Foreign Policy

I got this video clip via Andrew Sullivan via Memeorandum. Two things immediately jump out of this video.

1. What the Southern Avenger says here is in line with what a lot of liberals and progressives have been saying for the last eight years : That people like George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Sean Hannity and Michelle Malkin are extremists and not conservatives at all.

2. Exactly because the argument of this video is that true conservatives are against the war, I find interesting that Andrew Sullivan doesn't waste time to call out the author a paleo-conservative. And yet, if you go to the guys' website ... paleoconservative is the last word to come to my mind.

What do you think?

Rudy Giuliani has, in essence, announced a lack of policy regarding Palestine. Rudy has decided to emulate the early Bush policy of ignoring Palestine as a legitimate player in the game of Middle East politics, a policy that failed miserably, aiding the rise of Hamas.

From Salon.com:

Outlining his foreign policy views in the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, Giuliani said "too much emphasis" has been placed on brokering negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians -- an apparent swipe at President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who have been pushing both sides for final status negotiations despite Hamas's takeover of Gaza in June.

"It is not in the interest of the United States, at a time when it is being threatened by Islamist terrorists, to assist the creation of another state that will support terrorism," the former New York City mayor said.

"Palestinian statehood will have to be earned through sustained good governance, a clear commitment to fighting terrorism, and a willingness to live in peace with Israel," Giuliani said...

Interestingly, when Bush first took over the Presidency, he too ignored the United State's role in brokering negotiations between Israel and Palestine, allowing the situation between Israel and Palestine to spiral into violence and chaos. This helped the rise of Hamas, a true terrorist regime.

I recently wrote about the very strong possibility that Zimbabwe is well on its way to complete collapse, which would almost certainly mean tragedy as bad or worse than we saw in Rwanda, Cambodia and Bosnia and are currently seeing in Darfur.

But, turns out that, according to an analysis published in Foreign Policy magazine, Zimbabwe is not at the top of the list of failed states...at least not yet. Perhaps not surprisingly the Sudan leads the list as the most unstable nation on earth. Neglect by the international community is cited as part of the reason for the situation in both the Sudan and Zimbabwe. But for two states among the top ten failed states, neglect is not the problem. Iraq is number two and Afghanistan is number 8. Interestingly our ally, Pakistan at number 12, does slightly worse than North Korea, which comes in at number 13.

The rankings take into account 12 factors, including economy, human rights, refugees, etc.

No one would look at North Korea or Zimbabwe and see them as anything but failed or failing states. Dictatorship by a corrupt and self-serving leadership is ruining these, and other, nations in a very predictable way. And the crises in Somalia and Sudan, for example, are clearly crises that could have been dealt with better had the international community done something before things got this bad. In the case of Somalia are best opportunity was early in the Clinton Administration where we had secured most of the nation. But a single petty strongman shooting down a single helicopter, spooked Republicans in Congress who proceeded to insist that we cut and run from Somalia. We left, allowing the nation to collapse into such chaos that Islamic Fundamentalists (with al-Qaeda links) and Ethiopia became the competing chances for some semblance stability.

Interestingly, Democrats are already starting to take over the job of President. Bush can't get anything done when it comes to North Korea. But in no time, Bill Richardson goes over there and negotiates a deal.

For those who only knows Richardson as a governor, keep in mind that he has diplomatic credentials: he has been US Ambassador to the UN under Clinton (back when we actually were respected in the world) and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize four times for his diplomatic efforts.

So, when Bush sent him to negotiate with North Korea it was an almost unprecedented event in the Bush administration: a good idea. Richardson was supposedly going to negotiate the return of the remains of a US serviceman. Honestly that always sounded a bit odd. The fanfare was too much for that. Turns out he was negotiating getting inspectors back in. From KOBTV in New Mexico:

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson’s visit to North Korea appears to be yielding unexpected fruit.

Richardson, part of a bipartisan delegation dispatched to North Korea to return remains of U.S. MIAs, appears to have secured a concession from the communist state on its developing nuclear weapons program.

No...despite what it seems, we have not become the Bill Richardson blog. But each of us in our own way have started to take notice of the man. Edwards and Richardson seem the best of the candidates...except for the money issue.

Bill Richardson has great diplomatic experience and his skills as a negotiator have gotten him nominated for the Nobel Peace prize some four times. So this is a guy who should be used when there is a delicate diplomatic situation (and when our BEST diplomat, Nobel Prize WINNER Jimmy Carter, is unavailable).

And our usually dense President appears to have noticed that Richardson is a diplomatic resource worth using. Bill Richardson has been tapped by Bush to lead a delegation to North Korea to negotiate the return of the remains of missing US servicemen.

Best of luck Bill!

March is an insane month for the amount of political events you can go to. The proof is in the amount of political heavy hitters [http://dl21c.org|DL21C] was able to wrangle during that month : Jon Kerry, Wesley Clark, John Tester, John Edwards, Bill Richardson. It is also an insane month for the amount of technology and media conferences you can get invited to, the most important (at least for me) being [http://sxsw.com|SXSW] --but there's [http://conferences.oreillynet.com/etech/|eTech] and [http://polc.ipdi.org/|IDPI] as well.

I missed almost all the events involving presidential candidates because of the amount of conferences I was involved in during the month of March. Once I was done with my last one, [http://facingrace.wiki.zoho.com/|ARC's national conference on "Facing Race"], I was free to enjoy a candidate or two by the end of the month. I wasn't able to make it to the John Edwards event (I was having some fun at a party with Nancy Pelosi).

So 3/26 was [http://www.richardsonforpresident.com/|Bill Richardson]'s lucky number.

The attack on the mosques and the burnings that followed, took place in plain sight of an Iraqi army post. Yet the soldiers did nothing. That claim came not from Sunni groups, but Captain Jamil Hussein of the Iraqi police, underlining the bitter divisions within this society.

The perpetrators were said to be members of the Mehdi Army, led by the radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr whose main powerbase, Sadr City, was blasted apart. As well as killing 18 people and injuring 24 others, four mosques were burnt in the attack at Hurriya, where Sunni and Shia have lived together in comparative amity before the "liberation" by the US and Britain.

Ethnic cleansing of the area had started in the summer when the Mehdi Army had started taking over property and most of the Sunni residents had fled. Capt Hussein said the gunmen had attacked and burnt the mosques and continued burning other buildings until US troops arrived.

And here I'm complaining that my turkey was a bit salty.

So, the UN Security Council has unanimously imposed sanctions on North Korea for its development of nuclear weapons. I have three comments on this:

1. Since the main members of the Security Council are all themselves nuclear powers, isn't this hypocritical? I mean, I CERTAINLY don't want North Korea to have nukes, but when nations that have nukes tell others they can't have them, isn't that hypocritical?

2. It says a lot that China joined in. Usual protective of their neighbor that makes even the craziest Chinese regime seem sane, China must really be pissed at N. Korea.

3. Are these sanctions even meaningful? I mean, N. Korea has almost no contact with the outside world. Do these sanctions actually change anything, or is it merely imposing from the outside what N. Korea has already imposed on itself?

Finally, this reminds me that on Current TV there was a very good segment where Current TV reporters go to North Korea and report on it. VERY bizarre country! It really shows how even when on their best behavior, N. Korea seems insane. The best part of the segment was the way the reporters, forced to bow and speak nice things about the "Great Leader" Kim Il Sung did so with great sarcasm, which was lost on their hosts.