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June 24, 2008

Sec. Rice on "The New American Realism"

Secretary of State Rice gives a broad review of the Bush foreign policy. I hope there is something worthwhile in there.

*What has not changed is that our relations with traditional and emerging great powers still matter to the successful conduct of policy. Thus, my admonition in 2000 that we should seek to get right the "relationships with the big powers" -- Russia, China, and emerging powers such as India and Brazil -- has consistently guided us. As before, our alliances in the Americas, Europe, and Asia remain the pillars of the international order, and we are now transforming them to meet the challenges of a new era.

What has changed is, most broadly, how we view the relationship between the dynamics within states and the distribution of power among them. As globalization strengthens some states, it exposes and exacerbates the failings of many others -- those too weak or poorly governed to address challenges within their borders and prevent them from spilling out and destabilizing the international order. In this strategic environment, it is vital to our national security that states be willing and able to meet the full range of their sovereign responsibilities, both beyond their borders and within them. This new reality has led us to some significant changes in our policy. We recognize that democratic state building is now an urgent component of our national interest. And in the broader Middle East, we recognize that freedom and democracy are the only ideas that can, over time, lead to just and lasting stability, especially in Afghanistan and Iraq.*

MP3 available. 

 

 

Posted by Jeffrey Sykes at 08:12 AM | | Comments (0)

May 14, 2008

Not your everyday radio station

If you like music as much as I do, may I suggest you check out IranianRadio.com and their podcast stream on I-Tunes. I'm specifically referring to their Traditional channel, which plays Persian sonati. Very cool.

Updated: Even better is Putamayo Radio, a stream of a weekly radio show from the Putamayo label, purveyors of the best collection of world music in, well, the world.

Guess I don't have to listen to Simon at work anymore and thank God for that.

Posted by Jeffrey Sykes at 09:33 AM | | Comments (3)

January 17, 2008

Calling our bluff (or, for every measure there is a countermeasure)

Reuters:

*Colombia's success in breaking the power of its big cartels was due partly to close cooperation with the U.S. which provided money and intelligence. The unintended consequence: much of the illicit business previously run from Colombia moved to Mexico.

Now, along the border, Mexican drug traffickers are trying to extend their culture of corruption to the north, targeting Border Patrol and military officials they think might be tempted by easy money.

"In the U.S., the region most vulnerable to corruption is the U.S.-Mexican border and particularly the border with Arizona," said Paul Charlton, the former U.S. Attorney for Arizona who is now partner in a law firm. "The temptations are just extraordinary."

Over the past few years, investigators have uncovered scores of U.S. public employees who accepted bribes for helping to move drugs or look the other way. The latest was an Arizona prison officer sentenced this month to 15 months for taking cash from people he thought were drug traffickers.*

Posted by Jeffrey Sykes at 07:30 AM | | Comments (0)

December 29, 2007

Our intelligence failures contribute to growing Qaeda presence in Pakistan

NYT provides an intricate look at the network of Arab and Pakastani militants banding together under al Qaeda. The Pakastani government is blaming this growing network for the assassination of Bhutto last week.

But as part of that story, this alarming tidbit sprang forth:

*Barely two years ago Mr. Mehsud, 32, was just a Pashtun tribesman who did not register on the radar screen of the intelligence services or government officials. He is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan in the 1990s, when he trained and fought with the Taliban, according to one Pakistani intelligence official.

He became a follower of Abdullah Mehsud, the one-legged commander who was captured when fighting with the Taliban in 2001 in Afghanistan and detained by the United States at its military base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Abdullah Mehsud was later released and took up the fight against American forces in Afghanistan from his home base in South Waziristan.*

Mehsud was reportedly killed in earlier this year by Pakistani security forces.

Now just who is running this War on Terrorism? Why did we spend millions of dollars and numerous American lives and limbs to capture this Abdullah Mehsud, transport him to Guantanamo and then release him back into the wild? Is this some kind of tag and release operation?

That doesn't make the least bit of strategic, let along tactical, sense.

If we catch the ring leaders we should kill them. Period.

Otherwise, we are just wasting our time.

I like the Colin Powell strategy the best:

"We're going to cut it off and then we are going to kill it."

I'm all for freedom and prosperity. I'm all for peace. But I think this weeks assassination reminded us what we are up against. I don't want the US government using that as a perpetual excuse. I want them to solve the problem.

More and more it seems the current administration is bumbling its way through some of the most dangerous and critical challenges our country has ever faced.

Terrorists aligned with bin Laden having access to Pakistan's nuclear weaponry is no joke.

But again, we need rational, achievable solutions to the problem, not tough talk and ineffable policy.

Paging Teddy Roosevelt.

Posted by Jeffrey Sykes at 03:44 PM | | Comments (1)

December 28, 2007

Somebody loved her

Bhutto's funeral procession

A classmate remembers her. Another here.

Scheduled cover story in next week's Parade Magazine. 

Posted by Jeffrey Sykes at 11:14 AM | | Comments (0)

December 27, 2007

Bhutto slain

*"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
Bhutto has been killed by an assassin moments after speaking at a rally in Rawalpindi. Such a sad event. But not to be unexpected. She was beautiful and brave, not perfect, but adored by her followers.

Last pictures. Pictures four and six seem to represent a before and after of the exact scene of the bomb blast.

My previous thoughts on Bhutto:

"The main reason I admire her is she has the strength of steel in her if she has the guts to stand up for democracy and equality in one of the most violent countries and regions of the world, where women are treated like dogs and freedom is but like mist among the winds of military and autocratic power."


Posted by Jeffrey Sykes at 10:14 AM | | Comments (3)

December 18, 2007

Chinese economic muscle in question

World Bank bearish on Chinese economy:

*Although China’s $5.33-trillion economy is still the second largest in the world behind the $12-trillion US, the new appraisal suggests it won't be taking top honors that soon, and it's less powerful, and poorer, than thought, the BBC reports.*

Posted by Jeffrey Sykes at 12:16 PM | | Comments (0)

December 13, 2007

Good article on religion's role in American governance

Is it possible to be a Christian and in favor of secular government?

Roger Cohen via NYT:

*Thomas Jefferson saw those words as “building a wall of separation between church and state.” So, much later, did John F. Kennedy, who in a speech predating Romney’s by 47 years, declared: “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.”

The absolute has proved porous. The U.S. culture wars have produced what David Campbell of Notre Dame University called: “the injection of religion into politics in a very overt way.”

Much too overt for Europeans, whose alarm at George W. Bush’s presidency has been fed by his allusions to divine guidance — “the hand of a just and faithful God” in shaping events, or his trust in “the ways of Providence.”*

Posted by Jeffrey Sykes at 07:10 AM | | Comments (0)

December 12, 2007

Who pays the price for your Christmas cheer?

Wal-Mart investigating Chinese supplier of Christmas ornaments for paying teen workers an average of 49 cents per hour.

WWJD?

*The National Labor Committee — citing interviews, wage records and cellphone pictures smuggled out by teenage workers — said that the employees were being paid at less than Guangzhou’s legal minimum of 55 cents per hour and are being forced to work excessive amounts of overtime. Workers were paid by a piecemeal basis, according to the committee, with some earning as little as 26 cents per hour. The wage records, which were from a 10-day period from June 21 to 30 of this year, show a median wage of 49 cents per hour. By law, the employees should have been earning a median of 68 cents per hour because of overtime regulations.*

Posted by Jeffrey Sykes at 03:41 PM | | Comments (0)

December 03, 2007

Intelligence report contradicts administration's words (again)

WTF? Somebody's not telling the truth.

NYT:

*A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains on hold, contradicting an assessment two years ago that Tehran was working inexorably toward building a bomb.*

Posted by Jeffrey Sykes at 03:50 PM | | Comments (0)

November 28, 2007

Jeffrey Sykes simple road map for Middle East *peace*

Suck a nut dick
Take a good look at these assholes.

Now listen up.

I'm not yet 40, so my experience is limited to Carter forward, but it seems like each president, when they start looking at lame duck status, starts some pointless Middle East *peace conference*.

What a waste.

I don't care if every Palestinian and Israeli in all of Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth hate each other for all of time. If they can't get a long, then screw 'em.

As a person of Anglo-Hispanic descent, worrying about two angry ethnic groups still fighting over Esau's bowl of soup is very far away from my list of priorities.

Sure, in the past I've cared. I've thought it was the most important issue of the day. But for Yahweh's sake, get a grip.

If we didn't care about Middle Eastern oil, who would give a crap about Gaza or Hebron or the Mount of Olives except religious fanatics. And we all know how that is supposed to end.

I try to believe, I try to care, but I am sick and tired of watching these Palestinians jump up and down and foam at the mouth because of Israel. The Israeli's are tough enough to take care of themselves, so we in the West should quit wasting our breath.

There will never be peace in the Middle East until Jesus Christ returns. And if he doesn't what's the point?

Muhammad ain't coming back and if the Jews found a messiah they would turn their backs on him anyway.

Buy Citgo and BP gas and leave the Middle East to the gamalas.

Posted by Jeffrey Sykes at 07:36 AM | | Comments (2)

November 26, 2007

Ahh, push it. Push it real good. (or salt and peppa')

I coudn't resist, espicially since I hear that dumb ass song every day at work.

Reuters: 

*Bethan, 56, lives in southern England on the same street as best friend Allie, 64.

They are on their first holiday to Kenya, a country they say is "just full of big young boys who like us older girls."

Hard figures are difficult to come by, but local people on the coast estimate that as many as one in five single women visiting from rich countries are in search of sex.*

Now get up on this:

World Bank:

*The trend from 1990 to 2000 suggests that adult HIV prevalence in Kenya will increase to about 14% by the year 2005 and then stabilize at that level and the number of infected people in the population will have increased from about 2.2 million people in 2000 to 2.6 million by 2005 and to 2.9 million by 2010.

One dramatic impact of AIDS deaths is the decline in life expectancy. The Central Bureau of Statistics estimates that without AIDS, life expectancy at birth would currently be about 65 years. However, because of the large number of AIDS deaths, it is actually only about 46 years and may decline to 45 years by 2010. Thus almost 20 years of life expectancy have already been lost because of AIDS.*

Posted by Jeffrey Sykes at 07:55 PM | | Comments (0)

November 21, 2007

Note to W.: What are you talking about?

George W. Bush has lost his mind:

*President Bush yesterday offered his strongest support of embattled Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, saying the general "hasn't crossed the line" and "truly is somebody who believes in democracy."*

Posted by Jeffrey Sykes at 09:24 AM | | Comments (0)

November 18, 2007

OPEC split?

WaPo:

*After the chanting of an opening prayer from the Koran about God's "sublime light that reflects on mankind," Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez took the stage, crossed himself, invoked Jesus and launched into a 24-minute rallying cry to reenergize what he called OPEC's "revolutionary" battle against "exploitation" and to do more to alleviate poverty.

But after Chávez spoke, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah said that "oil is a tool for construction and prosperity . . . and it should not be a means for disputes or serving whims."

For the past four days, OPEC and Saudi officials have been trying to portray the oil cartel almost as a public service organization, scrutinizing figures on consumption and production to find a balance that would moderate wild swings in prices for the benefit of consumers and producers alike.

"We are not using the oil we are selling to the world as a political weapon," OPEC Secretary General Abdullah al-Badri said this week. "We have not used [it] in the past, nor will we use it in the future."

But Chávez said, "OPEC must change and become a much stronger player in the geopolitical domain."*

Posted by Jeffrey Sykes at 09:13 AM | | Comments (1)

November 17, 2007

*Freedom on the march*

I am so sick of these backwards ass people that it makes me want to puke.

Can we get off oil already and let them do their *thang*.

Posted by Jeffrey Sykes at 09:48 AM | | Comments (1)

November 14, 2007

Fatwa, continued

Death to the plastic grocery bag!
The Independent:

British shops hand out a staggering 13 billion every year. But after a decision by 33 London councils yesterday, plastic bags could be soon be consigned to history, unmourned by anyone who cares about cleaning up the environment.

Fatwa declared.

Posted by Jeffrey Sykes at 09:32 AM | | Comments (0)

Role reversal

Samuelson and Friedman supply a double dose of arguments in the most important debate of the day: how do we fuel the future. This may become a daily feature here, because my gut tells me we are just seeing the beginning of the Era of *Oil as a Weapon*

We're too smart for that. I think.

Thomas:

If you want to see America thrive by becoming the most energy productive economy in the world — a title that now belongs to Japan, which doesn’t have a drop of oil in its soil — you want a gasoline tax, which will only spur U.S. innovation in energy efficiency.

President Bush squandered a historic opportunity to put America on a radically different energy course after 9/11. But considering how few Democrats or Republicans are ready to tell the people the truth on this issue, maybe we have the president we deserve. I refuse to believe that, but I’m starting to doubt myself.

Robert:

So the tightened gap between supply and demand has shifted power to producers. "Will competition for scarce resources lead to political or even military clashes among major powers?" asks a report by the National Petroleum Council. "Will bilateral arrangements among nations become common as governments attempt to 'secure' energy supplies outside of traditional market mechanisms?"

Here is what we might do: Raise fuel economy standards for new cars and trucks; gradually increase the gas tax (possibly offset with tax cuts) to induce people to buy those vehicles; expand oil and natural gas production in Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico, and off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. These steps would, with time, temper the power of oil producers while also checking greenhouse gases. But many liberals, conservatives and environmentalists oppose parts of a sensible compromise. The stalemate hurts mainly us.

Posted by Jeffrey Sykes at 08:23 AM | | Comments (0)

November 13, 2007

Money talks

Chavez ahead of the OPEC curve:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Tuesday proposed OPEC finance social development programs for poor countries and boost activity in geopolitics, seeking to put his self-styled socialist revolution on the global stage.

More...

"If the United States decides to invade Iran, oil will not just reach $100 per barrel, it will reach $200 per barrel," he added, in reference to rumors over a possible U.S. strike on the Islamic country.

But he said that Venezuela wants to create "protection mechanisms so that the price of oil at $100 does not turn into a destructive bomb for weak economies."

"A great alliance of OPEC nations ... (should) direct a part of that oil income to intense programs for literacy, health, education and housing," he said.

Posted by Jeffrey Sykes at 03:16 PM | | Comments (0)

40,000 police will not stop her

Journalists protest
Something is happening in Lahore:

Nearly 20,000 police were out in Lahore and about 4,000 of them moved in overnight around the house where Bhutto is staying, laying out coils of barbed wire and barricades and blocking streets with sand-laden tucks.
BBC analysis.

Posted by Jeffrey Sykes at 08:52 AM | | Comments (0)

November 09, 2007

Do you understand what this means?

NYT:

India and China are home to about a third of humanity. People there are demanding access to electricity, cars, and consumer goods and can increasingly afford to compete with the West for access to resources. In doing so, the two Asian giants are profoundly transforming the world’s energy balance.

Today, China consumes only a third as much oil as the United States, which burns a quarter of the world’s oil each day. By 2030, India and China together will import as much oil as the United States and Japan do today.


Posted by Jeffrey Sykes at 08:18 AM | | Comments (2)

Dissent, freedom main victims in Pakistan

BBC:

While the Pakistani leader has talked about taking on the militants, the emergency has been used to crack down on the liberals, he argues.

"Look at who is behind bars? Lawyers, media men, students and human rights activists."

"In fact, the first thing they did post-emergency was release 30 prisoners, including six convicted of being involved in suicide attacks."

He is alluding to the release of 30 pro-Taleban militants by the government in exchange for nearly 300 soldiers held captive by militants in the Waziristan tribal region.

Do we really believe in freedom? American hypocrisy is the singular factor, I believe, fueling hatred of our country. How can we invade a country in the name of *freedom and democracy* and overturn its *oppressive* regime while using a dictator who quashes freedom and rule of law at every turn as an *ally* in the broader *march of freedom*?

Bush 41 failed to live up to the ideals of freedom when he sold out the Shiites in 1991. Clinton  failed to live up to the ideals of freedom when he turned a blind eye to the genocide in Rwanda and Bosnia in the early 1990s and now W. is continuing the trend by remaining relatively silent when it comes to a dictator with a bomb using the security excuses to crack down on freedom of speech, the independence of the judiciary and his political opponents.

Bhutto is detained at home today to prevent her from leading rallies in protest of Musharraf's assault on freedom.

But rank and file party members who showed up at her home and tried to protest her treatment were piled into waiting police vans. If she is formally detained, she said her party will continue pushing for an end to the emergency laws and demanding that Musharraf abandon his job as chief of the Army if he continues serving as president.

 

AND ....

Across Punjab Province on Thursday an estimated 500 workers of Ms. Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party were arrested in the government’s latest sweep of its opponents. By Friday morning, party officials said, the number detained in the past three days had climbed to 5,000.

The arrests of the Pakistan Peoples Party members in Punjab appeared to be aimed at district leaders involved in planning the protest, party officials said.

This is an ally of freedom?

Posted by Jeffrey Sykes at 07:50 AM | | Comments (0)

November 08, 2007

Ahmadinejad: "Can you hear me now?"

Times Online:

A claim by President Ahmadinejad that Iran has 3,000 working uranium-enriching centrifuges sent a tremor across the world yesterday amid fears that Israel would respond by bombing the country’s nuclear facilities.



Posted by Jeffrey Sykes at 03:24 PM | | Comments (7)

A victory for Latin America

Dems split along old industry versus new industry line allowing passage of a free trade agreement with Peru, long advocated by the Bush admin.

The requirement that Peru adopt labor and environmental protections was negotiated last May by Ms. Pelosi and two senior Democrats, Representatives Charles B. Rangel of New York and Sander M. Levin of Michigan, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and the committee’s trade subcommittee respectively.

While some Democrats concede that trade has cost some American jobs and perhaps flattened the wages of some workers, they also argue that it is impossible to reverse the trends of companies looking for cheaper labor overseas and that the United States must respond by trying to negotiating lower tariff barriers and exporting more overseas.

Democrats from the prosperous areas of the East and West Coast have become especially responsive, many Democrats say, to the desire of Wall Street and the high technology, health, pharmaceutical and entertainment industries to expand their sales overseas. These industries have also become major Democratic contributors.

Posted by Jeffrey Sykes at 02:24 PM | | Comments (0)

Musharraf continues to wage war against judiciary

Enough dancing about the issue. If your judiciary is not independent from your executive branch, then you have a dictatorship.

Via NYT:

Judges from the High Courts across the country are also under house arrest or in jail, and an unknown number of lawyers -- 1,000 or more, according to some estimates -- have been arrested.

In a sign of the determined mood of the government, a judge in Lahore, Irfan Qadir, who granted bail to 54 human rights advocates arrested Sunday, was removed from the bench and relegated to a desk job as a way of punishment, lawyers said.

I don't see how President Bush can look himself in the mirror and say we are fighting for freedom in Iraq when we ally ourselves with the enemies of freedom.

Politicians make me sick.

Posted by Jeffrey Sykes at 01:27 PM | | Comments (0)

Coming to a head

Friday could be a bad day to be in Pakistan.

Large protests, especially ones that elicit violent responses from security forces, could be destabilizing for Musharraf.

"Musharraf would not survive a half a million people on the streets," said Ejaz Haider, a columnist with the English-language Daily Times in Lahore. "That would be the end."

Bhutto's call to action could force a split in the army's chain of command if Musharraf orders the demonstrations to be put down violently. 


More:

In an opening skirmish, some 400 loyalists of her Pakistan People's Party, the country's largest, marched up to riot police blocking their way to the parliament building, where lawmakers minutes earlier had rubber-stamped the emergency declaration.

Police fired tear gas over their heads and beat and arrested a few who broke through barricades topped with barbed-wire, including several women.

Naheed Khan, a close aide to Bhutto, waded into the brief melee. She whacked a policeman on the shoulder and screamed: "Who are you? How dare you take action against women?"

The demonstrators pulled back through the choking gas, chanting "Benazir! Benazir!" and "Down with the emergency!" 

Posted by Jeffrey Sykes at 08:04 AM | | Comments (0)