Updated posts

I've updated these two posts frequently today. If you visited earlier you may have missed the good stuff in the updates. Sorry if you kept getting bombarded with updates throughout the day in your news reader and are now forced to see this post too

Permalink | Comments? | id 6586

21:54 (utc-5)

 

The New York Times: The Secret Genocide Archive

The New York Times: The Secret Genocide Archive:

I'm sorry for inflicting these horrific photos on you. But the real obscenity isn't in printing pictures of dead babies - it's in our passivity, which allows these people to be slaughtered.

Via Glenn. Roger Simon writes:

Yes, of course. We should all do what we can. But this shouldn't be an exclusively American problem. It is a world problem. The United Nations, which was formed in the wake of genocide and was supposed to make the repetition of such horrors its number one priority, has not nearly done its job here, just as it did not in Rwanda. Why? Maybe there just isn't any money it.

Well, of course, the reason is that the UN won't call it genocide, so they don't have to do anything. As Glenn says, "problem solved!"

Permalink | 2 Comments | Tags: Opinions/Politics | id 6583

15:57 (utc-5)
edited: 16:15 (utc-5)

 

The Republican Party's History On Race

Deroy Murdock: Grand Old Party: "Blacks might be surprised to compare Republican history with the Democrats’", via Lorie at PoliPundit. He includes information about the Democratic filibusters of the Civil Rights Acts, which most people don't know about:

May 6, 1960: Eisenhower signs the GOP's 1960 Civil Rights Act after it survived a five-day, five-hour filibuster by 18 Senate Democrats.

July 2, 1964: Democratic President Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act after former Klansman Robert Byrd's 14-hour filibuster and the votes of 22 other Senate Democrats (including Tennessee's Al Gore, Sr.) failed to scuttle the measure. Illinois Republican Everett Dirksen rallied 26 GOP senators and 44 Democrats to invoke cloture and allow the bill's passage. According to John Fonte in the January 9, 2003, National Review, 82 percent of Republicans so voted, versus only 66 percent of Democrats.

John Hawkins reproduces the article, and I copied my title from his.

Permalink | Comments? | Tags: Opinions/Politics | id 6580

15:03 (utc-5)
edited: 15:08 (utc-5)

 

The Lebanese intifada

Continuing the theme of winds of change, read David Ignatius' column: Beirut's Berlin Wall (via Deacon at Power Line):

Over by the Martyr's Monument, Lebanese students have built a little tent city and are vowing to stay until Syria's 15,000 troops withdraw. They talk like characters in "Les Miserables," but their revolutionary bravado is the sort of force that can change history. "We have nothing to lose anymore. We want freedom or death," says Indra Hage, a young Lebanese Christian. "We're going to stay here, even if soldiers attack us," says Hadi Abi Almouna, a Druze Muslim. "Freedom needs sacrifices, and we are ready to give them."

Brave words, in a country where dissent has often meant death. "It is the beginning of a new Arab revolution," argues Samir Franjieh, one of the organizers of the opposition. "It's the first time a whole Arab society is seeking change -- Christians and Muslims, men and women, rich and poor."

The leader of this Lebanese intifada is Walid Jumblatt, the patriarch of the Druze Muslim community and, until recently, a man who accommodated Syria's occupation. But something snapped for Jumblatt last year, when the Syrians overruled the Lebanese constitution and forced the reelection of their front man in Lebanon, President Emile Lahoud. The old slogans about Arab nationalism turned to ashes in Jumblatt's mouth, and he and Hariri openly began to defy Damascus.

"It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq," explains Jumblatt. "I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world." Jumblatt says this spark of democratic revolt is spreading. "The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it."

Update: More at the Belgravia Dispatch (via Glenn), quoting Bob Blackwill:

And, I must say, that those who mock haven't been paying attention to the empirical data that's been piling up. First, we had the Afghan election last fall with this extraordinary turnout. Then we had the Palestinian election. Then we had the Iraqi election. We're going to have a parliamentary election in Afghanistan in the spring. So this isn't a theory anymore, this is actually happening on the ground in the Middle East and it is absolutely revolutionary, these free and fair elections.

Update: At Vodkapundit, Will Collier quotes the above and writes:

The speaker, Walid Jumlatt, was up until quite recently a major purveyor of anti-American Arabist conspiracy theorizing, which makes his current stance and statements all the more exhilirating. If we can reach people who used to say stuff like this, there's more than hope: there's fundamental progress.

Update: Der Spiegel picks up the Berlin Wall theme and asks, Could George W. Bush Be Right?:

But history has shown that it wasn't Reagan who was the dreamer as he voiced his demand. Rather, it was German politicians who were lacking in imagination -- a group who in 1987 couldn't imagine that there might be an alternative to a divided Germany. Those who spoke of reunification were labelled as nationalists and the entire German left was completely uninterested in a unified Germany.

[That] Arabic countries could transform themselves into enlightened democracies... is likely the largest point of disagreement between Europe and the United States -- and one that a President John Kerry likely would not have made smaller: Europeans today -- just like the Europeans of 1987 -- cannot imagine that the world might change. Maybe we don't want the world to change, because change can, of course, be dangerous. But in a country of immigrants like the United States, one actually pushes for change. In Mainz today, the stagnant Europeans came face to face with the dynamic Americans. We Europeans always want to have the world from yesterday, whereas the Americans strive for the world of tomorrow.

It was difficult not to cringe during Reagan's speech in 1987. ... At the end of it, most experts agreed that his demand for the removal of the Wall was inopportune, utopian and crazy.

Yet three years later, East Germany had disappeared from the map. Gorbachev had a lot to do with it, but it was the East Germans who played the larger role. When analysts are confronted by real people, amazing things can happen. And maybe history can repeat itself. Maybe the people of Syria, Iran or Jordan will get the idea in their heads to free themselves from their oppressive regimes just as the East Germans did. When the voter turnout in Iraq recently exceeded that of many Western nations, the chorus of critique from Iraq alarmists was, at least for a couple of days, quieted. Just as quiet as the chorus of Germany experts on the night of Nov. 9, 1989 when the Wall fell.

Just a thought for Old Europe to chew on: Bush might be right, just like Reagan was then.

Via Glenn, who also links to Arthur Chrenkoff's latest roundup of news about Lebanon (first one here).

Permalink | Comments? | Tags: Opinions/Politics | id 6579

14:41 (utc-5)
edited: 21:36 (utc-5)

 

Mark Steyn: Atlanticist small talk is all that's left

I really enjoyed this article by Mark Steyn that everyone's linking to: Atlanticist small talk is all that's left

But, in the broader sense vis-à-vis Europe, the administration is changing the tone precisely because it understands there can be no substance. And, if there's no substance that can be changed, what's to quarrel about?

Steyn's preceeding column is also worth reading: What's US policy on Europe? No giggling.

Update: Austin Bay responds (via Roger) and Power Line comments.

Update: Roger links this piece by Janet Daley: Freedom? Why Europe's not bothered (to read).

Update: Power Line writes on the most important issue to arise during Bush's trip to Europe (which I've honestly been trying not to think about):

President Bush has expressed his deep concern that the European Union is about to lift its ban on arms sales to China, the The Washington Times reports. This is the most important story of President Bush's visit to Europe, and one of the few serious ones being reported. "Charm offensives" may be fun to write about, but neither Condi Rice nor George Bush will be able to charm the Europeans out of their overriding foreign policy objective, which is to find a new partner with which to "counter-balance" American power.

John Kerry would have been better at charming the Europeans. But only because he would have been that partner.

Update: Two more links that are relevant here: President Bush at NATO HQ, and President Bush shakes hands with Yushenko, via Lorie at PoliPundit.

Update: Deacon at Power Line writes more about France and Germany's goal of counterbalancing US power. Since they can't do it themselves, they need surrogates:

I'm more inclined to view the elections as marking the end of the Middle Eastern phase of the Franco-German front against America. Unfortunately, Chirac and Schroeder seem to be in the process of launching the Chinese phase. The desire of the French and German elites to counter-balance American power is deep-rooted and predates even Chirac. And it's not entirely irrational. Rather it is consistent with respectable theories of international relations that France and Germany would act this way in the face of American "hegomony."

Permalink | Comments? | Tags: Opinions/Politics | id 6577

13:56 (utc-5)
edited: 23:39 (utc-5)