Greece Scores On Germany

HT to Charles Crawford for this bit of classic British silliness:

Monty Python blast one into the back of the net - and describe the Eurozone Crisis with unerring wit and prescience.

How hopeless do you have to be when even Marx can't put any life into your attack?

The Germans are putting up a better offense against Greece in real life, fortunately.

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Pakistani Official Harassment of U.S. Mission Has "Reached New Levels Of Intensity"

U.S. Embassy employee at roadblock in Peshawar, Pakistani news photo

Late this afternoon the State Department released the report of the Office of Inspector General's Compliance Follow-Up Review for Embassy Islamabad and constituent posts in Pakistan. The big take-away is the unprecedented levels of Pakistani official harassment of our mission and its employees.

U.S. official entities operating in Pakistan have long been subjected to unusual, government-initiated obstructionism and harassment. That harassment has reached new levels of intensity, however, after the events of 2011. The embassy describes the harassment as deliberate, willful, and systematic. While other diplomatic missions have experienced similar treatment, the United States is clearly the principal target. The harassment takes many forms: delayed visa issuances; blocked shipments for both assistance programs and construction projects; denials of requests for in-country travel; and surveillance of and interference with mission employees and contractors.

Details of that harassment were redacted before the report was released.

That's a lot of black ink, and it continues for another page and a half. So many details to obscure!

But the OIG report is perfectly clear about another matter: 

Based on its visit, the OIG team would not dispute the characterization of Peshawar in the 2010 inspection report as the most dangerous post in the world.

They have that right.

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Every Leak Has A Purpose

I was proud to be exposed
by Your Excellency,
I just wish, wish you gave me
time to flee

Yeah, it's too bad about that Pakistani doctor who helped us find bin Laden. I hope those 33 years in prison will go by fast.

Same with the Saudi-British agent inside al Qaeda in Yemen. I mean, the one who used to be inside. Oops, we did it again!

And then there is the NYT story about cyber attacks on Iran's nuclear program, the one that refers to interviews with three dozen White House and administration sources.

You know, if Senator Dianne Feinstein is really as mad about these leaks as she says she is, then she will put some White House officials under oath before her Senate Intelligence Committee and ask them questions. Why wait for Attorney General Holder's criminal investigations to proceed at their customary glacial pace when you have your own subpoena power?

Here's an idea: why doesn't Feinstein publicly ask President Obama to order any of his staffers with knowledge of these leaks to testify before her committee? Since, he has said he has zero tolerance for these leaks and is deeply offended by the suggestion that he might have tolerated them.

Why, I'll bet Feinstein and Obama together could get to the bottom of this mystery in no time. Because, after all, they say that's what they want.

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Happy 237th, U.S. Army

The Army goes rolling along

My favorite government institution is 237 years old today. That's one more than the United States itself, because our nation's senior military service is the only national army that predates the founding of the nation it serves. I like that.

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Still Perfect For D.C.

Nothing here but a misdemeanor, the jury said

The always diverting former Mayor of Washington DC, Marion Barry, is shocked by the ethical lapses of his fellow DC City Council members, and he gave them a good talking-to yesterday.

This is the same former Mayor of Washington DC who, back in 1990, was filmed by the FBI smoking crack cocaine, and who was subsequently acquitted on something like 14 felony charges by a local jury.

I was in Bogota, Colombia, the day he was arrested, and I still remember the Pearl Harbor-sized headlines in the local papers over that infamous still shot of Barry hoovering up a crack pipe. They said "ALCALDE DROGADICTO de WASHINGTON D.C." The editorials asked what Washington would do if it had been the mayor of Bogota caught on camera smoking crack, and suggested we would probably invade the country. Yeah, that was just a wee bit embarrassing.   

But despite it all, I truly like the guy. I agree with Mo'Kelly, Marion Barry is the greatest superhero ever. Yes, ever.
 

When Barry emerged from his FBI crack sting jail stint, he ran for a spot on the D.C. City Council representing Ward 8. Not only did he win, but he won with the campaign slogan, “He May Not Be Perfect, But He’s Perfect for D.C.”

Are you serious?!

When you extrapolate out the full meaning of the slogan, it would read something like …

“He may not be ‘perfect,’ given his crack addiction/arrest while cheating on his wife and soliciting a prostitute; but a crackhead, womanizer caught cavorting with prostitutes while serving as mayor is ‘perfect’ for D.C.”

And he won …

If there has ever been an example of lower standards for voters electing their civic leaders in the history of elections, someone please show Mo’Kelly. Other than prostitutes and crack dealers (neither of whom vote), who exactly benefited from Barry in public office? Please point him or her out. Marion Barry is supernatural with super human abilities.

By the way, you can view Barry's smokin' performance in that FBI video here. Fast-forward to the 50 minute point for the crack pipe scene, with the money shot occurring at 52:30, immediately after which the guys in windbreakers burst in to the hotel room.

For a short time after that performance, there were some local high school-age kids who got together to act out the parts of Barry and his ex-girlfriend Rasheeda Moore in front of wide screen projections of the video, a la midnight screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. At the point where Rasheeda Moore starts loading the crack pipe, the girls would flounce back and front saying her lines: “You do it! You do it! It makes me too hyper! It makes me too hyper!” After the FBI busts in, the boys would sit down and hang their heads and say “bitch set me up ... I shouldn’t ah come up here ... Possession? With what, intent to use? That, little, that little bit, that, that little speck?" It was really excellent theater.

We get the elected officials we deserve. I will miss him when he's gone.

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A Military Coup Is Also A "Transition"

Ex-President Mubarak has one foot in the grave - how many weeks has he been in a coma now? - but even so he may outlive the political movement that displaced him from power.

March Lynch, in Abu Aardvark's Middle East Blog, says That's It For Egypt's So-Called Transition:

But today's moves by the Constitutional Court on behalf of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) seem difficult to overcome and likely to push Egypt onto a dangerous new path. With Egypt looking ahead to no parliament, no constitution, and a deeply divisive new president, it's fair to say the experiment in military-led transition has come to its disappointing end.

-- snip --

Today, Egypt's constitutional court delivered the coup de grace by refusing to disqualify Mubarak's former prime minister Ahmed Shafik from the race and effectively dissolving the elected parliament by declaring the individual election of one-third of its members illegal. The former decision was probably the right one, to be frank, though it was a missed opportunity for a "hail Mary" political reset. But the latter was absurd, destructive, and essentially voids Egypt's last year of politics of meaning. Weeks before the SCAF's scheduled handover of power, Egypt now finds itself with no parliament, no constitution (or even a process for drafting one), and a divisive presidential election with no hope of producing a legitimate, consensus-elected leadership. Its judiciary has become a bad joke, with any pretence of political independence from the military shattered beyond repair.

-- snip --

The SCAF, in other words, may look to have won this seemingly decisive round. But it's not the endgame. It's only the beginning of a new phase of a horribly mismanaged "transition" that is coming to its well-earned end. What's next? A replay of Algeria in 1991? A return to Jan. 25, 2011? Back to 1954? A return to the petulant slow fail of latter-days Mubarak? An alien invasion using nano-weapons and transgalactic wormholes in the Pyramids? Nobody really seems to know... but I'm pretty sure we're not going to see a return to stable CloneNDP-SCAF rule. Of course, this being Egypt, maybe tomorrow the Court will just overrule itself and we can all go back to normal...

It sure looks like the Algiers '91 scenario, in which the army prevented an Islamist majority from taking power democratically in parliamentary elections, after which a civil war ensued which has never really ended.

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U.S. Consulate Herat Officially Opens

Deputy Secretary William J. Burns delivered the remarks at today's ceremony to open the new U.S. Consulate in Herat, Afghanistan:

And so we are here to celebrate the opening of the consulate -- this remarkable refurbished facility, leased from the Municipality of Herat. This was truly a community effort – we purchased local products to use in the refurbishment, some of which you can see on display in the waiting room next door. World-class quality, Chesht-e-Sharif marble now graces some of the floors. Every week, on average, more than 70 Afghans contributed their time and skills to the consulate’s construction. One expert carpenter turned plain packing crates into beautifully carved room dividers. And artwork produced by students from Herat University is displayed on the walls of the consulate.

That "remarkable refurbished facility" is not bad. Kudos to OBO.

As for the other remarkable refurbished facility in Afghanistan, the less said, the better.

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