International Affairs: August 2003 Archives

SDB updates us on the status of the negotiations with North Korea. The situation sounds somewhat promising, if China is really starting to get on board with us.

The real point of no return will come this December. Without food and fuel shipments from outside, the already-widespread starvation will be greatly heightened come winter, when the mean temperature in Pyongyang is below freezing. If Kim's regime hasn't collapsed or been dismantled by then, I would put my money on a January climax.

Everyone is marginalizing Arafat, even his own terrorists!

JERUSALEM — Yasser Arafat (search) asked militant groups Wednesday to halt attacks on Israelis, the Palestinian leader's first public attempt to restore calm following the collapse of the armed groups' unilateral truce.

But a Hamas (search) leader rejected the call, while Israel, which has tried to sideline Arafat from the peace process, dismissed it as empty rhetoric and said the army would keep rounding up terror suspects and hunting down their leaders.

That's the problem with the Palestinians: there isn't anyone in charge. It's impossible to for Israel to negotiate a "peace process" when there isn't anyone on the other wise with the authority to negotiate. If Arafat and Abbas can't control the terrorists, then there really isn't any reason to sit down and talk with them, now is there?

And that's all a part of the terrorists' plan, of course. They don't want peace without the destruction of Israel, so it's in their interests to undermine those who do want peace. If Arafat and Abbas don't have the power (military and political) to control the terrorists, then they're useless figureheads.

I guess the terrorists only like Arafat when he's his normal, evil, self.

There's a heated and informative discussion going on over at Hobbs Online about the nature and future of the Israeli/Palestinian war. Here's my most recent comment (slightly edited post hoc):

There may be numerically many Palestinians who want peace, but the majority of them do not, if the poll numbers I cited are even remotely accurate.

It's a war. Don't misunderstand my position: I don't merely want peace, I want Israel to win. Firstly, I don't think there will be peace until one side or the other has a decisive victory. Look at history. No one ever gives up fighting until they have to. Given that, I want Israel to be the winners, and the Palestinians to be the losers.

As long as the conflict stays low-level, it's never going to end, because no one will win.

Yes, it sucks that innocent people are getting killed, but you're living in fantasyland if you think the fighting is just going to stop without victory by one side or the other.

There's an immense difference between purposefully targeting civilians, and accidentally killing civilians while targeting soldiers. It's widely accepted that if soldiers hide among civilians, and those civilians are killed while the soldiers are being attacked, the attackers are not responsible for the civilian deaths. The soldiers who hide among the civilians are directly responsible. That's how war works.

Similarly, the WTC was not a military target, it was a civilian target. There were no military units hiding among the civilians there. Arguably the Pentagon was a military target, and I think it's kinda odd that the plane that hit the Pentagon wasn't shot down. But then, at that point, we didn't realize that we were in a war.

In WW2 the fighting didn't stop until our opponents had no other choice. The carpet bombing of German cities and the nuking of Japan weren't incidental to our victory, they were essential. If the Palestinian terrorists did not have the support of the Palestinian people, they could not carry on their fight, any more than the German and Japanese armies could have continued fighting on their own.

If you want true, lasting peace, you should be pushing for a quick and clean victory for Israel.

Update:
Uh oh, Hamas says the cease-fire is over. I hope they don't start blowing up buses! Oh wait, they were already doing that during the cease-fire.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Israel killed a senior Hamas political leader in a missile strike Thursday, two days after a suicide bombing of a bus in which 20 people died, including six children. Hamas, along with Islamic Jihad, formally abandoned a truce declared eight weeks ago.

Formal, informal, whatever. No one is really in charge of these groups, and no one can really negotiate for them with any authority.

I think Cox & Forkum understand the Palestinians pretty well.

There's plenty of great coverage elsewhere of the details, and I just want to make a couple observations.

First, the UN's policy of moral compromise and appeasement towards Arab Muslim extremists has failed to protect them. It took a bombing to make the Saudis sit up and take notice of terrorism; they thought that if they supplied the fanatics with money and moral support that they could export the terror to other regions. After the Saudi bombing, however, the kingdom began a more serious crackdown on the Wahabi imams who were instigating much of it. It remains to be seen whether or not the UN will examine itself and ask "why do they hate us?" or if they will simply blame the US.

Unfortunately for the UN workers, UN operational policy is largely determined by France, Russia, and China, and until those countries get hit directly they may not have much motivation to change their positions merely because of attacks on UN personel.

2. It's strange that terrorists would attack the UN, considering that the UN doesn't really do much to interfere with their agenda. The UN was most likely attacked because it's high-profile, and it was a fairly soft target. The Coalition Provisional Authority headquarters are surrounded by military units and have secure perimeters that are virtually immune to this sort of truck bombing. Sure, a bomb could damage or destroy a gate and a few soldiers, but there's no way to get to the civilians inside.

Will the UN request coalition military protection? Will the UN ask to relocate to within the CPAs secure areas? Will the CPA grant such a request? I suspect the answer to all three is "yes".

When I saw the headline, I thought it would have been really awesome if it were true: Iraqis Offer Tips Over U.S. Blackout. Unfortunately, at least from the tone of the AP reporter, most of the tips were rather snide.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqis who have suffered for months with little electricity gloated Friday over a blackout in the northeastern United States and southern Canada and offered some tips to help Americans beat the heat.

Finally those uppity Americans who spent hundreds of lives and billions of dollars to rid us of the monster responsible for our terrible infrastructure are getting what they deserve.

"Let them taste what we have tasted," said Ali Abdul Hussein, selling "Keep Cold" brand ice chests on a sidewalk. "Let them sit outside drinking tea and smoking cigarettes waiting for the power to come back, just like the Iraqis."

That's right. After all, why show sympathy or support for those who have given so much for your benefit, when you can instead take advantage of an opportunity to revel in their misfortune.

The tips aren't exactly revolutionary, either.

SIT IN THE SHADE. Many Iraqis head outside when the power's off. "We sit in the shade," said George Ruweid, 27, playing cards with friends on the sidewalk. Of the U.S. blackout, he said: "I hope it lasts for 20 years. Let them feel our suffering."

Thanks, that's fantastic.

I have a suspicion (based purely on my general negative opinion of the journalists in Iraq) that the reporter found the most insulting and provocative people in Baghdad in an effort to stir up controversy. He must have been irked with the headline writer for coming up with such a neutral title. What about "Iraqis gloat over benefactors' misfortune"? Or "Allah takes revenge on infidels, say Iraqis"?

Personally, I hope that the Iraqis get their infrastructure fixed as soon as possible. The faster it's over the better. I can't wait to get my hands on their precious, precious oil.

Even though the futures market for terrorist attacks got shot down by Congress, it's good to see that some people in the government (the State Department, even!) are still coming up with some good ideas. WaPo has an article about the State Department's new Arab language magazine, Hi.

Hi is a new magazine funded by the State Department, published in Arabic, targeted at Arabs ages 18 to 35 and sold on newsstands in more than a dozen countries. It costs consumers about $2 a copy. It will cost American taxpayers about $4 million a year -- minus whatever advertising revenues it can generate.

"This is a long-term way to build a relationship with people who will be the future leaders of the Arab world," says Christopher W.S. Ross, special coordinator for public diplomacy at the State Department. "It's good to get them in a dialogue while their opinions are not fully formed on matters large and small."

The magazine doesn't mention any political issues, and is pure pop-culture fluff. As some critics in the article note, the Arab world is already innundated with American pop culture, so I'm not exactly sure how much of an impact this new magazine will have..but we'll see.

I think it's a good sign that the government is trying something new, rather than just sticking with the same old stuff. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't, but $4 million a year isn't a lot to spend to find out. You should all know how big a supporter I am of the military, but just imagine the cool psy-ops stuff that can be done on the cheap, for the price of a single tank.

Plus, the beautiful baby on the cover is pretty hot; she reminds me of Eliza Dushku. Mmmm.

Now, we've had our share of boring vice presidents, but at least we don't live in Liberia. "President" Taylor is promising (again, again, again) to step down, and is offering to turn control of the country to... Vice President Blah. If Vice President Blah expects to actually get that promotion, he needs to learn a lesson from American politics and keep the current president from hogging so much of the limelight -- and maybe even convince him to resign over the debacle he's made of the government.

I'm pretty much done arguing about Iraq. Should we have deposed Saddam Hussein? Is the world a better place now than it was at the beginning of 2003? Is the world a safer place now than it was at the beginning of 2003? Was the Battle for Iraq a valuable component of the War on Terror? The facts are quite evident, and the answer to all these question is "yes".

There are still plenty of people who disagree, but I'm convinced there's no further use arguing with them. If they had open minds and were willing to look at the evidence -- free from their prejudices -- they would already have done so. You don't argue with someone over whether or not the sky is blue, you just point up at the sky.

Proverbs 23:9
Do not speak to a fool, for he will scorn the wisdom of your words.

Proverbs 27:22
Though you grind a fool in a mortar, grinding him like grain with a pestle, you will not remove his folly from him.

Everyone likes concrete exit strategies, and no one likes vague, endless wars. So how will we know when the War on Terror is over? I think there are a few specific events that must take place before we can make a declaration of victory.

1. Elimination of radical Islam as a political power. This means the Wahabi rulers of Saudi Arabia will have to go, the mullahs in Iran, the crazies gaining power in Pakistan, the Ba'athists in Syria, &c. They aren't united under Islam in the same way that the USSR was united under communism, and so it won't be as straight-forward as when that evil empire collapsed. Nevertheless, just as communism was eradicated as a world power, so too must be radical Islam.

2. Capture/elimination of terrorist leaders. You know who you are. We have to track them down and take them out of circulation. Seize their assets, break up their organizations.

3. Resolve the Palestinian problem. There are a lot of ways this can play out; I would prefer that the Palestinians all go back to Jordan, Egypt, and Syria where they came from and that Israel be left alone. However, even if the situation is resolved with Israel being utterly destroyed, this condition will be satisfied.

4. The above goals all play a role in leading towards functional Arab democracies. Capitalism, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and free elections will ultimately do away with the vestiges of the Islamic death-cult, and hopefully leave in its place a vibrant, peaceful Middle East.

Update:
As SDB has pointed out several times, our government can't just lay out these conditions and make them public. Hey Saudi Arabia, you're next! Meanwhile, help us round up these terrorists, please.

Update 2:
Then again, maybe they will lay it all out. I love you, Condi.

No, not pirate ships -- even better! Soviet fighter jets buried under the Iraqi desert, picture courtesy of the best darn foreign aid organization ever, the United States Department of Defense.

A U.S. military search team uncovers a Cold War-era MiG-25 Foxbat interceptor, the fastest combat aircraft today, buried beneath the sands in Iraq. Several MiG-25 and Su-25 ground attack jets have been found buried at al-Taqqadum airfield west of Baghdad. U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. T. Collins.

Maybe there's WMD hidden in the cockpit! Nah, if there were WMD anywhere we'd have found them by now.

The bombing of a Marriot hotel in Jakarta is one of the top news stories (along with Europe's heatwave...), and so it might be instructive to recall how Indonesia's President Megawati Sukarnoputri reacted after the October 12, 2002, bombing of a nightclub in neighboring Bali.

Megawati Sukarnoputri is passionate about her garden. But when two powerful bomb explosions killed more than 180 people on the resort island of Bali on Oct. 12, the Indonesian president dropped her pruning shears and attended to the duties of state. Well, at least for a little while.
The following day she made a rare statement to the media condemning the attacks. Then she flew to the disaster site and briefly toured what remained of the Sari club, where the larger of two blasts rocked the Balinese town of Kuta. Within hours, however, Megawati had returned to the confines of her private residence in Jakarta – and wasn't heard from again the rest of the week. "She's confused," one of her senior advisers told NEWSWEEK. "She may lack the capacity to lead." ...

She has gone back and forth on information from her own intelligence agency on Al Qaeda's ties to local groups. And, most recently, alarms sounded by foreign governments that Indonesia had terrorists in its midst went unheeded. "[Former dictator] Suharto left us two big problems to deal with – one is corruption, and the other is midgets for leaders," says Jusuf Wanandi, chairman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta. "Megawati is weak so she does not dare [do anything]." ...

Washington isn't alone in its frustration: Megawati has also ignored warnings from her own people. Muchyar Yara, spokesman for Indonesia's State Intelligence Agency, acknowledged to NEWSWEEK that his agency learned last year that – two senior associates of Osama bin Laden, Ayman Zawahiri and Mohammed Atef, had visited a terrorist training camp on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi in 2000. "We gave a warning to the government," Yara said, but nothing was done.

The world should take note. Ignoring terrorism won't make it go away. Consider the recent terror attacks in Saudi Arabia as well -- there's hardly a more terror-friendly people than the Saudis, but their support for al Qaeda hasn't prevented them from being targets as well.

Most nations seem to think that if they keep a low-profile the War on Terror doesn't really have to involve them. Good luck with that. Personally, I'd rather take the fight to the enemy and kill them on their own turf than sit around at home and wait for them at come to me while I'm surrounded by my family and friends.

France is filled to the brim with angry Muslim immigrants -- how long can it possibly be before there's a significant terrorist attack on French soil? What about Germany? In more repressed parts of the world terror attacks are a way of life: Russia, India, and China have problems all the time that rarely make international headlines. Are they all connected? Well, the troublemakers are almost all Wahabi Muslims; do the math.

Yep, the new president of the UN Security Council is... Syria. Whatever else the UN is, it's not a democratic institution in any sense of the word. Most of the delegates are appointed by dictators whose only real goal is to use the UN to prop up their own corrupt regimes. It may be a useful forum for diplomacy, but anyone who expects anything more than mere words to emanate from that bunch of jokers is living in fantasyland.

(Thanks BotW.)

On CNSNews I see that North Korea is ready to hold multilateral talks, which basically means they're folding.

As opposed to the Iraq situation -- in which all the world insisted that the US act "multilaterally" -- most of the usual suspects wanted America to handle North Korea on its own. Why? Because North Korea needs to extort someone in order to survive, and the world would prefer that America handle the pay-off all on its own.

Up until now -- possibly -- North Korea has refused to meet with anyone but the United States, and the US has refused to deal with North Korea without involvement from the other regional powers like Russia, China, South Korea, and Japan. President Bush has been roundly criticized for this strategy, with many of our "allies" warning that our stubbornness could set the unstable North Koreans off and trigger another devastating land war.

However, Bush stood firm; it was a bit of a risk, but it appears that he's called their bluff and that they're ready to engage other nations in addition to the US. That's good, because it means that they've given up on the idea that America is going to resume sending them free oil and food. They might try to extort their neighbors, but they'll have a tough time manipulating the Chinese government, which doesn't much care about what its people or the international community think. The South Koreans have been bribing the North for decades, but I think that the US can bring enough political pressure to bear that it won't happen this time.

Best case: the North Korean government collapses from within as food and oil run out. The conscript army goes home. The UN swoops in and lets China or South Korea take possession of the territory and administer it under UN authority.

Middle case: The world gives in to North Korea and starts sending them food and oil. This isn't a good solution, as millions of North Koreans will continue to starve. The situation would still have to be resolved at some point, and this middle case only delays the inevitable.

Worst case: The government orders some sort of military attack before it collapses. Possibly a land invasion of Seoul, possibly missile strikes at Japan, possibly both. The last thing China wants is a greater US military presence in the region, so China might be forced to invade North Korea from the rear to end the battle decisively. Everyone loses.