Real Commies Embrace Crony Capitalism Silly

The main stated reason for the students’ opposition was their conviction that it would have given the mainland too much economic power within Taiwan, which it could then use to wrest political concessions. But Lin’s participation was motivated more ideologically. She and like-minded “leftists” — her word — were convinced that cross-strait relations in general have benefited the rich on both sides to the detriment of exploited workers on both sides. The irony is that Lin came from a place where the study of Marxism is mandatory, only to find in the deeply anti-communist society of Taiwan what she called “true Marxism.”

“In China,” she said, “we learn about Marxism but nobody believes in it, but on Taiwan they really believe in it.” And, unlike on the mainland, where the last student demonstrations in 1989 took place before most current students were born, the students on Taiwan were able to organize themselves, to publicize their views, and to demonstrate.

From an article in Foreign Policy: Does Time in Taiwan Change Young Mainland Minds?  The article doesn't provide a clear answer to the question, but...here's how it ends:

“We are forced to go back. We need to work. We need to live,” Ting said. “The democratic ideology makes no sense for your daily life.”

Back, back, back we go then...

Salon: Putin might be right on Syria

Meant to have this up much earlier, but editing this b* down is not easy, which is a compliment.  The best option ended up being to simply lop off the latter part, which referred to the wisdom of Messrs. Gordon Adams & Stephen Walt on said crisis.  Maybe just read what they have to say and ignore anything below...

...

Very simply, we have one secular nation helping to defend what remains of another, by invitation, against a radical Islamist insurgency that, were it to succeed, would condemn those Syrians who cannot escape to a tyranny of disorder rooted in sectarian religious animosities. And we have the great power heretofore dominant in the region hoping that the insurgency prevails. Its policy across the region, indeed, appears to rest on leveraging these very animosities.

Now we can add the names back in.

In the past week Russia has further advanced its support of Bashar al-Assad with intensified bombing runs and cruise missiles launched from warships in the Caspian Sea. Not yet but possibly, Russian troops will deploy to back the Syrian army and its assorted allies on the ground. This has enabled government troops to begin an apparently spirited new offensive against the messy stew of Islamist militias arrayed against Damascus.

It was a big week for Washington, too. First it pulled the plug on its $500 million program to train a “moderate opposition” in Syria—admittedly a tough one given that Islamists with guns in their hands tend to be immoderate. Instantly it then begins to send weapons to the militias it failed to train, the CIA having “lightly vetted” them—as it did for a time in 2013, until that proved a self-defeating mistake.

The fiction that moderates lurk somewhere continues. Out of the blue, they are now called “the Syrian Arab Coalition,” a moniker that reeks of the corridors in Langley, Virginia, if you ask me.

In Turkey, meantime, the Pentagon’s new alliance with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan government starts to play out just as the Turkish prime minister intended. All the persuasive signs are that the government was responsible for bombs that killed more than 120 people in Ankara last weekend as they protested Erdoğan’s renewed violence against Turkey’s Kurdish minority. The Middle East’s crisis has just spread into another country.

*

Since Russia reinvigorated its decades-old support for Damascus last month, the vogue among the Washington story-spinners has been to question Putin’s motives. What does Putin—not “Russia” or even “Moscow,” but Putin—want? This was never an interesting question, since the answer seemed clear, but now we have one that truly does warrant consideration.

What does the U.S. want? Why, after four years of effort on the part of the world’s most powerful military and most extensive intelligence apparatus, is Syria a catastrophe beyond anything one could imagine when anti-Assad protests egan in the spring of 2011?

After four years of war—never truly civil and now on the way to proxy—Assad’s Syria is a mangled mess, almost certainly beyond retrieval in its current form. Everyone appears to agree on this point, including Putin and Sergei Lavrov, the Russian leader’s foreign minister. There is no putting this humpty-dumpty back on any wall: The Russians readily acknowledge this, acres of groundless journalism to the contrary notwithstanding.

In the meantime, certain realities are essential to recognize. The Assad government is a sovereign entity. Damascus has the beleaguered bones of a national administration, all the things one does not readily think of as wars unfold: a transport ministry, an education ministry, embassies around the world, a seat at the U.N. In these things are the makings of postwar Syria—which, by definition, means Syria after the threat of Islamic terror is eliminated.

Anyone who doubts this is Russia’s reasoning should consider the Putin-Lavrov proposal for a negotiated transition into a post-Assad national structure. They argue for a federation of autonomous regions representing Sunni, Kurdish and Alawite-Christian populations. Putin made this plain when he met President Obama at the U.N. last month, my sources in Moscow tell me. Lavrov has made it plain during his numerous exchanges with Secretary of State Kerry.

Why would Russia’s president and senior diplomat put this on the table if they were not serious? Their proposed design for post-Assad Syria, incidentally, is a close variant of what Russia and the Europeans favor in Ukraine. In both cases it has the virtue of addressing facts on the ground. These are nations whose internal distinctions and diversity must be accommodated—not denied, not erased, but also not exacerbated—if they are to become truly modern. Russians understand the complexities of becoming truly modern: This has been the Russian project since the 18th century.

In the past week Washington has effectively elected not to support Russia’s new effort to address the Syria crisis decisively. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s latest phrase of the moment is “fatally flawed.” If he said it once he said it a dozen times: The Russian strategy is fatally flawed. We heard you the third time, Ash.

As to Obama, he rejects any notion that Washington has effectively ceded leadership on the Syria question—with potentially wider implications—to Moscow. In his much-noted interview with 60 Minutes last weekend, he found Putin foolhardy for risking the lives of Russian soldiers and “spending money he doesn’t have.”

Say what?

Whose strategy in Syria is fatally flawed, Mr. Carter? I assume there is no need to do more than pose the question. (Memo to SecDef: Get a new scriptwriter, someone who allots you more than one assigned phrase a week.)

As to Obama’s remarks, one wishes he were joking. We are $5 trillion into the mess that began with the invasion of Iraq a dozen years ago, and we are counting the fatalities one side or the other of a million. There are roughly 4 million Syrian refugees by the latest count. And Putin’s at fault for risking lives and blowing money? Who puts a smart guy like you up to this, Mr. President?

...

I'm not at all convinced that the Russians really know what they are doing here, or what the endgame looks like, but as for the Americans...

T'would seem that the Obama administration inherited from Bush & Co. the rather naïve view that if various tyrannical despots in the Middle East could be removed with the support of  Western military-aid, that the populations would immediately and unhesitatingly embrace both the West, and secular democracy, despite the historical record, in which revolutions, even well-meaning ones as often as not, if not more often, create worse outcomes than that which went before.  And despite both the existence of relatively widespread animosity towards the United States and the West generally in many of these countries, and the lack of a democratic tradition (the latter a problem for post-Soviet Russia also as we have seen).

The Arab Spring seemed liked it might be going well for a while (as perhaps did the War in Iraq early on), and having seen Qadaffi & Mubarak fall, Western leaders (who had previously sucked up to the same), decided to turn on al Assad, only...he didn't fall right away, and decided to fight instead.  Fight to the death perhaps if it came to it.  Which left the West rooting for the downfall of Assad in a civil war that involved various occasionally overlapping anti-Assad elements, some of which were explicitly Islamist, some more secular, some more or less concerned with ethnic or nationalistic factions, lining up as much against one another as against Assad.

And then the West (by which of course I mean the US) chose the amorphous opposition, not knowing into what it might morph as its champion against Assad a) assuming incorrectly as it happened that Assad would fold quickly, and b) with no awareness of whether the forces arrayed against Assad would ultimately be dominated by more Western-leaning more secular forces, or by the likes of Al Qaeda or ISIS.  Not like we have the history of living memory to look back on or anything for advice...

And so the West bet against Assad, (the now much denounced but recent ally still of the US), and by proxy for an ever amporphous coalition of groups, some of which are no doubt secular and democratic, but others of which would very much like to establish an Islamic caliphate all the way to Spain thank you very much, and if they can do it with donated US weapons, thanks that very much more.

Some of the non-ISIS-aligned & non-al-Qaeda aligned elements may still exist in the coalition against which Russia is currently fighting alongside the 'regime-forces'* & Iranians, but whom would we ask ?  Where/who/what is the leader of the Free Syrian Army ?  Where are the five or six (by most ambitious official military estimates) of the tens of thousands of US-trained opposition-forces meant to be in place by now ?

The US' official position is that Russia's involvement is prolonging the conflict unnecessarily, as if the conflict hadn't already been going on for four years with the US' involvement, and no end in sight.  I read somewhere (some beltway hackery no doubt) some speculation that the Russian involvement might in fact unite the various anti-Assad faction against the foreign 'imperialist' forces, and hasten Assad's removal.  Doubt it much, but even if that were the case, who would put money on the current conflict ending without either a) Western ground-forces having to intervene (likely to no avail in the long term), b) Assad remaining in power for the foreseeable future at least, or c) a victory for Islamist extremists ?

For our more Russophobic friends, we've seen how even the most relatively peaceful transitions from authoritarian dictatorship, can simply replace one dictator with another.  How in the absence of a concerted committed long-term international coalition dedicated to long-term liberal democratic reform, any hopes for a more progressive future may be dashed, even in historically liberal societies... Anyone think the US is willing or able to commit to a Marshall plan for Syria ?

* As in the still legitimate government of Syria under international law

** PS Fuck you any one who is still this far into the twenty-first century defending the mind-blowing incompetence of Microsoft Inc.

*** I hate the very notion of WYSIWYG, at least at it's implemented by our (consistently proven)-not betters.

Fair Observer* on Ukraine's Financial Difficulties

Ukraine on Brink of Financial Collapse

Will Europe allow a bankrupt Ukraine to fall back under Russian domination?

Ukraine is lost either way.  It's become an expendable pawn in the new Cold War.  Sorry.

Ukraine is on the brink of financial collapse. The country is unable to meet interest payments. Its gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 6.8% in 2014 and is expected to fall by an even greater extent this year. Meanwhile, it has to defend itself against a neighbor that guaranteed its borders as recently as 1994.

That sucks.

Instead of stepping forward to help Ukraine financially, the European Union (EU) and the United States are both leaving the job to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

I'm shocked.

The IMF is offering Ukraine $40 billion, whereas the EU says it can only manage $2 billion.

No !  Not the IMF !  Never !

The European Union has already extended 40 times as much credit to Greece as it has given to Ukraine, whose population is four times that of Greece. If this ratio reflects the EU’s real priority, it is unbalanced. GDP per head in Greece is about three times that of Ukraine.

Did I not mention already that the West doesn't give a shit about the people of Ukraine ?

Like Greece, Ukraine has a lot to do in order to create a functioning and efficient legal and administrative system, stamp out corruption and collect taxes fully and fairly. But Ukraine has to do this while recovering from the effects of a communist system that was imposed on it from outside since 1919, whereas Greece has been the democratic shaper of its own policies for many years.

Fuck you.

Of course, Greece is in the EU and the euro and Ukraine is not, but both countries are in Europe and aspire to a democratic European future.

Aspire away, do...for so long as the Union lasts anyways.

Furthermore Ukraine had it borders guaranteed in the Budapest Declaration of 1994 by EU countries, Russia and the US, in return for giving up nuclear weapons.

Ukraine trusted the West to come through on its promises ?  Bless.

Despite this, Ukraine was invaded and a portion of its territory was annexed in 2014 by Russia, because Kiev wanted to make a modest cooperation agreement with the EU.

That's what happened alright.

Notwithstanding this, the EU is now being stingy in helping Ukraine manage its financial crisis, while instead being fixated on the drama in Athens.

Urm, it was stingy, then.  No, 'stingy' doesn't do it justice.  They were willing to let Ukraine crash and burn rather than work with Yanukovych on any kind of open terms.  They willingly let Putin hold the country's economy hostage.

Ukrainians believe they have a European destiny and are prepared to die for it.

Are they really ?

The Russian leadership, on the other hand, believes that Ukraine, with its Russian-speaking minority, is in their sphere of influence. Moscow sees a link up of Ukraine with the European Union as a form of foreign interference in its own backyard.

Yup.  That's exactly right.  And they made that 100% clear from the beginning.

One would have to respond that this view is not in accordance with Russia’s guarantee to Ukraine in 1994, nor with international law.

Nuclear weapons trump international law every time.  Nations seek them for a reason.  The established powers want to maintain a monopoly on them for a reason.  Oh, and the Russians lied.

The entire post-World War II European security order rests on acceptance of international law. Similarly, any prospect of voluntary nuclear disarmament in the future depends on solemn obligations—like the 1994 Budapest Declaration—being honored.

Clearly, we're fucked.


*  No, I'd never heard of them before either.

Terrifying Numbers for NATO

And yes, they terrify me, critic as I may be of our general insanity towards Russia post-Cold War, and our specific insanity regarding the situation in Ukraine.

Public opinion in some European countries could be reluctant to support collective defence for fellow Nato members if they were to be attacked by Russia, according to a new international survey.

The report by the Pew Research Center - a non-partisan US think-tank based in Washington DC - surveyed attitudes in North America and across Europe as well as Ukraine and Russia to assess public attitudes towards the current Ukraine crisis.

...

Among Western allies, it includes Europe's six largest Nato members (France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the UK) as well as the United States and Canada.

While some of its findings are in keeping with other recent surveys, it also throws up what may be noteworthy trends.

What is particularly striking is the reluctance among many of those surveyed in Europe to get drawn into a deeper military conflict with Russia - either in Ukraine, or elsewhere on European soil.

Perhaps the most interesting finding is in answer to the question: "If Russia got into a serious military conflict with one of its neighbouring countries which is a Nato ally, should our country use force to defend it?"

This relates to a core principle of Nato's founding treaty of 1949, the "Article Five" which states that: "An armed attack on one… shall be considered an attack against them all".

On average in Europe, only 48% of those polled - less than half - backed the idea of their country using force to come to the aid of another Nato country attacked by Russia.

Among the countries surveyed Germany is the most reluctant: 58% of those polled said they did not think their country should use military force to defend a Nato ally against Russia.

France too was unenthusiastic - 53% of those polled were opposed.

Even in Britain - often seen as a staunch Nato member - less than 50% supported the idea of using force to help another member of the alliance under attack.

Although maybe the complete disconnect between public attitudes towards Russia and support for military action helps explain why so many fail to understand how fundamentally dangerous the expansion of NATO is and was.

Just What the Hell Do You Idiots Think a Military Alliance is for, People ?  It's not a social club !

An Attack On One is an Attack On All.  Which is why we (should) very carefully consider membership.  There is no right to membership in a military alliance.  There is no fundamental obligation to extend membership in a military alliance.  This is Life & Death here.  Quite possibly the survival or not of the entire Human Fucking Race at stake if we get it wrong.

And lest we forget, the entanglement of military alliances is how we started the Great War (aka World War I) just over a century ago.  Will we ever learn ?...

In Which the PRC is Totally Not Militarising the West Philippine Sea

Chinese Weapons Spotted on Disputed Island, U.S. Says

By MATTHEW ROSENBERG MAY 29, 2015

SINGAPORE — The United States has spotted a pair of mobile artillery vehicles on an artificial island that China is building in the South China Sea, a resource-rich stretch of ocean crossed by vital shipping lanes, American officials said.

China’s construction program on previously uninhabited atolls and reefs in the Spratly Islands has already raised alarm and drawn protests from other countries in the region, whose claims to parts of the South China Sea overlap China’s.

Unpossible.  The PRC's activities are purely peaceful after all, and for the benefit of their neighbours.

Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter called this week for China to halt the construction, saying that international law did not recognize Chinese claims of sovereignty over the new territories and that American warships and military aircraft would continue to operate in the area.

A violation of international law !  And we know how seriously the Americans take that !  Why any minute now, they'll be announcing sanctions, and...and...  Well no, of course not.

Psst, Vietnam...Philippines...Malaysia...Take a look at Ukraine.  That's what you get when the country on the other side is one upon whom the US is not massively economically dependent (as a result of insane past policy-decisions).  Think the US will be there when it counts ?  Might be time to make other plans...

Breitbart: Obama Thinks Iran is...'Rational' !

Gasp.  <Faints>  How dare he speak so of our former alliesthe evil empire that is the Satanic Republic of Iranistan ?

Okay, okay, let's get to it...

However, the most interesting point reported by The Times of Israel, is Obama’s opinion of the Iranian regime.

(Reported by The Times of Israel !  Not like we can't just read the damn transcript for ourselves)

Goldberg asked Obama if the fact that the Iranian regime is anti-Semitic, and thus possessed of a warped view of the way the world works, shouldn’t preclude a negotiating strategy that treats Tehran as a rational player. But the president replied that the regime’s survival instinct is more powerful than other calculations, including its hatred of Jews and imperialist aspirations.

“Well, the fact that you are anti-Semitic, or racist, doesn’t preclude you from being interested in survival,” he said. “It doesn’t preclude you from being rational about the need to keep your economy afloat; it doesn’t preclude you from making strategic decisions about how you stay in power; and so the fact that the supreme leader is anti-Semitic doesn’t mean that this overrides all of his other considerations.”

Tehran, he continued, won’t make irrational decisions — an apparent reference to the regime breaking away to a nuclear weapon or attacking another country — that would threaten its very survival. “What we’ve been very clear [about] to the Iranian regime over the past six years is that we will continue to ratchet up the costs, not simply for their anti-Semitism, but also for whatever expansionist ambitions they may have,” he said.

Just shocking.  I can't believe he said all that.  It's just outrageous !  What is wrong with the man ?

Obama is right. Iran is suffering severe internal problems. Rampant, out of control drug abuse, obscene levels of corruption, and severe economic problems are tearing at the foundations of the Iranian tyranny.

According to the Daily Mail, around seven per cent of Iran’s population remain addicted to hard drugs. On top of Iran’s already hideous problems with the flood of dirt cheap opium and heroin pouring out of Afghanistan, Iran has lately acquired a dangerous taste for crystal meth.

Okay, just WTF now ?

...

For all we know, the Supreme Leader of Iran himself could be a meth addict – suffering drug induced psychosis, paranoia, experiencing drug induced delusions about his own mission to remake the world, lusting for the destructive might which nuclear weapons would grant to his addled megalomanic fantasies.

Hitler was a well known meth addict  – under the influence of meth, he ordered the commission of irrational atrocities, such as the infamous Nero decree, Hitler’s order to destroy everything of value which might be seized by advancing Russian soldiers. The Nero decree was not executed – Albert Speer, in the final days of the war disobeyed Hitler, and refused to pointlessly destroy the infrastructure of Germany. But an occasional outbreak of reason was more the exception than the norm, in Hitler’s meth fuelled Reich.

And that's how the 'article' ends.  Reductio ad Hitlerum.  Shit.


For all we know, Bill Clinton could be a lizard-person from an alternate dimension.  George W Bush could have been an elaborate AI construct in the matrix. Vladimir Putin could be the second coming of Christ as understood in the cryptic version of the Gospel of Judas.  Steve Jobs could have been secretly an Arab (well, not really a secret as such).  Margaret Thatcher could have had a secret sexual obsession with Ken Livingstone.  For all we know, Ayn Rand could have been a rabidly anti-Christian atheist (uh, well, actually...)  Stalin could have had a really vulnerable soft spot for puppies, and secretly donated to funds for orphans.  For all we know, Luke Skywalker could have been the bastard child of Darth Vader.  For all we know, John McCain's anti-aging regimen could involve the daily bathing in the blood of Mexican babies.  For all we know, the staff at Breitbart might contain an actual journalist or two.... What after all....do we...actually...know ?


So easy, and ultimately futile (given the audience) to mock, but the full interview is arguably worth reading...okay, skimming, especially if you want to skip the facile spin than the traditional outlets will inevitably want to place on it:  http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/05/obama-interview-iran-isis-israel/393782/


Below the fold, here's how the interview ends, and the part that I personally found the most interesting:

Defining a new Security Architecture for Europe That Brings Russia in from the Cold: Roundtable discussion in Brussels with John Mearsheimer, Stephen Cohen and Katrina vanden Heuvel

So much sense spoken in one room.  No snark here.  Suppose it had to happen in Brussels, rather than in the US media.

Part 1, Presentations by the Panelists:

Part 2, Discussion with Panelists and Participants: