Somewhat apropos of my frenetic jog through the jumble of Sinophobia below, I just had the unfortunate luck to witness a commercial concerning animal rights advocacy wherein those who adopt abandoned animals are referred to as parents - pet parents, as the voice over, without a hint of shame, happily repeated several times. It's really hard to defend the interests of the West when our lauded freedoms lend themselves to being enslaved by such idiocy. Sure, gotta take the good with the bad, that's the whole point etc etc - but c'mon, pet parents? Embarrassment for our sad lot near drives one to tears.

Interesting - China putting new restrictions on exports of rare earth minerals - heard explanation for this that I hadn't heard before and is the one that seems to make the most sense - they want to force companies who depend on these metals to locate their production facilities in China - suggestion made that this motivation behind recent mega deal GE just made with China - it's a startling and disturbing dynamic - since all companies who deal in rare earth metals are high tech not only does China manage to add to its soaring industrial base but it also, probably more importantly, gains access to coveted technology. I know people like to think or imagine or fool themselves into believing that these shifting currents may rock a few boats but need not send anyone hurdling overboard into dark and deadly waters - but I just don't see it - not that I can put this foreboding into any concrete terms at the moment - it's really just a feeling in the bones - but this massive and, in relative terms, precipitous transfer of wealth and technology and jobs from the democratic West to the autocratic East, that at best is simply a function of neo-mercantilism and greed operating beyond the purview of the voting public and potentially against their best interests or at worst a devious plot to undermine US power - tell me, how on earth does this possibly not lead eventually to either confrontation or appeasement or outright surrender?

Related - China has rolled out prototype of fifth generation fighter. Just in the last month it has been revealed that China has developed a new ballistic missile with much improved guidance system, have started work on a second aircraft carrier, and now have a fifth generation fighter [or, given its size, possibly a bomber] in the pipeline. None of these developments were mentioned in recent Pentagon analysis of current state of China's military. Reminds me of an argument I had recently with a liberal trying to make case that since relative to US China's defense expenditures are quite modest ours should accordingly be significantly trimmed - I countered that: one, the particulars and fundamentals of our long term strategic goals are different from theirs and therefore you can't measure capabilities strictly in terms of dollars and cents; two, how does one quantify what 50 billion buys you in China versus what it gets you in the US when it comes to military capacities; and, three, regardless of that we have absolutely no idea what China actually spends on the military - all  we know for sure is that what they say they spend is a lie. On that last point at least seems I was right.

Watch to see if Russia ends up supplying the engine for this J-20 stealth fighter - if so would mean they have given up trying to compete with China as the go to source for America's enemies of military technology and are just going to get what cash they can out of the mugging - since they know what ever engine they supply is simply going to be reverse engineered and then replaced - or it could mean they've entered into an interesting partnership with China that will almost certainly complicated American interests down the road.

update: WSJ has article up about the huge GE deal - no mention of role played by access to rare earth metals - but skinny is that GE has essentially handed all of its civilian aviation technology and manufacturing expertise over to the Chinese in a joint venture with China's new commercial jet company in the hopes that this will give them access to the Chinese market and all the other markets China has influence over [all those places that hate America]. Essentially, GE has sold its soul to China Inc for a boat load of cash, access to vast amounts of easy credit and the hope that China Inc will not completely screw them over a few years down the road once they've mastered the technology and manufacturing techniques. Boeing must be just thrilled by this because you know sure as shit once China has a reputable commercial jet, subsidized by the gov't, that can be manufactured at a fraction of Boeing's costs, that not only will Boeing never have equal access to the Chinese market but they will also start to be squeezed out of markets across the globe.

Look, I don't know nearly enough about business on this massive scale to pass judgement on how sound or unsound the deal is - but, c'mon, does anyone really believe that this is about anything other than GE, no doubt worried about a competitor making this deal if they don't, taking the short term benefit of the upfront cash and then embracing the long term delusion that China Inc can be trusted not to screw them over? Haven't they just sold China a pretty new knife and now get to wake up every morning hoping it won't be turned on them or every other American business that stands to lose from deals like this? Do we now see Boeing and Airbus make similar deals thinking, we don't trust them but if they develop a viable commercial jet company we're screwed no matter what so might as well take a chance and hope it pays off? Worst case scenario, what happens to the advantage America has and is completely dependent on in defense technology if cheap Chinese jetliners do to Boeing and related high tech industries what cheap Japanese cars did to GM and Ford? And take the military factor a step further: why should America continue to spend billions on a powerful military stretched across the globe to ostensibly serve and defend its interests if the chief beneficiary of this largesse and sacrifice turns out to be China? And if they conclude that indeed it makes no sense, what happens then? Can anyone actually see China stepping up and filling the role America holds now on the international stage? And even if they do, to what end and for the benefit of whom? America? Or petty dictatorships in Africa, the Middle East, South America, Eurasia? The bargain the world made or was asked to make with America was: embrace freedom, democracy, open markets and as we prosper, you'll prosper too [yes, the actual arrangement was a wee bit messier than that, but the underlying principle still promised far more positives than negatives over all]. What message is China sending to the rest of the world that is in any way comparable to that? The message China is sending is: if you're an autocracy and have a large pool of poor to draw cheap labour from, here's a way you can get rich - but wait, on second thought, we still have one hell of a lot of poor here in China that need something to do... and the decadent West can only buy so much crap... so why don't all you autocratic pricks out there just sit tight and in exchange for the buckets of cash we'll send your way you'll give us your natural resources and promise to keep your mouths shut.

Naw, I'm not liking any of this.

From a STRATFOR brief about START:

In the end, the issue boiled down to this. START was marginal at best. But if President Barack Obama couldn’t deliver on START his credibility with the Russians would collapse. It wasn’t so much that a New START would build confidence as it was that a failure to pass a New START would destroy confidence. It was on that basis that the U.S. Senate approved the treaty. Its opponents argued that it left out discussions of BMD and tactical nuclear weapons. Their more powerful argument was that the United States just negotiated a slightly modified version of a treaty that Ronald Reagan proposed a quarter century ago and it had nothing to do with contemporary geopolitical reality.

Passage allowed Obama to dodge a bullet, but it leaves open a question that he does not want to answer: What is American strategy toward Russia? He has mimicked American strategy from a quarter century ago, not defined what it will be.

That roughly approximates my feelings, no? Close enough.

"... it's the tendency of democracies, broadly speaking, to under estimate security needs and marginalize looming threats; paradoxically, as far as America is concerned, it's the tendency of great powers to constantly be fretting about enemies. Accordingly, no opinion expressed by either camp that wants to claim we're spending too little or too much on defense is perfectly right or perfectly wrong. I would contend, though, that given the great responsibility that has fallen to America as defender of the Western tradition and, as Europe fades, its increasing isolation in that regard, that we're probably better served by an over estimation of needs and an eternal vigilance against complacency.

Certainly, given America's commitments within its global strategy, it's much cheaper to stop wars before they start than to try and win them once the bullets are flying - which is why we have two carrier groups in the vicinity of North Korea right now and will soon likely have three. That's expensive - but given our goals much better to have the capacity than to be found wanting come crisis time..."

Could be I'm just whining about the 'liberal press' - I used to think all complaints about the liberal press amounted to dyspeptic whines but since my own POV has shifted increasingly rightwards I can see that we dyspeptic whiners have a point - but how is it Obama is being lauded for the passage of START as if it represented some wholesale victory for him over the forces of evil? Even those who supported the treaty agreed that it was essentially an innocuous document that could only do real harm if were rejected and caused us to lose the Russians [a dubious claim since as far as I'm concerned we don't really have them] - so it's patently absurd that the press covers this thing as if Obama has saved American foreign policy from certain ruin. Not to mention that republicans got what they wanted - it's just as much a victory for them! The right wanted money put on the table for modernization of the US nuclear arsenal and wording to the preamble of the treaty changed so as the ambiguity of it couldn't be manipulated by Russians in opposition to missile defense - and that's what they got. Yes, many on the right are still not thrilled by the treaty because they see it as a sell out to the Russians for the spurious if not delusional goal of gaining their cooperation viz Iran - but as Robert Kagan shrewdly points out in the Washington Post this morning had the republicans aborted this treaty democrats could have blamed them for the eventual failure of the Iran engagement policy - now, when negotiations with Iran inevitably collapse and Russia is revealed to have been less than helpful in that regard republicans can point to Obama and say "you see, your whole approach to foreign policy was naive".  

Sure, if Obama, given his new circumstances, is sincere in trying to play the Clintonesque moderate [something that will be hard to do since Clinton actually was a moderate and unlike Obama owed no great favours to the uber lefties] then yes this amounts to a modest victory for him in that context - but that's not how the liberal press is characterizing it - to them this is a reborn, remade Obama rising gloriously in decisive victory over the dark side.

Jennifer Rubin, who was a favourite blogger of mine when she was with Commentary and now is the token right wing blogger for the Washington Post [remember their last 'right wing' blogger turned out to be a lefty ideologue], seems to share my bewilderment at press treatment of Obama's recent successes.


addendum: apparently I was wrong, the preamble language wasn't changed, Obama merely sent a letter to congress  promising to defend missile defense, as it were - since the document is virtually useless anyway I don't know if this matters - if Obama doesn't follow through on defense of missile tech he'll be toast - and if Russians threaten to pull out of the treaty because of missile defense, do we really care? The diplomatic dance with Iran will be over by then and since that's the only real justification for the treaty [and a shallow one at that] it won't really matter if the Russians object to our missile defense plans. So it comes down to was there more to gain or lose by letting Obama have his treaty? If so I think I still agree with Kagan's assessment.

Krauthammer has an article in the Post today basically saying that Obama has resurrected his presidency with these legislative successes, that a mere two months removed from electoral slaughter that Obama is back from the dead because of the Bush tax cuts extension, DADT and START. I don't see that. DADT, sure, liberals love shit like this so his base is mollified, but this was a fait accompli, democrats could have lost every contested seat in the midterms and this was still gonna pass - the writing was on the wall, Gates was behind it, Mullen was behind it, Petraeus was behind it, polls suggest Americans don't mind it - this was gonna happen so I'm not really sure it's such a big win for Obama there, e3specially since the tax cuts, which the left absolutely despise, were anything but a fait accompli. START? Sure, a win, but modest and short term - and it's such a bad treaty that if there's no progress on Iran come 2012, or if worse they have actually tested a bomb, well, whoever is the GOP candidate in 2012 will be able to beat Obama over the head with this treaty nonstop - this treaty will become an albatross for him if the Russians don't play nice and Iran gets the bomb: I just don't see how you get any long term benefit from a treaty that even its supporters believe is of limited value and of absolutely no value, in fact negative value should Iran continue merrily on towards nuclear glory, which I fully expect them to do [although Stuxnet has changed the math on those calculations][and let's not forget we'll know by then if Medvedev is running for reelection or whether we'll be seeing the return of Putin - if it's Putin this treaty is absolutely worthless]. As for the tax cuts, Krauthammer asserts they represent a huge win for Obama viz independent voters - but does he forget the language Obama used during the press conference when he announced the extension of the cuts? He was disgusted that he felt he had no choice but to agree with the extension, he summoned the language of class warfare and he promised without reservation that first chance he got he'd be raising taxes on 'the rich'. I don't see how a performance like that lifts your reputation as a moderate - sure, there's short term benefit for him - but during the 2012 campaign I would guess its a virtual certainty that that press conference will come back to haunt him - or is he thinking: the economy will be improving by then, I can always fool independents into thinking I'm a moderate, after all I've done it before, and if I can get the lefties believing that if they just support me again I can deliver on all their 'make the rich pay' dreams, then I'm golden - if he manages to do that I'll almost have to start admiring him - still disagree with him for sure - but if he's that cunning [or cutthroat] an operator you'd really have no choice but to admire it in some way. On the other hand, it'd really just be the incarnation incarnation of Chicago styled political machinations at the national level, so not that revelatory actually - I mean his whole campaign for the presidency was marked by these kind of cynical calculations - Afghanistan, the post-racial uniter, the economic moderate, the restorer of America's reputation to the wide world, the florid speeches to lure people into the comforting fantasy world of him as the anti-Bush - all just a lot of nonsense to gain power - still not clear if it was simply power for power's sake, in his case the celebration of ego, or if he/they truly are motivated by a leftist agenda and all these calculations a manifestation of Alinsky in the Oval Office. After all, his seeming post election embrace of Clintonian triangulation could suggest either scenario is true, ie they're playing for time in hopes of a dramatic turn around in 2012 at which point they will start the revolution all over again; or they're desperate to avoid the scourge of history wherein the first black president would also be tagged an abysmal failure.

Apparently now I'm a homophobe or worse because I don't share the mindless enthusiasm of those who imagine the repeal of DADT is a landmark moment in the nation's history. Look, I essentially support the repeal of the law, the timing could have been better but all in all the fact remains we seem to have arrived at the point where one's sexual orientation is probably of little importance as far as military service goes, if only because gays are hardly the target demographic when it comes to recruiting state sanctioned killers of 'bad guys'. But I view the repeal with a somewhat jaundiced eye for two reasons: one, the way advocates dismiss possibilities of negative fallout from this decision is troubling - these people are either idiots or in the delusional grip of an ideology - as in a professional sports culture, but much more so in a military culture, homosexuality will remain a stigma and aside from re-engineering the species there's not much you can do about that - but if activists within the gay rights movement, who essentially seek an absurd reality wherein no existential differences are noted between gays and non gays, if these ideologues are not happy with the mere repeal of the law and wish to do away with the stigma as well, then you're gonna have problems, possibly big problems; and secondly, the huge disconnect between the insignificance of the cause of gay rights to the overwhelming majority of the population and the amount of attention the agenda garners from the press is both frustrating and galling - and this disconnect is multiplied tenfold when you're talking about the military where maybe 1% of the enlisted population is gay and of that 1% possibly 50% could care less about DADT and will probably remain 'closeted' because coming out just ain't worth the bother - and yet listening to the press you'd think the repeal of DADT has saved the military from an inevitable and ignominious decline.

It's an absurd state of affairs when doing the right thing legitimately seems to be so wrong - I mean, I support the repeal but at the same time I'm shaking my head and thinking what a ridiculous lot of creatures we are.

"... to say McCain is on the wrong side of history is not the same thing as saying he is wrong in the absolute, as Mr Ricks seems naively to assume - those who opposed the hyper liberal agenda of Johnson's great society were in a sense on the wrong side of history but many of their warnings of problems ahead still managed to be quite accurate. There's a reasonable chance that the same will prove true for those who oppose the repeal of DADT.

It will all depend on how politicized the LGBT agenda becomes or attempts to become within the military itself - the inclusion of women never became a huge problem because extremist feminist ideology was waning and therefore the military was allowed to deal with the cultural shift on its own terms - you never had women picketing outside army bases demanding that the girls get to serve on the front lines etc etc - but the extremism of the LGBT community is cresting - this is a highly politicized left wing ideology which is as a matter of course at odds with the governing ethos of the military mind - sure, Americans are increasingly ok with gay marriage etc  but that's because they are blandly ignorant of the extreme 'scholarship' emanating from the supporting activist community - if this agenda seeks out a confrontation with the conventions of a military mindset - in other words, if the issue becomes politicized within the military - you will have a problem.

I only talk with Marines so I don't have much of an idea as to how the other branches of the service feel about the repeal of DADT - but what I hear from Marines is they have no real problems with this, just so long as 'an agenda' isn't shoved in their faces - if you start forcing these boys to sign up for 'sensitivity' training etc or start punishing them for letting a 'faggot' drop in reference to a washout recruit etc or if the leftist sensibilities of LGBT community attempt to gain a proselytizing foothold within the ranks or impose an exogenous liberal agenda on the military so as to make it conform to the new found rights and needs of gay service members - well, then you're gonna have some unhappy grunts, regardless of the anodyne blandishments of advocates like Mr Ricks..."

So congress pushes through repeal of DADT - I won't necessarily call this a mistake - more frustrating annoyance, since the issue is so marginal as to verge on meaningless - 32,000 Marines were discharged last year for various reasons, most having to do with 'weight' problems - of those discharges a mere 78 were from violations of DADT - of those 78 half were amongst new recruits most of whom were probably looking to get the hell out of the corps after the grind of basic - the overwhelming majority of the 40 or so remaining DADT discharges involved junior personnel possessing modest skill sets - in other words, contrary to impression the MSM would like to sell, the US military was not bleeding valuable talent because of DADT - the entrenched socialization norms of heterosexual male bonding within context of military service was it seems after all not posing a grave threat to the defense of the nation - turns out that the fact that some god fearing jarhead farm boy from Idaho maybe had a little trouble dealing with thought of Billy over there liking his conjugations irregular did not actually represent a gross ignorance undermining viability of the entire service.

But, of course, that's to be facetious and ignore that we're dealing with a larger civil rights issue - or not. The small numbers involved, much smaller than appear in a sampling of the general population, pretty clearly indicate what's really at play here is an agenda - this has nothing to do with an egregious abuse of civil rights or of the inherent ignorance of stereotypical hyper male-dominant heterosexual socialization sapping the military of the vital resource of highly skilled homos - whoops, that's offensive. This was all about a political agenda that has nothing to do with the abuse of rights nor the efficient management of the military - and that's why it annoys people not gullible enough to be swept up in the simplistic politics of it all - it's a marginal issue being inflated way beyond the significance of it's impact in order to appease an agenda that has nothing at all to do with the proper functioning of the military - a reality made evident by a prominent liberal blog that today asked: will the 14,000 gays released since the inception of DADT now be eligible for reinstatement? Not once do they seem to wonder: how many of that 14,000 actually wanted out of the military and used DADT as their excuse; why would the military want people back who broke codes of conduct? who have already demonstrated that they are willing to put a marginal agenda ahead of their obligations as a soldier? Point being, the liberal blogger is only interested in the politics of it, the agenda - the needs of the military itself are merely a side issue.

The silliness is that I don't much object to the repeal of DADT - I agree with Max Boot who writes in Commentary that a year from now it will be a non issue, the US military will simply carry on business as usual. Still, you open the door to this liberal sentimentality and you really can't be sure what nonsense crawls in with it.

Did we just win a stare down with North Korea? They said they'd make a lethal response to any South Korean artillery test and then backed off and did nothing - so, we win, right? No. The dynamics of escalation are now set and nothing that has happened here changes those parameters - therefore, barring a fundamental change, something bad will happen - whether it's a week from now or a year from now no one knows - but the dynamics of escalation are now set and so barring a fundamental change, which will almost certainly have to be precipitated by China [which I don't see happening] shit will eventually hit fan.

Looks like new START treaty will now pass - I'm not a big fan of it but as both opponents and supporters have pronounced it is ostensibly in essence such an innocuous treaty [from our point of view] that putting up a fuss about its passage could easily do more harm than just giving it a pass, flaws and all - but that's what troubles me - there seems to be an assumption here that we need Russia viz Iranian nukes and that aborting the treaty would jeopardize that arrangement - but that argument only makes sense if: one, you believe Iran can be negotiated out of its nuke plans [I don't]; two, you can trust Russia as a good faith champion of our positions in negotiations with Iran [I don't]; and three, you believe bargaining with Russia from a position of weakness, no matter how innocuous the traded article of faith, can actually work to your advantage at some point [I don't - I think Putin sees things always in terms of superficial projections of strength and weakness - this is true of dictatorships in general, but especially of ones lacking in any real, concrete power - we think we're horse trading whereas Putin is not interested in horses at all]. My point is, that arguing that passage of this treaty does no real harm but rejection of it could lose us Russia as an ally against Iran only makes sense if we agree with Putin about what's being traded here - otherwise you're just giving away something for nothing and encouraging those already given to seeing Obama as weak.

That being said, there could be intelligence out there that suggests that although Putin is indeed a scoundrel rat, Medvedev in fact isn't and, more so, that his power is not merely illusory and entirely dependent on Putin and therefore the man is worth being courted - in which case, I could probably find myself reluctantly in support of the treaty - or rather, the treaty's passage - the treaty in and of itself will never amount to much.

In an Economist review of a book called 'Red Capitalism' wherein the book's authors, two American bankers who have worked extensively in China, claim that the Chinese economic miracle is in many ways a facade behind which hides a great deal of dysfunction and inefficiency - a point I have often made [although I merely guess at this reality rather than state it authoritatively, having not the expertise etc] - anyway, in the review there's this paraphrase of another point the authors make:

As the book details, the whole business of providing, receiving and regulating money involves one state entity or another. It may be in China’s overall interest for the system to open itself up, but doing so would pit the government against itself. That will not happen without commitment from those on top.

This is a looming dynamic that I've referenced before: it's naive to imagine there are not problems lurking beneath the surface of Chinese styled capitalism; but to solve and reform these problems before the advent of a crisis will require the massive Chinese bureaucracy and its leaders to take significant risks which will probably imperil their privileged place in the community - therefore it's naive to believe they will willingly take on these risks; consequently, when the crisis comes, whether it's 5, 10, 20 years from now, the most likely response will not be reform or self reflection but rather an embrace of avoidance and the casting of blame somewhere else - America, no doubt. Certainly, a lack of reform will imply that America and China will be engaged in an increasingly tense competition for influence, not only in Asia, but across the globe - and therefore blaming America will hardly seem a desperate leap to the Chinese people, especially since a chauvinistic stoking of Chinese nationalism will no doubt accompany the emerging crisis.

This is why I tend to be a China sceptic.

A curious correspondence discovered, that is probably somewhat over wrought and unfair to Obama and his acolytes - but reading about Hayek and the evolution of his thoughts in the run up to and during the course of WWII, you find this quote from Beveridge, Hayek's socialist nemesis: "A revolutionary moment in the world's history is a time for revolutions, not for patching" - in other words, let's not waste this opportunity the devastation of war has given us by simply rebuilding the old capitalist system - time to summon forth our socialist utopia! Sadly Beveridges thinking largely carried the post war day and England would have to wait for the arrival of Thatcher 30 years later to undo the damage caused - but one is struck, a bit unfairly I admit as a measure of the hubris involved, at how Obama and his utopian crew, coming into power on the heels of a devastating crisis of their own, thought in similar naively idealized terms: here's our opportunity to remake America into something our socialist brethren in the academy will recognize as enlightened - the awful compost of capitalism has made ripe the field - Hope and change! - or as Rahm Emanuel would later repackage it, never let a good crisis go to waste. 

This interesting and a wee bit funny in that 'ain't life a bitch' way - thievery is prevalent in China - from corporate piracy all the way down to your average street hustler - there's a culture of stealing and the Chinese actually have a word for it that I've read but in no way can remember - but it's a recognized existential reality of 'the Chinese way' and those who write about China's inevitable rise as an economic power often cite this cultural attribute as a potential loose rung waiting to upend this inevitable climb to the top - certainly Western business interests, eager to reap a China windfall, are increasingly aware of and troubled by this Middle Kingdom tendency to greet you with one hand while stealing your wallet with the other - the WSJ just ran a fascinating article on how Russian military trade is in serious decline because the Chinese have taken advanced Russian military tech they've purchased over the years, reverse engineered it, and are now selling it as 'original' Chinese hardware at greatly reduced prices. Not surprisingly I guess, intellectual property rights are not much valued in the land that Mao built [but still a bit amusing that the former Marxists are being screwed this way by the not so former Maoists].

All disturbing enough if one counts themselves a China sceptic - which I do - but here's where it gets a bit funny: 70% of all software, including operating systems, in use in China, whether by private individuals or government employees, is pirated and China's officialdom has either openly or by their silence condoned this illegal activity - but now the potentates of erstwhile Peiking have decided that's a bad thing - not because they've had an epiphany that maybe it's good policy to frown upon the stealing of the copyrighted and patent protected products of others - that they don't seem to give a fuck about [no doubt thinking it justifiable payback for years of colonial abuse - but that's comparing apples to oranges when comsidering long term implications of each culture's approach to banditry - think, paradoxically, 'rule of law' and 'rights of the individual' before that law]  - but rather because pirated software is highly vulnerable to being compromised by viruses etc. In the age of Stuxnet [Iran used pirated software and hardware in nuclear components Stuxnet targeted] and WikiLeaks this gapping vulnerability has got the boys in Beijing just a little bit on edge - and so they've started up a campaign to try and pry all this pirated digital booty away from the parsimonious purloiners - good luck with that - as one analyst said it would be like trying to turn America into a country of commie loving atheists - ain't gonna happen.

Still, all joking aside, the consequences of this cultural clash, which points to a fundamental divide between the US and China concerning perceptions of how a modern society, that seeks to wield great power, should and needs to function, could prove quite problematic.

"... not to defend Friedman who is among the shallowest of the 'deep' thinkers out there - but he's a macro guy, likes the broad, attention getting stroke - and therefore misses a lot - as in a business revolution grafted onto a retrograde political culture can mutate into something ugly, which is exactly what happened in Ireland - but that does not therefore mean the free market ideals motivating the Celtic tiger were in and of themselves 'bad' or 'wrong' - of course Mr Ricks as a socialist thinks they were and that explains this post - but Friedman makes the same mistake when he rhapsodizes about China: the 'capitalist' miracle there suits his book selling talking points and so he tends to go vague or 'hyper macro' when discussing the attending retrograde political and social cultures that, as in Ireland, are like to cause the 'miracle' to morph eventually into something grotesque if not reformed as well.

The telling quote about Ireland came from an Irish business man who said: it's an indication of how horrible things were before 'the revolution' that as bad as things look now we're still better off for the change. I remember visiting Dublin as a student in the 80's and being shocked by the dozens of dirty faced kids lining O'Connell bridge begging money from 'rich' foreigners - so I'm willing to bet that somewhat counter intuitive declaration is in many ways true..."

So little of value to say... but feel obligated to point out, viz the current reiteration of unending North Korea crisis, that I guess it was three or four years ago, when Lil' Kim test fired a multi-stage ballistic missile provocatively out over the Sea of Japan and there was much discussion concerning whether or not the US should shoot it down - believe it was I who said that although it may seem like a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario, it probably really isn't, and for two very good, palpable reasons: one, it's imperative, when it's in our power to stop them from testing nuclear components and thereby perfecting those components and thereby moving closer to the feared end state, that we do so - otherwise you will end up leaving yourself ultimately with only two rather unpleasant options - military intervention or capitulation [although capitulation likely eventually leads to military intervention so the choice is in a way a false one]; and two, failure to call Lil' Kim's bluff will lead to escalating provocations which in turn will lead to increased chances of a serious miscalculation on someone's part which will in turn lead to perception that military intervention is necessary - and that is exactly what has happened - the North miscalculated [China too I guess we can say] and the South now feels compelled to openly talk of 'war'. Both sides are now perched in positions that make backing down hard to contemplate [this danger reflected in China's rhetoric now hardening rather than softening - realization that their credibility as a regional power is between rock and hard place - give in to US pressure and they look weak and diminished - maintain a hard line and they look unreliable and threatening]

Not that if we had shot down that missile all this could have without a doubt been avoided - but it reminds me that we often choose the riskier option thinking it the less risky only because the negative consequences of not choosing it are more easily imagined. It's the same mistake we're making with Iran - it's easy to imagine the serious fallout of a military intervention and therefore people assume that the military option must be the worst choice - whereas in reality an effort made in imagining alternate scenarios reveals that the military option, although quite obviously fraught with significant dangers, could easily prove the least bad of the few credible options out there.

Of course one wants and needs to be circumspect - rushing to war is truly a hazardous game - but by the same token I think it's important to acknowledge or at least remind ourselves of the unappealing reality the world tends to throw at us and admit that rushing away from war also carries with it the threat of significant and terrible consequences.

Turns out that Turkey's foreign minister's Phd thesis was on how the political cultures of the West and Islam are incompatible, in that Islam's institutions are inextricably informed by the stultifying homogeneity of religious considerations while the West's are inextricably rooted in the liberating dynamics of secularism - which certainly validates and further explains my cynicism viz Turkey's recent actions and gestures towards Israel and Iran - but also I think in large part, as regards my views concerning the problems of Islamic culture and Sharia, relieves me of the charge of racism leveled at me by naive liberals who in the cloistered darkness of their political correctness can see no motive for culture based criticism other than that of racial prejudice inspired by fear and hatred. It reminds one that liberals tend to feel first, then think - their 'ideas' must first pass through this emotional filter that has more to do with delusional notions of identity than it has to do with reality. [likewise, it was this abject foolishness of liberal sentiment that caused them to characterize as racist me and others like me who early on predicted that an Obama presidency would bring more bad than good and could very well end up a disaster - liberals simply could not even conceive of the idea that someone might reject the great man for reasons not vitiated by gross ignorance and racism - they couldn't conceive of it because in their ever narrowing minds it amounted to a revealed truth that electing a black man who so eloquently espoused their philosophy to the presidency of the United States was a glorious affirmation of their world view and therefore a glorious affirmation of the enlightened creatures they imagined themselves to be].

addendum: related, also turns out EU has recently passed 'anti-hate' legislation that now makes it illegal to say anything negative about Islam - so if you were to quote something from the Koran or something an Islamic leader had said and in the course of a critical analysis of this something were to extrapolate an opinion deemed negative you would potentially be breaking the law - although apparently if you were to quote something from Exodus or from a Papal cyclical and after critical analysis were to extrapolate something negative that would be just fine. And needless to say what I wrote in the above paragraph would classify me as an irredeemably hateful person in the EU. What Gertrude Stein once said of the dissolute Parisian arts scene of the 20's I now say of Europe as a whole: you are all a lost generation.