EU, Friggin' North Korea, Lebanon, and Iran

Henry Kissinger
Bruce Bechtol
Laura Secor






Over the weekend there were elections in 27 European countries, with 47% of voters turning out: "Leading parties in Germany and France won seats by wide margins while even Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi's Freedom People's Party beat its main center-left rival despite a deep recession and allegations of sexual impropriety." Yes, Mr Berlusconi feels that this supports his claim that his wife can go suck eggs while young Italian girls rock; proving that money does buy you happiness...

"In the United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown's political survival hung in the balance as his ruling Labor Party suffered a devastating rout, being beaten into third place by the Conservatives and anti-Europe UK Independence Party (UKIP). The far-right, anti-immigrant British National Party also gained its first European seats, capturing a total of 2."

In Sweden the Pirate Party actually won a seat on this simple platform: "The Pirate Party wants to fundamentally reform copyright law, get rid of the patent system, and ensure that citizens' rights to privacy are respected. With this agenda, and only this, we are making a bid for representation in the European and Swedish parliaments." But now that they have won, they might think about making it mandatory for members to wear a parrot on their shoulder while in session at Parliament, and free grog for all...

The really bad news comes out of North Korea, where our two women journalists were convicted and sentenced to 12 years of prison and hard labor. The BBC reports: "The trial began on Thursday, and on Monday North Korea's state media agency, KCNA, released a report saying the two had been convicted.
The trial confirmed the grave crime they committed against the Korean nation and their illegal border crossing... and sentenced each of them to 12 years of reform through labour," the brief report said.
The news agency gave no further details."

I've been wondering along with just about everyone else in the world, what Kim Jong-Il is up to with his recent missile and nuclear tests, his belligerent posturing towards the US again, and now this.Both Henry Kissinger and Bruce Bechtol above have articles warning how unstable the situation really is. I don't think that Kim wants to give up power to some toadying son that nobody has ever heard of, he wants to take the country down in flames with him as he dies, so there won't be a North Korea after he's gone. You rascal, you. What needs to happen is for both China and Russia to come into North Korea, disable the nukes, free the journalists, and give lil Kim a good spanking, or a public flogging will do as a substitute... It would be a diplomatic coup to convince them to do it, I wonder if Mr Huntsman is up to the task?

There also were elections in Kuwait and Lebanon, with surprising results in from Lebanon, as reported by the NY Times: "An American-backed alliance has retained control of the Lebanese Parliament after a hotly contested election billed as a showdown between Tehran and Washington for influence in the Middle East.

The alliance, known as the March 14 coalition, won the majority in the 128-member parliament with 71 seats, compared with to 57 for the Hezbollah-led coalition, according to official results announced Monday by the government. The results represent a significant and unexpected defeat for Hezbollah and its allies, Iran and Syria. Most polls had showed a tight race, but one in which the Hezbollah-led group would win.

The March 14 coalition is a predominantly Sunni, Christian and Druze alliance. It is led by the Sunni Muslim Future Movement of Saad Hariri, whose father’s assassination in 2005 led to huge protests that forced Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon.

The results formally leave the number of seats held by the March 14 movement nearly unchanged, with 68 seats, plus three independents aligned with them. But the vote promises to shift the balance of power in the country by providing the March 14 movement with a moral victory over Hezbollah. It also confers on them increased legitimacy, because last time the movement won, in 2005, it did so in alliance with Hezbollah.

The question now is whether Hezbollah will retain the power it had in the last assembly to essentially veto legislation in the Parliament as a powerful minority bloc." Oh My God, Joe Biden did it! But I wonder if the results may have been a positive reaction to President Obama's Cairo speech. If so, then he has done with words what no other American politician has ever done before...And, as the Angry Arab points out, we may not be getting what we paid for: "Meet the new MP, Khalid Daher. He won on the Hariri list in `Akkar. This Bin Ladenite is now part of the coalition that the Western media insists on labeling as "pro-Western." I am not sure how Daher would react if you were to call him "pro-Western." Pro-medieval would be more appropriate. Mr. Daher allegedly helped recruit volunteers for Abu Mus`ab Zarqawi. By the way, was Zarqawi "pro-Western" too?"


The biggest ticket these days is watching the Iranian Presidential election, which is getting wild, taking it to the streets and televised debates, with the candidates trash talking each other, accusing everyone of corruption! They are trying to be more entertaining than the last US election was, as reported by the NY Times: "The leading candidates are accusing each other of corruption, bribery and torture. The wife of the strongest challenger to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has threatened to sue him for defaming her. And every night, parts of the capital become a screaming, honking bacchanal, with thousands of young men dancing and brawling in the streets until dawn.

The presidential campaign, now in its final week, has reached a level of passion and acrimony almost unheard-of in Iran.

In part, that appears to be because of a surge of energy in the campaign of Mir Hussein Moussavi, a reformist who is the leading contender to defeat Mr. Ahmadinejad in the election, set for Friday. Rallies for Mr. Moussavi have drawn tens of thousands of people in recent days, and a new unofficial poll suggests his support has markedly increased, with 54 percent of respondents saying they would vote for him compared with 39 percent for Mr. Ahmadinejad."

But all of this may just be a cathartic outlet for the young citizens of Tehran, because the outcome may have already been chosen for them, as remarked by the BBC: "The remainder of the 475 candidates who registered, including 42 women, were ruled ineligible by the powerful Guardian Council.
By most standards that would suggest a less than open contest.
And many more candidates may have been deterred even from registering, by the likelihood that they would be disqualified.
Certainly it is true that the choice is restricted." And yet, Iran boasts that it is the most democratic country in the Middle East. Who know, maybe next week they will prove it to be true...