Category Archives: Foreign
Christmas Wars
Thirty-six people were killed when a car bomb exploded outside a Nigerian church during Christmas Mass. A radical Islamic group called Boko Haram took credit. The murders were an attempt to establish Sharia law in northern Nigeria.
Obit Week
The year 2011 was the end of the line for guys who changed the world – Steve Jobs in one way, Vaclav Havel in another. Anne Applebaum tells how Havel ‘s essay “Power to the Powerless” changed the world. His great insight was that all totalitarian regimes are based on a lie. If individuals “live in the truth” the lie dies and the regime collapses. That’s what happened with the velvet revolution in Czechoslovakia.
As it happens, Havel was overshadowed in death by the totalitarian leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-Il. Or Kim Jong-Dead, as Rush Limbaugh kept referring to him yesterday.
The Dear Leader’s birth on a sacred mountaintop is said to have been announced by a talking swallow. In addition to his miraculous golf scorecard, he claimed the power to order up perfect weather for his birthdays. He wasn’t completely without humility, though, having never claimed to cause the planet to heal or the oceans to recede.
Many tree bark eating North Koreans who mourned the death of their epicurian leader (his annual bar tab for Hennessy Cognac alone was over half a million dollars) don’t seem to be “living in the truth” so much. But then what would you expect from a nation of racist dwarfs.
Holder Holds On
Late last Friday the Justice Department dumped 2,000 documents on Congress. The stated purpose was to retract previous statements regarding gun sales to Mexican drug cartels. Despite the furious demands of Daryl Issa and others that he resign, top cop Holder held on during his Thursday testimony before Congress.
Under the supervision of ATF agents, American gun shops have sold over 2,000 guns (oddly a 1 to 1 ratio to dumped documents) to suspected Mexican gang members. The plan was to track the weapons to Mexican drug lords and arrest them. Except government superiors denied requests by agents to track the guns as they “walked” across the border. Why? No one knows, hence all the fury.
Some think it was an evil plot to create drug war violence involving American guns and use the bad publicity to clamp down on gun sales in the U.S. That seems cynical and far fetched. Except Sharyl Attkisson of CBS has come up with what may be a smoking gun:
ATF officials didn’t intend to publicly disclose their own role in letting Mexican cartels obtain the weapons, but emails show they discussed using the sales, including sales encouraged by ATF, to justify a new gun regulation called “Demand Letter 3”. That would require some U.S. gun shops to report the sale of multiple rifles or “long guns.” Demand Letter 3 was so named because it would be the third ATF program demanding gun dealers report tracing information.
On July 14, 2010 after ATF headquarters in Washington D.C. received an update on Fast and Furious, ATF Field Ops Assistant Director Mark Chait emailed Bill Newell, ATF’s Phoenix Special Agent in Charge of Fast and Furious:
“Bill – can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same (licensed gun dealer) and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales. Thanks.”
Open Mic
Sarkozy and Obama had one of those open mic moments at the G-20 Summit in France. Sarkozy called Benjamin Netanyahu a liar and Obama complained that he has to deal with him everyday.
Death by Drone
I’m a little ambivalent about drone assassinations. Not sure why. Our guys don’t get killed, you get the bad guys without carpet bombing thousands – what’s not to like? Gadhafi survived the drone missile but died in a crossfire, as Krauthammer put it, from temple to temple.
