Conservatives v. Conservatives

No this isn't about Andrew Sullivan taking on all conservatives for not backing his man Obama. Seriously - Sullivan's puff piece in The Atlantic has to be the worst thing published in that magazine in ages. I can't imagine Michael Kelly wasting so much ink on an article that says nothing other than I like Obama because he's a cool cat. I digress...

What I meant to discuss is the news that conservative publisher Regnery is being sued by 4 authors for selling their books through Regnery affiliated channels at a deep discount. Here's the thing. I would buy a book from anyone of these dolts unless it was at a deep discount or a freebie from either Human Events or the Conservative Book Club. Who would pay full price for that crap?

I used to like Regnery books. Unfortunately they sold their soul a long time ago and have sacrificed quality works and poisoned the public square with demagogic works that add little to the national debate and even less to improving the conservative movement. In this instance Regnery is a victim of its own success.

Costa Rican Surprise

After all the scandal and intrigue heading into Sunday's vote I had written off Costa Rica as a CAFTA member. I was wrong. Bully for the Ticos.

WaPost & Letras Libres on MVLL

About the only obsession more unhealthy than the one a I had for Robert Kaplan is my fixation on Mario Vargas Llosa. As it stands right now WaPost and Letras Libres are not helping. From his perch at WaPost Jonathen Yardley reviews MVLl's latest, The Bad Girl. He hits it right on:

Mario Vargas Llosa's perversely charming new novel isn't among his major books -- it lacks the depth of Conversation in the Cathedral, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter or even the more recent and less successful The Feast of the Goat-- but it is irresistibly entertaining and, like all of its author's work, formidably smart.

That The Feast of the Goat was not more successful is downright criminal. Yardley correctly notes that the failure to award the Nobel Prize for Literature is "scandalous." I prefer to consider the exclusion criminal.

Letras Libres meanwhile has plastered MVLl on the cover and dedicated almost the entire issue to him...I'm going to lose my mind. They even have small contributions from Carlos Alberto Montaner and Enrique Krauze...the dork in me is thrilled beyond all measure.

Bookpages: Hugo Books Reviewed in NYT

At the Sunday Book Review Daniel Kurtz-Phelan checks out Hugo Chavez by Cristina Marcano and Alberto Barrera Tyszka as well as the entusiastically titled ¡Hugo! by Herbert Matthews...um I mean Bart Jones, who should not be confused with Bert Jones.

I'll keep this brief since I am a bit sleepy. Marcano and Barrera Tyszka's book is a pretty clunky translation of the original Spanish but it is the better of the two. Jones is a boot licking sycophant who loves his Hugo.

Marathon Madrazo: Once a Cheater, Always a Cheater

Roberto Madrazo could not cheat his way to Los Pinos but Madrazo did cheat his way to another finish line.

Drugs and LA

Drugs, drugs and drugs. If you would lived in LA you would think nothing else matters to US. Can you blame the people of LA for being resentful. We extol the virtues of the market, preach about the importance of free trade and one product that they can produce in abundance and seems to have impressive demand in the US is the one thing that we chastise them for.

In Mexico they recently snagged 10 tons of coke as well as a Sinaloa cartel head but Mexicans are still wary of an anti-drug aid package proposed by W. Meanwhile coca cultivation is ramping up in Ecuador and I don't care what the LAT piece says Correa will run US out eventually and stop cooperating to control the trade. A concern for US is the fact that we are scrambling for a new base in LA without much success.

I don't drink and I don't smoke. I've never touched a narcotic except once or twice in my younger days as friends shared and I happened to be seated between. So no, I did not inhale, exhale or even hale. That being said I say LEGALIZE IT. Stop punishing the cultivators for our sins. Stop encouraging illegal trafficking. Who is to say that those same networks will be used to smuggle in terrorists or even weapons of mass destruction?

More Hugo and His Plan for LA

Writing in the Hoover Digest where he hangs his hat William Ratliff uses W's tour of LA as an excuse to assess Hugo's vision for LA:

Polls in Latin America have found Bush slightly more popular personally than Chávez, but many Latins nonetheless resonate in varying degrees to much of what the Venezuelan has to say, and much more so now than 10 years ago. He has eagerly taken the role Fidel Castro held for decades as the region’s foremost anti-American purveyor in chief of false hope. If one flushes out the incessant ad hominem attacks on Bush and other American leaders, Chávez’s message can be boiled down to three points:

1. Most of Latin America is plagued by seemingly intractable poverty and inequality.
2. The United States and entrenched domestic elites and institutions are responsible for this.
3. Chávez’s “twenty-first-century socialism” is the hope for the impoverished masses who seek a free and prosperous future.

He is dead right on the first point, partly right on the second, and dead wrong on the third.

On to our friend Hugo:

Chávez is a newfangled old-fashioned caudillo who is far more inclined toward faith than objective analysis. That faith is in Himself, the new messiah whose gospel is twenty-first-century socialism. Chávez talks of socialism, but his style is left-fascism; his sermons and actions lead to authoritarian paternalism, and not the nurturing sort. Its essence is simple: “Go home, gringo, and leave Latin America to Latins—and to Me.”

This is the earthly salvation offered by every Chavista messiah in Latin America today. But tragically, Chávez’s gospel is just corked wine in a new bottle. Twenty-first-century socialism is an aggressive and globalized rehash of the type of rule that caused and sustained Latin America’s underdevelopment over the centuries. It is the latest adaptation of the late fifteenth-century Iberian view of God, man, and institutions that over many centuries made and kept Latin America the most unequal region on earth.

Stop for a second..."most unequal region on earth." Is it really more unequal than Africa? It's not that I don't believe him but give me a stat or a footnote.

So what does LA need?

Thus Latin America’s real needs now, as in centuries past, are precisely the opposite of Chavista authoritarian socialism. It needs greater pluralism, economic liberalization, truly free trade, much higher-quality governance, greatly expanded and improved education, and more opportunity under impartial law. These policies must be put into practice in individual countries by their own leaders with popular insistence and support. Latin America is not likely to have reforms in an “Asian” mold, for those have often relied on superior leaders combining vision, realism, and patience who have not turned up often in the Latin world. Up to now, most Latins have been unwilling, which is their choice, or unable to significantly modify traditional cultural or institutional norms that prevent their societies from growing like the Asian “tigers” and “dragons.” Thus, much of Latin America is rapidly falling behind other parts of the developing world, particularly Asia.

As for our role, it is not so well defined in this piece -

Although U.S. policy itself cannot erase this Latin tradition of avoiding responsibility, it can foster reform, if Latins want it enough to sacrifice for it. Such reform also would serve U.S. interests. Besides changing some of the counterproductive U.S. policies toward Latin America, which no recent president yet has been able to do, there are other steps we can take.

President Bush’s newly discovered interest in social justice and other issues at the top of Latin agendas is a big step in the right direction. His 2007 trip was far more effective than the one to the APEC forum in Santiago, Chile, in late 2004, when he struck out with Latin public opinion while a much more personable Chinese President Hu Jintao was hitting a home run.

Finally our focus should not necessarily be on Chavez but the rest of LA:

Despite his links to Iran and Russia, Chávez is primarily a threat not to the United States but to the well-being of Latin Americans. His “socialism” will further reduce their chances of prospering or even surviving in the modern world—and that is what collides most seriously with the interests of the United States. Thus our strategy in combating him and his ideas is more constructive attention to the region as a whole, not direct combat with Caracas.

In the Tanks: Heritage on Correa

A Heritage Foundation paper by James Roberts points out the similarities between Hugo and Correa - not much new there. All the usual notes are hit, the drive to socialism, the eagerness to rewrite the constitution, tweak the US and kiss Iranian tush. How we stop the lefty Latin slide makes up the last part of the paper:

The U.S. should do the following:

• Reiterate to President Correa that the United States expects Ecuador to continue to respect democratic neighbors, continue cooperation on fighting drug trafficking and international crime, and invest in its own long-term stability and prosperity through policies that favor political and economic free choice;
• Develop new programs to boost personal contact with Americans and counter the armies of Cuban doctors and Venezuelan security advisers streaming into Ecquador;
• Increase support for civil society groups and beef up public diplomacy efforts to strengthen local voices proposing independent solutions to Ecuador's poverty and governance troubles;
• Demonstrate goodwill regarding possible resumption of free trade talks if the situation improves; and
• Redirect security assistance as necessary and adjust strategies if America loses tenant rights at Ecuador's Manta air base for drug interdiction efforts.

All well and good but kind of vague isn't it? I could come up with this stuff and I am not even an expert, although I play one in the blogosphere. Here's one that I would like to see us try - stop bugging our neighbor's to the south about drug trafficking. If there is money in the drug trade it is only because we want it. It's not Shorty's fault that I am 15 lbs. overweight. It is my fault for insisting on getting the full dinner of baby back ribs with a side order of corn on the cob.

I'll discuss more on it later but the Foreign Policy's cover story says it best - Legalize It.

Bolivia: Not So Stable

The reliably left wing and pro-Evo opendemocracy laments the growing division and polarization of Bolivia. Of course those nasty elites from Santa Cruz are to blame.

Castro Playbook: Hugo

Hugo is now taking aim at the private schools.

Castro Playbook: Evo Style

Evo casts out the bait and tries to reel in his own Herbert Matthews. Despite the divisions and polarization in Bolivia NYT reporter Simon Romero is impressed by the nation's stability.

Baba-Bull Watch: Corn Crappers

It's hard to rip Babalu, seriously it is. Sure the rant on Nebraskan leaders kowtowing to the Cuban commies is a bit over the top...c'mon if the Cubes actually are paying cash what harm does it do? Yes they are a bunch of rubes from corn country but despite our desperate hopes it is unlikely that the next Cuban government will turn them away just because they did business with Castro. If that was the case then the free Cuban government would only be able to trade with the US and no one else.

So just when I think that Baba-Bull is a waste then comes a great post on the plight of political prisoner Normando Hernandez. It is a must read...

Eddie Reviews Kaplan

My copy hasn't even come in the mail, but Eddie seems to have already polished it off. Here is Eddie's conclusion at his relatively new blog, Hidden Unities. I think most Kaplan fans won't disagree:

So in the end, Kaplan admits that perhaps his time with the military has run its course. We can hope. I deeply admire the service Kaplan has rendered the military, especially my parent service, the Navy. I would happily recommend this book to anyone, in particular the senior NCO’s (chief petty officers in the Navy) who Kaplan convincingly portrays as some of the most involved and skilled leaders of people in the world. It would be exceptional reading for a high school or college student considering the great challenge and honor serving in the military can be. Kaplan writes of heroes, of champions who are yet often the most ordinary and down to Earth people you could ever know, despite many being legends in the making whose story is not nearly finished (Kaplan, Barnett and even Bill Kristol are on point in predicting the fine crop of political and society leaders many of them will become).

Yet we know Kaplan can do better. We need him to do better, to do more, to look above and beyond, and below. Unique challenges exist in India’s local and regional cultural, political and religious tensions, the mystery of China’s rise and what’s really in play in its countryside and breakneck development, Nigeria’s race to insolvency, Brazil, Russia, Mexico, Columbia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Southern Africa, etc. etc. He’s needed in all these places and amid a universe of serious issues that he’s addressed in the past and that now could be revisited and reconsidered. Not that he will even broach half of them, but he certainly occupies a special niche that few others can dream of filling. Yet he’s in the field of a generation of fine writers (Josef Joffe, Dana Priest, Richard Halloran, Thomas E. Ricks, etc.) who’ve already got it well-covered. Why?

For the Love of God....LET IT GO!

Herald Watch keeps all those Little Havana loonies abreast of the latest scuttlebut in the Oscar Corral case. Enough already. Let him be.

Defending the Undefendable: Magda Montiel Davis

Uh....uh....screw it. I draw the line at sticking up for sycophants, commie apologists and child molesters. Magda is at least two out of three. 26th Parallel notes Magda's latest blatant hypocrisy. Last time she did Cuba's bidding she was at least willing to take their money. Now she is taking our taxpayer dollars to help out Fidel, that is just wrong. The woman is just plain evil.

I feel compelled to state however, that I believe she is right in this case. This is no Elian situation. The mother has stated that she wants her child to be with the father. The father, motivated perhaps by the incessant images of Juan Miguel sitting by Fidel at functions wants his kid back. Regardless it is his right and the mother's wish. As for the foster parents let us not suddenly paint the normally self-serving Joe Cubas as a saint. After all he is the one that pushed for the gag order to be lifted on the case. I could be wrong but I do not recall Cubas doing anything completely self-less in his career so I am having a hard time picturing him as a hero.

Rudy Giuliani is Giving Himself Nightmares

The three time Liberal Party nominee for mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani claims in an ad that he is the liberals' worst nightmare. I like Rudy but he is full of it here.

Kaplan Reviewed in WaPost

Let's make this clear I am only posting this because I want to beat ComingAnarchy to the punch. Love those guys. Anyway there's a so-so review of Robert Kaplan's new book, Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts: The American Military in the Air at Sea, and on the Ground in WaPost's Bookworld. As much as I like Kaplan I must confess that the conclusion of the review is somewhat on target:

In the 1990s, the peripatetic Kaplan wrote the richly detailed travel narratives that American soldiers read to educate themselves about the exotic locations to which they might deploy. His Balkan Ghosts was all-but-required for every Army officer headed for Bosnia. But a few years ago, he changed tack and decided to write about the troops themselves. Both are worthwhile pursuits, but on the basis of this offering, the former represented a greater value to the nation.

Defending the Undefendable: Nick Gutierrez

Eye on Miami rips into Nick Gutierrez because of a letter he wrote defending the Bay of Pigs Memorial. Now I understand why they are upset but there is no reason to get personal. Nick is not a friend and I would not even consider him an acquaintance but I have run into him a couple of times. I'm even pretty certain that he would tear into me for some of my views. Nonetheless I have always found Nick to be gracious and accommodating.

Nick is passionate about Cuba and the cause of freedom. Lucky for him he has been able to combine his personal and professional interests. If he comes across as a bulldog sometimes, especially while wearing his professional then he is doing his job and doing it well. Knock Nick if you don't agree with him but let's not get personal especially if you don't know him.

Wesley Clark on the Next War

Wesley Clark has a piece in WaPost and as always he annoys me. More than any other general in our recent history he feels the need to convince of his genius. Perhaps it is because he fought a war that no one on the home front cared about. It is unfortunate that the lessons he learned from that effort are applicable to every potential conflict that we encounter.

Gen. Clark does not realize that his situation was unique. In the Balkans there was no tangible national interest at stake. It was the quintessential example of what Michael Mandelbaum labeled as "foreign policy as social work." Tolerance for casualties was obviously non-existent affecting both the planning and execution of the war. Let's not forget that a democratically elected leader, no matter how odious was bound to be more responsive to domestic pressure.

Clark has a number of lessons for us:

Any future U.S. wars will undoubtedly be shaped by the experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, however painful that might be. Every military refights the last war, but good militaries learn lessons from the past. We'd better get them right, and soon. Here, the lesson from Iraq and Afghanistan couldn't be more clear: Don't ever, ever go to war unless you can describe and create a more desirable end state.

Really? What if the threat is imminent? What if we know that a state is unleashing terrorist attacks upon us but we fret that we don't know what leaders will pop up next? We knew that heroin production would ramp up as soon as the Taliban was removed. Should we have negotiated with the Taliban to hand over Osama?

Then there is this confusing passage:

After the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the U.S. military embarked upon another wave of high-tech modernization -- and paid for it by cutting ground forces, which were being repeatedly deployed to peacekeeping operations in places such as Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo. Instead of preparing for more likely, low-intensity conflicts, we were still spoiling for the "big fight," focusing on such large conventional targets as Kim Jong Il's North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq -- and now we lack adequate ground forces. Bulking up these forces, perhaps by as many as 100,000 more active troops, and refitting and recovering from Iraq could cost $70 billion to $100 billion.

Ok, so if we would not be engaged in "peacekeeping" (peace-forcing) operations we would not have had manpower shortages? We should have been preparing for "more likely, low-intensity conflicts" but we looked for a "big fight?" Didn't the big fight that never happened with N. Korea come looking for us? I would also argue that Saddam's refusal to come clean on WMDs, whether he had them or not, was the problem. So we should only look for small, tiny, little problems that have no bearing on our interests at home and send small, tiny forces with technology galore. So who takes care of the big problems? The eUNuchs?

A RINO No More - The Case of Lincoln Chafee

Not that it matters to anyone anymore but Lincoln Chafee has left the GOP. Chafee justly rips the current cons lack of fiscal discipline but are tax cuts the problem? Tax receipts have been rising so the problem is not PAYGO cuts but rather an inability to hold the line on spending. Does that mean he's got to change his first name to something perhaps more appropriate? May I recommend Buchanan or Pierce?