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Hillary in Algeria to discuss military invasion of Mali
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Hurricane Sandy has been disastrous for the eastern United States, destroying the New Jersey shore where I grew up, but not nearly as disastrous as it's been for Haiti. Haiti has still not come close to recovering from the January, 2010, earthquake that killed hundreds of thousands of Haitians, and collapsed most buildings, leaving thousands of people buried under the wreckage and hundreds of thousands without homes. (See "Haiti, seething with ethnic violence, may require US forces for a long time") The United Nations humanitarian team from Nepal brought cholera with them, and that's spread across the country. There are still 270,000 Haitians living in refugee camps, and Hurricane Sandy has just been one more disaster piled on a stream of previous disasters, killing 54 and leaving refugee camps flooded. But the worst may be yet to come: the floods are spreading cholera again, and there has been massive destruction of crops, raising the specter of famine, and a repeat of the violent "food price" riots of 2008. Guardian (London) and Reuters
With terrorists linked to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) increasingly taking control of the northern two-thirds of the country of Mali, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is visiting Algeria to discuss regional plans for military intervention. The plan is for the nations of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) to supply 3,300 troops to retrain Mali's army and help retrain the north. These forces will depend heavily on help from Algeria for military intelligence and logistics. The French are playing a heavy role in preparing the Ecowas force, and this is causing growing unease among Algerians who presumably fear that their formal colonial power, whom they only got rid of in 1962, will refuse to leave after the military action has ended. For that reason, Hillary Clinton is promising greater United States involvement in the military effort, to reduce the concerns of the Algerians. VOA
About 500 people were killed over the weekend, during the so-called ceasefire negotiated by U.N. envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi. To celebrate the end of the ceasefire, the regime of president Bashar al-Assad bombed opposition-held territory in Damascus, and the rebel opposition claimed responsibility for the assassination of al-Assad's air force general, Abdullah Mahmud al-Khalidi. BBC and Daily Star (Beirut)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 31-Oct-12 World View -- Hurricane Sandy a new disaster for Haiti thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(31-Oct-2012)
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Poor health and draft-dodging plague Russia's army
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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The plan that was supposed to save the world from climate change disaster, Europe's Emissions Trading System (ETS), which allows companies to pay for carbon credits that permit the company to emit carbon, is close to collapse. The whole program was poorly designed in the first place by climate change fanatics, and Europe's financial crisis has made carbon credits so cheap that no one has any real incentive to cut back, even if they wanted to.
I've taken no position on whether climate change is occurring or whether human beings caused it. Some people claim it's "proven science," but I've read other articles that claim that global warming ended ten years ago, and that as the Arctic has gotten warmer, the Antarctic has gotten equivalently colder. I also take note of the fact that climate change fanatics never mention the Antarctic.
Whether global warming is occurring or not, or whether humans caused it or not, is irrelevant to the discussion. There is no technology on the horizon that's going to reduce carbon emissions. It's just a scam. Americans and Europeans will not give up their cars, China will not give up its massively growing collection of coal mines, and hundreds of millions of Africans and Indians will not give up cooking with their carbon-emitting charcoal stoves.
Basically, the climate change fanatics are like someone who, a century ago, was worried that the world was going to be covered with horse crap, and horse crap credits should be traded to eliminate the problem. The automobile came along to solve the horse crap problem, and it would have come along with or without horse crap credits.
I wrote about this subject in December 2007 ( "UN Climate Change conference appears to be ending in farce")
At that time, I wrote a lengthy profile about a bankster named Louis Redshaw, head of environmental trading at Barclay's Bank. This was just after the global credit crunch had begun, and the subprime real estate market was crashing. I quoted Redshaw at the time as saying that carbon credit derivatives were going to make banks a lot more money than the subprime mortgage derivatives had. Even in 2007, it was pretty obvious that climate change was a financial scam, and that the people driving it were banksters like Redshaw, and wealthy carbon emitters like Al Gore and the people lounging in air-conditioned conference rooms in Bali, attending a climate change conference. It was all pretty sickening then, but it's even more sickening now.
I quoted an article as saying:
"Fans reckon trading volumes will soon be worth many billions of pounds per year. James Cameron at the investment boutique Climate Change Capital said: “I think this is likely to get bigger than the interest-rate-swaps market within 10 to 15 years, particularly once America joins in.” ...Louis Redshaw at Barclays Capital said: “We were the first British bank involved and are now the biggest banking participant. We handle transactions that are many multiples of the standard market size of 10,000 tonnes. A million-tonne transaction is not out of the question."
Now we can connect a couple of dots to see how sickening this all is.
Interest-rate swaps are a market with over $300 trillion dollars in synthetic security assets. Cameron and Redshaw want to create a carbon trading market that was bigger than that.
BUT, we learned a few months ago that Barclays bank was at the heart of a scheme, from 2004-2008, to manipulate Libor interest rates, and this affects the values of interest rate swaps. (See "17-Jul-12 World View -- Barclay's COO admits having rigged Libor, thought it was OK" from July.)
So at the time that banksters like Redshaw at Barclays were planning to use carbon trading to create a market bigger than interest rate swaps, the rigging of interest rate swaps was at its peak, and the banksters at Barclays would have known this. They knew that Barclays bank was already defrauding the public by using Libor to manipulate the prices of interest rates swaps, and they almost assuredly were dreaming up a similar scheme to defraud the public using synthetic securities based on carbon credits.
This is why I keep saying: The same Generation-X banksters that caused the financial crisis are still in the same jobs, finding new ways to defraud people, and Generation-X prosecutors refuse to investigate and prosecute other Gen-Xers, even for obvious crimes. After all these years, not a single bankster has gone to jail for the financial crisis, even though the evidence of massive, purposeful fraud is abundant. These leaves the banksters free to create new and bigger frauds, secure in the knowledge that they won't be prosecuted.
So, the European politicians and banksters are now looking for ways to salvage the collapsing Emissions Trading System (ETS), and they plan to do it with harsh new emission control regulations that will stifle business further, at a time when Europe's economy is collapsing. Does everyone understand why I call these people idiots? Spiegel
In a case coming to court in London on Monday, Guardian Care Homes is claiming that they were defrauded by Barclays Bank, when the bank sold Guardian interest rate swaps during the credit bubble. Interest rate swaps are like insurance policies that pay off if interest rates go too far up or down. They're used by companies that want to protect themselves from losing money if that happens. Interest rates swaps are priced by an algorithm that includes the Libor rate, and Barclays bank admitted in July that it had fraudulently manipulated the Libor rate from 2004-2008 for its own gain. (See "17-Jul-12 World View -- Barclay's COO admits having rigged Libor, thought it was OK" from July.) Guardian is suing Barclays for 12 million pounds, claiming that it lost that much money from Barclays' Libor rigging. There are $300 trillion in interest rate swap contracts in portfolios around the world, and some experts claim that $230 trillion of those swaps were tied to Libor. All of those contracts are suspect because of Libor rigging by Barclays and 16 other banks. Other lawsuits are still in the planning stages, and some estimates are that banks will pay $6 billion in damages collectively. But the fallout goes beyond litigation costs. London's banks in particular have had to set aside billions of pounds to cover potential customer claims, and London's reputation has been severely damaged as a world financial center. Bloomberg
With Japan's economy continuing to worsen, mainstream economists are increasingly accepting the belief that Japan is not just in a prolonged slump but also in an inescapable decline. Frankly, I hadn't expected this. Japan had a generational stock market and real estate crash in 1990, following a huge bubble throughout the 1980s, and I would have thought that by this time Japan would have recovered from it. (See "Japan's real estate crash may finally end after 16 years" from 2007.)
But maybe I should have expected this result. After all, America's stock market crash began in 1929, and there was no full recovery until the early 1950s -- at least partially because of World War II. So perhaps a country can't recover from a generational financial crisis without a generational crisis war. At any rate, Japan has the highest amount of debt of any country in the world in relation to GDP -- public debt is 229% of GDP. For comparison, Greece is ranked second at 163%, and the United States is at 103%. And Japan is headed for a major war with China. Washington Post
20-60% of Russia's teenagers, male and female, are unfit for military duty because of reproductive illnesses, stemming from harmful habits, abortions, serious illnesses, and communicable diseases. This is one of the reasons being blamed for the failure of a four-year program to modernize Russia's armed forces. As a result, Russia is being forced to draft people as old as 27 years. Even so, large scale draft-dodging among the recruitment pool means that the army is far from its staffing goals, with the "permanent readiness" brigades may be undermanned by at least 30 percent. Jamestown and Healthy Russian Foundation
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 30-Oct-12 World View -- Banksters desperately seek to save Europe's carbon trading system thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(30-Oct-2012)
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China and Japan continue to prepare for war
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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An interim report by the leaders of the EU "troika" of organizations bailing out Greece -- the European Commission (EC), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) -- indicates that a "kick the can down the road" strategy is not currently being considered. Germany is refusing to consider any further "haircut", like the one earlier this year that reduced the principal of Greece's investors, such as banks, pension funds and insurers, by a full 75%. Those sources of money have been squeezed dry. Instead, a plan is being considered that:
In return for this drastic loss of sovereignty, Greece will be given two extra years, until 2016, to meet its budget targets. However, the cost of the delay may be 38 billion euros, higher than the 30 billion euros announced last week, and even higher than the 20 billion euros announced several months ago.
Separately, Mario Draghi, president of European Central Bank (ECB), warned both Greece and Spain that they must be willing to give something up if they want a bailout. "Countries have to give up part of their sovereignty if we want to restore trust in the eurozone," he said.
There is apparently only one alternative being considered: Allowing Greece to leave the eurozone, and return to the drachma currency. According to one official:
"The austerity needed to restore wage and price competitiveness will break society first. We are sacrificing a generation of young people who cannot find work, and all in the name of the euro. It is irresponsible. A euro exit would offer hope at last."
Russia's president Vladimir Putin agreed, saying Greece would "have a way out" if it could return to the drachma and devalue. Telegraph
Japan's military, the Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF), is cancelling joint amphibious military exercises with the United States to defend the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. The joint exercises have been scheduled for a long time, but Japan is canceling them out of sensitivity to China. However, the GSDF is planning to develop its own amphibious capabilities, so that it won't have to depend on the U.S. to help it defend the islands. The GSDF has never had to develop large-scale amphibious landing operations in the past, since up till now, the GSDF has been strictly limited to the defense of Japanese territories. However, China is watching these activities very closely, and is preparing it's own military forces.
"We are watching very closely what action Japan might take regarding the Diaoyu islands and their adjacent waters. The action that Japan might take will shape China's countermeasures.”If Japan continues down its current wrong path and takes more erroneous actions and creates incidents regarding the Diaoyu Islands and challenges China, China will definitely take strong measures to respond to that.
There is no lack of countermeasures China might take in response,” he added.
We have the confidence and the ability to uphold the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity. No amount of foreign threats or pressure will shake the resolve of the Chinese government and people."
Japan is patrolling the islands with its coast guard ships, and China has sent its own warships to patrol the islands. So far, they've had only verbal confrontations, ordering each other to get away from the islands, but both sides are prepared for battle. Asahi Shimbum (Tokyo) and China Post (Taipei)
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The press is full of anecdotal stories about enormous Chinese hatred directed toward the Japanese.
Tingyi, the leading Chinese instant noodle producer, has had sales of its "Master Kang" instant noodles plummet because the company is partially owned by a Japanese firm. Protesters are holding up flags saying, "Boycott Japanese products, boycott Master Kang." Tingyi is making accusations of corporate sabotage -- it said that its main competitor, Uni-President, maker of "Tong-I Minced Pork Noodles," is spreading lies that Tingyi is controlled by Japan. Tingyi is getting even by distributing leaflets claiming that Uni-President is also a Japanese firm. Global Times
A Shanghai-based American expat reports about Furenju Realty, a real estate broker with a sign on their store front window saying, "We will not do business with Japanese pigs!" He tells of the nasty encounter he had with the racist agency over plans to rent a new place to live. Shanghaiist"
Sales of Nissan and Toyota cars in China have plummeted because of the islands dispute, and both companies have suspended shipments of finished vehicles at least until January. In fiscal 2011, Nissan sold 1.247 million vehicles in China, including luxury models exported from Japan. Nissan's sales in China account for about 25% of the maker's total global sales. Asahi Shimbum (Tokyo)
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, these anecdotes reflect surging xenophobia and nationalism in China -- something that will keep on surging until it leads to war.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 29-Oct-12 World View -- Europeans demand sovereign control of Greece thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(29-Oct-2012)
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Burma acknowledges a genocidal scorched-earth policy against Muslim Rohingyas
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Former Pakistani cricket superstar Imran Khan, now an anti-American "hope and change" Pakistani politician, is visiting the United States this weekend on a fund-raising tour for his bid to win next year's Pakistan presidential election. Many expect Khan to win, as he's been drawing huge crowds. (See "Hope and change Pakistan candidate Imran Khan draws huge crowd in Karachi" from last November.) On Saturday, Khan was taken off an international flight from Canada to New York and questioned by US immigration officials over his views on drone strikes and "holy war." U.S. immigration authorities did not give the reason for detaining him briefly, but a spokesman said, "Under US immigration law, applicants for admission bear the burden of proof to establish that they are clearly eligible to enter the United States. In order to demonstrate that they are admissible, the applicant must overcome all grounds of inadmissibility." Few Americans have the vaguest clue who Imran Khan is, but moderate Muslim groups in the U.S. know who he is and have been protesting to US secretary of state Hillary Clinton to revoke Khan's visa. Guardian (London)
Burma's government has acknowledged that the violence in Rakhine State in western Burma (Myanmar) is spiraling into genocide and a scorched-earth program, following the release by Human Rights Watch of satellite photos of five villages where violence has taken place. As we reported yesterday, most of the violence is being perpetrated by Buddhists in the Rakhine ethnic group, directed against Muslims in the Rohingya ethnic group. Independent and Human Rights Watch
Pat Caddell, who was an aide to President Jimmy Carter and who has worked in several other Democratic administrations, says he is "nauseated" by by active participation of the mainstream media in covering up any news, such as the news about Benghazi, that might be harmful to President Obama's reelection chances. In a speech earlier this week, he concluded:
"But all I want to conclude to this is that we face a fundamental danger here. The fundamental danger is this: I talked about the defense of the First Amendment. The press’s job is to stand in the ramparts and protect the liberty and freedom of all of us from a government and from organized governmental power. When they desert those ramparts and decide that they will now become active participants, that their job is not simply to tell you who you may vote for, and who you may not, but, worse—and this is the danger of the last two weeks—what truth that you may know, as an American, and what truth you are not allowed to know, they have, then, made themselves a fundamental threat to the democracy, and, in my opinion, made themselves the enemy of the American people. And it is a threat to the very future of this country if that—we allow this stuff to go on. We have crossed a whole new and frightening slide on the slippery slope this last two weeks, and it needs to be talked about."
I can only agree with this. I've written several times in 2007 and later that NBC News and the New York Times actively sided with al-Qaeda in Iraq against the United States, and as far as I'm concerned, they're guilty of treason. Whether Obama or Romney wins on November 6, the mainstream media will continue to be a danger to our country. The Gen-Xers at these institutions are behaving just like Germany's Lost Generation in the 1930s that created the Holocaust. That's how generational hatred works during generational Crisis eras. To say that they're a danger to America is not an overstatement. Accuracy in Media
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Italy's colorful former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was convicted and sentenced to four years of jail time on Friday for corruption. However, he will appeal the decision and, at age 76, it seems unlikely that he'll ever go to jail. Puffing with anger, Berlusconi called the court hearing a fraud, and said, "Ours is not a democracy but a dictatorship of the judges." He's threatening to withdraw his party's support from the government of supposedly non-partisan technocrats, headed by Mario Monti, that took power when he was forced to step down last year because of the financial crisis. However, Italy's economy has significantly worsened since Monti took power, as it has in countries around the eurozone. Berlusconi was prime minister three times in the past: 1994-5, 2001-6, and 2008-11. While prime minister, his "bunga bunga" parties with aspiring starlets became world famous. However, he is also currently on trial, charged with paying for sex with underage girl and trying to cover it up. He denies any wrongdoing. BBC
Appearing on the Tonight Show earlier this week, President Barack Obama was asked about helping his daughters with homework, and said:
"Well, the math stuff I was fine with up until about seventh grade. But Malia is now a freshman in High School and I’m pretty lost."
This explains a number of things about the last four years. I have no idea how much math Mitt Romney understands, but it would be nice for our country's President, whoever he is, to at least be able to do simple algebra and geometry. In fact, he'd know a lot more about how the world works if he understood a little calculus as well.
What does it say about Harvard Law School that someone can graduate barely able to do 7th grade math? As an MIT graduate, I can say that this confirms a number of things that MIT students say about Harvard.
As I've written many times, the analysts on CNBC are too stupid to be able to a simple division of prices by earnings, to get a correct price/earnings ratio. They earn multi-million dollar bonuses, but they can't do simple math. Maybe they all went to Harvard Business School. Daily Mail
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 28-Oct-12 World View -- Silvio Berlusconi threatens to bring down Italy's government thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(28-Oct-2012)
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A so-called 'truce' in Syria lasts only nanoseconds
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Lakhdar Brahimi, who recently replaced Kofi Annan as the United Nations envoy to Syria, entered the world of Alice in Wonderland last week by begging all sides in Syria to agree to a ceasefire for the three-day Muslim holiday this weekend. Of course both sides said they'd agree, but there was barely any ceasefire at all, with each side blaming the other for breaking the truce. There was fighting across Syria, and there was a car bombing in Damascus that the Bashar al-Assad regime blamed on the opposition. However, the al-Assad regime has lied repeatedly about almost everything, and has set off car bombs themselves and blamed them on the opposition, so it's quite possible that Friday's car bombing was perpetrated by the regime. Either way, the whole cease-fire thing was a joke. Like Kofi Annan's farcical six-point peace plan, the cease-fire just makes things worse in Syria by providing the al-Assad regime to continue their massacres of innocent women and children in their beds. Reuters
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U.N. alarmed as ethnic violence grows in western Burma (Myanmar)
The United Nations is expressing alarm at the level of ethnic and religious violence, which has substantially surged in the last four days in Rakhine State in Western Burma. There was a burst of violence in June (see "11-Jun-12 World View -- Burma (Myanmar) declares state of emergency over Buddhist/Muslim violence"), triggered by an alleged rape of a Buddhist Rakhine girl by Muslim Rohingyas. But this new wave of violence and massacres is much worse, leaving dozens killed, almost 2000 homes destroyed, and thousands of refugees. Many Rohingyas have put to sea in boats hoping to reach Bangladesh, but Bangladesh already has hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas in squalid refugee camps, and has now closed its borders to fleeing Rohingya refugees. The Rohingya have a darker skin than Burmese, and they speak a Bengali dialect. They are, for all practical purposes, a stateless ethnic group, living on the Bangladesh-Burma border, but rejected by both countries. In fact, Burma refuses to identify the Rohingya as a unique ethnic group, preferring to call them Bengali, and referring to them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Burma is almost entirely a Buddhist state, including the Rakhine ethnic group that make up most of the population of Rakhine state. This presents a good opportunity to explain further the Generational Dynamics concept of a crisis civil war. A number of people have questioned why I keep saying that a crisis civil war in Syria is impossible, and that the conflict going on there could fizzle at any time. As I've explained many times, a non-crisis war comes from the politicians, rather than from the people. The Syrian conflict is being driven by president Bashar al-Assad, and if he were to step down, it's quite possible that the conflict would fizzle immediately. But clearly that's not what we're seeing in Rakhine State. There is no politician, to my knowledge, who is driving this conflict. If Burma's president Thein Sein were to step down, it would not affect one bit the fighting between Muslim Rohingya and Buddhist Rakhine. Another difference is that you don't see the U.N. sending envoys like Kofi Annan or Lakhdar Brahimi to Burma to negotiate a cease-fire -- who would they negotiate with? The Rohingya-Rakhine conflict is coming from the people, and it's not going to fizzle out. In fact, it's very close to exploding into a full-scale crisis civil war. BBC and AP
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 27-Oct-12 World View -- U.N. alarmed as ethnic violence grows in western Burma (Myanmar) thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(27-Oct-2012)
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New Boeing weapon can target and shut down all electronics
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Wells Fargo and U.S. Bancorp are among two banks that have are now charging 300% interest or more for small short-term loans often called "payday loans" because the bank recovers the money automatically from direct deposit accounts, as soon as the borrower receives his weekly or monthly pay. The loans are fairly low risk for the bank, since they can recover the loan, plus interest and fees, by directly debiting the borrowers bank account, and yet the banks are charging interest rates that are so high as to be in violation of some state laws. These payday loans are particularly vicious, because the banks target them at people who don't understand interest rates, of which there are plenty, and pull them into a vicious cycle where they have to keep borrowing because each new paycheck keeps getting swallowed up by the bank. Earlier this year, Wells Fargo was fined $175 million for defrauding for overcharging minorities during the subprime bubble. Banksters continue to search for new ways to increase their million dollary bonuses. Bloomberg
Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he will join forces with his foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, in January's elections. Lieberman is often referred to as "ultra-nationalist" because of his inflammatory rhetoric directed at Arabs, including a proposed law that would require Israelis to sign a loyalty oath or have their citizenship revoked. According to Netanyahu on Thursday:
"We are facing great challenges and this is the time to unite forces for the sake of Israel. Therefore Likud and Yisrael Beitenu [political parties of Netanyahu and Lieberman, respectively] will run together on the same ticket in the next elections.We are asking for a mandate from the public to lead Israel against security threats, above all preventing Iran from arming itself with nuclear weapons and the struggle against terror."
Lieberman himself was a 1978 immigrant from Moldova, and has sought to represent the more than 1 million immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Al-Jazeera
Boeing has successfully tested a new weapon, the Counter-Electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP), that can target electronic devices without harming humans or buildings. A plane can shoot a CHAMPS burst at a compound, and immediately shut down all electronic equipment, including radar stations. The weapon was developed to counter "passive radar" systems that many countries are adopting to defeat American stealth technology. Business Insider
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Officials from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported to euro zone financial ministers that Greece's situation is much worse than previously predicted, and that Greece will badly miss its financial targets:
"It is clear that Greece is off track and there is no chance they will cut the debt to 120 percent of GDP in 2020 as envisaged. It will be rather 136 percent, and this would be under a positive scenario of a primary budget surplus, a return to economic growth, and privatisation."
In other words, even in the most unrealistically optimistic assumptions, the austerity measures already committed by Greece will fail by a substantial amount to meet Greece's commitment to lower its debt to 120% of GDP by 2020. If more realistic assumptions are plugged in, the target will be missed by substantially more.
This news comes at a time when the political situations in both Athens and Brussels are in total chaos. In Athens, the coalition of prime minister Antonis Samaras was threatened with collapse, as the Democratic Left persisted in opposition to the demands of the "troika" of European leaders for labor reforms that would lay off public sector works and raise retirement ages. In Brussels, the question of whether Greece would be granted its requested 2-year postponement of additional austerity measures was still a subject of debate. Furthermore, Wednesday's IMF report contained further bad news: Granting the 2-year extension would require giving Greece an additional 30 billion euros in bailout money, not just 20 billion as previous estimated.
As I and other people have been saying for two years, there is no solution to the problem of Greece's debt in this generational Crisis era. That is, it's not that politicians are not clever enough to think of a solution, and it's not that they've thought of two or three different satisfactory solutions, but can't agree on which one to implement. It's that no solution exists. This has been apparent for two years to anyone who does the math.
But now the same thing has become apparent to pretty much everybody, including people who are incapable of doing any math. There will be a European summit meeting for four days over the weekend, with plans for working sessions day and night. My bet is still that they'll find a way to kick the can down the road a while longer, just allowing the problem to worsen. But there's a growing opposition to that, especially from Germany, Finland and the Netherlands, since it's just "throwing good money after bad." So there's a possibility, though in my opinion not likely, that after four days and nights of arguing and haggling and shouting, the European summit leaders may finally conclude that they have no choice but to throw Greece under the bus. Reuters and Kathimerini
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 26-Oct-12 World View -- Europe is at a crossroads over Greece thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(26-Oct-2012)
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Greece does chaotic about-face on rumors of bailout agreement
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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The Yarmouth military factory in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, exploded on Wednesday. Sudan blamed Israel for the explosions, referring to residents who reported seeing aircraft prior to the explosions. Israel refused to comment, but are known to believe that Sudan smuggles weapons to militants in Gaza. Sudan claims that the factory only made "traditional weapons," but there are unconfirmed reports that the factory produced Iranian Shehab missiles. There is a history here: In 1998 the US launched a missile attack on a pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, alleging that it was making materials for chemical weapons an accusation that Sudan denied. BBC and Debka
The German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on Wednesday that European leaders had finally agreed to Greece's request for a two-year delay in imposing further austerity requirements, thus clearing the way for Greece to receive the next 31.5 billion euro bailout payment in time to avoid bankruptcy in November. The two year extension would be controversial, since it would increase by 20 billion euros the total amount of bailout money that would have to be provided to Greece. Greece's finance minister Yannis Stournaras announced the two-year extension in return for a set of tax increases and public sector job cuts, but later in the day was forced to reverse himself and admit that Germany and other European officials had vetoed the deal. One Greek official said that the "troika" of European leaders will be forced to provide the bailout payment, irrespective of Greece's commitments:
"Even if the troika give us a negative report, what are they going to do? Are they really going to not give us the installment [to keep Greece's economy afloat] two weeks before the US elections, with everything that entails – default, bankruptcy, global market turmoil?These labour reforms will turn our country into Bangladesh. They have no fiscal benefit and will actually derail the adjustment programme. The political system will collapse if we impose them.
The troika is demanding that we commit suicide, which is why we believe this is a matter that should be solved on a political level by the prime minister and not with the troika."
I guess if the American election depends on it, then there's no choice, is there? Spiegel and Guardian (London)
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Major realignments are in progress after Tuesday's visit to Gaza by Qatar's emir Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani that we reported yesterday. During the visit, Sheik Hamad announced $400 million in aid to Hamas, and Egypt announced an effective end to the blockade of Gaza. However, the visit apparently angered some of the non-Hamas militant groups in Gaza, who launched a shower of missiles on Israeli cities. But now there are reports that Egypt has mediated a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. Similar claims in the past turned out to be false or transitory. Ynet
An even more significant outcome of Sheik Hamad's visit is the further separation of Gaza and the West Bank, as Hamad ostentatiously refused to visit the West Bank. Although Gaza and the West Bank are often thought of as similar "Palestinian territories" that will one day be joined into a Palestinian state, the two populations are far apart, with different tribal backgrounds, and with different allegiances -- the West Bank to Jordan, and Gaza to Egypt. Those differences have only grown and turned into animosities since the two regions became geographically separated after the 1967 war. Recently, it's been almost impossible for someone in Gaza to visit the West Bank, except by traveling to Egypt, taking a plane to Jordan, and then traveling from there to the West Bank.
It's now apparent to most people that there is little chance of reconciliation between Gaza and the West Bank, and one proposal being increasingly heard is that Israel annex the West Bank -- making it an actual part of Israel, leaving Gaza to become a separate nation on its own. However, this would have bitter political implications. According to a recent poll, most Israeli Jews would accept such a proposal only provided that Jews would have preference over Arabs for public sector jobs, and the West Bank Palestinians should not have the right to vote in Israel. CS Monitor and Al-Ahram (Cairo)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 25-Oct-12 World View -- Proposals grow for Israel to annex the West Bank thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(25-Oct-2012)
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MSNBC's Chris Matthews spreads filth after Monday's debate
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In a dramatic development that augurs a Mideast realignment, Qatar's emir Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani visited the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, and committed to giving $400 million to the Hamas leadership for building and infrastructure projects. The move is a final step in a process that began with the conflict in Syria. For years, Iran has been providing Hamas with money and weapons to be used one day in an attack on Israel. This never made any sense, but it was part of the erotic wet dream of Iran's senior leadership that they could become the new leaders of the Muslim world, somewhat in the same way that the Ottoman empire led the Muslim world for centuries. Hamas has been willing to take Iran's money, but there was no way that Sunni Hamas would ever relinquish any control to Shia Iran. Even though the arrangement never made sense, it continued for years, but began to collapse with the conflict in Syria. For almost two years, Syria's president Bashar al-Assad has been conducting massive extermination attacks on innocent Arab women and children in their homes in Syria's cities, and Hamas is unable to support al-Assad in that extermination effort. Hamas had a very close relationship with al-Assad because of their shared "resistance" to Israel, and even had Hamas' headquarters in Damascus, the capital of Syria. But gradually last year Hamas cut ties to Syria, moving its headquarters to Doha, the capital of Qatar. Guardian (London)
In his visit to Gaza, Qatar's Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani called for a reconciliation between the two Palestinian organizations, Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Fatah in the West Bank.
"The Palestinian cause ... remains a bleeding wound in the Arab body as Israel continues every day to change the face of Palestinian land through its settlement activities and Judaisation in the occupied West Bank and especially in Jerusalem.Surely you realise that your division [between Hamas and Fatah] is the source of greater harm to your cause and the cause of all Arabs. It is time you end the chapter of differences and open a wide chapter for reconciliation."
In fact, Sheik Hamad has ostentatiously snubbed the West Bank leaders. I've written several times in the past that the al-Jazeera news channel, headquartered in Doha and funded by Qatar, appears to hate the West Bank even more than it hates Israel, and Tuesday's visit by Sheik Hamad seems to confirm that observation. Al-Jazeera
Since Israeli/Egyptian blockade of Gaza began five years ago, the importation of building materials into Gaza has been strictly controled, since they can be used to build weapons and bunkers as well as people's homes. However, Egypt will permit the construction materials that Qatar is funding to pass through the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, effectively ending the blockade of Gaza.
As I've written many times, Generational Dynamics predicts that there will be a new Mideast war between Arabs and Jews, re-fighting the the war that followed the 1948 partitioning of Palestine and the creatioin of the state of Israel. This war will engulf the whole region, and become a sectarian wars between Sunnis and Shia. Hamas's split with Iran, Syria's sectarian conflict, and Tuesday's visit to Gaza by Qatar's emir, aligned with Egypt's president Morsi's agreement to effectively end the blockade, are all a part of a major realignment in Mideast politics that moves us closer to that Mideast war. WSJ
After Monday's debate between President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney, MSNBC's commentator Chris Matthews called Romney supporters racists:
"I think they hate Obama. They want him out of the White House more than they want to destroy al Qaeda. Their No. 1 enemy in the world right now, on the right, is their hatred, hatred for Obama. And we can go into that about the white working class in the South and looking at these numbers we're getting the last couple days about racial hatred in many cases ... this isn't about being a better president, they want to get rid of this president,"
This guy is so far in the sewer that it's a disgrace to America that he occupies a prominent position that permits him to spread his filth as much as he wants. The Hill
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 24-Oct-12 World View -- Qatar breaks Gaza blockade and replaces Iran as Hamas's benefactor thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(24-Oct-2012)
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Lebanon's politicians turn against Hizbollah
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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A court in the central Italian city of L'Aquila on Monday sentenced six scientists and a government bureaucrat to six years in jail on manslaughter charges for their failure to predict a 2009 earthquake that left more than 300 people dead. The seven are all members of the "National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks." This commission met early in 2009, and responded to the question of whether there would be a repeat of the disastrous earthquake of 1703. The response was: "It is unlikely that an earthquake like the one in 1703 could occur in the short term, but the possibility cannot be totally excluded." That was enough to find them guilty of criminal manslaughter. Apparently the Italian court system consists of a bunch of morons.
For ten years, I've been using this web site to predict things that, unlike earthquakes, actually CAN be predicted. (See "List of major Generational Dynamics predictions" from 2008.) But that's not what bothers me.
What bothers me is that six scientists have been sentenced to jail for doing their jobs honestly, as far as I can tell, while none of the banksters that caused the financial crisis have gone to jail. If you turn on CNBC or Bloomberg TV, you see banksters making 7-digit salaries and bonues who lie constantly, particularly stock price/earnings ratios, also called "valuations." If you look at the Wall Street Journal , you'll see that the current S&P 500 price/earnings ratio is 17.03, far, far higher than the historical average of 14, meaning that stocks are far overpriced. But the so-called experts on CNBC and Bloomberg TV tell full-throated lies, saying that valuations are around 7 or 8 or 9 or 10 or are historically low. (See "14-Apr-12 World View -- Wharton School's Jeremy Siegel is lying about stock valuations" from earlier this year.) So we scientists in Italy doing their jobs and being sent to jail by morons, and we have crooks and liars on CNBC and Bloomberg TV who are NOT going to jail. CS Monitor
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A group of North Korean defectors in South Korea have defied the South Korean army and launched balloons carrying 120,000 leaflets criticizing North Korea across the North Korean border. When the defectors announced the plan last week, North Korea said its army will launch a "merciless military strike" if the leaflet balloons were launch, saying that the balloons were "undisguised psychological warfare." South Korea immediately went on high alert and responded that it was prepared to "completely destroy" the North Korean attack. However, the South Korean army and police were sent out to stop the balloon launch. The defectors evaded the army and launched most of the balloons anyway. A U.S. envoy in Beijing said, "It is grossly disproportionate to have threatened to respond to balloons with bombs." Yonhap (Seoul) and Arirang (Seoul)
Hizbollah is both an international terrorist group and a political party in Lebanon, with links to Iran and to the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria. However, its continued support for al-Assad, as he's been almost two years of extermination attacks on innocent Arab women and children in their homes, has caused Hizbollah to be weakened, and allowed opposition politicians in Lebanon to stand up to Hizbollah where they previously didn't dare to do so. Particular criticism is now being directed against Hizbollah for its use of weapons for any purpose other than the "Resistance," where the word "Resistance" refers to actions taken against Israel. Hizbollah's weapons are to be used ONLY for the "resistance," but now Hizbollah is being criticized for using its weapons illegally -- sometimes against Lebanese people who oppose Hizbollah, but more importantly now in support of Bashar al-Assad's extermination policy.
Lebanese President and former commander of the Lebanese army Michel Suleiman, who became president of Lebanon in 2008 with the blessings of Syria and Hizbollah, has now become particularly critical of Hizbollah, and is demanding that Hizbollah's weapons be turned over to Lebanon's military:
"[We] propose to approve a law to arm the Lebanese army for the intermediate future, and to allocate sufficient resources to develop its human and military capabilities, so that it can formulate a plan to defend the country's land, air, and sea. [Until then], all sides [must] agree on the framework and appropriate mechanisms for use of the resistance weapons, for determining who controls them, and for approving [a procedure for] handing them over to the military, which is exclusively responsible for operating mechanisms of power. ...We have decided to arm the Lebanese military in five years, so that it will have the exclusive capability to carry weapons in Lebanon and defend the land."
A Hizbollah spokesman has replied:
"In Lebanon there is one party called Hizbollah. We do not have a military wing and a political wing. We do not have Hizbollah [on one hand] and the resistance party [on the other]. Hizbollah is a political party and the resistance party. The distinctions being drawn by certain people are forbidden and nonexistent. ... No one is competing with the state for exclusive control of weapons... However, if the intention of the slogan [that the state should exclusively control the weapons] is to disarm the resistance, then we say to them that this is the last thing they should think of. ...We will protect our weapons at any cost, [for] they are like the blood flowing through our veins."
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After fighting two bitter wars in the first half of the 20th century, Germany and France have generally been unified after World War II in pursuing political objectives to guarantee that there would never be another war. But the recent European Summit exposed huge policy differences between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande, as well as the fact that they despise each other. Some of the personal and policy differences are:
The Germans are particularly dismayed over Hollande's attempt to paint himself as the spokesman of the southern EU countries. It upsets them that he's is reviving old plans for a Mediterranean union on Europe's southern edge, including four other Southern European and five North African countries. Spiegel
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 23-Oct-12 World View -- After 50 years of political unity, France and Germany's relations are increasingly hostile thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(23-Oct-2012)
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Russia conducts a large security operation in North Caucasus
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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In a letter written by Emir Abdelmalek Droukdel, head of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and seized by Algerian security forces during a raid, Droukdel says that AQIM "is sick" because of "terrorist members that no longer respect the decisions of the emirs." (Sounds like a generational problem.) He noted "the fragility of the situation and the low morale among many of its members, and discontent with the emirs who are considered to be responsible for the situation," and said that the organisation suffers from instability, internal problems as well as regulatory gaps due to lack of co-ordination and poorly defined responsibilities. He acknowledged the effectiveness of the Algerian security forces who had eliminated a large number of field leaders, and who used security barriers and explosive detectors, "which rendered movements and terrorist operations difficult." Magharebia
After the Libyan conflict, large stores of Muammar al-Gaddafi's weapons fell into the hands of local militant groups, including al-Qaeda linked terrorist groups. It already appears that the same thing is happening in Syria. In the past few weeks, there have been increasing reports that Syrian opposition forces, sometimes linked with al-Qaeda linked jihadists, have seized control of air defense bases of the Syrian military, and have captured considerable quantities of weapons and ammunition, including missiles and missile launchers, mortars and radars. According to some reports, Syrian opposition forces have taken control of a plant housing large 100-kilogram chlorine tanks, each of which is "capable of destroying a town of 25,000 people." The rebels say that they've "sealed" the plant, while retaining control of it. Memri
Reports indicate that the Lebanese terrorist group Hizbollah is fully engaged in the Syrian conflict, and is launching rocket attacks into Syria in support of the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad. Residents of the targeted area say that the attacks began six weeks ago, and are getting heavier. Hizbollah is thought to have thousands of rockets that were supplied by Iran for use in a future war with Israel, but now they're being used against the Syrian opposition. According to one analyst, "Hizbollah is not just protecting the Syrian regime, they are protecting themselves. They are protecting the smuggling routes in Syria that they use to get weapons from Iran and their Shia supporters on the border." Telegraph (London) and Israel National News
Russia's National Antiterrorism Committee (NAK) says that a large operation in the North Caucasus (Russia's largely Muslim southern provinces) has been conducted in the last few weeks, and that hundreds of "wanted" people have been taken into custody. The security operation resulted in the seizure of some 30 improvised explosive devices, more than 100 kilograms of material used for making explosives, more than 100 weapons, and some 530 mines, rockets, and grenades as well as a large amount of ammunition. Russia's president Vladimir Putin referred to several international events scheduled to be held in Russia, such as the Winter Olympic Games in 2014 in Sochi and the soccer World Cup in 2018, and said: "It is a matter of honor for all law enforcement officials to ensure that these events be staged in a normal, business-like, and festive manner, so that nothing can cast a pall over them." RFERL
The European Union leadership planning to attend the summit scheduled for Thursday and Friday, November 22-23, are being warned to pack at least four shirts, as the summit will almost certainly be extended to run through the entire weekend, with working sessions running all through each night. Topics to be discuss will include:
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The issue came to a head in at an EU summit in Brussels in 2005, in which UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac disputed the terms of the EU budget for 2007-2013. Blair offered to agree to end the EU rebate to the UK, if Chirac agreed to reduce the CAP subsidies to France. Chirac demanded that Blair give up the rebate with nothing in return. The dispute between the two men turned into an extremely vitriolic confrontation. The furious EU President Jean-Claude Juncker sided with Chirac and condemned Blair and the UK, saying he felt ashamed that "certain people did not have the will to reach agreement when some poorer other countries were willing to do so." Now the issue is back on the table again.
This marathon summit meeting ought to be interesting because it's just about the time when Greece will go bankrupt unless it receives another bailout payment, and it's pretty clear that Greece will not meet the austerity requirements to qualify for that bailout payment. So will Greece go bankrupt? According to the "Kick the Can Theory," which says that Europeans will always find a way to kick the can down the road, the summit will find some excuse for approving the bailout payment, so that Greece can go on spending money for another few months. EurActiv
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 22-Oct-12 World View -- Desperate European leaders plan for marathon summit next month thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(22-Oct-2012)
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Chinese fisherman killed while fishing in South Korean waters
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The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington cruised through the South China Sea on Saturday, in a show of force to counter China's claim to the entire region. China is demanding sovereignty over the entire South China Sea, including areas historically belonging to other countries, and has established a military base in the Paracel Islands to be able to use its vast military power to enforce its demands militarily. One of the nations that China is threatening militarily is Vietnam, and Vietnamese security and government officials were flown onto the aircraft carrier to take part in the show of military force. The United States says that it takes no sides in the territorial disputes between China and all of its neighbors, but says it wants the disputes settled according to international law, and wants to guarantee freedom of passage through the South China Sea for all commercial traffic. AP
South Korea expressed regret Friday over the death of a Chinese fisherman who was with a group of 30 Chinese vessels fishing in South Korean waters. The Chinese fishermen used knives and clubs on South Korean Coast Guard officers attempting to board the fishing vessels. The South Koreans responded by firing rubber bullets, and one of the Chinese fishermen was killed. China is protesting the incident. So far this year, the South Korean coast guard has seized 130 Chinese fishing boats for poaching. Chinese fishermen consider the risk acceptable because the fish stocks off the South Korean coast are much richer (in quantity and quality) than off China (where overfishing has done a lot of damage). Yonhap and Strategy Page
Israel's navy has seized the Swedish ship "Estelle" of pro-Palestinian activists attempting to land at a Gaza port, thereby breaking Israel's blockade of Gaza. It was carrying 30 activists from Europe, Canada and Israel, humanitarian cargo such as cement and goodwill items such as children's books. The Israeli navy boarded the ship without incident and towed it to the Israeli port of Ashdod. The activists are expected to be deported, and the humanitarian aid will be transported overland to Gaza. Jerusalem Post
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 21-Oct-12 World View -- U.S. aircraft carrier and Vietnam show force in the South China Sea thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(21-Oct-2012)
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China's navy prepares for war with Japan
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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A massive car bomb exploded in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, around 3 pm on Friday afternoon. The bombing created a 15-foot-deep crater, killed eight people and wounded about 80 others. One of the dead, and the apparent target of the bombing, was Wissam al-Hassan, a senior member of Lebanon's intelligence services. Al-Hassan had been leading the investigation that implicated Syria and Hezbollah in the 2005 assassination of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri. Several government officials, including Saad al-Hariri, the son of Rafik, accused Syria of perpetrating the bombing. Syrian officials denied this, but no one believes anything that they say any more. Gulf Times
Lebanon today is in a generational Awakening era, just one generation past Lebanon's last generational crisis war, which began in 1975, and became a war with Syria in 1976. Israel was an off-and-on participant, and the war reached an explosive climax in 1982 when Christian Arab forces, allied with Israel, massacred and butchered hundreds or perhaps thousands of Palestinian refugees in camps in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Since that war ended, the Lebanese people have been haunted by that episode, and officials have been determined not to allow anything like it to happen again.
The killing of Rafik al-Hariri in 2005, frightened all of Lebanon, haunted by the fear that the brutal civil war would be revived. (See "Massive Beirut explosion killing Rafiq al-Hariri puts Lebanon into state of shock" from 2005). These fears soared with the 2006 war between Israel and Hizbollah, which mostly took place on Lebanese soil. Analysts around the world were predicting that Lebanon would return to all-out civil war. But as I wrote many times, before and since, a new crisis civil war is impossible in Lebanon during a generational Awakening era, because too many people remember the horrors of the previous civil war. During the 2006 war, I quoted Lebanese President Émile Geamil Lahoud as saying:
"Believe me, what we get from [Israeli bombers] is nothing compared to [what would happen] if there is an internal conflict [a new civil war] in Lebanon. So our thanks comes when we are united, and we are really united, and the national army is doing its work according to the government, and the resistance [Hizbollah] is respected in the whole Arab world from the population point of view. And very highly respected in Lebanon as well."
This is a really haunting remark, saying that Israel can't do anything worse to Lebanon than the Lebanese could do to themselves.
The 2005 murder of Rafik al-Hariri has been almost universally blamed on Syria and Hizbollah, and Friday's bombing and killing of Wissam al-Hassan has brought back all of these horrors, and Syria is being almost universally blamed again. Saad al-Hariri, the son of the murdered Rafik, said today:
"The message from Damascus today is anywhere you are, if you are against the regime from Lebanon, we will come and get you. No matter what you try to do, we will keep on assassinating the Lebanese."
BBC (2005) and CNN
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Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan was considered a hero by many people in Lebanon, because of his investigations to uncover plots against Lebanon itself. As the head of the Information Branch of the Internal Security Forces, he played a central role in cooperating with the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which was charged with getting all the facts surrounding the 2005 assassination of Rafik al-Hariri. It's thought that he would prove that the culprits were Syria or Hizbollah or both, and many people therefore conclude that Syria and Hizbollah were responsible for Friday's bombing. However, al-Hassan's investigations went well beyond the al-Hariri killing. He was highly lauded by everyone in Lebanon for overseeing the discovery and dismantling of Israeli espionage rings in the country. Daily Star (Beirut)
The reluctance of the West in general and Turkey in particular to intervene militarily to try to end Syria's conflict is based on the fear that military intervention would trigger a widespread Mideast war. However, Friday's bombing in Beirut is bringing many people to the conclusion that it's the reluctance to intervene that's allowing the Syrian conflict to spill over into neighboring countries, threatening to trigger exactly that widespread Mideast war. Lebanon is particularly vulnerable to the spillover, since the country is almost completely split in two between Shia/Hizbollah supporters of the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, and the Sunnis who are supporting the opposition. There have already been low-level clashes between Sunnis and Shia in the north Lebanon town of Tripoli, near the Syrian border. The shocking assassination of Sunni Muslim al-Hassan is almost certain to trigger new and heightened clashes.
But the Syrian conflict is spilling over into other countries as well. There are hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees crossing all the borders out of Syria, straining resources in Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey. The Syrian conflict has allowed the Kurds in eastern Syria to become self-governing, and the separatist PKK terrorists are staging an increasing number of terrorist attacks into Turkey, causing Turkey to consider invading Syria to bring the Kurds under control. There are already forces massed on the Turkish border with Syria, and there are American troops on Jordan's border with Syria, nominally to make sure that Syria's chemic weapons remain secure.
In 2003 I wrote that there would be a huge new Mideast war between Jews and Arabs, refighting the genocidal 1948 war that followed the partitioning of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel. (See "Mideast Roadmap - Will it bring peace?" from 2003.) There have been three wars since then -- the war between Israelis and Hizbollah, fought largely on Lebanon's soil in 2006; the war between Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah in Gaza in 2008, that led to Hamas control of Gaza; and Operation Cast Lead, the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza early in 2009.
So, will the conflict in Syria be the trigger that leads to an all-out Mideast war? Something has to be the trigger, and this might be it, but there are still reasons to believe that the Syrian conflict will fizzle out before it spreads to the whole region. Syria is also in a generational Awakening era, and so a crisis civil war is impossible there, just as it is in Lebanon. The main difference between a crisis war and a non-crisis war is that a crisis war comes from the people, while a non-crisis war comes from the politicians. There is no doubt that the Syria conflict is NOT coming from the people, but is coming from the regime of Bashar al-Assad. If al-Assad stepped down, then the civil war could fizzle very quickly. The conflict in Syria will not, on its own, turn into a crisis civil war, but if Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Hizbollah and Nato get involved, then it could spread into a regional war among those belligerents. Washington Post
China's naval forces on Friday held exercises to simulate defending against a clash with Japanese coast guard forces near the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, which are claimed by both countries, as well as by Taiwan. A total of 11 vessels, eight aircraft and more than 1,000 people from the East Sea Fleet of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) navy and regional bureaus of fishery management and oceanic administrations took part in the exercise. The exercise simulated a scenario in which Chinese marine surveillance and fishery management patrol vessels were obstructed by and clashed with foreign patrol ships during law enforcement missions in Chinese waters. The "clash" led to damage to Chinese vessels, and some of the crew members aboard the ships were injured and fell into the sea. The East Sea Fleet then sent frigates, hospital ships, tugboats, fighters as well as helicopters to back up and shield the vessels and provide emergency aid. According to a People's Liberation Army general, "We have gradually gained the initiative in the waters off the islets, shifting from passively defending to active law enforcement in the area. Such exercises could effectively deter those who dare infringe upon our maritime rights." Global Times (Beijing)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 20-Oct-12 World View -- Beirut Lebanon bombing raises specter of wider Mideast war thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(20-Oct-2012)
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Bitter Germany/France divisions mark European summit
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Some 70,000 furious Greeks took to the streets in Athens on Thursday, while European officials were at a summit in Brussels discussing the next round of austerity measures to impose on Greece. Protesters in Syntagma Square threw rocks, petrol bombs, bottles and chunks of marble at police, who responded with rounds of tear gas and stun grenades. One 60 year old protester, Nikos Xeros, is quoted as saying:
"After nearly 50 years of work and paying into an expensive pension fund, I have been forced to retire on 1,000 euros a month and if they pass these measures it will be even less. It's like having a noose about your neck that is getting ever tighter. The next time I come out to demonstrate it's going to be with a gas mask and a big wooden club."
Xeros has been working as a shipbuilder since age 16. AP and Guardian
Proceedings in the Greek parliament were disrupted Thursday when Eleni Zaroulia of the far right Golden Dawn party, an MP and member of a Council of Europe anti-discrimination committee, described immigrants as subhumans:
"It is unacceptable that they be assimilated to this kind of subhumans who have invaded our fatherland with the diseases that they lug around."
The loud support that she received is symptomatic of the growing support that the Golden Dawn party is receiving from the public. Violence against "subhuman" immigrants is growing, and there is some evidence that some Greek police are supporting the violence, or at least doing nothing to stop it. Greek Reporter
Another Golden Dawn MP, Ilias Panagiotaros, last week led a protest against a performance of the Terence McNally play, Corpus Christi. Panagiotaros shouted racist, homophobic and threatening remarks against the director of the play. The 1997 play dramatizes the story of Jesus and the Apostles, and includes a scene where Jesus administers a gay marriage between two apostles. A Youtube clip has Panagiotaros shouting, "Wrap it up you little faggots. Yes, just keep staring at me you little hooker. Your time is up." and "You Albanian assholes." Golden Dawn members threw rocks at audience members and, through it all, the police just stood by and let it happen. Panagiotaros is commemorating Greece's civil war that ended in 1949:
"There is already civil war.Greek society is ready - even though no-one likes this - to have a fight: a new type of civil war.
On the one side there will be nationalists like us, and Greeks who want our country to be as it used to be, and on the other side illegal immigrants, anarchists and all those who have destroyed Athens several times."
The attack on Corpus Christi has become a signal moment in Greek politics, and greater nationalism and violence directed against immigrants. BBC
Around 500 supporters of Hungary's far right Jobbik party demonstrated against Roma Gypsies in the Hungarian city of Miskolc, protesting against "Gypsy crime" in the Avas housing development mostly occupied, some illegally, by poor Roma families. The housing development was originally built to house an influx of Roma workers in the 1980s, but when factories closed down in the 1990s, Avas has fallen into disrepair. Jobbik supporters are calling for the eviction of families that owe rent or public utility bills, and an "end to the terror." Like Greece's Golden Dawn party, Hungary's nationalistic Jobbik party is growing in popularity. BBC and Politics (Hungary)
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European leaders have arrived in Brussels for a two-day European Union summit with a bitter dispute growing between France and Germany. France's president François Hollande would like to extend as much credit as possible to the "Club Med" countries, Greece, Italy and Spain. Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel is much more cautious, and is making a counter-demand: That Brussels be given a budgetary veto over euro zone countries. However, Hollande has stated that France will never give up any budgetary authority to anyone. At stake is the next bailout loan to Greece. Expect the "Kick the Can Theory" to be followed, and that the EU officials will find a way to kick the can down the road, postponing the problems for a few additional weeks or months, after which the problems will be MUCH worse than they are today. Al-Jazeera
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 19-Oct-12 World View -- Nationalism and Neo-Nazi violence increase across Europe thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(19-Oct-2012)
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Switzerland may be preparing for war
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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The European Union Foreign Affairs Council this week significantly broadened the sanctions against Iran, hoping to force Iran to give up it's nuclear development program. The new European measures include a general ban on financial transactions, with some exceptions for those involving humanitarian aid and provisions for legitimate trade. However, human rights groups are saying that millions of lives re at risk in Iran because the western economic sanctions are hitting the importing of medicines and hospital equipment. According to U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon:
"The sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran have had significant effects on the general population, including an escalation in inflation, a rise in commodities and energy costs, an increase in the rate of unemployment and a shortage of necessary items, including medicine.The sanctions also appear to be affecting humanitarian operations in the country," he wrote. "Even companies that have obtained the requisite licence to import food and medicine are facing difficulties in finding third-country banks to process the transactions."
Britain's Foreign Office responded:
"We've been clear that financial sanctions against Iran are not intended to affect humanitarian goods and payments. That's why the UK argued for and secured specific exemptions to allow humanitarian transactions to take place.Whilst it is true that sanctions are having an impact on the Iranian population, this is compounded by the Iranian government's economic mismanagement. Iran's leaders are responsible for any impact on their people and can make the choices which would bring sanctions to an end."
The sanctions are being blamed for the collapse of the rial currency, which has lost some 80% of its value against the dollar since 2011. This has dramatically affected the lives of ordinary Iranians, as most imported goods, including things as varied as meat, oil, sugar, tires and car parts have doubled in price in the last few months. Reuters and Guardian
Most people who laud the use of sanctions point to the claimed success for sanctions that were imposed on Poland and South Africa in the last few decades.
Before coming back to those examples, let's look at some examples where sanctions did NOT work:
Japan in 1941, as well as Japan and North Korea today, were/are in generational Crisis eras, a time when nationalism increases sharply. So sanctions really cannot work during Crisis eras, since they will only trigger a strong nationalistic response and countermeasures.
So what about President Ronald Reagan's sanctions against Poland and South Africa? Supporters claim that the sanctions brought democracy to Poland and ended apartheid in South Africa. But those sanctions occurred during generational Awakening or Unraveling eras, when nationalism is extremely low. The move to democracy in Poland and the end of apartheid in South Africa are fairly typical Awakening era climaxes. America's most recent Awakening era climax was the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974, and of course that happened without any country imposing sanctions.
So what about Iran today? Iran is in a generational Awakening era, and there is little or no nationalism in the country. Does that mean that the sanctions are going to bring about regime change in Iran?
What is certain is that Iran is headed for some kind of Awakening era climax, irrespective of whether there are sanctions, and that Awakening era climax will almost certainly involve regime change of some kind. When that happens, the politicians in the West will pat themselves on the back and congratulate themselves and each other for bringing about regime change, even though they had nothing to do with it.
Could it be argued that the sanctions are speeding up regime change? I know of no evidence to that effect. To the contrary, it could easily be argued that sanctions are interfering with the normal Awakening era political process in Iran, and are actually DELAYING regime change. And they certainly aren't stopping Iran's nuclear program.
So what's the point of sanctions on Iran?
The most likely answer can be found in Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's praise for the new sanctions:
"These sanctions are hitting the Iranian economy hard, (but) they haven’t yet rolled back the Iranian program. We'll know that they're achieving their goal when the centrifuges stop spinning and when the Iranian nuclear program is rolled back."
Without the sanctions, domestic politics would force Netanyahu to bomb Iran. The sanctions provide a method for "kicking the can down the road," and allowing politicians in Israel, America and Europe to say that they're doing something, without having to declare war. But in terms of their stated objectives -- to force Iran to end its nuclear program, and to do so without harming civilians -- they're useless failures. Jewish Telegraphic Agency
According to a Russian analysis, the Swiss Army is preparing contingency plans for violent unrest across Europe. The analysis is based on military exercises conducted by Switzerland's army in September. As the euro crisis deepens, Switzerland fears widespread unrest across Europe, and particularly fears a massive influx of Greek and Italian refugees pouring into Switzerland. The Swiss are pressing ahead to modernize the 200,000 man army despite political opposition. Russia Today
An international meeting will be held on Friday in Bamako, the capital of Mali, to discuss the strategy for military intervention in northern Mali, where al-Qaeda linked Ansar Dine terrorists have taken control. France's defense minister Jean-Yves Le Drian says that the intervention could happen in "a matter of weeks, not months, weeks." The intention is that the 3,300 troops would be supplied by the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), with logistical and financial support from France and possibly the U.S. However, many people doubt that anything close to such an ambitious timetable can possibly occur. 3,300 troops is far too few to displace the northern Mali terrorists, and the forces are ill equipped and not trained to fight in a huge desert like northern Mali. Most likely, the 3,300 troops would simply flee back to their home countries. All that notwithstanding, the Mali situation is serious, and it's increasingly likely that Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) will gain control of the region, and use it as a base for terrorist attacks into Algeria, Morocco and Europe. VOA and All Africa
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 18-Oct-12 World View -- Are Iranian sanctions harming civilians and accomplishing nothing? thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(18-Oct-2012)
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Change in Georgia's leadership presents new problems in relations with Russia and Nato
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The firing between Turkish troops and Syrian troops across the Turkey/Syria border may well be a potential war, but it's not the worst war that Turkey is worried about. There has been a low-level conflict almost continuously since 1984 between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), whose goal is an independent state of Kurdistan. Since July alone, the PKK have launched terrorist attacks that have killed at least 112 Turks, including 99 from the army. Because Turkey has supported the opposition to Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, and is hosting over 100,000 Syrian refugees in camps in Turkey, al-Assad has freed the Kurds in eastern Syria to govern themselves and take whatever action against Syria that they wish. This has energized the Kurdish separatists, and if al-Assad finally steps down, then the conflict between the Turks and Kurds will still be unsettled, and could spiral into a major war. Spiegel and McClatchy
When Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, it took control of two Georgian provinces, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and has discussed the possibility of either absorbing them into Russia or recognizing them as independent nations. A recent election has brought about the defeat of Mikheil Saakashvili, the Georgian leader who had fought the Russians in 2008, and the new leader Bidzina Ivanishvili has expressed the desire to move away from the extremely bitter relations that came about in the aftermath of the conflict between the two countries. However, there are two major issues standing in the way of reconciliation. The first issue is that the new Georgian leadership has said that relations with Russia will not be normalized unless Abkhazia and South Ossetia are returned to Georgia, something that is not going to happen. The second issue is that the new Georgian leadership, like the old leadership, wants Georgia to become a member of Nato, something that Russia strongly opposes. Foreign Policy Journal
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 17-Oct-12 World View -- Tensions grow between Turkey and Kurds in Syria thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(17-Oct-2012)
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Germany does U-turn and rules out 'Staatsbankrott' for Greece
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In what is being described as a "historic agreement," Britain's prime minister David Cameron, and head of the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) Alex Salmond signed a deal agreeing to allow Scots to make an "irrevocable" vote in October 2014 to decide whether Scotland should become independent of the United Kingdom. Both England and Scotland are now committed to respecting this decision, whichever side wins.
Many Americans think that all the people in that corner of the Atlantic are all "English," but in fact the English and the Scots are as different as Irish Protestants and Catholics, or as Sunni and Shia Syrians. Scotland and England have gone through a number of periods of unity and disunity for hundreds of years.
The Battle of Bannockburn, on June 24, 1314, was a great victory for Scottish forces against superior English forces. It was the climax of the First War of Scottish Independence, and established Scotland as an independent nation. Scotland and England fought against each other in a number of subsequent wars, including the War of the Roses (1459-87), and the Armada war with Spain (1588). The most explosive war that followed Scottish independence was the English Civil War (1640-49), that climaxed with the beheading of the English King in 1649. There followed a generational Recovery Era where Britain had no King, but was actually ruled by a military dictator, Oliver Cromwell, bringing Scotland under English control, until a new King was crowned in 1661. During the generational Awakening era in the 1660s and 1670s, Scotland began demonstrating against English control, culminating in the Awakening era climax, the so-called "Glorious Revolution" of 1689, making the Scottish Parliament independent once again. In 1701, the next generational Crisis war began, the War of the Spanish Succession, which allied Scotland and France against England. Miraculously, England defeated the French army in the Battle of Blenheim in 1704, and then again in the explosive and tumultuous climactic Battle of Malplaquet in 1709. After France's defeat at Blenheim, Scotland was finally brought to heel, and England and Scotland signed the "Acts of Union" between the two countries, under a single king or queen, forming the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707.
Now, 305 years later, with the world going deeper into a generational Crisis era, Scotland is becoming as nationalistic as China or Japan or a number of other countries, and demanding independence once again. However, once the Clash of Civilizations world war begins, I would expect Scotland and England to unite once more to fight the common enemy. Scotsman
Negotiations for the next bailout payment to Greece are collapsing again, making it unlikely that a Thursday deadline for an agreement will be met. It had been hoped that an agreement would be reached in time for the European leaders' summit on Thursday, but agreement on austerity measures and structural reforms are out of reach. Negotiations between Greece and the leaders of the EU "troika" of organizations bailing out Greece -- the European Commission (EC), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) -- have been on again - off again for weeks (actually, for years), missing one deadline after another. Each new bailout payment has been made at the last moment. Last year I proposed the "Kick the Can Theory" for the European financial crisis. It says that if you want to know what's going to happen, just assume that European leaders will look for a way to "kick the can down the road," meaning that they'll do the minimum possible to postpone the crisis a little longer, to prevent a current disaster without fixing the problem, so that the crisis will recur in worse form weeks or months later. The Kick the Can Theory has been right every time so far, and every bailout payment has been made at the last minute, irrespective of Greece's commitments. One way or another, we expect the same kind of thing to happen again, in time to prevent Greece from going bankrupt during November. Kathimerini
In fact, the can-kicking decision may already have been made. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has done a 180 degree turn from his previous strong opposition to extending a new bailout to Greece unless all the austerity commitments have been fulfilled. On Monday, Schäuble said:
"It will not happen that there will be a 'Staatsbankrott' in Greece. Greece has had to take a lot of very serious reforms [and an increasing majority of the population] does understand that being a member of the common European currency is in the best interest of Greece."
He said that a Greek exit from the euro would be very damaging for Greece and for the entire euro zone. However, Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg said on Sunday that a Greek exit was "most probable" within six months, and that "in practice everyone already understands which way the wind is blowing." Bloomberg
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 16-Oct-12 World View -- England and Scotland agree to a referendum on Scottish independence thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(16-Oct-2012)
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Mali militants may be responsible for 'accidental' shooting of Mauritania's president
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Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz is recovering from a gunshot wound in a Paris hospital on Sunday where he was flown after he was "accidentally" shot by a Mauritanian army unit that misidentified his automobile convoy. However, unnamed security sources say that the attacker was an unknown gunman who "directly targeted" Aziz. Aziz is considered an ally of France in the war against Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and has been targeted by AQIM in the past. His support is considered essential in the looming fight to recover northern Mali from al-Qaeda linked terrorists. AFP
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A Nato invasion of Syria becomes increasingly plausible
With American, British and Turkish troops and military equipment massing on the borders of Syria, the possibility of a joint military action in Syria by all three Nato members appears to be increasingly plausible. 150 American troops are in Jordan to help train the Jordanians learn how to defend against a chemical weapons attack from Syria, if one occurs. On the Syrian border farther north, British military officers are assessing how to defend Jordan from rockets that are constantly falling from across the border. On Turkey's border with Syria, Turkish forces have been exchanging fire with Syrians, and officials have threatened more robust action if the shelling from Syria into Turkey doesn't stop. Gulf News / AP Syria's chemical weapons revive the debate of Iraq's WMDsA major ideological battle is starting to erupt over the question of whether Syria's chemical weapons were sent from Iraq by Saddam Hussein just prior to the American ground invasion in 2003. It's known that Iraq had WMDs in the 1980s and 1990s, and most intelligence services around the world believed that Saddam continued to do so in 2003. It was fear and anxiety of Saddam's WMDs that triggered the 2003 ground invasion. (See "The Iraq war may be related to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki." from 2008.) But the ground invasion failed to find any WMDs, leading to an ideological argument over whether the intelligence reports should have been believed. (This is an ironic discussion, since if it hadn't been for the ground invasions, we presumably still wouldn't know whether Saddam was developing more WMDs, and we, Iran and Israel would be totally panicked about the possibility.) So the question of what happened to Saddam's WMDs has never been answered. One theory is that Saddam sent them to Syria, placing them under the control of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad. James Clapper, the current Director of National Intelligence in the Obama administration, wrote in October 2003 that he believed, based on classified satellite imagery, that Saddam had sent the WMDs to Syria, and perhaps to other countries as well. These may be part of the chemical weapons stockpiles that al-Assad has today. It's known that al-Assad is developing other WMDs, particularly after the Israeli Air Force destroyed Syria's nuclear facility in September 2007. So the whole situation is full of ironies. The only reason we know for sure that Saddam didn't have WMDs is because of the 2003 ground invasion. But now we don't know what happened to the WMDs that he previously had, or whether he transferred them to Syria. NY Times (2003) and Daily Beast (July 2012)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 15-Oct-12 World View -- Possible Nato invasion of Syria revives Iraq's WMDs debate thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(15-Oct-2012)
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China continues economic warfare against Japan over Senkaku islands
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In a speech on Friday, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta described the dangers of cyberwar. His remarks were timely, coming just after the House Intelligence Committee issued a report warning of potential cyberattacks through devices sold by the Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE. Panetta said:
"These attacks mark a significant escalation of the cyber threat and they have renewed concerns about still more destructive scenarios that could unfold.For example, we know that foreign cyber actors are probing America's critical infrastructure networks. They are targeting the computer control systems that operate chemical, electricity and water plants and those that guide transportation throughout this country.
We know of specific instances where intruders have successfully gained access to these control systems.
We also know that they are seeking to create advanced tools to attack these systems and cause panic and destruction and even the loss of life.
Let me explain how this could unfold. An aggressor nation or extremist group could use these kinds of cyber tools to gain control of critical switches. They could, for example, derail passenger trains or even more dangerous, derail trains loaded with lethal chemicals.
They could contaminate the water supply in major cities or shutdown the power grid across large parts of the country.
The most destructive scenarios involve cyber actors launching several attacks on our critical infrastructure at one time, in combination with a physical attack on our country. Attackers could also seek to disable or degrade critical military systems and communication networks.
The collective result of these kinds of attacks could be a cyber Pearl Harbor; an attack that would cause physical destruction and the loss of life. In fact, it would paralyze and shock the nation and create a new, profound sense of vulnerability.
As director of the CIA and now Secretary of Defense, I have understood that cyber attacks are every bit as real as the more well-known threats like terrorism, nuclear weapons proliferation and the turmoil that we see in the Middle East."
It's pretty clear that Panetta was referring to an attack by China. China is thought to have some 3,000 long-range missiles, many of them nuclear weapons targeted at American cities, has developed missiles specifically designed to target American aircraft carriers, and has been conducting cyberwar at the business espionage level for years. Panetta is saying that a full-scale attack is coming, and that when it comes it will paralyze the nation.
His phrase "create a new, profound sense of vulnerability" might be an allusion to the words of Carl von Clausewitz in his 1832 book "On War," in which he describes what happens to the initial war euphoria of a country when it suffers its first defeat:
"The effect of defeat outside the army -- on the people and on the government -- is a sudden collapse of the wildest expectations, and total destruction of self-confidence. The destruction of these feelings creates a vacuum, and that vacuum gets filled by a fear that grows corrosively, leading to total paralysis. It's a blow to the whole nervous system of the losing side, as if caused by an electric charge. This effect may appear to a greater or lesser degree, but it's never completely missing. Then, instead of rushing to repair the misfortune with a spirit of determination, everyone fears that his efforts will be futile; or he does nothing, leaving everything to Fate."
In other words, it's like the reaction to 9/11 a million times over. Dept. of Defense and Carl von Clausewitz
On Monday, the House Intelligence Committee issued a report warning government agencies and private companies of the substantial risks of doing business with Chinese companies Huawei [pronounced WAH way] Technologies Company and ZTE Corporation because of their links to the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army (PLA). After a year long investigation, the committee said that Huawei and ZTE provided incomplete, contradictory, and evasive responses to the Committee’s core concerns. According to the report:
"Despite hours of interviews, extensive and repeated document requests, a review of open-source information, and an open hearing with witnesses from both companies, the Committee remains unsatisfied with the level of cooperation and candor provided by each company. Neither company was willing to provide sufficient evidence to ameliorate the Committee’s concerns. Neither company was forthcoming with detailed information about its formal relationships or regulatory interaction with Chinese authorities. Neither company provided specific details about the precise role of each company’s Chinese Communist Party Committee. Furthermore, neither company provided detailed information about its operations in the United States. Huawei, in particular, failed to provide thorough information about its corporate structure, history, ownership, operations, financial arrangements, or management. Most importantly, neither company provided sufficient internal documentation or other evidence to support the limited answers they did provide to Committee investigators.During the investigation, the Committee received information from industry experts and current and former Huawei employees suggesting that Huawei, in particular, may be violating United States laws. These allegations describe a company that has not followed United States legal obligations or international standards of business behavior. The Committee will be referring these allegations to Executive Branch agencies for further review, including possible investigation."
Huawei and ZTE's primary business is selling high-end computer networking switches and other equipment used by cell phone carriers, Internet service providers, and other companies to run communications networks. American companies like Cisco sell similar equipment, but the Chinese versions are much cheaper, supposedly because of cheaper labor in China. There are Huawei and ZTE equipment used in internet switches and phone switches around the world. The fear is that the Chinese have installed "backdoor" capabilities into this equipment so that, at the appropriate times, the PLA could send out commands over the internet telling these devices to spy or to shut down, or to cause the kind of disasters that Panetta outlined in his "Cyberwar Pearl Harbor" warning.
I'd now like to address a comment to those morons who claim that this idea is so fantastical that it could never be done, or that if it was done it would be easily detected through extensive testing of these devices, such as what is already being done on a regular basis.
Anyone who, like myself, has spent part of his career developing chip-level operating system software for embedded systems can tell you that not only is this doable, it's not even particularly difficult for someone with the right skills. A backdoor capability would not be detected by testing because it would be designed not to do anything until a particular encrypted command was sent to it to enable it. The backdoor capability could be hidden so deeply in the chip structure of a device that even other programmers working on the same project would not be aware of it. And of course the company managers might not even be aware of it, especially the president of the American division of the Chinese company.
Now, having said that can be done easily, there's no doubt that it HAS been done. The PLA has been preparing for war with the U.S. in every possible way, as I've been writing about for years. In addition to the forces I've already described, China has stationed military forces in the South China Sea, taking possession of islands that belong to other countries; they've declared economic warfare against Japan for the same reason; they have thousands of missiles ready to launch against Taiwan; they have large military deployments in western Tibet ready to invade India; and they've demonstrated a capability to destroy American communications and GPS satellites.
What would be absolutely fantastical is to think that after China has made all these war preparations in other areas, the Chinese haven't bothered to do the easiest thing of all: Implement backdoors in internet and phone switches, and subsidize the equipment so that it can be sold cheaply and in high volume to companies and governments around the world. One can be absolutely certain that this has happened. House Intelligence Committee and Technology Review
For years, people have been telling me that the predictions of war by Generational Dynamics are certainly wrong because businessmen would prevent these wars from occurring and harming their businesses. This was always a moronic argument, but the conflict between China over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands emphasizes what really happens. China's levels of nationalism and xenophobia towards the Japanese have reached astronomical levels. Even the businessmen are highly nationalistic, and believe (or are forced to believe) that it's their patriotic duty to give up some business for the good of the country. Thus, China has been conducting an economic war against Japan: Japanese car sales in China are in free fall; Japanese speakers in China are booed or threatened; Chinese tourists in droves are canceling trips to Japan; China's government has encouraged riots to smash Japanese cars, Japanese businesses and Japanese manufacturing plants in China.
Contrary to the naive criticisms that have been leveled at me and Generational Dynamics over the years, wars are not prevented because they're bad for business. To the contrary, business ties are used as economic warfare, usually in preparation for military warfare. AP
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 14-Oct-12 World View -- Huawei scandal exposes potential 'Cyberwar Pearl Harbor' from China thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(14-Oct-2012)
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Bizarre Nobel Peace Prize selection goes to 'European Union'
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The 150 U.S. troops that have been sent to Jordan are preparing for a worst-case scenario involving Syria's large arsenal of chemical weapons. The depots are well guarded by the forces of the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, and they're protected from the air by Russian-built anti-aircraft defenses. However, a major fear is that a collapse of the al-Assad regime would allow these chemical weapons to fall into the hands of al-Qaeda linked terrorists, in the same way that the Muammar Gaddafi's huge stores of weapons fell into the hands of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The U.S. is proceeding cautiously, applying lessons learned from faulty intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that led to the U.S. to the 2003 Iraq ground invasion, only to discover that there were no WMDs after all. LA Times
The United Nations Security Council on Friday unanimously passed a resolution giving West African nations 45 days to offer details of a plan for international military intervention in Mali, where al-Qaeda linked terrorists Ansar Dine have taken control of the northern 2/3rds of the country. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has offered to send a force of 3,000 soldiers to stabilize Mali when the U.N. gives its approval. Concern is growing that entrenched control of Mali by al-Qaeda linked forces would turn Mali into a failed state like Afghanistan. France is leading the West in attempting to gain U.N.S.C. support for military intervention, because France fears terrorist attacks from entrenched al-Qaeda control of Mali. VOA
According to a senior U.N. official, al-Qaeda linked terrorists in northern Mali are compiling lists of unmarried mothers, raising fears of punishments such as stoning, amputations and executions. Extremists have conducted public executions, amputations, floggings and other inhuman and degrading punishments. CNN
It's been years since the Nobel Peace Prize was related in any way to reality. Bizarre choices of Nobel prizes in the recent past include Paul Krugman (economics), Al Gore (peace) and Barack Obama (peace) -- ideological choices that thrilled the far left, but choices of people who really haven't accomplished much of anything. On Friday, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the "European Union," a choice that appears to continue the pattern of high farce. In Europe, there are plenty of people who are "anti-EU," and plenty of people who are "pro-EU". Whether you liked the prize selection depended on which side you were on, but nobody seriously believed that the choice made much sense, especially nowadays, when the European Union is coming apart at the seams. Defenders of the choice claimed that the decision to form a European Union prevented a new war between Germany and France, a claim that's totally fatuous. NATO deserves the prize more than the European Union does. And on top of everything else, the Nobel Prize committee resides in Norway, a European country which is, however, NOT part of the European Union, since its population is opposed to joining. This may well be because Norway has become wealthy because of North Sea oil, and may not wish to share its wealth with Greece and Spain, a decision that Germany and Austria may wish they had taken as well. Spiegel
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 13-Oct-12 World View -- U.S. preparing for worst-case chemical weapons scenario in Syria thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(13-Oct-2012)
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Hizbollah chief Nasrallah admits to sending the mysterious drone over Israel
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Passengers aboard the Syrian passenger plane that was diverted on Wednesday while traveling from Moscow to Damascus said that Turkish security forces forced the crew and passengers to sign fraudulent papers about the incident. According to a hostess:
"Four people onboard have been beaten up, two crew and two passengers, as they tried to force them to sign documents. We don’t know what these papers are about. We are scared for the fate of the captain. He was taken away and threatened with arrest if he does not sign an emergency landing paper."
The plane captain was quoted as saying, "either I sign the document that I made an emergency landing or they are taking me hostage." Russia and Syria are denying that there was any military equipment on the plane, and characterized Turkey's actions as "piracy." Russia Today
Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the Syrian passenger plane that was diverted on Wednesday while traveling from Moscow to Damascus was carrying Russian munitions, presumably intended for the army of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad:
"These were equipment and ammunitions that were being sent from a Russian agency ... to the Syrian Defense Ministry. Their examination is continuing and the necessary (action) will follow. ...As you know, defense industry equipment or weapons, ammunitions and such equipment cannot be carried on passenger planes. It is against international rules for such things to pass through our air space."
Erdogan refused to say where he got the intelligence tip that the passenger plane was carrying military gear: "As you will appreciate, those who gave the tip, which establishments, these things cannot be disclosed." However, I heard one analyst on Thursday say that he believed the tip came from Nato or from American intelligence. AP
The conflict in Syria has already significantly raised tensions between Russia and Turkey, as shown by Russian president Vladimir Putin's cancellation of a Monday visit to Turkey shows, but the intercepted Syrian plane incident is liable to threaten the entire relationship. At the same time, Turkey and the U.S. have accused Iran of shipping weapons to the Bashar al-Assad regime, and have accused Iraq of allowing Iran's weapons to reach Syria by traveling through Iraq.
These events confirm the trend that Generational Dynamics has been predicting for seven or eight years that the Mideast is headed for a major realignment as we approach the Clash of Civilizations world war. In that war, the West will be allied with India, Russia, Iran and Israel, while China will be allied with Pakistan, Turkey and the Sunni countries. Spiegel
Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah of Lebanon's terrorist group Hizbollah confirmed Western suspicions by announcing, in a televised speech on Thursday, that Hizbollah had dispatched the drone that flew over Israel last week:
"First of all, regarding the drone, we witnessed unique operation in the history of Lebanon and the region. The Resistance claims responsibility for the operation. The Resistance in Lebanon sent a sophisticated reconnaissance drone from Lebanon toward the [Mediterranean] Sea, which it crossed for hundreds of kilometers, before it entered [Israeli airspace] and hovered over many important locations before it was discovered by the Israeli air force. Today, [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu held Hezbollah responsible for [sending] the drone.The drone was not Russian made, but Iranian. It was [assembled] in Lebanon. [It] took off in the specified trajectory for hundreds kilometers and arrived in an area close to [Israel’s] Dimona [nuclear] plant. As for the Israeli [claims] that they discovered it over the sea and [forced it over] land, I say they are lying to their people. ...
We named the operation after martyr Hussein Ayoub, who was the first [Hezbollah] expert in this field. We want to name the drone “Ayoub” [which is also the name] of our Prophet."
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 12-Oct-12 World View -- Russia and Turkey trade accusations over diverted passenger plane thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(12-Oct-2012)
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U.S. troops sent to Jordan for defense from Syria
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Turkish F16 jets forced a Syrian passenger plane, traveling from Moscow to Damascus over Turkey's airspace, to land at Ankara airport on Wednesday on suspicion that it may be carrying weapons. As a result of the inspections, Turkey found military communications equipment and missile parts presumably intended for Syria's military. The military equipment was confiscated, and the plane was permitted to continue its trip to Damascus with all 37 passengers. Turkey has been massing troops and equipment on the border with Syria, where the two countries have been exchanging fire for a week. On Wednesday morning, Turkey banned its own civilian airplanes from entering Syrian airspace, in order to prevent any reprisals for today's action. Zaman (Istanbul)
The NY Times, whose editorial policy is to harm the U.S. as much as possible by revealing as many military and national security secrets as possible, is reporting that the U.S. military has secretly sent a task force of more than 150 planners and other specialists to Jordan for three purposes:
The possibility of setting up a militarized buffer zone between Syria and Jordan is being discussed, but is not being planned at this time. Some 150,000 to 200,000 Syrian refugees have already crossed the border into Jordan, and Jordan has said that they don't have the resources to handle all of them. New York Times and Jerusalem Post
As part of its austerity requirements, Greece raised the value-added tax (VAT) on food catering chains to 23%. During the 12-month period, income in the sector fell 40% from 3 billion euros to just 1.8 billion euros, 4,000 restaurants have shut down, and about 30,000 employees have lost their jobs. The industry is asking that the VAT be lowered to 9%. Kathimerini
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A recent survey has revealed that 94% of Turks are backing current US President Barack Obama against Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in the presidential race. The survey was conducted in 32 countries. Obama was selected over Romney in most of the countries surveyed. Iceland, Holland and Portugal were the countries with the highest level of support for Obama. The only country where Romney was ranked higher was Israel. Zaman (Istanbul)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 11-Oct-12 World View -- Turkey intercepts Syrian passenger plane traveling from Russia thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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Athens protests against Angela Merkel evoke WW II memories
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Memories of World War II were evoked on Tuesday when German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Athens Greece as a show of support for Greece and the government of prime minister Antonis Samaras, and she was faced with rock-throwing protests by tens of thousands of Greeks portraying Merkel as a Nazi war criminal. Merkel has become one of the most hated figures in Greece, as she is being blamed for the harsh austerity measures that Greeks are facing. Police used teargas and stun grenades at a crowd threatening to swarm into the Parliament building, throwing rocks and petrol bombs. Merkel's voice was strained with anxiety as she provided encouragement for the Greece and the Greek government, and acknowledged that Greece had made a great deal of painful progress since 2010. Merkel seemed to feel that Samaras was someone she could work with. However, the basic situation is unchanged, in that there is still substantial opposition in Germany and Europe against giving Greece any more leeway in meeting its austerity obligations. Kathimerini and Independent (London)
Cross-border shelling between Turkey and Syria continued for a sixth day on Tuesday, and Turkey has been shifting heavy artillery units, tank battalions, missile batteries and troops to the border, with F-16 jet fleets shifted from western Anatolia bases to the southeast, warships setting sail for the Mediterranean with wartime rations. According to a Turkish military expert:
"The Syrian regime has very little left to lose. If Turkey retaliates more strongly next time and kills Syrians, then that would only add a few more to the casualties on the Syrian side. But if another shell from Syria side kills more Turks, civilians or soldiers, God forbid, then the Turkish government, with Parliament’s authority in its hand, and all that troop buildup, may be under further pressure to act."
Nato's Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced on Tuesday that Nato, of which Turkey is a member, is prepared to defend Turkey from Syria, if that should become necessary:
"We have all plans in place to protect and defend Turkey, but we do hope that it will not be necessary. We do hope that all parties involved will do their utmost to avoid an escalation of the crisis and focus on finding a political solution to the conflict.I strongly regret that so far the Security Council has failed in finding an agreement on a legally-binding resolution that could send such a strong message to the Syrian leadership."
It's believed that Iran and Russia are supplying both arms and military advisers to the Bashar al-Assad regime, while Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been supplying small arms to al-Assad's oppositions. Hurriyet (Ankara) and VOA
The situation in Turkey's politics is becoming increasingly bitter and sectarian as a result of the situation in Syria. Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, the leader of the principal opposition party, Republican People’s Party (CHP), called Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu an "idiot," and suggested that he was opposed to the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad because the latter is part of the Alawite sect, practicing an offshoot of Shia Islam:
"We don’t want war. We don’t want our sons’ blood to be shed in Arabian deserts. ... We have marked a historic event by saying ‘no’ to the motion [authorizing the military for cross-border operations]. The CHP has become the hope of all mothers and fathers. We will not disappoint them. ...How can we describe the policy that put Turkey into this situation? Is this ‘strategic depth,’ or strategic blindness? The process that resulted in Turkey’s becoming part of such a meaningless balance comes from a foreign minister whose incompetence is known by the entire world. You don’t need deep knowledge to know that. You have to be a real idiot to do that."
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sharply rebuked Kiliçdaroglu:
" “It is not possible to understand how the CHP has become blind due to the love it has for [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad. The people getting killed [as a result of the Syrian mortar strikes] are our citizens. They are our people, aren't they?Were you expecting us to remain silent, Mr. [Kemal] Kiliçdaroglu? You might tolerate such [attacks], but we will not. ...
I want to remind this to Mr. Kiliçdaroglu: the issue of sect has never been influential in outlining Turkish foreign policy. Most of those who fell from power along the period dubbed ‘Arab Spring’ are Sunni.
We haven’t supported oppressors and dictators because they are Sunni. Both a dictator and an oppressor may come out of a Sunni. Wherever they come from, we are against all of them."
Hurriyet (Ankara) and Zaman (Istanbul)
The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday downgraded its economic projections and warned of an "alarmingly high" risk of a serious global slowdown because of fiscal problems in the U.S. and Europe. The risk for a deep global economic slowdown next year is "alarmingly high" because of several short term factors, the IMF said. The most serious are a further deepening of the European debt crisis, failure in Washington to avert large tax hikes and government spending cuts looming in January, and another spike in oil prices caused by Middle East tensions. "A key issue is whether the global economy is just hitting another bout of turbulence in what was always expected to be a slow and bumpy recovery or whether the current slowdown has a more lasting component," the IMF said. LA Times and IMF World Economic Outlook (PDF)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 10-Oct-12 World View -- IMF warns of an 'alarmingly high' risk of deep global slowdown thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(10-Oct-2012)
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Thousands of people in Mideast threatened with losing Canadian residency rights
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Greece's security forces are mounting the biggest security operation in Athens since the 1999 visit of Bill Clinton, in preparation for the visit on Tuesday of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. There have been large, angry protests in Athens against the Germans for forcing austerity measures on Greeks, and Merkel herself has been portrayed as a Nazi in uniform. According to Alexis Tsipras, head of Greece's left-wing Syriza political alliance:
"She does not come to support Greece, which her policies have brought to the brink. She comes to save the corrupt, disgraced and servile political system. We will give her the welcome she deserves."
When Merkel arrives, Greece's Prime Minister Antonis Samaras plans to beg Merkel for her support for delaying austerity measures for two years, and for continued bailout payments even if Greece can't meet its existing commitments. Without another bailout payment, Greece will go bankrupt in November. Spiegel and Kathimerini
Westminster magistrates court in London on Monday ordered the supporters and backers of alleged rapist Julian Assange to forfeit £93,500 ($150,000) in bail money, because Assange did not fulfill the conditions of his bail. Two women in Sweden have charged the Wikileaks founder with raping them, but Assange has sought asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, claiming that the two Swedish women are lying about being raped, and that the whole thing is a conspiracy by the women, the Swedish authorities and the American authorities to trick him into being sent to America, so that American officials can kill him. The Assange supporters have 30 days to pay the $150,000 to the court.
As far as I know, not a single feminist, women's group, rape victim support group or battered women's shelter has spoken out in support of either Swedish rape victim woman, or against her alleged rapist. Guardian
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In Monday's foreign policy speech to the Virginia Military Institute, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney advocated providing weapons to Syria's opposition:
"And we must persuade our friends and allies to place similar stipulations on their aid. In Syria, I will work with our partners to identify and organize those members of the opposition who share our values and ensure they obtain the arms they need to defeat Assad’s tanks, helicopters, and fighter jets. Iran is sending arms to Assad because they know his downfall would be a strategic defeat for them.We should be working no less vigorously with our international partners to support the many Syrians who would deliver that defeat to Iran—rather than sitting on the sidelines. It is essential that we develop influence with those forces in Syria that will one day lead a country that sits at the heart of the Middle East."
This is potentially a dangerous policy. Arms given to the Syrian opposition may very well end up in the hands of al-Qaeda linked terrorists. One of the major reasons that the Russians are opposed to any outside help to the Syrian opposition is the fear that any unguarded weapons will make their way to Islamist terror groups in the North Caucasus, just as large warehouses of weapons in Libya have made their way into al-Qaeda linked terror groups across northern Africa. Daily Beast
Canadian immigration officials have announced a crackdown on immigration and residency fraud, targeting more than 10,000 people suspected of committing residency fraud. Nearly 5,000 of them have permanent residency status, and 3,100 are naturalized Canadians whose citizenship is being revoked. Most of those affected are from the Middle East. Canadian immigration law requires new immigrants to live in the country for a minimum of three years continuously before applying for citizenship, but many people get around this requirement by committing fraud, fabricating fake paperwork to prove residency. criminal investigations have found that a family of five may pay upwards of 25,000 Canadian dollars over four or more years to create the illusion of Canadian residence. The National (UAE)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 9-Oct-12 World View -- Mitt Romney advocates sending weapons to Syrian opposition fighters thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(9-Oct-2012)
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Syrian Defector: Bashar al-Assad making plans to flee to Russia
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Japanese news sources are reporting that Taiwan is officially spurning China's request for a joint China-Taiwan alliance over the disputed East China Sea islands (Japan calls them Senkaku, China calls them Diaoyu, Taiwan calls them Diaoyutai), and resuming talks over joint Japan-Taiwan fishing rights around the islands, which are said to be rich fishing grounds mainly for bluefin tuna and flame snapper. Relations between Japan and Taiwan took a nosedive when the Japanese government effectively nationalized the disputed islands on September 11 by purchasing them from their private Japanese owners. However, although Taiwan and Japan have never had an easy relationship, they're developing a closer relationship because they have a common enemy in China. This new alliance between Japan and Taiwan is certain to be infuriating to both the Chinese leadership and the highly nationalistic younger Chinese generations. Yomiuri Shimbun (Tokyo) and Central News Agency (CNA, Taipei)
The agreement between Japan and Taiwan becomes particularly significant in view of a historical claim by Liu Xiaoming, China's ambassador to Britain. In an article last week, he says:
"My first ambassadorial post was to Egypt. I have many memories of this ancient and beautiful country. One is the Mena House Hotel, which I visited many times. Situated at the foot of the spectacular Cheops Pyramid, the hotel is the venue that produced the famous Cairo Declaration. It was published on 27 November 1943 after discussions between the leaders of China, Britain and the United States, and was the master plan for rebuilding international order following the war with Nazi Germany and Japan.The Cairo Declaration was a laudable outcome of the war against both Germany, with its repellent Nazism, and Japan, with its equally repugnant military fascism. It stated in explicit terms that: “all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa (Taiwan) and the Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China. Japan will also be expelled from all other territories she has taken by violence and greed.”
Less than two years later the Potsdam Proclamation, released on 26 July 1945, reaffirmed that: “The terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out.” The Japanese government accepted the Potsdam Proclamation in the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, and pledged to faithfully fulfill its obligations stipulated in the provisions of the Potsdam Proclamation.
All of these facts show that in accordance with the Cairo Declaration, the Potsdam Proclamation and the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, Diaoyu Dao, as affiliated islands of Taiwan, should be returned, together with Taiwan, to China."
So China's logic is that the Senkaku/Diaoyu/Diaoyutai islands belong to Taiwan, and Taiwan belongs to China. The problem is that Taiwan doesn't want to belong to China, and any alliance agreement between Taiwan and Japan is going to make the Chinese government apoplectic. Telegraph (London)
According to Abdullah al-Omar, who defected in September from the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad and is currently living in Turkey, al-Assad has been staging terrorist bombings in order to blame them on the opposition, and is coordinating plans with Russia to flee to Moscow. Al-Omar worked in al-Assad's media office, which was responsible for manufacturing facts. The following is my rough transcription of what he said in the video:
"We were the team that faked the facts. The regime uses deceptions to control people's minds, and we used people who were good at perjury.Many of the big bombings that occurred in Damascus - the regime blamed them on terrorist groups, but they were the work of the regime. The intelligence agencies did them, in coordination with the president's office. We knew hours in advance that they were going to happen, and cameras were set up in advance to take live video feed that could be sent to the international tv channels. They were especially busy when the Arab League observers visited Damascus. In the bombings, they used prisoners and detainees and dead bodies to decorate the blast locations.
The July 18'th blast that killed four of al-Assad's security advisors were done by two insiders at the National Security Office, in coordination with opposition fighters. The bomb went off ten minutes early. If it had gone off at the right time, Bashar would have been killed.
The al-Assad regime knows that it can't stay in power, and is making plans to flee to Russia. Russia is preparing 300 apartments for the extended al-Assad family. Within 60 days, they'll start fleeing. Bashar will be the last to go, after he receives international guarantees that he won't be prosecuted for war crimes."
The drone, or unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), that crossed into Israel's air space from the Mediterranean on Saturday and was shot down by the Israeli air force (IAF) is now believed to have been developed by Iran and launched by the terrorist group Hizbollah, operating out of Lebanon. The surprise is that Iran even has such advanced technology. The IAF spotted the drone because it was flying very high for surveillance purposes. It's not known whether the IAF would have spotted it if it had been flying much lower, and was armed with missiles for attack. If not, then Israel has no known reliable defense to this kind of attack. Ynet (Tel Aviv) and Slate
Under a 1979 agreement with the U.S., South Korea has been prohibited from deploying long-range ballistic missiles with a range longer than 300 km, or drones with a payload exceeding 500 kg. On Saturday, S. Korean announced a deal with the U.S. permitting them to extend the range of its missiles up to 800 km, and the payload of its drones up to 2.5 tons. The new limits would allow S. Korean missiles to strike anywhere in North Korea, or even to reach Beijing. However, the South Koreans say that there are still enough restrictions imposed that South Korea could still not defend itself effectively against a North Korean attack. Chosun Ilbo (Seoul) and Xinhua
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 8-Oct-12 World View -- Surprise drone over Israel changes Mideast dynamics thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(8-Oct-2012)
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World food prices go inexorably higher
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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The vitriolicly anti-American Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez appears to poised to win reelection on Sunday, against his principal opponent, "moderate leftist" Henrique Capriles. Chávez has won hearts and minds by using Venezuela's oil wealth for social programs for the poor. Capriles has said that he would halt subsidized oil shipments to Cuba, Belarus, Nicaragua and Syria. Venezuela has overtaken Saudi Arabia to become number one in the world for proven oil reserves. Chávez has announced plans to increase production and double crude exports to Asia. His goal is to reduce world dependence on American oil, but apparently he also wants to reduce world oil prices for America and everyone else. In recent years Venezuelan oil production has fallen due to poor maintenance, low investment and the loss of key workers. Plans to open new fields have been repeatedly delayed. The Hindu and Guardian (London)
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that crossed into Israel's air space and flew over settlements and military bases was shot down by Israel's air force on Saturday morning. At the time that the UAV was identified, it was unknown whether it carried an explosive weapon, but examination of the fragments indicated that it was apparently on a reconnaissance mission rather than an attack mission. It is unknown where the UAV took off from, or who was responsible, although Hizbollah is suspected. Jerusalem Post
Tensions between Turkey and Syria, once strong allies, continued to be at dangerous levels on Saturday, after mortar shells from Syria landed in rural areas of Turkey, and the Turkish army returned fire in a retaliatory attack. The shells from Syria did not cause any Turkish casualties, although villagers rushed out of their homes to gather at a safer point in the village. Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has told Syria not to test Turkey's "limits and determination" and that his country "was not bluffing" with its warnings. Saturday is the fourth day that Syrian shells have landed in Turkey. On Wednesday, five people were killed. Zaman (Istanbul)
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Global food prices increased by 1.4% in the month from July to August, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Even though oil prices are low and rice harvests are plentiful, food prices show no signs of leveling off and falling, since they began their average 9% per year average rise, starting in 2002. Food prices are already at the 2008 peak that resulted in world wide food riots, and are close to returning to their 2011 peaks that triggered the "Arab Spring" in the Mideast. At 9% increases per year, food prices will be at new historic highs by next summer. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the people who survived the enormous famines of World War II devoted their lives to making sure that it would never happen again, and they launched the Green Revolution that produced sharp increases in crop yields in the 1960s and 1970s. However, the younger generations of Boomers and Gen-Xers with no personal experience of famine allowed the Green Revolution to peter out in the 1990s. In the meantime, the Law of Diminishing Returns is reducing the effectiveness of fertilizers and insecticides, the tools developed for the Green Revolution, at the same time that other resources, including groundwater and forests, are being used up. FAO and Bloomberg
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 7-Oct-12 World View -- Hugo Chavez likely to win fourth term as president of Venezuela thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(7-Oct-2012)
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Turkey issues new military threats to Syria
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Greece's prime minister Antonis Samaras that far-right activists, including the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, have Greece teetering on the edge of collapse Government officials were shocked on Thursday by the unprecedented storming of Greece's defence ministry by hundreds of protesting dockworkers – a breach of security not seen in modern times. On Friday, Samaras lashed out at "those who don't understand the meaning of law and order."
"The government is waging a battle on all fronts for the nation's credibility and its future so that the sacrifices made by Greeks aren't lost. I will not allow the country to become a free-for-all."
On Tuesday, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel will visit Athens in what is considered a show of support for Samaras, and a softening of her previous hard-line position on Greece, which provoked Greek cartoonists to portray her in a Nazi uniform. In announcing Merkel's visit, Samaras said,
"We will continue our struggle with courage and decisiveness for the good of this country.I am very glad that the German chancellor has accepted my invitation. It is very positive and we will receive her as befits a leader of a great power and friend [of Greece]."
Samaras also urged all Greeks to work together, saying he was "sad to see those who try to discredit the country, from all political sides."
Greece will run out of money and go bankrupt if it hasn't received its next 31.5 billion euro bailout payment by the end of November. Guardian and Guardian
Turkey's prime minster Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Syria not to make a "fatal mistake" in a speech on Friday:
"We are not interested in war, but we're not far from war either. This nation has come to where it is today having gone through intercontinental wars.Those who attempt to test Turkey's deterrence, its decisiveness, its capacity, I say here they are making a fatal mistake."
Cabinet minister Egemen Bagis referred to Turkey's restraint when Syria shot down a Turkish war plane in June:
"If Turkey had been a country that was interested in going to war, when the plane was downed it could have used that as an excuse and flattened Syria.Thankfully Turkey's military power today is at the point where it could destroy Syria within a few hours. But we don't have any problem with the Syrian people"
At least two mortar bombs fired from Syria landed in farmland in Turkey on Friday, but there are unconfirmed reports that the Syrian regime has told its military to stay at least 10 kilometers away from the border with Turkey. Reuters and Zaman (Istanbul)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 6-Oct-12 World View -- Greece's democracy in danger from far right thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(6-Oct-2012)
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Aron Nimzovich: 'Why must I lose to this IDIOT?'
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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In a sharp escalation of tensions between Turkey and Syria, the Turkish military shelling into Syria that began on Wednesday continued into Thursday, as retaliatory strikes for the killing of a mother and her three daughters and another woman by Syrian mortars that landed in Turkey. Turkey's targets were Syrian military positions in Syria, resulting in the deaths of an unknown number of Syrian soldiers. Turkey has stopped shelling, but is continuing to deploy tanks and anti aircraft missiles in Akcakale, the town where the five Turkish citizens were killed on Wednesday. Zaman (Istanbul)
Turkey's Parliament on Thursday gave authority to the government to deploy troops in Syria or other countries if an when it finds such an act necessary for national security. Once again, this is a sharp escalation, since it makes it possible, with no further authorization, for prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to order a military invasion of Syria. This means that at the next provocation, Erdogan won't have any excuse for hesitating.
On Thursday, Erdogan gave a harsh speech, and contradicted Syria's claim that Syria's shelling inside Turkey was an "accident":
"We have no intention of starting a war with Syria,"We as Turkey just want peace and security in our region. We could never be interested in something like starting a war. The consequences of war are plain to see in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But the Turkish Republic is a state capable of defending its citizens and borders. Nobody should try and test our determination on this subject."
He said that there have been many similar incidents in the past, though this is the first with five casualties.
"Even today, we had a shell landing in Hatay city Altinozu district.An accident can be called 'an accident' once, twice, three times, but four, five six times, but how is this an accident, when it happens eight times?"
Hurriyet (Ankara) and Al-Arabiya
As usual, the Russians, who are as guilty as Syria's president Bashar al-Assad for the violence going on in Syria, opposed any statement in the United Nations Security Council that condemned Syria. It's amazing that anything was accomplished at all, but the UNSC did issue a watered-down statement:
"The members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest terms the shelling by the Syrian armed forces of the Turkish town of Akcakale, which resulted in the deaths of five civilians, all of whom were women and children, as well as a number of injuries. The members of the Security Council expressed their sincere condolences to the families of the victims and to the Government and people of Turkey.The members of the Security Council underscored that this incident highlighted the grave impact the crisis in Syria has on the security of its neighbours and on regional peace and stability. The members of the Council demanded that such violations of international law stop immediately and are not repeated. The members of the Security Council called on the Syrian Government to fully respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of its neighbours.
The members of the Security Council called for restraint."
The Russians insisted on removing a sentence in the original draft calling the Syrian attack "a serious threat to international peace and security." The compromise text referred instead to concerns as to the impact of the crisis in Syria on "the security of its neighbors and on regional peace and stability." United Nations and Reuters
The alleged killers of U.S. envoy Chris Stevens in Benghazi, Libya, have been detained by Turkey on Wednesday, according to unconfirmed reports. Two Tunisian citizens accused of the murder were apprehended on Wednesday evening by police at Istanbul Atatürk Airport while trying to enter Turkey with fake passports. They have been taken to the Istanbul Police Department for questioning. Hurriyet
In 1925 in Baden-Baden Germany, chess grandmaster Aron Nimzovich was playing a crucial game with grandmaster Friedrich Saemisch, a game that would decide first place. Nimzovich was the superior chess player, but he lost to Saemisch, and as he was about to be checkmated, he got up from the table and yelled, "Why must I lose to this IDIOT?"
That was the attitude that I saw reflected in President Obama's sullen, resentful face during the Wednesday evening debate. I interpreted Obama's attitude to his Gen-X contempt of Boomers. "These Boomers are jackasses, so why should I have to debate this lying, arrogant crook who's a danger to the world?"
I'm pretty sure that President Obama was thinking words like "liar," "crook," and "dangerous," because I watched MSNBC for a while after the debate and saw these so-called newsmen use these and similar views as they spewed out vitriol as if they were a bunch of teenage girls.
As I've written several times in the past, I consider President Obama's failures, including his failure in Wednesday's debate, to be the fault of his hatred of Boomers. (From 2007: "Barack Obama to Boomers: Drop dead!") No one can be successful for long if all his policies are based on hatred of one-third of the population.
European officials are in a tizzy because Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy refuses to make an official request for a bailout, although everyone knows that it can't be avoided. There have been reports that Rajoy was finally going to seek a bailout this weekend. Here was his response:
"If there is some agency, or someone, who says that this weekend we are going to ask for a bailout, as they say, there are two possibilities: that this agency is right and has better information than I do, which is possible, or that is not the case, which may also be possible."
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 5-Oct-12 World View -- Turkey - Syria relations continue sharp escalation thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(5-Oct-2012)
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Iran's currency crash brings riots and government crisis
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The Syria conflict took a substantial escalation on Wednesday, after Syrian army mortar shells traveled across the border to the border town of Akcakale, Turkey, killing a woman and her three daughters, along with another woman. Turkey's army struck back at targets inside Syria, and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a statement:
"Our armed forces in the border region responded immediately to this abominable attack in line with their rules of engagement; targets were struck through artillery fire against places in Syria identified by radar.Turkey will never leave unanswered such kinds of provocation by the Syrian regime against our national security."
It's not known what Turkey's targets were inside Syria.
A Syrian mortar barrage struck inside Turkey last Friday, damaging homes and workplaces, but causing no casualties. Turkey's response at that time was to deploy dozens of armored vehicles to the Syrian border, and issue a statement threatening military action: "I would like the public to know that if such breaches towards our borders continue we are reserving our rights and we are exercising our rights."
It was believed that Friday's incident was an accident by Syria, but there are unproven suspicions that the new incident was intentional, and the town may have been targeted. This would be consistent with the vitriolic criticisms of Turkey by Syria's president Bashar al-Assad for aiding and training the Syrian opposition.
Erdogan is under intense domestic nationalistic pressure to do something about the Syrian situation, particularly since Turkey is hosting over 90,000 Syrian refugees, with hundreds more crossing the border every day. However, it's not believed that he wants to get involved in Syria militarily, and so today's respond may have been just for domestic consumpsion. Zaman (Istanbul) and Bloomberg
Iran's currency, the rial, has lost 40% in value against the dollar in the last few days, and a catastrophic 80% of its value since 2011. This has dramatically affected the lives of ordinary Iranians, as most imported goods, including things as varied as meat, oil, sugar, tires and car parts have doubled in price in the last few months.
This triggered riots in Tehran, but these were different than the riots that occurred in 2009. In those riots, students were demonstrating against the political system that reelected Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president. Today's riots are political, not generational. The protesters today are not students, but they're merchants and money changers from Tehran's sprawling Grand Bazaar.
The standard response of the Iranian regime to any problem is to blame it on the Great Satan (the U.S.), and Ahmadinejad has been struggling to find ways to point the blame at America. However, this trick has stopped working, and the Iranian people are blaming Ahmadinejad for the failure of the financial crisis. Although Ahmadinejad is blaming the U.S.-led sanctions, many people are blaming Ahmadinejad for adopting policies that don't respond properly to the sanctions, such as by spending money supporting terrorist activities by Hizbollah.
The merchants and money-changers are closely allied with the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, who last year had a vitriolic split with Ahmadinejad. So these riots serve Khamanei's purpose in deflecting criticism away from himself.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, Iran is in a generational Awakening era, just one generation past Iran's last generational crisis war, the 1979 Great Islamic Revolution and the Iran/Iraq war that climaxed in 1988. We're now seeing a transition in Iran that also occurred in America at the same point in its generational Awakening era of the 1960s-70s.
In 1967, America had a huge student-level protest in the form of the "Summer of Love." (From 2007: "Boomers commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love.") This was the height of the "generation gap" that separated the young Boomer generation from their parents. But a generational split of this type forces everyone in all generations to pick sides, and so the generational split morphs into a political split, as it did in America in the early 1970s. The result was the Awakening era climax, when President Richard Nixon was forced to resign in 1974.
Now we see the same thing happen in Iran. The generational split of 2009 is now morphing into a political split. As Iran's Awakening era progresses, we would expect the political split to lead to some kind of Awakening crisis, quite possibly the hoped-for "regime change." And of course if regime change occurs, then whoever is the U.S. President at the time will take full credit. Independent (London) and Tehran Times and US News
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 4-Oct-12 World View -- Turkey and Syria exchange fire across their border thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(4-Oct-2012)
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Military intervention in Mali comes a step closer
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China announced on Tuesday that four Chinese marine surveillance ships had begun patrolling in the waters around the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea. The purpose was to confront "the Japanese right-winger's intrusion." The new Chinese surveillance ships will be patrolling the same waters as Japanese Coast Guard ships. With both countries in highly nationalistic moods, the possibility of an incident involving military action has increased significantly. Xinhua and VOA
France and several African countries have been calling for military intervention in Mali to throw out the Ansar Dine, the al-Qaeda linked terrorist group that is now in control of the northern two-thirds of Mali. However, the calls for intervention have been largely ignored, since the Mali government itself has been unwilling to request military intervention, apparently out of fear that neighboring armies would never leave. But Mali's government has now given the go-ahead for a major troop deployment in northern Mali. If the military deployment goes ahead, the troops will come from France and from countries belonging to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The U.S. has expressed caution about military intervention in Mali, and may not support the effort. Guardian/Le Monde and IRIN
An announcement on Tuesday that is likely to raise the level of tension between Sunni and Shia Muslims in the Mideast was confirmation from a Lebanon security official that a commander and several fighters from the terrorist group Hizbollah were killed inside Syria.
Hizbollah is a Shia terrorist group located in Lebanon but more loyal to Iran than to Lebanon. Hizbollah has been supporting Syria's president Bashar al-Assad as he's been torturing Sunni children and sending rockets into Sunni apartment buildings, and so he has been receiving a great deal of criticism for supporting a mass murderer. Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has repeatedly claimed that he is not providing military support to al-Assad, but it now appears that in fact he is. AP and BBC
Iran's rial currency has lost a catastrophic 80% of its value since 2011, including an 18% plunge on Monday, and another 9% on Tuesday. In a speech on Tuesday, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blamed the "enemies" of his country for the sharp falls in the rial. He may be right, in the sense that U.S.-led are thought to be the principal cause of the rial's collapse. Iran is having a great deal of difficulty selling oil, or in getting paid after the oil has been delivered. In addition, many Iranians are selling rials and hoarding dollars, exacerbating the situation. BBC
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 3-Oct-12 World View -- China and Japan in naval standoff in East China Sea thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(3-Oct-2012)
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Syria's Foreign Minister gives farcical speech at the United Nations
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Several months ago, I reported that Capital One was fined $150 million for massive credit card fraud. Now it's the turn of the crooks at American Express. Since 2003, the company has lied to customers, charged illegal fees, and discriminated against older customers (presumably Boomers).
You may think that American Express is a "reputable company" that would never do anything like this, so this is a good time to remind you of a scam that I reported in 2009. The Senate Commerce Committee discovered the scam works as follows: You make a credit card purchase online from Priceline or other retailers. At the end of the transaction, you're offered a "reward" of some kind, a coupon worth a few dollars. You click the fine print, and it turns out that you've agreed to let the retailer charge your credit card $10-20 per month. According to the Senate reports, the online retailers were fully aware that they were defrauding consumers, but they didn't care because they were making so much money -- $1.4 billion from millions of customers.
Here's the list of online retailers that the Senate found committed this fraud:
1-800-FLOWERS.com Hotwire Priceline.com
AirTran Holdings Intelius Redcats USA
Classmates.com FTD Shutterfly
Continental Airlines Orbitz Worldwide US Airways Group
Movietickets.com Pizza Hut Vistaprint USA
Fandango
These are like American Express: all "reputable companies," and all crooks who feel they have license to screw their customers in any way they like.
I have a personal experience with American Express. I discovered that American Express had signed me up for some kind of completely worthless "rewards" program, and was charging me $55 a year. They had simply added this charge to my credit card. They have computerized profile systems that attempt to identify the best way to market to different consumers, and I believe that they targeted me for the following reasons:
Their scam certainly worked on me. I paid the annual fee twice before discovering it. I called up customer service and told them I never signed up for the "rewards" program, and demanded that they cancel it and refund the two payments. I've been a cardholder since 1976, but customer service said to me, in effect, "F--k you." So I canceled the card entirely. F--k them.
I have to repeat, as I've said so many times, that the world has changed enormously since the 1990s. At that time, Amex really WAS a "reputable" company, as were the other companies listed above, and a scam like this in the 1980s would have been next to impossible. But ever since the Gen-Xers reached middle management positions in the last decade, we've had one major crime after another -- from tens of trillions of dollars in fraudulent mortgage-backed securities to the recent LIBOR scandal.
As I've also said many times, there may be no more criminals among Gen-Xers than among other generations, but what defines the Gen-Xers and makes then unique is their adamant refusal to blame other Gen-Xers for anything. Boomers happily sent Boomers to jail, but the Obama justice department has not sent a bankster to jail for the massive fraud that caused the global financial crisis. Thus, banksters are free to continue committing crimes, with no fear of prosecution.
And sure enough, Amex is not admitting that they did anything wrong, and none of the Amex crooks will go to jail. Bloomberg
Financial institutions are convinced that the housing bubble collapse is over, and that it's time to start offering subprime mortgages at high interest rates to borrowers who otherwise wouldn't qualify for mortgages.
This is just one more disaster waiting to happen. As I wrote last week, the housing bubble collapse is far from over, and, I estimate that home prices will fall an additional 10-20%. The people who are saying that can't happen are exactly the same people who were saying in 2006 that there's no such thing as a housing bubble, because "Everybody has to live somewhere!" UPI
Tempers are flaring as the EU "troika" negotiators have returned to Greece to try once again to agree to austerity measures that Greece has repeatedly committed to but has never implemented. It's becoming abundantly clear to everyone that Greece will not comply with the austerity demands. Period. Especially with tens of thousands of Greeks rioting and demonstrating outside the Parliament building.
Nonetheless, the rest of Europe is terrified at the prospect of Greece defaulting and leaving the euro zone. The domino theory is no longer being discussed as a possibility, but rather as a likely scenario, with Spain and Italy quickly following Greece. It's likely that the troika's final recommendations have been preordained from the beginning: No matter whether Athens implements any austerity measures or not, they're going to get their bailout. Spiegel
Syria's foreign minister Walid al-Moualem blamed the conflict in Syria on "organized terrorism" sponsored by the United States and its allies. According to al-Moualem:
"We also wonder to what extent the statements of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United States, and France that clearly induce and support terrorism in Syria with money, weapons and foreign fighters, are in line with the international responsibilities of these countries in combating terrorism."
One Security Council diplomat described the speech as "orthodox, predictable and completely out of touch with reality."
Presumably al-Moualem's speech was a response to President Obama's speech to the same audience last week, when he said:
"In Syria, the future must not belong to a dictator who massacres his people. If there is a cause that cries out for protest in the world today, peaceful protest, it is a regime that tortures children and shoots rockets at apartment buildings."
The Syria situation has been a disaster for United Nations, for obvious reasons. We have a country that tortures children and shoots rockets at apartment buildings, and the U.N. politicians have been nothing but a bunch of buffoons for 18 months. The U.N. has actually made the situation much worse, by providing cover for increased violence by Syria and Russia with such farces as Kofi Annan's six-point "peace plan."
A web site reader has posed the interesting question, "Will the U.N. go the way of League of Nations?"
History has decided that the reason that the League of Nations failed in the 1930s was because the isolationist United States was never a member. That's why, after WW II, the United States did a 180 degree turnaround and became the world leader of the United Nations, even agreeing to hold its headquarters in New York.
But now we're seeing the United Nations looking as pitiful and powerless as the League of Nations. That's because in the 1930s, much of the world was in a generational Crisis era, and the same is true today. In other eras, compromise and accommodation are possible, but in a Crisis era, nationalism and xenophobia become prevalent, and compromise becomes impossible, on both a national and international level.
Once the Clash of Civilizations world war is over, the survivors will settle on some reason why the U.N. failed. This time, it won't be because the U.S. wasn't a member, but maybe the world community will think up some other reason to blame the U.S. Whatever the reason, the survivors will form a United Nations II after the war ends.
An interesting question is: What form will the new post-war United Nations take? Will there still be a Security Council, and will the U.S. still have a veto? Will the General Assembly have more or fewer powers? An interesting speculation. Al-Jazeera
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 2-Oct-12 World View -- American Express fined $112.5 million over massive consumer fraud thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(2-Oct-2012)
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Europe-Greece bailout negotiations resume with 'a sense of unease'
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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In June, after Syria allegedly shot down a Turkish warplane in a missile attack, Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the Syrian action an "act of war," and invoked Article 4 of the Nato charter, which calls for consultations with other Nato members after one Nato member has been attacked, since an attack on one member nation is considered to be an attack on all. At the time, Syria's president Bashar al-Assad apologized for the "unintentional" incident.
Leaked documents on Sunday now reveal that the two pilots in the downed warplane were rescued by Syria, in coordination with the Russians. According to one document:
"Two Turkish pilots were captured by the Syrian Air Force Intelligence after their jet was shot down in coordination with the Russian naval base in Tartus."
According to the documents, the pilots were interrogated to determine Turkey's actions in support of the Syrian opposition. Al-Assad had then wanted to turn them over to the Hizbollah terrorist group in Lebanon, but the Russians stopped them:
"Based on information and guidance from the Russian leadership comes a need to eliminate the two Turkish pilots detained by the Special Operations Unit in a natural way and their bodies need to be returned to the crash site in international waters."
After the pilots were murdered and dumped, the Russians told al-Assad to apologize to the Turks for downing the plane, and he did.
If this story is confirmed, then it will be much more an embarrassment to Turkey than to Syria. The Syrians and the Russians don't really give a shit what the Turks think, because they know that Erdogan will talk and shout, but there won't be any action. For over 18 months, Erdogan and the rest of the West, as well as the United Nations, have issued the same statement over and over: "The violence is terrible, and it MUST stop now." This is particularly a problem for Erdogan, since Turkey is playing host to some 90,000 Syrians in refugee camps near the Syrian border. Erdogan does not want to take military action against Syria, but his political opposition is questioning his leadership. Al-Arabiya and Haaretz and Hurriyet (Ankara)
On Friday, prior to the disclosure of the leaked documents, a Syrian mortar barrage landed in the downtown of a Turkish city on the border with Syria, damaging homes and workplaces. The barrage came from inside Syria, where Syrian troops and opposition forces have been fighting. Turkey has deployed dozens of armored vehicles to the region near the Syrian border and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu threatened military action:
"I would like the public to know that if such breaches towards our borders continue we are reserving our rights and we are exercising our rights."
If I'm not mistaken, Davutoglu has issued exactly the same statement dozens of times in the last 18 months. Zaman (Istanbul)
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Greece's neo-Nazi political party, Golden Dawn, which has received up to 20% support in polls this year amid violent austerity riots in Athens, has opened offices in New York City and Montreal. The ultra-nationalist party has been collecting food and medicine among expatriate Greek communities, promising to dispense the aid only to ethnic Greeks in Greece. No aid will be given to immigrants, even legal immigrants. The party was criticized when it recently released a video showing a squad of Golden Dawn supporters and MPs ransacking an immigrant flea market in Greece. The party has already attracted 152 members in Montreal. Canadian leader Jimmy James says:
"Illegal immigrants, they put knives to old ladies’ throats. They’re taking over our homes. The police are doing nothing about it. ... Nobody wants to see blood spilled. But that’s what it’s starting to look like. It looks like it’s leading to a civil war."
National Post (Montreal) and Greek Reporter
After taking a "brief pause" for a week, the leaders of the EU "troika" of organizations bailing out Greece -- the European Commission (EC), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) -- are back in Athens to resume negotiations over the terms of the next bailout loan for Greece. Greece must reduce its budget deficit by 13.5 billion euros next year in order to qualify for the 31.5 billion euro bailout loan that it needs to avoid bankruptcy next month. With those kinds of numbers, it's not surprising that Greek officials are feeling "a sense of unease" over the intentions of the Troika, and whether they plan to approve the bailout payment even if Greece can't meet all of its austerity commitments. Kathimerini
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 1-Oct-12 World View -- Syria interrogated and murdered downed Turkish pilots thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(1-Oct-2012)
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