KGB Resurrection?

Jamie Glazov brings together at FrontPageMagazine Ion Mihai Pacepa, the former acting chief of Communist Romania’s espionage service, James Woolsey, CIA Director from 1993-95, and Vladimir Bukovsky, a former Soviet dissident, for a discussion of the supposed "re-Sovietization" of Russia. Their opinion is damning.

FP: So Mr. Bukovsky, Putin is clearly consolidating his powerful control of Russia. He is placing myriad former KGB officers in his presidential administration posts and has appointed Mikhail Fradkov, also KGB, as chief of government. The Russian media is increasingly practicing self-censorship and political opponents face increasing violence and intimidation. Russia is clearly going back to an authoritarian security state and Putin has made himself somewhat of an oligarch.
...
Woolsey: Once again, I have no substantial disagreement with the views of these two remarkable men. It seems to me that the direction of Russia is decidedly negative and that the question for us in the West is the one Lenin was fond of posing: "What is to be done?"... Putin has used the economic prosperity produced by a strong oil market to consolidate his power and lead Russia toward a form of fascism -- oil prices have given him the idea that he can do anything he wants. Oil can tend to centralize power in any society except in a mature democracy such as Norway.

While I would agree that Russia's foreign policy in Yugoslavia and the Middle East has been atrocious, compared to the chaos it experienced in terms of economics and national security in the 1990s, I think Putin's reforms have been mostly positive. To call them fascism is a bit more than ridiculous, and smacks of the anti-national security rhetoric usually reserved by the far left for Israel and the U.S. (and rightly criticized by FrontPage).

One could talk about a "re-Sovietization" if Putin was running the country while ignoring the wishes of the people. He remains incredibly popular, however.

In response to Woolsey, I don't think oil has necessarily negatively affected Russian politics that much more than it has U.S. politics.

Kerry's Man in Iraq

Cuba and Libya on the UN Human Rights Commission, oil-for-food corruption, and now this? Kerry's plan for a large UN role in Iraq may be backfiring big time, and will cost him in Florida. His great hope in Iraq happens to be the former Algerian foreign minister with certain "interesting" political views.

"[Lakhdar Brahimi is] one of the most skilled and capable people with respect to Iraq and the Middle East," Kerry said. "He can talk to all the parties. He would be a perfect example of somebody whom you could ask to really take over what Paul Bremer's doing, de-Americanize the effort and begin to put it under the United Nations' umbrella."

Brahimi told France's Inter radio on Thursday that Israeli policies toward Palestinians and Washington's support for them hindered his search for a caretaker Iraqi regime that would take power on June 30 when the U.S.-led occupation ends.

"The big poison in the region is the Israeli policy of domination and the suffering imposed on the Palestinians."

Brahimi said his job was complicated by Iraqi perceptions of "Israel's completely violent and repressive security policy and determination to occupy more and more Palestinian territory."

What's interesting, of course, is that the Bush administration has been relying heavily on Brahimi, as well. And it was Brahimi who helped forge an interim government in Afghanistan after the U.S. overthrow of the Taliban. Hmmmm.

P.S. A less somber aside, via Reuters:

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has a problem with Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N. envoy to Iraq -- his name.

The Massachusetts senator has the vowels down but can't seem to corral the right consonants.... For two days last week, Kerry referred to the envoy as Brandini, not even taking a stab at Lakhdar.

P.P.S. A more somber one: Human Rights Watch is upset with the UN Commission on Human Rights... because the U.S. is on it!

Bowling for Fallujah

What the World Needs Now Is DDT

A fascinating piece in the New York Times Magazine touching on Africa, malaria, and global warming:

Yet what really merits outrage about DDT today is not that South Africa still uses it, as do about five other countries for routine malaria control and about 10 more for emergencies. It is that dozens more do not. Malaria is a disease Westerners no longer have to think about. Independent malariologists believe it kills two million people a year, mainly children under 5 and 90 percent of them in Africa. Until it was overtaken by AIDS in 1999, it was Africa's leading killer.
...
Today, westerners with no memory of malaria often assume it has always been only a tropical disease. But malaria was once found as far north as Boston and Montreal. Oliver Cromwell died of malaria, and Shakespeare alludes to it (as ''ague'') in eight plays. Malaria no longer afflicts the United States, Canada and Northern Europe in part because of changes in living habits -- the shift to cities, better sanitation, window screens. But another major reason was DDT, sprayed from airplanes over American cities and towns while children played outside.
...
In 1970, the National Academy of Sciences wrote in a report that ''to only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt as to DDT'' and credited the insecticide, perhaps with some exaggeration, with saving half a billion lives.
...
In her 297 pages, Rachel Carson never mentioned the fact that by the time she was writing, DDT was responsible for saving tens of millions of lives, perhaps hundreds of millions.

DDT killed bald eagles because of its persistence in the environment. ''Silent Spring'' is now killing African children because of its persistence in the public mind.

Obviously, Richard Tren and the libertarians at Africa Fighting Malaria have been advocating DDT use for years now. To read something like this coming from the pen of an editorial writer at the New York Times though is groundbreaking. Let us remember, when we hear of scare reports, like, ‘World Health Organisation report concludes that "global warming could cause the spread of malaria and other tropical diseases to millions of people presently free of them,"’ that malaria is a poverty disease that requires just a bit of development and social organization to be combated, not for a stop to the world’s economic engine, as some, including Greenpeace, would insist.

Tina Rosenberg deserves great kudos for this article. I do however have to take issue with her statement that "Rachel Carson started the environmental movement." Influenced by Romanticism, the evil movement that gave us “orientalism” and bourgeois revolutions,

by the end of the nineteenth century an explicit concern with the environment was at the centre of a wide range of works, from Gerard Manley Hopkins's 'Binsey Poplars' (1879) to Sarah Orne Jewett's 'A White Heron' (1886) and Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya (1897).

At the end of part one of "Uncle Vanya" (David Mamet's translation, which is very close to the original), Dr. Astrov, the country doctor, says:

"Billions of trees. All perishing. The homes of birds and beasts being laid waste. The level of the rivers falls, and they dry up. And sublime landscapes disappear, never to return, because man hasn't sense enough to bend down and pick fuel up from the ground. Isn't this so? What must man be, to destroy what he never can create?"

Is the environmental movement today saying anything all that different? Are its policies being driven by any more facts than a hundred years ago? (Via Jens 'n' Frens)

Sept. 11 Might Have Been Different If ...

James Lileks, via Jens 'n' Frens:

Maybe. If. If George W. Bush had phoned the Saudis on the first day of his administration and told them any act of Islamist terror would result in a mushroom cloud over Mecca, and that he would consider it "what we call in bowling a practice frame," it might have been different. It might have been different if B-52s had taken out the Taliban in February 2001 -- and we all know how Ted Kennedy et al. would have exploded in a rain of bile had Bush kicked off his term with a pre-emptive war. The articles of impeachment would have been drawn up before the first wave of bombers returned to base.

Total Information Awareness

Thought the “Total Information Awareness” surveillance program was shut down last year? So does Congress. Well, think again.

"Crack of Marijuana"

What happens when you combine a socialized medical system and "medicinal" marijuana? Nothing good, Kate Duree finds out. (See her last post dated April 15th.)

Corruption near and far

One day, when I’m done reforming the world, I will sit down on a hill under an oak tree, look at the beautiful sunset across the ocean, and behold a world free of sons of U.N. Secretary-Generals profiting off tyranny, of plutocrats running nations in Africa, and of Massachusetts politicians pocketing taxpayers' money. Until that day...

It's fascinating that the U.N. is now going to be involved with the new Iraqi "caretaker government," in place through January 2005. No less fascinating is that, according to U.N. officials, “key [Security Council] members including Russia, France and China routinely stalled efforts to address abuses in the [oil-for-food] program” and that “the United States showed little interest” in addressing its corruption.

The Trouble With Kerry

Your one-stop center for doubts about JFK2, from the kausfiles.

Oliver Stone on Castro

Ann Louise Bardach interviews Oliver Stone about his new HBO movie "Looking for Fidel":

ALB: So after 60 hours with Castro, what do you make of this man?
OS: I'm totally awed by his ability to survive and maintain a strong moral presence ... and we ignore him now at our peril if we start another war with Cuba.
ALB: You say we ignore him at our peril. It seems to me that we're obsessed with him.
OS: No, I think the focus is wrong. Fidel is not the revolution, believe me. Fidel is popular, whatever his enemies say. It's "Zapata," remember that movie? He said, 'A strong people don't need a strong leader.'
ALB: So you think that if he went off the scene the revolution would continue?
OS: If Mr. Bush and his people have the illusion that they're going to walk into an Iraq-type situation, and people are going to throw up their arms and welcome us, [they are] dead wrong. These people are committed. Castro has become a spiritual leader. He will always be a Mao to those people.
...
ALB: In the first film, Comandante, he asked you, "Is it so bad to be a dictator?" Did you think you should have responded to that question?
OS: I don't think that was the place to do it. … You know, dictator or tyrant, those words are used very easily. In the Greek political system, democracy didn't work out that well. There were what they called benevolent dictators back in those days.

This interview left me speechless and sad. He just doesn't get it, does he?

Death of the "Peace" Movement: SF April 10, 2004

"Solidarity With The Insurgents of Fallujah!" ... "Support Armed Resistance in Iraq & Everywhere!" ... "Avenge Yassin"

These slogans and more like them appeared on protester's signs during "anti-war" demonstrations this weekend, one of which was proudly billed as the "Insurgence Solidarity March." As if we needed any, this is yet more evidence of the complete moral bankruptcy of the Left. Photos can be seen here, here, here and here

Via Cox & Forkum. SF Rally, March 20, 2004, via nojohnkerry.org:

The First Deadly Sin?

John's friend David Tanner on Southern pride:

My recent trip to the land of unsweetened tea and grumpy service has led me to realize how proud I am to be a southerner. Sometimes I like to claim that I'm from Wisconsin, as I was born there, but recently I have warmed to the idea that I am a southerner at heart. I was raised in Alabama and Georgia, so I know well the reasons for your scoffs. However, though many take the redneck stereotype as the pinnacle of southern virtue, I see them more as court jesters than as having any real part in the formulation of southern pride.

I've also found that southern pride can't really be understood unless it has been lived. Unless you have been disgusted at someone's lack of pride in themselves and the work that they do, you may not understand why one should be proud in the first place. I encountered this in DC (at a "southern cooking" restaurant not less!). The server was a jerk, for one thing. On top of that, he had no pride in his work. Perhaps the excuse may be made that food service is nothing to be proud of (though I don't buy it), nevertheless, one should do one's work well and be proud to have done it.

Amen to that.

As I wrote in a previous post, Boston is the hub of exclusivity. I am afraid it is more spiteful than inspiring though.

P.S. An interesting bit on the origins of "the Seven Deadly Sins."

Diary of a McDonald's diet

Soso Whaley goes on a month-long fast-food diet to prove McDonald's right and lose weight while he's at it.

Welcome Back, Carter!

Kerry Promises Return To Higher Taxes And 70s-Era Economy

The New Global Elite

An interesting, albeit very nihilistic article on "the new global elite" in the New Statesman:

Forget illegal immigrants. A cosmopolitan class, young, mobile and restless, move from country to country as their grandparents might have moved from town to town. Do they end up as citizens of nowhere?
...
An identikit member of this Duty Free generation would be younger than 35. She would move jobs from capital city to capital city, never staying longer than a few years. The thought of moving to a provincial city in her home country is more unsettling than a move to the other side of the world. She hardly uses local public services. She may invest her money internationally, and so has no significant stake in a single national economy. When she goes abroad, she stays with foreign friends who share her tastes and understand her acronyms. She may end up marrying one of them.

Some excellent discussion about it at MemeFirst.

Coca-Cola CEO talks ethics at Yale

As Daft began his speech, protesters proceeded to the front of the room and removed their coats to reveal shirts stained with fake blood. The protesters lay on the floor as if they were dead and remained so throughout the talk. Other demonstrators passed out literature accusing members of Coke's board of being complacent about the murders of union members at the company's plants in Colombia. The group also unfurled two banners, one reading "Coke: Proud sponsor of Colombian Death squads."
...
University Police initially tried to bar demonstrators from entering a reception after the talk. After the officers relented, the protesters surrounded Daft and peppered him with questions regarding Coke's labor relations, causing him to leave the reception early.

Shame on Yale and its students. How rude. And, what a terrible way to make a point. Thank God that nothing like this has occurred at Tufts in over a year.

CT to restrict aliens' licenses

Connecticut is taking some common-sense steps to strengthen homeland security, but it seems that Yale is not too happy with it.

The measure, which passed the Connecticut General Assembly's Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee by a vote of 23-21, would require the state to issue non-citizens driver's licenses that expire when visitors' legal status in the United States ends....

"We're working against it," [Yale President Richard] Levin said. "Obviously, it won't be good for our foreign students." Supporters of the bill, however, said they expected the measure to have little impact on international visitors who are in the country legally.

Socialists, like Levin, make no damn sense.

Jeb Bush backs driver licenses for illegal immigrants

Gov. Jeb Bush endorsed a bill to allow illegal immigrants to get driver licenses, saying they are in the state anyway and officials should accept that fact.

Out of left field. So, are we just giving up on controlling immigration?

Cross-Dressing Heats Up Republican Race

Local Republican leaders confirmed separately that they had seen the photographs of Walls in a wig, dress and high heels....

"Now my opponent is using the information in an attempt to intimate that I am a homosexual, which I am not."

Walls, 64, who describes himself as a fervent Baptist, told the paper his family had "dealt with" the issue of his cross-dressing and that he asked for forgiveness.

Hehe.

Defending hook-up culture?

Here is something I would never have expected, but I guess should have. Amber Madison, the Tufts Daily sex columnist, writes in "Why We Hook Up":

Hooking up doesn't have to be a one-night stand; it can be more of a 30-day, risk-free trial. Before you invest too much time, money and commitment into something you get to try out the product, and see if you like it.... Girls "embrace hooking up" because it allows us a sense of comfort that dating cannot provide.

Organization of American Historians vs. Academic Freedom

Academic Freedom Alert:
Organization of American Historians, "the largest learned society devoted to the study of American history," appoints "Historians Against the War" activist to investigate "threats to freedom of speech" for historians, such as "Students for Academic Freedom" and "hostile government scrutiny." Meeting co-sponsored by Tufts, BC, BU, and University of Rhode Island History Departments, Harvard University Press, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and Wellsley College Women's Studies Program.

Background:
Historians vs. Reality
By Ronald Radosh
April 5, 2004
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=12876

Historians Against the War Petition the Organization of American Historians (OAH)
3-25-04: Historians/History
http://hnn.us/articles/4319.html

Among the reported developments which have alarmed historians and which illustrate, but unfortunately do not exhaust, the matters into which the ad hoc committee might choose to inquire are the following:

Restrictions of research and surveillance of library use under the USAPATRIOT Act, the repeal of which has been advocated by a growing number of faculty senates

Systematic denunciation of historians who have criticized government policy by Campus Watch, No Indoctrination, Students for Academic Freedom, and other groups

Hostile government scrutiny of foreign language and area studies programs

Organization of American Historians 2004 Annual Meeting in Boston was sponsored by:

# Boston College Department of History
# Boston University Department of History
# Brandeis University Graduate Program in American History
# Brandeis University Women's Studies Program
# Harvard University Press
# Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
# Tufts University Department of History
# University of Rhode Island Department of History
# Wellsley College Women's Studies Program

http://www.oah.org/meetings/2004/index.html

New French Foreign Minister

Some hope on the French front:

"Some people in Washington will certainly pop a bottle of champagne today," said Bruno Tertrais of the Foundation of Strategic Research in Paris. "But it's less to celebrate [Michel] Barnier's arrival than to celebrate the departure of Villepin," he added....

[A]nalysts say the main lines of French foreign policy are still determined by President Jacques Chirac, and a change of faces at the foreign ministry will not bring a policy shift. "Foreign policy remains Chirac's domain. And I don't expect a major change of direction," Tertrais said.