Redstate

Posted at 8:12am on Jul. 8, 2008 So Tell Me, Mr. Immelt, Why Are You Killing American Servicemen?

Bill O’Reilly doesn’t let facts get in the way of a good story line

By blackhedd

Years ago, a large young man from Flint, Michigan with nothing better to do started stalking Roger Smith, who was then the CEO of General Motors Corporation. The young man, with a small film crew in tow, would stick a microphone under Smith’s nose and ask him all kinds of strange questions. Later, he assembled the pieces into what looked like a documentary but in fact was tendentious propaganda.

General Motors learned then that truth is no barrier to being smeared effectively. And young Michael Moore learned that craftily-packaged lies can change the world.

I was reminded of that when I heard that Bill O’Reilly, of Fox News, showed up last week at the National Governor’s Association meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. And he appears to have gotten in front of attendee Jeffrey Immelt, who is the CEO of the General Electric Company of Fairfield, Connecticut.

What O’Reilly wanted to know from Immelt more or less boiled down to: Why are you still killing Americans in Iraq?

It turns out that this has been a hobbyhorse for O’Reilly for quite some time now. He’s generated several flaps about General Electric this year.

So this is my way of trying to cut off another one.

Keep reading…

Posted in Bill O'Reilly | Foreign Affairs | General Electric | Iran | nuclear weapons — Comments (30)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:54pm on Jul. 7, 2008 Why Republicans have not thought through post-Bush positions [Awwww...]

By RepublicanRealist

I guess I jumped off the Republican talking points here at Red State and was censored in my last post.

Here is the essential question which even Moe Lane can follow:

[They always get this wrong. The fellow was mocked and provoked; censoring is when I ban him and replace his text with a Pat Benatar video.

Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (9) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 2:47pm on Jul. 7, 2008 When the socialists break off from the communists, good things *can* happen

By Jeff Emanuel

In India they have, anyway. Legislators in the nation's socialist Samajwadi Party have broken away from their communist brethren and given Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh the support he needs to implement the U.S.-Indian nuclear trade agreement without risking a forced early election, which the communists in government had been threatening to trigger if the nuclear deal was agreed to.

PM Singh said he would complete a nuclear inspection agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency as soon as possible.

"The nuclear deal is in the interest of the nation," said Samajwadi Party senior leader Amar Singh. "We should have come out in support of the deal a year ago."

A further positive aspect of this deal? "The communist opposition has become far less important now that the Samajwadi Party has backed the deal," says the NTI's Global Security Newswire.

Posted at 1:06pm on Jul. 7, 2008 Cindy McCain Bolsters Asia Pacific Security with a Smile

By Uma Richie

On June 3 in his Democratic primary victory speech, Barack Obama declared, “I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick...”

Apparently not one to settle for “just words,” less than three weeks later Cindy McCain was in Nha Trang, Vietnam inspecting the work of Operation Smile, an organization that provides free corrective surgery for childhood facial deformities such as cleft palate. Although the Associated Press discounted Mrs. McCain’s visit as “showcasing her charity work,” her timing reveals much more than a lightweight photo opportunity.

Please read on...

Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (5) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 7:55am on Jul. 7, 2008 Promising signs: United Arab Emirates forgives Iraqi debt, will send ambassador.

Well. "Promising" to folks who actually want to *win* this war.

By Moe Lane

(Via Hot Air) This is a good sign:

UAE to cancel Iraq's $7 billion debt

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CNN) -- Dubai has forgiven the nearly $7 billion Baghdad owes it, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced Sunday.

UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan promised to "put out these debts," appoint an ambassador to Baghdad, and "help Iraq building the holy shrines that were targeted by the terrorists," al-Maliki said in a written statement.

As Ed notes, a lot of this is tied up in Shi'ite / Sunni relations, as well as the al-Maliki government's relationship with Iran (and how to minimize it), and the improving security situation in Iraq generally, including the improving political situation. It is to be hoped that other countries in the region follow suit, both in the debt forgiveness and in improved relationships with Iraq. As Jordan has already named an ambassador, with Kuwait and Bahrain expected to follow, this may be less of a forlorn hope than one might fear.

Moe Lane

PS: I should be fair and note that, yes, if we had listened to Barack Obama the UAE would never have withdrawn their ambassador in the first place. Mind you, that'd be because Saddam Hussein would still be in power - but then, you can hardly expect the junior Senator from Illinois to be more concerned about dead Kurds, Shi'ites, and Marsh Arabs than he is about the upcoming American Presidential election.

One must have one's priorities in order, after all.

Posted in Debt Forgiveness | Foreign Affairs | Iraq | UAE — Comments (0)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 7:11pm on Jul. 6, 2008 Some more stuff about the Colombian FARC hostage rescue.

I'm catching up, you see.

By Moe Lane

Video via Gateway Pundit:

...with translation from Fausta. For my own part, I see all of this pretty much as validating what I said earlier: the Colombian Army wanted to demonstrate - not least, to the USA - that they can be a serious player when it comes to counter-terrorism operations, and they got this one down cold.

Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (4)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:06am on Jul. 3, 2008 A Roundup of the Colombian FARC hostage rescue.

Which, by all accounts, was one for the books.

By Moe Lane

As you've no doubt heard, fifteen hostages were rescued yesterday from the South American terrorist group FARC. Actually, what you probably heard was that French-Colombian Ingrid Betancourt (oddly, though she ran for President of Colombia, it's never the other way around), Three Americans, and mumblemumblemumble some Colombian guys mumblemumblemumble got rescued, but that's just the American media's little way.

But I digress.

Read on.

Posted in Colombia | FARC | Foreign Affairs | The War On Terrorism | Uribe — Comments (16)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 6:20pm on Jul. 2, 2008 Mercosur Demands Lebensraum

By Neil Stevens

The South American trade union demands that its people know no boundaries, according to the BBC:

The EU laws, due to come into force in 2010, could see illegal immigrants held for up to 18 months and face a five-year ban on re-entry if expelled.

....In a joint declaration, [Mercosur leaders] rejected "every effort to criminalise irregular migration and the adoption of restrictive immigration policies, in particular against the most vulnerable sectors of society, women and children".

They used to call this sort of thing an invasion, sending your people across national boundaries and demanding full rights to that territory. If the EU caves on this, I bet Hitler would be kicking himself right now. He might have had Poland without a fight had he just demanded an end to "restrictive immigration policies."

Posted in European Union | Foreign Affairs | Godwin's Law | illegal immigration | Immigration | Lebensraum | Mercosur — Comments (11) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:23am on Jul. 1, 2008 Are ANC members terrorists? That all depends on your definition. [UPDATED]

By Marcus Traianus

The President has now signed this bill. The event was not complete without Democrat Barbara Lee taking a shot at Ronald Reagan;

Your Democrat Congress is of course hard at work. Preeminent in their plethora of issues is the topic of homeland security. They have opined ad nauseum about "change" and their ability to secure our nation. Now they have set out to prove it with this;

Negotiators from the Senate and the House agreed Thursday night on a final version of the bill to remove from U.S. databases the names of the former South African president and anybody else marked only because of a relationship with the African National Congress.(snip)

Rep. Howard Berman , D-Calif.,introduced the bill to remove the stigma from Mandela and other ANC members.

One can not argue either intellectually or scrupulously the end of Apartheid in South African was an unpropitious event. However, does the end justify the means?

Please read on.

Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:59pm on Jun. 30, 2008 The Blindest Of Eyes

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

This story speaks for itself in discussing how much the African Union cares about the nightmare currently going on in Zimbabwe:

A defiant Robert Mugabe sailed unchallenged through the first test of his presidency by his peers.

Freshly sworn-in following a single-candidate election, he received a leader's welcome when he strode into the African Union summit in Sharm el-Sheikh today and emerged unfazed, his authority intact.

He dined at a lavish luncheon given by his Egyptian hosts, hugged heads of state and other diplomats in the corridors and stayed at one of the most luxurious resorts in this Red Sea town.

I'm sure that Mugabe is quaking in his boots after that.

Posted in Begone I Say And Let Us Have Done With You | Foreign Affairs | Robert Mugabe | Zimbabwe — Comments (1)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 6:54pm on Jun. 30, 2008 Iraq Seeks to Develop Oil

By dglenn

This comes from The BBC.
According to an article from the business section of the BBC News (linked above), Iraq is seeking foreign investment to help develop six of it's biggest oil fields - the Rumaila Field, which is located on the border between Iraq and Kuwait, the Bai Hassan Field, the Maysan Field, and three others.

More Below the Fold...

Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 3:38pm on Jun. 30, 2008 Giving In. . . One More Time

By RollingThunder

Last week the White House announced that President Bush had changed the policy on how we deal with North Korea. Unfortunately for us, the policy is not more strict. The policy is yet another instance of "if we want to get along, we must give in, not make the other side meet our standards."

I can see why The President wants to reach out to other nations. I fail to see, however, why he would want to reach out to a nation which we know has had nuclear capabilities (regardless of the dismantling of the reactor) in the past. This nation's word has not been reliable. I believe their word may not be that reliable in the future.

Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:55pm on Jun. 26, 2008 A Significant Change In North Korea Policy

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

In response to the North Korean decision to release to the Chinese information concerning its nuclear program, the Bush Administration has taken the dramatic step of removing the designation of "state sponsor of terrorism" from North Korea and lifting American sanctions against the country (UN sanctions will remain in place). I'd like to think that this was a good and welcome step on the part of the Administration, but the following paragraph gives me great pause:

Bush called the declaration a positive step along a long road to get the nation to give up its nuclear weapons. Yet, he remained wary of the regime, which has lied about its nuclear work before. And North Korea's declaration, received six months late, falls short of what the administration once sought, leaving it open to criticism from those who want the U.S. to take an even tougher stance against the regime.

So the North Koreans can be half a year late with their declaration and its content can be deficient and yet, they will still get the benefit of having the designation of "state sponsor of terrorism" removed, in addition to having American sanctions removed? Does. Not. Compute. I can understand a partial response to the North Korean declaration that gives them some carrots but this appears to go way too far.

I guess we will wait and see whether my pessimism is founded. But the larger message to North Korea after today's announcement by the President has to be something along the lines of "obfuscation and non-compliance pays in the end."

Posted in Foreign Affairs | North Korea — Comments (1)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:53am on Jun. 25, 2008 A Time To Weep

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

Weep for Zimbabwe.