absence of effective, responsive governance in combination with ever present violence likely to produce any sort of pre-insurgent conditions.

Even then, a regionally based defensive insurgency would be short of life as the central government, its supporting elite, and the armed forces would have both the political will and capacity to suppress any genuine insurgency rapidly (and very bloodily.) Further militating against any insurgency developing is the deep scar left by the years of civil strife marking the first quarter of the last century.

Ms Clinton was, in short, too alarmist in her comparison. Mr Obama is closer to the truth on this one, but absent any significant improvement in the Mexican government's ability to face down the cartels and simultaneously improve the economic lot of the long suffering Mexican lower classes, the vacuum will grow as will the violence.

This means, that Mexico will continue to bleed whether or not the basis is political, whether or not there is a real insurgency underway. The necessity for both Mexico City and Washington is to stop the violence, the killing. The problem lies in the inconvenient fact that the most efficient and rapid way of doing this is unacceptable to American morality--legalize the drugs which power the cartels and make their violence both necessary and possible.

The Hilary Clinton Learning Curve

Ten days or so back the ever supportive NYT spouted off on the presumed "steep learning curve" exhibited by the Nice Smiley Young Man From Chicago. The Geek posted his assessment of this. His view was not complimentary.

Now it is the turn of Secretary of State Clinton. The hot wash is far more positive.

The central indication that Ms Clinton has learned a lot over the past year came buried in her speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington today. Surprisingly or not, the WaPo picked up her nuanced change in focus in today's remarks compared to those delivered to the same audience a year back.

Last year Ms Clinton delivered herself of what had to be a piece of Obama approved blather regarding the need to alter the global political dynamic from a "multi-polar world" to a "multi-partnered" one. This exercise in the rhetoric of pure balderdash overlooked a couple of ground truths.

The first was simply that the world of a year ago was not "multi-polar" although it was well on the way to becoming one due to the presidential emphasis on "outreach," apology, and self-inflicted diminishment of the US as the primary global actor. It was clear in speech after speech as well as policy after policy that Mr Obama was ideologically committed to decreasing the influence of the US in all areas of world politics while exalting the UN above all others. On Obama's watch there was to be no "American exceptionalism" and, thus, no robust American leadership. He sought to do the impossible--unilaterally resign American Great Power status.

The second ground truth absent from Ms Clinton's declaration of the World According To Barack was the fact that partnership in international affairs is based upon the coincidence of national interest. "Partnership" is a matter of subjectively defined national self-interest and is defined by specific contexts.

The events of the past year have proven that the Obama intent of resigning American Great Power status has been countered effectively by the demands and expectations of other countries. Ms Clinton's statement today demonstrates that she understands this whether or not the Clueless Man In the Oval recognizes it or not.

Equally evident is Ms Clinton having awakened to the fact that partnership is both contextual and based upon coinciding national or strategic interest. Her redefinition also acknowledges that "partnership" arises from American leadership, from a clear understanding on the part of other governments as to the nature and character of both American national interests and what the US intends to do to achieve goals arising from those interests.

While still genuflecting before the totem of no-more-American-unilateralism, it is plain from both the body of Ms Clinton's remarks and the Q&A session that she appreciates the power of implicit unilateralism in gaining and sustaining multilateral consensus on coinciding national interests. The specter of unilateralism in the background has the effect of focusing other governments on the search for effective multilateral means to achieve policy goals which may arise from American national interests but mesh with their own. To this extent the Crazy American Thesis as practiced by Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush has great effectiveness in assuring future administrations achieve cooperation which might not otherwise be forthcoming.

The secretary employed the gaining of a new round of sanctions from the UN Security Council and the follow on of even tougher moves by the EU as well as the US and other countries as a prime achievement of the Obama administration as well as a paradigm for future actions. Of course, she might have noted with equal or greater justice the use of the UNSC by George H.W. Bush as the key move in generating the unprecedented coalition which fought the Gulf War. (Or to err on the side of historical accuracy the employment of the same venue by George W. Bush in gaining support for his Great Adventure In Regime Change in Iraq.)

Ms Clinton might even have mentioned the simple fact that We the People have never been particularly comfortable with unilateral action, greatly preferring a multilateral approach. As far back as Harry Truman, the US has routinely sought (and often achieved) the presence of the baby blue fig leaf of UN authorization to cover the genitalia of American policy. The use of multilateral diplomacy is not new with the Obama administration or the Clinton stewardship at Foggy Bottom. It is business as usual.

While her speech was notable in the absence of specific policy considerations, Ms Clinton did touch on three key issues slopping over her diplomatic plate. The current direct talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority topped the list.

Ms Clinton was guardedly optimistic on the course of the talks. She did gloss over both the contextual matters which threaten to sink the ship before it really gets underway and the estranged relationship between agreement on a framework for settlement and the actual implementation. These holes are understandable as no one wants to focus on the downsides before there are any upsides worthy of mention.

The secretary was not any more comprehensive regarding Iran. The sanctions are hurting Iran to be sure, but to what avail? That question was neither directly asked nor even indirectly answered. Perhaps if she had been pushed by one of the foreign policy mavens present, Ms Clinton would have agreed with retired dictator Fidel Castro, who opined there was no chance the mullahs would abandon their search for the bomb.

It was a bit of a surprise that she zeroed in on the upcoming referendum in Sudan. After characterizing the situation as a "time bomb," she did say the US was expanding its diplomatic efforts with both North and South Sudan as well as other African countries. Left unsaid was another unpleasant truth. If the vote does not go the way both parties want--which is a self-evident result--the disenchanted loser will crank up the still-on-hold war.

Of course, raising that highly inconvenient truth would have demanded a then-what-will-we-do?follow up. It's often best, or at least more politic to leave sleeping realities keep on snoring.

To her credit, Ms Clinton did link the American budget deficit to foreign affairs. The real deal is that an overly broke, overly frugal US will be severely handicapped in playing the Game of Nations.

Foreign policy on the cheap can have its upsides. For example the cost factor was key in deciding to wage war in Yemen and Pakistan with a very low footprint, using Special Forces assets for training and supporting locals as well as Predators rather than louder, more expensive manned aircraft. In these wars of the fringes the needs of economy mesh perfectly with diplomatic considerations and the nature of the local human terrain.

Overall however, diplomacy is impaired greatly by the perception globally that the American economy is on the semi-permanent skids and the government's bloated expenditures are funded to large extent by foreign government investors. If nothing else, diplomacy is impaired by a perception that the best days of the American way of economic life are behind us. The appeal of the American economy and the way of life it has supported have been high on the list of "soft power" features.

Reading the atmospherics gives the impression that not only has the Secretary of State moved firmly out of the shadows of Hillary-who? cast by the presumed foreign policy expert of the administration, Joe Biden, but that she has done so with the approval of the president. It may be that the Clueless One in the Oval has finally faced up to the fact that the enemies of the US are not going to roll over because Barack Obama is in the White House or that our allies are encouraged in their relationship because he can talk real pretty.

If true this is to the good of the nation. Ms Clinton has shown both a steep learning curve and an impressive degree of recent maturity. In any event it would seem that the president has enough to do what with blowing the economy, shooting the health care and education systems in the head, maiming American efforts in space and technology, and generally undermining American self-confidence. Leaving foreign relations to someone else is a very good idea.

Will Hilary Win Her Bones?

Hilary Clinton is a person with great determination, resilience and, never to be underestimated, a capacity for steep learning curves. She will need all of these and more as she takes on the most intractable problem in international politics these past thirty years--trapping the seemingly mythical beast known as Mideast Peace.

An important caveat is needed here. Even if the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority come to an agreement, that is only the first step of constructing a comprehensive Mideast peace.

If the president has decided to leave the negotiations, the making of deals which are both acceptable to parties long estranged by the forces of blood and ambition and enforcible over time to others in his administration and will limit his participation both on and off camera to ceremonial occasions, Ms Clinton has a slight chance of succeeding where so many of her predecessors have failed, some miserably. Admittedly the "if" is a very big "if."

Ms Clinton has established a mixed record as Secretary of State. Her stewardship at Foggy Bottom is seen with a liberal degree of cynical hope in Israel. The cynicism results from her role in executing the Obama dictated program of coercion. The hope springs from the realization that Ms Clinton has invested a great deal in the "peace process" and doesn't want it to go bust as if it were one more Whitewater but writ much larger.

Having faithfully complied with Mr Obama's blundering of reaching out to the unreachable while stomping on a government long noted for stomping back, it is to be hoped (and reasonably expected) that the Secretary of State will be allowed to play a free hand in her personal diplomacy over the next days, and, perhaps, weeks or even months as the direct bilateral talks lurch along. The Nice Young Man From Chicago should realize by now that as a statesman he is a fine tuba player.

The Israeli government knows that Ms Clinton had no realistic alternative to carrying the president's water in the past months. The prime movers in Jerusalem, most importantly PM Netanyhu, will cut her an appropriate amount of slack, will see her as offering genuine good offices as a facilitator and mediator. If not undercut by the Arabists in her own department, the role of woman-in-the-middle suits her well given her political and diplomatic skills.

As Secretary of State she has performed well, better than might have been expected twenty months ago. While she has been on the wrong side of some issues--Honduras, the Falkland Islands dispute, the decision to rejoin the UN Human Rights Cabal (to say nothing of the Universal Periodic Review)--other policy actions, most importantly the calling of China out despite Beijing's huffing and puffing over the disputed islands in the South China Sea, have been impressive.

The context in which she will be operating while being woman-in-the-middle has several favorable features. Iran looms largest in the fears of Israel with the security threats posed by a Palestinian state on the West Bank trailing as a distant second. Indeed the potential Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons has so sobered the Arab states to the degree that they can throw significant weight behind a treaty between the PA and Israel which does not meet the ambitious level of the Arab League proposal (aka the Abdullah Plan.)

The real game changer in the Mideast over the past two years has been Iran. More specifically, it has been the combination of Iran's quest for the "Mahdi Bomb" coupled with the all too obvious Iranian backing of regime change throughout the region.

Ms Clinton will be able to take advantage of the fears generated by Tehran's way too lofty ambitions. She will also be able to leverage the increasingly anti-Israel sentiments and behaviors of Europe into a useful tool to assure a degree of realism in the government of Israel.

The Palestinian Authority, most particularly the Fatah dominated government of Mahmoud Abbas, needs the support and assistance of the West led by the US if it is going to survive let alone prosper. A viable state on the West Bank needs, no, requires, investment by and trade with the West as well as direct assistance. Abbas understands this and his understanding is no doubt shared by the non-zany senior leadership of the PA. This gives Ms Clinton a potent way of gaining genuine PA cooperation.

The context also includes several important and very negative features. Some are sufficient kill-the-peace conversations before the month is over.

Topping the list is the continuation of the moratorium on "settlement" construction. The ten month halt will end on 26 September. This means the balloon can go up on the 27th.

The PA has made the settlement freeze the Absolute Line In The Sand. When Abbas and his cohorts say "no" on this matter they mean "NO." No expansions. No "natural increases." Not a single brick, a single plank, a single drop of concrete. Or else the PA is out of the talks. End of discussion.

The Netanyahu government imposed the total stoppage under great pressure from Washington and has resented every second the stop work order has been in effect. This resentment has been shared by a large and growing segment of the Israeli population generally. With the exception of the most pro-peace elements of society, the majority of Israelis have supported construction to meet the needs of natural increases.

No one in Israel has resented the halt more than Avigdor Lieberman, who is foreign minister and capo of the Yisrael Beitenu party. The YB is both very right wing and crucial to the continuation of the Netanyahu government. Leiberman has stated without any ambiguity that his party will pull out of the governing coalition if the moratorium is extended. YB is the second largest party in the Knesset following Netanyahu's Likud party, so the threat is both real and credible.

Even if the political crisis over settlement construction is avoided, Lieberman will remain a very tall speed bump in the "peace process." To put it bluntly--as Lieberman always does--the ForMin does not believe there is any possibility of a genuine peace agreement arising this year or even in the current generation. This world view has a pronounced tendency to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Another deal breaker is the requirement by Israel that any final (or interim) agreement explicitly characterize Israel as a "Jewish State." Netanyahu along with the majority of Israelis support this requirement without reservation. The Arabs oppose it. Whenever asked about this refusal, Abbas weasel words around something fierce. His non-answer answers are carefully crafted to deny the reality that Israel is--and was established as--a Jewish state.

The position of the PA is echoed (without any resort to the rhetoric of weasels) by Arab states generally. The Egyptian ForMin Aboul Gheit took the standard line for rejecting the proposition that Israel should be termed a "Jewish state." Gheit averred deep concern for the status of Arab citizens of Israel implying that they would be deprived of human and civil rights should Israel be considered a Jewish state. The touchingly tender regard for Arab civil and human rights expressed by Gheit and his peers throughout the region ignores completely that Arabs are and have been citizens of Israel for generations. Arabs have the same rights as Jews in Israel including the right to elect members of the Knesset.

The irony of Arab Muslim states which proudly define themselves as "Islamic" suddenly being frightened by the notion of a Jewish as opposed to secular Israel is easily explained. It is the hope (or expectation) that Arabs will win the "breeding war" between themselves and the Jewish population of Israel at some date in the future. The possibility of ending the "Zionist entity" in this way would, they fear, be ended should Israel be defined as a specifically "Jewish state."

These basic contextual matters must be addressed before the myriad of "details." Some of these "details" rise almost to the level of contextual. Among these is the question of what would constitute sufficient guarantees that the Palestinian state would not become the Gaza Strip on steroids? Certainly any guarantees must be more than those of the paper sort as the horrible experience of post-withdrawal Gaza has made clear.

Ms Clinton has a record of believing the UN is real. She would incline to turn the matter of credible guarantees, particularly those backed by a force on the ground, to the UN. She could (and probably will) point to UNIFIL as an example of efficient and effective UN peacekeeping.

The Israelis would see the matter in a completely different light. Their experience with the UN has been less than positive. More importantly, the growth of anti-Israel sentiments (which they fear with reason would not be lessened by any agreement between Israel and the PA) render the UN a less and less legitimate body.

The PA or at least its president reputedly insinuated that any US or other foreign force stationed on its soil could not include any Jewish troops. Perhaps President Abbas really does believe that an American, or British or whatever other soldier who happened to be Jewish would cheerfully betray his obligation to his country to somehow further some presumably dark Israeli design. Or, perhaps he is simply being more or less honestly antisemitic.

The religious/cultural prejudice shoe can fit on the Israeli foot. How comfortable would the government or citizens of Israel be if a peacekeeping force on the border with the PA territory included troops from Pakistan, Iran, or any member of the Organization of the Islamic Conference? Would this be mere "Islamophobia" or a legitimate apprehension based on the nature and character of both faith and culture?

The list of contextual and near contextual quality conundrums facing Hilary Clinton could be lengthened but that isn't necessary to establish the degree of difficulty facing her. Neither is the multi-page roster of lesser political or merely technical problems.

Our Secretary of State is taking on a diplomatic challenge before which even Talleyrand, Metternich, or Bismarck would have quailed. Even if she succeeds where so many others have either failed or failed to try, the irony remains. It is nothing but ironical that the signing of an agreement between the PA and Israel will not mean peace in the Mideast or even, necessarily the beginnings of comprehensive peace, but only the ending of one, politically irritating skirmish.

Bugs Bunny "What A Maroon!" Award V

This time around the highly coveted What A Maroon! Award goes to both President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. The Award is presented to these two Deep Thinking exponents of High Minded, Lofty Thinking Global Institutions for their joint decision not only to submit a Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on the state of human rights in the US to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) but to include in the UPR a specific reference condemning the State of Arizona's affront known as SB 1070.

The UPR presented by the administration to the UNHRC last week is totally unremarkable in most respects. Much of it is a hosanna onto the American history of pushing the limits of human rights which is both relatively accurate and totally justified. A second chorus of praise centers on the Obama administration and, (cue the trumpets) the president himself as totally dedicated to yet further perfection of human rights defined in the broadest conceivable sense within the US.

So far, so good. Propaganda on behalf of the US is never out of line--provided it is based on reality. And, propaganda on behalf of a politician and his "Team" are a normal part of government. If the grandiose proponents of the multi-cultural, moral equivalence, post-modern view of the universe now occupying the Oval and the big office in Foggy Bottom had limited themselves to business-as-usual hyperbole, the UPR would have slipped by unnoticed and fallen into the Great Tomb of Official Documents quite unmourned.

But, no, the Dynamic Duo had to go a bridge or two too far. They felt an obligation to set up the progressive folks of the Obama administration in sharp contrast with and in legal opposition to the benighted, pitchfork and torch waving xenophobic racists of Arizona. This gratuitous insult may play well with the self-appointed hoi oligoi of both coasts, but it does so at the general expense of the US.

The UNHRC is the epitome of hypocrisy. As the successor to the terminally discredited UN Commission on Human Rights it would have been legitimate to posit a radical break with the past. But, as the UN General Assembly is predicated upon the one-nation, one-vote concept, that was not to be. And, indeed, never should have been hoped for.

As anyone well oriented in time and place knows, the UNHRC is a comprised of forty-seven members elected by majority vote of the 192 countries represented in the UN General Assembly. When the criteria for election were being drafted, the US plumped for requiring the human rights records of contenders to be evaluated. This sensible proposition was defeated. No surprise in that.

As a result, the entity, the UNHRC as currently constituted which will review, comment upon, and make recommendations concerning the UPR includes states notable for their suppression or even rejection of basic human rights. Among others, China, Cuba, Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Russia will have the authority to evaluate the American record in human rights and offer suggestions for improvement or chastisement as they see fit.

There is another country in the roster with a special interest in immigration matters as such obtain to the US generally and Arizona in specific. That country (drum roll, please) is Mexico.

Mexico's record in human rights generally is, shall we say, checkered. With regard to immigration policy specifically, the right word is duplicitous.

The dichotomy between the moaning, groaning, bitching, and whining coming from the politicians and media of Mexico over the horrid behavior of the Yanquis on the one hand the True Tails Of Terror And Murder inflicted by Mexicans on illegal immigrants from south of their border has reached a vividness that at least some courageous Mexicans are challenging the myth. The real deal in Mexico is finally leaking around the false image of victimization painted by self-serving politicians, self-interested public intellectuals, and hyper-ambitious advocates.

The mass murder of seventy-two "migrants" (to use the favorite Mexican term for illegal aliens) by criminal smugglers of human beings last week in Tamaulipas exposed the charade in all its grotesque ignominy. The blossom of gore exposed by a wounded survivor of the mass murder stands atop the bloody peak of a mountain of kidnappings, robberies, murders, and general shaking down of people of all ages and both sexes who seek to transit Mexico en route to the Land Of The Big BX.

In the six months between September 2008 and February 2009, the Mexican National Human Rights Commission documented 9,758 identified kidnappings which yielded an average of 2,500 USD per victim. Unfortunately, there was no break down between kidnappings executed by police officers or other officials as contrasted with the informal acts of criminals. Nonetheless, the Mexican Human Rights Commission specifically holds the central government as well as those of the states responsible for the offenses.

Ironically the Mexican federal government whose representative on the UNHRC will soon sit in judgement of the US received a chastening letter from the same body for the sins of both commission and omission which resulted in harm to aliens from Central and South America. Is there something wrong with this picture?

Presumably, both Mr Obama and Ms Clinton had access to information regarding the actual situation in Mexico. It is also to be presumed that both knew the general anti-American stance within the UNHRC. One might be so bold as to assume that both understood and understand how the UPR can and will provide ammunition aplenty for those governments which seek to harm the interests of the US.

In their defense, both Mr Obama and Ms Clinton undoubtedly believe that the openness of the US to the scrutiny and criticism of hostile or guilty states offsets completely any anti-American commentary which will ensue. That may be true, but the realities of global politics require that countries which live in glass houses not invite the throwing of stones.

In this case, the President and his Secretary of State have not only invited the heaving of rocks at Uncle Sam's residence, they have passed out the stones gratis.

For that they merit the What A Maroon! Award.

ADMIN NOTE: The Geek invites, welcomes and will post all on topic comments. Because of spam attacks he has instituted defensive measures. He apologizes for any frustration which may result.

The Smart Money Was Wrong

As even the WaPo acknowledged recently it has been an article of faith among the cognoscenti that China using its massive soft power economic strength would dominate Southeast Asia completely. Perhaps, just perhaps, that would have been the case if the Trolls of Beijing had been patient enough, cautious enough, and canny enough.

However, the Trolls did not exhibit patience, caution, and canniness. No. They have gone ahead and gotten pushy. They have opted for a "hard power," military approach. Coercion of a naked, direct nature has been the tone. This has produced results which are both pleasing and drearily predictable.

The countries of the ASEAN region have flocked to the US as the only possible guarantor of regional stability. The only credible deterrent to overweening Chinese ambitions and very disturbing rattling of sabers.

This dynamic is, as the Geek noted above, drearily predictable. Fifteen years ago while lecturing at a senior US military school, the Geek opined that the US would, for example, hold joint exercises with Vietnam in not much more than a decade. When the audience was finished scoffing, the Geek offered as justification, "Beijing will make sure that happens. Long term, the Chinese will flex muscles over the South China Sea; the underwater oil deposits if nothing else will demand it."

The US and Vietnam are currently engaging in joint naval exercises with the destroyer USS John McCain making a port call as jets from the USS George Washington fly over Vietnamese territorial waters. The joint exercise has come immediately after the US did the same with South Korea to the intense annoyance of the Trolls.

Beijing went so far as to warn the US Navy to stay out of the Yellow Sea. The Trolls on grounds which are shakier than Obama's approval rating have claimed the Yellow Sea to be, in essence, their territorial water. This assertion is on a level with that of Libya regarding the Gulf of Sidra and we know how the Reagan administration dealt with that bit of cheek.

No one would expect the current adrift-in-the-Oval guy to do the same regarding the Chinese claim and warning, but as to the rest of the emerging diplomatic picture in Southeast Asia, it is to be hoped that his administration continues the policy announced in Hanoi by Secretary of State Clinton and underscored by the current series of joint naval exercises. The ASEAN states see the US as a Great Power. Further, they unanimously view the US as a beneficent one and China as malevolent.

The attitude of the several states of Southeast Asia, particularly those with competing claims about sovereignty over the South China Sea, demands the US act like the Great Power it is and serve as both a deterrent and mediator. This dynamic is a classic example of the relation between Great Powers and those of lesser rank.

Admittedly, the stance taken by the several states of the region serves to define their relations with the US as "special," and such bilateral alliances do not mesh with the Obama view of all states are created equal in their relations with the US. Even the assemblage of the several states under the ASEAN rubric does not meet the Obama test of "international institutions."

It will be tempting in the months to come as the Trolls become even more bumptious regarding their presumed "rights" in the South China Sea or their view that the areas of Southeast Asia and the far western Pacific constitute a Chinese sphere of influence for the US or at least its president to do a 180, to cut and run, to high tail it out of the game. The Trolls will show an increasingly uncooperative attitude regarding Iran. They will huff and puff mightily over just how much of Uncle Sam's IOU's they possess. They will show a pronounced unwillingness to loan the administration more.

In short, Beijing will become ever more unpleasant in all possible respects. Unless, of course, the US shows a more "flexible" attitude regarding the South China Sea and Southeast Asia in general. Given the budgetary constraints and the ever greater need to fund the deficit, there will be both impetus and excuse for backing away from the muscular posture assumed by Ms Clinton at Hanoi.

Coupled with Mr Obama's belief in the efficacy of the UN as well as his still extant faith in his own ability as a diplomat, a sort of Bismark, Talleyrand, and Metternich rolled up in one smiley package, the financial realities and Chinese firmness could well cause the current administration to resign American Great Power status. Such a move would constitute a surrender of influence and global authority akin to suicide upon the US.

The announcement by Secretary Clinton of US policy regarding the South China Sea and the demonstration of both will and capacity contained in the current series of naval exercises constitute the only diplomatic success in the Obama administration to date. The reason it has been a success is simple. The US has acted as a Great Power in not only pursuing its own long standing policies and national interests but doing so in conjunction with and response to the needs and fears of lesser powers under threat.

The Clinton Declaration came as a shock to the Trolls. It was probably just as shocking in chanceries around the world. It was a surprise to say the least to most American observers of the shambles which has passed for foreign policy these past months.

Perhaps it even came as a surprise to President Obama whose preternatural calm masks a capacity for a total lack of engagement. One can only hope he finds the Clinton Declaration and its aftermath to be a good surprise and resolve to support it--even as the Trolls turn up the heat both rhetorical and financial.

It's time to remind the Trolls of one of the best of the ancient Chinese toasts (and curses.) "May you live in interesting times."

Drawing A Line In The Water

After the Obama administration's dismal record of drawing lines in ever-shifting sands, as with the Iranian nuclear program, it was more than a bit refreshing to observe Secretary of State Clinton draw a line in water, specifically the South China Sea the other day. Overlooked in the brouhaha started by the Wikileaks Affair, Ms Clinton announced last Friday during the ASEAN meeting in Hanoi that the US had "a national interest" in seeking a mediated end to the dispute between China and other, much smaller Asian states over the Paracel and Spratly islands.

The myriad of very small islands, coral outcroppings, and reefs are unimportant in and of themselves. What is important, the only reason there has been a dispute between no fewer than six countries as to who owns what, is the documented presence of significant undersea oil deposits.

China, along with Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Brunei claim all or parts of the thousand or so dots on the map which constitute the land portion of the disputed undersea territory. China and Vietnam have exchanged shots over the islands. Both have attempted with varying degrees of success to establish a physical, military presence on at least some of the larger (more than one acre) islands. To date China has gotten the better in the confrontations.

Not surprisingly, the Trolls of Beijing were not pleased by the Clinton declaration. Already greatly perturbed by the recent displays of power projection undertaken by the US in waters close to China, the Trolls expressed great displeasure with the temerity of the US position.

It was bad enough when Ohio class Tomahawk equipped submarines popped up around the Chinese maritime periphery. Matters were worsened (from the perspective of the Trolls) when a major task group centered on the Nimitz class carrier George Washington hove over the horizon for joint exercises with the South Korean navy. Then the Americans had the unmitigated gall to aver that they had an interest in the resolution of the ongoing South China Sea contretemps.

The nerve of those Americans! Their role, their only role, is to borrow Chinese money and buy products made in China. Beyond that, the round-eyed, big nosed barbarians are supposed to keep quiet and at a great distance from the Center Empire and its sovereign interests.

Two American oil companies have signed agreements with Vietnam allowing exploratory drilling in the part of the South China Sea claimed by Hanoi. In their counterblast to the Clinton declaration, the Chinese warned against the drilling. Beijing sounded rather like Buenos Aires did as the drills started turning in the ocean near the Falkland Islands.

It does seem a tad counterintuitive that the Obama administration might be taking a position favorable to offshore oil drilling considering the evident distaste felt for such in the Gulf of Mexico. But, the fact remains that two American companies (among those of other nationalities) want to go after the oil of the South China Sea, and the American Secretary of State went on record as supporting a new form of maritime Open Door policy.

US companies have known of the South China Sea oil for years. Back during the heyday of antiwar protests during the late Sixties, demonstrators often accused the Johnson and Nixon administrations of waging war in Vietnam to protect the future interests of Big Oil. That charge was baseless.

It is less baseless to assert that the US desires to see a quick, mediated end to the Spratly and Parcel dispute in order that drills might spin and oil might flow. This would benefit the US and all other consumers of oil--including the Chinese. Of course, the Chinese would reap much greater benefits if the oil flowed from fields under their control. That is self-evident.

There is, of course, no reason why the US should be supine before the understandable Chinese desire for this benefit. There are, however, a number of reasons other than economic self-interest why the US would seek a regional settlement to this ownership dispute. Chief among these are regional stability and, as a necessary concomitant, establishing limits to Chinese hegemony.

The Trolls of Beijing have already alarmed the smaller states of ASEAN with the Chinese build-up of naval power. The ambitious Chinese naval developments are far in excess of any possible defense need but still insufficient to counter the American power projection capacity. One result of this is a sort of arms race in the region. In the past couple of years, navies have become fashionable with all parties seeking to upgrade theirs. As an example, consider Japan's decision to build a new generation of submarines, the first in thirty years.

The ASEAN states look to the US as a force for regional stability. The governments in the region are realistic enough to understand that stability rests upon military force and the credible political will to use the hardware.

The US Navy is long on hardware. But, given the disarray of what passes for foreign policy under Team Obama, there is grave doubts throughout the ASEAN community about American political will.

The stance taken by the US in the wake of the sinking of the Cheonan went some distance in allaying the concerns pervading ASEAN capitals. The joint US-South Korean exercises as well as other multi-national naval wargames involving Asian forces helped as well. Now, the surprising announcement by Secretary Clinton regarding the dispute has gone even further in convincing directly involved states that the Obama administration can find some backbone under some circumstances.

The key matter, of course, is how long will this newly discovered spine stay intact. Will the US line in the water prove any more lasting, any more real than the past lines in the sand? Or, should the Trolls of Beijing huff and puff a bit more, show a bit more rhetorical fang, will the fresh new Obama backbone find itself afflicted with political osteoporosis?

Time will answer that question as it has so many others over the past eighteen months. It can be hoped that the answer this time is more positive than its predecessors.

Let's Try Bribery--Again

Stripped of all the high minded and lofty rhetoric, foreign aid is simply bribery much of the time. It is an attempt to create a simulacrum of coinciding national interest. That is, when there is an insufficiency of actual coinciding national interest so that two states can work jointly on a joint problem, foreign aid can be trotted out to manufacture the appearance of coincidence of interest.

For obvious reasons this kind of fiction is generally the prerogative of Great Powers, or, at least, countries laden with cash or other equally useful and attractive items. The potlatch of bribe-your-way-to-an-alliance hit a (temporary) pinnacle of drunk sailor spending during the Cold War. The old Soviet Union built steel mills in countries without iron ore while China built eight lane divided highways or dual track railroads from Nowhere to Nothingness. For its part, the US scattered shiny new weapons and fresh from the factory warlike stores to armed forces better suited to brigandage than to any real national security use.

At least most of the recipient states had the common courtesy to stay bought for at least a few years. And, these grateful new allies and supporters of whichever Great Power had spilled the greatest amount of its wealth rarely crossed the line from bribery--a limited activity--to flat out extortion--an endless exercise in ever increasing demands.

Bribery as a tool of foreign policy entered into a brief decline during the years immediately following the end of the Cold War. It was no longer necessary for the US to rent-a-friend by foreign aid largess in most of the world.

There were, however, exceptions. One was Egypt. The US under four administrations has felt (word used advisedly as the process has been less than rational, other than based on careful calculation) that Egypt must continue to be bribed lest something unspecified but terrible occur. Another exception was carved out for Pakistan.

In the case of Pakistan the thin and wavering line separating bribery from extortion was crossed years ago, during the days of Bill Clinton. For each and every year of the Clinton, W. Bush, and, now, Obama administrations, the extortion campaign waged by Islamabad has accelerated. Each of these presidents has felt the need to pay more and more tribute to the Pakistanis lest something horrid happen.

Lest, for example, the Pakistanis gain nuclear power status. Lest, for example, the Pakistanis stir up more trouble with India, or in Afghanistan. Lest, for example, the Pakistanis surrender to the importuning and threats of the Islamists. Lest, for example, the Pakistanis fail to fight with valor and dedication against the terrorists of al-Qaeda, Taliban, and the Haqqani network. Lest, for example, Islamabad cozies up with the Trolls of Beijing.

Billions of dollars have flowed from future generations of Americans to the leaders and military commanders of today's Pakistan. The result of all these bribes, of answering all the extortionate demands of the government and military of Pakistan?

The Pakistanis have the bomb. The Pakistanis have worked overtime to exacerbate tensions with India. The army and government of Pakistan have waged a quarter-hearted war against carefully selected portions of the Islamist/jihadi congeries in the FATA. Islamabad has cozied up with Beijing to the extent of entering into a deal to purchase two Chinese nuclear reactors despite the objections of the US.

Wow! With this record it seems only sensible that we ship another giant bunch of money to Pakistan. Perhaps the concept "more is more" will work. This time.

Secretary of State Clinton, who is well-known to harbor significant doubts regarding the reliability of Pakistan in the "common" war against Islamic terrorist groups (OOPS! Bad Geek! The Geek meant to write, "radical extremest groups") is in Pakistan with a wad of cash in her hand.

The cash, one and half gigabucks worth, is the first installment of the seven and a half billion promised by Congress for civilian development projects over the next five years. This masterpiece of fabricating the appearance but not the reality of coinciding national interest, the Kerry-Lugar-Berman act, was passed last year. The intent is to purchase Pakistani cooperation in the war against al-Qaeda, Taliban, and the Haqqani Network as well as to buy a large measure of economic, social, and political stability in the country.

Ms Clinton, in announcing the payment of the civilian portion of the annual Pakistani Extortion Scheme, made loud reference as to the emphasis on civilian development as being a dramatic departure from the bad old days of George W. Bush. She is, of course, being quite economical with the truth.

George W. Bush's administration did hand over ten or so billion dollars in military aid to the military junta which ran Pakistan. This is what the Pakistanis demanded lest something horrid but unspecified occur. Similarly Ms Clinton's husband, Bill, did the same when he was in the Oval. So did George H.W. Bush. And, Ronald Reagan.

It is simple to understand why all these presidents paid off in military coin. When one is paying bribery or extortion, one pays in the coin demanded by the recipient. The Pakistanis have always preferred the warlike to the peaceful as they live in a paranoid fear and desire for one more war with India.

Adding civilian assistance, the building of dams, irrigation projects, infrastructure, electric generation plants, and the like is a form of bonus. The real deal continues to be the military assistance. When the US insisted on providing equipment more suitable to counterinsurgency than to a force-on-force war with India, it was necessary to sweeten the deal--again lest something horrid but unspecified occur.

The sweetener, the bonus is the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Soak Our Great-Grandchildren-To-Rent-The-Paks bill. As with all previous bribes or extortion payments, the money will be spent, some projects will be finished in a blare of Thanks Be To Our Government And Allah The Most Merciful And Compassionate propaganda. And, Islamabad will do what it wants to regardless of US interests or representations.

Islamabad has a ready portfolio of reasons why it cannot do what the US desires. It is oh-so-easy to point at the low repute in which the US is held by the great Pakistani public. It is oh-so-easy to say the US is responsible for the animus held against it due to our Predator attacks, or the presence of US troops in Afghanistan, or US support for Israel, or, even the tolerance showed to homosexuals in the US.

"See! You Americans do it to yourselves! And, that is why, we, the democratically elected government of Pakistan cannot and will not compromise our sovereignty by fighting terrorists or seeking genuine peace with India or even not buying Chinese plutonium producing power reactors."

Unless, of course, the US sends more money. Do that and amazing things can happen. For enough of a bribe, we will even grant visas to the more than four hundred diplomatic personnel who have been waiting for weeks, months. Money can move mountains. (Provided doing so does not run across Pakistani national interests as the Paks define them.)

Mr Obama, Ms Clinton, and Congress have set the stage for We the People to once more learn a basic lesson. Bribery is limited in its effects. Extortion has no limits to its demands.

They just don't teach that sort of thing at Harvard Law School, do they?

Obama Steps On His Dick With Golf Shoes

To nobody's great surprise but to the total dismay of any American who cares whether the US fails in Afghanistan or not, the Very Thin Skinned and Shallow Minded man who currently occupies the Oval fired (or, technically speaking, "accepted the resignation of") General Stanley McChrystal today. The president is scheduled to do the impossible--explain and justify his decision later today, as soon as the TelePrompter can be loaded with the appropriate platitudes.

Mr Obama has dual hatted General Petraeus to serve as commander in Afghanistan in addition to his current job as CINCENTCOM. (Well, it does simplify the chain of command as Petraeus is now his own boss.) General Petraeus did an adequate job as commander in Iraq and, is well thought of by Republicans. Most importantly from the perspective of the Oval Office Inmates, General Petraeus has spent most of his career in billets requiring a nuanced interaction with journalists and politicians.

General McChrystal, as is shown by the ill-advised remarks so eagerly seized upon and quoted by the writer of the Rolling Stone piece, is by background, training, experience, and orientation a warfighter, a special operator. Men of this variety as the Geek can attest from much personal experience, are given to blunt honesty, eschewing the finely nuanced speech so beloved by politicians, journalists, and academics. In short, General McChrystal calls it as he sees it to the best of knowledge and belief.

Blunt honesty and the integrity which sustains and permits honesty constitute an anathema to politicians and others who must make deals regardless of actual cost. One may be certain that General Petraeus will never rock any administration boat, insult any civilian lamebrain, or perturb the sleep of even the unjust.

Whether General Petraeus can win the military portion of the war in Afghanistan is a more open question. While there are never any certainties in war--other than men will die--the informed, impartial observer would have been reasonably sure of backing a winner with McChrystal and his radically different approach to the war in Afghanistan. That degree of confidence can no longer be said to exist, if for no other reason than the impact of the McChrystal sacking on the morale of American forces and on the willingness of the Karzai regime to put a high degree of trust and confidence in the will and ability of the Americans to win.

Another very real impact of the Obama decision to rid himself of the troubling general resides with the enemy. There is no doubt but the Taliban and others of its ilk will be encouraged in their will to resist by the removal of the only senior American commander to have bested the black hats in both the military and political arenas of war.

Where the McChrystal strategy and operational doctrine focused in large measure on disrupting the organizational integrity of the insurgents, the Obama action has been to disrupt, perhaps fatally, the American organization. Where McChrystal had taken great pains to demoralize the senior echelons of Taliban et al, the Obama action has done the same to the good guys--to us and our allies including the Afghan National Forces.

In the forthcoming rationalization there is a high likelihood that Mr Obama will echo the words of all too many writers of editorials and others of the pundit class. He will aver, or at the least, imply, that General McChrystal was both insulting and insubordinate in his words and the words of his staff.

This justification is, at best, a crock of caca.

The characterizations offered of Joe Biden, and Messrs Eikenberry and Holebrook to say nothing of the other "wimps" in and around the White House may have been ill-chosen but they were accurate in the extreme. With the exception of SecDef Gates and SecState Clinton (exceptions that were made explicitly by General McChrystal and his staff), the members of "Team Obama" have demonstrated repeatedly that they were incapable of understanding and appreciating the realities on the ground in Afghanistan. If not evil counselors, these worthies have shown themselves as inept counselors. They merit the disapprobation heaped upon them by the general and members of his staff.

The truth, particularly when presented in a very blunt way, may be both inconvenient and painful, but that does not make it any less of the truth. The president had put on the combat boot of the general's words and loudly announced by his action that the boot both fits and pinches.

As for the insinuation that the general was being in any way insubordinate or rejecting of civilian supremacy, that accusation is utterly specious. It has utterly no validity. If one wants to witness insubordination in action he need only revisit the Affair of General of the Armies Douglas MacArthur.

Dugout Doug directly and repeatedly violated explicit orders given him by the president of the United States, Harry Truman. For that, General MacArthur well deserved being fired as he was by President Truman.

Nothing said by General McChrystal is in the same universe with what MacArthur did. General McChrystal violated no orders. Nor would he. A man of the background and experience of McChrystal would obey any lawful order he was given. Or, if obedience would violate his greater oath to the Constitution or his responsibility to and for the lives of the men under his command, then General McChrystal would do the honorable thing--he would resign his commission.

The Geek has heard men say far worse words concerning their superiors both uniformed and in mufti than anything attributed to General McChrystal or his staff. Heck, the Geek has said far worse during the stress of a war ill-fought and the sight of men dying without useful outcome. But, the Geek and others like him were fortunate that they were of low rank--and that they had no rat of a journalist pretending collegiality while in their midst.

It is a personal misfortune for General McChrystal and a national tragedy for all Americans that the general was not similarly situated and thus able to speak openly, honestly, and candidly about people of high station who by their actions betray the trust which had been placed in them.

Mr Obama--This Isn't The Time To Kick Ass!

Rolling Stone magazine living up to its founding tradition as a pillar of the counterculture and deep opponent of the US War in Vietnam is bringing out an article on General Stanley McChrystal which has caused the overly sensitive Nice Young Man From Chicago and his henchmen to go ballistic. As a result General McChrystal has been forced to apologize for saying unkind words about various Team Obama heavyweights and has been recalled to Washington to explain his remarks to SecDef Gates and, presumably, the thin-skinned Obama.

Worse than this recall--which at the least serves to undercut McChrystal's moral authority in theater--the POTUS may well fire the man who has the best chance of pulling something less than total defeat out of the Afghanistan morass. Should Mr Obama take this action either directly or using a safe cut-out such as Secretary Gates or Admiral Mullen, it would constitute a self-inflicted wound with potentially fatal consequences.

In the upcoming profile style article, General McChrystal and his staff are reported to have made less than flattering comments about (1) Vice President Biden, (2) Obama Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke and (3) US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry. Others high in the ranks of Team Obama may have been skewered as well, since only Hilary Clinton was reputedly unscathed. (It is to be hoped that had Mr Gates been the target of a barb or two that his vast experience in Washington has served to cushion their impact.)

The foundation for the critical comments made by either McChrystal or members of his staff resides in the events of last Fall during the unnecessarily prolonged pseudo-debate over the correct American strategy for Afghanistan and the number of additional troops which would be needed to execute that strategy effectively. The Obama orchestrated exercise in foot-dragging was marked by leaked memos, rumors, counter-rumors, and other sorts of typically mean and petty bureaucratic infighting.

It was at this time that Ambassador Eikenberry leaked documents which were critical of McChrystal's request for extra men as well as casting aspersions on both the character and election of Hamid Karzai. To infer that Eikenberry's CYA oriented exercise torqued off General McChrystal and others genuinely seeking a path other than defeat by which to exit Afghanistan would be an exercise in accuracy.

It deserves mention that Ambassador Eikenberry's most undiplomatic excoriation of Afghanistan's president not only hindered General McChrystal but also marked the beginning of the steep and slippery downward slope of Afghan-US relations which has continued to date. The ventilation of frustration and anger with Eikenberry's self-serving act in the presence of a journalist was most unwise, most unfortunate, and most regrettable. But, the basis of the charge was both accurate and fair.

McChrystal and others have been frustrated and angered by Special Envoy Holbrooke as well. Mr Holbrooke has made the mistake of reading and believing his own press releases with the result that he considers himself to be The World's Leading Expert on Hostilities Termination and Conflict Resolution. This preposterously inflated self-assessment is based upon Mr Holbrook's role in brokering the Dayton Peace Accords, which played a less than considerable part in helping bring the ethnic and religiously based violence scarring former Yugoslavia to an end. The hosannas sung to Mr Holbrooke by press and Bill Clinton's White House do not merit Mr Holbrooke's conclusion that he Knows Everything Worth Knowing about both the political and military aspects of interventionary operations. If Mr Holbrooke's emails drip the same smugness and rectitude his remarks on camera and before Congress do, it is easy to see why General McChrystal and his staff are more than a tad annoyed to receive them.

Vice-President Biden is, of course, a cretin. Joe (The Biggest Mouth This Side Of Hugo Chavez) made his intellectually challenged position abundantly clear during the "debate" over AfPak strategy when he seriously proposed that the US withdraw from Afghanistan. At the same time we would cover Pakistan or at least the FATA with horizon-to-horizon swarms of Predators and Reapers so as to snipe al-Qaeda members at very low risk to ourselves.

The fact that this ludicrous idea was not met immediately with gales of derisive laughter but rather was given what appeared to be a respectful hearing in the corridors of power speaks volumes as to the level of strategic and operational thinking (that word used generically only) in the Obama administration. If General McChrystal was called upon to explain to the Policy Level wallahs just what was wrong with War According To Joe, full justification for any number of statements of jocose persiflage is to be found.

Gates and Mullen have engaged in preemptive damage limitation. Both men have severely chastised General McChrystal. This was done, not because the general deserved it but rather in the hopes it might head off some disastrous presidential act of pique.

The word on the street is President Obama likes everything "nicey-nicey" around him. Only the POTUS is allowed to have a temper tantrum, to show outrage, or, even, to be pissed off. We all know that Mr Obama has been looking for some "ass" to kick.

If the president is not in a hurry to be in the Oval while the US loses the war in Afghanistan, he had best decide that General McChrystal does not possess an ass worthy of kicking.