Guests like fish begin to smell after 3 days

JFK, it was said, quipped during the early days of his administration's involvement in Vietnam, that the US could get out of its entanglement there by declaring victory and take his marbles [advisors, military] back to Washington with America's held up high and reputation intact. He died too soon, before he could ever take his own advoice, if he ever gave a second thought to it. LBJ didn't, and we know the sorry history of the US' defeat in Vietnam. In history's mind's eye, the sorry image of the US ambassador fleeing from the roof of the American embassy in Saigon, the mighty stars and stripes in his possession as at helicopter lifting him to the safety of an American ship, as the North Vietnamese army triumphantly entered the Republic of Vietnam's capital.The US indeed had overstayed its welcome after a quarter century in Vietnam.
In today's online edition of 'The New York Times', we find an article by Michael R. Gordon, outlining a blunt memo by Colonel Timothy R. Reese, repeating JFK's advice, as it pertains to America's preemptive 6 years war in Iraq. He was one of the Bush administration's cheer leaders for the war, and a purveyor of less than forthright reporting on WMD [weapons of mass destruction].]So, it is an irony of sorts that he is covering a story the message of which is 'we should declare victory and withdraw'. The advice is sound, no doubt, after the waste in lives and billions in materiel and corrupt practices in sustaining weak Iraqi politicians and failing to rebuild a shattered army and police; in allowing the fault line of religious and ethnic differences to overwhelm a country which had never supported Islamic extremists, to offer a haven to them, to fight the invaders [read, the US]; billions wasted, where even today there is no 24 hour flow of electricity but in the US fortress known as the 'Green Zone'; no steady flow of running water; no sustained agriculture; in brief, Mr. Bush's war, based on his wishful thinking and patent lies, laid waste to a weaken Iraq ruled by Saddam Hussein.
Now the question arises can the US truly pack up its bags, say 'sayonara', and close the door behind its as it 'triumphantly' [sic] marches out of Iraq? Hardly. The geopolitics of the region are against Col. Reese's recommendations. Iraq once a foil to Iran, needs a US presence to check Iran rise as a dominant regional power. We can thank Mr. Bush & co. for creating conditions for strengthening Tehran's hand in the Persian Gulf, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Mr. Bush's lack of clarity on Iran has simply accelerated its nuclear programme and technical advances in rocketry and military weaponry. So as a countervailing presence Washington cannot simply withdraw. Furthermore, it has studded Iran with military bases and in the Green Zone, which we know from press accounts is a large as 8 US football fields, it has built an embassy which would put Citizen Kane's Xanadu to shame. Withdrawal from Iraq, would run counter to Baghdad since its authority rests on wobbly legs, and it need American taxpayer dollars and America's military might to shore it up. Furthermore, Iraq is sitting on one of the largest pool of oil which the US coverts.
Mr. Bush's war has implicated more deeply into the sorry and sad politics of the region. Washington has to stay to keep the Israelis in line.
In a few words, although Reese's words offer a way out of Iraq, of an Iraq with anti Americanism running a high fever, the realities politically keep the US there, one way or another, by design or by default. Yes, the American presence in Iraq smells like a barrel of rotten fish. Like it or not, the Iraqis will have to hold their noses and put up with a foreign presence till such time that they can chase the Americans out.

Ban Ki moon weighs in on the side of direct talks between Pyoongyang and Washington

UN secretary general Ban Ki moon threw his authority behind the DPRK's [Democratic People's Republic of Korea aka North Korea]proposals to talk directly to the US. Although he did not dismiss the failed and now dead for the DPRK, the six party talks in Beijing,e he quietly did point out that there are other ways in discussing outstanding issues between Pyongyang and Washington. And face to face talks was certainly one such avenue.
You can imagine the displeasure secretary general Ban's pronouncement provoked in Fortress Foggy Bottom where US secretary of state Hillary Clinton & her band of Asian specialists hold forth.By voicing his opinion which bears the weight of a 'globacl village', a metaphor dear to Mme. Clinton's heart, Mr. Moon has taken a step away from the hardline US policy and the two resolutions that it sponsored for sanctions against the DPRK, in April and June 2009. The secretary general has grasped the hand that North Korea is extending to the Obama administration for a way to get discussions on its nuclear programme off of arctic ground zero, discussions which may also lead to unfreeze more than a half century of icebergs of issues going back to the Korean War. Mr. Moon sees an opportunity which should not be thrown as others openings in the past, on the dust heap of lost causes. It is a chance to lower quickly mounting temperatures on a very tense divided Korean peninsula, as well as to cool off the propaganda war and macho posturing.
President Barack Obama [BHO] & his team at State, the Treasury, and the Pentagon do not share the secretary general's standpoint. On the contrary, Mme. Clinton rejected the DRPK proposals out of hand, insisting that the proper venue for talks is at the table of the six parties in Beijing. The presence of China, South Korea, Japan, Russia, the US, and North Korea was a smokescreen and a face saving devise for the Bush White House not to talk man to man with the DPRK. The idea of a six neighbours at the table would put pressure on North Korea to change its unconventional ways. It was thought in Washington, that the US had found a surrogate in Pyongyang's ally China, in arm twisting Kim Jong il to come to his senses. In other words, agree to Washington's demands. This tack had more to do with beating the drum and blowing the horn of a giant publicity campaign, but of little flexibility on the US' side to come to any meaningful agreement with Pyongyang. As a result, the talks broke off from time to time with a certain measured predictability. When BHO called for sanctions against the DPRK before the UN Security Council in April 2009, Pyongyang folded its tent, and walked away for good.
Mme. Clinton had not grasped the significance of North Korea's farewell. She continues to believe absurdly that it will return to the talks. Mme. Clinton & co. at Fortress Foggy Bottom are slow in understanding the import of the DPRK's proposals for direct talks. As Guam Diary has previously noted, they knock the stuffings out of Washington's ploy to use China as a Trojan Horse for its onerous demands of surrender to the DPRK. Beijing is out of the game, not completely by directly. BHO's Clinton team has fallen back on the simplistic explanation that the US and the DPRK already have had talked on the edges of the six party meetings. But that's not the same thing as formally have face to face talks!
Fortress Foggy Bottom has embraced the hardline approach of South Korea and Japan, in facing down North Korea. This trioka of allies thought that a hardline common front would cower Pyongyang into making concessions. How naive and wrong they were!
Washington may now realise that Pyongyang's proposals cut Seoul and Tokyo out of the picture. And where is Mme. Clinton now without the crutch of Beijing, Seoul, and Tokyo? Kim Jong il's proposals have shown that the emperor BHO is wearing no new clothes in dealing with the DPRK. Are we seeing the lamps burning late into the nights at Foggy Bottom, as the policy makers and talking heads go looking for new ideas? Guam Diary cannot say for sure. One thing is certain, however: the US' response has not gone off its usual message, and it has the mainstream media in its pocket.
Will BHO respond kindly to secretary general Ban Ki moon's suggestion? Guam Diary is not in the business of reading tea leaves. But one thing is certain, Mr. Ban has stepped hard on toes in Washington. His term in office is coming up for renewal, and Washington's anger will try to strike him, making him a one term secretary general. He is at a risk at playing gadfly with Washington.
Fortress Foggy Bottom is slowly coming under siege on the matter of the DPRK. It is only a matter of time possibly for other allies of the US to call for Washington's direct talks with Pyongyang. Is it too a matter of time for a call for the reconvening of a Geneva conference to deal globally and once and for all with the large bag of issues dating back to the Korea War?

Mme. Clinton responds to the DPRK's offer for direct talks

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has rejected out of hand the DPRK's [Democratic People's Republic of Korea aka North Korea]proposals for face to face discussions with the US. Instead true to State's mantra, she encouraged the DPRK to come back to the six party talks in Beijing. Now, Mme.Clinton is a busy lady; she's a large delegation of Chinese who are in meetings with secretary of the treasury Timothy Geithner and herself and BHO [Barack Obama] to deal with. So her swift reply to Pyongyang may have been hastily formulated. Nonetheless, her team of Asianists and Pyongyangologists surely either didn't carefully read North Korea's proposals or if they did, they had to be of shortsight, since Pyongyang restated its position of April 2009, that it had quit the six party talks and wouldn't return to them. Case closed.
Now Mme. Clinton may play a cat and mouse game, but Kim Jong il's position is not. As Guam Diary observed, the North Korean proposals is not 'deja vu all over again', but a strong desire to cut through the war of nasty words and get to the heart of matter of issues affecting Washington and Pyongyang. Mme. Clinton's & co.'s inability or reluctance to think outside the box, reveals how primitive the tools of diplomacy Foggy Bottom has on hand. Furthermore, they fail to recognise the changes under which the DPRK itself is going. For them, North Korea remains a solid block of ice, massive and impenetrable. Perhaps, as a suggestion, they might available themselves of the knowledge that their British cousins have first hand by the mere fact that London has an embassy in Pyongyang or the Swiss who have laboured long in the DPRK through NGO's and who set up a business school, teaching the tricks of the trade of global finance, in the North Korean capital.
Mme. Clinton seemingly remains aloof to the realities and wisdom of what's going on in the DPRK.
BHO has espoused the cause of South Korea's Lee Myung bak who dumped unceremoniously the 'Sunshine Policy' for whatever its warts, had engaged Pyongyang directly. Once in office, he reversed gears,and single handedly restored the cold war status quo ante with North Korea. BHO aligned himself with Lee, and reaffirmed solidarity with Japan's hardline position as well.
Is BHO the man his image projects? Pragmatist, a healer, an extender of an open hand? Hardly when it comes to engaging the DPRK. Rather, he has donned the cloak of John Bolton, and with the steel glove of State, sought to revive the Truman MacArthur doctrine.
As Guam Diary posits, he is doomed to failure. The coalition that he forged in the US Security Council is showing cracks. China and Russia will not go the full 9 yards in imposing sanctions on North Korea. In fact, with Pyongyang's dealing a death blow to the six party talks, have kicked the legs out from under the US strategy for using Beijing as a battering ram to force open Pyongyang's resistance to US demands.
In brief, by rejecting without much consideration let alone thought and analysis, Mme. Clinton & co. are up the proverbial creek without a paddle. Of course, diplomacy is an art of the possible, so it is not stricken from the record the possibility that the US might reconsider DPRK's call for bilateral talks in a different light.

NYU returns Singapore's dirty linen unwashed!

America's media hardly covers Singapore. This rich and highly developed state belongs in the old British sphere of influence. Every now and then something news worthy with an 'exotic' flavour will grace the eyes but hardly the ears of the grand American public.
Singapore's sitting member of parliament and professor at the National University of Singapore [NUS] Thio Li ann withdrew her invitation from New York University [NYU]. The renowned university with an endowment larger and more buoyant that Harvard's, and charging the highest tuition in the US, had offered her a year's visiting lectureship on human rights at its prestigious law school. And here begins the tale.
In Singapore Dr. Thio has a sorry reputation as a bigot and a unprincipled political operator. She is a born again Christian who got religion at Oxford. She comes from the evangelical wing of Singapore's Anglican community. In the well of parliament during a debate on the relaxation of buggery among consenting adults. This draconian law is a holdover from the days of British role; it was amended to permit anal sex between man and woman, but denied man and man the same right.
MP Thio in the well of parliament waxed eloquent and flowery on the spread of homosexuality in Singapore, coupling it with the decline of manners, morals, and civilisation. She denounced anal sex between consenting men as drinking with a straw up one's nose. Well such utterances might raise the hackles of Singapore's gays, but it is standard fare in Singapore's politics. Sharp and brittle, it is not out of the ordinary.
Dr. Thio is a respected scholar, who in her own right, has written on constitutional issues in Singapore. She doesn't write about homosexuality, as NYU stated. NYU however remained oblivious of her rantings against gays in parliament.
What made the ruling People's Action Party [PAP] very nervous was the putch Mme. Thio's mother and her band of evangelical Christians carried out in AWARE, Singapore's equivalent of NOW in the US. She and her band of believers took over Singapore's women's organisation through stealthful means. Now, AWARE is an umbrella organisation which has put out standards of teaching tolerance and diversity; its manual apparently calls for an understanding, humane approach to human sexuality which is an anathema to Thio and her band of angels. Their tactics caused such an exchange of e mails, much protests, and a stirring among a docile population, which sent up red flags to the PAP, which has the ruled the city state for last 45 years without interruption. What Thio and her angels did was taboo in the Singapore environment. It was the imposition of one brand's thoughts and message on all Singapore. Now Singapore, albeit majority Chinese, is a delicate balancing act of races and religions. The PAP makes jolly well sure that neutrality is respected; it has no desire to see in its midst a replay of the open wound of racial riots in neighbouring Malaysia. Thus, what Thio & co. tried to do, but failed, for they were immediately voted out of office in AWARE, was to tip the balance towards Christian evanglicals who brand what they touch with an iron of intolerance.
In the denouement of the AWARE crisis, Dr. Thio remained silent. On a matter of human rights, she refrained from defending them; human rights which she was going to lecture on at the NYU law faculty.
And here is where the NYU invitation to Thio Li ann was manna from heaven! Thio Li ann's hateful speech resounded long and loud in Singapore. Her name was never out of the public's mouth. It attracted more attention owing to her mum Thio Su Meen's undemocratic means of taking over AWARE, in order to silence its humane approach to respect the rights of others.
This is the context which escaped NYU's ken. Nor did it bargain for the international blogsphere and a rush of commentary and e mails to NYU gays and straights about who and what Thio Li ann is.
Hardly had the university announced her courses, a din of protests arose, letters sent to the university's administration, alumni notified. Such a quick response was snowballing into a sorry critique of the university and damanging its reputation. By damaging its reputation, doesn't translate into having an unpopular lecturer on staff, it boils down to drying up contributions to NYU's endowment. In brief, it means the old do re me; it signifies getting a hit in the bank book.
NYU took swift action withdrawing, according to a press release, and an article in 'the New York Times'; bolsters by a lack of enrolment and enthusiasm for Dr. Thio's approach to human rights, NYU had to wipe egg off its face. For her part, Thio Li ann decided to turn down NYU's offer.
And where does that leave the PAP? It no longer has much to fear from Dr. Thio. She stands disgraced; she tarred with the brush of bigotry. She has the stigma of professional shame to live with. One thing is sure: she won't sit in parliament after the next general election, and she will have to forebear martyr like the whispers of her colleagues at NUS and the enemies she has made.She will not receive any invitation to lecture at any major American or European university of note. She will no doubt find solace in her religion and her church.

North Korea speaks up!

After weeks of US hectoring and badgering Pyongyang, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea [DPRK aka North Korea] spoke up. Dismissing firmly US secretary of state Hillary Clinton taunting and brimades and bromides and her readings in pop psychology on behaviour, the DPRK has dotted its own i's and crossed its own t's; it cut through the morass of US verbiage, and has called for direct talks between Pyongyang and Washington to discuss issues of common concern.
For Pyongyang ologists, the DPRK's response should alert them to one important and cardinal point: gone are the speculations about Kim Jong il's succession, any conflicts in the minds of the Workers' Party elite, for the internal debate is over. It is evident that Kim Jong il is in complete command, and rumours to his suffering from a virulent form of cancer, must needs be buried in the muck and mire of gossip from which they sprang.
If US president Barack Obama [BHO] was counting on relying on China as a lever to persuade North Korea to rejoin the six party talks in Beijing. Kim Jong il knocks the pins from under that tack. No one seemed to consider the seriousness of Mr. Kim's words when he stated simply and cleared that the DPRK wouldn't return to those multiparty discussions, after BHO's administration pushed to sanctions on two occasions in the US Security Council. Once for violation of Resolution 1718 for launching a satellite on a long range rocket which had questionable legal footing; the other time, for testing a 'nuclear' device which scientifically no one, not even 200 nuclear sensors posted worldwide, could find traces of uranium fallout. ['Science' published an article by a Mr. Clery who seriously questioned that Pyongyang had detonated a nuclear device.]. The US managed to ram through Resolution 1879 calling for tighter sanctions, for the boarding of North Korean vessels on the high seas, which Pyongyang immediately denounced as a 'causus belli', freezing of foreign bank accounts, so on and on. North Korea's ally China in a snit, voted for both resolutions. By not returning to Beijing, China has 'lost face'; Pyongyang can play the game as the best of them. Furthermore, although China may rap the DPRK on the knuckles, it wasn't going to play the patsy for the US. Beijing would protest loudly but hardly enforce sanctions in the way Washington wanted.
The DPRK has understood from the beginning the direction of the US campaign to check and mate it on the international chessboard. As Guam Diary has noted, BHO has reenforced George W. Bush's strong armed measures towards North Korea; he has polished them so that they took on a John Bolton glow. In announcing that the 'six party talks are gone forever', Pyongyang has called Washington's hand to force the DPRK into 'total surrender' on all issues.
How will the US respond to the DPRK's call for direct negotiations? Will Washington's reluctance in the past to meet Pyongyang face to face continue? It doesn't take a rocket sciaentist to fanthom the US' move towards a six party talk to deal with North Korea. It is a reflexion of America's operating on assumptions of a kindergarten nature, ill defined and out of touch with experience and reality. Where a nuanced and sophisticated approach toward Kim Jong il's regime are called for, Guam Diary, among others, find that call for measured and reasoned approaches based on the hard facts and commonsense. Instead BHO's team at State, the Treasury, and the Pentagon turned towards vilification and eyewash and muddied the waters on serious issues. Which led to conflation of heated words and threats by turning the DPRK into a malevolent world menace. Shades of Mr. Bush's shtick on 'axis of evil'!
The US has always been reluctant to deal from the top of the deck with the DPRK. Washington has never forgiven North Korea [and China] for fighting the US flying the UN flag to a stalemate during the Korea War. This brings up another matter. Kim Jong il at the same time that he walked out of the six party talks for good, tore up the 1953 Aritmistice Agreement. In on quick move, the frozen war became verbally a hot one again. And if Washington decides to talk with Pyongyang that is an issue of high priority which may lead to the reconvening in Geneva of a peace conference. [See Guam Diary's 'A call for a Geneva conference'.]
The ball is now in BHO's court.

NYU returns Singapore's dirty linen

America's media hardly covers Singapore. This rich and highly developed state belongs in the old British sphere of influence. Every now and then something news worthy with an 'exotic' flavour will grace the eyes but hardly the ears of the grand American public.
Singapore's sitting member of parliament and professor at the National University of Singapore [NUS] Thio Li ann withdrew her invitation from New York University [NYU]. The renowned university with an endowment larger and more buoyant that Harvard's, and charging the highest tuition in the US, had offered her a year's visiting lectureship on human rights at its prestigious law school. And here begins the tale.
In Singapore Dr. Thio has a sorry reputation as a bigot and a unprincipled political operator. She is a born again Christian who got religion at Oxford. She comes from the evangelical wing of Singapore's Anglican community. In the well of parliament during a debate on the relaxation of buggery among consenting adults. This draconian law is a holdover from the days of British role; it was amended to permit anal sex between man and woman, but denied man and man the same right.
MP Thio in the well of parliament waxed eloquent and flowery on the spread of homosexuality in Singapore, coupling it with the decline of manners, morals, and civilisation. She denounced anal sex between consenting men as drinking with a straw up one's nose. Well such utterances might raise the hackles of Singapore's gays, but it is standeard fare in Singapore's politics. Sharp and brittle, it is not out of the ordinary.
What made the ruling People's Action Party [PAP] very nervous was the putch Mme. Thio and her evangelicals carried out in AWARE, Singapore's equivalent of NOW in the US. She and her band of believers took over Singapore's women's organisation through stealthful means. Now, AWARE is an umbrella organisation which has put out standards of teaching tolerance and diversity; its manual apparently calls for an understanding, humane approach to human sexuality which is an anathema to Thio and her band of angels. Their tactics caused such an exchange of e mails, much protestss, and a stirring among a docile population, which sent up red flags to the PAP, which has the ruled the city state for last 45 years without interruption. What Thio and her angels did was taboo in the Singapore environment. It was the imposition of one brand's thoughts and message on all Singapore. Now Singapore, albeit majority Chinese, is a delicate balancing act of races and religions. The PAP makes jolly well sure that neutrality is respected; it has no desire to see in its midst a replay of the open wound of racial riots in neighbouring Malaysia. Thus, what Thio & co. tried to do, but failed, for they were immediately voted out of office in AWARE, was to tip the balance towards Christian evanglicals who brand what they touch with an iron of intolerance.
The PAP had an MP with a problem on its hand. A hot potato! To cools flared tempers, to quiet growing protests by straights and gays and Christian and Muslim and Hindu leaders, Thio had to leave the scene for a while.
And here is where the NYU invitation to Thio Li ann was manna from heaven! How the PAP wiggled the invitation is opened to speculation. Did any money exchange hands? any promises for an NYU campus in Singapore? Guam Diary cannot say for sure.
This is the context which escaped NYU's ken. Nor did it bargain for the international blogsphere and a rush of commentary and e mails to NYU gays and straights about who and what Thio Li ann is.
Hardly had the university announced her courses, a din of protests arose, letters sent to the university's administration, alumni notified. Such a quick response was snowballing into a sorry critique of the university and damanging its reputation. By damaging its reputation, doesn't translate into having an unpopular lecturer on staff, it boils down to drying up contributions to NYU's endowment. In brief, it means the old do re me; it signifies getting a hit in the bank book.
NYU took swift action withdrawing, according to a press release, and an article in 'the New York Times'; bolsters by a lack of enrolment and enthusiasm for Dr. Thio's approach to human rights, NYU had to wipe egg off its face. For her part, Thio Li ann decided to turn down NYU's offer.
And where does that leave the PAP? It no longer has much to fear from Dr. Thio. She stands disgraced; she tarred with the brush of bigotry. She has the stigma of professional shame to live with. One thing is sure: she won't sit in parliament after the next general election, and nshe will have to forebear martyr like the whispers of her colleagues at NUS and the enemies she has made. She will no doubt find solace in her religion and her church.

Obama's foreign policy or speak loudly and carry a big stick!

Guam Diary will from time to time come back to US president Barack Obama's [BHO] foreign policy. If anyone thought that BHO's election would usher in a kinder, gentler foreign policy, one promising a
much wished for change from George W Bush's, well let him think again. Eight months into BHO's presidency, it is becoming more and more apparent that BHO is adopting Bush's foreign policy, and what's more taking a harsher and harder line. This is no more evident that the reappearance of US secretary of state Hillary Clinton after weeks of physical therapy after an operation on her left elbow, and the utterance of BHO's travelling vice president Joe Biden.
BHO's foreign policy is a head mixture of dogmatism and recklessness. Consider Mme. Clinton's flamboyant remarks on Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea [DPRK aka North Korea]during her whirlwind tour of India and southeast Asia. Mr. Biden's boastful slips of the tongue in Georgia and the Ukraine and his take on Russia are but a suspicious echo of BHO's unilateral approach to foreign policy.
Be it Iran or the DPRK or Russia Guam Diary finds a nostalgia to recycle America's need for the status quo ante, to the days of a balance of terror to fit today's reality. We see in this desire to institutionalise the good old days vestiges of the Cold War against the defunct Soviet Union, and a war against terrorism,
BHO is overestimating America's reach. Granted the US remains at present the world's most powerful nation, but it is hardly the only heavily nuclear armed country. Have they forgotten Russia's stockpile, as Mr. Biden flits around rubbing Moscow's nose in its fall from the lofty perch as a world power. And what's more, BHO's extended hand of friendship has not a long reach; Biden has gone on record that the US looks unkindly on any thrust to destablise Georgia or meddle in the internal affairs of the Ukraine, and that these two foreign Soviet satellites are on the road to joing NATO. Which comes down to the less than flattering conclusion that the US has not only broken traditional Russian claims on these two countries but it has impinged on Russia's large shadow in Central Asia as well. Now BHO has not come out public as he did in the past in disclaiming the words of Biden the eternal blabberer, the man who proverbially has his foot in his
mouth.
Mme. Clinton has again warned Iran that it mad dash for nuclear energy has to be curbed, monitored, and conform to Washington's standards. To dot her i's and cross her t's, she is now extending America's nuclear umbrella to the Persian Gulf and by implication to the Middle East, northwest Africa and the Horn of Africa.
She has done this to South Korea. In sum, covering a good chunk of global real estate to America's nuclear protection, she is making the likelihood of war in the shape of a mushroncom cloud more attainable. [US secretary of defence Robert Gates is now in Israel to discuss matters with Jerusalem. Israel's right wing hawks are going bonkers over Iran's nuclear programme. Already George Bush stayed the Olmert government's hand from a preemptive strike on Tehran's underground nuclear facilities. Mr. Gates will do likewise. Suddenly Jerusalem realises that it is not the only kid in the Middle East with nuclear toys. Israel's wars but for the 1973 Yom Kippur War, have been strike first, but this time Jerusalem's rush to nuclear judgment would mean a nuclear riposte from Iran, thereby declenching a nuclear holocaust not only on Jews but Arabs...in other words, a menace to life and limb on planet earth. Israel is not wise nor clever enough to shy away from conflict and war even if it means nuclear war.]
Overall BHO's imperial ventures into foreign policy, is anh elaboration of a system and plans which appear out of step with reality. Mme. Clinton is the messenger who does not seen the speck of dirt in the US' eye: her pursuit of shooting from the hip ignores the most elementary steps in foreign policy. She forgets that America's ideals and ambitions are clashing with the ideals and ambitions of other states and powers. And this blindness to flexibility and suppleness in foreign policy can have but one outcome. That is, unavoidable conflict unless there is a correction in policy.

Who's afraid of Hillary Clinton? Surely not Kim Jong il!

As US secretary of state Hillary Clinton sweeps through south and southeast Asia, tastefully fitted in an upmarket pants suit as though she was dispensing guidance and received wisdom to America's allies in the region, she did take out time to send warnings of thunder and lightning to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea [DPRK aka North Korea] and the Islamic Republic of Iran and the generals in Myunmar. Guam Diary will only look at her stern words as it applies to the DPRK.
As captain of the good ship Foggy Bottom [the headquarters in Washington, DC, of the department of state, Mme. Clinton has donned the wraps of John Bolton's approach to Pyongyang.
Briefly, let's summarize the Obama administration very hard line towards North Korea. Warned a goodly time in advance of a long range rocket launch of a satellite, the 45 US president requested without diplomatic niceties that it be postponed. Kim Jong il didn't see it this way, and the launch went ahead. Mr. Obama like a spurned suitor immediately seized the UN Security Council calling for sanctions against the DPRK on the questionable grounds that it had violated the Council's resolutions. Piqued, Pyongyang swiftly replied by announcing one, it wasn't returning to the six power talks in Beijing; two, it was restarting its nuclear programme which he had put seals on; three, it sent IASA observers packing; four, it repeated that it would continue its advanced rocketry tests; and fifth, it 'tore up' the 1953 Armistice Agreement on freezing the Korean War till a treaty replaced it. From North Korea's vantage point, sanctions raised the ghosts of renewed war on a divided Korean peninsula.
The US got the Security Council to unanimously pass a resolution with sanctions. Not only that Mr. Obama embraced the intransigent positions of South Korea and Japan, adding to fuel to the fire of a hot war of words and sanction that South Korean president Lee Myung bak began the moment he took the oath of office in 2008 and immediately tossed on the dust heap the 'Sunshine Policy' of his two predecessors which brought a detente between North and South Korea.
Washington sought more and more to increase the weight of sanctions through not only diplomatic but military means. And after an underground test on 26 May, which the US called 'nuclear' but a recent issue in 'Science' with strong evidence from global atomic test sensors, proves that it bore no traces of nuclear fallout, and came to the conclusion that it wasn't a nuclear device tested, the US once again brought another resolution to the Security Council, further condemning the DPRK for violations, but this time it reenforced sanctions with provisions calling for freezing of bank accounts, boarding North Korea vessels on the high seas, pressuring countries to not do business with Pyongyang. The long and the short of all this was for North Korea to declare that any boarding of its ship was a cause for war; with heated words, it threatened the US by saying it would launch long range missiles capable of reaching America's Hawaiian Islands if not California. So on and on.
The USS John McCain tailed the 'Kang Nam 1' as it steamed alledged towards Myunmar; but the vessel led the Americans on a wild goose chase by returning to North Korean waters. The UN announced the names of 5 North Korea companies and banks and 5 North Koreans for sanctions and restricted travel. The only problem is that the companies in the main operate in Iran or in North Korea which means the long arm of the US let alone the UN has no reach. So far, according to the Italian newspaper 'il Libero', in the city of Viaregggio, in the province of Lucca, the Italian authorities have seized two yachts which Kim Jong il ordered.
Now let's look at Mme. Clinton's hell fire warning to North Korea. Boiled down to its meaning, we see that it is a cease and desist command from a US administration which for all its hype about multilateral cooperation, is back on the Bush unilateral train. Pyongyang has but one alternative, and of course that is, submit to US demands, which cloaks in saying that they are on the side of the angels. Mme. Clinton is in a word, asking the DPRK to wage the white flag of surrender, no more, no less.
Translation: a collective opinion shared by Tokyo, Seoul, Washington, and Beijing.
Well China has but one clear cut purpose with the US, and no surprise here, is to avoid war breaking out again on the Korean peninsula. On sanctions, it remains cool, and will go its own way. As for South Korea and Japan, as Guam Diary noted, they have taken up what we call a 'Syngman Rhee' irredentist approach to the DPRK.
Stripping Mme. Clinton's words to the bare minimum, they leave the DPRK with one and only one choice...total surrender and humiliation, otherwise, it faces total isolation, boycotts, and blockades.
Before looking at Pyongyang's side of the coin, South Korea who's cut off aid and foodstuffs and much needed fertizler to North Korea for the last 18 months, has now come up with a carrot to go along with Washington's big stick. In sum, a us$40bn to entice Pyongyang back to the Beijing talks and stop its nuclear and missile programmes.
Mme. Clinton has revived the old Truman MacArthur punch towards the DPRK, tarted up as we said above in John Bolton's dress. Once again, Washington by siding with surrogates in Tokyo and Seoul, has increased its difficulties with reaching any meeting of minds with Pyongyang. It is quick to play the drums of war, rather than seek a diplomatic solution.
As for the DPRK, it is used to being boycotted, verbally threatend and abused for 60 over years. So, you wonder how much sanctions will affect them. It is quite good in playing poker with the US, a game Mme. Clinton comes off at most second best.s
Today, after a brief illness, Kim Jong il is back in reasonably good health, and has, according to Russian sources, full control of his country. He has taken up his guidance tours through out the DPRK, for first hand knowledge of its economic development. In fact, North Korea's economy, with some reforms, is doing quite well, they say. More, between July and October foreign visitors will be streaming into Pyongyang for the Korean Games with 100.000 participants. Saying this, the DPRK is not a country waiting for war. Rather it is confident that it can ride out the American bad weather reports, and knows full well, that in the end Washington has to make the first gesture of detente and offer a pipe of peace of sorts.
Two more things, South Korea has floated the rumour that Kim Jong il is suffering from the fatal and virulent form of pancreatic cancer. It has not caught on. It also warned the world against Pyongyang's invasion of its and US sensitive computer programmes. The two rumours caught headlines then fell flat like deflated balloons. The Korean Communications Commission of South Korean issued a report that hackers in US allied countries broke into South Korean and American computers. And French medical reports dismiss the pancreatic cancer theory.
Lest Mme. Clinton forgets, two US journalists are currently under detention, in a dacha, but sentenced to 12 years of hard labour, for violating North Korea's territory and laws. The two women have acknowledged this to family members. Mme. Clinton has appealed to Pyongyang for their release and amnesty. Well what does the bold, fearless American secretary of state expect? Put this on a Santa Claus wish list at the very same time you calling for destablising the North Korean government through sanctions and military threats!
If proof there be, the US has learnt nothing in dealing with the DPRK for the last 15 years, from the first Clinton administration today. Since the US remains wedded to failure, it won't succeed in dealing with Pyongyang until it wakes up and begins smelling the aroma of a diplomatic solutions.

China & Rio Tinto...state secrets & corruption. A case study of a spurned suitor

China arrested four of Australia's multinational mining company, Rio Tinto, on charges of stealing state secrets and corruption. Canberra has lodged protest. Beijing dismissed the company's and prime minister Kevin Rudd's 'demarches' with a dismissive, cynical characterisation of 'noise' and stuff and nonsense. But is that so?
Guam Diary will use the tools of Marxist Leninist [Mao Tze tung thought] in drilling below the surface of charges and countercharges.
Let's begin by saying China in its rush to industrialised tapped overseas markets for raw materials. Australia's iron ore became an important source. It was georgraphically near and the price was right. Not only that it had a new Labour government, led by Kevin Rudd who spoken very good Mandarin. Rudd was eager to tie his country's future to China's roaring economic engine. Up to a point, however!
Then came the global recession which hit Australia hard, but China much less. And what's more Beijing had a fat purse full of strong currency. It looked to cherry pick the fruit of corporate misfortune for its own designs. And in its sight, Beijing centred on Rio Tinto, and made a grab to buy a good per centage of the company. It could count on the philosinophile prime minister, it thought. It bet badly, and China's offer was grandly and flatly rejected.
China quickly donned the mantilla of a spurned rich widow.
Let's examine doing business in China. Since China is a country of laws which are pliant to the whims of the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] and little private enterprise and ownership [and even in this case, nothing is safe from the interference of the CCP and the bureaucrats], foreign companies investing in China have no recourse but to deal with party and government officials up and down the line of command. Which means corruption is rife. Nothing gets done with a well greased palm. And to curry favour, white envelopes of ready cash get exchanged routinely.
Now, let's turn our attention to another fallout of the global economic downturn. Sharp fall of commodity prices. A common practice say for China's steel mills is to hoard supplies, and to make deals on the side with suppliers off the books. This may very well have come to pass, and brought the anger that Beijing festering against Australia to a head. It points out the Achilles heel of trading and dealing with China. China is 'lawless'. It can turn any situation to its advantage since on the whole foreign corporations are dealing with the Chinese government from the lowest country level to the central government. China has no independent judiciary, no sense of law that the outside world with few exceptions have. So Beijing gaily brands the foreign entity as purloining 'state secrets'. But truth be told, it is more often than not than widespread corruption which the CCP fosters and encourages; which to bend the rules corrupt officials engage in questionable practices to feather their own nest. This is not noise! On the front page of16 July issue of 'the Financial Times of London', smack dab on its front page, a picture of a certain Chen Tonghui, head of Sinopec [the state owned China Petroleum & Chemical group], with the headline that Mr. Chen has been sentenced to death, albeit within the next 2 years. [A lot can happen in 24 months! to spare his life?] Google the internet, you will find more stories on officials high and low executed for corruption. In the world of business, few are virtuous, so foreign businesses will adapt to China's corrupt business practices. And here is the nub of the problem. China wants its pound of flesh...and that flesh belongs to Rio Tinto. Beijing is patient that a deal can be worked out on its terms. This should serve as a warning to foreign companies looking to do business in China. It would be wiser if they look elsewhere, say, India, where one the language of business is English; the tradition of the law has roots in the British common law; and three, India is a market economy.
So if there is noise in the Rio Tinto affair, it comes from Beijing. Caveat emptor!

General Walter Sharp brings his dog & pony show to the Korea Society

General Walter Sharp, wearing the heavy triple crown of Commander of the United Nations Command in Korea, Commander of the Combined Forces [US & South Korean]; and Commander of US Forces in the Republic of Korea updated security issues on the divided Korean peninsula, on 14 July 2009, before a goodly number at the Korea Society in New York City.
A brief word about the Korea Society. Its senior officers are drawn from old boys from say the CIA, the diplomatic corps, presidential advisors, or private foundations, and its junior staff are well vetted and come from good universities or former religious. Koreans do not hold top posts, but the society's advisory board counts among its members people from Wall Street, eminent professors, former civil servants or lawyers, either American, Korean, or Korean American. Funding comes, it is said, from private philanthropy, the US and South Korean governments, or from private US or Korean corporations. The Korea Society within slightly flexible parametres, represents the carrot to the US administration big stick on the matter of North Korea. It has good access to high ranking North Koreans; helped arrange the New York Philharmonic's concert when it played in Pyongyang in February 2008; it has sponsored North Korean students and scholars on numerous academic projects on American soil; in brief it has kept the door open to Kim Jong il's government during the worst of times. It holds business lunches and forums; send US students to South Korea; sponsors cultural events and has drawn writers from the American born Korean community. In a word, it serves a worthy purpose.
General Sharp stood straight and tall, shoulders squared, impeccably pressed and iron in his military uniform as he addressed the line of Japanese, Korean, and Korean American television cameras, and a packed room of those who came to listen to him. [Looking at the list of attendees, about 30 per cent represented the Japanese, Korean, or Korean American media outlets, and two reporters who cover the UN and east Asia. Five or six belonged to the Society's staff, and the rest came from the financial community, academia, Korea watchers, the South Korean and Chinese missions to the UN. Before the public meeting, the Society's president Evans Revere held a 'private session' with the General and his staff and the 'more important and influential members of the Korea Society. What they heard may not be what Guam Diary presents below, though].
General Sharp is a walking advertisement, wot, with a handsome face, a personable appearance, a strong authoritative voice. Were he not in the US military, he does perhaps belong in a senior management corporate post or even that of Chairman of the Board; he presents a manicured appearance, and sports a haircut which John Edwards might envy. The general is tough; a graduate of West Point [class of 1974], he cut his teeth in Armour, and knows the rigours of the battlefield; he has seen combat in Desert Shiled and Desert Storm; he commanded troops in Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti, and the Multinational troops in the war in Bosnia. He is no stranger to the Pentagon's bureaucracy where he held positions, and he has a degree in operations research and systems analysis. He earned medals of high order. In brief, facing the public, General Sharp exudes the manners of an indulgent parent or wise and knowing clergyman.
Saying this, the general kept his words to a minimum, with the inescapable point that he was a commander with 3 commands; that he had come to assure us that the US and South Korean alliance is strengthening day by day; and finally that he is trying to improve the life and quality of service of US military personnel, Department of Defence civilians, and family members living in Korea. Then he threw the floor open to questions.
Guam Diary will consider some. The general was not surprised by any. He was talking to a friendly gathering, after all. A Korean captain serving on the UN raised the matter of the lack of any budget for the UN Mission to properly do its work in Korea. General Sharp dismissed the comment out of hand; for to address it properly would raise the fundamental Faustian bargain that the UN voted in July 1950 early in the Korean War. The UN agreed to allow the US represent the UN under the leadership of General Douglas MacArthur, but, and here's the rub, the international body would have no say to anything nor receive any monies or form to function independently.
General Sharp never missed an opportunity to brand as 'irrational', 'illogical', wild eyed behaviour of North Korea and its leadership. They are a menace to peace in Korea, trigger happy and heady in the pursuit of testing and building nuclear weapons, and launching into advanced intercontinental missile capable of carrying atomic warheads. Yet, he did not go so far as to say that Pyongyang was threatening the Hawaiian Islands. Let's look at his answers when pressed on the growing strength and potential of threat of North Korea's materiel and conventional forces. The answer was a crisp. None. But the general went back to his manta about we're facing an irrational foe in Pyongyang.
A question of reports that North Korea's second 'nuclear' test on 26 May emitted no traceable atomic fallout, the smooth talking general took cover under the useful this touches on intelligence sources which as you understand, I cannot talk about. Fair enough! But had Ge neral Sharp or his staff had the curiosity to 'research' the question, he would have found an answer in a recent issue of 'Science' by Daniel Clery. In brief, an explosion was detected by geologic and nuclear monitors worldwide but over 200 atmospheric sensor stations in the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organisation found 'no measurable spike in artificial radioactive elements in the atmosphere globally, and not even in South Korea. No one at the meeting knew that, and the General may kiss but he won't tell.
He sidestepped the question of Kim Jong il's tearing up the 1953 Armistice Accord, by saying the US doesn't acknowledge Mr. Kim's actions, and that as Commander of the UN Forces, he monitors any violations of the accord. He dusted off that question and its implication that a torn up accord puts the frozen Korean War on to a potentially hot war track, with a repeated, 'we monitor any violations of the accord'. Not only that, he added that this not the first time the North tore iat up, but refused to give details.
On the question of Kim Jong il's alledged pancreatic cancer, the general wisely gave the sensible answer that he simply did not know.
On the question of joint military US ROK exercises, he reported that as in the past, they will continue on an agreed upon schedule, even though the questioner opined that mightn't a suspension of these exercises break the stand off between Washington and Pyongyang. No follow up on that point, however.
On the question of the general's budget for his triple command, he replied that he couldn't offer a comment. A standard reply. Had the questioner looked at the DOD's budget, he, too, mightn't find a detailed breakdown.
Interspersed among these points, were the usual chocolate eclaire questions which allowed General Sharp to again and again repeat the warning on how dangerous Kim Jong il & co. were.
On the matter of the outbreak war on the Korean peninsula, how would the general deal with the flood of refugees streaming across the 38 parallel. Mercifully, the general had no comment to make.
Overall, if one sifted through General Sharp's comments a useful nugget of information could be found. But not much. He came to deliver a message, which anyone could read in the morning newspapers, hear on the radio or the television. The message was: given the current state of affairs on the divided Korean peninsula, Pyongyang is to be treated with hostility, subjected to political boycott, and economic blockade. Of course, the general didn't use these very words, but they bear the complete sense of his remarks at the Korea Society; he spoke 'reasonably' but his intentions were none the less hardline and clear. He was ready for any military action if and when the time came.
Ultimately, the Obama administration has raised the Bush approach to North Korea to a higher level of tension. In a way, President Obama's Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State Robert Gates, and National Security pooh bah General James Jones have breathed life into a 59 year old Truman doctrine heavily dipped in General MacArthur's wild dreams.
After 45 minutes of questioning, the General present Korea Society president Evans Revere a plaque from his command. The audience applauded appropriately. The meeting ended.

Historical Quick Quiz Who supported the Turkman's right to self determination? Answer the Chinese Communist Party

For history searchers, the uprising in China's Xinjiang province demands a big why?
The Chinese Communist Party [CCP] during the post world war 2 civil war against Chiang Kai chek's Kuomintong, won over the Turkmen to the its side, with the promise of the right of the Turkmen majority in Xiajiang to determine their own destiny. After liberation in 1959, Xinjiang [New Frontier]gained a yellow star in the new Chinese flag, and dubbed 'an autonomous region'. Until the last 20 years, the Han [Chinese] population there remained in single digits. With the acceleration, modernisation, and turning the Socialist economy on to the capitalism road, Xinjiang became a magnet for a steady stream of poor Han immigrants. Today, they represent almost 50 per cent of the population; dominate commerce and government; Mandarin is fast replacing the Turkic based local language as a medium of instruction and government and commerce. Xinjiang is very much a wild frontier for the Chinese since its vast mineral wealth will feed the CCP's engines of growth. By this long winded, potted introduction, when do we get to the Turkmen's right to self determination? The Leninist definition does not square neatly with the outside world's concept of 'right to self determination'. Once in the CCP's grip, renamed Xinjiang [formerly East Turkmenistan]marched in lock step with the rebuilding of China according to Marxist Leninist and later Mao Tse tung principles. In brief, the party ruled; the Congress of People rubber stamped decisions and policies; the army put down unrest.
Any challenge to central authority received an iron fist in return. Well what did the Turkmen receive for the gold star on the flag. For one, no restriction on the number of children a Turkmen family could have. In a world of hundreds of millions of Han, the Turkmen along with the other 54 minorities represent hardly 8 per cent of the population. In health, education, infrastructure improvements, but not in the right to practise Islam nor to preserve national identity or language or customs was channeled into very narrow streams. More, as the Han immigrants came to dominate the economic and cultural life of Xinjiang, the Turkmen or Uyghirs became a source of cheap labour for the factories in southern China. There they met with outright discrimination and the cold face of 'great Han chauvinsim'. As the world has learnt the riots in Xinjiang began as a reaction to the posse like killing of two Uyghirs in Guandong, alledgedly for raping a Chinese woman. Which they did not do. This example of mob justice found a seismic reaction in Xinjiang resulting in the killing of Han and Turkmen alike. Protest lanced the boil of ethnic hurt and discrimination and the feeling more and more, which reality bears out, that Turkmen or Uyghirs were becoming strangers in their own land. But protest and incidents of armed struggle are not new to Xinjiang.The recent release of wrongly imprisoned Uyghirs on Guantanamo for 7 years, has slightly raised the veil of Chinese policies and repression in Xinjiang.
Beijing sees the cause of unrest and challenge to its authority coming from the outside, in the person of Rabiya Kadeer, now residing in America. Unlike good Marxist Leninists, Beijing judges the book by its cover, sweeping under the carpet the true causes of Uyghir revolt and unrest. Consider Rabiya Kadeer herself. Once a shining example of the good Turkmen that the CCP educated and model party member and leader. She followed her marching orders; she proved a good model for a minority entrepreneur who seized gladly on capitalist economic principles; she was a model mother with 11 children. She had everything going for her if she played the CCP's game. Well, she did up to a point, and then like Saul on the road to Damascus, she got 'religion'; she espoused the cause of her people; she was imprisoned, then exiled to the US where she keeps or tries to keep the Ugyhirs case front and centre in the court of public opinion. And for this, she's called her people's 'dalai lama' as a symbol that the Turkmen's national aspiration aren't dead nor forgotten.
It is doubtful had the Eastern Turkmenistan had rejected the CCP's call, it could've survived long the assaults of the People's Army. Soviet Russia which had created Turkmenistan wouldn't not have stepped in, the more especially since the Communist victory in China predicated against this.
So although the CCP under the leadership of Mao Tze tung promised the Uyghirs much, they got a mess of potage in return. But the CCP simply accelerated the trend in China's long history to 'civilise' the barbarians through sinification and marginalisation. And alas short of the CCP's collapse the Ugyhirs will get less than the CCP promised.

Put the blame on Pyongyang! Not! Read the KCC findings!

Cyber terrorist attacks on 4 July, US independence, on computers in the US and South Korea put the blame on Pyongyang. Those nasty, crafty Koreans in the DPRK, were up to their old black arts of mischief once again. The global news wires picked up this spicey bit of hanky panky, and broadcast it in print, on the radio, on television, and the bloggers had a field day in pinning the donkey tail of blame on North Korea. Certainly government circles in South Korea did not miss an opportunity to darken the role of the DPRK as cyber terrorists. For South Korean politicos and military anything untoward happening in Seoul had to had its source in the North, the more especially since the government of Lee Myung bak had launched a hostile policy against the North by burying for good the 'Sunshine Policy' of opening to Pyongyang, since the South Korean president took the reins of government in 2008.
As quickly as the news went around the world, and as widely the media picked it up chastising North Korea for gaily playing with the minds of South Korea's and the US' strategic websites, the brouhaha died down suddenly.
And the sharp barbs in the press against Pyongyang burst like soap bubbles in the sun mysteriously. Although South Korean computer software companies freely offered programmes to thwart future attacks from the North, a small item appeared in the prestigious NYT and in South Korea emanating from the Korea Communications Commission [South Korea]. The KCC findings found that sites in Germany, Austria, Georgia, the US, and South Korea hobbled government websites in South Korea and the US. North Korea was nowhere on the list!
Now there is such a thing as 'loop back' from a mother computer, but the KCC's report doesn't trace it to Pyongyang. Yet a mystery remains but one which raises more questions than it answers. All countries named besides the US, are America's allies. So it is questionable that Georgia which Washington wants in NATO would sanction North Korean designs. Well what about Austria, perhaps, but the report remains silent on a country which has long had a North Korean presence. And Germany, here, too, the charge remains without answer. Surely it is reasonable to question South Korea and US motives in the light of sharp tensions between Seoul and Pyongyang, and Pyongyang and Washington.
The footprint on 4 July for the US has a history of hackers within the 50 American states, usually prankster who enjoy a thrill or two on playing jokes. As for Seoul, well, it is not unusual for South Korea to pull a fast one by playing with its own computers to 'sock it to the DPRK', for obvious geopolitical motives.
Which makes Guam Diary look to the case of reasonable doubt that North Korea is the origin of this flare up in cyber terrorism. Seoul and Washington remain strangely voiceless after the publication of the KCC report.

Malaysia looks backwards

Reactionary Malay nationalism has once more looked backwards. It has quashed completely the programme that the dour former prime minister Mahathir Mohammed started to restore the use of English in the teaching of math and sciences. The ruling United Malayasian National Organisation [UNMO] in instituting a New Economic Policy [NEP] after the Malay inspired racial riots of 1969; the NEP fostered a policy of mild apartheid which favoured ethnic Malays in language, the economy, propetry, so on and on over the interests of the Chinese, Indian, and other minority groups. It favoured the 'bumiputra' [sons of the soil], that is the Malay. It set to supplement the medium of instruction which was English by the use of Malay, thereby isolating Malays in particular with a language which they could and would open them to the broader, outside world. Thus a cottage industry of publishing opened up for the Malays. The NEP took a big bite into local non Malay and foreign investment by legally requiring ownership to be 51 per cent Malayasian, thereby opening wide the door to croneyism and widespread corruption. Usually the Malays fronted for the Chinese entrepreneur or the Indian with business smarts. Thanks to its oil and cheap labour, especially under Mahatir's long, iron fisted rule, the country prospered up to a certain point. Rapid changes in technology pointed to liability of depending on Malay since even with the rise of a Malay middle class the Muslim elite had to educate children of theirs in English and with the generous hand of the rate payers who were not Muslim but who were denied the very same advantages. After the Asian economic crisis of 1998 things began unraveling economically and politically for the UNMO and the umbrella group it commanded in government known as 'Barisan Nasional' [BS or United Front]. Mahatir jailed his heir apparent Anwar Ibrahim on dubious charges; he encouraged the weakening of non religious orientated parties, and played dangerously with the flames of Islamic fundamentalism at the expense of the more tolerant Malay Islam. Yet Mahathir suddenly began to realise that the educated pool from which the Malay elite could draw on lacked the language skills to compete in a global economy. He therefore instituted the teaching of sciences and math in English; this was not without a mood of unrest among the dyed in the wool Malay nationalists. But for the moment they could do little to thwart it. In the meanwhile the UNMO was having its own troubles which the NEP encouraged, wot, with corruption, sex scandals, alleged sex crimes, and a more unloosening of a traditional rural society brought about by globalisation and a certain degree of rising expectations of an urban Malay bourgeoisie. And then the political spectrum widened allowing the once disgraced Anwar Ibrahim and the growing and more vocal Indian and Chinese who laboured under 40 years of outright racial and religious discrimination. UNMO lost its majority in parliament and key hold on some of more important Malay states. This crisis of authority brought change in government by bringing Najib Razak to the premiership. [Razak's father helped engineer the 'bumiputra' coup of 1969 and according to recent documentation had a hand in encouraging Malay thugs to attack Chinese which occasioned the riots.] In order to restore control of the Malays' hand in a half century of unbroken rule, Najib liberalised terms of foreign investment, by allowing the foreign entity to hold 70 per cent in ownership, in order to jump start a sagging economy. Yet 30 per cent Malay participation kept corruption in command albeit in a more limited field. Still he couldn't quiet the voice of Malay reactionaries who hated the re introduction into education of English, although on a limited scale, but a scale which would open the world to a very dulled average Malay mind lulled by prayers 5 times a day and a traditional way of life, one which wouldn't challenge the status quo and the power of the Muslim elite. Najib couldn't save the use of English. A powerful argument in re enforcing the use of Malay in education was to modernise it and improve its sophistication as a language. Well if that couldn't be done in 40 years, how long is it going to take it? Better not ask... As for the sophistication of Malay compare it to Indonesian Malay which is a more refined and modern language. Malaysians can understand Indonesian Malay but Indonesians find Malaysian Malay a poor language. So the suppression of English is but a cover for the reactionary to bolster a fortress mentality which in the medium run will collapse on its own backwardness.
Chinese and Indian do learn English; some better than others. Even the most incurious Malay may have a flash of insight, realising that without English children of his will always be held back, in spite of the apartheid system favouring him.

Did Joe Biden really trip over his words on Iran?

US vice president Joe Biden is notorious for speaking out of turn. His latest mishap occurred in Israel. There, he gave us to understand that the US wouldn't stay Israeli's Netenyahu's government's
if Jerusalem thought its security threatened by Iran by bombing Tehran's underground nuclear facilities. Immediately president Barack Obama [BHO] riposted by saying the US won't give Israel the green light. His predecessor George W Bush, more hawkish than BHO, put a damper on Israel's ardour, too, if anyone has forgotten it.
Nevertheless, it is reasonable to suggest that Biden didn't commit another gaff. BHO took a reasonable approach to the brouhaha in the aftermath of Iranian elections, with its 'blitzkrieg' results handing a questioned victory to the incumbent, president Mahmoud Ahmadi Nejad. BHO risked the wrath of crumbling Republican party and some within his own party's ranks, who thought him soft. The US president plays a good game of poker so his responses to the turmoil in post elections Iran was measured and graduated according to the events on the ground. Which proved his instincts were on the money.
Saying this, of late, an impatient tone has crept into the White House's language on Iran. Although Tehran may want to engage Washington, it is going to proceed on its own terms and at its own pace.
BHO had shaped his opening to Iran by saying he was extending an opening hand not a closed fist. His flat hand has not been readily seized by Tehran yet. Hence the growing impatience and edgy words. Now into this atmosphere comes the report of Biden's comments. It is a veiled warning that Iran would be better where it to enter into direct talks with the US than suffer the 'existential threat' of war with Israel.

Studied boredom in Moscow

US president Barack Obama [BHO] didn't wow them in Moscow. It is questionable if he thought that he would. Russia wants to deal with the US, though. Although Moscow is allowing Washington rights to fly military aeroplanes bound for Afghanistan through its air space, it sees in the defeat of the Taliban a score that it has to settle for its humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan, and on the other hand, the resurgence of a reinvigorated Taliban is a threat to Russia's vital interests in Central Asia. Furthermore, it is not quite overjoyed that the Americans have gained a toehold in a geography that it sees as its own. Still, let the Yanks bleed and die in that life and death struggle with Mollah Omar & co.
Russia like the US wants an extension of the nuclear ban treaty, which HBO modestly agreed to.
Nevertheless, what is sticking in the maw of the Russians is the US president playing with their heads. The American president picking up on a dropped Bush stitch has not abandoned the idea of stationing US missiles in Poland, near Russia's own borders, and what's more seems intent in seemingly extending NATO membership to the Ukraine and Georgia. So, little wonder, the Russian authorities see Washington's goal is encirclement. A fearful and threatened Russia is a cause of great concern in Europe and Asia in the longer run.
Hence for the moment the Russians will play along with BHO in a restricted sense. BHO should treat Russia with a respect inherent in the fact that Moscow is a nuclear powerhouse with thousands of missiles and warheads, and on a par with Washington's stockpiles.
BHO did lecture the Russian leaders on a country's right to do as it pleases to protect itself, but does he realise that his words cut two ways? BHO's entourage is dotted with a phalanx of Cold Warriors who wouldn't like anything better than to revive the cold war.
Times have changed, however. Little wonder Russia's president Dmitri Medvedev and prime minister Vladimir Putin seem sullen in photo op's with BHO.

North Korea sends the US navy on a wild goose chase

The DPRK's [Democratic People's Republic of Korea aka North Korea] vessel 'Kang Nam 1' left port hardly a fortnight ago, allegedly steaming towards Myunmar. Hot on its heels was the US John McCain, itching to board the ship in a foreign port, armed with UN Resolution 1758. Aboard 'Kang Nam 1', the US allegedly fancied high tech wizardry in nuclear technology or advanced rocketry. It furthermore was hellbent on catching North Korea in flagrante delecto'. Pyongyang simply refused to play Washington's game of 'do or dare' or 'touch tag'. Its vessel plied the waves of international waters, and the American battleship followed. Then suddenly the wheel turned homeward towards the DPRK, opening the ship's bowels for the East China Sea, thereby re entering North Korean waters where the Obama administration's navy couldn't go. The more brazen critics will proudly beat chests proclaiming that the US put the 'fear of god' into the North Koreans, perhaps boasting that the DPRK was shaking in its boots, not wanting to confront the world's remaining superpower. But such bravado misreads Pyongyang's track record in dealing with Washington. Mr. Obama may have 'dotted the i's and crossed the t's' on his Korea policy, but Pyongyang doesn't see it that way. In fact, it is equally logical to posit that the DPRK was stringing the US along. It sent the US navy on a wild goose chase, and it worked. Endless man hours spent without the merest results, shrouding over again in 'mystery' Pyongyang's intentions. Which are neither opaque nor unreadable if the Mr. Obama and his Korea team ever found the right glasses to read them

Jane Hodes -- Goldman Sachs little hidden Red secret

Every now and then out of the bowels of America's finance capitalism emerges an offspring who will use the advantages and privileges of capitalism to fight to radically reform it or even overthrow it for a democratic socialist or yes a communist society. The name of Corliss Lamont comes to mind; scion of JP Morgan's Thomas Lamont, the son used his wealth and influence to oppose and counter the intemperies of an unbridled economic hellbent on war in Vietnam for example, for the denial of the rights of the ordinary man regardless of colour, caste, or clashos; and who fought to preserve the right of citizens to speak their minds as a right in the US constitutions First Amendment.
But Jane Hodes? Who was she? An obituary in the Communist Party [USA]'s 'People's Weekly World' informs us. Hodes died in June 2009 in Oakland, California, at 90. But what has she to do with the mighty Goldman Sachs empire? Born Jane Sachs, he father Walter Sachs headed Goldman Sachs. GS doesn't advertise the fact that Walter Sachs was a founder of the NAACP [National Association of the Advancement of Coloured People], now celebrating its 100 anniversary. Jane grew up in a liberal spirited house, went to the top private schools, and graduate from Harvard's sister school Radcliffe. At the university she became involved with the American Youth Congress and wrote her honours thesis on 'The Soviet Union in the League of Nations'. At Columbia's Teachers College she earned a Master's in Education. She was what is euphemistically called a 'progressive', meaning someone opened to radical ideas, or at worst a crypto Communist or even shudders! a card carrying member of the CP. Her teaching career ended abruptly at Tulance owing to the McCarthy witch hunt. After she and her husband and children lived in China for 5 years. There, she edited English language publications, broadcast programmes in English, and taught it.
In 1959 she returned to America, working for the CP's publishing arm, International Publications. Widowed she married Aaron Cohen, a CP organiser and labour activist. She and Cohen established the Niebyl Proctor Marixist Library for Social Research in Oakland in 1987.
Such in brief was her life. Born to the manor, she used her upbringing and wealth for progressive goals. Unlike Goldman Sachs who like the other bridge banks brought the world to the edge of a global financial meltdown in toxic assets and which continues its rush to feather its the nest of finance capitalism, Joan Hodes nee Sachs is the paradox of this greed and gargantuan appetite of capitalism: one destined to the life of the rich and famous, who nevertheless spurned her 'birthright'to fight for the wretched of the earth. Rest in peace, unsung heronie!