There’s been a call for one…
Reader N sent in a bunch of links about this:
by DougJ| 139 Comments
This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Open Threads
There’s been a call for one…
Reader N sent in a bunch of links about this:
by John Cole| 63 Comments
This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Teabagger Stupidity
Wingnuts, who spent the last decade cheering us forcibly bringing “freedom and democracy” to the Middle East are suddenly very upset with the outcome of that democracy:
Who did they think they would elect? Palin?
In a Shocking Twist, Majority Islamic Nation Elects Islamic PresidentPost + Comments (63)
by John Cole| 77 Comments
This post is in: Foreign Affairs, War, General Stupidity
Nothing could go wrong here:
A small number of C.I.A. officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, according to American officials and Arab intelligence officers.
The weapons, including automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and some antitank weapons, are being funneled mostly across the Turkish border by way of a shadowy network of intermediaries including Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood and paid for by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the officials said.
The C.I.A. officers have been in southern Turkey for several weeks, in part to help keep weapons out of the hands of fighters allied with Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups, one senior American official said. The Obama administration has said it is not providing arms to the rebels, but it has also acknowledged that Syria’s neighbors would do so.
The clandestine intelligence-gathering effort is the most detailed known instance of the limited American support for the military campaign against the Syrian government. It is also part of Washington’s attempt to increase the pressure on President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, who has recently escalated his government’s deadly crackdown on civilians and the militias battling his rule. With Russia blocking more aggressive steps against the Assad government, the United States and its allies have instead turned to diplomacy and aiding allied efforts to arm the rebels to force Mr. Assad from power.
And just a week or so ago, I heard Secretary of State Hilary Clinton emphatically state that the United States has no role in providing weaponry to other side and is focusing only on humanitarian aid, all while browbeating the Russians for their military contracts with Syria.
Basically, if there is an armed struggle anywhere in the world, we just can not help ourselves and have to get involved in some way, shape, or form. We’re drawn to gunrunning and blowback the way Tyrone Biggums is drawn to crack rock.
by DougJ| 78 Comments
This post is in: Foreign Affairs
You probably heard that the pro-EU party won in the Greek elections yesterday. Matt Yglesias (I have to admit, he’s doing a good job in his new role at Slate) and Krugman have a run-down of what this means and how Greece got there. Krugman on how Greece got there:
On the other hand, many things you hear about Greece just aren’t true. The Greeks aren’t lazy — on the contrary, they work longer hours than almost anyone else in Europe, and much longer hours than the Germans in particular. Nor does Greece have a runaway welfare state, as conservatives like to claim; social expenditure as a percentage of G.D.P., the standard measure of the size of the welfare state, is substantially lower in Greece than in, say, Sweden or Germany, countries that have so far weathered the European crisis pretty well.
[….]Greece joined the euro, and a terrible thing happened: people started believing that it was a safe place to invest. Foreign money poured into Greece, some but not all of it financing government deficits; the economy boomed; inflation rose; and Greece became increasingly uncompetitive. To be sure, the Greeks squandered much if not most of the money that came flooding in, but then so did everyone else who got caught up in the euro bubble.
[….]So Greece, although not without sin, is mainly in trouble thanks to the arrogance of European officials, mostly from richer countries, who convinced themselves that they could make a single currency work without a single government. And these same officials have made the situation even worse by insisting, in the teeth of the evidence, that all the currency’s troubles were caused by irresponsible behavior on the part of those Southern Europeans, and that everything would work out if only people were willing to suffer some more.
Yglesias on the meaninglessness of Greece in the European big picture:
Last but by no means least, Greece is basically irrelevant. This is a small, poorish country that has no broader significance in the economic world. If everything else was fine, you could solve—or not solve—the problems of Greece in a dozen different ways. The real issues are Spain and Italy, two much larger countries whose participation in the eurozone speaks to the core purpose of the European project. And while Greek-related worries don’t help Spain or Italy, the problems of Spain and Italy are also quite real and freestanding apart from anything happening in Greece. In Spain, the banking system is a total shambles and since the government can’t print money it can’t bankstop the banking system without bankrupting itself. In Italy, a large outstanding debt stock means that slow nominal gross domestic product growth risks bankrupting the government. In both cases the problems can’t really be solved domestically because the key levers are in the European Central Bank headquarters in Frankfurt, which has turned the whole thing into a complicated international negotiation.
I don’t know much about European politics, and probably I probably shouldn’t speculate here…but I wonder if the southern countries of Europe are the strapping young bucks of Europe — dark and lazy, of course — buying ouzo and tapas with their welfare checks.
by DougJ| 80 Comments
This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Going Galt
This post is in: Chelsea Manning, Open Threads, Science & Technology
Wikileaks Court Martial May Be Delayed–The Defense has accused the Trial Counsel of foot dragging on discovery. This Military Judge, COL Denise Lind, is the same judge that presided at Birther Terry Lakin’s court martial for missing movement and conduct unbecoming an officer.
Noted Conservative Curt Schilling’s Video Game Company Files For Bankruptcy–I guess that he couldn’t figure out how to pull himself up without more taxpayer assistance.
The moon screwed with the Large Hadron Collider–tidal forces caused by the moon’s gravitational field have affected several experiments.
The RNC and the Romney campaign both claim to have raised more money than the Obama campaign recently–Not particularly surprising, that.
Man cleared of rape charge after 5 years in prison gets NFL tryout.–No matter what happens, I’m rooting for Brian Banks.
The US and Viet Nam are in talks to allow the US to base some naval assets in Cam Ranh Bay, and additional talks are under way to sell weapons to the Vietnamese. The world turns, doesn’t it?
Cost to repair the nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Miami after a fire in her torpedo and sonar spaces in drydock a couple weeks ago? $400 million.
by DougJ| 105 Comments
This post is in: Foreign Affairs
I hate all this Diamond Jubilee bullshit and am not the least bit surprised to hear this:
A group of long-term unemployed jobseekers were bussed into London to work as unpaid stewards during the diamond jubilee celebrations and told to sleep under London Bridge before working on the river pageant.