PROCÈS-VERBAL

Sorry, Diane Dimond, but regarding Sgt. Robert Bales and the armed forces of the United States, your opinion means nothing. For that matter, neither does mine.

In her HuffPo piece, and certainly on her talk radio show (that should send a red flag up right there. This was in error on my part. When called on it by Diane Dimond (here, I rechecked my source for that and found that I should have read her HuffPo bio more carefully. She is correct. She is not a talk show radio host, but a moveable feast, who writes for The Daily Beast and appears frequently on television news outlets) she stands In Defense of the United States Military and in the process, manages to trash Sgt. Robert Bales. She must feel very comfortable. She must have that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you take a position you feel is unassailable. A position you know many “right thinking people” will rise to defend on your behalf.

Which probably explains a lot.

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Well, she went there.

Jennifer Rubin, writing for The Washington Post, didn’t wait for facts to emerge, couldn’t restrain her impulse to giver her inner demons sway, but went right for the jugular—her own as it turns out:

Norway Bombing:

A massive explosion rocked a government district in Norway’s capital Friday, killing seven people and injuring many more, and a shooter at a political convention on an island north of Oslo appeared to have inflicted more casualties, in incidents police are treating as connected, a police spokesman said.

Thomas Joscelyn explains at the Weekly Standard Web site:

Just one year ago, authorities in Oslo broke up an al Qaeda-directed bomb plot that originated in northern Pakistan. Good intelligence, including intercepted emails between an al Qaeda planner and the Oslo cell, prevented the plotters from assembling and launching their bomb. . . .

Oslo was not as fortunate today. . . .

We don’t know if al Qaeda was directly responsible for today’s events, but in all likelihood the attack was launched by part of the jihadist hydra. Prominent jihadists have already claimed online that the attack is payback for Norway’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan.
(Emphasis mine.)

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Josh Rogin reports on a letter being circulated for signatures authored by Elliott Abrams, Robert Kagan and William Kristol:

“We thank you for your leadership as Congress exercises its Constitutional responsibilities on the issue of America’s military actions in Libya. We are gravely concerned, however, by news reports that Congress may consider reducing or cutting funding for U.S. involvement in the NATO-led military operations against the oppressive regime of Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi. Such a decision would be an abdication of our responsibilities as an ally and as the leader of the Western alliance,” the letter reads. “It would result in the perpetuation in power of a ruthless dictator who has ordered terrorist attacks on the United States in the past, has pursued nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, and who can be expected to return to these activities should he survive. To cut off funding for current efforts would, in short, be profoundly contrary to American interests.”

One can only wonder what US armament manufacturers have been whispering in that trio’s ear.

During the ramp up, the rhetoric surrounding Qadhafi and his violent crackdown on protesters was bad enough. While I’m not even thinking about defending some of his actions, the rhetoric was demonic. Qadhafi is no worse than the al-Khalifa royal family in Bahrain, the al-Sauds, Bashar al-Assad in Syria or the regime in Khartoum. Unfortunately for him, Qadhafi had Lockerbie in his past and that sealed his fate.

While I reading that more and more Americans are having trouble with the White House’s actions regarding Libya, and while I have definite opinions about the War Powers Resolution (which I’ve been fairly strident about), this post is about the diplomatic and human fallout.
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How I spend my day off. I do some housekeeping here at home as well as on the various places on the web where I reside. A little organization to make life easier. It’s a regularly recurring task, because I normally use three browsers: one for news, another for blogs, and a third to touch base with various online foreign policy journals.

Using multiple tabs, opening a browser is an exercise in patience for me.

Later on today, I’ll scroll through the twenty or so studies and white papers I downloaded last night. My idea of a fun time.

One thing I did was to gather all my news links into one place so Firefox opens a bit faster than it did: my *Daily Readswas the target of some cleanup. Hopefully, while the rest of the political blogosphere moans and groans over things like the failed debt limit vote in the House (why this is news isn’t exactly clear to me, the GOP telegraphed their intentions months ago and the markets have ignored the kabuki), I will attempt a quick news roundup of stories of note which go unremarked in the lefty blogosphere:
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One of Solzhenitsyn’s most chilling stories concerned a birthday party for Comrade Stalin, held in a small, out-of-the-way town. Stalin was, of course, no where in sight, but still there were speeches and applause. Without thinking, the mayor of the town rose and exhorted his fellows to one last cheer for the evening to the honor of Stalin.

The applause continued for minutes without stopping and everyone was growing weary, but who would dare to be the first to stop clapping? As the labored applause wore on an old man collapsed. Finally the mayor allowed his arms to drop and the noise died. The next evening the mayor was sentenced to the gulag, and no charges were ever spoken against him. As he stepped into the train, a party official whispered into his ear, “Never be the first one to stop clapping.” — David Sisler

This was not the post I orginally thought to write. It’d be very easy to dump on Congress for their disgraceful looking performance this week during Benjamin Netanyayu’s address to Congress:

and I wouldn’t be the first. Stephen Walt already has, and linked to more (here, here, here and here). None of which I have a problem with. So lets be clear on what happened here: Bibi came to town to reconnect with AIPAC and then press home the threat with Congress, who knew very well what was going on.

Kabuki? No. This is great power politics in action.
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Well. I hate love to say I told you so, but yes, this is what I predicted over a month ago.

Today, Colum Lynch reports on the UN Security Council’s attitude toward Syria, and they aren’t in the mood to listen to the interventionist bloc at the moment:

The current dispute over Syria “is the hang over from Libya,” one council diplomat told Turtle Bay. “China and Russia feel a bit betrayed because the coalition went further than what was in the resolution. It diminished the possibility of replicating the Libya model in Yemen and Syria,” where Russia and China have blocked action.

(Emphasis mine)

Not that I’m calling for another bombing campaign, I’m most definitely not, but this is real fallout for overreaching in Libya. The mission approved by the Security Council was civilian protection, as established by international norm. Regime change was unilateral.
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Somethings are hard to do, but I cannot let this one go unremarked.

Let me first of all commend (yes, commend, you read that right) the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, a body I’ve frequently held in the deepest disrepute, for holding a hearing this week on the Peace Corps at 50, and mostly concerned with the conduct of the Peace Corps regarding the safety of volunteers overseas. My praise, however isn’t unqualified, for the hearing was prompted by a story which appeared from 20/20 about the criminally shabby treatment of rape victims by the Peace Corps:

A Peace Corps volunteer who says she became pregnant after a Peace Corps employee raped her alleges that Peace Corps officials forced her to make a choice: get an abortion or quit the organization.

“I was not pro-choice until that moment,” said Carol Clark, now a schoolteacher in North Carolina, who says she was devastated that the organization she trusted treated her so callously.

Clark says she has come forward to tell her story after more than 25 years because of an ABC News “20/20″ report about former Peace Corps volunteers who allege that they were mistreated by the Peace Corps after they were victims of sexual assault while serving overseas.

Witness testimony details rape victims being abandoned, mistreated by supposed care providers and told to keep quiet about their experiences while serving as Peace Corps volunteers.

Evidently, this has been standard Peace Corps practice for decades and like I said, criminal. Peace Corps Director Aaron S. Williams ought to lose his post in disgrace for not addressing this ongoing situation, but committee chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (told you this was hard) did the right thing by holding a full committee hearing on the subject.

Another prized American institution shows rot at the core, so let’s hope the needed reform results.
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Pardon my alliterative mood. It may be an off day for me, but the world still continues to spin, burn, fold, spindle and mutilate itself, and yours truly is here to report.
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(h/t to Laura Rozen aka The Cable, blogging at Foreign Policy)

This one makes my bullshit antennae twitch, or is our first salvo in a post-bin Laden world of our efforts to eradicate Islamic terror and isolate Iran (yes, Iran).

Or it is just more of the pure power politics of the same stripe which cost Yemen $73 million in US aid when it failed to vote for Desert Storm in 1991, after which the American ambassador famously said to his colleague from Yemen, “That was the most expensive vote you will have cast.”
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