Misc Commentary For September 9th, 2003

Here are a few things I wanted to touch on that didn’t quote merit full posts….

— I know a lot of people want McClintock to drop out of the California Gov’s race, but if I’m McClintock, I hang on for a while. I say that because Arnold doesn’t just have skeletons in his closet, he has a whole graveyard crammed in there and more and more of it is going to become public. If Arnold’s numbers starts to drop as more of his baggage becomes public — which is entirely possible — maybe Arnold drops out instead of McClintock. Stranger things have happened and I think it would be a mistake to write off McClintock at this early date.

— I only caught the last 30 minutes or so of the debate because I was taking a nap (and no I didn’t fall asleep after listening to Joe Lieberman talk for 2 or 3 minutes). I can’t say I was terribly impressed. All the candidates, except for Sharpton, were boring and I’m sure they must have sounded fairly radical to Americans who aren’t part of their base. All this whinging about how bad Bush’s civil rights & environmental policy are, the 2000 election, etc, just seems so eighties, so incredibly stale. The Dems are just not going to win by acting as if Bush is some kind of monster, because nobody buys into that gibberish except for the most rabid members of the Democratic base. I can’t say that what I saw changed my impression of any of the candidates, but I have come to the conclusion that it would be a lot of fun to interview Sharpton even if I don’t agree with anything he has to say…

— I’ve been an advocate of ending our military support of South Korea after we settle the nuclear issue with North Korea and ive South Korea a year or two to prepare. Stories like this one are a big part of the reason why…

“South Korean television, including state-owned and semiofficial channels, is portraying North Korea in an increasingly positive light; one recent program, for instance, favorably compared Pyongyang’s state-run day care system with child care in the South. There has been a rise in the popularity of Internet chat rooms where South Korean youths share warm feelings about their North Korean counterparts on the other side of the most heavily militarized border in the world, according to political analysts who have studied the phenomenon. And a South Korean tour company is poised to start commercial flights to Pyongyang from Seoul for eager South Korean vacationers.

Meanwhile, South Korea’s so-called 3-8-6 generation has become the nation’s latest in-group. They are professionals in their thirties, who entered college in the 1980s, were born in the 1960s and participated in student movements opposed to right-wing regimes in the South. Today, many of them share more sympathetic views of the North and have risen to positions of influence here. For example, they make up the core of key advisers in the six-month-old administration of South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun.”

Look, the only reunification Kim Jong-Il is interested in is at the point of the gun. He’s a belligerent psychopath with nukes who runs his country like a prison and has zero interest in freedom or Democracy. Yet, we have all these South Korean utopian idealists running around mooning over the North Koreans. Hey, newsflash South Koreans — just because you consider someone “your brothers” and want them to reciprocate doesn’t mean they will. Personally, I don’t think we should be putting out troops in harms way to protect these people when they’re easily capable to doing it themselves and much of their population, perhaps even a growing majority, doesn’t appreciate it.

— There are a lot of Democrats who want America to drop to its knees and beg France, Germany and the rest of the UN for their help in Iraq, no matter what the consequences are. Here’s the price they’re demanding we pat…

“France and Germany will back the new UN resolution on Iraq sought by President George Bush only if the proposal gives the UN full political rule over the country.

The countries have also demanded a clear programme for returning power to Iraqis.

…France doubts a solution lies in extra troops, but says the governing council needs to be given a clear impression of a timetable leading to democratic elections and a constitutional assembly.”

Let me translate for you. France and Germany would get their share of the booty in Iraq even through they opposed us all the way, Britain, Poland, Australia and the rest of our allies would get shafted even through they risked and blood and treasure to support us, the Us would still have to supply the overwhelming majority of troops in Iraq, and France and Germany would try to undermine Democracy in Iraq so they could install a puppet dictator who’d give them sweetheart deals and who would be acceptable to the surrounding Arab governments. Then as a bonus we’d get to listen to snooty French and German diplomats sneer at the United States and talk about how, “we’ve been taught a lesson about the importance of the UN”.

Not every nation shares our goals folks or wants us to succeed. Trying to give nations like that, nations like France & Germany, a say in important issues that are essential to our national defense is a terrible idea.

***Update #1***: Canadian lefty Tim writes in the comments section, “France doubts a solution lies in extra troops, but says the governing council needs to be given a clear impression of a timetable leading to democratic elections and a constitutional assembly”

what horrible b@stards those french are.. wanting to get democratic elections and constitutional assembly going in Iraq.. what horrible cowardly b@stards, right john?”

Well yes, the French are, “horrible cowardly b@stards,” but on to your comments. The French and German governments care nothing about Democratic elections in Iraq. To the contrary, Saddam Hussein’s totalitarian Iraqi state had no better friends than the Germans and French.

So why are they talking about Democracy now? Two reasons.

One, they know it’s impossible to put a timetable on something like this and they hope that talking about it will make them look like good guys to the Iraqi people and the world. Sort of a, “Sure the French and Germans did everything in their power to allow Saddam to keep murdering, raping, and enslaving his people while the Americans freed them, but they really supported Democracy all along”. Listening to the French and German governments talk about Democracy in Iraq is like listening to Kim Jung-Il talk about how much he wants to reunify with the South or a Saudi Government official talking about how much they want peace with Israel. It’s pure garbage.

Secondly, the French and German governments would rather see Democracy fail in Iraq rather than succeed. It would be a humiliation for America and as a bonus, they’d have a much better chance of restoring their economic ties with a dictator than a free Iraq that remembers and resents the nations that tried to aid Saddam. If the Iraqis move too fast towards Democracy, their government will be too weak to survive and a civil war or even perhaps an invasion from Iran or Turkey could easily happen. If that sort of chaos broke out, the world would likely forget about Democracy in Iraq and would probably help another Iraqi strongman gain power in order to restore stability.

The Germans and French weren’t friends to the Iraqi people when Saddam was in power and they’re not friends to them now. Allowing those nations to get involved in the decision making process in Iraq would lead to disaster.

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