Left Flank

Last night I lost access to the blog, both through ScribeFire and through the WordPress login. My apologies for anyone who also had difficulties. I've noticed an unusual torrent of hits in the past three days, and my domain provider has singled out «Liancourt Rocks» posts as a problem, after initial concerns about scripts and plugins. I'm not certain what the exact source of the problem is.

I am also considering new domain providers, and the site could be down anytime in the next month because of a transfer.

Whether militarily or to foster political reform, Matthew Yglesias makes some good arguments why the US doesn't need to be involved in the Middle East.

The basic proposition here is that if our military weren't so intimately involved in the Middle East, that this would run the risk of economic harm via instability in oil supplies. And fair enough, but our current policies have economic costs of their own in terms of both monetary expenditures (about $1 trillion on Iraq thus far, more than that in terms of bases and fixed infrastructure over the past couple of decades) in terms of terrorist attacks, in terms of pricey efforts to secure ourselves against terrorist attack (been on an airplane lately?), as well as in various other familiar airy senses.

That's the short-run trade-off. In the longer term, we could massively mitigate the harms Pollack is worried about here by investing in making our country less oil dependent so that fluctuations in the price of oil wouldn't be such a big deal. A move of that sort would, of course, be a costly and difficult undertaking. But the alternative «a broad program of economic and political reform» that «will take decades, if not longer» to complete certainly doesn't sound any easier. And certainly there's no effort here to make an explicit cost-benefit calculation and explain why our past ten years' worth of forward-leaning policy in the Gulf have brought us more in economic benefits than they've cost, or that completely remaking the political and society of the Arab world would be easier or cheaper than building a lot of windmills and trains.

And, here's a better reason: most American oil comes from the Americas, not the Middle East.

State Department spokesperson Gonzalo R. Galegos claims the U.S. Board on Geographic Names is only «standardizing» its classifications when the USGS «refiled» its information «independently» on the Liancourt Rocks.

QUESTION: My question is about Liancourt Rocks. Last week, the Board on Geographic Names changed the name of the country that Liancourt Rocks belonged to - from South Korea or oceans to undesignated sovereignty. Did the State Department give any guidelines to the BGN when they made that decision, like as the State Department did in 1977 when the BGN changed the name of the island from Dokdo, the Korean name, to Liancourt Rocks?

MR. GALLEGOS: I appreciate the question. Somebody posed it at the gaggle this morning, and I have more thorough guidance for you today. And I think it's going to be best if I read through it, because it states clearly that the U.S. position for decades has been to not take a position regarding the sovereignty of the islands in question. As we've said in the past, the question of the sovereignty of these islets is for Japan and Korea to resolve peacefully between themselves. We do not take a position on Korea's claim or Japan's claim to the islands. It's a long-standing dispute, which the two sides have handled with restraint in the past, and we expect that they will continue to do so. We'd welcome any outcome agreed to by both Korea and Japan.

In terms of the name the classification, which you asked about specifically, U.S. position - our position has for decades, and I repeat, been not to take a position regarding the sovereignty, and to use the name Liancourt Rocks to refer to the islands. The placement of Liancourt Rocks under the Board of Geographic Names file designation of undesignated sovereignty has no bearing on the USG's position, which has not changed. The refiling was done to be in conformity with U.S. Government efforts to standardize the filing of all features to which we do not recognize claims of sovereignty. The change to the website does not represent a change in U.S. policy, but rather an action to ensure consistency with that policy.

QUESTION: Did the State Department - was the State Department aware that the BGN would change the classification from South Korea or oceans to undesignated sovereignty?

MR. GALLEGOS: Well, renewed interest in this issue has prompted U.S. Government entities to independently check to make sure that their internal filing and designations regarding these islets are consistent with our policy, so -

Yes.

QUESTION: Just to qualify that, was there any communication with either Japanese or South Korean Governments before the change?

MR. GALLEGOS: I couldn't tell you.

If one takes the opportunity to play with the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency's OGC Viewer, «Tok-to» (that damn romanization controversy!), «Takeshima», and «Take Sima» (what's this, numerical bias? Why not add, «Dok-do» for fairness?) are captioned as variant names for «Liancourt Rocks», the standard name. The ROK Foreign Ministry is crying betrayal (via Ampontan's «More on the Busan - Takeshima paradigm».

Until last week, the U.S. Board of Geographic Names stated on its Internet site that the Liancourt Rocks, a term also used to refer to Dokdo, were under the control of South Korea. But yesterday the islets were identified as under “undesignated sovereignty.”

While it was not immediately known when the change was made, the islets were classified as South Korean territory as late as July 17. The board is an agency that aims at maintaining uniform usage of geographic names throughout the U.S. government.

The U.S. board uses the name Liancourt Rocks for Dokdo, derived from the name of the French whaling ship whose crew first told Europeans about the islets in the 19th century.

The board said last week that it has used the name Liancourt Rocks to identify the islets since 1977.

However, in a March 2008 State Department Background Note on Japan, a map identified the islets as «Liancourt Rocks», situated in the «Sea of Japan», geographic references matching those on a corresponding Background Note for South Korea.

Cato Institute's Malou Innocent sums up the problem with the US giving $239 million to Pakistan

While cooperation with Pakistan is crucial, cooperation does not warrant a blank check to Pakistan's army or the upgrading of sophisticated weaponry that only feeds Pakistan's rivalry with India.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice supported the plan in these terms:

«What we are trying to do is solidify and extend relations with both India and Pakistan, at a time when we have good relations with both of them -- something most people didn't think could be done -- and at a time when they have improving relationships with one another,» Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an interview at The Washington Post.

«If you look at it in terms of the region,» she added, «what we are trying to do is break out of the notion that this is a hyphenated relationship somehow, that anything that happens that is good for Pakistan is bad for India, and vice versa.»

So, how does that fit into the plan to remake India into an American ally in East Asia? Might this be just a little too much for New Delhi? Or, is this all just a really awful cover story to continue both trashing the NPT and IAEA and feeding the ISI?

Finally, can the Bush administration stop itself if it wanted? Could it change both its India and Pakistan policies?

豆腐 / tofu, Originally uploaded by Kanko*.

Soy products, like tofu, are linked to lower sperm concentrations particularly in obese and older men. Enjoy!