According to "official" results, with over 80% of eligible Iranians voting, Ahmadinejad defeated his closest challenger, Mousavi, 63-34% (with other candidates splitting 3% of the vote). This appears to be a manipulated result. There are some reports that the results show a fairly consistent performance by Ahmadinejad across voting distincts, including more upscale areas where he has in the past done poorly. Second, most Iranians are young people, whom seem to be particularly receptive to Mousavi's approach of moderating the presence of the religious police, more liberties and opportunities to young women. Third, this was a change election, with Ahmadinejad seemingly in trouble with his own base over rising inflation, a stagnant economy, goods shortages, etc. Every indication was that the momentum was with Mousavi heading down the home stretch, a huge turnout usually favors the challenger, and then the government claims that Ahmadinejad, who by the way had the endorsement of Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, won by a landslide going away? I don't think so...
Not that it really matters that much, because the Iranian clerics choose which candidates compete, which means any change is, at most, nuanced, not real change, which constitutes a challenge to their own authority.
Here's what we Americans want Iranian citizens to know: we love the peace-loving, progressive Iranian people, and our quarrel is only with those determined to spread instability outside of Iran itself and a proliferation of nuclear weapons across the Middle East.
Don't Tase Me, Son!
Tasering a 72-year-old great-grandmother, Kathryn Winkfein, in the area of Austin, Texas over refusing to sign a speeding ticket? Well, of course, there's a little more to the story, because she was spunky and didn't always follow the arresting officer's instructions. I'm not sure why she decided she would rather go to jail than sign a speeding ticket or why she would show an attitude with a cop bearing weapons. But at one point, she effectively says, "Give me the ticket and I'll sign it...", but the cop decides that's no longer an option. She apparently decides she wants to get back in her car and leave, he tells her a handful of times to stand back and cooperate, and the tasering ensues.
I fully understand standard operating procedures, but the officer should have shown some flexibility, compassion, patience, restraint, and common sense, especially when she told him she was willing to sign the ticket. This woman never constituted a physical threat to Deputy Biese.
There have been other notorious incidents of unnecessary police violence, such as the infamous El Monte incident involving a car chase, where the suspect dashes from a car after a car chase by police, getting cornered in a yard surrounded by a high fence, gives up, lying prone face down, and the cop approaches him and kicks him in the head... Then there's the current case in Oklahoma over a cop with his hand over the throat of a paramedic; apparently the ambulance, racing to the hospital with a patient in the back, did not yield to a high-speed cop, and the ambulance was pulled over by enraged cops.
As a conservative, I strongly believe in law and order--but I also believe in the rule of law, meaning police officers are not above the law. If anything, police officers must be held to a higher standard. And service to the people supersedes any personal or professional relationships with a rogue cop.
It's 3AM and North Korea is Calling....Obama's Bluff
President Obama is finding that high-sounding words that may work in Europe and Cairo don't mean anything in dealing with a fanatical regime worried more about preserving its power and spends much of its limited resources to maintain a disproportionately-sized army and construct conventional and nuclear weapons systems, even at the expense of feeding its own people. I haven't quite figured out the rationale; it's always possible the leadership is paranoid over an American attack, or perhaps they feel they can blackmail the world into economic aid...
There was a news story about 5 years back that told the story in very human terms. The mother and her young daughter managed to escape from North Korea to China. The girl's older brother, more than a head taller at the time, was unable to escape until years later. He finally managed to escape at age 16 (old enough to join the North Korean army)--but his sister almost didn't recognize her 4'7" brother, whom she now towered over. Other anecdotal examples are the fact they had to drop minimum height requirement of 5'3" for the army, and reportedly some North Korean fishermen whom accidentally crossed over to the south said that local women were too big for them.
The funny thing is that Veep Joe Biden warned that Obama would face a test. The resumption of the nuclear weapons program, deployment of ballistic missile systems reportedly within range of Alaska, and saber-rattling over UN sanctions or the implementation of embargoes, the warnings of resuming hostilities on the Korean peninsula, etc.--all of these are very troubling. I'm encouraged by the US getting a new UN resolution passed. My concern is whether the Obama Administration is thinking outside the box; how viable is the option to buy out and exile the North Korean leadership and allow the peaceful reunification of the country? Are we looking at new ways to engage long-term North Korea sponsors China and Russia?
In the interim, given the troubling developments in Iran and North Korea, it would be prudent to restore antiballistic and related weapon systems, with a bipartisan restoration of funds, and we must make clear to China and Russia that our allies (i.e., Japan and South Korea) will need to reassess their defense systems, including the possibility of their own nuclear weapons unless decisive actions are taken to resolve the North Korean threat, not simply diplomatic inertia as usual.
