Getting democracies to hook up, party and promote free choice, free trade and fun and what Uncle Tony calls the "Universal Values of the Human Spirit" seems only natural."When the UN finally does anything of use, it's propelled in large part by US
dollars, with the US contributing more than any other country. Those other
giants, China and Russia, are not filling the coffers of the UN's moral
authority. "
The job description sounds like what could be an upgraded worldwide NATO esque deal (in place of NATO maybe?)
Super fly smart guy Robert Kagan (Oh! He got game!) makes a case for a rocking concert
"So would a concert of democracies supplant the UN? Of course not, any more than
the Group of Eight leading industrialised nations or any number of other
international organisations supplant it. But the world’s democracies could make
common cause to act in humanitarian crises when the UN Security Council cannot
reach unanimity.
If people find that prospect unsettling, then they should seek the disbandment
of Nato and the European Union and other regional organisations which not only
can but, in the case of Kosovo, have taken collective action in crises when the
Security Council was deadlocked.
The difference is that the league of democracies would not be limited to
Europeans and Americans but would include the world’s other great democracies,
such as India, Brazil, Japan and Australia, and would have even greater
legitimacy."
Unfree regimes that fiddle about with WMD, threaten to wipe democratic members of the UN off the map would maybe pay billions for UN Sec Council vetos to develop a counter org.
Maybe? Looks like they are already. Russia and China routinely stall, trade and protect Iran, Syria and NoKo now. Would a league of democrazies make it official?
"Indeed Russia and China sometimes act as the de facto heads of a league of
autocracies – protecting bad governments such as Iran and Zimbabwe at the UN. So
it would be a good idea for the world’s democrats to promote their values in a
more organised and determined fashion.
The trouble with this idea is that it risks creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
America’s relationships with China and Russia are complicated and ambiguous –
with elements of both competition and co-operation. But the formation of a
league of democracies would harden antagonisms and might even be seen as the
launching of a new cold war."
So what?
"Will the mere fact of democracies working together produce a new cold war? That
is unduly alarmist. But ideological competition is already under way. Sergei
Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, notes that: “For the first time in many
years, a real competitive environment has emerged on the market of ideas”
between different “value systems and development models”. The good news, he
believes, is that “the west is losing its monopoly on the globalisation
process”.
True or not, democracies should not be embarrassed about holding up their
side of this competition. Neither Beijing nor Moscow would expect them to do
anything else."
Events like Darfur, Zimbabwe, Burma and Sudan actually make the best case for a league of democracies that could act out humanitarianly in event of disasters and a clever backdoor method to slip in the R2P clause.
"It is only a matter of time before reports emerge again from somewhere of
massacres, mass starvation, rape, and ethnic cleansing. And then the question
will arise again in the Security Council, in political capitals, and in the
media: What do we do?"
If the league is ready to adopt, birth and raise new baby democracies - then intervene, kill the regime, tend to the stricken and handle it.
If NATO, the UN and the EU cannot make commitments to take an 8 hour panzer ride to Serbia to put Milosevic out of biz or man up and defend tiny baby democracies in dark scary parts of the world in danger of having their tiny baby heads choked plumb off then would Japan, Australia, France, Great Britain, Great Satan, SoKo and Taiwan have the guts to take the challenge?
The R2P clause and the Autrocity Prevention philosophy should be bound up in the Democratic Imperatives.
"No one ever knows when the struggle will end. When they begin to crumble
authoritarian regimes can collapse overnight. The fight needs uncompromising
courage; but when it is over different qualities are needed: reason, patience,
calm, a readiness to reconcile and forgive. Qualities that I find easy to
associate with the patient suffering of Burmese men and women"
The fact is quick action could have be taken by a league of democrazies with their 30 years in the future militaries and humanitarian high tech to strike fast, kill or incapcitate xenophobic cruel depotries, rescue the dying and aid the perishing before the Internat'l Handwringers Coalition could respond.
Especially for humanitarian reasons - intervention in Burma for example - could have be done as media and communications were nearly out - any cries or propaganda from the regime's survivors could have been shut off early and easily. Besides - who really cares what slave trading illegit leaders or their fanboys say?
And that's the real case for the league of hot! democrazies - to tackle events as opportunities in the New Millennium.
Luftwaffe era air raid horns wail. A crunk up beat clips Klipsch speakers (H/T Dr Fred Kaplan) and a sexyiful siren oozes cooing about her sweet tight goodies - like an irresitable pie on a window sill.Oh Snap!"When I come to the club, step aside (Oh Snap!)
Part the seas, don't be have me in no line. (Oh Snap!)
V.I.P., 'cause you know I gotta shine."
Oh Snap! Hanging in apparently the only spot ever in the ME with like zero oil (compy speaking), no friendly homies on her borders, a tiny pop, little real estate (after the show ho's like Gaza, WB and Har Dov Frams included - Little Satan "occupies" less than 1% of the Arab world and less than 1/10th of a % of mohammedist turf), no Suez Canal, no militias or resistance movements, Little Satan's very existence gives the eternal finger to all her failed, backwards, repressive hoodies."And I'm like get up out my face, (Oh Snap!)
'fore I turn around and spray your asset with mace. (Oh Snap!)
My lips make you wanna have a taste. (Oh Snap!)
You got that? I got the bass. "
"On a certain day everything would be obliterated and instantaneously reconstructed and the new inhabitants would leave, as if by magic, the land they had despoiled; in this way will justice be dispensed to the victims."What the heck is it about about less than 7 million people and turf tiny -er than the Garden State? Why cause Little Satan functions like a rocket rich reject magnet?
"The Palestinian cause is central for Arab thinking. It's because we always lose to Israel. It gnaws at the people in the Middle East that such a small country as Israel, with only about 7 million inhabitants, can defeat the Arab nation with its 350 million.Oh Snap! Little Satan - has survived - despite revolutionary Pan Arabic Nat'lism, reactionary mohammedism and the best goodies Warsaw Pact time Russia could create, share and deploy.
That hurts our collective ego. The Palestinian problem is in the genes of every Arab. The West's problem is that it does not understand this.
In many Arab states, the middle class is disappearing. The rich get richer and the poor get still poorer. Look at the schools in Jordan, Egypt or Morocco: You have up to 70 youngsters crammed together in a single classroom. How can a teacher do his job in such circumstances? The public hospitals are also in a hopeless condition. These are just examples. They show how hopeless the situation is for us in the Middle East. "
"Forbidden by dictatorial regimes to voice political ideas on any subject but Israel and increasingly driven by the lack of basic freedoms."Missile magnetic wicked free Little Satan - unabashedly swinging her skirt flirt high enough to almost see her goodies, busting out with bling, high tech and the most PHD's per capita in the entire ME (135 per 10K for staticians).
"Israel has become a world technology powerhouse, and this is beginning to have favorable demonstration effect on the rest of the economy. Israel has benefited from the development of culture of innovation, supported by first-class institutions of higher education and scientific research."Little Satan's 60th paints a pic of what could have been. A liberal polity in ancient lands sharing an unbridled affinity for freedom of choice sans antique avatistic tribal superstitions, poverty and abject cruelty.
"They do not hate the West because of Israel, they hate Israel because of the West -- because they see it is an island of Western democratic values in a sea of despotism."And Great Satan brings bling to gift her spiritual little sister on this especial joyful moment. Like military pacts and a fully crunk brand spanking new missile killing X Band Radar system that puts the 'ill' in rocket shield.
Oh Snap!"That is why they call Israel the Little Satan, to distinguish it clearly from the country that has always been and will always be the Great Satan – The United States of America."
Bill Clinton's schedule calls for a campaign stop on his wife's behalf Thursday night at John Hardin High School.
Bill Clinton will campaign here Thursday for his wife in a final get-out-the-vote push just days before Kentucky Democrats have their say in the marathon struggle for their party’s nomination for president between New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.
The former president will appear at 7:30 p.m. at John Hardin High School for a "Solutions for America" campaign event, the Kentucky for Hillary committee in Louisville announced late Tuesday.
There are so many things that could have gone wrong in this situation. Especially if she hadn't been armed. If that had been the case, she may have not entered the house. The report never says in what town or area that she lives. Since they only mentioned it as Bullit County (no pun. that really is the name of the county) I am going to assume that it is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. If that is true, the time it would take for law enforcement to get there would be an eternity. Especially when there are two men in your house stealing your valuables (and food).Dedas and her son returned home to find a strange truck parked outside and two men inside their home - 40 year-old Larry Tedrow and 43-year-old James Brewer. That's when Dedas took action.
"I went in the backdoor and came up the steps and as I was going up the steps the two men had my pillowcase and things in their hand and they went right out the front door," she said."I got my gun and came out and got on the deck. I yelled at them to get down on the ground, then they jumped in the truck."
Yeah. They were stealing meat, too. Go figure.Dedas says one of the suspects then began dumping jewelry out of his pockets onto the road. Bullitt County Police tell WAVE 3 this was not the first home the pair hit Sunday afternoon. At least four others were burglarized that day with computers, a digital camera, .357 magnum handgun and more than $800 stolen. And it appears that was not all two were taking.
"These nuts, stealing meat, that's a little different," Detective Scotty McGaha told WAVE 3 News, as he pulled three packs of meat from a police department freezer.
Donna Dedas also had a package of meat taken from her freezer.
Another hard-hitting piece from my favorite blogger Courtney. Head over there and check it out.The Arab Leagues recent hook up in Cairo to worry and wring hands while Lebanon gets devoured by the Mullahs and their bloody protrubrences like Hiz'B'Allah failed to speak out about the one thing that was everyone's minds.
Essentially - what will you do when Iran exerts their hegemonic guerrilla goons on your little spot of turf?
Tariq Alhomayed points out
"Do the Arab states accept Syria's proposal that maintains that the occupation of an Arab state at the hands of a party that follows and receives the orders of Tehran is a purely domestic affair and that the Arab League need not do anything about it?
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan-- In an early sign of instability in the new government in Pakistan, the junior partner in the coalition said Monday that it was withdrawing from the cabinet over the failure to reinstate the Supreme Court judges dismissed by President Pervez Musharraf.This is the move that will eventually get Musharraf back into power in Pakistan. When Sharif and his party finally remove themselves from the coalition, the ruling party will need allies and into that breach will step Musharraf.The leader of the party, Nawaz Sharif, said he was standing firm on a pledge made by the coalition in March to bring back 57 judges, including the Chief Justice, Iftikhar Mohamed Chaudhry, after their dismissal under emergency rule last November.
Nawaz Sharif during a press conference in Islamabad on Monday.The move by the Pakistan Muslim League-N to vacate its nine posts in the 24-member cabinet, including the all important finance ministry, was a step short of leaving the coalition and the collapse of the government altogether. But it was a clear indication of just how fragile the coalition remained.
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's crisis manager for public relations has a track record of dealing with thorny issues.The story goes on for quite a few paragraphs and even mentions these distinguished gentlemen:
Past and present clients of Judy Smith and her Washington, D.C.-based Impact Strategies L.L.C. include former presidential intern Monica Lewinsky, the family of slain congressional aide Chandra Levy and Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant, last week named the National Basketball Association's Most Valuable Player.
Kilpatrick's usual image handler is Bob Berg of Detroit-based Berg Muirhead & Associates.
Among her current clients are U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., facing federal bribery and racketeering charges; U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, embroiled last year in allegations of lewd conduct in an airport restroom; and actor Wesley Snipes, recently convicted of federal income tax evasion.Notice the D and R following these names? That's one thing you won't find anywhere in this story about the Mayor, so what party does he belong to? You know the drill.
