George Will asks:  

There never is a shortage of nonsensical political rhetoric, but really: Has there ever been solemn silliness comparable to today’s politicians tarting up their agendas as things designed for, and necessary to, "saving the planet," and promising edicts to "require" entire industries to reorder themselves?

In 1996, Bob Dole, citing the Clinton campaign’s scabrous fundraising, exclaimed: "Where’s the outrage?" This year’s campaign, soggy with environmental messianism, deranged self-importance and delusional economics, the question is: Where is the derisive laughter?

Read his whole article on Obama’s airy-fairy, rather puerile promises and what they’d cost the tax-payer here.  

Charles Krauthammer writes:

Read the first five paragraphs of the NATO statement on the Russian invasion of Georgia and you will find not a hint of who invaded whom. The statement is almost comically evenhanded. "We deplore all loss of life," it declared, as if deploring a bus accident. And, it "expressed its grave concern over the situation in Georgia." Situation, mind you.

It’s not until paragraph six that NATO, a 26-nation alliance with 900 million people and nearly half of world GDP, unsheathes its mighty sword, boldly declaring "Russian military action" – not aggression, not invasion, not even incursion, but "action" – to be "inconsistent with its peacekeeping role."

Having launched a fearsome tautology Moscow’s way, what further action does the Greatest Alliance Of All Time take? Cancels the next NATO-Russia Council meeting.

That’s it. No dissolution of the G-8. No blocking of Russian entry to the World Trade Organization. No suspension of participation in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics (15 miles from the Georgian border). No statement of support for the Saakashvili government.

Read the rest of this important article here.

 Rafael D Frankel, correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor, wrote in the August 12, 2008 edition:

"I want [the Israelis] to come back," says Riyad al-Laham, an unemployed father of eight who worked in the area’s Jewish settlements for nearly 20 years. "All the Mawassi people used to work in the settlements and make good money. Now there is nothing to do. Even our own agricultural land is barren."

Located in the middle of Gush Katif, the former block of Jewish settlements here, Mawassi fell within the security cordon the Israeli army threw around its citizens from 2002 to 2005, when attacks from the neighboring Palestinian town of Khan Yunis came almost daily.

During those years, the people of Mawassi continued to work in Gush Katif, mainly as farmhands in hundreds of greenhouses the Jewish settlers operated.

Mr. Laham and many others in Mawassi say they preferred the relative economic security of those days to the current destitution, even if they are now free from Israeli occupation.

"Freedom to go where?" Laham asks. "I have no fuel now for my car. Where can I go? Freedom is a slogan. Even for a donkey you need money – which I don’t have."

Three years ago, before Israel withdrew, Mawassi was a town of fertile corn crops and greenhouses, which – like the ones in the Jewish settlements – grew cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers, and strawberries.

Now, in the ethnic Palestinian section of town, nearly half the land lies barren.

Only shells remain of many of the greenhouses that were stripped of valuable materials.

A city that fed itself with its produce and the money its men made from working with the settlers, Mawassi is now dependent on food handouts from the United Nations.

Like the rest of Gaza, its people lack cooking gas and petrol, even if they feel more secure without Israeli soldiers all around them.

In the Bedouin section of town, Salem al-Bahabsa sits with five of his 24 grandchildren in front of his chicken coop. Goats and sheep wander around the other parts of the Bedouin quarter, where people live mostly in tents with tin roofs.

"We are all now unemployed and depend on charity for food," Mr. Bahabsa says. "My sons were farmers in the greenhouses. We worked in the settlements and had resources. Now, I don’t think I could survive without [the UN]…. Before was better."

 From the Jerusalem Post:

The BBC’s own Newsnight current affairs programme reported on Tuesday night’s broadcast that the BBC’s Children in Need charity had donated around £20,000 to the Leeds Community School, Yorkshire, between 1999 and 2002 which went towards funding the activities of the terrorists behind the July 2005 attacks.

Read the whole article here. 

 … and they’re trying to cover it up.

The four plus years (1995-1999) Barack Obama spent as founding chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) represent his track record as reformer, as someone who reached out in a public-private collaboration and had the audacity to believe his effort would make things better. At the time he became leader of this ambitious project to remake the public schools of Chicago, he was 33 years old and a third year associate at a small Chicago law firm, Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland.

This was a big test for him, his chance to cut his teeth on bringing hope and change to the mostly minority inner city school children trapped in Chicago schools. And he flopped big time, squandering lots of money and the time of many public employees in the process.

 From an article in Front Page Magazine:

It’s no coincidence that Muslims constitute a substantial portion of the Labour Party’s electoral support in London and in much of its heartland in northern England.  In the expected close election for Parliament that will be held by mid-2010, an increasing Muslim population may be the difference between victory and defeat for the Labourites.

But Labour’s bien pensant hardly needs convincing.  Like most on the left today, they fancy themselves champions of the underdog and the oppressed, and sympathy for Islam, and Arab and Muslim causes fits neatly into their intellectual program.  Along with America and Israel-bashing, it goes to the very heart of how liberals view themselves and, more important, how they wish to be viewed by others.  It supplies them with the appearance of a self-abnegation that is supposed to relieve their Western, middle-class guilt with a cleansing humility but is nothing but moral exhibitionism; and, as always, involves other people’s money, other people’s freedom, and other people’s comfort – never or very rarely their own.

A classic of political correctness run amok, wonderful as a burlesque if it weren’t slowly undermining Britain’s way of life and its will to oppose extreme Islamism. 

Worse is that acceding to this nonsense gives Islamofascists confidence that they are on the winning side of history. That if they just shout a little louder and push a little harder, they may expect more of the same that becomes increasingly normative until it convinces the longer-settled among the UK’s population that they have no power to stop, let alone reverse, the process.

Read the whole article here.   

 More wisdom from Thomas Sowell:

Some people seem to think that, if we had already included Georgia in NATO, Russia would not have attacked. But what if they attacked anyway? Would we have done any more than we are doing now?

Would that have protected Georgia or would our inaction have just brought the reliability of our protection of other NATO countries into question?

If anything, we ought to be thinking about pulling out of NATO ourselves. European countries already have the wealth to produce their own military defense. If they do not have the will, that is their problem. What American officials can do is keep their mouths shut if they don’t intend to back up their words.

Read the whole article here. 

 Who’s afraid of Russia? NATO is, and the EU, and Bush and Rice.

On August 15 President Saakashvili of Georgia made an impassioned plea for effective help against the invasion of his small democracy by Russia.  He stated bluntly that NATO’s rejection of Georgia’s application for membership of NATO  on the grounds that there were territorial conflicts within Georgia [created and stirred up by Russia] had been ‘asking for trouble’ from the Russians. Putin, he explained,  was testing the  waters – how far could Russia go? At what point would there be an angry enough growl from the Western alliance to indicate ‘so far and no further’? No growl came. At the same time – a stretch of some years –  Russia was preparing to invade Georgia, extending (for instance) railway lines through North Ossetia, which is in Russia, to faciliate the transport of men and material to the borders of Georgia. Then they built tank bases inside the two disputed territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Then they put military specialist in them, and then paratroopers. Step by step they prepared their invasion. Georgia, Saakashvili said, ‘screamed to the world’ for help. The West remained unmoved. The Russians took note, and continued to build up an infrastructure for invasion, and to send troops. Finally, Russia brutally invaded sovereign Georgian territory. 

In reply to this, Condoleezza Rice had this to say: 

That President Bush  had sent her to Georgia ‘to show the solidarity of the United States with Georgia and its people [sic]  in this moment of crisis’.  Big comfort for the country ‘and its people’? 

That [verbally, theoretically, gesturally] the US supported Georgia’s independence, territorial integrity, and democracy’, as did ‘the Europeans as well’.   So reassuring to the country ‘and its people’!

That the most urgent task was to get the Russian forces out of Georgia.  Great! How?

By having President Saakashvili sign a six-part ceasefire accord brokered by France.  Has he signed it? Yes. And that will do the trick? Well, no, because the Russians haven’t signed it yet. 

Still, Rice declared:  ‘This is the understanding I had with President Sarkozy [of France] yesterday, which is that when President Saakashvili signed this ceasefire accord, there would be an immediate withdrawal of Russian forces from Georgian territory. Sheer magic! And did that happen? Well, no. Why not? Because the Russians haven’t signed the agreement. 

So next effective step? ‘We need international observers on the scene fast,’ Rice said. That will make the Russians tremble! But wait, that is not all. ‘Eventually,’ Rice went on, ‘we need a more robust and impartial peacekeeping force that would follow these [hypothetical] monitors.’  And will they be able to keep the peace, although the record of such peace-keeping forces – for example in the Middle East – has been one of utter failure?   Hmm … well…  And who will provide them?  Hmm… Well ….

But wait – that still is not all. The United States, Rice assured the Georgians, is ‘already providing humanitarian assistance’ to them.  [A planeload or two of some useful things]  Thanks. And? This humanitrain mission will be vigorous and ongoing. What is more it will be ‘headed by the United States military’.  By the military? That sound strong. You mean, some US soldiers will dole out the useful things? Good.  And? 

Well, ‘when the security situation is stabilized’ [that is to say, when the Russians have withdrawn which will be if and when they decide to do so]  ‘we will turn immediately to reconstruction’. Ah, you mean you will give money? Yes. The G-7, the IMF  ‘and other international financial institutions’ will ‘rapidly develop an economic support package’.  They will? When the security situation is stabilized? You are sure? Fairly sure. But how is the stabilization to be brought about?

Well, one step at a time, Rice said. First things first. The ceasefire agreement has been signed (by one party to the conflict, anyway).  ‘It is a ceasefire agreement,’ she repeated four times. It didn’t ‘prejudice future arrangements’.

So what is the sum-total of the achievement of NATO, Europe and the United States so far in helping Georgia against the Russian invaders? They have got the president of Georgia to sign a ceasefire agreement. One side of the arranged marriage has agreed to it.  First things first. And maybe nothing coming after. Or perhaps some money. Eventually. Maybe. 

And will these steps deter Russia from trying the same thing on again with other states in the old Soviet sphere ? Poland say? The Ukraine? The Baltic states?

That question, Rice said, would be addressed next Tuesday by NATO. She was sure that there would then be ‘confirmation of NATO’s transatlantic vision for Georgia [whatever it may be] as well as for Ukraine, and of NATO’s insistence that it will remain open to European democracies that meet its standards’.  NATO’s insistence, eh? That should be worth something, shouldn’t it? 

 And what was even more, the North Atlantic Council will ‘also have to begin a discussion of the consequences of what Russia has done.’ Really? There will be consequences for Russia for invading a small neighbouring country? Well …  discussion of consequences anyway.

Finally, Rice assured everybody that there was no need to be afraid of NATO. Especially, she went on to stress, Russia had no need to be afraid. It should not fear the US missile defense system which Poland has agreed to have on its territory. It is not designed to deter Russia, only ‘small missile threats of the kind one could anticipate from Iran, for instance’.  NATO, she said, ‘has never been aimed at anybody’ [except the Serbs, of course], and is certainly not aimed at Russia. 

Now Russia can breathe easy. (Though not Georgia, Poland, the Ukraine, or the Baltic states.) Thank goodness for that! 

 John Bolton writes:

Europe’s rejection this spring of President Bush’s proposal to start Ukraine and Georgia towards Nato membership was the real provocation to Russia, because it exposed Western weakness and timidity. As long as that perception exists in Moscow, the risk to other former Soviet territories – and in precarious regions such as the Middle East – will remain…

The United States needs some straight talk with our friends in Europe, which ideally should have taken place long before the assault on Georgia. To be sure, American inaction gave French President Sarkozy and the EU the chance to seize the diplomatic initiative. However, Russia did not invade Georgia with diplomats or roubles, but with tanks. This is a security threat, and the proper forum for discussing security threats on the border of a Nato member – yes, Europe, this means Turkey – is Nato.

 Saying this may cause angst in Europe’s capitals, but now is the time to find out if Nato can withstand a potential renewed confrontation with Moscow, or whether Europe will cause Nato to wilt. Far better to discover this sooner rather than later, when the stakes may be considerably higher. If there were ever a moment since the fall of the Berlin Wall when Europe should be worried, this is it. If Europeans are not willing to engage through Nato, that tells us everything we need to know about the true state of health of what is, after all, supposedly a “North Atlantic” alliance.

Read the whole article here. 

 Now Russia threatens Poland, the Telegraph reports:

As Condoleezza Rice arrived in Georgia to finalise a peace deal and secure the withdrawal of Russian troops from the former Soviet state, Moscow raised the stakes with an explicit threat against another US ally.

"Poland is making itself a target. This is 100 percent" certain, Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted General Anatoly Nogovitsyn as saying.

"It becomes a target for attack. Such targets are destroyed as a first priority," Gen Nogovitsy was quoted as saying.

He added that Russia’s military doctrine sanctions the use of nuclear weapons "against the allies of countries having nuclear weapons if they in some way help them," Interfax said.

Russia reacted furiously last night when Washington agreed to sell a Patriot defence battery to Warsaw. "The fact that this was signed in a period of very difficult crisis in the relations between Russia and the United States over the situation in Georgia shows that, of course, the missile defence system will be deployed not against Iran but against the strategic potential of Russia," said Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s envoy to Nato.