The US Government may have been hamstrung and had foisted upon themselves some of their allies, but the following three win the Exlax Award for Smooth Movers. Not in any predictable order we start with:
Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai – writing on the newsprint wall has been at least 3 years old.
NYTimes August 2006 – Doubts about Karzai growing in Afghanistan – Asia – Pacific
Christian Science Monitor – October 2006 – Afghans to Karzai: You failed us.
Reuters August 2009 – US warns Karzai on fraud, corruption, militia ties
The Guardian 09/09/09 – Cameron condemns ‘naked’ corruption in Afghan election?
But Karzai insists, inthe words of CBC.ca Radio, “on topping Iran’s Achmedinejad for blatant voting fraud”.
Israel’s Benjamin Natanyahu – is gambling that he can do a Bill Gates, slowly cutting off the economic and social oxygen to Palestine while seeding the Palestinian West Bank with so many Israeli settlers [nearly 500,000 now] – that the two states of Israel+Palestine effectively become one.
BBC September 2009 – Middle East | Anger at Israeli settlement plan
Wikipedia current to September 2009 – Benjamin Netanyahu
Wikipedia current to September 2009 – West Bank
Boston Globe August 2009 – Israeli Settlements in the West Bank – The Big Picture
The Guardian – Israel’s West Bank settlements: a new reality, brick by brick
Reuters September 2009 – Israeli newspapers described Netanyahu’s office, filled with what they said were bickering advisers, as a “cuckoo’s nest” and “fool’s paradise.”
Israel’s PM and policy makers appear to be trying to do the William Handy Frog-Boiling trick – slowly raise the unfair friction and heat of the economic, political, and social treatment of Palestinians on the West Bank such that they cave or that the US, with its strong Jewish lobby and voting block, will have to accede to the “facts on the ground”. So, despite US warnings, Netanyahu plays more chips into the Palestinian and Arab sense of drastically unfair treatment by Israel and its US ally to the advantage of Hamas, Hezbollah, and their Iranian sponsors. Tantamount to dumb, Dumber, DUMBEST Policy on Israeli and US sides.
Libya’s Muammar al-Gaddafi has a long history of Kim-Jong-il-like playing off various political sides while maintaining tight, autocratic control of domestic policy and government. The discoveries of onshore and offshore oil has certainly changed the stakes and it is reflected in recent Gaddafi “events”.
Wikipedia to September 2009 – Muammar al-Gaddafi
You Tube August 2009 – YouTube – Lockerbie bomber comes home to heroes welcome
BBC September 2009 – Americas | Gaddafi warned over New York trip
Choose your poison. With “allies” like these, who needs enemies? Side question – how did the US get involved in these Black Widow Spider entanglements?