Former Presidents tend to just shut up and try to fade away like Old Soldiers. In most part, this is a good thing, but sometimes it becomes necessary to speak your mind. And so Former President Bill Clinton has spoken his mind on the execution of the War in Iraq. I think this is the point at which we realise the thing has been going on too long without the resolution that has been promised.The next day, Mr Clinton weighed in from the Middle East, saying the war as it unfolded was "a big mistake". It was a good thing Saddam Hussein had gone, the former president said, "but I don't agree with what was done". The administration underestimated "how easy it would be to overthrow Saddam and how hard it would be to unite the country".Ideally, we should get out, but getting out is not going to be easy. The day we decide to leave is the day the insurgents will celebrate saying, "we won". And indeed that may be the case; that we must swallow the bitter pill of defeat in order to get out of this misadventure altogether. However before we come to wiping the Iraq Campaign slate clean we have to look at what possible outcomes we can salvage from Iraq.
He said President George Bush had made "several errors, including the total dismantlement of the authority structure of Iraq". He added: "We never sent enough troops and didn't have enough troops to control or seal the borders." Across those porous borders, "the terrorists came in. That was the central mistake, and we're still living with that".
As passions have run higher here this week, the venerable traditions that foreign policy arguments "stopped at the water's edge", seems to have been conclusively discarded. The most recent Democratic president was in Dubai, in the heart of the Arab world, when he delivered his verdict on the war that was launched by his successor in the White House.
On Tuesday, US senators voted 79-19 to endorse a Republican amendment demanding a regular accounting for the war from the Bush administration. Not only was it a bilateral statement that things could not go on as they were, it came at the moment Mr Bush was in Asia, thanking Japan, South Korea and Mongolia for their contributions to coalition forces in Iraq.
In a nutshell the COTW (Coalition Of The Willing) really should go back to an intel-driven war rather than this tank, helicopter gunship and white phosphorous thing they're doing. That stuff is okay for a short war as proven in both gulf-wars, but this thing is getting protracted. The classic way they used to fight wars like this was to send in CIA agents to set up proxies to do the fighting. Haven't they seen 'Spy Games'?
One of the issues seems to be that the current Bush Administration don't like the CIA and are therefore not inclined to follow the advice of those people. Indeed, the model for fighting these wars have been practiced in Afghanistan, and having US troops on the ground has not added much except mobile fire-power. It's costly and thee money is better spent on the CIA nursing the situation along rather than the military rupturing the situation with gunfire at every turn. It draws less attention too.
The least the COTW can do is to manage these things a lot better.
No Rugby World Cup For You!
It must be a day for former leaders to speak up. Former Japanese PM Yoshiro Mori was speaking up on behalf of the globalisation of Rugby, now that Japan was not awarded the Rugby World Cup for 2011. Instead, that honour goes to New Zealand who took it away with a surprise win. Moe accurately, he is whining and griping, but his whine and gripe is not totally without merit. After all. NZ has already hosted a Rugby World Cup. What gives?
The Japanese had stronger words. "Our tender was much better than those of the other two," said Yoshiro Mori, president of the Japanese RFU, and the former prime minister of Japan. "Everybody thought it would be of great value to the game to stage the Rugby World Cup in Asia. We had public support and there is a feeling that the game needs to be globalised.Aah. Mr. Mori, was famous for debating and Rugby from his days at Waseda University. He's also famous for this true anecdote:
"It looks as if this was a sympathy vote for New Zealand because they couldn't stage the World Cup in 2003. Maybe it was the old boys network of the IRB at work."
Mr. Clinton is coming to Japan for the G8 summit. His underlings brief him on how to greet Mr. Clinton:
"First you say, 'How Are You?' He'll probably say 'fine thank you'. then you say 'Me Too'."
So Bill Clinton arrives. Mr. mori opens his mouth and says: "Who are you?"
Thinking it's a joke, Bill Clinton replies with his riff: "I'm Hilary's Husband."
Mr. Mori says: "Me Too."
Everybody in the room died of embarrassment.
But hey, he's still 'Former Prime Minister of Japan'!
Capital Punishment Is Not A Good Thing
Neither is haggling over sentences of another country. The best that could be said for the on-going Nguyen saga is that the Australian government seems to be doing its best to avert the impending execution of Mr. Nguyen. That is he way the government should be; not exporting people from which it has removed citizenship.
Meanwhile the tone of journalism kind of stinks here
It struck me as we pressed Prime Minister Lee on the issue this morning, how well he defended the indefensible. He spoke not about the fact that this was a first offence. He didn’t focus on Nguyen Tuong Van at all. Instead he spoke of the quantity of heroin at issue — almost 400 grams — and the suffering that could cause. He spoke in soft, measured tones and emphasised the gravity of putting a human being to death.The suffering caused by 400grams on heroin are policy things under which laws are writ. Heroin is one of the best anaesthetic tools that have been removed from the hands of doctors because of USA drugs policy. There a re a lot of ins and outs to this issue alone; but in the mean time, the Singaporeans think it is important enough to execute somebody who is carrying this much heroin. No matter which way you slice it, it's their law that you're trying to disrespect.
When pressed on the question of when the execution would take place, he showed sensitivity, suggesting the family needed to know first and so he wasn’t saying any more. And notably, he applauded Prime Minister Howard for resisting 'megaphone diplomacy'; that is trying to embarrass the Singapore government by speaking out on the issue. By the end of his six minutes, Prime Minister Lee had impressed me and I suspect many in the Australian press pack. In fact, tonight it appears what we were watching was a diplomatic stuff-up — big enough to ruffle the typically unruffled John Howard.
That said, Mr. Nguyen made this trip to paay off debts. Debts incurred to lawyers who worked on trials defending Mr. Nguyen's brother who trafficked drugs. What kind of hell kind of family is this? Presumably, the third brother will have to mule some heroin to pay off two big legal bills now. Okay, bad joke.
The execution is scheduled for 2. December. I don't agree with capital punishment. That said, I don't think we'll dissuade Singapore from carrying out what its judges have decided, just on the say-so of ethnocentric journalists like this Tim Lester fellow.
Yanks Retain Hideki Matsui
It's a total non-news moment when the Yankees retain a stalwart player with a multi-year contract. Hideki Matsui agreed to stay on for 4 more years with the Yankees. “I’m most very happy to be able to come back again and wear the pinstripes again and play in that uniform,” Matsui said at a news conference yesterday. “My first desire was to play here.”The teeth-gnashing you hear from Boston is that the 52million dollar price tag puts Johnny Damon at a higher price for the Bosox who want to retain their Center Fielder. Rumours persist that Scot Boras is trying to get 7 years and 84 million for his client Damon.
Matsui’s agent, Arn Tellem, and Yankees general manager Brian Cashman met the Nov. 15 deadline contained in Matsui’s first contract with the team. That deal stated that if there was no agreement by then, New York would have to place the outfielder on unconditional release waivers, which would have prevented the Yankees from re-signing him until May 15.
“I know Hideki is relieved. This is where he always wanted to be,” Tellem said after reaching the agreement Tuesday night. “His hope is to finish his career as a Yankee and help the Yankees win the World Series.”
Matsui is to earn $13 million in each of the next four seasons and gets a no-trade clause. He was coming off a $21 million, three-year contract in which he earned an additional $1.5 million in performance bonuses.
“This was obviously the No. 1 priority to get him wrapped up,” Yankees manager Joe Torre said. “He’s such an important player.”
And that is all the bullshit that is fit to post.
2 comments:
Re: Iraq, I don't think you appreciate how hot the war there is right now. There's been almost continuous fighting near the Syrian border for almost three months now. Every time they finally get all the towns secured, they lose another one within two weeks.
The insurgents are quite adept at launching conventional operations to take over towns. The media doesn't report this happening, so most people aren't aware of it, but if you follow reports of major US operations closely, they are frequently launched to recapture towns that have become controlled by insurgents. Remember what happened to Fallujah.
If the US loosened it's grip on Iraq even slightly, the insurgents would burn down all the police stations and hunt down their political opponents one by one.
The centrepiece of US policy is the creation of the very proxies that you advocate. They're already trying it and it's not working because they don't have the time to do it properly. When the British did the same thing in places like India, they were very patient and spent years building up the army. The US doesn't have years, time is not on their side.
Its funny.
I'm not sure the Iraqis understand democracy seing that they never had it and its philosohpical basis is not really compatible with their religiouss beliefs and what not.
It's only to the nations of secular governments that say it's a good way to go; and that's an ideological construct too.
So we're busy trying to give them something they don't need/ or want all the while trying to control he oil supply so we can keep *our* democracies going through capitalism, consumerism and conspicuous consumption.
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