Now the Republic’s enemies must be asking themselves: where is the bottom to these people’s incompetence? Can they do anything at all? How safe is it to rush ahead? Why don’t we try?
And if they do, what tools will President Obama have left? Diplomacy? Economic incentives or sanctions? Moral authority? Maybe the military. Yes that’s it. But his competence at war is predicted by his incompetence in peace. One would hope he’d have the sense to stay away from truly dangerous tools and that probably means he doesn’t know better.
International Affairs
Senators Kerry and Lugar – Senators to the World!
Because I’m loads of fun, I decided to pay a visit to Senator Lugar’s website. I searched for the names “Kerry Lugar” which turned up the following:
Senator Lugar considers a secure Pakistan to be vital in the protection of United States security interests in Afghanistan and throughout the Middle East and South Asia. From January 2003 to December 2006, Senator Lugar served as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has been the Republican leader since January 2007. In this capacity, he has exercised close oversight of U.S. policy in Pakistan and participated in more than 15 hearings related to ongoing affairs in the country from 2003 to the present.
Goodness! That is impressive! Wait a minute, what’s that you say?
Since 1951, the United States has given significant funding to Pakistan. Since September 11, 2001, U.S. funding has been intended for the following five purposes: to cover the extra cost to Pakistan’s military of fighting terrorism; provide Pakistan with military equipment to fight terrorism; to provide development and humanitarian assistance; covert funds (such as bounties or prize money); and cash transfers directly to the Pakistani government’s budget.
Pakistan (sic) one of only four countries to receive direct cash transfers. Between 2002 and 2008, this “thank you” to Pakistan for help in fighting terrorism cost the U.S. taxpayer $2,374,000,000. By its nature, these cash transfers became Pakistani sovereign funds, precluding U.S. oversight.
“U.S. Aid to Pakistan—U.S. Taxpayers Have Funded Pakistani Corruption,” Belfer Center
Oh dear. Well, that is unfortunate. Perhaps the close oversight needs some tweaking?
Again from the Senator’s website, I find a link to something called PUBLIC LAW 11173—OCT. 15, 2009 – the ENHANCED PARTNERSHIP WITH PAKISTAN ACT OF 2009. The linked .pdf has lots of stuff like the following in it:
OPERATIONS RESEARCH.—The term ”operations research” means the application of social science research methods, statistical analysis, and other appropriate scientific methods to judge, compare, and improve policies and program outcomes, from the earliest stages of defining and designing programs through their development and implementation, with the objective of the rapid dissemination of conclusions and concrete impact on programming.
That sure is a lot of words. You know what has fewer words in it? This: By its nature, these cash transfers became Pakistani sovereign funds, precluding U.S. oversight.
I suppose Instapundit does have a point: “I’d say that if the GOP has started issuing seats like titles of nobility, without caring what the voters think, then that’s beyond redemption. Nobody should be immune to a primary challenge.”
I guess not.
(Look, I can’t read “legalese” so I have no idea if the Enhanced Partnership With Pakistan Act Of 2009 will be able to avoid the problems of the past. Maybe I am being unfair. What I’d like to know from our readers is the following: once the cash is transferred to the civilian government, how can we know what it is being used for?)
Update: I changed “legalize” to “legalese”. Didn’t catch it the first time. I’m sure there are other errors. My writing skills are a bit shaky. I’m trying to improve them so if you see mistakes could you please point them out in the comments? I’ve got busy days and blogging is the lowest priority. I love it, but it’s low priority compared to other stuff.
How to deal with North Korea
While I’ve been purposefully avoiding any news shows or blogs this weekend, the situation in North Korea forces me to post this potential solution to the problem. Let’s start with some premises.
1. NK is a buffer state for China. It exists at China’s will.
2. NK is a clear and present danger to its own people and to the world.
3. China, belligerent and “ascendant” as she may be, is linked to our currency and to our consumption of her cheap goods.
While I could add details and subheadings to the above, I think the premises are sound. If not please correct me.
With that in mind, why shouldn’t America, in the person of its CEO, simply offer China the ultimatum below.
Dear Hu,
This nation tires of the dangerous and evil games played by Kim Jong Il. He is a dangerous man who is actively destroying his own people. The United States has played the diplomatic games with this madman long enough, yet fully realizes that we have no optimal military option.
Given that you have it with in your power as a nation to change the nature of NK, and that you clearly are using NK as a threatening buffer state, I see no reason to remain diplomatically engaged with the buffer state puppet – Kim Jong Il. I think we will deal with your nation alone.
With that in mind, I offer the following ultimatum. You will immediately begin the process of forcing regime change in NK. The best solution would be for you to begin the process of reunification, but I would be happy to hear other alternatives.
If you fail to begin this process, I will use all my administrative powers, and lobby Congress to use its powers to shut down all trade with China until such regime change is effected.
Sincerely,
President Obama (or his successor)
Why shouldn’t we use trade as weapon in this situation? Aside from hurting Walmart’s stock price for a few quarters and losing a few transportation jobs in the interim, why can’t we do this? Discuss.
What the Dickens? Symbolic details in Inspire issue 3
[ cross-posted from Zenpundit ]
It’s easily missed. It’s part of the “small print” that most small-format paperbacks carry on the copyright page:
The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this “stripped book.”
Here’s the picture that AQAP took of the copy of Dickens’ novel Great Expectations they inserted into one of their bombs recently which they then published in issue 3 of their English language magazine Inspire:
And here’s the explanation that accompanies that photo, in a piece titled “The Objectives if Operation Hemorrhage” by their “Head of the Foreign Operations Team”:
This current battle fought by the West is not an isolated battle but is a continuation of a long history of aggression by the West against the Muslim world. In order to revive and bring back this history we listed the names of Reynald Krak and Diego Diaz as the recipients of the packages. We got the former name from Reynald de Chatillon, the lord of Krak des Chevaliers who was one of the worst and most treacherous of the Crusade’s leaders. He fell into captivity and Salahuddeen personally beheaded him. The name we used for the second package was derived from that of Don Diego Deza, the Inquisitor General of the Spanish Inquisition after the fall of Granada who along with the Spanish monarchy supervised the extermination and expulsion of the Muslim presence on the Iberian Peninsula employing the most horrific methods of torture and done in the name of God and the Church. Today we are facing a coalition of Crusaders and Zionists and we in al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula will never forget Palestine. How can we forget it when our motto is: “Here we start and in al-Aqsa we meet”? So we listed the address of the “Congregation Or Chadash”, a Gay and Lesbian synagogue on our one of our packages. The second package was sent to “Congregation B’nai Zion”. Both synagogues are in Chicago, Obama’s city.
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We were very optimistic about the outcome of this operation. That is why we dropped into one of the boxes a novel titled, Great Expectations.
They may not have read the book or seen the movie, as Ibn Siqilli comments at the link above, but they do have long memories and/or a taste for history, and they are indeed sending signals with small details like the fictitious names of their addressees.
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This is in line with one of the basic premises of Islamic thought: that the world we inhabit is a world of ayat or symbols (the singular is ayah, and the word is also used to refer to the verses of the Qur’an, each of which is viewed as a symbolic utterance). Here, for instance, is a passage from Fazlun Khalid’s paper, Islam and the Environment, from the website of Jordan’s Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought:
The Qur’an refers to creation or the natural world as the signs (ayat) of Allah, the Creator, and this is also the name given to the verses contained in the Qur’an. Ayat means signs, symbols or proofs of the divine. As the Qur’an is proof of Allah so likewise is His creation. The Qur’an also speaks of signs within the self and as Nasr explains, “… when Muslim sages referred to the cosmic or ontological Qur’an … they saw upon the face of every creature letters and words from the cosmic Qur’an … they remained fully aware of the fact that the Qur’an refers to phenomena of nature and events within the soul of man as ayat … for them forms of nature were literally ayat Allah”. As the Qur’an says, “there are certainly signs (ayat) in the earth for people with certainty; and in yourselves. Do you not then see?” (Adh-Dhariat, 51:20, 21).
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BTW, I don’t think Penguin (or, for that matter, Charles Dickens) got paid for that book… whatever their expectations may have been.
al-Awlaki has a Phineas moment
Here’s a meme worth noting when it crops up in the advocacy of religious violence:
You don’t need permission from a religious authority…
1
This particular idea came up in the video of Anwar al-Awlaki that was released yesterday, Nov. 8th.
Flashpoint Partners translated the comment in question, “do not consult anyone in killing the Americans. Fighting Satan does not require a jurisprudence. It does not require consulting. It does not need a prayer for the cause. They are the party of Satan … It is the battle between truth and falsehood.”
The AFP translation of the key phrase here reads, “Killing the devil does not need any fatwa (legal ruling).”
2
My interest was piqued because of the correspondence between this comment from al-Awlaki, and the case of Phineas in the biblical Book of Numbers, chapter 25.
Phineas is “the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest” – but when he recognizes that the Lord would be infuriated by the interracial and interreligious copulation of Zimri, “a prince of a chief house” in Israel, with Cozbi, the daughter of the “head over a people, and of a chief house in Midian”, he does not go to the priest his grandfather seeking permission to kill them – he knows it is his Lord’s wish that they should die, and so he takes the responsibility for his action entirely upon himself, and kills them.
3
As I shall recount in greater detail in two future posts on the topic of Phineas, it is the fact that Phineas acts without first requesting permission that pleases his Lord so much that He grants to Phineas and his seed “the covenant of an everlasting priesthood”.
It is precisely this acting without requesting permission that is emphasized in modern Christian Identity writings on the topic of “Phineas Priests”:
So a Phinehas priest is a MAN who acts on personal initiative to execute Yah’s judgment on violations of Yah’s laws which are adversely affecting His people.
And according to Ehud Sprinzak, the eminent scholar of modern Jewish terrorism, it was reading the “Balak portion” of the book of Numbers, in which the story of Phineas is recounted, that convinced Yigal Amir that he could legitimately assassinate Yitzhak Rabin without first obtaining rabbinic approval (which would have put the rabbi who granted him permission at risk).
4
So. We have one more piece of the puzzle by which a mind with its own interpretation of God’s will can come to the conclusion that some specific act or acts of violence – accurately termed “terrorism” by others – are not only divinely sanctioned, and indeed mandatory, but can be undertaken without the requirement of prior verification from an appropriate religious authority.
And in this case — the religious authority, such as it is, of Sheikh al-Awlaki proposes this.
5
Aaron Zelin‘s post on the Qur’anic text invoked by al-Awlaki’s title and the commentaries on that verse by ibn Kathir and others, is well worth your time, if you have not already seen it.