More on Russian-Chinese War Games

From Siberian Light. (Thanks to Nathan at Registan for the link)

Putin Calls for US Pullout from Iraq

According to Al Jazeera, the US has rejected Putin's suggestion.

IMHO, the Global War on Terror can't be won in an atmosphere of US-Russian confrontation. It might be better to fight alongside Putin against Islamists, than alongside Islamists against Putin.

Ann Coulter Answers Cindy Sheehan

Ann Coulter has this to say:

Fortunately, the Constitution vests authority to make foreign policy with the president of the United States, not with this week's sad story. But liberals think that since they have been able to produce a grieving mother, the commander in chief should step aside and let Cindy Sheehan make foreign policy for the nation. As Maureen Dowd said, it's "inhumane" for Bush not "to understand that the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute."

I'm not sure what "moral authority" is supposed to mean in that sentence, but if it has anything to do with Cindy Sheehan dictating America's foreign policy, then no, it is not "absolute." It's not even conditional, provisional, fleeting, theoretical or ephemeral.

The logical, intellectual and ethical shortcomings of such a statement are staggering. If one dead son means no one can win an argument with you, how about two dead sons? What if the person arguing with you is a mother who also lost a son in Iraq and she's pro-war? Do we decide the winner with a coin toss? Or do we see if there's a woman out there who lost two children in Iraq and see what she thinks about the war?

Dowd's "absolute" moral authority column demonstrates, once again, what can happen when liberals start tossing around terms they don't understand like "absolute" and "moral." It seems that the inspiration for Dowd's column was also absolute. On the rocks.

Mark Steyn also has something to say.

Middle East Forum: Putin is Right About Chechnya

Lorenzo Vidino says Chechnya is a haven for Al Qaeda and Basayev an Islamist fanatic.

Vote for the Greatest Painting in Britain...

...not the greatest British painting, but the greatest painting that happens to be hanging in Britain--here.

Bull Moose to Democrats: Run to the Right, Not the Left

Bull Moose tells Democrats the way to win back Congress in 2006 is to take George Bush from the Right. IMHO this strategy worked for Clinton in 1992 against Bush Senior, over Yugoslavia. If the Democrats had run Zell Miller in 2004, rather than John Kerry, he would have won--and the Iraq war might have been over by now.

BBC: More Than 400 Bombs Went Off In Bangladesh

According to the BBC report, there were also leaflets.

"It is time to implement Islamic law in Bangladesh" and "Bush and Blair be warned and get out of Muslim countries", the leaflets say.

Like Britain, Spain, France, India, Israel, Indonesia, Turkey, the Phillippines, the USA, and some other victims of terrorism, Bangladesh is a democracy.

Dutch Voting with Their Feet

For the first time since the end of the Second World War, significant numbers of Dutch people are emigrating from Holland, according to this article in The Telegraph. One factor may be rising tensions in the wake of the Van Gogh murder. Among their destinations: Australia. (Tim Blair's tip)

The Next US-Russian Confrontation...

...may come over Kosovo. In 8 months, the present UN trusteeship expires. At that point, the US and EU might decide to recognize an independent Kosovar Republic (currently Kosovo remains officially part of Serbia and Montegro). Russia, historically pro-Serbian, already has objected to such a possibility. But the West might decide to act unilaterally. In that case, the stage may be set for another US-Russian confrontation in the former Yugoslavia. Something to think about.

My Father, The Spy (cont'd.)

Today's Washington Post has a nice profile of John Richardson, author of My Father, The Spy.

Philobiblon

Nathalie Bennet's blog,Philobiblon, links to this site on her blogroll, a nice surprise.

Editor: Myself

Editor: Myself is a nice weblog from Iran...

The Iraq-Al Qaeda Connection

Ed Morrissey's article in The Weekly Standard about problems with the 9/11 commission report contained a link to this news item from 2001, evidence of overlooked links between Iraq and Al Qaeda:

Intelligence Briefs: Iraq (April 2001): "Iraqi Spies Reportedly Arrested in Germany
16 March 2001

Al-Watan al-Arabi (Paris) reports that two Iraqis were arrested in Germany, charged with spying for Baghdad. The arrests came in the wake of reports that Iraq was reorganizing the external branches of its intelligence service and that it had drawn up a plan to strike at US interests around the world through a network of alliances with extremist fundamentalist parties.

The most serious report contained information that Iraq and Osama bin Ladin were working together. German authorities were surprised by the arrest of the two Iraqi agents and the discovery of Iraqi intelligence activities in several German cities. German authorities, acting on CIA recommendations, had been focused on monitoring the activities of Islamic groups linked to bin Ladin. They discovered the two Iraqi agents by chance and uncovered what they considered to be serious indications of cooperation between Iraq and bin Ladin. The matter was considered so important that a special team of CIA and FBI agents was sent to Germany to interrogate the two Iraqi spies."

Morrissey comments:

Interestingly, journalists such as Amir Taheri considered al-Watan al-Arabi to be a pro-Saddam publication--not surprising given its Parisian readership. Despite its reporting against its presumed interests, the al-Watan al-Arabi article generated no interest either at the time or afterwards. A scan of the Commission report finds no mention of these arrests in Heidelberg, nor any of the CIA or FBI interviews reported by al-Watan al-Arabi.

Why should any of this have mattered to the 9/11 Commission? Their report provides the most important reason: The 9/11 plot began its practical planning in Hamburg, beginning in 1999 and assisting Mohammed Atta and the other 9/11 plotters through the summer of 2001. Having discovered two Iraqi intelligence agents conducting "missions . . . in a number of German towns since the beginning of 2001" indicates at least the possibility of more than just a sabotage assignment. Even apart from the al-Watan al-Arabi reporting, the strange coincidence of discovering Iraqi intelligence operations in such close conjunction to known al Qaeda operations should have raised some eyebrows.

Saudi Humor...

The Religious Policeman has posted a rather funny interview with the Saudi Minister of Tourism. An excerpt:

RP: OK. So we'll allow single men and bona-fide married couples in. But they already go to places like Dubai in hundreds of thousands, it's a major international resort. Why should they come to Saudi Arabia instead?

M: Well, we have lots of sun.

RP: So does Dubai. Can they sit under a sunshade and have a drink, like in Dubai?

M: Certainly not, and if there's any drink in their suitcase, they'll go to prison. But we're not like Dubai, we offer a unique cultural experience.

RP: So they can go and see a show with folk dancing, the sort of thing Greece is good at?

M: How long have you been in Britain? You know we don't have theatres or cinemas or concert halls. No, what I meant was, there are 6,366 heritage and antiquities sites in the Kingdom.

RP: But aren't we knocking these down as quick as we can drive the bulldozers?

M: That's only for the non-Islamic sites and sites that could be associated with idolatry - so just old monuments and fortresses, historic buildings, houses of famous people, things like that. Certainly not the mosques.

RP: So they can go and look round the famous mosques, like they can in Bahrain for example?

M: Well they can certainly look at the outside.

RP: But not the inside? After all, that's where they'd see the beautiful decorations, get a sense of stillness and reverence.

M Oh no, if they go inside we'll put them in prison.

Intel Dump

Also via War and Piece, a link to Intel Dump, a blog about intelligence matters. One should take it with a grain of salt, but it still makes for interesting reading...

Why Israel is Giving Up Gaza

War and Piece led me to Aluf Benn's incisive analysis in Haaretz of Sharon's possible Gaza strategy. I'd say it confirms my impression that the old general knows what he is doing.

This section seemed particularly clear:

...Further disintegration of the Palestinian Authority under Abbas' weak leadership would turn Gaza into a "Hamastan," ruled by Islamic extremists, and separate it from the West Bank, until eventually Egypt will regain control of Gaza - and Jordan will return to the West Bank. Several Israeli officials advocate this scenario, stressing that an independent Palestinian state is not viable if it does not get more territory from its Arab neighbors. This is the nightmare scenario for the Hashemite rulers of Jordan, who fear the West Bank security barrier will push the Palestinians eastward at their expense.

The Bush administration wants to keep Abbas in power and implement the president's vision of creating a Palestinian state by early 2009. Sharon and Abbas have yet to show they are able to negotiate. For now, they present irreconcilable opening positions, with Abbas opting for a quick final-status deal, and Sharon insisting on a long, gradual process. But both sides will hold elections in 2006, and no serious diplomacy can be expected before then.

So that may be it--if Gaza becomes "Hamastan," it goes back to Egypt. Without Egypt's support, the Palestinians can't succeed. And, Israel just has to hold on until 2008, when Bush will be gone, since a Clinton administration will come in with a different plan. After Arafat screwed-over Bill Clinton, the Clinton administration might not be as sympathetic as Bush, especially to a "Hamastan."

Thus, the Gaza pullout may in fact mark the end of the line for Palestinian statehood, not the beginning.

Konstantin's Russian Blog

I just found Konstantin's Russian Blog, and it's pretty interesting, too...

He explains the history of Potemkin villages--and the Potemkin fleet. He explains how Western-style consultants and lawyers have raised the average price of Russian bribes. And he shares a current Russian jokes. Here's one explaining the difference between the American space program and the Russian one: "When Russia decided to use disposable descent vehicles, America decided to use disposable astronauts."

And here's one about BBC editorial standards:

New BBC vocabulary:
Person who bombs people - a bombist
Person who shoots people - a gunman
Person who runs people over - a driver
Person who eats people - a gourmet

Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Weblog

I read Ayaan Hirsi Ali's oped in today's Wall Street Journal, Unfree Under Islam, thanks to a link at Roger L. Simon's blog. Then I took a look at her website. It's interesting.

You can view a clip from Submission, here

British Airways Catering Strike Hits Washington

The British Airways catering strike hit Washington, DC yesterday, as we found out when we took a friend to Dulles Airport for a flight to London. While waiting on the check-in line, a BA representative announced that there would not be any food served on the plane. Instead, $20 vouchers were handed out. They could be used to buy food in the departure terminal, to take on the flight. Take-away instead of a served meal.

I thought to myself afterwards, if those vouchers could only be cashed in, I would rather have had money than food. I wonder how long before an airline economist runs the numbers on offering cash rebates, instead of meals, on long-distance flights?

What Can Russia Do?

The Washington Times is running this AP photo of Vladimir Putin at the controls of a Russian bomber
This story about Russia's opposition to the use of force in Iran raises the question I first heard in Moscow, from an American diplomat, when I told him that my students weren't very happy about American actions in the Ukraine during the Orange revolution, which they saw as anti-Russian.

"What can Russia do?" he asked, rhetorically. "Their military is tied down in Chechnya, they don't have the troops."

Now Russia is objecting to another American initiative--this time military rather than political--while our troops are tied down in Iraq. Russia basically supplied the Iranians with their nuclear capability. And I think the outcome in Iran may hinge on the answer to the same question: "What can Russia do?"