Tag Archives: North Korea

Political Rants

Ripped from the heads.

This is just another survey of current issues in the news – don’t mind me. Tired, can’t focus.

Best friend
Some best friend you got there, doggy.

The Koreas. Yes, there are two of them. And yes, there was a war. But that’s about all Americans know about the Korean peninsula except that “North Korea started the war!” and “Kim Jong Sombody is crazy!” Meanwhile, we are flying stealth bombers and stealth fighters and nuclear armed B52s over South Korea in ostentatious demonstrations of force, using some of the very same aircraft that once turned the North into an apocalyptic hellscape. Earth to Obama: There is no military solution to this problem. You’ve got a State Department full of diplomats – send a few over to fashion a treaty with the North, and this will stop being a problem.

K-9 abuse. A few weeks ago, when the latest gun nut incident took place in nearby Herkimer, the State Police used a dog to sniff out the suspect in an abandoned building. The dog was shot dead, as you may have heard. Since then there have been several news stories about K-9 patrols, how the police care about them, etc. Bullshit. These animals should never, ever be put in harm’s way in this manner. There was no reason to sacrifice that dog for the sake of capturing this suicidal dead-ender who had nowhere to go but jail or the grave. I think the police lose sight of the fact that, for all their utility, working dogs are dependent upon humans for their welfare. They are, in essence, like toddlers in that they are trusting, inquisitive, and unable to make their own decisions. They rely on us to keep them from needlessly sacrificing themselves.

Rule of thumb: If you wouldn’t allow a young child to do something, don’t ask a dog to do it either.

Debt Patrol. Egyptians may have thought things were going from bad to worse over the last couple of years. Now the IMF has pulled into town, and the likelihood is that their misery has just begun. Mubarak had already substantially “liberalized” the country’s economy. Now their foreign reserves are extremely low, thanks in part to years of political upheaval and disruptions in tourism and other industries. Next stop, the Bolivia / Argentina treatment. One would hope that, once they’ve endured some of that, they will follow South America’s lead and break free of the global neoliberal institutions of economic control that have led so many to the land of misery.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Empire building.

Not a lot of time on my hands just now, so I’ll just take a few wild swipes at some foreign policy issues.

Benghazi hearings. It’s a little hard to suppress laughter when I hear Republicans complaining about the Sept. 11 2012 attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. As only they can do, they are keeping the flame of this ludicrous conspiracy theory alive even though it was cooked up on the fly late in the election season to offer Romney a foreign policy talking point. The Obama administration rose to the bait back then, of course, and probably said way too much about the attack, trying to put the controversy to rest; they’ve been backpedaling ever since, probably kicking themselves for having commented so much in reaction to Romney’s ridiculous embargoed media release on 9/11.

Keep the ball rollin', keep the ball rollin'....
Sen. McCain sings an old favorite.

The fact remains, though, that the attack killed three Americans. Three too many, of course, but the senators who are complaining the loudest – McCain, for instance, and the yargle-bargle caucus in the GOP-controlled House – are directly responsible for many, many American deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, based on manipulation of intelligence, including faulty claims extracted through torture. I’m no fan of Hillary Clinton, but I was glad to see her knock it back to them a bit. (Spoiler alert: she voted to authorize Bush’s war in Iraq, too.)

Bad options. As they vet John Kerry to replace Clinton at State, the North Koreans are signalling more missile tests. Talk here is that all options are on the table, but any fool can see that there is no military solution to the disagreement with North Korea. Wipe them off the map? We did that back in the 1950s – that’s an important part of how we got to this point today. Memo to Kerry: This is solvable without resort to pointless killing; that should simply be off the table.

Iran again. Prevention is the strategy on Iranian nuclear weapons? Could have fooled me. We invaded and destroyed countries on either side of Iran, neither of which possessed nuclear weapons. We didn’t attack Libya when they had nuclear capability, and then attacked them when they gave it up. Our “Axis of Evil”, which included Iran, featured Iraq (no nukes; attacked in 2003) and North Korea (nukes; not attacked). If you were Iran, what lesson would you draw from this?

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

News jam.

Lots going on, my friend. I’m just going to blow through a few stories and see what comes out on the other end.

Missile Envy. I’m thinking they should declare April international missile month, since we started with North Korea’s failed launch of their three-stage Galaxy-3 rocket, which they claimed was intended to send a satellite into orbit, and we’ve closed out the month with shots in India and Pakistan both. The first incident, of course, had officials, politicians, and commentators practically foaming at the mouth with both outrage and derision, plus plenty of snark when the thing broke into pieces (like many of our early missiles did). There would be consequences! they intoned righteously, joining in near universal condemnation and promises of further isolation.

Jump forward about a week. India launches its AGNI-V A5 ICBM, what is indisputably a ballistic missile. Their officials brag that it is capable of carrying nuclear warheads and that it can reach Beijing or Shanghai – two major cities in a nation India fought a war with in 1962.  The reaction over here? Crickets. Serious crickets. Ho-hum. Boys will be boys. Now this week, Pakistan (which has fought three wars with India) launches their latest ballistic missile. Here is the report from the Daily News:

The United States declined to criticise Pakistan too for test-firing a nuclear-capable missile less than a week after India tested a long range missile, but considered it “most important” that Islamabad had informed New Delhi beforehand.

Once again – a collective yawn. So let me get this straight… when the nation that got annihilated (by our bombs) back in the 1950s launches a satellite, it’s a huge problem. But when two nuclear-power allies launch openly offensive ballistic missiles and brag about their destructive capabilities … that’s okay. Got it.

Gingrich Wins. Actually not, but the way he talks about it, it’s hard to tell. I’m going to miss the Newtster, frankly. He brought a certain element of unpredictability to a pretty bland late primary season, once the more entertaining contenders dropped out and it was left to Old Bland Willard and Rick (Man-On-Dog) St. Bore-em.  That mouth – there’s always something dropping out of it. Though the convention is still months away, so there still may be an opportunity for him to inject a little more color into a very drab coronation.

luv u,

jp