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1. First of all, every major paper in the United States and Canada is going ape-shit over possible new leaks from Wikileaks as they get set for another massive intelligence dump of secret U.S. documents.
(Plain talk from American diplomats could lead to red faces around the world this weekend as whistle blower website WikiLeaks gets set for another massive dump of secret U.S. documents says the Sate Department.).
American diplomats have already made calls to allies around the world to warn them that some “compromising” conversations may have been released.
David Jacobson, the U.S. ambassador in Ottawa, called Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon earlier this week to give the Canadian government the heads-up.
To find out what all the fuss is about the 'Perspective Research Department' sent out a team of investigators to major cites across Canada and the United States to gauge public reaction to this latest diplomatic embarrassment!!
Perspective Research Department -->
After 1345 interviews we found that not a single person here in Canada, and only one person in the United States......, a Robert Dowling of Dodge City, Iowa, could care less about how this would affect the American government.
As a matter of fact, the vast majority of people questioned didn't even know what we were talking about!
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2. The Republicans in America are about to throw that country back into the cold war because they are more interested in blocking any legislation brought about by the Democrats than they are about the well being, and even the security of the people of the United States.
The treaty, signed by U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in Prague last April, is unambitious in comparison to Obama's vision of "a world without nuclear weapons," but it is a useful document. It mandates 30% cuts in deployed strategic nuclear weapons by both sides, and it is the cornerstone of a new era of U.S.-Russian cooperation.
The symbolic importance of the New Start treaty is at least as important, as it was the first concrete step in the reconciliation of the two former superpowers after the growing hostility of the last decade.
In order to ratify an international treaty, the U.S. Senate must pass it by a two-thirds vote: 67 out of 100 senators. That means the administration must get eight Republicans to vote for it even in the outgoing Senate, where the Democrats hold 59 seats. But when the new senators elected in the mid-term elections early this month take their seats in January, the Democratic majority will be a bare 51 seats.
After that, ratifying the treaty would require 16 Republican senators to vote for it, which is virtually impossible to imagine. That's why Obama is desperate to get the treaty ratified by the current "lame-duck" session of Congress, which has less than four weeks to run. The omens are not good.
The question is whether eight Republican congressmen are willing to put the national interest ahead of their partisan desire to deprive Obama of his one major foreign policy success. They would have to ignore not only the unanimous support for the treaty among senior U.S. military leaders, but also the impressively bipartisan group of former secretaries of state and defence who went to Congress with Obama last week to back it.
"If we don't get the treaty, (the Russians) are not constrained in their development of force structure," Gen. Kevin Chilton, head of U.S. nuclear forces, told the Senate. Moreover, the U.S. would no longer have the right to inspect Russian nuclear sites (and vice versa), which is essential to maintaining confidence between the two countries. "So it's the worst of both possible worlds," he concluded. (With Thanks to Gwynne Dyer)
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3. A comment from Peter Worthington; Before everyone gets too excited about North Korea shelling a South Korean island 120 kilometres offshore from Seoul, there's virtually no likelihood such an aggressive act will escalate into war. Kim Jong ill might be crazy, but he is not stupid!Last year North Korea declared the 1953 ceasefire that ended the Korean war was no longer valid. In other words, it felt free to attack, provoke, mischief-make at will, gambling South Korea and the U.S. would swallow whatever indignities and outrages were foisted on them.
Last March, as if in preparing for shelling the island of Yeonpeong that killed two and injured a couple of dozen, a North Korean torpedo sank a South Korean warship, the Cheoan, killing 46 sailors. That in itself was a warlike act that demanded retaliation. But no. The world urged restraint, as it always does when North Korea needs its butt kicked.
Of course, North Korea is a dangerous country. It should be brought to heel, but is unlikely to be when the Western world is guided by the leaders now in charge. No Reagan or Thatcher on the horizon. Certainly not Obama, who prefers to apologize rather than challenge.
Despite its huge military, North Korea is vulnerable. It has no staying power - no oil or resources necessary to fight a war if China and Russia withhold support, as well they may.
A big punch, but no follow through.
We should have done it long ago, but it's never too late to educate dictators.
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4. And finally another news item that has misled readers over the last week is this thing about the TSA doing full body searches on airline passengers and invading the privacy of travellers to the point where some people have not only complained, but have actually filed assault and sexual assault charges against TSA agents.
Once again the "Perspective Research Department" was sent to investigate, and found that not everyone thought this was a bad thing. A small percentage of female passengers stated that they actually enjoyed the attention, and there are reports of roving gangs of gays who are making short-hop return flights to nearby cities just to get frisked a couple of times!
This is an ongoing story and we will let you know of any new developments!
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