International Affairs: April 2009 Archives

Another "the real story behind the rescue of Captain Philips" story. Could be!

I'm personally skeptical about the sourcing of this "real story" behind the rescue of Captain Philips from the Somali pirates. The details are too-good-to-be-true for anyone of a conservative bent, and yet not so unbelievable that you can dismiss them out of hand. I imagine the story is close to the truth, even if the writer has no real direct knowledge of the incident.

The one fact that's hard to explain if the President didn't initially insist on a peaceful resolution is that Captain Philips jumped into the water during his first escape attempt and was fired upon, and yet the nearby naval vessels did not engage the pirates remaining on the boat. Once Captain Philips was clear, why weren't the pirates who were shooting at him from the boat immediately killed?

Anyway, I've gotten this story from many different directions all purporting to be true, which means it almost certainly isn't. But it may still be truthy!

From The Voice of the Martyrs:

TURKEY- Pray for Turkey on April 18

The Turkish church has set aside April 18 as the International Day of Prayer for Turkey. VOM encourages you to pray for believers in Turkey who are risking their lives for Christ. Especially remember the families of Necati Aydin, Tilman Geske and Ugur Yuksel who were martyred on April 18, 2007 in Malatya, Turkey. Ask God to continue encouraging their families and for believers in Turkey to remain faithful and courageous despite persecution.

This paper in the British Medical Journal proves that abortion is used as a sex-selection tool in China thanks to the totalitarian one-child policy and general discrimination against girls and women.

Results 4 764 512 people under the age of 20 were included. Overall sex ratios were high across all age groups and residency types, but they were highest in the 1-4 years age group, peaking at 126 (95% confidence interval 125 to 126) in rural areas. Six provinces had sex ratios of over 130 in the 1-4 age group. The sex ratio at birth was close to normal for first order births but rose steeply for second order births, especially in rural areas, where it reached 146 (143 to 149). Nine provinces had ratios of over 160 for second order births. The highest sex ratios were seen in provinces that allow rural inhabitants a second child if the first is a girl. Sex selective abortion accounts for almost all the excess males. One particular variant of the one child policy, which allows a second child if the first is a girl, leads to the highest sex ratios.

Conclusions In 2005 males under the age of 20 exceeded females by more than 32 million in China, and more than 1.1 million excess births of boys occurred. China will see very high and steadily worsening sex ratios in the reproductive age group over the next two decades. Enforcing the existing ban on sex selective abortion could lead to normalisation of the ratios.

Emphasis mine.

Shouldn't various groups concerned about "women's rights" be making a bit of noise about this ruthless gender-cide?

(HT: William Saletan.)

For decades the American carrier battle group has reigned supreme over the world's oceans, but now China may have an effective counter: the anti-surface ballistic missile (ASBM).

With tensions already rising due to the Chinese navy becoming more aggressive in asserting its territorial claims in the South China Sea, the U.S. Navy seems to have yet another reason to be deeply concerned.

After years of conjecture, details have begun to emerge of a "kill weapon" developed by the Chinese to target and destroy U.S. aircraft carriers.

First posted on a Chinese blog viewed as credible by military analysts and then translated by the naval affairs blog Information Dissemination, a recent report provides a description of an anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) that can strike carriers and other U.S. vessels at a range of 2000km.

The Information Dissemination link has lots more technical information. One particularly interested tidbit is:

Reconnaissance Satellites - I think you can look at the Ziyuan and Yaogan series of satellites that have EO, CCD and SAR sensors as possibilities here. They could also be talking about the FY series, which is actually expected to be a constellation of Earth Observation satellites. I think it's important that in the 18th Committee on Earth Observation Satellites plenary and workshop in 2004, they announced they would launch over 100 Earth Observation satellites. I don't know enough about this to comment on which specific satellites I think will be used for scanning ships, but the blog did mention that China has used FY-2 series of satellites to track movement of targets. Another possibility is launching many short duration, micro-Earth Observation satellites in times of conflict. It mentioned that China can launch a 100 kg satellite on 12 hours notice. In peace mission 05. They launched an experimental satellite on August 2nd for detection/science experiment work. This operated for 27 days and returned to earth on August 29th after the conclusion of the exercise.

Emphasis mine.

Looks like President Obama handled the pirate hostage situation pretty well, even if it took him a while to get down to business.

MOMBASA, Kenya (AP) - An American ship captain was freed unharmed Sunday and three of the pirates who held him for days in a lifeboat off the Somali coast were killed in a operation by U.S. Navy Seals that was approved by President Barack Obama, officials said. ...

U.S. officials said Obama ordered the Defense Department to use military resources to rescue Phillips. Obama said the captain had courage that was "a model for all Americans."

The fourth pirate should have been hanged on the spot.

Shannon Love nails the implications of the current piracy problem:

The return of international lawlessness on both land and sea arises from a paralysis brought on by the breakdown of internal trust and cooperation in the developed nations. We cannot enforce international law because half of our polity believes we have no right to. Half of our polity is more concerned with using piracy and other forms of lawlessness as sticks with which to attack their internal political enemies than they are with defending international law. The Geneva and Hague conventions have died in the last few years as it became evident that the principles of those conventions will only be applied to actions of the militaries of liberal democracies, and to no one else. Systematic violation of the Conventions has become the accepted road to political power, personal wealth and, occasionally, a Nobel Peace Prize.

Half of the polity now argues that unlawful and inhumane tactics merely represent the desperation of the justified underdog instead of the callousness of the cruel and greedy. In such a moral environment, those who must fight and apprehend pirates understand that they will face far harsher judgment, with far less presumption of innocence, than will the pirates. Why should they risk their reputations, careers, freedoms and lives just to uphold the law when they know their most likely reward will be a knife in the back?

Despite all the hand-wringing, solving the pirate problem should be pretty easy.

The rich nations are already taking steps to protect their shipping – the US 5th Fleet has five to 10 ships in the area; there is also an EU force, and a Nato fleet. A host of countries, including Britain, China, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, Denmark and Malaysia, have either sent warships or are reportedly considering doing so.

Such ships must act promptly and ruthlessly, as piracy will spread unless it is stamped out. The Gulf of Aden is an exit from the Mediterranean, one of the world's most important seas, crossed annually by thousands of ships. So our campaign must be ruthless and pitiless: pirate ships must be sunk on sight and the crews left to swim to safety, if it can be reached.

Many would complain about such tactics but, in my opinion, pirates have no rights – indeed, it will be vital to exclude human rights lawyers from the anti-piracy campaign. To bring any captives to Europe or America for trial would probably be to grant them their dearest wish, which is to secure entry to a new life in the First World.

Hang 'em high.

Despite the video below, the White House is denying that President Obama bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia.

Just jump to 0:50 in the video and decide for yourself!

The White House is denying that the president bowed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at a G-20 meeting in London, a scene that drew criticism on the right and praise from some Arab outlets.

"It wasn't a bow. He grasped his hand with two hands, and he's taller than King Abdullah," said an Obama aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Firearm Blog has done some extensive research and thoroughly debunked the widespread claim that American "assault rifles" are causing violence in Mexico.

For the past few months the media has been awash with articles discussing a new disease spreading across the USA-Mexican border, destroying lives and fueling the drug trade. The pathogen is the infamous “assault rifle” and the reason for the spread of arms is lax American gun laws, or so the American public is being told again and again.

Finally two reporters from Fox News, William La Jeunesse and Maxim Lott, took the time to look into the figures behind recent politicians’ speeches and discovered that only 13% of firearms confiscated in Mexico were of US origin. While it was a breath of fresh air to read an honest piece of journalism, I was still not satisfied with the number. It seemed incredible that an organization that is able to smuggle up to $48.4 billion [PDF link] worth of drugs into Mexico and from there export them to the US with apparent impunity are forced to purchase 13% of their arms from US gun stores selling civilian legal semi-automatic firearms, rather than the global arms black-market where just about anything can be purchased if you have the money.

There's more going on than meets the eye.

Firstly, the Mexican police seem to have either little understanding of the firearms they are confiscating, or little command of the english language to interpret what they have captured. For example, in this press release from last year, they list this rifle “Un rifle marca Nickel Steel Barrel, matrícula 440236, calibre 30mm” (English: “A rifle brand Nickel Steel Barrel, number 440236, size 30mm”, emphasis mine). The “brand” was obviously read off the barrel. They also regularly name the same type of firearm under varying names. For example MAK-90 Norinco semi-automatic AK-47 clones are sometimes called MAK-90, Mark-90 or MK-90 or just “Norinco”. They do not appear to be able to keep consistent records. The police regularly make many other sloppy errors but I will not list them all.

Secondly, despite the significant desertion of Mexican soldiers who likely took thier M16 rifles with them (150,000 soldiers deserted in the past 6 years out of a force of 183,700 active personal) the Mexicans have kept very quite about M16 rifles being confiscated. I only managed to find evidence of three M16 rifles captured in the past 12 months. This does not make sense considering the vast quantity of these arms almost certainty exist in the hands of Mexican criminals.

(HT: RD.)

You've got to take a few minutes to read Obama's explanation of the financial crisis, with his underlying thoughts presented in brackets thanks to John Grace.

Nick Robinson: "A question for you both, if I may. The prime minister has repeatedly blamed the United States of America for causing this crisis. France and Germany both blame Britain and America for causing this crisis. Who is right? And isn't the debate about that at the heart of the debate about what to do now?"

Barack Obama: "I, I, would say that, er ... pause [I HAVEN'T A CLUE] ... if you look at ... pause [WHO IS THIS NICK ROBINSON JERK?] ... the, the sources of this crisis ... pause [JUST KEEP GOING, BUDDY] ... the United States certainly has some accounting to do with respect to . . . pause [I'M IN WAY TOO DEEP HERE] ... a regulatory system that was inadequate to the massive changes that have taken place in the global financial system ... pause, close eyes [THIS IS GOING TO GO DOWN LIKE A CROCK OF SHIT BACK HOME. HELP]. I think what is also true is that ... pause [I WANT NICK ROBINSON TO DISAPPEAR] ... here in Great Britain ... pause [SHIT, GORDY'S THE HOST, DON'T LAND HIM IN IT] ... here in continental Europe ... pause [DAMN IT, BLAME EVERYONE.] ... around the world. We were seeing the same mismatch between the regulatory regimes that were in place and er ... pause [I'VE LOST MY TRAIN OF THOUGHT AGAIN] ... the highly integrated, er, global capital markets that have emerged ... pause [I'M REALLY WINGING IT NOW]. So at this point, I'm less interested in ... pause [YOU] ... identifying blame than fixing the problem. I think we've taken some very aggressive steps in the United States to do so, not just responding to the immediate crisis, ensuring banks are adequately capitalised, er, dealing with the enormous, er ... pause [WHY DIDN'T I QUIT WHILE I WAS AHEAD?] ...

The wife saw this live on television yesterday and I was initially incredulous that Obama could possibly give an answer that bad. But I was wrong!

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