Is Dion gone?

It's over, says Mike Brock. Not so fast, says Warren Kinsella.

Kinsella lists some good reasons for not counting the Liberals out. That doesn't mean Stephane Dion can turn it around. (Trivia: not counting interim leaders, if Dion never makes it to 24 Sussex Drive, he'll be the first federal Liberal leader since Edward Blake to not become Prime Minister of Canada. Blake led the party from 1880 to 1887.)

Damian P.

Now it's personal

WASHINGTON (AP) - On his first day as President of the United States, Barack Obama startled the world by launching massive air strikes on a blogger's home in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

"During the campaign, I said we were going to eliminate the Penny," said Obama, "and I'm pretty sure we got him."

A voter at Sen. Barack Obama's town hall meeting in Greensburg, Pa., yesterday asked whether he would consider eliminating the penny.

"We have been trying to eliminate the penny for quite some time -- it always comes back," Obama said. "I need to find out who is lobbying to keep the penny."

Damian

"Tied" in Zimbabwe

The first official election results show Mugabe's ZANU-PF and the opposition tied in the Parliamentary elections, while a major Mugabe crony - "Justice Minister" Patrick Chinamasa - lost his seat.

Could Robert Mugabe really be losing his rigged election? Among ordinary Zimbabweans, there's no doubt about who really won:

A sheet of blue paper hanging on the notice board of a drab community hall told the tale of a remarkable upset:

President Robert Mugabe: 3,066 votes.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai: 8,154 votes.

For 28 years, Chinhoyi was part of Mugabe's hammerlock on rural Mashonaland, a region where his outsize victories helped balance out his eroding support in Zimbabwe's major cities. But evidence abounded Sunday that this pattern had collapsed across the nation, leaving Mugabe vulnerable to a historic defeat.

The electoral commission remained silent more than 24 hours after polls closed, but Zimbabweans took it upon themselves to tabulate results on pieces of paper gradually appearing outside 9,000 polling stations across the country.

The growing mosaic of information, though informally collected, suggested Mugabe was decisively trailing Tsvangirai. The opposition party claimed it was a landslide.

If Mugabe leaves office voluntarily, it will be the first decent thing he's done in recent memory. I can't see it happening - but I didn't foresee election results like this, either. We might really be seeing an end to one of the worst man-made catastrophes of our age.

Damian P.

Marching for tyranny

...in Toronto. The best part is that the pro-Communist Chinese, who presumably had to leave their paradise of a nation to find a decent education or non-sweatshop job, had the chutzpah to tell the Tibetans to get out of Canada:

A rally that was billed as promoting "anti-violence" turned hostile on Saturday as flag-waving Chinese denounced Tibetans who they blamed for the recent turmoil in Tibet in which 100 are said to have died.

Close to 1000 Chinese were in Toronto's Dundas Square for the afternoon event, many of them students.

"Dalai Lama die there!" some Chinese shouted at a group of Tibetans who had gathered across the street from the square to protest. "Leave Canada!" others urged.

Tibetans say the Chinese rally, which began orderly, was designed to incite hate against them.

The event was promoted in Chinese-language press as a rally to tell the "truth" about Tibet and "safeguard the reunification of the motherland."

Several major Chinese-language media outlets in Canada have parroted the Chinese communist regime's line on Tibet, blaming the turmoil on the Dalai Lama and his followers and fanning a nationalist animosity toward Tibetans.

[...]

"China and Chinese people have helped Tibetan people to improve human rights," said one organizer who spoke in English. "How can somebody who cannot even read or write understand anything about human rights? If they cannot read or write, how can they understand what they have lost in the past in Tibet? People were just blind faith to believe in their religion. They were controlled."

Another speaker added, "Tibetan culture not only has not been damaged, but has been greatly protected, spread and developed."

The rally became dramatic when a Tibetan refugee took to the stage waving a Tibetan flag. He was seized by a group of Chinese who dragged him away before police intervened to separate them.

After the incident, the man spoke with The Epoch Times. In tears, he described the suffering of Tibetans under communist rule, explaining that he left Tibet 10 years ago and came to Canada only recently. The man said Toronto Mayor David Miller should reconsider a planned trip to China next month amid the ongoing repression in Tibet by the communist regime.

Angry Chinese turned on the Tibetan protesters, hollering "Dalai Lama die there!" "Dalai Lama lies!" "Liars, liars!" and "Leave Canada!"

They also sang communist party songs.

Damian P.

Victory claimed

The opposition MDC says it won the Zimbabwean elections. Needless to say, the Mugabe thugocracy is warning them not to get too uppity:

The MDC, which has repeatedly expressed fears of rigging, has started to quote unofficial returns, saying it has 67% of the vote so far and "has won".

The electoral commission said it was "concerned" at the "purported" results.

The information minister accused the MDC of "speculation and lies" and "causing unnecessary havoc".

[...]

A spokesman for Mr Makoni told the BBC News website that the MDC had "swept the board" in the parliamentary election, with several ministers losing their seats.

But the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said the country must wait for official results and appealed for patience, as four elections were held at the same time.

Chief elections officer Lovemore Sekeramayi said in a statement: "The commission notes with concern that some stakeholders have gone on to announce purported results of the poll when in fact the results are being verified and collated.

"Those results are not official results of the poll."

The MDC says the commission was appointed by Mr Mugabe and is not to be trusted.

The government went further in its condemnation of the MDC.

Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said: "We have warned against speculation, against self-declared winners.

"Biti and the MDC are famous for speculation and lies peddling in the country and causing unnecessary havoc here."

The state-run Sunday Mail quoted the ministry's secretary, George Charamba, as saying that if Mr Tsvangirai declared himself president "it is called a coup d'etat and we all know how coups are handled".

Damian P.

Election Day

...in Zimbabwe. Unfortunately, the outcome is a foregone conclusion.

Damian P.

Update: Mugabe has the nonexistent-voter constituency sewn up:

...Upon checking the voters’ roll, Makone discovered that more than 8,000 people were registered to vote at something called Glen Hat Housing Cooperative. The addresses listed on the roll were nonexistent – the area is thick bush.

Victimization run amok

Who knew that hockey enforcers were an "at risk" group?

Todd Bertuzzi brings ex-coach Crawford into Moore lawsuit

Mark C.

Elections and urban mythbusting

It's a complete myth that there is some great urban/rural split in Canada with the Liberals ruling the cities and the Conservatives the countryside. I pointed that out right after the January 2006 election (though I missed the Tory successes in the Vancouver metro area) and called the real split "metro/Canada"--i.e. Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver vs. the country as a whole. But the myth will not die amongst the great majority of our chattering classes and media (Andrew Coyne did pick up my point at the time).

Now Tom Flanagan demolishes oh-so-cool pollster and author Michael Adams, who continues to spin the great urban/rural split (full text of both Globe and Mail pieces subscribers only):

Environics president Michael Adams is a justly renowned interpreter of Canadian social trends, but even celebrity pollsters sometimes make mistakes. Mr. Adams's contention in a recent column that an urban-rural split is replacing regionalism as the main cleavage in Canadian politics is one of those mistakes.

To start with, Mr. Adams's facts are shaky. He claims the Conservatives were shut out of Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver in the last election. That may be true for the first two cities, but it applies only to the legally defined city of Vancouver, which makes up less than 30 per cent of the greater Vancouver area. In fact, the Tories won seven of 20 seats there, compared to eight for the Liberals and five for the NDP.

Moreover, the Conservatives won every seat in Calgary and Edmonton, seven of eight in Regina and Saskatoon, half of the seats in Winnipeg and Ottawa, all but two in Quebec City, and both seats in St. John's. These are important Canadian cities, not rural villages. [The St. John's ridings include some suburban and even rural areas, though - DP]

[...]

...The Liberals were dominant in Toronto, English-speaking Montreal, and downtown Vancouver - not because these are urban areas, but because they are heavily populated by ethnic groups who are Liberal core supporters. If the Liberals were truly the party of urban Canada, they would also sweep Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, etc. - but they aren't, and they don't.

[...]

Urbanites, in Mr. Adams's portrayal, are younger, see themselves as global citizens and feel connected to other countries, experience "greater comfort with change and complexity," love "seizing on new technologies," and are big on diversity. Needless to say, he depicts rural people as deficient in all these wonderful characteristics.

Mr. Adams's not-so-subtle subtext is that Conservatives aren't cool because they're not urban...

The Globe's inimitable John Ibbitson is a card-carrying propagator of the same supercilious line.

Mark C.

America gets Smart

The tiny Smart ForTwo is finally available in the United States, and it looks like a hit:

Roger Penske, the CEO of the company's namesake and the sole importer of the smart brand into the U.S., says that with demand at its current level, dealers could offload 40,000 fortwos to customers this year. The only problem: the U.S. market is only getting 25,000.

Penske is currently talking with Mercedes-Benz, smart's parent company, to see if it can ship more fortwos Stateside in the coming months, but that looks unlikely considering that the smart factory is running at full bore for the year.

The Smart car is an innovative attention-grabber. (Here in Halifax, many Fortwos are being used to promote businesses.) Its fuel economy still can't match the hybrids, however, and there are several small cars with excellent fuel efficiency and much more room at a lower price. As an Autoblog commenter notes, Penske should remember what happened with the PT Cruiser, which was considered a huge hit when they were still relatively hard to find.

Damian P.

Update: there's at least one going around Halifax (promoting a property developer) with one of these on the back window.

Thrown Wright under the bus

Last week, Barack Obama gave a tremendous speech in which he condemned Rev. Wright's ugly social and political views, but did not repudiate the man himself. It seemed to work. This week, however, it looks like the strain is starting to show:

White House hopeful Barack Obama suggests he would have left his Chicago church had his longtime pastor, whose fiery anti-American comments about U.S. foreign policy and race relations threatened Obama's campaign, not stepped down.

"Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn't have felt comfortable staying at the church," Obama said Thursday during a taping of the ABC talk show, "The View." The interview will be broadcast Friday.

Obama had handled this controversy perfectly, and illustrated that he wasn't about to cast aside an old friend and mentor when the political heat is on. But today, he looks like...a politician.

Damian P.

Ta Ta!

There'll alway be an India. Though Jaguars are not native to the sub-continent. I guess they and their compatriots have gone a rovin'.

CAR Magazine had a (suprisingly?) favourable story on Tata's utter opposite to Ford's former Premier Automotive Group vehicles.

As for Jaguar's and Land Rover's future, this column in the WSJ is distinctly pessimistic:

India's Tata Motors must have some magic management dust to sprinkle on Jaguar if it thinks it can turn the troubled British luxury car maker and its storied compatriot Land Rover -- both of which it agreed yesterday to buy from Ford Motor Co. -- into money-making enterprises. Or perhaps it is simply going to sell valuable property in Britain, close the factories and move production to India...

Yet, if Tata makes a go of it, what a great step for the international capitalist conspiracy, third (but advancing) world division.

Mark C.

Update: More on the shifting assembly sands:

Tata Motors Ltd. is dominating the chatter from Detroit to Delhi with its purchase of Jaguar and its $2,500 (U.S.) Nano car, but three old stalwarts are in the driver's seat as the centre of gravity shifts in the global automotive industry.

Even though Brazil, Russia, India and China are set to surpass the traditional locations of North America, Western Europe and Japan as the growth leaders in auto production, Toyota Motor Corp., General Motors Corp. and Volkswagen AG will likely be the most dynamic players - with a heavy assault mounted by some upstart challengers.

"The industry's epicentre is shifting to emerging markets from the mature markets of North American and Western Europe," said Carlos Gomes, Scotiabank economist and auto industry specialist, in his monthly outlook report on the auto industry.

Production capacity in the so-called BRIC countries will surge to 20 million vehicles this year, Mr. Gomes said, exceeding the 17.4 million vehicles that can be built in North America. In fact, almost 90 per cent of the new investment in assembly plants made in the past five years has been outside the three traditional markets, he said...

Note the General there.

The Joy of Despair

The Ottawa Citizen's Andrew Potter deplores the rise of "declinism":

One of the most disturbing aspects of the growing concern over climate change is the giddy delight with which some members of the left await the coming global catastrophe. Of course they don't admit to being delighted. Instead, they claim to be extremely upset about the prospect of melting ice caps, rising sea levels, drought, flooding, crop failure, species extinction and so on. But let's be honest, listening to a global warming hysteric rhyme off the terrible and inevitable consequences of driving to work or buying a Big Mac is to hear someone in the rapture of a geo-pornographic fantasy.

Let us call these people "declinists," and their animating philosophy "declinism." What motivates declinism is an attitude so pessimistic that it is almost theological: not only are things worse than they used to be, but they're getting worse with every passing year...

...climate change is the ultimate declinist wet dream. Sure, there is a long tradition of declinist hobby horses, including overpopulation, the exhaustion of natural resources and the industrial poisoning of the land and the sea, but climate change is the rug that pulls the whole room together. From cars and consumerism to mass travel, fast food and inexpensive lighting, declinism gathers up everything the left dislikes about contemporary society and puts it all in the dock...

There is no point in arguing with declinism, because it is not a set of empirical propositions but an ideology. Over the past hundred years, life got steadily better by almost any conceivable measure. Life expectancy rose while infant mortality dropped; the air quality of our cities improved, our food got cheaper and more nutritious, and the workplace became safer as wages steadily climbed...

Declinism is both a sin and a betrayal. It is a sin because it displays an utter lack of faith in humanity, believing that we will inevitably abuse the gifts of freedom, knowledge and power and become the agents of our own destruction. It is a betrayal of modernity and of the liberal ideals that have breathed life and hope into human progress for the past 400 years. In its resentment of modernity, the declinist left finds itself in agreement with a broad spectrum of Islamofascists, evangelical nuts and tinfoil-hat anarchists, who equally fear the globalized future and pray for a return to a glorious but thoroughly imaginary past. If it takes a global catastrophe to get us there, so much the better.

They say that politics makes for strange bedfellows. But when it comes to the politics of declinism, the sleeping arrangements are positively perverted.

Terry Glavin has more on these strange bedfellows. While The Spirit of Man discovers this corker (via The Shotgun):

I happened to come across a "Hate-Fest" gathering at an infamous Toronto university today afternoon and took the above photos. A few Palestinian Jihadists disguised as students in collaboration with the Leftists, Homosexuals and other useful idiots showed their pure hatred for Israel, the Jewish people and whatever modernism and democracy stand for. What I don't get...3- What role do the gay and lesbian activists play in the crowd by flying their rainbow flag?..

Mark C.

Update: Mr Potter also writes for Maclean's and has a blog there (via Mark Ch in "Comments").

Why a two-tiered NATO may not be such a bad thing

Robert Kaplan sees some silver in those grey Afghan clouds:

WITH NATO set to hold its annual summit next week in Bucharest, there is concern that the failure of Germany and other members to carry a larger share of the burden in Afghanistan is threatening the alliance’s future. Critics complain that it has become an unequal, two-tiered alliance, with the troops of the United States, Britain, Canada and Holland taking the combat role while Germany, Italy, Spain and other members take refuge in the safe areas, refusing to put their soldiers in danger.

It certainly isn’t fair. Yet predictions of NATO’s decline hold it to an impossible cold war standard. Then, a direct mortal threat to Central Europe in the form of Red Army divisions led to an all-for-one and one-for-all mentality. Now that the threat is more subtle and diverse, NATO’s mandate, structure and personality need to change accordingly.

[...]

Let’s face it, the threat of a Taliban comeback in Afghanistan is not of the same order as the threat Germany faced from the Soviet Union, so is it any wonder that Germany’s attitude has changed? Rather than bully the Germans into doing what they’re not very good at — counterinsurgency — in the violent south of Afghanistan, we should be grateful that they’re doing something they are good at — nation-building — in the relatively peaceful north.

The same holds for countries like Italy and Spain, whose troops are also restricted to northern Afghanistan. In the post-cold-war world, individual NATO members can’t be expected to automatically take part in missions outside the alliance’s traditional European sphere. Participation will be contingent on specific circumstances. And that will lead to an increasingly stratified alliance.

[...]

...countries like the United States and Britain will simply have to carry a heavier burden than others. But what of it? NATO has always operated as a multi-tiered organization. During the cold war, northern countries essentially ran the show while the southern ones went meekly along (except for Greece, which often protested loudly). France, in a fit of Gaullist pique, pulled out of NATO’s unified military structure in 1966, although it remains part of the alliance and took a place on the military committee in 1995.

Had there ever been a land war in Europe, American forces would have done the overwhelming amount of the fighting, so why should Afghanistan and future armed clashes be any different? NATO forces were never deployed in a war zone during the cold war, so the inequalities within the organization were masked...

For now...we must also look to expand appropriate roles for NATO members not inclined toward combat. One option is sea power. Navies make port visits, they protect sea lanes, they allow for access during humanitarian emergencies. The French, Dutch, Norwegians, Germans and Spanish have all been making serious investments in new ships, especially frigates. With the United States Navy concentrating on competition from China in the Pacific, NATO could become the primary naval force to patrol the North Atlantic and Mediterranean...

I especially like that last paragraph. The Euros have very decent navies (Italians too); giving them more maritime responsibility might also allow Canada to reduce our "blue water" (as opposed to off-shore) naval efforts, i.e. destroyers and frigates. I really do not see the need for a significant and expensive Canadian contribution to allies in distant waters. After all it's primarily the Army that our governments use for important foreign policy effects (see Somalia, Balkans, Afstan etc.). It certainly needs to be larger and to have greater budgetary investment.

But, of course, the Navy would scream horribly at any reduced role (look at their determined struggle to retain a submarine capabilty). And building and refitting major naval vessels in Canada is a vote-grabber that no party is ever likely to reliquish.

The Economist, for its part, has a major article on NATO, with nice charts. Note that The Netherlands' defence spending is US $11.1 billion while Canada's is US $18.5 billion. The Netherlands' population is almost exactly half Canada's 33 million. So on a per capita basis their defence budget would be US $22.2 billion. The war mongers.

Mark C.

Loose Change: The Wal-Mart Cut

But do you dial "#961" or "#9611" into the intercom?

Damian P.

"McCainocrats"

It wasn't too long ago that many conservative Republicans were saying they'd vote for Hillary or Obama over McCain. I don't expect this phenomenon to last any longer.

Damian P.

So then?

The Beeb spots something:

American interest in Iraq slumps

I don't think, for its part, the Canadian public has ever had any real interest in Afghanistan (just check the number of comments on Afghan-related guest-posts at this blog). Though our media love to try to stir things up.

Mark C.

Easter's Child

"Cristiano". Colby Cosh writes about a prominent Italian Muslim's apostasy.

Mark C.

National Defence Minister MacKay chides Germans...

...and Spanish and Italians, for not risking more in Afghanistan. Pretty tough stuff from a Canadian minister--excerpts from an interview at Spiegel Online (I wonder how much coverage our media will give to this--nothing as of 1600 EDT, March 26:

Canada's defense minister is ratcheting up pressure on his NATO allies in Europe, saying Germany's Bundeswehr and other militaries must join the fight in hotly contested southern Afghanistan. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, Peter MacKay argues that Germans should be doing more to stop the Taliban insurgency.

SPIEGEL: Canadian politicians have been very critical of the German decision not to send more troops into southern Afghanistan. Do you think of the Germans as quitters?

MacKay: I don't think of Germans as quitters by any stretch. Their contribution in Afghanistan is very valuable. However, our roles are different. Germany's presence there actually outnumbers Canada's. But they are based primarily in the north, near Kabul [hardly "near" Kabul, dear Peter--at Mazar, and Kunduz and Feyzabad provices, a fair distance and some mountains away away--see maps here and here], while we are based in the south -- in Kandahar, where some of the heaviest fighting in Afghanistan is going on. The criticism centers around burden sharing, about that combat versus non-combatant role.

SPIEGEL: You mean: You don’t want to do the "dirty work" of fighting and dying anymore.

MacKay: I understand there are domestic challenges in Germany when it comes to troop deployment. Yet, there are also international responsibilities that we all share. Canada takes its role seriously, and we have had more than 80 casualties in Afghanistan. We are not criticizing other countries for not being there. We are simply suggesting that in a NATO mission such as this it puts a lot of pressure on a few countries if there is not the possibility to spread out the more dangerous parts of this mission. We don’t want to see a two-tiered NATO. All members have to contribute what they can.

SPIEGEL: You want more German troops in southern Afghanistan?

MacKay: Absolutely. We want more French, Spanish, Italian troops in the south, too. Just look at what countries are there or were there: The Romanians, the Estonians and the Danes [not to mention the Brits, Dutch and Aussies]. These are countries that arguably have less military capacity than Germany.

SPIEGEL: But that would be very unpopular with the German public. What case would you make to voters here?

MacKay: Germany is the beneficiary of a stable Afghanistan that is no longer an exporter of terrorism. All of us have a self-interest in containing that threat. That means ultimately: to sacrifice the lives of young men and women, as part of a broader effort that has the backing of a United Nations Security Council resolution...

Meanwhile French President Sarkozy continues his dance of the seven veils towards a combat commitment:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said he will send more troops to Afghanistan to support Nato's mission.

Mr Sarkozy, who is on a state visit to Britain, said he would make the offer at next week's Nato summit in the Romanian capital, Bucharest.

[...]

In a speech to the British parliament in London, Mr Sarkozy said defeat to Taleban insurgents was not an option.

"In Afghanistan something essential is being played out," he said.

"France has proposed a strategy [that is new] to its allies in the Atlantic alliance to enable the Afghan people and their legitimate government to build peace.

"If these proposals are accepted, during the summit in Bucharest, France will propose reinforcing its military presence."

Mr Sarkozy did not say how many more troops he was proposing to send...

Nor where: south with the Canadians or east with the Americans? From the Financial Times story at the last link:

Mr Sarkozy, who begins a state visit to London today, has come under strong diplomatic pressure from Canada to send French troops to the south of Afghanistan to help hard-pressed Canadian forces.

But it is understood France's military would prefer to go to the east, where the Nato contingent is under US command.

This would make it easier for French troops to work with their compatriots in teams mentoring the Afghan army in nearby Wardak, Logar and Kapisa provinces.

A deployment in the east would also be easier to supply from Kabul, and would free US troops to help the Canadians.

France is also considering sending back a contingent of its special forces to join the US-led mission against al-Qaeda...

That's the dreaded and distasteful Operation Enduring Freedom, folks.

Mark C.

Update: The Toronto Star's Allan Woods finally picks up the story, March 28. Nobody else has as far as I can see.

"At least now we know how Sean Penn will vote"

So says Captain Ed, in response to this. The Chavez anti-endorsement should figure heavily in McCain's campaign ads.

(This is really about Chavez's pervasive fear of the Boogeyman, of course.)

Damian P.

A blast from the (Serbian) past

The Yugo lives!

Damian P.

"Bottom Stories of the Day"

From from the WSJ BEST OF THE WEB TODAY:

• "Ottawa to Receive CFL Franchise: Report"--headline, CBC.ca, March 24

Sigh. It's rough riding for the CFL here. We now have a "conditional" franchise.

In 1960, when I was thirteen, my family was living in Concord, Mass. Ottawa made it into the Grey Cup, played in Vancouver. I was a Rider fanatic then and my blessed parents were so kind as to fly me up to Ottawa--a very big and expensive deal in those days--so I could watch the game on TV at my grandparents. We won. The good old days.

Mark C.

Damian adds: two CFL teams have already folded in Ottawa, but they're getting yet another chance. Meanwhile, still no team in Halifax. Where's the justice?

Live from Ottawa

Two very different perspectives on the CHRC hearing, from Deborah Gyapong and Dr. Dawg.

Damian P.

Update: Steyn weighs in.

Bomb, bomb, bomb--bomb, bomb Sudan!

Mark Helperin wants the US to threaten to strike hard at Sudan, and do so if necessary all by itself. Certainly without support from other Western nations, without UN Security Council authorization, and without any clear plan about what to do after the bombing. What sheer lunacy. And what a way to alienate even further just about the whole of the international "community" (quotes for a reason) and really, really, really piss off far too many more Muslims. One can almost feel a palpable lust for action:

[...]

The first requirement of a cordon sanitaire, however, would be to cut all air links, which would require carrier-based air strikes to destroy the Sudanese air force’s 51 combat aircraft, 25 transports, and 44 helicopters (all figures from the International Institute for Strategic Studies); its fuel, munitions and maintenance facilities; and the few runways capable of supporting heavy transports and fighters. Were Chad to approve a small expeditionary force of America’s A-10 tactical-air-support planes, which it probably would, just a few of these could closely suppress remnant Sudanese armor and check any force of the janjaweed militia sufficiently concentrated to overcome local means of self-defense.

Moreover, none of this would prove necessary were the United States willing to go further and threaten or accomplish the destruction of the Sudanese regime’s means to power...

The precise targeting of a substantial portion of its 1,200 armored vehicles and 1,100 artillery pieces; its telecommunications exchanges and microwave towers; its dozen small naval vessels; its aircraft, runways, munitions, military headquarters, logistical stores, security ministries and presidential residences would be only a few days’ work for long-range bombers dispatched from remote bases, and the planes of two carrier task forces hastened to the Red Sea.

[...]

...only in the worst case would a military strike actually be necessary. One of the chief attractions of such an initiative is that, if properly directed, it could, one way or another, military strike or not, accomplish its aims...

...The threat itself would likely be enough. If not, then to carry it out in the present circumstances would be honorable, right and overdue...

In fact it's a threat that would not be believed. No US president would carry it out unilaterally in the forseeable future, and no Congress would approve. This kind of mad thinking is what makes many sometimes wonder about the mentality of some Americans. And the NY Times published the piece.

Not that things aren't deteriorating in Darfur, with China as Khartoum's godfather. I just don't see any easy or quick solution. Sometimes we just have to face the fact that it's a rotten old world--and try to muddle through to something a bit better, if possible.

Mark C.

Update: This is just about as realistic:

Canada calls on Sudan to stop attacking Darfur

Plus ça change

An excerpt from "An English Easter", posted by David Frum:

Meanwhile the National Union of Teachers are simultaneously calling for (a) the elimination of Christian private schools, (b) instruction of all children in the elements of Islam, (c) acceptance of headscarves in classrooms and (d) higher pay for themselves. In a world of flux, it’s reassuring to see that some things never change.

A Google search for the union produces this:

NUT on the Web

I think a plural is called for.

Mark C.

Bobbies stampede to Calgary, not to Ottawa

Apparently there's no cop life like it in Alberta (via Norman's Spectator):

Jeff Locke spent 14 years in the Metropolitan police; the ex-marine was in the riot squad, the surveillance team and the counter-terrorism branch. But on Wednesday, the 45-year-old veteran could be found drinking a carrot, apple and ginger smoothie in a shopping mall in Calgary, Alberta, western Canada.

He wasn't on holiday. He was at work, patrolling the shops and shiny skyscrapers alongside another British officer, Kevin Whitley. All morning there had been no crimes to foil - though one man did ask for directions - but the pair seemed blissfully happy, not to mention well-loved. "No joke, around 10-15 times a day, a member of the public comes up to me and tells me what a good job I'm doing," said Locke. "In 14 years working for the Met, I think that happened twice."

They are not the only British police officers keeping Calgary free from crime. For the past 18 months, the city has been aggressively recruiting British bobbies with its "UK experienced officer campaign". A significant proportion of the new officers patrolling Calgary have British accents - of the 50 extra policemen and women the force was told to recruit last year, 48 came from the UK.

When the 58-strong class of 2008 touch down later this year, nearly 10% of Calgary's entire force will be British...

But otherwise Canada is hardly a preferred destination for Brits:

...of the 207,000 Britons who emigrated in 2006, 31,457 went to Australia, compared with 6,542 to Canada, of whom 1,118 went to Alberta...

Those bobbies sure won't be coming to Ottawa, given our city's strong (and unnecessary) bilingualism policy--details here. In 2006 75% of residents spoke English at home, and only 10% French. Moreover, only 13,000 spoke French only.

Nonetheless, over the next decade our city government will become ever-more francisized. Why?

Mark C.

Mis-sniped

Hillary told a porkie:

Video footage of Sen. Hillary Clinton's 1996 trip to Bosnia offers a contradictory description to the dramatic account the Democratic presidential candidate delivered in a recent speech.

At an event last week in Washington, Clinton said she and her crew landed in an "evasive maneuver under sniper fire."

She described her trip to Tuzla as if it were a scene from "Saving Private Ryan."

"There was supposed to be some sort of greeting ceremony, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles," she said.

[...]

Video footage from the trip reveals no visible threat and a brief greeting ceremony on the tarmac. A little Bosnian schoolgirl read them a poem. The first lady paused for pictures. She and daughter Chelsea even climbed up on a guard tower.

[...]

Clinton revised her Bosnia story, admitting there was a "misstatement" in her account describing running with her head down to get into the vehicles...

Some experience, some bullets. Allahpundit has a nice title, and some speculation on how the video surfaced:

CBS reporter on Hillary’s Bosnia trip: Yes, I can confirm she’s a shameless liar

Mark C.

Helping this country is futile

NATO has been at it for years, yet look at the current situation. Surely it is time for the foreigners to get out and let the locals settle it themselves (let me know if you recognized the place):

"[...]

For years the electricity grid has been so unreliable that just keeping the lights on in his retail stores has been a daily struggle...

Even if...can overcome those political hurdles, its economy has been so devastated by war that it imports even staples like milk and meat. It is ranked by Transparency International, the Berlin-based anticorruption watchdog, as the world’s fourth most corrupt economy, after Cameroon, Cambodia and Albania. Whether...can build a successful economy will help determine whether it can become a full-fledged country...or will remain a poor adopted orphan of the West...

For the foreseeable future, Western analysts say, ...'s economy will remain dependent on generous aid, its security assured by 16,000 NATO troops...

Scrap metal from old cars is ...’s biggest export. Infrastructure is creaky, businesspeople complain that bribery is commonplace and unemployment is about 50 percent, government officials say..."

I'm awaiting the droning, gloom- and doom-laden CBC documentary on the country (Milnet.ca comment thread here). More material to support the "no real hope in sight" view for the CBC can be found here.

Damian P.

"6 Endangered Species That Aren't Endangered Enough"

A list that will creep you out for the rest of the day. Number one is a bit surprising. Number three is...a plant:

...Why is it called the corpse flower? Because it smells like rotting dead bodies. Why does it smell of rotting dead bodies? To attract the armies of flesh eating beetles that pollinate it. Why does it exist? Because Satan is real, and He hates us very much.

Damian P.

Live-blogging the Lemire hearing

Kady O'Malley is there. So far, like nearly every legal proceeding, it's pretty dull. (Real life isn't like Matlock, folks.)

Damian P.

Afghanistan and the fact-challenged NDP

A letter of mine in the Globe and Mail (full text subscriber only):

Feeding the NDP

MARK COLLINS

March 25, 2008

Ottawa -- In your article Tories Knew 1,000 French Troops Were Pledged Before Manley Recommended Them, MP Asserts (front page, March 24), NDP defence critic Dawn Black says "there is no way of knowing yet whether the American troops sent to Kandahar will work under NATO command or remain part of the U.S. Operation Enduring Freedom." Well, yes, there is a way.

According to an Agence France-Presse story on March 18, the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit - the soldiers who have been arriving in Kandahar - will "work under the command of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force." And Marine Corps News reported on March 15 that "this deployment is in support and under the command of NATO's [ISAF]." Does that help?

The last sentence is the Globe's; this is what I wrote:

But I guess the NDP's defence spokeswoman doesn't bother to follow the media on her subject. After all, facts are irrelevant to NDP positions.

A Norman's Spectator LETTER OF THE DAY. I should have called the Marines "troops", not "soldiers". Sorry about that.

Mark C.

TG meets F1

Formula One coverage in the UK is returning to the Beeb.

ITV's coverage, which aired on TSN, was okay. (It's just not the same without Murray, of course.) But it looks like the BBC coverage will include plenty of Top Gear crossovers:

In a surprise move, ITV dumped Formula One after 12 years, claiming that it was not commercially viable despite the emergence of Lewis Hamilton as a British contender for the world championship.

The BBC plans a “brighter, bolder, faster” presentation, screening races live via broadband and mobile phones as well as conventional television.

[...]

Coverage will be influenced by the success of the Jeremy Clarkson-fronted Top Gear when the five-year deal begins next year. Dominic Coles, BBC director of sport rights, said: “When Lewis Hamilton did a test lap on Top Gear it got more viewers than the Brazilian Grand Prix. Bernie was very impressed with the Top Gear proposition and there will be cross-fertilisation between the show and the races.”

Clarkson and James May, Hammond’s co-conspirators, will also join in the grand prix fun but insiders believe “The Hamster” has a special affinity with drivers after his crash.

Maybe The Stig will compete in some F1 races - assuming he isn't already doing so, under a secret identity...

Damian P.

"The Audacity of Hopelessness"

The war in Iraq rages on, and the economy is looking pretty shaky these days. Surely there's no way the Democrats can lose the Presidential election, is there?

Oh, they'll find a way, my friends. They always find a way:

In short, Hillary Clinton’s presidential prospects continue to dim. The door is closing. Night is coming. The end, however, is not near.

Last week, an important Clinton adviser told Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen (also of Politico) that Clinton had no more than a 10 percent chance of getting the nomination. Now, she’s probably down to a 5 percent chance.

Five percent.

Let’s take a look at what she’s going to put her party through for the sake of that 5 percent chance: The Democratic Party is probably going to have to endure another three months of daily sniping. For another three months, we’ll have the Carvilles likening the Obamaites to Judas and former generals accusing Clintonites of McCarthyism. For three months, we’ll have the daily round of résumé padding and sulfurous conference calls. We’ll have campaign aides blurting “blue dress” and only-because-he’s-black references as they let slip their private contempt.

For three more months (maybe more!) the campaign will proceed along in its Verdun-like pattern. There will be a steady rifle fire of character assassination from the underlings, interrupted by the occasional firestorm of artillery when the contest touches upon race, gender or patriotism. The policy debates between the two have been long exhausted, so the only way to get the public really engaged is by poking some raw national wound.

For the sake of that 5 percent, this will be the sourest spring. About a fifth of Clinton and Obama supporters now say they wouldn’t vote for the other candidate in the general election. Meanwhile, on the other side, voters get an unobstructed view of the Republican nominee. John McCain’s approval ratings have soared 11 points. He is now viewed positively by 67 percent of Americans. A month ago, McCain was losing to Obama among independents by double digits in a general election matchup. Now McCain has a lead among this group.

For three more months, Clinton is likely to hurt Obama even more against McCain, without hurting him against herself. And all this is happening so she can preserve that 5 percent chance.

Via Ed at Hot Air, who's bursting with schadenfreude.

Even though she's my least favorite of the three remaining major candidates, I actually feel a little bit sorry for Clinton. Really, I do. I just can't help feeling for any politician, regardless of party, who sees her seemingly insurmountable lead wither away so steadily.

But if Brooks is right, and her campaign keeps sniping away at Obama just to prop up a lost cause, that sympathy will dissipate mighty quickly.

Damian P.

Update: note to James Carville: you're not helping. (via InstaPundit)

The artist now known as Abdullah DeLancey

Ezra Levant meets the most interesting people.

Damian P.

The lies about Iraq...

...had a very important German angle (not to excuse US intelligence for not checking better). From Spiegel Online:

1)THE REAL STORY OF 'CURVEBALL'

How German Intelligence Helped Justify the US Invasion of Iraq

2) SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH IRAQ WMD SLEUTH DAVID KAY

German Intelligence Was 'Dishonest, Unprofessional and Irresponsible'

Mark C.

Damian adds: Jeffrey Goldberg's entry in Slate's "How Did I Get Iraq Wrong?" series also has a German angle.

All these articles are linked here, and they're essential reading. Hitch remains unrepentant. But William Saletan brings up an important point: the Iraq war not only cost the United States thousands of lives and trillions of dollars, but the opportunity costs - that is, what could have been done with the effort expended upon Iraq - have been tremendous:

...The problem with dumb war isn't that it's war. The problem is that it costs you the military, economic, and political resources to fight a smart war. Everything Bush wrongly attributed to Iraq turns out to be true of Iran. But we can't confront Iran with the force it probably requires, because we wasted our resources in Iraq. Americans, having been suckered in Iraq, won't accept evidence of Iran's nuclear program. Countries that might have supported us in a strike on Iran won't do so now, since we led them astray. Our coffers have been emptied to pay for the Iraq occupation. Our troops are physically and spiritually exhausted. In the name of strength, Bush has made us weak.

Obamabelonging

This piece by a British journalist strikes me as likely being close to the truth:

He started by insisting that America should take him for what he was as an individual - a talented, eloquent politician who would embody "the change" that the nation needed.

In the early months, when he was winning primaries in states with almost entirely white populations, he never used the "r" word. This was the man who was going to transcend racial politics once and for all.

The fact that he could not is his - and America's - tragedy...

Mr Obama has accepted the mantle of black resentment: the bitterness of slavery and segregation, the triumphs of the civil rights movement, the continuing struggle for equal opportunity and achievement. They are all his now, an intrinsic part of the package in which he offers himself to the electorate, even though, ironically, they have little to do with his own life experience.

He is not descended from slaves, nor was his childhood marked by poverty, segregated schooling or social deprivation. His father was not African-American but entirely African and his mother, as we all know, was white. He did not grow up in the midst of the ugly hatreds and divisions of the American South, or even with the more subtle, disguised discrimination of the North.

[...]

So what was it all about? It was part of a phenomenon that almost no one who was not born and raised in the United States seems to grasp: the desperate need that Americans feel to be part of a shared ethnic or cultural identity that will give them a sense of rootedness and belonging in the vast, endlessly shifting flux of a country that is a nation but not a people.

I would guess that Mr Obama, who had a personal genealogy even more dislocated and idiosyncratic than most, wanted to belong. He wanted a community that could enfold him and make him feel that he was part of something that was recognisable and self-affirming...

Mark C.

Update: Then there's Mark Steyn's view:

...in Philadelphia the senator attempted to universalize his peculiar judgment — to claim that, given America’s history, it would be unreasonable to expect black men of Jeremiah Wright’s generation not to peddle hateful and damaging lunacies. Isn’t that — what’s the word? — racist? So much for the post-racial candidate.

Upperdate: Plus the Hawaiian angle, which may help explain Mr Obama's need to find a mainland identity (via WSJ BEST OF THE WEB TODAY). And what about the Indonesian interlude (NBC Nightly News March 14)? At this point my head is spinning.

A completely unbiased list

That a British magazine named Stirling Moss and Jim Clark the two greatest F1 drivers of all time is sheer concidence, I'm sure. But at least they belong near the top of the list. On the other hand...Lewis Hamilton, who has so far raced one full season plus two races, in 30th? Damon Hill in the all-time top 40? (Five places ahead of his legendary father, no less. Maybe they deliberately ranked Graham lower as a defence against allegations of pro-British bias.)

Also, Michael Schumacher relegated to eleventh, behind Mika Hakkinen? Yeesh. (via Autoblog)

Damian P.

It might be a Mustang II, but it's his Mustang II

Car Lust reader Anthony J. Cagle defends the honour of his much-maligned '70s ride.

I actually think the Mustang II wasn't bad looking, though the brown paint job does this example no favors. (I also thought the Subaru XT and Triumph TR7 looked pretty cool, so make of that what you will.)

Damian P.

Can't argue with that logic

A small bunch of neo-Nazi idiots held a march in Calgary this weekend, and Warren Kinsella comes up with an absolutely devastating response to those who support their right to freely express their disgusting views:

So, when [Ezra Levant, Mark Steyn, Jonathan Kay or Keith Martin, all of whom are closet neo-Nazis, as are pretty much everyone else in Canada except Warren Kinsella and Richard Warman] provides the Aryan Guard with the name of the street on which they live, and invite the neo-Nazis to lead a parade through their neighbourhood, I'll applaud their willingness to put their money where their big mouths are.

Next up, Kinsella will respond to Levant and Steyn with a series of "yo Momma so fat" jokes. (That said, maybe people on the other end of the political spectrum can start using this line of argument. "You support a woman's right to abortion? Well, when you start allowing abortions to be carried out in your backyard, I'll applaud your willingness to put your money where your big mouth is.")

Damian P.

Update: you can try all you want to parody Kinsella's childish petulance, but the guy just makes it impossible.

Update II: on a related note, Ezra Levant actually agrees with Haroon Siddiqui, albeit not in the way Siddiqui intended.

What might have been

The Calgary Herald's Mark Milke compares pre-Castro Cuba to other nations which were even less well-off at the time:

In 1958, the year before Fidel Castro came to power in a revolution and promised prosperity, democracy and the restoration of Cuba's 1940 constitution, the Caribbean island, while troubled by poverty, a corrupt dictator and the American Mafia, was also better off than most developing nations.

While poor compared to the United States, Cuba in 1958 had a per capita GDP of $3,170 according to the OECD. (Canada's was $8,947.). But Cuba outranked all other Latin American countries except four: Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Tellingly, in 1958, the island nation's per person wealth was higher than any East Asian country or colony, save Japan, which barely beat Cuba at only $3,290. Hong Kong had a per capita GDP of $2,924, Singapore's was $2,294, the Philippines' was $1,447, Taiwan's per person GDP stood at $1,387 and South Korea's was $1,112.

Thus in 1958, Cuba was almost as rich as Japan, one and half times as wealthy as Singapore, richer than Hong Kong, and three times as prosperous as South Korea.

Fifty years later, Cuba is one of the poorest countries in Latin America.

Meanwhile, jurisdictions such as Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan (the latter two also had dictators and problems similar to Cuba in the 1950s) have long eclipsed Cuba. They've done so not only in per capita wealth, but in measurements Castro's defenders point to when they assert the Marxist revolution "worked," such as in health care and education. [via Arts & Letters Daily]

Yeah, but do any of their leaders look so cool on a T-shirt?

Damian P.

Compare and contrast

Two approaches to Tibet:

Germany Warns China Olympics at Risk

Canada urges Beijing to talk with Dalai Lama

The Conservative government sure got bushwhacked. A Globe and Mail editorial March 21 takes a typically feckless Canadian stance (full text payer only):

[...]

Canada and other countries must respond by placing Tibet on the international agenda. Through public statements and diplomatic channels, and by raising the subject at international forums, they must seek to force from China's leadership an agreement to allow human rights organizations and journalists access to Tibet. They must also insist on negotiations leading to genuine political autonomy for Tibet, a process that would permit the freedom of religious practice there, and the eventual return of the Dalai Lama and his adherents from exile...

"Force" my futile foot.

Mark C.

Guess what? The Pope is Catholic

The Ottawa Citizen's John Robson put things simply and clearly:

It's Easter and time for the annual journalistic display of baffled hostility to Christianity. On cue the Roman Catholic archbishop of Ottawa, Terrence Prendergast, pops up with the suggestion that adherents to his church who don't actually observe its rules should not expect to enjoy all the benefits of membership. A predictable chorus of howls erupted.

[...]

Remember, people who say they are Roman Catholics necessarily claim to believe the Pope is the heir of St. Peter to whom Christ gave the keys of the kingdom. This belief may be false or even foolish. But it's no secret. And Canada is a free country so you are free to reject it. The one thing you can't do is reject the authority of the Bishop of Rome yet remain in his Church, any more than you can go to a chess club and deny that its bishops move diagonally.

It is especially pitiful to hear politicians say they are obliged to represent their constituents, not their faith. They wouldn't say that about their economic beliefs, and you'd think salvation mattered more than stagflation. An honest and lucid man would surely tell voters he holds certain fundamental beliefs that entail certain policy positions, and he'd invite only those who share most or all of those positions to vote for him.

[...]

What scandalizes moderns about the church, I think, is not what it believes but simply that it believes. We are perfectly at ease with Christian clergy who deny the divinity of Christ or the resurrection, don druid suits and praise shariah law, or claim they can be at the same time priests and imams. Just as we are happy to give tenure to academics who proclaim that there is no truth, and give large fees to artists who insist that their works do not communicate or uplift and are not meant to. But we are baffled that the Pope is Catholic and if you don't like it you need to find, or found, another church...

A long-term view (which, even though an atheist, I share):

Without Christianity, our society is doomed

[...]

We imagine we can ditch Christianity and yet the good things we have inherited in our way of life will continue. They will not. Christianity formed Western civilisation and is so consubstantial with it that if Christianity goes, the lot goes with it. Let T.S. Eliot, writing in 1934, give us a text to think about this Easter: "Do you need to be told that even such modest attainments as you can boast in the way of polite society will hardly survive the Faith to which they owe their significance?"

*The Rev Dr Peter Mullen is Rector of St Michael's, Cornhill and Chaplain to the Stock Exchange

Maybe the reverend is just a filthy lapdog of the cunning capitalists. Now some good news:

Qatar hosts its first Christian church

But, guess what again: a United Church of Canada minister is on the job (Globe and Mail reporter Michael Valpy seems to approve):

Taking Christ out of Christianity

Avant garde pastor teaches a new Christianity where the way you live is more important than beliefs

Happy Bunny Day! The non-rodent is risen.

Mark C.

Update: Mr Robson is on the ichannel programme, It's Your Government, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 1930, and Sundays at 2130--you can also watch online.

Obamaspeak: "A Brilliant Fraud"

Charles Krauthammer does not swoon over the candidate's speech:

[...]

The question is why didn't he leave that church? Why didn't he leave -- why doesn't he leave even today -- a pastor who thundered not once but three times from the pulpit (on a DVD the church proudly sells) "God damn America"? Obama's 5,000-word speech, fawned over as a great meditation on race, is little more than an elegantly crafted, brilliantly sophistic justification of that scandalous dereliction.

His defense rests on two central propositions: (a) moral equivalence and (b) white guilt.

(a) Moral equivalence. Sure, says Obama, there's Wright, but at the other "end of the spectrum" there's Geraldine Ferraro, opponents of affirmative action and his own white grandmother, "who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe." But did she shout them in a crowded theater to incite, enrage and poison others?

"I can no more disown [Wright] than I can my white grandmother." What exactly was Grandma's offense? Jesse Jackson himself once admitted to the fear he feels from the footsteps of black men on the street. And Harry Truman was known to use epithets for blacks and Jews in private, yet is revered for desegregating the armed forces and recognizing the first Jewish state since Jesus's time. He never spread racial hatred. Nor did Grandma.

Yet Obama compares her to Wright. Does he not see the moral difference between the occasional private expression of the prejudices of one's time and the use of a public stage to spread racial lies and race hatred?

(b) White guilt. Obama's purpose in the speech was to put Wright's outrages in context. By context, Obama means history. And by history, he means the history of white racism. Obama says, "We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country," and then he proceeds to do precisely that. What lies at the end of his recital of the long train of white racial assaults from slavery to employment discrimination? Jeremiah Wright, of course.

This contextual analysis of Wright's venom, this extenuation of black hate speech as a product of white racism, is not new. It's the Jesse Jackson politics of racial grievance, expressed in Ivy League diction and Harvard Law nuance. That's why the speech made so many liberal commentators swoon: It bathed them in racial guilt while flattering their intellectual pretensions. An unbeatable combination.

But Obama was supposed to be new. He flatters himself as a man of the future transcending the anger of the past as represented by his beloved pastor. Obama then waxes rhapsodic about the hope brought by the new consciousness of the young people in his campaign. Then answer this, Senator: If Wright is a man of the past, why would you expose your children to his vitriolic divisiveness? This is a man who curses America and who proclaimed moral satisfaction in the deaths of 3,000 innocents at a time when their bodies were still being sought at Ground Zero. It is not just the older congregants who stand and cheer and roar in wild approval of Wright's rants, but young people as well. Why did you give $22,500 just two years ago to a church run by a man of the past who infects the younger generation with precisely the racial attitudes and animus you say you have come unto us to transcend?

Mark C.

Easter weekend

I'm back on the frozen tundra of St. John's, so posting might be light until Monday. Have a great holiday weekend, but don't eat too many Cadbury's Creme Eggs. (Mmmm...Cadbury's Creme Eggs...)

Damian P.

Blue on Blue

Barack Obama's association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, in and of itself, probably won't sink his campaign. His hypocrisy just might:

...nothing of what [Geraldine] Ferraro said came close to the volcanic demagoguery of Jeremiah Wright. Yet Obama chose to have his campaign go into hyperventilating outrage over Ferraro while excusing the racist and anti-American rhetoric of his pastor, spiritual mentor, and political adviser.

Obama may wish that he hadn’t chased Ferraro out of the Hillary Clinton campaign for another reason other than the obvious hypocrisy. She no longer has to worry about how her speech reflects on Hillary, and so Ferraro is much freer to speak her mind on this issue. Calling Wright a racist bigot may just be the opening stanza for Ferraro, who clearly is not in the mood for reconciliation. Ferraro will keep this story alive in the headlines until Obama backs off of the comparisons and apologizes, or until he winds up losing the nomination for this and other missteps in the controversy.

This isn’t going away. If Ferraro doesn’t get appeased, it may have only just started.

Meanwhile, John McCain seems to have been pretty quiet about this controversy - a wise move, considering his own ties to some dubious religious leaders. (Not nearly as close as Obama's ties to Wright, of course, but enough to raise charges of hypocrisy.) Better to sit back and let the Democratic Party tear itself apart.

Damian P.

A fine Canadian welcome

An all-too-typical letter in the Globe and Mail (full text payers only):

Them's fightin' men

GEORGE DUNBAR

March 19, 2008

Toronto -- That was certainly an impressive photo showing the macho, "give 'em hell" style of U.S. Marines as they marched into Afghanistan (Expectations High As Marines Pour Into Kandahar - March 18 [sadly the photo not included]).

I suppose it was those cigars, clamped so firmly by the jaws of the warriors, that was really impressive. Were they emulating Clint Eastwood or Tony Soprano?

More on the Marines arriving here, and links to the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit here, here and here (unofficial). Semper Fi!

Damian P.

Our pernicious professoriat

Even worse than Prof. Michael Byers. Michael Mandel, professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto, wrote this piece of vile bile in the Ottawa Citizen, March 17 :

We're in it with Bush

Be warned. I won't bother to excerpt from it. I did send this letter to the editor, not published (bit too technical I guess):

The US does not control ISAF

Michael Mandel, in his article about Afghanistan ("We're in it with Bush", March 17), claims that "ISAF [Interntional Security Assistance Force] does not answer directly to OEF [US Operation Enduring Freedon] but must defer to it." That is not true.

ISAF is directly subordinate to NATO's Allied Joint Force Command Headquarters in The Netherlands, led by German General Egon Ramms. That headquarters is itself under NATO's Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Belgium, led by US General John Craddock. But SHAPE itself is under the political direction of NATO's North Atlantic Council, the organization's senior decision-making body. There is no requirement for ISAF to "defer" to OEF in this command structure; if there were I'm sure we would have heard about it from the German general mentioned above--not to mention various members of the Council such as the French.

When Mr Mandel goes on to write that all foreign troops in Afghanistan "...in essence...are under permanent American command..." he is simply continuing his disingenuous effort to turn readers against Canada's Afghan mission by further stressing the Yankee bogey man.

It should be kept in mind that, while the current ISAF comander Gen. Dan McNeill is American, his predecessor was British Gen. David Richards. Hardly "permanent American command".

References:

http://www.nato.int/isaf/structure/comstruc/index.html
http://www.nato.int/issues/isaf/index.html
http://www.nato.int/docu/handbook/2001/hb070101.htm http://www.nato.int/isaf/docu/pressreleases/2007/02-february/pr070204-086.html

For Pete's sake, the US would love to control ISAF, strip away those caveats, and deploy others' troops where it wanted.

Meanwhile:

UN extends its own Afghan mission

Mark C.

Update: A letter sent to the Globe and Mail, March 21:

Federal NDP leader Jack Layton is constantly calling for the United Nations to take over, in some ill-defined fashion, from NATO in Afghanistan. I wonder if Mr Layton will respond to the latest UN Security Council resolution on Afghanistan, passed unanimously on March 20.

This resolution extends the mandate for one year of the (very large) United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan--a mission about which Mr Layton never seems to speak, and about which one can thus only conclude he is ignorant. The resolution in addition specifically calls upon the Afghan government to cooperate with NATO's International Security Assistance Force, and with the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom coalition, to deal with the threat to Afghanistan's security posed by the Taliban and Al-Qaida.

The resolution moreover condemns the use by the Taliban of civilians as human shields, and expresses strong concern about the use by the Taliban of children.

What say you Mr Layton to what the UN actually says? Could the Security Council be wrong? If so, how does the NDP propose to set it right?

References:
http://www.ndp.ca/page/6134
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs//2008/sc9281.doc.htm
http://www.unama-afg.org/

Why don't our media ask Mr Layton (and Green Party leader Elizabeth "Airhead" May) such questions?

Obama and his church

Many observers say Barack Obama could have chosen to leave Rev. Wright's church when the reverend's odious political views became clear. True, but Father Raymond J. de Souza explains why it isn't that simple:

In Philadelphia, Obama sought to explain, but not excuse, his pastor’s comments. In refusing to cast aside the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Obama made an important point about what it means to belong to a community, and to belong to a church.

“He contains within him the contradictions — the good and the bad — of the community that he has served diligently for so many years,” Obama said of Wright. “I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.” Later the same day, speaking to ABC News, Obama added: “You certainly don’t disown the church.”

That alone was a refreshing contrast from the usual campaign practise, in which even long-time friends are casually cast aside if they become a political liability. Obama offers a stark contrast to the Clintons, who do not think twice about jettisoning either personnel or principle in their lifelong pursuit of power.

Obama’s point is that he belongs to a certain community, to a certain church, and he carries with him both their strengths and weaknesses. Many critics have said that while you don’t choose your family, you do choose your church, and so it says something about Obama that he chose the Reverend Wright’s congregation. Yet even in black America, where the pastor defines to a great degree his congregation, the church is more than its pastor.

Indeed, at times the congregation is what it is in spite of its pastor. The church is the body of Christ, not a mere collection of like-minded souls, and to belong to Him means belonging, in part, to the other sinners who He also claims as His own.

In choosing to “condemn the words, but not condemn the man” Obama may have exposed himself to political danger. Yet it showed a deeper understanding of the church, and not only the black church. If we are bold enough to claim for ourselves some share in the merit of the saints, we too are implicated in the shame of the sinners. Sin ought to have no friend in the church — including the sin of prejudice and hatred — but if sinners have no friend in the church, then it will be a very empty place indeed.

[...]

...Barack Obama long ago decided that he belonged to the black community despite his white upbringing, and that at the heart of the black community was the black church. It was there that he learned about Jesus Christ and came to faith. It has sustained him since and, no doubt, helped his political career. He has stood with it in good times; it does credit to him that he still stands firm now.

Damian P.

India, Algeria, Tibet

Anne Appelbaum makes the imperial comparison:

...Though we don't usually think of it this way, China is, in fact, a vast, anachronistic, territorial empire, within which one dominant ethnic group, the Han Chinese, rules over a host of reluctant "captive nations." To keep the peace, the Chinese use methods not so different from those once used by Austro-Hungary or czarist Russia: political manipulation, secret police repression, and military force.

But, then, modern China bears many surprising resemblances to the empires of the past in other ways, too. Like its Soviet imperial predecessor, for example, China encompasses both an "inner" empire, of which Tibet and Xinjiang are the most prominent components, and an "outer" empire, consisting most notably of its Burmese and North Korean clients. Like its French and British predecessors, the Chinese empire must wrestle constantly with nations whose languages, religions, and customs differ sharply from its own and whose behavior is, therefore, unpredictable. And like all its predecessors, the Chinese imperial class cares deeply about the pacification of the imperial periphery, more so than one might think.

For proof that this is so, look no further than the biography of Hu Jintao, the current Chinese president — and also the former Communist Party boss of Tibet. In 1988 and 1989, at the time of the last major riots, Hu was responsible both for the brutal repression of dissident Tibetan monks and dissidents and for what the Dalai Lama has subsequently called China's policy of "cultural genocide": the importation of thousands of ethnic Han Chinese into Tibet's cities in order to dilute and eventually outbreed the ethnic Tibetan population.

Clearly, the repression of Tibet matters enormously to the members of China's ruling clique, or they would not have promoted Hu, its mastermind, so far. The pacification of Tibet must also be considered a major political and propaganda success, or it would not have been copied by the Chinese-backed Burmese regime last year and repeated by the Chinese themselves in Tibet last week. Tibet is to China what Algeria once was to France, what India once was to imperial Britain, what Poland was to czarist Russia: the most unreliable, the most intransigent, and at the same time the most symbolically significant province of the empire.

Damian P.

Unlikely free-speech advocates

The Organization of the Islamic Conference is proposing to somehow suppress "defamation" of religion through legal action. But the Saudi parliament (Saudi Arabia has a parliament?) turned it down:

The Saudi Arabian Parliament Monday rejected a recommendation to adopt an international agreement that forbids insulting of religions, prophets and clerics, the Saudi daily Al-Watan reported.

Seventy-seven members of parliament rejected the recommendation, claiming that if they adopted the agreement, they would have had to recognize the legitimacy of idolatrous religions, such as Buddhism.

The recommendation was put forward by MP Muhammad Al-Quweiha's. In his recommendation, Al- Quweiha's wrote that the Saudi Foreign Ministry should cooperate with the Arab and Islamic bloc in the United Nations to adopt the agreement.

"The concept of religions varies from one country to the other and from one culture to the other. Buddhism and Bahaism are considered religions in some countries, but must Muslims respect these sects and not condemn them," said MP Khalil Al-Khalil, who rejected the recommendation. [via Best of the Web]

If they had the cojones to specifically demand that everyone else in the world make Islam free from criticism, while insisting that every other faith is fair game, they'd do it. So this is a kind of progress, I guess. (Ironically, these guys seem to understand freedom of expression more than some Canadians.)

On a related note, guess who's finally gotten around to complaining about the Danish cartoons of blasphemy?

Damian P.

Dance, dance, dance or, "irrational exuberance"

The Economist tries to make sense of financial madness (greed a factor):

[...]

Yet, like Wile E. Coyote running over the edge of a cliff, financial services kept on going. A service industry that, in effect, exists to help people write, trade and manage financial claims on future cashflows raced ahead of the real economy, even as the ground beneath it fell away.

[...]

This process has turned investment banks into debt machines that trade heavily on their own accounts. Goldman Sachs is using about $40 billion of equity as the foundation for $1.1 trillion of assets. At Merrill Lynch, the most leveraged, $1 trillion of assets is teetering on around $30 billion of equity. In rising markets, gearing like that creates stellar returns on equity. When markets are in peril, a small fall in asset values can wipe shareholders out.

[...]

Sooner or later, though, the music stops. And when it does, the very mechanisms that create abundant credit will also destroy it. Most things attract buyers when the price falls. But not necessarily securities. Because financial intermediaries need to limit their leverage in a falling market, they sell assets (again, the system is pro-cyclical). That lowers the prices of securities, which puts further strain on balance sheets leading to further sales. And so the screw turns until those without leverage will buy...

I really can only dimly understand what this is all about. Comments welcome.

Mark C.

Damian adds: here's a cartoon on the subject. (Via The Volokh Conspiracy)

2008

Arthur C. Clarke has died. This is what most people remember, in my view the greatest movie ever--because it is a "movie" in which images are far and away the most important means of communicating. Thank you too Mr Kubrick.

Mark C.

"A great moment in diplomatic timing"

Norman Spector's acid comment on this Globe and Mail story:

The government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has begun using what experts are calling "subtle but meaningful" shifts in diplomatic language in an effort to improve relations with China - changes that have drawn approval from Beijing...

The whole tone of the story is one of implicit approval. Rather odd in view of what's been happening in Tibet (I suspect the government itself is simply the victim of bad timing), but the Globe has been kow-towing to the Chinese for some time--see here, here and here ("Update").

History's greatest monster

The Dalai Lama wants Tibet to have more autonomy while remaining part of China, and has threatened to resign as his people's spiritual leader if violent anti-Chinese protests continue. And as far as the ChiComs are concerned, he's "a monster with human face and animal's heart":

The hardline leader of Tibet has branded the Dalai Lama a “monster” as it emerged that Tibetan students in Beijing have been ordered to effectively renounce any allegiance to their god-king.

Zhang Qingli, the Communist Party Secretary in Tibet, said that the struggle to crush the unrest in the deeply Buddhist Himalayan region involved nothing less than the stability of the entire country.

That battle by China to reassert control over its restive Tibetan population has now drawn in students attending schools and universities in Beijing.

They are required to provide four answers, Tibetan sources told The Times. First, they must write a reply to the question “What position does the Dalai Lama occupy in your heart?” Second, they must provide the address and place of work of their parents. Third, they must give details of their own identity card. Finally, they must guarantee not to take part in any political activities.

I was undecided about whether the summer Olympics in Beijing should be boycotted. Now, not so much.

Damian P.

Update: Jonathan Kay suggests boycotting the opening ceremonies, at least, while Derb proposes some other ways the Olympics could be used to embarrass the Chinese government:

...Some are suggesting, for example, that athletes simply not show up for the opening ceremonies. (They are not required to by their Olympic contract.) There is also the idea, which I rather like, that an entire national team might shave their heads the night before the ceremony to show solidarity with Tibetan monks and nuns, the bravest and most persecuted of Tibetan patriots.

At the Olympics, the Maoists will be dealing with free people from free nations, and there is only so much they can do to control them. It's not clear they understand this. They've been living for decades in a bubble of unchallenged power, and are not very imaginative. The opportunities for embarrassment are endless, and the prospect of it very delicious to anyone who loves liberty. Personally, I hope their stinking Olympics is a huge fiasco, and I see encouraging signs it may be.

By-elections: Not so bright for Liberals, dismal for Dippers

And not too bad for the Conservatives. Further to Damian's post, Here's a good one by Paul Wells--in which he also notes Toronto's rather different perspective from most of Canada. Talk about a world apart--and, boy, does it affect our major media.

Mark C.

The bus companies! I knew it!

Dr. Dawg, responding to the "9/11 Truth" movement, inadvertently identifies a major player whose foul deeds have heretofore gone unnoticed:

...9/11 did provide the opportunity to enact a host of neo-con measures, from the suspension of habeus corpus to heavy domestic surveillance, from secret prisons and torture to the war in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq. So what? 9/11 also made air travel a frustrating and tiresome experience for millions, but no one is accusing the bus companies of anything, or the security firms whose employees now make their living sticking wands into your armpits and confiscating salad dressing.

George W. Bush's second cousin's wife's brother was head of security for Greyhound on 9/11. Google it!

Damian P.

The right way to deal with Wright

I've been hesitant to jump on the Jeremiah Wright pile-on, for two reasons: I don't think Barack Obama would be running for President in the first place if he really agreed with the good Reverend's views on damning America and such; and, as repugnant as many of Wright's comments have been, I don't find them much more offensive than what many GOP-friendly pastors - or even GOP candidates - believe. (This kind of nonsense would also be right at home amongst many "mainstream" church leaders, but that's another post.)

For what it's worth, I think Obama's speech from earlier today strikes a near-perfect tone on the issue:

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

[...]

...Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

[...]

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

If Reverend Wright was going to be Obama's vice-president or national security advisor, then I'd have a serious problem with it. As it stands, Obama's association with this guy raises some legitimate concerns, especially about his judgement, but the main issue is what the candidate - not his minister - believes.

Damian P.

Kosovo: And where will it end?

The unraveling may be starting:

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA (AFP) - UN police were forced to withdraw Monday [March 17] from the Serb-populated part of this flashpoint Kosovo town after coming under attack as they stormed a court occupied by Serbs opposed to independence.

More than 100 people, including 63 international security force members, were hurt amid gunfire and a suspected grenade blast after they moved in to regain control of the UN-run tribunal in the northern town of Kosovska Mitrovica, police officials said.

[...]

"The police are pulling out of northern Mitrovica," said an official from the Kosovo police mission of the United Nations [supposed to be replaced by EU police; I wonder if they'll arrive as scheduled - MC], who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity.

But Kosovo's NATO-led KFOR peacekeepers have remained in the tense town.

The French army chief of staff said in Paris that 20 French soldiers serving with KFOR were among the wounded, eight of them seriously, but none of them were in critical condition.

"NATO condemns, in the strongest terms, violence that we have seen today. NATO will respond firmly to ensure a safe and secure environment," NATO spokesman James Appathurai said in Brussels.

The use of weapons makes the violence the worst to have flared in Kosovo since its ethnic Albanian-dominated parliament unilaterally declared independence from Serbia on February 17.

[...]

Northern Kosovo has a 40,000-strong Serb population who are divided from the mainly ethnic Albanian south by the Ibar River, which passes through Mitrovica.

The clashes came on the four-year anniversary of the March 2004 anti-Serb riots by ethnic Albanians in which 19 people were killed and dozens of medieval Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries were destroyed or damaged.

Kosovo's independence has been recognised by many Western countries but Serbia and Kosovo Serbs -- backed by Russia -- have vehemently rejected the move as illegal.

Serbian President Boris Tadic warned UN and NATO forces against any "excessive reaction" that could spark a further "escalation."

Outgoing Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica condemned the "use of force" and said Serbia had "begun consultations with Russia over necessary mutual reaction in order to halt all violence against th