Category: The Dish

The importance of some kind of national reconciliation before the surge winds down in earnest is hard to over-estimate. Here’s Petraeus’ recent assessment of progress:

There have been accomplishments, especially in recent weeks. They approved a pension law that extends pension rights to tens of thousands Iraqis who were left out, cast off. They agreed to the Security Council resolution extension, which gives us our mandate. They have debated accountability and justice, which is the de-Baathification reform legislation. The budget for 2008 should come up for a vote very soon after they return from Eid and the hajj. So, the progress has been halting, but there are a number of encouraging signs on the horizon.

"Debated" accountability and justice? Somehow I think that’s not-so-hard.

The Detroit News backs him, which will help in Michigan, Romney’s real home-state.

For the European super-rich, Manhattan is a bargain. And so house prices stay high at the very top.

Ambinder:

Don’t automatically assume that high turnout helps Barack Obama or assume that an increase in turnout comes from independents. Democrats, too, could caucus in record numbers, which helps the two candidates who are banking on them: Edwards and Clinton.

College papers in Iowa back Obama and McCain.

It’s a natural fit – and dreadful news for Romney. There’s almost no likelihood of Fred coming higher than third in Iowa, and that seemed to be his get-out point until late last night. McCain now has the highest favorables of any candidate on either side and Romney has the lowest. You do the math. The Rasmussen numbers – assuming they’re not an outlier – are also bad news for Obama: the Clinton sliming has taken a toll on his negatives.

What else do quotes like these bring to mind?

"They started cutting the church door with a panga [machete]. They were from around here, and even knew some of our names. We kneeled down and surrendered. It was quiet, as we were all praying. We knew this was the end," – Grace Githuthwa, a Kenyan in the Eldoret church.

The best coverage is on the blogs. Kenya Unlimited and Mashada. Some dispute that this is a simple tribal meltdown:

Most of the world press is reporting that the war in Kenya is between President Kibaki’s Kikuyu tribe and Raila Odinga’s Luo tribe. That is what the world believes.

This is exactly what the man men currently sitting comfortably inside State house would like the world to believe.

This is just NOT TRUE. Some of he most violent protests in the country have come from Rift Valley and the tribe here are not Luos. They are Kalenjins. Most of the violence in Nairobi has been in slums where there is a mixture of different tribes from different parts of the country. The same can be said about Mombasa, Kenyas coastal town. In other words what we have in Kenya is a popular uprising against a rigged election where some people have taken advantage to settle scores related to ethnicity. Like the Kalenjins who have been opposed to Kikuyu settlement in their land that happened in the 60s supervised by Kenya’s first president Mzee Jomo Kenyatta.

It gets more complex because most Kenyans seem to be venting out their anger on Kikuyus.

One quote I can’t quite banish from my mind:

My heart is heavy to report that there are refugees in Nairobi that are from Nairobi.

Some blog reports are terrifying:

Approximately 40-50K people are holded up at the compounds of ST. PATRICKS CATHOLIC CHURCH and ARNESENS HIGH SCHOOLl, both in Burnt Forest. There is no running water, food and ELECTRICITY has been cut. THIS MEANS THAT PEOPLE CANNOT RECHARGE THIER CELL PHONES and soon we’ll not be able to contact them. Also, due to the chaos/anarchy in these compounds, means that people, especially women are not any safer than if they were out in the chaos. There has been reports of rapes and molestations.

Then this:

30 hours after I send a frantic SOS: "Are you ok?" Finally, a phone call. The line is unclear, my family sound as though they are underwater. Suddenly, the idea of being “drowned” in violence sounds more than metaphorical.

(Photo: A Kenyan man leads his children away from his neighborhood as he flees violence during disturbances in the streets of the Mathare slum in Nairobi, Kenya 01 January 2008. At least 70,000 people have been displaced in western Kenya by the post-electoral unrest that has engulfed the east African country, the Kenya Red Cross said today. By Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty.)

Slippage among the Clintonites is beginning to look likely – but these caucuses are fickle things. It’s still way too close to call. But if Clinton finishes third and Romney comes in second, it really is a change election. Both have the resources to continue for the very long haul. But both also suffer badly if they manage to win through money and establishment backing against the candidates who have won over the hearts of their two parties. But if Obama wins Iowa, and then New Hampshire, Clinton will need South Carolina. And under those circumstances, she won’t have it.

Too much surface, not enough detail. I’m still scared she can win. The machine is behind her.

I’m with this reader:

The writer of the email yesterday is the one who should get his/her facts straight. The Bosnian conflict ended, not with either Clinton or NATO leadership but despite the lack of it. Only after the military tide turned in Bosnia due to Muslim countries ignoring the weapons trading ban such that the Bosnians could actually fight the Serbs on somewhat even terms did the Serbs ever come to the "peace" table. Even then, the Dayton Accord did more to save Milosevic to massacre another day (see Kosovo a few years later) than it ever did for the Bosnians. Besides, is the writer now saying that George H.W. Bush should have been more "unilateral" and less "multilateral" with our EU allies?

If Haiti is the best foreign policy victory of the Clinton presidency that the writer can cite, that says it all.

In the Middle East, at least an equally reasonable case can be made that Clinton, by artificially elevating the status of a two-bit terrorist like Arafat to an equal of the leader of the Free World, made peace LESS likely.

And, somehow, the MSM continues to perpetuate the idea that the Clinton Administration’s agreement with North Korea was a success, even though the North Koreans admit to cheating on it from the moment it was signed.  Huh?

The original writer was right — Clinton was the fortunate beneficiary of a peace dividend from the end of the Cold War and a revolutionary tech boom.  If a Republican had been President during the Clinton years, all we would ever hear from the Dems undoubtedly would be how the prosperity of the ’90s was voodoo economics, built on the accounting shenanigans and dotcom puffery of a few "wealthy special interests."

The ’90s were great but I have no nostalgia for the Clintons.  The credit for the ’90s, such as it is, belongs with the greatness of American capitalism and the universal thirst for liberty and freedom by people around the world.  Thankfully, gridlock in Washington was sufficient to keep the pols from screwing it up.