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Showing posts with label ForeignPolicy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ForeignPolicy. Show all posts
Did the US Government handle the Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng case well?

Did the US Government handle the Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng case well?

A political activist under house arrest by the Chinese government makes a daring escape to the US Embassy.  Publicly the Obama administration praises his bravery.  Privately did they really pressure him to leave the US Embassy?  CNN has this transcript of their interview with Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng:

Q: What prompted your change of heart [about leaving the US Embassy]?
A: The embassy kept lobbying me to leave and promised to have people stay with me in the hospital. But this afternoon as soon as I checked into the hospital room, I noticed they were all gone.
Q: Has the U.S. disappointed you?
A: I'm very disappointed at the U.S. government.
Q: Why?
A: I don't think (U.S. officials) protected human rights in this case.
Q: What would you say to U.S. President Obama?
A: I would like to say to (President Obama): Please do everything you can to get our whole family out.
Q: Is this your most urgent wish?
A: That's right.
Q: What has your wife told you after you escaped?
A: (My wife) was tied to a chair by police for two days. Then they carried sticks to our home, threatening to beat her to death. Now they have moved into the house -- eating at our table and using our stuff. Our home is teeming with security -- on the roof and in the yard. They have installed seven surveillance cameras inside the house and built electric fences around the yard.
Q: What did officials tell her if you didn't leave the embassy?
A: They said they would send her back (to Shandong) and people there would beat her. . . .
It doesn't seem as if the Obama administration followed the expectations of others for this case.  From the UK Guardian:

Jean-Pierre Cabestan of Hong Kong University said if Chen was at the embassy, the two governments would probably try to downplay the issue, at least until the end of this week's talks.
"Then the Obama administration will try to find a solution that may not be asylum, but an assurance from Beijing that they will stop harrassing Chen; but if that does not work, asylum will eventually be granted," he said.
Nicholas Bequelin, of Human Rights Watch, said it was unlikely that the Chinese government would accept Chen's demands for an investigation into his case. In the interim, Washington should offer to take Chen and his family to the US for "medical reasons". "If Beijing is not ready for that either, they should be ready to shelter Chen for a longer time, until a solution is negotiated," Bequelin said. . . .
Apparently, Chen was willing "to spend may years" in the US Embassy.  Did the Obama administration put a lot of pressure on Chen to get him to change his mind?


Boy, if the story below is correct, there is more evidence that turning away defectors is part of US policy.

The office of Vice President Joe Biden overruled State and Justice Department officials in denying the political asylum request of a senior Chinese communist official last February over fears the high-level defection would upset the U.S. visit of China’s vice president, according to U.S. officials.
The defector, Wang Lijun, was turned away after 30 hours inside the U.S. Consulate Chengdu and given over to China’s Ministry of State Security, the political police and intelligence service.
Wang has not been seen since Feb. 7 and remains under investigation. His attempt to flee China set off a major power struggle within the ruling Communist Party and led to the ouster of leftist Politburo member Bo Xilai and the arrest of his wife on murder charges. . . .
Here is a discussion from the WSJ that indicates that the US felt pressure to make a deal quickly.  At least the US got a deal over cleaner burning cook stoves.

Obama ad implies that Romney wouldn't have taken out Osama if he had the same chance




Is this serious?  After Obama past statements, he sure looks hypocritical. 


From 60 Minutes in 2011:
"You know, we don't trot out this stuff as trophies.  . . . And I think--  Americans and people around the world are glad that he's gone. But we don't need to spike the football."

FLASHBACK: Obama Campaign Accused Clinton Of Using Bin Laden To ‘Score Political Points’ In 2008

“Now one of Clinton’s Laws of Politics is this: If one candidate’s trying to scare you and the other one’s trying to get you to think; if one candidate’s appealing to your fears and the other one’s appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope. That’s the best.”
UPDATE: What is the deal with Obama to keep making this claim?  The press question is nauseatingly kissing up to Obama.
Does the Obama administration know anything about world markets?

Does the Obama administration know anything about world markets?

If Japan buys less Iranian oil and more oil from some place else, another country will buy more Iranian oil and less from that other place. There very little effect on anything. Possibly the only loss is presumably the oil went where it did to begin with because it minimized transportation costs.

On the other hand exempting 11 major countries from penalties for dealing with Iran's central bank means that any international transactions will be taken care of through those countries (in addition to China or Russia that would ignore the sanctions anyway). From Foreign Policy:

The State Department announced on Tuesday that it would exempt 10 European countries and Japan from penalties for doing business with Iran's central bank, because those countries are making significant progress toward weaning themselves off of Iranian oil.

"I am pleased to announce that an initial group of eleven countries has significantly reduced their volume of crude oil purchases from Iran -- Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom. As a result, I will report to the Congress that sanctions pursuant to Section 1245 of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2012 (NDAA) will not apply to the financial institutions based in these countries, for a renewable period of 180 days," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a Tuesday statement. "The actions taken by these countries were not easy. They had to rethink their energy needs at a critical time for the world economy and quickly begin to find alternatives to Iranian oil, which many had been reliant on for their energy needs."

The European Union banned all new purchases of Iranian crude oil as of Jan. 23 and will phase out existing contracts by July 1, Clinton said. Japan was able to reduce its dependence on Iranian oil even despite energy shortages created by the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

"We commend these countries for their actions and urge other nations that import oil from Iran to follow their example," said Clinton. "Diplomacy coupled with strong pressure can achieve the long-term solutions we seek and we will continue to work with our international partners to increase the pressure on Iran to meet its international obligations." . . .
Obama broke promise on START Treaty

Obama broke promise on START Treaty

Obama probably thinks that this is a cute idea. Save money by cutting back on things that he promised but never wanted to do. Another broken Obama promise:

During the ratification debate on the New Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (New START), President Obama promised to modernize the U.S. nuclear infrastructure, claiming that such investment is “essential to facilitating reductions while sustaining deterrence under New START and beyond.” However, the Administration failed to include in its budget the additional $4.1 billion that was promised for the nuclear weapons modernization program over the next five years. On top on this, the Administration did not even bother to submit a budget request that is consistent with its nuclear modernization pledge to the Senate for the next fiscal year. The actual request is $372 million bellow what the Administration agreed to, writes Heinrichs. . . .
The day after US troops left Iraq things started falling apart

The day after US troops left Iraq things started falling apart

The last American troops left Iraq on December 17th. Is it really a coincidence that things fell apart as soon as American troops left?

Immediately the Shite majority put out an arrest warrant for the leading Sunni politician.

Iraq's Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki warned that a challenge to his government by Sunni politicians could destroy the ethnic and sectarian power-sharing system that underpins Iraq's democracy—and take more power into the hands of the Shiite majority.

The threat signals the most dire political crisis Iraq has faced since an agreement on a governing coalition one year ago smoothed over a long-running conflict that has re-emerged with the official pullout this month of U.S. forces from Iraq.

The latest faceoff was triggered when a judicial panel issued a warrant for the arrest of Sunni Arab Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi on Monday, as the Ministry of Interior aired televised confessions by members of his security detail allegedly implicating him in ordering and funding attacks against Shiites. . . .


In a final tactical road march, the last U.S. troops in Iraq crossed the border into Kuwait on Sunday morning, ending almost nine years of a deadly and divisive war. . . .


Lots of bombings targeting just about everyone.

Dozens of people were killed on Thursday in a series of coordinated explosions that struck several neighborhoods in the Iraqi capital, within days of the U.S. military withdrawal from the country, amid a political crisis that has renewed fears of an outbreak of sectarian and ethnic warfare.

The attacks during the morning rush hour targeted Sunni, Shiite and mixed neighborhoods, hitting mostly civilian targets, including an elementary school. Some bore the hallmarks of bombing campaigns by al Qaeda-linked Sunni militants. . . .
Sachs' amazing claims don't seem to hold water

Sachs' amazing claims don't seem to hold water

The Economist Magazine points out that there might be a few problems with Jeffrey Sachs phenomenal claims.

Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University argues that if public investment and foreign aid are big enough, they will boost household incomes, spurring savings and boosting local investment. They should also “crowd in” external investment by improving infrastructure.

Unlike most economists, Mr Sachs can put other people’s money where his mouth is. He set up the “millennium village project”, taking 14 places in rural Africa with about 500,000 people and, since 2006, making them the subjects of a $150m project run by his university and African governments.

The project—motto: “no single intervention is enough…we must improve them all”—carries huge hopes. Touring a village in Malawi, the UN’s secretary-general says he saw the potential of technologies such as smartphones and drip irrigation “to advance human well-being in ways that simply were not feasible even a few years ago”. George Soros, a financier, gave the project $47m and predicted that it would transform entire regions. . . .

The projects’ backers claim extraordinary results: a 700% increase in the use of antimalarial bednets; a 350% increase in access to safer water; a 368% increase in primary-school meal programmes. On closer inspection, though, these numbers turn out to be less dramatic. . . .

Michael Clemens of the Centre for Global Development, a think-tank, and Gabriel Demombynes of the World Bank says that a randomised trial is needed to disentangle what the millennium programme is doing from what is happening anyway. In such a trial, each village would be paired with a similar one not getting the same help—and the results compared. . . .

Now a Kenyan economist, Bernadette Wanjala of Tilburg University in the Netherlands, has raised further doubts about the project. She interviewed 236 randomly selected households in Sauri who had been offered the benefits and 175 randomly selected ones who had not. In a study with Roldan Muradian of Radboud University, she concluded the first group had raised their agricultural productivity by an impressive 70%. Yet she found that the impact on household income was “insignificant”, and that there had been little extra saving or investment. The villagers had grown more food—and eaten it. They became better nourished, but this did not affect the wider economy. . . .
Obama tried to apologize to the Japanese for Nagasaki and Hiroshima?

Obama tried to apologize to the Japanese for Nagasaki and Hiroshima?

Possibly even the Japanese realize that the bombings on net saved a lot of Japanese lives. From IBD:

Leaked cables show Japan nixed a presidential apology to Hiroshima and Nagasaki for using nukes to end the overseas contingency operation known as World War II. . . .

Another stop on the tour was in Japan, where Obama in November 2009 bowed to the emperor, something no American president had ever done. It could have been worse if plans to visit Nagasaki and Hiroshima to apologize for winning the war with the atom bombs had come to pass.

A heretofore secret cable dated Sept. 3, 2009, was recently released by WikiLeaks. Sent to Secretary of State Clinton, it reported Japan's Vice Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka telling U.S. Ambassador John Roos that "the idea of President Obama visiting Hiroshima to apologize for the atomic bombing during World War II is a 'nonstarter.'"

The Japanese feared the apology would be exploited by anti-nuclear groups and those opposed to the defensive alliance between Japan and the U.S.

Whatever Tokyo's motive, Obama's motive was to once again apologize for defending freedom, this time for winning with devastating finality the war Japan started. . . . .


From the NY Post:

In a September 2009 cable prior to Obama’s official visit to Tokyo, our ambassador informs Washington that Tokyo had denied Obama’s bid to go to Hiroshima to publicly apologize for America’s dropping the atom bomb there -- in short, to turn the defeat of Japan into a matter of national humiliation for America.
The Japanese government told the ambassador this would be a “non-starter,” because the gesture would encourage domestic anti-nuclear groups and leftist groups opposed to Japan’s military cooperation with the United States. . . .
A president who is either ignorant or blind to the fact that if we hadn’t used the bomb and had been forced to invade Japan instead, at least 2 million Japanese would have died in a full-scale invasion of Japan, instead of the 300,000 killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- not to mention the 1 million US casualties that the War Department and Joint Chiefs of Staff calculated would come in that assault.
And a president who thinks that such groveling is the way to build good relations with an Asian ally -- when a far better way passed him right by. . . .


Boston Herald Editorial:

We shouldn’t be surprised that President Barack Obama wanted to visit the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to apologize for the atomic bombs dropped on them in World War II. Obama has been willing to “blame America first” for almost anything wrong with the world, but these visits would have marked a new low.

Fortunately, the Japanese government refused to permit such abasement. Obama had to be content on his 2009 world apology tour with lamenting (in his Cairo speech to Muslims of the Middle East) a “colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims” (Which part of the Middle East was colonized by Americans again?) and with begging Iran, in a totally ineffective televised plea, to play nice. . . .
"Political optics" drives Obama's Iraq policy

"Political optics" drives Obama's Iraq policy

Concern about costs are a fine reason to include in making foreign policy decisions. Concerns about short term political considerations is not so laudable. From Fox News:

The Obama administration has decided to drop the number of U.S. troops in Iraq at the end of the year down to 3,000, marking a major downgrade in force strength, multiple sources familiar with the inner workings and decisions on U.S. troop movements in Iraq told Fox News. . . .

The generals on the ground had requested that the number of troops remaining in Iraq at the end of the year reach about 27,000. But, there was major pushback about "the cost and the political optics" of that decision that the number was then reduced to 10,000. . . .

Outrage: Administration caught apparently releasing staged photo of Obama and others watching military operation against Osama


This is outrageous. Putting together a staged photo that did not accurately describe what happened should generate a lot of anger, though I am still waiting for an explanation for why the administration gave orders to kill and not capture Osama.

Leon Panetta, director of the CIA, revealed there was a 25 minute blackout during which the live feed from cameras mounted on the helmets of the US special forces was cut off.
A photograph released by the White House appeared to show the President and his aides in the situation room watching the action as it unfolded. In fact they had little knowledge of what was happening in the compound.
Mr Panetta said: "Once those teams went into the compound I can tell you that there was a time period of almost 20 or 25 minutes where we really didn't know just exactly what was going on. And there were some very tense moments as we were waiting for information.
"We had some observation of the approach there, but we did not have direct flow of information as to the actual conduct of the operation itself as they were going through the compound." . . .
The President only knew the mission was successful after the Navy Seals commander heard the word “Geronimo” on the radio, a code word from commandos reporting that they had killed bin Laden.
The absence of footage of the raid has led to conflicting reports about what happened in the compound. According to Pakistani authorities one of bin Laden’s daughter’s, who was present during the raid, claimed that her father was captured alive before he was killed.
There was also growing doubt about the US claims that Pakistan’s intelligence agencies involved in the raid.
Lieutenant General Asad Durrani, former head of the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence service, said it was "inconceivable" that his government was unaware of the US raid on Osama bin Laden's compound. . . .


The rest of the article details how the administration is going back and forth with the Pakistani government over whether the Pakistanis were involved in the operation. If the Pakistanis were involved, why would the Obama administration keep insisting that they were when it is obviously putting the Pakistani government in a difficult position? If the Pakistani weren't involved, it makes even less sense to make these claims.
Question: Where is the liberal anger over Obama ordering Special Forces to kill and not capture Osama?

Question: Where is the liberal anger over Obama ordering Special Forces to kill and not capture Osama?

I thought that liberals abhorred assassinations. Here is what Obama said in 2008:

'What would be important would be for us to do it in a way that allows the entire world to understand the murderous acts that he's engaged in and not to make him into a martyr, and to assure that the United States government is abiding by basic conventions that would strengthen our hand in the broader battle against terrorism.' . . . 'First of all, I think there is an executive order out on Osama bin Laden's head,' Mr Obama said. 'And if I'm president, and we have the opportunity to capture him, we may not be able to capture him alive.' . . .


Where is the push back on not making any attempt to capture Osama? On a practical matter there is the information that could have been obtained from capturing Osama. From Reuters:

The U.S. special forces team that hunted down Osama bin Laden was under orders to kill the al Qaeda mastermind, not capture him, a U.S. national security official told Reuters. . . .


BY the way, couldn't Obama bring himself to say anything nice about Bush and his efforts. Apparently some of the key intelligence information used to get Osama was developed under the Bush administration. Obama only mentions Bush once in passing and it has nothing to do with acknowledging his efforts.

I’ve made clear, just as President Bush did shortly after 9/11, that our war is not against Islam. . . .
The Obama Libyan mess

The Obama Libyan mess

This is from someone at Brookings attacking Obama's policies. I still don't understand why we are involved in Libya but not another country such as Syria, where soldiers are shooting into crowds and 120 are dead in just the last two days. Apparently, even the Washington Post can't quite figure out what the administration is doing. The logic seems Ad Hoc.

“Deterring Qadhafi’s forces from moving forward doesn’t remove him from power, doesn’t create a functioning economy, doesn’t solve humanitarian problems of people being out of their homes, out of work — all of which comes from having this war drag on and on,” said Anthony Cordesman, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution. “What gets totally lost here is you have hundreds of thousands of people displaced here — refugees … you’re losing economic opportunity, losing jobs, the educational system is breaking down, the whole infrastructure is coming under pressure.”

“The problem we face, is, having started this without evidently any clear plan as to what the outcome would be, we are everyday making this worse. These are not casual costs: When you don’t have medical services, you may not see people killed, but they’re dying,” Cordesman said. . . .


I will be interested in seeing what happens at the May 20th date. It seems to me that will be the crucial point in time for Obama with his base.

Under the War Powers Act, Obama is supposed to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from the Libya operation by May 20 if Congress has not authorized the mission. Presidents have generally complied with the notification requirement in the act, while contending the law is unconstitutional. . . .


Rand Paul has it right:

“I think it’s a big mistake and it’s a very bad precedent to allow a to be fought with no vote in Congress,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said at a policy luncheon this week in his home state. “Now, it also shows you the hypocrisy of the way politics goes. Many on the left criticized Bush to no end about the Iraq war. In fact, I wasn’t in favor of going to Iraq. But at the very least, Bush came to Congress and we voted before going to Afghanistan and Congress voted before going to Iraq.” . . .
Obama's inconsistent foreign policy: Libya and Syria

Obama's inconsistent foreign policy: Libya and Syria

Despite big demonstrations and Syrian police opening fire on protestors, Obama isn't going to intervene in Syria. In Egypt, Obama said that the demonstrations showed that Mubarak had lost the support of the Egyptian people. But Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad is viewed as "a reformer" despite firing on his citizens? Do we really want to get into a debate over whether Libya had the worst dictatorship? Does anyone really believe that there aren't lots of countries that are at least as bad? What is next bombing Cuba or North Korea? It will be interesting to see whether Obama can provide more of a logical rationale for why he is at war with some countries and not others.
"Americans will be picking up a great deal of the tab" of war

"Americans will be picking up a great deal of the tab" of war

Some notes on the Libyan war. From ABC News:

America may be handing off some of the responsibility of Operation Odyssey Dawn in Libya to other nations, but it is clear America's service men and women still will be bearing a heavy load, and Americans will be picking up a great deal of the tab.

Today, British fighter jets flew high above the Libyan desert searching for targets, taking out six tanks with precision guided missiles. Yet, despite a plan to get the rest of the world more involved, more than half of the nearly 100 strike missions in Libya in the past 24 hours were done by Americans. . . .

The U.S. Navy now has 12 ships in the Mediterranean, in less than a week, firing 184 Tomahawk cruise missiles.

The USS Kearsarge is the largest of these ships. The crew has actually been underway for 210 days, with only 4 days in port. In September it was Pakistani flood relief. In January, many of its Marines sent to Afghanistan. In February, it stood by for possible evacuations from Egypt, and now, it's targeting Libya.

Adding to that, American fighter pilots routinely are flying five- to six-hour missions along with 24/7 coverage from communications planes and those aerial refuelers.

But with other nations now taking the lead on enforcing the no-fly zone, the number of American fighter jets at least should be reduced, even though so many of the other aspects of this operation will continue to fall to the U.S. . . .


Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links

One also has to wonder whether Obama's foreign policy is causing this to happen: "Pakistan Switches Sides, Expanding Arms Allegiance With China and Leaving U.S. Behind . . ."

So what does the Israeli Stock Market think of events in Egypt?


I was surprised that there wasn't more of a change in the Tel Aviv stock market with the events in Israel. Sure the stock market has fallen from its recent peak, but it is still only down about 3.3 percent. Now I assume that there could be further changes that could make a real impact on stock prices. If the military gives control to the Muslim Brotherhood, you might then see a real big change. But whether the stock market doesn't think that will happen or whether it is likely but not of great consequence, the stock market seems to think that it won't make very much difference.
Obama administration "Promoting Homosexuality Overseas"?

Obama administration "Promoting Homosexuality Overseas"?

Democrats get upset about the promotion of US views regarding abortion, though that simply means that we wouldn't fund them. In this case, the Obama administration is taking a more activist stand regarding homosexuality.

signals emanating from the State Department indicate that the U.S. government may be engaged in its own evangelistic efforts -- to help legitimize homosexual practices in those socially traditional countries. . . .
At the event, which was organized by the group "Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies," Clinton said the State Department is supporting efforts to advance homosexual rights around the world. "We celebrate the progress of advancing the rights of LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender] in our country, as we continue to advance the rights of all people around the world," Clinton gushed before the receptive audience, adding that the "struggle for equality is never, ever finished."
The State Department's increasing interest in homosexual rights comes as critics -- such as the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom --have accused the Obama Administration of weakening their commitment to the freedom of religion in favor of a more narrowly defined "freedom of worship." The State Department's sudden focus upon homosexuality in sub-Saharan Africa is puzzling, as countries with far harsher policies towards homosexuals -- such as Iran and much of the Islamic world -- get an apparent pass on the matter. . . .
the Obama administration seems to have decided that policy initiatives including outreach to Muslim governments and advancing gay rights would be compromised by vigorous advocacy for religious freedom.
"In fact, such a decision would harm the victims of religious persecution, hamstring key Obama initiatives, and undermine U.S. national interests," Farr writes. . . . .
The inaccuracies in the Valerie Plame Movie "Fair Game"

The inaccuracies in the Valerie Plame Movie "Fair Game"

Even the Washington Post editorial page can't accept the distortions in this new movie.

We certainly hope that is not the case. In fact, "Fair Game," based on books by Mr. Wilson and his wife, is full of distortions - not to mention outright inventions. To start with the most sensational: The movie portrays Ms. Plame as having cultivated a group of Iraqi scientists and arranged for them to leave the country, and it suggests that once her cover was blown, the operation was aborted and the scientists were abandoned. This is simply false. In reality, as The Post's Walter Pincus and Richard Leiby reported, Ms. Plame did not work directly on the program, and it was not shut down because of her identification.

The movie portrays Mr. Wilson as a whistle-blower who debunked a Bush administration claim that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from the African country of Niger. In fact, an investigation by the Senate intelligence committee found that Mr. Wilson's reporting did not affect the intelligence community's view on the matter, and an official British investigation found that President George W. Bush's statement in a State of the Union address that Britain believed that Iraq had sought uranium in Niger was well-founded.

"Fair Game" also resells the couple's story that Ms. Plame's exposure was the result of a White House conspiracy. A lengthy and wasteful investigation by a special prosecutor found no such conspiracy - but it did confirm that the prime source of a newspaper column identifying Ms. Plame was a State Department official, not a White House political operative. . . .
Possibly now the Obama administration will be a little more aggressive on WikiLeaks

Possibly now the Obama administration will be a little more aggressive on WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks is now including documents from the Obama administration. Some of these include:

¶ Bargaining to empty the Guantánamo Bay prison: When American diplomats pressed other countries to resettle detainees, they became reluctant players in a State Department version of “Let’s Make a Deal.” Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if it wanted to meet with President Obama, while the island nation of Kiribati was offered incentives worth millions of dollars to take in Chinese Muslim detainees, cables from diplomats recounted. The Americans, meanwhile, suggested that accepting more prisoners would be “a low-cost way for Belgium to attain prominence in Europe.”

¶ Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government: When Afghanistan’s vice president visited the United Arab Emirates last year, local authorities working with the Drug Enforcement Administration discovered that he was carrying $52 million in cash. With wry understatement, a cable from the American Embassy in Kabul called the money “a significant amount” that the official, Ahmed Zia Massoud, “was ultimately allowed to keep without revealing the money’s origin or destination.” (Mr. Massoud denies taking any money out of Afghanistan.)

¶ A global computer hacking effort: China’s Politburo directed the intrusion into Google’s computer systems in that country, a Chinese contact told the American Embassy in Beijing in January, one cable reported. The Google hacking was part of a coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government. They have broken into American government computers and those of Western allies, the Dalai Lama and American businesses since 2002, cables said. . . .
Jimmy Carter's Psychics

Jimmy Carter's Psychics

Remember the grief that Nancy Reagan got for using a psychic? Where is the outrage here:

Even with all of the press coverage of Jimmy Carter's latest book, "White House Diary," a strange and interesting nugget of history went ignored: Carter, as president, was enthralled by and impressed with the Central Intelligence Agency's use of parapsychology in intelligence gathering (the field and practice of parapsychology explores various psychic abilities).

Consider this entry in Carter's diary, from April 11, 1979:

"CIA briefing on unhappiness of King Hussein of Jordan [about agreements between Israel and Egypt], Idi Amin's government about to fall, and that a plane had crashed in Zambia. An American parapsychologist had been able to pinpoint the site of the crash. We've had several reports of this parapsychology working; one discovered the map coordinates of a site and accurately described a camouflaged missile test site. Both we and the Soviets use these parapsychologists on occasion to help us with sensitive intelligence matters, and the results are unbelievable."

(Carter alluded to another discussion about parapsychology in the White House situation room on May 8, 1980).

Writing in the present day, the former president reflected back on that entry in the book.

"The proven results of these exchanges between our intelligence services and parapsychologists raise some of the most intriguing and unanswerable questions of my presidency,” Carter notes in “Diary.” “They defy logic, but the facts are undeniable."

Mind-reading as intelligence-gathering? Sure, it was the 70s. Yet parapsychology's new-age reputation doesn't quite square with the historical and enduring stereotype of the CIA as filled with tight-lipped men-in-black. And when reached for comment by POLITICO, the CIA made it abundantly clear that they don't do that anymore. . . .
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