Goodbye, Gerhard, and good riddance.
Support for Germany’s ruling Social Democrats dropped to an historic low yesterday in a clear signal to chancellor Gerhard Schr
This post is in: Foreign Affairs
Goodbye, Gerhard, and good riddance.
Support for Germany’s ruling Social Democrats dropped to an historic low yesterday in a clear signal to chancellor Gerhard Schr
This post is in: Foreign Affairs
Instapundit, Spoons, The Rev. Chapin, and LGF all link to this amazing story:
Earlier there were unexplained incidents at the U.N.’s Baghdad compound when two men — one carrying three knives, the other a notebook and shouting “Save me!” — tried to enter the base.
Both men were apprehended and turned over to Iraqi authorities, U.N. officials reported. It was unclear whether the two incidents were related.
On the two incidents, U.N. officials said that one man approached the hotel’s security gate with a metal instrument, before Iraqi guards wrestled him to the ground. He was later found to have three knives, the U.N. said.
About 40 minutes later, another Iraqi man stopped a U.N. vehicle outside the headquarters pleading “Save me! Save me!” in Arabic, according to the U.N. The man, apparently unarmed, forced his way into the driver’s seat of the stopped vehicle, as an Iraqi guard struggled to pull him out, while an unfazed U.N. inspector watched from the passenger seat.
It gets better. Rather than attempting to find out what is going on, or what may be in the NOTEBOOK, our intrepid Clouseau’s allow this to happen:
Appearing agitated and frightened, the young man, with a closely trimmed beard and mustache, sat inside the white U.N.-marked utility vehicle for 10 minutes, AP reported. At first, an inspection team leader sought help from nearby Iraqi soldiers, but the man refused to leave the vehicle as the uniformed men pulled on his sleeve and collar.
“I am unjustly treated!” he shouted.
Then U.N. security men arrived, and they and Iraqi police carried the man by his feet and arms into the fenced compound, journalists said. The man was turned over to Iraqi authorities at a government office adjacent to the compound, U.N. officials said.
Iraqi officials said they had no information on the incidents.
The Instapundit wants to know if the inspectors can be charged with “material breach.” I would recommend accessory to murder.
*** Update ***
Go read the idiots at Metafilter.
This post is in: Foreign Affairs
I am not sure how they manage it, but the NY Times seems to work overtime to find the wrong viewpoint on almost every issue. Today’s offering, Don’t Pester Europe on Genetically Modified Food by Clyde Prestowitz, is no exception.
Mr. Prestowitz’s reasons for not pushing the issue are as follows, and I quote:
– Europeans are scared to death of genetically modified food.
– There may be no good scientific reason for concern, but to consider eating something that has resulted from some laboratory manipulation is felt by many Europeans as a kind of denial of the true self. For Americans to insist that the union accept genetically modified products is bound to be felt in Europe as another exercise in American cultural and economic imperialism.
– The administration will argue that it wants only to give the consumers a choice. But as one who spent years selling to European supermarkets and consumers, I can say with confidence that such a move by the United States would very likely result in a European campaign against all American food.
–We have already caused great resentment among our European allies by rejecting the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and the International Criminal Court, both of which were championed by the European Union. Given that we will want European support for whatever actions we eventually decide to take in the Persian Gulf or in North Korea, is this really the time to mount what is bound to be a bitter, high-profile case in order to sell genetically modified potatoes?
Got that? Europeans have an irrational fear of GM foods, despite any scientific evidence, and we may upset them. Not only that, we already upset them by withdrawing from Kyoto. That is the logic behind cowering away from scientific breakthroughs that could feed billions- European fear and European resentment.
Norman Borlaug, a true Nobel Peace Laureate (Instapundit has discussed him here, here is his foundation), debunks many of the myths and much of the hysteria surrounding GM foods in a guest editorial for the Opinion Journal, aptly titled Science vs. Hysteria. An excerpt:
Current genetically modified crop varieties that help to control insects and weeds are lowering production costs and increasing harvests–a great potential benefit to all Third World farmers. Future products are likely to carry traits that will improve nutrition and health. All of these technologies have more benefits to offer poor farmers and consumers than rich ones.
For example, Kenya is ready to field-test virus-resistant sweet potatoes that should yield 30% to 50% more of this important food staple. Virus-resistant bananas and potatoes have already been bred, but are being barred in African countries where people urgently need their higher yields. Indian researchers are developing a vaccine against the epidemic livestock disease, rinderpest, which can be genetically engineered into peanut plants. African farmers would be able to protect their draft animals simply by feeding them the peanut plants–again if biotech is allowed.
The needless confrontation of consumers against the use of transgenic crop technology in Europe and elsewhere might have been avoided had more people received a better education in biological science. This educational gap–which has resulted in a growing and worrisome ignorance about the challenges and complexities of agricultural and food systems–needs to be addressed without delay. Privileged societies have the luxury of adopting a very low-risk position on the issue of genetically modified crops, even if this action later turns out to be unnecessary. But the vast majority of humankind does not have such a luxury, and certainly not the hungry victims of wars, natural disasters, and economic crises.
Without adequate food supplies at affordable prices, we cannot expect world health, prosperity, and peace. Responsible biotechnology is not the enemy; starvation is.
At least Mr. Borlaug and Mr. Prestowitz agree on one thing, as Mr. Prestowitz noted:
It is, indeed, appalling that some countries would rather starve than accept donations of genetically modified corn.
Appalling, indeed. Do you ever get the feeling that if the South hadn’t received such a bad reputation for secession that the NY Times would be circulating petitions for New Yorkto become part of the EU?
This post is in: Foreign Affairs
Convinced that President Bush is serious about invading Iraq, Arab leaders hope to avoid war by orchestrating a coup in Baghdad. Well-placed sources have told TIME that Saudi Arabia is vigorously pursuing a concrete plan to encourage Iraqi generals to overthrow Saddam and his clique. Western and Arab diplomats say the Saudi proposal requires a UN Security Council resolution declaring amnesty for the vast majority of Iraqi officials if they orchestrate a transition of power in Baghdad.
Apparently there is room for only one corrupt dictatorship in the Middle East- the House of Saud. This line is informative:
Convinced that President Bush is serious about invading Iraq.
Gee-, maybe the world’s foremost expert on the Middle East, Bernard Lewis, was right- these regimes only understand force. I would love to see the left sputtering if we are able to orchestrate a regime change in Iraq without using one bomb, losing one soldier’s life, and going through the UN. It doesn’t matter- they’ll still call Bush a dolt and Powell an Uncle Tom.
At any rate, I will believe it when I see it.
by John Cole| 2 Comments
This post is in: Foreign Affairs
Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), the premier calamity collector of the House of Representatives, is just back from a country we’d rather not think about, and telling us things we’d rather not know. As usual, he is demanding that attention be paid.
This time it’s the famine in Ethiopia, one of those loser countries where Wolf feels most at home. He’s warning Congress and the White House of the urgency of the situation and the prospect that millions of Ethiopians will die if help is not on its way soon.
To Wolf, the Ethiopian famine is an “opportunity” for George W. Bush. “I think he really cares about these things and wants to do the right thing,” he says. He must use the bully pulpit to rally people and increase our aid to set an example to the world.
I am not sure if it is an opportunity- but it is the right thing to do. Great nations do the right thing, not for accolades and awards, but for it simply being the right thing to do.
This post is in: Foreign Affairs
If President Bush had said this:
An uncompromising Tony Blair said yesterday he would refuse to allow the United Nations to veto military action to rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction.
The Prime Minister warned the public that Saddam Hussein’s weapons posed a “direct threat” to Britain but angered his Labour critics by refusing to guarantee that any war in Iraq would have to win the approval of the UN.
He told a Downing Street press conference that Britain’s “preference” would be for a fresh UN resolution before an attack but added a “qualification”
This post is in: Foreign Affairs
Arthur Silber has linked to a great essay on the war and why it may be necessary from John R. Searle, Mill Professor of Philosophy at UC Berkely. Here is a snippet:
Our inability to describe the situation is a symptom of a deeper misperception. Most of the public discussion I have heard in both the United States and Europe is based on the belief that because our actions are a result of the eleventh of September, that is what they are about, that we should primarily be seeking justice or revenge or some such.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Our actions should be directed at, for example, the 18th of July 2008. On that date six teams of terrorists working in six major American cities simultaneously detonate nuclear bombs whose parts have been carefully smuggled into the country over the years and whose assemblies and detonations have been coordinated. That attack kills over five million Americans. The nuclear attack is itself the follow up to several years of germ and biological warfare. Those who wish to kill us learn from their mistakes. Just as the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center benefited from the mistakes of the 1993 attack, so the anthrax pandemic of 2003 benefits from the blunders made by the early primitive mailbox anthrax of 2001. However, even after the pandemic of 03, it is obvious that anthrax is an inefficient method of biological genocide, because it is treatable. It is not until the PTP germ warfare of late 2003 and 2004 that fatal and untreatable germs are introduced in sufficient quantities to produce over a million U.S. fatalities. These weapons had been prepared in Iraqi laboratories in the years following the abandonment of UN inspections.
If these scenarios seem to you exaggerated, ask yourself what you would have said if someone had told you on September first that within two weeks the World Trade Towers would cease to exist. Or better still read the New York Times. On October 28th it reported a Muslim cleric as claiming that “Islamic extremists . . . had bought more than twenty nuclear warheads and were paying Soviet scientists to break them into chips that could be carried in suitcases.” …
Go read the whole thing. Via Dailypundit.