If you read nothing else today...

... check out this from KT of The Scratching Post:

Spontaneous protests by primitive religious people* are spreading around the globe, focused on American embassies. American embassies have not been targeted because the Obama Administration has shown itself to be a sniveling pack of flaccid wieners, no sir, but because an obscure video that no one ever heard of made fun of Mohammed. American forces here at home are moving as quickly as they can to hunt down and expose the Americans who insulted the Prophet, but it's not going fast enough for the freedom-loving, open-minded Facebookers of the Arab Spring. Soon, we may find American embassies from Tunisia to Malaysia wiped off the face of the map.

Who cares?

The man has got a great money and, now, American-lives saving solution. Read about it here.

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Cartoon of the day

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Reminds us of that time some 15-20 years ago when a friend told us that any particular domestic drilling project would take 15-20 years to bring on line.

This cartoon is dedictated to him and similarly those who have desired to see us dependent on unfriendly oil.

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Thanks for your continued support of geo-political instability, state-sponsored terrorism and high energy prices.

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And now, some words of inspiration and wisdon from Al Gore

Earlier this week, Al Gore was on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" and with respect to the debt ceiling deal that had just passed, he thought it cause for a “reinvigoration of democracy” or an “American spring,”:

"[I]want to focus on one particular suggestion you had about using the wonderful digital tools that are newly available for the reinvigoration of democracy,” Gore said. “Now, they have been around for a while, but they are spreading far and wide and more people are getting involved. We need to have an American spring — you know, the Arab spring. The non-violent part of it isn’t finished yet, but we need to have an American spring, a kind of an American non-violent change where people on the grassroots get involved again. Not the, you know, not in the Tea Party-style.”

Gore took his attack to favorite left-wing targets: the Fox News Channel, and David and Charles Koch.

“There are people who are genuinely upset in the Tea Party,” Gore continued. “I understand that, but that movement was funded with seed money from right-wing billionaires, the Koch Brothers, and promoted on Fox News and turned into a stalking horse for this right-wing agenda that a lot of people have been trying to push on this country for a long time.”

After reading this, it struck us: What it is algore desires is a call to arms to.... protect the status quo. Imagine that: a revolution to keep things just as they are!

Record debt and deficits? Apparently, they're all for it. Unsustainable entitlement programs? More, please. Increased government power? Right on, man. Power to the people? Hell, no.

It shouldn't surprise anybody then that it would be Al Gore at the intellectual spear tip of the most counter-intuitive democratic uprising in history. No change!

All this begs the question, then: who are the real progressives in this battle we have seen joined over the past 2-1/2 years with respect to the growth and influence of government power? Who are the progressives who are demanding change and who are the, and we hate to do this but, who are the "conservatives" who are fighting tooth and nail for the good ol' days when it was cool to saddle future generations with insurmountable debts and when in the name of "equal access" and "affordability" everyone thought it quite righteous that the government force its citizens to purchase a service from a private entity such as health care insurance?

In the effort to prevent the Leviathan of the federal government from imploding on itself and thus taking the entire country with it, the lexicon of political terminology has been turned on its head.

Video clip of the day

Via Secular Apostate: More Zionist propoganda*



Quick tutorial on what returning to the pre-1967 borders would mean to the defense of Israel.






* Holy smokes... it's, it's... just darn near irresistable. (Also, just want to see how many hits we get because of it)

Quote of the day

So, who said the following?:

"It will be the policy of the United States to promote reform across the region, and to support transitions to democracy."

This guy?

Or, this guy?

Check out Charles Krauthammer's take on President Obama's at-times, very Bushian Middle East speech he made last week, here.





As an addendum, here is Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, wrapping up his visit with the President also from last week.

"We share your hope and your vision for the spread of democracy in the Middle East."


(Pre-1967 boundaries) "...were not the boundaries of peace, they were the boundaries of repeated wars because the attacks on Israel were so attractive from them."


"The Israeli government cannot negotiate with a Palestinian government that is backed by Hamas."


On the precariousness of the "peace process": "History will not give the Jewish people another chance".

Exit question: Given the fact that much of Israel's opposites are informed by a belief and ideology that wants to wipe Israel clean off the map and will not rest until that is accomplished (pre-1967 borders... like, whatever), how galling must it be for Israel to feel compelled to participate in the Kabuki theater that is this so-called peace process?



H/T: Truth Before Dishonor

Follower blog post of the day

In an attempt to throw some love our "followers'" way as well as to express our gratitude for their follower-ship, we're instituting a new daily feature to which we hope we can hold.

We believe "Scott" has been one of our longest-tenured followers and his Diplomacy is a weighty and well-written foreign policy blog.

Gangsterism, warlordism, shadowy transnational terrorist networks - these are the principal threats to American interests in the region and so the idea that America can go around the world simply arranging balancing coalitions in some grand eighteenth-century European style is just absurd. The new strategic environment calls for an altogether more nuanced and subtle diplomacy, a different blend of elements, and a different set of capabilities. Quite simple one would think, elementary even, and yet American realism seems institutionally incapable of grasping it.

For our innaugural feature, Scott tackles our competing foreign policy strategies in the Middle East, here. Do check it out.

Thanks, Scott.

Switching Channels?

With March Madness approaching, our television docket is set but there were a couple of headlines over the past few weeks regarding our viewing preferences that did catch our eye.


First, this:

Obama administration official urges cable companies to carry Al-Jazeera



And then, this:

Clinton: Al Jazeera is "real news"


Now, let's put aside for a moment the worthiness of the administration pimping for a media outlet and then, the Secretary of State turning media critic.

Not having spent much time surfing Al Jazeera, we've heard from some fairly reliable sources that it is somewhat anti-American and anti-semetic which may or may not put it at the level of some media outlets and Ivy league English departments right here in the States.


However, we've heard first hand from the author of The Only Thing Worth Dying For, a book which recounts the initial stages of our invasion of Afghanistan, that he received great treatment from that network.


So, here it is.... Al Jazeera.


We're running late so we'll bookmark it later.

Be active participants in the BwD experience and let us know what you think.



P.S. We're old enough to remember that T.V., as in all 8 or 9 channels, shut down after midnight and ran that test pattern shown above. For whatever reason, it stirs warm nostalgia but what was up with the Indian?

Wikileakspalooza

Much ado about nothing...

After all the ballyhoo before the fact, the Wikileaks revelations thus far are pretty underwhelming. Although we’ve been seeing figures like 2.7 million and 251,287 for the number of documents released, so far there have been, er, 220 posted on the Wikileaks site.

Overall though, there is little to justify the screaming headlines of American foreign policy in crisis or being turned upside down. Instead, it’s a case of so far, so blah.

But you can see here the tantalising dates, subjects and places of origin of tens of thousands of other cables.

It seems to me that Assange is teasing Obama. Whereas the Afghanistan and Iraq war logs could be largely dismissed as Bush era material that didn’t really reflect on Obama, the State Department cables are different.

They go up to 28 February 2010, offering a potential window on Obama’s foreign policy which may well not show it in the sainted light he would prefer. It seems to me that Assange is teasing Obama, letting him know what WikiLeaks has and making him sweat.

Today was round one and the action was pretty tame. But there are plenty more rounds to come and Obama is on the back foot.

Or...

What action did the Obama administration take to prevent the impending release of such volatile information? State Department legal adviser Harold Koh sent a strongly worded letter urging WikiLeaks to cease publishing classified materials. I'm sure that made Assange think twice.

Is the Obama administration going to do anything - anything at all - to stop these serial disclosures of our nation's most closely guarded secrets? Just this past week, the federal government took decisive action to shut down more than 70 Web sites that were disseminating pirated music and movies. Hollywood is safe, but WikiLeaks is free to disseminate classified documents without consequence.

With this latest release, Assange may now have illegally disclosed more classified information than anyone in American history. He is in likely violation of the Espionage Act and arguably is providing material support for terrorism. But unlike leakers who came before him, Assange has done more than release information; he has created a virtual system for the ongoing collection and dissemination of America's secrets. The very existence of WikiLeaks is a threat to national security. Unless something is done, WikiLeaks will only grow more brazen - and our unwillingness to stop it will embolden others to reveal classified information using the unlawful medium Assange has built.

WikiLeaks' first disclosures caught the Obama administration by surprise. But how does the administration explain its inaction in the face of WikiLeaks' two subsequent, and increasingly dangerous, releases? In both cases, it had fair warning: Assange announced what kinds of documents he possessed, and he made clear his intention to release them.

The Obama administration has the ability to bring Assange to justice and to put WikiLeaks out of business. The new U.S. Cyber Command could shut down WilkiLeaks' servers and prevent them from releasing more classified information on President Obama's orders. But, as The Post reported this month, the Obama administration has been paralyzed by infighting over how, and when, it might use these new offensive capabilities in cyberspace. One objection: "The State Department is concerned about diplomatic backlash" from any offensive actions in cyberspace, The Post reported. Well, now the State Department can deal with the "diplomatic backlash" that comes from standing by helplessly, while WikiLeaks releases hundreds of thousands of its most sensitive diplomatic cables.

Because of its failure to act, responsibility for the damage done by these most recent disclosures now rests with the Obama administration. Perhaps this latest release crosses a line that will finally spur the administration to action. After all, the previous disclosures harmed only our war efforts. But this latest disclosure is a blow to a cause Democrats really care about - our diplomatic efforts. Maybe now, finally, the gloves will come off. Or is posting mournful tweets about the damage done to our national security the best this administration can do?

Plus, Spiegel Online International has a cool interactive global map that shows the quantities of dispatches being generated from U.S. embassies around the world with respect to time frames, here.

That might delay the Middle East peace process somewhat

So, just what is the end game with respect to Iran’s nuclear weapon program?

We have our doubts about his theory but it would make for one hell of a “24” or James Bond plot.

B-Daddy has the details here.

Evidence that we cannot be all that serious about achieving peace in the Middle East

Terrific. We're exporting porkulus to the Middle East.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered aid on Tuesday to boost ties with the Muslim world and urged Israel, the Palestinians and Arab countries to move beyond recrimination in the search for peace.

"We are determined and persistent in the pursuit of that goal," she said in a speech at a development forum in Morocco attended by Arab ministers.
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The programmes Clinton announced on Tuesday include a $76 million project to boost economic opportunities in Yemen, a $30 million project for vulnerable young people in Jordan and an entrepreneurship summit in Washington next year to bring Muslim innovators together with U.S. business leaders.

Taken together the new package pales in comparison to the billions of dollars in aid that Washington extends to governments in the region, including both Israel and Egypt.

(italics ours)

True. By current standards, $30 million is a mere pittance but why in the hell is it going to an Gulf oil state?

Exit question: Precisely what was it about spilling American blood and treasure in Somalia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan, all on behalf of rank and file Muslims, that would not in itself qualify as “aid to boost ties with the Muslim world”?

Catching up with Friends

We’re back in the proverbial saddle today… back from Boston and in front of a keyboard and screen of a computer that hopefully has all those new-fangled functions like cut’n’paste, hyperlink, multiple windows, etc. fully operational.

We may post some thoughts on the course we took later, especially with regard to some of our newly-minted naval officers. Not good. Now that we're back we checked in at our "Friends of..." and noted the following:

KT’s exit question: If government has come in to bail-out auto manufacturers and huge lending institutions, what’s to stop them from coming to the rescue of Big Media whose circulation, ratings and ad revenues are in a seemingly irreversible slide?



(Click to enlarge. Please note: these are not absolute numbers…. these are just the changes in one calendar year. schnikeys)

Some telling numbers linked to in the piece that contend there is a vested interest in Big Media becoming a government protectorate.

And with whom would you rather be serving aboard a U.S. Navy combatant or in a foxhole: an openly gay individual or a convicted felon? Foxie has an interesting post, one in which we don’t necessarily agree but hey, she served…and we, uhhh... sort of served and thus Advantage: Foxfier, in that regard.

Also, did M.T. Suit really diss wounded servicemen and women over in Germany, as his trip over to Europe and the Middle East, billed as a Senatorial fact-finding mission, was ostensibly a campaign rally and thus off-limits to base hospitals? Read more, here.

A quick word about the Cotton Candy Kid’s roadie: We’re a little late to the game so we won’t waste too much time on a subject that has been flogged to death but his speech to the Germans was pretty standard fare for the man which means that there were one or two things in the speech that were perfectly Obamaesque and thusly mildly to moderately irritating.

“I know my country has not perfected itself.”

Never mind the implicit critiques of this country’s foreign policy made on foreign soil that are contained in that statement, what is explicit is “the city on the hill” that the Messiah envisions for all us unwashed and this notion of a “Heaven of Earth” that has been simultaneously one of the goals and theoretical underpinnings of Socialist/collectivist thought. The condescension and presumptuousness is irksome and is in direct contrast to what we see in the genuine humility (of someone who has freaking been there and not merely visited there) of John McCain.

“The Christian… imagines the better future of the human species… in the image of heavenly joy…. We, on the other hand, will have this heaven on earth.” - Moses Hess, A Communist Confession of Faith, 1846