December 01, 2004

Today's WSJ op ed page has the whole, ugly story:
Tehran's Triumph
Europe and the U.N. bless Iran's march toward a nuclear weapon.

So the International Atomic Energy Agency adopts a resolution Monday holding Iran to a "non-legally binding," "voluntary" and "confidence-building" commitment to suspend its uranium enrichment program. Tehran immediately declares it will abide by the agreement for no more than a few months. And our European friends tell us it's a triumph of their tough-minded but subtly adaptive brand of diplomacy...Are they putting us on?
[...]
...The aggregate value of French exports to Iran amounts to $2.4 billion, not a huge sum but double what it was five years ago. Russia is building Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant. As for China, it gets 13.6% of its oil from Iran; the Chinese state-owned oil giant Sinopec was recently invited by Tehran to develop the huge Yadavaran gas field.
[In fact, the latest precipitous rise in the price of oil was attributed in large part to the Chinese, who were hoarding.--Jen]

These countries are not going to line up behind sanctions under any circumstances, no matter how conclusive the evidence of Iranian malfeasance. They worry more about losing contracts than they do about an Iranian Bomb. The sooner the Administration admits this, the sooner it can escape the IAEA trap and begin to assess its options realistically.
[...]...it would help if the Administration finally made up its own mind about how--or indeed whether--it seriously intends to stop the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism from becoming its 10th nuclear power.

If this isn't a sticky wicket, I don't what is...
I don't know what President Bush needs to do.
Of course, I'm happy to say that he's surprised me pleasantly before with his new solutions to old problems, particularly that of the Paleostinians and the "road map."
Iran has become the new "Palestine" now that the Quartet's road map, the Israeli security fence and Arafat's death have taken that hotspot off the boil.
I'm not sure what our options are with Iran;
not only will the Usual Suspect countries oppose us on the U.N. Security Council, but the Left in this country will join them.
Remember the hell they've given the President because we didn't find many WMDs in Iraq, as if he and not Saddam were to blame?
The volume on that crap will be pumped up for Iran, as I predicted when the Dimocrats first started their campaign months ago.
And there exist too many Americans who look to the Israelis to take care of the Iranian bomb problem the way they did with Saddam's Osirak reactor in 1981, but I think there are too many sites in Iran that are too extensive for the poor IAF to handle by themselves or even to find (supposedly the best Western intell doesn't know for sure where the Iranian bomb sites are).
I'm thinking that a M.A.D. pact may be in the offing--President Bush tells the Iranian MOO-lahs that if a nuke goes off in a U.S., EU or Israeli city that we'll assume it's Iran's and bomb one of their cities back.
I dunno, but what I do know is that these "agreements" that the mullahs are making with the EU Three are meaningless, based on lies and nothing but opportunities to stall us, thus giving them more time to make the actual nuclear bombs and missiles.
Iran has been holding us hostage to their fanaticism since 1979 and I, for one, can't wait to see the tyranny of these Islamic clerics end, however we help bring that about.
I'm tired of worrying about whether their hate will result in the deaths of more Americans and I know that most of the Iranian people suffering under the mullahs' rule are yearning to live free of their tyranny and threats also.
This member of the Axis of Evil is destined for regime change any way you want to look at it.

Pentagon, analysts hit anti-U.S. bias at Red Cross

The International Committee of the Red Cross is breaking with tradition by publicly criticizing the United States for the way it handles terror suspects, say Pentagon officials and outside experts.
    
On at least two occasions in recent months, the ICRC overtly criticized the Bush administration for detaining suspected Taliban and al Qaeda fighters without giving them access to judicial proceedings. The administration has deemed them "enemy combatants" and not members of a formal military organization that would give them the rights of prisoners of war.
    
And yesterday, the New York Times reported on what it said was a Red Cross confidential report detailing the purported abuse of detainees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A Pentagon spokesman issued a statement denying that its personnel mistreat or torture inmates at Guantanamo, where the United States is holding 550 suspected al Qaeda and Taliban members.
    
Andrew Apostolou, vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said he cannot recall the European-based ICRC ever criticizing other governments, including the regime of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, so harshly.
[Not only did they give Saddam a complete pass, but they continue to ignore horrible abuse in the prisons of Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to give just the Middle Eastern examples.--Jen]
   
 "The problem is they are applying a double standard to the U.S.," said Mr. Apostolou, whose think tank conducts research on the war on terror. "The fact of life is they never undertook these sorts of activities in the recent past against flagrant human rights violators."
    
A Pentagon adviser, who asked not to be named, said in his dealings with the Red Cross, there is always an attitude that "al Qaeda had a moral equivalence to the United States. They didn't trust anything we said."

Asked whether there is a belief inside the Pentagon that the ICRC harbors an anti-U.S. bias,, the official answered, "Absolutely."
[And I, for one, agree with them! It is flagrant.--J.T.]
[...]
But conservatives see a different pattern when it comes to how the ICRC comments on U.S.-held prisoners in Iraq and terrorists.
    Some reports have leaked to the press, although the Red Cross denies that it released them. In other cases, the organization has issued public statements lambasting the United States.
    
Mr. Apostolou said the Red Cross is getting pressure from more publicity oriented human rights groups to pummel Washington. And, he said, there is a mantra within some of these organizations that says, "Al Qaeda is weaker than the United States, ergo al Qaeda must be the aggrieved party. ... I think since September 11, human rights groups have been very hostile to what the U.S. has been doing."
[This is obvious to all but the blindest Leftist or Liberal Kool-Aid drinker.--Jen]
    
Frank J. Gaffney, a senior Pentagon official in the Reagan administration who is president of the Center for Security Policy, noted the irony of the ICRC pushing for the rights of al Qaeda terrorists when the Red Cross' mission is to safeguard civilians in time of war.
    
"I find it not only extraordinary, but deeply reprehensible that the ICRC is engaged in this kind of effort to protect and promote the interest of people who clearly have no interest in the fate of civilians," Mr. Gaffney said. "The International Committee of the Red Cross has become, I believe, an agitation operation against American interest for some time, and it should hardly come as a surprise to anyone who has followed their work that they are hostile, if not downright contemptuous, of American security concerns and requirements."
[Mr. Gaffney's comments are even more meaningful if one remembers that this pummeling of the USA by the ICRC has gone on simultaneously with obvious enemy atrocities like the senseless murder and beheadings of civilians in Iraq like Margaret Hassan and Nick Berg.]
[...]

 "We did not bring hundreds of innocent civilians off the battlefield," Army Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, who commands the Guantanamo facility, told the Associated Press. "If you listen to every story, I think you'll hear a common drumbeat of this person who tells you he was a rug merchant or whatnot. I think it's all part of a deliberate effort to mislead and to deceive."
    Some released detainees have gone back to the battlefield in Afghanistan to try to kill Americans and their allies, the Pentagon says.

In addition to the ex-Gitmo detainees who've gone back to fight in Afghanistan, some of the others who've been released have gone back to Europe to wage jihad in Eurabia.
IOW, we haven't seen the end of the "fruit" these
"humane" Red Cross efforts will bear.
If we win this war, it will be be either because we do it in spite of the ICRC's attempts to thwart us or because they will get religion sometime soon and realize that the Americans and their Allies are the Good Guys!
Meanwhile, the WashedUpPost continues their part of this jihad against America by continuing their fatwa on the Pentagon and its "sanction" of the "abuse" at Abu Ghraib:
U.S. Generals in Iraq Were Told of Abuse Early, Inquiry Finds.
In deciding who has the moral high ground about these issues, think back to 2 weeks ago when all the MSM would show us was 24/7 footage of the Marine shooting the "unarmed civilian" in Fallujah, but chose not to air the tape of Margaret Hassan being shot in the head by Zaqarwi's band of killers, which was made available to them the same day.
The Islamofacists have gotten the MSMedia and Leftist groups like the ICRC to do their fighting for them when formal weapons and armies aren't available to them--it's cheaper and much less work than fighting and dying.

Ukraine Parliament Votes Out Gov't

Ukraine's parliament brought down the government Wednesday, approving a no-confidence motion as international mediators gathered in the capital to try to bring the spiraling political crisis to a peaceful resolution.
[...]
Both campaigns are pinning their hopes on the Supreme Court, which convened for a third day to consider Yushchenko's appeal for the official results to be annulled. The opposition has presented its allegations of fraud and demanded Yushchenko be named the winner based on his narrow edge in the election's first round on Oct. 31. It remains unclear when a ruling will come.

The political crisis stoked fears of Ukraine's breakup. Yushchenko draws his support from the Ukrainian-speaking west and the capital, while Yanukovych's base is the Russian-speaking, industrialized east.

The West has refused to recognize the results, while Russia — which still has considerable influence over Ukraine — congratulated Yanukovych and complained of Western meddling.

Gosh! Isn't this exciting?!
Who knows how it will turn out?
I hope not with Putin's boy Yanukovych taking power and handing Ukraine back over to the USSR Russia.
The incomparable David Warren says that the whole mess is a "good thing:"
[...]
The rest of the international community is coming off well. Starting with uncompromising statements of support for the demonstrators from Vaclav Havel in Prague, and from the White House in Washington, the idea that the fraudulent Ukrainian election was not only unacceptable, but could be overturned, quickly spread through the European capitals, and now Kiev is filling up with European mediators, running back and forth between the factions.

Is this interference in Ukrainian internal affairs? You bet, and let's hope we get more of the kind.

It would seem that the Kuchma legacy is going down, in the person of Mr. Yanukovych, in that slow-motion way in which oversized statues descend from eastern pedestals. And when the dust clears, it is likely the Ukraine will have shifted considerably towards the West.

Yes, David: let's hope and pray that Ukraine not only shifts to the West and towards democracy, continued independence and orderly, free elections but that this huge screw-up causes Vladimir Putin to do some soul-searching and change his recent Soviet, "evil empire"-like ways.
We here in America didn't spend the last 50 years and God knows how much money, time, effort and lives to win the Cold War only to have to refight it in the 21st Century!

And we can't forget the courage of the Ukraine's people who've braved the cold and perhaps disguised Russian troops to stand up to Putin's puppet--without their outrage, Ukraine might have become another Venezuela, where Leftist thug Hugo Chavez averted his own recall by major fraud and got Jimmy Carter to sign off on the results.
As Venezuelan blogger Aleksander Boyd reports,
his country is becoming an increasingly unpleasant place to live, which is what happens when a tyrant like Chavez or Yanukovych are given total power.