US Foreign Policy

Water of Life

This entry was posted in Astronomy Technology US Foreign Policy on by

On Mars:

The Mars rover Opportunity has discovered powerful evidence that water once “drenched” the surface of Mars and made the planet habitable for life at some unknown time in the distant past, NASA scientists said Tuesday.

This is very cool stuff.
On the other hand, we are, perhaps, lucky Mars is not currently suspected of supporting life. Or we might be dealing with this:

Why take chances?
Life, if found on Mars,
Might evolve and threaten Earth:
Launch pre-emptive strikes!

Update (3/2): There is a lot of good info on what the water announcement really means here. Via Electolite.

perle jumps ship

This entry was posted in bush Domestic Terrorism Federal Government US Foreign Policy War on Terrorism on by

This just in from Doug at georgemustgo:

Shorter Richard Perle*: “I just wrote a book that says we should invade Syria, Iran, and Libya, and given that the unadulterated 100-percent bat-shit-craziness of these ideas may hurt the President’s re-election campaign by association, it’s probably best if I hang back for a while.”
Richard Perle, stepping into the strike zone and taking one for the team. A prince among men.

Hmmm, is perle more dangerous inside or outside the administration?
Via Sadly, No!.

bush demonstrates support of democracy

This entry was posted in bush Democracy US Foreign Policy on by

Well, not really. Aristide may not be everyone’s favorite elected leader but it will be interesting to learn the full story of why the bush administration drove him out of office.
Maxspeak quotes Jeffrey Sachs from the Financial Times (go read the rest):

The crisis in Haiti is another case of brazen US manipulation of a small, impoverished country with the truth unexplored by journalists. In the nearly universal media line on the Haitian revolt, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was portrayed as an undemocratic leader who betrayed Haiti’s democratic hopes and thereby lost the support of his erstwhile backers. He “stole” elections and intransigently refused to address opposition concerns. As a result he had to leave office, which he did at the insistence of the US and France. Unfortunately, this is a gravely distorted view.

And Joe at American Leftist reports that Aristides’ resignation was actually a ‘kidnap’ carried out by Americans.
If these allegations hold up it should make us all wonder just what bush means when he talks about democracy.
Update (a few minutes later): More here and here.

Protecting the US

This entry was posted in US Foreign Policy on by

Norbizness has pictures of these evil doers:

Five Cuban acts nominated for Grammy Awards, including Ibrahim Ferrer of the Buena Vista Social Club, have been denied U.S. visas needed to attend Sunday’s ceremony in Los Angeles, a top Culture Ministry official said Thursday.

And as usual with this opaque administration:

Officials at the American mission declined to comment on the case, citing confidentiality rules.

And my usual note: in a free country this type of confidentiality is unacceptable.

Who is Lying?

This entry was posted in bush Iraq US Foreign Policy on by

Mark Kleiman considers part of Tenet’s testimony:

But that’s separate from the question of whether the President deceived the American people about the nuclear threat from Iraq. The Director of Central Intelligence just told us, unemphatically but also unequivocally, that he did.
The least you can say about this is that it can’t be right for Bush and Tenet each to keep his job. If Tenet is lying, he should be fired. If Tenet is telling the truth, Bush should be replaced.

This isn’t quite the spin I heard on talk radio today while I spent a few hours on the local freeways. They seemed to be able to only find parts of the testimony that painted bush positive.