The need for real diplomacy with Iran

By JustForeignPolicy.org

Notes:

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Writes: Paul Krugman

…… Drill now! Four legs good, two legs bad! — Know-Nothing Politics. Republicans, once hailed as the “party of ideas,” have become the party of stupid.

What I mean is that know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy.

The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.”

In the case of oil, this takes the form of pretending that more drilling would produce fast relief at the gas pump. In fact, earlier this week Republicans in Congress actually claimed credit for the recent fall in oil prices: “The market is responding to the fact that we are here talking,” said Representative John Shadegg.

Remember how the Iraq war was sold. The stuff about aluminum tubes and mushroom clouds was just window dressing. The main political argument was, “They attacked us, and we’re going to strike back” — and anyone who tried to point out that Saddam and Osama weren’t the same person was an effete snob who hated America, and probably looked French…..[MORE >>]

SPECIAL — LISTEN TO: BIG GAY GOP FEAR FACTOR FEVER

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Hillary and Bill Clinton are still seething and are planning to “take a dump” at the Democratic convention later on this month, if their ROLE is not properly negotiated.

She told a gathering of supporters last week that she’s looking for a “strategy” for her delegates to have their voices heard and “respected” at the Democratic National Convention — and did not rule out the possibility of having her name placed into nomination at the convention alongside Sen. Barack Obama’s.

Time Magazine reports that while in public Clinton is doing everything she’s been asked to help Obama, behind the scenes she secretely wishes Obama should lose.

No matter how much they Tip-Toe around the issue, I strongly believe that their strategy (Clinton & Clinton) is to weaken Obama even further, in anticipation of running for office in 2012….[ MORE >> ]

Hillary is torn between two forces - one, is the “private wish” that McCain beats Obama this fall, and the other is “what-if Obama wins“….”how will we look if we don’t throw our ‘fake‘ support behind him?”

   [Enlarge PIC]

Bill Clinton on the other hand seems to be very bitter that he was labeled a racist during the Democratic primary. Interviewed by ABC News in Monrovia, Liberia while on his world AIDS tour with his foundation, Mr. Clinton talked a bit about the role he played in the failed presidential bid of his wife. And he still seemed to be smoldering about his portrayal by the media and others….as a BIGOT.

“But I am not a racist,” he said. “I’ve never made a racist comment and I never attacked him (Obama) personally.” Asked if he thought Obama was ready to be president, Bill gave some lame excuse that “nobody is ever ready” and that the Constitution sets out qualifications for president.

Shut Up Bill!

What a selfish egomaniacal duo! Here are some illustrative comments.

I don’t place you in the same category as the despicable right-wing THUGS in the Republican party, but you did exhibit behavior that millions of black people construed as racism — and that’s the one big reason which precipitated your wife’s defeat. Had you behaved yourself in South Carolina, I believe we might be looking at a power-packed Clinton-Obama ticket.

Apologize and move on….you will be forgiven!

We have a much more venomous snake to beat down — The ReTHUGlican Hate-Machine, starring: John “Drill My Wife” McCain.

   THE REPUBLICAN CRIMINAL HATE-MACHINE — NOW HEADED BY JOHN MCCAIN
   [Clockwise: Sean Hannity, James Dobson, Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter,
   Glenn Beck, Greta Van Susteren]

   A Fellow Snake, ‘White-Nationalist’ THUG Pat Buchanan Skewers McCain
   

SPECIAL REFERENCES: evilgopbastards.com | Hawking Racism — Pat Buchanan’s latest book is a White Nationalist Screed

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   A USAToday Editorial: Accountability in Darfur

For five and a half years, government-backed forces in Sudan have committed unspeakable acts  — murder, rape, torching villages  — in the vast western province of Darfur. About a quarter of a million people have died, with millions displaced.

In 2004, the U.S. government condemned this for what it is: genocide. But efforts to stop it, even sending in thousands of international peacekeepers, haven’t ended the horror.

On Monday, the International Criminal Court, a tribunal set up in The Hague, Netherlands, in 2002 to prosecute individuals for crimes against humanity, took a bold action. Its prosecutor asked its judges to indict Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on war crimes and genocide charges — the court’s first indictment of a sitting head of state. (Two others, Yugoslavia’s Slobodan Milosevic and Liberia’s Charles Taylor, were indicted by special nited Nations courts.)

The value of the criminal court’s extraordinary decision is that it continues a movement over the past decade of putting leaders of countries on notice that they might not get away with terrible crimes against their people. That trend gained momentum after Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, in which the world stood by as 800,000 were slaughtered.

Each new effort can also put new pressure on countries that do business with tyrants. China has lucrative oil deals with Sudan and is its main arms supplier. The indictment gives China additional incentive to use its leverage to burnish its image as it prepares to host next month’s Olympic Games.

The potential downside is that the indictment could provoke a backlash by al-Bashir. He has played a game of promising to comply with efforts to end the genocide, including allowing in foreign peacekeepers.

In reality, he has aided the horror. Now, he could end all pretense. Already, worrisome new attacks on peacekeepers include one last week in which seven were killed and 22 injured. The U.N. said Monday it was withdrawing some non-essential staff.

Al-Bashir certainly won’t hand himself over. He is more likely to model himself on a fellow African tyrant, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, who unleashed a murderous onslaught on anyone who opposes him after it became clear he would lose this year’s election.

Like Mugabe, al-Bashir might be counting on help from China and Russia. Both are frequently accused of human rights violations and fear international moves that infringe on national sovereignty. Appallingly, they used their U.N. Security Council vetoes last week to block new sanctions against Zimbabwe.

One organization might have more influence than the international court or U.N. on al-Bashir and Mugabe. That organization
is the African Union.

Its members, led by powerful South Africa, have behaved more like a cozy old boys’ network.
On Monday, they even asked the court to stop the indictment. They should be more concerned with getting the thugs in their club to stop the killing.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY:

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 Columnist - John Sammon
Yeah man! Gas prices, higher, higher, higher.

I’m lovin’ it!

The higher the better!

What this will do is cause more Americans to cease being mass consumption glutinous hogs, and will ultimately help to save the North Pole from melting.

Let me explain. I know full well this will result in my branding as a left-wing traitor by right wing mass consuming racist nuts (I’m actually a former conservative who left the Republican Party because of their lying and cheating and lack of morality).

You might also try and call me a “negativist” who enjoys the misfortune of others. I on the other hand view myself as a “positivist,” a person who can see great possibilities in supposed dire situations.

Oh, I almost forgot. Gas prices may also help Americans to reclaim the lost soul of their country, a country evolved into greed, of feeling superior to other less abundant countries because of our material possessions, and our frequent purchase of “things.”

Let’s say you’re a typical greedy fat upper middle class guy who buys a new car every year because you discard the old car like a toy you’ve suddenly grown tired of, and you currently drive a huge, gas guzzling four-wheel-drive Hummer, a vehicle as big as the German tank that invaded Poland in World War Two. You smoke cigarettes and discard the butts. You carelessly toss trash at the beach and eat rich calorie-laden junk food like a hog at a trough. You have a three-story house that burns more energy than the entire consumption of Nigeria (that’s a country in Africa for those of you right wingers who are mad at this piece).

You’re a gas guzzling hog.

Rising prices huh? You can’t afford to be a pig anymore like two years ago. You have to actually put yourself on a budget. To conserve. The C word. Not the C word. Not that! Oh the pain of it.

You drive less, which causes less freeway congestion and less greenhouse emission melting the Polar Icecap (our natural air conditioning down here). You’re forced to cancel that automatic yearly Hawaiian vacation which in turn puts less pollution pressure there.

The irony here is, and it’s a supreme irony, is you’re forced into becoming a conservationist kicking and screaming even though you don’t like it by the very same people who made you an oil addict in the first place…..the oil companies and their secret cartels and their Saudi Arabian robber barons and their Washington lobbyists.

You’re forced to cut back on your lavish lifestyle you hog. To you, more is always better. The things you purchase make you feel worthy, temporarily, until you have to buy more things, and the money. There’s never enough, even though you have more than you need.

Right now, there’s a Chinaman who used to ride a bike in Beijing, but who now drives a car. He also wants to be a glutinous hog like you.

In fairness, I drive a car, though I’ve always left personally a very small ecologic footprint. I seldom buy anything. You might describe my lifestyle as that of an “esthete,” or “Spartan,” or “Ghandiesk.” For those of you right wing haters who never read a book, Mahatmas Gandhi was an Indian leader who stressed morality and restraint.

All I can say to those to whom any form of idealism and not just thinking only of themselves is real hell……welcome to my world.

Some people will lose their jobs because of oil prices, but they were probably jobs centered around addiction to oil which was wrong in the first place. Jobs can be retooled to meet the new demand for conservation and ecologically friendly living.

Rising oil prices will force Americans to seek alternative travel, mass transit, fuel efficient and hybrid and eventually electric cars, which will improve air quality and slow global warming. It will also teach you, the glutinous hog, that the world isn’t your private oyster to be abused any way you see fit. That every little you thing you do has an impact. Ultimately, it will also force you to become more humane, more aware of others who are less fortunate.

Being forced to walk a little more may help stall that heart attack you the hog are now working towards.

Rising oil prices will also help end the economic-political strangle hold the Saudis and others have over us because we won’t need their oil. It will end their outsourced power and put them in their proper place among the community of nations.

I’m lovin’ it!

I hope gas goes up to $10 a gallon.

Like we used to yell at the football game, “hit ‘em again, hit ‘em again..harder…harder!”

Copyright 2008 Sammonsays

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