Clusterf#&k to the War House – Korean Peninsula & Middle East

TDS: North Korea sinks a South Korean battleship, and Israeli commandos raid a flotilla of ships in international waters.

Once again Jon Stewart manages to inject a dose of common sense to a major world incident or event. No matter how complex.

And Charles Krauthammer, you suck.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: The fundamental deception here is the use of the word “humanitarian.” As we saw, humanitarians don’t wield iron clubs and would have killed the Israelis had the Israelis not drawn their pistols in self-defense. But there’s a larger issue here. What exactly is the humanitarian crisis that the flotilla was actually addressing? There is none. There’s no one starving in Gaza. [..]

There’s a very interesting post at Crooks and Liars by “Heather”. Watch the video of a debate between Eliot Spitzer and Glenn Greenwald. Greenwald brings some reason and balance to the discussion.

Flotilla Debate: Glenn Greenwald vs Eliot Spitzer

Here’s the post put up by Glenn Greenwald following this discussion with Spitzer. He has a lot of interesting links.

North Korea has launched it’s missile

New York Times

North Korea defied the United States, China and a series of United Nations resolutions by launching a rocket on Sunday that the country said was designed to propel a satellite into space, but that much of the world viewed as an effort to prove it is edging toward the capability to shoot a nuclear warhead on a longer-range missile.

While George W. Bush fiddled in Iraq, North Korea strengthened it’s nuclear program.

“We have made very clear to the North Koreans that their missile launch is provocative,” Mr. Obama said Friday after meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France in Strasbourg, France. Mr. Obama took the issue up on Wednesday in London with President Hu Jintao of China.

Don’t wave a dull sword, President Obama.  We thought Saddam Hussein was nuts, but Kim Jong Il is something different.

America’s standing in the world: The chickens come home to roost

We had to know that the Bush/Cheney policies of torture and imprisoning suspects for years and years without charge would come back to bite us in the ass, right?

I hope the Obama administration is able to use diplomacy to undo the damage of the Bush years, and bring Laura Ling and Euna Lee, two reporters being held in North Korea, safely home.

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney should offer to take their places — let’s not hold our breath on that one…