Want a few minutes relief from political pondering? Why not take a tour of the Swiss Alps seen through the cockpit of a Swiss, Hawker Hunter jet fighter. If you’ve not seen it before, it is breathtaking.
August 2008
Monthly Archive
August 31, 2008
August 31, 2008
Yes, it is about oil.
Westerners have been left pretty much in the dark about what really lurks behind the recent Russia-Georgian war. In particular, we’ve heard almost nothing about Washington’s diplomatic campaign to effective oust Russia from the oil riches of the region, even from the Middle East itself.
The goal has been to get Georgia and the Ukraine into NATO. Once under the protection of the Alliance the idea was then to have both countries close their ports to the Russian navy, eliminating the Russian’s access to the Meditteranean and the Middle East. It looks like that has backfired.
The Ukraine may yet give the Russian navy the boot but, with access to Abkhaz ports, especially Poti, which are now firmly under Russian protection, it won’t matter much.
Russia’s moves in South Ossetia and Abkhazia are expected to be endorsed at the September 5 meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a mutual defence alliance along the lines of NATO comprising Russia, Belarus, Khazakstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia. They may sound like small potatoes but they hold large reserves of oil and natural gas which the White House, Cheney in particular, has been attempting to secure and wrest out of Russian control.
Worse yet is the prospect of a new member to the CSTO – Iran. If Iran is admitted it would effectively acquire Soviet military protection. This would present a huge complication to the Americans and the Israelis. If the Russians deployed their latest, S-400 SAM batteries to Iran, it could make an American or Israeli air strike a very bloody affair. It could also bring Russia and America into a shooting war.
I’ve always felt that the biggest risk from NATO’s seemingly pointless march to Russia’s borders would be the prospect of strengthening the Russian-Chinese alliance through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. That appears to be just what is happening.
Russia is pushing back – hard. This may result in a speed up of Russian negotiations to establish a naval base in Syria. This would create a Russian military presence just north of Lebanon and little more than a heartbeat away from Israel.
There’s great truth in the old adage about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer. The West had a grand opportunity to engage and embrace Russia in the immediate wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Instead that genius in Washington responded with a relentless campaign to contain, isolate and threaten Russia. Like everything else that Bush and his diseased, bald sidekick have done, there was no apparent awareness of or preparations for the ramifications of their actions, even consequences that should have been obvious.
Look at it this way, Russia really didn’t create most of these opportunities it’s now exploiting. We did that for them. Unfortunately the Kremlin remains (and may well stay) two steps ahead of us. Thanks George, you clot!
August 31, 2008
August 29, 2008
Sarah Palin, McCain’s choice for veep and 2-year governor of Alaska, may be very grateful indeed that she was picked. Sarah may welcome the chance to put some serious distance between herself and the Alaska legislature.
Palin is caught up in a nasty scandal. She’s alleged to have pressured the commissioner of Alaska’s Public Safety Department to fire a cop, trooper Mike Wooten. Why? Hard to say but it could have had something to do with the ugly custody battle Wooten was then engaged in with Palin’s sister.
For a while Governor Sarah denied there was anything to the story. Then the Alaska legislature unanimously approved the hiring of an investigator. Suddenly Governor Sarah had an epiphany – why yes, someone in her office did press the Public Safety Department to fire trooper Wooten – but, of course, it has nothing to do with her. She knew nothing about the whole nasty business.
From McClatchey Newspapers:
Gov. Sarah Palin on Wednesday [August 13th] revealed an audio recording that shows an aide pressuring the Public Safety Department to fire a state trooper embroiled in a custody battle with her sister.
Palin, who has previously said her administration didn’t exert pressure to get rid of trooper Mike Wooten, also disclosed that members of her staff had made about two dozen contacts with public safety officials about the trooper.
“I do now have to tell Alaskans that such pressure could have been perceived to exist although I have only now become aware of it,” Palin said.
The majority of the calls came from Palin’s chief of staff at the time, Mike Tibbles, according to an information gathered by the state attorney general’s office. Attorney General Talis Colberg and Palin’s husband, Todd, also contacted Monegan about the trooper.
Palin said she’d only known about some of the contacts and never asked anyone on her staff to get in touch with state public safety officials about Wooten.
“Many of these inquiries were completely appropriate. However, the serial nature of the contacts could be perceived as some kind of pressure, presumably at my direction,” she said.
Governor Sarah apparently overlooked something back when she was denying the whole thing – the Public Safety Department tapes all these calls.
Yes, Governor Sarah, two dozen calls from your aides and your husband to the Public Safety Department demanding trooper Mike Wooten’s badge, “could be perceived as some kind of pressure, presumably at [your] direction.” If you would like people to perceive it otherwise, kindly come up with some explanation of why you wanted Wooten sacked other than the custody battle with your sister.
And I thought Cheney was the grand dissembler. That Dick has nothing on Sarah.
h/t Scott Tribe
August 29, 2008
Those Looney Lefties also known as Pentagon analysts are again warning of global wars driven by climate change. From the Environmental News Network:
“…governments in the US and UK are already being briefed by their own military strategists about how to prepare for a world of mass famine, floods of refugees and even nuclear conflicts over resources.
Gwynne Dyer is a military analyst and author who served in three navies and has held academic posts at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst and at Oxford.
“[There will be] huge falls in the amount of crops that you can grow because there isn’t the rain and it’s too hot,” he said. “That will apply particularly to the Mediterranean… and so not just the north African countries, but also the ones on the northern side of the Mediterranean. “The ones in the European Union like Spain and Italy and Greece and the Balkans and Turkey are going to be suffering huge losses in their ability to support their populations.
Climate refugees.
He says a fall in crops and food production means there will be refugees, people who are desperate. “It may mean the collapse in the global trade of food because while some countries still have enough, there is still a global food shortage,” he said. “If you can’t buy food internationally and you can’t raise enough at home, what do you do? You move.
So refugee pressures – huge ones – are one of the things that drives these security considerations.”
In Climate Wars, even the most hopeful scenarios about the impact of climate change have hundreds of millions of people dying of starvation, mass displacement of people and conflict between countries competing for basic resources like water. “India and Pakistan are both nuclear-armed countries. All of the agriculture in Pakistan and all of the agriculture in northern India depend on glacier-fed rivers that come off the Himalayas from the Tibetan plateau. Those glaciers are melting,” Dr Dyer said.
“They’re melting according to Chinese scientists to 7 per cent a year, which means they’re half gone in 10 years. “India has a problem with this. Pakistan faces an absolutely lethal emergency because Pakistan is basically a desert with a braid of rivers running through it.
“Those rivers all start with one exception in Indian-controlled territory and there’s a complex series of deals between the two countries about who gets to take so much water out of the river. Those deals break down when there’s not that much water in the rivers.” And then you have got the prospect of a nuclear confrontation, Dr Dyer says.
“It’s unthinkable but yet it’s entirely possible. So these are the prices you start to pay if you get this wrong,” he said. “Some of them, actually, I’m afraid we’ve already got them wrong in the sense that there is going to be some major climate change.” Dr Dyer explains the least alarmist scenario for the next couple of decades still involves enormous pressures on the US border. “That border’s going to be militarised. I think there’s almost no question about it because the alternative is an inundation of the United States by what will be, effectively, climate refugees,” he said. “
“…governments in the US and UK are already being briefed by their own military strategists about how to prepare for a world of mass famine, floods of refugees and even nuclear conflicts over resources.
Gwynne Dyer is a military analyst and author who served in three navies and has held academic posts at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst and at Oxford.
“[There will be] huge falls in the amount of crops that you can grow because there isn’t the rain and it’s too hot,” he said. “That will apply particularly to the Mediterranean… and so not just the north African countries, but also the ones on the northern side of the Mediterranean. “The ones in the European Union like Spain and Italy and Greece and the Balkans and Turkey are going to be suffering huge losses in their ability to support their populations.
Climate refugees.
He says a fall in crops and food production means there will be refugees, people who are desperate. “It may mean the collapse in the global trade of food because while some countries still have enough, there is still a global food shortage,” he said. “If you can’t buy food internationally and you can’t raise enough at home, what do you do? You move.
So refugee pressures – huge ones – are one of the things that drives these security considerations.”
In Climate Wars, even the most hopeful scenarios about the impact of climate change have hundreds of millions of people dying of starvation, mass displacement of people and conflict between countries competing for basic resources like water. “India and Pakistan are both nuclear-armed countries. All of the agriculture in Pakistan and all of the agriculture in northern India depend on glacier-fed rivers that come off the Himalayas from the Tibetan plateau. Those glaciers are melting,” Dr Dyer said.
“They’re melting according to Chinese scientists to 7 per cent a year, which means they’re half gone in 10 years. “India has a problem with this. Pakistan faces an absolutely lethal emergency because Pakistan is basically a desert with a braid of rivers running through it.
“Those rivers all start with one exception in Indian-controlled territory and there’s a complex series of deals between the two countries about who gets to take so much water out of the river. Those deals break down when there’s not that much water in the rivers.” And then you have got the prospect of a nuclear confrontation, Dr Dyer says.
“It’s unthinkable but yet it’s entirely possible. So these are the prices you start to pay if you get this wrong,” he said. “Some of them, actually, I’m afraid we’ve already got them wrong in the sense that there is going to be some major climate change.” Dr Dyer explains the least alarmist scenario for the next couple of decades still involves enormous pressures on the US border. “That border’s going to be militarised. I think there’s almost no question about it because the alternative is an inundation of the United States by what will be, effectively, climate refugees,” he said. “
If you’re interested in global warming as a source for global conflict you might also check out the speech given by Gareth Evans (president of International Crisis Group) on this subject:
August 29, 2008
Furious Steve says that whether he’s an authoritarian thug is completely irrelevant to his defamation suit against the Libs. From the Toronto Star:
Harper’s lawyers will argue in Ontario Superior Court on Friday that the opinion of political scientist Peter Russell is irrelevant to the prime minister’s $3.5-million defamation suit against the Liberals.
Russell, a professor at the University of Toronto, argued the give and take of the Commons, and related arenas, is part of the cut and thrust of free political debate.
“This use of legal action to silence the opposition is characteristic of authoritarian governments,” he said.
A spokesperson for the Conservative party has already dismissed Russell’s affidavit as simply an opinion from an academic.
Relevant or not, I think any Canadian court can take judicial notice of the fact that our Furious Leader is decidedly authoritarian.
August 29, 2008
Unlike all of our leaders, Vlad Putin is not a nice man. Unlike most of our leaders, Vlad Putin is a shrewd character adept at pulling the levers of power.
When Russia goaded that idiot Saakashvili into bombarding South Ossetia and then retaliated by invading Georgia and, later, recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states, our leaders turned bright red and damn near blew up. Russia wasn’t going to get away with that, no sir. Why, Russia would feel the sting of our sanctions and, better yet, we were going to boot it right out of the G8 too! That’d set Moscow a reeling.
Or not.
Putin, it seems, has the measure of Russia’s vulnerability to Western retaliation – right down to the last kopek. He knows that the consequences, if they materialize at all, will be insignificant compared to the popularity he’ll enjoy at home – where it matters.
This isn’t just about Georgia or the autonomy of these two, small states. No, it’s much bigger than that. It’s about Western solidarity and how far that can be stretched.
Europe doesn’t want to get caught in the middle of a BushChehney pissing match with the Kremlin. Winter isn’t far off and the Euros know that their supply of Russian oil and gas could be the first casualty of American adventurism.
The European Union made the requisite threats of sanctions against Russia but The Guardian reports the EU is now backing away from any action.
Russia’s foreign ministry spokesman, Andrey Nesterenko, …lambasted Nato for “putting pressure” on Russia and said that there could be “irreversible consequences” for stability in Europe. Nato had no “moral right to lecture Russia,” he added.
The Kremlin’s defiant and unapologetic tone comes ahead of a special EU summit in Brussels on Monday, called by France, to discuss the EU’s future relations with Russia. On Thursday, France’s foreign minister, Bernard Coucher, intimated that sanctions against Moscow would be discussed.
Yesterday, though, the EU appeared to be rapidly retreating from this position.
Moscow has made clear it will respond to any punitive measures from Brussels, which could include the suspension of a new EU-Russia partnership agreement. “The time to pass sanctions has certainly not come,” said a senior diplomat from France, which holds the EU presidency.
Analysts in Moscow today said that Russia’s leadership was relatively relaxed about the threat of EU sanctions. “I don’t think the contemporary west has any means to punish a state that is not quite a rogue state,” Yulia Latynina, a commentator with the independent Echo of Moscow radio station told the Guardian.
She went on: “The Kremlin didn’t take Tbilisi and didn’t shoot (Mikheil) Saakashvili. What the west can really do — expelling Russia from the G8 or the World Trade Organisation — isn’t important.’
Like it or not, the East-West game is only getting started. Yesterday Russia successfully test-fired its new, long-range “stealth” missile, the Topol RS-12M specifically designed to defeat the anti-missile batteries Bush intends to deploy in Poland.
China also stands to get dragged into this standoff via the SCO or Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Putin is seeking SCO support for his gambit on South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Iran is also looking to take advantage of the tensions to strengthen its ties with Moscow and seek entry into the SCO. Iran would also like to get its hands on Russia’s latest-generation S-400 surface to air missile batteries. The mere rumour of that has already given Washington and Israel fits.
There’s a lot at stake in this brinksmanship including the fate of NATO. Without unity the Alliance makes little sense and yet the interests of Western and Central Europe are not in harmony with those of Eastern Europe. In a mutual-defence alliance you should never admit nations you really aren’t willing to fight to defend if it comes right down to it.
I think NATO is hopelessly overextended and I think Vlad Putin thinks that too. If I’m right, this problem is bound to get worse before it gets any better.
August 29, 2008
John McCain is all about experience. He says so every chance he gets to anyone who’ll listen.
So, who did John pick as his veep candidate – the person who will have to take over the reins in the Oval Office when his already wobbly mind packs in?
It’s Alaska’s rookie governor Sarah Palin! Sarah has all the credentials one would expect in someone second to the throne. She was the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska until just two years ago and has held the governorship of that state since, gasp, 2006.
Mayor of a town of 6,000 to vice president in two easy steps. Just add water and stir!
Why did McCain pass over far more “experienced” prospects? Hmmm, I don’t know, can you figure it out?
Before the announcement, McCain’s communications director, Jill Hazelbaker, said,
“He’s going to choose someone who can be a partner in governing. He’s going to choose someone who brings character and principle to the table and who shares his priorities. And I’m confident that he’s going to make a great pick.”
Oh great, we’re going to have the mayor of Wasilla as McCain’s “partner in governing.”
August 29, 2008
How jittery are the Republicans? Ask Gustav. As the latest tropical storm/hurricane tracks steadily toward New Orleans, GOP leaders are seriously considering whether to postpone their presidential nomination convention.
With a nominee who’d like nothing better than to try on Bush’s skivvies, a Gustav/Katrina confluence has senior Repugs soiling their own. Damn but it looks good on them.
New Orleans was three years ago – and remains – a disgrace for the Republican Party. They dodged many a bullet but the flooded districts of the Big Easy stuck, and they know it.
Meanwhile, I listened to a speech tonight that was pure Roosevelt, straight Kennedy. Barack Obama’s acceptance speech was seismic. It really was. It was, at once calm and energizing, full of promise, not fear. I’m not sure that John McCain might have preferred a Category 5 hit on Bourbon Street to the hurricane lashing he got from Obama.
For those who weren’t sure if Obama could actually battle McCain, tonight showed the gloves are very much off and that Obama isn’t just willing, he’s perfectly ready and willing to do just that.
McCain’s biggest problem isn’t Barack Obama. It’s John McCain, closely followed in second place by George w. Bush. I remember a drill instructor who turned to a somewhat awkward squadron mate and threatened to “rip your arm off and beat you to death with it.” That arm, of course, is everything, every lofty principle, that McCain made people believe he stood for in 2000. McCain’s video legacy is like Kryptonite to Superman, except that it’s entirely of his own making.
Obama also stuck a harpoon in McCain’s side tonight when he announced that temperment is as important as experience in a Commander in Chief. There’s another 20-lashes with a briney Cat for the Old Cold Warrior.
Yeah, from what I watched, I do believe that McCain would rather see New Orelans washed out to sea than take the thrashing he got tonight.
August 28, 2008
The far-right, for all its supposed puritanical Christianity, doesn’t hesitate to embrace degenerates. In fact, it’s the natural home of deviants, offering them a banquet of their favourite foods – fear, bigotry, hatred and greed.
John McCain was attacked by these types in his presidential bid in 2000. George w. Bush sat by and allowed it to happen. Now this same bunch is attacking Barack Obama and, this time, it’s the man of self-proclaimed lofty principles, McCain himself, who is sitting by and allowing it to happen.
McClatchey news service has an article today describing how Obama’s campaign is spending a bundle on radio and television ads in Kentucky stressing that the Democratic nominee is a Christian. Why? Because the deviants, perverts and degenerates of the far right have been effectively spinning the story that Obama is a Muslim and, as such, a threat to America.
John McCain won’t say it but these supporters seek nothing less than to undermine democracy to skew the vote by using blatant lies to exploit the fears and bigotry of vulnerable voters. It’s completely anti-democratic. This is the stuff of tyrants and dictators. Perhaps that’s more than sheer coincidence.
We have our share of these vermin in Canada also. I’m not saying we have anything like the American situation but still we have more than enough of these types. And it’s certainly nothing new.
I can remember Pierre Trudeau’s first election as prime minister. It was the first time I was eligible to vote. Back then there was no internet as a vehicle for spreading lies but they made up for it with leaflets that were quietly circulated claiming Trudeau was a draft-dodging, french-speaking, Catholic, communist sympathizing, homosexual. If you were bigoted about anything, they hit on it. I was surprised at the time to see intelligent, well-off people circulating this trash – and they did.
It was no fluke that Preston Manning’s Reform Party turned into the destination of choice for bigots of all varieties. When they exposed themselves by making racist remarks, Manning had to punt them to a safe distance. Stephen Harper, aided by the collusion of Peter MacKay, brought that segment of the far-right into the Conservative Party.
How will they manifest their powers in the next federal election? I don’t know but, given Harper’s giddy delight in Rovian tactics, I’m sure we won’t have long to wait to see them in action. Sad, really.
The Mound of Sound 