The half baked war to topple Muammar Gaddafi did topple the world’s longest serving non-royal ruler and few tears are being shed for his grisly demise.  However, the fallout still reverberates over the Sahel.  The mercurial Gaddafi had a romantic fondness for the Tuareg people.  Libyan oil largess was spent in the region and the Tuareg were recruited as mercenaries for a dictator who was careful not to arm his people.  The Tuareg of Libya were one of the only Libyan ethnicities (other than Gaddafi’s own tribe) to stick with him till the bitter end and Gaddafi’s dauphin Saif was captured as he tried to flee to Tuareg territory.

As the fighting in Libya drew to a close, many of the Tuareg mercenaries returned home.  They brought along the military equipment Gaddafi paid for.  The result has been turmoil in the region.  In Mali, one of the relatively long lived democracies in the region, it turned a simmering rebellion into a hot civil war.  The Tuareg inflicted a series of reverses on the poorly equipped and led Malian army.  The frustrated soldiers mutinied and almost accidentally launched a coup.

This leaves Mali’s erstwhile allies in the horns of a dilemma.  Without the cold war to rationalize it, supporting dictators is a no no – even for Mali’s African neighbors.   Even though the coup leaders have promised to restore democracy (at an unspecified time) and not try to retain power, aid has been cut off.  Then there is the ugly military reality on the ground.  The legendary city of Timbuktu fell to the rebels this week.  It appears very unlikely that Mali, even with the assistance of West African neighbors, can win the territory back by force.

For now the Tuareg in Mali are content with their ethnic homeland.  But the conflagration could spread with regional involvement sparking a Tuareg revolt in Niger, Algeria and Libya.  Even if the fighting does not spread, Mali is effectively partitioned by force.

In the post colonial era the African Union elected to suppress an ethnic free for all by retaining colonial borders.  Secessionist movements like Katanga and Biafra were strongly discouraged.  Even though Eritrea could claim an exception as an Italian colony before World War II, it took 45 years and the fall of the communist Derg in Ethiopia for Eritrea to break free.  The effective partition of Somalia into three parts is ignored as if it does not exist.  South Sudan has been the one carve-out from the colonial borders that has been grudgingly accepted.  Now Mali could be the next.  And accepting a Tuareg homeland creates the type of uncertainty that causes Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran to collude in preventing an independent Kurdish state.

This was not what the world wanted to see in the aftermath of toppling Muammar Gaddafi.  The risks had been noted, but had largely been ignored.  Now Mali reaps the whirlwind.

It should serve as a cautionary tale for the current drumbeat to get involved in the Syrian ethnic quagmire.  The Assad regime is vile, but the Alawite, Shiite and Christian communities of Syria fear the alternative of a Sunni dominated regime.  The Saudis who had no qualms in crushing a Shiite rebellion against the Sunni al-Khalifa despots in Bahrain have cynically become the apostles of human rights for the largely Sunni Syrian rebels.  And the bomb everybody trio in the United States Senate (Messers. McCain, Lieberman and Graham) are chomping at the bit to suck the United States into another ethnic quagmire.

Good intentions can have unintended consequences.  Beware those who would launch us into costly wars without weighing the consequences.

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Over the next 22 years the already isolated Burmese nation became an international pariah.  Aung San Suu Kyi received the Nobel Peace Prize and became the conscience of the suppressed Burmese people.  During the last two decades Myanmar’s secessionists wars continued.  The junta displayed its  brutality in suppressing widespread protests spearheaded by the respected Buddhist monks and its incompetence during Cyclone Nargis.  In these years Myanmar became the latest international pariah befriended by a cynical China eager to harvest abundant Burmese resources.  Unwilling to see another neighbor become a Chinese satellite, India swallowed its distaste and permitted economic ties with the Burmese junta.  For all the bravery of the Burmese monks and the dignity of Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar was the land the rest of the world largely gave up on.

And suddenly this year things changed.  Possibly fearing life as a Chinese puppet  and worried about its long term future, the junta sent out feelers to Ms. Suu Kyi and her supporters and transferred power to a nominally civilian government.  Even though the 650 seat parliament is dominated by the uniforms it announced elections for 45 seats.  As an additional carrot, Aung San Suu Kyi was allowed to run.

Even with attempts to rig the elections, it appears that the National League for Democracy may have won 44 of the 45 seats.  If the result holds up, it is a stinging rebuke to the junta.  The question is what happens next.  The junta obviously has no legitimacy and for now will have given up control of less than 7% of parliament.  Hosni Mubarak held on to power in Egypt for almost three decades by allowing the opposition to nibble at the edges of parliament.  But until two years ago Hosni Mubarak never faced such a debacle at the ballot box.  For the second time in 22 years the Burmese people have shown their contempt for the junta at the ballot box.

So will the generals fade away quietly into the good night?  What assurances will the NLD be willing to give to hasten this transition?  Given the thumping the junta has taken in what should have been its pampered strongholds, how much control do they retain on the rank and file?  It is a time for statesmanship of the sort that allowed Spain in 1975 and Chile in 1989 to transition to democracy.  Will the characters on stage step up?

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No news on whether Pakistan’s crack investigative teams have come up with an explanation on how the women ended up in Abbotabad to begin with.  The Pakistan farce continues.

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Most states would try to discover the answers to these questions.  But this is Pakistan we are talking about.  After 20 years of two faced tactics in condemning terrorist activity directed at the west while sponsoring it against India but still hosting/turning a blind eye to the training grounds for both, it was too much to hope that Pakistan would look deep into its soul and provide answers to the questions above.  So far no answers to the Bin Laden mystery have been provided.  The Quetta Shura of the Taliban still resides unmolested in that country, probably with the ISI’s blessings.  Pakistan still makes at best half hearted moves against the Taliban and Al-Queda remnants in the North West Frontier Province.  American drone attacks that have become essential to make up for Pakistan’s failure to act are greeted with howls of outrage.  And with Pakistan perfectly capable of shutting off the land supply lines of American troops in Afghanistan and with the ever present fears of a military coup, it has not been pressed too hard on the Bin Laden story.

What Pakistan has done is go after scapegoats.  I have yet to hear of any arrest of a Pakistani official for enabling Bin Laden’s stay.  However they have pursued Dr. Shakeel Afridi for the “crime” of helping the United States track down Osama Bin Laden.  A panel investigating the Bin Laden raid recommended Dr. Afridi be put on trial for treason.  Today Dr. Afridi was sacked from his position as a governmental surgeon on disciplinary grounds.  Other health workers who assisted Dr. Afridi in discovering Bin Laden’s location have also been sacked.

With “allies” like Pakistan, who needs enemies.

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Like the fictional King Louis in the video above, it is good to be the CEO of an American public corporation too.

• Stock price drops 58%
• Lay off 30,000 employees
• Your company faces potential liability from a number of lawsuits
• Compensation package quadruples

Welcome to the life of Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan.  Now to be fair (and it is hard for for this blogger when the compensation of public company plutarchs…I mean CEOs is concerned), the bulk of the award is based on is based on performance related stock.  I do not know the terms of the stock award before Mr. Moynihan gets to cash out.  But at this juncture the optics are of another fat cat feeding at the trough at the expense of the working stiff.

A recent column by Steven Rattner points out just how obscene this inequality is becoming.

In 2010, as the nation continued to recover from the recession, a dizzying 93 percent of the additional income created in the country that year, compared to 2009 — $288 billion — went to the top 1 percent of taxpayers, those with at least $352,000 in income. That delivered an average single-year pay increase of 11.6 percent to each of these households.

Still more astonishing was the extent to which the super rich got rich faster than the merely rich. In 2010, 37 percent of these additional earnings went to just the top 0.01 percent, a teaspoon-size collection of about 15,000 households with average incomes of $23.8 million. These fortunate few saw their incomes rise by 21.5 percent.

The bottom 99 percent received a microscopic $80 increase in pay per person in 2010, after adjusting for inflation. The top 1 percent, whose average income is $1,019,089, had an 11.6 percent increase in income.

This new data, derived by the French economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez from American tax returns, also suggests that those at the top were more likely to earn than inherit their riches. That’s not completely surprising: the rapid growth of new American industries — from technology to financial services — has increased the need for highly educated and skilled workers. At the same time, old industries like manufacturing are employing fewer blue-collar workers.

The result? Pay for college graduates has risen by 15.7 percent over the past 32 years (after adjustment for inflation) while the income of a worker without a high school diploma has plummeted by 25.7 percent over the same period.

It was very easy to mock the Occupy Wall Street movement for its incoherence and share of marxist loons.  But they highlighted the fact that the social contract in this country has gone horribly awry.  The last 30 years have advanced the notion that stock holders are the only stakeholders that matter for a corporation, short term fluctuations in stock price are the key to measuring corporate success and managing this short term fluctuation gives license for the executives of the Corporation (whose compensation is selected not by the shareholders but by cartels) to loot corporate assets with reckless abandon.  And should these bean counters wreck the business they are supposed to manage, they still walk away with millions.  And to reward them further, we will rejigger the tax system to reduce their tax burden and create ridiculous giveaways like the carried interest loophole for private equity managers.

As a result few large companies innovate, engage in long term research which would not boost short term stock price or engage in long term strategic planning.  It is far easier to pay an excessive premium to buy a start-up that actually innovated and pass the strategic planning buck to external consultants rather than in-grown talent.

I highlighted Mr. Moynihan because his pay package triggered this long overdue rant.  But he is hardly the worst CEO offender.  The system is broken and is slowly strangling the middle class.  But right now our CEOs are too happy to be hogs feeding off the corporate asset trough while the rest of us deal with economic uncertainty.

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I am not an Anna Hazare fan.  In my opinion he displays many autocratic anti-democratic tendencies, does not seem to understand the critical importance of institutional legitimacy in sustaining a democracy and all too easily allowed his anti-corruption crusade to devolve into a personality cult.  Yet he struck a chord for a reason.  In my last trip to India the increasing prosperity of the middle class was evident.  However, a permeating sense of lawlessness and lack of accountability for the political class was also evident.  India’s politicians have become real estate barons and mining executives.  They no longer bother to hide their rapid rise in wealth without any clear legitimate source for such riches.  Corruption scandals have become all too commonplace at all levels of government with the dollar amount of graft rising exponentially.  Hazare’s cherished Lok Pal bill may create another bloated over-powerful bureaucracy but at least represents an effort to deal with the problem.

India’s electorate does punish graft by repeatedly voting out incumbent governments at the state and the national level (unlike the United States incumbency is an electoral liability).  Unfortunately the losers can often count on being recycled back into power at the next round of general elections.  A case in point is the recent elections in the state of Uttar Pradesh.  Voters ejected the megalomaniacal  Chief Minister Mayawati who used government funds to erect statues of herself around the state.  They returned to power the Samajwadi Party whose new young leader Akhilesh Yadav (the son of a former Chief Minister) promised a break from his party’s past history of  thuggishness and hostility to modernity.  It took less than 24 hours following the election for the promises to ring hollow.  Samajwadi Party goons have resumed their old habits and Akhilesh Yadav’s cabinet is dotted with the shady characters of years past.

Ultimately nothing will change in India as long as the same batch of thugs is recycled through parliament and legislators.  India’s middle class does not help matters by throwing up its hands and not bothering to vote.  Also, while the Indian populace reviles the corruption of its leaders it is often too willing to see governmental regulations as a nuisance to be bypassed.

Breaking a culture of corruption is hard.  It took the assassination of a President for the United States to start paring back the spoils system at the federal level.  It took another century to break up many of the state and city party machines.  And after all that, corruption does flourish in vast sectors of American life.  Combating a culture of corruption will take time in India.  However, a good start would be for the buffoons in India’s parliament to stop pretending that they are models of probity.

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The neo-cons, theo-cons and other clowns who helped generate the Iraq fiasco are back with a vengeance.  This time the target has shifted east to a country with five times the population.  The world will be a better place without Iran’s loathsome regime.  It dispensed with its veneer of popular support and democracy by rigging the presidential election three years ago.  It has cheerfully backed entities such as Hezbollah.  And the nuclear program is a cause for concern and could start a nuclear domino effect in an unstable neighborhood.

Yet the clamor for war is profoundly misguided.  Iran is a third rate military power with a crumbling economy.  The recent round of sanctions have all but brought its economy to its knees and almost made it impossible for Iran to conduct foreign exchange transactions.  Iran’s mullahs may speak in apocalyptic terms but have never displayed suicidal instincts.  Ayatollah Khomeini wrote an open letter in 1986 to the present Supreme Leader (who was at the time the president of the Islamic Republic) asserting that if the survival of the Islamic regime was at stake, even the basic tenets of the religion could be shut down to protect the Islamic system from destruction.  Like tyrants everywhere the ayatollahs have a fine sense of self-preservation.

Almost no military expert has asserted that a surgical strike like Israel’s 1981 attack on the Osirak reactor in Iraq and its 2007 attack on a Syrian nuclear project would stop Iran’s nuclear program.  The distances are too great, the sites are too spread out (and many are buried deep underground beyond the reach of Israeli bombs) and Israel may not have the military capacity to pull off such an assault.  The result of such a strike would probably simply delay the Iranian march to the bomb (a popular policy goal that has been an Iranian dream since the reign of the last Shah) and convince the regime that only a nuclear device will protect it from future assaults (a lesson that the North Koreans appear to have taken from Saddam Hussein’s demise).  Eliminating the current nuclear program would probably require a sustained bombing campaign (which would require American help), lead to far greater civilian casualties and further rile anti-American sentiment in the Arab world.  And then there is the added economic shock of spiking oil prices and Iran unleashing its proxies in the region.

Finally the American army needs a break.  The United States army was trained to fight the Red Army tank divisions in the plains of Central Europe.  Yet for the last decade it has been fighting two draining counter-insurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Even the best trained army in the world can only take so much.  It is a factor that must be considered before the chickenhawks send the army into yet another poorly thought out war.

There has been a tendency in the past decade to compare every nasty regime to Hitler.  Hitler ruled the most populous and industrialized state in Europe whose industrial regions (unlike France) had not been damaged by World War I.  He had an extremely well trained army and the industrial complex to support rearmament and conquest.  Saddam, Gaddafi, Assad and the Iranian mullahs do not come close to measuring up.  The Iranian army has never recovered from the purges after the fall of the Shah.  Iran’s domestic politics force the regime to shower goodies on the revolutionary guard at the expense of the army at large.  Barring the rally around the flag effect from a foreign attack, Iran’s youth despises its regime.  With much of the world rallied around the United States in enforcing sanctions against Iran, a war makes no sense at this time.

The loudest cheerleader for war has been Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu – over the advice of many of his own military advisers.  This blogger’s inner cynic notes that banging the war drums has allowed Netanyahu to avoid tough decisions on illegal settlement expansion in the West Bank that is slowly strangling what remains of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.  At present the Iranian regime is on its knees, the Syrian regime is struggling to survive, Hezbollah’s enthusiastic embrace of Assad is destroying its domestic support base and Hamas appears to have lost its Syrian support.  A far sighted statesman would seize the favorable strategic environment to finalize a deal with the Palestinians (who do need to come to terms with the fact that the right of return is simply not happening).  But then other than his enablers in the United States and the irredentist wing in Israel, nobody has accused Mr. Netanyahu of visionary statesmanship.

Barack Obama has held off the war cries for the last three years.  Here’s hoping he holds strong in the face of a media campaign from people whose credibility should have been shot after Iraq.

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One can debate whether the country is better off as a result of the slash and burn venture capitalism he helped pioneer or whether it has much relevance to being an effective President (it sure did not do much in creating jobs in Massachusetts), but Mitt Romney has accomplished a lot in his business career.  But his phoniness is so transparent it makes this blogger want to barf.  It also explains the tepid enthusiasm for him in an awful Republican field.

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The second was the patriarch of possibly the only obese family in North Korea.  Coming to power after the first dynastic succession in a Communist nation, Kim Jong-Il deepened the impoverishment and isolation of his unfortunate country.  Other than the brainwashed minions, few will mourn him.  Kim Jong-Il was widely reputed to be ailing and earlier this year named his inexperienced son Kim Jong-un as the heir to the crumbling hermit kingdom.  The youngest Kim will probably rule with the help of a regency council designated by his father until/if he ever takes over.

Kim Jong-il could to some extent feed off the mystique of his father Kim Il-sung.  However, by the end of his rule it has been difficult for North Korea to hide the extent of its backwardness and impoverishment from its own people.  Too many South Korean movies and television programs displaying their far healthier and prosperous brethren circulate in North Korea.  Too many North Koreans have crossed back and forth across the Yalu River into China for an information blackout to be absolute.  With little moral authority left it could be difficult for the regime to hang on.

And so a delicate diplomatic dance begins.  South Korea has placed its armies on high alert.  Seoul and Washington must evaluate the diplomatic language to use in responding to the news and conduct a cost-benefit analysis of expressing condolences.  The Chinese, the primary prop for this bankrupt regime, must evaluate whether they should play along with the succession or encourage Jong-un’s fatter brother to seize power.  In the short run it appears that a weaker regime in Pyongyang leans closer to becoming a Chinese satellite.

Yet even presumed Chinese satellites are uncomfortable with the close embrace of the dragon.  Fear of Chinese dominance has pushed an equally paranoid Burmese government to ease its isolation.  How far will the weak regime in Pyongyang resist Beijing’s diktats?  And does this regime have the strength to survive a glasnost?  The next few months will be interesting.

2011 has not been kind to dictators.  Long standing regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya were toppled.  Syria and Yemen are tottering.  Bahrain has been shaken to its core.  Even the previously secure corporatist regime of Vladimir Putin has seen cracks appear in the foundation.  Even if the death of Kim Jong-il was not as gory as the video below:

he leaves a shaky regime in the hands of his inexperienced son.  Rot in hell Kim Jong-il.

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• pepper spray is essentially a food product, so presumably it is no problem to spray it into their face (though the bobble-heads acknowledge that some people ended up in the hospital)
• Davis is a liberal campus, so perhaps these students had it coming
• The police chief may be a scapegoat, even though video evidence suggests (even the bobble-heads acknowledge) that she may have lied about the level of threats in justifying the pepper spraying.  Personally, I believe Chancellor Katehi should be gone too.

Most egregious is the excuse trotted out in the past to justify torture, that we have no right to Monday Morning Quarterback the police.  It is a dangerous philosophy that can be used to justify any sort of government brutality.  Video below:

Even liberal blogs have acknowledged that a long term occupation of cities by a group that has not articulated concrete demands at some point brings diminishing results.  But that does not justify the wave of police gassing or clubbing citizens peacefully assembled in protest.  But then Faux News is primarily concerned about the tyranny of government health care and other conspiracy theories they peddle about the Obama administration.   Meanwhile Megyn Kelly’s latest idiocy has gone viral on twitter.  Check out the hashtag #FakeMegynKelly

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This is the latest salvo in a campaign where a president who lowered taxes, oversaw a return of corporate profits to pre-recession levels, prevented a collapse of the Detroit auto-makers, passed a healthcare plan originally drafted by Republicans, ordered the raid that took out Osama deep in the heart of Pakistan and midwifed the fall of Muammar Gaddafi is somehow a befuddled America hating marxist/socialist naif.  Mitt Romney should know better, but then we already know that there is nothing he will not do to gain the Presidency.

Problem is, others can take Romney quotes out of context to lie as well (video below):

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As Conor Friedersdorf  notes Newt Gingrich was outright scary on assassinating US citizens.   Friedersdorf reserves his praise for the two Republicans who understand why we do not torture, why it is counterproductive and how it militates against American values.  Neither of them will get the nomination, though Jon Huntsman could win the general election if nominated.  Ron Paul, while he has some kooky economic theories and is an isolationist, has always had the moral courage to stand up for what he believes in (like refusing to join the post 9/11 frenzy to rubber stamp the Patriot Act) – unlike most of the weasels in public life today.

The clip below highlights the stark contrast between the candidates of the soundbite (Cain and Bachmann) versus two men who have clearly given it some thought.

I don’t praise Republicans often in this blog, but today I will.  Thank you Mr. Paul and Mr. Huntsman for having the guts to stand up for American values and opposing a practice that has been illegal for over a century.

I wonder how loudly the rest of the candidates would howl in outrage if another country subjected captured Americans to “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

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On its face terming a charismatic and successful CEO and former governor of the Kansas City Federal Reserve a Know Nothing would seem odd.  Alas, Herman Cain like most of the other Republican candidates not named Huntsman, Ron Paul or Romney (on non-foreign policy issues), is an empty shirt.  Rarely has a candidate at the top of the polls expressed such total lack of awareness of public policy (domestic or foreign).  This is compounded by bizarre leaps into bigoted Islamophobia, a seeming willingness to electrocute illegal immigrants at the border (which may or may not have been a joke, since Mr. Cain characterized his comments both ways depending on the audience), an ignorance on the constitutional limitations on restricting Congressional activities and the constitutional amendment process, a bizarre financial plan that may have been lifted from the Sim City game, departures into race baiting when it is convenient and finally a proud ignorance on any matters relating to foreign policy.  Then came a barrage of sexual harassment allegations dating back to the 1990s when he lead the National Restaurant Association.  The flailing response from the Cain campaign (even though they had 10 days to prepare for the story’s publication) demonstrated an operation not ready for prime-time.

Seeing the debacle, it is difficult not to come to the conclusion that the Cain campaign for the presidency is a publicity seeking stunt gone awry.  The candidate did not help dispel such rumors last month by disappearing from the campaign trail for a book signing tour.  After all, a half-term quitter from Alaska has provided a blueprint on cashing political celebrity into millions of dollars.  The Clintons have demonstrated just how lucrative life post-presidency can be.

When challenged on his ignorance, Mr. Cain has a few stock answers.  His critics are wrong, he is right and trust him.

The ignorance on domestic policy is bad enough. (Video below):

Foreign policy is worse.  After repeated attacks on his foreign policy credentials he assured us that he is not as foreign policy dumb “as they think”.  Video below:

After making that bold assertion, Mr. Cain provided us the gem below.  This makes Governor Perry’s brain fart pale in comparison and highlights what happens when you get your rote learning jumbled up in your head.  For 5:16 Herman Cain struggles to answer a basic question on a war conducted and concluded in the past six months and to highlight why exactly he opposed Obama’s policy (other than the typical knee-jerk opposition to Obama):

To make it worse, his campaign trotted out the excuse (not for the first time) that the candidate was operating on 4 hours sleep.

This sleep deprived soul should not have his fingers on the nuclear trigger and has no business running for President.

The Herman Cain comedy hour may be coming to a close.  The new hope of the anti-Romney brigade appears to be a former speaker whose passionate patriotism drove him to adultery.  Somewhere Saturday Night Live writers are cheering.

If/when Romney does get the Republican nomination, I have his acceptance speech prepared for him. Video below:

Go for it Mitt…

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So Mitt, since you are evidently willing to go to war to achieve this end please tell us how you manage this:

• Almost every military expert agrees that an aerial bombardment of the type Israel is itching to launch would at best delay the Iranian push for the device.  So are you going to send in ground troops?
• Where would such an invasion be launched from?
• How would we pay for this?
• What would be the impact on an overstretched military that is seeing light at the end of the tunnel of two long wars in the countries on the West and the East of Iran?
• What will be the impact in Iraq if Iran unleashes its Sadrite proxies or on Israel if Hezbollah gets involved?
• How will you handle the economic shock of an almost certain spike in oil prices (to go with the mess in Europe)?
• If this is a snatch and grab, how will we prevent Iran from restarting the program?
• How will you handle the fallout with Russia and China – or do you just not give a damn?
• Are you willing to consider a full fledged invasion?  If so, how will you handle an occupation?

The ugly reality is that there are few good options to prevent Iran from getting the Bomb.  Iran has wanted the Bomb since the days of the Shah.  The pursuit of the Bomb is incredibly popular even among the anti-cleric democratic movement.  The Obama administration has been incredibly successful in getting Russian and Chinese support for a practical containment policy.  But if Mittens has a silver bullet for Iran other than his usual foreign policy bluster, I am all ears.

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Other examples of Romney’s extraordinary agility are very easy to find on YouTube:

This is the latest one

This is not a new charge.  The last election cycle provided some entertaining Whack-a-Mitt sessions as the rest of the field piled on the candidate they despised.

Huckabee vs. Romney

Romney does come with strong business credentials (though his business experience often seems to have resulted in acquiring companies, sucking out their assets and bankrupting them).  While he was a pragmatic governor, his job creation record was at best mediocre. On foreign policy he resorts to the same fluff and platitudes that the rest of the Republican field not named Jon Huntsman or Ron Paul resort too.  But ultimately he is a pragmatic candidate who has some appeal to the center.  He was a competent and pragmatic governor.  He probably will be an adequate President (more than can be said for any of his opponents other than Huntsman).  But where in the political spectrum a President Romney will govern from remains a mystery.  The Weather Vane is probably still monitoring the winds. To take a DNC quiz on where Romney has stood on issues to date – click here (includes videos).

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And then the hunt for the deposed tyrant began.  The end was pathetic.  As his hometown of Sirte finally fell to his enemies the wounded Gaddafi was dragged from his hiding place (a drain pipe).  As the fallen dictator pleaded for mercy he met his end soon after in murky circumstances.  Cell phone videos of a bleeding Gaddafi are available for anybody willing to conduct a Google search.

The rest of the Gaddafi clan is either captured, dead or has fled (warning gruesome pictures in link).

Apart from one expected quarter, Gaddafi goes to his grave unmourned.  His legacy is broken, factitious oil rich tribal mish-mash bunched under a new/old national flag.   Libya faces an uncertain future once the euphoria over the lynching in Sirte fades.

Also uncertain is the future of NATO.  The French and the British wanted this operation, but soon discovered that they could not sustain a campaign against a fourth rate military without access to the American arsenal.  Former Defense Secretary Bob Gates departed with a well timed salvo at Europe questioning the worth of an alliance where only one country carries the weight.  The solution from Congressional hawks appears to be to bankrupt the United States by continuing to sustain 40% of global military spending alone.  A reappraisal of American military commitments and spending is long overdue.

With the specter of their crazy leader gone, the people of Libya sleep easier tonight.  So do perhaps diplomats in a land of cheese, chocolates and banks.

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As expected, the fall was dramatic. Just last week the squabbling rebel alliance cut off the dictator’s supply lines. Today they entered Tripoli to cheering crowds. Some of Gaddafi’s sons appear to be in custody. Gaddafi’s fate is yet unknown.

It remains to be seen whether the tribes united by the Libyan flag can create a national state. Hopefully a revenge bloodbath can be avoided.

This also turns the spotlight uncomfortably on Bashar Assad. The fears of unraveling Syria’s ethnic quilt kept many Western states quiet. Last week it became clear patience was running out. While NATO bombardment is unlikely, the younger Assad is finding it hard to emulate his father in suppressing dissent with an iron fist.

The bufoonish Gaddafi falls largely unmourned, except perhaps in Caracas, Havana, Harare and some African capitals.

The bloody Arab summer has harvested its first tyrant.

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There are legitimate privacy concerns about a Google Group using facial recognition software to identify the looters.  Hopefully they turn their sights on these scumbags.

And now a word of derision for the bumbling response of Prime Minister David Cameron’s inept government.  The spark for the riot may have been a suspicious police killing.  There is deep unrest in Britain about the depth of cuts imposed by the current government.  But it was clear early enough that the outrage was hijacked by criminals indulging in looting and burning.

Yet incredibly Home Secretary Theresa May responded to calls to crush the rioters with this nonsense:

The way we police in Britain is not through use of water cannon. The way we police in Britain is through consent of communities.”

Small wonder that the riots spread beyond London and have tarnished Britain’s reputation around the globe.  It took three days for 16,000 police to descend on London.  I am not a huge fan of scapegoats, but I am willing to make an exception for Ms. May.  There were concerns about Rio’s ability to host a safe Olympics.  It appears that London’s competence must also now be questioned.

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