Category: Freedom

Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma need Freedom

In the UN the US will shortly introduce a resolution to urge the junta to change it’s repressive policies, frowned on by most countries in the world. Please write your congressman and urge support for that initiative.

Aung San Suu Kyi.jpg Aung San Suu Kyi is the elected leader of Burma and a pro-democracy activist, but the military junta there has kept her under house arrest for ten out of the last 17 years.

The junta moved the capital, renamed the country Myanmar, and is steadily buying arms from China. They are a repressive regime with an insurrection on their hands, they are massing troops at the borders of Thailand, and they continue to build “Nationalities Youth Resource Development Degree Colleges” which could be re-education camps for the youths in rebel regions.

In the UN the US will shortly introduce a resolution to urge the junta to change it’s repressive policies, frowned on by most countries in the world. Please write your congressman and urge support for that initiative.

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Immigration Bill stalls in committee

Congress critters might have actually been reading mail from their constituents — I think they are waking up to the fact that any immigration bill could be the radioactive kryptonite that kills even super-incumbents. There are firm passions on all sides of the debate, and there are complexities to making an effective bill. Denny Hastert put the bill on ice today.

You can’t just put up a fence, although that would help a great deal and send the right message, so it does merit a single bill by itself; however we know that fence-only wouldn’t pass the senate and would endanger Republicans.

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Afghanistan update — change in strategy

UPDATE III “Task force 121 transfers from Iraq to Afghanistan” according to AM Kansas city Radio.

UPDATE III “Task force 121 transfers from Iraq to Afghanistan” according to AM Kansas city Radio. 

This from my Saturday hodgepodge, with new updates that are leading to very interesting developments in Afghanistan. The original article described the upsurge of offense to prep for NATO force takeover, but since then it appears there’s more to it than that. 

While the MSM will paint these attacks as losses for the US and the Afgan government of Karzai, they are largely victories. Masses of taliban fighters are being called back by Mullah Omar and others, and they are dieing in masses. That’s a good thing, not a bad thing.

“In the last two months, the Taliban have been conducting larger attacks this year than they did during the same time last year,” Pace said. “The problem for the Taliban is that as they have gotten larger groups together, they have become much bigger targets. And they have lost about 300 Taliban in the last two months during those operations. So the Taliban are a tactical problem for the coalition in Afghanistan. [But] the coalition in Afghanistan is a strategic problem for the Taliban.”

In the end to win in Afghanistan you have to do three things: Kick everyone’s ass, demonstrate that you will persist, and then buy all the local warlords to your side. The warchest needs to re-open in southern Afghanistan, and we need to use it to corner Omar and potentially Bin Laden. This is how the Russians failed, they did not persist and they did not buy allies.

The last time the region was truly conquered, Alexander the Great fought long and hard against a nimble opponent who always ran away to fight another day. In the end Alexander bought off all of the Grey Wolf’s allies and thus conquered him, as detailed in Steven Pressfield’s great  book, “The Virtue of War“. Alexander ended the campaign by defeating Spitamenes Oxyartes and marrying his daughter, Roxana, who bore his son Alexander IV.

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September 11th Firefighter’s Memorial Unveiled

SF Chronical writes on the firefighter’s memorial

SF Chronical writes on the firefighter’s memorial:

There is that instant of horror to be relived, forever frozen in bronze. There are scenes of valor and camaraderie to be celebrated. There are names to be touched and traced: the Fire Department’s 343 dead.

But the most poignant messages of the first large-scale Sept. 11 monument at ground zero — a bold, literal and almost neo-Classical 56-foot-long bronze relief — will never be visible. Those are the private thoughts written by firefighters on the back of the south panel, just before the monument was installed last month on the side of “10 House,” the engine and ladder company across Liberty Street from the World Trade Center.

 

Here is the broadband link to the NYT interactive guide. (don’t click the link if you aren’t DSL or better…)

Here also is a link to an online tribute.

Troop levels – just right

More troops in theater are not needed to destroy any assault the insurgents can mount, their sole purpose if they were sent would be to patrol, support, and suppress. That would create inescapable dependencies from the Iraqi army, and make the standing up of those units take much longer.

At some time in the future we will be at peace, and sometime later in the future we will be at war again. Wars will come and wars will go as evil rises and falls again — in all of history there have been few years without war or conflict of some level in some part of the world. 

Against this backdrop we still inexorably progress, and life gets better on average for most peoples of the earth. Wars dim and fade, and as we progress the conflicts become more violent at their fronts, but overall war itself becomes less consuming and fewer people die.

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Saturday Hodgepodge

Here’s another reason for the demonstrations against the current government of Iran in Azerbaijan — the rantings of Ahmadinejad against Israel might interupt a major source of revenue for the region. Israel buys 40,000 barrels of oil a day from the Azerbaijan region.

Oil for Israel and Europe from Azerbaijan

Here’s another reason for the demonstrations against the current government of Iran in Azerbaijan — the rantings of Ahmadinejad against Israel might interupt a major source of revenue for the region. Israel buys 40,000 barrels of oil a day from the Azerbaijan region.

Upsurge of Attacks by Taliban in Afghanistan leads to Taliban deaths

While the MSM will paint these attacks as losses for the US and the Afgan government of Karzai, they are largely victories. Masses of taliban fighters are being called back by Mullah Omar and others, and they are dieing in masses. That’s a good thing, not a bad thing.

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Nepal Update, Maoists throwing up roadblocks

The US has recognized and encouraged the new democratic government of Nepal, but the Maoists are unhappy with the process, and are throwing up roadblocks. The Government of Nepal has issued formal protest regarding Maoists demanding changes to the peace process. Here’s an article on the government statement from eKantipur:

CPN-UML General Secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal Saturday blamed the Maoists of trying to disrupt the peace process. “The Maoists have started putting forward new demands in order to deter the peace process,” Nepal said at a programme in the capital today. Nepal’s remarks come after the Maoists repeatedly called for dissolution of the House of Representatives

The US has endorsed the new government since the May 18th act stripped the Monarch of power as below from Wikipedia:

The May 18th act 

The most dramatic move of the post Loktantra Andolan government came on 18 May when the Parliament unanimously voted to strip the King of many of his powers. The bill included:

  • Putting 90,000 troops in the hands of the parliament
  • Placing a tax on the royal family and its assets
  • Ending the Raj Parishad, a royal advisory council
  • Eliminating royal references from army and government titles
  • Declaring Nepal a secular country, not a Hindu Kingdom

The act overrides the 1990 Constitution, written up following the 1990 People’s Movement (Jana Andolan) yet has been described as a Nepalese Magna Carta. According to Prime Minister Koirala, “This proclamation represents the feelings of all the people.”

However, although they will immediately come into force, the plans are seen as provisional until a new constitution can be drawn up.

There are two things that make the communists still a threat: they hold sway over 70 percent of the country, and there is still a lot of class strife in Nepal. (Nepal is 80% Hindu, and Hindu religion creates a classed society) This is the standard formula for dangerous ideologies, they require large populations of uneducated or poorly educated people to obtain power, along with distinct underclasses.

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A song for Joe and Valerie

This is not America

A little piece of you
The little peace in me
Will die [This is not a miracle]
For this is not America
Blossom fails to bloom
This season
Promise not to stare
Too long [This is not America]
For this is not the miracle There was a time
A storm that blew so pure
For this could be the biggest sky
And I could have
The faintest idea [For this is not America, sha la la la la, sha la la la la, sha la la la
la
This is not america, no, this is not, sha la la la la]

Snowman melting
From the inside
Falcon spirals
To the ground [This could be the biggest sky]
So bloody red
Tomorrow’s clouds

A little piece of you
The little piece in me
Will die [This could be a miracle]
For this is not America There was a time
A wind that blew so young
For this could be the biggest sky
And I could have the faintest idea

[For this is not America, sha la la la la, sha la la la la, sha la la la
la
This is not america, no, this is not, sha la la la
This is not america, no, this is not
This is not america, no, this is not, sha la la la] 

— David Bowie

Cut and run crowd out in force with Zarqawi’s death

Nancy and the democrats still want to cut and run tomorrow, however the job is not done.

Nancy Pelosi Then:

Back in December of 2002, as independent strategic analysts were arguing that the evidence strongly suggested that Iraq had rid itself of its chemical and biological weapons some years earlier, Pelosi categorically declared on NBC’s Meet the Press that “Saddam Hussein certainly has chemical and biological weapons. There’s no question about that.”

Nancy Pelosi Now

“The death of al Zarqawi and the naming of the Iraqi Defense and Interior Minister should bring us closer to that goal, and hasten the day when American troops can come home.”

Nancy and the democrats who helped get us there still want to cut and run tomorrow, however the job is not done. There are still many terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan drawn by the al qaeda magnet and the US troops. It’s too early to end it yet, there’s more work to be done. Our troops aren’t giving up, don’t let Nancy give up for them.