Disturbing

This Haaretz article is disturbing, to say the least. Netanyahu has always appeared to me to be a dishonest conniving SOB, but that in no way distinguishes him from most Israeli politicians, or politicians in general. He is certainly intelligent, and seemed to have that bloody-mindedness that would keep him able to distinguish his extremist rhetoric from the true state of things.

The article could certainly be somewhat trumped up by his opponents to make him look like he was losing it. If that was it's design, it certainly succeeded:

Netanyahu appears to be suffering from confusion and paranoia. He is convinced that the media are after him, that his aides are leaking information against him and that the American administration wants him out of office. Two months after his visit to Washington, he is still finding it difficult to communication normally with the White House. To appreciate the depth of his paranoia, it is enough to hear how he refers to Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, Obama's senior aides: as "self-hating Jews."
"He thought that his speech at Bar-Ilan would become mandatory reading at schools in the United States, and when he realized that Obama gave no such order, he went back to being frustrated," one of his associates said.

It seems that even his most essential ministers are deserting the ship:

Behind closed doors, Netanyahu's coalition partners - including Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman - have also expressed shock at his behavior. One senior minister told an aide that he is finding it very difficult to work with the premier. "He drives us mad," the minister said. "Every minute things change, and I am constantly busy doing maintenance on Netanyahu."

We need to recall that Bibi has his fingers on nuclear trigger, and could also push for an attack on Iran. His days may be numbered.

My, my

That was quick:

July 2 - Bank of America to accept California IOUs

July 7 - Big Banks Don't Want California's IOUs

Oh, Moon of Alabama

The great b of Moon of Alabama is hanging up his keyboard.

Shit, show me the way to the next whisky bar.

I'm going to have to clean up my blogroll one of these days.

The Zombie Food Court

I guess that the death of Michael Jackson is as good a reason as any to link to this assemblage of speeches that Joe Bageant made to some colleges.

He calls it Escape from the Zombie Food Court and there are few examples more telling of where we live than when a mega-celebrity checks out unexpectedly.

Michael, as one who had his own relationship with zombies, was probably as much a victim of the ZFC as anyone. He was a poster boy for the American Psycho-socio-medical-complex, as Joe Bageant puts it:

In any case, the media culture's production of martyrs, good guys and bad guys, fallen heroes and concept outlaws, is not just big corporate business. It is the armature of our cultural behavior. It tells us who to fear (Middle Eastern terrorists, Mr. Chavez in Venezuela, and foreign made pharmaceuticals), who to scorn (again the same candidates, along with Brittney Spears for her lousy child rearing skills). Our daily news is the modern version of Roman coliseum shows. Elections are personality combat, chariot races, not examinations of solutions being offered. None are offered.

Big bummer

One of the berry best bloggers, Postman Patel, aka Lord Patel, aka (in real life) Edward Teague has handed in his dinner pail as well as his blogging rights.

He's been a favorite of mine for many years now, and has had a prominent place in my Google Reader line up since I starting using it, as well as a place on my blogroll. He will be missed. R.I.P.

Siachen Glacier War

Unless one is very attentive and has a good memory, it's hard to remember that India and Pakistan are going at it in a 'hot' war in northern Kashmir. There is an undefined border in some of the most inaccessible terrain on earth on the Siachen Glacier. It's been going on for 19 years now. Though it is routinely ignored by the press and pundits, one might think that when two countries are lobbing artillery shell at each other, killing and wounding each others soldiers, and spending very large sums of money it is going to effect their mutual relations.

Outside Online has one of the most remarkable pieces of reporting I've ever read about that war or any other. The reporter, Kevin Fedarko, visited both side of the front and gives a remarkable look at the continuing insanity and the damage it does to men and the earth when fighting at over 19,000 feet. It is long, but very worth reading.
(h/t Grand Trunk Road)

UPDATE: The article is from February 2003, not that it matters.

Eyeballing Iran

M K Bhadrakumar's reporting on the situation in Iran makes more sense than the other stuff I've read. His assertion that Saudi Arabia has been backing Rafsanjani is different, to say the least.

Also, this post at Moon of Alabama by an Iranian ex-patriot gives another look at what is going on at the street level. As you could imagine, it's complicated.

G'bye Dan

Hope to see you again soon.

Dan Froomkin, daily on-line columnist for the WaPo was canned today. That's despite a large readership and much influence around blogtopia. He is, in my opinion, a straight-shooter, not given to exaggeration, careful about details and clear in his reporting.

Naturally, those qualities identify him as 'left' though he's been non-partisan towards most things except lies and bullshit. When Bush was in office he got a lot of flack for being an example of the 'liberal media', but he kept his job.

Since we've entered into the age of Obama, he's kept his reporting on the same keel, relentless in exposing the ever increasing lies and hypocrisy of HopeChange, but still maintaining a non-partisan approach to issues.

So now he's fired. Why?

We can speculate about political pressure, but I think this was an inside job, the Post dumped him because he was seen as attacking Obama from the 'left', and that's not what's wanted. Obama is to be attacked from the right, anything to the left is going to marginalized and then banned from 'serious discussions'.

Stop the wars, single payer health insurance, accountability and transparency in government and finance are all off the table, the purview of radicals and nuts.

Obama is happy, the maddog Krauthammer types are happy, and a rare voice of sanity is silenced.

Protest or terrorism?

Whether or not the Iranian election results were the result of chicanery (the WaPo, oddly enough, suggests that they may not have been), the demonstrations are certainly real enough.

As with the color revolutions in other countries, these demonstrations seem to be the result of genuine dissatisfaction with the powers that be amongst the middle class, possibly inflamed by some 'outside agitators' from you know where.

The really strange thing is that the US has made a specialty of suppressing demonstrations, the DoD regards protesting as 'low-level terrorism' but evidently just in the US. Iranians, Lebanese, Georgians are all encouraged to demonstrate against their governments, while here organizers are arrested before the demonstrations even start, 'free speech zones' are little areas tucked away from possible witnesses (not even necessary for the press, they ignore US protests instinctively), and anyone who does get to a protest is confined in steel grids until ordered to disperse (followed by the inability to disperse and subsequent beatings and arrests).

The main talent of the US press, like that of a good party member in Oceania, is to be able to believe two (or more) contradictory ideas simultaneously. This has been another good example and a lesson to all you budding 'journalists' out there. Protest or terrorism?, depends on who's doing it, and where.

Gaddafi and Berlusconi

Gaddafi visits Italy. What a photo!

(Alessandro di Meo/EPA)

Note the photo pinned to Gaddafi's chest, it's Omar al Mukhtar who fought the Italians back in Mussolini's time. It's also amusing to note the similarities between the two men and their identical expressions.
(h/t Savonarola)

Freeze tag

Haaretz:

The United States envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, reiterated on Tuesday that the Obama administration is adamantly insisting on a freeze of construction in all Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Mitchell said that opposition to Israel's settlement policy has been Washington's position for the last 40 years, and that the administration had no intention of backing down on the demand for a total freeze.

Or else, what? You're it?

For the last 40 years Israel has been creating and expanding settlements. The US response has been to give away more, always more money. Mitchell's 'adamantly insisting' must be code words for 'bending over and getting reamed'.

Breakthrough?

The estimable China Hand, who blogs at China Matters has an optimistic post there on the US posture towards North Korea.

Since I've been pulled in the opposite direction by the latest events, I was somewhat surprised by his take.

Read it yourself, please, but here's the punchline:

In other words, I see the prospect for some systematic “Nixon Goes to China” diplomatic engagement, rather than another session of ritualized extortion centered on Kim Jung Il’s nuclear program.

If that is true, then the following paragraph makes some sense with all the hostile rhetoric that is now coming from Washington:

We’ll see if the Obama administration can display the requisite ritualized aggression at the UN Security Council needed to deflect Republican charges of capitulation and appeasement.

The daily threats to put North Korea on the 'terror list', to stop and search their ships, and to impose new financial sanctions would then be primarily aimed at stopping the Rethugs from gumming up the works of a new diplomatic breakthrough. We shall see.

The EU hearts Pakistan

The tactics that are being used by the Pakistan army against the Taliban in Swat and other areas have been directly imposed by Washington. Holbrooke just finished a visit to the areas, tossing out dollars like a prince riding through the throng on an elephant, smiling with a benevolent eye upon the death and destruction.

Three million new refugees are only a part of the toll up to now, and it doesn't seem that the army is in any hurry to allow them to return to their homes. When a curfew is lifted, it is to allow more people to escape and become refugees, not to allow refugees to return home. Despite the pronouncements of victory, there seems to be no timetable for a return to normalcy, whatever that may be.

For Holbrooke, and, according to the Asia Times' Syed Saleem Shahzad, for the EU, this is all to the good. The EU is scheduled to have a big meeting in Brussels with Pakistan on June 16-17, where we can expect further 'counter-terrorism' efforts by Pakistan to be rewarded with Euros.

Since Pakistan's main tactic in fighting the Taliban causes widespread death, destruction and population upheaval, it's hard to see how that will help stop terrorism. Europe's rather clownish efforts to be a slightly softer version of the US big brother will probably end up causing more terrorism rather than less.

Despite Obama's lip service to diplomacy, there is still no movement for regional diplomacy to help bring peace to Pakistan or Afghanistan. The EU's effort would be much more productive if they would move in that direction, rather than trying to direct Pakistan's rulers with more money. But since the EU's foreign policy doesn't move unless Washington says jump, that remains off the table, as the situation becomes ever more dire.

Tough new stance?

NYT:

President Obama’s new formulation on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — along with his tough new stance against Israeli settlements in the West Bank — has rekindled fears among a few American Jewish organizations that Mr. Obama may be fundamentally less pro-Israeli than his predecessors.

As far as I can tell, there is no tough new stance. Back when Condi was 'running' US diplomacy, she was always careful to describe new settlement building as 'unhelpful' in her sternest schoolmarm way, but of course did nothing. Obama will doubtless proclaim them unhelpful, too.

So, if Israel expands the settlements, and Obama does nothing, what has changed?

And what will, what can he do? Very little, as so far he has shown no inclination to defy the powers that be. I'm ready, willing and able to be surprised.

Obama in Cairo

I had thought about writing something before Obama gives his speech in Cairo on Thursday, but I just read this post by Tony Karon that says everything I wanted to, and more. Read it!

As a companion piece, read also this by Uri Avnery illustrating how, in Israel, democracy is on the march, or should I say, Jewish democracy. Here's a taste:

This week, the Knesset voted by a large majority (47 to 34) for a law that threatens imprisonment for anyone who dares to deny that Israel is a Jewish and Democratic State.

The private member’s bill, proposed by MK Zevulun Orlev of the “Jewish Home” party, which sailed through its preliminary hearing, promises one year in prison to anyone who publishes “a call that negates the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State”, if the contents of the call might cause “actions of hate, contempt or disloyalty against the state or the institutions of government or the courts”.

One can foresee the next steps. A million and a half Arab citizens cannot be expected to recognize Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State. They want it to be “a state of all its citizens” – Jews, Arabs and others. They also claim with reason that Israel discriminates against them, and therefore is not really democratic. And, in addition, there are also Jews who do not want Israel to be defined as a Jewish State in which non-Jews have the status, at best, of tolerated outsiders.

The consequences are inevitable. The prisons will not be able to hold all those convicted of this crime. There will be a need for concentration camps all over the country to house all the deniers of Israeli democracy.

The police will be unable to deal with so many criminals. It will be necessary to set up a new unit. This may be called “Special Security”, or, in short, SS.

Hopefully, these measures will suffice to preserve our democracy. If not, more stringent steps will have to be taken, such as revoking the citizenship of the democracy-deniers and deporting them from the country, together with the Jewish leftists and all the other enemies of the Jewish democracy.

Judgment

It's always hard to interpret the policy implications from speeches given by administration officials, no matter what the administration. Still, the latest offering by SecDef Gates concerning North Korea has left us scratching our heads.

Asserting that the US will 'not accept it as a nuclear weapons state' seems on the surface the usual belligerence that was so common during the Bush administration. But it also has some unstated implications.

Firstly, N. Korea is now a 'nuclear weapons state', whether the US likes it or not. So that ups the stated level of belligerence to something approaching a direct threat.

Next, the statement also can imply that North Korea could be accepted by the US, if they give up their nuclear weapons. Up to now, since the Korean War, the US has never recognized North Korea as a legitimate state, even though for most of that time they had no nuclear weapons program.

But whatever the implications, the US is on the road to increase, rather than decrease tensions. The current South Korean regime has also been moving down that path. Some think that skirmishes might start soon around islands in the Yellow Sea.

We'd like to remind Gates of the words of Caspar Gutman, "That is an attitude, sir, that calls for the most delicate judgment on both sides, because, as you know, sir, men are likely to forget in the heat of action where their best interests lie and let their emotions carry them away."

Boom

DPRK's latest nuke test has all the other actors in the play clucking, and in the case of the US, of course, huffing and puffing.

For whatever reason, the four months of the Obama administration have seen the North Koreans determined to convince all that they have given up on the six-party talks, regard South Korea as being unacceptably aggressive, and no longer see China or Russia as a counterweight to US designs in the region.

The nuclear test, along with the missile tests, are just the latest step in responding to the new situation that basically started when the US added new conditions to moving ahead with negotiations to denuclearize N. Korea. While that started in the dog days of the Bush administration, Obama has had four months to at least try to start anew, but it has instead done nothing. That, to the DPRK, is as good as saying that there is no new policy.

That was confirmed by the UN condemnation after the 'satellite launch'. As with the Iranians, the surrounded nations are asked to first surrender, then talk. As they have seen with Saddam, it doesn't matter how compliant one is, each surrender is always match by moving the goalposts for the next round. Iran, so far, has kept cool, but the N. Koreans seem to be trying another strategy, escalate before the other guy can. From their point of view, it makes sense.

For all of Obama's pre-election talk about diplomacy, there is little evidence that the administration sees it as anything but a photo-op. Once again, we see Bush policies painted over with a smiley face by President HopeChange. I hope this will change, but don't expect it to.