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South Africa's BetrayalPostapartheid Pretoria has become the free world's leading coddler of dictators.BY JAMES KIRCHICKWednesday, August 8, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDTLast September, not long after the Israeli-Hezbollah war, South Africa's minister of intelligence, Ronnie Kasrils, praised the Islamist group committed to Israel's destruction. The Iran News Agency, albeit prone to exaggeration, reported that Mr. Kasrils "lauded [the] great victories of the Lebanese Hezbollah against the Zionist forces" and "stressed that the successful Lebanese resistance proved the vulnerability of the Israeli army." The comment received no attention in the South African media; nor, for that matter, did the international press seem particularly interested. And yet, the scandalous comment occurred immediately after the South African government had warmly received the visiting Iranian foreign minister and expressed support for Iran's campaign for uranium enrichment--in spite of the passing of a United Nations Security Council deadline that same week regarding the suspension of Iran's nuclear program.This stance toward Iran is cause for concern on its own. Unfortunately, it is also illustrative of a much broader and more chilling trend in South Africa's postapartheid foreign policy: one that cozies up to tyrants, and is increasingly orientated against the West--even at the cost of its self-proclaimed principles of human rights and political freedom.Postapartheid South Africa's easy relationship with dictatorships, it should be noted, is not a new development. Until very recently, however, it has largely been overlooked by the media. This oversight is likely due to the fact that, much like its out-of-control crime rate, any bad news about South Africa is viewed as a blemish on the popular and self-comforting narrative surrounding the country's emergence from apartheid. Indeed, that a country scarred by so many years of violent racial segregation could transform itself into a fully functioning democracy with a robust economy while simultaneously avoiding the wide-scale racial bloodbath feared by many is nothing short of miraculous. But judging by its international relations, South Africa--by far the most politically stable, economically productive and militarily powerful country in sub-Saharan Africa--appears to be moving into the camp of the anti-Western powers, a loose but increasingly worrisome consortium not unlike the Cold War-era Non-Aligned Movement. Drawing heavily upon its history as a liberation movement, the African National Congress cloaks itself in a shroud of moral absolutism that not so subtly implicates its critics as racists, Western stooges, or apologists for apartheid.In a 1993 article written for Foreign Affairs on the eve of his country's transfer of power, Nelson Mandela declared that "South Africa's future foreign relations will be based on our belief that human rights should be the core of international relations." Mr. Mandela had good reason to attempt an improvement of his country's international image: South Africa's apartheid government was the cause of much instability in the region, involved as it was in international terrorism against antiapartheid leaders and cross-border raids in a number of black "frontline states."With the transition of power, then, many hoped that South Africa would prove to be a beacon of good governance and responsible leadership for the rest of Africa. Unfortunately, not long after he was released from prison, Mr. Mandela himself began cavorting with the likes of Fidel Castro ("Long live Comrade Fidel Castro!" he said at a 1991 rally in Havana), Moammar Gadhafi (whom he visited in 1997 in defiance of American objections, greeting the Libyan dictator as "my brother leader") and Yasser Arafat ("a comrade in arms"). Mr. Mandela felt affection toward these men because they supported the ANC in exile. But he seemed unperturbed by the fact that Cuba, Libya and the PLO all employed terrorist tactics and treated their critics much as the apartheid state had.That Mr. Mandela has comported himself so comfortably with dictators is more than hypocritical--it is a betrayal of the principles for which he languished twenty-seven years in prison. Yet while Mr. Mandela's grandstanding with tyrants is regrettable, it has been far less serious than his ANC successors' strategic and systematic support for a broadly anti-Western agenda.Perhaps the best example of the ANC's betrayal of the cause of human rights is in its dealings with its immediate neighbor to the north, Zimbabwe. Since he initiated a policy of violent confiscation of white-owned farms in 2000, President Robert Mugabe has presided over what might arguably be the most abysmal degeneration of a modern nation-state. Once the "jewel of Africa," a relatively affluent country that boasted high life expectancies, abundant food exports and the continent's highest literacy rates, Zimbabwe may now lay claim to one of the lowest life expectancy rates in the world, mass starvation and a politically oppressed citizenry.Four years ago, as the country entered free fall, President Bush referred to South African President Thabo Mbeki as his "point man" on Zimbabwe. And in March of this year, the African Union once again reaffirmed its support for Mr. Mbeki as a peacebroker. But the ANC government has failed to deliver on the responsibility with which the world has entrusted it. Primarily because Mugabe was a liberation hero who fought against white colonialism, the ANC has been reluctant to take any action that might alleviate the brutality of his rule, never mind dislodge the tyrant from power. Indeed, South Africa is worse than inactive on Zimbabwe: It props up Mugabe via a formal military alliance, and does its diplomatic best to keep Zimbabwe off the international agenda.In March, Tony Leon, then the leader of South Africa's Democratic Alliance (the country's leading opposition party), invoked the repression of the apartheid years to make clear just how aberrant his country's policy on Zimbabwe has become. He went so far as to call South Africa's relationship with Zimbabwe "an insult to the Sharpeville victims," the 69 black civilians who were killed by the state's security forces at an antiapartheid rally in 1960, an act that sparked the ANC's armed campaign against white rule. Considering the conditions in Mugabe's Zimbabwe (where democracy activists are imprisoned, tortured and killed, opposition rallies are banned, and the free media are largely silenced), the comparison to apartheid-era South Africa is hardly hyperbolic.South Africa's newfound presence on the U.N. Security Council (it took up a two-year, nonpermanent seat in January) has placed its troublesome foreign policy in stark relief. One of the strongest proponents of Security Council reform via an expanded number of veto powers, South Africa assumed its seat with the hope of stirring things up and providing a voice for both the underdeveloped and developing world. With its proximity to and influence over Zimbabwe, South Africa might have seized the opportunity its position on the Security Council offered to earn international respect by drawing attention to its neighbor's ill-doings. Indeed, Mugabe could not have offered a more convenient reason for South Africa's condemnation: In March, he cracked down on his opponents by violently suppressing a public prayer meeting, and government agents cracked the skull of the country's opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai.Yet South Africa's ambassador to the U.N. repeatedly stated his government's belief that Zimbabwe is a local problem best left for Mugabe and his opposition to deal with among themselves. So, too, did South Africa oppose attempts to bring the issue before the United Nations, choosing to go the route of "silent diplomacy" instead. Yet this policy, partly inspired by South African President Mbeki's genuine fear of Mugabe, a man with far stronger anticolonial liberation credentials than he, has been an unqualified failure from the beginning.South Africa has balked at the chance to champion human rights at the U.N. in other instances, as well, lest it be seen as siding with Western forces. For instance, the first significant vote placed before the Security Council this year dealt with a nonbinding resolution regarding the military junta in Burma. The resolution called for the release of all political prisoners, a process of national reconciliation (one, it should be noted, not unlike South Africa's) and an end to human-rights abuses. South Africa, along with Russia and its crucial trading partner, China (whose neoimperialism in Africa has been extensively documented), voted against the resolution's acceptance--which, ironically, called for far less stringent measures than what the ANC itself demanded the world invoke against the apartheid regime. Even Archbishop Desmond Tutu admitted that the Burma vote was "a betrayal of our own noble past." Yet South Africa was content to recommend that Burma be referred to the Human Rights Council, a kangaroo court at which the world's villains pass judgment on Western democracies, and where such a resolution would garner little attention.The ANC has also made important entrées with the Arab and Muslim bloc by striking a defiantly anti-American pose. The ANC government opposed sanctions on Saddam Hussein's Iraq, for example, and even questioned the legality of the American- and British-enforced no-fly zones, which protected the Kurds and Marsh Arabs from certain genocide. In the run-up to the Iraq war, South African Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad (who earlier this year claimed that the United States was responsible for a "volatile, dangerous and unpredictable environment" in world affairs) met with Saddam in Baghdad to deliver a letter from President Mbeki that "expressed [Mr. Mbeki's] solidarity with Iraq."Other ranking members of the ANC have expressed similarly bizarre, anti-Western views. Just before the war began, the secretary general of the ANC told antiwar protesters that "because we are endowed with several rich minerals, if we don't stop this unilateral action against Iraq today, tomorrow they will come for us." A year prior, the Guardian quoted the country's health minister (who has suggested that AIDS sufferers eat beetroot and garlic to treat themselves) as saying that South Africa cannot afford drugs to fight HIV/AIDS partly because it needs submarines to deter attacks from nations such as the United States (she later denied ever making the statement).The ANC (due to South Africa's appalling lack of political finance regulations) has accepted millions of dollars in donations from foreign governments and officials including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, former Indonesian strongman Suharto and the viciously anti-Semitic Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed of Malaysia. Perhaps wary of how such an act would be received by its steadily increasing Muslim population, South Africa also decided not to co-sponsor the U.N. General Assembly resolution on Holocaust denial in January, and has joined in the chorus of those nations calling for the United States and the European Union to lift their sanctions on the Hamas-led Palestinian government.Though South Africa's Muslim community is small (just 1.5% of the population), it has become increasingly radicalized, and the ANC has done everything to appease it. In June of 2003, Mr. Pahad met with representatives of Hezbollah and legitimized the group by stating that "clear distinctions" ought be made "between terrorism and legitimate struggle for liberation." The ANC often lends credence to terrorism against Israel by likening the struggle of the Arabs to that of South Africa's nonwhites. Three years ago, Pakistani police captured three South Africans who stand accused of plotting to blow up the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and government buildings in Pretoria. Another South African has been arrested in connection to the July 7, 2005, London transit bombings, and earlier this year, the U.S. Treasury named two South African cousins as substantial financial contributors to al Qaeda. While the American government blocked them from making financial transactions in the U.S., South Africa's foreign minister attempted to use his country's new seat on the Security Council to block the terrorist-sponsoring designation from taking effect. And to top this all off, the ANC called for South Africans to "turn out in their thousands" the week of June 4 "in solidarity with the Palestinian people."Ultimately, however, what ought to matter most to the international community is South Africa's increasingly outspoken role in legitimizing Iranian nuclear ambitions. And the U.S. has indeed shown concern: In response to the Iranian foreign minister's visit to South Africa last August (when South Africa again declared that Iran has an "inalienable right" to a peaceful nuclear energy program) the United States sent its permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency to Pretoria in hopes of convincing South Africa to take a harder line.Given the complicated nature of South African-American relations due to the latter's inaction (and, at times, obstruction) in bringing down apartheid, it was understandable that Ambassador Gregory Schulte would attempt to win the South Africans over with flattery: "South Africa's example and leadership position you to help Iran's leaders to think hard about Iran's future and to consider two different models: The first, North Korea--nuclear-armed, but impoverished, isolated, insignificant; the second, South Africa--nuclear weapons-free, but secure, dynamic, and a respected player in your region and the world. The choice should be clear. You can help Iran's leaders make the right one." Nevertheless, South Africa has remained credulous of Iranian protestations about the supposedly civilian purpose of its nuclear program. Indeed, its representative to the U.N. recently told South Africa's Sunday Times that "We will . . . defend the right of countries to have nuclear technology for peaceful uses. For instance, Iran."South Africa's friendliness toward Iran has apparently increased in proportion to its emergence as a considerable player on the world stage. In March, serving in its temporary role as Security Council president, South Africa attempted to halt the imposition of a new round of sanctions on Iran for its defiance of IAEA mandates. The sanctions, proposed by the unusual alliance of the United States, China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany, instituted an arms embargo and asset freeze--both of which South Africa fought to remove from the resolution, and, barring that, to postpone until after a 90-day "time out" period. Although the Security Council's five veto powers overruled South Africa's attempts at watering down the resolution, France's U.N. ambassador told the Associated Press that South Africa's diplomatic maneuvering had nonetheless "weakened a lot of the resolution."That South Africa would support Iran is partly a matter of oil politics: Iran supplies almost half the oil South Africa uses. Two years ago, the Iranians claimed that they had entered into talks with South Africa about the latter's supplying them with unprocessed uranium for enrichment purposes, a claim the South African government later denied. But South African sympathy for Iran clearly goes deeper than mere trade links. For instance, South Africa has recently found itself in a situation similar to Iran's as it debates whether or not to proceed once again with a uranium enrichment program for "peaceful purposes." Perhaps, then, the South Africans believe they will be labeled hypocrites for demanding greater scrutiny of Iranian activity while simultaneously sponsoring an enrichment program of their own.Yet the issue with Iran, at least, has never been uranium enrichment per se. Rather, it has been transparency and intent. No one seriously believes that South Africa's motives in potential uranium enrichment would be nefarious, and that South Africa--for the most part a good international citizen--would hinder any sort of outside inspection effort of its facilities. The same can hardly be said of Iran. As the Johannesburg Star recently advised the South African government, "Sometimes you have to get off the fence and take sides." When it comes to Iran, a democratic country like South Africa ought to know which side to take.Increasingly an influential force behind South Africa's power plays in the world arena is Ronnie Kasrils, the country's minister of intelligence and possibly the highest-ranking Jewish official in any government outside of Israel. A veteran of the antiapartheid struggle, Mr. Kasrils fled the country at the cusp of 25 and spent the next 27 years in exile as a leader of the ANC's military wing. Though the vast majority of South African Jews--safely ensconced within that country's privileged white community--did little to fight apartheid, Mr. Kasrils was one of the Jews who, in disproportionate numbers, took an active role in opposing the racist system (in addition to being one of the Jews who, also in disproportionate numbers, joined the Communist Party). Mr. Kasrils is also a vocal anti-Zionist and Israel's most outspoken critic in South Africa. He, like other high-ranking ANC figures, appears to believe that Iranian intentions are ultimately benign, and that Israel is in fact the major source of aggression and instability in the region. The prism of Mr. Kasrils's views on the Middle East provides the necessary context for understanding the ANC leadership's views on international affairs.In early September of this year, Mr. Kasrils wrote of Israel in the weekly Mail & Guardian that "we must call baby killers 'baby killers,' and declare that those using methods reminiscent of the Nazis be told that they are behaving like Nazis." This article was published mere days before Mr. Kasrils ventured to Tehran to glorify Hezbollah. A few months prior, Mr. Kasrils joined some 70 South African Jews in a statement published in several of the country's newspapers declaring that, "Jewish support for Israel aggression kills humanity." Not surprisingly, Mr. Kasrils supports boycotting the Jewish state, endorses a "one-state solution" that would spell the end of Israel as a Jewish state, and frequently lends credence to the "Israel is an apartheid state" meme.Mr. Kasrils's stance on Israel has become so egregious that Helen Suzman, a prominent secular Jew who served 36 years in Parliament as an opponent--sometimes the only one--of apartheid, has written that "it is not only religious Jews who object to Kasrils's allegations. The issue is the anti-Semitism fostered by Kasrils's pronouncements." In May of this year, Mr. Kasrils invited Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader and prime minister of the Palestinian National Authority, to South Africa. Of the invitation, the South African Board of Jewish Deputies released a statement reading: "Expressing support for an organization whose very founding charter describes the Jewish people as evil enemies of humanity and calls for its total annihilation, fundamentally contradicts the ideals both of South Africa and of the ruling ANC itself."Joel Pollak, currently a student at Harvard Law School and a former speechwriter for the opposition Democratic Alliance, is a knowledgeable observer of Mr. Kasrils, having written a master's thesis on his relations with South Africa's Jewish community, which currently numbers between 70,000 and 80,000. It is not, Mr. Pollak maintains, Mr. Kasrils's extreme views that most upset South African Jews, but rather the way in which Mr. Kasrils advances them. "Kasrils, unlike Tony Judt, has political power," he told me. He went on to explain that Mr. Kasrils's attacks on Israel--and South African Jews, as well, for their alleged complicity in Israeli "war crimes"--echo the not so subtle warnings issued to Jews in the early 1960s by Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, who cautioned that Jewish support for the antiapartheid Progressive Party might inspire a wave of government-sanctioned anti-Semitism.Though Mr. Pollak says there is no doubt that Mr. Kasrils believes the things he says about Israel (his unwavering communism, for instance, helps account for much of his anti-Zionist ideology), he has cynically used his Jewishness--a trait he rarely ever acknowledges, except when criticizing Israel--to curry favor within the ranks of the ANC, where anti-imperialism is still in vogue, however outdated. Mr. Kasrils "knows that because he's a white minister in an intensely racially nationalistic cabinet, he's very vulnerable," Mr. Pollak concludes. Thus, by so publicly going after his own relatively miniscule minority community of Jews, Mr. Kasrils proves his leftist, Third Worldist bona fides to the ANC elite. And if his rise in prominence within the party is any indication, the ANC certainly approves of Mr. Kasrils's frequent Israel-bashing: In 2004, he was appointed intelligence minister from his former post as minister of water affairs and forestry.Mr. Kasrils, characteristic of the South African communists who were catapulted into power while their ideological fatherland crumbled, is unrepentant about the Cold War. In his self-congratulatory memoir, "Armed and Dangerous," he writes, "Whatever the drawbacks and failures I am convinced that in years to come humanity will look back to Soviet achievements as a source of profound inspiration." He blames the defeat of the Soviet system on those in power who were affected by a "fatal loss of confidence and will" and he writes admiringly of Che Guevara and "other communist heroes."Many people might prefer to wave Mr. Kasrils off as a harmless crank from a bygone generation. But as minister of intelligence, Mr. Kasrils is instrumental in shaping South Africa's approach to dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat. As Mr. Pollak observes, "South Africa is now the only state in the democratic world aside from Venezuela, maybe, that is standing behind Iran on everything." So, too, is Mr. Kasrils integral to South Africa's treatment of the Zimbabwe problem: In the spring of 2005, not long after Mugabe uprooted 700,000 of the country's poorest citizens from their homes in a move reminiscent of apartheid governments' forced relocations of poor blacks to "independent homelands" in the barren countryside, Mr. Kasrils signed a military agreement with Zimbabwe, declaring that "the liberation struggles of Southern Africa and the resultant shedding of blood for a common cause . . . cemented our cooperation on the way forward in the development of our respective countries."The source of the ANC's kid-gloves treatment of totalitarians is undoubtedly its historic skepticism, even downright hostility, toward the West. This viewpoint solidified during the apartheid years, when it was the Soviet Union that supplied the ANC with weapons and issued diplomatic broadsides against the United States and Britain for their cozy relations with the apartheid regime. Today, the ANC rules South Africa not by itself, but as part of the fabled "tripartite alliance" that it legally formed with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP) in the early 1990s after these opposition movements were legalized by the apartheid government. Herein lies much of the problem. To its credit, the ANC's left wing has been its most insistent internal critic on Zimbabwe (largely because Mugabe has crushed his country's independent trade unions). Nonetheless, anachronistic "anti-imperialist" ideology still fills the heads of those in the highest echelons of the party. Only compounding matters, both the COSATU and the SACP are "rabidly anti-Israel," as a South African Jewish community leader told me, viewing Israel as America's mouthpiece in the region. Moreover, while the ANC has supported liberal macroeconomic policies (to the delight of both domestic and international business), this is due to economic necessity rather than an ideological commitment to free markets. Indeed, the ANC has long been suspicious of Western intentions, to the point of paranoia, and nowhere has this been more apparent than in the attitudes of many high-ranking ANC figures on the supposed "Western" approaches to HIV (such as the belief that it actually causes AIDS) and Zimbabwe.The ANC has always featured communists in its ranks, and while some members were fervently opposed to left-wing totalitarianism, they never reached anything approaching critical mass. Indeed, those liberal antiapartheid movements and activists who were just as outspoken in their opposition to communism as they were to racial discrimination--such as the novelist Alan Paton, leader of the short-lived Liberal Party; Helen Suzman of the Progressive Party; and the English-language press--have notoriously been maligned by ANC apparatchiks as handmaidens to apartheid. Consequently, a history of antitotalitarianism--a strong, bipartisan current in American politics, shaped by the Cold War experience--simply does not exist in South Africa. Instead, fuzzy leftover notions of "anti-imperialism" dominate the political discourse of influential ANC leaders.South Africa's coddling of Iran, then, must be seen as of a piece with its deferral of responsibility as concerns Zimbabwe, its following of the Chinese cue on Burma, and its siding with the Palestinians. All of these decisions are undergirded by a long-established and deeply rooted uncertainty, if not downright antagonism, toward the West.Of course, this bleak picture just painted should not obscure the many admirable developments on the continent in which South Africa has played a leading role. It oversaw, for instance, the transformation of the Organization for African Unity, for too long a group that legitimized the kleptocratic tendencies of its member states, into the African Union, which, however weak, has at least deployed several thousand peacekeepers to Darfur. And with the largest and most professional military on the continent, South Africa has also deployed peacekeeping troops in Congo, Ivory Coast and Burundi. Despite his faults (and they are many), Mr. Mbeki is a dedicated internationalist who envisions his country playing a robust, leading role on a continent that could learn much from South Africa's democratic liberalism, political stability and economic vitality.But creeping anti-American and anti-Israel sentiments seem to have bubbled up from under the surface of South African political discourse. Indeed, they have now become an ideological underpinning of South Africa's foreign policy. The American political and media establishment looks askance at this development as, at least on its face, it pales in comparison to the actual human misery that is so widespread on the continent. Moreover, there is little that America or its allies can do to "punish" South Africa for its waywardness; on the contrary, the United States relies heavily on South Africa to be the continental, never mind regional, hegemon, and isolating Pretoria might imperil America's many other initiatives in Africa.For decades, the international community rightly considered South Africa a pariah state. With the fall of apartheid, South Africa earned the unique right to be a clarion voice for freedom and human rights around the world. What a shame, then, that the ANC pursues policies hearkening back to its country's discredited past.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Thursday, August 9, 2007
"Nonqawuse"
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Women's Day - 9 August 2007
Who said we are just a bunch of racists and we do not honour our black women? Today 9th of August is women's day in South Africa. This day in 1956, is when black women marched on the Union Buildings in Pretoria, protesting against the pass laws. 1956 was exactly 100 years after another "great" black woman, Nonqawuse, had a spark of genius. So on this day, I want to honour the "great" Xhosa woman Nonqawuse, whose name will live on in infamy as the epitome of black stupidity.Mention the name "Nonqawuse" to white people and few will know who you are talking about. Mention it to Xhosas and they lower their eyes in embarrassment, quickly steering the conversation in another direction. They don't like to talk about Nonqawuse.Today, Nonqawuse is to the Xhosas what Efialtis is to the Greeks. Efialtis was the traitor at the Battle of Thermopylae when 300 Spartans fought off the forces of Xerxes, the Persian King. The name Efialtis was absorbed into the Greek language and means "Nightmare". Likewise the name Nonqawuse was absorbed into the Xhosa language and means "Liar".
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death." Proverbs 14:12
In April 1856 two young Xhosa girls were sent to chase birds from cornfields near the River Gxara. The elder girl, Nongqawuse (15), reported that while they were drinking at the water's edge some mysterious figures materialised alongside them. They told the girls to take a message back to their kraal that a great resurrection was about to take place, and that all the people should kill all their cattle as these would no longer be needed. Once the great day came there would be no shortages of any kind, so they must tell their people that there must be no sowing or cultivation of crops and all stored grain must be thrown away. Once this had been carried out, the strangers told the girls, no further work must be done. And when all the Xhosa cattle had been killed the new people would come, sweeping all the whites into the sea.Nonqawuse told her uncle, Mhalakaza, who at first did not believe her. The voices in the reeds told her to bring her uncle along, four days later.He too heard these voices saying, "We are the people who have come to order you to kill your cattle, to consume your corn and not to cultivate anymore." Mhalakaza was instructed to take this message to the paramount chief of the Xhosa, Sarili, and to all the other chiefs.Parramount chief Sarili listened to Mhalakaza's words and was prepared to believe that Nongqawuse had really seen the strangers. He was encouraged in this by his own hopes of seeing the British driven away from the borders of his lands; and of seeing the influence of the white men removed from Xhosa life and society.For ten months a kind of madness possessed the Xhosa . They killed their livestock (it is estimated that they killed 300 000 to 400 000 head of cattle) and burned their crops until they had nothing left but their family. The slaughter of their own cattle by the Xhosa was one of history's most enormous acts of faith, a ritual suicide.British officials were aghast at the developments, but felt helpless to stop them. Missionary Charles Brownlee, brought up among the Xhosa and fluent in their language, was prominent in visiting the Xhosa kraals to try to counteract Mhalakaza's influence, but most would not listen to his warnings.The day of their salvation was to be the 18th of February 1857. On that day, Nonqawuse predicted, a blood-red sun would rise, stand still in the sky, and then set again in the east.As the great day dawned, the Xhosa people sat waiting. The sun rose. It made its slow passage across the hot February sky. A gentle breeze blew off the sea as the sun set in the west. Darkness fell on a ruined and starving nation. The day had turned out to be nothing more than an ordinary, beautiful, summers day.Nonqawuse fled and went to live on a farm called Glen Shaw in the district of Alexandria in the Eastern Cape. She died in 1898.However, upwards of 100,000 Xhosas (80% of their population at the time) died from starvation.
"He who works his land will have abundant food, but the one who chases fantasies will have his fill of poverty." Proverbs 28:19
Today nothing has changed. Blacks still suffer from the Nonqawuse syndrome. They still listen to their false prophets such as Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and Thabo Mbeki who says that AIDS is a myth and want to cure people with beetroot and garlic. Blacks first go the Sangomas before they go to western doctors. It indeed appears as if blacks in South Africa are on a road to self destruction. Their policies of Affirmative Action and Black Economic Empowerment leads to job loss, more poverty, hunger and ultimately the destruction of their own race. The state of South African hospitals are beyond a joke, crime is completely out of control, hundreds of thousands of blacks are dying of AIDS every year, but blacks still vote for their modern "Nonqawuse", the ANC.Blacks were stupid to listen to Nonqawuse and believe her lies, but what if there was a twist to this tale?For a while it has been rumoured that the strangers that Nonqawuse saw amongst the reeds weren't strangers or mythical figures at all, but some white people who could speak Xhosa fluently, have smeared themselves with clay, dressed up as "spirits" and hid amongst the reeds.At that time the Voortrekkers, who fought the Xhosas in six wars, have left the Cape Colony and the remaining British fought against the Xhosas in another three wars. I think at that time they must have had enough of war...and the Xhosas.However sinister this might sound, if it is true, it would have been military genius.
Posted by Uncle Cracker at 9:56 AM 10 comments
Women's Day - 9 August 2007
Who said we are just a bunch of racists and we do not honour our black women? Today 9th of August is women's day in South Africa. This day in 1956, is when black women marched on the Union Buildings in Pretoria, protesting against the pass laws. 1956 was exactly 100 years after another "great" black woman, Nonqawuse, had a spark of genius. So on this day, I want to honour the "great" Xhosa woman Nonqawuse, whose name will live on in infamy as the epitome of black stupidity.Mention the name "Nonqawuse" to white people and few will know who you are talking about. Mention it to Xhosas and they lower their eyes in embarrassment, quickly steering the conversation in another direction. They don't like to talk about Nonqawuse.Today, Nonqawuse is to the Xhosas what Efialtis is to the Greeks. Efialtis was the traitor at the Battle of Thermopylae when 300 Spartans fought off the forces of Xerxes, the Persian King. The name Efialtis was absorbed into the Greek language and means "Nightmare". Likewise the name Nonqawuse was absorbed into the Xhosa language and means "Liar".
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death." Proverbs 14:12
In April 1856 two young Xhosa girls were sent to chase birds from cornfields near the River Gxara. The elder girl, Nongqawuse (15), reported that while they were drinking at the water's edge some mysterious figures materialised alongside them. They told the girls to take a message back to their kraal that a great resurrection was about to take place, and that all the people should kill all their cattle as these would no longer be needed. Once the great day came there would be no shortages of any kind, so they must tell their people that there must be no sowing or cultivation of crops and all stored grain must be thrown away. Once this had been carried out, the strangers told the girls, no further work must be done. And when all the Xhosa cattle had been killed the new people would come, sweeping all the whites into the sea.Nonqawuse told her uncle, Mhalakaza, who at first did not believe her. The voices in the reeds told her to bring her uncle along, four days later.He too heard these voices saying, "We are the people who have come to order you to kill your cattle, to consume your corn and not to cultivate anymore." Mhalakaza was instructed to take this message to the paramount chief of the Xhosa, Sarili, and to all the other chiefs.Parramount chief Sarili listened to Mhalakaza's words and was prepared to believe that Nongqawuse had really seen the strangers. He was encouraged in this by his own hopes of seeing the British driven away from the borders of his lands; and of seeing the influence of the white men removed from Xhosa life and society.For ten months a kind of madness possessed the Xhosa . They killed their livestock (it is estimated that they killed 300 000 to 400 000 head of cattle) and burned their crops until they had nothing left but their family. The slaughter of their own cattle by the Xhosa was one of history's most enormous acts of faith, a ritual suicide.British officials were aghast at the developments, but felt helpless to stop them. Missionary Charles Brownlee, brought up among the Xhosa and fluent in their language, was prominent in visiting the Xhosa kraals to try to counteract Mhalakaza's influence, but most would not listen to his warnings.The day of their salvation was to be the 18th of February 1857. On that day, Nonqawuse predicted, a blood-red sun would rise, stand still in the sky, and then set again in the east.As the great day dawned, the Xhosa people sat waiting. The sun rose. It made its slow passage across the hot February sky. A gentle breeze blew off the sea as the sun set in the west. Darkness fell on a ruined and starving nation. The day had turned out to be nothing more than an ordinary, beautiful, summers day.Nonqawuse fled and went to live on a farm called Glen Shaw in the district of Alexandria in the Eastern Cape. She died in 1898.However, upwards of 100,000 Xhosas (80% of their population at the time) died from starvation.
"He who works his land will have abundant food, but the one who chases fantasies will have his fill of poverty." Proverbs 28:19
Today nothing has changed. Blacks still suffer from the Nonqawuse syndrome. They still listen to their false prophets such as Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and Thabo Mbeki who says that AIDS is a myth and want to cure people with beetroot and garlic. Blacks first go the Sangomas before they go to western doctors. It indeed appears as if blacks in South Africa are on a road to self destruction. Their policies of Affirmative Action and Black Economic Empowerment leads to job loss, more poverty, hunger and ultimately the destruction of their own race. The state of South African hospitals are beyond a joke, crime is completely out of control, hundreds of thousands of blacks are dying of AIDS every year, but blacks still vote for their modern "Nonqawuse", the ANC.Blacks were stupid to listen to Nonqawuse and believe her lies, but what if there was a twist to this tale?For a while it has been rumoured that the strangers that Nonqawuse saw amongst the reeds weren't strangers or mythical figures at all, but some white people who could speak Xhosa fluently, have smeared themselves with clay, dressed up as "spirits" and hid amongst the reeds.At that time the Voortrekkers, who fought the Xhosas in six wars, have left the Cape Colony and the remaining British fought against the Xhosas in another three wars. I think at that time they must have had enough of war...and the Xhosas.However sinister this might sound, if it is true, it would have been military genius.
Posted by Uncle Cracker at 9:56 AM 10 comments
Cold War in Hot Sands
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If you believe the Cold War is over, or if you think slavery is a thing of the past, think again. Even a cursory glance at Western Sahara, a land barely known to most people outside Africa, will prove you wrong on both points.
In late June, American news media cautiously reported that Morocco and Western Sahara's Algerian-backed pro-independence movement, the Polisario Front, were poised to reach a compromise on self-rule as a result of two days' negotiations in the U.S.. There has been no breakthrough yet. But the two parties agreed to meet again during the second week of August in Manhasset, New York, according to Peter van Walsum, the personal envoy of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Neither colony nor sovereign nation
Western Sahara has been a disputed territory for 32 years. Concurrently, it has been high on the decolonization agenda of the UN General Assembly for 42 years. The ongoing talks held in the Long Island beach town of Manhasset, 20 miles from New York City, are crucial because five years have passed since Morocco and the Polisario Front engaged in bilateral talks. Another two parties, Algeria and Mauritania, are observers to the talks, as recommended by the UN Security Council.
Rabat is willing to grant a degree of autonomy to Western Sahara, but only if it remains subject to Morocco's sovereignty. Polisario's proposal calls for a referendum on independence, nothing short of it. Far as these standpoints may seem from each other, "one should give the upcoming round of negotiations the benefit of doubt if not belief", says an insider who asked not to be identified.
"Inch'allah", as they say in that part of the world: God willing. Many international mediation attempts have been made, so far to no avail, last by former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker III (2003). However, a UN-brokered ceasefire has amazingly enough survived since 1991.
A former colony of Spain, Western Sahara was abandoned by its metropolis in 1975, only to be handed over to Morocco and Mauritania, who shared control of the territory until 1979, when Mauritania ceded its control. Polisario, initially an anti-colonial movement fighting against Spanish rule, has come to be defined by its leaders' political ambitions, greed, and adherence to Soviet-style world view. Having to choose between two regional power players, Morocco and Algeria (Mauritania is too weak to be included in the equation), Polisario sided with the pro-communist regime of Algeria.
Hostages of regional rivalry
As Algeria gains in international status and regional influence, literally fueled by its oil and gas reserves, Polisario is growing increasingly defiant vis-a-vis Morocco's offer of autonomy.
Morocco, on the other hand, is one of the West's few friends in the Arab world, thanks to the late King Hassan II and his successor son, King Muhammad VI, who is trying to modernize and democratize his country and is bidding for Morocco's membership of the European Union, its main economic and trading partner. Morocco has been given the status of a non-NATO ally by Washington, which has praised its support for the U.S.-led war on terror. After deadly suicide bombings in Casablanca in 2003, Morocco launched a crackdown on suspected Islamic militants.
While Morocco and Algeria are vying for control over Western Sahara with its hypothetically rich offshore oil and gas resources, the population of Western Sahara lives in dire poverty and widespread illiteracy. A large part of the Sahrawis, the indigenous people of Western Sahara, is made up by the inhabitants of overcrowded refugee camps on the Algerian territory, run by Polisario.
Recently, two Australian journalists, Daniel Fallshaw and Violeta Ayala, went to the Sahrawi refugee camps in the Algerian desert. What they discovered is a society where slavery still exists.
Will anybody care?
According to the journalists, slavery "seems to be an institution within their society", where black women are sexually abused by their ‘white' Moor masters and don't have the right to get married without their masters' consent; where black people work for their masters for free; and where slaves are passed from family to family.
"It is estimated that there are several thousands of black Sahrawi slaves who live in refugee camps in Algeria", Fallshaw and Ayala assert in an interview with NTV America. "Is it possible that Polisario, a liberation movement, seems to condone this state of affairs?"
The journalists told the press freedom organization, Reporters without Borders, that Polisario authorities didn't really appreciate their investigative work, to put it mildly. According to a statement issued by Reporters Without Borders, they "were detained by Polisario Front security officials on May 2, 2007, and their mobile phone was confiscated. They were then taken to an office used by the security services, where they were held for about five hours. After UN officials intervened, the journalists were able to leave the Rabouni camp and go to Tindouf, from where they caught a plane to France a few days later."
"The fact that they are fighting for their independence does not mean that Polisario's leaders can allow themselves to commit such human rights violations," Ms. Ayala said. "It is our duty as journalists to denounce such practices. We originally went there to work on the problem of separated families. But during our stay, we witnessed outrageous scenes of slavery."
Internationally, major world powers, such as the U.S. and Russia, have taken neutral stands towards each side's claims and have pressed both parties to agree on a peaceful resolution. Both Morocco and Polisario have sought to boost their claims by accumulating formal recognition, largely from minor states. The issue of alleged slavery has never been raised by any nation.
By Ilia Baranikas
US Correspondent
The Moscow News
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About the paperHistoryAdvertisingVacancy
If you believe the Cold War is over, or if you think slavery is a thing of the past, think again. Even a cursory glance at Western Sahara, a land barely known to most people outside Africa, will prove you wrong on both points.
In late June, American news media cautiously reported that Morocco and Western Sahara's Algerian-backed pro-independence movement, the Polisario Front, were poised to reach a compromise on self-rule as a result of two days' negotiations in the U.S.. There has been no breakthrough yet. But the two parties agreed to meet again during the second week of August in Manhasset, New York, according to Peter van Walsum, the personal envoy of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Neither colony nor sovereign nation
Western Sahara has been a disputed territory for 32 years. Concurrently, it has been high on the decolonization agenda of the UN General Assembly for 42 years. The ongoing talks held in the Long Island beach town of Manhasset, 20 miles from New York City, are crucial because five years have passed since Morocco and the Polisario Front engaged in bilateral talks. Another two parties, Algeria and Mauritania, are observers to the talks, as recommended by the UN Security Council.
Rabat is willing to grant a degree of autonomy to Western Sahara, but only if it remains subject to Morocco's sovereignty. Polisario's proposal calls for a referendum on independence, nothing short of it. Far as these standpoints may seem from each other, "one should give the upcoming round of negotiations the benefit of doubt if not belief", says an insider who asked not to be identified.
"Inch'allah", as they say in that part of the world: God willing. Many international mediation attempts have been made, so far to no avail, last by former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker III (2003). However, a UN-brokered ceasefire has amazingly enough survived since 1991.
A former colony of Spain, Western Sahara was abandoned by its metropolis in 1975, only to be handed over to Morocco and Mauritania, who shared control of the territory until 1979, when Mauritania ceded its control. Polisario, initially an anti-colonial movement fighting against Spanish rule, has come to be defined by its leaders' political ambitions, greed, and adherence to Soviet-style world view. Having to choose between two regional power players, Morocco and Algeria (Mauritania is too weak to be included in the equation), Polisario sided with the pro-communist regime of Algeria.
Hostages of regional rivalry
As Algeria gains in international status and regional influence, literally fueled by its oil and gas reserves, Polisario is growing increasingly defiant vis-a-vis Morocco's offer of autonomy.
Morocco, on the other hand, is one of the West's few friends in the Arab world, thanks to the late King Hassan II and his successor son, King Muhammad VI, who is trying to modernize and democratize his country and is bidding for Morocco's membership of the European Union, its main economic and trading partner. Morocco has been given the status of a non-NATO ally by Washington, which has praised its support for the U.S.-led war on terror. After deadly suicide bombings in Casablanca in 2003, Morocco launched a crackdown on suspected Islamic militants.
While Morocco and Algeria are vying for control over Western Sahara with its hypothetically rich offshore oil and gas resources, the population of Western Sahara lives in dire poverty and widespread illiteracy. A large part of the Sahrawis, the indigenous people of Western Sahara, is made up by the inhabitants of overcrowded refugee camps on the Algerian territory, run by Polisario.
Recently, two Australian journalists, Daniel Fallshaw and Violeta Ayala, went to the Sahrawi refugee camps in the Algerian desert. What they discovered is a society where slavery still exists.
Will anybody care?
According to the journalists, slavery "seems to be an institution within their society", where black women are sexually abused by their ‘white' Moor masters and don't have the right to get married without their masters' consent; where black people work for their masters for free; and where slaves are passed from family to family.
"It is estimated that there are several thousands of black Sahrawi slaves who live in refugee camps in Algeria", Fallshaw and Ayala assert in an interview with NTV America. "Is it possible that Polisario, a liberation movement, seems to condone this state of affairs?"
The journalists told the press freedom organization, Reporters without Borders, that Polisario authorities didn't really appreciate their investigative work, to put it mildly. According to a statement issued by Reporters Without Borders, they "were detained by Polisario Front security officials on May 2, 2007, and their mobile phone was confiscated. They were then taken to an office used by the security services, where they were held for about five hours. After UN officials intervened, the journalists were able to leave the Rabouni camp and go to Tindouf, from where they caught a plane to France a few days later."
"The fact that they are fighting for their independence does not mean that Polisario's leaders can allow themselves to commit such human rights violations," Ms. Ayala said. "It is our duty as journalists to denounce such practices. We originally went there to work on the problem of separated families. But during our stay, we witnessed outrageous scenes of slavery."
Internationally, major world powers, such as the U.S. and Russia, have taken neutral stands towards each side's claims and have pressed both parties to agree on a peaceful resolution. Both Morocco and Polisario have sought to boost their claims by accumulating formal recognition, largely from minor states. The issue of alleged slavery has never been raised by any nation.
By Ilia Baranikas
US Correspondent
The Moscow News
back to main pagesend by e-mail
RELATED ARTICLES
26/07/2007 10 Reasons Why Russia Can’t Trust Uncle Sam
20/07/2007 Ukraine’s NATO Membership Is Path to ‘Small’ Cold War
24/05/2007 Why This ‘Cold War’ Is Different
10 Reasons Why Russia Can’t Trust Uncle Sam
http://www.mnweekly.ru/world/20070802/55264989.html
The West says that it is perplexed by Russia's "aggressive" behavior of late, and suggests that Moscow is desirous to regain its past superpower status, and even a little empire. But if cashing in on oil is imperialism, how do we explain the following U.S. moves:
10. Scrapping the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty - In December 2001, three months after 9/11, U.S. President George W. Bush told Russian President Vladimir Putin that the U.S. was pulling out of the 1972 ABM Treaty, a Cold War-era document that specifically forbade the development and deployment of anti-missile defense systems. The treaty ensured that signatory nations adhere to the mutually assured destruction (MAD) concept - if you destroy us we will destroy you formula. Yes, it was certainly MAD, but it kept the peace for 30 years. Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld attempted to reassure Moscow that the decision was nothing personal. "It [the treaty] failed to recognize that the Soviet Union is gone and that Russia is, of course, not our enemy." Putin called the move "a mistake."
9. "Mission Accomplished" - On March 20, 2003, the United States - without a mandate from the United Nations, and against the heated objections of France, Germany and Russia - invaded Iraq on the pretext that the secular Baathist state of Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was a proud sponsor of terrorism. Both accusations were proven wrong. Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the BBC in an interview that the attack was a violation of international law. "From our point of view and the UN Charter point of view, it [the war] was illegal."
8. Pentagon Spending Spree - The United States, which just put the finishing touches on a $583 billion dollar shopping trip for 2008, accounts for about half of global expenditures (or the next 14 nations). However, as Robert Higgs of the Independent Institute argues, "the trillion-dollar defense budget is already here." Higgs calculated that U.S. military-related spending in 2006 was actually $934.9 billion if we figure in Homeland Security ($69.1bln), the Dept. of Energy, which oversees nuclear weapons ($16.6 bln) and the Dept. of Veterans Affairs ($69.8 bln), as well as other juicy pork chops. In May, the Democrat-controlled House and Senate approved almost $95 billion for the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq through September (Go Dems!). Meanwhile, "aggressive" Russia, with a 48 percent increase in military spending since 1996, still spends ‘just' $85 billion annually on military expenditures.
7. NATO XXL - As Dan Simpson, a retired U.S. diplomat argued in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "The United States and other NATO members have taken some actions along the way to lull the Russians into acquiescence as NATO expanded to include the former Warsaw Pact nations... The argument was that these countries wanted to join NATO and that their membership posed no threat to Russia. That line prevailed as NATO membership grew to include also Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, former republics of the Soviet Union. Now the Russians see the same argument being advanced for Georgia and Ukraine. That's getting close to home."
6. New Military Bloopers - As the Pakistani government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf struggles to contain the fallout of an 8-day battle against militants at the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque), a U.S. official turned up the heat by telling CNN that if the U.S. "had actionable targets, anywhere in the world," including Pakistan, then "we would pursue those targets." Meanwhile, talk about a possible attack on Iran, a nation that ranked on America's axis of evil hit parade, continues.
5. Think-Tank Saber Rattling - Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press write an article in the prestigious U.S. journal Foreign Affairs entitled "Nuclear Primacy" (March/April 2006), which argues, in a nutshell, that "It will probably soon be possible for the United States to destroy the long-range nuclear arsenals of Russia or China with a first strike." Is this the sort of article that America should be supporting if it wants Russia to believe that elements of the proposed U.S. missile defense system in Poland and... oops! Don't want to spoil the plot! Anyways, Moscow ‘responds' with very accurate penmanship one year later as it test-fires its new RS-24 ballistic missile that it said could "overcome any potential missile defense systems developed by foreign countries."
4. Cheney Comfort - One month after the above love letter hit newsstands, Vice President Dick Cheney, during a trip to Vilnius, Lithuania, assuaged Moscow's fears by reiterating, once again: "Russia has nothing to fear and everything to gain" by ‘democratic activity' on her borders.
3. Gates' Gated Community - In early 2007, Pentagon chief Robert Gates urged viligance when he warned, "We don't know what's going to develop in places like Russia and China, in North Korea, in Iran and elsewhere." Was this a simple case of mistaken identity by a former White House Russian analyst? Whatever the case, it certainly helped to provoke Putin's heated Munich speech in February, where he admonished the world's "one master, one sovereign."
2. EU Culpability - As the War on Terror continues, Europe is losing its Snow White innocence. As the German magazine Der Spiegel reported, "On July 19, 2002, a Gulfstream business jet took off from Frankfurt am Main bound for Amman, Jordan. The flight received an AFTM exempt [pilot code for ‘extreme situation'], although it carried neither patients nor politicians. Instead, the jet was carrying a CIA team that took a Mauritanian terrorism suspect... to Guantanamo." Der Spiegel reported that this "camouflaging of an illegal kidnapping as a rescue flight" was not an isolated event: There were 390 such takeoffs and landings in Germany between 2002 and 2006. And considering Eastern European hotels, it's just too scary to consider those secret terrorist prisons that allegedly exist in Poland and Romania.
1. Don't Worry, These anti-Missile Missiles won't Hurt You, Really - Washington is now incredulous, shocked, mortified that Moscow has the nerve to suggest that there could be less than good intentions involved in the construction of an anti-missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, even though there are no bad-guy technologies on the horizon that such a system could intercept. Go figure!
By Robert Bridge
The West says that it is perplexed by Russia's "aggressive" behavior of late, and suggests that Moscow is desirous to regain its past superpower status, and even a little empire. But if cashing in on oil is imperialism, how do we explain the following U.S. moves:
10. Scrapping the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty - In December 2001, three months after 9/11, U.S. President George W. Bush told Russian President Vladimir Putin that the U.S. was pulling out of the 1972 ABM Treaty, a Cold War-era document that specifically forbade the development and deployment of anti-missile defense systems. The treaty ensured that signatory nations adhere to the mutually assured destruction (MAD) concept - if you destroy us we will destroy you formula. Yes, it was certainly MAD, but it kept the peace for 30 years. Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld attempted to reassure Moscow that the decision was nothing personal. "It [the treaty] failed to recognize that the Soviet Union is gone and that Russia is, of course, not our enemy." Putin called the move "a mistake."
9. "Mission Accomplished" - On March 20, 2003, the United States - without a mandate from the United Nations, and against the heated objections of France, Germany and Russia - invaded Iraq on the pretext that the secular Baathist state of Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was a proud sponsor of terrorism. Both accusations were proven wrong. Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the BBC in an interview that the attack was a violation of international law. "From our point of view and the UN Charter point of view, it [the war] was illegal."
8. Pentagon Spending Spree - The United States, which just put the finishing touches on a $583 billion dollar shopping trip for 2008, accounts for about half of global expenditures (or the next 14 nations). However, as Robert Higgs of the Independent Institute argues, "the trillion-dollar defense budget is already here." Higgs calculated that U.S. military-related spending in 2006 was actually $934.9 billion if we figure in Homeland Security ($69.1bln), the Dept. of Energy, which oversees nuclear weapons ($16.6 bln) and the Dept. of Veterans Affairs ($69.8 bln), as well as other juicy pork chops. In May, the Democrat-controlled House and Senate approved almost $95 billion for the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq through September (Go Dems!). Meanwhile, "aggressive" Russia, with a 48 percent increase in military spending since 1996, still spends ‘just' $85 billion annually on military expenditures.
7. NATO XXL - As Dan Simpson, a retired U.S. diplomat argued in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "The United States and other NATO members have taken some actions along the way to lull the Russians into acquiescence as NATO expanded to include the former Warsaw Pact nations... The argument was that these countries wanted to join NATO and that their membership posed no threat to Russia. That line prevailed as NATO membership grew to include also Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, former republics of the Soviet Union. Now the Russians see the same argument being advanced for Georgia and Ukraine. That's getting close to home."
6. New Military Bloopers - As the Pakistani government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf struggles to contain the fallout of an 8-day battle against militants at the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque), a U.S. official turned up the heat by telling CNN that if the U.S. "had actionable targets, anywhere in the world," including Pakistan, then "we would pursue those targets." Meanwhile, talk about a possible attack on Iran, a nation that ranked on America's axis of evil hit parade, continues.
5. Think-Tank Saber Rattling - Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press write an article in the prestigious U.S. journal Foreign Affairs entitled "Nuclear Primacy" (March/April 2006), which argues, in a nutshell, that "It will probably soon be possible for the United States to destroy the long-range nuclear arsenals of Russia or China with a first strike." Is this the sort of article that America should be supporting if it wants Russia to believe that elements of the proposed U.S. missile defense system in Poland and... oops! Don't want to spoil the plot! Anyways, Moscow ‘responds' with very accurate penmanship one year later as it test-fires its new RS-24 ballistic missile that it said could "overcome any potential missile defense systems developed by foreign countries."
4. Cheney Comfort - One month after the above love letter hit newsstands, Vice President Dick Cheney, during a trip to Vilnius, Lithuania, assuaged Moscow's fears by reiterating, once again: "Russia has nothing to fear and everything to gain" by ‘democratic activity' on her borders.
3. Gates' Gated Community - In early 2007, Pentagon chief Robert Gates urged viligance when he warned, "We don't know what's going to develop in places like Russia and China, in North Korea, in Iran and elsewhere." Was this a simple case of mistaken identity by a former White House Russian analyst? Whatever the case, it certainly helped to provoke Putin's heated Munich speech in February, where he admonished the world's "one master, one sovereign."
2. EU Culpability - As the War on Terror continues, Europe is losing its Snow White innocence. As the German magazine Der Spiegel reported, "On July 19, 2002, a Gulfstream business jet took off from Frankfurt am Main bound for Amman, Jordan. The flight received an AFTM exempt [pilot code for ‘extreme situation'], although it carried neither patients nor politicians. Instead, the jet was carrying a CIA team that took a Mauritanian terrorism suspect... to Guantanamo." Der Spiegel reported that this "camouflaging of an illegal kidnapping as a rescue flight" was not an isolated event: There were 390 such takeoffs and landings in Germany between 2002 and 2006. And considering Eastern European hotels, it's just too scary to consider those secret terrorist prisons that allegedly exist in Poland and Romania.
1. Don't Worry, These anti-Missile Missiles won't Hurt You, Really - Washington is now incredulous, shocked, mortified that Moscow has the nerve to suggest that there could be less than good intentions involved in the construction of an anti-missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, even though there are no bad-guy technologies on the horizon that such a system could intercept. Go figure!
By Robert Bridge
Russia jets resume Cold War runs
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6938856.stm
The Tu-95 pilots exchanged smiles with their US counterpartsRussian bombers have flown to the US island of Guam in the Pacific as part of an exercise this week reminiscent of the Cold War.
Two Tu-95 jets flew to Guam, which is home to a big US military base, Maj Gen Pavel Androsov said.
They "exchanged smiles" with US pilots who scrambled to track them, he added.
The sorties, believed to be the first since the Cold War ended, come as Russia stresses a more assertive foreign policy, observers say.
Eish ....... Stress is in th Air!!
The Tu-95 pilots exchanged smiles with their US counterpartsRussian bombers have flown to the US island of Guam in the Pacific as part of an exercise this week reminiscent of the Cold War.
Two Tu-95 jets flew to Guam, which is home to a big US military base, Maj Gen Pavel Androsov said.
They "exchanged smiles" with US pilots who scrambled to track them, he added.
The sorties, believed to be the first since the Cold War ended, come as Russia stresses a more assertive foreign policy, observers say.
Eish ....... Stress is in th Air!!
Russia accuses Georgia over attackStory Highlights
Story Highlights
Russia's military chief denies reports of a missile attack against Georgia
Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky says Tbilisi concoted the incident to stoke tensions
Georgia said it has evidence that Russia released a missile in their country
Foreign Ministry says radar records show Russian Su-24 jet flew into Georgia
TBILISI, Georgia (AP) -- Russia's military chief on Thursday accused Georgia of fabricating a report of a Russian missile attack, as tensions heightened between Moscow and its small Westward-looking neighbor.
An investigator inspects the wreckage of what Georgian authorities claim to be an unexploded Russian missile.
Georgia said radar data proved Russian jets violated its airspace Monday and fired a missile aimed at a Georgian radar.
The missile, which did not explode, landed close to a village in the northwestern Gori region near Georgia's breakaway province of South Ossetia, which is patrolled by Russian peacekeepers.
Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the chief of Russia's military General Staff, said Wednesday that Georgia concocted the incident to foment tensions.
"I'm convinced that it was a provocation by Georgia... a provocation against the Russian peacekeepers and Russia as a whole," Baluyevsky said on a visit to China, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.
In Tbilisi, Levan Nikoleishvili, Georgia's first deputy defense minister, told The Associated Press that Baluyevsky's statement was "sheer nonsense."
Tbilisi has accused Moscow of trying to destabilize the country and of backing separatists in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two regions that broke away from Georgia during wars in the 1990s.
President Mikhail Saakashvili, whose efforts to integrate into the West and join NATO have irked Moscow, has vowed to return the regions to central government control.
Don't Miss
Georgia: 'Proof' of missile attack
Georgia's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that records from radars compatible with NATO standards showed that a Russian Su-24 jet had flown from Russia into Georgia and launched a missile.
Investigators identified the weapon as a Russian-made Raduga Kh-58 missile, designed to hit radars, the ministry said. The missile, code-named AS-11 by NATO, carried a 300-pound warhead.
Lt. Gen. Igor Khvorov, chief of staff for the Russian air force staff, reaffirmed Thursday that the Russian aircraft had not conducted the raid. "It's a political invention," he said at a news conference.
Georgian officials said the nation has no Su-24 jets or missiles of that type.
The Russian missile missed its target because the Georgian military switched off the radar after it had detected the intrusion and the missile's launch, Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Zurab Pochkua said Thursday on Rustavi-2 television.
Georgia's Foreign Ministry called the incident "undisguised aggression" and sought an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council.
The U.S. State Department on Wednesday condemned what it described as a "rocket attack" without naming a responsible party, and praised Georgia's "restraint in the face of this air attack."
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said its mission in Georgia had confirmed that Georgian airspace was violated, but could not say how many and what kind of aircraft were involved. The mission also said it could not identify the missile.
Relations between Russia and Georgia have been strained since Saakashvili was elected president in early 2004 and made clear his intentions to move the former Soviet republic closer to the West.
Georgia has accused Russia of backing separatists; Moscow, in turn, has accused Tbilisi of fomenting tensions in the rebel provinces. Georgia has repeatedly accused Russia of violating its airspace -- claims Russia denied.
Earlier this year, Georgia said Russian helicopters fired on its territory in the Kodori Gorge, a volatile area on the fringes of Abkhazia. The two nations exchanged similarly fraught accusations at the time, but a subsequent report by the U.N. observer mission in Georgia last month said it was not clear who had fired at the Georgian territory
Russia's military chief denies reports of a missile attack against Georgia
Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky says Tbilisi concoted the incident to stoke tensions
Georgia said it has evidence that Russia released a missile in their country
Foreign Ministry says radar records show Russian Su-24 jet flew into Georgia
TBILISI, Georgia (AP) -- Russia's military chief on Thursday accused Georgia of fabricating a report of a Russian missile attack, as tensions heightened between Moscow and its small Westward-looking neighbor.
An investigator inspects the wreckage of what Georgian authorities claim to be an unexploded Russian missile.
Georgia said radar data proved Russian jets violated its airspace Monday and fired a missile aimed at a Georgian radar.
The missile, which did not explode, landed close to a village in the northwestern Gori region near Georgia's breakaway province of South Ossetia, which is patrolled by Russian peacekeepers.
Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the chief of Russia's military General Staff, said Wednesday that Georgia concocted the incident to foment tensions.
"I'm convinced that it was a provocation by Georgia... a provocation against the Russian peacekeepers and Russia as a whole," Baluyevsky said on a visit to China, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.
In Tbilisi, Levan Nikoleishvili, Georgia's first deputy defense minister, told The Associated Press that Baluyevsky's statement was "sheer nonsense."
Tbilisi has accused Moscow of trying to destabilize the country and of backing separatists in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two regions that broke away from Georgia during wars in the 1990s.
President Mikhail Saakashvili, whose efforts to integrate into the West and join NATO have irked Moscow, has vowed to return the regions to central government control.
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Georgia: 'Proof' of missile attack
Georgia's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that records from radars compatible with NATO standards showed that a Russian Su-24 jet had flown from Russia into Georgia and launched a missile.
Investigators identified the weapon as a Russian-made Raduga Kh-58 missile, designed to hit radars, the ministry said. The missile, code-named AS-11 by NATO, carried a 300-pound warhead.
Lt. Gen. Igor Khvorov, chief of staff for the Russian air force staff, reaffirmed Thursday that the Russian aircraft had not conducted the raid. "It's a political invention," he said at a news conference.
Georgian officials said the nation has no Su-24 jets or missiles of that type.
The Russian missile missed its target because the Georgian military switched off the radar after it had detected the intrusion and the missile's launch, Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Zurab Pochkua said Thursday on Rustavi-2 television.
Georgia's Foreign Ministry called the incident "undisguised aggression" and sought an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council.
The U.S. State Department on Wednesday condemned what it described as a "rocket attack" without naming a responsible party, and praised Georgia's "restraint in the face of this air attack."
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said its mission in Georgia had confirmed that Georgian airspace was violated, but could not say how many and what kind of aircraft were involved. The mission also said it could not identify the missile.
Relations between Russia and Georgia have been strained since Saakashvili was elected president in early 2004 and made clear his intentions to move the former Soviet republic closer to the West.
Georgia has accused Russia of backing separatists; Moscow, in turn, has accused Tbilisi of fomenting tensions in the rebel provinces. Georgia has repeatedly accused Russia of violating its airspace -- claims Russia denied.
Earlier this year, Georgia said Russian helicopters fired on its territory in the Kodori Gorge, a volatile area on the fringes of Abkhazia. The two nations exchanged similarly fraught accusations at the time, but a subsequent report by the U.N. observer mission in Georgia last month said it was not clear who had fired at the Georgian territory
Canadian PM vows to defend Arctic
The rush for Oil............................................WWIII coming soon.......................................
TORONTO, Canada (AP) -- Canada's prime minister has begun a three-day trip to the Arctic in an effort to assert sovereignty over the region a week after Russia symbolically staked a claim to the North Pole by sending submarines.
Although Stephen Harper's visit has been planned for months, it has taken on new importance since the Russian subs dove 21/2 miles to the Arctic shelf and planted their country's flag in a titanium capsule.
"The Russians sent a submarine to drop a small flag at the bottom of the ocean. We're sending our prime minister to reassert Canadian sovereignty," a senior government official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because his language was undiplomatic.
Five countries -- Canada, Russia, the United States, Norway and Denmark -- are competing to secure subsurface rights to the Arctic seabed. One study by the U.S. Geological Survey estimates the Arctic has as much as 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas.
Harper, who has pledged to spend billions defending Canada's sovereignty over the Arctic, is expected to announce the location of a planned military deep water port later in the week.
"Our government has an aggressive Arctic agenda," said Dimitri Soudas, the prime minister's spokesman.
"Economic development -- unleashing the resource-based potential of the North, environmental protection -- protecting the unique Northern environment, national sovereignty -- protecting our land, airspace and territorial waters."
Last month, Harper announced that six to eight new patrol ships will be built to guard the Northwest Passage sea route in the Arctic, which the U.S. insists does not belong to Canada.
U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins has criticized Harper's promise to defend the Arctic, calling the Northwest Passage "neutral waters."
Harper said last month the deep water port will serve as an operating base for naval ships and will also be used for commercial purposes. He might also announce a military training center in the Arctic.
"Canada has a choice when it comes to defending our sovereignty over the Arctic. We either use it or lose it. And make no mistake, this government intends to use it," Harper said.
The disputed Northwest Passage runs below the North Pole from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the Arctic archipelago.
As global warming melts the passage -- which is navigable only during a slim window in the summer -- the waters are exposing unexplored resources, and becoming an attractive shipping route. Commercial ships can shave off some 2,480 miles from Europe to Asia compared with the current routes through the Panama Canal.
Canada also wants to assert its claim over Hans Island at the entrance to the Northwest Passage.
The half-square-mile rock, one-seventh the size of New York's Central Park, is wedged between Canada's Ellesmere Island and Danish-ruled Greenland, and for more than 20 years has been a subject of unusually bitter exchanges between the two NATO allies.
In 1984, Denmark's minister for Greenland affairs, Tom Hoeyem, caused a stir when he flew in on a chartered helicopter, raised a Danish flag on the island, buried a bottle of brandy at the base of the flagpole and left a note saying: "Welcome to the Danish island."
The dispute erupted again two years ago when former Canadian Defense Minister Bill Graham set foot on the rock while Canadian troops hoisted the Maple Leaf flag.
Denmark sent a letter of protest to Ottawa, while Canadians and Danes took out competing Google ads, each proclaiming sovereignty over the rock 680 miles south of the North Pole.
Some Canadians even called for a boycott of Danish pastries.
Canada and the United States dismissed the Russian flag-planting as legally meaningless.
But Russian researchers also plan to use the dive to help map the Lomonosov ridge, a 1,240-mile underwater mountain range that crosses the polar region. Moscow claims the ridge is an extension of the Eurasian continent, and therefore part of Russia's continental shelf under international law.
The U.N. has rejected Moscow's claim, citing a lack of evidence, but Russia is set to resubmit it in 2009. If recognized, the claim would give Russia control of more than 460,000 square miles, representing almost half of the Arctic seabed E-mail to a friend
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed
TORONTO, Canada (AP) -- Canada's prime minister has begun a three-day trip to the Arctic in an effort to assert sovereignty over the region a week after Russia symbolically staked a claim to the North Pole by sending submarines.
Although Stephen Harper's visit has been planned for months, it has taken on new importance since the Russian subs dove 21/2 miles to the Arctic shelf and planted their country's flag in a titanium capsule.
"The Russians sent a submarine to drop a small flag at the bottom of the ocean. We're sending our prime minister to reassert Canadian sovereignty," a senior government official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because his language was undiplomatic.
Five countries -- Canada, Russia, the United States, Norway and Denmark -- are competing to secure subsurface rights to the Arctic seabed. One study by the U.S. Geological Survey estimates the Arctic has as much as 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas.
Harper, who has pledged to spend billions defending Canada's sovereignty over the Arctic, is expected to announce the location of a planned military deep water port later in the week.
"Our government has an aggressive Arctic agenda," said Dimitri Soudas, the prime minister's spokesman.
"Economic development -- unleashing the resource-based potential of the North, environmental protection -- protecting the unique Northern environment, national sovereignty -- protecting our land, airspace and territorial waters."
Last month, Harper announced that six to eight new patrol ships will be built to guard the Northwest Passage sea route in the Arctic, which the U.S. insists does not belong to Canada.
U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins has criticized Harper's promise to defend the Arctic, calling the Northwest Passage "neutral waters."
Harper said last month the deep water port will serve as an operating base for naval ships and will also be used for commercial purposes. He might also announce a military training center in the Arctic.
"Canada has a choice when it comes to defending our sovereignty over the Arctic. We either use it or lose it. And make no mistake, this government intends to use it," Harper said.
The disputed Northwest Passage runs below the North Pole from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the Arctic archipelago.
As global warming melts the passage -- which is navigable only during a slim window in the summer -- the waters are exposing unexplored resources, and becoming an attractive shipping route. Commercial ships can shave off some 2,480 miles from Europe to Asia compared with the current routes through the Panama Canal.
Canada also wants to assert its claim over Hans Island at the entrance to the Northwest Passage.
The half-square-mile rock, one-seventh the size of New York's Central Park, is wedged between Canada's Ellesmere Island and Danish-ruled Greenland, and for more than 20 years has been a subject of unusually bitter exchanges between the two NATO allies.
In 1984, Denmark's minister for Greenland affairs, Tom Hoeyem, caused a stir when he flew in on a chartered helicopter, raised a Danish flag on the island, buried a bottle of brandy at the base of the flagpole and left a note saying: "Welcome to the Danish island."
The dispute erupted again two years ago when former Canadian Defense Minister Bill Graham set foot on the rock while Canadian troops hoisted the Maple Leaf flag.
Denmark sent a letter of protest to Ottawa, while Canadians and Danes took out competing Google ads, each proclaiming sovereignty over the rock 680 miles south of the North Pole.
Some Canadians even called for a boycott of Danish pastries.
Canada and the United States dismissed the Russian flag-planting as legally meaningless.
But Russian researchers also plan to use the dive to help map the Lomonosov ridge, a 1,240-mile underwater mountain range that crosses the polar region. Moscow claims the ridge is an extension of the Eurasian continent, and therefore part of Russia's continental shelf under international law.
The U.N. has rejected Moscow's claim, citing a lack of evidence, but Russia is set to resubmit it in 2009. If recognized, the claim would give Russia control of more than 460,000 square miles, representing almost half of the Arctic seabed E-mail to a friend
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed
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