Tag Archives: International Relations

China Watch, National Insecurity

“Every picture tells a story, don’t it?

Sarkozy brings ‘new tone’ on role in NATO

Kyrgyzstan’s foreign minister sought to allay U.S. concerns about the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in an interview, maintaining that the burgeoning alliance is not a military organization and is not designed to limit U.S. influence in the region.

In spite of this diplospeak, the record of the meeting tells another story altogether:

The bloc linking China, Russia and four Central Asian states…

(a central Asian anti-American version of a sort of wannabe NATO?

…startled the U.S. government at its 2005 summit in Kazakhstan with a call for a deadline for the closing of all foreign bases in the region. Kyrgyzstan is home to the Manas base, the key U.S. Air Force site for supporting the mission in Afghanistan.

The SCO countries also granted Iran “observer” status in the organization, something the United States was denied.

Of course, given that none of the participants are really very sympathetic to the Islamist agenda, they’re supposedly not QUITE cutting off their noses to spite their face:

Kyrgyzstan, considered the most politically liberal of the Central Asian states, hosted the most recent SCO summit in its capital, Bishkek, in August. Speaking through an interpreter, (Kyrgyz President) Mr. Karabaev, who met with top Bush administration officials on a visit here last week, said there is a “common understanding” among all the SCO partners that Manas will be available to the United States and its coalition partners as long as needed for stabilization and counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan. All the SCO members “do recognize that the base helps to solve issues of international security in our region,” he said.

Sort of like the Donks here in the US, who inveigh ad nauseum against the war in Iraq, but won’t cut off the funding, or for that matter impose a surrender date-certain.

Weasels one and all!

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Mex Pres’ Imperialism & Freewheeling Cross Border Trucks

Teamsters continue to battle Mexican trucks

The plan to let Mexican trucks operate throughout the United States has prompted a war of words and legal papers between the Bush administration and Jim Hoffa, the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

Hoffa and his allies at the Sierra Club and Public Citizen have sued in federal court to stop the government from issuing permits to Mexican freight haulers. Their lawyers argued in court that Mexican trucks pose a danger on the roads and threaten increased human and drug smuggling. “Dangerous trucks should not be driving all the way from Mexico to Maine and Minnesota,” said Hoffa in a prepared statement. “What is it about safety and national security that George Bush doesn’t understand?”

The Chief has some more or less direct interest in this, since he lives 2.75 miles from an officially designated North American international trade route (I-29).

The government argued that stopping the trucks would unsettle a key trading partner in Mexico and delay U.S.trucks from operating south of the border.

So, the Mexicans could become unsettled. The point is…?

This goes right along with another item:

Calderon blasts U.S. immigration policies

President Felipe Calderon blasted U.S. immigration policies on Sunday and promised to fight harder to protect the rights of Mexicans in the U.S., saying “Mexico does not end at its borders.”

This reminds the Chief of the sort of things that Germany was saying in the 1930’s as it moved to implement “das Grossdeutches Reich“, or Greater Germany, incorporating large parts of Czechoslovakia, the entire nation of Austria, most of Poland, and targets on the then USSR up to the Urals. Indeed, Germany did NOT end at its borders…it kept marching as long as it could get away from it. One fears Mexico is moving in the direction of going for anything it can get, as long as we continue to “assume the position”. BOHICA!

Admittedly Calderon is no Hitler (yet), but imperialism is imperialism…and asserting claims of extraterritorial rights historically is one of the tried and true arrows in the imperialistic quiver.

He also reached out to the millions of Mexicans living in the United States, many illegally, saying: “Where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico.”

This is the Mexican version of the doctrine of “Once a German, always a German.”

“We strongly protest the unilateral measures taken by the U.S. Congress and government that have only persecuted and exacerbated the mistreatment of Mexican undocumented workers,” he said. “The insensitivity toward those who support the U.S. economy and society has only served as an impetus to reinforce the battle … for their rights.”

Frankly, as far as the Chief is concerned the only right that ILLEGAL immigrants have, is to not let the door hit them in the ass on their way out.

China Watch, Defense Matters!

Selling our birthright for a mess of pottage…

Genesis 25:
29 And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field, and he was faint:
30 And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom.
31 And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.
32 And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?
33 And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.
34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright.

Trinkets and treasure: China tames the US

A new version of an old story. All it takes to see this is a quick trip to the local Wal-Mart.

…the real dreadnoughts of modern-day Chinese naval power, the huge containerized cargo ships, some Chinese, most not, full of Chinese manufactured goods, making another one of their visits to the port of Seattle, the same way they do to hundreds of other Western ports every single day….You frequently see containerized cargo ships making their way down Puget Sound to the port facilities in Seattle, completing their two-week high-seas journey from the massive Hong Kong and Shenzhen port complexes in southern China.

And the point is…

Most of the time, as they complete these voyages in from the Pacific, they ride low in the water, right down to the waterline. On these ships, the thousands of containers visible on deck, and the many more you don’t see under the decks (the largest container ship in the world, the Maersk Line’s Emma Maersk, can hold more than 14,000 individual 20-foot container units) are chock full, with TVs, washing machines and appliances, tires, toys and trinkets; the full catalogue of rapidly depreciating disposables over which North America is sacrificing its treasure.

As the containerized cargo ships leave Seattle, or San Francisco, or Long Beach, San Diego, Vancouver, all the way north to the newly bustling port of Prince Rupert, British Columbia, the ships ride a lot higher in the water. Most of the cargo containers are empty; they’re being sent back to China to be refilled. With the Chinese trade surplus with the US now running at about $150 billion a year, there’s a lot more stuff coming into the US west coast than leaving. (And much of the value of what the US does export to China comes from either Boeing jetliners or intellectual properties, such as first-run teen-slasher movies, neither of which gets much transported to China on containerized cargo ships.)

Or maybe it just seems that way. What really is being transported back to China in those empty containers is power.

The gory details of Wally-World (and others’) addiction to “Made in China” are clearly and unambiguously, and depressingly detailed., leading inevitably to this congealed lump of inconvenient truth:

China does not have to lobby US congressional representatives to look after its interests; the US industrial elite does that quite well on its own. In much the same way that Nazi Germany established Vichy France to further its interests without actually occupying the country, the US corporate elite’s desire to use China to enrich its wealth further has allowed China to create Vichy America.

That is a REALLY ugly concept to wrap one’s mind around. And to return to global realpolitik…we approach a potentially more serious consequence: Taiwan.

Here can be seen the true genius of the Chinese plan to subdue the US with trinkets and treasure. To counter the US militarily would be hugely expensive, and probably beyond China’s current technological capacity. Far better to do it the way it has, with trade. The Chinese could have America’s industrial elite, fearing a shutoff of the China wealth spigot, whisper in the ears of American policymakers that they should lay off any military countering of a Chinese move against Taiwan.

Give China 10 days to two weeks of unhindered military access to the Taiwan Strait, and it’ll put the flag of the People’s Republic of China over the Presidential Palace in Taipei. This is the classic “indirect approach” of mid-20th-century English military strategist Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart; instead of facing the US at its strongest, its technological superiority, China has attacked the US at its weakest point, its acquisitive, materialist, greedy soul.

After noting what China has done with two surplus” Soviet mini-carriers (turned them into tourist traps!) the conclusion here notes that

Real power now lies in those cargo ships forever steaming inexorably to the American heartland. In a couple of years, the United States will conclude its (by then) million-death, trillion-dollar misadventure in trying to subdue a few spits of green land between the Tigris and Euphrates. It will discover that, even if General David Petraeus’ “surge” might have won the battle of al-Anbar, back home the US ruling elite has surrendered to China in the battle for the United States, without even firing a single shot.

Someone PLEASE tell me this is all wrong?

China Watch, Culture Wars

Christianity…Still on the Ascent

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Christianity finds a fulcrum in Asia

One of teh Chief’s favorites: Spengler writing over at Asia Times, with another offering of great interest and at least potential importance.

Ten thousand Chinese become Christians each day, according to a stunning report by the National Catholic Reporter’s veteran correspondent John Allen, and 200 million Chinese may comprise the world’s largest concentration of Christians by mid-century, and the largest missionary force in history.

There’s a lot more in this piece…among the more interesting morsels is this one:

While the Catholic Church has worked patiently for independence from the Chinese government, which sponsors a “Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association” with government-appointed bishops, the evangelicals have no infrastructure to suppress and no hierarchy to protect. In contrast to Catholic caution, John Allen observes, “Most Pentecostals would obviously welcome being arrested less frequently, but in general they are not waiting for legal or political reform before carrying out aggressive evangelization programs.”

Allen adds: “The most audacious even dream of carrying the gospel beyond the borders of China, along the old Silk Road into the Muslim world, in a campaign known as “Back to Jerusalem”. As [Time correspondent David] Aikman explains in Jesus in Beijing, some Chinese evangelicals and Pentecostals believe that the basic movement of the gospel for the last 2,000 years has been westward: from Jerusalem to Antioch, from Antioch to Europe, from Europe to America, and from America to China. Now, they believe, it’s their turn to complete the loop by carrying the gospel to Muslim lands, eventually arriving in Jerusalem. Once that happens, they believe, the gospel will have been preached to the entire world.”

Aikman reports that two Protestant seminaries secretly are training missionaries for deployment in Muslim countries.

The plot thickens!

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Sovietization of Venezuela

Chavez to expel foreign critics

In addition to some rather obvious instances of media suppression, and the noted promise to crack down on any foreigners in the country that have the nerve to speak out about the Chavez government, there is a proposed governmental reorganization that literally adopts the soviet model (no doubt via Cuba).

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has vowed to expel foreigners who publicly criticise him or his government. “No foreigner can come here to attack us. Anyone who does must be removed from this country,” he said during his weekly TV and radio programme.

Mr Chavez also ordered officials to monitor statements made by international figures in Venezuela. His comments came shortly after a senior Mexican politician publicly criticised the Venezuelan government. “How long are we going to allow a person – from any country in the world – to come to our own house to say there’s a dictatorship here, that the president is a tyrant, and nobody does anything about it?” Mr Chavez said during his “Hello, President” broadcast on Sunday.

Hmmmmm. If WE applied that standard to Chavez, we should have stuck a #12 cork in his pie-hole when he came to New York a while back and called President Bush “the devil”.

Anyway, this all seems to have been stimulated by comments from a leading Mexican politico who attended a recent conference on democracy in Caracas:

He did not mention any names, but his comments came on the same weekend that Manuel Espino, president of Mexico’s ruling National Action Party, criticised Mr Chavez at a pro-democracy conference in Caracas.

Mr Espino told the conference a plan by Mr Chavez to end term limits on Venezuela’s presidency were a threat to democracy. He accused Mr Chavez of trying to extend his rule indefinitely with the proposed constitutional reform, which would let Mr Chavez run for the presidency again in 2012.

Ooops. Not how to get on Chavez’ good side. Now for the “soviet” part:

Mr Chavez said the reform package would increase the influence of local community councils and student groups as part of his “21st-Century socialism” revolution. (emphasis added)

There is a Russian word for this: Soviet, which literally translates as “council” As developed in Russia, and as applied in other Communist countries, the Soviet provided a fig-leaf of popular feedback and participation, while at the same time providing a very effective way of identifying, isolating, and targeting of any who had the temerity to oppose or question the (generally) pre-determined course of action desired by the designated party leadership.

He is due to present the proposal to Venezuela’s National Assembly next month. The assembly consists solely of politicians who back the president.

This of course is exactly comparable to the “Supreme Soviet”.

Pity the Venezuelans…they’re on what increasingly looks like a sad, downhill path to a new “dictatorship of the proletariat”.

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Once a KGB…Always a KGB?

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New death plot chills relations with Putin

Reported from the Times of London:

The murder of a second Russian dissident on British soil was averted last month when police and intelligence agencies intercepted a suspected killer in London, it was confirmed last night.

In a move likely to damage already strained relations between Britain and Russia, Scotland Yard said that officers arrested a man on suspicion of conspiracy to murder on June 21 and held him for two days. He was later handed over to the immigration service and deported back to Russia.

Stuff like this always makes the Chief recall that Putin was the last head of the old Soviet KGB. Just as a refresher – the KGB was the Soviet analog of the Nazi Gestapo. Imagine a Martin Bormann or a Heinrich Himmler as head of government of a major power.

Let yourself just imagine the type of “apprenticeship” experiences and the types of “ticket punching” required for someone to (virtually) claw their way through the apparatchik nomenklatura of the USSR to become head of the KGB.

Trust me on this…it doesn’t make a pretty picture. If you DON’T trust me on this, fine – go read Solzhenitsyn’s GULAG Archipelago. for some of the (literally) gory details.

Keeping this in mind, who then could be surprised by by this case, or the earlier case of Litvenenko (killed by radioactive poisoning), or the reporters regularly assassinated in Russia.

National Insecurity

Bush Turns Away from Reagan, Again

White House LOST at Sea

LOST here refers to the long-pending Law Of the Sea Treaty. As a fromer naval personage, this is something that has attracted my attention at various times. When the original push for this was on in the 80’s, Ronaldus Magnus, Reagan himself, turned away from this proposal as a seriously flawed instrument whose impact will negatively affect US national security.

We are set to take a policymaking trip down memory lane with the Bush Administration urging accession to the Convention on the Law of the Sea in a recent statement made by the President on the issue. The Treaty was crafted from 1973 to 1982 and 154 countries have become signatories to it, along with the European Community.

In 1982, President Reagan refused to sign the Treaty, claiming specific objections to its terms. Those objections have not been resolved.

This piece from Tech Central Station goes on to note the specific problems with this treaty, and also notes some of the more recent arguments advocating its ratification by the US as proposed by John Negroponte and Gordon England from within the depths of the Pentagon bureaucracy. Why are they arguing this? Essentially to give the Euros (and others) a warm fuzzy glow when they think of us! (Cough! Gasp! Retch! Spit!)

…if anyone suggested the Negroponte-England rationale for acceding to the Law of the Sea Treaty as a rationale for agreeing to Kyoto, the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and the re-establishment of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, they would be laughed out of policymaking circles. Fair arguments can be made for joining any one of these treaties. But those arguments need to be made on the substance of the treaties, not just because “all the cool countries are doing it.”

The Law of the Sea Treaty remains flawed. It does little to advance American interests when it comes to freedom of navigation, it could prove environmentally harmful, it restricts American military and intelligence naval operations and it calls for technology transfers that could run afoul of intellectual property laws and be dangerous to boot. President Reagan was right to reject calls to sign the Treaty in 1982. The Bush Administration should reverse course and refuse to push for the enactment of the Treaty in the present day.

National Insecurity

Russian Realpolitik

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What they didn’t say at Kennebunkport

Spengler, one of the Chief’s favorite writers has this over at Asia Times.

Nothing like the imagined dialogue below will have occurred at the Bush family compound on the Maine sea coast during President Vladimir Putin’s July 1 retreat with US President George W Bush.

Putin, I expect, will have done his best to humor his American counterpart and keep him off his guard. Bush is prepared neither intellectually nor psychologically to understand what a Russian leader must do, and a practical man like Putin would not waste
words explaining the unexplainable to the uncomprehending. Putin’s unenviable task is to persuade Bush of his good intentions, while gaining maneuvering room to take measures that the US will regard as hostile. I have no idea how he tried to bring this off in Kennebunkport.

But it is sobering to imagine how the conversation might have gone if Putin had told Bush the unvarnished truth.

The dialog follows. It’s well worth reading, and adds a very interesting perspective to the US-Russia situation. It’s semi-lengthy, and doesn’t lend itself well to fragmentary quotation, so go check it out – it makes far too much sense to ignore!

Defense Matters!, National Insecurity

Deep History of SECDEF

THE GATES INHERITANCE, Part 1
The tortured world of US intelligence

Asia Times, has come out with with a very interesting and lengthy deep background on the US Intel establishment, and one of its leading lights, none other than our current post-Rummy SECDEF Gates:


Robert Gates has returned to Washington as secretary of defense with a quiet vengeance and with all the skills acquired in his rough-and-tumble years in the intelligence bureaucracy still intact. His laden resume, gathered over many decades, is evidence that Washington’s tortuous, often misguided foreign policies did not begin with the Bush administration, and will not end with it. In this three-part series, Roger Morris, formerly a senior staffer of the National Security Council, provides not just a portrait of the real Robert Gates, but a history of America’s global covert action and intervention.

Although this piece IS lengthy, it has a lot to show and tell about how we got to be where we are today. I’m not sure that I buy into the whole deal, but there’s enough substance there to bear some close thought.

This is only part I of 2 more to follow. The content does NOT fill the Chief with optimism concerning the conduct of US foreign policy. Maybe it really IS too late to work within the system any more, but I truly hope that’s an overly pessimistic assessment.

But still…what if it’s not?

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End Run Around Chavez’ Media Crackdown

Venezuelan TV chief eyes possible deals in Mexico

The head of an opposition-aligned Venezuelan television station that was forced off the air by that nation’s government said he has received offers to co-produce and transmit programming from Mexico. Marcel Granier, whose Radio Caracas Television went off the air May 27 after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez decided not to renew its broadcast license, vowed Tuesday to keep trying to reach Venezuelan audiences by any means possible.

The Chief thinks that this will work out somehow or another. Chavez is operating with a 1950’s model for media, and has forgotten about the net, SATCOM, etc. Hopefully Granier will be able to effectively stick it to him, media-wise.

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More Islamic “Peace”? Not this month!

Britain has announced honoring writer Salman Rushdie with a knighthood.

This has touched off another round of rabid Islamic foaming at the mouth in protest – very similar to the Danish cartoon flap. This is unfortunately all too predictable, and reactions of Pakistani government officials have moved into the realm of international diplomacy.

Rushdie’s knighthood ‘justifies suicide attacks’

Not liking an honoring of another nation justifies murder? (Remember, this is the “religion of peace”. Yeah. Right. In a pig’s eye it is!)

After the unregulated vitriol of Pakistani officials, the government took official cognizance that they had a problem.

Pakistani Government Intervenes in Rushdie Row

Of course, the justification of suicide bombing in this case elicited a certain response, even from the UK.

‘Deep concern’ over Rushdie terror threat

A diplomatic row over Salman Rushdie’s knighthood erupted yesterday as Britain expressed “deep concern” over claims by a Pakistani minister that the honour was an affront to Muslims that could justify suicide bombings.

The UK’s high commissioner, Robert Brinkley, conveyed the message after being summoned to meet Pakistan government representatives in Islamabad, according to a Foreign Office spokesman. The Government is now embroiled in a mounting political row over the Queen’s Birthday Honours award to Sir Salman, whose 1989 book, The Satanic Verses, was condemned by Muslims as blasphemous and led to international protests.

A spokesman said the high commissioner made clear London’s deep concern at the reported remarks of the minister for religious affairs. “The British Government is very clear that nothing can justify suicide bomb attacks,” he said.

What’s really amazing about that is that it is necessary to state for the record that “nothing can justify suicide bomb attacks”. To anyone civilized, that would go without saying…but then again, this IS dealing with Islam, so the civilized part breaks down here.

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21st Century Slavemasters

Mideast allies on U.S. blacklist

Unfortunately, this is not hyperbole, it’s all too true.

The Bush administration yesterday added seven nations, including several key U.S. allies in the Middle East, to its human-trafficking blacklist for failing to halt what it called the scourge of “modern-day slavery….”

Along with such luminaries of the world as the NorKs, Cuba, and Venezuela, most of the list is Islamic.

“By thier fruits, ye shall know them.

Countries with Tier 3, the lowest of three rankings, “do not fully comply with the minimum standards [to fight trafficking] and are not making significant efforts to do so,” which makes them eligible for U.S. economic sanctions.

Most of this year’s additions to Tier 3 are Muslim or predominantly Muslim nations, many of which have the means to enforce foreign workers’ rights and anti-trafficking laws. The complete list of Tier 3 countries in this year’s report is: Algeria, Bahrain, Burma, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Kuwait, Malaysia, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Uzbekistan and Venezuela.

National Insecurity

Getting Ready for the Bug-out Boogie

Iraqis: Take us with you

With pressure building in Washington for an American troop pullout, Iraqis who have worked closely with U.S. companies and military forces are begging their employers for assurances that they will be able to leave with them.

This gives the Chief a REALLY bad feeling…not that these good guys are trying to set up a bolt-hole if the SHTF (see Site Jargonology), but that with the goings on of the Donk Copperheads in Congress and elsewhere, they feel the need to do so.

When the Americans leave, all those who worked with them “must leave also,” said another woman who has been forced to move to Jordan. She asked that her name not be used in order to protect her extended family still living in Baghdad.

Americans and other Westerners rely on Iraqi men and women who serve as interpreters, engineers, repairmen, security guards, computer and telecommunications technicians, drivers, cooks, cleaners and so on. Private security companies and contractors working to support the military and rebuild Iraq’s teetering infrastructure also employ thousands of locals.

Unfortunately, this is not an inappropriate fear based on this expression of the state of mind of the administration.

Many have risked their lives on a daily basis for years to get to work and to protect their U.S. colleagues. But American officials say it is unlikely that the United States will open its doors to all of them. “They are not going to the United States,” Command Sgt. Maj. Jeff Mellinger told The Washington Times in an interview in late April. “We don’t have a plan to do anything with them. They are Iraqis, and this is their country,” said Sgt. Maj. Mellinger, at that time the top enlisted soldier in Iraq.

How sad if an earlier incident in our history is repeated:

For one former Special Forces operative who has worked closely with Iraqis for three years, any U.S. pullout that fails to protect Iraqi allies would bring unhappy memories of the final withdrawal 32 years ago from Vietnam. “When we leave, all these people that helped us and fought for us will be hunted down and exterminated just like the Montagnards and South Vietnamese,” he said in a telephone interview. “In many ways, this is my second Vietnam,” he said bitterly.

One wonders how long our military will be forced to implement the feckless policies of incompetent if not outright traitorous politicians interested more in their own careers than in the good name and interest of the United States.

F.E.T.E.

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Bush Continues Leftward Skid

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Bush in U-turn on global warming

George W. Bush on Thursday unveiled a striking about-face on global warming, calling on the world’s leading economies to join the US in agreeing a global target to reduce carbon dioxide emissions before the end of his term in office

The US president was speaking just ahead of a G8 summit at which climate change was expected to be high on the agenda of European governments.

So…what is left of the administration agenda that does NOT align with the international socialist orientation of the Euros any more?
(Hmmmmm. Think. THINK……….STILL thinking……..)

He explained that his apparent conversion – which follows almost seven years of having rejected precisely the road he outlined – was prompted by new scientific findings.

This is total bullsh…er…strong organic fertilizer. Recent scientific trends are that although we are probably in a warming phase of planetary climate, the impact of human activity is minimal!

But Mr Bush made no pledge on the size of emissions cuts that the US would be prepared to sign up to and gave no indication of a timeframe. The White House also ruled out carbon trading as the way to cutting emissions.

Well, IF he can be trusted on anything these days, this at least is something positive, that he hasn’t bought into the AlGor carbon trading fraud.

The Chief is getting closer and closer to agreeing with the moonbat left on one thing…that Bush is one of the worst the US has ever been saddled with in the White House.

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Terrorism and the Border

Senate Urged to Rethink Immigration Bill After NJ Arrests

A definite reminder that all the fol-de-rol about trying to improve our homehand security is essentially an exercise in futility unless and until we demonstrate the political will to enforce and maintain our national border.

The arrest of six foreign-born Muslims accused of plotting to attack Fort Dix, N.J., should stop the Senate from producing an immigration bill that includes a “pathway to citizenship” or any other let-them-stay-here program, said a group that strongly opposes “amnesty” for illegal aliens….

The Federation for American Immigration Reform called the arrests “strong proof that lax enforcement of our immigration laws does pose a severe threat to the security of the nation, and that the government’s screening process for granting green cards and other immigration benefits is perilously flawed.”

The Chief heartily concurs!

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US-Syria Meeting…and the point is…?

Rice meets Syria’s foreign minister

A month after excoriating Queen Nancy of SanFran for launching her diplomatic filibuster to Damascus, Condie herself, leader of the State Department’s Foggy Bottom Boys, makes the trip herself…for some undetermined reason.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she raised the issue of foreign fighters entering Iraq from Syria in talks with Syria’s foreign minister today but “didn’t lecture him” in the first high-level meeting in years between the two countries. Miss Rice described as “professional” and “businesslike” her half-hour meeting with Syria’s Walid Moallem on the sidelines of a major regional conference on Iraq.

So what’s the point of this meeting? Perhaps this is a clue:\

Ahead of the meeting, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad said Syria had stemmed the flow of foreign fighters across its border — a chief U.S. demand. “There has been some movement by the Syrians,” said Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV. “There has been a reduction in the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq” for more than a month.

A payoff in the form of facetime and recognition as being a “real” power worth the effort of the US to touch base with? It makes as much or more sense than anything else that the Chief can think of.

Still, the point is…?