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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 24-Feb-2010
24-Feb-10 News - Iran captures Jundallah terrorist leader

Web Log - February, 2010

24-Feb-10 News - Iran captures Jundallah terrorist leader

'Generation Zero' movie appears on Hannity for the full hour

Some observations about 'Generation Zero' on Hannity

The new movie "Generation Zero" was the subject of the entire hour on Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity show. The guests were the movie's writer/director, Steve Bannon, and the executive producer, David N. Bossie. Several segments of the movie were screened, including a couple of segments in which I appear as commentator.

This movie is extremely exciting to me personally for obvious reasons. It's exciting that I'm in it, but it's even more exciting that Generational Dynamics and generational theory is receiving all this exposure. (See "New documentary movie 'Generation Zero' brings generational theory to the public.")

I can see why everyone who's seen the movie is really touched by it. It's very dramatic, and it forces everyone to focus on the generational causes of the financial crisis. It also makes it clear, to anyone who's paying attention, that there is no solution except a major meltdown far worse than we've already seen, leading inevitably to world war.

A disappointment to me is Hannity's stress on blaming Democrats for the crisis. That's really not a surprise, of course, since Hannity's show is always very pro-Republican party. As for myself, I would never blame the financial crisis on any politician or political party. As I say all the time on this web site, no politician could have either caused or prevented the financial crisis. The perpetrators exist in all organizations and all political parties, and the only possible explanation is that the "perpetrators" are entire generations.

However, to be fair, the heavy pro-Republican slant was Hannity's alone. Both Bannon and Bossie made the point that Republicans are just as much to blame.

Another interesting development is that the material on the relationshp between Boomers and Generation-Xers was omitted. The Boomers could not possibly have perpetrated the financial crisis by themselves, since everyone agrees that they're too dumb and incompetent to have done so. The only way this could have occurred is by the greed shared by Boomers and Xers, with Boomer bosses condoning and supporting the massive fraud being perpetrated by Gen-Xers.

I can see why Bannon decided to omit the criticism of Gen-Xers. By leaving that out, the movie will be a lot more popular with Gen-Xers, who really want to blame everyone on the Boomers anyway.

But those are just nitpicks. This is a fantastic movie, and it's going to make a lot of people aware of generational theory. Generational Dynamics is the most important professional thing that I've done in my life, and it will, I believe, be a boon to mankind.

Iran captures leader of Jundallah terrorists

Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, highlighting the region of September's Jundullah attack

Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, highlighting the region of September's Jundullah attack

In September, I wrote about a terrorist attack on Iranian soil that was extremely humiliating to Iran. (See "Furious Iran blames Pakistan, US and Britain for Sunday's terrorist attacks.")

The attack was conducted by Jundallah, a Sunni Islamist terrorist group with links to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The attack targeted Iran's Revolutionary Guards. It was the biggest attack on the Revolutionary Guards since the Iran/Iraq war of the 1980s, and it killed 42 people, including 20 or so top commanders in the Revolutionary Guards.

Now Iran has finally gotten revenge. Iran's Press TV reports that Abdulmalek Rigi, the leader of Jundallah, has been captured, along with one of his deputies. It required detective work by the Iranians to learn that Riga was on a jet flight from United Arab Emirates to Kyrgyzstan, crossing Iran's air space. Iranian security forces forced the plane to land, and Riga was taken into custody.

The story is far from over, however. The Iranians have been claiming that Jundallah was an American and British funded terrorist organization. Now the Riga has been captured, they're claiming that they will soon have proof of Western funding and support.

The article quotes an Iranian official as saying, "Not only are we aware of the many crimes against humanity committed by [Rigi], but we also have more than enough evidence that this terrorist group was in fact acting on US orders. This is a disgrace for a country which tries to portray itself as an avid supporter of human rights."

An AFP report quotes an unnamed senior US official as saying, "This is of course a totally bogus accusation."

This accusation has never made much sense to me. We're fighting a war against al-Qaeda linked terrorists in Afghanistan, and American funding of an al-Qaeda linked terrorist group under any circumstances would almost be an act of treason. On the other side, an al-Qaeda linked terrorist group would not disgrace itself by "acting on US orders."

What makes much more sense is that Jundallah funding and support has come from Saudi Arabia, a Sunni Muslim country that's fighting Iran for hegemony in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia sees itself as the protector of the Sunnis (LA Times), and the Saudis have already been fighting the Iran-supported Houthi rebels in Yemen, and the Saudis and Iranians are fighting for politicial influence in Iraq.

There's little doubt that the Iranians are going to produce some kind of evidence to support their allegations that Jundallah is funded by the US and acting under US orders. How credible that evidence is remains to be seen.

Paul Krugman, the former economist, turned politician

I've described Paul Krugman as a man who used to be an economist, but now just plays one on TV (and in newspapers). He won the Nobel Prize in Economics because he possessed the main qualification that the Nobel committee was looking for: He hated George Bush.

A New Yorker magazine profile of Paul Krugman describes how he gave up economics and became a leftist political pundit. Apparently, it's the fault of Robin Wells, his wife!

According to the article, she edits all his articles to make them "angrier":

"Recently, he gave her a draft of an article he’d done for Rolling Stone. He had written, “As Obama tries to deal with the crisis, he will get no help from Republican leaders,” and after this she inserted the sentence “Worse yet, he’ll get obstruction and lies.”"

Hmmmmm. Maybe the Nobel Prize committee made a mistake after all. It's Robin Wells who really deserved to receive it.

Alan Greenspans calls it 'the greatest financial crisis -- ever'

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan gave a speech to the Credit Union National Association conference. He's quoted by Reuters as saying that this is "by far the greatest financial crisis, globally, ever" -- including the 1930s Great Depression.

He added, "It's really an extraordinarily unbalanced system because we're dealing with small businesses who are doing badly, small banks in trouble, and of course there is an extraordinarily large proportion of the unemployed in this country who have been out of work for more than six months and many more than a year."

Kenneth Rogoff predicts sovereign defaults, collapse of the euro

I've been writing about this coming financial meltdown for years, but this year we're seeing something we really didn't see before -- there are a lot more commentators talking openly about it. Alan Greenspan is getting more realistic, as we've seen, and the "Generation Zero" movie really propels the crisis view forward.

Harvard Professor Kenneth Rogoff has always been realistic about the oncoming crisis, but at a forum in Tokyo on Monday, Rogoff predicted that "a bunch of sovereign defaults" are coming, as reported by Bloomberg.

According to Rogoff, the sovereign defaults are going to be triggered by the phasing out of fiscal stimulus that we've seen in the last year.

With regard to Europe, he was fairly specific, according to the article:

"Rogoff, 56, said he expects Greece will eventually be bailed out by the IMF rather than the European Union. Greece will probably announce an austerity program “in a few weeks” that will prompt the EU to provide a bridge loan which won’t be enough to save the country in the long run, he said.

“It’s like two people getting married and saying therefore they’re living happily ever after,” said Rogoff. “I don’t think Europe’s going to succeed.”

In the case of US Fed policy, When they start tightening monetary policy even a little bit, it’s going to send shockwaves through the system," Rogoff said.

A report by Morgan Stanley, quoted by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writing in The Telegraph, agrees that Europe faces a worsening crisis.

The report points out that European banks need to roll over €1 trillion (Ł877bn) of debt over the next two years, at increasingly high interest rates. Thus, "Lenders will have to cope with a blizzard of problems."

Additional Links

A commentary in Der Spiegel talks about the "Arrogance of China's Leadership." "For a start," it says, "the Chinese government is brimming with a self-confidence bordering on arrogance. The Chinese see themselves as the winners of the global economic crisis." As we've said many times, China is going through the same kind of generational changes as the West, and is in the midst of even worse real estate and credit bubbles than America. Generational Dynamics predicts that China is headed for major financial disaster, an internal civil war, and world war with the West. The Spiegel article illustrates how acrimony is growing on both sides.

There seems to be no end to the ways that scammers work. Police in Utah have warned that crooks have installed credit card "skimming" devices in pay-at-the-pump gas pumps. So you fill up your tank, pay for it at the pump, and the crooks get your bank card and pin numbers. ABC4.com

I've been accused of all sorts of things since starting this web site in 2002, including "liking war." Believe me, if I liked war, I wouldn't have lost so much sleep the past few years. One of the most touching articles about the enormous pain of war is "Distant Wars, Constant Ghosts" by Army Captain Shannon P. Meehan (Ret.) in the NY Times. He recounts how he still has constant nightmares about the mothers and children in Iraq that his actions killed accidentally.

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 24-Feb-10 News - Iran captures Jundallah terrorist leader thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (24-Feb-2010) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 24-Feb-2010 24-Feb-10 News - Iran captures Jundallah terrorist leader