RP for PR

After watching the returns from Tuesday night’s New Hampshire debacle, in which the Dragon Lady secured her seat for long haul, and Ol’ Reliable simply kept his warm, I was reminded of a state in dire need of representation in the modern American electoral process: Puerto Rico.

Yes, that disrespected commonwealth, or unincorporated organized territory as it’s known in some parts, has newfound importance. It is time that Borikén had the earliest primary therefore ridding ourselves of the discomfort we feel seeing in seeing White Power at its finest; whether at play in the cornfields or at work in granite quarries, these states don’t represent the changing demographics of America in the least.

Puerto Rico is not only heavily Latino, it is Latino. It’s not Mexico, sure, but census projections are far more favorable to our hot-blooded hermanos, even if they aren’t the much-vilified “wetbacks” smuggled along with a coyote. Indeed, by 2050 Latinos will represent exactly half the population of white America, and the majority in states like California and Arizona.

So here is how it works: politicians will cast aside their pea coats for tropical garb and the process will have a twist. PR is still, as of last month, set to be ruled as a territory under the plenary powers of the US Congress, and yet the two parties here make their hay out the independence issue. So you’ll get your typical retail politics, only this time in order to appeal to a large swath of the population they’ll have to openly court absolute sovereignty.

Everyone will be forced to speak, or at least ape, español. The opportunities for gaffes are endless, as even the most polished candidate will be sure to put Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech to shame. (The reader should note that I’m very aware that Kennedy’s grammar was correct when he gave the speech, but the jelly-filled doughnut tale will always captivate). Can you imagine Hillary Clinton’s tearful address, rehearsed after watching a stirring telenovela?

Most importantly, the island will be easy to dispose of with all the candidates buzzing about like pheromone-driven bees. You see, the US Navy had been dropping bombs on nearby Vieques until 2003; a continuation of a strafing operation wouldn’t be unthinkable. Can’t we spare a few nukes?

But I guess we’ll have to wait until another plebiscite goes out, until the statehood advocates finally get their way. The prophecy will be revealed on that day of judgment, though, this much we know for sure. Ron Paul will assume the Oval Office with howitzer in hand and hundreds of gold bricks stored inside his blimp.

Nuclear Iran

Hardly Perv-ect!

In a groundbreaking first for Unknown Knowns, homobavaricus (me) would like to pick a public bone with perdixperdix. You will have to wait a while for his rejoinder, though. He is currently sitting in an auditorium, no doubt being riveted by the Honorable Alberto Gonzalez’ rhetorical stylings. Let’s hope Fredo can recall something!

I’ve been an agnostic on the Great Musharraf Debate that’s been raging in the think tanks on Massachusetts Ave. and the blogosphere for quite some time. Like the other grand foreign policy challenges we’re facing in the starting years of what is promising to be a pretty screwed up century (I’m thinking of Iraq, Darfur, and EU expansion), I’ve been following it with great interest, but have yet to commit myself to one position or another.

Until perdixperdix went too far. (Hey, the cable news channels made a business model out of contrived outrage.)

The corruption issue first. I’ll admit it’s pretty tough to beat Sharif and Bhutto at the corruption game, even for some of New York’s finest. But there’s one entity that leaches more off Pakistani society than the two ex-PMs put together: the military. I’ve heard great things about Ayisha Siddiga’s Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy. In a nutshell, the military owns vast amounts of real estate and runs businesses from dairy farms to steel factories. And to state the obvious, they can do whatever they want with it and are known to expand their economic empire by force and coercion. Somehow I think a few kickbacks to a PM’s husband will have a more benign effect on the economy and society.

Second, the “lack of alternatives” argument. Take the statement “Mr. President, we don’t like everything X is doing, but if we don’t support him the extremists will take over.” Replace “X” with the Shah, Idi Amin, Diem, Pinochet, Marcos, etc. etc. Rinse and repeat. Observe magnificent results.

I agree that it may not be the greatest idea to hold a free and fair election in Saudi Arabia because most Saudis are not terribly interesting in creating a pluralistic and open society. In Pakistan that’s not the case. The crazies already get a small share of the vote in elections rigged in their favor (by our splendid Perv). Supporting Musharraf’s coup can only embitter the Pious Plurality (get it? like Moral Majority!) and turn the part of society that matters against the West.

I’ll add some more thoughts (and proofread this) later.

Oh, Pervy, you’re simply darling!

I gained something of a new insight In talking to a South Asia friend of mine recently: Musharraf isn’t such a bad cookie in the grand scheme in the politics of the region.

Yes, he’s served as nothing less than a dictator of one of the most politically volatile countries in the region in wearing both the uniform of head of state and chief military officer.

Ay to the fact that nuclear materials passed through his borders via the likes of AQ Khan and his associates, making the world a far more dangerous place.

Indeed, he’s been ineffective in holding together a federal state fraught with all sorts of sectarian divisions. If anybody has doubts about this you’re more than welcome to read Pamela Constable’s pieces in the Washington Post, or better yet schedule your holidays in North-West Frontier Province or Balochistan.

Then there’s the Red Mosque incident, his mishandling of the Supreme Court, and on and on.

And he’s only 4 feet tall. That won’t do.

Well, this pal of mine was insistent that Musharraf was at least less corrupt than the twin kleptocrats of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. He maintained that the country hasn’t fallen prey to the sort of perennial religious revolution that existed in the subcontinent starting in the mid-19th century and leading up to the disastrous rule of Ayub Khan.

His most compelling argument was one of alternatives, though. If Musharraf doesn’t survive the country’s state of emergency, it is almost certain that another military cadre will assume the helm. Elections may usher in enough Bhutto cronies to make the government appear to have the vestments of civilian rule, but that’s about it.

Basically the best forecasts are for a sick and twisted version of the power-sharing arrangement that exists in a place like India, where in place of Sonia you have Benazir, and in the place of Manmohan Singh you’ll have some Joe Kahn that rose just sufficiently enough through the ISI or the army that he knows where to attach his epaulets.

Clearly the situation south of the Khyber Pass is not tenable in its present form, but I’m not sold that there aren’t better alternatives. True, few in the West want the next Mullah Muhammad Omar to be calling the shots in Islamabad, but a one-eye tribal chieftain who’s not hellbent on suicide bombings isn’t all bad either.

In fact, I suggest that a presidential exploratory committee be launched for Imran Sharif, a 90 year-old baker, specializing in unleavened bread, from Nok Kundi. He’s pleasant, wise, and would at the worst be accused of negligence when gun-running jihadists reigned over the countryside. Hell, when bombs started raining down on Bombay he could honestly say he was sorry. And his state dinners would serve actual comfort food, and not the chez crap that made Bush the First vomit.

Perhaps not. It is a tragedy when somebody like Musharraf represents the last, best hope for your country.

Teutonic bloviations

I am doing a mini-review of Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons by Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark for the magazine. So far I am pretty skeptical about their description of a grand conspiracy involving the Pakistani army as an institution in A.Q. Khan’s nuclear mail-order business. I went on amazon.com to verify some information on the publisher and came across this review. Some choice excerpts:

Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, Walker teutonic bloviations are an admixture of discredited Neocon assertions, unsubstantiated, or outright distortion, and pure unadulterated balderdash. His nauseating fixation upon and paranoid conspiratorial delusions about Pakistanis are a transparent attempt to justify the murderous rampage, carnage and barbarism faced by West Asia. The twaddle fails to illuminate the confusing deluge of eerily inept and counter-intuitive claptrap masquerading as fact in the clumsily stage-managed “global war on terror” environment.

(snip)

Pakistanis refuse to take foster parentage of the morass of foreign policy failures that perpetuate this cycle of blowback and violence. Empire building and Imperial hubris has repercussions.The powers to be have to think of the consequences of creating evil. The Frankenstein monster like Rabbi Eliyahu of Chelm’s mythical “Golen” came after it’s maker. How many remember the lessons from the broomstick in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

(snip)

Blaming someone else for the Neocon inspired foreign policy failures is a favorite pastime of losers in the USA. Blame China for the problems in North Korea, blame Libya for the issues in Chad, Blame Cuba for the anti-Americanism in Venezuela, blame Iran for the fiasco in Iraq, blame the Palestinians for the war in Israel, and blame Pakistan for the incompetence of the puppet Vichi like Karzai war lordism misnamed a “government” and the failures of NATO in Afghanistan. You can fool some of the people all the time, all the people some of the time, but not all the people all the time. The American people see thorough the smoke screen of demonizing all Muslims everywhere. America and world recognizes that the failed Neocon policies will not get better by blaming others.

Man, I bet you can read this stuff in sync with Dark Side of the Moon and The Wizard of Oz!

Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger brings muscle to nonproliferation (I promise the post itself doesn’t have hokey Arnold jokes)

 

Well, maybe not jokes, but I couldn’t help myself with the illustration. Anyway, last week the California Governor prepared to deliver a speech at the Hoover Institution’s meeting to further the agenda laid out in the now-ubiquitously referenced A World Free of Nuclear Weapons op-ed signed by Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, Sam Nunn, and Bill Perry. Arnold couldn’t be there because of the fires. Shultz read it to the assembled fissile cognoscenti, which must have been awkward because the first paragraph is devoted to praising Shultz. Some choice excerpts:

As some of you may know, I grew up in Austria. As a boy, the Red Army loomed over us from its bases in central Europe. Even as children, we all knew about the threat of nuclear war. We knew the blinding power of its flash. We knew the shape of its cloud. Like here, we had nuclear drills in our schools. When I was 18, I went into the Austrian Army for my required service. I really, really wanted to be a tank driver. This was before I had a Hummer. Although you were supposed to be 21, I talked them into letting me drive a tank. I have to say I wasn’t much of a deterrent to a Soviet attack. During lunch one day on maneuvers, I forgot to put on the brakes and my tank rolled into the river. I can’t tell you what a sinking feeling I had as I watched that tank heading backward down the bank and then splashing into the water.

A true, amusing story . . . but the reality of the times, of course, was quite serious. In 1956, the Soviets crushed the Hungarians. Then later, the Czechoslovakians.

We Austrians had three basic fears. One, that Soviet tanks might roll into Vienna the way they did into Budapest. Two, a Soviet invasion of Austria or nearby countries might bring a U.S./Soviet confrontation—with Austria getting caught in the nuclear crossfire. And three, we feared mistakes. Mistakes are made in every other human endeavor. Why should nuclear weapons be exempt? I still remember the tensions of those times. I think Austrians, wedged between the West and the Soviet empire, may have felt the Cold War more intensely than Americans. I think I actually felt less tension here in America.

(snip)

I genuinely believe we must take steps to stop the destruction of the planet’s environment. Looking at this logically, however—although we must address global warming now—its most dangerous consequences come decades down the road. The most dangerous consequences of nuclear weapons, however, are here and now. They are of this hour and time. A nuclear disaster will not hit at the speed of a glacier melting. It will hit with a blast. It will not hit with the speed of the atmosphere warming but of a city burning. Clearly, the attention focused on nuclear weapons should be as prominent as that of global climate change. After he left office, former Vice President Gore made a movie about the dangers of global warming. I have a movie idea for Vice President Cheney after he leaves—a movie about the dangers of nuclear proliferation. If you Google “global warming,” you will find 6,690,000 entries. If you Google “Britney Spears,” you will find 2,490,000. If you Google “nuclear disarmament,” you will get 116,000 entries. And if you Google “nuclear annihilation,” you will get 17,400. Something is wrong with that picture.

The more “butch” politicians bringing the spotlight on the nuclear situation, the better. As much as individual policy victories (Reliable Replacement Warhead, India deal, bunker busters, etc.) are achievable without a broad public debate, a fundamental shift in U.S. nuclear doctrine will not occur without it. The Arnolds and Kissingers signal to the electorate that disarmament as an eventual goal is acceptable even outside the Communist Party/Hollywood/Vermont.

Although I never voted for the guy, I have been thoroughly impressed with his performance as governor. Most politicians are power-hungry egomaniacs – at least Arnold doesn’t pretend otherwise. And his bipartisan (he would say post-partisan) ways are in short supply. In fact, he’d be a great running-mate for Obama.

Bill Maher brought up the Austrian’s national potential on this week’s show and asked his guests about their thoughts on the ban on foreign-born presidents. General Wes Clark (who has morphed into a ’shill for Hill’ over the last couple months, probably because he thinks she’ll pick him as veep) thought it was a good thing. You see, in 40 years, when the Chinese are ruling the world we don’t want one of them to become our president!

Yeah.

And yet another reason Arnold recommends himself as a sane politician is his “sense of humor:”

The governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was joking when he said marijuana was “not a drug”, his spokesman said today.

The former Hollywood star told the British edition of GQ magazine that he had not taken drugs, even though he has acknowledged using marijuana in the 70s and was shown smoking a joint in the 1977 documentary Pumping Iron.

“That is not a drug. It’s a leaf,” Mr Schwarzenegger said. “My drug was pumping iron, trust me.”

The Atomic Giants

This 1953 animated propaganda flick from GE really is something special.

Rude to the boob

Lee Bollinger should have consulted Miss Manners on how to treat a guest. His now-famous introduction of Ahmadinejad was terribly rude and amplified the popular impression of Americans as arrogant. The good that came out of the spectacle was that he was laughed at and looked like the buffoon that he is. The bad part was that it made him look like the victim of American bullying, which is exactly how he wants the confrontation over his country’s nuclear shenanigans to be seen.

Bollinger take note: some people have been tasered for being less insulting. I was at the scene of the crime this weekend and my friend pointed out a fraternity with a “We support UPD” banner pasted to their red-brick mansion. He mused that “even this has become a left-right issue.”

I’ll share my missiles with you

The Spiegel is reporting that Sarkozy offered Merkel and Steinmeier (the German foreign minister) a role in the French nuclear weapons program, aka force de frappe. Sarko’s argument appears to be that the French arsenal protects Germany as well. The report says that the two immediately rejected the offer, pointing to Germany’s signature in the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Germany already has access to U.S. nukes in a time of crisis, which the German government has been delicately trying to get out of the country. Popular opinion is heavily against their stationing in Germany. It appears that after the recent removal of nukes from Ramstein, only about 20 remain.

I wonder if Sarko sees his suggestion as a way of creating a pan-European deterrent that is independent of the United States. That would be a terrible idea. Germany should get out of the nuclear weapon business and must encourage France to do the same. Even at the most theoretical levels, the French are intent on clinging to their arsenal until everyone else disarms all WMD. It doesn’t look like Sarko will be a maverick on that front.

Sleeping Hungarian and the New World Order

I had lunch today with “the promotional arm of the Ruling Elite in the United States of America,” the Council on Foreign Relations. Congressman Ed Markey and others dispensed advice to diplomats from countries that are in the Nuclear Suppliers Group. The NSG is a cartel of 45 countries that export nuclear technology and only allows trade with states that have their entire nuclear program under international safeguards (unless they are an official Nuclear-Weapon State). For the U.S.-India deal to go through, the NSG must agree to an exception for India. That exception would require unanimous consent, so just one country can prevent it. Markey is hoping to create opposition to such an exception. Good luck.

Trust me, the meeting was not as exciting as the Black Helicopter crowd would imagine it:

There are also the many allegations of involvement in gun running, drug smuggling, prostitution and sex slaves; and the many mysterious assassinations and “suicides” of witnesses and others who get too close to the truth…

Had there been sex, drugs, and murder, the Hungarian representing the European Council probably would not have fallen asleep. A propos: here’s another instance of Hungarian dereliction of duty. The man in the overalls was sent to fix the broken hydrant: