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POPSGrading Obama "After U.S. President Barack Obama's first 100 days in office, Foreign Policy asked a group of experts to grade him on everything from North Korea to nukes. On the anniversary of his historic election, we've reprised the experiment -- and found out that the White House isn't doing so well." - FP
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POPSNK calls for direct talks with US Oh what a crock. "trust" with Them?? Playing us like the stupids we appear. I would never make a diplomat. Give me Bolton or someone who will look out for the interests of America...not appeasement with the 'global community'.
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POPSKim Jong-il and Saddam Husseins' Doubles Will the real ______ please stand up? it's logical that for security reasons, Kim has one or more stand-ins, as did former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein before the US invasion in 2003 Analysis of Saddam vs. double here .
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POPSConvert The UN Building Into NYC Homeless Shelter
wallowing in desperate poverty, with crime so rampant and violent that the police won’t even venture into them. And you have the nerve to come here and investigate us ? The United Nations has become nothing less than a shabby podium used by corrupt third-world demagogues to do what they could never do in any other way - attempt to destroy and bring into disrepute the United States. We’re being nibbled to death by ducks. And we’re letting it happen. Not only that, we’re paying for it. I’d like to see the Obama Administration tell the U.N. to pound sand (but they won’t). Take your investigation to somewhere that needs it, and that list is endless. North Korea, Darfur, Tibet, Cuba….I could go on almost ad infinitum about third world hell holes where people have no rights whatsoever, where food is something that may or may not come your way today - or tomorrow. Where “housing” consists of whatever you can scrape together to try to keep out the cold, where women . .
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POPSUS Press Freedom Improves At the bottom of the list were Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea "where media are so suppressed they are nonexistent," said Reporters Without Borders. Iran dropped to No. 172 from No. 166, with Reporters Without Borders saying the disputed reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had fostered a paranoia about journalists and bloggers. "Automatic prior censorship, state surveillance of journalists, mistreatment, journalists forced to flee the country, illegal arrests and imprisonment -- such is the state of press freedom this year in Iran," the group said. The ranking was compiled from hundreds of questionnaires completed by journalists and media experts around the world and reflecting press freedom violations that took place between Sept. 1, 2008 and Aug. 31, 2009. The complete ranking can be seen at www.rsf.org/en-classement1003-2009.html Read more at source.
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POPS Debacle in Moscow by Charles Krauthammer And what's come from Obama's single most dramatic foreign policy stroke -- the sudden abrogation of missile defense arrangements with Poland and the Czech Republic that Russia had virulently opposed? For the East Europeans it was a crushing blow, a gratuitous restoration of Russian influence over a region that thought it had regained independence under American protection. But maybe not gratuitous. Some brilliant secret trade-off to get strong Russian support for stopping Iran from going nuclear before it's too late? Just wait and see, said administration officials, who then gleefully played up an oblique statement by President Dmitry Medvedev a week later as vindication of the missile defense betrayal. The Russian statement was so equivocal that such a claim seemed a ridiculous stretch at the time. Well, Clinton went to Moscow this week to nail down the deal. What did she get? "Russia Not Budging On Iran Sanctions: Clinton Unable to Sway Counterpart."
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POPSGreat Negotiating Stuff On The Web There’s a lot of useful and interesting information about business and political negotiations the World Wide Web. We’ve found a few articles to share with you that are well worth a read.
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POPSObama Snubs Dalai Lama to Please China Obama is scared of China and he thinks that by snubbing the Dalai Lama this will somehow show China the U.S. knows how to choose its friends? This is a disgusting display of kowtowing. And Obama won the Nobel prize for what? Oh yeah, "Extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."
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POPSU.S. Fails To Make Top 10 Quality of Life Index Sure, it's easy to claim a higher quality of life when you live in a place like France, where you get 30 days of paid vacation every year. Never mind that their productivity numbers nearly equal ours. Where's the index for rugged individualism and personal responsibility? How good do ya think them Frenchies would do on that, huh? They just don't have the stuff to accept a shorter life expectancy and crappy health care. (The lifespan for African-Americans in the former French city of New Orleans is about the same as that of people living in North Korea.) But, hey, they're not who we mean when we talk about Americans, anyway. I don't want your damn pinko health care. And keep your hands off my gun. Oh, and, U.S. outta the U.N., dammit!
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POPSSmart Power! Results May Not Be The Same as Implied or Expected That would be the same Mohammed El-Baradei that, you know, conveniently left out of the IAEA reports the part concerning Iran’s work on nuclear weapons; the same El-Baradei that considers himself a world peacemaker that’s doing God’s work! This is the guy the administration is going to rely on to “coordinate the details” of the Qum inspection schedule and regimen? This is the kind of Smart Power ! that’s guiding our nation’s most urgent and sensitive foreign policy actions; yet another example of the President’s Brilliance! and Judgement! perhaps? It’s been observed by some of his opponents that all of Obama’s promises have an expiration date, but a few months ago nobody would have believed that the time period would become this short! And I guess it’s safe to say that his proclamation that, “a nuclear Iran is unacceptable“, has expired too; after all, they’re just words …
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POPSToo Much Nuance, Projection & Cognitive Dissonance, Not Enough Power All of which is a way of saying that nasty George W. Bush is no longer around with all his self-righteous swagger, and that with (as Obama did not fail to note) the first African-American installed in the White House, America is now on the same page with the rest of the world. Much of the speech seemed to be an exercise in what Sigmund Freud called "projection," assuming that others think the way you do. Obama spoke as if the mullahs of Iran, the Kim Jong Il clan of North Korea, Vladimir Putin and his gang of oligarchs, and the rulers of China had the same gripes against the Bush administration as Obama and the liberal Democrats in Congress. Hey, if we just close Gitmo, they'll realize that we're all in sympathy now.................. Unfortunately, it is clear that even in the year 2009 the interests of nations and peoples are not as unanimously shared as Obama proclaimed Wednesday. Our diplomats and those of five other nations are scheduled to meet with an
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POPS Obama’s U.N. Double Talk by Anne Bayefsky The resolution we passed today will also strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty . We have made it clear that the Security Council has both the authority and the responsibility to respond to violations to this treaty. We’ve made it clear that the Security Council has both the authority and responsibility to determine and respond as necessary when violations of this treaty threaten international peace and security. That includes full compliance with Security Council resolutions on Iran and North Korea. Let me be clear: This is not about singling out individual nations. . . . e must demonstrate that international law is not an empty promise, and that treaties will be enforced. However, speaking today in Pittsburgh, Obama admitted that yesterday in Vienna, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France presented detailed evidence to the IAEA demonstrating that the Islamic Republic of Iran has been building a covert uranium . . .
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POPSUnited Nations; Trade Union & Social Club For Tin Pot Tyrants by Mark Steyn which of them is more unreal. To be sure, Colonel Qaddafi peddled his thoughts on the laboratory origins of “swine flu” and the Zionist plot behind the Kennedy assassination. But, on the other hand, President Obama said: “No nation can or should try to dominate another nation.” Pardon me? Did a professional speechwriter write that? Or did you outsource it to a starry-eyed runner-up in the Miss America pageant? Whether or not any nation “should try” to dominate another, they certainly “can,” and do so with effortless ease, all over the planet and throughout human history. And how about this passage? “I have been in office for just nine months " though some days it seems a lot longer. I am well aware of the expectations that accompany my presidency around the world. These expectations are not about me. Rather, they are rooted, I believe, in a discontent with a status quo that has allowed us to be increasingly defined by our differences . . . ”
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POPSAnother useless exercise in smartough diplomacy There were, of course, two illicit nuclear projects stopped during that period, though the U.N. had nothing to do with it. One was Libya's clandestine nuclear kit, which al-Qaddafi--spooked by the fate of Saddam--agreed to hand over to the U.S. in late 2003. The other was Syria's North Korea-abetted secret reactor. That was destroyed in 2007, not by a U.N. resolution, but by an Israeli air strike.
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POPSObama Speaks at United Nations Somewhat low key. This article/clip is a reasonable summary. Unfortuantely there is a joke in U.S. politics about "that depends upon what your definition of 'is,' is." -- meaning, on specific issues - is his objection to 'nukes,' in Iran and North Korea objections to nuke weapons or also objection to Iran's nuclear power program (which is legal and in accord with the UN IAEA). Does he desire for reducing nukes and being honest with nukes include the "secret," nuclear weapons of Israel that somehow always fail to get mentioned. Surprisingly firm, while committed to Israel's security he said the increase in Israel settlements was "illegitimate." - a rather firm statement and talked about the 1967 borders of Israel, and how Palestine needs a "contagious," free and real independent state. But none of these things would seem acceptable to Israel at all, their "peace terms," clearly sounding like "we go on with aggression and expansion," statements.
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POPSWorst foreign policy ever. FTA: "Wary of Iran, other Middle Eastern states are gearing up for nuclear programs, unconvinced by U.S. promises of extending a defensive umbrella." "Russia continues militarily to occupy a significant part of Georgia, an American ally, and conducts business as usual with Iran and other troublemaking states. " Worst domestic policy too. Look what he's done in just 8 months and what he plans to do. HELP!
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POPSSummits of Folly But the problem with this euphemistic approach to disarmament, as Lippmann noticed, is that it shifts the onus from the countries that can't be trusted with nuclear weapons to those that can. Is Nicolas Sarkozy, with his force de frappe, about to start World War III? Probably not, though he has the means to do so. Should Mr. Obama join hands with Iran and the Arab world in pushing for Israel's nuclear disarmament, on the view that if only the Jewish state would set the right example its enemies would no longer want to wipe it off the map? If that's what the president believes, he should say so publicly, especially since he's offering the same general prescription for America's nuclear deterrent. Of course what the administration wants is to set the right mood music for its upcoming talks with Iran. Mr. Obama would be better served having a chat with Moammar Gadhafi, who will be seated just a few chairs away at the Security Council: . . .
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POPSRA's Daily Russian News Blast US to modify or jettison missile defense plans? NATO chief to meet with Russian envoy; Lukaschenko sends out mixed messages. South Ossetia denies book burning; think tank leader says Putin could be heading for Brehznev-style decades in power; Medvedev finds inspiration on blogosphere. Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko has suggested the traditional ally of Russia must 'move away from dependence on just one country, even one that is near and dear to us'. The Moscow Times reports that the authoritarian leader has emphasized ties with Russia, whilst on a rare visit to EU-member state Lithuania. The Russian Foreign Minstry has said that the criminal investigation into charges of forgery against RIA Novosti's Tbilisi bureau chief is politically motivated. South Ossetia has denied bonfire-style burning of Georgian books and other classic works at the state university. An op-ed contributor in the Moscow Times is disturbed by what makes it onto Russian bookshelves.
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