Right Wing Nut House

OFF TO THE DEATH CAMPS

We already knew the Chinese government were a bunch of freedom denying, liberty hating, collectivist scumbag Communist sons of bitches. But it is still shocking to realize how deep their cruelty truly goes.

For years, the Chinese government turned a blind eye to the infanticide of female children - a direct result of the forced “one child per family” (OCPF) that the benighted savages in Beijing forced upon the populace. A sample of “scientific socialism” at work:

The one-child policy is criticized as violating basic human rights. Many are concerned with the practices used to implement this policy. China has been meeting its population requirements through bribery, coercion, forced sterilization, forced abortion, and possibly infanticide, with most reports coming from rural areas.[attribution needed]

Some examples include:

1. a former administrator of a Chinese Planned Birth Control Office had stated his experience of execution forced abortion on a 9 month pregnant woman. [31]

2. A former Chinese population control administrator named Gao Xiao Duan testified before a United States House subcommittee in 1998, regarding her participation in forced sterilizations and abortions.[32]

3. A 2001 report exposed in Guangdong a quota of 20,000 abortions and sterilisations was set for Huaiji County in the same year due to reported disregard of the one-child policy. The effort included using portable ultrasound devices to identify abortion candidates in remote villages.

Earlier reports also show that women as far along as 8.5 months pregnant were forced to abort by injection of saline solution.[33] Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute announced that the One child policy is “an ongoing genocide”. He argued that free market capitalism will solve the overpopulation and overconsumption problems of developing nations. [34]

Whether Moore is correct is not the point. The problem is with an ideology that sees life as a statistic rather than a precious entity, born with the right to life, liberty, and other natural rights that the Chinese government neither celebrates nor acknowledges.

It is easy to oppress when you’ve lost your humanity.

So it should come as absolutely no surprise that this same government that sees nothing wrong with parents murdering their own children (until international pressure forced them to do something about it in 2001), should see the problem of controlling the feline population in such beastly and inhumane terms:

Thousands of pet cats in Beijing are being abandoned by their owners and sent to die in secretive government pounds as China mounts an aggressive drive to clean up the capital in preparation for the Olympic Games.

Hundreds of cats a day are being rounded and crammed into cages so small they cannot even turn around.

Then they are trucked to what animal welfare groups describe as death camps on the edges of the city.

The cull comes in the wake of a government campaign warning of the diseases cats carry and ordering residents to help clear the streets of them.

Cat owners, terrified by the disease warning, are dumping their pets in the streets to be picked up by special collection teams.

Paranoia is so intense that six stray cats -including two pregnant females - were beaten to death with sticks by teachers at a Beijing kindergarten, who feared they might pass illnesses to the children.

China’s leaders are convinced that animals pose a serious urban health risk and may have contributed to the outbreak of SARS - a deadly respiratory virus - in 2003.

Even if you despise cats - and I know that there are many of you out there - you cannot help but be struck dumb with outrage over this completely unnecessary, draconian, and positively medieval method of controlling the cat population. Any western nation could have helped the Chinese with this problem and it could have been done much more humanely and without the government using deliberate scare tactics to jack up the citizenry and turn them against cats.

When I wrote of the medieval methods used against cats by the Chinese I was not using allegory. Whipping up a frenzy of emotion against cats was a favorite ploy of the church in the middle ages. In something of a delicious irony (from the cat’s perspective) when our ancestors had killed off most of the cats in Europe, invading rats overran the continent. They bore fleas that carried bubonic plague that killed of a third of its population. In their frenzy to burn witches and murder their “familiars,” Europeans were unwittingly sealing their doom by eliminating their only salvation against the plague carrying rats - cats.

But the Chinese efforts at eliminating cats are not just being done for health reasons. These Communist bozos are so intent on making a good impression for the Olympics this year that they don’t want a bunch of stray cats wandering around the venues:

But the crackdown on cats is seen by animal campaigners as just one of a number of extreme measures being taken by communist leaders to ensure that its capital appears clean, green and welcoming during the Olympics.

Polluting factories in and around the city are being ordered to shut down or relocate during the Games to ease Beijing’s choking smog and drivers are allowed out on to the roads only three times a week.

Fares on the city’s underground network have been cut to just two yuan (14p) for any journey - a six-fold reduction on some routes - to keep people off buses, and beggars and street sleepers are being moved to out-of-town camps or given train fares back to their home provinces.

Meanwhile, taxi drivers have been made to attend lessons in how to greet passengers politely in English and a city-wide courtesy campaign has been launched to teach Beijing’s notoriously dour and grumpy citizens how to smile and be pleasant to foreigners.

The cull of Beijing’s estimated 500,000 cat population is certain to provoke international outrage as it comes just over a year after the Chinese were criticised for rounding up and killing stray dogs across the country.

I apologize to you dog lovers out there. If I had known of that barbarism, I would have been just as outraged I assure you.

You might ask are there no cat lovers in China? Of course there are. Here’s an example of what they are up against:

Animal welfare groups in China are already protesting, but their members fear punishment from the authorities.

Officials say people can adopt animals from the 12 cat pounds set up around the city, but welfare groups say they are almost impossible to get inside and believe few cats survive.

One cat lovers’ group negotiated the release of 30 pets from one of the compounds in Shahe, north-west Beijing, but said they were in such a pitiful condition that half of them died within days of their release.

“These cats are being left to die. It is very

It gets worse.

“People don’t want to keep cats in Beijing any more so they abandon them or send them to the compounds.

“When we went inside, we saw about 70 cats being kept in cages stacked one on top of the other in two tiny rooms.

“Disease spreads quickly among them and they die slowly in agony and distress. The government won’t even do the cats the kindness of giving them lethal injections when they become sick. They just wait for them to die.

“It is the abandoned pets that suffer the most and die the soonest. They relied so much on their owners that they can’t cope with the new environment.

“Most refuse to eat or drink and get sick more quickly than the feral cats.”

Ms Yan’s group has now been denied access to the pounds. “We do not believe any of the cats that go in there survive,” she said. “They are like death camps.”

If you are a cat lover, the more you read of this article in the Daily Mail the more you will feel like organizing a military expedition to free the animals from their confinement.

The cat lovers are up against the cruelest of human institutions; dead ass communist bureaucracy. They have begged the government to offer cut rate spaying and neutering all to no avail. Indeed, the government has mandated spaying and neutering but few can afford the 200 yuan pricetag. (Most American cities and towns also require spaying and neutering but with many clinics offering cut rate or installment payment plans it is relatively easy to comply with the laws.) Couple that with a dearth of no-kill shelters or shelters of any kind and you have the makings of this man made holocaust.

I do not dispute the necessity to control the feline and canine populations - especially in big cities. And I might point out that our own efforts in this regard are not always the model of humane behavior. But we have made a vast improvement from even just 10 years ago. Controlling the feral cat population in US big cities now includes a wide range of actions including “trap, neuter, and release” as opposed to simply trapping and killing the animals.

Feral cats tend to congregate in the same area when the food supply is reliable. These “colonies” are made possible by legions of cat lovers across the country who volunteer to watch and care for their charges. New arrivals are immediately caught and, usually in cooperation with a kindly vet, fixed for free or a nominal cost. The colony manager also watches for outbreaks of disease and tries and keep track of any predations the cats might engage in - especially against birds. Kittens are removed from the colony and sent to adoption centers.

Such managed colonies could never occur in China, however. The movement began at the grass roots and demanded that government support them. If you start demanding anything from government in China, you will most likely end up in prison.

No matter. There are more humane ways to kill the animals than simply not feeding them and allowing them to die horribly. But to the Chinese bureaucrats intent on projecting a squeaky clean image to the rest of the world for the olympics, there is only a problem that needs to be solved as quickly and cheaply as possible.

May they rot and then burn in hell.

A protest against power cuts to southern Beirut - cuts the power company denies making - escalated into a riot when protesters blocked roads and threw stones at police and the army who were trying to maintain order.

Southern Beirut is a Hizbullah stronghold but it is not certain that the violence was connected exclusively to the political crisis involving the election of a president that would be acceptable to both the Hizbullah led opposition and the majority March 14th forces. Then again, one can hardly dismiss the idea that this was a demonstration organized by Hizbullah which had recently promised “decisive action” in the streets in order to force the government to accede to their demands.

Both sides are currently in a standoff over the issue with the government proposing Army Chief Michel Suleiman for the post while the Syrian backed opposition opposes his election, still maintaining that any government formed by the new president must give them enough ministers to have veto power over the majority’s decisions.

There were reports of snipers firing from rooftop positions into the crowd below. One of their targets was an opposition Amal official:

Among the victims was an official from Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri’s Amal movement. The others were four Hizbullah activists, a rescue worker and a civilian.
The official was identified as Ahmad Hamza, Amal’s representative in Hay Mouawwad quarter of Shiyah, where protests first broke out at around 4 pm.

“Hamza has passed away after being shot in the back,” an Amal official told AFP, adding that he was unable to identify the source of the fire.

The bloodshed came amid fears of civil unrest in Lebanon which has been gripped by a prolonged presidential crisis, and two days after a massive car bombing killed a top intelligence officer and four other people.

The intelligence officer, Wassam Eid, was involved in terrorism investigations. He was reportedly assisting the International Tribunal in their investigation of the assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri and other murders of anti-Syrian politicians and journalists.

The riot quickly spread from Beirut to the suburbs where the rioters blocked roads and threw stones at cars and police vehicles:

The army shut down many roads to stop the protests from spreading, and soldiers also took positions on rooftops.

But as night fell, riots spread to reach the airport highway, where demonstrators cut the main road with burning tires. Soon afterwards protesters cut the Mar Elias road in west Beirut while gunfire rang out sporadically across the southern suburbs.

Riots also reached south Lebanon, where the coastal highway between Sidon and Tyre was closed by blazing tires.

The road to Baalbek in east Lebanon’s Bekaa valley was also briefly closed.

A car that had been set ablaze exploded, triggering panic in Beirut where only two days ago a massive car bombing killed a top anti-terror officer and four other people.

A top security official warned the riots could spread unless politicians reined in their supporters.

What sparked the riot? Evidently, the old Hizbullah gambit of closing the road to the airport - something they have done before in their street protests. Only this time, the army intervened:

The unrest broke out after demonstrators set ablaze tires, blocking a main road linking the Shiyah and Mar Mikhael neighborhoods to protest at power shortages.

The army fired warning shots to disperse the demonstrators, a security official said.

Witnesses said that gunmen in the crowd opened fire at the security forces who retaliated.

Premier Fouad Saniora declared Monday a day of national mourning and ordered schools and universities closed.

As of today, it is unclear how many or if any of the demonstrators were killed by the army and how many by rooftop snipers who were apparently caught on tape and shown on Lebanese television.

Lebanese bloggers are weighing in offering analysis and mostly bemoaning what appears to be the powerlessness of the government to stop the murders. Mustapha at Beirut Spring offers some speculation about the rooftop snipers:

The puzzle has a missing piece. It seems that a third party wants to stir things up by breaking the balance of restraint between the Lebanese parties. As political analyst Ossama Safa puts it: “This is the work of agents provocateurs — someone is in there stirring trouble [..] I really think they want to get a hold of the situation. But someone, somewhere is doing this.”

The politicians will try to calm the situation. But expect a lot hot-headed blame to be tossed around.

And the fact that Hizbullah is now pointing the finger directly at the army is very significant. Could the opposition had staged the protest, started the riot by firing at the army from inside the crowd, and assured even more anger by having snipers pick off Hamza all to discredit General Suleiman? I would say it a more likely scenario than March 14th forces trying to deliberately start a civil war.

Abu Kais wants the government to start telling the truth about the violence:

Many of us have their own suspects. It doesn’t take a genius to point the finger at Syrian intelligence—the motives are there, and the methods too predictable. Yet despite all this obviousness, we ultimately sink in confusion because no one is willing to present an official account of what happened, and who did it. It’s always swept under the rug of “investigation”. Killers roam free and kill again while being “under investigation”. And the argument against Syrian culpability weakens, because not even the official authorities are able to point the finger.

Needless to say, we are tired of it all. If this is war, then could someone involve the dying public in the details of the fight? This public cannot subsist on the same old indirect accusations. Instead of declaring a day of mourning, how about a day of truth? How about teaching the interior minister how to speak? How about the army commander, instead of phoning the dictator next door, be asked to report to the defense minister and to the public? Is the enemy so powerful that we are afraid to at least give it the media treatment we have given Israelis when they were doing the killing?

And to underscore that point, Daily Star editorial page editor Michael Young interviewed former UN prosecutor Detlev Mehlis who was the first prosecutor appointed as part of the International Tribunal and whose initial investigation implicated high level Syrian ministers in the plot to kill Hariri. Mehlis was disappointed in the subsequent investigations of the Tribunal:

Mehlis, who was the first U.N. chief investigator, has said in his reports that the Hariri plot’s complexity suggested that Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services had a role, but [Serge] Brammertz has not echoed his view. Four pro-Syrian Lebanese generals have been under arrest for almost two years for alleged involvement in the murder.

In his final appearance before the U.N. Security Council in December, Brammertz said that progress made in the last few months has enabled investigators to identify “a number of persons of interest” who may have been involved in some aspect of the crime — or knew about the preparations.

The investigation “appears to have lost the momentum it had until January 2006,” Mehlis said in the interview. “When I left we were ready to name suspects, but it seems not to have progressed from that stage.”

“If you have suspects you don’t allow them to roam free for years to tamper with evidence,” Mehlis told The Wall Street Journal.

Indeed, for a while Brammertz seemed to be treating the Syrian government with kid gloves, praising their “cooperation” with the Tribunal while hinting that no Syrian ministers would be charged in the assassination. There was also evidence that Brammertz refused to follow up some leads with regards to Palestinian involvement in the crime.

All the violence takes place against the backdrop of an Arab League attempt to get the two sides to agree on a presidential candidate. Secretary Moussa will travel to Lebanon again this week to continue his fruitless search for a compromise acceptable to Syria and the opposition.

Meanwhile, the murders continue, the two sides become even more entrenched and the citizens of Lebanon are on edge wondering what will come next. The Blacksmiths of Lebanon outline the endgame:

The attacks on our institutions continue with the aim of dismantling the Lebanese state and replacing it with a quasi-Syrian province [slash] Iranian paramilitary front.

Thanks to the inviability of these plans and the historically proven inability of any one side [this time Hizballah] to impose its will on the rest of the Lebanese political/sectarian groupings, these plans will most likely fail. The issue remains, however: what will it cost our country before they do? Syria, Iran and their quislings in Lebanon [starting with Nasrallah, Berri, Aoun, and going all the way down to "the Qansos", Wahhab, and Franjieh] continue to work to ensure that price is high.

It is best if the western powers who continue their strong backing of prime minister Siniora remember that these are the stakes in play.

A very interesting and in the end, a very depressing article in The Guardian this morning about some recommendations by a blue ribbon panel of ex-military leaders in NATO who believe that the organization is in danger of becoming irrelevant to the security interests of its members.

In short, they conclude that NATO is not addressing the fundamental security threats facing the organization in a rapidly changing world and that there is a real danger that NATO itself will not survive many of the challenges facing it.

The headline grabbing part of the article is actually the least surprising - that NATO should maintain its nuclear first strike option. This has always been NATO’s unstated doctrine going back to the cold war given the huge perceived disparity in conventional forces the organization was facing from the Soviets. It was always believed that the US would have to abandon Western Europe in the face of a Soviet attack or launch its missiles. Maintaining this doctrine then is not surprising when faced with the possibility of rogue states or terrorist organizations threatening a launch against a NATO member.

The authors of this “manifesto” are an eye opening lot and “paint an alarming picture of the threats and challenges confronting the west in the post-9/11 world and deliver a withering verdict on the ability to cope.”

General John Shalikashvili, the former chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff and Nato’s ex-supreme commander in Europe, General Klaus Naumann, Germany’s former top soldier and ex-chairman of Nato’s military committee, General Henk van den Breemen, a former Dutch chief of staff, Admiral Jacques Lanxade, a former French chief of staff, and Lord Inge, field marshal and ex-chief of the general staff and the defence staff in the UK.

And this distinguished group of dedicated soldiers did not create this document in a vacuum; they discussed their findings and got recommendations from a wide variety of current and former civilian and military leaders.

Here are some key findings:

The five commanders argue that the west’s values and way of life are under threat, but the west is struggling to summon the will to defend them. The key threats are:

· Political fanaticism and religious fundamentalism.

· The “dark side” of globalisation, meaning international terrorism, organised crime and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

· Climate change and energy security, entailing a contest for resources and potential “environmental” migration on a mass scale.

· The weakening of the nation state as well as of organisations such as the UN, Nato and the EU.

So is this a call to action? Or the last gasp of a dying organization that is making a final attempt to reconstitute itself in order to become relevant to its members and the security of the world?

As peacekeepers, NATO is doing a pretty good job in Bosnia and Kosovo. As warriors in Afghanistan, the organization is losing the war to the Taliban.

Now diplomats and the military fear unless something is done to revitalise strategy against the Taliban, Western governments will also lose their will and pull out their troops. Without Western backing, Karzai’s government may not last very long.

“If we cannot show progress in the next year or two, or at least show we are moving in the right direction, we will have serious difficulty in keeping some of our partners engaged in Afghanistan,” said one senior Western diplomat.

Six years after the Taliban were ousted following the Sept. 11 attacks, support for the war is waning and Canada, Germany and the Netherlands could withdraw troops by 2010, leaving a big hole that other NATO nations may be unwilling or unable to fill.

But it isn’t just support for the war at home that is the problem. The fact is, according to Defense Secretary Gates, that not only are NATO soldiers not trained for a counter-insurgency mission but that NATO governments themselves are reluctant to commit their troops to combat:

“I’m worried we’re deploying [military advisors] that are not properly trained and I’m worried we have some military forces that don’t know how to do counter-insurgency operations … Most of the European forces, NATO forces, are not trained in counter-insurgency; they were trained for the Fulda Gap [NATO's Cold War battle lines in Germany].”

[snip]

Gates warned the NATO mission “has exposed real limitations in the way the alliance is, or organized, operated and equipped. I believe the problem arises in a large part due to the way various allies view the very nature of the alliance in the 21st century, where in a post-Cold War environment, we have to be ready to operate in distant locations against insurgencies and terrorist networks.” He solicited help from US Congressmen for “pressuring” the NATO capitals “to do the difficult work of persuading their own citizens [in Europe] of the need to step up to this challenge.”

Gates again spoke forcefully at the meeting of NATO defense ministers in Edinburgh, Scotland, on December 14. But “no one at the table stood up and said: ‘I agree with that’,” he later lamented.

Only the Dutch, Canadians, British, Australian, and American forces engage in combat operations in Afghanistan (the French have several hundred special forces operating in the north). For the rest, there are “caveats” - legal loopholes in the NATO charter that allows nations to avoid the fighting - and according to the manifesto, are contributing to NATO losing the war in Afghanistan:

In the wake of the latest row over military performance in Afghanistan, touched off when the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, said some allies could not conduct counter-insurgency, the five senior figures at the heart of the western military establishment also declare that Nato’s future is on the line in Helmand province.

“Nato’s credibility is at stake in Afghanistan,” said Van den Breemen.

“Nato is at a juncture and runs the risk of failure,” according to the blueprint.

Naumann delivered a blistering attack on his own country’s performance in Afghanistan. “The time has come for Germany to decide if it wants to be a reliable partner.” By insisting on “special rules” for its forces in Afghanistan, the Merkel government in Berlin was contributing to “the dissolution of Nato”.

Ron Asmus, head of the German Marshall Fund thinktank in Brussels and a former senior US state department official, described the manifesto as “a wake-up call”. “This report means that the core of the Nato establishment is saying we’re in trouble, that the west is adrift and not facing up to the challenges.”

To put the caveats used by a majority of NATO countries in Afghanistan in perspective, one Canadian officer was quoted as saying ““How many battalions does it take to protect Kabul airport?”

Recommendations in the manifesto are pointed and specific:

To prevail, the generals call for an overhaul of Nato decision-taking methods, a new “directorate” of US, European and Nato leaders to respond rapidly to crises, and an end to EU “obstruction” of and rivalry with Nato. Among the most radical changes demanded are:

· A shift from consensus decision-taking in Nato bodies to majority voting, meaning faster action through an end to national vetoes.

· The abolition of national caveats in Nato operations of the kind that plague the Afghan campaign.

· No role in decision-taking on Nato operations for alliance members who are not taking part in the operations.

· The use of force without UN security council authorisation when “immediate action is needed to protect large numbers of human beings”.

The European left will not support any of these changes. In fact, the commitment of troops in Afghanistan by most NATO countries is opposed by a majority of their own populations. And if Afghanistan is a red line that NATO must prove its worth or perish, then I fear the entire alliance is in mortal danger of collapsing given the recalcitrance of large NATO member states like Germany and France in committing more of their troops to the fight.

NATO wanted this job. They criticized the US mercilessly for “going it alone” in Iraq and Afghanistan. But now that the Taliban has been reconstituted (thanks largely to Pakistan’s inaction in the border provinces and US inaction in tamping down poppy production) several member states are looking anxiously at their domestic political position knowing full well that increased casualties as a result of them allowing their troops to engage in combat operations will almost certainly drive the left into the streets demanding a withdrawal.

This is something those countries never bargained for when they allowed their troops to be deployed under NATO’s banner in Afghanistan. At the time NATO agreed to the Afghan mission, it appeared to be mostly a reconstruction and peacekeeping operation. And now that they are desperately needed as combat troops to assist the Canadians and Dutch in the south in fighting off a growing number of Taliban fighters, they feel their hands are tied by a domestic opposition that opposes anything NATO does to help the United States.

If NATO won’t fight in Afghanistan, where will they fight? As Russia grows in strength and confidence under Vladmir Putin, the former satellites of the old Soviet Union who are now NATO members may start to wonder if the countries of western Europe will confront that menace if a showdown were to come. With western interests and credibility at stake in Afghanistan and member states failing to answer the call, it is a legitimate question whether NATO would fight in the Baltic states or even in Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic.

NATO has had many crisis in the past but perhaps none that threatened the organization in such an existential way. NATO is struggling to find a reason to exist. And unless its member states can overcome their reluctance to commit to the idea of collective western security, it is possible that NATO will pass into history as just one more alliance that unravelled due to its own internal contradictions.

UPDATE

Most of the buzz on this article is centered around the pre-emptive nuclear strike aspect of the story. As I mention above, this is nothing new - just a recommendation to continue a long standing policy that NATO was forced by default to follow once the perceived superiority of Soviet conventional forces became so overwhelming.

However, as Dave Schuler points out, announcing such a policy may defeat its purpose:

In the end I’m left with a number of questions. First, does strategic ambiguity enhance or diminish deterrence? Is it a political necessity that undermines the strength of deterrence? Second, does a supernational organization like NATO increase the strength of the nation state or reduce it? How does the majority rule provision of the report influence that? Finally, what is the role of NATO today? U. S. defense expenditures are around 4% of GDP, Britain’s around 2% and under substantial scrutiny at home, France’s somewhat lower, and Germany’s below 2% and falling. If NATO’s members, accustomed to the U. S. military aegis, elect to have armed forces incapable of projecting force beyond Europe, of what practical use is the old military alliance?

Excellent questions all that the report (James Joyner found a PDF link here) fails to address.

Allah wonders whether the report’s nuclear option is aimed at Iran or Pakistan and if this is evidence of NATO’s growing irrelevancy:

I’m guessing this is aimed more at Iran than Pakistan, although a confirmed report of nukes loose in the tribal areas would naturally warrant a “strong” response. It’s not clear if they’re referring to pinpoint nuclear bunker busters to destroy underground weapons facilities or some sort of larger, make-an-example decapitating strike (the ambiguity is probably intentional), but the fact that they’re willing to rattle this particular saber publicly shows how helpless they feel re: other deterrent options. The west can roll back proliferation, they say, but it had better be prepared to make some hard choices to do so.

Saying “”It remains a vital interest of the whole world community to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran,” Germany’s warmongering Chancellor Angela (Hey…wasn’t Hitler a Chancellor too?) Merkel joined French President Sarkozy in virtually ignoring the recently released NIE on Iran and sticking to their plans to promote more sanctions against the mullahs.

Writing in the German daily Handelsblatt, Merkel showed eminently more sense than just about any leftist Democrat in the United States:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that heading off the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran, with tougher sanctions if needed, remains a “vital interest” for the world community, according to a report Thursday. Iran’s nuclear program is “one of our biggest security policy concerns,” Merkel wrote in an article for the daily Handelsblatt, which the newspaper posted on its Web site ahead of print publication on Friday.

Germany, along with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, has played a leading role in addressing worries over Iran’s nuclear work.

Earlier this month, an American push for new sanctions was dampened with the release of a new US intelligence report concluding Iran had halted a nuclear weapons development program in 2003 and had not resumed it since.

Merkel did not refer specifically to that assessment, but wrote that “it is dangerous and still grounds for great concern that Iran, in the face of the UN Security Council’s resolutions, continues to refuse to suspend uranium enrichment,” Handelsblatt reported.

Compare Merkel’s attitude with the attitude of most lefties who, whenever Iran is mentioned these days, will hold the Iran NIE aloft a la Chamberlain coming home from Munich as proof of the mullahs benign intentions.

If their childish, irrational naivete weren’t so horribly, dangerously wrong, it might be funny. As it is, we have to keep reminding ourselves that these bozos might be in charge of American foreign policy next year - a thought that gives no end of amusement to the leaders of the Iranian regime, I’m sure.

What a terrible turn of events when pacifist Germany subtly criticizes America for “dangerous” thinking when it comes to Iran. A topsy turvy world, indeed.

“Anything is possible.”

That’s what I wrote on Monday morning following the “narrow” win by the NO! forces in the Venezuelan referendum on granting President Hugo Chavez enormous and unprecedented powers. My speculation seemed wild at the time but was based on reports coming from Venezuelan bloggers who turned out to be pretty damn reliable in the end.

Most pre-election polls had NO! winning by 55% or greater. For those on the left who are sneering about the fact that Chavez didn’t try and rig the election, I would suggest you wait a day or two. There certainly were some strange things going on at CNE headquarters in the wee hours of the morning.

And one rumor is the final margin of victory for the opposition was actually negotiated between the two sides so that Chavez could save face with a razor thin loss rather than the 57%-58% that some polls were showing prior to the vote. That particular rumor seems wildly off base – until you remember we’re talking about Chavez’s Venezuela where after the last presidential election, half full ballot boxes disappeared for hours only to turn up later stuffed to the brim with votes for Chavez.

As it turns out, the NO! vote was indeed a landslide and Chavez was in the process of rigging the election in his favor when the Army came a-calling and told him if he cheated, he’d be gone:

Most of Latin America’s leaders breathed a sigh of relief earlier this week, after Venezuelan voters rejected President Hugo Chávez’s constitutional amendment referendum. In private they were undoubtedly relieved that Chávez lost, and in public they expressed delight that he accepted defeat and did not steal the election. But by midweek enough information had emerged to conclude that Chávez did, in fact, try to overturn the results. As reported in El Nacional, and confirmed to me by an intelligence source, the Venezuelan military high command virtually threatened him with a coup d’état if he insisted on doing so. Finally, after a late-night phone call from Raúl Isaías Baduel, a budding opposition leader and former Chávez comrade in arms, the president conceded—but with one condition: he demanded his margin of defeat be reduced to a bare minimum in official tallies, so he could save face and appear as a magnanimous democrat in the eyes of the world.

(HT: Ed Morrissey)

I also reported the role of General Baduel in heading Chavez off at the pass by going on TV and demanding that the vote - already held up several hours by the CNE - be released. Either shortly before or after he made that appearance, he placed his call to Chavez telling him the jig was up.

There are so many lefties with egg on their faces this morning that the liberal blogosphere could very well be mistaken for an omelet chef blog burst in progress. Praise for that great “democrat” Chavez and comparing him favorably to Bush was laughable at the time and now, simply priceless - one of those moments in blog history that can be trotted out time and time again whenever some lefty gets a little too large for their suspenders.

Just for fun, let’s review what some on the left had to say about their buddy Hugo and how he was a superior democrat to American leaders:

“I would be the last to claim that Hugo Chavez is a saint, or even a politician worth emulating. But I do find it interesting that when faced with the will of the people, Bush ignored that will and Chavez bowed to it. One we are told, is a vile threat to the freedom of his nation because of his incessant power grabs and disdain for democratic process. The other is a great leader of men, fully committed to democracy in his home country and abroad. If I hadn’t attached names to this story, could you tell which was supposed to be which?

This is one of my favorites:

Before the vote began, Venezuela’s government had agreed to randomly open 30% of the ballot boxes to monitors in order to assure a fair election. Upon receipt of the result, President Hugo Chavez — the putative dictator in waiting for Venezuela — announced simply, “I congratulate my adversaries for this victory. For now, we could not do it.”

The Venezuelan and American press — both enormously and dishonestly hostile to Venezuela’s Bolivarian transformation — had spun the article dropping term limits as a bid to become “President for Life,” though there was no provision to ever stop presidential elections that put that decision into the hands of Venezuelan voters. We shall now see if a single mea culpa is expressed by any of the media in the wake of the Chavez government’s quick and gracious acceptance of the referendum result. I doubt it.

The author never mentioned that the agreement to “randomly open 30% of the ballot boxes” went by the wayside that night - as did every other agreement Chavez made prior to the election about independent electoral observers, opposition access to the raw vote count, and anything else that would have prevented Chavez from stealing the vote.

And as far as shenanigans that occurred during voting, here’s a few of dozens of irregularities from this revealing letter sent by two International Observers to the Venezuelan recall vote in 2004 to Members of Congress:

* We were threatened on several occasions, at least once with pistols concealed under the shirts of Chavistas who yelled threats and showed us their weapons.

* When we went into the 23 de Enero barrio, Chavistas working in the voting area turned into rabble-rousers and tried to stir the crowd into attacking us. The Plan República troops did nothing to stop them, and when our safety was in question, they escorted us out. We could no longer observe the many irregularities in the area.

* We r eceived first hand reports from witnesses who saw armed Comando Maisanta and Circulos Bolivarianos posted outside voting centers, threatening the people who tried to vote SI.

* We witnessed military officers prohibiting the vote of people in the opposition areas because they were “wearing shorts”, a violation of the constitution and their human rights.

* Thousands of voters who voted SI, were physically assaulted at the voting centers.

* In some voting centers, the review process was started without the presence of Opposition witnesses to guarantee transparency.

* Opposition witnesses and table members were physically removed from voting centers or blocked from entering and guaranteeing transparency.

This is the election Jimmy Carter guaranteed as fair and open.

Of course, the biggest omelet on the face goes to Roger Cohen for this lights-out slice of schadenfreud:

I salute you, Hugo Chávez.

If Roger had stopped there, people would have only thought him crazy, not an idiot:

And yet, there was a glum Chávez declaring in the unadorned language no totalitarian system can abide that: “The people’s decision will be upheld in respect of the basic rule of democracy: the winning option is the one that gets most votes.”

The United States might ponder those words — not just because of what happened in the presidential election of 2000; not just because the arithmetic of voting has proved unpalatable in Palestine; not just because of the past U.S.-abetted trampling of elected Latin American leaders in Chile and elsewhere — but because democracy was alive and vital in Venezuela on Sunday in a way foreign to President Bush’s America.

As I said in my American Thinker blog post, “Thank God for that.” And I might have added, thank God Cohen only writes for the Times and not a real newspaper:

But his honoring of democracy’s brittle wonders still merits a salute. Above all, however, I salute the Venezuelan people. Chávez said before the referendum that a “no” vote equaled a vote for Bush. Unperturbed, Venezuelans went ahead. And they gave a civic example from which Bush’s battered and blathering democracy can learn.

Bush’s “blathering” democracy apparently doesn’t need to negotiate with the opposition his margin of defeat. What say ye, Roger? Up for eating a little crow?

It’s childish, of course, to gloat so. But when people are constantly throwing mud in your face, it’s sometimes nice to return the favor by tossing a banana cream pie and hitting them right in the kisser.

As the clock ticks toward midnight, the factions in Lebanon, unable to agree on a consensus candidate for president, have resigned themselves to the fact that they are about ready to enter unknown territory.

A constitutional vacuum is about to open up - if, as he has promised, soon-to-be-ex-president Emil Lahoud resigns as planned. What does it mean in practical terms? No one knows which is why pronouncements like this from Lahoud are not helpful:

Premier Fouad Saniora on Friday rejected a controversial measure by outgoing President Emile Lahoud ordering the army to enforce law and order after claiming that “risks of a state of emergency” prevail over the nation.

A three-article statement signed by Lahoud said: “The risks of a state of emergency prevail over all the territories of the Republic of Lebanon as of Nov. 24.

“The army is assigned the task of maintaining security and all military forces would be placed at the army’s service,” the statement added.

It said that once a “legitimate government is formed” the army command would coordinate its moves with it.

However, a statement issued by Saniora’s press office said the presidential measure is “not factual and not based on constitutional or legal authorities.”

It recalled that, constitutionally, only the government has the authority to declare a state of emergency, subject to revision by parliament in eight days.

The Saniora statement said Lahoud wants to allude that the nation is facing serious threats “at a time security prevails because the army maintains the nation’s security and protects the people’s safety.”

The statement concluded by stressing that the government is both “legal and constitutional.”

Lahoud has maintained for almost a year now that because 6 opposition ministers resigned from the cabinet, subsequent decisions taken by the Siniora government have been illegal and that the government itself is not legitimate.

It is unclear whether Lahoud’s statement is meant to urge the army to carry out a coup although by asking the military to “maintain security” until a “legitimate government is formed” while all but declaring a state of emergency, it is hard to interpret his statement otherwise.

In fact, Abu Kais at From Beirut to the Beltway writes that even if Siniora insists on maintaining his position, the cabinet no longer controls the military:

Although Lahoud did not directly call for state of emergency (post corrected), he handed over all security matters to the Lebanese army, meaning the cabinet would no longer have power over it. AFP quoted an official in the Siniora government as saying Lahoud’s statement “is not valid and is unconstitutional…It is as if the statement was never issued.”

One more unknown in a sea of unknowables.

Meanwhile, Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri has rescheduled the presidential vote for November 30. As the majority bends over backward to accommodate the opposition by not taking advantage of the constitutional option open to it and electing a president by simple parliamentary majority, some have taken the government to task for this inaction:

Now that the “opposition”, including Nabih Berri, has adopted Aoun’s “initiative”, March 14 finds itself, yet again, outmaneuvered. After living in the Berri-esque illusion that Bkirki’s list will be respected, March 14 rediscovered the dishonesty of its opponents. Over the past month, the “opposition” successfully managed to prevent the parliament’s majority from electing a president through distraction and deceit. Hours before the constitutional deadline expires, the Syrian-puppet president is preparing to announce measures designed to prevent the Siniora cabinet from assuming power. Lahoud is armed with Hizbullah’s blessing and the complicity of Michel Aoun. March 14 is counting on assurances given by Berri that the “opposition” will not escalate the situation if a president in not elected through a majority vote.

March 14’s Fares Soueid said the movement is waiting for Lahoud’s announcement before taking such a step. Sadly, March 14 deputies came to parliament today and consented to a postponement, forfeiting their constitutional right to holding such a session. Considering that Berri couldn’t hold his end of the French-sponsored bargain, it seems strange to this blogger that so much faith is still being placed in his promises, and in reaching agreement with him.

It should be clear that Lahoud is not bound by any arrangement Berri may have made with the majority. It should also be clear that Hizbullah and Aoun have been using Berri to buy time and keep March 14 from convening its deputies. One wonders if March 14’s current strategy, which is sadly being pushed by Jumblatt and Hariri, will cost them the country.

The feeling is widespread among March 14th supporters that their leaders have not taken advantage of the legal mechanism open to them and simply elected a president by majority vote. The feeling seems to be “Let Hizbullah do their damndest and to hell with Michel Aoun.”

I can understand their frustration but speaking as an outsider and a supporter of the government I sympathize with the majority’s plight. They have been well and truly trapped ever since the opposition ministers walked out of the government almost exactly a year ago. The government of Lebanon - any government - was dependent on the cooperation of Hizbullah both for legitimacy and to get anything done. Once that cooperation was withdrawn (with the realization that Nasrallah has no intention of granting it again unless he gets to call the shots) everything that has happened between then and now could have been foreseen.

The assassinations, the war with Israel, the constant, unyielding pressure on the government to compromise is being cheered on in Damascus if not planned and carried out on President Bashar Assad’s orders. Only Syria benefits from the chaos that threatens the peace in Lebanon. Despite the United Nations moving forward with the Hariri Tribunal - almost certain to implicate Syrian officials in the political violence that has taken place in Lebanon - they are moving glacially. And if the government changes hands, peacefully or otherwise, the chances of that Tribunal getting any cooperation from Lebanon vanishes. In that case, it is very difficult to see how the Tribunal will be able to do its job properly - something devoutly wished by Assad and his henchmen who UN prosecutors are convinced are involved in the assassination of the ex-prime minister.

There are precious few options left for the majority. It seems clear that by next week’s deadline, they will either have resigned themselves to the prospect of civil strife by electing a president themselves or will continue to dither, hoping lightening will strike and the opposition presents a candidate who would be acceptable to them.

The latter prospect is not in the cards which is why it is more than likely that eventually and reluctantly, the elected majority government of Lebanon will take the fateful step of thrusting aside opposition objections and, being constitutionally empowered to do so, will elect a president by simple majority vote. What this action will precipitate is anyone’s guess. Anything from violence in the streets to the opposition setting up their own president and cabinet and calling it the “legitimate” government of Lebanon is possible.

A “sea of unknowables” indeed.

UPDATE

Street celebrations are underway as Emil Lahoud leaves office. What is his legacy?

Emile Lahoud packed the sack and evacuated the hilltop Baabda Republican Palace at midnight Friday, leaving behind a record of two Syrian-sponsored constitutional amendments that placed him in office … and kept him there for nine years.

A cheerful crowd took to the streets of Beirut’s Tarik Jedideh district to celebrate the end of Lahoud’s term in office chanting “Lahoud out.”

Lahoud, 71, also has a long list of leftovers: Four military aides behind bars, 12 unsettled political crimes, a split nation struggling to avoid renewed civil strife and a vacant presidential office waiting for the election of a new head of state who can patch up a people that cannot agree even on one answer to a simple question: Who is the enemy?

Sounds more like an indictment.

Speaking of indictments, when will justice be served?

In 1998, Syrian President Hafez Assad sponsored a constitutional amendment that allowed Army Commander Lahoud to run for Lebanon’s top post.

The Syrian-controlled parliament responded, not only by adopting the Assad-inspired constitutional amendment, but also by unanimously electing his chosen candidate to Lebanon’s top post.

Blessed by “the father”, Lahoud enjoyed another constitutional amendment inspired by the late Syrian President’s son-heir Bashar Assad in 2004 that kept him in office for three years more.

Shortly after Lahoud received the second Assad Blessing, Communications Minister Marwan Hamadeh survived a car-bomb attack on Oct. 1, 2004 and the list of serial killings rolled:

Ex-Premier Rafik Hariri, Minister of Economy Basel Fleihan, columnist Samir Qassir, former leader of the Communist Party George Hawi, TV journalist May Chidiac, Defense Minister Elias Murr, MP Jibran Tueni, Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel, MP Walid Eido and MP Antoine Ghanem.

The Assassination of ex-MP Elias Hobeika in 2002 also remains a mystery.

No coincidence, all the victims were prominent opponents Lahoud, or both Lahoud and Syria’s dominance over Lebanon.

I have said it many times but it bears repeating; the similarity between the Syrian regime and a Mafia crime family are striking. Both use intimidation and murder to achieve their ends. Both set up “protection rackets” to soak their victims. Both are made up of a small, vicious cadres of lieutenants who are loyal to a crime boss.

Read the whole article by Mohammed Salam, one of Naharnet’s most insightful writers.

UPDATE: 11/24

Gateway Pundit has a good round up and some telling photos of Lebanese celebrating the end of Lahoud’s presidency.

A spokesman for the Alfred E. Nobel Foundation announcing Al Gore’s Peace Prize.

Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize.

He follows a long line of illustrious humanitarians who have selflessly and with no thought of personal reward, served the needs of humanity through the sheer goodness and purity of their souls. Or, in Gore’s case, those who have shamelessly promoted themselves as saviors of the planet when they have been proven in a court of law to be nothing more than alarmist charlatans.

Dedicated peace activists like the Dali Lama, Nelson Mandela, and Mother Teresa have preceded Mr. Gore in winning the Prize. As have not so dedicated peace activists like Yassar Arafat (who could have been described as a “piece” advocate due to the condition of the bodies of his victims after they were blown to bits), Mikhail Gorbachev - the first time a Peace Prize was awarded to a dictator for not sending in tanks to crush liberty, and Kofi Anan whose contributions to the peace of such places as Rwanda and Darfur will long be remembered - at least by those lucky enough to be left alive following his spectacularly inept and corrupt leadership.

Yes, our Al is in good company alright. But never mind the Peace Prize. Will he or won’t he? Does the light of ambition burn bright enough that he would, once again, shoulder the burdens of a long, difficult campaign for the presidency of the United States?

Though Gore’s name has been frequently mentioned in presidential politics this year, potentially as a “draft” nominee, he has declined to enter the contest.

But the Nobel is a huge honor recognized worldwide and gives him even more stature. It gives him a moment to reconsider the race for the Democratic nomination, now led by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Gore has not completely ruled out running, saying in the past he had “no plans” to be a candidate and shying away from the fund-raising extravaganza that now is central to American politics. At one point, he even said that he is “not very good” at politics. Critics often lampooned him as wooden as a campaigner.

Let’s put it this way; I doubt whether Hillary Clinton is losing any sleep over a potential Gore candidacy. She’s way ahead, she has more money than God, and it’s just about 90 days to the New Hampshire primary - not enough time to pull an organization together, raise the money, and run any kind of a professional campaign. It’s not that his chances of success would be small. His chances of success would be zero.

All that aside, just what has the Nobel Committee done by giving the prize to a man a British Court called an “alarmist” just the other day? He is a man whose major achievement - his film Inconvenient Truth - has been debunked even by scientists who share his fears of climate change. Other scientists have called on the former Vice President to quit being such an alarmist.

The fact is, Gore’s major “contribution” to the global warming debate has been shown to be at the very least problematic and at worse, a shameless piece of propaganda. Yeah - but at least his heart is in the right place.

I can never decide whether Gore is being used by the Luddites, the one worlders, the NGO’s, the anti-globalists, and the anti-industrialists as a front man for the implementation of their political agendas or whether he actually agrees with many of their ideas. The fact is, it’s not about the science. It’s never been about the science. If it were about the science, those who do not believe in anthropomorphic global warming theories wouldn’t be branded as “Nazis” and would receive a fair hearing. Similarly, those who reject the idea that global warming, even if it comes to pass, would not have the catastrophic effects promised by the alarmists, would not be marginalized and shunted to the sidelines of scientific debate.

Global warming is mostly about politics which is why Gore has probably done so well in promoting it. It has left the realm of science and entered the world of religion - a belief system with dogma, sacraments, and penalties for apostasy. And standing above all others as the High Priest, Great Prophet, and number one snake oil salesman has been Albert Arnold Gore, Jr.

Our climate is changing and thank God for that. About 20,000 years ago, there was an ice sheet a mile thick where I am sitting right now. I daresay if I had been siting in the same place back then, it would have been a tad uncomfortable. But the earth warmed, the glacier receded, and the Great Lakes were created in all their beauty and splendor.

I simply don’t know if the scientists who posit catastrophe are right. I do know that every “sign” pointed to as “proof” their theories are correct by global warming advocates today is not indicative of long term climate change. But I do not reject out of hand the idea that greenhouse gas emissions must be cut in order to prevent (or mitigate) drastic changes in the climate.

In short, I’m an agnostic on the subject. I am not a scientist. I can’t examine the evidence the way a climate modeller or a atmospheric physicist can and reach an intelligent conclusion. We must base our beliefs on explanations of that data by scientists themselves.

No, I am not a scientist. But neither is Al Gore. And the Nobel Committee’s curious choice of the former Vice President for the Peace Prize is perplexing indeed. Global warming is a scientific phenomena. To give it to someone whose scientific acumen has been questioned both by scientists and the courts strikes me as incomprehensible.

But then, that seems to be par for the course as far as the Nobel Committee is concerned.

I don’t get it. I mean, I know that Bush and the open borders crowd want to bring as many “undocumented workers” as possible “out from the shadows and into the light” so that presumably, those who were at one time considered lawbreakers would magically be forgiven their sins and morph into upstanding citizens of the republic with just a wave of government’s magic wand.

This, after all, is the position advanced by the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and other business groups who salivate at the prospect of millions of low wage workers toiling away, allowing them to keep that balance sheet nicely in the black. It’s really not a question of the new arrivals doing the jobs that Americans won’t do. It’s a matter of the immigrants doing those jobs at wages no self respecting American would tolerate.

That’s why I’m excited about this new union they’re talking about forming. It’s called the North American Union and from what I’ve heard, it will solve our illegal immigration problem, strengthen our economy, increase our security, and generally make life in these United States a heaven on earth.

Just tell me where to sign up to join this new union. I wonder if they have health benefits? Paid vacations? Sick days? Personal days? What about pensions?

What’s that you say? I’ve got it wrong? The North American Union will do WHAT?

Secretly, the Bush administration is pursuing a policy to expand NAFTA politically, setting the stage for a North American Union designed to encompass the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. What the Bush administration truly wants is the free, unimpeded movement of people across open borders with Mexico and Canada.

President Bush intends to abrogate U.S. sovereignty to the North American Union, a new economic and political entity which the President is quietly forming, much as the European Union has formed.

No wonder Canadian bacon has been flooding our markets recently. And have you noticed that there seem to be a lot of Canadian actors and actresses working in Hollywood? It’s an invasion I tell you!

And by the way, you do realize that Taco Bell is now the second largest fast food franchise in the world, don’t you? You know what that means? And what’s with all this Mexican beer I’ve been seeing lately? The brazenness of it all! They’re even advertising Corona on television.

If Lou Dobbs and Bill O’Reilly say it’s true, then it must be so. And to cinch the case, the idea has been advanced by none other than the Dark Lords who work for the Council on Foreign Relations.

If we keep looking, I have no doubt we’ll find connections to the Tri-Lateral Commission, the Democratic Party, and other anti-American, anti-sovereignty groups.

“Nobody is proposing a North American Union,” countered Robert Pastor, the American University professor to whom conspiracy theorists point as “the father of the NAU.” They cite his 2001 book, “Towards a North American Community: Lessons from the Old World for the New,” as the basic text for the plan. They also note his co-chairmanship of a Council on Foreign Relations task force that produced a 2005 report on cooperation among the three countries.

The cur! I’ll bet he wears a lapel pin with the US, Mexican, and Canadian flags:

Wearing a lapel pin featuring the flags of the U.S., Canada and Mexico, Pastor told AIM that he favors a $200-billion North American Investment Fund to pull Mexico out of poverty and a national biometric identity card for the purpose of controlling the movement of people in and out of the U.S.

So the “conspiracy” is now very much out in the open, if only the media would pay some attention to it.

Yep. Sounds like we should get ready to start saluting the flag of the North American Union rather than Old Glory. One sure sign that we’re about to lose our sovereignty is creating a fund to pull Mexico out of poverty. It’s right here in my “Conspiracies for Fun and Profit” handbook.

Perhaps we should look a little deeper into this conspiracy. Just what are our elites up to?

In March 2005, the leaders of Canada, Mexico, and the United States adopted a Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), establishing ministerial-level working groups to address key security and economic issues facing North America and setting a short deadline for reporting progress back to their governments. President Bush described the significance of the SPP as putting forward a common commitment “to markets and democracy, freedom and trade, and mutual prosperity and security.” The policy framework articulated by the three leaders is a significant commitment that will benefit from broad discussion and advice. The Task Force is pleased to provide specific advice on how the partnership can be pursued and realized.

To that end, the Task Force proposes the creation by 2010 of a North American community to enhance security, prosperity, and opportunity. We propose a community based on the principle affirmed in the March 2005 Joint Statement of the three leaders that “our security and prosperity are mutually dependent and complementary.” Its boundaries will be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter within which the movement of people, products, and capital will be legal, orderly and safe. Its goal will be to guarantee a free, secure, just, and prosperous North America.

I don’t know about you, but I’m convinced. All this talk about enhancing security and prosperity is just a smoke screen. In order to ascertain the real intent of these people, you can’t take what everyone is saying at face value. You have to gaze beyond the words they’re saying and look into their very souls in order to glimpse the true nature of this massive conspiracy.

And that word “community” - another smokescreen to hide the real word they dare not use; UNION! Insidious, I tell you.

Just think of it. No more Fourth of July. No more George Washington. No more “Made in America.” And the prospect of being forced to watch Mexican soaps on TV is just too horrid to contemplate. All this cross border, cross cultural mixing has only one purpose; a political union with Mexico and Canada.

Would the NFL be forced to adopt Canadian football rules? Would soccer become the national past time? Would we see even more baseball games on television? These are the kind of nightmares that could become a reality if this North American Union thing actually goes through.

And of course, they would never put such a notion as a North American Union to a vote. We’re just going to wake up one morning and find out that America is no more. Those slick bastards! Lull us to sleep and then put one over on us when we aren’t paying any attention. Too clever by half. But not clever enough. Not when we have patriots like Lou Dobbs and Bill O’Reilly guarding our sovereignty. Don’t you sleep better at night knowing that those two watchdogs are on the case, protecting America from being subsumed by hordes of Mexicans and pasty faced Canadians who would invade our country and steal us blind? I sure do.

No doubt there are some of your who can’t see where there is any conspiracy to unite North American under one flag. I pray that you come to your senses soon. Before you know it, we’ll be buying our Tacos with Canadian dollars and then it will be too late.

Even though it has been a given for more than a year that Tony Blair would step down as Prime Minister of Great Britain before his term ended in 2009, his announcement today confirming that he will resign as party leader (maintaining his position as Prime Minister until a new Labour head is named) still should elicit much sadness here in the United States.

Blair forged one of the unique personal relationships of our times with George Bush that, much to his detriment and own personal political standing in Great Britain, has sustained the war effort in Iraq. The two made something of an odd couple although they complemented each other beautifully. Bush as the blunt, outspoken and emotional leader while Blair played counterpoint as the suave, sophisticated and often eloquent partner. Where Bush’s defense of his policies sometimes fell flat, Blair’s ringing endorsement of the war and the necessity for it made it seem at times that he was the senior member of the partnership.

And this is where the Bush-Blair relationship differed markedly from the FDR-Churchill and Reagan-Thatcher partnerships of the past. Blair was much more Bush’s equal in the “special relationship” that has endured between the United Kingdom and America for more than a century. It was Blair who convinced Bush at the beginning of the war to try and get the United Nations on board - a futile effort given the amount of Oil For Food bribery Saddam had spread around the Security Council membership as well as the general anti-American feelings in that body. But by taking his case to the Security Council, Bush gained some much needed legitimacy for the war with the American people - at least for a time.

And it was also Blair who outshone the President in defending the decision to go to war in Iraq as well as advocating a united western response to the threat of Islamic radicals - a threat that to this day is not acknowledged by much of the western left.

To win, we have to win the battle of values, as much as arms. We have to show these are not western still less American or Anglo-Saxon values but values in the common ownership of humanity, universal values that should be the right of the global citizen.

This is the challenge. Ranged against us are the people who hate us; but beyond them are many more who don’t hate us but question our motives, our good faith, our even-handedness, who could support our values but believe we support them selectively.

These are the people we have to persuade. They have to know this is about justice and fairness as well as security and prosperity. And in truth there is no prosperity without security; and no security without justice. That is the consequence of an inter-connected world.

But perhaps most strikingly, Blair is one of the few European leaders who acknowledged the “madness” of anti-Americanism and how destructive and dangerous this virulent hatred of all things American had become in the west:

And I want to speak plainly here. I do not always agree with the US. Sometimes they can be difficult friends to have. But the strain of, frankly, anti-American feeling in parts of European politics is madness when set against the long-term interests of the world we believe in.

The danger with America today is not that they are too much involved. The danger is they decide to pull up the drawbridge and disengage. We need them involved. We want them engaged. The reality is that none of the problems that press in on us, can be resolved or even contemplated without them.

Our task is to ensure that with them, we do not limit the agenda to security. If our security lies in our values and our values are about justice and fairness as well as freedom from fear, then the agenda must be more than security and the alliance include more than America.

Those are words that have needed to be said for more than a generation as much of Europe has gloried in tweaking America’s tail every chance it gets. Now, with new leadership in Germany and France and a new Prime Minister ready in the wings in Great Britain, Europe may be turning the corner in its relations with the United States. Chancellor Merkel of Germany and President-elect Sarkozy of France cannot be considered “pro-American” by a long shot. But they represent a qualitative improvement over the nakedly anti-American attitudes of their predecessors. This bodes well for the United States as we ourselves prepare to elect a new President. Whoever takes possession of the oval office in January, 2009 will have an historic opportunity to forge new and stronger links to Europe which can only help the United States face the challenges in the Middle East and beyond.

Much will depend on the new US President’s attitude toward global warming and whether or not the US will join the rest of the industrialized world in making a serious effort to combat it. Even more than the Iraq War, the biggest stumbling block to better relations between Europe’s “Big Three” of France, Germany, and Great Britain and America is the perception that America is ignoring what the Europeans see as the real dangers of climate change.

But at the same time, Europe fails to acknowledge that by far the biggest economic burdens to be born in the fight against global warming will be carried by the US economy and industries. Even modest efforts to cut emissions here in the US will mean tens of billions of dollars in lost economic activity and probably increased unemployment. And as long as China and India - the two biggest polluters on the planet - are exempt from any climate treaties, the US will probably refuse to take any meaningful steps to reduce their carbon footprint.

Clearly, the new US President and his counterparts in Europe will have their work cut out for them.

For Great Britain, it is almost a certainty that Blair’s deputy Gordon Brown will succeed him as Labour Party leader and Prime Minister. What kind of man is he? What is his attitude toward America and the “special relationship” enjoyed by the two countries?

I gave some background on Chancellor Brown last year when it first became apparent that Blair would leave before his term expired:

Asked during the General Election of 2005 what Britain would look like under a Brown Premiership, the Chancellor replied ‘more like America’. Brown is a passionate Americanist, having studied economics at MIT and regularly vacationing on the East Coast. American business practice is held in reverence by him. A consistent theme has emerged in Brown’s key economic speeches; he wants the British and European economy to become more like the United States. More competitive, entrepreneurial and dynamic, but combining free-market capitalism with social justice. The Chancellor’s first foray into foreign policy, last autumn, with a EU/G8 trip to Palestine, gives us an insight of Brown’s approach to international policy. Brown intends to bring his economic expertise to the aid of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, by attempting to reduce the poverty and unemployment experienced by Palestinians, which makes them ripe for transforming into Jihadists.

Mr. Brown has been a staunch supporter of the Iraq War and has praised America’s ‘courageous leadership’ in the fight against Islamist terrorism. There has never been a hint from his camp that he would have done things differently, and on several tense occasions when Mr. Blair has been under fire over Iraq, Mr. Brown has intervened to offer his backing.

Clearly, Brown is a man we can do business with. But it remains to be seen whether the new British Prime Minister will be able to create the same kind of productive partnership that his predecessor forged with George Bush. And there may be a feeling among some of Mr. Brown’s supporters that perhaps being so close to America is not such a good idea, that pulling away from the extraordinary and unique Anglo-American alliance that has dominated the world for a century may be politically smart and in the national interest as well.

I believe this would be a huge mistake. The US and Great Britain have steadfastly supported each other through some of the most turbulent times in world history. The alliance has benefited each country enormously both economically and strategically. We’ve had each other’s backs for more than 100 years - World Wars, the Cold War, Viet Nam, the Falklands, and now Iraq. We’ve assisted in peace efforts in Northern Ireland as well as using Britain’s good offices on more than one occasion when our diplomacy has been stuck in a rut. There is a symbiosis, a melding of interests between the two countries that would not be easily pried apart. And any effort to do so would not only affect our two countries, but also Europe and points beyond as well.

For these reasons, I feel confident Mr. Brown will resist calls to redefine our relationship and instead, try and establish that special bond with the American President - whoever it ends up being - that has been the hallmark of this, the most remarkable partnership the modern world knows. It has benefited both nations in the past. And I see no reason why it can’t be a plus in the future.

UPDATE: IT”S OFFICIAL

Blair announced he’s stepping down as party leader on June 27:

Tony Blair has announced he will stand down as prime minister on 27 June.
He made the announcement in a speech to party activists in his Sedgefield constituency, after earlier briefing the Cabinet on his plans.

He will stay on in Downing Street until the Labour Party elects a new leader - widely expected to be Gordon Brown.

(HT: Fausta)

UPDATE II

Michelle Malkin rounds up react from the MSM as well as some interesting comments from British bloggers.

She also has an extended excerpt from one of Blair’s most eloquent speeches on the war.

Say what you want to about those insufferably arrogant, lazy-ass Frenchmen. When it comes to Presidential elections, they have the right idea.

Turnout at an astonishing 85%. A relatively short campaign season. Lots of intrigue and backstabbing for us political junkies. The novelty of a woman heading up a major party’s ticket. Even the threat of violence from left wing loons following an election defeat which shows once again how the Euro-twits and socialists never tire of aping the tactics of their 1960’s ideological counterparts.

In fact, the winner of yesterday’s contest, Nicolas Sarkozy, made it a central theme of his campaign to once and for all rid French politics of the disease that infected the country in 1968. In May of that year, a series of student strikes led to a general strike that paralyzed many parts of the country. Despite the fact that the protests failed to change much of anything in French society and culture much less altering any of President DeGaulle’s policies, the battle cry “May ‘68″ lives on in leftist legend much the same way the legend of Woodstock lives on in this country; as an iconic representation of a time and place that never was. Instead, those two events are treated by the left as talismans that are trotted out at regular intervals and lovingly stroked and fondled by those who see the “revolutionary spirit” or “spirit of Woodstock” as more important than any tangible benefit to society that accrued as a result of those events.

For the French, the legacy of May ‘68 has been devastating. It has led France down the primrose path of hard left socialism much to the detriment of the economy and culture. But beyond that, the infection has created the illusion that if only France were to pile more socialist experimentation on top of what has already been tried, the “spirit” of May ‘68 would become flesh and a socialist paradise would be created.

This political mindset permeated not only the hard left but also the soft right and moderates in France. To one degree or another, every French government for more than 35 years - left, right, or in between - has tried to keep faith with that revolutionary spirit.

Until today. President-elect Sarkozy has finally said “non” and vowed to change course nearly 180 degrees:

Mr. Sarkozy acknowledges he is now part of the elites of French society, but he pledges he will govern in a way that is beyond their interests. “If I’m elected,” he told reporters before yesterday’s balloting, “it won’t be the press, the polls, the elites. It will have been the people.” His clearest break with much of French elite opinion came last week when he made a dramatic speech about a “moral crisis” the nation entered in 1968, when the “moral and intellectual relativism” embodied by the 1968 student revolt that helped topple President Charles de Gaulle from power the next year. Today, many philosophers and media commentators routinely pay homage to “the élan of 1968″ and lament that the revolutionary spirit of the time did not succeed in transforming bourgeois French society more than it did.

Mr. Sarkozy took on that ’60s nostalgia. He labelled Ms. Royal and her supporters the descendants of the nihilists of 1968, and even appealed to France’s “silent majority” to repudiate the false lessons of that period. He claimed that too many Royal backers continue to hesitate in reacting against riots by “thugs, troublemakers and fraudsters.” He declared this Sunday’s election would settle the “question of whether the heritage of May ‘68 should be perpetuated or if it should be liquidated once and for all.”

It appears that Mr. Sarkozy may have found the ultimate “wedge” issue in France, judging by the solid margin he won many traditional working-class neighborhoods that normally support Socialist candidates. Mr. Sarkozy’s triumph provides at least a chance that there will be a real debate on the role of the state in France’s economy and, yes, even some discussion of whether France should be in perpetual conflict with America.

Can it be done? Can benefits and economic policies that have given the people of France an unprecedented amount of job security and leisure time not to mention the comfy, warm blanket of cradle-to-grave nanny state guarantees that government will always take care of its citizens actually be withdrawn at the behest of the people these programs and policies help the most?

It would be unprecedented in the history of Democratic states - at least to the degree that Sarkozy is talking about altering the social compact between citizen and government. And the reason he may succeed is the almost universal agreement among the voters (except the die hard left and anarchists) that the reforms Sarkozy is talking about are absolutely necessary if France is to find its way back to economic greatness:

Mr Sarkozy delivered a lyrical victory speech, voicing his love for “this great and beautiful nation which has given me everything”. He promised to be “the president of all the French” and fulfill his promise of immediate radical reform.

“The French have chosen to break with the ideas, habits and behaviour of the past,” he said. “I will restore the value of work, authority, merit and respect for the nation.”

He would also rid France of its habit of “repenting” for its past historical sins. “This repentance is a form of self-hatred,” he said.

What Sarkozy proposes is nothing less than an “Americanization” of the French economy and a Reaganesque revival of national self-confidence. The new French President has continuously gotten into trouble at home with the Yankophobes by expressing his admiration for the American system as well as his desire to repair the almost shattered relations between the two countries - a state of affairs that hurts the national interest of both nations. The French can be extraordinarily trying as an ally. But their positions directly opposing many American initiatives in the international arena has been a disaster for our foreign policy. Like it or not, the French are still a major power with influence over most of their former colonies as well as a large segment of the Third World who view the French as something of a champion. Even a modest improvement in relations would be a boon to American interests.

From what I’ve seen of Sarkozy, I like. He seems straightforward, down to earth, and something of an idealist. After 12 years of the cynical Chiraq, he’s like a breath of fresh air. Whether he succeeds or not depends on how he handles the coming painful transition to economic sanity that will almost surely roil the streets of France, setting off massive demonstrations against his program. And it’s almost a dead certainty that his “law and order” program will not sit well with the immigrant communities - particularly the Muslim ghettoes where unrest is almost a nightly occurrence.

In his favor, the people of France seem to have spoken fairly convincingly that they want reform. But it will take all of his skills as a politician and communicator to turn his ideas into reality without shattering French society in the process.

It should be interesting to watch.