Category: World Affairs

Ideological conquest, political irrelevance: The FN after round 1.

The largest turnout for over fifty years has produced a conventional Socialist v Conservative pairing for the 2nd round of the French presidential election, which will take place on 6th May.

It will be interesting to see if/how Sarkozy’s “right-wing action man” image is reworked from here.  Its success in bleeding away the support for Le Pen is now apparent.  It should have been so beforehand really, since its corollary - the rank hatred from the “anyone but Sarko” camp - certainly was.

For French nationalists the Le Pen vote of 11.5% holds little promise for the future.  His high-water mark of 22% in 2002 will haunt his successor.  The French liberal Establishment can draw three conclusions:

1) Their greatest electoral enemy is low turnout.  Providing the bulk of the electorate carry on believing that conventional politics will solve their problems, a high turnout - this one was 84% - will always work for them.

2) If after the eighteen days of the Paris riots and the vote against the EU Constitution the French people still support the political centre, there is virtually nothing that can threaten them.

3) Incorporating FN ideas into public discourse works against political nationalism.  It now remains to be seen how much of Sarkozy’s “I won’t betray you” promises to FN supporters and Royal’s wrapping herself in le tricolor will feed through to the victor’s presidential policy.  For the reason of No.2 above, very little, I would say.

The FN itself has an impossible task before it.  The softening of Jean-Marie’s language under the guidance of his youngest daughter, Marine, has benefitted it nothing.  I doubt now that Marine can succeed him to the party leadership.  In reality no one can.  He was a giant of nationalist politics, and without him the Party surely risks further electoral marginalisation from here.  As a producer of ideas for popular consumption perhaps it will continue to have some success.

But only nationalists execute nationalist policy.  And that’s what would save France.

Posted by Guessedworker on Sunday, April 22, 2007 at 02:49 PM in World Affairs
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Rise of a New Hitler

Or, Cognitive Elitism in Action

A New Hitler is rising in the east.  All that is required for evil to flourish is that good men do nothing.  We must smash this new fascism in the east.

First Korean female Prime Minister claims Dokdo/Takeshima as Korean land, declares Korean racial supremacy
http://www.occidentalism.org/?p=588

The then Korean Prime Minister, Han Myung-Suk, accused Japan of distorting Korean history, said that Korea’s claim to Dokdo/Takeshima was clear, and called on ethnic Koreans overseas to help Koreans to be the greatest race of the world. No one else has reported this, so I thought it was important that people know a little bit about what seems to be acceptable for the Prime Minister to say.

There is a long rant against Japan and baseless claims to Dokdo/Takeshima that supposedly extend back more that 4000 years, but what I found most interesting was in the last paragraph.

Continued...

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on Thursday, April 19, 2007 at 02:19 PM in World Affairs
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Putin privileges Russian workers

The government needs to be sending a signal that it is not acceptable to discriminate against non-Russians. It should not be participating.  The irony is that in the Soviet era Russia was famous for promoting “friendship between peoples”, hosting large numbers of students from the developing world.  But now that slogan seems to have been turned on its head.  It is now Russia for Russians.

Allison Gill, head of the Moscow office of Human Rights Watch, following the coming into effect yesterday of a law reserving retail jobs for ethnic Russians.

From the Independent:-

Russia bans foreign workers from retail jobs

The legislation, which has been described as state-sponsored racism by human rights activists, bans non-Russians from working in large chunks of the country’s retail sector.

In particular it prevents anyone who doesn’t hold a Russian passport from working in Russia’s huge indoor and outdoor food-and-clothing markets and in the thousands of roadside kiosks that sell anything from newspapers to cosmetics. Such jobs are usually low paid and involve working at least 12-hour days.

Until yesterday, it was not uncommon to visit a market staffed exclusively by migrant workers from across the former Soviet Union. But, as of yesterday, hundreds of thousands of migrant workers from countries such as Georgia, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan are looking for a new job.

In Russia’s Far East, where such positions have typically been filled by Chinese migrant workers, the impact was felt immediately. Many of them appear to have already packed their bags and returned home.

At Ussuriysk’s vast market near the Chinese border, almost all the stalls were reported to be deserted. “We had hoped good sense would prevail ... This could disrupt the economy and bring many problems,” said Sergei Simakov, a district councillor from Ussuriysk.

Some commentators have raised fears that prices may rise as employers are forced to pay higher wages and have questioned whether ethnic Russians will be willing to take up jobs that entail such long hours. At Moscow’s famous Dorogomilovsky food market several stalls were denuded of their usually exotic mixture of fruit and vegetables from across the vast region. In their place hung signs that read: “Wanted: Sales-people. Must be Russian.”

Officials from the country’s migration service raided a Moscow market yesterday. That is a sign that the Kremlin expects the new law to be scrupulously followed. Four foreign workers were detained.

A spokesman for the Federal Migration Service said the raid proved that the new law was effective. “Considering that this particular market has 1,200 trading stalls and only four foreigners were detected you can conclude that in general the law is working.” The Kremlin insists that there is nothing racist about the law that it says is intended to protect the rights of ethnic Russians, who have complained of being squeezed out of the retail sector by migrant workers.

Continued...

Posted by Guessedworker on Monday, April 2, 2007 at 06:02 PM in World Affairs
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Two once conservative, now respectable, writers

I’ll never lament the passing of white rule in Zimbabwe (writes ex-editor of the Daily Telegraph, Max Hastings)

Yes, we did. Like most of my colleagues, I reported from Rhodesia 30 years ago in an almost permanent state of rage. We saw a smug, ruthless white minority, beer guts contained with difficulty inside blazers with RAF crests, proclaiming themselves the guardians of civilisation in the heart of Africa. They killed carelessly, tortured freely, and exploited censorship to conceal their worst excesses. The city dwellers, patrons of Meikles Hotel bar, were the worst, because they were the most hypocritical. Fervent supporters of “good old Smithy”, many took care not to expose their necks, preferring to “kill Kruger with [their] mouths”, as Kipling had put it 70 years earlier.

Evidently, denying blacks political rights, while having “beer guts contained with difficulty inside blazers with RAF crests”, is as bad as perpetrating a systematic genocide via land confiscation, on a parallel with the work done by Stalin’s men in the 1920s. And that’s not even mentioning the harm this is doing to the black population, who are suffering a famine in a nation that once exported food.

I know I’ll never lament Hastings’ eventual passing from the world of journalism.

And here’s what Lew Rockwell is publishing on his site:

As a child and a young man, George S. Schuyler experienced the sting of racism in his hometown of Syracuse, New York and developed an aversion to all things Southern. An optimistic Schuyler joined the U.S. Army in 1912 to escape the discrimination of Syracuse, but experiences in the military increased his cynicism.

Sting of racism, South, boo-hoo. I’ll cry for his experience of “racism” when his ilk cry for the murdered Boers of South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Look at the jump around the fall of apartheid, remembering that the rate in the 80s was already inflated by terroristic protest attacks. This cataclysm unleashed a flood of violence against non-blacks, without diminishing the peril for blacks themselves. Only racial vengeance can make blacks celebrate this catastrophe, only utter masochism can make whites support it.

Posted by Alex Zeka on Tuesday, February 27, 2007 at 05:12 PM in World Affairs
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De la Rey sal jy die Boere kom lei?

(In English: de la Rey, will you come and lead the Boers?)

The Afrikaner hit song in the video by folk singer Bok van Blerk has been denounced by South African culture minister Pallo Jordan as “treason”.

We have noted with keen interest the controversy generated by Bok van Blerk’s song about Anglo-Boer War General Koos de la Rey which has become a talking point in certain cultural circles because of its supposed popularity among right-wing White Afrikaans-speakers.

In fact, the magazine, Huisgenoot has asked the Ministry of Arts & Culture to comment on the song and the coded message, if any, it is said to contain.

Sadly, the popular song is in danger of being hijacked by a minority of right-wingers who not only regard De la Rey as a war hero but want to mislead sections of Afrikaans-speaking society to think that this is a “struggle song” that sends out a “call to arms.”

.. If there are White Afrikaans-speakers who feel they are besieged by crime, it will not help matters for such persons themselves to engage in criminal activity. Taking up arms against a democratically elected government, no matter how much one dislikes that government, is a crime, and a grave one at that.

The oft heard complaint that Afrikaans culture and the language are under threat is a nonsense, disproved by the very existence of journals like “Huisgenoot”, “Rooi Rose”, “Sarie Marais”, and a host of others plus at least two daily newspapers. Are there equivalents of these in the largest language community, isiZulu? Are there equivalents of these in the smallest language community, shiVenda?

Afrikaans speakers, White, Coloured, African or Asian, have exactly the same rights as other South Africans. It would be a terrible shame if a handful of misguided individuals hope to use an innocent song as a rallying point for treason.

The law on the issue of treason is clear, as the accused in the current “Boeremag” Trial are discovering. Those who incite treason, whatever methods they employ, might well find themselves in difficulties with the law.

It is significant to note that Van Blerk himself has denied that his song has any contemporary relevance.

As the Ministry of Arts & Culture, we wish the singer, Van Blerk good luck with his song, and who knows, if it’s really good, it might even become an international hit, like Solomon Linda’s Mbube.

In South Africa the distinction between being a critic of the government and a traitor is small, as evinced by the minister’s reference to the so-called Boeremag treason trial, and to the plotting of the “far-right” and the South African version of the Gulag.  The latter, incidentally, reveals its full nature in the Public Prosecutor’s five-year search for evidence of criminality while most of the accused still languish in prison.

Continued...

Posted by Johan Van Vlaams on Friday, February 9, 2007 at 06:51 PM in World Affairs
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Universalism: Palliating the unpalatable

I am very pleased to post the third of the essays PF has sent to me, venturing this time upon global and third world politics, and Iraq.  PF will now join the MR writers panel and post without further need of my engagement.  On behalf of everyone, then, I welcome a “potentially” valuable and unquestionably interesting and informative new member of the team.
GW

It certainly was an interesting facet of 20th century politics that both CIA and Communist intelligence agents were most interested in peddling/enforcing their universalist ideologies in oil-rich and resource-rich regions (Bolivia, Chile, Iran, Kosovo).

Its an open question whether the CIA and Russian intelligence were motivated by “Freedom” and “Socialism” respectively, or by the potential for large-scale resource acquisition.

Continued...

Posted by Guest Blogger on Sunday, January 21, 2007 at 06:58 PM in World Affairs
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Le Pen and the second ballot

Open Democracy has a straightforward but informative piece by Patrice de Beer on next year’s French presidential election.  The passage on Jean-Marie Le Pen told me two things I never knew before.

First:-

There is a snag - the same one that derailed his efforts in 1981. By law, each candidate needs the support of 500 elected representatives (from national or local assemblies, or mayors) to enter the contest; for the FN this is always difficult, as the party has few elected members (none in parliament), and Le Pen has always relied on courting rightwing village mayors.

Second:-

Jean-Marie Le Pen combatively proclaims a determination to win; and if he can’t reach the ballot, he threatens to unleash “his” voters against forces on the right he accuses of betrayal (thus the covert efforts from Sarko’s” camp to help him obtain the 500 signatures he needs).

Obviously, Sarko has his eyes on Le Pen’s 13 to 17% poll rating.  Right now, the Sarkozy-Royal contest is too close to call.  But get the old devil into the race and his supporters won’t vote for Royal.  Get the old devil out of the race at the first poll on April 22nd and they will have to vote for the Monsieur with the riot baton.

The interesting thing is that Le Pen is thinking along not dissimilar lines.  That 17%, polled in mid-November, is a record for him.  And there’s still ample time for a surge between now and April.  If the mainstream right is split going into that poll Le Pen could repeat his shock-wave performance of 2002, when he eliminated Jospin.  This time the victim would be Sarko, followed by a face-off against the left.

Le Pen, the unity candidate.  Well, maybe.

A last thought.  Which candidate would the denizens of les banlieues prefer to see in the Élysée?  Royal, no question.  But which of the others would they prefer her to contest the second ballot against?

And what methods do they have to hand to engineer that happy outcome?

Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, December 5, 2006 at 07:24 PM in World Affairs
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Litvinenko

The Litvinenko poisoning has, and with what terrible, slow inevitability, become the Litvinenko murder, and is well on its way to becoming the Litvinenko Affair.

How much the public will be told from herein is, to say the least, moot.  Both the British and Russian secret services have become involved, we are told.  Both involvements, though, may be more diversionary than truly investigative.

Mr Litvinenko himself was in no doubt as to who his killers were, and then there is this:-

Chemists said that a fatal dose of polonium could only be produced artificially, by a particle accelerator or nuclear reactor.

“This is not some random killing. This is not a tool chosen by a group of amateurs. These people had some serious resources behind them,” Dr Andrea Sella, a lecturer in chemistry at University College London, told Reuters.

So what, in the shark-infested waters of international diplomacy, does the Litvinenko murder portend?

Probably not that much, after all the cloak and dagger stuff has receded from the headlines.  It isn’t in Britain’s national interest to humiliate Putin and find a radioactive FSB hand in the killing.  An effective police investigation could prove disastrous.  One can already hear the seasoned Foreign Office Russophiles proclaiming, “What, just so Blair at the Met can claim to keep the streets of London free from the FSB!”  No one will reply that Russian state gangsterism impacts on our global interests - consider the dioxin-scarred features of the Ukrainian leader, Victor Yushchenko - and now there is some leverage against it.

The plain truth is that we need considerably greater cooperation with Mr Putin, gangster or no.  Our main interest is energy.  Until recently Britain imported only modest volumes of gas from Russia.  That will almost certainly change if security of supply can be established.  If.  The Ukrainian experience in January 2006, when the pipeline from the east was shut down for purely political reasons, is holding us back now.  Only a reliable, cooperative Russia can encourage our trust, but Russia itself must be encouraged to that end.

Then there is the Iranian nuclear problem, and the question of a regnant Iran regardless of that.  Being America’s second best little buddy doesn’t auger very well for influencing Nejad.  Russia has influence in Tehran.  It is also a vital ally in resisting terrorism, for which sound working relations with the FSB are a prerequisite.

So all in all we shouldn’t expect too much clarity from the Litvinenko investigation.  It will, I believe, leave a bitter taste in many mouths.  But diplomacy was ever thus.

Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, November 24, 2006 at 07:20 PM in World Affairs
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The man who stands between France and les banlieues wants France to disarm

The following is a story about the inherent dishonesty - or possibly leftism - of the little hero of the French right, Nicolas Sarkozy.  It involves guns in private ownership, and actually originates not from a French source but from a Swiss gun website.

Swiss men, incidentally, like their guns - by which I mean not the odd twelve-bore but massively lethal military hardware.  Guns are a central part of Swiss life.  By government decree every adult male who is not on active service is a Reservist.  He must be armed and ready to venture forth in defence of his country … fighting his own way through enemy lines to join up with his unit if necessary.  So there’s cold steel in every true Switzer’s home, and that’s how they like it.  It’s been that way for generations. 

Even so, it isn’t liberal to leave well alone, and all loved customs in the West must come under the “critical” gaze.  Now there is a growing movement in Switzerland to take the gun out of the home.

But that’s Switzerland, and somewhat off-topic.  So we’d better get back to the little Hungarian Jewish guy who, as Minister for the Interior, is the top chief of police in all France.

It’s true that mainstream politicians famously dislike an armed citizenry.  But why does Sarkozy, who enjoys whipping up populist support with his tough-guy posturings on immigration, want to disarm native Frenchmen at this point in time?  Is he simply travelling leftward for political effect, as David Cameron is?  Is he trying to draw the sting from the Socialists?

His reasoning as stated below is certainly no guide.  It is contorted and unconvincing, and I don’t think he can really believe it himself.  It reads as though he confected it on the spur of the moment because the real logic of his argument can’t be made public.  See for yourself.

Here’s a translation from the Swiss website by MR reader Michael R:-

FRANCE: WORRYING NEWS FOR GUN-OWNERS

The pre-electoral campaign is underway in France.  Next year French citizens must choose a new president. The two designated favorites are:

- for the left, Segolène Royal, self-styled “passion flower”

- for the right, Nicolas Sarkozy, disfavoured by his short stature and his Hungarian name, but appreciated by his supporters for his muscular stance on the lack of security, the incapacity of French justice to command respect and restore order in les banlieues, etc.

The majority of private gun-owners and enthusiasts were getting ready to vote for Sarkozy until, during a radio show, the presidential Ccndidate answered a question about the right to keep a gun and the right of self-defence. It was on the RTL radio network on 22nd September:-

“I’d like to say one thing about my conception of the Republic …

Security is the responsibility of the State.  I am against militias.  I am against the private ownership of firearms, and I’m trying to make you think about that.

Continued...

Posted by Guessedworker on Saturday, October 21, 2006 at 12:38 PM in World Affairs
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Nigeria’s leaders stole $380 billion.  Let’s send them some more.

It’s no surprise that the kings of the fraud business turn out to Nigerian.

More than $380bn has either been stolen or wasted by Nigerian governments since independence in 1960, the chief corruption fighter has said.

Nuhu Ribadu told the BBC that Nigeria has “nothing much” to show for the missing money.

He said the worst period for corruption was the 1980s and ‘90s, but currently two-thirds of governors are being investigated by Mr Ribadu’s agency.

Does anyone seriously suppose things will change?  That screw-you style of pig-individualism isn’t a spot of temporary bad luck in Sub-Saharan political life.  It’s much more likely that ordinary Africans do indeed like their vaunted “strong man” rulers because they are, basically, what the ordinary African male would rather like to be himself.  A life of quiet dedication and public service doesn’t enter into it.  Lord Acton’s moral sewer does.  It’s all sociobiology.

So, then, what do the dreamers and the Western idealists think they are up to?

Ah yes, striving to devote 0.7% of the national GDP of each developed nation in aid for the fight against global poverty.

That should work.

Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, October 20, 2006 at 04:12 PM in World Affairs
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“Until there is a Tsar in Russia again ...”

The reburial yesterday of Tsaritsa Maria Feodorovna, mother of the last Tsar, in the royal crypt of St Petersburg’s Peter and Paul Fortress was a fine and hopeful event.  The Russian people do not deserve to have escaped the horrors of the 20th century only to find that because the murderers and revolutionaries cut the cord of the past the bastards had a victory after all.  A future of economism (in which only the big cities prosper) and a losing battle against the awfulness of American cultural imperialism will not feed that famous Russian soul.

But it may be that, unlike in the West, there is no shortage of politicians in the country who have the right instincts.

After the service, the funeral cortege made a final journey around the former royal capital where the Empress had lived for more than 50 years, then received a full military escort when it arrived at the fortress.  Russia’s Culture Minister, Alexander Sokolov, said: “Today we have fulfilled the innermost will of the Empress.  It means the time has come to fill the gaps in our history and culture.”

Or, as one ordinary Russian woman said:-

We have waited such a long time for this day.  I thank God that He has brought Empress Maria Feodorovna back.

It would be my dream to see the Romanov dynasty come back.  Until there is a Tsar in Russia again, Russia will never be at ease.

Why am I heartened by this?  Because our situation today is not better than that of Russians during the days of Soviet empire.  We are prosperous but we are dying.  Where is the value in that?

I hope with all my being that someday we, too, will be able to talk about filling in the gaps in our culture and history, and from time to time I shall watch Russia to see, perhaps, how it is done.

Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, September 29, 2006 at 04:11 PM in World Affairs
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Nejad on the bomb, the pope, revisionism and the Palis.

NBC News anchorman got his reward yesterday for comparing the Iranian hostage-takers to the Founders last year and elite American forces to suicide bombers last month: an exclusive interview with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a Midtown Manhatton hotel.

Here are the interesting exchanges as reported by Williams:-

Brian Williams: How do you think the discussion has been allowed to get that far, that we’re discussing possible war between the U.S. and Iran?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: I think we need to ask this question from American, U.S., politicians. The world has changed. The time for world empires has ended. The U.S. government thinks that it’s still the period after World War II, when they came out as a victor and enjoyed special rights. And can rule, therefore, over the rest of the world. I explicitly say that I am against the policies chosen by the U.S. government to run the world. Because these policies are moving the world towards war.

Continued...

Posted by Guessedworker on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 at 04:01 AM in World Affairs
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News Items

The death of Oriana Fallaci

The author of La rabbia e l’orgoglio (The Rage and the Pride, 2002), the courageous, indomitable, individualistic Oriana Fallaci, has died in her home town of Florence.  She was 77, and had fought a battle with cancer for several years.  It was, of course, the Italian authorities she really desired to fight over their dhimmi reaction to La rabbia.  A pity she was denied the opportunity.  There is an excellent and affectionate article on the lady from a Times blog here.

German Neo-Nazis poised for “stunning” poll breakthrough

Not exactly a liberal meltdown, though.  A Guardian hack explains:-

Germany’s racist neo-Nazi party is poised to make a stunning breakthrough during elections this weekend, entering a regional parliament for the second time in three years, polls suggest.

According to a poll for ZDF television the far-right National Party of Germany (NPD) is likely to win 7% of the vote in elections on Sunday in the north-east state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Another Infratest poll puts the party on 6%.

The projected result is above Germany’s 5% hurdle - and means the far-right MPs will sit in the parliament for the first time.

Well, we’ll see.

Pope Benedict XVI quotes from 600 years ago.  Muzzies everywhere go bananas.  But it wasn’t Ben’s real opinion.  Honest.

Judge for yourself.  Here’s the full speech.

200 South Asian illegals land at Tenerife

the migrants ... are the first Asians among more than 24,000 migrants to arrive on the Canary Islands from Africa this year.

The boat was boarded by Spanish police on Thursday when it anchored 3km (two miles) south of Tenerife island.

... Spain’s El Pais newspaper says Pakistanis had flown to Dakar, the capital of Senegal, and were paying $500 (£266) each to Senegalese traffickers in the hope of continuing their journey by sea to Greece.

... Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said the government was going to negotiate a fast repatriation of the new arrivals.

And almost too perfect to be true ...

A number of Nigerian politicians  have been conned out of thousands of dollars by people selling papers purporting to certify them as “corruption-free”.

Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, September 15, 2006 at 12:42 PM in World Affairs
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Mahmood Ahmadinejad goes blogging

Iran’s President Ahmadinejad has a blog.  It’s in English, too ...  English so poor that I can only suppose he really wrote it himself.  But never mind.  My Persian is not great either.

The page is a bit slow to load.  But if you have an hour or two on your hands, and don’t have to go down the shelter, you can always ask the hip, young bearded one a question or two.  Something like this, perhaps:-

Dear Humble Servant of Almighty Allah’s glorious messenger (pbuh, natch),

I was struck by this passage in your writing ...

Since the extinct shah - Mohammad Reza - was supposed to take and enter Iran into western civilization slavishly, so many schemes were implemented that Iran becomes another market for the western ceremonial goods without any progress in the scientific field. Our Islamic culture would not allow such an infestation, and this was an impediment in front of shah and his foreign masters’ way. Thus, they decided to make this noble and tenacious culture weak gradually that Iran be attached strongly to the west as far as its economy, politics, and culture was concern.

... and it occurred to me that, as the decent and fair man you undoubtedly are, you could not possibly object if our noble and tenacious Western culture would not allow an Islamic “infestation”.  Or have I got something badly wrong there?

Link to the Ahmadinejad blog from Rowan Berkeley’s post to New Right Online Forum.

Posted by Guessedworker on Monday, August 14, 2006 at 11:19 AM in World Affairs
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An honest defence of Israel

Peter Hitchens on Israel as a natural ally of the West and of Western civilization.

Posted by Alex Zeka on Wednesday, August 2, 2006 at 08:33 AM in That Question Again,  World Affairs
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Inside Bush and Blair

Here for your perusal and enjoyment is the transcript of the now infamous chat that Blair had with Bush during the G8 summit:

Bush: Yo, Blair. How are you doing?

Blair: I’m just…

Bush: You’re leaving?

Blair: No, no, no not yet. On this trade thingy….(inaudible)

“Trade thingy” is Blair’s ever-so-charming, Hugh-Grantish manner of referring to the WTO talks. Apparently, Bush’s diplomacy is derailing it, which is perhaps the most clear-sighted and wise act of his presidency.

Bush: Yeah, I told that to the man.

Blair: Are you planning to say that here or not?

Bush: If you want me to.

Blair: Well, it’s just that if the discussion arises…

Bush: I just want some movement.

Blair: Yeah.

Bush: Yesterday we didn’t see much movement.

Blair: No, no, it may be that it’s not, it may be that it’s impossible.

Bush: I am prepared to say it.

Blair: But it’s just I think what we need to be an opposition…

Bush: Who is introducing the trade?

Blair: Angela

Bush: Tell her to call ‘em.

Blair: Yes.

Bush: Tell her to put him on, them on the spot. Thanks for the sweater it’s awfully thoughtful of you.

Blair: It’s a pleasure.

Bush: I know you picked it out yourself.

How sweet. Are we paying you £200k a year to exchange sweaters (even very thoughtfully)?

Continued...

Posted by Alex Zeka on Tuesday, July 18, 2006 at 02:32 PM in World Affairs
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The sons of Martha

Imagine a group of young men, many still in their teens. They are far, far from home. They are fighting a war the purpose of which they -and indeed their betters- cannot understand. Their old friends, safe back home, are only too likely to regard them with distaste, just as American soldiers in Vietnam were once regarded. What they obviously need is to be told how wonderful their alleged enemies are:

Iraq troops to get ethics training. US soldiers in Iraq to undergo ‘values’ training in wake of massacre claims.

A MEMBER of the US Marines unit accused of murdering 24 unarmed Iraqis said yesterday that his colleagues “were blinded by hate” and lost control before the massacre.

Interesting. I wonder when and if the leaders of the Iraqi Muslim communities will conduct an investigation into the atrocities perpetrated on Coalition soldiers -or indeed the torture inflicted on Western Aid workers. I’m not holding my breath.

I agree that the Coalition’s conduct in invading and destabilising a non-aggressing country is appalling. But surely, it’s the politicians who ordered this who should be reviled as haters and racists, not the ordinary soldiers on the ground, many of whom only joined because other career were denied to them by the flight of American jobs. After all, we blame the filthy rich pimp, not the impoverished prostitute.

Truly, it’s a thankless task to be a son of Martha -as Kipling once wrote.

In entirely unrelated news, one soldier claims that his service in the American army has made him unable to bear legal responsibility for rape. In other words, he has regressed to the level of a child. Poor lad.

Posted by Alex Zeka on Thursday, June 1, 2006 at 01:44 PM in Military Matters,  War on Terror,  World Affairs
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Zimbabwe

Curious about Zimbabwe?  Try this site:

http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/

They have a huge archive of news articles.  Amren has a bit too:

http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/zimbabwe/

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on Sunday, May 14, 2006 at 07:58 PM in World Affairs
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Animated about Dimona

This video animation constructed from Mordechai Vanunu’s famous sixty photographs is worth a look while pondering Iranian ambitions.

Thanks to Troy for the link.

Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, May 2, 2006 at 03:45 AM in World Affairs
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A politically correct genocide

Below I reproduce the brilliant article from last weekend’s The Sunday Times Magazine.  As it says, in Zimbabwe the whites were kicked out of the country, and their loss was their farm and their life’s work.  In South Africa there is a “beautiful” legal land restitution system, but the farmers and their spouses end up as corpses. Which is worse?

Notwithstanding this honesty, the writer had to operate within the strict framework of political conventionality.  Thus:-

“Kill the farmer! Kill the Boer!” was a slogan of ANC guerrillas in apartheid days.  A presidential commission into the attacks examined claims that the ANC remains involved, and that the assaults are part of a deliberate campaign.  No evidence has been found. No pattern has emerged.

Some attackers are locals. Some are Zimbabwean. Some drive 200 miles to the farms from the Jo’burg townships. Some are revenge attacks by disaffected employees. Some are motivated by money – attacks the night before payday, when there is cash in the farmhouse.  In others, valuables are ignored and nothing is taken.  The government is manifestly innocent - of inspiring the attacks, but ministers are more open to charges of neglect. South Africa is a mining and industrial giant.

So that’s the official South African government version.  But then there is this:-

... Zimbabwe’s cull of farmers can be repeated by default, as well as by design.  There are signs of growing haste and impatience in land reform.  New possibilities of legalised expropriation were opened on March 1.  The deputy president, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, spoke at a recent conference in Pretoria.  “We’ve got lessons to learn from Zimbabwe,” she said.  “How to do it fast.  We need a bit of oomph. So, we might want some skills exchange between us and Zimbabwe.”  The remark was made with a smile, it was reported, and “to muted laughter”.

Continued...

Posted by Johan Van Vlaams on Wednesday, April 5, 2006 at 07:46 PM in World Affairs
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Those evil whites again

Excerpt:

“South Africans are worse off than they were before the end of apartheid, at least as measured by real incomes. In Incomes in South Africa Since the Fall of Apartheid (NBER Working Paper No. 11384), co-authors Murray Leibbrandt, James Levinsohn, and Justin McCrary document that decline and attempt to explain what has happened. They show that average incomes of South African men and women

fell by about 40 percent

between 1995 and 2000, and note that there has been little improvement since then…. Their focus is on economic well being as measured by income, rather than on other ways of evaluating social welfare, including measurement of political freedom. The change in income is most pronounced in the lower half of the income distribution and has disproportionately affected younger workers, women, and blacks”.

Posted by jonjayray on Sunday, March 12, 2006 at 08:18 PM in World Affairs
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Slobodan Milosevic dies in UN custody

Here:

This morning, Serbia’s B-92 announced that former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has died in captivity. The news went around the world in minutes. Apparently his failed plea to seek medical attention in Russia was not the joke or stalling tactic that Western media caustically and constantly derided it as being.

In rejecting Milosevic’s request of 24 February, the Hague voiced fears that he might not come back, and argued that good enough medical care was available in the Netherlands.

B-92 reported that when Milosevic’s body was found, he “had already been dead for several hours.”

The general secretary of the Serbian Socialist Party which Milosevic once led, Ivica Dacic, angrily stated that “Milosevic didn’t die in Scheveningen [Prison] – he was killed in Scheveningen!” However, he did not provide evidence of how or why Milosevic might have been assassinated.

Another party official, Zoran Angelkovic, said that he wouldn’t want to make official comments until the results of the investigative procedure are known.

The possibility of suicide, however, has been ruled out: “…Steven Kay, one of the court assigned lawyers, said he had spoken to his client about suicide recently. ‘He said to me a few weeks ago, I haven’t fought this case for as long as I have with any intention to do any harm to myself,’ Kay told BBC television.”

Ironically, the pro-intervention, anti-Milosevic IWPR had just reported on 10 March that Milosevic was “almost out of time.” They didn’t know how right they were.

According to the report from the Tribunal, the defendant had as of Friday only “…around 40 hours of court time left in which to finish presenting his defence case,” according to “an internal court memo published this week…the document says that Milosevic has used up just under 89 per cent of the 360 hours originally allotted to his case, in line with how long it took prosecutors to present evidence against him.”

However, IWPR adds, “…the remaining hours do not include time allowed to prosecutors for cross-examining witnesses, which, judging by how long this has taken to date, could be expected to take up a further 28 hours. It also excludes time spent dealing with administrative matters.”

Milosevic’s death comes almost immediately after the “suicide” of Milan Babic, indicted for war crimes in the formerly Serbian enclave of Krajina, now in Croatia. The media to a man reported that Babic had committed suicide last Sunday, but there is circumstantial evidence which indicates that Babic was killed.

Posted by Steve Edwards on Saturday, March 11, 2006 at 03:29 PM in World Affairs
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Rhodesia

Anybody here interested in 20th century history should know about Rhodesia.  If you don’t, something I wrote over 30 years ago will provide a quick update:

http://jonjayray.tripod.com/rhod.html

Now that Zimbabwe (Rhodesia’s successor State) is one of the most brutal and mismanaged polities on earth an email I received recently is interesting:

“At some time in the early to mid-1990s, Ian Smith gave a speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. The auditorium was packed, the lobby was packed, and the crowd spilled out of the building. It was the largest turn-out for such a gathering that I have seen in 20+ years. Most of those in attendance were too young to remember the “Unilateral Declaration of Independence” of 1965, and could barely remember the betrayal of 1980. However, they had some inkling of what this man had done and what he had tried to do, and were there to see a living remnant of 20th century history. Smith was completely forthright about what his goal had been: the defense of Western Civilisation—nothing more and certainly nothing less. The respect accorded him verged on reverence, and he was thronged with autograph seekers.

Yes, Mrs. Thatcher should have dismissed the advice she was given in 1980 (along with the advisors who offered it) and retained Muzorewa. But the real villain of the piece is the clueless Harold Wilson and the gaggle of parlour pinks who surrounded him and ran his government in the swinging ‘60s. They got the praise of the Wise and Good, their honours and their pensions, but the horrific price was paid by the immiserated unfortunates down in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.”

Posted by jonjayray on Sunday, February 19, 2006 at 07:22 PM in World Affairs
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Let Mugabe stew

President Robert Mugabe has begun to reverse his “insane” land grab and offer some white farmers the chance to lease back their holdings in Zimbabwe.

With the fastest shrinking economy in the world, Mr Mugabe has had to backtrack on six years of chaos and his own determination to rid the country of all white farmers.

The Daily Telegraph today.

So the ruinous hand of black African power extends an olive branch to the people it demonised, robbed, terrorised and murdered.  Remember the late Hitler Hunzvi, the “War Veterans” leader who compared himself to revolutionary figures like Che Guevara, Napolean Bonaparte and even Jesus Christ.  He is on record euphemistically threatening, “All revolutions require violence ... No-one can stop the revolution we have started.”

Wrong.  The corruption of Mugabe’s cronies and the incapacity of his people have stopped it.  What few black farmers are cultivating former white-owned lands are doing so on a subsistence basis.  Eighty to ninety per cent of the land, howevever, lies untended while Zimbabweans go without.

Vanity precludes Mugabe himself from making the announcement.  Two “trusted” underlings will be deputised to grovel before an unsurprised world.  Ian Smith described Mugabe as a “Marxist terrorist” and one can’t help but feel that were he alive today, he would counsel the expellees strongly against cooperating with his enemy now.

I suppose in the end there will be some white farmers prepared to listen not to the ghost of Ian Smith but to a chastened yet hardly repentant Mugabe.  It will be short memories and white individualism - the inability or just refusal to observe group dynamics - which will lead them back.

At least one ex-farmer has perfect clarity of mind and purpose, and said yesterday:-

“It’s bloody miserable out there. All our friends have gone, our equipment has been broken, irrigation has been vandalised, our homes have been wrecked, the roads are a mess, our workers have gone so why should we return? I am sure there will be some clots who are so damn miserable in other countries or living in towns that they will go back.

“We should be campaigning for compensation, not going back to help people who wrecked our country.”

Posted by Guessedworker on Thursday, February 9, 2006 at 03:38 AM in World Affairs
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Putin, a rock and the human rights industry

Back on News Years Day 2005 at, I see, the civilised hour of 11.33 am I posted a short piece on the political future of Russia.  The core of the article was an interesting prognostication by Telegraph journalist, Niall Ferguson.

His argument was intriguing, and provided several striking parallels between Weimar Germany and present-day Russia.  He concluded like this:-

We must all hope that events in Georgia and Ukraine will inspire a democratic revolution in Russia itself. But the Weimar parallel is not encouraging. Germany’s descent into dictatorship went in stages: there were three more or less authoritarian chancellors before Hitler, each of whom sought to rule Germany by decree.

The question that remains open is whether Putin is just a more successful version of one of these authoritarian warm-up acts, or a fully-fledged Russian führer. Either way, he is fast becoming as big a threat to Western security as he is to Russian democracy.

Continued...

Posted by Guessedworker on Wednesday, February 1, 2006 at 08:12 PM in World Affairs
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