TOBY PETZOLD

I don’t know what’s going on with this American-backed Ethiopian Proxy War story, but it sounds very interesting. Especially since it elicits comments like the following. From the ass of one Salim Lone, as splayed in the op-ed pages of the International Herald Tribune:

NAIROBI: Undeterred by the horrors and setbacks in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon, the Bush administration has opened another battlefront in the Muslim world. With full U.S. backing and military training, at least 15,000 Ethiopian troops have entered Somalia in an illegal war of aggression against the Union of Islamic Courts, which controls almost the entire south of the country.

As with Iraq in 2003, the United States has cast this as a war to curtail terrorism, but its real goal is to obtain a direct foothold in a highly strategic region by establishing a client regime there. The Horn of Africa is newly oil-rich, and lies just miles from Saudi Arabia, overlooking the daily passage of large numbers of oil tankers and warships through the Red Sea. General John Abizaid, the current U.S. military chief of the Iraq war, was in Ethiopia this month, and President Hu Jintao of China visited Kenya, Sudan and Ethiopia earlier this year to pursue oil and trade agreements.

Speaking of wars —”illegal” or otherwise— one must keep in mind while reading anti-American opinions like this one that China is itself funding the Janjaweed militias in the Darfur region of the Sudan. You know: the place where all the pesky locals are being massacred to move them off of China’s oil concessions?

Mr. Lone never gets around to mentioning that. Why? Because Bush lied and people died.

Anybody care to explain why it’s so damned important that the United States enter into another round of bilateral talks with North Korea?

Is it because that’s what Clinton and Carter did?

Hmm. Well, only a partisan liar or someone completely ignorant of history would suggest that those efforts succeeded.

Bush’s sexpartite strategy is superior for the simple reason that it takes into account the reality of the dynamic in East Asia: North Korea is China’s responsibility. By including the other regional powers, the onus is placed squarely on Beijing to demonstrate their commitment to becoming a partner for peace and commerce in the region.

The idea that the United States is the only obstruction to peace with the North Koreans is just weird. Demanding that we, alone, must negotiate with the Kimchi Pot is to completely ignore the fact that he is Beijing’s proxy in maintaining the tension between our allies and a totalitarian regime where extreme political repression, concentration camps, and famine are the rule.

China just wants to keep deferring the day that the two Koreas are united. They don’t want to see a successful pro-American country sitting so closely to their own. They want to squash that just like they do Taiwan and any other incovenience in their sphere. 

If these reports that North Korea has successfully tested a nuclear weapon prove true, there is only one country thats reaction matters.

China is the reason why the Kimchi Pot is even still in power. China abides his nuttiness because it annoys Japan and South Korea and us. If the Chinese cut their comrades off at the knees (viz., in the Security Council tomorrow), then we’ll know their attention’s been gotten. If not, then we’ll know that the Chinese intend to continue using North Korea for their own regional agenda. 

So here comes the real test. 

What better way of showing our solidarity with democratic movements around the world than to countenance this sort of nonsense?

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A woman accused of heckling Chinese President Hu Jintao during a White House appearance was charged Friday with a misdemeanor of willfully intimidating, coercing, threatening and harassing a foreign official.

Wang Wenyi, 47, had press credentials as a reporter for a Falun Gong newspaper and positioned herself Thursday in front of the platform where President Bush and Hu stood.

According to Secret Service translations in court documents, she shouted in Chinese, “Stop oppressing the Falun Gong,” among other remarks.

If convicted, she could receive up to 6 months in jail and a $5,000 fine.

Then again, as the out-party always says, this is a nation of laws.

Does anyone know if Eason Jordan is doing consulting work for Google in China?

I hope I don’t go black.