War in Asia is Close

North Korea shut down their nuclear reactor at Yongbyon to harvest the uranium necessary to make nuclear bombs. They are doing all this more or less in the open to signal their intent to test a bomb.

The North Koreans are desperately hoping to get American into bilateral discussions. This latest gambit, in their eyes, makes one on one discussions more likely because the other participants in the Five Party talks will withdraw from the table, leaving only the US and NK to negotiate. China would very much like to pull away, but stays in for fear that leaving the table while Japan remains with the US will make it seem to the rest of Asia that Japan is comparatively stronger. China cannot afford to lose face. Russia stays in to make mischief when they can. So, North Korea will find that the threat of a nuclear test is insufficient to induce a pullout of the participants, so they will feel forced to go the next step, and actually detonate one if they can.

The big drawback for the North Koreans to detonating the bomb is that is opens up the range of acceptable responses by the US to include a pre-emptive nuclear strike. In fact, for the US NOT to respond means that the US would be susceptible to blackmail by the North Koreans, and later by Iran. The US would probably immediately retaliate with a nuclear strike on Pyongyang, possibly from a submarine from inside the Bohai Gulf so that China could not even conceivably claim that the US missile was actually fired at the Middle Kingdom and thereby not risk a response. War in Asia is very close.

Regardless of the US response, a nuclear test by North Korea will cause the US stock market to tank immediately, although such a detonation will not immediately effect the fundamentals of the American economy. The Asian economy will face a serious challenge which will effect the American economy soon after. Sell you stocks and buy precious metals. I have.

War in Asia is Close

North Korea shut down their nuclear reactor at Yongbyon to harvest the uranium necessary to make nuclear bombs. They are doing all this more or less in the open to signal their intent to test a bomb.

The North Koreans are desperately hoping to get American into bilateral discussions. This latest gambit, in their eyes, makes one on one discussions more likely because the other participants in the Five Party talks will withdraw from the table, leaving only the US and NK to negotiate. China would very much like to pull away, but stays in for fear that leaving the table while Japan remains with the US will make it seem to the rest of Asia that Japan is comparatively stronger. China cannot afford to lose face. Russia stays in to make mischief when they can. So, North Korea will find that the threat of a nuclear test is insufficient to induce a pullout of the participants, so they will feel forced to go the next step, and actually detonate one if they can.

The big drawback for the North Koreans to detonating the bomb is that is opens up the range of acceptable responses by the US to include a pre-emptive nuclear strike. In fact, for the US NOT to respond means that the US would be susceptible to blackmail by the North Koreans, and later by Iran. The US would probably immediately retaliate with a nuclear strike on Pyongyang, possibly from a submarine from inside the Bohai Gulf so that China could not even conceivably claim that the US missile was actually fired at the Middle Kingdom and thereby not risk a response. War in Asia is very close.

Regardless of the US response, a nuclear test by North Korea will cause the US stock market to tank immediately, although such a detonation will not immediately effect the fundamentals of the American economy. The Asian economy will face a serious challenge which will effect the American economy soon after. Sell you stocks and buy precious metals. I have.

Senate Democrats Are Hostile to Faith

I listened to Dick Durbin, the dumbbell senator from Illinois piously (literally) claim he is a person of faith which makes it absurd to assert that the filibuster of appeals court judges has anything to do with their religious convictions. The filibuster instead is about how these judges interpret the law. Is there any evidence that these people of faith will throw over legislative intent and the text of the law and the constitution to impose some kind of theocracy? No of course not. On the other hand, there is evidence that many of these judges take their faith seriously, and attempt to live their lives according to Christian tenets. Oh, the horror! These people of faith are the types of people that the Democrats have chosen to filibuster. Is that a coincidence? Yes, of course, squeal the Dems.

My problem with the Dick Durbins of world is that when it suits them, they will take they will see a pattern as proof. Take for instance the idea about lack of blacks in law schools. While there is no proof that anyone in the admissions departments of these schools is racist in any way, the fact that there are proportionately fewer blacks in law school than in the population at large MEANS there is institutional racism in law schools that must be remedied. Yet dumbbell Durbin is flummoxed by the corollary that because Democrats filibuster judges of faith then there is some institutional Democrat hostility to judges of faith.

If you assert that results of actions imply some kind of moral deficiency that must be remedied in one context (law school admissions) then you cannot object when others do it you and your actions. The real question is whether the voters find the assertion of Democratic hostility to faith to be credible. I can tell you, having attended 6 different churches in the last 6 months, people of faith firmly people that democrats ARE hostile to faith, and would never consider voting democrat because of this hostility.

End the Filibuster or the Dems will end it for you in 3 years

There is something Republicans should remember when they contemplate whether to change the rules on filibusters in order to get a vote on the people the President has nominated to the Federal appeals courts. If the Republicans were in the minority and were filibustering a Democrat president’s nominees, the Democrats would of course change the rules! They will not hesitate, and they would laugh at the cowardice that te Republicans displayed in not doing it first.

“Oh wait Ken, all the Democrats are going on and on about the sacred virtue of the filibuster, how the majority must respect the rights of the minority, surely they are not so hypocritical that they would ignore their words and their current stance when it would be more politically expedient to do something else!” To which I reply: “HA!”

Democrats are shameless, and dedicated to preserving abortion rights. Anything they have to do to defeat Republicans and keep compliant judges on the bench is within bounds of acceptable behavior. Nothing you can say, no amount of scorn you can heap on their lame justification for their scurrilous behavior matters because they feel that abortion must be kept legal for children across the US.

End the filibuster, put conservatives on the bench now, or the Democrats will put their judges on the bench in 08 when Hillary is president.

China and Mexican Immigration

A friend of mine made an excellent point. I was going on, as I do, about how I am sensing that many observers see that China's miracle is phony. My friend had sent me a long STRATFOR article China's Economy: Crash or Slow Decline? By Rodger Baker. in which Mr Baker avers that China is about to or is in the midst of a major econimic correction. Here is what I wrote:

A lot of folks are beating this drum, regarding the fraud that is the China miracle, and the likelihood of a crash. A crash is coming, with many reports saying it is underway now. I think we will look back 10 years from now at the wreckage of China, just as we did with the wreckage of the Warsaw Pact countries and say, why didn't we see it coming?

He came back with this observation.

If this happens, what will WalMart have to sell?

To which I responded:

Stuff made in Mexico. A big reason for the illegal immigration from Mexico is the fact that China has undercut them, amazingly, so there is absolutely no opportunity in Mexico except to come North and try to find work in the service industy. The collapse of China will result in more security along the southern border.

You never hear this from even the more thoughtful analysts of the Chinese situation. Here is a long post about the current Chinese shenanigans from Publius which is linked from Instapundit. What everyone seems to miss is that the current trends in illegal immigration from Mexico are DIRECTLY related to the criminal enterprise that is China Inc.

The analogy is similar to what happens when sweatshops run by the Mob open in a neighborhood. Soon, legitimate businesses either must match the the price of goods put out by the illegal businesses and therefor engage in illegal business practices themselves OR the legitimate businesses go broke, and the formerly, gainfully employed workers are forced into illegal activity to make a living.

When China came on the scene and began producing goods made by slave labor, the costs of these goods were below even what cheap Mexican factories could produce or even could conceivably compete with. Hence, huge orders from WalMart and other discounting retailers went to Chinese companies which had the twin deleterious effects of propping up the Chinese communists, and killing the possibility that Mexican producers could meet the needs of WalMart.

Imagine a world in which Mexico and China compete on a level, legal playing field, each leveraging their natural advantages to produce low priced goods for the American consumer. Mexican industry, producing low priced goods with cheap transportation costs, would boom, and there would be real incentive for Mexicans currently running for the border to stay home and work for decent wages. China would face a major restructuring and violent economic upheaval, but would eventually retool to produce competitive goods and sustainable (and realistic) growth rates.

"Never Again" means we must act NOW!

Koreans will condemn us for not doing more to end the suffering that they daily face, to which we remain indifferent. I am struck by the moral authority which Holocaust survivors possess, even 60 years after the end of the War. But the truth is, during WWII, these same survivors were ridiculed and ignored. And we who were strong vowed never to let such a thing, such an atrocity happen again. However, such things are happening again right now. And like our forefathers who ignored the proof presented to them of the perfidy of the Nazi's, we ignore the perfidy of the Communists in Asia.

The South Korean government does everything it can to stifle those who would call attention to the atrocities being committed in North Korea for fear of "inciting" the North Korean regime. Taiwan and the United States does what it can to downplay reports of oppression in China to avoid antagonizing China. What is the justification for this inaction? Are we afraid that North Korea will attack South Korea if we focus on the North Korean treatment of those who dissent? Are we afraid that China will cut off exports of consumer goods if we relentlessly focus on their treatment of Christians within their borders?

The answer to these questions is "Yes." Our leadership is once again paralyzed by fear of provoking tyrants who are perceived as strong when the reality is that these tyrants are perilously weak. We have a vision of China as the colossus against whom we are powerless to exert our will, when in reality they are the most banal example of bully. They are big and blustering, but in reality are weak and cowardly and are desperately afraid that America will call their bluff. North Korea is even more contemptible...that filthy regime is the puny sidekick of the larger bully, who can get away with anything so long as he stays close to the larger punk.

It is time to honor the lessons we learned of our forefathers, to serve the weak being oppressed while we dither, and stand up to the Chinese and the North Koreans. These countries are on their knees, holding spears pointed at their chests, praying that we do not stomp up to them and kick those spears straight through their hearts. We have it in our power to call the bluff of these cowardly, murderous regimes and live up to the promises we have made to oppressed people through out history. "Never again" means we must act now.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

All Hail the Mighty Nationals

Opening night is tonight. Tickets are ridiculously expensive and sold out for as long as the mind can imagine. How long will it be before people wake up from their euphoric dreams and say "Wait a second, these are the Expos!"???

China Teetering

Water shortages, riots over pollution and the Three Gorges Dam, a diplomatic blow-up with the Japanese and Chinese thugs thrashing the Japanese embassy in Beijing over middle school history textbooks...China is in disarray.

I could rehash all these events in nauseating detail but to what end? The weight of all these stories points to one conclusion, China is imploding. There is nothing in the line up of today's stories about the tottering state of the Chinese economy, or the large problem of Islamic radicalism in the West or the Chinese Communists stupid brinksmanship regarding Taiwan.

We are going to look back on this time, that we are in the midst of right now, and say "The collapse of China was so clearly going to happen, why didn't we see it?" Half-wit Kremlinologists said the same thing after the Berlin Wall fell. Right now, "Sinologists" are saying that China is a threat, China is powerful, China is America's superpower rival but I think that anyone with a sense of history and a scintilla of imagination knows that the end for China is near. America should be doing everything we can to hasten the liberation of 1 billion + souls in China.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Language Training in the Military is Broken

Language Training in the Department of Defense is broken, there is no other way to describe it.

Language training is in thrall to a huge bureaucracy that has poorly adapted to the needs of the Global War on Terror.

DLI has tenured professors teaching languages irrelevant to the Global War on terror, so there is less money available for teaching other, more relevant languages. When tensions were high in the 1980's, DLI rightfully hired more German and Russian linguists. While this made sense at the time, DLI is like any other bureacracy in the Federal Government. Once DLI hires people, they are never fired even when they are excess to needs. So what has happened to all there German and Russian instructors who are no longer needed? DLI created a new department for formal instruction so that former instructors in Cold War languages can teach newly hired instructors the ins and outs of generic "language instruction." What is the value of this? The value has never been studied, the value has only been asserted. This pattern, as we will see below, is common practice with DLI. Assert the value of something without actually studying whether the assertion is correct. Then spend more money as if the initial assertion is correct.

The version of Arabic being taught at DLI is a "synthetic language" that is virtually unintelligible by Iraqis with whom the Marine learning the language must interact. The formal name is Modern Standard Arabic, which is only used in "...as a second language at school and through exposure to formal broadcast programs (such as the daily news), religious practice, and print media." Instructors assert that learning MSA lays the groundwork for study of other Arabic dialects like Iraqi. There are at least four problems with this assertion: 1) As above, this assertion has never been studied, so it has never been proven. 2) The cost in time and money is prohibitive. It costs approximately $80,000 per Marine per year for instruction and takes 63 weeks of a Marine's 208 week enlistment. While in absolute terms, this is expensive instruction, in relative terms, it is even worse because even AFTER this instruction, Marines require an extra 6 month's on the job instruction in the Iraqi dialect to make them intelligible. 3) Empirical evidence from the Operating Forces suggest that if you provide intelligent Marines with rudimentary "smart cards" featuring the basics of Iraqi dialect and provide these same Marines with the 6 month OJT, their level of proficiency is the same as the DLI trained linguist Marines. 4) Teaching a synthetic language is counter intuitive to learning an actual spoken dialect. It is as if learning Esperanto and Latin would help someone in the study of Spanish. Maybe it would, but at what cost in time and money for what dubious benefit? And in real terms, I know from experience that learning a root language such as Chinese helps in no way to learn a dialect like Taiwanese or Cantonese. Learning these dialects would require virtually as much time as learning the root language.


Because the instructors at DLI are tenured and are civilians, they cannot be forced to update their curriculum annually, as is required by every other school in the military. For example, the course for Persian had not been updated since the time of the Shah. This is a function of the strange hybrid that DLI represents. DLI's real master is the National Security Agency and is run by civilians but the end user of their product, linguists, are the military services. Even though the military has requirements for review of curricula and studies of the effectiveness of product once they hit the operating forces, DLI can ignore these requirements, and they do.

Language training is broken, and desperately needs an overhaul.

China Starts an Arms Race

Interesting article about the Communist Chinese Navy building bases in Burma and Pakistan in an effort to encircle India. China has a vision of itself dominating the Indian Ocean and thwarting India's ability to choke off Chinese oil supplies in the event of a conflict. Once again, China shows that it can look at a map and pretend to be a great power, but has no clue about the forces it is about to unleash.

India will have no choice but to respond to this provocation. India will build carriers and submarines to ensure their continued parity with China meaning there will be an arms race in the Indian Ocean. Bottom line, China ignited a regional naval arms race with Japan, Taiwan, and now India. Meanwhile, the Chinese economy is spectacularly unprepared to support such a endeavor. Stand by for an implosion that will be huge, disasterous and completely predictable. But the MSM will stand by, stupefied as it occurs.

Marines in Space!

Marines in Space, and we ain't talking Starship Troopers! Recently, a "Universal Needs Statement" (UNS) crossed my desk and caught my eye. UNS are produced by Marine Corps staff officers to enunciate future needs of the Marine Corps in materiel or manpower. Well, this one, six pages in length, called for the development of the "Small Unit Space Transport and Insertion Capability (SUSTAIN)." Reading through this document, I discovered that someone in the Marine Corps thinks that in 10 years or so, my beloved Corps should have the capability to shoot a squad of Marines (13 or so) into space, have them orbit for a while, then land in a hot spot someplace as a "fully relevant small unit at any place on the globe" without respect to airspace or territorial concerns.

How dumb is this idea? Forget the NASA's seemingly contradictory pattern of fevered gyrations and institutional paralysis that occur whenever they try to orbit astronauts, but shooting a squad of Marines and their weapons? Give me a break. And what good would it be to drop a squad anyplace that you could not otherwise reach with airpower? What is the scenario for their utilization, no matter how farfetched? How to sustain them? How to evacuate them? The UNS states that they would be available to "exploit time-sensitive strategic opportunities?" Sounds like a one way lawn dart to me. But you know what? We are going to spend millions of dollars on this idea because some General thinks that it is nifty, while we scratch our heads trying to find money for stuff we really need like comm gear that works or Iraqi dialect language training.

Hope for Christians in China

Startlingly, Italy allowed President Chen of Taiwan a visa to attend the Pope's funeral. China, outraged as usual, stormed off in a pique. The Chinese, forever looking for the chance to appear petty even at the funeral of a renown man of peace, refused to send a representative.

Meanwhile Cardinal Zen, the "independent" Catholic prelate of Hong Kong says that the Vatican is ready to recognize China and shun Taiwan. I am sure that is true, but the Vatican has put some pretty onerous conditions on this switch. China must allow truly independent clergy and must allow Catholics to worship freely, two conditions that this generation of Communists will never allow. The Communists may be a lot of things, but stupid is not one of them. They have well learned the lessons of the Solidarity Movement in Poland and the break up of the Soviet Union. If China were to allow freedom of worship by the Catholics, there would be so many Chinese flocking to Mass that the Communists would be powerless to stop or even turn the movement. So, the Communists will never agree to the stated conditions for the Vatican recognizing China and will instead continue to attempt to bully the Papacy much as China has bullied other small countries into switching recognition. Sadly for the Communists but joyously for the people of China, the Vatican is not Vanuatu. The Vatican will recognize China when the Chinese are free. Inviting Chen to the Vatican is yet another step towards that goal.

Another good move on the part of John Paul the Great was appointing a bishop in China. The name of this bishop is held in the heart of John Paul but is well known to believers in China. The communists would desperately like to know who it is so that they could turn him but he is a man of character and courage, who is entirely worthy of the office. The Catholics in China are blessed to have this man, and a Pope who had the courage to make such a selection.

God bless and have mercy on the Christian in China.

Tell Instapundit To Shut Up

The more I read Instapundit, the less impressed I am. Take this post. He and James Dunnigan, the master of the obvious, opine that China will try some kind of sneak attack against Taiwan, even though Taiwan and the US track every concentration of Chinese forces on the Southeast Coast about a closely as you can.

And giving nukes so that China will launch an attack on Pakistan and NK is just dumb but of course, the good Professor will claim it is a satirical post. Yeah, sure. Taiwan with nukes will give China a reason to negotiate, but only so long as the nukes show up unobtrusively. If Taiwan blows off a nuke, China can attack to "prevent" Taiwan's rouge slittists from doing anything else horrendous.

Forgiveness

I read a fascinating account about forgiveness in the heart of the Pope. A radical Muslim, Mehmet Ali Agca tried to assassinate Pope John Paul the Great in 1981, probably on the orders of the KGB.

Two years later, John Paul visited the assassin in prison to offer
forgiveness. Reportedly, Agca is in "deep grief" over the death of John Paul. Agca's
brother says that Agca sees the Pope as his "brother."

"They had declared brotherhood when the pope visited him
in prison," Adnan Agca said of the 1983 meeting. "He was Agca's
brother.

Would not you be sad if you had lost your brother?"

Adnan Agca said the pope has received relatives of the gunman
several times over the years, meeting Agca's mother, Muzeyyen, in 1987
and Adnan Agca in 1997.

Adnan Agca said he was considering attending the pope's funeral.
"We may go to Italy if possible in a few days," Adnan Agca
said.

"

Forgiveness is hard, but John Paul lived it. Most cannot forgive
someone who cuts them off during the commute to work, John Paul forgave
his assassin. Truly a man who loved and followed the example of Jesus.

China Fears Taiwan Subs

A Chinese academic recently opined that the new submarines that Taiwan will purchase would make it possible to for Taiwan to blockade all Chinese ports in the event of war. Of course this is absurd, eight submarines cannot blockade all of China. Those subs could cause some disruption, could raise insurance rates, could cause a lot of problems, but it is absurd to argue that they would be successful in blockading the entire Chinese coast.

So what is the reason for making this assertion? Simple, it gives the Chinese another justification for the pre-emtive attack on Taiwan that is being planned. The clock is ticking.