There is a lot of hype about Obama being the inheriter of the JFK legend.

Both of them seem to embody the idea of hope, and a new start. Obama is charismatic and likable. (I’ve even seen positive comments about liking him on Free Republic, a far right wing site).  As for me, it’s hard to tell: All we get is soundbites on CNN International, and the internet reports. Hard to judge from 12,000 miles away. But he seems a likable guy, and if he doesn’t have the art and culture background of JFK, he has the advantage of having lived in many multicultural environments.

But some of us are old enough to remember JFK. One of the big things he did was to reach out to the more moderate Khrushchev to try to stop the constant “do this and we’ll nuke you” scares of the 1950’s.

And the bad news about JFK’s legacy that he was perceived weak by some in the Kremlin.

A lot of people make fun of the bomb scares of the 1950’s, probably because boomers aren’t quite old enough to remember the Suez crisis of 1956: when the nationalization of the Suez canal almost started World war III…

The Suez Crisis increased in intensity on the afternoon of 5 November when the Soviet Union sent diplomatic notes to Britain, France and Israel threatening to crush the aggressors and restore peace in the Middle East through the use of force. President Eisenhower’s reaction to these threats was that “if those fellows start something, we may have to hit ’em—and, if necessary, with everything in the bucket.”

The end result of this, along with expanding Israel and closing the canal, was a decrease in rhetoric and threats of war (i.e. hints that they would nuke the US if they were opposed by either the US or Europe in their aims to spread communism).

Such threats were a real danger in the early 1950’s, and communist expansion had to be taken seriously. For example, as a side issue, this is one reason for the “CIA” intervention into Iran in 1953: one of my Iranian friends said: Mosaddegh was elected, but getting unpopular. The communists hired mobs to demonstrate against him to try to take over, but then the CIA paid the same thugs a higher amount to demonstrate and overthrow him in favor of a US stooge…something to remember when Ron Paul condemns the US for intervening. What would history look like if Iran had become a communist dictatorship in 1953?

But anyway, the threats lessened after the Suez crisis in 1956, which was settled peacefully and enforced by the UN peacekeepers.

Another reason for the decreased threats from the USSR was that Stalin died in 1953, and was replaced by Khrushchev in 1958, a more moderate communist (in comparison to Stalin, which is not saying he was sweetness and light, merely not as aggressive).

Yet when Kennedy, a young man preaching peace and the need for decreasing the dangers of nuclear war, came along, some in the Kremlin welcomed this, but others saw him as young and naive. Hence the willingness to put nukes in Cuba, which would threaten Latin America and shift the balance of power. (see Wikipedia’s anti American rewrite of the crisis).

The result was the Cuban Missile crisis, which almost started World War III, where Kennedy was essentially given the choice to ignore the threat/bluff, which would only encourage aggression in many other places backed by Soviet nukes, or put a line in the sand…luckily Bobby Kennedy and others stopped a Cuban invasion and the blockade was suggested.
He did the latter, and the Kremlin backed down.

The point of all of this is that weakness invites attacks.

There is no question but that the failure of Clinton to make any meaningful strike after several Al Qaeda strikes (Khobar Towers, the USS Cole, attempted assasination of Bush Sr.) was one reason that Osama was willing to strike the World Trade Center on 9-11…afterward, he recognized his error, since Bush retaliated (indeed, some say he overretaliated, but that’s another story).

So if the war in Iraq continues to draw down to a successful end, success meaning a usual bumbling and corrupt government that keeps violence down to a minimum so that most people can live in peace  and the US with enough troops there to warn Iran to keep it’s fingers out of there, then Obama will be a good president.

However, if Obama fails to back a strong response when the enemy of the day starts rattling swords, you could see a collapse of the Pax Americana, leaving a power vacuum.

China will not be able to be a power player until 2020, and Afghanistan shows that NATO is useless, and the UN can’t even keep the peace against armed bullies in the Congo.

So will nice guy, the Charismatic Obama, be another JFK?

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crossposted at BNN

It is sad to watch Kenya descend into tribal war.

Essentially it is about one man of one tribe stealing an election...which of course will allow him to distribute all the perks of the government jobs to those of his tribes, not the other tribes.

If you know your US history, this is why Garfield was assasinated, and the civil service examination started for hiring.

But the opposition had in place his people to kill the others, encouraging hatred like "they stole our land" in the poor, who don't know better.

What's missing in this and other tribal conflicts is the understanding of tribal ties, and the problem that socialism with it's bureaurocracy of big government (that mimics the big brother will care for you ideas of tribal government)...actually encourages corruption and keeping out "The Other".

The answer is found in Kenya's growing middle class, and thriving economy.

James Shikwati compares the tribal violence to a Godzilla egg, where the monster of tribalism which was thought dead years ago suddenly reappears...From his editorial in the African Executive:

What started as a legitimate quest to ensure fairness in the just concluded presidential elections in Kenya has unleashed a brutal Godzilla... Managers are forced to use ethnicity to assign duties. Sales and Marketing teams are being recalled and redeployed to areas they can be safe – tribal homes! While some of us have been working hard to build a United Africa; a few people seem hell-bend to reintroduce ethnic kingdoms and destroy Kenya....Listening to Radio FM stations; one is left wondering whether they are keen on expunging the word justice from the dictionary. If Kenyan FM stations are not offering sedatives to burry the problem under the carpet; they are busy inciting ethnicity....How can Kenyans heal when every other day, the two political warring factions drive nails deep into the wounds they unleashed upon the nation on December 30 2007?

They are the hope of the future. but ignored by the west who prefers to see Africans as a poor person needing their help, or as ignorant.

Alas, when the Pope moans about globalism, he isn't helping the matter: he's stuck in the middle ages (which is why Calvin and Luther were the ones who made Europe modern....and why the growing Protestant middle class may break the cycle of helpless poverty in Latin America and the Philippines...maybe the Pope needs to talk to Michael Novak...).

Alas, mouthing words of peace may not be the answer:

 

With their heads in the sand, the middle class - if not urging for prayer for peace, concerts for peace, they are fundraising to erect billboards for peace at every residential area entrance! Nairobi hinterland is burning; tribal passions are being whipped up by the day. The middle class is busy checking in the dictionary for high sounding moralistic words while privately urging on their fellows to protect the supremacy of their tribes.

 

The Godzilla and its eggs must be destroyed, they must not hatch! It’s not going to be easy, but each one of us must re-examine our sense of humanity and the future of the Kenyan republic. Brutish force without power will not bring peace in Kenya, neither will power without legal force.

Ah, but that is the paradox. who will keep this peace? Who will encourage nationhood? For if Socialism encourages voting by tribal blocks to keep the power (and jobs and money) for your own tribe, so too "democracy" in such countries ends up as one tribe, one party, not parties according to philosophy but according to blood.

Kenya is starting to have tribal war, but it can be stopped. But what is needed is the growing middle class to take over the government. If this happens, Kenya could copy the successes of the Asian tigers.

Because the dirty little secret about Africa is that when governments remain in the corrupt tribal mold, their talent (like talent here in the Philippines) often prefer to move overseas where they can use their talent to be prosperous.

cross posted from Bloggernews:

Yesterday I wrote about the changing Middle East, and wrote that Iran really did need nuclear energy to supply their people, but that the hotheads were probably trying to use it to get an atomic bomb to intimidate the neighboring states.

Iran is one of the major petroleum exporters, but ironically it is short of energy, so it probably could use nuclear power plants. Ironically, Iran lacks enough oil refineries to supply gasoline for it’s people,  but it also has to import natural gas. During a recent snowstorm/cold spell, a lot of people lacked natural gas to heat their homes in the Northern and western provinces of Iran. The reason: Turmenistan cut deliveries of Natural Gas via their pipeline.

Today’s BBC reports why:

Turkmenistan has insisted it cut gas to Iran 12 days ago because of a technical fault with the export pipeline and Iran’s failure to pay for supplies….Iranian media reports earlier said Turkmenistan had wanted to double the price for the gas it exports to Iran.

There is a lot of politics behind this, but it has to do with Russia’s desire to monopolize all petroleum exports from the former Soviet states. LINK

And since a quarter of Europe’s Natural gas comes via the Russian pipelines, you can see how Russia can pressure Europe by the new Transcaspian pipeline. LINK.

Russia, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan have reached a landmark gas pipeline deal that will strengthen Moscow’s control over Central Asia’s energy export routes… On the face of it, this pipeline deal seems to be all in Russia’s favour. It means that for the foreseeable future, most gas from Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan will be exported via Russia.

More about the pipeline from Wikipedia: The original pipeline was proposed to transport natural gas from central Asia to central Europe, bypassing Russia. This is now changed.

On 12 May 2007 Vladimir Putin of Russia, Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan and Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedow of Turkmenistan signed an agreement providing for Central Asian gas to be exported to Europe through the reconstructed and expanded western branch of the Central Asia-Center gas pipeline system, thereby dealing a blow to the hopes that the Trans-Caspian Pipeline will materialise in the nearest future, although Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedow said that the Trans-Caspian pipeline project was not cancelled.^[12][13]

It’s not easy to figure out what this means in international terms, since much of the MSM/left wing blogosphere simplifies things into “evil Bush vs the world”.
The way I read this is that Putin wants Russia to be able to monopolize all petroleum and natural gas exports to Europe, and if this means  Iran is being screwed by Turkmenistan so that Turkmenistan can raise prices with the threat that if Iran doesn’t pay up, they’ll take their gas and sell it elsewhere.

And Russia will end up making money either way, since it sees Iran as a place to sell it’s nuclear technology, ignoring the possibility that the extremists in the government might divert supplies to make atomic bombs.

Yet Iran even delayed paying the Russians for helping construct it’s nuclear plants last year, resulting in the Russians stopping construction. In December, that problem was resolved.

“Difficulties with the Iranian client are resolved and we have agreement on the timetable for construction,” said the state contractor, Atomstroieksport. The company’s president said details would be released later this month.

Work by engineers on the plant has been dogged by delays. Russia says Iran is behind on payments, but Iran says work has been stalled for political reasons.

So there is a lot more going on in that area of the world than the simplistic analyses one usually reads in much of the news and blogosphere.

I mean, there is a reason that Time Magazine made Putin it’s Man of the Year, and a lot of it has to do with Russia’s influence in the petroleum producing areas of central Asia.

If you follow the news, you might not know about Bush’s trip to the Middle East, or what he said there. The NYTimes front page has one article, below a football story, but Al Jezeerah (the only “free” press in the Arab world) with three stories…If you really want a summary, go instead to Gateway Pundit’s coverage…includes photos and speeches…

After years of the Arab world stagnating under dictators (most of them supported by the US and European interests), Professor Mansur points out that Bush has introduced a new element into the volitile mix: A fledgling democracy….with freedom of speech, opportunity to make a living, and even to have a say in what is going on in your country, without having to obey the dictator or the mullahs fiat.
Iraq may not be paradise, but the corner is turned. The fact that ex Baathist government officials can now work for the new government in Iraq is big news, ignored (another successful Benchmark, meaning that another complaint of the Democrats has hit the dust). The Shiites will continue to hate the Sunni, and vice versa, but there is hope that both groups are so tired of war that they will cooperate enough to start on the important things of life: working to support one’s family and be prosperous.
As for the surge, even AlJezeerah’s Baghdad correspondent admits the streets are quieter, albeit he’s still afraid to leave the hotel and notes a lot of people lack gas and electric power…(a complaint that could be heard in Iran which is having a natural gas shortage).

A lot of the credit for the turn around goes to the surge…the mopping up battles going on in Iraq…StrategyPage has details.

In the meanwhile, to see how Islam is compatible with the modern world, and to see what Iraq might look like in ten or twenty years, just look to the south: the small Gulf states are prospering…and Bush’s visit there is important because the US essentially is keeping them safe and stable from other countries nearby trying to take them over.
Most Americans aren’t aware these small countries exist. The City Journal has a nice article on them. A lot of Filipinos live there and despite the article mentioning bad labour practices that need fixing, most prefer working there to Saudi Arabia. They are not democracies but enlightened monarchies, but there is freedom and prosperity, and hope for the future:

To their supporters, however, Abu Dhabi and the rest of the UAE offer the only plausible antidote to the spread of the Islamists’ grim destructive militancy. “Who is more spectacular: Osama bin Laden, who destroyed two towers? Or the UAE, which has built over a thousand?” asked Jamil Mroue, a Lebanese journalist and a newcomer to Abu Dhabi, as we gazed out at the tranquil gulf from his garden over Coke and shish kebab one night last fall. “Whose road will the Arabs travel: the one paved by MBZ”—Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed—“to conquer time? Or Osama’s that seeks to reverse it?”

So what about Iran?

The problem is that Iran has many internal problems, including an imploding population, a big drug problem, many non Farsi citizens, a lot of oil but not enough refineries, and a lot of corruption, maybe not by the Mullahs but by their extended families (something we see here in the Philippines). They really could use cheap Nuclear power for electricity, but the danger is that some in that government would use it to pressure nearby countries (such as the smaller Gulf states and Iraq) to join in a Shiite confederation, with of course the more rabid Iranians in control.

But when you talk of Iran, it’s not the same as Saddam’s monolithic Iraq.they plan to use it   And Unlike Saddam’s Iraq, there is a lot of disorganization, so no one person is in control.

StrategyPage explains:

U.S. officials have a hard time getting used to the fact that no one is in charge in Iran. There are many different factions, which generally tolerate whatever the other faction does. Although technically a religious dictatorship, it’s more of a collegial setup, with much debate and bickering required before the majority of the factions can lean on one group to do, or stop doing, something. That’s how the Islamic radical factions in the Revolutionary Guard Corps were finally persuaded to stop encouraging terror attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq (U.S. and British commando operations against the Revolutionary Guard Corps operations helped).

You know that attack of small boats against Navy ships that everyone is arguing about? That was the Revolutionary Guard Corps causing trouble…and a lot of Bush’s rhetoric is to warn their keepers that unlike the Brits, whose sailors surrendered to a swarm of boats that attacked one of their small ships, that the US would shoot back.

So ignore a lot of the rhetoric: read between the lines.

The real danger is not the hot heads in their speed boats, it is that the hot heads who were finally discouraged by the Mullahs to stop making problems in Iraq will continue making problems in Israel, via their proxies in Gaza who keep lobbing missiles into Israel.

Stratpage has an inresting note here about (Iranian backed ) Hamas…
If their missiles into Israel cause a war, the Arabs will be creamed, allowing Iran to stop into the gap….except of course this is nonsense: The real danger is that the hotheads and their proxies will go too far, and Lebanon will reignite into another civil war, or that Israel will get so mad they will destroy Iran’s nuclear sites in the same way they destroyed that unknown site in Syria last year.

That is why Israel is being pressured by Bush: trying to keep things quiet while things are getting stablized in Iraq, and the general prosperity of the region makes rhetoric against Jews less inviting than the possibility of prosperity.

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posted to Bloggernews.

after slobbering over Hillary's demise, the MSM has to face the fact she has won...

Now they're saying all the women voted for her.

NOt noticed: Only46 percent of women voted for her.

Of course, against evil Republicans who want to limit their right to abort their babies up to five second before birth, most will vote for hillary.

But to say women support her ....well, 46 percent of Democratic women do isn't the same as all women.

I posted this on Bloggernews

I wonder how long until someone in the MSM finds who hired the guys.

It’s an iconic moment that gave Hillary 70 headlines and a way to position herself as a pioneering feminist who had to fight her way to the top over the backs of evil male opposition.

The WaPost proclaims:

A Woman President? Not for Clinton Hecklers.

The Boston Globe notes:

Snappy comeback from Clinton

MSNBC proclaims:

Sexist outburst at Clinton event

The NYT has the convenient photo, 

(Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

It was a great photo op for Hillary, whose candidacy has been fading behind Obama’s smile. And of course she has a snappy come back for the protest…

Clinton, a former first lady running to become the United States’ first female president, laughed at the seemingly sexist protest that suggested a woman’s place is doing laundry and not running the country.

“Ah, the remnants of sexism — alive and well,” Clinton said to applause.

The two men were removed from the auditorium after raising a pair of signs that said, “Iron my shirt!” They also shouted the slogan.

“Can we turn the lights on? It’s awfully dark,” Clinton said, cueing police to come forward and take the men away.

Yet something doesn’t smell right about the protest.

Do you mean that security was so lax that two young men carrying such large signs, even signs that are folded up, managed to sneak them into a rally of hand picked Hillary Supporters?

When the man stood up shouting, where were the security guards? None on or near the stage?  The guy is about twelve feet from the candidate–he could have killed her easily at that distance.

And why did the candidate tell the technicians to turn on the lights? Doesn’t she have a stage manager to do that? Indeed, wouldn’t that put her in more danger if the men decided to throw paint or bombs?

The press seems to have accepted the protest at face value. So far the protesters, or those who hired them, have  been identified.

Yet what’s the stuff about ironing shirts? To me, this is the most important clue that the protest was a plant…and probably staged by someone who supports Clinton’s candidacy.
You see, although the NYTimes comment pages point fingers at the right, the truth is that the right hates Hillary because she is a leftist, not because she is a woman. Rush Limbaugh and Freepers don’t have any problem with women like Margaret Thatcher or Condi Rice, for example. If they protested her, they’d call her Hitlery, or make remarks about Bill’s libido.

The left however hates her failure to vote against the war in Iraq. I myself would suspect Code Pink who stage similar protests all the time– except that they usually use women, and are not dumb enough to use a lame sexist smear that will end up boosting Hillary’s candidacy.

But the main reason I believe it is a plant is that it ignores modern fabrics.

You see, the protesters were young men…..and although boomers who grew up in the 1950’s and early 1960’s may have seen their mother iron shirts, one doubts anyone under the age of 40 has seen such a sight.

It’s called “no iron fabric”. You wash the shirt, take it out warm, hang it up, and voila: ready to wear.

And that’s assuming you wear dress shirts, not tee shirts or polo shirts.

In other words, the idea that women ironed shirts is just not part of the culture of the young.. It is part of the culture of baby boomers. Which suggests the men were hired by someone above age 50, probably a woman.
Only Fox News managed to point out, the “Iron my shirt” signs have appeared in previous protests: Carried by feminists…

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I had posted about this on my Bloggernews site:

But now it has hit instupundit
that National journal has trashed it on many different grounds.

The UKTimes did an expose several months ago about questioning their data, and at that time one small fact convinced me something was fake: The UKTimes included a calculation that each interview took fifteen minutes.

Even if the families weren't suspicious of the poll takers, simple hospitality would mean it would take ten minutes of making nice and exchanging courtesies before the first question was asked...

And how many could find the deaths certificates quickly?