(h/t Mugsy)

I guess the UK is sick of hearing we namby-pamby Yanks brag on our health care system and trash theirs, disregarding the fact that the UK pays significantly less per capita for health care and achieves far better outcomes. And they've decided to push back:

Britons love to mock their National Health Service — just don't let anyone else poke fun at it.

They particularly resent the British universal health care system being used as a punching bag in the battle against President Barack Obama's proposed reforms.

Conservatives in the United States have relied on horror stories from Britain's system to warn Americans that Obama is trying to impose a socialized health care system that would give the government too much power.

In an interview widely interpreted here as an attack on the U.K., Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa told a local radio station last week that "countries that have government-run health care" would not have given Sen. Edward Kennedy, who suffers from a brain tumor, the same standard of care as in the U.S. because he is too old.

The superheated debate broadened this week to include renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, a British icon who suffers from motor neurone disease. A U.S. newspaper wrote that under the British system Hawking would be allowed to die — an assertion that Hawking said was absurd.

"I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS," Hawking said, joining the ranks of those praising Britain's system.

Britons say the country's universal health care system, which provides free medical care, is far fairer than the current American system.

Behind the criticism is a popular British view that American society represents unbridled capitalism run amok, with catastrophic results for people left behind in the boom times like those of the last two decades.

Business Secretary Peter Mandelson, who is usually pro-American, blasted U.S. health care Friday, suggesting the delivery system is fine for the wealthy but not for the poor.

"If you can't pay, you have a very, very second-rate service or you can't get health service at all," he said.

Britain's left-leaning government has responded to criticism offering selected statistics that show England out performing the U.S. in health spending per capita, life expectancy and more.

Newspapers have jumped in, with the Daily Mirror calling the United States "the land of the fee" because of the way patients are forced to pay for medical services.

Stunning. Millions of Iranaian citizens are staging protests of historical proportion and Republican Pete Hoekstra compares it to being taken to the woodshed by Democrats. Zero shame. The best part of Pete's Tweet? The comments.

Ice Station Tango nails it:

I remember that day. It was a god damned massacre. The Democrats surrounded the Republicans and deliberately fired into the peaceful crowd, killing seven...

Wait, that was Iran.

Hoekstra wasn't the only wingnut making the Iran protest/GOP comparison. These people obviously have no idea how ridiculous they look. (h/t HuffPo)

It's all about the company you keep...

The government published a blacklist on Tuesday of people recently banned from the country including a Hamas lawmaker and a Jewish extremist, as well as anti-gay protestors and a far-right US talk show host.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said she decided to publish the "name and shame" list -- which identifies 16 people banned since last October -- for the first time to clarify what behaviour Britain will not tolerate.

"I think it's important that people understand the sorts of values and sorts of standards that we have here, the fact that it's a privilege to come and the sort of things that mean you won't be welcome in this country," she said.

"If you can't live by the rules that we live by ... we should exclude you from this country and, what's more, now we will make public those people that we have excluded," she told the GMTV broadcaster.

Ouch. That's gotta hurt. Michael Weiner Savage is up there with fellow hatemongers Fred and Shirley Phelps, as well as a former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, two Russian skinheads responsible for 20 racially motivated murders and -- I'm sure this is just killing Weiner Savage -- several Muslim clerics accused of whipping up hate and fomenting terrorism within the Muslim community. Full list here.

Weiner Savage had a predictably snide response and is planning on suing...someone. (link goes to WorldNetDaily)

"Darn! And I was just planning a trip to England for their superior dental work and cuisine," he recalled thinking.

"Then it sank in," he told WND, "and I said, 'She said this is the kind of behavior we won't tolerate? She's linking me with mass murderers who are in prison for killing Jewish children on buses? For my speech? The country where the Magna Carta was created?'"[..]

Savage said he wants top First Amendment attorneys to represent him "in a major international case."

Continue reading »

Vice President Biden gave a much-anticipated speech at an international security conference in Munich on Saturday. Before an audience of several hundred - including General David Petraeus (seen scribbling notes while the VP spoke), Henry Kissinger, National Security Adviser Jones, French President Sarkozy and German Chancellor Merkel - Biden set out a US foreign policy vision which was both less hardline than the Bush administration's and yet firmly hawkish.

There's much to be glad about in Biden's speech.

To meet the challenges of this new century, defense and diplomacy are necessary. But quite frankly, ladies and gentlemen, they are not sufficient. We also need to wield development and democracy, two of the most powerful weapons in our collective arsenals. Poor societies and dysfunctional states, as you know as well as I do, can become breeding grounds for extremism, conflict and disease. Non-democratic nations frustrate the rightful aspirations of their citizens and fuel resentment.

Our administration has set an ambitious goal to increase foreign assistance, to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015, to help eliminate the global educational deficit, and to cancel the debt of the world's poorest countries; to launch a new Green Revolution that produces sustainable supplies of food, and to advance democracy not through the imposition of force from the outside, but by working with moderates in government and civil society to build those institutions that will protect that freedom -- quite frankly, the only thing that will guarantee that freedom.

We also are determined to build a sustainable future for our planet. We are prepared to once again begin to lead by example. America will act aggressively against climate change and in pursuit of energy security with like-minded nations.

But there are some glaringly hawkish moments that reveal America isn't quite as willing to give up acting from its position of possessing overwhelming force as it would like others to be.

Continue reading »

Hat tip - Noah at Danger Room

When Iraq launched a three-stage rudimentary satellite booster into space in December 1989, probably based upon the Argentinian "Condor" ballistic missile, hawks in the West went crazy, declaiming that this proved Iraq was after an intercontinental WMD ability. We all know how that turned out.

Today it's "deja vu all over again" as Iran becomes the eleventh nation to prove it can launch a satellite into orbit - something it stated it would do as long ago as January 2004. It's stated aim is to grab a slice of the lucrative satellite launch industry - alongside major players like Russia, the US, China and Europe but also alongside nations like Brazil, Israel, Japan and India - as well as launch its own satellites for telecommunications, weather and earthquake monitoring and security (spy-sat) purposes. It already has one satellite in orbit, which it paid Russia hard currency to launch.

In the Guardian, Julian Borger looks at how the launch is seen differently in Iran and the West.

For the Iranian government it is an important milestone along the road to reclaiming Persia's ancient claim to major power status, which it feels the jealous west is trying to deny it.

It is also enormously significant in Iranian internal politics. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad got elected promising economic benefits for the common man and modernisation. He has made a complete mess of the first part of that mission. Delivering the second is important for his prospects of re-election in June, in the eyes of both the average voter and – even more importantly, given the controlled nature of Iranian democracy – the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

From Washington, London and some other western capitals, the launch is seen primarily through the prism of Iran's nuclear project. The capacity to put an object into space, together with the feared capability to build a nuclear device, spells – for some at least – the eventual threat of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that could reach the US.

"There are dual applications for satellite launching technology in Iran's ballistic missile programme. As a result we think this sends the wrong signal to the international community, which has already passed five successive UN security council resolutions on Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes," Bill Rammell, the minister of state at the [British] Foreign Office, said today.

Iranian assertions that their staging experiments were always aimed at getting into the lucrative satelite launching business, rather than at ICBMs, go forgotten...when Iran proves to prospective customers that it can launch a satellite. Amazing.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Sometimes a matter of national pride and foreign currency income doesn't have a more sinister agenda behind it. Mohammed El-Baradei reminded the WaPo on Monday that neither the IAEA nor the US intelligence community has any evidence of a current Iranian nuclear weapons program. It's become fashionable of late to just ignore that - President Obama being one keynote offender - but eventually the hawks will have to confront the lack of evidence, if they can.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

The majority of Iraq has voted in provincial elections today, with a very minimum of violence, as I had hoped. Which is great news but unsurprising given the massive security lockdown mounted for the event. Razorwire cordons, security checkpoints, closed airports and a total ban on vehicular traffic in cities - all just to have an election. Still, that it happened at all is encouraging, even if far from the shining victory the American right are hailing it as. I hate to rain on their victory parade but there are a couple of flies in their Mission Accomplished" ointment.

Not least, of course, that such elections might never have happened at all if the Bush administration had had its way. Despite the popularity nowadays of the conservative meme that Bush wanted to bring democracy to Iraq, Paul Bremer, head of the CPA, had wanted to simply keep US-appointed tame politicos in power. But Ayatollah Sistani demanded real elections with thinly veiled hints of a general Shiite insurrection to go with the Sunni-led insurgency if no elections were held, and a quick historical revision swifty ensued.

But there are still deep-seated problems in Iraq which these provincial election's won't touch, or will actually make worse. The Kurdish North didn't participate and neither did the disputed region of Kirkuk. Iraqi troops and Kurdish peshmerga have already faced off there a few times and most analysts see Kurdish aspirations as the primary future source of violence. Then there's the resurgent Sunni minority, where the old and entirely undemocratic tribal power structure is set to be the election winner. And among Shiites, factional infighting which has fractured Maliki's own coalition heavily, looks to be another potential source of future violence. We may not know the full results for a month or more and there are going to be divisive allegations of intimidation, vote-rigging and double-crossing to navigate.

These elections are a good thing, but they're not a universal panacea. Still, the American Right wants to have its cake and eat it. They want to pretend that provincial elections mean "victory" while getting ready to blame only Obama if Iraqi social fractures ignored by Bush for so long lead to more violence later.

Iraqi elections: Elites to fight for power and oil.
(RealNews.Net talks to Leila Fadel, McClatchy's Baghdad Bureau Chief. Dec 15)

I really hope the Iraqi provincial elections today NEXT WEEK (I misread the link) go well - free, fair and non-violent. Both the vote itself and the way it is conducted will be important indicators of the way that nation is going, whether towards reconcilliation or towards entrenched factional splits and thus eventual outbreaks of violence again. There's already a huge fly in the ointment - elections in Kurdish Iraq won't happen today because of power-sharing turf fights. That such massive security measures are required just so that "the people" can exercise their democratic voice isn't a great sign either.

A credible election without significant violence would show that the security improvements of the past 18 months are taking hold. The outcome will also show which parties stand the best chance of success in parliamentary elections expected by the end of the year.

However, a deeply flawed election, marred by violence and allegations of widespread fraud, would cast doubt over Iraq's future and could influence President Barack Obama's decision on how fast to remove the 142,000 American troops.

Obama pledged during the presidential campaign to end America's role in the unpopular war and has ordered his national security team to prepare plans for a responsible withdrawal. U.S. officials warn that a hasty pullout could threaten Iraq's fragile security.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, says the Pentagon is closely watching the elections because their outcome "will, I think, be a big indicator for 2009, which is a big year."

U.S. and Iraqi officials have warned extremists may try to disrupt Saturday's vote and are planning heightened security, including banning vehicles on election day and closing airports and land borders. But officials expect a strong turnout — possibly more than 70 percent of the 15 million eligible voters.

We're not going to know who the "winners" are for months, as deals and coalitions come and go. A lot of those fractures in Iraqi society are going to be stressed. By the end of it all, we'll know far more about how well "we broke it, we should fix it" is going.

It doesn't look like Obama's going to have much downtime anytime soon:

SEOUL, South Korea — The North Korean military declared an “all-out confrontational posture” against South Korea on Saturday as an American scholar said North Korean officials told him they had “weaponized” enough plutonium for roughly four or five nuclear bombs.

Thousands of North Koreans turned colored cards to form the image of an atom last year during a performance at a stadium in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital.

American intelligence officials have previously estimated that the North had harvested enough fuel for six or more bombs, although it has never been clear whether the North constructed the weapons. The scholar, Selig S. Harrison, said the officials had not defined what “weaponized” meant, but the implication was that they had built nuclear arms.

The North conducted a test of a nuclear device in 2006, but it appeared to result in a fizzle and experts concluded the explosion was relatively small. While the country has often claimed to possess a “deterrent,” this appears to be the first time it has quantified how much plutonium it says it has turned into weapons.

After the threats on Saturday, South Korea ordered its military to heighten vigilance along the heavily fortified border with North Korea, according to a spokesman for the South Korean military joint chiefs of staff.

[...] With President-elect Barack Obama about to take office and negotiations over the North’s nuclear program expected to resume, it is possible that the North is merely setting up its negotiating position. But analysts said the North’s remarks could also be an indication that it was intending to hold onto its arms despite an agreement it signed with five countries including the United States in 2005, in which it committed to eventually giving up any nuclear weapons. The exact conditions under which it would do so were left vague.

The UN says Zimbabwe's government is hiding the full scale of its cholera epidemic. Original video from the UK's Sky News.

Nicole Belle sent me a link today about a report by Physicians for Human Rights on the horror story Zimbabwe has become:

PHR found that the Mugabe government has withheld food aid, seed, and fertilizer to rural provinces in order to starve political opponents; that the regime nationalized and then withheld routine support for municipal water and sewer systems from cities that elected political opponents; that the health care infrastructure and the economy itself is nearing utter collapse; corruption is the rule not the exception; and that the regime brutally silences critics to cover its crimes, profound corruption and incompetence (see report here).

“While we were there,” Frank Donaghue, CEO of Physicians for Human Rights told Religion Dispatches, “human rights activists were imprisoned and tortured.”

“People think that the most compelling problem is cholera,” he said (and indeed, the cholera outbreak has been widely reported). But, adds Donaghue, it is also a symptom of more profound underlying problems. “The issue is the collapse of the government, the economy, and the health system” he said. “Human waste is running down the streets. Kids are playing in it. The sewage system is in such bad repair that you get sewage in tap water.”

 and added:

This could so easily be a big foreign policy headache for Obama, too easily reminiscent of the Clinton policy in Rwanda -- with Hillary Clinton at State...

And it wouldn't hurt progressives to get out ahead on this

Nicole's correct. But what to do? I just don't see the US being able to act alone or cobble together another Coalition of the Willing without the UN's blessing. Mugabe is as nutz as the neocons would like us to think Ahmadinejad is and has the military's backing - sanctions and political pressure likely won't do a thing. Zimbabwe has only 30,000 of an army and an almost non-existent airforce so intervention by force would be a "cakewalk"...in the primary (invasion) phase...

But then there's the many short and long term drawbacks of yet another invasion and occupation to consider. South Africa's support and basing agreements would be essential. There would certainly be an insurgency of some kind. Accusations of colonialism and imperialist invasions would echo and probably rightly so. The US and others are still not set up for nation-building. The UK already has military contingency plans in place but has said clearly it won't go it alone for these very reasons.

The best bet, to my mind, would be a UN-mandated relief effort, protected by a UN-mandated force - which would have to include African troops. That's likely inadequate to the problem, but it's what's feasible in both short and long terms and a bit of help is better than no help at all.

The situation is certainly dire enough that PHR is asking for UN intervention.

Control of Zimbabwe's shattered health system should be handed over to the United Nations, an independent doctors group has demanded.

As the official death toll from the country's cholera epidemic yesterday topped 2,000, Physicians for Human Rights said government corruption was killing innocent people. The international doctors' group also called for President Robert Mugabe to be investigated by the International Criminal Court at the launch of a report titled Health in Ruins – A Man-made Disaster in Zimbabwe.

Is Zimbabwe a justified cause for a UN-approved coalition empowered under the Responsibility to Protect principles as ratified at the 2001 ICISS summit and recognized under UN Security Council Resolution 1674 (2006)?  This resolution technically commits Security Council members to intervene in situations like this (if they are deemed to qualify as "genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity").

At that point, the first problem becomes one of getting such a resolution passed. China, which is heavily invested in Zimbabwe and thus the Mugabe government, might well veto any such move and some of Zimbabwe's neighbours including SA wouldn't be too happy at the prospect of refugees streaming across their borders. The second problem, of course, would be affording such a military-supported relief effort in the midst of an economic crisis. The third, stopping Zimbabwe turning into another quagmire.

Until recently, I thought that negotiations between the government and its main rival might provide a solution, but now it's obvious they won't. I'm not entirely opposed to the notion of using force for humanitarian interventions but I am very opposed to the notion that a new Zimbabwe effort would also open the door to more of the same after Iraq slammed it closed good and hard. The neo-whatevers, who have always loved war more than the humanitarian reasons they advance for those wars, would just love that. Since I'm no longer certain as to what to think, so this post is by way of asking for thoughts and debate.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor in Gaza, tells Sky News that the number of civilians injured and killed in Gaza proves that Israel is deliberately attacking the population.

The people of Gaza continue to be caught in the middle of the power play between Israel and Hamas:

JERUSALEM, Jan 5 (Reuters) - People in Gaza were in dire need of food and medical supplies, aid agencies said on Monday, but Israel's ground assault and air raids were hampering relief efforts.

Freezing cold is compounding the misery of children caught in the conflict. And body bags for victims are in short supply.

"The situation in Gaza since the Israel Defense Forces launched their ground offensive on Saturday night has become both chaotic and extremely dangerous," the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a situation report.

Air raids had damaged hospitals, water supply systems, government buildings and mosques but it was difficult for ICRC staff to move around to assist, it said.

About 530 Palestinians have been killed, at least a quarter of them civilians, since Israel launched its offensive on Dec. 27 to curtail Hamas rocket attacks from Gaza.

Ground troops invaded the enclave, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, on Saturday night after a week of bombardments from the air and from naval vessels.

Hospitals were inundated with Palestinian wounded, the ICRC said. Fresh supplies were urgently needed, including painkillers and anaesthetics but also body bags and sheets to wrap corpses.

I know I'm going to miss the Green Zone. Ah, good times! Just think back to when Paul Bremer and the rest of the hapless Republican incompetents first attempted to impose their neocon and libertarian fantasies onto Iraq's economic and social system:

BAGHDAD, Dec. 31 -- The walls of the majestic Republican Palace in Baghdad's Green Zone have been stripped bare. The vaults that secured American cash and classified documents are gone, and the cement blast walls that protected the front entrance were taken down this week. The U.S. military dining facility inside what was once the American Embassy served its last meal New Year's Eve.

"This is the end of the world as we know it," said Sgt. 1st Class Patrick McDonald, 47, who co-authored a guide to historic sites in the Green Zone. "It's not like everyone is shredding documents and fleeing Saigon. But we are stepping away from a building."

Saddam Hussein had the palace compound's main building decorated with giant busts of himself to demonstrate his hold over Iraq. After the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, the palace came to symbolize the American role in the country, first as the headquarters of the U.S. occupation authority and later the U.S. Embassy. American civilians and troops held "salsa night" dances around the pool behind the palace before retiring to trailers sheathed in sandbags.

When the clock struck midnight on Wednesday, the U.S. returned the palace to the Iraqi government and relinquished formal control over the Green Zone, a heavily fortified six-square-mile enclave on the Tigris River where key U.S. and Iraqi bureaucracies are situated.

The handover is a sign of the shrinking footprint and influence of the United States in a country where it has lost thousands of lives and spent billions of dollars. For many Iraqis, the handover represents a significant step forward in their gradual reassertion of dominion over their own affairs.

"On January 1, we are going to control this," Adnan Karim, 22, an Iraqi soldier manning a checkpoint at one of the entrances to the Green Zone, said, beaming. "The U.S. will be here just as observers. It's a matter of pride."

And here we go again. Bush's ineffectiveness in the face of the Gaza attacks will help cultivate yet another generation of Middle Eastern hardliners:

TEHRAN, Iran – Hard-line Iranian student groups have asked the government to authorize volunteers to go carry out suicide bombings in Israel in response to the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.

The government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had not responded to the call by Wednesday. Five hard-line student groups and a conservative clerical group launched a registration drive on Monday, seeking volunteers to carry out suicide attacks against Israel.

In an open letter to Ahmadinjead, the students said "volunteer student suicide groups ... are determined to go to Gaza. You are expected to issue orders to the relevant authorities in order to pave the way for such action." A copy of the letter was made available to The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Volunteer suicide groups have made similar requests in the past and the government never responded to their calls. Some hard-liners have claimed previously they succeeded in secretly sending bombers to Israel, but their claims have never been verified, and there has not been any sign of Iranians carrying out suicide attacks in Israel — raising the likelihood the groups' activities are mainly for propaganda purposes.

A few days ago, all the experts were saying there was no chance of a war between India and pakistan as a consequence of escalating tensions following accusations of Pakistani involvement in attacks on Mumbai last month. Now, with reports that both nations are moving some troops to their mutual border, everyone is talking about the chance of conflict. But if that conflict happens, it will be inadvertent - an accidental exchange of fire arising from both sides' readiness to repel the other which then runs out of control - rather than a deliberate act.

Pakistan has reportedly moved some 20,000 soldiers from its border with Afghanistan, a move that will suit Pakistan's ruling elite's short term political purposes very nicely. It has also been flying 24 hour patrols on its side of the India-Pakistan border to guard against Indian probes as the Indians try to find out for themselves what the Pakistanis are up to and has cancelled officer leave. But there hasn't as yet been a major mobilization of troops towards the Indian border. India has moved some troops and heightened its military's readiness too, but there's been no general mobilization of reserves as yet. India has twice the standing armed forces of Pakistan and a vastly higher reserve manpower (there are respectively the 4th and 6th largest armed forces in the world) - in a general war between the two, 20,000 troops are a drop in the ocean and both sides know it. Indeed, that's arguably why Pakistan developed its nuclear weapons in the first place.

So there aren't widespread signs of war preperations yet and in any case both nations have to be aware that, both economically and in terms of internal stability, they cannot afford war. It's more likely that both sides are simultaneously playing to their own publics and seeking to enlist international support for their own agendas. Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institution told McClatchy:

"There is nothing (the Singh government) can do except make threatening noises toward Pakistan," he said. "Both countries are rattling their sabers. These are two weak governments that are clearly trying to get the Americans nervous so they put pressure on the other country (to back down)."

He called the current atmosphere "a precursor to a crisis" that could erupt because of the high possibility of a misstep on either side.

"We are in a period of touch-and-go," he said.

It's not just America - the Chinese, who are even more Pakistan's military ally than ever the US could hope to be and cannot be happy about even the smallest prospect of an inadvertent nuclear war on their borders, are now involved in trying to get both countries to scale back their posturing too.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Anti-neocon conservative analyst Stephen P. Cohen tells Indian TV that Pakistan is unable or unwilling to control terror groups on its territory.

An AP report quotes Pakistani unofficial officials as saying that Pakistan is moving thousands of troops to its border with India, snubbing Bush administration offcials who had pleaded with the Pakistanis not to.

The troops headed to the Indian border were being diverted away from tribal areas near Afghanistan, officials said, and the move was expected to frustrate the United States, which has been pushing Pakistan to step up its fight against al-Qaida and Taliban militants near the Afghan border.

Two intelligence officials said the army's 14th Division was being redeployed to the towns of Kasur and Sialkot, close to the Indian border. They said some 20,000 troops were on the move. Earlier Friday, a security official said all troop leave had been canceled.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Both countries have said they want to avoid military conflict over the attacks. But India has not ruled out the use of force as it presses its neighbor to crack down on the Pakistani-based terrorist group it blames for the attack.

Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has promised to respond aggressively if attacked but reassured India Friday that Pakistan would not strike first.

The Pakistani military has denied the AP's report and its anonymous Pakistani military sources. They claim that the military is undergoing regular, scheduled rotations, and that if an AP reporter saw trucks moving out of a tribal area, those troops were on a scheduled rotation, and not acting under new orders.

Of course, the Pakistani military has proven that its official pronouncements are entirely trustable...

Just days ago all the analysts were saying that there was almost no chance of war between the two nuclear-armed nations but now one retired Pakistani general has told the AP it's to deter US-style missile strikes on suspected militant targets:

"It is a message to India that if you think you can get away with strikes, you are sadly mistaken," said Talat Masood, a retired general and military analyst based in Islamabad.

I don't think the analysts are wrong - war is still highly unlikely although tensions have just ratcheted a little higher. The Pakistani military has always defined itself exclusively by its opposition to India and large swathes of both the military and the Pakistani general populace have become more and more hostile to fighting what they see as "America's War" along their Western border with Afghanistan. Using the current situation as a convenient excuse to walk away from that war and back towards facing off India was always on the cards, will be popular on Pakistan's streets and will strengthen the military's political position as the new civilian government attempts to be less than its puppet in many areas of domestic and foreign policy.

However, as my colleague Fester noted in an email, this redeployment means that supply lines for US and allied forces in Afghanistan will become more vulnerable and that militants along the Afghan/Pakistan border will become more active. That's a feature rather than a bug as far as much of the Pakistani military and the ISI intelligence agency are concerned. That the Bush administrations diplomats and generals have been unable to prevent this redeployemnt, despite their constant claims that Pakistan is a staunch ally in the War On Some Terror and recent assertions that Pakistan is committed to helping India investigate then root out the extremists responsible for the Mumbai attacks is indicative of just how badly they've been had by Pakistani spin and doubletalk over the last eight years.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Via my Newshoggers colleague Anderson comes this:

By a vote of 180 in favour to 1 against (United States) and no abstentions, the Committee also approved a resolution on the right to food, by which the Assembly would “consider it intolerable” that more than 6 million children still died every year from hunger-related illness before their fifth birthday, and that the number of undernourished people had grown to about 923 million worldwide, at the same time that the planet could produce enough food to feed 12 billion people, or twice the world’s present population. (See Annex III.)

The Bush administration, speaking for the U.S.A., therefore must consider it tolerable that 6 million children die every day - children who could be fed if we weren't wasting billions on stealth fighters, littoral combat boondoggles and non-effective defense against non-existant ballistic missiles from Iran.

Just so you get that, here it is again:

In favour: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Comoros, Congo, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Micronesia (Federated States of), Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United Republic of Tanzania, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Against: United States.

Merry Christmas to the World from Dubya and his chums - who are currently geeing up the notion that an increase in defense spending (say, to 4% of GDP) would be a great economic stimulus package! Actually, it wouldn't - defense spending "drains resources from the productive economy" and costs more jobs in other sectors than it creates.

How much better an economic stimulus - both for America and the world - it would be to mobilize American might for good instead of destruction, Dubya and his fellow travellers remain silent upon.