Uncommon Sense

The no-shows show their colors

From the Washington Post:

Crowds Bid Farewell to Russian Reporter

No Senior Officials Attend Service for Slain Critic of Putin's Chechnya Policies

MOSCOW, Oct. 10 -- In the House of Farewell, an austere, cavernous funeral hall at the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery, the body of murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya lay in an open casket Tuesday afternoon as thousands of mourners -- ambassadors, journalists, civil activists, politicians and ordinary Russians -- filed past and paid their final respects.

No senior Kremlin official attended -- an absence that people here noted, along with the almost complete silence of President Vladimir Putin in the immediate wake of the apparent contract killing of Politkovskaya in the lobby of her apartment Saturday.

On a trip to Germany, Putin added to the insult.

"Her influence on political life in the country was extremely insignificant in scale," he said. "She was known in journalist and human rights circles, but her influence on political life in Russia was minimal. This murder does much more harm to Russia and Chechnya than any of her articles."

As I wrote earlier, Putin is responsible for creating a Russia where killing a journalist is a crime with which you can get away.

Since taking office in 2000, 13 journalists, many of them critical of the government, have been murdered in Russia.

No one has ever been convicted.

Ché and Kim: Crazy commies-in-arms

Ché Guevara, who was executed 39 years ago today in Bolivia, would have been proud of North Korea's Kim Il Jong, whose nation is making a fast-trick bid for the world's nuclear club.

Just look at what Guevara, who was itching for nuclear war, said after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

"If the nuclear missiles had remained, we would have used them against the very heart of America, including New York City. ... We will march the path of victory even if it costs millions of atomic victims. ... We must keep our hatred alive and fan it to paroxysm."

Yes, thank God, Ché is still dead.

North Korea says it tested a nuke

From the Associated Press:

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea said Monday it has performed its first-ever nuclear weapons test. The country's official Korean Central News Agency said the test was performed successfully and there was no radioactive leakage from the site.

"The nuclear test is a historic event that brought happiness to the our military and people," KCNA said.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency said the test was conducted at 10:36 a.m. (9:36 p.m. EDT Sunday) in Hwaderi near Kilju city, citing defense officials.

Well, I guess all that talking with North Korea — thank you Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter — didn't do the world much good.

Mad men talking, and talking, and talking ...

Experience the insanity.

Here are transcripts of speeches before the United Nations by:

Mini-Me of Venezuela

and

Iwannabigbomb of Iran

Bush to open White House to a dictator

If President Bush is going to honor an autocratic leader like Nursultan Nazarbayev, president of Kazakhstan, with a visit to the White House next month, hopefully someone will remind Bush to pressure Nazarbayev on his poor human rights record.

For example, as Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has noted, the independent press is under siege by Nazarbayev's regime.

RSF reports:

"The regime sharply increased pressure on the media in the run-up to the 4 December 2005 presidential election, filtering opposition Internet websites, obstructing printing and distribution of independent newspapers and seizing those considered too critical of President Nursultan Nazarbayev and his associates. Journalists were often physically attacked, threatened and abused. Batyrkhan Darimbet, editor of the opposition weekly Azat, died in very suspicious circumstances and may have been killed because of his work."

RSF has responded by naming Nazarbayev one of its "predators of press freedom."

That's some pretty nasty company that Nazarbayev keeps.

Hopefully, he will be the last one to get a sit-down at the White House.

Oops, a few of them have, including Putin of Russia, Musharraf of Pakistan and the king of Saudi Arabia.

OK, that's it.

Really.

Unless, of course, somebody else has lots of oil under their land.

Another bad Ernesto for Cuba

Let's hope this Ernesto does a lot less damage to Cuba than this Ernesto, as in Ernesto "Ché" Guevara, did.

More than 47 years later, Cuba is still trying to recover from the first storm.

The last thing New Orleans needs is ...

... the threat of this.

Especially while this guy is still in charge. As Michelle Malkin notes, "What an ass."

Of course, you also have to wonder whether this guy would do better after the next disaster.

On North Korea, Japan may go its own way

Now, this would be interesting.

From the Associated Press:

Japan considers strike against N. Korea

Japan said Monday it was considering whether a pre-emptive strike on the North's missile bases would violate its constitution, signaling a hardening stance ahead of a possible U.N. Security Council vote on Tokyo's proposal for sanctions against the regime.

Japan was badly rattled by North Korea's missile tests last week and several government officials openly discussed whether the country ought to take steps to better defend itself, including setting up the legal framework to allow Tokyo to launch a pre-emptive strike against Northern missile sites.

"If we accept that there is no other option to prevent an attack ... there is the view that attacking the launch base of the guided missiles is within the constitutional right of self-defense. We need to deepen discussion," Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said.

But then Japan might be all talk. The story continues:

A Defense Agency spokeswoman, however, said Japan has no attacking weapons such as ballistic missiles that could reach North Korea. Its forces only have ground-to-air missiles and ground-to-vessel missiles, she said on condition of anonymity due to official policy.

You can't blame the Japanese for wanting to lash out. The North Korean missiles flew their way, so Tokyo has taken the lead in drawing up a United Nations resolution condemning the North Koreans.

But it looks like the usual suspects, veto-wielding China and Russia, are standing in the way of the U.N. doing anything meaningful about the situation.

Welcome to our world, Japan.

The case for bombing North Korea

They were officials in the Clinton adminitration, which is responsible for a big part of the mess we now face in North Korea's nuclear and missile programs.

But William Perry and Ashton B. Carter offer a reasoned defense for bombing North Korean missiles on the launch pad.

The money quote:

(I)f the U.S. is ever going to defend a line in the sand with North Korea, that is the least provocative way to do it, and next time it will only be riskier. Such a strike could be seen by the North Korean leadership for what it is: a limited act of defense of the U.S. homeland against a gathering threat, and not an overall attack on North Korea. Pyongyang tries carefully to cultivate the impression that it will lash out in response to any action against it, however limited. But would it truly retaliate against South Korea, which has been working hard to improve North-South relations, in response to a U.S. airstrike? Such a war would surely and swiftly end in the elimination of the North Korean regime. Pyongyang's leaders are bold, but they are not suicidal.

For the U.S., the risk of inaction will prove far greater. The Pyongyang regime will view its stockpile of missiles and nuclear material as tipping the regional balance in its favor and providing a shield behind which it can pursue its interests with impunity. Worse, North Korea has a long history of selling its advanced weapons to countries in the Middle East, and it operates a black market in other forms of contraband. Like Pakistan's rogue nuclear engineer A.Q. Khan, North Korean officials might be tempted to sell the ingredients of their arsenal to terrorists. Finally, many expect North Korea's failed economy to lead one day to the regime's collapse. Who then might get its loose nukes?

Read the whole article here.

Fireworks in Asia

North Korea early Wednesday (local time) test-fired three missiles, including one that reportedly could hit the West Coast of the United States.

The missile reportedly "failed," but that should not diminish the severity of how the world responds. And if the world blinks, the United States should take the lead and deliver a message to the North Koreans that their provocative act will not go punished.

I'd start by taking out the launch site.