Monday, June 08, 2009
http://chinaconfidential.blogspot.com/
North Korea Jails Reporters Amid Rising Tensions
Horrible news from hell on earth....
North Korea said it found two U.S. journalists it has held since March guilty of illegal entry and a "grave crime" and sentenced them to 12 years hard labor.
The journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, who worked for Al Gore's U.S. media outlet Current TV, were arrested while working on a story near the border between North Korea and China. Their phony, secret trial opened on Thursday.
The sentences are harsher than U.S. officials had expected; and no appeal is possible because the women were tried in North Korea's highest so-called court, where decisions are final.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday she was "incredibly concerned" about the fate of the two women, and that the charges against them "are absolutely without merit or foundation".
Clinton said she had sent a letter to Pyongyang demanding their release.
"I have taken every action that we thought would produce the result we are looking for," she said, adding that she wanted them to be "sent home".
China Confidential analysts say the two Americans were captured on Chinese territory and dragged across the border to be used as hostages.
Both detainees are married. Lee has a four-year-old daughter.
In related news, the United States is considering interdiction of North Korean ships and aircraft suspected of carrying weapons and nuclear materials and technology. The U.S. is also considering putting the Stalinist/Kimist regime back on the list of terrorist-sponsoring nations.
North Korea is threatening to retaliate with "extreme" measures, saying it will regard the moves as acts of war.
China Confidential analysts say the North is preparing new nuclear and missile tests. It has declared a no-travel zone off its northeastern coast. Click here for the story.
North Korea recently renounced the armistice on the Korean Peninsula.Blunders and Betrayal
By Andre Pachter
Imagine if the United States before entering World War I had responded to Imperial Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare on the high seas, terrorist, sabotage and espionage plots inside the U.S., and conspiracy to enlist Mexico in an invasion of the U.S. Southwest by seeking an alliance with ... the Kaiser.
Imagine, too, if FDR had responded to Pearl Harbor with a mix of military action, missionary democracy, and diplomatic and propaganda initiatives, including praise for German and Japanese cultures, instead of with a declaration of war against Germany and Japan and an all-out effort to defeat the Nazi-Fascist-Militarist menace.
Imagine, finally, if FDR had invaded the Soviet Union instead of declaring war on Nazi Germany in order to overthrow Stalin and Communism and install a multiparty, parliamentary system in the hope that democracy in Moscow would spread to Berlin, and that after nearly eight years of draining warfare abroad and economic Depression at home, during which, the Soviet Union had come under the rule of pro-Nazi White Russians, a new U.S. President had come into office, pushing a policy of appeasement and a plan to enter into a "Grand Bargain" with supposedly moderate Nazis and Fascists--anybody but Hitler himself and his most senior henchmen.
The analogies are not exact; but they basically describe the respective blunders and betrayals of the Bush and Obama administrations. Bush's failure to defeat the Islamist enemy--including Iran--helped pave the way for Obama's election and Iran's emergence as a nuclear-arming hegemon.
Put differently, after the new Pearl Harbor, the Saudi-financed Al Qaeda attacks of 9/11, the American people were ready for World War III. Bush gave them another Vietnam. The people wanted World War II rules of engagement. Bush gave them CNN rules, for all the talk about waterboarding and renditions. His decision to name the conflict the War on Terror instead of the war on radical Islam signaled the onset of an endless and ultimately unpopular and self-destructive struggle--like the war on drugs.
We are paying the price for failure. An exhausted and confused electorate, understandably worried about economic survival, embraced a mysterious Candidate of Change with a paper-thin resume and an alarming history of associating with and benefitting from radicals and racists. Not even five months into his Presidency, his ideological bias is on full display, along with his Muslim middle name and roots--which his campaign managers and an adoring media had declared to be off limits for coverage and analysis during the long race to the White House. Barring a dramatic policy change, his administration will be responsible for a series of catastrophes from which the U.S. may never recover.
Say what you will--at least, Bush kept America safe. Obama's "engagement" (code for appeasement) of Islamist Iran and Islamism in general is emboldening America's enemies and making new Pearl Harbors practically inevitable.Sunday, June 07, 2009
Hezbollah Loses; Carter Depressed
Good news: our prediction was wrong; Hezbollah lost.
A pro-Syrian coalition led by Iran's Islamist proxy, Hitlerian Hezbollah, was defeated by a pro-American, anti-Syrian coalition in Lebanon's parliamentary election on Sunday, politicians on both sides said.
Saad Al-Hariri, the leader of the anti-Syrian coalition, said: "Congratulations to Lebanon, congratulations to democracy, congratulations to freedom. The Lebanese have proved today their commitment to freedom and democracy. There are no winners and losers in this election, the only winner is democracy and the biggest winner is Lebanon."
America's Hezbollah-backing former President, Jimmy Carter, is said to be depressed. Carter acted as an election observer; he was actually in Lebanon as a way of lobbying against a reduction in U.S. aid to the Arab country in the event of a Hezbollah victory.Carter In Lebanon, Backing Hezbollah
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who three decades ago helped Islamists come to power in Iran, is in Lebanon, acting as an election observer.
In fact, Carter is in Lebanon to support the likely winner--a coalition led by Iran's Islamist proxy, Hezbollah.
The United States, which has formally designated Hezbollah a Foreign Terrorist Organization, has said it would consider a reduction in aid to Lebanon if Hezbollah takes power. Carter aims to keep the aid flowing and to use a Hezbollah election victory to press Washington to cancel the Shiite group's FTO designation.
Carter is also pushing for accelerated engagement with another FTO and Iranian proxy, Palestinian Hamas, in the context of reestablishing diplomatic relations with Tehran and allowing it to essentially rule over the Middle East.
His passionate promotion of Iran is upsetting to Saudi Arabia, which is competing with Iran for leadership and influence in the region and among Muslims worldwide.
EXCLUSIVE: China Confidential has learned that Carter is poised to praise phony "Islamist democracy" --citing Iran and Hezbollah--as actually being more representative than Israel's genuine democracy.Saudis to US: Now is the Time to Threaten Israel
Saudi Arabia is pressuring the United States to cut off all aid to Israel if it refuses to go along with the U.S./Saudi peace plan, which calls for Israel to abandon every inch of land taken during the defensive Six-Day War of June 1967, including East Jerusalem, and agree to the creation of a Palestinian West Bank/Gaza state likely to be ruled by Hamas. Clickhere for the story.
Saudi Arabia is competing with Iran for control of the Palestinian movement.
China Confidential has been ahead of the media pack in predicting U.S. plans to punishIsrael if it (a) attacks Iran to end its nuclear program, or (b) refuses to withdraw to the indefensible borders that the late Israeli foreign minister, Abba Eban, called the "Auschwitz lines."
A major shift in U.S. policy toward Israel is underway. Contrary to public expressions of support, the Obama administration intends to impose a final solution to the Islamized Arab-Israeli conflict on the Jewish State. There are influential actors in the administration who regard Israel as a liability, rather than an asset--in fact, a "mistake" whose miraculous rebirth in the heart of the Arab world, following decades of Zionist pioneering, settlement, and sacrifice and the horrors of the Holocaust, should have been aborted and certainly not supported by the United States.
In this context, it is important to note that U.S. is for the time being virtually a one-party country, and the ruling, Democratic Party's left-wing is for all practical purposes an enemy of Israel. The left's ant-Israel stance is backed by an array of influential anti-Semites, Saudi agents of influence, and Islamist sympathizers, including former President Jimmy Carter and former Carter administration National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski.
China Confidential analysts believe the proposed ultimatum to Israel was a topic of discussion during President Obama's June 3 dinner meeting with Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, the night before the President's landmark speech to the world's Muslims from Egypt.
Obama and the king are also believed to have discussed Iran's nuclear program. Although they are resigned to Iran's emergence as a regional hegemon, the Saudis are hopeful that Iran can still be sufficiently appeased to stop short of crossing the nuclear threshold.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Saudi monarch and the American President see eye to eye on the need to raise oil prices. The king needs the revenue for his extended, dysfunctional royal family; the President, to rationalize politically motivated green energy mandates and subsidies that will actually create relatively few jobs while increasing U.S. dependence on foreign oil.North Korea May be Preparing Missile Strike on South Korean Battleship; Seoul Plans Counterattack
Countdown to conflict on the Korean Peninsula....
North Korea is preparing provocative, new nuclear and missile tests, and, possibly, also missile attacks on South Korean naval vessels.
South Korea is planning possible counterattacks.
Reuters reports:South Korea has outlined a plan to counter a possible missile attack by North Korea, including airstrikes on a missile base, Seoul's Yonhap News reported on Sunday citing military sources.
A scenario by the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff submitted to President Lee Myung-bak on Saturday included a plan to counter-attack in case North Korea fires a missile targeting the South's battleships in the contested waters off the west coast, Yonhap said.
Continue here.
China Confidential analysts say the North may opt for an aerial strike on a South Korean ship as a way of triggering a crisis that could escalate in stages and avoid an immediate clash with U.S. troops in South Korea.
In related news, the United States is considering putting North Korea back on the list of countries that sponsor terrorism. Click here for the story.
Monday, 8 June 2009
Posts
