Former British diplomat Peter Hain urges South Africa to cut electricity to Zimbabwe:
"Electricity supplies from South Africa, which have been going in for many years now, should be cut off. And that would hit the regime more than anything else because the people can hardly suffer any more than they have been already," he said.Power reductions are only "collective punishment" when Israel does it.
June 26, 2008, 11:10 AM (GMT+02:00)
Olli Heinonen led nuclear watchdog inspection in Syria
DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources report that the three-man International Atomic Energy Agency team which inspected the El Kibar site bombed by Israel last September, returned to Vienna Wednesday, June 25, with soil and building materials samples gathered secretly without Syrian knowledge. From the Syrians they received different samples said to have been collected at a site which they insisted was a military facility under construction.
During their four days in the country, Olli Heinonen, IAEA deputy director and leading negotiator with the Iranian authorities, and his team interviewed Syrian army officers and men presented by Damascus as having been employed at the facility. They denied it was a nuclear reactor and possessing nuclear credentials themselves. But, according to DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources, the inspectors countered with their own list of officers, scientists and technicians – not only Syrians, but also Iranians and North Koreans employed in building the facility.
The Syrian side denied this and refused the inspectors permission to interview people on their list.
Last week, British, German and Israeli publications released new information from Israeli intelligence sources according to which the El Kibar reactor was intended to be a component of Iran’s nuclear program. Iran’s use of plutonium in its weapons projects was to be concealed by having it produced in Syria.
Wednesday, June 25, the London daily, the Guardian, quoted an adviser to Israel's national security council as saying: "The Iranians were involved in the Syrian programme. The idea was that the Syrians produce plutonium and the Iranians get their share. Syria had no reprocessing facility for the spent fuel. It's not deduction alone that brings almost everyone to think that the link exists" – implying that Israel had evidence.
DEBKAfile adds: War tensions between Israel and Iran have shot up in the last few days on the strength of reported Israeli preparations for an attack on Iran’s nuclear installations. By linking Syria’s destroyed reactor to Iran’s nuclear program, Israeli officials were saying in effect that the attack on an Iranian nuclear installation had already taken place …in Syria.
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A recent report I wrote for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty details this flow. In July 2007, for example, Al Qaeda released more than 450 statements, books, articles, magazines, audio recordings, short videos of attacks and longer films. These products reach the world through a network of quasi-official online production and distribution entities, like Al Sahab, which releases statements by Osama bin Laden.
But the Qaeda media nexus, as advanced as it is, is old hat. If Web 1.0 was about creating the snazziest official Web resources and Web 2.0 is about letting users run wild with self-created content and interactivity, Al Qaeda and its affiliates are stuck in 1.0."
Mr. McCain advocates eliminating the multibillion-dollar annual government subsidies that domestic ethanol has long enjoyed. As a free trade advocate, he also opposes the 54-cent-a-gallon tariff that the United States slaps on imports of ethanol made from sugar cane, which packs more of an energy punch than corn-based ethanol and is cheaper to produce.
“We made a series of mistakes by not adopting a sustainable energy policy, one of which is the subsidies for corn ethanol, which I warned in Iowa were going to destroy the market” and contribute to inflation, Mr. McCain said this month in an interview with a Brazilian newspaper, O Estado de São Paulo. “Besides, it is wrong,” he added, to tax Brazilian-made sugar cane ethanol, “which is much more efficient than corn ethanol.”
Mr. Obama, in contrast, favors the subsidies, some of which end up in the hands of the same oil companies he says should be subjected to a windfall profits tax. In the name of helping the United States build “energy independence,” he also supports the tariff, which some economists say may well be illegal under the World Trade Organization’s rules but which his advisers say is not."
"Many economists, consumer advocates, environmental experts and tax groups have been critical of corn ethanol programs as a boondoggle that benefits agribusiness conglomerates more than small farmers. Those complaints have intensified recently as corn prices have risen sharply in tandem with oil prices and corn normally used for food stock has been diverted to ethanol production.
“If you want to take some of the pressure off this market, the obvious thing to do is lower that tariff and let some Brazilian ethanol come in,” said C. Ford Runge, an economist specializing in commodities and trade policy at the Center for International Food and Agricultural Policy at the University of Minnesota. “But one of the fundamental reasons biofuels policy is so out of whack with markets and reality is that interest group politics have been so dominant in the construction of the subsidies that support it.”
"Corn ethanol generates less than two units of energy for every unit of energy used to produce it, while the energy ratio for sugar cane is more than 8 to 1. With lower production costs and cheaper land prices in the tropical countries where it is grown, sugar cane is a more efficient source."
Yey, New York Times!!!
“Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon.”
This excerpt from William Ayers’ memoir appeared in the New York Times on Sept. 11, 2001 — the day al-Qaeda terrorists crashed hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Ayers, once a leader in the Weather Underground — the group that declared “war” on the U.S. government in 1970 — told the Times, “I don’t regret setting bombs,” and, “I feel we didn’t do enough.”
Ayers recently reappeared in the news because Politico.com reported Friday that Barack Obama has loose ties to him. Ayers, now a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is apparently a left-wing institution in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, and Obama visited Ayers’ home as a rite of passage when launching his political career in the mid-1990s. The two also served on the board of the charitable Woods Fund of Chicago, which gave money to Northwestern University Law School’s Children and Family Justice Center, where Ayers’ wife (and former Weather Underground compatriot who glorified violence) Bernardine Dohrn is the director.
I don’t think Obama supports domestic terrorism, and I’m sure he can offer eloquent explanations for why he shouldn’t suffer any guilt by association. The Hillary Clinton campaign, however, did try to score a few political points, meekly linking to the Politico story on the campaign website’s blog. The campaign probably couldn’t be more aggressive without calling attention to how Bill Clinton pardoned Puerto Rican separatist terrorists — perceived to be a way to gain support for Hillary’s Senate bid from left-wing Puerto Ricans in New York.
What fascinates me is how light the baggage is when one travels from violent radicalism to liberalism. Chicago activist Sam Ackerman told Politico’s reporter that Ayers “is one of my heroes in life.” Cass Sunstein, a first-rank liberal intellectual, said, “I feel very uncomfortable with their past, but neither of them is thought of as horrible types now — so far as most of us know, they are legitimate members of the community.”
Why, exactly, can Ayers and Dohrn be seen as “legitimate members of the community”? How is it that they get prestigious university jobs when even the whisper of neocon tendencies is toxic in academia?
The question of why Ayers isn’t in jail is moot; he was never prosecuted for the Weather Underground’s bombing campaign. Still, Ayers is unrepentant about his years spent waging war against the United States. “Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that’s where it’s really at,” Ayers was widely quoted as saying at the time.
Ayers is merely symptomatic. Academia, the arts, even business have readmitted one former (and a few not-so-former) violent radical after another. Thomas W. Jones, a leader in the armed takeover of Cornell University’s student union in 1969, rose to the top of Citigroup and once ran TIAA-CREF, the pension fund of some of the very academics he threatened.
Hillary Clinton had her own brush with violent radical leftists during her years at Yale Law. The New Haven, Conn., trial of Black Panthers — racist paramilitary criminals who had murdered police and civilians in cold blood — was a cause celebre for The Yale Review of Law and Social Action, the journal she helped edit. According to some accounts, Clinton volunteered to monitor the trial to aid Black Panther leader Bobby Seale’s defense, and one of Seale’s lawyers, a major radical, was sufficiently impressed to offer her an internship.
I don’t think such associations should necessarily cost people their careers or place in polite society, particularly if some sort of contrition is involved. But shouldn’t this baggage cost something?
Why is it only conservative “cranks” who think it’s relevant that Obama’s campaign headquarters in Houston had a Che Guevara-emblazoned Cuban flag hanging on the wall? Indeed, why is love of Che still radically chic at all? A murderer who believed that “the U.S. is the great enemy of mankind” shouldn’t be anyone’s hero, never mind a logo for a line of baby clothes. Why are Fidel Castro’s apologists progressive and enlightened but apologists for Augusto Pinochet frightening and authoritarian? Why was Sen. Trent Lott’s kindness to former segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond a scandal but Obama’s acquaintance with an unrepentant terrorist a triviality?
I have my own answers to these questions. But I’m interested in theirs. In the weeks to come, maybe reporters can resist the temptation to repeat health care questions for the billionth time and instead ask America’s foremost liberal representatives why being a radical means never having to say you’re sorry.
— Jonah Goldberg is the author of Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.
"Barack Obama's path to strengthening ties with the Jewish community is severely blocked when appointing an anti-Israel figure like David Bonior. While in Congress, Bonior refused to stand by Israel after repeated terrorist attacks, was known as a stalwart opponent to Israel, and is now a representative for Barack Obama. Bonior's appointment is the latest in a series that raises serious questions and doubts about Barack Obama's positions and judgments on the Middle East."
During his Congressional career, David Bonior repeatedly opposed pro-Israel legislation. In 1997, David Bonior was one of 15 Congressmen who signed a letter asking then-President Clinton to pressure Israelis into making concessions to the Palestinians. In 2002, David Bonior was one of only 21 Congressmen who opposed H.R. 392, which publicly affirmed Congress's support of Israel's right to self-defense and called for the dismantling of the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure.[2] In 1990, David Bonior was one of only 34 Congressman to vote against a measure naming Jerusalem as the united capital of Israel.[3] In 1989, Bonior was one of six House members to vote against a bill that prevented US funds from going to UN entities that granted the PLO membership.[4] Throughout his career, Bonior repeatedly opposed US aid to Israel and supported arms sales to Arab states opposed to Israel's existence.
"The appointment of yet another anti-Israel advisor like David Bonior to represent Barack Obama speaks volumes to the Jewish community. The pattern including Tony McPeak, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Robert Malley continues with this appointment. It's no wonder the Jewish community remains deeply skeptical and troubled by Barack Obama."
[1] Jonathan Tobin, Jewish World Review, 7/12/99.
[2] H.R. 392, "Expressing Solidarity with Israel in its Fight against Terrorism", May 2002, 352-21 (29 voting present).
[3] H.R. 290, "In support of a unified Jerusalem", Apr. 1990, 378-34 (6 voting present).
[4] H.R. 2145, "Prohibiting US Contributions to the United Nations Under Certain Condititons", May 1989, 396-6 (11 voting present).
In Video Statement, Senator Obama Inexplicably Pledges to Unilaterally Jeopardize American Military Superiority
When you find yourself in a hole, just keep digging.
That appears to be the logic of Senator Barack Obama, who already finds himself in the proverbial hole on defense and national security issues. At this pace, he’ll reach China by November.
In a strange video address intended to somehow reassure American voters regarding his military bona fides, Senator Obama ends up doing just the opposite.
Among other things, he promises to cut “tens of billions of dollars” from the military budget, at a time when our armed forces are already stretched and in need of new weapon technologies and armor; to “cut investments in unproven missile defense systems,” which in reality have already proven remarkably effective; that he “will not weaponize space” even though other nations such as China do exactly that; to terminate the Iraq war just as the surge proves itself remarkably successful; and he rails against what he calls “unnecessary” military spending. He concludes by promising to remove our inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) from what he calls a “hair-trigger alert,” embarrassing himself via his ignorance regarding our deliberate targeting and launch protocol.
Most alarmingly, however, Senator Obama literally promises to “slow development of future combat systems.”
Think about the frightening implications of this pledge for a moment.
Future combat systems are the cornerstone of American military modernization and superiority. As America fights the war on terror and deters potential military aggression by rogue nations cross the world, advanced combat systems provide us with better equipment, unmatched situational awareness and communication systems that result in American battlefield domination. Other ascendant nations such as China and Russia seek to match our prowess, but we continue to outpace them...
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If Only Mugabe Were White-Kristof-NYT
My response on Kristof's blog copied below. By the way, without taking anything away on the Mugabe issue in this Op-Ed, what type of op-editorialist dolt would think that $5 Million could buy off a megalomaniac dictator who has undoubtedly stolen one hundred times that amount in his years of rule?
“Quote from Kristof's op-ed: 'Mozambique, South Africa and Congo will also cut off the electricity they provide to Zimbabwe.'
Hmmm… Interesting that when you make this statement in your Op-Ed, you don’t rail about this constituting collective punishment of Zimbabwe’s populace, as you would (and have) when Israel threatens to do the same to Gaza, whose leadership sponsors the firing of rockets at Israeli towns WITH THE INTENTION of killing civilians. Hamas, of course, was truly democratically elected to lead the Gazans, unlike Mugabe, making the justice of such electricity cutoffs all-the-more justified in Gaza.
What say you, Mr. Kristof, about this apparent double standard? RAB"