Rob's World

Obama's policies are not free market, but not socialist either, as no less than Reason magazine says here.

The keeper, really, is this sentence: "There is plenty to oppose in what Obama wants to do. But can we not be stupid about it?"

Labels: American politics, libertarianism

Labels: American politics, War

I never thought I'd say this, but if Bush had revealed that he'd known about a nuclear facility for years before it was publicized, he'd be excoriated, not praised by Andrew Sullivan for his "mojo" or at the Huffington Post for "outmaneuvering" Iran.

Labels: American politics, War

Our government has known about the "secret" facility in Iran for years, as this points out.

"The United States was aware of Iran’s unfinished uranium enrichment site for several years, senior U.S. officials told CNN on Friday. U.S. officials have known about the facility since President George W. Bush’s administration, according to the officials who declined to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the negotiations."

And despite what you'll hear in the news, "(a) the Qom facility is not operational and (b) there is no evidence it is being used to create a nuclear weapon."

Labels: American politics, War

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson will be meeting with diplomats from North Korea, which some are interpreting as a further thaw in relations between the North and the United States.

Kim Jong-il also reportedly sent condolences to the family of former President Kim Dae-jung, who died yesterday.

As a congressman, Richardson embarked on several diplomatic missions during the 1990s, and was instrumental in getting American Evan Hunziker released from North Korea in 1996.

Labels: American politics, north korea

Somewhere, I like to think the following conversation is taking place. (Apologies to Mike Judge.)

First Guy: Well, at least your name isn't John Bolton.
Second Guy: You know, there's nothing wrong with that name.
FG: There was nothing wrong with it until that no-talent neocon got nominated to diplomatic posts and started writing Op-Eds.
SG: You know, you could go by Jonathan.
FG: No way. Why should I change? He's the one who sucks at diplomacy.

Labels: American politics, north korea

Labels: American politics, libertarianism

After a backhanded admission of error for calling for regime change in Iraq and writing a book about the secret, totalitarian urge of Democrats, one might wonder if Jonah Golberg were still capable of clearly, capably identifying an actual dictatorship.

Well, fear not, he can spot the one in North Korea.

"But what of things figuratively happening under our noses and literally transpiring a click away on our computer screens? You can see the slave camps in North Korea -- not quite live via satellite, but close enough -- where the machinery of suffering chugs along 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

He goes on to say that the reason this has never been stopped is because of the nuclear weapons North Korea possesses, but this "is looking less compelling every day." Actually, Jonah, we aren't doing anything about because war, even of the non-nuclear variety, with North Korea would kill many, many more men that we lost in Iraq, as well as inflict immeasurable suffering on South Korea.

Even if that weren't the case, nuclear weapons are still pretty compelling, at least from where I'm sitting.

One would like to believe that we don't do anything about it because we respect the sovereignty of other nations, but that's clearly not the case.

He goes on to condemn Hillary Clinton's statement that the NK regime is acting like "unruly teenagers" and needs to be ignored.

"Seen through the window of nuclear diplomacy, Clinton's neo-Bushian stance is entirely defensible. Seen through a moral prism, it's at worse a horror and at best a profound failure to bear witness."

Clinton's statement does trivialize the seriousness of the situation, and the atrocities underway in the North. Coming from the right commentator, a rebuke of this nature would be well-taken.

Goldberg isn't the right pundit, though. This guy thinks that the Iraq conflict that killed thousands of Americans (and numbers of Iraqis that are hard to contemplate) while destabilizing the Middle East and soaking up billions of dollars we really could've used right now was "worthy."

So, when a guy like this makes such a comment, one really has to wonder what he means by "bear witness." Should we practice bad diplomacy, antagonizing the North about it's human rights abuses even though we have no plans to follow through as our military is overstretched? Such an approach would do nothing to bring North Korea back to the table.

Or should we abandon reason altogether and attack North Korea to punish them for their abuses?

That's not even worth contemplating.

Labels: American politics, north korea

Labels: American politics, libertarianism