Daniel Pipes on the Ft. Hood Massacre

From DanielPipes.org:

When a Muslim in the West for no apparent reason violently attacks non-Muslims, a predictable argument ensues about motives.

The establishment – law enforcement, politicians, the media, and the academy – stands on one side of this debate, insisting that some kind of oppression caused Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, to kill 13 and wound 38 at Ft. Hood on Nov. 5. It disagrees on the specifics, however, presenting Hasan as the victim alternatively of "racism," "harassment he had received as a Muslim," a sense of not belonging," "pre-traumatic stress disorder," "mental problems," "emotional problems," "an inordinate amount of stress," or being deployed to Afghanistan as his "worst nightmare." Accordingly, a typical newspaper headline reads "Mindset of Rogue Major a Mystery.".

Instances of Muslim-on-unbeliever violence inspire the victim school to dig up new and imaginative excuses. Colorful examples (drawing on my article and weblog entry about denying Islamist terrorism) include:

1990: "A prescription drug for … depression" (to explain the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane)
1991: "A robbery gone wrong" (the murder of Makin Morcos in Sydney)
1994: "Road rage" (the killing of a random Jew on the Brooklyn Bridge)
1997: "Many, many enemies in his mind" (the shooting murder atop the Empire State Building)
2000: A traffic incident (the attack on a bus of Jewish schoolchildren near Paris)
2002: "A work dispute" (the double murder at LAX)
2002: A "stormy [family] relationship" (the Beltway snipers)
2003: An "attitude problem" (Hasan Karim Akbar's attack on fellow soldiers, killing two)
2003: Mental illness (the mutilation murder of Sebastian Sellam)
2004: "Loneliness and depression" (an explosion in Brescia, Italy outside a McDonald's restaurant)
2005: "A disagreement between the suspect and another staff member" (a rampage at a retirement center in Virginia)
2006: "An animus toward women" (a murderous rampage at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle)
2006: "His recent, arranged marriage may have made him stressed" (killing with an SUV in northern California)

Sgt. Hasan Karim Akbar, convicted of the 2003 murder of two fellow soldiers.
Additionally, when a Osama bin Laden-admiring Arab-American crashed a plane into a Tampa high-rise, blame fell on the acne drug Accutane.

As a charter member of the jihad school of interpretation, I reject these explanations as weak, obfuscatory, and apologetic. The jihadi school, still in the minority, perceives Hasan's attack as one of many Muslim efforts to vanquish infidels and impose Islamic law. We recall a prior episode of sudden jihad syndrome in the U.S. military, as well as the numerous cases of non-lethal Pentagon jihadi plots and the history of Muslim violence on American soil.

Far from being mystified by Hasan, we see overwhelming evidence of his jihadi intentions. He handed out Korans to neighbors just before going on his rampage and yelled "Allahu Akbar," the jihadi's cry, as he fired off over 100 rounds from two pistols. His superiors reportedly put him on probation for inappropriately proselytizing about Islam.

We note what former associates say about him: one, Val Finnell, quotes Hasan saying, "I'm a Muslim first and an American second" and recalls Hasan justifying suicide terrorism; another, Col Terry Lee, recalls that Hasan "claimed Muslims had the right to rise up and attack Americans"; the third, a psychiatrist who worked very closely with Hasan, described him as "almost belligerent about being Muslim."

Finally, the jihad school of thought attributes importance to the Islamic authorities' urging American Muslim soldiers to refuse to fight their co-religionists, thereby providing a basis for sudden jihad. In 2001, for example, responding to the U.S. attack on the Taliban, the mufti of Egypt, Ali Gum'a, issued a fatwa stating that "The Muslim soldier in the American army must refrain [from participating] in this war." Hasan himself, echoing that message, advised a young Muslim disciple, Duane Reasoner Jr., not to join the U.S. army because "Muslims shouldn't kill Muslims."

If the jihad explanation is overwhelmingly more persuasive than the victim one, it's also far more awkward to articulate. Everyone finds blaming road rage, Accutane, or an arranged marriage easier than discussing Islamic doctrines. And so, a prediction: what Ralph Peters calls the army's "unforgivable political correctness" will officially ascribe Hasan's assault to his victimization and will leave jihad unmentioned.

And thus will the army blind itself and not prepare for its next jihadi attack.

Was Nidal Hasan Linked to 9/11 Plotters?

From The Telegraph (UK) (ht Michelle Malkin):

Major Nidal Malik Hasan worshipped at a mosque led by a radical imam said to be a "spiritual adviser" to three of the hijackers who attacked America on Sept 11, 2001.

Ft. Hood Gunman's Name Was Nomme de Guerre of Famed Palestinian Terrorist

Was the alleged Ft. Hood assassin named after Abu Nidal, "Father of the Struggle?" Sounds like a chip off the old block to this observer, but if not, who is Nidal Hasan named after? More on Abu Nidal on Wikipedia:

Abu Nidal (Arabic: أبو نضال‎) (May 1937 – August 16, 2002), born Sabri Khalil al-Banna (Arabic: صبري خليل البنا), was the founder of Fatah–The Revolutionary Council (Arabic: فتح المجلس الثوري), a militant Palestinian group more commonly known as the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO).[1] At the height of his power in the 1970s and 1980s, Abu Nidal, or "father of the struggle", was widely regarded as the most dangerous and ruthless of the Palestinian political leaders.[2] He told Der Spiegel in 1985: "I am the evil spirit which moves around only at night causing ... nightmares."[3]

Part of the secular, left-wing, Palestinian rejectionist front, so called because they reject proposals for a peaceful settlement with Israel, the ANO was formed after a split in 1974 between Abu Nidal and Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Setting himself up as a freelance contractor, Abu Nidal is believed to have ordered attacks in 20 countries, killing or injuring over 900 people.[4] The group's most notorious attacks were on the El Al ticket counters at Rome and Vienna airports in December 1985, when Arab gunmen high on amphetamines opened fire on passengers in simultaneous shootings, killing 18 and wounding 120. Patrick Seale, Abu Nidal's biographer, wrote of the attacks that their "random cruelty marked them as typical Abu Nidal operations".[5]

Abu Nidal died of between one and four gunshot wounds in Baghdad in August 2002. Palestinian sources believe he was killed on the orders of Saddam Hussein, but the Iraqi government insisted he had committed suicide.[6] The Guardian wrote on the news of his death: "He was the patriot turned psychopath. He served only himself, only the warped personal drives that pushed him into hideous crime. He was the ultimate mercenary."[7]

Another Reason for President Obama to Fire General Casey

This statement, as quoted in The Telegraph (UK):

But General George Casey, the Army's Chief of Staff, said it was "speculation" that military authorities failed to pick up on warning signs. "I don't want to say that we missed it," he said.

Memo to the President: Fire General Casey for Ft. Hood Massacre

This statement in Politics Daily gives evidence that as Chief of Staff of the Army, General George Casey's military personnel policies may have been at least in part responsible for the climate which permitted the massacre to take place:

Casey expressed concern that speculation about Hasan and his views and motives "could potentially heighten backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers. And what happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here."

Bob Schieffer on Ft. Hood Massacre

From CBS News:

(CBS) The President has asked the nation not to jump to conclusions about what happened at Fort Hood, which is usually good advice, but it is also what government officials generally say when the government fouls up.

Good advice or not, I am jumping to an obvious conclusion: This should not have happened. That doctor should not have been at Fort Hood.

I don't care how hard-up the Army is for mental health professionals - a government psychiatrist with bad performance ratings who had been trying to get out of the Army and who had been saying what Dr. Hasan had been saying about the war on terrorism, should not have been shipped off to Fort Hood to give grief counseling.

What do you suppose he was telling the soldiers, that after what they had done they OUGHT to feel bad?

Certainly, no officer with his record would have been allowed to lead soldiers into combat.

Sadly, this shows that the Army still does not take protecting soldiers' mental health as seriously as it does training them to shoot.

And then there is the other part that often happens in government: Don't deal with a problem, shuffle it off to somewhere else. When he had problems at Walter Reed Hospital, the doctor was just packed off to Fort Hood.

Investigators confirm now that someone by his name had been posting messages on the Internet about how suicide bombers are as heroic as American soldiers who fall on grenades to save their comrades.

But the investigators say it is not clear if Dr. Hasan actually wrote those messages.

Based on what we know so far, my question is, do you suppose anyone has even asked him?

David Horowitz on Ft. Hood Massacre

In his interesting blog post, David Horowitz neglects to mention that George W. Bush and the Republicans were in charge when Major Nidal Hasan was commissioned and promoted as an officer in the United States Army, not the editors of The Nation:

A Muslim fanatic with an Internet site praising Islamic suicide bombers as defenders of their comrades is a Major in the U.S. Army with access to military intelligence and lethal weaponry. And it’s not as though the army didn’t know that he was a Muslim fanatic and supporter of the Islamic jihad against the West. He was under investigation for six months because of his anti-American, jihadist rantings. He did not want to be deployed. He wanted to be discharged.

But despite his identification with America’s enemies, the army kept him in its officer corps. How in God’s name was this possible? But it was. And so, after calling America the “aggressor” in Afghanistan and Iraq this Muslim jihadist traitor army officer picks up his semi-automatic weapons and heads for the center at Ft. Hood where soldiers are being deployed to fight the jihadists in Afghanistan to conduct his massacre. Yet this morning the Fox News Channel chiron says “Investigators search for a motive in the Ft. Hood killings.” Is everybody out of their mind?

The Ft. Hood killings are the chickens of the left coming home to roost. Already the chief political correspondent of The Nation has decried even mention of the fact that the jihadist killer Hasan is a Palestinian Muslim. According to The Nation this is “Islamophobia.” This fatuous attempt to protect America’s enemies carries on The Nation’s 60-year tradition as the leading fifth column collaborator with America’s enemies — defender of the Rosenbergs, defender of Hiss, defender of their boss Stalin, defender of Mao, defender of Castro and now defender of Islamic terrorists. But The Nation is only the tip of an iceberg. The fifth column formed out of the unholy alliance between radical Islam and the American left is now entrenched in the White House and throughout our government. And in matters like the Muslim jihadist Major Hasan our military is its captive.

The Fort Hood massacre is the first of the preventable atrocities we have been warning about on our websites since 9/11 — the atrocities which are apparently necessary for Americans to wake up to the threat that confronts us. We have a vast internal threat in this country in the form of this unholy alliance between the anti-American Left and radical Islam – whose Muslim Brotherhood network extends through our universities, our government and our military. It is “politically incorrect” to recognize this fact. You can be barred — as I have been — from speaking at universities for even talking about it. The embargo of discussion of the Islamo-fascist threat puts every American (including the infidel collaborators) at risk. Hasan had semi-automatic weapons. But they weren’t nuclear. That possibility is just around the corner unless we undergo a sea change in our attitudes and marshal the intelligence and the courage to recognize the threat.

President Obama's Ft. Hood Proclamation

Honoring the Victims of the Tragedy at Fort Hood, Texas
- - - - - - -
By The President of the United States of America
A Proclamation

Our Nation's thoughts and prayers are with the service members, civilians, and families affected by the tragic events at Fort Hood, Texas. The brave victims, who risked their lives to protect their fellow countrymen, serve as a constant source of strength and inspiration to all Americans. We ask God to watch over the fallen, the wounded, and all those who are suffering at this difficult hour.

As a mark of respect honoring the victims of the tragedy at Fort Hood, Texas, I hereby order, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, that the flag of the United States shall be flown at half-staff at the White House and upon all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions until sunset, Tuesday, November 10, 2009. I also direct that the flag shall be flown at half-staff for the same length of time at all United States embassies, legations, consular offices, and other facilities abroad, including all military facilities and naval vessels and stations.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this sixth day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fourth.

BARACK OBAMA

NPR: Walter Reed Psychiatrists Missed Hasan Warning Signs

From NPR News:

INSKEEP: I understanding you've spoken with someone who knew him, worked with him at Walter Reed.

ZWERDLING: Earlier today, I spoke to a psychiatrist who worked very closely with Hasan and knows him very well. And he said, you know, from the beginning -and Hasan was there for four years - the medical staff was very worried about this guy. He said the first thing is he's cold, unfriendly. At least that's who he came off. He did not do a good job as a psychiatrist in training, was repeatedly warned, you better shape up, or, you know, you're going to be in trouble. Did badly in his classes, seemed disinterested. But second of all - and this is, perhaps, you know, more relevant. The psychiatrist says that he was very proud and upfront about being Muslim. And psychiatrist hastened to say, and nobody minded that. But he seemed almost belligerent about being Muslim, and he gave a lecture one day that really freaked a lot of doctors out.

They have grand rounds, right? They, you know, dozens of medical staff come into an auditorium, and somebody stands at the podium at the front and gives a lecture about some academic issue, you know, what drugs to prescribe for what condition. But instead of that, he - Hasan apparently gave a long lecture on the Koran and talked about how if you don't believe, you are condemned to hell. Your head is cut off. You're set on fire. Burning oil is burned down your throat.

And I said to the psychiatrist, but this cold be a very interesting informational session, right? Where he's educating everybody about the Koran. He said but what disturbed everybody was that Hasan seemed to believe these things. And actually, a Muslim in the audience, a psychiatrist, raised his hand and said, excuse me. But I'm a Muslim and I do not believe these things in the Koran, and then I don't believe what you say the Koran says. And then Hasan didn't say, well, I'm just giving you one point of view. He basically just stared the guy down.

INSKEEP: So we have a picture of a man, then, who, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, was disliked by his colleagues. Or maybe disliked is not the word. Disturbed some of his colleagues is perhaps a better way to put it.

ZWERDLING: No, and disliked is also a relevant word.

INSKEEP: OK. And then?

ZWERDLING: Then he - the psychiatrist this morning said people generally considered him a blank bag. You, you know, can guess what they say.

INSKEEP: And then he is sent to Fort Hood, Texas, and he knows at the point that this shooting allegedly begins, that the shooting begins of which he is accused, that he's about to be deployed by Afghanistan...

...ZWERDLING: I want to add something else about Hasan at Walter Reed. The psychiatrist I talked to today said that he was the kind of guy who the staff actually stood around in the hallway, saying: Do you think he's a terrorist, or is he just weird? And now, apparently, Walter Reed is in a lockdown mode where they've been instructed - all the staff has been instructed: Do not talk to anybody about this investigation, except military people. Do not talk to the FBI, because they're afraid, potentially, what if people decide investigating this that people missed potential warning signs about the guy? You know, this is speculation still, but�

INSKEEP: How can they not talk to the FBI?

ZWERDLING: Well, our colleague Dina Temple-Raston has heard that from the FBI, and this military officer is telling me the same thing from Walter Reed.

Robert Spencer: Ft. Hood Massacre Fits Jihadist Terror Attack Pattern

From Frontpagemag.com:

...Major Hasan’s motive was perfectly clear — but it was one that the forces of political correctness and the Islamic advocacy groups in the United States have been working for years to obscure. So it is that now that another major jihad terror attack has taken place on American soil, authorities and the mainstream media are at a loss to explain why it happened – and the abundant evidence that it was a jihad attack is ignored....

...Maybe he just snapped, perhaps under the pressure of his imminent deployment to Iraq. But it’s noteworthy that if he did, he snapped in exactly the same way that several other Muslims in the U.S. military have snapped in the past. In April 2005, a Muslim serving in the U.S. Army, Hasan Akbar, was convicted of murder for killing two American soldiers and wounding fourteen in a grenade attack in Kuwait. AP reported: “Prosecutors say Akbar told investigators he launched the attack because he was concerned U.S. troops would kill fellow Muslims in Iraq. They said he coolly carried out the attack to achieve ‘maximum carnage’ on his comrades in the 101st Airborne Division.”

And Hasan’s murderous rampage resembles one that five Muslim men in New Jersey tried to carry out at Fort Dix in New Jersey in 2007, when they plotted to enter the U.S. Army base and murder as many soldiers as they could.

That was a jihad plot. One of the plotters, Serdar Tatar, told an FBI informant late in 2006: “I’m gonna do it….It doesn’t matter to me, whether I get locked up, arrested, or get taken away, it doesn’t matter. Or I die, doesn’t matter, I’m doing it in the name of Allah.” Another plotter, Mohamad Shnewer, was caught on tape saying, “They are the ones, we are going to put bullets in their heads, Allah willing.”

Nidal Hasan’s statements about Muslims rising up against the U.S. military aren’t too far from that, albeit less graphic. The effect of ignoring or downplaying the role that Islamic beliefs and assumptions may have played in his murders only ensures that – once again – nothing will be done to prevent the eventual advent of the next Nidal Hasan.

How Obama Can Recover...

IMHO, last night's losses to Republicans were indeed a referendum on President Obama--who is being punished because he has not kept his campaign promises, as Arianna Huffington argued the other day.

To turn the situation around, the Democrats need to go back to basics, and to the principles upon which the President campaigned, as Arianna noted: "Change We Can Believe In" and "Yes, We Can!"

Some concrete steps:

1. Fire Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary.

2. Replace him with Paul Volcker.

3. Announce a high-level investigation into allegations of violations of securities laws by Goldman Sachs.

4. File motions in the ongoing CIT bankruptcy case to recover $2.3 billion in taxpayer bailout money before creditors are paid.

5. Put Howard Dean in charge of Health Care Reform.

American Banking News: CIT Judge Grants "Unusual" and "Unprecedented" Concessions

From American Banking News:

In what could only be considered a bizarre decision by the judge, he approved a proposed temporary restraining order from CIT Group which will keep lenders from collecting on losses coming from the CIT Group/Equipment Finance Inc. unit, which isn’t even in bankruptcy.

According to court documents, this would have led to losses of $680 million to the company. But a bankruptcy court really shouldn’t have allowed this in the opinion of lenders like Wells Fargo Bank (NYSE:WFC), which, along with others, stated CIT Group hadn’t proved in any way they should be awarded this type of extraordinary measure for a division which has not entered into bankruptcy in the first place.

This may have been allowed to keep more bailout funds being funneled into the bankrupt financial entity, stirring up more outrage from taxpayers, who are growing increasingly edgy over the money being spent on huge companies by politicians on their behalf.

An agreement between CIT Group and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) was also approved by the judge who couldn’t say no, whereby letter of credit of $750 million would be allowed to be continually accessed by CIT, where the company alleged the funds were needed to continue to effectively operate and keep up good relationships with their customers.

Other unusual requests granted by Gropper was in allowing CIT to fund its operations with inter-company cash transfers. The company received a loan of $4.5 billion near the end of October, adding it to the $3 billion loan it received in July, 2009. Proceeds of the loans were given to subsidiaries of the company, which CIT also used the subsidiaries as collateral for the loans. The subsidiaries received liens on CIT’s assets in return.

Investor Carl Icahn, who holds over five percent of CIT’s debt, borrowed $1 billion to CIT in order to continue operations during the bankruptcy procedures. Gropper allowed CIT work out an exception for Icahn concerning using debt to increase billions in tax breaks.

Icahn is working on a deal with CIT where he could own close to 11 percent of the stock of CIT once it emerged from bankruptcy.

CIT said sub-prime mortgage losses and continuing tough credit markets as the reasons for declaring bankruptcy on November 1.

After terrible negotiations by Treasury Secretary William Geithner, taxpayers are expected to receive none of the $2.3 billion in bailout money CIT Group was given.

Italian Court Finds CIA Guilty of Kidnapping

From the Huffington Post:

MILAN — An Italian judge found 23 Americans and two Italians guilty Wednesday in the kidnapping of an Egyptian terror suspect, delivering the first legal convictions anywhere in the world against people involved in the CIA's extraordinary renditions program.

Human rights groups hailed the decision and pressed President Barack Obama to repudiate the Bush administration's practice of abducting terror suspects and transferring them to third countries where torture was permitted.

The Obama administration ended the CIA's interrogation program and shuttered its secret overseas jails in January but has opted to continue the practice of extraordinary renditions.

The Americans, who were tried in absentia, now cannot travel to Europe without risking arrest as long as the verdicts remains in place.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/04/italy-convicts-23-america_n_345274.html

Arianna Huffington: Obama Afraid to Govern

Arianna's read David Plouffe's book, and come away with some questions for the President:

Indeed, reading the book, I often found myself wondering what Candidate Obama would think of President Obama. Would he look at what the White House is doing and say, "that's what I and my supporters worked so hard for?"

How did the candidate who got into the race because he'd decided that "the core leadership had turned rotten" and that "the people were getting hosed" become the president who has decided that the American people can only have as much change as Olympia Snowe will allow?

How did the candidate who told a stadium of supporters in Denver that "the greatest risk we can take is to try the same old politics with the same old players and expect a different result" become the president who has surrounded himself with the same old players trying the same old politics, expecting a different result?

How could a president whose North Star as a candidate was that he "would not forget the middle class" choose as his chief economic advisor a man who recently argued against extending unemployment benefits in the middle of the worst economic times since the Great Depression?

I'm referring, of course, to Larry Summers. According to a White House official I spoke with -- later confirmed by sources in the White House and on the Hill -- Summers was against the extension. And it took a lot of Congressional pushing back behind the scenes for the president to overrule him.

And, according to another senior White House official, when foreclosures or job numbers come up at the regular White House morning meeting, Summers' response is that nothing can be done. Nothing can be done about skyrocketing foreclosures or lost jobs.

Nothing can be done -- pretty much the opposite of "Yes we can," isn't it?


Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/obama-one-year-later-the_b_343209.html

CIT Bankruptcy Hearing Today in Judge Alan L. Gropper's NYC Courtroom

Here's the judge's calendar showing CIT's hearing scheduled for today, November 3rd. I sincerely hope Judge Gropper throws out the agreement with creditors, saying the US Government failed in its fiduciary responsibility to taxpayers...of course, I'm not holding my breath...

Any readers in NYC who might stop by the courtroom to see what's happening, let us know and we'll try to link to your blog/twitter posts.

UPDATE: Bloomberg reports Judge Gropper isn't making any waves, approved the deals presented to him by CIT.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper in Manhattan today approved all of CIT’s routine “first-day” motions, allowing it to borrow an interim $125 million from a total $500 million “debtor-in-possession” loan from Bank of America Corp. CIT can also pay employees and vendors who supply critical services.

“We are on a very fast track,” Gropper said, setting a Dec. 8 date to consider both a rough outline of CIT’s so-called prepackaged plan, and a final confirmation order.

Not surprising, but disappointing...

NY Times Admits Paying Taliban

Responding to charges from Michael Yon that the newspaper paid ransom to the Taliban for release of its reporter, the New York Times raised further questions about its relations with the Taliban with this statement on its blog:

Security consultants who worked on our case said cash was paid to Taliban members who said they knew our whereabouts.

I would like to see answers to three obvious questions:

1. How much was paid to the Taliban by the New York Times?

2. What did the Times get in exchange?

3. How come the New York Times has not been prosecuted under the Trading with the Enemy Act?

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Diplomacy But Were Afraid to Ask

...can be found in Satow's Guide to Diplomatic Practice, reviewed by Jeremy Greenstock in the current TLS:

Can a guide originally written in 1917 for a very different planet be relevant now, even with the radical revision which the new editor, Sir Ivor Roberts, decided was necessary? Is diplomacy itself the same profession it was ninety years ago, or indeed in 1969, when the present Satow editor and I sat at adjacent desks in the West African Department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, raw recruits struggling with the complexities of the Nigerian civil war? The smell of sealing wax in the registries, the piles of crisp pink and green telegrams on the desks, and the hiss and rattle of Lamson Tubes dispatching papers to other parts of Whitehall now seem like features of a Dickensian novel.

Reading this new edition is a chance to take a salutary lesson. The past is closer to us than we like to imagine; the advice on how to be a good diplomat from a century or three centuries ago can still be spot-on; the well-tried rules of courteous and honourable exchange can cement the bricks of international order like nothing else. Diplomacy and war remain two sides of the same coin, with a lack of professionalism in the one liable to make the other loom all the larger. We need to know what constitutes good practice.

Sir Ernest Mason Satow (1843–1929) was a member of the British Japan Consular Service who rose, through his linguistic and other diplomatic skills, to become Head of Mission in Tokyo and then Peking at the turn of the century. In 1907 he represented Britain at the Second Hague Conference on International Peace. He wrote extensively about Japan and is still warmly remembered there. In his retirement he distilled his experience into a diplomatic guide which remains the most widely used in embassies around the world.

This Sixth Edition of Satow’s Diplomatic Practice runs to 700 pages, a challenge for all but the most studious of international affairs enthusiasts, but well worth dipping into or keeping as a work of reference. It describes how diplomacy is structured and organized, how the international and regional institutions work (with much updating on the European Union), how states transact their collective business and how law works at the global level. Precedents and customs abound; and there are some engaging anecdotes. The guidance on how to write a Note Verbale or draw up a non-paper may seem abstruse in a world of emails, blogs and Twittering, but formal communications remain part of international exchange. To adhere to a standard formula, often during a tense situation, has a reassuringly businesslike quality to it. As with legal language, it sounds strange but it is effective.

To the layman, nevertheless, those are diplomatic niceties. The fundamental purpose of the book is serious: humans are a contentious and destructive species and so the opportunities for peaceful interaction must be maximized. Here is an essential aid to doing so at the highest levels of professional effectiveness. Nor is Satow relevant only for British, or even anglophone, practitioners: diplomats of any nationality can draw huge benefit from it. I particularly commend the section at the end on Advice to Diplomats: listen more than you talk; stay calm in every circumstance; don’t show off that you are privy to secrets. The same mistakes are made today as many generations ago; and no practising diplomat should feel too proud to be reminded of them.

"Color Revolutions" Were Media Hype...

An article by Katya Kalandadze of Syracuse University and Mitchell A. Orenstein of Johns Hopkins University in the journal Comparative Political Studies (ht Democracy Digest) finally admits:

The sight of thousands of people demonstrating for clean elections and an end to corrupt postcommunist regimes led many observers to declare that the so-called color revolutions had finally brought democracy to Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan. But how successful have these electoral revolutions actually been? The authors analyze all cases of electoral revolutions worldwide since 1991, distinguishing between failed and successful electoral revolutions, to conclude that even successful electoral revolutions have shown insignificant or no democratic progress in their wake. Electoral revolutions are ineffective at advancing democratization because they place too great an emphasis on elections and do not address other fundamental obstacles to democratization in hybrid and authoritarian regimes. International influences have proven more successful in promoting democratization in countries of postcommunist Europe.

Do You Know Any White House Visitors?

Search this handy-dandy database to find out...(ht Huffington Post)

White House Visitor Records Requests

Powered by Socrata

CIT Bankruptcy Shakes Asia

From Channel News Asia:

HONG KONG - Asian markets tumbled Monday as a heavy loss on Wall Street at the end of last week was compounded by the bankruptcy of US bank CIT at the weekend, hitting confidence for a global economic recovery.

Tokyo lost 2.31 percent, Sydney 2.21 percent and Seoul 1.37 percent as dealers went into selloff mode. Hong Kong lost 0.61 percent, after having been almost three percent lower at one point.

Wall Street had plummeted 2.51 percent on Friday as confidence whipped up by the gross domestic product data was wiped out by worries that CIT Group, one of the largest small-business lenders in the United States, was in trouble.

Those fears were realised on Sunday when the bank filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with its board approving a "prepackaged" restructuring plan to shed 10 billion US dollars in debt.

This comes after a $2 billion US-taxpayer bailout...I want my money back!

IMHO, the bankruptcy judge ought to make darn sure all the CIT execs refund their bonuses as part of any workout.

UPDATE from TechTicker at Finance.Yahoo.com:

The prepackaged plan allows CIT to restructure its debt while trying to keep badly needed loans flowing to thousands of mid-sized and small businesses. The plan keeps CIT's operations alive and makes it possible for the company to exit bankruptcy by year's end.

But here's the bad news: While senior debt holders will only lose 30% of their investment, we, the U.S. taxpayer, will lose the entire $2.3 billion we lent the company this summer.

William Black, professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law is dumbfounded. "We put ourselves on the hook in a completely inept way where we lose first. We lose entirely as the taxpayers."

Black, a former top federal banking regulator, blames Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner for negotiating such a bad deal on behalf of the American public.

His argument goes as follows:

The government was in no way obligated to lend the struggling CIT money and, in fact, initially refused to provide it bailout funds. More importantly, being the lender of last resort, the government should have guaranteed we'd be the first to get paid if CIT eventually filed Chapter 11. By failing to do so, "it's like he [Geithner] burned billions of dollars again in government money, our money, gratuitously," says Black.

Here's a link to William Black's book at Amazon.com: