Monday, February 16, 2009

The Weekly N&C for February 16th, 2009

A Dearth of Competence

R. Holbrooke is well on his way to offending the governments of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India...

D. Medvedev and his boss V. Putin have found that the Obama administration can easily be convinced to sell out the interests of Eastern Europe, and seem intent on finding out if all of Europe can be cowed...

H. Clinton is offering even more tribute at the feet of Kim Jong Il, and then has the gall to say how "important" it is for her to meet the families of the Japanese abducted by North Korea...

Someone finally noticed that the last (U.S.) National Intelligence Estimate on Iran never said the Iranians had stopped developing nuclear weapons, but those same some-ones now are positioning themselves to act as if another lunatic with nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles is somehow acceptable...

S. Nakagawa, Finance Minister of Japan, appeared 'drunk' at the G-7 meeting in Rome last week...

The rest of the world's Finance (Treasury) Ministers probably should be drunk after seeing what several governments have authorized in the way of so-called "stimulus" spending...

H. Chavez wins his plebiscite and proclaims that this is the Mandate for Socialism...

No one in Israel seems able to win a mandate for, well, for anything...


*I'm not even linking to the news stories on these items.*

I could go on:

The whole situation in Darfur is off the headlines, but be sure that the effort by one faction of interventionists to arrest the President of Sudan for crimes against humanity is not helping the other faction of interventionists to get enough peacekeeping (peacemaking? naw.) force in place to have a chance of success...

Don't even ask about Zimbabwe (Rhodesia), D.R. Congo, or Somalia right now...


I'm overcome with a mixture of contempt and outrage, and neither of them need be further advertised than this one reference.

I shall write something more appropriate when I can do so in proper terms.

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