The French?
The British?
The Arab League’s?
Certainly not the US!
And what precisely is the difference between Libya and Bahrain?
Are we no-flying the Saudis?
While Gorilla certainly got it wrong about the resolution being approved at all, he still sees this as a profoundly cheap and profoundly cynical effort by the UN and Western powers to pretend they care when they don’t.
Gorilla says: “Sarkozy and Cameron to the battlements, you have no credibility left to lose!”
Well, the science is fine, global warming and climate change are indeed real, but the UN’s Intergovernment Panel On Climate Change screwed up a little and needs reform!!!
And it’s this sort of very minor, very unimportant set of recommendations by an international body (remember: the Know Nothing Party thinks the UN is part of a vast conspiracy to promote socialism and one world government) that will keep the US (and by implication China and India) from ever getting serious about changing our environmental policy.
When you have to mortgage the political farm to get anything through the Congress, what are the chances now?
Gorilla answers: “Less than zero!”
The death knell begins for the bluefin tuna…
No surprise that a total ban was turned downed by the UN!
Left to their own devices, the world’s fishermen will keep going until there are no more fish left.
Eventually, something may be done for the bluefin as it has been done for the cod, but too little, too late is how the world’s environmental policy is made and developed.
Gorilla says: “Cash is king from the neck up!”
These were the events that mattered this week in Gorilla’s world:
*UN Follies: President Obama made his first General Assembly speech and presided over a Security Council meeting that passed a resolution in favor of nuclear disarmament. Gorilla thinks that none of this will be remembered a month from now.
*The Summit Of Shaking Hands: President Obama found out yet again that neither Israel nor the Palestinians are serious about peace. So, a bit of blunt speaking and a handshake sealed 8 months or so of pointless diplomacy. Gorilla suggests that it will be at least a year and/or another Israeli election before much happens in that part of the Middle East.
*The G-20 Follies: Now a larger and more unwieldy group than the G-8 is able to agree on nothing. We want the Europeans to cut back their presence in the IMF, they want us to cut back on the presence of our bankers. Gorilla thinks the next financial bubble is underway, so there’ll be a year or two of messing about ineffectually with finance before we can all resume panic stations.
*The Secret Iranian Nuclear Facility: Well, not so secret any more. It’s hard to understand why everyone is so worried about a fifth-rate regional power that we could destroy in five minutes if a single nuclear warhead was launched at Israel or Europe. Gorilla believes all of the sturm and drang about Iran is leading inevitably to a bilateral deal being cut within the next 12 months.
*Health Care Reform: Still going nowhere. Gorilla thinks it would be nice if nominally Democratic Senators decided to go along with the last 2 elections and vote Democratic, but he’s not holding his breath. A bill by November, full of sound and fury, signifying not very much.
*Catching A Possible Bomber: The Nail Varnish Remover Terrorist may not be a serious threat, but at least the FBI didn’t manufacture this case (unlike those in Texas and Illinois). Gorilla thinks we’ll learn something about how fanaticism develops in and is exported by semi-failed states, but we won’t learn anything much about what we can do about it.
*The V Word: Back again to remind us, 35 years on, that listening to your commanders on the ground is as good a way to lose wars as any. Gorilla does not think the Pentagon will get the troops it wants in Afghanistan and we’ll be phasing out of there within 12 months.
Iran says it has a new nuclear proposal to discuss with the UN.
President Obama had given Iran a September deadline to respond to the UN Security Council.
Whether this goes anywhere is very much in question, because there’s little chance of further sanctions from Russia and China. Perhaps it will at last be time for the US to sit down with Tehran and cut a deal.
Gorilla is more optimistic: “Time to get busy on the horse trading, the empty threats aren’t working and Iran itself is a fifth-rate power. We’ll be talking turkey with the mullahs faster than you can say IAEA in an off year election!”
Uighurs won’t be visited by Ban Ki Moon
Uighurs won’t be going to the Olympic Games
Uighurs won’t be asked to carry a tune
Uighurs won’t be getting anything but flames
Uighurs won’t be roaming free anytime soon
Uighurs won’t be at sea or bought off with dames
Uighurs you see are not yet UN delights
Uighurs you see are killed, just like human rights.
