MOE: So I just had a thought. A strategist on Fox News used the word "fulcrum" and it completely tripped up the blonde, who was like, "I'm still fascinated by that word you used Rich, fulcrum." And then the other guy was like, "Yeah, fulcrum what the heck does that mean?" And the strategist laughed
MOE: And said, "It's physics, Bob, it has to do with the Law of Conservation of Angular Momentum."
MOE: Which is not a law I particularly remember but it gave me this theory: I think that smart people become Republicans to feel smarter than all their friends.
MEGAN: Whoa, he even quoted that? I think today is a Big Word day because David Axelrod just used the word "potentate" on MSNBC talking about leaders in the Middle East and OPEC.

MEGAN: Okay, and now Joe Scarborough just called Tim Daly the Grand Poobah of the Creative Coalition.
MOE: What does that even mean?

MEGAN: Not that it's a definitive source, but Wiki says

Grand Poobah is a term derived from the name of the haughty character Pooh-Bah in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado. In this comic opera, Pooh-Bah holds numerous exalted offices, including Lord Chief Justice, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Master of the Buckhounds, Lord High Auditor, Groom of the Back Stairs, and Lord High Everything Else. The name has come to be used as a mocking title for someone self-important or high-ranking and who either exhibits an inflated self-regard, who acts in several capacities at once, or who has limited authority while taking impressive titles.

MOE: Hahaha so it's a more appropriate name for an MC than I knew when I began immediately associating it with this awesome party jam...
MEGAN: Dude, that guy on the TV sorta looks like Kid from Kid N Play...
MOE: Oh dude speaking of amazing segues, apparently Grand Puba holds Nation Of Islam beliefs. Which brings me to Michelle Obama, of whom we now know the same thing thanks to the Grand Puba of paranoid indiscriminate hateration. We should totally form a Hitchens-inspired hip-hop collective. I know some rappers who would dig it. We would get on Stuffwhitepeoplelike IMMEDIATELY.

MEGAN: Oh, Christ, Hitchens takes so fucking long to get to the point, which is him calling Barack, basically, pussy-whipped. Which, obviously, any man that doesn't indiscriminately cheat on his long-suffering wife the way Hitchens does obviously is.
MEGAN: Did I ever mention that I once watched Hitchens leave a party with a really pretty 18 year old? She might've been 20. She had some crazy hero-worship in her eyes, but I'll bet he sweatily fucked that out of her with his stale cigarette smell and tiny British ween.
MOE: Man I was checking TheRoot for some response to the Hitch and the lead story is on "Why The Summer Of '88 Was My Generation's Greatest." The late eighties were so rad in a lot of ways, I'm just remembering. The End of History and the like. But it was also, like, one of the bleakest eras for American cities, which I kind of think represent the future of American pluralism, which apparently Michelle Obama didn't believe in in 1985, which is why we are now wondering if she isn't a radical bitterfascist.

MOE: And that is a very good read on the situation. I was honestly disgusted he chose to go after her fucking college thesis which is basically about how alienated and inferior she felt on account of all the elitist assholes at Princeton.
MOE: And he writes:

To describe it as hard to read would be a mistake; the thesis cannot be "read" at all, in the strict sense of the verb. This is because it wasn't written in any known language.

MOE: Which is true of most academic papers.
MEGAN: Man, I sort of wish I could've written about that for my college thesis. I had to write about the role of ideology in determining women's status in the labor market in Germany before and after reunification.
MOE: But not even of hers.
MOE: I dropped out, yay. I don't think I wrote a decent paper ever in my life after my treatise on the collapse of the Weimar Republic in tenth grade. After that it was all an alcohol haze. I wrote some good stories for the Journal that were better researched than any of my papers, however.
MEGAN: I picked a graduate school based on where I didn't have to write another thesis, which is why I ended up chucking my completed SAIS application in the garbage rather than sending it.

MOE: : This was Christian's take on Hitchens which sort of nicely unpeels the layers of disingenuousness:

What he's really saying is, I, the Hitch, know that people must necessarily allow contradictions into their lives, especially politicians, who typically do so cynically, but I am cynical enough myself to pretend that I don't know that, and so I can write a column that honestly admits that Obama really has nothing in common with his Reverend (did I mention that I, the Hitch, hate all churchees—I know politicians are only pandering to them, but it's fun to pretend they're not) but that his wife is a menace.
7:14 PM asserts that his wife is a menace anyway.

MEGAN: Also, I am not going to click that again because it is more than I can handle imagining Hitch having his taint waxed AND NOW I HAVE IMAGINED IT AGAIN and I think I might hate you a little, give me a second to wash the taste of bile out of my mouth and then let's change the subject.
MEGAN: Here, let's talk about Clinton saying that OPEC can no long be allowed to exist so she's going to file a WTO complaint even though, like, she's not so keen on free trade policies or something and I'm pretty sure there's no way it would succeed.
MOE: Ah, yeah so there is a bill to amend the Sherman Act to make oil-producing and exporting cartels illegal.
MOE: God, remember the fucking Sherman Act?

MEGAN: Which means, what? That we won't buy oil from OPEC anymore? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
MOE: Well, if the Heritage Foundation and major trade unions can agree on something...

Indeed, the only serious challenge to the organization came in 1978 when a U.S. non-profit labor association, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), sued OPEC under the Sherman Antitrust Act, in IAM v. OPEC. But the case was rejected in 1981 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. OPEC, the court affirmed, could not be prosecuted under the Sherman Act due to the foreign sovereign immunity protection it claimed for its member states. That decision was wrong. Government-owned companies that engage in purely business activities do not warrant sovereign immunity protection according to prevailing legal doctrines

MOE: Apparently the effort was led by William "Wimpy" Wimpsinger. I like that he took that "wimp thing" and sort of owned it. Do you think Hitchens cynically wants the Clintons back because it makes his job easier?

I have the distinct feeling that the Obama campaign can't go on much longer without an answer to the question: "Are we getting two for one?" And don't be giving me any grief about asking this. Black Americans used to think that the Clinton twosome was their best friend, too. This time we should find out before it's too late to ask.

MEGAN: Wait, so white man Christopher Hitchens would like Black America to know that the Obamas will... what exactly? Betray them like the Clintons? I think this is why I only read stuff he writes about him waxing his back, sack and crack.
MOE: Oh man hip-hop reference segue time #2 of the morning. Let's give a shout-out to Khia. Dude, the Hitchens inspired DJ collective is a total gold idea. I know these dudes Plastic Little who could get into it. They're biracial like Obama. But I think we've gotta address the notion of Burma, and how this cyclone hit just as Hollywood celebs were getting in on the action.
MEGAN: So, am I right that the appropriately white guilty thing to do is not talk about the oppressive government for a bit?
MOE: Here's the latest "That's So Jane's!" on the matter, God I love this graphic...Apparently you likened Burma to Katie Holmes.
MEGAN: Oppression shows its face in all kinds of dark ways.
MOE:

It's an Orwellian nightmare that makes China look like a liberal paradise by comparison. For twenty years there has been nothing on this scale and when protests have been staged they have been in the order of hundreds and have been easily dealt with. The monks posed a huge dilemma for the military since they initially felt that they could not simply resort to smashing skulls and opening fire indiscriminately. Buddhists believe that what you do in this life will determine how you come back next time. So massacring a few monks is more likely to see you come back as a cockroach than achieving nirvana.

MEGAN: Well, but they'll be born in China or India more often than not, so it's like they get reborn into a less oppressive regime?
MOE: Okay here's another thing. The last sentence of that Times story.

If you talk to Vaclav Havel, he'll say that Lou Reed's support for human rights in Czechoslovakia was very important to the cause."

MEGAN: Um, I guess the cool factor is really important?

MEGAN: But neither Ellen Page or Jim Carrey is Lou Reed.
MOE: Okay so there's a primary tonight and I'm sick of primary nights but I suppose we ought to address it. Hillary Clinton will win in Indiana because she's "not going to put my lot in with economists." Obama will win North Carolina because Petey Pablo is from there. Oh man, hip-hop foray part III. Do you remember when Petey Pablo did that remix of "North Carolina" on the USA after 9/11? I'm sure you won't, but some commenter might. I think he also went to Afghanistan. Okay. Any predictions?
MOE: Terry McAuliffe is on Fox right now. His prediction is that "people will be saying she did better in both states than they thought she would." Jesus Christ.
MEGAN: I predict me and a lovely bottle of Petite Sirah will be blogging it tonight for Glamocracy. And that I hate being wrong so I don't make predictions but it does seem like the polls are saying that Hillary will take Indiana and Obama will take NC.
MEGAN: Whoa, talk about managing expectations there, Terry Boy. I didn't think the polls in Indiana were that close, plus she's been standing in pickup trucks! Pickup trucks are like electoral gold in Indiana.
MOE: I'm going to leave us with a passage from David Brooks, because I found it calming, sort of like certain candidates.

This wasn't just shameless spin, it was shamelessness with a purpose. Clinton signaled that she wasn't going to concede even an inch to the vast elitist conspiracy. She wasn't going to feel guilty about ignoring the evidence. She was going to stomp on it, flay it and leave it a twisted mass of jelly quivering on the ground. She was going to perform the primordial duty of an alpha dog leader — helping one's own....But, as Sunday's contrast made clear, Obama still seems like a human being. He still seems to return each night to some zone of normalcy where personal reflection lives.He wasn't fully candid when answering questions about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but there are some inner guardrails that prevent the spin from drifting too far from the truth. Thoughtful and conversational, he doesn't seem to possess the trait that Clinton has: automatically assuming that critics are always wrong. Obama still possesses his talent for homeostasis, the ability to return to emotional balance and calm, even amid hysteria.

A.

B.

C.

D.

E.

[Answers: A. Aircraft carrier B. Tomahawk missile C. Patriot missile D. Scud missile E. Destroyer]

There. Don't you feel more osmositized already? Next time, I'll write you a little shopper's guide and try to explain which ones you can get in New York, and which you can only special-order from Russia.

Well, Honey, I Got News For You [TooHotForTNR]

Megan: When I agreed to interview you, I figured you'd be all Mr. Hulking Muscular Bad Boy in camo with a seamy side. But you're, like, totally The Office without even the slightest touch of Jarhead, and I had all-but-naked Jake Gyllenhaal dreams. What gives? Why the bad rep if everyone is pedestrian. Anonymous Defense Contractor: I can do this naked if you want.

Megan: Hmmm, maybe later. For now, enlighten me why you guys get bad raps if you're not all 'roid-rage and testosterone and really big guns.
Anonymous Defense Contractor: Because we, and they, are easy targets. We're all paid more than your average government employee — be it military or civilian — and we're everywhere.

Megan: So, you're more like cockroaches or Bai Ling?
Anonymous Defense Contractor: Uh, I don't know who that is, but, okay. Basically, there's tons of us for all manner of things- everything from building planes to answering phones. So, it's real easy for a government guy to point at a contractor when something goes wrong and say, fucking contractors, you guys suck. And, by that, I'm talking about the State Department Diplomatic Security Bureau in particular and their issues with Blackwater and other private security contractors. Blackwater has its faults, but they take a lot of the public outrage and furor over private security contractors when there are, in fact, hundreds of companies that do that.

Megan: I mean, plus "Blackwater" just sounds so dirty-sexy in comparison to, like, "Bluewater" or "Smart Water" or something. But, are you saying that there are other companies that go around, like, raping cute girls from Texas in the name of freedom? What the fuck is up with that?
Anonymous Defense Contractor: Back in the early days when there weren't that many contracts to do that work, it was really easy to have good people — Blackwater and those guys were hiring special forces guys, Navy seals, etc, just as they were getting out of the military. As time went on and the demand got bigger and more contractors were needed in different parts of the world, Blackwater (and others) had to recruit more people and there just aren't that many ex Green Berets in the world. So what you were invariably going to get was a stable of lesser qualified security officers — guys that haven't have Special Ops training, are more likely to shoot first and ask questions later, etc. The pedigree has thinned out because of the demand. And, in some cases, you just get a boatload of idiots.

Megan: Wait, so, like, defense contracting today is sort of like reality TV? Like, it used to be about endurance contests or interesting characters or challenging challenges and whatever and now it's just all who is willing to get wasted and make the biggest fool of his/herself for the cameras and pick the right numbered box and make out with Flav or something? I mean, I'm sure you could trace that all back to, like, Temptation Island or something, but why has our government become Rock of Love?

Anonymous Defense Contractor: That's an interesting analogy. I'd say the dumbing down of defense contracting due to increased demand is a direct result of the Clinton-era cutbacks in the military — the Clinton era, if I recall correctly, which also gave us Temptation Island. Those cutbacks led to less troops, less innovation, less training, less everything...then the war came and we were fucked and now it's time to call in the contractors. But, at the same time, having private military contractors employed in a variety of different operations — be it security, protection, even everything up to stability operations and intelligence operations- is not a bad thing in all circumstances. Here's the thing: you see a corporal in Ramadi, and he's got an army uniform, body armor, sunglasses, American flag on his shoulder, that very image makes the locals feel like they're looking at the invading force, just because that guy has a uniform on. And it's less obvious when it's just a contractor out there. Granted, many contractors wear body armor, but some folks- particularly USAID contractors- they're digging wells, building schools, staffing provincial reconstruction teams and making things better for the people we're supposedly trying to help, and that's not a bad thing.

Megan: So, like, are you worried for your job since Republicans are all like, increase the military! Expand Gitmo! Or do you think that they're just going to keep all you guys and do that, too, like having tons of SATC reruns and then trying to make us all watch Lipstick Jungle and Cashmere Mafia besides?
Anonymous Defense Contractor: if there's anything Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us, it's that we've spread ourselves too thin. We don't have enough people, our equipment sucks, we can't replace it fast enough... if you're talking about conventional warfare like we've been doing. But, conventional warfare isn't how we're going to win the fight that we're in right now. The reason that we have a whole organization dedicated to figuring out ways to defeat improvised explosive devices (IEDs) is that insurgents use low-tech solutions to defeat us. They know Humvees can't withstand the power of a 155 artillery shell buried underground. But, the thing is, they're not attacking the Humvee to kill the guys inside, they're attacking it to film the guys inside getting killed. It's a situation where the kinetic benefits of the operation are subordinate to the informational benefits.

Megan: Um, kinetic benefits? Is that like Pilates or something?
Anonymous Defense Contractor: No. What I mean by that is that insurgents get more from the image of Americans getting blown up than they do from actually killing the Americans. That video uploaded to YouTube can radicalize 100 more kids who will then become insurgents and start fighting Coalition members. If you want to increase the size of the military, that's fine, but you don't need to really to make it more effective. Rumsfeld's transformational plan wasn't a bad plan, it's just the wrong plan for conventional warfare and long-term counter-insurgency and the status-quo lovers in the military. What you really ought to do is spend the money not on beefing up the military but on beefing up the other elements of national power, like, the State Department, the Justice Department, Treasury, Commerce — the executive branch agencies that control other, and much more positive, aspects of American's interaction with the rest of the world.

Megan: Whoa, hold up there, cowboy! So, like, Rumsfeld had good ideas? I thought that everyone agreed that he was old and wrong and stupid these days?
Anonymous Defense Contractor: Nah, Rummy was all about building a smaller, more lethal force. Transformation was about trying to make do with less, which more or less succeeded for conventional warfighting (read: the initial invasion of Iraq). But it was all done with little or no attention to the decay of other parts of the government's foreign policy apparatus or the decay of relationships between agencies.

Megan: So, like, even though you work for the Pentagon, you actually think the other parts of the government are important? That's like the Kardashians cheering for the writers of The Wire or something!
Anonymous Defense Contractor: Well, not really. Lots of people on the defense side of things recognize that we're not going to win an ideologically-based war with more tanks and more troops. We need thousands of diplomats, interagency-trained and skilled, worldwide. What the real problem is is that we need to replace just about everyone currently working at State. The folks there now feel perfectly justified in not following mandated executive assignments to the new Iraq embassy, and that's no way to serve your country.

[But wait, who really buys this whole "no way to serve your country" crap if all anyone is actually "serving" is the rich connected guys canny enough to start a perversely profitable corporate behemoth staffed by arrogant assholes who have been making twice as much the average multilingual Ivy League educated diplomat while pursuing an agenda that has been systematically ignoring and undermining their sole purpose for existing for the past eight years? Thanks to agreeing to be interviewed, but also, you know, you're wrong. Anyway. Carry on! -Moe]

Treasury is an integral part of the threat finance interdiction mission, if not the lead, but they need to be better-integrated with everyone else in the government working on the threat from terrorism. No Department can do it alone — and when DOD tries, we get Abu Ghraib, Gitmo and a gaggle of Public Affairs retards running around the Pentagon thinking they own the ideological war.

Megan: Gaggle's a funny word. But, why those things? Didn't Rummy and Cheney spend, like, half the time trying to limit the power of those agencies?
Anonymous Defense Contractor: Right now we're resource-imbalanced. We spend more on the military than we do on any of those other elements of national power. Compare the defense budget to the State Department budget- that's comedy right there. You can't rely on the military alone to win an insurgency, let alone this war, because the military has become the selling point for insurgency ideals: look at Bad America, infidel feet on Muslim land, etc. Take all those boots out and replace them with loafers — diplomats, aid workers, bankers, agricultural specialists, anybody that can help the population get to a better standard of living, because the population is the center of gravity in this fight — and then you can start to move towards a real victory.

Megan: Dude, put this in some terms I can understand here. Hit me up with the reality TV comparisons you've been resisting.
Anonymous Defense Contractor: Oh, Jesus. I'm glad now that I made you promise me anonymity. Ok, so, like, lemme try: the military sucks because we're still making American Idol when it's clear that people really want Dancing with the Stars.

Megan: I don't exactly get that show, but okay.
Anonymous Defense Contractor: So, DOD is like American Idol — an old idea that hasn't been updated for the future. State is more like Real World or Road Rules — tired, old stupid bullshit full of vapid assholery. USAID is like The Next Great American Band — they are the rock stars of the government but no one pays attention to them. Treasury is totally Rock Star INXS because [Treasury Secretary Henry] Paulson is so J.D. The CIA is One Shot at Love With Tila Tequila because it looks like it's gonna be hot, but once you get a couple of episodes in you want to scrub your brain with a Brillo pad. DHS is Rock Star Supernova, all doomed. ODNI [the Office of the Directorate of National Intelligence, created to oversee everyone else] is a similar case. As for the NSC, well, there's got to be a reality show about retarded people, right? That would be apropos here.

And where's Dancing with the Stars in this lineup, you ask? Nowhere. And that's the problem.

Megan: I actually hate Dancing with the Stars, but okay. If I may, say we return to scripted TV. What with the protection and attention salaries are sort of like government salaries Maybe State is the Daily Show during the strike, only the strike has lasted eight years. The CIA should be The Wire, but instead it's To Catch A Predator thing. But back to the thing you were saying about shoes, putting nicer shoes in Iraq to win. I'm assuming we're not talking Louboutins or anything, but didn't we have a guy in nice shoes running things initially? Some guy who used John Edwards' barber, El Paul or something, was in charge back in the day? Like, he had an accounting degree or something and he was over there and then he had to leave and things kept getting shot up?
Anonymous Defense Contractor: Uh, it was L. Paul Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority, also called CPA.

Megan: I was totally close. You knew what I meant.
Anonymous Defense Contractor: Right. Well, the CPA was a bad idea, period. From the get go, it was a occupational authority with no long term plan on how to "wage peace." The CPA thought they'd be there, kick out all the Baath party members and go home in 6 months and the Iraqis would take over. But Iraq was way more destroyed than they expected — Saddam just brutalized that country and his own people. De-Baathification meant kicking almost everyone out of government, because everyone in Saddam's government had to be a Baath party member, and making a bunch of previously comfortably middle-class government workers and their families immediately impoverished. They couldn't get work because there wasn't a functioning external economy and they weren't allowed to work for the government, so they couldn't even feed their kids. Anybody with foresight would've expected that some of them were naturally going to become insurgents, or take money from insurgents to bury IEDs in the road because they don't have any other way to make money. So the CPA created a lot of the problem we have right now with the insurgency by making stupid decisions and not thinking through or planning for those decisions' ramifications.

Megan: Way to be Debbie Downer, there. But, we're totally smarter now, right? We've learned from our mistakes?
Anonymous Defense Contractor: Probably not. A lot of the people in the Administration remain clueless. There's a reason so many people have left the Administration in the last year — it's because they know it's a lost cause, and no one wants to take the responsibility for fixing it in the last year. Which isn't to say that there aren't any smart people in the Executive today working on this problem, there are plenty. Sadly, having smart people is one thing, but if they don't have the resources to succeed, they're going to fail anyway.

Megan: Hey, did you know I'm kind of unemployed? If what you're saying is that don't need to be smart or have any really relevant skills and are willing to fail at everything for about a year, can you hook me up?
Anonymous Defense Contractor: Ummm, have your people call my people.

(pieced together from a Gchat conversation, so humor us, thanks.)

Nawaz Sharif
MOE: So what about Nawaz Sharif? I never hear shit about him.
JOSH: He was corrupt and ineffective. He let Musharraf start the Kargil war under his nose, and he didn't know how to end it. He was almost as corrupt as Bhutto, and just kind of a dweeb
MOE: Why did they elect him anyway?
JOSH Because he was less corrupt than Bhutto, would be my guess. Well, he was PM first in 1990, then was thrown out when the President at the time dissolved the national assembly. Then the supreme court overruled the president, then Sharif resigned in a huff during the dispute and then Benazir Bhutto took over in 93. Then in 1997 Sharif came back into power by somehow winning 90% of a national election. So of course everyone was kvetching about it being super corrupt
MOE: Well who fixes an election for a non-incumbent no one really likes in the first place?
JOSH: Exactly. It created the conditions for Musharraf's takeover
MOE: Oh Musharraf IS crafty. But he didn't take over until later, yes?
JOSH: The big kicker was after Kargil, when Sharif prevented Musharraf's plane from landing, and he was then accused of hijacking it from afar or something...
MOE: Okay, let's explain Kargil. It's in the border territory of Kashmir, which is the whole reason India and Pakistan have nukes.

Kashmir
JOSH: Kargil is in Kashmir, which is a disputed border with India resulting from the 1947 partition. They've fought a good three wars over the exact demarcation line, and the "Line of Control" has become the defacto border since the last stalemate. The Kargil conflict was started when Pakistani militias crossed the Line of Control into what India considers its territory in May of 1999.
And it's worth noting, too, that many of the militants sent there were from the same groups that produce the Taliban since Pakistan officially supported the Pakistani madrassas that produced the Taliban because they made good zealous warriors for Kashmir.

It was a big deal because it was, I believe, the highest-altitude conflict ever, it was dumb strategically because the terrain made sound logistics impossible, and when both countries have nuclear weapons starting a war is just stupid, as in: Pakistan could never send enough troops for enough time to secure anything anyway, so it was a big break in protocol. Ever since the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war, both India and Pakistan had abandoned their forward posts during the horrible winter and re-occupied them in the spring. But Pakistan went back ahead of schedule and just seized Indian positions. This was accompanied by heaving shelling of settlements on the Indian side of the border. So no one knew for weeks what had happened on the Indian side.
MOE: And when they found out?
JOSH: Basically, the Indians responded by carpet bombing the entire line of control. Mortar fire, artillery, MiG bombs...and ridge by ridge the Indians got back the territory. Meanwhile the Pakistani army was covertly planning a nuclear strike on India, but Bill Clinton of all people found out and warned Sharif that the results would be tragic for Pakistan.
MOE: Nuke them over Kashmir???
JOSH: Imagine if we didn't have a defined border with Mexico
MOE: hahaahahahahaha
JOSH: and Mexico kept taking our territory, or claiming it wanted Southern California, and then sent bands of violent religious extremists to occupy border towns. We'd be pissed
MOE: Well it's a different problem to have, certainly. Borders cause problems for sure. But most of ours run along relatively flat land, right? Or water. can you blame the british for being like "You know those mountains? fuck figuring out where the border starts and ends up there. let them sort that out for themselves." Ha ha ha by which I mean yes you can blame them for that.
JOSH: Well, the British did put down a border, it's just that no one wanted it. See, the idea behind partition was that India is Hindu, and Pakistan is Muslim, and when the partition happened, there was a mass exodus on both sides of the border. But eastern Pakistan still has Hindus, and western India still has Muslims, and they're violent with each other. Only, Kashmir is almost entirely Muslim. So Pakistan thinks it should be a part of a Muslim nation
That partition really created more problems than it solved, didn't it.
JOSH: esp. considering the rolling waves of murderous pogroms both Hindus and Muslims have put on over the last few decades
sort of. They wouldn't really work as one country. But by leaving the border to them (since it was one political entity when the Brits pulled out), they never had a chance to resolve it, and because a major source of water for both countries flows from the area - the Indus river - neither has been willing to spend the resources for an all-out war of occupation.
JOSH: oh yeah, so after Pakistan lost Kargil, Nawaz Sharif was so angry at Musharraf for starting it that he recommended a court martial
MOE: Wait, so Musharraf STARTED the Kargil conflict?
JOSH: No one really knows. But it's likely, as he was army chief of staff at the time, I think. Lemme double check.

Other reasons they hate Musharraf
JOSH: But in either case, Kargil was an epic disaster, just like Operation Gibraltar in 1965 (which was a similarly failed attempt to seize indian territory), and highlighted some deep structural problems in Pakistani military planning and execution
MOE: Hmmmm. So is Musharraf hated in Kashmir? As much as he's hated by the people who live in the provinces bordering Afghanistan?
JOSH: yes, but for different reasons. They hate him in NWFP because he ignores them then sends in troops when they take matters into their own hands

JOSH: But the people in the northern and northeastern regions hate Musharraf for both the needless war, and for the absolute neglect. I mean, I reviewed a book a little while ago called Three Cups of Tea, about an American guy who is making friends with all sorts of crazies because he builds schools for Pakistani children while the government makes them sit outside and draw in the dirt (no joke)
JOSH: And musharraf is hated by lots of the Pakistani military for being so bad at strategy he lost a war he started with a superior force and the element of surprise

Karma?
MOE: So.... he's bad at military strategy, but a pro at power-consolidation strategy?
JOSH: that's probably a fair assessment
JOSH: more appropriately, he's a good administrator and a good politicker, but not a good general
MOE: so did Bhutto have her brother killed? is this just karma?
JOSH: I don't think so, if I remember he was killed in a gunfight with police
MOE: But that's why his son, her niece Fatima hates her so much, right? Because she thinks he was assassinated?
JOSH: Yes.
MOE: How do you say "oy" in Urdu?

So, was Musharraf, who'd just grudgingly conceded to share power with Bhutto and give up his army leadership position, behind the hit? That's what conspiracy theorists inside my kitchen seem to believe. But then you've gotta wonder how he did it. Did Mr. Enemy of Terrorism Musharraf contract out a suicide bomber from Al Qaeda Inc.? Or does the Pakistani Army have a top-secret suicide unit, and if so, what do you have to do to get yourself enlisted in that? Josh Foust, of Registan.net and "That's So Jane's!" columns of yore says the theory doesn't make sense. "She works much better as an opponent than as a martyr" for Musharraf, he claims. CNN seems to be focused on the question of what happens next: will they invoke military rule? (Isn't that what you would do?)

After what seems like a long hiatus, "That's So Jane's" returns to give your brain a rest from the esoteric topics it just pondered during Midweek Madness. In honor of the anniversary of the Chinese Communist party and Lagerfeld's Great Wall show, we decided to talk about China, thinking maybe Moe's dad would help us out here, but it turns out Moe's mom blocked this site from his computer and he doesn't believe it actually exists and seriously NO ONE ELSE would do it. Luckily for us, Wonkette's Anonymous Lobbyist asked the one person she was completely sure would not agree to an interview, Charles Freeman, a former Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for China and current 'Real World' watcher/ holder of the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic & International Studies.

Q: So, like, what's the big deal about China? They're still Communist, right? Because everyone knows Communists can't take over the world, you totally have to be a democracy to do that.

A: Well, yes, the Chinese are Communists. But even Chinese President Hu Jintao says their goal is democracy. At the Communist Party Congress last Monday he said the government had to "act in accordance with the overall requirement of democracy and the rule of law, fairness and justice." Like you say, democracy is an inherently preferable system of government to theirs, so I guess when they're a democracy we should really worry. In the meantime, for Communists, they know how to Party!


Q: Um, we should say so, from the looks of this guy! Wait, so, they're trying to be a democracy, too? Does that mean they really are trying to take over the world? Or are people just trying to scare us it because they think we need a frenemy?

A: We're worried about China because they're strangers, because their scale is so big, and because they are a convenient foil for problems that are more like our own. They're easy targets. But that's only part of it. They're also self-interested - and they're interests aren't always aligned with ours. Ultimately, they're doing some things pretty well these days in areas that we used to dominate, and that can be pretty scary.

And I like the Stephen Colbert reference, but remember: Sarcastic Patriotism is the last refuge of the Defeatist Scoundrel. He's played.


Q: Ooh, nice catch. So, is it like Colbert says? Are they really going around to governments we don't like and making friends with them to get stuff we would want once we ousted those governments? That's so back-stabby. Is all of world politics some shitty MTV reality show?

A: No, not at all. Well, except for that episode on Real World Key West, remember? You know, when everybody goes out to dinner with Zach's parents and ditches Jose at the gym? Like that. We're like Jose. China is completely ditching us at the gym.

Seriously, China is engaged in a mild soft power competition with us in Africa and parts of Asia, and is openly consorting with regimes in Sudan and Iran that are flaunting international conventions. There are real challenges here. Whether or not they present a direct military challenge at this point is a separate question entirely.


Q: Well, let's get to that. I hear that they have nukes, too? Does everyone have nukes these days? It's like when Anna Sui makes something, and then Forever 21 copies it, making it immediately no longer cool. Is that why Obama wants to get rid of ours now- because he's just trying to stay ahead of the fashion curve?

A: It's good to have goals. I'm hoping to lose 5 pounds by Thanksgiving- something doable.


Q: That's not a bad goal! You definitely want to avoid body image issues. But, speaking of knock-offs, it seems like a whole bunch of people have a stick up their collective butts about bad stuff coming from China. But, hasn't China been shipping crappy knock-offs to various street corners for decades? Why did everyone start thinking that that stuff was good?

A: This is really serious stuff. Actually, Chinese people have been buying the dregs of the export market for years - the crappy stuff that wasn't even good enough to be a crappy knock-off - and getting sick and dying for years. All of a sudden the nasty stuff bleeds into the export market and foreigners begin to complain and it becomes an issue. It's really important that we get this right, but the roots of this issue have a lot more to do with the way the Chinese economy opened up to the outside world, the pressures it caused on manufacturers, the lack of oversight in China and the fact that China just doesn't have the capacity to manage this stuff than the notion that China is trying to screw the U.S. consumer. If we were smart we'd realize that we have a duty and an opportunity to make food and products safer for not just Americans, but for the poor Chinese schnooks who haven't had a voice for the past 20 years and have had to eat and use all this crap for that whole time.

In any case, we're at a point now where China is a key node in the supply chain. We need to get this right because China is here to stay. Can't turn the clocks back on globalization.


Q: Tell that to Dov Charney! But okay, speaking of turning the clocks back, I read recently that all these washed-up U.S. politicians-cum-lobbyists are treated like gods in China, or at least as well as Posh a in Paris. Is this the Chinese equivalent of getting Tara Reid to host your party?

A: There's an old Chinese custom of getting your enemy drunk and ride him out of town before he has a chance to negotiate for your surrender. A lot of U.S. politicians travel to Beijing these days to weigh in against Chinese trade practices or the value of the Chinese yuan. Paradoxically, one of the few affordable places you can travel these days outside of the U.S. is China, because the Yuan is still pretty cheap. Chinese are good hosts, even if the messaging they get from their guests isn't always welcome. And they get a chance to state their cases as well.


Q: Wait, so, in addition to taking over a lot of U.S. manufacturing jobs, now they want our lobbyists, too? Should I be worried?

A: I hear the Ethics rules don't apply to foreign governments. Maybe.


Q: Ooh, well, that's interesting, at least. I mean in the end, sometimes it seems (unsurpringly) like they don't really respect us. Is there something we can do about that, or do we just have to stop complaining and learn to accept our increasing irrelevance, sort of like how Kid Rock needs to start coping with the ascendancy of Rick Salomon?

A: Oh, they respect us. Kind of in the same way Native Americans respected the buffalo before slaughtering it. No, the interaction of the U.S. and Chinese economies is dynamic and changing and highly positive, in the main. It's easy to focus on the negative, but the overwhelming experience has been good for both sides.

A few months ago, we were watching Entertainment Tonight when all of a sudden Jim Carrey appeared talking all slow and medicated about Burma and how to remember how to pronounce "Aung San Suu Kyi." And we were like, "What's the big deal? That lady hasn't so much as left her house in years!" Um and if you get that joke you'll probably like "That's So Jane's", the feature formed from a pun on the old slogan of Jane magazine and the Pentagon trade publication Jane's Defence Weekly which we provide for those of you who need a breather from the harsh realities of the crippling addictions and vicious custody battles of Brit and Linds and that girl from Heroes. This week Wonkette's Anonymous Lobbyist talks Burma, TomKat, K-Fed and L'il Kim Jong Il with Dr. Jason Abbott, a lecturer in International Politics at the University of Surrey and "owner of one hot British accent."

Q: So, like, what is the difference between Myanmar and Burma? Because the newspapers all keep talking about the protests in Myanmar, but Bush and other people keep talking about Burma. Is Bush just confused again, or is it like how we all have to call Katie Holmes "Kate" because Tom Cruise says so?
A: Well for once Dubya hasn't misread his briefing notes and the Tom Cruise analogy isn't too far from the truth. The two terms have been used interchangeably for centuries within the country since Burma is derived from bama which is essentially a colloquial form of the more formal Myanmar. Some also claim that Myanmar is more inclusive since the country is home to 8 major ethnic minorities and 130 smaller groups. (So think Britain vs. England). In 1989 the Junta decided to align the international name of the country with the formal local name but the opposition refuses to accept this since they maintain that it was made by an illegal regime.


Q: So, why are all the monks protesting? Are they also mad
about that gay Last Supper poster thing?(Link: NSFW)
A: Two things basically turned the monks, who are Buddhist, into protesters. The first was a response to the economic hardship faced by ordinary Burmese upon whom the monks rely for daily offerings of food. Buddhist monks are supposed to have no material possessions so, as the economic situation worsened, they witnessed firsthand the growing poverty of ordinary Burmese. This situation deteriorated sharply in August when the Junta doubled the price of gas and diesel.

The second reason for the protests is that, at a protest in Pakokku at which some monks participated, the military smashed some heads and some of those happened to be bald.

As for homosexuality... Buddhists are generally not as hung up about homosexuality as Christianity or Islam, as long as the sexual act is an expression of love, respect, loyalty and warmth. So I'm not sure they'd be fans of Sado-masochism nor that they'd look good in leather.


Q: Wow, who knew that monks weren't all Catholic! So let me get this straight: they're protesting because they only just realized their country is dirt-poor. What have they been smoking? And if they're the last guys to notice this shit because of their detachment from material possessions or whatever, why were they the first to go piss off the government about it? Didn't someone try that before?
A: The government has basically kept an iron grip on society in Burma. It's an Orwellian nightmare that makes China look like a liberal paradise by comparison. For twenty years there has been nothing on this scale and when protests have been staged they have been in the order of hundreds and have been easily dealt with.

The monks posed a huge dilemma for the military since they initially felt that they could not simply resort to smashing skulls and opening fire indiscriminately. Buddhists believe that what you do in this life will determine how you come back next time. So massacring a few monks is more likely to see you come back as a cockroach than achieving nirvana.


Q: Oh man, isn't that what we all wish? That Clarence Thomas would come back as a 'Rock of Love' contestant? Anyway, memo to poor people: the world doesn't work that way. Especially when your rulers are military dictators!
A: Well they're not stupid, but you know how the Mafia wouldn't kill Mother Teresa? The reverence of ordinary Burmese for the monks galvanized protesters who had cowered in fear for so long, basically because they began to think, "These guys don't mind if they get reincarnated as a E. Coli." The military apparently decided in favor of coming back as cockroaches in the next life rather than potentially having to give up a modicum of power in this one.


Q: I've also read that Aung San Suu Kyi was elected in 1990 but hasn't yet taken office. Isn't that a really long time to wait for an inauguration? Even The Knot says the average engagement is only like a year, and a wedding is, like, really hard to plan.
A: She did, and it is, absolutely. In 1990 her party, the National League for Democracy, won 59 percent of the vote — translating into 392 out of 498 seats in the legislature. Problem was, this wasn't quite the outcome the Junta has expected. They thought their National Unity Party would win and provide them with democratic legitimacy; when, in fact, Ralph Nader probably won more votes in 2004 than they did. So their response? Well, they proved to be terrible losers.


Q: Well, but how hard can house arrest be? The judge made Paris Hilton go back to jail because house arrest was too cushy.
A: Well, if Paris thought conditions at Century Regional Detention Centre were poor, they look like a Five Star hotel when compared to prisons in Burma.


Q: Wow, you're so right. The before and after photos are not pretty. She should just live in a house
like Paris', if she's going to have to spend so much time there.
A: Aung San Suu Kyi has spent 12 of the last 17 years under house arrest. While for some of that period she was allowed visitors, the Junta have, when they felt it necessary, ratcheted up
the privations she has been forced to endure. Her British husband Michael Aris was diagnosed with prostrate cancer in 1997. Not only did the Junta make it clear that if she left the country to see him she
would not be allowed to return, they also denied him a visa. So she was forced to choose between never seeing her husband alive again or abandoning the people for whom she had become a beacon of hope. We all know that she stayed and in 1999 Michael died.


Q: Aw, that's really kind of sad, but I'm not sure it's fair to say we "all" knew that. Is the reason Burma gets so little press because the head dictator guy isn't as hot as some or as crazy as others?
A: Well Senior General Than Shwe hates the limelight. In fact he is almost never seen in public and rarely makes an appearance, let alone a speech, so he is no international playboy. As for whether he is a crazy... well he is incredibly superstitious, and I don't mean simply reading his daily horoscope (he's a Capricorn by the way).

The Junta decided — after consulting an astrologer — to move the capital of Burma to a small town in the middle of the jungle. Out of the forest, the Junta constructed a city an area 78 times the size of Manhattan because, when the soothsayer looked into his crystal ball, he saw a future catastrophe that could only be avoided by relocating the entire government real estate. The same mystic declared that the best time for the move would be November 6, 2005, at 6.37 a.m. and so, when the day finally arrived, Burma's senior leadership drove into their new town at the ordained hour.


Q: JESUS. That's more ridiculous than all of Kevin Federline's shopping sprees combined. Which reminds me, the K-Fed thing is probably why I hadn't heard of Than Shwe's name but I had heard of Kim Jong Il: because his craziness is more along the level of Britney's! So like, how jealous do you think he had to be of A'Jad's press coverage to have agreed to talk to the other Korean president guy? They're totally more estranged than even Lauren and Heidi!
A: Well I imagine A'Jad must have been pretty irritated that some reclusive general who lives in the forest was stealing all his limelight at the UN last week, while little Kim (he is only 5'3") obviously decided that the only way he could wrestle CNN away from the streets of Rangoon was either by nuking Tokyo or reinventing himself as a man of peace. Maybe he has his eye on next week's Nobel Prize?


Q: Wow, that was totally statesmanlike of him to keep his nukes to himself this time! Maybe he's, like, totally channeling Aung San Suu Kyi!
A: Somehow, I doubt that.


Q: So, how pissed off do you think little Kim really was when the press coverage was all about the other guy's grabby hands? Is ass-grabbing the new boob-grabbing?
A: Well, I think we can blame this trend for wandering hands by Heads of State on Clinton. I doubt little Kim was that bothered... he was probably more interested in the fancy foreign cars that President Roh had driven up to Pyongyang in and wondering whether he could get him to agree to a partial exchange for a few centrifuges.


Q: Ooh, centrifuges! I remember those! They're a totally sweet ride, just like Roh's tricked out limo. How do the Burmese generals roll, besides in tanks?
A: I'm sure everyone hopes that eventually we might see the general's asses floating down a river rather than some innocent monks'.


Q: As long as they're not bare. I want to see that less than Lindsay's Britney!

Q: So, first things first: Is there drinking in Iran? Or do they just skip right over that part of the Winehouse catalog and go straight for the H? A: Oh, they totally drink in Iran. Christopher Hitchens was there a few years ago and he wrote about in it Vanity Fair. He was like, everyone except some dorky mullah gave me a glass or a shot when I went to their house. Porn and heroin are the big new things, though, you're right. It's better than Seattle.
Q: Since lots of people in the Western world are calling abstinence the new promiscuity, does that make the hijab the new miniskirt? In all the pictures we see on the TV of Iran, it seems to be pretty popular with the women there. A: The hijab is the new bikini, actually. Burkhas are the new miniskirts. But women who show too much ankle in Iran get arrested and have their feet plunged into buckets of cockroaches, like on Fear Factor or something. It's totally gross over there.
Q: Okay, so let's cut to the chase: Ahmadinejad: hot dictator? Or hottest dictator? A: Dude needs a shave and a haircut. And a few more inches, if you know what I mean. (He's short.) And he's not really a dictator. Ayatollah Khamenei is the real dictator and he's, like, old. He's even older than Bob Dole. None of those guys are hot. All the hot ones get strung up and tortured, especially the women who don't like the new miniskirts. Actually, Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards don't have as much power and influence as they used to. There's this unspoken agreement between the people and the government: you pretend to arrest us, as we'll pretend to behave. Again, it's like Seattle, only with occasional public hangings.
Q: Hey, speaking of hotness: you've been to Iraq. Are the Blackwater mercenaries all they're cracked up to be? Like, we know they're more indifferent to the sanctity of Iraqi civilian life than other mercenaries, but does that make them more cool and aloof and likely to carpet bomb your heart? I mean, is there any correlation between hotness and evil? A: Depends on what you're into. If you're into bad boys, yeah. They're kinda like Jack Bauer that way, only they're younger, better-paid, and don't have that annoying daughter bugging them at work all the time. I don't know about the correlation between hotness and evil. I mean, do you think Saddam Hussein is hot? I think he'd be gross even with a gay makeover. Better question: do you think Spencer Pratt is hot? No, right? Because he's EVIL.
Q: Ok but on a side note, can we compare our Persian kitty with Afghan President Hamid Karzai? Both rock the retro look, both have easy access to drugs and plenty of power, but why do you think the ladies are all over Ahmadinejad these days? A: The ladies just pretend to be hot for the A'jad. It's that or be flogged. They really do dig the Mayor of Kabul, though. He's kinda got that Sean Connery look going, only with a Muslim twist. And Afghanistan has more drugs than Iran, even more than Colombia. Even more than Miami, if you can believe that.
Q: Well, they're just hoarding them for the occasion Perez Hilton finally manages to kill off Castro. Anyway, new subject: last week, someone told me that the Iranians have oil but are going to have to start importing it soon, just like the U.S.. Is that true? Are we all going to have to get our oil from like, Iraq or something soon? A: They have that whole 1970s gas lines thing happening in Iran. A'jad is the new Jimmy Carter, only he takes hostages. They need oil from Iraq more than we do. What I want to know is, why aren't we getting oil from Iraq already? Didn't we, like, invade Iraq? When is that benefit supposed to kick in, anyway?
Q: Now, everyone's favorite presidential cat is also way into the nuclear scene (although he can likely pronounce it better than our president), but he keeps saying it's for cheap energy and we keep saying it's for bombs. Which is it? I mean, it seems like it be really hard to blow anything but their own country up with one of those big reactor thingies. A: The problem isn't that Iran will blow itself up, but that a bunch of Arab countries will want nuclear reactors for peaceful purposes, too, and everyone in the region will blow themselves up. That would suck. I don't own an SUV, but I might want one someday. How could I drive it if the Middle East is all blown up? Anyway, of course Iran wants the bomb. I know, I know, Bush lied, people died. And? A'jad saysIran has no gay people and that he has a green aura or some shit like that. Dude's cracked. And, besides, how is he supposed to push all the Jews into the sea? With cattle prods?
Q: Ha ha! All the gossip columns seem to be filled with blind items hinting that we'll be bombing Iran soon. Can you handicap that for me? This year, next year? Because I prefer not to travel when we're bombing places with terrorist ties, and I so need a vacation soon. A: What, you think I have Dick Cheney on speed dial or something? I work in places like Lebanon and Iraq, so I don't know what the hell is going on in Washington. You're totally asking the wrong guy. If you need a vacation during a war, just go to Israel. I did. They have booze, drugs, hot chicks, and a beach. What more do you want? That place is always getting bombed anyway, so what's the difference? But it's totally full of terrorists, I mean, tourists. It's full of both, actually, so it's pretty much just like Europe. But they like Americans there, and they totally don't like Iran, so it's cool. They're not really into the jihad craze yet (except the terrorists). It's like the 1950s or something. They're kinda square, you know, but the taxi drivers won't yell at you for being a Capitalist Imperialist Oppressor when they pick you up from the airport so it's nicer than France. Actually, France just elected a Capitalist Imperialist Oppressor government, so I guess you can go there again even if Cheney starts going crazy.
Q: Ah, Sarkozy is definitely my favorite Capitalist Imperialist Oppressor crush, at least until January 2009. A: Yeah, but he's totally gay. And French. Dude doesn't even wear a shirt half the time, so you can just imagine what he thinks about the new miniskirts.

Back by popular demand, it's "That's so Jane's!" where we apply the snarky Valley Girl charm of our beloved dead magazine 'Jane' to questions pondered by the types of people who read 'Jane's', the "defence" publication that basically to the military industrial complex what WWD is to the celebrity sartorial complex. Your interviewer is Wonkette's Anonymous Lobbyist, and her subject is Joshua Foust, editor of Registan.net, a blog devoted to all things Central Asia and holder of a day job somewhere in the MIC. He's kind of squirrelly like that, and he refused to get too trashed with Anonymous on account of "security clearance" or something, but she wheedled out the truth on subjects ranging from Borat to plutonium by applying a dollop of something the pros call the "Mystery Method"...They should maybe look into it at Guantanamo!

Anonymous Lobbyist:So like, the drinking thing. Central Asia is Muslim, but it's also sort of like, Russian. What's their stance on drinking?
Foust: They do it. Some even eat pork. They're Muslim the way we're Catholic.
Anonymous Lobbyist: Yeah, like even Jenna Jameson is Catholic, did you know that?
Foust: No.
Anonymous Lobbyist: Ok, anyway, do you ever get jokes about being part of the Military Industrial Complex, you know, because of your name?
Foust: You mean the Goethe play?
Anonymous Lobbyist: No I mean the "bargain" thing.
Foust: Um.


Anonymous Lobbyist: Just playing! But seriously, what does Central Asia have going for it that the average Jezebel reader couldn't learn from Borat?
Foust: Borat is kind of like a cockroach- he winds up everywhere, but he's really unwelcome. One of the only realistic things in that movie was when he tried to abduct Pamela Anderson. Bride-napping is actually a serious problem in Kyrgyzstan, and, to a lesser extent, is Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
Anonymous Lobbyist: Wow. That sucks. Probably most of those kidnappers aren't wealthy Oxford-educated Jews, either.
Foust: That's a safe bet!

But, seriously, Central Asia is one of the last frontiers in energy. It's run by power-hungry psychopaths. Many of the countries that we as a nation worry about - Russia, China and Iran - are building good relationships there that are perhaps not in America's best interests.
Anonymous Lobbyist: Ooooh, tell me about the power hungry psychopaths!
Foust: Well, Turkmenistan used to be ruled by a egomaniac who named months of the year after himself, and constructed a series of enormous golden statues of himself, one of which would always rotate to face the sun. Uzbekistan is ruled by a man now known for boiling dissidents in oil while they're alive; he also made a few headlines in 2005 when his troops murdered several hundred people in the city of Andijon who had come to protest his rule and economic policies. His term actually ended in January, but he still hasn't hasn't scheduled an election.
Anonymous Lobbyist: But they keep a lid on terrorism that way!
Foust: Well yes. As long as you aren't a journalist you can live a mostly normal life in Kazakhstan (Almaty, with a population pushing close to 2 million, actually has a thriving gay scene), Kyrgyzstan, and the big cities of Tajikistan. It is just desperately poor and still isolated — that is the real challenge, in addition to not being tortured and murdered.


Anonymous Lobbyist: So tell me about the oil. As a wise sixteen year old once said, "Oil is money, daddy." How much do they have?
Foust: Central Asia will produce somewhere around 1/10 of the energy OPEC produces (4 million barrels per day versus OPEC's 45). There are rumors that Kazakhstan is sitting on almost as much oil as Kuwait, but much of it is still unexplored thanks to the politics of foreign companies (an Italian firm, Eni, just had its lease on the Kashagan field revoked for "environmental violations," but most likely there were political shenanigans behind it). In the grand scheme of things, Central Asia doesn't have all that much oil or natural gas, but it isn't Arab, and finding non-Arab sources, even when controlled by guys like Hugo Chavez, is considered preferable.


Anonymous: Wait, which reminds me: I keep hearing nukes are hot again.
Foust: Well, take Iran. Their oil infrastructure is so dilapidated they will become net importers by about 2015 or so — and they realized it is cheaper to build nuclear reactors than to upgrade their entire pumping, distribution, and refinery network. And coming back to Central Asia, Kazakhstan has uranium.
Anonymous: And butt sex! So like, what's the difference between uranium and plutonium?
Foust: 2 protons.
Anonymous: Are they both on the periodic table?
Foust: Yes, Plutonium 94. Uranium is 92
Anonymous: So they're two spots apart, just like they're two protons apart! Is that a coincidence?
Foust: No.


Anonymous:Are there any other differences?
Foust: Functionally, plutonium is only useful for weapons, while uranium can also be used for power generation. And refined uranium, into an isotope called 235 (if I recall right) is also really only used for weapons.
Anonymous: Okay, so who has plutonium. Like North Korea and who else?
Foust: Well, we don't really know. North Korea does operate centrifuges, but those are for separating weaponizable Uranium out of regular uranium. Iran also has a centrifuge system set up, but it's of dubious quality.
Anonymous:Wait, centrifuge. Am I right to say that is like the amusement park ride where you spin around and stick to the walls and throw up on yourself?
Foust: Yes, they spin around uranium gas until the heavier atoms sink to the bottom and the top can be siphoned off.
Anonymous: Okay, so uranium alone, without centrifuges, is like Chanel, without Lagerfeld. Tinkerbell without Paris. Nicole without Rachel Zoe.
Foust: Right.
Anonymous:Okay, an Kazakhstan made all their old centrifuges into gravitron rides or something.

Foust: Yes. Kazakhstan has a significant supply of uranium, and just negotiated a deal with Russia to create a sort of World Bank for Uranium. It is meant to establish firm market and supply rates for the global nuclear power industry—like a better way of tracking who is getting their hands on what, as well as establishing a central locus of expertise. It would also conveniently allow Iran to build nuclear reactors that could not be used to produce weapons-grade fissile material. A Kazakh firm, KazAtomProm, was also going to buy a 10% stake in Westinghouse (a nuclear reactor construction company) from Toshiba... but it's been held up in frankly ignorant complaints about proliferation and environmental degradation considering Kazakhstan voluntarily dismantled all of its nuclear weapons in the early 90s.
Anonymous Lobbyist: So it sounds like a pretty good place to find fuel for our clothes dryers and stuff! What are our enlightened, forward-thinking defense and diplomatic corps doing about it?
Foust: That's funny. This is actually a pet peeve of mine. In Turkmenistan especially, but really in the whole region, the U.S. has kind of lain down and dozed off. After 9/11, the region was our jumping-off point to Afghanistan, and the politics and leaders in the regions were lavished with diplomatic, defensive and financial attention. With the invasion of Iraq, Central Asia has become a back burner issues and no one at the top seems to care any longer. Meanwhile, other countries are sending their heads of state and key diplomats to talk trade and oil deals, and we're sending assistant undersecretaries of state to talking basing rights [for military bases].
Anonymous Lobbyist:: So, basically, we're not doing jack about anything there while some of our biggest strategic competitors for both oil and global/regional dominance are locking up mineral rights and preferential trade access?
Foust: Actually, yes. See, the Middle East is an unattractive place to buy oil- it's messy, violent and really annoying diplomatically. It's been that way for a long time, and will continue to be that was as long as we care. Central Asia is easier in that sense- despite the scary rhetoric of the dictators, there's not much terrorism, the leaders are (relatively speaking) fairly rational, and the cultures are generally America-friendly at the moment. But, we're squandering our opportunities in the region. By the time we get finished in Iraq and finally start possibly paying attention to Central Asia again, Russia, China and Iran will have already gotten diplomatic concessions, mineral rights, trade deals and cultural influences - everything that we would have wanted the U.S. to gain in the region, except democratization


Anonymous Lobbyist::Well that sounds like exactly the way our government would fuck shit up- another day, another set of international priorities, another region of the world that we'll choose to ignore at our own peril until it's too late to do anything but bomb it.
Foust: Pretty much, yeah.

Earlier: "Miss Universe" As A Metaphor For Geopolitics

'Jane's Defence Weekly' is a weekly military mag covering topics pertinent to national and international defense and security, and the main reason our dad was impressed this one time we told him we were writing a story for 'Jane' magazine. Below, we take the pun wayyyy further than we ever probably should have by asking 'Jane's Defence Weekly' reporter Nathan Hodge to interpret world events in the flip, casual, sophomoric voice a 'Jane' reader would understand!

Q: Would we be right to say, Nathan, that the missile defense shield is SORT OF like, a giant, ineffective condom for the earth?
Hodge: Um, I'm not sure about "condom." You could call it a prophylactic.

Q: Right, we think we know how to spell that. Okay, but the missile defense spermicide is being constructed to protect us against, basically... North Korea and Iran, which are like the AIDS and unplanned pregnancy of global security? And you need everyone's consent to put it on?
Hodge: Well, North Korea actually has nukes. Iran has a nuclear program, but North Korea is the bigger concern. And yeah. My job is to sort of cover the blow-by-blow salesmanship of that. Basically [the administration] has been having a hard time selling it to the Poles and the Czechs. The guy who's leading the negotiations, John Rood, is sort of a true believer type. They don't believe in stuff like arms negotiations and peace treaties, and so it's sort of hard for them to grasp the idea that it takes diplomacy to park a bunch of interceptor missiles in someone's backyard. An apt Washington Post story not too long ago called them the "Sesame Street" National Security Council.

Q: But Sesame Street like Elmo, not like, Oscar The Grouch.
Hodge: Probably.

Q: Now, when you say 'interceptor missiles' we're like, how does that work? Do they literally fly up and smack weapons out of the air? Or do they use, I don't know, frequencies and things?
Hodge: Back when Ronald Reagan fell in love with missile defense,- the Star Wars era - his money line was that he was going to render ballistic missiles "impotent" and "obsolete." Now, basically, they are spending a lot of money every year on a really really limited program that basically involves shooting down an incoming missile and smashing it up on impact. Every few months ago the missile defense agency tests the program and puts out a press release saying, "Hurray for us, we shot down a missile." And then the skeptics point out, "well you don't have advance notice when a missile is being launched at you.

Q: Let's get to more general global issues for a bit. In last week's Miss Universe pageant, Miss Japan totally smoked Brazil, Venezuela, Korea and USA. Miss USA took an ass-dive during her final pre-judge walk and finished last. This is all a convenient metaphor for our waning power in the Asian military theater, isn't it?
Hodge: I don't know, but I just got finished reading the U.S. Department of Defense's report about military power in the People's Republic of China. The report is all about China' rising military power. It's focusing on expanding its influence beyond the Taiwan Strait.

Q: Speaking of Taiwan, CURIOUSLY there was no Taiwan in the Miss Universe competition! Is that because China is, like, the Ike Turner to Taiwan's Tina?
Hodge: I don't know about the Miss Universe competition, but in another beauty contest Miss Taiwan was not allowed to compete as Miss Taiwan and had to be called Miss Chinese Taipei.

Q: Okay, so even if China expands its powers, do we have anything to be worried about here? It seems like Miss Japan should probably be quaking in her Jimmy Choos. I mean, she's really close to both China and Korea. And last week, Korea set off some test missiles, right?
Hodge: Look, the U.S. has a bigger defense budget then the next ten countries combined. For Japan, though, well, according to the DOD report, China is putting a greater emphasis on power protection and expressing a greater concern over protection of energy supplies. China is worried about its dependence on foreign oil and its energy supply, and has been investing heavily on reaching out to African states, like the Sudan. Diplomacy is a lot like the Miss Universe contest I guess: not everyone wants to participate and not everyone has a delegate.

Q: Angelina Jolie was just named to the Council on Foreign Relations. Do celebrities really help solve anything?
Hodge: I think Angelina Jolie would do a better job of winning hearts and minds then say, [former Bush flack] Karen Hughes, who recently did a a listening tour of the Middle East as the lead State Department outreach person for boosting America's image in the Middle East. It was a failure. The problem you have in the military is that there's a belief you can invent a ray gun that you can zap people with and they will like you. The way you want to go about solving conflicts it is by improving your information campaign—winning hearts and minds of people. It's like how we won the Cold War - we won because people didn't want to wear shoes made in Leningrad and wanted to listen to bootleg Deep Purple records.

Q: Are all the celebs trying to heal Africa right now, or are any of them digging missile defense?
Hodge: Do you know who Jeff Skunk Baxter is?

Q: Uh, no?
Hodge: He was in the Doobie Brothers. He's really into missile defense.

Q: Whoa, so he is! Weird.

Putin Offers To Join Missile Shield [Washington Post]

Jane's Information Group
Jane Magazine
Earlier: The Harper's (Bazaar) Index