Iraq

We haven't blogged about Iraq: So many others have done so, better and with more knowledge than we would have. All we want to say is that the people of Iraq today face one of the greatest tests in their modern history: Will they defy the totalitarian murderers and take an important step towards genuine self-determination and democracy? We hope so; we hope the murderers are unable to prevent the lighting of the candle of freedom in that dark and troubled country.

On this crucial day in Iraq, we must also remember two sets of non-Iraqis. The first set, we must apologize for, and nobody represents it better than Sen. Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. The man has gone from being a killer, to a buffoon, and now to criminally irresponsible. Next July, Mary Jo Kopechne would have celebrated her 65th birthday; she probably would have grown children and be a grandmother. She, however, will always be 28 years old, thanks to Ted Kennedy, the man who killed her in 1969 just days before her 29th birthday; tried to cover it up; and then lied and used his family's considerable political power to evade punishment. From killer he went on to buffoon: Who can forget his absurd run for the Democratic nomination of 1980, or, his pontificating about women's rights during the Clarence Thomas nomination hearings? As he has aged, he apparently has begun experiencing a second adolescence, in other words, he's returning to his 1969 persona, to wit, he wants people, American people to die or, at best, doesn't care if they do as a consequence of his actions. How else can one explain his comments about pulling out of Iraq -- gleefully replayed by Al Jazeera? For a Kennedy to compare Iraq and Vietnam is doubly obscene: not only are the facts on the ground completely different, but it was JFK -- Teddy's elder brother -- who got us into Vietnam with no exit plan.

The other people to remember today are the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who knocked off the murderous Saddam regime and who continue to fight those who would restore it or replace it with something equally or more evil. Over 1300 of them have died in liberating Iraq; thousands more have suffered grievous injury. One way of saying thank you to those who have returned injured is by supporting with whatever you can the Wounded Warrior Project or other similar efforts. We would urge all of you to do what you can to help our wounded as they come home and try to readjust to life. Thanks.

A Tim Blair Compassionate Head Tilt: "We're Sorry"

Ah, The Diplomad has upset the ignorant left! That makes us happy. We are very happy; we dance the Diplomadic dance of joy -- a dance seen only twice before, to wit, on the occasions of the dates of the HowardianBushite election wins.

It seems that the leftoblogs (you can find them in our comments section, our trackbacks, or at www.technorati.com) are in a hissy-fit because our little non-profit blog has dared to poke fun at their sacred for-profit UN and their untouchable for-mucho-profit Global Warming Franchise. It seems the UN hasn't shared its Oil-for-Food gains with its supporters as yet, so they have been unable to go out and buy a working brain with the optional sense-of-humor chip installed. We have been called "liars," "fantasists," and -- our favorite -- LUNATICS. Great stuff! Keep it up. Call us names but keep reading our blog: the left takes a lickin' and our site meter keeps a tickin'!

We have decided to dedicate this posting to the Great Tim Blair, Blogger Without Peer, Discoverer of the Leftist Compassionate Head Tilt, Unrepentant Aussie Patriot, Defender of the West and Promoter of the Earth Warming Muscle Car. In his honor, we direct a totally insincere Compassionate Head Tilt and a completely fake-as-the-fake-turkey-story "We're Sorry" to our lefty "friends," and submit this very real posting combining scorn for the UN and Global Warming all in one easy-to-read-piece as submitted by our Deputy Vice Chief Diplomad for Offending Effete Lefty Elites With the Truth of What's Happening in the Real World.

Once again, our posting relies on personal experience with the UN and the Glow-ball Vorming crowd.

How are Diplomads so in the know about all this global-warming business you might be asking yourselves. Well, the answer is: WE were there at the creation (almost). No, not when the earth's crust cooled, or even when our Neanderthal forebearers were lighting big fires to prevent themselves from freezing to death. But we were there at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 -- which was the bar mitzvah, the confirmation, the rite of passage for what has grown up to be today's truly rabid Global Warming Cult. You betcha. We had Global Warmers before then, of course, as manifested by the now almost forgotten UN's Brundtland report of the 1980's, which seems almost quaint by current standards with its restrained language, concern for poverty and the impact of environmental concerns on poor countries, and, of course, its long OBEd expositions on the threat to the world posed by the nuclear stand-off between the superpowers. It, at least, recognized that other issues were more pressing; it also was wrong in nearly every prediction it made . . . but never mind.

Our Diplomad, a young pup then, was at the June 1992 Rio Earth Summit Conference, one of the Great International Victories of the New Marxists. It was set up to ensure that the USA would be the villain. It would attack the US on global warming AND on the biotech industries then emerging in the USA -- this was a two-pronged attack: 1) stop experimenting with biotech; 2) give away your patents and research so others can have them. It was your basic UN international conference, complete with a parallel "summit" by thousands of NGO reps, enormous waste of money, time and effort, and fawning media coverage aimed at convincing the world that it was a more important event than Moses getting the Ten Commandments at Mt. Sinai, or the 1969 Miracle Mets winning the World Series. It was replete with probably hundreds of emissions-spewing limos ferrying about deeply concerned enviro-worriers and warriors to and from their five-star lodgings.

The Earth Summit was the event that set up the Kyoto Agreement and the biodiversity treaty, both of which left President George H.W. Bush mightily unimpressed. But -- unfortunately-- he went to Rio anyway -- apparently to be a good sport and allow himself to get mugged (figuratively speaking) by most of the self-proclaimed cogniscenti of the world. [Note: Why we attend such things is beyond the Diplomad; Secretary Powell did the same thing by attending the Racism Summit.] President Bush (senior) probably thought, correctly, that the climate change people did not factor in enough of the idea of economic impact, while the biodiversity people cared not at all about the protection of intellectual property. He and his Administration actually took a principled position against both those deals--and took incredible heat for it. The mistake the USA made, of course, was assuming that the people who set up these conferences actually want to have a conference where ideas are expressed and debated. Nope. The UN's idea of such meetings is straight from the Soviet Parliamentary Handbook.

The real mugging, not figuratively speaking, was being done just out of the view of the Earth Summit delegates, where the regular Rio city people lived and worked. As it turned out, the main attraction for some of the visiting US congressmen was to be photographed with real live Rio slum dwellers, as if to impress their constituents with their world-class guilt. Our Diplomad watching this go on wondered why US congressmen should worry about Rio poverty more than, say, the Rio millionaires who lived in the high-rise condos in plain view of those very slums . . . but that's a discussion for another day.

But back at the main events, many of the current-day heavy hitters on the Democrat side were there. Then Senator Al Gore was pushing "his" environmental book (Earth in the Balance -- can you even find that thing anymore?) and smack in the middle of it all took the call from Bill Clinton asking him to be his running mate. Gore was already a celebrity among the enviro-Woodstock set that had descended upon Rio, and all of a sudden he was on track for a higher-level of tree-hugging. John Kerry was there, but didn't make much of a splash; the Earth Summit was, however, where he met and had his first date with Teresa Heinz, whom he later married. Pre-face lift Nancy Pelosi was there, and, we'll admit, was actually quite nice to everyone.

At the summit, pretty much every leader of every country you could think of was there. It was remarkable that the Brazilians, in such a chaotic city as Rio, managed to hold it all together logistically, but they did. And soon afterwards their President got impeached for corruption.

These mega-UN conferences are really more like circuses than they are like significant diplomatic meetings. They become self-fulfilling prophesies of bigness, much bigger on form than on substance. They often produce negatives, for example the conference on racism generated a lot of anti-semitism. The Diplomad's solution: cancel every UN summit-level conference from here on in. Let leaders meet in New York every September when they address the General Assembly, and that's it. But no free parking.

What came out of this colossal conference? The Conference whose Chairman Maurice Strong of Canada declared (from our notes),

"Nothing less that the future of our planet as the home for our species and others has been the object of our work. The World will not be the same after this Conference. The prospects for our Earth cannot, must not, be the same. We came here to alter those prospects. Ee cannot allow those prospects to have come through this process without having been decisively altered and changed to a more promising and sustainable future."

Where were we? Ah yes, what came out of the most important event ever? This! THE RIO DECLARATION ON ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT. You can go read up on it; it's very short, very bland, and totally meaningless - - except that it helped launch the current Global Warming Franchise which has given so much employment to so many NGOs, bureaucrats, and pontificators. It is remarkably similar in its conclusions and recommendations as the ludicrous and just-released Byers-Snowe Report.

For very readable and decisive debunking of much of this leftoid nonsense go to the Hoover Institution which has put out two excellent reports on the issue of Global Warming, including one by the respected scientist Fred Singer.

More UNhonesty

We warned you; some of you didn't believe us. We told you that on or about January 26, UN Undersecretary General and Disaster Relief Coordinator Jan "Stingy" Egeland would hold a press event to boast of what the UN has done on tsunami relief over the past month since the December 26 disaster. He did.

You can find the two documents thus far put out by the UN here and here. The Diplomad wants to underline that these documents appear on the UN's official web site; they are what the UN wants you to know; they comprise the official UN party line; they are not interpretations by journalists or bloggers.

Let's go to the second document first. This is what the UN is handing out in New York and elsewhere as their UN assistance fact sheet,

OCHA Fact sheet on UN response in First Month after Indian Ocean Tsunami

This was largest earthquake in the world in 40 years. 12 countries separated by thousands of miles of ocean were affected.

More than 20 foreign militaries have lent their aircraft, naval vessels, search and rescue teams, logistical support, air traffic and ground handling crews, etc to the effort.

Donors have been extremely generous of the $977 million we seek, $775 million has been pledged --- Some $200 million is already in the bank. There has been unprecedented level of contributions from private sector and world public. Private contributions total $188 million.

A massive logistical operation has been established through the good work of the UN Joint Logistics Center-- It includes an airbridge that brings in supplies from around the world. In Indonesia alone, the UN and IOM have a fleet of 300 trucks. The UN also has 11 helicopters and 3 huge cargo ships operational in Sumatra.

In the first 31 days, every major community has received some sort of aid. The humanitarian situation has stabilized everywhere except pockets in Indonesia and Somalia.

No major outbreaks of communicable diseases have occurred.

Across the region: The World Food Programme is already reaching more than 1.2 million people with food out of a target population of 2 million.

More than 500,000 people are being provided with clean water. Students are going back to school; 60,000 started back to classes in Sumatra today. Hundreds of thousands more will return in February.

Sri Lanka: A WHO strategy targeting one million people is underway. More than 700,000 people are being fed (100% of target population). School supplies for 200,000 students have been delivered.

Indonesia: Shelter has been provided for more than 250,000 people. Malaria control program for 200,000 people. Five UN coordination offices have been established Aceh. 100 UN staff on the ground. Food aid now reaching 330,000, will soon reach 500,000.

Somalia: UNICEF is reaching 15,000 people with basic supplies. More than 20,000 people receiving food. Clean water has been brought to 1250 households.

We will focus on Indonesia, The country most affected by the quake and tsunami and the one where we were working, saw the UN up close and personal, and know best. The press release is deceptive and misleading. Its author has a future in advertising, or working for the next John Kerry campaign.

So, "20 foreign militaries lent" their assets, eh? Lent? To whom? Not to the UN, that's for sure. For at least three of the past four weeks, the UN had nothing to do with the operations of the "20 foreign militaries." The UN certainly was not directing the Aussies, who were the first ones in; they blazed the path for the rest and thousands of people owe them their lives. They weren't running the assets of the Kiwis or the Singaporeans, either, and they sure weren't running ours. Up until just a few days ago, those "20" foreign militaries were Aussies, Singaporeans, Kiwis (who've gotten little credit for the fine work they've done), and Yanks with a modest but appreciated assist as of about 10-12 days ago of the Spanish and the Pakistani militaries. The coordinating was being done by the Australians, the USA and the Indonesian military. Up until just about four or five days ago, except for the disaster tourists such as Annan and Bellamy, the UN WAS NOWHERE TO BE SEEN -- except quite overwhelmingly in Jakarta's luxury hotels, a few UNocrats in Medan, and a tiny handful at the airport in Aceh writing up press releases claiming all the credit for the UN and bad-mouthing the hard-working Aussies and Americans.

The puffery about the UN Joint Logistics Centre is just that puffery. The UNJLC, as of today, is still not completely functional in Indonesia. To be fair, they seem to have brought in some good people (some not so good) who should do a credible job coordinating the much-reduced relief activity anticipated in the days ahead as US, Australian, and New Zealand forces depart. It is not clear, however, that the Indonesian military couldn't do it alone, but, international donor politics demand a UN stamp.

And the 300 trucks? Notice how the UN press release rolls together IOM and UN. It would be akin to stating, "Between them the United States and Mexico have 12 aircraft carrier battlegroups." Technically true, but . . . The overwhelming majority of those trucks are IOM's -- arranged and paid for by USAID. The Indonesian Minister of Defense noted, January 16, "The U.S. Military [in Aceh] has been the backbone of the logistical operations providing assistance to all afflicted after the disaster. We'd like to pay tribute to the soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen of the U.S. Forces deployed in Aceh throughout the relief effort." He didn't say the UN.

The press release is vague about who provided shelter and malaria control. For good reason: the UN has done VERY little of that. USAID and the USN have done the majority of it. Same with the claim about reaching hundreds-of-thousands of people with food aid. The UN didn't do that; the Aussies and we did that. It was US, Australian, and New Zealand C-130s, and US boats (both USN and leased by USAID) that moved the food to Aceh and Medan. It was USN and USMC helos and LCACs that moved it out to the affected areas. The UN-leased helos -- paid for largely by the Japanese -- have only just begun to operate.

Let's take a quick look at the other UN document: the UN's rendition of Egeland's January 26 NY press conference. Excerpts follow,

PRESS BRIEFING ON TSUNAMI RELIEF EFFORT

<...> Jan Egeland said today at Headquarters that the humanitarian response had been remarkably, perhaps singularly, effective, swift and muscular. <...>Mr. Egeland said that the emergency-life-saving phase to save the survivors and avoid a second wave of death, destruction and disease had succeeded in just one month. Normally, such a phase took three or more months, but in this case, and despite monumental obstacles - no roads, few airstrips, no ports and torrential rains - the second death wave had been avoided <...>

Credit was due, first and foremost, to the local communities and national governments, whose responses had been uniquely effective, he said. Secondly, there had been an enormously effective international relief effort by the United Nations, the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement, and hundreds of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Thirdly, a bigger and more effective partnership than ever with military forces had emerged, involving 20 foreign militaries and the national militaries of all of the affected nations, bolstering the effort with aircraft, helicopters, naval vessels, search-and-rescue teams, logistical support, air-traffic and handling crews, and so forth. <...>

Donors' response had been unprecedented and generous, he said, drawing attention to the $775 million in firm pledges to the flash appeal for $977 million. Some $200 million had been received, and another $250 million was "in the mail". Another major achievement had been in the area of logistics. Huge bottlenecks had been foreseen, but most had been solved early on through the identification of alternate routes, airports and transport means. The joint logistical services of the United Nations and its coordination mechanisms had largely worked to his satisfaction. <...>

The number of people already receiving food was 1.2 million, and that was likely to increase to perhaps 2 million at the peak, he said. More than 500,000 people had already been provided with clean water. Students were increasingly returning to school; today, 60,000 started school in Aceh and Sumatra <...>

He appreciated Oxfam for calling on countries that had pledged money to "pay up". Some, like Japan, had been outstanding -- it had pledged, committed and disbursed and transferred $229 million within days. <...> Altogether, $450 million had either been received or was on its way, and that was very impressive, he added. <...> He now had a total pledge from the United States of $39 million, all of which had been received; the World Food Programme had received $28 million from that country. Japan was in a class of its own, but other large donors included Norway, Sweden, the European Commission and Germany. <...> [H]e said that, if things had gone slower, if it had been "business as usual", there would have been a higher casualty figure. Against all odds and expectations, some assistance had reached even the most remote places.

Again, the dishonesty is breathtaking.

When it's convenient, Egeland rolls in work done by non-UN actors and makes it seem like the UN has done it, e.g., USAID "cash-for-work" programs have cleared the rubble away and made school re-openings possible -- the UN didn't do that!

Yet when talking about pledges, he mentions only money pledged or given the UN! He attempts to minimize the role of the USA -- by far the biggest contributor to the relief effort. He praises Japan for being in a class by itself. Why? The Japanese have given the UN $229 million. The US is giving only a relatively small portion of its tsunami relief moneys to the UN, so it doesn't count -- quite aside from the fact that even prior to the tsunami the USA was providing about 40% of the WFP and UNHCR budgets. Notice how he can not bring himself to mention AIRCRAFT carriers; they presumably get covered under "and so forth." To mention aircraft carriers would be to acknowledge that the USA is in a class by itself. Once again, we see the nonsense about the logistics operation and the overcoming of bottlenecks; the UN didn't do that. He makes absolutely NO mention of the superb work done by the Australians or the Kiwis. Why? Because they did it on their own or in coordination with the US. The countries praised are precisely those who have done the least in the real world to alleviate the tsunami caused suffering. Why? Because they believe in "business as usual" and give their money to the UN.

The Diplomad finds absolutely stunning the language about the response being "remarkably, perhaps singularly, effective, swift and muscular" and that it "had succeeded in just one month. Normally, such a phase took three or more months . . ." Why was it so quick and effective? Thanks to President Bush who quickly threw together a "core group" of nations that responded right away, without waiting for the UN. Precisely the group that Clare Short and her ilk so criticized for undermining the UN.

Pathetic.

Fight Global Warming: Turn on the A/C & Open the Windows

Guilty.

I, The Chief Diplomad and Internet Bloviator, have let the readers down. I made fun of the UN's 3,000 page ACTION PLAN to save the world without actually reading it. That is something the MSM would do -- well, not the "make fun" part, but the "not reading" part." As a consequence, I have been cruising the internet for another stupid, vapid report that I could ridicule AND this time actually read. My lonely quest to ease my conscience was finally rewarded by these articles which pointed me to another Holy Grail of Left-Lib Stupidity,

Global warming: 'Time is running out'

Cabinet minister Stephen Byers has warned that Global warming could become irreversible within a decade. The US must be persuaded to act now or it will be to (sic) late to undo climate change, Mr Byers said. Tony Blair has made action on the issue a priority for his chairmanship of the G7 this year. That may represent a last chance to address the problem, according to the International Climate Change Task Force, which Mr Byers chairs.

Carbon dioxide concentrations will become so great within ten to 20 years that cuts will be futile, the task force says in a report out later.

Global Warming: Approaching Point of No Return

Global warming is approaching the point of no return, after which widespread drought, crop failure and rising sea levels will be irreversible, an international climate change task force warned Monday. It called on the Group of 8 leading industrial nations to cut carbon emissions, double their research spending on technology and work with India and China to build on the Kyoto Protocol for cuttings emissions of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases" blamed for global warming.

The independent report was made by the Institute for Public Policy Research in Britain, the Center for American Progress in the United States and the Australia Institute.

"An ecological time bomb is ticking away," said Stephen Byers, who was co-chairman of the task force with U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. "World leaders need to recognize that climate change is the single most important long-term issue that the planet faces."

I had to read that report (plus I'd heard that it was only 40 pages long, i.e., just over 1.3% as long as that, uh, UN report . . . the one, which . . .I . . . didn't . . . read.) How could I not read a report dealing with the "the single most important long-term issue that the planet faces?" How could I pass up an "independent" report put out by a Taskforce (Homer Simpson voice: Mmmm, Taskforce . . . ) jointly "chaired" by a loopy British Labourite and an equally loopy American REPUBLICAN? Had to have it. And only 40 pages!

I found it at the website of the non-partisan [Must keep straight face, must keep straight face . . . ] Australia Institute which co-sponsored the thing -- and probably wrote much of it. It's a gold mine of loopiness! A treasure trove of vapidity and stupidity hard to equal in just 40 pages. [Note: Once you discount the several pages of puffery about the authors and the sponsors; the acknowledgments and the thank yous; and the footnotes and the introductions, the report is perhaps 28-30 pages long in big type and with lots of white space. Great!]

Check out the recommendations in the intro. Aren't they original?

1. A long-term objective be established to prevent global average temperature from rising more than 2°C (3.6°F) above the pre-industrial level, to limit the extent and magnitude of climate-change impacts.
2. A global framework be adopted that builds on the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol, and enables all countries to be part of concerted action on climate change at the global level in the post-2012 period, on the basis of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities.
3. G8 governments establish national renewable portfolio standards to generate at least 25% of electricity from renewable energy sources by 2025, with higher targets needed for some G8 governments.
4. G8 governments increase their spending on research, development, and demonstration of advanced technologies for energy-efficient and low- and zero-carbon energy supply by two-fold or more by 2010, at the same time as adopting near-term strategies for the large-scale deployment of existing low- and no-carbon technologies.
5. The G8 and other major economies, including from the developing world, form a G8+ Climate Group, to pursue technology agreements and related initiatives that will lead to large emissions reductions.
6. The G8+ Climate Group agree to shift their agricultural subsidies from food crops to biofuels, especially those derived from cellulosic materials, while implementing appropriate safeguards to ensure sustainable farming methods are encouraged, culturally and ecologically sensitive land preserved, and biodiversity protected.
7. All developed countries introduce national mandatory cap-and-trade systems for carbon emissions, and construct them to allow for their future integration into a single global market.
8. Governments remove barriers to and increase investment in renewable energy and energy efficient technologies and practices through such measures as the phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies and requiring Export Credit Agencies and Multilateral Development Banks to adopt minimum efficiency or carbon intensity standards for projects they support.
9. Developed countries honour existing commitments to provide greater financial and technical assistance to help vulnerable countries adapt to climate change, including the commitments made at the seventh conference of the parties to the UNFCCC in 2001, and pursue the establishment of an international compensation fund to support disaster mitigation and preparedness.
10. Governments committed to action on climate change raise public awareness of the problem and build public support for climate policies by pledging to provide substantial long-term investment in effective climate communication activities.

Are these the sort of actions you would take if the world were going to reach the POINT OF NO RETURN in ten years? According to the distinguished British "co-chair," after ten years IT'S ALL OVER!!! Yet the report has suggestions for actions to take by 2025 -- along with all the usual leftist bromides about more money for this or that, form a group to discuss, raise public awareness, blah, blah, blah.

More nuggets come fast and furious. Page 1 tells us,

The international consensus of scientific opinion, led by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is agreed that global temperature is increasing and that the main cause is the accumulation of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere as a result of human activities. Scientific opinion is also agreed that the threat posed will become more severe over coming decades.

It's the "consensus of scientific opinion," except for all those scientists who don't agree, but never mind.

Page 1 charges on with more. Now here, I must warn you: the math is VERY precise and VERY complex. I am not sure that just ordinary folks will be able to follow the complex calculations laid out below. Try to keep up,

The cost of failing to mobilise in the face of this threat is likely to be extremely high. The economic costs alone will be very large: as extreme weather events such as droughts and floods become more destructive and frequent; communities, cities, and island nations are damaged or inundated as sea level rises; and agricultural output is disrupted. The social and human costs are likely to be even greater, encompassing mass loss of life, the spread or exacerbation of diseases, dislocation of populations, geopolitical instability, and a pronounced decrease in the quality of life. Impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity are also likely to be devastating.

Preventing dangerous climate change, therefore, must be seen as a precondition for prosperity and a public good, like national security and public health. By contrast, the cost of taking smart, effective action to meet the challenge of climate change should be entirely manageable. Such action need not undermine standards of living.

Hope that you could follow the math. Notice the great precision, the exactitude, the complex calculations? And there's more! Just in case you had the impression from page 1 that we should only oppose "dangerous climate change," page 3 will set you right,

While no amount of climate change is safe and many communities, such as those in Arctic regions and low-lying island states, are already experiencing adverse impacts, scientific evidence suggests that there is a threshold of temperature increase above which the extent and magnitude of the impacts of climate change increase sharply. No one can say with certainty what that threshold is, but it is important that we make an educated judgment at this time based on the best available science.

NO CLIMATE CHANGE AT ALL! The world's climate has NEVER EVER changed -- until evil man showed up and started doing stuff. And while "scientific evidence suggests a threshold of temperature" we have no friggin idea what it is, but we're not going to be deterred from doing something just because we don't know what we're doing!

Now the part that has gotten the most media attention,

On the basis of an extensive review of the relevant scientific literature, we propose a long-term objective of preventing average global surface temperature from rising by more than 2°C (3.6°F) above its pre-industrial level (taken as the level in 1750, when carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations first began to rise appreciably as a result of human activities). (footnote#10)

Interesting. Let's go see what footnote number 10 says. You'll find it on page 15,

Other influences on climate were much more important than the rising greenhouse gas concentrations for at least the next hundred years, and the global average surface temperature in 1850 was probably a bit cooler than in 1750. But thermometer measurements – which first became widespread enough to directly determine the global average temperature only around 1860–show that between then and 2004 the temperature has risen by about 0.8°C or 1.4°F, and is expected to rise further still due to climatic inertia.

There appears to be no scientific rhyme or reason for picking 1750 as the base year -- political, yes, scientific, no. Apparently, according to the report, nobody knows what the temperature was in 1750, but whatever it was, after 100 years of "human activity," by 1850 the world was COOLER. Why? "Other influences" is the cryptic answer. So are those "other influences" now gone? What were they and what happened to them? If they're not gone, wouldn't they act to cool the earth again rather than let it warm up?

Just as I was getting warmed up to continue my assault on the report (sigh), I ran across this from Tim Worstall,

Allow me to translate <...> We have decided to take an arbitrary number, 2°C, set the baseline at the bottom of the Little Ice Age, immediately after the Maunder Minimum, mix in every scare story we can think of to scare the fecal matter out of you rubes and if you don't listen carefully to us important people we'll hold our breaths until we turn blue. (We might also note that no one, no one at all, thinks that human influence on the climate started in 1750 AD. Try 8,000 BC with the invention of agriculture.) <...>

Allow me just to recapitulate this argument. A modest number of the international great and the good get together to bemoan the way the world is running to rack and ruin, identifying the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (and not coincidentally, the beginning of capitalism) as when our forefathers began to cause our problems, come up with a series of recommendations on how to reduce carbon emissions, lots of international action, international aid, international spending, international regulation, in short, lots for the international great and good to do, and in the process they take no position on nuclear energy? None at all? Not even a "Tsk, tsk, that will allow capitalism to survive?"

Sheesh. Who cares what they think?

Darn. He ruined that for me. He demolished the whole thing.

But I have two recommendations to the EU as they fight Global Warming. The first is something they should immediately stop doing,

If the new Airbus A380 is the commercial success its European makers hope, the big loser -- apart from Boeing -- will be the environment, a French expert
says <...> But French expert Jean-Marc Jancovici <...> author of numerous books on climate change and who runs a well-regarded website(manicore.com) on global warming phenomenon, says that if Airbus' business plan is right, "the number of air passengers will triple in the next 20 years. " Even if planes get bigger, there will still be a lot more of them in the skies in order to meet demand and this will cancel out the benefits in improved fuel efficiency, he told AFP. <...>

In addition, because aircraft emit their pollution at altitude rather than at ground level, the effect as an amplifier of global warming can be five times worse than that of a truck. Compounding the problem is that the aviation business is so far immune from global-warming regulations demanding higher fuel efficiency or lower pollution, and kerosene, a highly polluting fuel, is untaxed.

Stop building that Airbus -- or, more EUish, tax it to death.

The second recommendation is for the EU to keep doing what it's doing now . From the lads at EU Referendum comes this observation,

Latest of the long line of critics, the government’s own "red-tape czar" is calling on the EU to improve its business regulation or face long-term economic decline, according to The Times today. <...> Asked what would happen if red tape continued to grow, Mr Arculus said: "I think the consequences for Europe are extremely serious." Europe’s economy could decline to half the size of the US over the next 20 years if the tide of regulation was not stemmed, he said.That, of course, it the way it is going to be – if the EU lasts that long. Regulation is not primarily a matter of procedures but of attitude and culture. The EU commission regulates in the way it does because that is the only way it knows. It is incapable of doing it any other way.

What better way could the EU show its commitment to fighting Global Warming than by letting its economy stagnant and decline? Once the EU matches, oh say, Ghana's economic performance, then it will prove beyond all doubt how genuinely committed it is to dealing with "single most important long-term issue that the planet faces." Keep at it EU!

The USA Responds, and the UN?

We received a fact sheet laying out what the USA has done (as of January 18) to aid quake and tsunami victims in Indonesia; we haven't yet received read outs on our aid to Sri Lanka, Maldives, East Africa, or Thailand. The UN, as we reported before, is apparently going to hold a major press event around January 26 to sum up all that the UN has done since the December 26 quake and tsunami. We would be very interested in seeing how the UN puts a shiny gloss on its rusty performance.

US Responds to the December 26 Tsunami Disaster in Indonesia

(updated January 18, 2005)

The USG, thus far, has provided $33.5 million in direct humanitarian assistance to Indonesia in response to the disaster-- this is in addition to military assistance and support (which is estimated to cost some $5 million/day.) No other country or organization comes anywhere close to this figure of assistance ACTUALLY provided. With USG support, emergency humanitarian services began Sunday (December 26), immediately following the disaster:

- With $2.3 million from USAID, the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) began providing emergency services to victims, including shelter, water, food and medical services.

- With $3.5 million from USAID, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) began transporting and delivering relief supplies (water, food, plastic sheeting, generators, fuel and medical supplies).

- Embassy staff in Jakarta, Banda Aceh and Medan are coordinating with the U.S. Military on logistics, especially to prioritize the delivery of relief items. TNI (Indonesian military) are assisting in loading relief planes and are accompanying U.S. helicopter sorties and trucks delivering relief supplies.

- On average we have four C-130 aircraft/day airlifting support to Jakarta, Medan and Banda Aceh for transport of relief supplies, including shelter, water, food and medical services.

- Eleven USN ships and one USCG vessel are operating near Indonesia and supporting the relief work there.

- Thirty-eight American helicopters are delivering supplies (16 from USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN Carrier Group; 22 from the USS BONHOMME RICHARD Expeditionary Group; another 4 are on the way from the USS FORT MCHENRY). The USS BONHOMME RICHARD is ferrying supplies to shore via amphibious landing craft (LCACs).

- U.S. Navy/Marine pilots have flown 600 humanitarian missions.

- Water-production facilities are being established working with the Indonesian government.

- The Combined Support Group - Indonesia has flown 1,056 sorties to deliver 1,447,700 lbs of food, 989,200 lbs of water and 1,067,800 lbs of medical supplies, and evacuate 420 Indonesian tsunami victims. CSG-I has delivered more than 3 million pounds of material to tsunami survivors.

- Some 8000 Marines and Sailors are assisting in this relief effort.

- The majority of U.S. service members are “afloat”. Approximately 200 personnel on the ground in Indonesia.

- To aid reconnaissance and humanitarian relief planning, the US has flown P-3 aircraft, which provide real time imaging and damage assessment of the hardest hit areas.

- With USAID support, 220 IOM trucks are distributing relief supplies in and near Banda Aceh and Meulaboh. [Note: Despite UN attempts to claim IOM as one of its "agencies," IOM is an NGO, which in Indonesia receives the overwhelming bulk of its funds from the USG.]

- With USAID support, CARE is working with 30 centers at Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps to prevent needless deaths-- especially of mothers and children. They have trained 40 volunteers on basic primary health care and education, and provided information regarding safe water systems (SWS) and the importance of SWS for staying healthy. USAID/CARE has provided hygiene improvement kits to 30,000 IDPs. SWS and hygiene kits are being distributed in 96 IDP camps in Banda Aceh, Aceh Besar, and Aceh Jaya.

- 70,080 bottles of Safe Water System (SWS), a home water chlorination kit pioneered by the US Centers for Disease Control (USCDC), have been provided by USAID. One capful purifies about 20 liters of water (5-6 gallons.) [Note: it tastes lousy, but it's safe.]

- The USG provides 16,400 metric tons of food daily to victims.

- 40,000 liters of USG-purchased UHT milk packed in school packs for children has been airlifted from Jakarta.

- The USS Abraham Lincoln is supplying thousands of families with potable water.

- Two USAID-chartered planes have delivered thousands of water containers, jerry cans, and other relief supplies to Medan, including plastic sheeting to shelter over 5,000 families.

- USAID-funded partners are providing hundreds of generators, refrigerators for medicines, communications equipment and basic emergency and shelter kits for families, temporary water and sanitation facilities, trauma counseling, clean up and access to other basic services.

- USAID approved nearly $300,000 to International Medical Corps (IMC) for 25 to 30 medical personnel and logistics coordinators to provide emergency services in Aceh.

- USAID provided $250,000 to the U.N. World Health Organization (WHO) to establish a sentinel health surveillance system for tsunami-affected areas of Aceh and Northern Sumatra provinces. [Note: WHO personnel are being flown around the region by US helicopters.]

- USAID provided $579,000 to establish a US Navy "WHO Reference diagnostic laboratory" in Banda Aceh to diagnose diseases posing the greatest risks: cholera, malaria, dengue, Hep A &E and others.

- USAID provided $1.5 million to UNICEF for child protection activities in Aceh Province.

- USAID provided $5 million to Development Alternatives, Inc. for immediate rehabilitation interventions, such as focused cash-for-work clean-up programs, short-term employment schemes, and community-based, small social infrastructure activities.

- USAID awarded four grants, using $2 million in emergency funds immediately after the tsunami: $249,985 to World Vision for shelter and household kits, $285,428 to International Relief and Development (IRD) for water and sanitation; $254,023 to Johns Hopkins Program for International Education in Gynecology and Obstetrics (JHPIEGO) for maternal and child health activities, and $292,060 to Mercy Corps for emergency response activities.

- As part of the contribution to UNHCR’s regional appeal, USAID designated $2 million for emergency shelter programs in Indonesia.

- USAID provided $2 million to IMC for mobile health units, rehabilitation of local health clinics, malaria control, and psychosocial support in Aceh and North Sumatra provinces.

U.S Private Sector support:

- American corporations have been quick to help, especially those based in the region. According to the American Chamber, "American companies and their employees with offices in Indonesia, have so far contributed in excess of $97 million in cash, products and services toward earthquake/tsunami relief and reconstruction."

- The American people have responded. It is difficult to tabulate private contributions, however the most recent estimates put private contributions by the U.S. public at large at over $325 million for the region.

If Only, If Only . . .

A friend of The Diplomad has provided us this letter which he "swears it's real." Of course, he also thought PanAm was a good investment . . . but, we can dream, eh?

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. ,20016


Dear Concerned Citizen:

Thank you for your recent letter roundly criticizing our treatment of the Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees currently being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Our administration takes these matters seriously, and your opinion was heard loud and clear in Washington.You'll be pleased to learn that thanks to concerned citizens like you, we are creating a new division of the Terrorist Retraining Program, to be called the "Liberals Accept Responsibility for Killers" program, or LARK for short. In accordance with the guidelines of this new program, we have decided to place one terrorist under your personal care.

Your personal detainee has been selected and scheduled for transportation under heavily armed guard to your residence next Monday. Ali Mohammed Ahmed bin Mahmud (you can just call him Ahmed) is to be cared for pursuant to the standards you personally demanded in your letter of admonishment. It will likely be necessary for you to hire some assistant caretakers. We will conduct weekly inspections to ensure that your standards of care for Ahmed are commensurate with those you so strongly recommended in your letter.

Although Ahmed is sociopathic and extremely violent, we hope that your sensitivity to what you described as his "attitudinal problem" will help him overcome these character flaws.

Perhaps you are correct in describing these problems as mere cultural differences. He will bite you, given the chance. We understand that you plan to offer counseling and home schooling. Your adopted terrorist is extremely proficient in hand-to-hand combat and can extinguish human life with such simple items as a pencil or nail clippers. We do not suggest that you ask him to demonstrate these skills at your next yoga group He is also expert at making a wide variety of explosive devices from common household products, so you may wish to keep those items locked up, unless (in your opinion) this might offend him.

Ahmed will not wish to interact with your wife or daughters (except sexually) since he views females as a subhuman form of property. This is a particularly sensitive subject for him, and he has been known to show violent tendencies around women who fail to comply with the new dress code that Ahmed will recommend as more appropriate attire. I'm sure the women in your household will come to enjoy the anonymity offered by the bhurka - over time. Just remind them that it is all part of "respecting his culture and his religious beliefs" - wasn't that how you put it?

Thanks again for your letter. We truly appreciate it when folks like you, who know so much, keep us informed of the proper way to do our job.

You take good care of Ahmed - and remember...we'll be watching. Good luck!

Cordially...

Your Buddy,
Don Rumsfeld

How many of you vote that the first LARK letter go to Teddy Kennedy followed by one to Michael Moore? Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, has certainly earned himself the right to participate in LARK, too.

Great Things Afoot: UN to Save World

A lazy Saturday at last! A few phone calls -- including a bizarre consular case -- but none requiring the Chief Diplomad to go to the office, not yet. The Always Lovely Mrs. Chief Diplomat is braving torrential rains and risking my Chevy in her endless quest for the perfect item. The Diploteens are with friends; Diplodog and I are alone -- well, except for four members of the household staff, three guards, three gardeners (watering the lawn, despite the rain), and ten workmen knocking down walls in the back of the house.

I had planned to blog on the Inaugural and President Bush's radical speech which -- if he's serious -- signals a high energy, revolutionary US foreign policy over the next four years. On the Inaugural, I was going to ridicule Demos crying about a "$40 million Inaugural party while we have a war; while we have poverty, while, while, etc." Let's join in and complain about Federal funding of the arts (and the UN) while we have a war: do you know how many bullets we could buy and HUMVEES armor with the USG money that's goes to lefty "art" and the UN? Do you know how many cages we could add to Guantanamo? But, I decided not to write about those things -- at least not now -- for, my friends, I erred this morning. I went on the official UN website; not good to do if you want a low stress day.

It seems that your UN, having acted so resolutely and efficiently in the December 26 tsunami crisis, has taken on greater challenges, more befitting such a superb organization. (BTW, on the day, January 18, that two UN-leased helicopters finally became active in Sumatra, the US increased its helo flights from 30/day to 80/day; that's for those who see the US effort as superfluous.)

What's your UN up to? It's going to end world poverty! Having ended the poverty of UNocrats, your UN will now spread the wealth. How will do it this magical thing? It has a report! And no ordinary report -- as they say, "Not Available in Stores" -- this one is extra special. The report, "A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals" is 3,000, yes, three thousand pages long! The Diplomad is sure all of you will go to the link right now and download three thousand pages of UN prose. Fill up your hard drives! Burn out your printers!

OK. Any report-- unless written by G-d Himself -- 3,000 pages long is worthless as a plan of action, much less as a "Practical Plan." How long is the US Declaration of Independence? How long is the US Constitution? How long is the EU Constitu . . . never mind. Dear readers we at The Diplomad love you dearly, but, sorry, we'll not read it for you. We won't be the only ones on the planet to do so.

So let's do what lazy MSM journalists do; let's look at what the UN says the report says,

New report to Annan proposes solutions to problems of world poverty

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today launched a 3,000-page document which research team leader, Special Adviser Jeffrey Sachs, called "a unique report" recommending that rich countries double their investments in poor countries to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of halving extreme poverty by 2015 and going beyond to eliminate it by 2025. The report <...> calls for specific investments across a wide spectrum of problems, not for handouts or charity. Low-income countries need investments of $70 to $80 per head per year from 2006, rising to $120 to $160 per year in 2015, it says, adding that many middle-income countries could fund those investments themselves, given adequate debt relief and appropriate, specialized technical assistance.

Starting from ideas put forward by Mr. Annan, Mr. Sachs said, the team of 265 experts and graduate students took three years to collect and analyze the data. <...>

Former President Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico, co-chair of the Project task force on trade, told the briefing that what had been missing in the international development debate were specific policies, strategies and resources. Much more funding was needed for overseas development assistance (ODA), Mr. Zedillo said, because it was time to relaunch the aid target, set in 1969 and confirmed in 2002, of having the 22 rich countries put in 0.7 per cent of their gross national product (GNP) as untied aid. <...> More than money was needed, however, he said. It was the responsibility of the rich countries to remove the obstacles to the global flow of goods and services.

The UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, José Antonio Ocampo <...> [said] the research team had updated the debates of the past by basing their long-term strategies on the MDGs and devising a new form of country-led economic planning <...>

Development experts had become cautious in their thinking because so many programmes had failed, Mark Malloch Brown, the chairman of the UN Development Group, said last week at a briefing on the report. One of the biggest benefits of the report would be to help development specialists "get back our ambition." One ambitious recommendation came from the Science, Technology and Innovation Task Force, which called on poor countries to lift themselves out of poverty by promoting technological creativity. The co-chairs <...> said international organizations and donors needed to strengthen developing country expertise in science and technology through higher education. "Higher education is at the centre of the development process, but assistance to poor countries often focuses mainly on primary schools," their section of the report says. <...>

Isn't this sad? Remember, we are quoting from a UN "puff piece" account. This is the best they can do? Did Scrappleface write this?

Very quickly: let's look at this para by para,

1) Sachs, a smart man who should know better, calls for a doubling of investment by rich countries in poor countries. What does that mean? Should the US and UK governments, for example, force private companies to invest in poor countries? Make them move their factories there? Regardless of lousy legal and security conditions? Or should those governments just give the money away? How would that be different from what's been tried in the past?

2) "Starting from ideas put forward by Mr. Annan . . ." What is this, the North Korea School of idolatry? What ideas has Mr. Annan ever had? Unless, that is, Mr. Sachs is inspired by Mr. Annan's deft handling of money in the oil-for-food scandal; well, that is one way to fight poverty. It took 265 experts and graduate students three years to collect data? Have they ever heard of the internet? Were they being paid by the hour?

3) "Former President Ernest Zedillo of Mexico, co-chair of the Project task force on trade . . . " Stop right there! I don't think that I would want any ex-President of Mexico talking about the rich giving the poor money. He might start by digging into his own bank accounts, which, undoubtedly are quite ample. "It was the responsibility of the rich countries to remove the obstacles to the global flow of goods and services." Have you seen our trade deficit? Don't poor countries have the responsibility to stop having corrupt, thieving governments that care not one bit about their own people?

4) "[T]he research team had updated the debates of the past by basing their long-term strategies on the MDGs and devising a new form of country-led economic planning." There's a novel idea, eh? Economic planning! I'll say they've updated "the debates of the past!" They've resurrected the Soviet Union. Now that's an effective poverty-reducing model.

5) "One of the biggest benefits of the report would be to help development specialists 'get back our ambition.'" Ah! The truth! Development specialists! That's the real purpose of the report! To get unemployed members of the Vulture Elite employed! "Higher education is at the centre of the development process, but assistance to poor countries often focuses mainly on primary schools." Hmmm? So what do you do when you have poor countries where the kids are illiterate because the elementary schools don't work? Have the authors of this report seen how many people from all over the world are educated in US institutions of higher learning?

Enough. This is pathetic. What world are these people in? I doubt anybody is going to read the three thousand page action plan -- and the world won't be any the worse off for it.

On Blogging, the UN, and Personal Observation

It seems some lefties are unhappy with us. The other day we were introduced to www.technorati.com. It's fun; check it out. You write in the search window the name or URL of a blog and -- presto! -- in under a second you'll get a fairly complete listing of all the blogs mentioning the one you selected. As we noted before, "We seem, in particular, to have struck a lefty nerve with our series of articles on the UN 'response' to the horrendous December 26 Asian quake and tsunami." Our most recent posting on "Top Ten Lies" also got a lot of comment.

Make the search yourselves; you'll find a great deal of favorable and friendly comment, as well as constructive criticism and polite disagreement. You'll also find irrational weirdness, especially on the UN issue. For reporting what we have seen on the ground in the aftermath of the tsunami, one site fulminates and calls us "malcontents" and "disgruntled employees." Another couple of blogs cite UN press releases to try to debunk what we saw on the ground with our own eyes; those, by the way, are the same press releases which we know to be outright lies or highly deceptive. In fact, most of those press releases debunk themselves: go to the UN's official site and check for yourselves. Anybody with just a bit of knowledge of how deceptive advertising works and an IQ higher than his or her shoe size can see through them -- yes, yes, we've just excluded much of the left. You will soon note that the UN is planning to do something; it is getting ready to do this or that; it is holding a conference to discuss doing something; or it is calling on the world to respond to a plea for funds. When the press release does mention some action on the ground, it leaves vague who actually did it -- implying that the UN did it -- or who made it possible for the UN to do it, e.g., US helicopters, C-130s, LCACs, trucks, aircraft carriers, cash and personnel. For example, in Sumatra the WHO health assessments are being conducted in conjunction with USAID personnel; the joint US-UN teams are being transported and inserted by SH-60s from the USS Abraham Lincoln -- no mention of that in the press releases. Now to be fair, as of January 18, two UN helicopters had begun operations in Sumatra and reportedly another 5 or so are on the way. That's good, well, except for one inconvenient fact: the tsunami happened on December 26. Imagine if the relief effort had waited for the arrival of the UN helicopters.

We have an information sheet on what the US has done thus far in Indonesia where some of us were temporarily working. Unfortunately, it's in a format that doesn't seem to work on Blogger, but we have a tech guru who has assured us that he'll fix that this weekend -- if he can't we'll just type it in. We'll run it as soon as we can, and maybe by then we'll have up-to-date info on what the US has done elsewhere in the tsunami-affected region. It's very impressive. We understand from UN contacts that UN Undersecretary-General Jan "Stingy" Egeland will hold a major press event on January 26, the one month anniversary of the quake-tsunami, at which he'll announce all that the UN has done. That should be interesting. Please pay close attention to the UN's use of language. We look forward to comparing the UN list with the US list.

Our reporting on the UN's reaction to the quake and tsunami is based on personal observation and experience, and on talks with dozens of aid workers -- NGO, USG, foreign government, local government, and UN -- involved in the relief effort. If we got some detail wrong, misunderstood something said to us, or didn't understand or interpret correctly what we saw, please let us know, but don't cite some press release issued in New York by self-serving UNocrats or resort to calling us "disgruntled employees" -- especially since we are full of praise for how the State Department reacted to the crisis.

One final word. This is a personal blog. We do it during off-hours on our personal computers -- usually VERY late at night. We don't get paid for this by anybody; we don't accept advertisements; we don't have a "tip jar." We do this because we have a view of the world we want to verbalize. We'll do it as long as we are having fun and have something to say. When it stops being fun or we have said our piece, we'll stop.


UPDATE: A reader has pointed us to this posting by an annonymous officer on board the Lincoln. READ IT!!! He sees exactly what we have seen, except he's even closer to the UN types that we've been. We can vouch for everything he says including the "disaster tourism."

Our Favorite Ten Lies

We are bureaucrats. We like things tidy. We like options clearly laid out -- and we don't want too many of them. Above all, we like lists; we love top ten lists. We're not too good at math so we restrict ourselves to lists with ten things. Re Math: Don't forget that according to our personnel evaluation reports in the Foreign Service 90% of us are ranked in the top 10%.

Our Acting Principal Deputy Vice Chief Diplomad for Coordination of Coordinating Coordinators and List Making has sent us his top "ten mistaken ideas people hold."
We are sure our intrepid readers can come up with more candidates for the list, but for what it's worth we present ours for your consideration.

In no particular order our list is as follows,

Top Ten Wrong Ideas that People Around the World Still Believe:

1) There's some magic "Third Way." Even one of our best allies in the world, Tony Blair, believes in this. This is a shame, because we like Blair. It was much worse when Bill Clinton was president because he believed in it, too (well, to the extent that Clinton believed in anything.) He and Blair held hands, sang Kumbaya, and preached "Third Way" to others. There's no third way that works. Communism is an obvious failure; prosperity is directly proportional to free markets. More capitalism equals more prosperity. (Note: Please remember this "Wrong Idea" as in a subsequent post we review some new UN UNsanity.)

2) Foreign Aid Helps Poor People. No. Foreign aid largely helps the High Priest Vulture Elite, airlines, restaurants, hotels, car-rental companies and other service industries that cater to the HPVE. Freedom, trade, capitalism and education help poor people. Plus it also matters that their culture teaches them a work ethic (see number 8 below). The old saw that "foreign aid is when the poor people of a rich country give money to the rich people of a poor country" has more than a kernel of truth. BTW, try to name any country that has been developed by foreign aid.

3) If the USA Pressured Ariel Sharon, there'd be Middle East Peace. Middle East peace will happen when the culture of violence changes on the Arab side of the equation and the Arabs drop the goal of destroying Israel. The Palestinian "right of return" is part of destroying Israel. We see Yasser Arafat's death as a good start; and Mahmoud Abbas getting elected. But let's not put a halo over his head just because he's not Arafat.

4) You can't make a country democratic by force. This is anti-Americanism and anti-Iraq-invasion thinking mixed with historic amnesia. The Brits conquered India and left it democratic. We bombed Germany and Japan to smithereens, occupied them by force and left them democratic. We invaded and occupied Afghanistan and it's on the way to being democratic. We have a better than even chance of doing the same with Iraq.

5) The United Nations is the hope for the future of mankind,and its corollary, if we didn't have the UN we'd have to invent it. If this is true, mankind has a bleak future. Anybody with an IQ larger than his shoe size (American shoe size) knows that trusting the UN with our hopes for the future is wrong; we have seen this day after day. But this idea is still out there, and accepted as politically correct and believable by large swaths of countries. It's the official line of the whole European Union, which is frightening, since some of those countries individually are good allies and have intelligent people who should know better.

6) Fidel Castro may be a dictator but Cuba has high social indicators. The first part of this is right, but high social indicators? Highest rate of suicide in Latin America. Highest rate of people leaving the country and risking their life in the process. To the extent that there may be high literacy it's a legacy from the Cuba of the 1950s which had a higher standard of living than Spain and Italy and all but two Latin American countries. Now it's a basket case.

7) A conspiracy killed President Kennedy. A profitable industry has taken individual tidbits of information, blown them out of proportion, and convinced much of the U.S. public and the rest of the world that JFK was killed by some kind of conspiracy. Take your pick: Castro, the Mafia, Lyndon Johnson, the CIA -- all later covered up by the Warren Commission. The real truth, that Lee Harvey Oswald, a nut-case, acted alone to assassinate JFK, is inescapable when you read the facts.

8) No cultures are superior to any others. If you're accused of even thinking that cultures are unequal, then you are branded as a racist, and at State you can have your career ruined. But by any objective measure of success, western civilization is superior. This is actually not racist, since Japan, Singapore, and South Korea have internalized the best of the west, and essentially joined it.

9) You know the news if you see CNN, read the NYTimes, Washington Post. These media, like Reuters, Le Monde, Newsweek, CBS News, and so much of the mainstream media are hopelessly biased towards the left. This is not so much a question of editorials or op-ed, since after all, you can read conservative columnists like George Will, Charles Krauthammer and William Safire in these media. But rather it's the slant in how they present the news and what they make news.

10) We're all going to die of global warming. We are all going to die; that part is true. But Diplomads are not too worried about global warming. We can find articles in the media 20, 30 years ago that warned of a sooner-than-expected new ice age. OK, we can be persuaded that too many cars with bad exhaust pipes can pollute the air, but not nearly as much as when a volcano erupts. It's freezing cold all over the United States this winter, with horrible snow and ice storms. Our countrymen in places like Nebraska or North Dakota are probably thinking "Boy, I sure wish those scientists were right and we could get some global warming real soon." (Note from the Chief Diplomad: Not long ago I read about the freezing winters that Mongolia has suffered. Being a charitable person, I now drive my SUV in honor of the Mongolians. Bumper sticker: Driving for Mongolia!)

EU-MSM Plot To Put Scrappleface Out Of Business?

It has become increasingly clear over the past few years that we must ask whether the EU in alliance with the MSM is willing to stop at nothing to put the savagely funny Scrappleface out of business.

As partial proof of the probable existence of this nefarious plot, we offer the following January 17 report out of Brussels by the AP (via Drudge)

EU May Ban Nazi Symbols Over Harry's Gaffe

The European Union may consider banning Nazi symbols in its 25 member nations after Britain's Prince Harry wore a swastika armband to a costume party,the bloc's top justice official said Monday. Franco Frattini, the EU's justice and home affairs commissioner, said he was open to discussing the issue at a Jan. 27 meeting of EU justice ministers. "It may be worth looking into the possibility of a total ban, a Europe-wide ban," his spokesman, Friso Roscam Abbing, told reporters Monday. "Commissioner Frattini shares the general feeling of opprobrium on the use of the swastika and other Nazi symbols."

The call came after several German conservatives, socialists and liberal democrats in the European Parliament urged a European ban following a scandal last week over photos published worldwide of Harry, third in line to the British throne, wearing the Nazi outfit. German Socialist Helmut Kuhne called Harry a "royal idiot" for not knowing the consequences and World War II history linked to the Nazi swastika. Germany already bans such symbols.

But British Liberal Democrat Chris Davies questioned the need to ban the swastika. "I understand how the burden of history weighs upon my German colleagues' view," he said. <...> Roscam Abbing said officials would take care not to violate freedom of expression in devising such a ban.

Frattini's decision to look into an EU-wide ban could further embarrass Queen Elizabeth II, who is to lead British commemorations of the Holocaust in London later this month.

Where, oh where to start? OK, OK, deep breath . . . let it out . . . let the music of George Harrison's concert for Bangladesh fill your head . . .

As our readers know, The Diplomad wrote on the Royal Harry mess; but we did it in a light-hearted piece that dealt with Harry's Nazi party in the context of stupid stunts by celebrity dopes, and asked whether the "outrage" would have been as intense had Harry gone as a Bolshie. But now we have the EU, an organization that never seems to miss an opportunity to be opportunistic and to slam the "Anglo-Saxons," considering a call by a man named FRANCO to ban Nazi symbols because of what a dopey twenty-year-old did at a drinking party. FRANCO is seconded by a man with the word "scam" in his name, Roscam.

To make matters even more absurd, we have some GERMANS lecturing the world about the "consequences and World War II history linked to the Nazi swastika." This, of course, seems to imply that without the swastika we might not have had WWII and the Germans would have been less Nazi -- amazing the power of symbols, eh? Oops guess not. You see in the next sentence we learn that "Germany already bans such symbols." Sanctimonious little . . . . ahem, so Germany bans the symbols? How nice, how very, very nice. Doesn't seem to have had much effect in preventing the rise of Neo-Nazis, eh?

To top it all off, we have the AP telling us that the "decision to look into an EU-wide ban could further embarrass Queen Elizabeth II." I see. So a BAN on Nazi symbols would embarrass the British Monarch? Ah, yes. The Chief of State of the ONLY country in the EU that fought the Nazis from the first day of WWII to the last day would be embarrassed by a ban on Nazi symbols? Let's get this right. It's the Monarch who represents all those British soldiers, aviators, and sailors buried all over Europe and lying at the bottom of the oceans who lost their lives fighting the Nazis, the Monarch whose troops helped liberate the concentration camps, the Monarch who braved it out in London during the blitz and was willing to die with her people while the French sipped coffee in Paris and collaborated with the Nazis (and their symbols), so she's the one to be embarrassed? Ah, I see, I see . . .

Perhaps the British Monarch should propose to the EU that it consider banning Communist symbols, or even better ban the use of the German language (talk about a symbol of Nazism!) Or perhaps best of all, she should just tell the EU to go to hell, and go there quickly.

Blogosphere UFOs (Unusually Fine Output)

The Diplomad is welcoming a new member of the State Department Republican Underground to the blogosphere, New Sisyphus. The conspiracy spreads! We now know of three SDRU blogs: The Diplomad (of course), Daily Demarche, and now, the New Sisyphus. Welcome! Welcome! There is plenty of room for more!

The Diplomad also has run across an unusually fine piece at Machias Privateer. It has a thought-provoking post comparing murder rates in Iraq with those in Chicago. Read it. You won't be able to listen to MSM reports on Iraq in quite the same way again.

They're on to us!

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING POSTING IS STRICTLY FOR AMERICAN CITIZENS IN GOOD STANDING WITH THE REPUBLICAN UNDERGORUND MOVEMENT (OK, OK, AUSSIES ARE ALLOWED, TOO.) ALL OTHER READERS ARE KINDLY ASKED TO AVERT THEIR EYES; TO GO WATCH A MICHAEL MOORE MOVIE; TO GO LISTEN TO THEIR STREISAND ALBUMS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Well, my little friends and allies in the Great Right Wing Conspiracy, our little secret is about to be blown wide open by the BBC. We had them fooled for a time; we had them saying incredibly stupid and wrong-headed things such as,

The Asian tsunami has provided a perfect example of the need for an effective UN under an activist Secretary General. This time Kofi Annan was quick off the mark and America's independent efforts soon looked superfluous.

(From the lads at EU Referendum)

But, no more. The BBC has begun to suspect the truth of what's happening, gradually, systematically, the Old Beeb is connecting the dots. First this about our efforts in Afghanistan,

So, how do you build an airbase in the middle of nowhere, where there is little more than a goat track to connect it to the outside world? Again, simple for the US military. You parachute in all the construction equipment from planes.

"This is going to be one of the largest heavy drops since World War II", said one officer, sounding very excited as we waited for the aircraft to arrive.

There is no doubt though that this was a display of military might that probably (??) no other nation could match. One after the other the dark shapes of five giant C17 transport aircraft appeared in the night sky. Behind them clusters of parachutes opened out and suspended beneath them bulldozers, excavators, rollers and other heavy machinery.

With their job done, the planes headed back to where they had come from: Germany.

OK, now you see why I am worried. You can see how the BBC is finally beginning to understand that the US military is history's ultimate kick-ass machine. It can build roads in the middle of Nowherestan, while simultaneously keeping peace in Bosnia; fighting terrorists around the globe; waging war in Iraq; keeping the North Koreans bottled up; maintaining 12 aircraft carrier battlegroups; and flying massive relief operations in South and SE Asia that are caring for tens-of-thousands of people. In addition, the USA has the heavens full of spy and commo satellites; its robots patrolling the frozen wastes of Mars; begun building an anti-missile shield; and, working with the Aussies, been developing a Mach 10 "scram jet" -- and foisted Madonna on the Brits (A Dr. Evil laugh is permitted here!)

But now for the most worrying discovery by the Beeb,

Why did US base escape tsunami?

Diego Garcia became a US military base
in the 1970s. Following the tsunami, conspiracy rumours have been circulating on the internet of how the US base at Diego Garcia managed to avoid casualties while other islands suffered huge losses.

As you can see, with its scoop that Diego Garcia wasn't devastated by the tsunami, the BBC has come dangerously close to uncovering our secret.

But even more worrying is this from the BBC discussing the tsunami,

And how could God allow any of this to happen? <...>
[D]oes any of this shake faith in the existence of God?

The only one answer to both of those two questions is America is God!!! The Brits are damn good at crossword puzzles and the like; they'll figure it out soon enough.

OK, so what's the plan? We are voting here in our secret council: the Hebrews among us are inclined to releasing a plague of locusts . . .oh, that's already been done . . . Hmmm? What to do? What to do? Force the Brits to pay TV license fees . . . oh, never mind . . . Better yet, better yet, just to drive home what can happen to those who doubt the word of Washington, next time there's a massive disaster, let the UN and the EU handle it! Too cruel, you think?

Weird Watch

If over the past 15 years or so one read and believed the reports of Human Rights Watch, one would be 110% convinced that the United States -- the world's oldest democracy; the country that brought down colonialism, Nazism, Fascism, and Communism; invented the UN; serves as a safehaven for tens-of millions of people of all races, nationalities, and creeds; and remains still the most sought after destination for millions of intending immigrants around the world -- is the greatest threat to peace, international cooperation, freedom and democracy ever to exist. It seems that for the guys and the gals at HRW, whenever something "negative" happens in the world, it's ultimate source is something the USA has done or failed to do. If Egypt adopts restrictive legislation it's because it imitates the US post-9/11 Patriot Act; if Britain does, it's because of the US-induced "climate of fear" after 9/11; if Cuba has a bad human rights record, the U.S. economic embargo is partially to blame, etc. No other country gets as much attention as the USA in HRW's reports: go look for yourselves.

Anything "positive" -- on the rare occasions HRW recognizes any such development -- is the result of brave activists, or lawyers, or the far-seeing HRW, itself. HRW's dominant theme, and it grows more strident by the year under Executive Director Kenneth Roth, is that essentially the US Constitution is a mandatory suicide pact, in fact, Western civilization can only live up to its ideals by committing suicide; and concern over terrorism is just an excuse to deprive poor Third Worlders of their rights, including the right of radical Islamists to emigrate to the West and seek to destroy it.

HRW's latest reports are no exception; it blasts the USA and even the EU for their human rights records, while devoting one page to Cuba -- and, as noted, partially blaming the US for whatever human rights flaws exist in Castroland. HRW's newest report on the state of human rights around the world contains two essays on Darfur -- comparing the situation there to Abu Gharib (!); in those we see the typically confused mish-mash of contradictory ideas that we expect from liberal foreign policy advocates,

Immediate action is needed to save the people of Darfur. The U.N. Security Council or, failing action by that body, any responsible group of governments must deploy a large force capable of protecting the civilian population, prosecute the killers and their commanders, disband and disarm the Sudanese government's militia, and create secure conditions so displaced people can return home safely. Continued inaction risks undermining a fundamental human rights principle that the nations of the world will never let sovereignty stand in the way of their responsibility to protect people from mass atrocities.

This from the second essay,

To its credit, the Security Council established an international commission of inquiry for Darfur, a possible prelude to prosecution. When the commission reports back at the end of January, the council will have to decide whether to refer the situation to the International Criminal Court.<...>

The Security Council's many professions of concern will ring hollow if its answer to the desperate pleas from Darfur is, through delay or inaction, to let impunity reign. Darfur today stands as testament to a profound failure of will to prevent and redress the most heinous human rights crimes. Despite countless denunciations and endless professions of concern, little has been done to protect the people of Darfur. A failure of this magnitude challenges the fundamental human rights principle that the governments of the world will not turn their backs on people facing mass atrocities. For if the nations of the world cannot act here, when will they act?

What can we make of this impassioned plea for action to save the people of Darfur? Could not much of what Mr. Roth states be applied to the US intervention in Iraq? Apparently not. In two prior essays Mr. Roth wrote on Iraq that,

There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein was a murderous despot, but few consider that alone enough to warrant humanitarian intervention. Because of the death, destruction and disorder that are often inherent in war and its aftermath,
<...> a variety of conditions [must] be met to justify a military invasion on human rights grounds.

These include, foremost, that mass slaughter is ongoing or imminent, because only dire cases of large-scale carnage can justify war's deliberate taking of life. <...>

We conclude that, despite the horrors of Saddam Hussein's rule, the invasion of Iraq cannot be justified as a humanitarian intervention. In our view, as a threshold matter, humanitarian intervention that occurs without the consent of the relevant government can be justified only in the face of ongoing or imminent genocide, or comparable mass slaughter or loss of life. <...> Only large-scale murder, we believe, can justify the death, destruction, and disorder that so often are inherent in war and its aftermath. <...>

There were times in the past when the killing was so intense that humanitarian intervention would have been justified, for example, during the 1988 Anfal genocide, in which the Iraqi government slaughtered some 100,000 Kurds. Indeed, Human Rights Watch, though still in its infancy and not yet working in the Middle East in 1988, did advocate a form of military intervention in 1991 after we had begun addressing Iraq. As Iraqi Kurds fleeing Saddam Hussein's brutal repression of the post-Gulf War uprising were stranded and dying in harsh winter weather on Turkey's mountainous border, we advocated the creation of a no-fly zone in northern Iraq so they could return home without facing renewed genocide. There were other moments of intense killing as well, such as the suppression of the uprisings in 1991. But on the eve of the latest Iraq war, no one contends that the Iraqi government was engaged in killing of anywhere near this magnitude, or had been for some time. "Better late than never" is not a justification for humanitarian intervention, which should be countenanced only to stop mass murder, not to punish its perpetrators, desirable as punishment is in such circumstances.

The Diplomad finds this line of logic not only weird, but also highly impractical for real policy makers to follow in the real world. We could only act if the killing were classified as either "imminent" or "ongoing mass slaughter" and "genocide." Who would determine that? Who defines "mass slaughter?" By the time the killing was "imminent" and certainly by the time it was "ongoing," in almost every case you can think of, military intervention would occur after the fact, and therefore according to HRW criteria, would be unjustified. What about mass slaughter that is not "genocide," a vague term in the real world? What would you do about mass ongoing killing within an ethnically identical group containing political factions who detest each other?

As you will see reading the reports, there are plenty of calls for faith in the UN, in a variety of international tribunals, and for the issuing of arrest warrants. In the real world, of course, none of those works. How would you execute an arrest warrant on Saddam? Look at the absurdness of the ongoing Milosevic trial, and tell us that's the model you want to follow.

HRW also shows the confusion that liberal advocates of multilateral military action have when it comes to the use of power by the USA. These advocates want the USA only to use its power in defense of the objectives that the advocates want. Any other use, is illegitimate.

They will be happy only when the Stars and Stripes come down from over the USS Abraham Lincoln to be replaced by the UN blue; only when Secretary-General Annan becomes Generalissimo Kofi, Commander of All Air, Sea and Land Forces. Or better yet, maybe Kenneth Roth wants the job?

Thanks to the Emperor . . .

The Diplomad is deeply honored to have been blogrolled by the mighty Emperor of the Vast Rottweiler Empire and to be considered an advisor on Foreign Affairs.

We will strive to do our Imperial Duty and hope he took no offense from our previous post on Dopey Royals. At no time were we including Him in our grouping of Royal Dopes.

We hope that our future yaps will be pleasing to the ears of H.E.

A Harry Experience

After all that tsunami death and destruction and UN chicanery, the Chief Diplomad wants to turn to something light, fluffy and stupid. Yes, you guessed it, I am talking about Prince Harry. When I read about him, his uncles, aunts and, of course, his late "sainted" mother, I recognize that one of the good things about America is that we don't have a Royal Family. I remember nearly 20 years ago being asked by a BBC reporter what I thought about an upcoming visit to America by Lady Di. I cleverly responded, "July 4, 1776." "What," he asked, "do you mean?" "Well," I answered, "since then, Americans don't have to think about British Royalty."

There can be no doubt that my "July 4, 1776" comment was a stunning, utterly devastating and history-changing one that merits study by a thousand generation of scholars; but, also no doubt, I confess, it was flat, dead, absolutely, totally wrong. Why? My friends, don't take this badly, but you see, one of the bad things about America is that we don't have a Royal Family. Not having one of our own, we end up doing two unfortunate things: first, we fuss over other countries' dopey Royals, and second, we assign Royal status to Hollywood celebrity dopes and certain light-headed political families, e.g., Kennedys, Clintons.

With the notable exceptions of Spain's King and the British Queen, the European Royals are, overwhelmingly, a gaggle of dopes. They, in fact, make our "Made in USA" Hollywood Royal dopes, such as Barbara Streisand, Richard Gere, Donald Trump, and Sean Penn, look positively brilliant. At least our dopes have to work for a living; which reminds me: have you noticed how many dopey European Royals die doing dopey things? They die in hideous car crashes while driving 120 mph; they get killed in speed boats; they die absurd deaths on ski slopes. As the Always Lovely Mrs. Chief Diplomad points out, they never see