I have actually posted this on my other blogs in more detail, but in Zimbabwe, a minor politician is going to join in a coalition government with Mugabe.

However, he didn't do it with the permission or backing of his section of the party (an MDC faction)

this will allow China and others to ignore the sanctions and make money, while the army is essentially running the place.

George Clooney loves Obama.

So according the the UKTelegraph:

“'George is pro-Palestinian. And he is also urging Barack to withdraw unconditionally from Iraq if he wins,” the source told the Mail on Sunday.

“His hope of becoming America’s first black President depends heavily on winning over conservative voters and it would be suicidal for him to be perceived as a tool of a Hollywood Leftie, which is how they regard George.”

Mr Clooney, who once famously declared that he could not go into politics himself because he had “slept with too many women, done too many drugs and been to too many parties” has been said to be giving Mr Obama image advice and tips on public speaking.

One of Mr Clooney’s trusted acquaintances said: “George is a master at crafting his own image and he is helping Obama to hone his image both domestically and abroad,” adding: “He has tried to keep the true extent of their involvement out of the Press because he is frightened of alienating voters.”

Then there are the news stories that Clooney plans to hold a "fund raiser" in Switzerland with the Hollywood Elites.

And the story that he plans to make a movie about Osama Ben Laden's driver.

Yet the anti war movies have been bombs, and those that stress honor and fighting evil tend to be fantasy films. Is this because fantasy films are a more accurate way to frame the eternal questions of good and evil, or is it because only those that do oppose evil become hits?

Klavan in the WSJ writes:

There seems to me no question that the Batman film "The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.

And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society -- in which people sometimes make the wrong choices -- and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell.

But where are the films about the good guys?

There is an old Pauly Shore comedy In the Army, about a bunch of California dudes who become "water boys" in the National Guard, and then get called up in a war. It's full of profanity, and jokes, but the point of the movie is that the dudes actually do become heroic in the end...

Yet one cannot envision a similar film being made today. why not? Because the thought that people can suffer terrible things but manage to cope is taboo. The thought that ordinary people can do heroic things is taboo. And of course the thought that there are bad guys worse than the US is also taboo.

Yet the isolation of Hollywood from the mainstream suggests that they are digging their own graves (hint to investors: Don't invest there).

Does anyone actually think that if Hillary visited Europe she would be getting this type of publicity?

What is worse, is that the Philippine press assumes he will be president. You see, they read the US press.

But there is a real question about the lack of humor and true believers behind the Obama movement:
It is assumed that if you vote against him, it is racism. This will impress the yuppie types, but less so the youth or the working class, who have lost jobs and college places because of affirmative action for people like Obama, who as "black" got preferences that an Asian or a coal miner's kid would not get, even though his family was rich.

Yes, I know he brags his mom was once on food stamps, but that's because she chose to be on food stamps instead of staying with her husbands or asking for help from her parents or (aghast) working at McDonalds while waiting for a good job.

The real danger is that the "Racists against Obama" meme is that if he loses the election, we will have race riots.

The press however won't notice that the riots are by the usual suspects.

The press of course won't notice Hispanic and Asian voters who dislike Obama...

cross posted from Bloggernews...

A cruise ship, the Achille Lauro, was hijacked by four armed thugs, and to prove they were mean and meant their threats, they killed a defenseless elderly man in a wheelchair, Leon Klinghoffer, dumping his body over the side of the ship.

Yes, kidnapping and murder will get you 25 years, but Fatayer got time off for “good behavior” and apparantly didn’t bomb anything when he was loose on parole for three years. And the poor dear is now probably going to be helped by “human rights” groups, because no one wants him, and Italy says he is not allowed to stay. This makes the BBC sad:

The BBC’s David Willey, in Rome, says Ibrahim’s predicament as a “stateless person” is similar to hundreds of foreign-born criminals in Italy.

Abdelatif will remain perpetually subject to arrest if he remains in Italy, our correspondent adds.

Given his young age at the time of the crime, it is possible that he just might settle down.

Others convicted with him were given longer sentences.

Yet the now forgotten Achille Lauro incident has many reverberations for today’s headlines.

For example, what does one do with ex terrorists? Can they reform, or do we jail them all for life? Since some released from Gitmo have gone back to terrorism, including bombing civilians, this is not an easy question.

Newsweek has an interesting story about McCain and Viet Nam.

You don't get to the core of the story unless you read the entire article, but it puts things nto perspective about his mistreatment (because he wouldn't cooperate) and those who helped him.

What is mentioned but not put into perspective is that McCain helped normalize relations with Viet Nam in 1990...what is not put into perspective is the massive sufferings caused by the communists: Not only the boat people and hundreds of thousands in reeducation camps but an ethnic cleansing of Chinese ethnic groups, and a short war with China...

Viet Nam can get three rice harvests a year, and is a major exporter of rice, yet by 1990 they were having major food shortages. This made some government officials nix the communist ideas and start reforms that allowed free market economy and the start of a major economic miracle.

McCain helped them by opening markets to the US.

Viet Nam still is not free, but is semi free, and one reasn is that McCain was able to forgive his captors.

UN human rights council orders the UK to "vote" on the monarchy.,,and there is more:

The UN report was also critical of the UK's treatment of immigrants from Sudan.

Syrian representatives accused the UK of discriminating against Muslims and Iran complained about the UK's record on tackling sexual discrimination.

the US pulled out of the council last week (they only had observer status). This kind of stuff confirms that the US was right to do so, but don't expect the press in the US to notice it.

This article discusses the Pope's meeting with Bush.

Mr Bush has filled the White House with Catholic speech-writers and consultants and is also thought to have asked a Catholic priest to bless the West Wing.

Before he became president, Karl Rove, his former political adviser, invited Catholic intellectuals to Texas to lecture the candidate on the church's teachings. Mr Bush appointed the Catholic judges Samuel Alito and John Roberts to the Supreme Court.

The reason is probably because Catholics believe in Natural law theory.

And natural law theory is compatible with the enlightenment, saying that reason can lead man to the knowledge of God and what is right and wrong.

Too many Evangelicals instead quote the bible.

I just finished reading about the difference between Thomism and Ocham...Thomas Acquinas, if I understood it correctly, says that reason is of God, and that we can learn about God in nature. (there is a quote from Paul that says the same thing).

Ocham said no, that nature and God were different, and just because our universe is made one way, it doesn't mean that God didn't make another universe differently (e.g. where the laws of nature aren't mathematical). Ocham's ideas allowed science to disentagle itself from tradition and Thomas' exploration of truth via tradition only but it also was an early hint of the "The bible tells me so" ideas that made quoting the bible the answer, not the analysis of how a problem was explored in the bible, and by experience and reason.

In some ways, the Regensburg speech said the same thing about the Koran.
The difference is that the Bible only quoters don't run the US and recognize a split between Biblical law and secular law...but their approach doesn't let them argue in the public square. In contrast, those trying to make Islamic republics want the a be the law, ignoring that this means the law is made by clerics who "interpret" the law, allowing them unlimited power.

So, anyway, Bush is surrounded by smart Catholics, making rumors he will convert. Maybe, since his family, like McCain, is oldfashioned Episcopalian, but the Episcopal church has now destroyed it's roots in search of Political correctness.

One of these days, the press will ask the Catholics about natural law and where the church stands on all the moral issues of the day. Alas, if Obama gets in, expect Catholics and natural law theory be marginalized in favor of PC laws...and Christians of Evangelical persuasion will be even more a subject of ridicule and paranoia than they are now.

Geraldine Farraro was ostracized for daring to say a lot of white ethnics, who had suffered from bias as an ethnic and then as bias for not being black, resent Obama's black racism.

Yet the negative effects of affirmative action on ethnics, Asians and Hispanics are obvious. My own sons were taken from a good school district in Boston and placed into a black slum school for "racial profiling", never mind they were hispanic and because they were newly adopted and spoke no English. Similarly, my sons, who never saw race in their South American home, became prejudiced when they saw teachers giving black students a free pass on grades and bad behavior, including drug use, whereas they did not get a free pass.

Nope, can't discuss such things.

Asians are even more upset about the double standard. Here we get the Korean national TV station, and they had a discussion program on prejudice in the US....I watched, and was amazed that the prejudice was Korean shop keepers lamenting that their shops (in LA area) were destroyed by blacks in the King riots and the police stood by...and that their complaints about minor theft and robbery were rarely solved.

Then there is the fact that Ivy League schools routinely profile and turn down Asian students. Punished for working hard....

Another thing that is not PC to discuss is gay marriage: that lesbians tend to stable marriages, but that gay men are unstable, and even when they live together, they have numerous affairs on the side. A recent UN report saying that the heterosexual spread of HIV in many countries that had been predicted is another side of this: the dirty little secret is that, outside of Hollywood movies, the number of sexual partners is a lot lower than people think, but that the number of sexual partners of gay men is a lot higher than people think.

As a Catholic, we believe that same sex attraction is not the person's fault (either inborn and/or influenced by upbringing, probably, like alcoholism, both), and that it is a cross for these folks to live with: A weakness that can lead to holiness if fought, and that since their sins are those of weakness,  they are less serious than sins of greed or pride...when Jesus said the prostitutes would get to heaven before the proud pharasees, I'm sure everyone in Gallilee knew that the pagans had lots of gay prostitutes in nearby towns...yet the sadness from the promiscuity often leads to repentence...


Yet to even hint that promiscuous sex is a sin is taboo: when was the last time you read someone condemning "sex and the city"?

About the only sins nowadays are being fat, smoking cigarettes, or driving an SUV...none of which destroy the soul like promiscuous sex.

Well, anyway, with all the "gay marriage", why hasn't any reporter bothered to ask a discussion with one of our good bishops? Or when reporters imply only "right wing fundamentalists" oppose it, why does no one not mention so do Hindus, Muslims, Orthodox Jews, and most traditions?

No, no discussion here.

Then we have the problem of free speech.

Mark Steyn finally got noticed in the NYTimes, but the editorial had quotes that other countries could shut him up...yet Steyn is a satirist, like Anne Coulter or even Rush...why is it okay for left wing "humorists" to ridicule people, but right wing types are "hate crimes".

Yet the Canadian examples are even worse, since they have silenced some blogs, and have silenced a pastor for hate speech for saying Gay marriage is wrong.

Finally, when a lady wrote a biography of her Episcopal father, a lot of the comments were shame to her for revealing her father's sins (he was promiscuous with men and women).
Yet at least one of the anecdotes showed an affair with a teen who had come to him for counselling for same sex urges.

If a doctor did this, he could have his license revoked.
If he was a Catholic, he'd be on the front pages, and the liberals would say the problem was not allowing priests to marry.

In the same vein, the Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire was elected because the gays took over the middle management, chasing out a lot of ordinary folks, and then elected him. So he now is "marrying" his partner...
Yet how many partners did he have in between his marriage and this guy?
And since when does a church allow a bishop who deserts and divorces a wife because he no longer loves her? Isn't divorce for clergymen against Pauls' advice to Timothy?

Well, never mind.

I'd put references for all these things, but I'm too lazy to look them up.

But sometimes one wonders why the press doesn't bother to check things out.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/06/06/notes060608.DTL&type=printableTonight, after 54 hard-fought contests, our primary season has finally come to an end.

Translation: I have won all 54 states...except for the ones Hillary won of course, but it doesn't matter.

Sixteen months have passed since we first stood together on the steps of the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois. Thousands of miles have been traveled. Millions of voices have been heard. And because of what you said — because you decided that change must come to Washington; because you believed that this year must be different than all the rest; because you chose to listen not to your doubts or your fears but to your greatest hopes and highest aspirations, tonight we mark the end of one historic journey with the beginning of another — a journey that will bring a new and better day to America...

Because you believed, things will change...of course, no president can do that, but never mind. We expect you to believe with all your heart, and voila, instant utopia

At this defining moment for our nation, we should be proud that our party put forth one of the most talented, qualified field of individuals ever to run for this office. ....

I'm the most qualified individual who has ever run for President. Now if Hillary will just get the F*** out of the way...

All of you chose to support a candidate you believe in deeply. But at the end of the day, we aren't the reason you came out and waited in lines that stretched block after block to make your voice heard. You didn't do that because of me or Senator Clinton or anyone else. You did it because you know in your hearts that at this moment — a moment that will define a generation — we cannot afford to keep doing what we've been doing. We owe our children a better future. We owe our country a better future. And for all those who dream of that future tonight, I say — let us begin the work together. Let us unite in common effort to chart a new course for America.

Translation: I am messiah, and I promise a socialist utopia.

Silly me. I"m old enough to remember when children were the responsibility of parents. 

Change is a foreign policy that doesn't begin and end with a war that should've never been authorized and never been waged. I won't stand here and pretend that there are many good options left in Iraq, but what's not an option is leaving our troops in that country for the next hundred years — especially at a time when our military is overstretched, our nation is isolated, and nearly every other threat to America is being ignored.

Pay no attention to the success of the surge, the decimation of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the demise of FARC or the slow demise of Alqaeda related groups in the Philippines and Indonesia. They don't count.

....It's time to refocus our efforts on al-Qaida's leadership and Afghanistan, and rally the world against the common threats of the 21st century — terrorism and nuclear weapons; climate change and poverty; genocide and disease. That's what change is....

Yes, rally the world to stop genocide like the UN and African Union are doing in Dafur, Central Africa and Zimbabwe...as for disease, ignore the millions of lives saved by the Bush initiative against HIV...

Change is realizing that meeting today's threats requires not just our firepower, but the power of our diplomacy — tough, direct diplomacy where the president of the United States isn't afraid to let any petty dictator know where America stands and what we stand for.

Yes, and if they ignore me, I'll keep sending them nasty letters that remind them we stand for goodness and light.

...Maybe if (mcCain) went to Iowa and met the student who works the night shift after a full day of class and still can't pay the medical bills for a sister who's ill, he'd understand that she can't afford four more years of a health care plan that only takes care of the healthy and wealthy. She needs us to pass a health care plan that guarantees insurance to every American who wants it and brings down premiums for every family who needs it. That's the change we need.

Or her sister could get on Medicaid, or she could quit college for a semester, or maybe even she could ask her sister's father or mother to cough up the money. But instead of trying to do that, we'll socialize medicine.

Maybe if he went to Pennsylvania and met the man who lost his job but can't even afford the gas to drive around and look for a new one, he'd understand that we can't afford four more years of our addiction to oil from dictators.

Well, the guy could borrow fifty bucks from his neighbors and get a job in Maryland...or Calgary (where my relatives are working in the oil boom).

As for oil from dictators, since when are Canada and Mexico, which are the largest suppliers of oil to the US, dictatorships?

That man needs us to pass an energy policy that works with automakers to raise fuel standards, and makes corporations pay for their pollution, and oil companies invest their record profits in a clean energy future — an energy policy that will create millions of new jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced. That's the change we need.

Does he mean he's going to allow drilling in Alaska and off the coast? Because if not, oil companies who can't make profits will say byebye and drill elsewhere, and sell to China.

we owe it to our children to invest in early childhood education; to recruit an army of new teachers and give them better pay and more support; to finally decide that in this global economy, the chance to get a college education should not be a privilege for the wealthy few, but the birthright of every American. That's the change we need in America.

Translation: stick the kids in daycare, so that parents don't have to care for them, get rid of local school boards and federalize our education system, with a huge bureaurocracy run by union members who vote Democratic.

And lower university standards so that the 50% of people with IQ's under 100 can go to college...it's their "Birthright"...

I have brought many together myself. I've walked arm-in-arm with community leaders on the South Side of Chicago and watched tensions fade as black, white, and Latino fought together for good jobs and good schools.....

Ah, but where did those jobs come from?

The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations.

That's not what you said above. You were bragging that merely voting for you would change the world.

But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then 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 and good jobs to the jobless;

Yup. No one bothers to care for the sick nowadays in America.

this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth.

Ah, the oceans will not rise, the garbage and pollution will disappear, and everyone will live a carbon negative lifestyle like my friends in Zimbabwe. As for Iraq, the people in Iraq will be abandoned to a genocide that makes the killing fields of Cambodia a romp in the park.

But he's got that last part right. The elites and the newspapers and media will stop printing negatives stories about America.

. The media adores Obama.

--------------------

And this article puts even more fear into me:

Here's where it gets gooey. Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul.

The unusual thing is, true Lightworkers almost never appear on such a brutal, spiritually demeaning stage as national politics. This is why Obama is so rare. And this why he is so often compared to Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., to those leaders in our culture whose stirring vibrations still resonate throughout our short history.

Are you rolling your eyes and scoffing? Fine by me. But you gotta wonder, why has, say, the JFK legacy lasted so long, is so vital to our national identity? Yes, the assassination canonized his legend. The Kennedy family is our version of royalty. But there's something more. Those attuned to energies beyond the literal meanings of things, these people say JFK wasn't assassinated for any typical reason you can name. It's because he was just this kind of high-vibration being, a peacemaker, at odds with the war machine, the CIA, the dark side. And it killed him.

Now, Obama. The next step. Another try. And perhaps, as Bush laid waste to the land and embarrassed the country and pummeled our national spirit into disenchanted pulp and yet ironically, in so doing has helped set the stage for an even larger and more fascinating evolutionary burp, we are finally truly ready for another Lightworker to step up. 

-----------------------------

hell where is Richard Dawkins when we need him?

I've been lax on posting due to local brownouts and losing my bookmark to log in.
But over at Bloggernews, I have a series of articles about the Chinese heparin scandals.

People just don't get it.

It's not an accident, and it's not failure to process things or to have paper work that shows the medicine is being manufactured properly.
Nor would an outsider coming to "inspect" the paperwork have prevented it.

You see, the presence of hypresulfated chondroiten in the heparin--and the attempt of the Chinese government to pass blame elsewhere-- was a deliberate criminal act, and the attempt to stonewall or pass the blame suggests that the corruption goes high into the local or even natinal government.

One: the chondroiten was not accidentally added when small shops processed pig intestines o get heparin, because chondroiten is from cartilege, not intestine.

Second, it would have required knowledge of American testing technique to know how the testg was done to assure the proper amount of heparin...once the way of testing was known, the next step would be to search and find a cheap chemical substitute.

Placing antifreeze as a sweetener into cough medicine or lead into toys doesn't require much knowledge --any crooked manufacturer could do that---but knowing that you could add some sulfate sidechains to chondroiten to get past the test does require expertise.

It took sophisticated tests to find out the "contaminent',but once it was identified, further testig showed that some batches had 30% of the false chemical. So this means it was not a "contaminent but a deliberate substitution.

Chinese commenters are also trying to stonewall sayg that only the US had deaths so it must b4e something else, since the false heparin in other countries did not.

However, when heparin is used in dialysis or to keep IV ports open, you use a set dose, meaning that some of the substandard heparin would have resulted in the ports or veins clotting closed.
Since this can happen spontaneously it would take a bit of time to see if it was now more common.

Second, since heparin to anticoagulate a person is usually dosed by lab tests (since dosags varies from person to person) the doctors would just shrug and think that the person needed more heparin...but if you used different batches, where one had a lot of adulteration and the other none, you could again end up with blood clots or bleeding. Again, all of these occur in the best of hands, so doctors would blame themselves or the patient's body for the variation, not the medicine ...but a review of records again could show a variation of the rate of the problems.

Finally, the heparin is not the only medicine involved in Chinese fakery.
The WHO (World Health organization) has already noted up to a million deaths a year from fake or substandard medicines, mainly anti malarials, many from China.

And there have been other poisoned deaths, like the hundreds made sick or dead in Panama from cough medicine containing anti freeze to make it sweet.

Finally, this is probably the tip of the iceburg, as substandard brakes and auto parts are felt to cause many of the deaths from motor vehicle accidents  in Nigeria.

As the US companies outsource, they have to realize that they don't just have to worry about substandard articles, but corruption that deliberately substitutes cheaper materials wihout telling anyone.

The fake heparin is only the tip of the iceburg that includes toys, auto parts, and other items.

It is fascinating to watch the world ignore that Mugabe is stealing the election in Zimbabwe, with the help of South Africa's Mbeki.

Without Mbeki's assent, no one (not even Zambia/Botswana and other Southern African countries) can intervene or even ask Mugabe to step down.

Mugabe is pulling an "algore": he is arranging a recount of the voting districts he narrowly lost, enabling the votes to be changed from the opposition to him.
In the meanwhile, his police, military, veterans and "green bomber" youth militia are busy terrorizing the countryside. Since no Western reporters are allowed, it is hard for the news to trickle out.

Remember last year's dramatic photos of those beaten by Mugabe's thugs? Well, the photographer was later found dead, so what is coming out on various blogs is literally leaked at the risk of death.

But the UN will not intervene, because it is a sovereign nation...and Africa is full of murderous and corrupt dictators who have stolen more money than all the aid money sent to that continent. If Mugabe can be forced out, they can too, so they prefer to look the other way.

Last night there was a program about Charles Taylor (I think it was BBC) being tried for war crimes, and one African commentator said it was a disgrace.

That is about right. The bosses and their mouthpieces will keep oppressing the poor, and wheras in the past they had the communists preventing "neocolonialism", now the multicultural England just shrugs and looks the other way.

So much for the commonwealth.

Ironically, France does intervene (but rarely gets this noticed in headlines). Too bad Zimbabwe was British...

Mugabe lost the election in Zimbabwe.

So he is taking lessons from Algore, trying to say the election officials cheated so removing several, and then only counting a couple of areas so that he can overturn the results he doesn't like.

In the meanwhile, he is repeating his lessons of earlier elections: send in the military/police/green bomber youth to beat up those in villages who voted wrong, and beat up those who belong to the opposition.

The one hope everyone is relying on in if South Africa president Mbeki intervenes. But instead of joining with other local presidents in trying to stop Mugabe's silent coup, he went to Harare for a photo op with his friend.

Since the opposition parties have more seats in parliement than ZANU-PF, Mugabe's party, theoretically in the parliementary system, he cannot continue. But as President, he doesn't have to call up Parliement...he can rule by fiat while intimidating the population.

The press is crowing that the general strike by the MDC was a failure. But people are scared. And one has to remember that all those with gumption have fled the country. If the Zimbabwean diaspora was allowed to vote (25% of the population) Mugabe would have lost by a large margin.

No one will intervene, of course.

UN, Rule of law and all that stuff.

Cross posted from BNN

In Colombia, the narco “insurgent” group FARC is being decimated by a “carrot-stick” approach by the Colombian President Uribe.

After years of a “talk nice and let’s negotiate” President, where FARC used truces and safe zones to regroup and fight again rather than to negotiate, the present government is hitting hard, but offering amnesty to those who lay down their arms.

Colombians, sick of kidnappings of middle class small business owners, have demonstrated by the millions against FARC killing of hostages, and even the poor, who were caught in the middle of FARC’s revenge killing, land mines, and right wing hit squads, also are no longer supporting the group.

But FARC still has one ace left, a Colombian politician with dual French citizenship named  Ingrid Betancourt.

She was kidnapped years ago while running for President, and her presence has allowed FARC to manipulate France. Since the French left still thinks the murderous drug running FARC are freedom fighters, they have been getting financial support from French leftists. At the same time, they are using her presence to manipulate the French government to pressure Colombia to make nice with them.

In other words, her kidnapping was a “win/win” situation for FARC.

But now there are reports that Ms. Betancourt is ill, and the Vatican is trying to “mediate” to get her released.

BOGOTA, Colombia, APRIL 2, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The Diocese of San José del Guaviare offered the services of three priests to mediate the release of former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt….
The bishop also revealed that a few weeks ago he sent a letter to the FARC, asking if they would accept the mediation of the Catholic Church for a humanitarian agreement. The letter has not been answered.

So you have France begging for her release, the President of Venezuela trying to get her release so he can get some good publicity, and now the Catholic church begging them to be nice.

But of course, all this ignores the reality:

FARC could have released her at any time, and could release her tomorrow. They just don’t want to do it.

All of this is complicated by that laptop captured by Colombia in a raid on a FARC camp just over the border in Ecuador.

FARC money has been used to influence nearby governments: the finding of  $450,000 of FARC’s money in Costa Rica, suggesting links to politicians there. Ironically, when a security minister in Costa Rica mentioned this obvious fact, he was forced to resign.

The laptop also revealed that a lot of leftist politicians in Europe and even in the US have supported the group, including Congressman McGovern of Massachusetts.
McGovern, a Democrat, claims his contact with FARC was merely humanitarian in nature, i.e. trying to negotiate to release the hostages. However, as far back as 2003, McGovern has tried to cut US aid to Colombia. That is why it is strange that Senator Obama and other Democrats oppose a trade deal that would boost Colombia’s economy, using the murder of trade union representatives by right wing hit squads as an excuse.  Why are they trying to “improve human rights” by wrecking the Colombian economy and stopping a successful Colombian campaign against murderous drug trafficking insurgents?

What else is on that laptop? The US Press, outside of the Miami Herald, seems to be ignoring the story.

The IHT (NYTimesEurope) laments that the raid that killed Reyes and liberated his computer was the reason that Betancourt was not released.

Again, this twists the reality that FARC could have released her at any time in the last six yers.

All of this is “revolutionary theatre”. Release someone you had no right to kidnap in the first place, and voila, you are heroes. You can now charm more money out of European leftists (with compliant MSM reports such as the above) while using the money to buy guns, ammunition, and hire more murderers.The cycle of violence, kidnapping, drug money and murder would instantly become stronger.

But never mind.

To the press, one attractive and rich French/Colombian (and white) politician is worth it.

So, thanks to press manipulation and pressure by the French government, Colombia will allow a French medical team to enter the area where she is held, while stopping military intervention.

And if you believe that the French team is only carrying medicine with them,  you are wrong:

Valencia suspects the French will be coming with more to offer than medicine.  ”They are going to come with some sort of attractive offer for the FARC — which could include granting them political status — so they [the French] can take her,” he said.

Translation: The French may free Betancourt by promising to grant FARC “political status”. This means they will no longer be listed as a terror group ( international law can go after their bank accounts if they are listed as a terror group).

FARC will also be allowed to raise money among the left in France (which they have been doing for years), and finally, allows them to travel in France without fear of arrest or extradition. How soon would this lead to a European Union stamp of approval?
But France doesn’t care. One rich white politician with a French passport is worth the lives of thousands of poor Colombians.

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I posted this to BNN...sorry if it's not clear.

I try to explain that this "insurgency" is not a monolith as the press usually portrays it to be, and that a lot of people have another life than politics and will settle down, just like the confederates did in 1866 or the Huks did in the late 1950's...

Militias, Insurgents, and Criminal Gangs

Last week, Instapundit has a “headsup” that the Iraqi Army was going to take on the criminal gangs of the Mahdi Army in Basra, and that there would be fighting.

I’ve been perusing the MSM headlines, and as early as Saturday one London paper had declared victory for Sadr, it’s leader, saying the government had lost and all it’s men were deserting.

As background, the Washington Post had a pure propaganda piece by a reporter “embedded” with Mahdi group in Bagdad.

 None of the news stories were very helpful, since like most reporting they see an “bad US” versus “freedom fighters” and don’t see nuances.

I have lived in countries with “freedom fighters” and insurgencies, so tend to see these things differently, so let me explain.

You have organized groups. You have those who help these organized groups. You have to fund these organized groups, so you have outside countries helping. You have to fund the groups, so those not getting outside help make a living by robbery, kidnapping, and drug running.

What you do NOT have is one big solid obedient Army.

Some of the Shiites eventually organized under Sadr, the son of a real hero but one who is not qualified as a religious leader (although western reporters don’t recognize that) and a person who is mentally unstable. He has close ties with Iran.

Like all such groups, they are not uniform. The Sadr and Badr shiite militias often fight each other. The Sunni Baathists and Alqaeda and tribal Sunni are different culturally.

But in all insurgencies, you have the good guys, who could easily merge with the Iraqi government policeforce.

You have the guys who learn to like power and pushing people around: Think crips and bloods, or Wyatt Earp versus the cowboys.

You have criminals: think Jesse James.

And you have ordinary boys who are bored and join for fun but would find a job if one was available. Some of them become Billy the Kid, killing out of revenge, others just settle down, marry and are lost to history.

Sadr wants to take over the government, but doesn’t quite have the power. He is getting a lot of help from Iran. Despite this, he helped the Alqaeda and Sunni “insurgents” –which is why McCain talked about Iran helping AlQaeda…it wasn’t a gaffe, it was referring to this help.

But most of the various Madhi militias were merely policing the streets, so the US and Brits allowed them to do it.

Up to the point that AlQaeda decided to destroy the golden mosque. At this point, chaos ensued, and they turned against the Sunnis.

From AlJezeerah:

The Mahdi Army had in the past concentrated on fighting US troops, and on two occasions sent aid to Sunni fighters in Fallujah during military offensives led by US forces.

But that support dried up in February 2005, when the Askari shrine, a holy site for Shia Muslims in Samarra, was bombed. Within hours of the bombing, young people were riding around the capital on the back of pick-up trucks, parading guns and vowing revenge.

Their revenge was going around kidnapping innocent Sunnis and beheading them. As a result, a lot of the Sunni professional class ran off to Syria and Jordan. But Iraq needs this professional class.

That is what the Anbar agreement was about.

Sadr was smart enough to realize that if he wanted power, he couldn’t do it with his army alone, so he called a cease fire, and the Sunnis tried to make peace.

Both groups will go at it again the moment American troops leave, which is why they are biding their time: They figure a President Obama will take out the US troops, and they will win the fight, with help from nearby governments (Syria and Saudi for the Sunni, Iran for the Shiites). The result will be massacres and ethnic cleansing, but never mind. Obama can blame Bush.

But what is new is the Iraqi army is starting to become a real force. Anyone can make an Army; making a professional fighting force takes time. And it is the Iraqi Army who is doing most of the fighting this time, to the delight of US soldiers who are merely helping them do it.

The next step is carrot and stick: Offer those who make peace amnesty and jobs, encourage the true believers to go into politics, and wipe out or marginalize the crimnals.

This was done in the Philippines, where the war against the  Huks was won by land reform, but the war against the hardcore NPA in other areas has been going on for 50 years. Similarly, the MNLF was pacified, the MILF is talking peace, but the Abu Sayyaf is still busy with bombs and kidnapping.

You can usually pacify most of those fighting, leaving a hard core, which can later splinter, with most being pacified, leaving a hard core…etc.

And in this case, Sadr blinked; he hopes to win at the ballot box.

Strategy Page has a good summary of the fight and who is whom HERE.

The AlJezeerah report is HERE.

Al-Sadr’s nine-point plan, agreed with the Iraqi government, was issued by his headquarters in the city of Najaf and broadcast through loudspeakers on Shia mosques.

James Bays, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Baghdad, said: “The main elements are that Muqtada al-Sadr’s fighters should leave the streets … in return, apparently, they will not be pursued, the Iraqi government will not arrest any of them unless they have arrest warrants for them.

“The big question now is whether the Mahdi army fighters will obey this command because there are all sorts of factions and splinter groups in existence.” 

So when you read of more reports about Mahdi Army fighters, think Jesse James or the Confederates who fought the establishment years after the civil war ended.

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To experts: Yes, I know I have glossed over some nuances. But when the MSM reports a few shells lobbed into the Green Zone as proof the US is losing, someone has to point out that this is as absurd as saying a mall bombing in Manila means that Abu Sayyaf is winning here.
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Professor in LATimes laments: ARE THE TIBETANS doomed to go the way of the American Indians? Will they be reduced to being little more than a tourist attraction, peddling cheap mementos of what was once a great culture?

You mean, should Tibetans start Casinos and ski resorts, and get rich?
Sounds good to me...
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... watching it with the sound off, they spent three minutes reporting McCain's speech warning if the US leaves Iraq prematurely, there will be civil war and genocide, and then they spent five minutes talking about something while the caption read: McCain's teleprompter problem"...

Yup. Genocide versus blooper. Blooper wins.
Which is why in the US I often turned on CSPAN: To hear the speech, not the pundit's spin session.
Luckily, PajamasMedia has coverage of the speech HERE.
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Trying to figure out the Pope...he talks paragraphs, not soundbites.

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The problem with corruption is when people who donate to campaign funds, or pay for trips, get a pro quid pro back for their covert donation.  This is part of Asian culture, and one of the major problems here.
But it also occurs in the US, but less overtly...
And it's not just big business who get the perks...
sometimes if it's Saddam paying for a soundbite or FARC trying to get Congress to stop helping Colombia...