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China to step up military confrontations in South China Sea
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Schools and shops closed early across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as Palestinians partied all day to celebrate the creation of the state of Palestine by the United Nations General Assembly, on the day of the 65th anniversary of the creation of the state of Israel. However, the vote was just symbolic in the sense that the state of Palestine has no defined borders, and is a "non-member observer state" of the United Nations, not a full-fledged member. When the question came to a vote of the 193 U.N. member states, 138 voted in favor, 41 abstained, and 9 voted against, including the United States and Israel. According to analysts, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is now a crossroads with two distinct and mutually exclusive choices:
Neither of these choices seems particularly good. Negotiating is a waste of time, as there never will be a "peace process," and going to the ICC will further polarize the Mideast and invite retribution. BBC
Here are some excerpts of the speech of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas to the United Nations on Thursday:
"The Israeli aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip has confirmed once again the urgent and pressing need to end the Israeli occupation and for our people to gain their freedom and independence. This aggression also confirms the Israeli Government’s adherence to the policy of occupation, brute force and war, which in turn obliges the international community to shoulder its responsibilities towards the Palestinian people and towards peace. ...I say with great pain and sorrow… there was certainly no one in the world that required that tens of Palestinian children lose their lives in order to reaffirm the above-mentioned facts. There was no need for thousands of deadly raids and tons of explosives for the world to be reminded that there is an occupation that must come to an end and that there are a people that must be liberated. And, there was no need for a new, devastating war in order for us to be aware of the absence of peace. ...
The Palestinian people, who miraculously recovered from the ashes of Al-Nakba ["the catastrophe"] of 1948, which was intended to extinguish their being and to expel them in order to uproot and erase their presence, which was rooted in the depths of their land and depths of history. In those dark days, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were torn from their homes and displaced within and outside of their homeland, thrown from their beautiful, embracing, prosperous country to refugee camps in one of the most dreadful campaigns of ethnic cleansing and dispossession in modern history. In those dark days, our people had looked to the United Nations as a beacon of hope and appealed for ending the injustice and for achieving justice and peace, the realization of our rights, and our people still believe in this and continue to wait.
This is why we are here today."
Here are some excerpts of the speech of Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor on Thursday:
"Today I stand before you tall and proud because I represent the world's one and only Jewish state. A state built in the Jewish people's ancient homeland, with its eternal capital Jerusalem as its beating heart.We are a nation with deep roots in the past and bright hopes for the future. We are a nation that values idealism, but acts with pragmatism. Israel is a nation that never hesitates to defend itself, but will always extend its hand for peace. ...
Israel has always extended its hand for peace and will always extend its hand for peace. When we faced an Arab leader who wanted peace, we made peace. That was the case with Egypt. That was the case with Jordan.
Time and again, we have sought peace with the Palestinians. Time and again, we have been met by rejection of our offers, denial of our rights, and terrorism targeting our citizens.
President Abbas described today’s proceedings as “historic”. But the only thing historic about his speech is how much it ignored history.
The truth is that 65 years ago today, the United Nations voted to partition the British Mandate into two states: a Jewish state, and an Arab state. Two states for two peoples.
Israel accepted this plan. The Palestinians and Arab nations around us rejected it and launched a war of annihilation to throw the "Jews into the sea".
The truth is that from 1948 until 1967, the West Bank was ruled by Jordan, and Gaza was ruled by Egypt. The Arab states did not lift a finger to create a Palestinian state. Instead they sought Israel’s destruction, and were joined by newly formed Palestinian terrorist organizations. ...
In fact, President Abbas, I did not hear you use the phrase "two states for two peoples" this afternoon. In fact, I have never heard you say the phrase "two states for two peoples". Because the Palestinian leadership has never recognized that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people.
They have never been willing to accept what this very body recognized 65 years ago. Israel is the Jewish state.
In fact, today you asked the world to recognize a Palestinian state, but you still refuse to recognize the Jewish state."
China will be moving additional warships into the South China Sea and will implement new military procedures, beginning in 2013. Under the new procedures, China's police will board and take control of any ship in what China considers to be its sovereign "territorial waters." As part of China's "Lebensraum" policy, China is demanding sovereignty over the entire South China Sea, including areas that historically have belonged to Brunei, the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Vietnam. China's policy has become increasingly belligerent, especially since 2009, as China itself has become increasingly nationalistic and xenophobic. According to the Chinese, the following will be illegal in the South China Sea:
The last one is a bit of a puzzle, at least to me, but I assume it refers to news gathering operations, such as those that have been conducted in the past by the BBC and al-Jazeera, using vessels to report on China's warships and military buildup in the South China Sea.
It's unclear how this new policy applies to commercial shipping through the South China Sea. The United States has taken the position that commercial shipping must continue completely unhindered, and the U.S. also occasionally sends its aircraft carrier, the USS George Washington, into the South China Sea. Obviously if China decides to confront American commercial or military ships, then the U.S. will be forced to respond. Ironically, China's increased belligerence and military buildup have caused many countries in the region to unite against China, and to wish to become full-fledged American allies. China Daily
As we reported last week ( "24-Nov-12 World View -- China extends its 'Lebensraum' policy to its passports"), China is issuing new passports containing maps that designate the entire South China Sea, as well as parts of India's territory, as being part of China. This is infuriating China's neighbors. India is reacting by stamping the passport with a visa stamp that contains a "corrected" map. Vietnam and the Philippines are refusing to stamp anything into the passports, and instead are issuing visas on separate pieces of paper. According to a Philippines lawmaker:
"Apart from being contemptible, China’s latest move is also laughable. No country or international legal platform recognizes the nine-dash line map."
The "nine-dash line map" is China's map that identifies the entire South China Sea as sovereign Chinese territory. GMA Network (Philippines) and VOA
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 30-Nov-12 World View -- United Nations creates the nation 'Palestine' thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(30-Nov-2012)
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Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood seeks to consolidate power on Thursday
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Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas has arrived in New York City, and on Thursday he's expected to win a vote in the United Nations General Assembly on a resolution that will create a state of Palestine, giving it non-member-state observer status. Israeli officials had been hoping to build a block of 40-50 "quality" nations would either abstain or vote against the resolution, but that is now unlikely. The US, Canada, Germany and the Czech Republic are expected to oppose the resolution, but France, Spain, Denmark, Ireland, Switzerland and numerous non-"Western" countries will support the resolution. At the last minute, Israeli officials are trying to dilute the vote by asking countries that vote in favor of the resolution to "submit an explanation with their vote [saying] it is a political statement confined to the UN system, and does not constitute true recognition of an actual state in Palestine."
As we reported yesterday, Hamas has reversed itself, and is now in favor of the U.N. resolution. Once the resolution passes, Hamas will be pressuring Abbas's government to use his new status as the head of the state of Palestine to bring war crimes charges against Israel in the International Criminal Court. Israel indicates that, if that happens, then it will bring its own charges against Palestine. The West is hoping that once the vote is over, Palestine will resume the "peace process" talks with Israel. Jerusalem Post and LA Times
In a move that's certain to spark deep outrage, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood dominated Constituent Assembly announced that they are rushing the completion of the country's new constitution, and will put it to a vote on Thursday morning. The announcement shocked everyone, because they were scheduled to work on it until February 12, 2013. Apparently the change was made for completely cynical reasons. Furious judges in Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court have announced that they "won't be blackmailed" by president Mohamed Morsi's recent decree giving himself dictatorial powers, and reportedly they were planning to rule on the legality of Morsi's decree as well as the actions of the Constituent Assembly as early as Sunday. So the writing of the constitution was sped up to get it completed before the court could rule. Once it passes the Constituent Assembly vote, it will go to a nationwide referendum in a week or two. The new constitution is expected to be strongly Islamist. Protesters have continued to fill the streets, and the new constitution, when it becomes public on Thursday, is liable to be extremely inflammatory. Al-Ahram (Cairo) and LA Times
Sunni Muslim countries have had explosive birth rates in the last 60 years. I attribute this to some kind of community decision that, after the destruction of the Ottoman Empire in 1921, Sunni Muslims should have as many babies as possible, in order to win the next war. Iran, a Shia Muslim country, has not been a part of this "community decision," and its birth rate has been more typical of the West. But now Iranian officials are encouraging people to marry younger and have more babies. The authorities have scrapped all population-control programs that had been in place for decades, and even the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei apologized to the people for having instructed them in the past to bear fewer children. Radio Zamaneh
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 29-Nov-12 World View -- Israel tries desperately to dilute Abbas' bid for state of Palestine thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(29-Nov-2012)
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Hamas chief Khalid Mashaal says he supports Thursday's Palestine U.N. bid
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Over a year ago, I proposed the "Kick the Can Theory," which says that if you want to predict what Europe is going to do, just assume that they'll do the bare minimum possible to get through the current crisis, but leave the basic underlying problems unchanged, so that the next crisis will be much worse -- in other words, "kick the can down the road," and lie about it.
Around 2 am, Tuesday morning, after a 12 hour meeting, the Europeans declared victory, giving Greece a new 44 billion euro bailout loan, enough to meet commitments through the end of the year. According to Greece's prime minister Antonis Samaras:
"A very grey, a very dark period for Greece officially ended yesterday and it has ended for good. We Greeks were made for tough times, and when the going gets tough, it brings out the best in us."
And here's the statement of Jean-Claude Jüncker, chairman of the Eurogroup finance ministers:
"This is not just about money. This is the promise of a better future for the Greek people and for the euro area as a whole, a break from the era of missed targets and loose implementation towards a new paradigm of steadfast reform momentum, declining debt ratios and a return to growth."
Wow! I'm surprised he could mouth all those long words at 2 am. As usual, I have to remind readers that when reporters caught Jüncker in a series of lies in May, 2011, in the same Greek debt crisis, he replied, "When it becomes serious, you have to lie." Well, this situation is pretty serious, so we can assume that Jüncker has to lie.
Actually, this "new paradigm" is no different than the previous temporary bailouts. It depends on two things:
The interesting character in all this is Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Last week she had a raucous open confrontation with Jean-Claude Jüncker, when she refused to go along with his plan to allow Greece two extra years to meet their austerity commitments. At first I thought that Lagarde had completely caved in during last night's negotiations, but apparently she did only partially. The IMF will not release its share of the 40 billion euro bailout loan until the bond buyback plan is completed.
And sooooooooooooooo, Dear Reader, if you've waded through all the above, then you know that even with the bailout payment, Greece will be in more serious trouble before long, but in fact the bailout payment itself is not even firm.
As one analyst put it:
"The latest Greek rescue deal will buy the country a bit more time. But unless the economy stages a miraculous recovery, the rest of the euro-zone will soon be forced to make much more difficult decisions over just how far it is prepared to go to keep Greece inside the euro."
Kathimerini and EurActiv and WSJ
Now that Greece has been given extra time to meet its austerity commitments, as well as other sweeteners, Ireland is thinking about asking for a better deal as well. Part of the package announced last night was that the interest on Greece's loans from the European Central Bank (ECB) will be reduced and partially deferred. It looks like Ireland's Minister for Finance Michael Noonan will be asking for similar treatment. Irish Times
A major political confrontation is growing in Egypt, as over 100,000 defiant protesters filled Cairo's Tahrir Square on Tuesday, demanding the cancellation of president Mohamed Morsi's constitutional decree last Thursday, when he gave himself dictatorial powers. Thousands also took to the streets in mostly peaceful rallies in major cities across Egypt. Morsi still has strong support among members of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which he was a former leader. The Brotherhood had originally planned to hold counter-demonstrations on Tuesday, but canceled them to avoid violence with with anti-Morsi protesters. Morsi has stated that he will not yield to demands to cancel the decree. There are unconfirmed reports that Morsi is considering measures that might be taken to appease the protesters, but none has been announced so far. Al-Ahram
Hamas chief Khalid Mashaal has notified Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas that he intends to support the latter's bid for recognition of a Palestinian state by the United Nations General Assembly, to be presented later this week. This is a complete turnaround, as Hamas has previously strongly opposed Abbas's plan, because the recognition of a Palestinian state could imply officially giving up the "right of return" for Palestinians to the homes in Israel that their ancestors owned prior to the 1948 partitioning of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel. Ma'an News Agency (Bethlehem)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 28-Nov-12 World View -- Europe's new charade in Greece's bailout announcement thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(28-Nov-2012)
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Another farcical climate change conference begins in Doha, Qatar
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I like to recount the reason why I know that even climate change activists don't believe half the crap they're saying about climate change. I believe everything that I write about on my web site, and I've made enormous changes in my life in the last ten years as a result. So I know what it's like to really believe what you're saying. And so it's perfectly obvious to me that climate change activists don't believe anything they're saying. They drive expensive cars instead of taking the subway. They live in posh residences that burn as much power as a small town, and they brag because they replace a couple of light bulbs with fluorescents. They go to expensive meetings rather than using videoconferencing. Al Gore, as I recall, excuses his massive energy waste by claiming that he pays to have some trees planted in central America. So I can tell right off that all of these people are full of crap.
It's worthwhile summarizing the climate change situation:
Now there's a new climate change conference in Doha, Qatar, the city with the largest carbon emissions per capita in the world. Hundreds of climate change activists will go for a week to sit by the swimming pool, except when they're in heavily air-conditioned rooms whining about how unfair everyone is to them. At least they can't whine about George Bush this year. The conference will be heavily covered by the loony left at the New York Times, NBC news and other mainstream media, and we'll have to listen to repeated crap about the world being in danger if we don't give the banksters billions more dollars to use to award themselves million dollar bonuses. It's another week of farce. Spiegel and Telegraph (London)
Egypt's opposition parties and groups are calling for mass rallies and "million-man marches" on Tuesday, to protest last Thursday's Constitutional Decree by president Mohamed Morsi, giving himself dictatorial powers. Morsi met with a Judges group on Monday, raising hopes that he would rescind the decree, but he refused to change it in any way. Reportedly, he promised to use his dictatorial powers only for "sovereign matters," leaving lesser matters to be challenged by the courts, but he will be the one to decide what is or isn't a "sovereign matter," so nothing has changed. According to analysts, Morsi's intent is to protect the Constituent Assembly, which is comprised mostly of members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Morsi himself was a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood prior to taking office as president, and so his intent is evidently to have the Muslim Brotherhood control the writing of the new constitution. This is expected to take six months, after which Morsi says he'll give up his dictatorial powers. Al-Ahram (Cairo)
Many Egyptians voted for Mohamed Morsi as the first democratically elected president in Egypt for 5,000 years because they saw him as a "hope and change" candidate who would reverse the direction of the country after the dictatorship of deposed ruler Hosni Mubarak, and would bring order out of the chaos in the streets and in the economy. But Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood have made one promise after another that they're simply ignoring:
Muslim Brotherhood members are giving Morsi their full support, and they are a large group, but not a majority. The secularists and the liberals are opposed to Morsi's decree, but so are the Salafists who, while they're Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood, are not willing to cede so much power to the MB. Morsi is hoping that after 18 months of riots and demonstrations, Egyptians are tired of protesting, and will accept anything he says. He may be right, but the first test will occur with the "million man marches" on Tuesday. Jerusalem Post
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 27-Nov-12 World View -- Egypt's 'Hope and Change' candidate Morsi has forgotten all his promises thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(27-Nov-2012)
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Rift between IMF and Eurozone leaders puts Greece's bailout in limbo
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Egypt's stock market opened on Sunday for the first time since president Mohamed Morsi issued his Constitutional Declaration giving himself dictatorial powers, and the news wasn't good. Stocks fell almost 10%, and would have fallen farther if it hadn't been stopped by automatic triggers. Investors pulled out of Egypt's stock market because of the following concerns:
With riots returning to the streets, there's no chance of increasing tourism again. On Sunday, investors decided to flee for something more safe. Gulf News (Dubai)
A 15-year-old protester was killed and 40 people were injured on Sunday in a clash with police when protesters stored a Muslim Brotherhood headquarters office in northern Egypt. Additional riots and demonstrations are being planned for Monday and Tuesday. These events have forced Morsi to declare that the decree he issued is only "temporary," and that he would meet on Monday with the Judges group that is opposing him. However, many Muslim Brotherhood members support Morsi and his decree, leaving the possibility of conflicts between Salafis and Islamists on the one hand versus secularists and liberals on the other hand. It was just a mere five days ago that everyone considered Morsi to be a very clever, shrewd politician, after he brought about the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. He picked that particular time to issue his Constitutional Decree, thinking that he would be politically invincible. But it turns out he was just being too clever by half, and he's lost a lot of the respect he gained earlier in the week. National Post (Canada)
The rift that exploded into the open last week between Christine Lagarde, chief of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), who wants to force Greece to meet its austerity commitments, and Eurozone leaders, who are considering giving Greece a two-year postponement, is delaying agreement on a new bailout payment for Greece. Greece now needs an immediate loan of 44 billion euros (which is a hell of a lot of money) just to meet current obligations through December 21. This should have been settled weeks ago, but it keeps getting postponed. There's a new meeting of the Eurogroup finance ministers on Monday, and Greece is hoping that a favorable decision will finally be reached at that meeting. Southeast Europe Times and Kathimerini
Turkey's request to Nato for Patriot missile systems, to be deployed on the border with Syria, as we reported last week, is arousing suspicions in Syria, Iran and Russia that the systems would be deployed as a precursor to the implementation of a no-fly zone over Syria, similar to the no-fly zone that Nato implemented last year over Libya. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov referenced a statement attributed to Russian playwright Anton Chekhov: If there is a gun hanging above the fireplace in the first act of a play, then the gun must be fired in the third act, or it shouldn't have been there in the first place. According to Lavrov:
"Our concerns are rooted in the 'Chekhov’s gun syndrome’ that says that if a gun appears on stage in the first act it will definitely fire by the third. ... Any provocation may trigger a very serious armed conflict. We want to avoid this."
Nato has indicated that they are considering Turkey's request, but the final decision will have to come from one of the three nations that actually have Patriot missile systems -- Germany, the Netherlands, and the U.S. Russia Today
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 26-Nov-12 World View -- Egypt's stock market crashes 10% over government turmoil thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(26-Nov-2012)
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Egypt's lawyers threaten strikes and legal action against Morsi
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Egypt's government, which had begun to appear more stable in recent months, is now in a state of total chaos, after president Mohamed Morsi issued his decree on Thursday giving himself full dictatorship power that can't even by challenged by the courts. On Saturday, different groups of judges held separate extraordinary meetings and assemblies, either supporting or condemning Morsi. Hundreds of judges at the general assembly for the Judges' Club at the High Court discussed measures to oppose Morsi, and have called for strikes in Alexandria and other cities. However, the reform judges caucus "Judges for Egypt" announced their support for Morsi, claiming that Morsi's opponents want to reinstate the old regime of Hosni Mubarak. Al-Ahram (Cairo)
A spokesman for Hamas is saying that it's untrue that that the Egyptian-brokered cease-fire agreement signed by Hamas and Israel on Wednesday forbids the importation of more weapons. He was commenting on reports that claimed special US army units would be deployed along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt to stop the flow of weapons to Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups.
And indeed, I posted the full text of the agreement a couple of days ago, and it says absolutely nothing about forbidding Hamas from importing more weapons and missiles.
However, an Israeli official pointed out that a White House statement that followed the agreement does imply military help from America in blocking weapons smuggling into Gaza.
Here is Wednesday's White House statement:
"Readout of the President’s Call to Prime Minister NetanyahuPresident Obama spoke to Prime Minister Netanyahu today and reiterated his commitment to Israel’s security.
The President made clear that no country can be expected to tolerate rocket attacks against civilians.
The President expressed his appreciation for the Prime Minister’s efforts to work with the new Egyptian government to achieve a sustainable ceasefire and a more durable solution to this problem.
The President commended the Prime Minister for agreeing to the Egyptian ceasefire proposal – which the President recommended the Prime Minster do – while reiterating that Israel maintains the right to defend itself.
The President said that the United States would use the opportunity offered by a ceasefire to intensify efforts to help Israel address its security needs, especially the issue of the smuggling of weapons and explosives into Gaza.
The President said that he was committed to seeking additional funding for Iron Dome and other US-Israel missile defense programs."
The next-to-last paragraph says that America will help prevent weapons smuggling, without saying how. Does this imply that the president offered military help in preventing weapons smuggling? If not, then what kind of help was intended? Jerusalem Post and White House
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 25-Nov-12 World View -- Hamas says it's OK to smuggle weapons into Gaza again thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(25-Nov-2012)
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Violent protests return across Egypt after Morsi's power grab
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In a move that's infuriating almost all of China's neighbors, China is issuing a new passport containing printed maps that claim numerous disputed territories, many of which have historically belonged to other countries.
The map claims as sovereign territory vast regions of the South China Sea, including areas that have historically belonged to Taiwan, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnam and Philippines have issued formal complaints against the map, pointing out that it was only recently at the ASEAN meeting that China asked everyone to avoid doing anything provocative. China has already stationed military garrisons in the Paracel islands, and the Chinese have repeatedly indicated that they will use their vast military power to crush anyone who contests their claims. China frequently says that they want to live "in harmony" with their neighbors, but what they mean by that is "Do exactly as we say, and we'll live in harmony; otherwise, we'll kill you."
Taiwan has protested to China because the passport map depicts China's sovereignty over two Taiwanese islands that are famous tourist attractions. Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou urged China not to "unilaterally damage the status quo of the hard-fought stability across the Taiwan Strait." Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, the island’s top China policy-making body, stressed that Taiwan "is an independent sovereign country."
The map depicts several regions within India as having Chinese sovereignty. India's government has decided not to protest, and they're refusing to comment. Instead, they're taking action: Anyone bringing a Chinese passport to the Indian embassy in Beijing will have his passport stamped with a "corrected" map that shows the regions as being part of India.
China is becoming increasingly belligerent in its "Lebensraum" policy because of two major factors.
The first is that the Chinese people are seething with nationalism, xenophobia, and a thirst for revenge for wrongs they suffered prior to and during World War II. This thirst will not be quenched by anything short of a major war, and everyone knows it.
The second factor is that China's national policy toward land is nothing short of psychopathic. Several years ago I quoted the Chinese ambassador to the U.N. as saying, "It's not a matter of how big Taiwan is, but for China, one INCH of the territory is more valuable than the LIVES of our people." I've quoted other Chinese officials and seen numerous stories as well that point to the following conclusion: With a population of 1.5 billion people, it's part of the Chinese DNA that the Chinese people are worth no more than interchangeable cogs in a wheel, and China would willingly sacrifice millions or even tens of millions of people for even a small piece of territory. There's little doubt in my mind that China is making military plans to occupy Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and even North America in their quest for Lebensraum.
In the current situation, the passport maps are a fait accompli. The Chinese government will never back down and remove the maps, and they'll provide a constant source of irritation that will continue to infuriate all of China's neighbors. This is not the last we've heard of this issue.
A web site reader has suggested that there is a better historical analogy to China's actions today than Hitler's Lebensraum policy: The "Chambers of Reunion" policy of France's King Louis XIV in the 1680s. Louis wanted France to "reunite" with foreign territories, based on old claims that were no longer valid:
"There is a very clear political lesson about the Chambers of Reunion that would be relevant if the Chinese keep pushing the way they are. Indeed one could even say that lesson is already showing signs of being repeated.Louis XIV managed to claim a few dozen cities and related lands. In the process, he alienated pretty much all of his neighbors to the point that they united against him. Between the wars with them and the civil unrest in France from trying to pay for the wars, he wound up bankrupting France and losing everything he had gained in order to make the claims in the first place.
China has been overreaching, and now the ASEAN nations have started the process of uniting. They may not like each other all that much, but none of them are interested in having China annex everything not nailed down, along with a bunch of what is nailed down in the process."
As the French like to say, Plus ça change, plus c'est la meme chose. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Business Insider and The Hindu and Gulf Times
As we reported yesterday (see "23-Nov-12 World View -- Mohamed Morsi appoints himself 'Pharaoh' of Egypt"), Egyptians were shocked on Thursday by the announcement of a decree by Egypt's president Mohamed Morsi making himself a virtual dictator. Here's the text of the Constitutional Declaration:
"We have decided the following:Article I
Reopen the investigations and prosecutions in the cases of the murder, the attempted murder and the wounding of protesters as well as the crimes of terror committed against the revolutionaries by anyone who held a political or executive position under the former regime, according to the Law of the Protection of the Revolution and other laws.
Article II:
Previous constitutional declarations, laws, and decrees made by the president since he took office on 30 June 2012, until the constitution is approved and a new People’s Assembly [lower house of parliament] is elected, are final and binding and cannot be appealed by any way or to any entity. Nor shall they be suspended or canceled and all lawsuits related to them and brought before any judicial body against these decisions are annulled.
Article III:
The prosecutor-general is to be appointed from among the members of the judiciary by the President of the Republic for a period of four years commencing from the date of office and is subject to the general conditions of being appointed as a judge and should not be under the age of 40. This provision applies to the one currently holding the position with immediate effect.
Article IV:
The text of the article on the formation of the Constituent Assembly in the 30 March 2011 Constitutional Declaration that reads, "it shall prepare a draft of a new constitution in a period of six months from the date it was formed” is to be amended to "it shall prepare the draft of a new constitution for the country no later than eight months from the date of its formation."
Article V:
No judicial body can dissolve the Shura Council [upper house of parliament] or the Constituent Assembly.
Article VI:
The President may take the necessary actions and measures to protect the country and the goals of the revolution.
Article VII:
This Constitutional Declaration is valid from the date of its publication in the official gazette."
When you realize what it says, it's actually pretty chilling. Al-Ahram (Cairo)
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Thursday's stunning power grab by Egypt's president Mohamed Morsi, making himself a dictator who cannot be challenged in any way, has triggered a return to massive and violent anti-government protests typical of those directed against former president Hosni Mubarak and the army junta last year. Police fired tear gas at thousands of rock-throwing protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square, chanting demands that Morsi, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, resign.
In Alexandria, protesters stormed two of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) offices, ransacking them and burning the contents. However, there were also pro-Morsi demonstrators in both Cairo and Alexandria, claiming that Morsi's presidency should be honored, since he was "democratically elected."
Morsi's unexpected move has further polarized Egypt, and it may be that Morsi has overplayed his hand. His decree has managed to reunite the opposition, and they will vigorously challenge the decree on an ongoing basis. Reuters and Al-Ahram (Cairo)
The pattern for European financial negotiations is that there's bitter fighting and no agreement until the very last moment, and they there's a compromise that kicks the can down the road and makes things worse. It had been hoped that the 27 European Union nations, whose leaders are meeting in Brussels, could agree on a new 7-year budget plan on Friday. But it's way too early to force a last-minute solution, so the negotiations collapsed in failure, with a new meeting scheduled for early next year. In fact, they don't have to reach agreement at all, which will cause the old budget simply to be rolled over. Some of the major issues are:
"More than 200 Brussels staff earn more than I do. Brussels continues to exist as if it’s in a parallel universe."
But net beneficiary countries, led by Poland, want the EU to spend more money than it does now.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 24-Nov-12 World View -- China extends its 'Lebensraum' policy to its passports thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(24-Nov-2012)
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Pakistan twin Taliban bombings kill 37 Shia Muslim worshipers
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Many Egyptians were shocked on Thursday by the announcement, accompanied by nationalistic music, of a new decree by president Mohamed Morsi granting himself extensive additional powers. Any decisions that he took since taking office in June, and any decisions he takes in the future, are final and not subject to review by the courts or appeal. According to the announcement,
"The President may take the necessary actions and measures to protect the country and the goals of the revolution."
In an attempt to be a crowd-pleaser, Morsi said that the police officers who were acquitted last year for killing protesters will be retried.
According to opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei:
"Morsi today usurped all state powers & appointed himself Egypt’s new pharaoh. A major blow to the revolution that could have dire consequences."
The surprise announcement triggered competing demonstrations in Cairo by supporters and opponents of Morsi. Washington Post
Here is the full text of the agreement that the two sides signed on Wednesday:
"Understanding Regarding Ceasefire in Gaza Strip1. a. Israel should stop all hostilities in the Gaza Strip land, sea and air including incursions and targeting of individuals.
b. All Palestinian factions shall stop all hostilities from the Gaza Strip against Israel including rocket attacks and all attacks along the border.
c. Opening the crossings and facilitating the movements of people and transfer of goods and refraining from restricting residents’ free movements and targeting residents in border areas and procedures of implementation shall be dealt with after 24 hours from the start of the ceasefire.
d. Other matters as may be requested shall be addressed.
2. Implementation Mechanism:
a. Setting up the zero hour for the ceasefire understanding to enter into effect.
b. Egypt shall receive assurances from each party that the party commits to what was agreed upon.
c. Each party shall commit itself not to perform any acts that would breach this understanding. In case of any observations Egypt as the sponsor of this understanding shall be informed to follow up."
Hamas's principal objective in the negotiations was to get the blockade of Gaza lifted, something that's been strongly opposed by Israel because it would allow the free importation of weapons into Gaza. The cease-fire agreement says that "Opening the crossings ... shall be dealt with after 24 hours from the start of the ceasefire."
Israel was in a no-win situation in the latest Gaza conflict. In the end, they signed a peace agreement in the hope that because their air strikes had been successful in destroying thousands of Gaza rockets and missiles, there would at least be a period of many months before Hamas weapons stores could be resupplied. That's what happened after the 2008 war, but at that time Hosni Mubarak was president of Egypt, and the crossings into Egypt were more tightly controlled.
Today it's thought that Hamas would be resupplied more quickly. Israel's air strikes destroyed some 140 tunnels between Gaza and Egypt, tunnels that were used to smuggle food, fuel, medicines, building materials, and weapons. But now workers are out rebuilding the tunnels, although they claim that none of the tunnels they work on are used for smuggling weapons. Reuters
Greece's household income dropped by 15% in the second quarter of 2012, while taxes rose 37%. Unemployment is at 25%, 58% for young adults. Greece's suicide rate has soared 37% from 2009-2011. The neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party appears to be gaining strength in Greece as a "hope and change" party. Golden Dawn is starting to take control of government services, providing food for the needy, but never for non-Greeks, even legal residents. There have been repeated incidents of Golden Dawn violence against immigrants and their markets. Fear is growing that a replay of 1930s Germany is occurring in Greece. AnsaMed and Christian Mission and Spiegel (August)
Pakistan's Taliban terrorists (Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan - TTP) claimed responsibility for twin bomb attacks on Wednesday targeting Shia Muslims, killing 37 people and wounding dozens more. According to a TTP spokesman:
"We carried out the attacks in Rawalpindi and Karachi because the Shia community is engaged in defiling the Prophet."
This refers to the commemoration of Muharram, a holy month that goes back to the Battle of Karbala and the original split between Sunni and Shia Muslims in 680 AD. In particular, the Shia Muslim prophet Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of Mohamed, was killed in battle on October 10, 680.
(Because of differences in the Western and Muslim calendars, the dates don't always line up. This year, Muharram began in the evening of Wednesday, November 14, 2012, and ends in the evening of Friday, December 14, 2012. Husayn ibn Ali was killed in battle on the 10th day of Muharram.)
Islamabad is on high alert with extensive security on almost every major intersection for the 8th, 9th and 10th days of Muharram, to prevent further terrorist attacks. Daily Times (Islamabad) and AFP and Morals and Ethics
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 23-Nov-12 World View -- Mohamed Morsi appoints himself 'Pharaoh' of Egypt thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(23-Nov-2012)
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Turkey asks Nato for Patriot missiles for border with Syria
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There's a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the Egypt-brokered cease fire agreement signed by Israel and Hamas on Wednesday. The signed agreement is one page long, though there are apparently additional unstated agreements. As far as is known, here are the terms:
Israeli forces and tanks have been camped on the border with Gaza for several days, prepared for a ground invasion, and they are remaining in place for the time being. Israel may reduce the size of the force in the next few days, depending on how things turn out.
There is considerable skepticism that the ceasefire will last long, but for the time being, everyone is pretending to be optimistic. Irish Times and LA Times
Prior to the ceasefire, Islamic Jihad leader Ramadhan Abdallah Shalah confirmed that the missiles were supplied by Iran:
"With regard to the Iranian position – even if we have disagreements with Iran regarding the situation in Syria, I don’t think that we, as the Palestinian resistance, have disagreements with Iran regarding what is happening in Palestine, or regarding the Zionist aggression against the Gaza Strip. With regard to Palestine, we are in complete agreement with Iran. Iran has given us all the aid and all the support. The weapons that are fighting the Israeli aggression and arrogance in Palestine come mainly from Iran, as the entire world knows. This is no secret. These are either Iranian weapons or weapons financed by Iran."
Islamic Jihad Deputy Secretary-General Ziyad Nakhala said:
"We are on the brink of a great victory, Allah willing. This is a new stage in the conflict with the Zionist enterprise. ...This wonderful weapon has proven its significant role in battle. The missiles have changed the balance of power, and have proven to Israel that we can shell their cities like they shell ours, and that we can shell their military camps like they shell our children. ...
These missiles have restored the honor of the Palestinian people. We received these missiles from our allies and brothers in the Islamic Republic. They have generally given us these missiles, exerting great effort. These missiles have changed the equation in this conflict."
Egypt's president Mohamed Morsi emerged as the major winner in the negotiation that ended with a peace agreement between Israel and Hamas. Morsi was able to accomplish a lot more than the deposed president Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak never particularly liked Hamas, and he cooperated fully with Israel by keeping the border between Gaza and Egypt sealed. But Hamas was originally an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Morsi is a leading member, and from the start of his presidency he made his sympathy for the Gazans clear. At the same time, he maintained friendly, if distant, relations with Israel, and adamantly refused to abrogate the 1979 peace treaty with Israel, despite some domestic demands that he do so.
Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was a major loser in the negotiations. Erdogan's strategy for several years has been to become the leader in the Sunni Arab world, regaining some of the prestige that Turkey once held as leader of the Ottoman Empire. Part of that strategy has been to end normal relations with Israel, but that strategy really backfired this past week, as it essentially disqualified him as a negotiator between Israel and Hamas.
Another major loser was Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas is nominally the major negotiating partner with Israel in negotiations for a two-state solution (Israel and Palestine) in the Mideast, and is currently scheduled to come to the United Nations General Assembly on November 29 to obtain recognition of a Palestinian state.
Instead, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal has become something of a superstar, and was seen frequently on Wednesday declaring victory over Israel. Hamas has become "someone you can do business with." Washington Post
Prior to the ceasefire announcement, a terrorist bomb exploded on a bus in Tel Aviv, injuring 23 people, one severely. Hamas did not take credit for the bombing, but said: "Hamas blesses the attack in Tel Aviv and sees it as a natural response to the Israeli massacres...in Gaza." Jerusalem Post
Now that the Gaza problem has been "solved," it's time to start focusing again on the conflict in Syria.
Nato member Turkey has asked Nato to provide advanced Patriot missiles to be deployed on the border with Syria. Nato ambassadors met on Wednesday to discuss the request "without delay."
The Patriot missile system performs the same function as Israel's Iron Dome missile system in the Gaza war -- to intercept and knock down incoming missiles. The Patriot system can also target aircraft.
According to Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said:
"Such a deployment would augment Turkey’s air-defense capabilities to defend the population and territory of Turkey. It would contribute to the de-escalation of the crisis along NATO’s southeastern border."
The Patriot systems would not be supplied by Nato. They would be supplied by the individual Nato members that actually have these systems -- Germany, the Netherlands, and the U.S.
Since Turkey already has a big air force, it's not clear what's going on here. There have been stray mortar shells from Syria landing in Turkey the last few weeks, and several people have been killed, but Patriot missiles are not designed for stray mortar shells.
There are two possible purposes for these Patriot missiles. One is to help establish a no-fly zone over Syria. The other is for defense in case of a Syrian attack, especially with chemical weapons. Turkey says that neither of these is planned.
Whatever the intent, the introduction of a Patriot missile system signals an escalation of the Syrian conflict, and greater Nato involvement. Guardian (London) and BBC
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 22-Nov-12 World View -- Egypt's Mohamed Morsi a big winner in Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(22-Nov-2012)
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China is forced to back down diplomatically at an ASEAN meeting
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Rumors flew on Tuesday that a ceasefire deal between Gaza and Israel was imminent. Egypt's president Mohamed Morsi was quoted as saying,
"The farce of the Israeli aggression will end today, Tuesday, and the efforts to reach a ceasefire between the Palestinians and Israelis will produce positive results within a few hours."
Sources from Hamas and Islamic Jihad also said that there would be a deal on Tuesday evening, but Israel did not confirm. Israel has said that a peace deal they would agree to a peace deal only when there are international guarantees that there would be no further missile attacks from Gaza for a long period of time. Otherwise, a peace deal would only be temporary, since Iran would simply take advantage of a peace deal to supply Hamas with thousands more rockets to be used to attack Israel.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is currently visiting both parties in the Mideast with the objective of pressuring both sides to accept a peace deal. Telegraph (London) and Al-Jazeera
On the seventh day of the Gaza conflict, Israel's air force dropped leaflets across Gaza City telling residents in Arabic:
"For your own safety, you are required to immediately evacuate your homes and move toward Gaza City center. ...This is a temporary confrontation. In the end, everyone will go home.
In keeping with Israel Defense Forces (army) regulations, all civilians will be kept from harm's way."
The leaflets directed residents to use specific roads to move out of their neighborhoods to specific locations. Panicked residents, fearful of airstrikes, used donkeys and carts to flee to the designated areas for safety, only to find some times that there was no room left.
Separately, the army posted the following message on Twitter: "Warning to reporters in Gaza. Stay away from Hamas operatives and facilities. Hamas, a terrorist group, will use you as human shields."
Tuesday was probably the most violent day so far in the week old conflict, with hundreds of missiles and rockets flying back and forth between Gaza and Israel. AFP and ABC News
Not that it's going to make any real difference, but at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations [ASEAN] in Cambodia this week, China's attempt to win a diplomatic victory over control of the South China Sea backfired, forcing China to agree to negotiate disputes through ASEAN, rather than through one-on-one bilateral negotiations with each country.
In the last couple of years, China has become extremely nationalistic and belligerent, and has been adopting a policy similar to Hitler's "Lebensraum" policy in the 1930s, with respect to territories in the Pacific Ocean, India, and central Asia. In the South China Sea, China is demanding control of vast regions, including areas historically belonging to Brunei, the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Vietnam. China is using its vast military power to take control of this entire region, including setting up a military installation in the Paracel Islands.
Part of China's strategy all along has been to demand negotiations with each country on an individual basis, so that it could dominate the negotiations. However, the other countries have been demanding to force China to negotiate with them as a bloc, to get them more negotiating power. The United States has been encouraging this approach, which has infuriated the Chinese, calling Americans "troublemakers."
At this week's ASEAN meeting, China got its ally, Cambodia, to put forth a draft agreement saying that all sides had agreed not to "internationalize" the dispute over the South China Sea. However, the attempt backfired, as the Philippines objected to the draft statement, forcing it to be rejected. As a result, the Chinese representative said:
"China will continue to come back [with] sincere dialogue with ASEAN countries and to fully implement in an effective way the DOC so that all parties can accumulate mutual trust and carry on cooperation and put this issue of South China Sea in good control so that we can work together to safeguard peace, stability, cooperation, and development."
China was forced into taking the position diplomatically, but it doesn't change any reality in the South China Sea. CS Monitor and VOA
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 21-Nov-12 World View -- Gaza-Israel truce deal fails to materialize thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(21-Nov-2012)
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Britain, with growing anti-European mood, may leave the EU
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Three U.S. Navy amphibious warships are going to the eastern Mediterranean to stand by in case they are needed to help evacuate Americans from Israel. The possibility of an evacuation is considered remote as a contingency. The estimated 2,500 Marines on board will now have their homecoming to America delayed for several days. CNN
On the sixth day of Israel's military operation in Gaza, its air force struck over 80 targets in Gaza, while Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired 130 rockets into Israel, many of which were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system. At this writing on Monday evening, Israel's cabinet is meeting to discuss what to do next. The major choices are:
In many ways, this is a no-win situation for Israel. Jerusalem Post and Washington Post
Although Egypt's president Mohamed Morsi and Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan are supposed to be jointly working as negotiators to get a truce in the Israel/Gaza conflict, the United Nations has put Erdogan in a secondary role to Morsi. One of the reasons is that Morsi is taking a more statesmanlike approach to the negotiations, and is talking to both Hamas and Israel, while Erdogan has refused to talk to Israel since the latter refused to apologize for the deaths of nine Turkish citizens in the May 31, 2010, confrontation between Israel's armed forces and the Gaza "Freedom Flotilla." Erdogan's unwillingness to even talk to Israel has made him a poor choice for negotiator. So Erdogan lashed out at the United Nations on Monday, saying that he doesn't trust the organization because it lacks a Muslim voice. He also lashed out at Israel, saying that it was a "terrorist state." He said that the West ignore the "sufferings of Muslims in Palestine, Syria and Myanmar because of lack of oil." Hurriyet (Ankara) and Bloomberg
The recent bitter negotiations between Britain and negotiators in Brussels is causing increased "Eurosceptism" in Britain. Prime minister David Cameron is threatening to veto spending increases in the EU budget, and there is increased talk, in both Britain and Brussels, of Britain leaving the European Union. However, a British business confederation is warning that leaving the EU would be bad for Britain:
"It is like many relationships: can't live with you, can't live without you. Whatever the popular appeal may be of withdrawal, businessmen and politicians must keep the bridge to Europe firmly in place."
A meeting on Tuesday of the Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers to discuss approving the next bailout payment to Greece is expected to generate more heat than light. A sharp disagreement between Eurogroup president Jean-Claude Jüncker and International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Christine Lagarde broke out into the public last week, and it's far from resolved. Jüncker would like to find a way to give Greece additional bailout money and to postpone some of Greece's austerity commitments, while Lagarde is insisting the previous agreements be honored. Dow Jones
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 20-Nov-12 World View -- U.S. Navy warships head for eastern Mediterranean thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(20-Nov-2012)
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Farcical MF Global decision excuses Jon Corzine and employees from guilt
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In November 2011, the hedge fund firm MF Global went bankrupt. The company had intermingled customer funds with company funds, when the two were supposed to be segregated. As a result, $1.6 billion in customer funds were missing. Those investors who had simply trusted MF Global to hold their money safely lost their money.
The company's chairman and CEO was Jon Corzine, former Democratic party U.S. senator and Democratic governor of New Jersey and one-time chairman of Goldman Sachs. When Corzine was asked by a congressional committee where the money was, he said that he had no idea which of his subordinates was responsible for losing it. "I simply do not know where the money is," he said, adding that he was "stunned" to learn it was missing.
Well, since Corzine is a Democrat, the Obama administration and Eric Holder's Justice Department refused to investigate. This is because the Obama administration accepts millions of dollars in political contributions, and would much rather let these mega-criminals go free than do something that would protect American citizens from crooks.
And so, the Republicans in the House of Representatives decided to investigate, in the Financial Services Committee. But we have to remember that the Republicans ALSO receive fat contributions from financial mega-criminals, so they don't want really want to investigate either, but the political pressure was so great that they had to do an investigation.
The full committee report was published on Thursday. Here's the major conclusion, on page 78 of the report:
"As MF Global’s chief executive, Corzine was responsible for ensuring that the company maintained integrated systems and controls for managing the company’s liquidity and protecting customer funds. However, under Corzine’s tenure, the company’s cash management, liquidity monitoring, and regulatory compliance functions remained fragmented among several of the company’s departments. MF Global lacked any formal liquidity management framework, and the company could not fully assess and anticipate its liquidity needs. Under Corzine’s leadership, the company failed to address concerns raised in an internal audit suggesting that MF Global’s liquidity tracking and forecasting capabilities lagged behind the firm’s evolving business needs.Consequently, MF Global was unable to coordinate its activities during the liquidity crisis in its final days of operation. As the company struggled to find additional liquidity, company employees identified excess company funds held in customer accounts. However, because they did not have an accurate accounting of the amount of customer funds the company held, they withdrew customer funds as well as company funds. Prosecutors and MF Global’s regulators will determine whether the company or its employees violated laws or regulations when these withdrawals were made. However, the responsibility for failing to maintain the systems and controls necessary to protect customer funds rests with Corzine. This failure represented a dereliction of his duty as MF Global’s Chairman and CEO."
Please note the following:
This is a farcical piece of crap, but it's typical of Washington and Wall Street these days. But if you think that there's no more to the farce, then you're wrong.
The piece of crap was prepared by the staff of Republican Randy Neugebauer, who is chairman of the committee.
But get this: Even though the report barely assigns any blame to Corzine, the Democratic co-chair of the committee, Michael E. Capuano, refused to sign off on the report. I assume that Capuano is in bed with Corzine or, if not, a lot of other Democratic financial types. Washington Post and House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
As I've been pointing out for years, there has not been a single conviction from the financial crisis, even though the evidence is overwhelming that investment banks purposely and knowingly created trillions of dollars in fraudulent subprime-mortgage backed synthetic securities, and then purposely and knowingly defrauded thousands of investors. (See my April, 2010, article "Financial Crisis Inquiry hearings provide 'smoking gun' evidence of widespread criminal fraud.") And yet, the Obama administration adamantly refuses to prosecute these criminals, because they helped get Obama reelected with huge campaign contributions.
(It would have been very interesting to see whether a Romney Justice Department would have acted any differently, but I guess we'll never know.)
The way that the fraud was committed is now well known. Gen-Xers poured out of business schools in the 1990s with Masters degrees in "financial engineering," which gave them the skills to create this fraud. After the Nasdaq crash in 2000, many of them lost money and they blamed it on the hated Boomers. They went into financial institutions with the intent to get even, and they did. They committed these crimes under the noses of their Boomer bosses, just as Corzine's employees did at MF Global.
As I've also said for years, since crimes aren't being prosecuted, the same people are in the same jobs, finding new ways to commit fraud.
Today we have huge sums of money pouring out of the Fed or the European Central Bank into the hands of the same banks that caused the financial crisis in the first place. They no longer have to be subtle about committing fraud, since the central banks are now just letting them defraud the taxpayers legally.
This is a new phenomenon. Whereas the fraud began in a specific way, with Gen-Xers purposely defrauding Boomers, the fraud has metastasized so that everyone in Washington and Brussels and on Wall Street are now part of it. Those huge sums of money are flowing into the coffers of politicians and into the multi-million dollar bonuses of banksters and into big contracts with favored companies like Solyndra and General Electric, but almost none of it is flowing into the hands of ordinary people or small businessmen. And don't get me started (again) on the catastrophic financial corruption in things like climate change and Obamacare.
Hannah Arendt, in her 1949 book "Origins of Totalitarianism," described a similar phenomenon in Germany in the lead-up to the Holocaust. She described Bertolt Brecht's famous play The Three-Penny Opera as presenting "gangsters as respectable businessmen and respectable businessmen as gangsters." I will at some later date quote a lot more from Arendt's book to show how 1930s Germany was similar to America today, but for now I simply want to make Arendt's point that it was massive financial corruption that preceded the Holocaust.
I've written about the comparison between today and 1930s Germany many times. In the 1930s, the younger Lost Generation hated the previous Missionary Generation just as much as today's younger Gen-Xers hate the previous Boomer Generation. (See "The Legacy of World War I and the Holocaust") The attitudes and behaviors of today's Gen-Xers are the same as the attitudes and behaviors of 1930s Lost Generation Germans.
Ordinary Lost Generation Germans blamed Jews for Germany's humiliation in the Great War, and for Germany's financial problems. In 1934, the German government passed only fairly simple discriminatory laws against the Jews. This corresponds to the actions of "financial engineers" in the 2004-2007 time period.
However, these simple laws metastasized into greater and greater discrimination, with a turning point being reached with Kristallnacht in 1938, where Nazi gangs destroyed Jewish property across the country, with "fashionably dressed women clapping their hands and screaming with glee, while respectable middle-class mothers held up their babies to see the 'fun.'" After that, Lost Generation criminals were fully in charge of Germany's government. By 1942, the criminal activity had metastasized completely in the concentration camps and the Holocaust.
Today we're seeing same metastasis in Washington and Wall Street, as Gen-X criminality spreads to everyone, Gen-Xers and Boomers alike.
I've had dozens of conversations with Gen-Xers in the last few years as they twist themselves into pretzels giving me tortured explanations why the Obama administration should not investigate and prosecute financial engineers who engineered the financial crisis. I've seen several of them act just as gleefully as the fashionable women of Berlin did in seeing Jewish property destroyed. "They were victims of their Boomer bosses," is the moronic argument I always hear, just as German war criminals justified their actions in exactly the same way after the war.
Interestingly, what I've heard at least a dozen times is: "I'm not opposed to people going to jail. For example, I'd like to see Jon Corzine go to jail." However, they never mention Corzine's employees going to jail as well.
Well, isn't that hilarious. The Republicans investigated Corzine for a year, and came to the farcical conclusion last week that Corzine was guilty of nothing more than innocent confusion, as were his employees. So you can see why the Gen-X argument I just quoted really is truly moronic.
The 1930s Holocaust was not just caused by the few Germans who ran the trains and the concentration camps, in cooperation with the mainstream media. It was caused by millions of German businessmen and politicians who refused to acknowledge that crimes were being committed, or to do anything about them. Today's Gen-Xers have exactly the same attitudes and behaviors as ordinary 1930s Germans.
I would like to send a message to President Barack Obama, to AG Eric Holder, to Republican Randy Neugebauer, to Democrat Michael E. Capuano, and to all the other Gen-Xers and Boomers who refuse to acknowledge criminality because they benefit from it:
You are the Rudolph Hess, the Hermann Göring, the Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the Albert Speer of today.
If you've ever wondered how the Holocaust was even possible, then you should know that if you had lived in the 1930s rather than today, then you would would have been the ones sending Jews to their deaths in concentration camps. You have the same attitudes and behaviors as those men did in the 1930s, and you are just as much criminals as they were. If you've ever stopped to wonder how the Holocaust could have happened, now you know.
Syria's conflict may be "last week's war," but the Gaza conflict hasn't affected it, except to remove it from the front pages. On Sunday, Israel shelled Syrian fighters in Syria, after soldiers in Syria fired gunshots into the Golan Heights. According to the Israeli military, the Israelis scored a hit, though they don't know whether the hit was on supporters of Bashar al-Assad or the opposition. Irish Times
Negotiators from Israel and Hamas are arriving in Cairo Egypt to begin peace talks to end the Gaza war. Sunday was the deadliest day of the war for Gaza, but so far there's no sign that an Israeli ground invasion is imminent.
Israel's objectives in the war are to destroy as much of Hamas's missile launching capability as possible. Israel's objectives in the peace talks are to get guarantees that there will be no more rocket attacks.
Hamas's objectives in the war and in the peace talks are to loosen the blockade around Gaza, and to permanently open the crossing into Egypt, so that goods and people can flow back and forth unhindered.
Israel will disagree with Hamas's objectives, saying that they will permit Hamas to import a new supply of rockets and other weapons to be used against Israel.
Hamas will not be capable of guaranteeing that there will be no more rocket attacks, since Hamas is unable to control Islamic Jihad and other Shia militant groups. As I've pointed out in the past, the average age of the people in Gaza is 17 (contrasted to 37 for the United States), meaning that Gaza is a region made up of little children running around with guns and missiles. AP
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 19-Nov-12 World View -- Israeli delegation goes to Cairo for peace talks thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(19-Nov-2012)
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Israel's 'Iron Dome' air defense system a game changer
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The Israelis are being cast as the villains in the Gaza conflict by pro-Palestinian protesters around the world -- in America, Canada, Britain, Russia, Europe, and Iran, as well as in Arab countries. Britain's prime minister David Cameron expressed his sympathy for the unacceptable rocket attacks on Israel, but said the UK was pressuring both sides to de-escalate, and urged Israel's prime minister Netanyahu to do everything possible to bring the conflict to an end.
With worldwide pressure continuing to build on Israel not to launch a ground invasion of Gaza, Israeli troops and tanks have been traveling to the border with Gaza but (as of this writing on Saturday evening ET) there's been no sign that a ground invasion was imminent. The war appears to have reached a kind of stasis -- Hamas is launching hundreds of missiles into Israel, and Israel is launching hundreds of air strikes at Hamas targets in Gaza. It's possible that Israel is using the air strikes to soften up Gaza's military before a ground invasion, or it's possible that Israel has decided that it has nothing more to gain with a ground invasion than it can get with air strikes. BBC
What happens next appears to hinge on the negotiating skills of Egypt's president Mohamed Morsi and Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The two Sunni Muslim leaders met in Cairo on Saturday for an emergency Arab League which, as usual, did nothing more than issue speeches and declarations. However, Morsi and Erdogan have personally committed to bringing about a truce between Hamas and Israel, and with President Barack Obama having little remaining credibility in the Mideast, Morsi and Erdogan are best positioned to mediate.
Erdogan vowed support for the Palestinians, and said that sooner or later, Israel will have to pay the price for the children killed in Gaza. He added that Egypt and Turkey are capable of jointly bringing stability to the Middle East, without the need of outside "brokers."
It appears that the key to any mediation is to convince Hamas and Islamic Jihad to stop launching rockets into Israel. From Israel's point of view, that would presumably remove the need for continued military action, as long as both sides continue to honor the truce for more than a few minutes. Zaman (Istanbul) and Al-Ahram (Cairo)
"Iron Dome" is the name of Israel's defense system against short-range missiles coming from Gaza. Iron Dome detects incoming missiles and launches its own missile to intercept and destroy the incoming missile. According to the Israeli military, it works in all weather conditions:
"The radar detects a rocket launch and passes information regarding its path to the control center, which calculates the predicted point of impact. If this location justifies an interception, a missile is fired to intercept the rocket. The payload of the interceptor missile explodes near the rocket, in a place that is not expected to cause injuries."
On Saturday, Jerusalem was saved from an incoming missile by an Iron Dome intercept.
In 2011, Israel's military said that Iron Dome had a 70% success rate. Over the past three days, 737 rockets from Gaza were fired into Israel: 492 landed, but 245 were intercepted by the Iron Dome system. CNN
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 18-Nov-12 World View -- Egypt and Turkey play crucial negotiating role for Israel/Gaza war thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(18-Nov-2012)
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Taiwan stays out of China-Japan fight over Senkaku Islands
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Tanks and troops are massing on Israel's border with Gaza, and on Friday evening, Israel's cabinet authorized mobilization of up to 75,000 reservists, up from just 16,000 authorized the day before, with 30,000 already reporting for duty in their home districts. These moves are reactions to long-range rockets from Gaza reaching as far as Jerusalem, though without yet creating damage or casualties. But the vulnerability of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to rocket attacks from Gaza is causing Israel to get panicky.
Recall that in 2006, Israel went to war with Hizbollah in Lebanon, within four hours of the capture of two Israeli soldiers, with no plan, and no objective, resulting in total chaos.
The current situation has the same feeling of Israel panicking. However, we have to assume that the Israelis learned a lot from 2006, and that they have a plan. Possibly the military buildup is just a bluff, and there's no intention of invading. Or the invasion may have begun by the time you read this. If the invasion does take place, it's hard to see what the objective will be. Even in the unlikely event that Israel manages to destroy every missile in Gaza, it will only be weeks before a new supply comes in from Iran through Egypt, through the Rafah crossing. Reuters and Debka
I frequently use the phrase "danger of miscalculation" in various situations. For example, in the East China Sea, where Chinese war ships and Japanese coast guard ships are circling each other and the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, there's a danger of miscalculation -- an accidental weapon firing or something -- that could spiral into a major confrontation.
There are reports that Hamas actually did miscalculate in provoking the Gaza war with Israel. Hamas seems to have believed it had a free hand to do what it wanted because Israel would not want to risk angering Egypt's government or Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. But Israel went ahead with its military campaign anyway, and Egypt's president Mohamed Morsi, while harshly condemning Israel's actions, is working to mediate a truce, as we reported yesterday.
It's also worth stopping a moment and reminding ourselves what's going on here. These discussions about reservists and miscalculations are about what politicians say and do.
But as I point out frequently, it's a basic principle of Generational Dynamics that politicians matter very little in bringing about great events, even in a dictatorship. It's the great masses of people, entire generations of people, that bring them about, and politicians are irrelevant except insofar as they're following the wishes of the masses of people.
In this case, the firing of rockets into Israel has a great deal of popular support among Gazans, and it's not clear that the Hamas government could prevent the firing even if it wanted to. In fact, there have been numerous reports in the past that Hamas is unable to control Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups that are launching the rockets.
In the case of Israel, it's clear that Netanyahu has no choice. The people of Israel are frightened and furious, and are demanding that something be done. I've heard some analysts say that Netanyahu is taking a "risky gamble," but in fact he's not gambling anything because he has no choice. He's doing what he has to do, and he can neither bring about a good outcome nor prevent a bad one. The Mideast is now on automatic flight control. Washington Institute
As the disagreement over sovereignty over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands gathered steam in the last few months, Taiwan mostly stayed out of it, even though Taiwan also claims sovereignty over the same islands. There were a couple of critical statements, and there was a high-profile "sea protest" involving hundreds of Taiwanese fishing vessels, but it ended quickly. Taiwan's non-involvement is partially due to political disputes within Taiwan's government over whether Taiwan should be an independent nation or a province of mainland China. But the major reasons seems to be an almost total lack of interest in the issue on the part of the Taiwanese people. Attempts by activists to generate large protests have backfired when participants were simply uninterested. There is Taiwanese nationalism on other issues, but not on this issue, and there is little Taiwanese xenophobia towards the Japanese. This is in contrast to the Chinese people who are so xenophobic and nationalistic that they've been assaulting Japanese on the streets, smashing Japanese factories, and boycotting Japanese products en masse. As I said earlier, it's the great masses of people that determine government policy, not the politicians. Jamestown
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 17-Nov-12 World View -- Israel apparently prepares for a ground invasion of Gaza thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(17-Nov-2012)
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Greek protesters attack German official after slur on Greek workers
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From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, a war doesn't just start on the day that somebody officially declares war. The preliminaries can go on for decades, with periods of low-level conflict intermixed with periods of truce. But each period of truce is followed by another period of conflict more violent than the previous one.
This alternation of truce and escalated conflict continues, until one or both sides crosses a "red line" during a generational Crisis era, a time of heightened nationalism, anxiety and xenophobia. Such red lines are called "regeneracy events" in generational theory, because they serve to unite the country and regenerate civic unity for the first time since the end of the preceding crisis war. ("Basics of Generational Dynamics")
Once enough of these regeneracy events occur, a full-scale generational crisis war begins. The level of nationalism and genocidal violence continues to escalate on both sides, until the war ends months or years later in an explosive climax.
In the last 24 hours, there have been two major regeneracy events in the Gaza vs Israel conflict:
My focus today is not the military aspects of this conflict, but the "regeneracy event" aspect. Both Hamas and Israel are deep into a generational Crisis era, with extremely high nationalism, anxiety and xenophobia.
As long as Israeli warplanes were only targeting weapons stores, the Gazans were prepared to live with it. As soon as it appeared that Israel has the capability to target and kill a high-level Hamas official, nationalism kicked in big time, and demands for revenge have been surging.
As long as Hamas's Grad rockets were targeting small villages near the Gazan border, with lots of empty spaces, Israelis were prepared to live with it. But as soon as it appeared that Hamas has the capability to strike the city of Tel Aviv, making millions of people vulnerable to attack, nationalism and anxiety have kicked in big time, and demands to put a stop to the attack have been surging.
Whether Hamas and Israel can somehow reach a truce before going to a full-scale crisis war remains to be seen. But if there is a truce, then it will be a temporary one, and at some point there will be new regeneracy events that will lead to full-scale war.
In the meantime, the rhetoric has become extremely belligerent. Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel takes pains to avoid civilians, while:
"It is important to understand one simple point: there is no moral symmetry between the terrorists in Gaza and Israel.They are committing double war crimes: they fire at Israeli civilians and hide behind Palestinian civilians."
Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of Hamas's Gaza government, has been trying to pressure Egypt to come into the war on the side of Hamas:
"We call on our Arab brothers, and especially Egypt ... and the new Egyptian presidency, to suppress this barbaric campaign in defense of Gaza and its people."
Reuters and Al-Jazeera
President Barack Obama's strategy during the last four years of blaming President George Bush for failing to resolve the Mideast problem, and then giving speeches that appear to reward Hamas's intransigence while ignoring Israel, appears to have backfired. President Bush was respected by both sides, though hated by one side, because he made it clear that he would defend Israel while working for a two-state solution. President Obama, as far as I can tell from reading the Mideast press, seems to be neither respected nor liked by either side, with a statement like "he's worse than Bush" appearing often in opinion columns.
Similarly, there's little respect on either side for the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, or Kofi Annan. The latter was particularly ridiculed for his pointless farcical six point plan to end the Syria conflict.
Now, there is someone almost completely unexpected preparing to fulfill that role. Egypt's president Mohamed Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, has gained credibility in the Mideast because of his willingness and ability, so far, to play a conciliatory role in his own government and in the region. In his own government, he appears to have taken a number of shrewd steps to regain power from the military junta that took over after Hosni Mubarak was deposed, and the demonstrations and violence in Tahrir Square seem to have cooled off.
On Wednesday, he condemned Israel's assassination of Ahmed Jabari, but he took the weakest possible diplomatic action that he could possibly take, short of doing nothing: He recalled Egypt's ambassador to Israel. One can imagine much more confrontational steps -- closing embassies, completely breaking diplomatic relations, moving troops into the Sinai -- but none of those happened.
Furthermore, when the Chief of Morsi's presidential cabinet was asked whether Morsi planned to repudiate Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel, the response was as follows:
"No, not at all. Not at all, because we have declared several times and repeatedly that we abide by our international commitments. But respecting the peace treaty does not mean they're idle or indifferent to what is going on along our borders and what is touching our brothers. And we cannot be indifferent to human sufferings. So we are abiding by our legal obligations, but we are active to help establishing real peace in the area."
Morsi is sending a high-level Egyptian delegation to Gaza on Friday, and has already spoken to both Hamas and Israel in phone calls. Morsi has a great deal of credibility right now, and it's quite possible that Morsi will succeed, and that he will find a way to bring about a temporary truce before the conflict spirals into full-scale war. Al-Ahram (Cairo) and CNN
Greek protesters in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki physically attacked a German official attending a meeting on Greek-German relations, forcing riot police to step in for protection. The attack was apparently triggered by Hans-Joachim Fuchtel, a Labor official in Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet, who said that Greek cities should try to cut back on employees, because it takes three Greeks to do the same job as one German. After the incident Fuchtel issued an apology, saying that he had great respect for Greek workers. Deutsche-Welle and Kathimerini
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 16-Nov-12 World View -- Egypt rushes to mediate truce in escalating Israel-Gaza war thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(16-Nov-2012)
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Europe-wide anti-austerity marches turn violent in Spain and Portugal
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Tensions have been rising significantly in the Mideast since Saturday, when the Islamic Jihad terrorist group started launching rockets at homes in southern Israel. Some 500 rockets have been launched since then.
On Wednesday, Israel's Foreign Ministry issued the following communiqué:
"The Cabinet directed the IDF and the ISA to continue vigorous action against the terrorist infrastructures operating from the Gaza Strip against the civilian population in Israel in order to allow a normal life for the residents of the State of Israel.It was unanimously decided, this evening (Wednesday, 14 November 2012):
1. To direct the IDF and the ISA to continue vigorous action against the terrorist infrastructures operating from the Gaza Strip against the civilian population in Israel in order to bring about an improvement in the security reality and allow a normal life for the residents of the State of Israel.
Alongside the military effort, Israel will, to the best of its ability, work to avoid harming civilians while honoring the humanitarian needs of the population, in keeping with the rules of international law.
2. To direct the IDF, the Home Front Defense Ministry, the Israel Police and all relevant agencies to take all necessary measures in keeping with Defense Minister Ehud Barak's statement regarding the declaration of a special home front situation.
3. To allow the IDF, as per need and with the approval of Defense Minister Barak, to mobilize reserve units.
4. To direct the National Information Directorate and the Foreign Ministry, in conjunction with all relevant agencies, to explain Israel's actions, in Israel and in the international arena.
5. To authorize Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with Defense Minister Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, and in consultation with other ministers as per need, to decide, on behalf of the Security Cabinet, regarding the actions necessary to continue with Operation Pillar of Defense and to submit other decisions for Government approval, as may prove necessary."
The operation began with air strikes that killed Ahmed Jabari, the commander of Hamas's military wing, killing him and his son as he was driving in his car. Jabari is blamed for a number of terrorist attacks in the last ten years, and he also masterminded the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Shalit was held in captivity, and was only freed in return for the release of 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails last year. Jabari also led Hamas's successful military campaign that defeated Fatah in 2007.
The Israeli air strikes are continuing as of this writing on Wednesday evening ET.
Israel has called up its military reserves, and has announced that the war may be expanded, with the possibility of a ground invasion such as occurred in Operation Cast Lead, when Israel invaded Gaza in 2008.
If you go to the IDF web site, you can see live updates of the military operation in Gaza. Israel's Foreign Ministry and Jerusalem Post and Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) web site
Ahmed Jabari was the head of the militant Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, which issued a statement on Wednesday that "The occupation has opened the gates of hell on itself." A Hamas spokesman said:
"The occupation committed a dangerous crime and crossed all the red lines, which is considered a declaration of war.The occupation will pay dearly for this and we will make it regret the moment they thought about it."
The killing of Ahmed Jabara sparked furious protests in Gaza. It's widely believed that Hamas has no choice but to seek revenge. Hamas has a number of options that were not available during Operation Cast Lead in 2008.
Ever since Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak was deposed last year, the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt has been open, allowing sophisticated weapons to pass through from Egypt to Gaza. In addition, it's now possible for Hamas to send suicide bombers through the Rafah crossing into Israel via Egypt's Sinai. It appears likely that both sides will escalate the war in the days to come.
Al-Resalah (Gaza) and Al-Jazeera
At Egypt's request, the United Nations Security Council is meeting in closed emergency session on Wednesday evening to discuss the Israeli air strikes on Gaza. The Arab League has condemned Israel, and will be meeting on Saturday. Reuters
Millions of people across Europe took part on Wednesday in a mostly peaceful general strike called by organized labor. However, in Lisbon Portugal, the marches ended with a level of violence not seen since the financial crisis began, with police charging demonstrators who hurled stones and bottles. Riot police used rubber bullets to disperse violent protesters in Madrid and Barcelona in Spain. In Rome, scuffles broke out between police in riot gear and demonstrators who threw stones, bottles and fireworks. Reuters
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 15-Nov-12 World View -- Hamas vows revenge as Israel begins military operation in Gaza thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(15-Nov-2012)
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The Dalai Lama, in Japan, criticizes China over Tibet
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The disagreements between the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and eurozone finance ministers broke out into raucous confrontation on Monday. Putting together several sources, this is what happened:
Jean-Claude Jüncker, president of the Eurogroup of finance ministers, and also Luxembourg’s prime minister, said that the European finance ministers wanted to grant Greece the two-year extension on its new austerity commitments, when he said that the target date for Greece to achieve a "sustainable" debt level would be 2022.
When Jüncker made that declaration, he was sitting right next to Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF.
She said, "Did you say 2022?"
He said, "Yes."
She said, "No we don't have agreement on that."
He said, "I'm not joking."
Then Jüncker repeated his declaration.
A visibly angered Ms Lagarde ostentatiously shook her head and rolled her eyes. She said:
"We clearly have different views. What matters at the end of the day is the sustainability of the Greek debt so that that country can get back on its feet and re-access the private market in due course.What we regard as critical insofar as the IMF is concerned is that the Greek debt is sustainable. In our view the appropriate timetable is 120 per cent [of GDP] by 2020 [as opposed to 2022]."
And let's recall that European politicians have lied over and over again, and Eurogroup chairman Jean-Claude Jüncker was quoted as saying, "When it becomes serious, you have to lie," as we reported in May, 2011.
Well, this situation is certainly serious, so I guess Jüncker must be lying. He said that all the Eurogroup finance ministers agreed to 2022, but I doubt very much that Germany, Finland, the Netherlands or Austria did. So I'm pretty sure that his claim was a lie.
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Ms. Lagarde took a far more principled position, but the IMF is a global organization, not a European organization, and its sponsors in America, in China, and in Brazil are going to wonder why they should have to be bailing out Greece, when that's Europe's responsibility. In fact, the bailout money doesn't even really go to Greece; it goes to European banks that purchased massive amount of toxic Greek debt.
So, apparently Greece is going to get its two-year extension, but that extension is going to require an additional 32.6 billion euros on top of the 148 billion euros Greece has already been promised.
There was no agreement on who was going to pay that additional 32.6 billion euros. There will be another Eurogroup meeting on November 20, to iron out that tiny little detail.
However, Greece did get some good news on Monday: It was able to sell 5 billion euros in short-term bonds, enough to prevent it from going bankrupt on Friday. Telegraph (London)
France broke with other European countries by becoming the first to recognize Syria's Syrian National Coalition (SNC) as the government of Syria. France's president François Hollande said on Tuesday:
"I announce today that France recognizes the Syrian National Council (SNC) as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people and as future government of a democratic Syria making it possible to bring an end to Bashar al-Assad's regime."
Six Arab states took the same step on Monday, though others wanted to wait. The new Syrian coalition was formed over the weekend in marathon negotiations in Doha, Qatar. Calling itself the "National Coalition for Revolutionary Forces and the Syrian Opposition," it remains to be seen whether the coalition can hold itself together.
An unresolved question is whether France and other countries should sell arms to the opposition coalition, to help in their fight against the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad. Many countries are reluctant to do so, for fear that the weapons will end up in the hands of al-Qaeda linked terrorists, as has happened with the weapons in Libya's storehouses. Daily Star (Beirut) and Today's Zaman (Istanbul)
In the East Asia Sea, Chinese warships and Japanese Coast Guard ships have circling around each other and the Sankaku/Diaoyu islands, which both countries claim, so there's no need for any additional tension between the two countries. But there are indeed increased tensions, as China becomes infuriated over a visit by the hated Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, to Tokyo. Even worse, the Dalai Lama took advantage of the visit to criticize China for its policy in Tibet. In response, China's Foreign Ministry said:
"China is firmly opposed to any country or any person’s supporting the Dalai’s separatist activities in any way. Japanese right-wing forces have been blatantly supporting Dalai’s anti-China separatist activities and interfering in China’s internal affairs, which China strongly condemns."
China has been embarrassed in recent weeks by a surge in Tibetan suicides by self-immolation. China blames the Dalai Lama for the suicides, saying that he was sacrificing lives "to achieve his goal of Tibetan independence." AFP
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 14-Nov-12 World View -- Raucous EU-IMF confrontation lightens mood around Greece's bailout disaster thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(14-Nov-2012)
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Sharp disagreements between EU and IMF delay Greece's bailout payment
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Theoretically, there's a cease fire in effect between Israel and Gaza, since it was brokered by Egyptian intelligence officials on Sunday. But the Iran-linked Gaza terror group Islamic Jihad continued to fire rockets into Israel on Monday, damaging homes but producing no new casualties. Israel retaliated with air strikes. Some 150 rockets have been fired from Gaza into southern Israel since Saturday. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Monday with some 100 foreign envoys, and said,
"I don’t know of any of your governments who could accept such a thing. I don’t know of any of the citizens of your cities who could find that acceptable and something that could proceed on a normal basis. I think the whole world understands that this is not acceptable.So we’re going to fight for the rights of our people to defend themselves. We’ll take whatever action is necessary to put a stop to this."
Israel's foreign missions reportedly were instructed to tell their host governments that Israel has lost patience with the situation on the Gaza border and could take some action. Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Hamas was caught by surprise by Operation Cast Lead, Israel's 2008 ground invasion of Gaza. This time, Hamas will be far better prepared, with bomb-laden tunnels, booby-trapped buildings, snipers and underground command centers. At the same time, Hamas now has long-range rockets, and could attack Tel Aviv, something that would cause the violence to spiral up even farther. Jerusalem Post
For the second day in a row, Israel fired into Syria in response to Syrian mortar shells landing in the Golan Heights. On Sunday, it was just a warning shot. On Monday, a Syrian mortar shell landed near an Israeli army post in Golan, causing no damage or injuries. According to a military statement:
"In response, IDF (Israel Defense Forces) soldiers fired tank shells towards the source of the fire, confirming direct hits. Syrian mobile artillery was directly hit.[Further shooting from Syria] "will not be tolerated and shall be responded to with severity."
A spokesman for United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that he was "deeply concerned by the potential for escalation." AFP
Turkey has been striking Syria's military repeatedly for over a month, ever since shells from Syria's army struck a Turkish village, killing two women and three children. On Monday, a Syrian fighter jet bombed a rebel-held area near the Turkish border, killing at least six people, while a rocket-propelled grenade landed inside Turkey. The escalating violence near Turkey has sent a surge of Syrian refugees across the border. There are now about 120,000 Syria refugees in Turkish refugee camps, with 70,000 more living in Turkey outside the camps.
As the situation escalates, Nato announced on Monday that it will defend Turkey against attacks from Syria if necessary. Nato's Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Monday:
"NATO as an organization will do what it takes to protect and defend Turkey, our ally. We have all plans in place to make sure that we can protect and defend Turkey and hopefully that way also deter so that attacks on Turkey will not take place."
Al-Jazeera and Reuters
Far-right attitudes are growing in Germany, and not just on the fringes. (The phrase "far right" has different meanings in Europe and America.) Nationwide surveys show that right-wing extremist attitudes have grown from 8.2% to 9% in a year, with xenophobic preferences held by 25.1% of the population. In Greece, the growth of extreme right-wing attitudes has been much more extreme, and is resulting in an increasing level and severity of racist violence. What started as simple fist beatings has now escalated to assaults with metal bars, bats and knives, with attacks directed at dark-skinned migrants. At the same time, the far-right anti-immigrant Golden Dawn party has surged in popularity and in national elections. Spiegel and AP
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union are openly disagreeing on the demands to be placed on Greece in return for new bailout payments. In particular, the EU wants to give Greece two additional years to meet its austerity commitments, while the IMF refuses. The additional two years will mean that Greece will need an additional 32.6 billion euros bailout on top of the 148 billion euros it has already received, and with Greece's economy continuing to spiral downward on a daily basis, there's little doubt that even that won't be enough. The situation has gotten so bad that even mainstream media analysts are now saying that the problem with Greece is insoluble, so you no longer have to come to web sites like mine to get that particular piece of information. Greece is set to go bankrupt on Friday, when it has to meet 5 billion euros in debt payments. However, Germany's parliament will have to vote on new bailout terms. There is little enthusiasm to speed up the bailout decision-making process, since the fault is really with Greece, which didn't pass a 2013 budget until late Sunday evening (actually Monday morning). So, unless the new bailout payment can be awarded very quickly, some way will have to be found to give Greece a few billion euros cash by Friday. Irish Examiner
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 13-Nov-12 World View -- Mideast violence escalates on several fronts: Turkey, Syria, Gaza, Israel thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(13-Nov-2012)
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Greece passes budget, waits nervously for bailout approval
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A long-running disagreement about promotional banners from the terrorist group Hizbollah broke into violence in Sidon in southern Lebanon on Sunday. A hardline Sunni Salafi cleric, Ahmad al-Assir, has been demanding that the Iranian-linked Shia terrorist group Hizbollah be required to remove a large number of promotional signs and banners cluttering the town. On Friday, al-Assir gave a 48-hour deadline to remove all the pictures and banners in Sidon that "contain slogans supportive of Hizbollah and its allies who back the Syrian-Iranian scheme." A gunfight occurred between al-Assir supporters and Hizbollah supporters, leaving at least four people killed, including al-Assir's bodyguard, and seven others wounded. Al-Assir claims that his dispute is with Iran and Hizbollah, not with all Shias. Lebanon's army has been sent in to restore order. Naharnet (Beirut) and Al-Jazeera and Daily Star (Beirut)
Violence has escalated sharply between Israel and Gaza in the last 24 hours, with over 100 rockets and mortar shells from Gaza striking southern Lebanon, wounding three people. It's believed that the terror group Islamic Jihad launched the attacks. Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is said to be preparing international public opinion for an Israeli military operation into Gaza, perhaps similar to Operation Cast Lead, Israel's 2008 invasion of Gaza. According to defense minister Ehud Barak
"If we are forced to go back into Gaza in order to deal Hamas a [serious] blow and restore security for all of Israel’s citizens, then we will not hesitate to do so.It is Hamas that will pay the price; a price that will be painful."
There are reports that Egyptian intelligence officials have rushed into the situation to broker an end to the violence, and there are mixed reports about whether Islamic Jihad even wants the violence to end. Jerusalem Post and YNet (Tel Aviv)
Until Sunday, Israel has not fired at Syria since the 1973 Yom Kippur war. But two Syrian shells landed in the Golan Heights during the last few days, and so Israel fired a guided missile into Syria as a warning shot. "We don't believe it caused injuries or damages," according to an Israeli army spokesman. At the same time, Israel sent a warning message to the United Nations, saying that any firing into Israel will result "in a real response." According to an Israeli official,
"We will not accept any firing into our territory. This was a signal to the Syrians, that we will not be so forgiving of everything that lands in a territory."
Israel says that it doesn't want to be dragged any further into the Syrian conflict. Jerusalem Post
U.S. President Barack Obama made a personal call on Sunday to Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas told Obama that, despite Obama's objections, he would go ahead with the bid to get United Nations General Assembly recognition of the state of Palestine. The vote is expected to be taken later this month, and the resolution is expected to pass. AP and Reuters
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A study conducted by University of Cambridge (UK) researchers has found that the suicide rate in America for both civilians and the military has surged significantly since the financial crisis began in 2007. The suicide rate began increasing gradually since 1999, the beginning year of the study, but really shot up starting in 2007, when the financial crisis began. It was found that a 1 percentage point rise in the unemployment rate was associated with a 1% increase in the suicide rate, and that unemployment could account for about a quarter of the excess suicides, the rest being attributed to the economy in general. In the military, the most common reason for hospitalization of Army personnel is now admission for some type of psychiatric illness, including PTSD, depression, other anxiety disorders, or substance abuse. Approximately 15% of US infantry personnel experience some sort of PTSD symptoms post deployment. Emaxhealth and The Lancet (PDF)
Greece's parliament passed a harsh budget late Sunday night, raising the retirement age from 65 to 67, cutting wages for soldiers and public officials by 500 euros per month, and cutting pensions by 150 euros per month. Even so, it won't be enough. Greece's economy has been contracting for six years in a row, and a 4 1/2% contraction is expected next year. Greece has passed its budget at the last minute, which may nor may not leave enough time for European leaders to reach a judgment to give Greece its next bailout payment in time to avoid bankruptcy on Wednesday. Kathimerini
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 12-Nov-12 World View -- Israel fires warning missile into Syria, considers new war in Gaza thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(12-Nov-2012)
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As Israeli election approaches, tensions escalate on border with Gaza
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Both sides are threatening revenge on the border between Israel and Gaza, as attacks have escalated sharply in the last few days. On Thursday, a huge tunnel from Gaza to Israel exploded, injuring one soldier. On Saturday, Gaza showered Israel with rockets, and fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli jeep, wounding four soldiers. Israel retaliated with missile attacks on four targets in Gaza, killing and wounding dozens of Gazans. Islamic Jihad is believed to have launched the barrage of missiles.
Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak said, "The IDF responded harshly to the incident and further action will be considered in the coming days. We will not tolerate any escalation along the border."
The radical Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza released a statement vowing that "the Zionist enemy will pay a high price for this crime against Gaza."
Some Israelis are speculating that Hamas is repeating a pattern from 2008. Just after the November 2008 American election, and some three months before the next Israeli election, violence escalated sharply between Gaza and Israel, leading to the "Operation Cast Lead" war between Israel and Gaza. Now, just after the American election, with an Israeli election a few months off, violence is escalating sharply again. The speculation is that Hamas or Islamic Jihad or some other militant group in Gaza is using the chaos surrounding these elections as an opportunity to provoke a new war. Jerusalem Post and AFP and Haaretz
A spokesman for the Palestinian Authority (PA) said that the Palestinian leadership and the Arab countries have confirmed a decision to go the United Nations General Assembly to gain recognition of a Palestinian state on pre-1967 borders. The PA knows that it already has enough votes in the General Assembly for recognition, although the General Assembly can't give the state full U.N. membership without Security Council approval of a resolution, which the U.S. would veto. They are considering asking for a vote on November 15 or 29. November 29 is the anniversary of the date in 1947 that the U.N. General Assembly partitioned Palestine into Jewish and Arab regions. Once the General Assembly acts, the PA plans to pursue Israel for "war crimes" in the International Criminal Court. Israel has indicated that it will impose sanctions on the PA if its leader go to the General Assembly. Jerusalem Post
Britain's MEPs (Members of European Parliament) have led an alliance with Germany, the Netherlands, France, Sweden and other nations to walk out of talks on providing an additional $22 billion in the 2012 and 2013 European Commission budgets, and Britain's prime minister David Cameron renewed his threat to veto any budget increase above the level of inflation. Britain's Finance Minister Greg Clark pointed out that the European Commission was calling for "sound public finances" among the member nations, and therefore:
"So it is frankly breathtaking that, knowing all that, the Commission does not practice what it preaches by proposing reductions, but instead asks for a 6.8% increase in this budget over last year. ...Europe must practice the fiscal discipline that it demands of member states.
Ordinary working people, whether in the UK or elsewhere, cannot be asked to pay more to Europe when they are enduring cuts at home."
The negotiations are extremely acrimonious, and it's possible that a major EU summit meeting scheduled for November 22 will have to be postponed. Telegraph (London) and UK Press Association
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 11-Nov-12 World View -- Palestinian Authority will go to U.N. to ask for Palestinian state thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(11-Nov-2012)
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Syrian refugee crisis explodes with new flood of refugees
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The European Union's 2013 budget talks, which were supposed to approve a budget on Friday, collapsed. In fact, the talks never really got to the 2013 budget, as an acrimonious debate over how to plug an 8.9 billion euro shortfall in the 2012 budget ended without resolution. At the talks, eight nations -- Austria, Britain, Denmark, Germany, France, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden -- demanded that the EU's executive branch, known as the European Commission, use 15 billion euros of non-spent monies to plug the hole, but the Commission said those monies had already been spent. If the 2012 shortfall is not made up, then a wide range of social programs will have to end. Net contributor countries (countries that pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits), led by Britain, want to sharply cut spending, to match austerity policies of most countries. France, Finland and Germany want to cut the budget. But net beneficiary countries, led by Poland, urged everyone to do everything possible to get the increased budget passed. Talks will resume on Tuesday, with a November 20 deadline that appears unlikely to be met.
On Friday, I watched President Obama's speech live, where he talked about the deficit and "fiscal cliff," and said that since he won the election on Tuesday, he did not have to compromise, while his opponents did have to compromise. It appears that the next few months in America will be just as acrimonious as in Europe -- and in China, for that matter. AFP
Greece's officials had hoped that 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) -- would have approved a 31.5 billion euro bailout payment by Monday, in time to allow Greece to repay 5 billion euros of debt next week, and avoid bankruptcy. There is sharp disagreement among the troika members over whether Greece should be required to meet its austerity commitments, in view of the fact that Greece's economy continues to spiral down the drain. It looks like the next few days are going to be very tense. Guardian (London)
33-year-old mass murderer Anders Breivik, who was convicted of killing 77 children in Norway, mostly children, and who repeatedly said he was glad he did it, wrote a letter to prison authorities whining about conditions in his maximum security prison. After a newspaper exposed his correspondence with high-ranking neo-Nazi extremists, he no longer is permitted to use a computer, and all letters he sends and receives are censored to omit any mention of politics. Needless to say, the families of his victims are not sympathetic. Daily Mail (London)
Some 9,000 refugees fled from Syria to Turkey in a single day on Thursday, while another 2,000 went to Jordan and Lebanon. This brings the number of Syria refugees registered with the United Nations to more than 408,000. Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized the United Nations:
"It is very strange. There are currently atrocities being committed in Syria, and these atrocities are being directed by a state leader. While these atrocities are continuing ... there is a United Nations that is remaining silent towards it.How far will this go? When will the permanent members of the UN Security Council take responsibility? We are obliged to act together to counter this, otherwise we cannot refer to this world body as being democratic"
Among the 9,000 Syrians crossing over into Turkey, there were many army officers, including two generals, 11 colonels, two lieutenant colonels, two majors, four captains and five sergeants. Today's Zaman (Istanbul)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 10-Nov-12 World View -- EU budget talks collapse, leaving Greece without a bailout thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(10-Nov-2012)
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Putin fires Russia's defense minister, paralyzing the army
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The opening of China's 18th Party Congress in Beijing has been the occasion for a sharp escalation in the number of Buddhists in faraway Tibet to self-immolate, or set themselves on fire, as protests against China's government. There were five self-immolations on Wednesday, including a 23-year-old single mother of 2 and three teenage Buddhist monks. On Thursday, an 18-year-old former monk held up a white banner calling for the Dalai Lama's return to Tibet, drawing a crowd of thousands, and then set himself on fire. According to the director of Free Tibet:
"As Congress opens, China must be held accountable for its actions in Tibet. These protests are aimed at sending the next generation of China’s unelected regime a clear signal that Tibetans will continue to fight for their freedom despite China’s efforts to suppress and intimidate them."
There have been at least 69 self-immolation protests since February, 2009, and in 54 cases, the protesters have died.
Chinese officials are extremely embarrassed and infuriated by the self-immolations and warned Tibetans that:
"[Chinese security forces] will be ready to do whatever it takes to crush those who are destroying stability in the region to ensure that the 18th Party Congress is not disrupted."
Tibetans are expressing optimism that China's new president, expected to be Xi Jinping, will be more sympathetic to the Tibetans. Xi is the "princeling" son of Xi Zhongxun, who met and came to know the Dalai Lama in Beijing in the early 1950s. Daily Mail and AFP
In his final speech as president of China, Hu Jintao told the 18th Party Congress that that China must continue to "firmly march on the path of Socialism" and he insisted that "public ownership is the mainstay of the economic system" and warned that the party must "resolutely not follow Western political systems." he said the party should "steadily enhance the vitality of the state-owned sector and its capacity to leverage and influence the economy." This is a turnabout for Hu, who in the past has called for economic reforms to reduce the amount of corruption. The turnabout reflects the bitterness of the ideological struggle going on as China's the last of the survivors of Mao's Communist Revolution civil war turn power over to younger generations who grew up after that war. The ideological maneuvering has profound implications as 70% of top cadres in the party and the Chinese military retire, the most sweeping hand-over of power since the revolution in 1949. Telegraph (London)
On Tuesday, Russia's President Vladimir Putin fired Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov. Serdyukov was neck deep in corruption, having channeled a chunk of the multi-billion dollar military budget into his own bank accounts. But that kind of corruption isn't what gets you fired in Putin's Russia. What got Serdyukov fired was the opposite of what got him the job in the first place. In 2007, Serdyukov married Yulia, the daughter of close Putin friend and associate Viktor Zubkov. With that family connection, Serdyukov rose quickly to the top. Last month, the police launched an early morning raid on the apartment of 33 year old Eugenia Vasilyeva, the lovely assistant of 50 year old Serdyukov. Serdyukov answered the door in his bathrobe, and the investigators reportedly confiscated jewelry, paintings and cash worth $10 million. Serdyukov has been replaced by a new defense minister, who will fire many of Serdyukov's men and replace them with his own. That will create a domino effect, with each new official replacing the people in his own organization. This will paralyze decision-making in the defense ministry, at a time when reform has been progressing under Serdyukov's leadership. However, Serdyukov's reforms have made him many enemies, so few people are sorry to see him go. Jamestown and Reuters
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 9-Nov-12 World View -- China reacts furiously as Tibetan self-immolations sharply escalate thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(9-Nov-2012)
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Greece's parliament squeaks through the austerity package amid violence
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The faltering coalition of the government of Greece's prime minister Antonis Samaras managed to get 153 votes in parliament, out of 300 MPs, just enough to pass the package of austerity measures that the European leaders are demanding in exchange for a new bailout payment. The payment is needed before mid-November to prevent Greece's bankruptcy. Outside the parliament building, tens of thousands of people engaged in anti-austerity protests that were peaceful at first but turned violent. Protesters threw petrol bombs, while police used tear gas and water cannons. Greek protesters were particularly angry at the use of water cannon, the first such incident in many years. Kathimerini and Guardian
Israel announced that plans to build over 1200 new settlement homes in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The announcement triggered widespread criticism, especially from European countries. The British Foreign Office said that the announcement was "provocative" and "deeply disappointing":
"The UK has been consistently clear that Israeli settlements are illegal under international law and by altering the situation on the ground are making the two state solution, with Jerusalem as a shared capital, increasingly hard to realize."
East Jerusalem and the West Bank were captured by Israel during the Six Day War in 1967. CNN and YNet
Ayman al Zawahiri, the man who replaced Osama bin Laden as leader of al-Qaeda, posted a pep talk to al-Shabaab jihadists in Somalia, who have been losing ground recently. He said that they should be cheered from recent United States defeats:
"They were defeated in Iraq and they are withdrawing from Afghanistan, and their ambassador in Benghazi was killed and the flags of their embassies were lowered in Cairo and Sana'a, and in their places were raised the flags of tawhid [monotheism] and jihad.After their consecutive defeats, they are working from behind agents and traitors. Their awe is lost and their might is gone and they don't dare to carry out a new campaign like their past ones in Iraq and Afghanistan."
The statement about flags refer to attacks on American embassies where the American flag was pulled down and replaced with an al-Qaeda flag.
According to a collection of letters that Arab TV reporters found when they went to the Benghazi consulate where U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed, the Libyan police had stopped providing protection. Furthermore, on the morning of September 11, a Libyan policeman had been taking pictures inside the consulate, suggesting that the police were conspiring with the jihadists. It's now believed that al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Ansar al-Sharia, and other al-Qaeda affiliated jihadist groups participated in the murder of Stevens. Long War Journal and Memri
Following President Obama's reelection victory, with no need to worry about reelection, Palestinians are hoping that Obama will bring about a two-state solution to Mideast peace. According to one Palestinian analyst:
"On the one hand, he is more knowledgeable of the issues, and on the other he has to deal with the changing politics in the region, particularly with the emergence of two new powers in the Middle East — Iran and Turkey — which means the U.S. cannot afford to leave a political vacuum that could be filled by either of these two powers."
However, Palestinians don't expect Obama to change his support of Israel, since Congress is "hijacked by the pro-Israel camp." LA Times
The day after President Obama won reelection, and the pre-election hysteria has begun to disappear, the Dow Industrials had the biggest decline in a years. Pundits are blaming it on the worsening debt crisis, and the approaching "fiscal cliff." In addition, some of the onerous price control and employment regulations of Obamacare will be kicking in during the next few months. On Wednesday, the European Commission sharply downgraded the 2013 economic forecasts for the region. Bloomberg
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 8-Nov-12 World View -- Palestinians hope that President Obama's 2nd term will bring change thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(8-Nov-2012)
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The Butterfly Effect and the presidential election
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Greece's trade unions launched a general strike and nationwide protests on Tuesday against a new package of austerity measures that are being demanded by European leaders as a condition for Greece to receive its next bailout payment, in time to avoid going bankrupt in mid-November. Hundreds of thousands of people marched across the country, creating a major political crisis for prime minister Antonis Samaras, who must get agreement on these austerity cuts by the weekend. There have been numerous defections from Samaras' governing coalition, but at latest count, the austerity bill is expected to receive 160 out of 300 votes, enough to win passage. AP and Spiegel
Seven generals in the army of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad defected to Turkey on Tuesday, along with their families. This brings the total number of Syrian generals in Turkey to 42. There are now 111,890 Syrian refugees living in Turkey in 14 refugee camps built along the Syrian border, where they are fed three meals a day, and where health, security, financial access, communication, social activity, and educational needs are addressed. Today's Zaman (Ankara)
As I'm writing this, early on Tuesday evening ET, it's not yet known who won the presidential election, but I've heard several pundits say that last week Romney had a great deal of momentum that was stopped and partially reversed by hurricane Sandy. This means that if Obama wins, then it will be at least partially due to the weather.
Most readers will have heard of the "Butterfly Effect" in Chaos Theory, which says that a butterfly flapping its wings in China might cause a chain reaction that turns into a hurricane in North America. So if Obama does win, then we might speculate whether Obama can credit his victory to some Chinese butterfly - the Butterfly Effect.
This is a charming way of looking at it, but it's quite significant from the point of view of Generational Dynamics forecasting. (See "Generational Dynamics forecasting methodology")
Long-time readers may have noticed that there have been thousands of predictions on my web site, but never predictions about the results of an election. That's because Chaos Theory tells us that it's impossible to predict the results of an election with any certainty, because of the Butterfly Effect. The tiniest event -- a gaffe during a speech, a traffic accident, a sex scandal, or a butterfly flapping its wings -- can change the election results, and prove the predictions wrong.
Generational Dynamics forecasting distinguishes between "trend events" and "chaotic events." Trend events are those determined by large masses of people, entire generations of people, based on long-term irreversible trends. Chaotic events are those that can change direction rapidly, as the result of a tiny unforeseen accident. That's why generational forecasting theory carefully distinguishes between chaotic and trend events, and makes predictions only on the latter. Besides election results, other examples of chaotic events are next month's weather and next month's stock prices. Trying to predict chaotic events may be fun, but you'll probably be wrong half the time. And I always like to point out that it's easy to get a million predictions right -- just make two million predictions.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 7-Nov-12 World View -- Labor unions shut down Greece for 48 hours in anti-austerity strike thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(7-Nov-2012)
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Cyprus denies that its bailout money will go to Russian oligarchs
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Regular readers of World View know how much I whine about the fact that not a single person has gone to jail for the financial crisis, despite a huge abundance of evidence of fraud and criminal activity by banks, because the regulators adamantly refuse to investigate and prosecute the criminal activity, since everyone in Washington depends on huge political contributions from banksters. As a result, the same banksters are free to continue to commit new types of fraud with no fear of prosecution.
The only partial exception to the above is the two fines imposed against Barclays Bank, for criminal activity related to manipulation of Libor and electricity prices. (See "3-Nov-12 World View -- New charges put Barclays at center of climate change financial scam")
Barclays is a British bank, and the fines were imposed by American prosecuters. In my opinion, this has become possible because British politicians, rather than American politicians, receive political contributions from Barclays banksters.
Today we have a new illustration of this principle. Nobody in America or Europe has brought the ratings agencies (S&P, Moodys, Fitch) to court despite massive evidence that they gave AAA ratings that were not deserved. (See "Financial Crisis Inquiry hearings provide 'smoking gun' evidence of widespread criminal fraud" from 2010.)
But on Monday an Australian Federal Court issued a judgment against Standard & Poors Ratings Agency essentially for being at best completely incompetent and at worst criminals. In order for the banksters to make their securities fraud work, they needed the cooperation of the ratings agency to give the fraudulent securities AAA ratings. The court found that S&P used fraudulent assumptions and invalid data to arrive at the AAA ratings for synthetic securities issued by the Dutch bank ABN Amro. The court found that the ratings agency and the bank essentially cooperated to defraud investors.
None of this would have mattered, since we all know that prosecuters don't want to prosecute banks and ratings agencies that give enormous sums of money to politicians.
But here the two companies made a huge mistake: They defrauded 12 Australian municipal funds. In other words, innocent townspeople in Australia were defrauded by a bank in Holland and a ratings agency in the United States, with investment losses on the AAA securities amounting to $16.6 million. It doesn't take much to see why they were brought to court.
All the news stories on this ruling emphasize that, unless S&P appeals and wins the appeal, this decision has implications far beyond one case. It will open the doors to similar litigation in Europe and North America.
The amount of money that S&P and ABN Amro will have to pay is just a fraction of the large sums that they made through their criminal activities. Unfortunately, no one is yet threatened with jail. Reuters and Bloomberg and Quartz and Federal Court of Australia
Cyprus is still negotiating the 10 billion euro bailout it's going to need to keep from going bankrupt, after years of purchasing billions of euros in Greek government bonds that have turned out to be practically worthless. However, a report in Der Spiegel says that any bailout money for Cyprus will immediately go into the pockets of Russian oligarchs who use Cyprus to launder money from illegal activities in Russia. However, Cyprus' government on Monday dismissed the report, saying that was an attempt to sully the country's reputation as an international investment center. Spiegel and AP
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 6-Nov-12 World View -- Australia's court issues landmark judgment against S&P Ratings Agency thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(6-Nov-2012)
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Russia's nationalists turn against Putin
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Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas appeared to concede the "right of return" on Friday, as we reported. The remark was a shock to Palestinians, for whom the demand that they be able to return to their ancestral homes in Israel has been a foundational demand for the two-state negotiations, and many called him a "traitor." However, on Sunday Abbas reversed himself, saying that his previous remarks were only "personal," not applicable to all Palestinians:
"Talking about Safad is a personal position and does not mean giving up the right of return.No one can give up the right of return as all international texts and Arab and Islamic decisions refer to a just and agreed solution to the refugee issue, according to U.N. Resolution 194, with the term ‘agreed on’ meaning agreed with the Israeli side.
I do not change my position – what I say to the Palestinians is no different from what I say to the Israelis or the Americans or anyone."
In recent years, Russia's president Vladimir Putin has courted ethnic Russian nationalists to be allies in his ongoing effort to restore the might of the Russian empire, bringing the North Caucasus under control and even adding to Russia's territory the two breakaway provinces that Russia "liberated" from Georgia during the 2008 war. Russia's nationalists used to agree with Putin's agenda, but recently their agenda has transformed significantly. According to an analyst, "They don’t want to expand Russia, they don’t want to hear about its greater Eurasian status -- Putin’s favorite game. They want to get rid of the troublesome North Caucasus and its inhabitants they refuse to acknowledge as Russian citizens." 5,000 young nationalist protesters took to the streets on Sunday, Russia's annual Day of National Unity, and mixed numerous chants filled with ethnic hatred with bitter denunciations of Putin, some comparing him to Hitler. LA Times
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On Sunday, in St. Mark's Cathedral in Cairo's Abbasiya district, an Egyptian Coptic cleric named Wagih Sobhy Bakky Suleiman was chosen to become the "Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of All Africa in the Holy See of St Mark the Apostle," under the name Pope Tawadros II.
He was one of three finalists chosen by vote. The three finalist names were put into a glass bowl. A young altar boy was selected to make the final choice. The child was blindfolded, and then he reached into the bowl with a hand that believers say was guided by God, and withdrew the name of Tawadros. (Why can't we choose our President this way?)
The Coptic Christian Church was founded by Saint Mark the Evangelist, who was one of the "Seventy Disciples" who were sent out by Jesus to spread the gospel. He lost faith for a while, but later was restored to faith and was the author of the New Testament's gospel according to Mark. He became the Bishop of Alexandria for what has since become the Coptic Church. The Church flourished, and at one time was prominent not only in Egypt but throughout all of western Africa. Today, there are dioceses in Ethiopia, in Europe, Armenia and the United States. Pastoral responsibility falls to the Priests, who must be married.
The Prophet Mohammed is said to have given special dispensation to the Coptic Christians in Egypt, and they have gone through centuries of great freedom, alternating with centuries of great persecution. Today, Egypt's ten million Coptic Christians are still nominally free to worship as they choose, but they're still in shock over last year's "Maspero Massacre." (See "11-Oct-11 World View -- Egypt in shock over bloody massacre of Coptic Christians")
The death last Spring of Pope Shenouda III, the 117'th Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria, left Egypt's Copts anxious and frightened about their future, at a time when the Muslim Brotherhood has been gaining political power. But it also represented an opportunity for greater freedom: Over 2,000 Coptic Christians from Egypt visited the Holy Land for Easter, defying a ban imposed on visiting Jerusalem and Israeli-controlled areas. The ban has been in effect for three decades, imposed by the Coptic leader Shenouda to protest Egypt's 1979 peace agreement with Israel.
Tawadros is the 118'th Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria, that began with St. Mark, and Egypt's Copts see him as the "light at the end of the tunnel" after the strict rule of Shenouda, and occasional violent incidents since the Maspero massacre. In particular, since last year's revolution in Egypt, young Copts have begun engaging in politics, which was strongly discouraged by Shenouda. Copts expect the new pope to guarantee their rights and make them feel safe in the post-revolution Egypt. Tawadros will be the Copts' main contact with Egypt's first Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, and Copts will expect him to make sure that Morsi keeps to his promise of freedom of religion for all of Egypt's citizens. Egypt Independent and Al-Ahram (Cairo) and New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia and St. Takla Haymanout Coptic Orthodox Church (Alexandria)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 5-Nov-12 World View -- Egypt's Coptic Christians select a new Pope at time of anxiety thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(5-Nov-2012)
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Putin's disappearance may be related to his day as leader of the cranes
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Pundits give many reasons why Republicans and Democrats are unable to compromise in America today, but from the point of view of generational theory, the reason is pretty simple. In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan was able to unite the Republicans and the Democrats to cooperate with each other, following the chaos of America's generational Awakening era. They cooperated to change the Social Security system to make it a sounder system. After that, they cooperated again to specify new rules to control the budget deficit. Compromise was still possible in 1996, when Democratic President Bill Clinton, saying that "the era of big government is over," cooperated with the Republican congress to eliminate the welfare entitlement. Those compromises were possible because they were led by World War II survivors, people who were capable of putting the country ahead of politics.
Today, the WW II survivors are mostly gone, the current Gen-X and Boomer politicians have no personal memory of the horrors of WW II, and so are incapable of putting their country ahead of anything, even their own greed and hatred. I can write that we're headed for a new Clash of Civilizations world war that will be much worse than WW II, but the reaction of most people is not to deal with the message, but to shun the messenger. The same is true in any generational Crisis era. Just google the words "fdr scandals" to read about the bitterness of the 1930s, America's last generational Crisis era. And of course, the conflicts of the preceding generational Crisis era led to the American Civil War.
The same is true in China. During Deng Xiaoping's era in the 1980s, the survivors of Mao's Communist Revolution (1934-49) were still in charge, and compromise was possible. Deng, who in some ways can be thought of as China's Ronald Reagan, was able to unite competing factions after the country had been split by the disastrous "cultural revolution" of China's generational Awakening era. But today, those survivors are all gone, and all that people can do is look wistfully back and wonder why there's no Deng Xiaoping figure leading the country and able to unite it today.
Managing by "consensus" has been the highest goal of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since Mao's days. That means that there might be disagreement at first among the members of the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) but once a decision is made, then no one disagrees with it, at least in public. Every ten years, there is a generational change in China, and a new PSC is chosen. In the past, the choice has always been by consensus. This time, the choice will be made by people growing up after Mao's Communist Revolution. Like America's politicians today, they'll put personal greed ahead of their country.
It is apparently a foregone conclusion that Xi Jinping will be chosen as the new president of China, replacing Hu Jintao. But there are only seven seats available in the PSC, and ten candidates for them, and the battles for those seats may be bloody. But unlike Deng and Hu, Xi has been unable to bring about a consensus. He's proposing a radical idea: A differential voting scheme that will select the 7 winners from the 10 candidates. A voting scheme is a perfectly ordinary solution in the West, but it's anathema in China, which is supposed to rule by "consensus."
There's only one political party in China -- the CCP -- but for this election, there are two major factions within the CCP:
Into this potentially bloody situation, a new bombshell exploded a couple of weeks ago: A long New York Times feature that said that Wen Jiabao was a corrupt official who used his powers to channel billions of dollars to his family members. At a time when China is close to civil war between the mostly poor "peasants," and the generally wealthy and entitled CCP members, this has infuriated the public so much that the CCP shut down the entire New York Times website in China. But followers of Bo continued to circulate the incriminating article on Weibo, the Chinese Twitter, and Bo supporters are expected to use the accusations against Wen to claim that corruption is common in the CCP, and that the accusations against Bo are not so special. Straits Times (Singapore) and Asia Times and People's Daily (Beijing)
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The usually ostentatious president Vladimir Putin of Russia has remained almost completely out of sight for the last few weeks, causing Moscow to buzz about the state of his health.
The greatest speculation is that he suffered a back injury during a publicity stunt last summer that was so ridiculous as to be almost unbelievable, but you can't make this stuff up. Putin decided to become leader of a wedge of white crane birds, to help them migrate. He "disguised" himself as a mama crane by wearing a beak, a white robe and a helmet, and steered a hang glider through the air, leading some cranes.
Unfortunately, his hang glider apparently had a hard landing, and Putin may have hurt his back. (There's no word about whether the cranes also had a hard landing.)
Russians are cynical about their leaders' health, details of which are usually kept top secret. Leonid Brezhnev was leader until his death in 1982, and he was fully senile in his last few years. Boris Yeltsin's disjointed speech and bizarre behavior were attributed to heavy drinking. Putin has attempted to show himself off as a "hunk" in several publicity stunts, but now he may be in trouble. France 24 and Moscow News (September 5)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 4-Nov-12 World View -- Chinese Communist Party prepares for an explosive Politburo election thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(4-Nov-2012)
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In historic shift, Mahmoud Abbas gives up 'right of return' for Palestinians
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In an interview on Israeli television, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas effectively gave up the "right of return" in negotiations with Israel on a Palestinian state. During the 1948 was between Jews and Arabs, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled their homes in what is now Israel, and many of their descendants still live in refugee camps in countries in the region. The "right of return" is a demand that all of these refugees should be allowed to return to their ancestral homes, and this has been a constant but unrealistic demand in all negotiations. However, Abbas was asked about his birthplace, Safed, now a town in northern Israel. He said:
"I am a refugee but I am living in Ramallah. I believe that the West Bank and Gaza is Palestine. And the other parts is Israel. I want to see Safed. It is my right to see it but not to live there."
By saying that it is no longer his right to live in Safed, he's essentially conceding that the right of return is unrealistic.
However, a number of other Arab leaders decried Abbas' statement. Gaza's Hamas ruler Ismail Haniyeh said:
"It is not possible for any person, regardless of who he is ... to give up a hand's width of this Palestinian land, or to give up the right of return to our homes from which we were forced out."
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said:
"Abbas’s statements where he considered that Palestine is just the occupied territories in 1967 are unpatriotic statements and means cancelation for the 'right of return.' These statements reflect Abbas’s culture and will never reflect the stand of the Palestinian nation."
As we explained in "24-Oct-12 World View -- Qatar breaks Gaza blockade and replaces Iran as Hamas's benefactor" recently, Hamas is displacing the Palestinian Authority as the most important representatives of the Palestinians in the Arab world. BBC and AP
When analyzing current events from the point of view of Generational Dynamics, I'm less interested in what politicians say than in what generations of people think, as it's the latter that will determine events. Particularly important to note is a dramatic change in public opinion, when it occurs, because it could portend a war or other change in public policies.
A Cairo conference last week, widely covered in Arab television and print media, examined the "Iranian Agenda in the Arab World." In the past, most Arab public opinion was sympathetic to Iran, perceiving it as a victim of the "Great Satan" (United States) and Israel.
But this sympathy for Iran has entirely vanished in the Arab world, as a result of Iran's support of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, and his regime of torture and extermination of innocent Arab women and children. The general view in the Arab world is that there is no excuse whatsoever to support al-Assad, and such support could not even be justified if it served the purpose of resisting Israeli occupation.
The conference concluded that Iran and Israel are two faces of the same coin:
Currently Iran occupies islands that belong to the UAE, claims that Bahrain in its entirety is an Iranian province that must be taken back, uses its arms and militias as proxies in Lebanon, Iraq, Bahrain, Palestine, Kuwait, Syria and other countries, divides Arab societies on sectarian faults and inflames sectarian sentiments.
This is a good time to repeat my expectation that in the coming Clash of Civilizations world war, Iran will be allied with India, Israel, Russia and the West, while the Sunni Arab countries will be allied with Pakistan and China. Journal of Turkish Weekly
A couple of days ago I posted "30-Oct-12 World View -- Banksters desperately seek to save Europe's carbon trading system", relating the "climate change" financial scam to manipulation of Libor by Barclays Bank. The article focused on the plan by Barclays bankster Louis Redshaw to create hundreds of trillions of dollars in carbon trade derivative securities, and use them to make more money than Barclays was making with interest rate swaps, which Barclays was manipulating by manipulating the Libor rate in the 2005-2008 time period.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission proposed fining Barclays $470 million for a different scam: During the years 2006-2008, Barclays was manipulating the prices of electricity in California. They would take a daily loss on the trading of physical electricity in the California markets, but make a lot more money in "financial swaps" -- synthetic securities that were also tied to the prices of electricity. So they used two fraudulent transactions to bet against themselves. They would lose a little money by "crapping on" physical electricity trades, and they would make a lot more money by collecting on the synthetic security trades.
The Barclays traders were veterans of Mirant, one of the companies involved with the Enron scandal that was fined hundreds of millions of dollars for manipulating power prices in the California power crisis of 2000-2001.
So now we have the following:
So Barclays Bank apparently was at the center of the whole "climate change" financial scam. Undoubtedly scammers like Al Gore were poised to make millions if they could get this trading scheme off the ground.
The one thing that the scam needed most of all was United States passage of the "cap and trade" law that would pour billions of dollars into the banksters' scheme. In 2007, the climate change scammers were absolutely furious at President Bush, and were screaming at the tops of their lungs about how he was sabotaging the world and humanity for not backing the law. But what they were really furious about is that he was sabotaging their million dollar commissions and bonuses. In reality, the climate change scammers couldn't have cared less if some South Pacific islanders drowned; in fact, they'd welcome it, because killing off a few islanders would only make them more money.
I think that this is potentially a very big international news story, but no one in the media is going to investigate these allegations because the climate change myth and Al Gore have achieved god-like status, and I certainly don't have the resources or contacts to investigate it in depth myself, as much as I'd like to. Reuters and U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (PDF) and FT Alphaville and Reuters
There has been no net global warming in the last 16 years and, in fact, the global temperature today is the same as it was in 1997. Climate change scammers always talk about how the Arctic is getting warmer, but they ignore the Antarctic, which has been setting records for coldness and sea ice. Basically, the climate change scammers and the mainstream media are lying about scientific data, by purposely omitting the Antarctic from their claims. Daily Mail and Forbes
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 3-Nov-12 World View -- New charges put Barclays at center of climate change financial scam thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(3-Nov-2012)
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'Lagarde list' scandal may put corrupt Greek politicians in jail
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As Europe's economy continues to circle the drain in a deflationary spiral, here's a bizarre story that might end up sending corrupt Greek banksters and politicians to jail. Christine Lagarde is currently the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but in 2010 she was the finance minister of France. At that time, she obtained a thumb drive containing the names of 2,059 Greeks with bank accounts in HSBC's bank in Switzerland, and gave the thumb drive to Greek government officials, so that they could be investigated for using the Swiss bank accounts to evade taxes.
Well, Greek officials never did anything with the list, and at times claimed that it had been lost or misplaced. Finally, the list fell into the hands of Costas Vaxevanis, editor of the "Hot Doc" weekly magazine, and he published the list. But instead of investigating the 2,000 for possible tax evasion, furious government officials brought criminal charges against Vaxevanis for invasion of privacy, and threatened with two years in jail.
Vaxevanis might well have gone to jail, but the case got international attention, and infuriated ordinary Greeks who said that the politicians were prosecuting him because they were embarrassed. On Thursday, the court declared Vaxevanis to be innocent, but that's not the end of the scandal over Lagarde's list. There are many prominent politicians and businessmen on the list, and they are going to be targeted by the far left as causing Greece's problems, just as the far right blames Greece's problems on illegal immigrants. Al-Jazeera and Telegraph
There are 200,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan, 30,000 of them in the Zaatari Refugee Camp. The Syrians say that the camp has become essentially a prison camp, where they're fed dirty food and are treated "worse than animals." As a result, some Syrians are opting to return to Syria. According to one, "We face a slow death here, or a fast death over there." BBC
A cyber attack of "foreign origin" on South Carolina's Department of Revenue taxpayer data base has permitted 3.6 million social security numbers and 387,000 credit cards numbers to be stolen. In addition, data from 657,000 businesses has also been compromised. The breach occurred on August 27, but was not discovered until weeks later, on October 10, and only made public a couple of days ago. Governor Nikki Haley has abandoned political campaigning to give full attention to the breach. The state has since teamed up with Dun & Bradstreet to provide free fraud and identity theft monitoring. However, residents have to sign up to get the free services. If you're a South Carolina taxpayer, you should do so immediately. ZDNet
Although the attack is still under investigation, it appears that the breach was accomplished through a fairly common "sql code injection" attack. However, information so far indicates that the data base was set up in a fairly shoddy manner, with little attention given to security. For example, 3.6 million social security numbers and 387,000 credit card numbers were stolen. THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN ENCRYPTED, so that they would be useless to an attacker who stole them. In the last ten years, I've found that a lot of younger Gen-X programmers have little regard for security, and I've even seen cases where they've actually removed security controls because they thought that all Boomers who advocate security controls are full of crap. This is a major problem in the computer industry, and we're going to see a lot more disasters like the one in South Carolina. Dark Reading
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 2-Nov-12 World View -- Millions of South Carolina residents at risk of identity theft thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(2-Nov-2012)
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Eurozone unemployment reaches new historic high
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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In a visit to German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan asked for Germany's help in fighting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a terrorist group in Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iraq seeking a separate state of Kurdistan. Erdogan is complaining that Germany permits PKK fundraising activities to occur in Germany. Erdogan also complains that many western countries refuse extradition requests for people wanted in Turkey on terrorism charges despite extradition agreements they have with Turkey even though his government frequently approves the extradition of criminals to these countries. Erdogan's case is difficult for some people to accept, because of Erdogan's open support of Palestinians in Gaza, some of whom have been conducting terrorist attacks against Israel. Zaman (Istanbul)
Athough Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan were all smiles for the press conferences and photo ops during Erdogan's visit to Berlin on Wednesday, the strains were evident. The biggest faux pas occurred in their joint press conference, when Erdogan said that it had been a mistake to allow "South Cyprus" into the European Union, and he added that Merkel shared that view -- which is not true. Cyprus has been a sore point between Turkey and the Europeans ever since the Cyprus war of 1974, which partitioned the island into separate parts, controlled respectively by Greece and Turkey. The EU recognizes the Greek government as the official government of Cyprus, and has admitted that government to the EU.
Turkey formally applied to join the European Union in 1987, but negotiations have frequently broken down. Erdogan is unhappy about the treatment of 3 million people of Turkish origin living in Germany. On the other side, the EU has complained about breaches of freedom of speech and the right to free assembly in Turkey, and says that Turkey's democratic reforms have come to a standstill. Erdogan says that the EU will "lose Turkey," unless it's admitted by 2023. Spiegel
The unemployment level in the 17-country eurozone hit 11.6% in September, a new historic high in a continuing series of historic highs, with youth unemployment at 23.3%. Spain's unemployment rate is 26%, and Greece's is 25%. It's over 50% for young people in both countries. At the same time, new figures indicate that the inflation rate is lower than expected. The eurozone continues its deflationary spiral, while politicians pray for a miracle. Bloomberg
With Greece about to go bankrupt in mid-November unless it receives the next bailout payment, Greece revealed on Wednesday that it will overshoot its deficit and debt targets again next year because of a deeper than forecast recession. There was no progress on negotiations over the bailout because the International Monetary Fund (IMF) remained at loggerheads with Germany on the need for European government lenders to participate. (The new acronym to learn is OSI, which stands for "official sector involvement. Earlier this year, the big issue was PSI, or "private sector involvement".) A final decision on the bailout will be made at the finance ministers' face-to-face meeting on November 12. Kathimerini
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 1-Nov-12 World View -- Turkey asks Germany for help with PKK terrorists thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(1-Nov-2012)
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