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Level of stock market margin debt in 2013 exceeds 1999 and 2007
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The thing that promotes panics and stock market crashes is not some major decision by investors en masse to sell everything for emotional reasons. There may be an initial emotional panic, but what keeps it going is deleveraging of margin debt causing forced selling. People who had borrowed money to purchase stocks start receiving margin calls, forcing them to sell more, causing a vicious downward spiral. Margin debt reached astronomical levels just before the 1929 crash, in 1999 just before the Nasdaq crash of 2000, in 2007, just before the financial crisis.
In another sign that a stock market crash is approaching, margin debt has rebounded, and is once again at astronomical levels, higher than in 1999 or 2007, as you can see from the above graph. As I've written a number of times in the last four months (see "23-Jun-13 World View -- The 'experts' scramble to explain the stock market plunge"), Wall Street stock prices have been increasing so quickly that they've become dangerously parabolic. The recent rapid increase in margin debt explains the parabolic rise.
For more information on how margin debt works today, see my article on Interactive Brokers ( How margin accounts work today versus 1929). You can borrow $1 million at 1.3% interest, and you can use it to invest in the stock market, presumably in stocks that yield over 5%. That's sounds good when you listen to their ad, but once your stock going down a little, you very quickly start receiving margin calls, and you have to sell your assets at a loss. If that happens to enough investors at the same time -- and the rapid rise in margin debt indicates that it will -- then forced selling causes a vicious downward spiral. Pragmatic Capitalism
Monday's jailbreak in Pakistan, after an attack by 100 Pakistan Taliban (TTP) terrorist militants, freed 248 convicted prisoners, far more than the "dozens" that we reported yesterday, including a few dozen hardcore terrorists. The police who were supposed to be protecting the prison dropped their weapons and ran when the militants attacked. The police "are corrupt, lazy and unprofessional," according to a police source.
Even worse, authorities had advance warning of the attack, but did not act on it, leading to not-very-farfetched speculation that the prison guards were complicit in the jailbreak. This would not be surprising, inasmuch as Osama bin Laden lived openly in Abbottabad, Pakistan, for ten years, with the apparent complicity of Pakistan's army and intelligence services, resulting in the greatest humiliation for Pakistan in decades.
Pakistan's new prime minister Nawaz Sharif had promised to end terrorist attacks by the Taliban by simply negotiating with the Taliban, possibly freeing some prisoners in exchange for guarantees to end the terrorist attacks. It's now clear that TTP has decided to free the prisoners on their own, leaving Sharif no negotiating leverage.
The whole idea was silly, anyway. The TTP subsidiary, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (Lej), was never going to agree to end their multiple terrorist attacks whose objective is to exterminate all Shias in Pakistan.
The other relevant issue is that Sharif had promised to end U.S. drone strikes on Taliban militants, in the hope that doing so would motivate the TTP to stop their terrorist attacks. That was a silly idea too. BBC and Daily Times (Pakistan)
The Pakistan jailbreak was the third in the last week. In Iraq last week, coordinated terrorist attacks were carried out on the Abu Ghraib prison, freeing hundreds of prisoners. A few days later, a prison riot led to the escape of more than 1,000 inmates from a detention center in Benghazi, Libya. Although there's no evidence that the three incidents were coordinated, but it seems likely this technique of breaking convicted terrorists out of jail is becoming increasingly common, as a way to increase the population of terrorists in these and other countries. CS Monitor
The Washington Mideast peace talk talks, announced with great fanfare on Sunday by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, ended two days after they began. On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced with great fanfare that the talks would begin again in the next two weeks in the Mideast, but he could not name a specific date or whether they would take place in Israel or the Palestinian territories. In June, Kerry announced the Afghanistan peace talks with the Taliban, but they collapsed in one day after they were announced. BBC
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 31-Jul-13 World View -- Mideast peace talks postponed for two weeks after two days thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(31-Jul-2013)
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Detroit to seek bankruptcy bailout through Obamacare
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Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a very bloody war that ended in 1994 with Armenia gaining control of Nagorno-Karabakh, a region in the middle of Azerbaijan. And relations between Armenia and Turkey have been extremely bitter over the charges, denied by Turkey, that Turkey perpetrated a genocide on Armenians in 1915. Add to that, Armenia has good relations with Russia, a centuries-old historic enemy of Turkey (Ottoman Empire). So it's not surprising that Turkey and Azerbaijan carried out joint exercises between July 12 and 28. The major purpose of the Turkey-Azerbaijan military exercises is to neutralize Armenia's military cooperation with Russia.
Nagorno-Karabakh remains a simmering open wound in relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and hostilities could resume at any time, with Russia and Turkey joining in. Jamestown
More than 100 terrorist militants attacked a large prison in northwest Pakistan late on Monday evening. The objective was to free some 250 convicted terrorists, but apparently only 25-40 were freed. The attack overwhelmed the local police, who faced superior weaponry of the militants. The attack was launched by TTP (the Pakistani Taliban) and the associated group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ). I've written a number of times about LeJ, the group that has vowed that "Our mission [in Pakistan] is the abolition of this impure sect and people, the Shias and the Shia Hazaras, from every city, every village, every nook and corner of Pakistan," and have followed through by blowing up mosques and schools containing Shias, killing hundreds of innocent women and children. This not the first time when militants have broken other convicted terrorists out of jail. Nearly 400 prisoners including militants had escaped on Aril 15, 2012 from Bannu Jail after an attack by insurgents armed with guns, grenades and rockets. Dawn (Pakistan) and McClatchy
Detroit, which filed for bankruptcy July 18, 2013, is pursuing a plan to shift retirees from city-run health coverage to exchanges under the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. If implemented in full, this would essentially be a $5.7 billion federal bailout of Detroit, eliminating the amount it owes on retiree health care costs. Many other bankrupt or near-bankrupt localities, such as Chicago, Sheboygan County, Wis., and Stockton, Calif., are going to be watching this Detroit plan carefully, to see if they can get away with the same thing. Michigan Live
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 30-Jul-13 World View -- Dozens of Pakistan terrorists freed from jail in terrorist attack thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(30-Jul-2013)
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U.S. drone strike kills 6 in Pakistan, despite opposition
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All the worst case scenarios about Syrian refugees coming to Jordan have been passed -- over and over. The Zaatari refugee camp is now one year old, and was originally intended to hold 60,000 refuge for a short time. But of the estimated 650,000 Syrians who have crossed into Jordan, sometimes 3,000 per day, 350,000 have filtered through Zaatari and 150,000 live there permanently. Concern is growing that the "temporary" refugee camp will be there permanently, and that pollution damage to the main aquifer lying beneath the camp may reach the "saturation zone" within as little as one year. Ammon News and Time
No, that isn't a typo. Mideast peace talks aren't about to begin. Instead, talks about the terms for peace talks are to begin on Monday in Washington between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators. The Palestinians have agreed to attend the peace talk talks after Israel's cabinet voted on Sunday to release 104 prisoners that are being held in Israeli jails as terrorists. The decision is extremely controversial in Israel, and drew hundreds of protesters outside of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, with protesters holding signs with images of victims killed by the prisoners being released. The prisoners to be released committed their acts prior to the 1994 Oslo peace talks, and they will be released in four groups over the next nine months, to make sure that the Palestinians won't walk out of the peace talk talks. Jerusalem Post and U.S. State Dept.
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A large U.S. drone attack on Sunday killed at least six militants in Pakistan's tribal area. Four drones hovered above a village before one fired two missiles at a compound just before sunset, as the militants were just about to break their Ramadan fast. U.S. drone strikes have become increasingly rare, because of overwhelming levels of opposition from the Pakistan public, especially following the U.S. action that captured Osama bin Laden, considered Pakistan's greatest national humiliation since 1971. There were 122 drone strikes in 2010, but only 17 so far this year. The CIA has become far more cautious in its attacks, limiting them to high-value targets, and avoiding attacks on large groups of suspected militants based purely on their behavior. It's thought that Pakistani officials are publicly opposing the drone strikes, but privately supporting them, at least in limited numbers. The new Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has said he's opposed to any drone strikes, but so far has not articulated a clear demand to end them. AFP and AP
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 29-Jul-13 World View -- Israel agrees to prisoner release, as new Mideast peace talk talks begin thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(29-Jul-2013)
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Dozens of Egyptian pro-Morsi protesters killed by security forces
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Dozens of pro-Morsi protesters were killed on Saturday by live fire from government security forces. Army spokesmen are claiming that the pro-Morsi protesters started shooting first, and there is some evidence that one or two snipers fired at security forces in order to cause a confrontation. But there's no doubt that most of the firepower came from the security forces, and most of the targets were pro-Morsi Muslim Brotherhood supporters. Egypt's health ministry reported 38 deaths on Saturday, while the Muslim Brotherhood claimed a much higher number -- 120 people killed, 4,500 people injured. Al-Ahram (Cairo)
When the Egyptian Revolution began in January, 2011, I began writing frequent generational analyses of what was going on. Much of what I wrote was widely disputed in comments by many people, but now, 2-1/2 years later, those analyses and predictions have turned out to be correct. As I've been saying since 2005, there is no web site, analyst, journalist, politician or pundit with anything close to the consistent predictive success of my web site and Generational Dynamics, and my challenge to anyone to point one out is still open.
There was a negative story line that I saw repeatedly from analysts and journalists across the political spectrum. Those on the right tended to adopt the entire story line, but even pundits on the left adopted various parts of it. The outline is as follows:
Some parts of these mainstream predictions turned out to be true. The ones who predicted that the Muslim Brotherhood would come to power were right, and the ones who predicted that the Army would come to power were right, although they each came to power at different times. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the outcomes of elections and political decisions are chaotic events (in the sense of Chaos Theory), so I didn't make any predictions about who would be governing.
However, it was pretty clear, from generational considerations, that most of the rest of the above scenario was wrong. The following is a summary of what I wrote in "4-Feb-11 News -- The lull before the storm in Egypt as 'Friday of Departure' approaches" and "3-Feb-11 News -- Violence between protester factions kills three in Egypt" and "31-Jan-11 News -- Millions riot in Egypt as the West fears a Muslim Brotherhood victory.".
The most important generational consideration regarding the Muslim Brotherhood involves the following two facts:
Thus, the vast majority of Egyptians have never known violence from the Muslim Brotherhood. That would include members of the Brotherhood itself. Of course, there are some old geezer politicians in the MB who dream of the old days when they could blow somebody up, but those are a tiny minority by this time.
As I've written dozens of times, it's a basic principle of Generational Dynamics that even in a dictatorship, major policies and events are determined by masses of people, entire generations of people, and not by politicians. What politicians say or do is irrelevant, except insofar as their actions reflect the attitudes of the people that they represent, and so politicians can neither cause nor prevent the great events of history. It's a consequence of this principle that it's extremely unlikely that the Brotherhood is going to return to its violence of the late 1940s. And now, 2-1/2 years into the Egyptian Revolution, we can see that's true.
The same generational reasoning applies to the prediction that the Brotherhood would abrogate Egypt's peace agreement with Israel. Any such major decision would have to come from the masses of people, and if so, then it would have happened while Mubarak was still in power. The fact that the peace agreement was in place for over 30 years indicates that the people of Egypt really want to have peace with Israel, and nothing about that is particularly surprising. Nor is it surprising that, even when the Brotherhood and Mohamed Morsi came to power, no attempt was made to abrograte the peace treaty.
As for violent attacks on Jews and Coptic Christians, there have been some isolated incidents, but after 2-1/2 years, it's clear that there's going to be no widespread attacks. Pro-Morsi and anti-Morsi demonstrators have been targeting each other, not Jews and Christians.
Here's what I wrote about the protesters in 2011:
The political objectives have changed (depose Morsi or reinstate Morsi), but there's absolutely no sign that the masses of Egyptian people want a relationship with Hamas or that they want to kill Jews or Christians.
What I've said repeatedly since then was that I'd be willing to change my mind, but before I do, I'd have to see crowds of Egyptians in Tahrir Square burning Israeli flags and chanting "Death to Israel!" Until that happens, it's almost completely impossible that any substantial action will be taken against Jews or Israel.
Now let me briefly return to the question of Iran. There was a widespread mainstream belief that Egypt's revolution would be a repeat of Iran's 1979 revolution, with the Muslim Brotherhood taking power and installing Sharia law.
As I wrote in 2011, this was never going to happen because of significant differences between the two situations: Iran has a historic fault line between the monarchy and the clerics, and there's no similar fault line in Egypt; and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was a very charismatic leader, and was greatly loved by Iran's population. There has been no similar figure in Egypt today, certainly not Mohamed Morsi, who is not particularly loved, even by his supporters.
I wrote in 2011 that there were no major fault line among Egyptians in Cairo, and so there would be no civil war. In the last few weeks, it appears that a fault line is developing between pro- and anti-Morsi people.
However, I don't look at it that way. Despite the clashes between the Army and Muslim Brotherhood supporters, I've seen little more than political differences between the masses of people supporting Morsi, and the masses of people opposing. According to a number of news stories, the two groups have gone out of their way to avoid confronting each other violently. If there were real animus between the two groups, there would be a hell of a lot more blood in the streets.
What's really remarkable about the past year was how it proves the basic Generational Dynamics principle that it's generations of people, not politicians, that decide great events. In this case, Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood came to power last year. They took control, gave themselves dictatorial powers, rewrote the constitution, and imposed Sharia law, just as many people had predicted that they would. But look what happened! Morsi's actions were unacceptable to tens of millions of Egyptians, and now Morsi is gone, and there's no Sharia law. In the end, it was the masses of people who decided, not a politician.
So my prediction is that there will NOT be a civil war between pro- and anti-Morsi demonstrators. This political conflict will be resolved somehow -- I would not predict how -- and life will go on, with no more than isolated instances of violence. I don't want to belittle these isolated instances, but my point is that there won't be all out civil war.
Finally, as I pointed out in 2011, there is one major fault line in Egypt that has to be considered -- the Egyptians in Cairo versus the Bedouins in Sinai. (See "12-Feb-11 News -- As Egypt's president Mubarak resigns, tension grows in the Sinai".) This is a true, genuine fault line, headed for a major confrontation, quite likely toward war. And it won't be war between Israel and Egypt. It will be war with Israel and Egypt as allies versus the Bedouins, the al-Qaeda jihadists, and probably even some of the Gazans.
The long-run Generational Dynamics prediction for the Mideast is a new genocidal war between Jews and Arabs, refighting the genocidal war between Jews and Arabs that followed the partitioning of Palestine in 1948, and the creation of the state of Israel. Two years ago, I wrote that there's no clear trend that would allow me to predict whose side Egypt would be on, and that's still true today.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 28-Jul-13 World View -- Generational Dynamics analysis of the crisis in Egypt thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(28-Jul-2013)
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Eastern Mediterranean becomes the next Persian Gulf
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Hundreds of thousands of pro-Army demonstrators filled Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, on Friday, in opposition to ousted president Mohamed Morsi, responding to Wednesday's request by Army chief Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to give the Army a "mandate" to fight "terrorism and violence," presumably referring to the Muslim Brotherhood. Pro-Morsi demonstrators filled other locations in Cairo and other cities. The protests were mostly peaceful, but pro-Morsi activists reported that some of their demonstrators had come under attack by security forces, injuring 35 people.
The great drama of the day occurred when the government handed down an accusation that Morsi had conspired with Gaza militants Hamas to storm police stations and jails, to break a number of Muslim Brotherhood leaders, including Morsi himself, out of jail in January, 2011, at the start of the revolution. Morsi has not been seen in public since he was ousted on July 3, and Friday's charges mean that he will continue to be held at an undisclosed location for at least another 15 days, and a charge of conspiring with a foreign government (Hamas) against Egypt's government could turn into a charge of treason. Both Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood called the conspiracy charges "ridiculous," although the jail break did occur. BBC and Al-Jazeera and Al-Ahram (Cairo)
Since Hosni Mubarak was ousted by the Egyptian Revolution that began in January, 2011, Egypt's foreign reserves have fallen from $36 billion to $14.9 billion. During the last year, when Mohamed Morsi was president, Egypt's economy continued to deteriorate. Since January, the budget deficit has been running at about $3.2 billion per month, almost half in government spending. Morsi had been desperately trying to negotiate a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but that would have meant harsh austerity measures, including big cutbacks in government spending.
However, the economy has stabilized in recent weeks, since the coup that ousted Morsi. The reason is that, with Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood out of government, Egypt has been promised $12 billion in aid from Gulf Arab states that don't like or trust the Muslim Brotherhood -- Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Kuwait. Qatar, the home of al-Jazeera and the lover of the Muslim Brotherhood, had given $7 billion to Egypt in the last year, which hadn't been enough to keep Egypt's economy from deteriorating.
But now with this $12 billion flowing in, Egypt's new leaders don't have to worry about those nasty austerity measures that have such a problem in Greece and other European countries that received IMF aid. Egypt can go on spending as before. According to Ahmad Galal, Egypt's new finance minister:
"One of the important tools to deal with the budget deficit is stimulating the economy. Stimulating the economy means tax revenues will increase and, in turn, the deficit will decrease.Political agreement is the best and shortest route to revive the economy because, if there is stability and security and agreement, tourists will come back and local and foreign investors will be more keen on investing. We will seek to pump more new funds into the economy and not follow austerity measures. We do not want to increase taxes sharply, that is if we increase them at all, and we do not want to lower spending in a way that will slow a revival of the economy."
So it looks like Egypt is going to follow the same government spending policies that have worked so well, promoting economic growth and reducing the deficit, in the U.S., Ireland, Greece and other countries during the credit and real estate bubble of the mid-2000s decade. (Not.) Egypt doesn't need funding from a big bubble, because they've got the Arab nations to fund the growth. It ought to be interesting. al-Ahram (Cairo) and Reuters
For more than two decades, the United States has placed the issue of Eastern Mediterranean maritime security on the backburner. But the 2010 discovery of vast oil and gas deposits in the region's Levant Basin is eliciting competition over exclusive economic zones among countries such as Israel, Cyprus, Turkey, and Lebanon. Furthermore, the naval activities of Iranian-backed terrorist groups, Russia’s quest to expand its international influence, Turkey’s overconfident posture, and political unrest in Syria and Egypt have collectively exacerbated tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean. As conflicts loom, U.S. armed forces should be prepared to face the same kinds of tensions as in the Persian Gulf. American Enterprise Institute
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 27-Jul-13 World View -- Morsi facing treason charge as millions demonstrate in Egypt thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(27-Jul-2013)
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Burma Buddhists attempt to justify genocial attacks on Muslims
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With the reelection of the hawkish Shinzo Abe as prime minister, Japan is considering moving further away from its post-WW II pacificism. The Defense Ministry is likely to call in the report for consideration of acquiring the ability to make a pre-emptive strike when an enemy attack is imminent, and creating a Marines force to protect remote islands such as those at the core of a dispute with China. Although it would take years to implement a pre-emptive strike force, mere discussion of this change in policy is certain to inflame China's nationalism. In the meantime, near-confrontations between China and Japan around the disputed East China Sea islands occur on an almost daily basis. Reuters and AP
The genocidal attacks by Buddhists on Muslims in Burma (Myanmar) in the last year have been an enormous embarrassment to many Buddhists because it's a clear violation of the Buddhist principles of non-violence. (See "5-Apr-13 World View -- Meiktila, Burma, violence has echoes of Kristallnacht".)
Buddhist monks in Burma, who have been leading the genocidal attacks on Muslims, have been justifying their actions on an exception to the Buddhist teaching on `ahimsa’, or non-violence, which is one of the religion’s five fundamental precepts.
The exception is that violent acts are permitted when they are acts of self-defense, committed with "pure intentions."
In the case of Burma, the monks rationalize their violent acts based on fear that the country is being overtaken by Muslims, even though the country has a 90% Buddhist majority among its 60 million people, and the Muslims are about 5% of the population, many of whom are both disenfranchised and stateless.
According to one Buddhist scholar:
"We are deeply ashamed by the appalling treatment of Muslims now occurring in some Buddhist countries.Theravada Buddhists, and particularly their leaders, are betraying the Buddhist value of non-violence, let alone kindness and compassion."
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, Buddhists are no different from any other religious group. During generational Awakening eras (like America in the 1960s), they'll proclaim love and peace and so forth. But in generational Crisis eras, like today, they'll become increasingly nationalistic, increasingly willing to put their nationalism and ideology above individual rights, and increasingly willing to use techniques from torture to genocide against real or imagined enemies.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, what's clear in this case is that Buddhists and Muslims are headed for a major genocidal war in Southeast Asia, and this will be a major component of the coming Clash of Civilizations World War. IRIN (U.N.)
It's Friday again, the day that Egyptians pour out of mosques after midday prayers to go shopping or to attend mass demonstrations. The Muslim Brotherhood has been holding mass pro-Morsi demonstrations every Friday since president Mohamed Morsi was deposed in a coup on July 3. And the Army has issued a call for anti-Morsi demonstrators to come out on Friday to give the military a mandate to crack down on "violence and terrorism." However, the Army and Mohamed Morsi's camp have each been moving to defuse tensions. The Army insisted that it was not targeting Morsi's backers in calling for a mass rally against "terrorism and violence." And the fugitive leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, urged Egyptians to peacefully make a "stand for freedom and legitimacy, and against the bloody coup." On the other hand, Egypt's army gave the Muslim Brotherhood until Saturday afternoon to sign up to political reconciliation, and threatened to use tougher tactics against the group. AFP
Early in June, The North Koreans proposed holding talks on reopening the Kaesong Industrial Complex. North Korea's child dictator Kim Jong-un had shut down the complex in April when he threw his temper tantrum, threatening to shoot missiles at Japan, South Korea, and America. On Thursday, talks between North and South Korea broke down without agreement. The South has been asking for the North to guarantee it won't block operations due to non-economic reasons and called on the North to accept responsibility for the current situation. The North countered that work must begin immediately, and that it cannot take sole responsibility for the current impasse. The breakdown raises the possibility that the Kaesong Industrial Complex will never reopen. Yonhap (Seoul) and Xinhua
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 26-Jul-13 World View -- Egypt prepares for massive showdown on Friday thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(26-Jul-2013)
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U.S. delays F-16s to Egypt, but continues money aid
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Hamas, the governing authority on the Gaza Strip, is accusing Egypt of the some of the things that it used to accuse Israel of. Hamas officials are accusing Egypt of making the siege of Gaza worse than ever by destroying smuggling tunnels and closing the Rafah border crossing:
"Even [former Egyptian president] Hosni Mubarak did not starve the Gaza Strip. By destroying the tunnels without providing an alternative, the Egyptians are punishing the entire population of the Gaza Strip and deepening the humanitarian and economic crisis."
Over the past few days, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have reported that Egyptian military helicopters have been flying over parts of Gaza, as part of the massive military crackdown that's in progress in Sinai. (See "13-Jul-13 World View -- Israel and Egypt cooperate against terrorists in Sinai")
Egypt claims that Hamas has been mettling in Egypt's affairs by encouraging Muslim Brotherhood violence, and by sponsoring terrorism in Sinai.
So Hamas is getting particularly concerned that Egypt's Army plans to take control of Gaza. Gaza used to be part of Egypt until the 1967 war with Israel, when Israel took control. In 2005, the Israelis gave Gaza to the Palestinians, and in 2008, Hamas took control of it. Jerusalem Post
Egypt's Army chief Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi on Wednesday called for mass demonstrations on Friday to give the military a mandate to crack down on "violence and terrorism." According to El-Sisi:
"I ask ... that next Friday all honest and trustworthy Egyptians must come out. Why come out? They come out to give me the mandate and order that I confront violence and potential terrorism."
The army arrested President Mohamed Morsi on July 3, about a year after he and his Muslim Brotherhood party the first free presidential election in Egypt's history, and about six months after Morsi suspended the constitution and gave himself dictatorial powers. Morsi has not been since in public since his arrest. Many other Brotherhood officials have also been arrested, and more were arrested on Wednesday. About 30% of Egypt's population belong to the Muslim Brotherhood, and since July 3, there have been huge daily protests across the country, demanding that Morsi be returned to the presidency. So now the Army chief is asking for a huge anti-Morsi demonstration on Friday, to give the army a "mandate." So it now appears that there are going to be huge pro- and anti-Morsi rallies on Friday, with many opportunities for confrontation and violence.
Muslim Brotherhood activists are furious that El-Sisi implied that Brotherhood members were guilty of "violence and terrorism," especially after dozens of Brotherhood supporters have been killed by the Army in recent weeks.
However, El-Sisi may have been referring to the Sinai, where al-Qaeda linked militants with links to some hardline Brotherhood members have been conducting terrorists attacks, causing Egyptian, Israeli and nearby U.S. forces to be put on alert. al-Arabiya (Dubai) and al-Ahram (Cairo)
According to a Pentagon spokesman:
"Given the current situation in Egypt, we do not believe it is appropriate to move forward at this time with the delivery of F-16s."
U.S. law requires that aid to any country be terminated if the army states a coup against a democratically elected leader. Since ending all aid to Egypt would likely be a disaster for the entire Mideast, the Administration has studiously avoided using the word "coup" to described what happened in Egypt. And so the $1.5 billion in aid to Egypt can continue. But Wednesday's announcement is an attempt to appease critics in Washington and, at the same time, to send a signal to Egypt's army to restore a "normal" government as quickly as possible. VOA
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 25-Jul-13 World View -- Egypt's army calls for mass protests to fight 'terrorism' thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(25-Jul-2013)
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IRS continues constructing massive Obamacare database
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A military-style attack by the terrorist group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant resulted in the escape of between 500 and 1,000 prisoners, including many Islamist militant terrorists, from Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. Suicide bombers drove cars with explosives into the prison gates on Sunday night, while gunmen attacked guards with mortar fire as well as rocket propelled grenades. Fighting continued until early Monday. This release of hundreds of terrorists cannot possibly help Iraq's security situation, which has been deteriorating badly since the withdrawal of American forces in December 2011.
Analysts are beginning to talk again of a civil war in Iraq. That's just as impossible today as when they were talking about it following the 2003 ground invasion. Iraq is in a generational Awakening era, during which a sustained civil war is impossible. In this case, there are still many survivors still alive from the genocidal Iran/Iraq war of the 1980s, and those survivors will prevent anything like that from happening again. The same is true in Syria, where the civil war would have fizzled two years ago if it hadn't been for the aggressive support by Russia, and more recently Hezbollah, in providing weapons and fighters, making Syria's war less a civil war than a proxy war. Russia Today and Reuters
The Obama administration has set numerous red lines for the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, and then ignore violations of the red line, except to issue a statement of outrage and set a new red line. But now, on Tuesday, the House and Senate intelligence committees approved President Obama's request to use money already in the CIA's budget to be used to send weapons to the Free Syrian Army. The weapons will include small arms, ammunition and perhaps anti-tank weapons. However, this development comes just three days after the EU admitted that a May promise to send arms to the Free Syrian army was just a bluff, and that there was never any intention to fulfill the promise. CNN and Washington Post
A massive database of personal information about almost all Americans, known as the "Federal Data Services Hub," is under construction for Obamacare. The data base will include name, birth date, Social Security number, gender, ethnicity, family size, Indian status, incarceration status, veteran status, Peace Corps status, membership in a “recognized religious sect or health care sharing ministry,” email addresses, telephone numbers, health records, health insurance and premium information, and income, including IRS tax return information and Social Security income, as well as financial information from other third-party sources
Access to the data will be given to a wide range of people, including “agency contractors, consultants, or grantees” who “need to have access to the records” to help run Obamacare, as well as law enforcement officials to “investigate potential fraud,” will have access to this information, “without the consent of the individual.” Among those who will have access will be a huge new pool of unionized "Navigators," who will be paid to promote Obamacare and help people sign. Almost anyone can become a Navigator, and they will not be subject to a background check. The Beacon
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 24-Jul-13 World View -- U.S. approves sending arms to opposition fighters in Syria thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(24-Jul-2013)
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Howdy Doody may be for sale
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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The fallout is continuing following the open support by Lebanon's terrorist group Hezbollah fighting on the side of the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad. The announcement of this support, made last month by Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, has tremendously polarized the entire Mideast along sectarian lines, and has now driven the European Union, by a unanimous vote of the foreign ministers of the 28 nations, to declare Hezbollah's military arm a terrorist group.
The announcement supposedly means that Hezbollah can no longer raise money in Europe, assets can be frozen, and visas can be denied. However, the announcement is pretty much a sham, since it doesn't apply to Hezbollah's "political wing," which is indistinguishable from its military wing. According to a Hezbollah official:
"We don’t have a military wing and a political one. We don’t have Hezbollah on one hand and the resistance party on the other. Every element of Hezbollah, from commanders to members as well as our various capabilities, are in the service of the resistance and we have nothing but the resistance as a priority."
So if you want to donate to a terrorist organization, then just donate to Hezbollah's political wing, and your money will go right into the terrorist's pockets.
Hezbollah was formed in 1982 to oppose Israel's occupation of Lebanon at that time. The organization grew to be respected throughout the Arab world because it's a leader of the "resistance" to Israel's occupation of the Palestinian homeland. Even many Europeans refused to condemn Hezbollah until now, for exactly the same reason - they admired and supported Hezbollah's "resistance" to Israel. Hezbollah became a tool in the wet dream of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iran's hardcore leadership to become the new leader of the entire Mideast, and Iran has poured money and weapons into Hezbollah's hands, as well as into Hamas's hands.
Iran's wet dream could never possibly have been realized, as I've been saying for years, because there is no way that a Sunni group like Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood would ever agree to be led by Shia Iran. But Iran, Hezbollah, and Bashar al-Assad's Alawite/Shia faction in Syria formed what has been called a "Shia Crescent," that was admired in the Mideast because of its resistance to Israel.
Hezbollah itself perpetrated acts that caused many in the Mideast to hate Hezbollah more than they hate Israel. A major game-changer was the 2005 assassination of Lebanon's beloved former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, in which Syria and Hezbollah were implicated. (See "Massive Beirut explosion killing Rafiq Hariri puts Lebanon into state of shock" from 2005.)
For many Arabs, Nasrallah's announcement that Hezbollah would openly fight on the side of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria was the last straw. Al-Assad's regime has, for over two years, targeted innocent Syrian women and children in their beds and dormitories, making al-Assad himself a psychopath. Al-Assad's attempts to exterminate Sunni Syrians has caused a major split throughout the Mideast along Sunni/Shia sectarian lines, and then Nasrallah's announcement made Hezbollah a hated enemy of almost all Sunni Arabs, even those who opposed Israel.
Today, Hezbollah's militias are far more powerful than Lebanon's army, and Hezbollah is a powerful political force in Lebanon's government. But Nasrallah's announcement is also bringing sectarian violence into Lebanon itself, as we've been reporting in the last few weeks. Nonetheless, many of Lebanon's politicians, both for and against Hezbollah, are opposed to Monday's EU announcement because they fear that it will mean the end of European funding to any of Lebanon's projects, and will not stop Hezbollah's fund-raising at all. Daily Star (Beirut) and Al-Jazeera
Lots of American reporters are mourning the loss of 92-year-old Helen Thomas, who covered the White House for 49 years. But she will also be missed in Gaza, where Hamas mourned her death for her strong pro-Palestinian anti-Israel views. When asked in 2010 whether she had any comments about Israel, she said, "Get the hell out of Palestine. Remember, the Palestinian people are occupied, and it's their land." She followed up by saying that all Jews should return to Germany and Poland, where they belonged. Ezzedeen AL-Qassam Brigades (Gaza)
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The bankruptcy of Detroit, Michigan, is forcing the city to sell its assets, and one of those assets is the collection of puppets in the Detroit Institute of Arts. It's estimated that the original Howdy Doody marionette puppet, which was acquired in 2001, could sell at auction for $400,000-500,000, though that would hardly make a dent in the city's $18 billion debt. The Howdy Doody show, which was one of my own favorites, ran on NBC from 1947 to 1960, and in fact for one show I was in the Peanut Gallery. "Let's give a rousing cheer, cause Howdy Doody's here. It's time to start the show, so kids let's go!" CNN
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 23-Jul-13 World View -- EU nations decide unanimously on sham condemnation of Hezbollah thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(23-Jul-2013)
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New York City bans food donations to the homeless
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Japan has had six prime ministers in six years, and so the landslide re-election victory by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party is significant. The victory may prompt the nationalist prime minister to take several major steps related to foreign affairs:
However, now that the election is over, he may reverse himself and move in the opposition direction, being a lot more conciliatory towards Korea and China, and abandoning all of the above plans, and focus on Japan's faltering economy. The Asahi Shimbun (Tokyo) and BBC
The repercussions of the 2011 capture of Osama bin Laden from under the noses of Pakistan's Army are still growing. OBL belt secure enough to stay in Pakistan for nine years. Was the Pakistan Army complicit in hiding him, or were they oblivious and incompetent not to notice him, despite numerous signs.
Thus, it's not surprising that as younger generations join the Army, the Army is becoming increasingly radicalized, according to an Indian analysis. Most of the recruits come from Punjab province, which was the heart of the huge genocidal war between Hindus and Muslims that followed Partition, the 1947 partitioning of the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan. Punjab is a terrorist haven, and an extremely radical population, as was apparent after the assassination of Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer. Taseer had opposed Pakistan's blasphemy law, which permits capital punishment for saying anything that defines the Quran of the prophet Mohammed. He was killed by his own bodyguard, and the bodyguard is considered to be a hero by much of Punjab province. A survey of Punjab youth in elite universities in 2010 showed these students to be highly radicalized. As these students are recruited into the Army, this explains why the Army is unable to do anything about the vicious and repeated anti-Shia attacks that have occurred in western Pakistan. Recently, Punjab-based militant outfits have been concentrating their attacks in the triangle between Karachi, Quetta and Peshawar, with Karachi being the terror capital of Pakistan.
Generational Dynamics predicts that India and Pakistan will be re-fighting the genocidal 1947 war, with Sunnis opposed to Hindus and Shias. Hindustan Times
Bombings and shooting continued in Iraq into Sunday after over a dozen coordinated car bombings exploded across Baghdad on Saturday evening, target crowded cafes and hangouts in mostly Shia neighborhoods. At least 70 people killed and more than 150 injured in a series of attacks across Iraq over the last two days. There's been a huge surge in violence since Ramadan began earlier this month, with at least 284 deaths. And in a new development, over 1,000 Kurdish soldiers have essentially mutinied from the Iraq army, with the support of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), after refusing to fight Sunni Arabs for fear of exacerbating already tense relations. The mutiny is significant, because it may fuel the Kurdistan independence movement, possibly with the support of Turkey. Al-Jazeera and AFP and Dawn (Pakistan)
Some 20 cars were set ablaze on Saturday night in a second night of violence in the suburbs of Paris, as people clashed with police. The violence began Friday after a group of residents gathered at the police station to protest the arrest of a man whose wife was ticketed Thursday for wearing a face veil. The regional prosecutor said the husband tried to strangle the officer who was doing the ticketing. France has barred face veils since 2011 in a so-called "burka ban." Proponents of the ban argue the veil oppresses women and contradicts France's principles of secularism, which are enshrined in the constitution. Wearing crosses or other religious attire is also barred in public schools and buildings. AP
As someone who's had a weight problem and had to diet his whole life, I can tell you that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's war on large-size containers of Coca-Cola and other sodas is so ridiculous that only a politician would be stupid enough to suggest it. In fact, many studies have shown that overweight people drink a lot more diet soda, so maybe he should be banning that instead. It would make just as much sense.
Now CBS news is reporting that NYC is banning food donations to homeless shelters. Places like restaurants and synagogues, which have donated surplus food to homeless shelters for decades, are no longer permitted to do so. The CBS news reporter was told that the reason for the new policy is that the City wants to keep track of the salt, fat and fiber content in all food eaten at homeless shelters, and they can't do that with donated food. CBS News (New York)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 22-Jul-13 World View -- Shinzo Abe wins landslide electoral victory in Japan thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(22-Jul-2013)
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EU's threat to Syria's Assad was an empty bluff
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced that any asylum seeker who arrives by boat without a visa will have "no chance" of being resettled there as a refugee. Instead, they will be sent directly to neighboring Papua New Guinea and its Manus Island detention center. According to Rudd:
"From now on, any asylum-seeker who arrives in Australia by boat will have no chance of being settled in Australia as refugees. ... If they are found to be genuine refugees they will be resettled in Papua New Guinea — an emerging economy with a strong future, a robust democracy which is also a signatory to the United Nations refugees convention."
The number of boat people that arrived from Sri Lanka, Indonesia and other southeast Asian nations has totaled 15,610 so far in 2013, almost approaching the 17,202 that arrived in the entire year in 2012.
Kevin Rudd has only just become prime minister, having ousted Julia Gillard, the country's first female prime minister, who offended a lot of people by calling anyone who disagreed with her policies a "misogynist," in the same way that President Barack Obama's supporters call anyone who disagrees with his policies a "racist." However, Rudd ousted Gillard within their own party, Australia's Labor Party, largely on the issue of dealing with the flood of boat migrants, and he's wasted no time announcing this new, highly controversial refugee policy.
Rudd said that Australia would pay the government of Papua New Guinea an unspecified sum of money under a so-called "Regional Settlement Arrangement," and that the deal would be reviewed after 12 months.
On Saturday, Australian authorities intercepted the first boat smuggling refugees since the law was passed. It was sailing near the Christmas Islands and was crammed full with 81 people, who will be taken to the sparsely populated jungle island of Manus, which is a part of Papua New Guinea. Global Post and CNN and International Business Times
At the end of May, the EU removed the law preventing individual countries from sending weapons to the opposition rebels to the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad. (See "28-May-13 World View -- EU lifts weapons embargo to Syria's opposition militias") It was thought that Britain and France would take advantage of the changes, and supply weapons to rebels.
Well, it now turns out that the whole thing was a bluff. According to one analyst:
"Britain and France seemed, naively, to believe that by simply threatening to arm the rebels, that would alter Assad's behavior."
Unfortunately, almost nothing comes out of either Washington or Brussels these days, except empty bluffs. The National (UAE)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 21-Jul-13 World View -- Australia to send 'boat people' to Papua New Guinea thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(21-Jul-2013)
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Al-Jazeera in chaos in Egypt, as it prepares for big U.S. debut
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Last week, al-Jazeera reporters were thrown out of a press conference in Cairo, Egypt. However, they weren't thrown out by any government officials. They were thrown out by furious Egyptian reporters at the press conference, who were expressing their anger at al-Jazeera's Arabic network for pro-Muslim Brotherhood bias in its reporting. At around the same time, 22 members of al-Jazeera's staff in Egypt resigned, alleging biased coverage. And now, reports emerged on Friday that Al Jazeera Network channels, which include Al Jazeera English, Al Jazeera Arabic, and Al Jazeera Mubashr Misr, are intermittently being jammed by Egyptian authorities.
Al-Jazeera (which means "the peninsula" in Arabic) is owned by the royal family in Qatar. As we recently reported, the ouster of Egypt's president Mohamed Morsi has brought about a collapse of Qatar's influence in the Mideast, which had strongly supported Morsi and the Brotherhood, and provided $7 billion in aid to Egypt in the year of Morsi's presidency. This has spilled over into al-Jazeera's coverage of Egypt, which has polarized the staff and the people.
This comes as Al-Jazeera America, an expanded replacement of Al Jazeera English, is to debut in August on cable television networks reaching approximately 50 million U.S. households, thanks to its $500 million dollar purchase of the defunct Current TV cable channel from climate change saint Al Gore in January.
Al-Jazeera Arabic has been vitriolically anti-American since its founding in 1996, and it provided open support for Osama bin Laden following the 9/11/2001 attacks. Even in recent years, al-Jazeera Arabic has continued to promote "a jihad ideology."
Is Al-Jazeera biased? Of course it is. But it's no more biased than the New York Times or NBC News. The BBC was vitriolically anti-American during the George Bush presidency, but now they're totally in the tank for President Obama.
As I've written in the past, the interesting thing about al-Jazeera's biases is their attitudes towards the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Hamas is tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, so al-Jazeera loves Hamas, and hates the Palestinian Authority. In fact, my perception is that al-Jazeera hates the Palestinian Authority and Mahmoud Abbas even more than it hates Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu.
So, over the past ten years of writing about Generational Dynamics, I've become pretty familiar with the biases of all the different news services, and I try to take them into account when I use them or reference them, in order to give as balanced a picture as possible to my readers. But the bottom line is that professional journalism is pretty much a thing of the past, and each of the mainstream media outlets just uses its news reporting to promote its own ideological viewpoint. That's true of al-Jazeera, the BBC, the NY Times, and so forth. All you can do is what I try to do, which is to read as many viewpoints as possible, until you figure out what's really going on. Camera and NPR and al-Jazeera
US Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday that Israeli and Palestinian negotiators will meet in Washington within "the next week or so" to resume peace talks. According to Kerry:
"I'm pleased to announce that we've reached an agreement that establishes a basis for resuming final status negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis.This is a significant and welcome step forward. The agreement is still in the process of being finalized so we are absolutely not going to talk about any of the elements now."
According to some reports, the Israelis have agreed to a partial freeze on West Bank settlements, and the Palestinians postponed their threat to push anti-Israeli measures through UN and other international institutions during the talks.
This almost makes my head explode.
It was in May, 2010, that President Obama's last special Envoy for the Mideast resigned, after two years on the job, accomplishing nothing. ( "15-May-11 News -- Mideast envoy George Mitchell resigns, ending one more grand peace process")
The previous Mideast envoy was Tony Blair, who was appointed by the Middle East Quartet (United Nations, Russian Federation, United States, European Union) on the day in 2007 when he resigned as prime minister of Britain. He accomplished nothing.
In 2005, the Quartet appointed James Wolfensohn to be Mideast envoy. He actually accomplished quite a bit. He negotiated several agreements between the parties. And, as former President of the World Bank, he used his formidable list of contacts to get investors to purchase dozens of greenhouses left behind by Israeli settlers when they left Gaza, so that Palestinians could use them right away to get hard currency by growing food for exports. Unfortunately, the greenhouses were destroyed by the Palestinians, for which Wolfensohn blamed both the Israelis and the Palestinians, and by the time he resigned in 2006, he'd accomplished nothing.
And then of course there was President George Bush's "Mideast Roadmap to Peace," was was my first major Generational Dynamics analysis. ("Mideast Roadmap - Will it bring peace?".)
In that article, I pointed out that Generational Dynamics predicts that the Mideast was headed for a major new war between Jews and Arabs, refighting the genocidal war between Jews and Arabs that followed the 1948 partitioning of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel. There have been four wars since then -- the war between Israelis and Hezbollah, fought largely on Lebanon's soil in 2006; the war between Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah in Gaza in 2008, that led to Hamas control of Gaza; Operation Cast Lead, the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza early in 2009; and the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in November, 2012.
So let's look at the recent record of the U.S. administration and Secretary of State John Kerry:
Isn't there some point where we're allowed to say, "Really, this joke isn't funny any more. Could you please stop?" AFP and USA Today
As Egypt's army launches a large-scale operation in the Sinai near the border with Israel, Israel is deploying its "Iron Dome" anti-missile system in the southern city of Eilat, near the border with Sinai, for fear that Sinai militants would launch rockets into southern Israel. The system is being deployed at the height of the tourist season. The Iron Dome system was used successfully in November of last year during Israel's war with Gaza, to intercept rockets coming from Gaza before they could reach populated areas. Ynet
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 20-Jul-13 World View -- John Kerry announces new Mideast peace talks thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(20-Jul-2013)
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Espionage suspect Edward Snowden may be trapped in Russia
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Egypt's army is launching a major military offensive, dubbed Fattah 2 (Conquest 2) against a coalition of aggressive Salafists, Muslim Brotherhood operatives, Hamas and Jihad Islami groups conducting terrorist attacks in Egypt's Sinai region, on the border with Gaza and Israel. The security situation in Sinai has been getting increasingly unstable since the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi. In the past two weeks, 39 terrorist attacks have occurred. In the resulting clashes between armed groups and security forces, 52 gunmen and civilians and six security personnel have died. Tensions have also flared at the illegal smuggling tunnels on the border with Gaza, with one Central Security conscript killed by smugglers on Thursday. The tunnels, which are considered a lifeline for Gaza, are being blocked or destroyed by the Egyptian army.
Muslim Brotherhood sources claim that the army is fabricating terrorist attacks in Sinai in order to label the Brotherhood "terrorists." However, most Sinai tribal leaders believe that the sudden surge in violence is linked to the ouster of Mohamed Morsi. New groups have sprung up, with such names as as "The Legitimacy Brigades" or "The Legitimacy and Victory Brigade," where "legitimacy" refers to the Egypt's first free election, and it's victory for Morsi.
There's evidence that the situation in Sinai is attracting jihadist fighters from North Africa (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb or AQIM) and from al-Qaeda in Pakistan. In that sense, the Sinai is competing with Syria, which is also attracting jihadists from locations throughout Asia. Al-Ahram (Cairo) and Debka
Israel is increasingly uncomfortable with the buildup of Egyptian military forces near its border in the Sinai. These forces violate the 1979 peace treaty between the two countries, but Israel has been compelled to give permission because of the increasing security issues.
Israeli forces along the Egyptian and Gaza borders are on alert; so too are the 2,600 US Marines aboard two amphibious helicopter carriers anchored opposite the Red Sea shores of Southern Sinai and the Gulf of Suez since the start of the Egyptian crisis.
Israeli defense officials are concerned about an escalating war, and the army is preparing for scenarios where violence spreads across the border into Israel. There is also concern that Egypt's armed forces will enter Gaza, as the interim government has already accused Hamas of contributing to the unrest in Sinai. YNet
The so-called Mideast "peace process" has been a farce for years, but that doesn't prevent U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry from flying around the Mideast declaring that he's going to be the one to bring the sides together and create a wonderful peace between Israel and the Palestinians for now and forever. Kerry met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Amman, Jordan, on Wednesday, and apparently Abbas gave Kerry a new message: Abbas will not agree to new "peace process" talks unless Israel approves the building of an airport in Palestinian capital Ramallah in the West Bank. The airport would serve helicopters and light planes. It's unlikely that the Israelis will go along with this, presumably because terrorist attacks could be launched from an airport. YNet
Thousands of Russians protested in Moscow on Thursday, as opposition leader Alexei Navalny was led off in handcuffs after a court convicted him and sentenced him with five years in jail for allegedly embezzling money from a timber firm where he had served as an advisor. It's widely believed that there is no evidence supporting the conviction. The EU said the verdict posed "serious questions" about the state of Russian law, while the US said it was "deeply disappointed."
Starting in 2008, Navalny began blogging about government corruption, and by 2011 he was inspiring mass protests against president Vladimir Putin, calling his United Russia party the "party of crooks and thieves." He was arrested and imprisoned for 15 days in December of last year, and then went on trial for embezzlement this year, receiving a conviction on Thursday. He appeals to Russian nationalists by referring to migrants as "rotten teeth" and "cockroaches." It's widely believed that the prosecution and conviction of Navalny originated from Putin's office.
Long time web site readers may recall that back in 2004 I followed the situation with Russian energy firm Yukos pretty closely.
In 2003, Yukos supplied 11.4% of all the oil in the whole world. By the end of 2004, Yukos was defunct.
At the beginning of 2004, Putin was denying that he had any evil intentions toward Yukos. Putin began by jailing Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky on trumped-up political charges. (He's still in jail, incidentally.) By the end of the year, Yukos had been dismantled and nationalized by means of the most bizarre series of steps imaginable.
At the beginning of 2004, I was wondering what Putin had in mind. By the end of the year, it was obvious that Putin had lied about his intentions, and that he was willing to use any means available to him to get what he wants, while still retaining personal deniability. The situation with Navalny seems to indicate that's still true. Ria Novosti (Moscow) and BBC
Some Russian officials are suggesting that U.S. traitor Edward Snowden, who committed anti-American espionage, fled to Hong Kong and then to Moscow, will not be permitted to leave Russia, and that he's no longer in the airport, but is in a safe house controlled by the security police.
Initially, Russia's president Vladimir Putin said:
"We told him [Snowden], he may stay [in Russia] if he stops hindering our relations with the US, but he refused."
Snowden refused these terms, but his attempts to flee to an anti-American Latin America country have been repeatedly thwarted. Thus, on July 12 he finally changed his mind, and requested "Temporary political asylum," which does not exist in Russia, so he's apparently been given temporary refugee status, "because of humanitarian considerations." Under the terms of his refugee status, an official announced, "We warned Snowden that any activity that may undermine US-Russian relations is unacceptable." Putin added: "I do not understand why Snowden decided to stay all his life in Russia, but that is his choice."
I've actually thought for a long time that Snowden would never be permitted to leave Russia. The reason is that if Snowden has all this intelligence information, then there must a lot of it pertaining to Russia and to Putin himself. If Snowden fled to Venezuela, then the politicians there would gleefully expose Putin's secrets, as well as U.S. secrets.
But there's a second reason as well. The U.S. is holding a Russian defector who has disclosed the names of a number of Russian spies. The U.S. is in a position, if it desired, to publicly disclose information about Russia spying on its own neighbors, including the countries in the former Soviet Union. This would be extremely embarrassing to Putin.
So the traitor who thinks the U.S. is so awful that he decided to betray his country may now be trapped in the wonderful (formerly) socialist paradise of Russia, where he can contemplate the differences between the two countries. Gee, I hope they don't waterboard him. (wink wink) Jamestown
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 19-Jul-13 World View -- U.S., Israeli forces on alert as Egypt begins major military action on Israel's border thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(19-Jul-2013)
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Iran uncovers a western 'Wall of Fire' anti-revolutionary plot
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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As we reported on June 29, Russia has been withdrawing all its military personnel from Syria, including the naval base at Tartus, for months, and it was claimed that there are no Russian military servicemen remaining in Syria, for fear of an incident involving the Russian military that could have larger consequences.
To make up for the potential loss of its bases in Syria, Russia is asking Cyprus officials to set up a naval base at Limassol and an air base at Paphos. This agreement would mark a serious escalation of Russian capabilities in the Mediterranean, as the bases would serve as launching ground for Russian air and naval missions throughout the region. However, some officials are raising concerns that Russian bases in Cyprus would be incompatible with Cyprus’ obligations regarding cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and Cyprus's long-time enemy Turkey is raising objections.
Cyprus and Russia have long had friendly relations. Russia has used the naval base at Limassol for refueling in the past, and many Russian oligarchs had stored billions of euros in Cyprus banks to take advantage of the high interest rates. But relations between the two countries soured earlier this year, when Cyprus accepted a bailout, and was forced to confiscate 60% of large depositors' bank accounts, particularly the accounts of Russian oligarchs. However, Cyprus officials say that there is no relationship between the military and financial issues of the two countries. Jamestown and Cyprus Mail
Ever since Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah announced that the Lebanon terror group would be openly supporting and fighting alongside the army of the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, al-Assad supporters in Lebanon, and even ordinary Shia civilians, have come under attack by anti-Assad forces, causing Lebanon to experience an "unprecedented" level of political violence. Hezbollah's military supply routes are coming under attack, and even Hezbollah strongholds are subject to terrorist bombings and assassinations. On Wednesday, Mohammad Jemo, a staunch supporter of al-Assad, was shot about 30 times by an assault rifle while he was in his own home. A Syrian national was arrested. Hezbollah officials accuse Saudis and al-Qaeda of operating within Lebanon. Daily Star (Beirut)
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Greece's parliament narrowly approved a new law early Thursday morning that, if implemented, will lead to layoffs of 27,500 public sector workers, mostly teachers and municipal workers, by the end of 2014. About 5,000 Greeks holding black balloons protested outside the parliament, chanting, "We will not succumb, the only option is to resist." The layoffs are demanded by Europe and the IMF in return for 240 billion euros in bailouts, despite Greece's 27% unemployment rate. The new law will put 25,000 workers into a layoff scheme by the end of 2013, giving them eight months to find another position or get laid off. Kathimerini and AP
The Iranian Nuclear Program Strategic Studies Base has uncovered a plot by four Western countries about a "Wall of Fire" project against Iran. A wave of hundreds of Iranians who left the country after the bloody crackdown on peaceful protesters in 2009 would return to Iran to undermine President-elect Hassan Rouhani's administration and the Principalists. The revealed plot involves three countries in Europe and other Western countries, working with a network of the BBC and other foreign media, along with over 100 web sites and some human rights organizations, all of which are working against the revolution. Critical Threats and Iran Nuclear Reports (Trans)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 18-Jul-13 World View -- Russia seeks military air and naval bases in Cyprus thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(18-Jul-2013)
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Wall Street professional survey reveals widespread misconduct
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Thousands of private sector employees joined civil service workers in a 24-hour strike across Greece under the slogan, "General Strike - We are people, not numbers." Greece is being required to cut thousands of employees from civil service payrolls, if they're to continue to receive bailout payments from Europe and the International Monetary Fund. 12,500 public workers are to be placed in a so-called "mobility pool" by September this year, giving them eight months to find work in another department or lose their jobs, despite the fact that the Greek unemployment rate stands at nearly 27 percent, which is double the EU average. Greece’s two-party governing coalition faces a stern test on Wednesday night, when MPs will vote on more than 100 articles contained in a multi-bill of reforms that paves the way for sackings and job transfers in the civil service. Kathimerini (Athens) and Deutsche Welle
According to a survey of 250 industry insiders from financial services firms, 23% reported that they had observed or had first-hand knowledge of wrongdoing in the workplace, 28% felt the industry does not put the interests of clients first and 24% admitted they would engage in insider trading if they could get away with it.
"Surprisingly," according to the survey, younger professionals on Wall Street were significantly more likely to be aware, accept and engage in illegal or unethical conduct than their more senior colleagues. Among people with less than 10 years experience, 38% said they would commit insider trading for $10 million if they wouldn't be caught.
So here you see confirmation of several major issues that I've been writing about for years.
First, Wall Street, like Washington, has a huge population of people who have no ethical or moral standards whatsoever.
Second, young people -- that is, Generation-X, are substantially more lacking in ethics and morals than older people.
Let's review briefly: Generation-X grew up at a time when feminists were telling mothers to dump their husbands, and then go to court and lie about domestic violence, in order to get as much money as possible. These children grew up without fathers, except for a stream of men in their mothers' beds, some of whom would beat or abuse them. They would have loved to have their real fathers in their lives, but they knew that their mothers were lying, and they saw how their mothers lied to the divorce court and got away with it. They said to themselves, "Hey, I can do that too!" And they grew up, went into the financial services industry, and created tens of trillions of dollars in fraudulent subprime mortgage backed securities, and then sold them to older investors, the same men who had been in their mothers' beds when they were children.
Now we have a survey that says that 38% of them are lacking in morals and ethics, and that's not the least bit surprising. And, as I keep pointing out, the same people are in the same jobs, still looking for new ways to defraud people.
The third point is that they would commit these crimes "if they wouldn't be caught," and that's exactly the situation. None of these criminals who caused the financial crisis have been prosecuted and sent to jail, and the young people in the survey are well aware of this. They know that they can defraud anyone they want, just like their mothers did, make a ton of money, laugh at the suckers they've defrauded, and get away with it.
And why are they not being investigated and prosecuted by the Obama justice department? Because they've used a fraction of the money they obtained through fraud, and donated it to Obama as campaign contributions, and Obama is returning the favor.
According to Jordan Thomas of Labaton Sucharow, which funded the survey:
"Many in the financial services industry appear to have lost their moral compass, and younger professionals pose the greatest threat to investors. Wall Street needs to take the first step toward recovery and admit that it has a corporate ethics problem, or Main Street should brace itself for more scandals."
Well, Wall Street is not going to admit anything, and neither are any Washington politicians. (As an aside, no one has even been fired among the IRS employees who used taxpayer information to target political enemies and, for all we know, personal enemies as well.)
Let's hope that there are more scandals, and it would very nice to see some of these criminals on Wall Street and in Washington go to jail. Labaton Sucharow and NY Times
A furious Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday angrily rejected European Union sanctions imposed because of West Bank settlements. The sanctions will bar any EU funding projects for Israel in the West Bank. The guidelines require that in all signed agreements with Brussels a clear distinction be made between Israel and the territories it occupied in the 1967 Six-Day war -- the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank including mainly-Arab east Jerusalem. The aspect which has most angered Israel is the "territorial eligibility" clause which means that from 2014, only territories within the 1967 borders will be considered eligible for EU funding.
According to Netanyahu's statement:
"We shall not accept any external dictates on our borders. That is an issue that will be decided only in direct negotiations between the sides. ...I would expect those who concern themselves with peace and stability in the region to only debate such an issue after resolving problems which are slightly more urgent, such as the Syrian civil war or Iran's race to obtain nuclear weapons."
However, Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including annexed east Jerusalem, are viewed as illegal under international law. According to Sweden's foreign minister: "It should not come as a surprise that the EU supports international law in Middle East peace efforts." AFP and Jerusalem Post
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 17-Jul-13 World View -- EU imposes sanctions on Israel for West Bank settlements thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(17-Jul-2013)
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JP Morgan advisor defrauds 82 year old grandmother
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The new announcement that the Pakistan Taliban is sending hundreds of fighters to Syria to join with the al-Qaeda linked al-Nusra front is a threat to Turkey's security, according to a Turkish analyst. Turkey blames the rapid growth of al-Qaeda in Syria on the U.S. and the West for repeatedly failing to support the secular opposition to the Bashar al-Assad regime back in the early days of al-Assad's bloody slaughter of women and children, when supporting the opposition might have done some good. Instead, the West sat back and watched as Russia to provide an unlimited supply of heavy weapons to Syria, and as Iran-backed Hezbollah invaded Syria to support al-Assad.
But the build-up of al-Qaeda linked terrorists in Syria presents a threat to Turkey and its more moderate Islamist government. It also complicates Turkey's support for the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in Syria, because there's a three-way looming in Syria, with al-Assad, the FSA and the al-Qaeda militias all opposing each other. Zaman (Ankara)
Will millions of people in Egypt protesting for and against the now-ousted president Mohamed Morsi, Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been concerned for months that those protests would spread to Turkey. But the concerns grew much greater when Erdogan's ally, Morsi, was ousted, and his Muslim Brotherhood party was driven from power by the army. Since the ouster, Egypt's army arrested numerous Brotherhood officials, including Morsi, froze Brotherhood funds, shut down Brotherhood television stations, and killed dozens of Brotherhood protesters last week in a confrontation.
For Erdogan, the problem is that none of the remaining power groups in Egypt is a potential partner for Turkey. Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) is considered an ally of the Muslim Brotherhood, and so also an enemy of Egypt's army. Egypt's al-Nour and other Salafists parties distrust Turkey for not being "Islamic" enough, while the revolutionary and democratic forces are more allied with the Erdogan's political opponents.
In fact, the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has resulted in loss of influence by Brotherhood-allied political parties throughout the region, with the result that Erdogan has also lost influence throughout the region.
Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu warned on Monday that if "the old system" returns to Egypt, then the same thing could happen in other countries, in a "reverse domino effect":
"People or institutions from the old system could say "in some way, the army staged a coup and it has been justified by foreign countries – or at least they have remained silent about declaring it illegitimate – so we can do the same then."There are some elements that have remained from the old system in Yemen, Tunisia and Libya. Our foremost mission is to eliminate the possibility of making a reverse domino effect over external legitimacy. If we all allow something wrong in Egypt, there will be a reverse domino effect."
Davutoglu did not indicate what steps Turkey would take to accomplish this "foremost mission."
Erdogan has seen his dreams of Turkish regional leadership go down the drain, as Turkey now has good relations with only two of its neighbors: Hamas in Gaza and Israel. Al-Monitor and Hurriyet (Istanbul)
60% of Americans say corruption has increased in the past two years, with political parties perceived as the most corrupt institutions. More than three-quarters of Americans say that political parties are the most corrupt, followed by the legislature, the media, public officials and businesses. Those surveyed said that the military, non-governmental organizations and the education system were the least corrupt. The survey by Transparency International found majority of people around the world believe that their government is ineffective at fighting corruption and corruption in their country is getting worse. 114,000 people were surveyed in 107 countries. Transparency International and US News
Long-time readers of Generational Dynamics will not be surprised by the above report that corruption is increasing in politics. Politicians in Washington and analysts on CNBC openly lie all the time, as I've reported frequently. But it takes a story like this, posted in the Generational Dynamics Forum, to really bring the concept home:
"Had dinner with Mom last night. She's 82 years old and slowly dying of skin cancer and congestive heart failure. She was feeling fine last night. After dinner she asked me to look at something. She shoves a Chase Bank (JP Morgan) account statement in front of my face and asks if it looks right. I serve as her financial advior and executor of her estate. Didn't even know she had this account. She had rolled over a CD paying zero interest and the bank thief rep had advised to her to put into a JPM bond fund to "get a better yield". Since beginning of year bond fund had lost principal due to rising interest rates, but here is the kicker... These guys had been consistently charging her $50 a month, yes, that's right $50 a MONTH, to "manage" her measley account. Current balance $13,500. $600/year (4.4%) in management fees for the privilege of losing her hard earned money? ... The boldness of these thieves is extraordinary."
As I've been writing for years, the same people who caused the financial crisis are still in the same jobs in JP Morgan and other banks finding new ways to defraud people, especially older people. Those tens of trillions of dollars in fraudulent subprime mortgage backed synthetic securities didn't just grow out of thin air, you know. They were created by the banks, and then sold to investors, like this grandmother, by advisors who said that they were AAA-rated. The Obama administration has adamantly refused to investigate and prosecute even the most obvious of these crimes, because these same criminals donate large sums of money to him. So none of these crooks have gone to jail or have even lost a night's sleep. The people who created and sold those fraudulent securities are still in the same jobs in the same banks, finding news ways to defraud people. And why not? Since no one is going to even investigate their crimes, they can defraud as many people as they want, and just sit back and enjoy their winnings and laugh at the suckers they defrauded.
If there's an older person in your life with some investments, you should make sure that you warn that person, and provide as much support as you can.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 16-Jul-13 World View -- The fall of Morsi in Egypt is significant blow to Turkey thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(16-Jul-2013)
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Pakistan Taliban sends hundreds of fighters to Syria
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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The World Health Association (WHO) is meeting in emergency session last week and this week over concerns that the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) has been showing increased signs of spreading from human to human, and because there are apparently a large but unknown number of relatively mild cases of MERS that are going undetected. There have been a total of 80 lab-confirmed cases, with 44 deaths, almost all in Saudi Arabia. A particular concern is the long incubation period -- about 12 days -- which means that someone could contract the disease and spread it to other people for 12 days without showing any symptoms.
The Muslim world is currently celebrating Ramadan, which brings a small number of pilgrims to Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. Of greater concern is the Hajj, which will bring millions of Muslims from around the world to Saudi Arabia in October for their once in a lifetime pilgrimage. It's possible that MERS will spread among these huge crowds of people, without the victims even realizing it until several days after they've returned home and possibly infected other family members. Saudi officials are advising everyone who visits their country to wear masks, and are discussing with WHO what measures should be taken to cope with this global threat. Dubai Chronicle and Recombinomics
Thanks to the stupid policies of Russia's president Vladimir Putin in prolonging the Syria war by providing an unlimited supply of heavy weapons to the regime of the psychopathic president Bashar al-Assad, Syria has become a magnet for radical Sunni jihadists, anxious to fight against al-Assad and his supply of Russian weapons. We've reported how jihadists from Russia's southern (North Caucasus) provinces have been going to Syria to get training and experience that they can take back to Russia and use to attack Putin's government. Now, new reports indicate that Pakistan's Taliban are doing the same thing. They've set up training camps and sent hundreds of men to Syria to join the Islamist rebels fighting against al-Assad, in a strategy aimed at cementing ties with al-Qaeda's central leadership. A Taliban commander says that they'll soon issue videos to describe their victories in Syria. Reuters
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Ramadan only began on Wednesday, but since then dozens of people have been killed in deadly attacks across Iraq. On Sunday alone, three roadside bombs near markets in Basra killed at least 28 and left 98 others. Almost 30 more people were killed in attacks in other Iraq cities on Sunday. There were 25 killed on Saturday. The attacks have been launched by Sunni terrorists in the Islamic State of Iraq. Sectarian tensions have been inflamed by the sectarian proxy war in neighboring Syria, as sectarian Sunni vs Shia conflict spreads around the entire Mideast. Iraq is getting closer to sectarian collapse. Al-Jazeera
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 15-Jul-13 World View -- WHO meets to discuss MERS virus pandemic threat thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(15-Jul-2013)
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Russia stages largest military drills in post-Soviet era
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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On Friday, July 5, mysterious explosions struck a big Syrian arms depot in Latakia, destroying large supplies of Russian weapons, including advanced radars and cruise missiles. The explosions are a big setback to the regime of Bashar al-Assad and its planned attack on Aleppo. However, the source of the explosions was unknown, and some suspected a terrorist group aligned with al-Qaeda.
Israel has remained quiet about the explosions, but now unnamed U.S. officials have leaked to CNN that the explosions were caused by Israeli airstrikes. Israel is denying the U.S. reports, saying, "It has been a long time that we are not intervening in Syria's bloody war."
Israel has struck Syrian weapons supplies in the past, and has been warned by the al-Assad regime and by Hezbollah that any further attacks would risk drawing retaliation in the form of a new warfront against Israel through the Israeli border in Golan. CNN and Debka
The unexpected assassination of a Free Syrian Army (FSA) commander by the al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra, and threats of revenge by FSA leaders, is signaling a kind of "side war" between rebel groups in Syria that almost guarantees a victory by the regime of president Bashar al-Assad.
But the dithering by the West in general and the U.S. in particular in making a decision to provide arms to the FSA and other secular rebels in Syria has had an ironic effect:
So the reason that the West has given for not supplying weapons to the FSA and other secular rebels is that some of the weapons might fall into the hands of al-Nusra, but since al-Nusra is already receiving arms from outside Syria, the net result of the Western policy is to make sure that the secular Syrians are the ONLY group not receiving any outside weapons.
As I've written many times, Syria is in a generational Awakening era, and there are many survivors of the massive slaughter of Sunnis by Alawites in the extremely bloody civil war that climaxed in 1982 that want no part of another civil war. If it were up to the Syrians alone, then this war would have collapsed long ago. But every time it came close, the Russians stepped in and provide a new massive supply of heavy weapons to the regime, so that the psychopathic al-Assad could use them slaughter and massacre innocent Sunni women and children in the bedrooms.
So, the war is turning more and more into a true proxy war, being fought by foreign fighters -- Hezbollah and Iranian fighters supporting al-Assad, and al-Qaeda linked al-Nusra fighter opposing al-Assad, with both sides being supplied with weapons by outside countries. And according to the previous story, Israel is also getting more heavily involved.
I blame the Russians and Vladimir Putin for this. This has been one of the stupidest foreign policy mistakes that Putin has made. Thanks to Putin, Syria has become a magnet for outside forces on both sides, including al-Nusra and Hezbollah. And according to recent reports, al-Nusra is being joined by foreign fighters from Chechnya and Russia's Northern Caucasus, and after fighting the Syrian government, those fighters will return to Russia and fight the Russian government. AP and Turkish Weekly
Russia's president Vladimir Putin has doubled the size of military exercises to take place in Russia's Eastern Military District. There will be 160,000 servicemen, 1,000 tanks and armored vehicles, 130 aircraft and 70 ships from the Pacific Fleet. Putin ordered the snap drills on Friday evening, as part of a major shake-up in the military establishment. Since the Eastern Military District is close to Syria, some analysts have suggested that Putin called for the snap drills because of the revelation that last week's Latakia explosions were caused by Israeli air strikes, as described in a previous story. However, the Russians point out that similar drills have been held in other military districts. Itar-Tass (Moscow) (Trans) and Ria Novosti (Moscow)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 14-Jul-13 World View -- War between Syria's rebel groups threatens wider proxy war thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(14-Jul-2013)
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War breaks out between anti-Assad rebel factions in Syria
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Since the beginning of the Egypt's revolution and the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak over two years ago, violence has been growing in Egypt's Sinai region, on the border with both Gaza and Israel. There have been numerous attacks on Egyptian security personnel, as well as rocket attacks on Israel, fueled by Islamist terrorists coming from Gaza, and by anger and discontent among the native Bedouins. Whatever the political turmoil in Egypt or Israel, all of that is put aside and the two countries are cooperating closely to fight Sinai terrorism.
Hamas, which governs Gaza, have been bitterly disappointed by the revolution. Mubarak had been kept the Gaza/Egypt border firmly under control. Hamas had hoped that with Mubarak gone, the border would be opened -- and it was for a while. These hopes were doubled when Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood came to power, as Hamas was originally an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. But the increasing terrorist activity in Sinai has trumped everything. Except for brief periods of reprieve, Egypt has closed the Rafah border crossing that allows the passage of people and goods between Gaza and Egypt. Not only that, but Egypt's army has closed more than forty major smuggling tunnels along the border that Gazans have been using to smuggle people and goods back and forth.
The Sinai situation has deteriorated significantly in the two weeks since the ouster of Mohamed Morsi. Jihadists from Gaza, as well as Salafi jihadists from Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, have been targeting Egyptian and Israeli assets, and Egypt's new interim government has responded by firmly shutting down all traffic between Gaza and Egypt. On Friday, an Egyptian helicopter crossed over into Gaza airspace -- supposedly by accident, but quite possibly as a show of force against Hamas.
Egypt opened the Rafah crossing two days ago, but closed it again on Friday for security reasons. There are 1.7 million Palestinians living in Gaza, and the closing of the Rafah crossing and the smuggling tunnels has led to an acute shortage of food and goods in Gaza, particularly fuel. The increasing violence in Sinai makes it just one more of the many Mideast flash points that could spiral out of control at any time. Al-Ahram (Cairo) and Debka and Jamestown and Economist
As the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, allied with Iran-sponsored by the Hezbollah terror group and supplied with an unending stream of heavy weapons from Russia, continues its bloody assault on the people of Syria, a conflict is breaking out between two of the opposition rebel factions. A Syrian rebel commander with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) has been shot and killed by another rebel group consisting of jihadists from al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra. There has been escalating violence between the two groups, fighting over the spoils of war. However, it looks increasingly like an al-Assad victory is approaching, and in that case neither of the rebel groups will get its way. Al-Jazeera and BBC
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 13-Jul-13 World View -- Israel and Egypt cooperate against terrorists in Sinai thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(13-Jul-2013)
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Bosnia commemorates the 1995 Srebrenica massacre
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Over 15,000 people attended Thursday's commemoration of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. During the commemoration, Bosnia buried 409 victims of the Srebrenica including a newborn baby. Srebrenica is considered the worst genocide in post-war Europe (See "27-May-11 News -- Europe cheers the capture of Ratko Mladic, the butcher of Srebrenica") At least 8,300 Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys who had sought safe haven at the U.N.-protected enclave at Srebrenica were killed by Orthodox Christian Serbs under the leadership of General Ratko Mladic. Mladic is still considered a hero by many Serbs, who say that no crime was committed, as he was just defending Serbs. Mladic coined the phrase "ethnic cleansing" in the early 1990s to describe his program of extermination of the Bosniaks. Mladic's genocide and war crimes trial in The Hague was suspended indefinitely in 2012. former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic is also on trial in The Hague, facing 11 charges related to genocide and war crimes.
Genocidal acts like the Srebrenica massacre are the core events of generational theory. These genocidal acts, which occur as the climax of a generational crisis war, are so horrible, for both the perpetrators and the victims, for both the victors and the losers, that both sides are traumatized for life, and they vow to spend the rest of their lives making sure that nothing like that happens again. As the decades pass, there may be low-level violence, non-crisis wars, riots and rebellions, but nothing on the level of the genocidal acts that climaxed the previous crisis war. Finally, the survivors of that war all die off, and there's a new crisis war, climaxing in a new act of genocide, and the cycle repeats again.
People talk as if the Srebrenica massacre was unique since World War II, but in fact there have been numerous genocides since then. Just to name a very few, there was the Cambodian "killing fields" genocide of millions in the late 1970s; there was the massacre of Palestinian refugees in camps in Sabra and Shatila in 1982 in Lebanon; there was the massacre of the Tutsis by the Hutus in Rwanda in 1994; there was the Iran/Iraq war that climaxed with WMDs in 1988; there was the Darfur genocide of the 2000s decade, where the horrific climax is yet to come. And let's not forget that Burma (Myanmar) is building up to a mass genocide of Muslims by Buddhists, as we've been reporting frequently.
Despite attempts to make genocide "illegal," and then to hold silly "war crimes" trials, the fact is that genocide is really not so strange. In fact, it's as much a part of being human as sex is. When there isn't enough food to feed two nations, then they fight over existing resources, often with the intent of each to exterminate the other. Genocidal warfare and wars of extermination are necessary for "survival of the fittest" in human evolution. Without both sex and genocidal warfare, human beings would not exist today. That's the cycle of life. AFP and CS Monitor
It's Friday again, and that means Friday midday prayers in Muslim countries, after which mobs of people pour out of the mosques with plans either to go shopping or to hold demonstrations. On Friday, the faction that opposed president Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood part will hold demonstrations in one part of Cairo, while those demanding a reinstatement of Morsi as president after his ouster will be holding their own demonstrations in another part of Cairo. These rival demonstrations have led to violence in the past, the worst such incident being the deaths of 50 pro-Morsi demonstrators, mostly from police live fire, on Monday earlier this week. All sides are calling for peaceful demonstrations, and it's hoped that a repeat of Monday's violence, or any violence, will be avoided. Al-Ahram (Cairo)
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Russian agencies that guard president Vladimir Putin have ordered 20 electric portable typewriters, and related ink and supplies, for a total cost of $15,000. The typewriters must have both Cyrillic and English letter keys, and must be delivered by August 30. Many people are assuming that this is a security measure triggered by the theft of secret information by Edward Snowden, who is presumably still holed up at the Moscow airport. The theory is that the Russians want to use the typewriters for top secret memos and make sure that no one can steal them electronically, particularly over the internet. However, Russia's Ministry of Defense says that Russian agencies have been using typewriters for years, and that the new order for typewriters is to replace old equipment that was simply out of date.
Hey guys, you don't need typewriters. Have your technicians take an ordinary computer and remove all the communications hardware and software and all the ports, and then install an old-fashioned printer port connected to a cheap printer. That should work. Russia Today and Spiegel
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 12-Jul-13 World View -- Egypt's opposing factions plan rival demonstrations on Friday in Cairo thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(12-Jul-2013)
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Egypt shifts Mideast power from Qatar to Saudi Arabia and UAE
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
The ouster of Egypt's president Mohamed Morsi, along with the collapse of Muslim Brotherhood, has also brought about a collapse of Qatar's influence in the Mideast. Oil-rich Qatar has provided $7 billion in aid to Egypt in the year of Morsi's presidency, and had also been funding the Muslim Brotherhood faction in Syria of the rebels opposing the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad. In both cases, the support has now backfired. In Syria, the opposition has elected a new Saudi-linked leader. The Qataris have not said whether they will continue to provide aid to Egypt under its new government (whatever that turns out to be), but Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait have each promised to provide $4 billion in aid in the coming months. AFP and Reuters
The Syrian and Russian governments have told so many ridiculous lies since the beginning of Syria's conflict over two years ago, that almost anything either of them say is considered to be babbling gibberish. The latest is a grand announcement by Russia's U.N. envoy Vitaly Churkin that Russian scientific analysis had found that a sarin gas attack on March 19, killing 26, had been launched by Syria's opposition, rather than by the Bashar al-Assad regime. Unfortunately, everyone but Russian "experts" were forbidden from visiting the site of the sarin attack. In particular, United Nations experts were forbidden from visiting the site. So the Russian "experts" went in and collected their samples, took them back to Moscow, did some "analysis" in their secret lab, and made their announcement.
I'm constantly criticizing the utter stupidity of policies in Washington and Europe, but policies in Moscow are just as idiotic. We're beginning to see the outline of disastrous consequences of the Syria policy of Russia's president Vladimir Putin, which has been motivated mainly by a desire to screw the West. The Syrian conflict would have collapsed two years ago if Russia hadn't started supplying all kinds of heavy weapons to the al-Assad regime's forces. There have stories that I've reported that jihadists from the North Caucasus (Russia's southern provinces) have been going to Syria to fight the al-Assad regimes. So these Caucasian jihadists are getting training and field experience fighting Russian weapons and probably Russian military tactics in Syria, and they will return home and use these same tactics to fight against the Russians at home, and blow up more Russian opera houses and airplanes. This is where Putin's moronic policy is leading, and silly scams about sarin gas only make him look ridiculous. AFP
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 11-Jul-13 World View -- Russia tries a ridiculous sarin gas scam for Syria thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(11-Jul-2013)
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Bond market appears to be collapsing
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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On Tuesday, the Afghan Taliban finally closed its office in Doha, Qatar, which was supposed to be used as the site of "peace negotiations" with the U.S. and the government of Afghanistan. The office opened on June 18, and negotiations were to start with a couple of days. But the negotiations collapsed the next day, because Afghan president Hamid Karzai was furious that the Taliban displayed a plaque calling it the office of the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan," and displayed the Taliban flag. Qatari officials demanded that the plaque and flag be taken down, but then the Taliban were angry. So now the office is closed.
Recall that the U.S. Administration was so desperate to get the Afghan Taliban to have peace talks, they dropped the preconditions announced last year by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: They must forego suicide attacks and violence, they must sever ties with al-Qaeda, and they must accept Afghanistan's constitution, including protections for women and minority. The Taliban rejected all of these demands, and the Administration have acquiesced. So, while all this talk about "peace negotiations" has been going on for the last few weeks, the Taliban have been bombing innocent people in Kabul, Afghanistan's capital.
As I've written dozens of times in the last few years, there is no chance of a "peace process" in Afghanistan. The easiest way to see that is a comparison with Iraq, where President George Bush's "surge" was a factor in the successful peace treaty that allowed the U.S. to withdraw. Iraq's last generational crisis war was the Iran/Iraq war, climaxing in 1988 -- an EXTERNAL war, where the Iraqis, Sunnis and Shias alike, united to fight the Iranians. But Afghanistan's last crisis war was the genocidal civil war of 1992-96 -- an INTERNAL war, pitting the Pashtuns in southern Afghanistan against the the Northern Alliance, an alliance of Tajiks and Hazaras in northern Afghanistan. Furthermore, the Taliban are Sunni Islamist Pashtuns, occupying a large region starting in Afghanistan, through the tribal area, and deep into northwestern Pakistan, which is in a generational Crisis era. These are major differences that make an Afghanistan peace process impossible, and the whole attempt to negotiate peace with the Taliban a farce.
Nonetheless, the State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki made another ridiculous statement on Tuesday:
"We believe that misunderstandings that arose in the context of the opening [of the office] should not stand in the way of moving forward on reconciliation if the Taliban wishes to do so. We'll continue to support and reiterate our call for that process to move forward."
Well, Jen, you just go ahead and keep on reiterating that, and let's see if the process moves forward. Al-Jazeera and VOA
The White House says that President Barack Obama is considering the "zero option," pulling all U.S. forces out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014, rather than leave a small residual force behind to help prevent a Taliban takeover. According to reports, Obama and Afghan president Hamid Karzai are in such vitriolic disagreement that Obama has decided to threaten the zero option.
As I wrote in "Barack Obama in Berlin calls for greater European militarism" during his 2008 campaign, Obama made a victory in Afghanistan a big part of his plan:
"This is the moment when we must renew our resolve to rout the terrorists who threaten our security in Afghanistan, and the traffickers who sell drugs on your streets. No one welcomes war. I recognize the enormous difficulties in Afghanistan. But my country and yours have a stake in seeing that NATO's first mission beyond Europe's borders is a success. For the people of Afghanistan, and for our shared security, the work must be done. America cannot do this alone. The Afghan people need our troops and your troops; our support and your support to defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda, to develop their economy, and to help them rebuild their nation. We have too much at stake to turn back now."
Well, it looks like we're going to turn back now. VOA
Unnamed Pakistan officials criticized Hamid Karzai's handling of the so-called Taliban "peace negotiations," and warned that Afghanistan would plunge into a prolonged civil war if the negotiations failed.
This is completely wrong. Afghanistan is entering a generational Awakening era, and so a new crisis civil war is impossible or, if one begins, it will fizzle quickly. Afghanistan had a crisis civil war from 1991-96, and there are too many survivors who lived through the massacres and atrocities committed to and by their families and friends, and will not allow anything like that will happen again.
What appears to be on the horizon is a disaster similar to America's withdrawal from Vietnam in 1974, when Viet Cong forces overran South Vietnam, causing America's first defeat in war, and leading to the massive "killing fields" holocaust in Cambodia. The situation in Afghanistan is made worse by the fact that it's apparently going to be impossible for America to remove ten years of weapons and supplies from Afghanistan, because the country is land-locked, so some of those weapons may well fall into the hands of the Taliban.
But there won't be a civil war. The Taliban will take over in Afghanistan, and there'll be no one there to stop them. After that, Afghanistan's war will become a proxy war, pitting fighters from Pakistan and Central Asia. Pakistan Today
Japan's Defense Ministry issued a white paper for 2013 accusing China of air and sea activities the Senkaku / Diaoyu islands that are "dangerous actions that could cause a contingency situation." The statement reflects widespread concern that a miscalculation by either Japan or China could spark a nationalist response that could lead to a wider war. The white paper also mentions the threats from North Korea in the form of nuclear missiles that could reach Japan or the U.S. mainland. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government is facing elections in two weeks, and Abe is supporting revisions to Japan's pacifist constitution to allow for a more aggressive Japanese military. Japan Times
Over 50 people were injured on Tuesday when a massive car bomb explosion hit a pro-Hezbollah Shia suburb south of Beirut in Lebanon. Sectarian Sunni versus Shia violence has been increasing in Lebanon, ever since Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist group, announced that Hezbollah fighters would aggressively support the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad in the over two-year old civil war / proxy war. Nasrallah's announcement has triggered rising sectarian Sunni versus Shia throughout the Mideast. Daily Star (Beirut) and Al-Manar (Beirut)
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The above chart shows that money has been flowing out of stocks into bonds for the last five years. But the red bar on the far right shows that the bond market has been collapsing in the last month, but the money is NOT going back into stocks. This reflects the fact that bond yields (interest rates) have surged in the U.S. and in eurozone nations since May 1.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 10-Jul-13 World View -- Large car bomb explodes in pro-Hezbollah area of Lebanon thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(10-Jul-2013)
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Burma's Muslims receive training from Pakistan's radicals
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Pakistan's Abbottabad Commission has issued a scathing report on the U.S. capture of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 1, 2011. According to the report:
The circumstances surrounding the capture of bin Laden is being described as the second greatest humiliation in the history of Pakistan, with the first being the loss of East Pakistan in a 1971 war, to become Bangladesh. The Commission concludes that the country's "political, military intelligence and bureaucratic leadership cannot be absolved of their responsibility for the state of governance, policy planning and policy implementation that eventually rendered this national failure almost inevitable," and calls on the leadership to formally apologize to the people of Pakistan for "their dereliction of duty."
It's hard for me to avoid comparing Pakistan's dereliction of duty with the dereliction of duty by the U.S. administration in refusing to investigate and prosecute bankers who purposely created tens of trillions of dollars in phony synthetic subprime mortgage-backed securities, and then sold them to investors as AAA rated, creating the the global financial crisis which is far from over. And today I was reminded that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner knew in 2008 that bankers were rigging Libor rates, and did nothing about it. Dereliction of duty seems to be a problem in many countries these days. Al-Jazeera and Commission Report (PDF)
A massacre of at 51 deaths and 435 injuries occurred early Monday morning in Cairo, Egypt, as a result of clashes between the army and supporters of deposed president Mohamed Morsi. Almost all of the casualties were the result of live fire by the army on demonstrators. Pro-Morsi activists claim that the live fire was completely unprovoked, but the army responds, with support from video and eyewitnesses, that Morsi supporters started firing first, and the army was defending itself.
If it was the intention of pro-Morsi activists to provoke an overreaction by the army, they certainly succeeded. The interim governing coalition has all but fallen apart, and some activists are calling for revenge attacks. Al-Ahram (Cairo) and Al-Ahram
Sunday's terror attack in India (see "8-Jul-13 World View -- Jihadists conduct revenge attack on Buddhist temple in India") is the first of an expected new wave of attacks provoked by atrocities committed by Buddhists against Muslims, especially Rohingyas, in the last year in Burma (Myanmar).
In recent months, radicalized Rohingyas have established links with Pakistan's Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) terror group, and Rohingya Muslim radicals have received training at an LeT training camp, as well as in training camps in Bangladesh, near Burma's border. South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 9-Jul-13 World View -- Bin Laden capture: Pakistan's greatest humiliation since 1971 thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(9-Jul-2013)
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Millions of Egyptians protest in rival demonstrations
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Terrorists struck a famous Buddhist temple in Bodh Gaya in India's Bihar province early on Sunday morning. Nine coordinated bomb blasts injured two monks, one from Tibet and one from Myanmar (Burma), and did limited damage to the famed Mahabodhi temple complex. The temple is famous because it's believed that Lord Buddha attained enlightenment in 531 BC sitting under the giant Bodhi Tree within the complex. The temple and the Bodhi Tree are both safe.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but it's believed that the perpetrators are Pakistani-based Islamist terrorists conducting previously threatened revenge attacks for as series of atrocities conducted by Buddhists on Muslims in Myanmar (Burma), where at least 237 people have been killed and 150,000 people, particularly Rohingya Muslims, have been displaced from their homes.
According to tweets from terrorist leader Hafiz Saeed in Lahore:
"The Indian government is working in cahoots with Burmese government to wipe out Muslim population of #Burma.The prevailing silence of international community on the issue of #Burma is saddening to say the least.
It is also an obligation on the whole Muslim ummah to defend the rights and honor of #Rohingya Muslims in #Burma.
It is a moral responsibility on the newly elected government to take practical measures for stopping this genocide of Muslims in #Burma.
We will work for consensus between all religious and political parties on #Burma issue.
Muslim rulers must unite and raise their voice for the genocide of muslims in #Burma at the security council."
Last year, the al-Qaeda linked Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Pakistan branch of the Taliban, threatened to "attack Burmese interests" if the Pakistan did not cut off its diplomatic relations with Myanmar. Hindustan Times and India Today
Long-time readers are aware that generational theory predicts an approaching Clash of Civilizations world war, with China, Pakistan, and Sunni Muslim countries versus the U.S., India, Iran and Israel.
The spectacular rise in genocidal fury between Buddhists and Muslims in the last year in east Asia has added to the understanding of the fault line trends in the world. The following is my informal list of some of the major fault lines that are developing and leading to this new world war:
The above list is subject to change as the news develops.
Millions of Egyptians demonstrated in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Sunday in support of Wednesday's ouster of Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi as president, while tens of thousands of angry Islamists, mostly members of the Muslim Brotherhood, protested in a smaller square at a mosque miles away for the reinstatement of Morsi. There had been some violence on Friday, as confrontations between the two groups resulted in dozens of deaths. However, there has been almost no violence since then, as leaders of both groups avoided confrontations, while the army set up checkpoints throughout the city.
Saturday's political farce, where the position of prime minister was offered to, then withdrawn from, the extremely divisive liberal politician Mohamed ElBaradei, has not been entirely clarified on Sunday. On Sunday evening, reports surfaced that ElBaradei would be appointed as one of Egypt's many vice-presidents, while the appointment of prime minister would be offered to Ziad Bahaa El-Din, founding member of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, a socialist left of center party. The ultra-conservative Salafist al-Nour party had rejected the appointment of ElBaradei, but a party deputy says that they would welcome El-Din: "He is one of the liberal figures that we greatly respect." However, none of this is official as of this writing.
Bitterly angry Muslim Brotherhood members are rejecting any government appointments that don't reinstate Morsi. It's now considered the highest priority among officials of the interim government to seek ways to bring Brotherhood members into the new government, as they comprise some 30% of the population. Al-Ahram (Cairo) and Al-Ahram (Cairo)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 8-Jul-13 World View -- Jihadists conduct revenge attack on Buddhist temple in India thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(8-Jul-2013)
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RSS feeds are reinstated
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Ever since the GenerationalDynamics.com web site suffered a major
attack in March (apparently though not certainly by Chinese hackers),
I've been using the time I had available to focus on content, which
meant that some features of the web site remained unavailable. I've
been restoring these features one at a time, as time allowed, and I'm
pleased to announce that the RSS feeds have finally been restored. I
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The two opposing camps of protesters -- the one cheering the coup that led to the ouster of president Mohamed Morsi, versus the one bitterly angry about the coup and demanding Morsi's reinstatement -- are planning rival demonstrations on Sunday.
The coalition supporting Morsi's reinstatement is led by the Muslim Brotherhood and is called the National Alliance in Support of Legitimacy, and is calling for mass rallies to "Protect the Revolution." When this coalition uses the term "legitimacy," it refers to the election of Morsi as president in a legitimate election.
The "Tamarod" or "Rebel" anti-Morsi campaign is also calling for Sunday protests to defend what they call "popular legitimacy." For them, "legitimacy" refers to the demands of millions of Egyptian citizens. Al-Ahram (Cairo) and Al-Jazeera
There was a fair amount of political drama on Saturday, when it was announced that Mohamed ElBaradei would be sworn in as Egypt's new prime minister. ElBaradei is well known internationally for his work as former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, for which he won a Nobel peace prize. In Egypt's political context he's considered a liberal. He was very popular in Egypt for supporting the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, but he disappointed his followers because of his apparent disinterest in following up politically.
So a lot of people were questioning why he accepted an appointment as PM on Saturday, given his previous disinterest. However, his appointment as PM was withdrawn a few hours later when the al-Nour party threatened to withdraw from the governing coalition. The al-Nour party is far more conservative than the more moderate Muslim Brotherhood, but they've joined the liberals and secularists in opposing the Muslim Brotherhood's rise to power. However, the appointment of ElBaradei was too much for them, and ElBaradei's appointment was doomed. Whatever the circumstances, this portends major divisions in the mixed coalition of Egyptian activists and politicians who supported the army's ouster of Mohamed Morsi. Al-Ahram (Cairo) and Toronto Star
Israel is officially silent about the events in Egypt, but some officials are applauding the ouster of Egypt's president Mohamed Morsi. Israel has good relations with Egypt's army, and there is a mutual dependence to prevent terrorist attacks in Sinai, near the border between Egypt and Israel. However, Israel's relations with Morsi have been much more difficult than the relations with the army. During Morsi's year in power, there have been some worrying developments. Morsi has refused to allow top Israeli officials into Egypt, has not appointed an ambassador to Israel, and has refused to allow Israel to rebuild its embassy in Cairo after the former embassy was destroying during riots. Israeli officials are hoping that a new Egyptian regime will be more friendly with Israel than the last one. Israel National News and AFP
A couple of days ago, I reported that eurozone finance ministers were beginning to panic because bond yields for Portugal and Spain have been spiking since the beginning of May, indicating the investors are selling Portuguese and Spanish bonds, and refusing to lend more money to those two countries. Well, it turns out that bond yields are rising for a number of European countries, and also for U.S. Treasuries. This may mean nothing, or it may mean something. But if it means something, then here's what that something could be: It could be that large over-leveraged investors have been losing money in the stock market, and are being forced to raise cash quickly to cover their debt margins, and so they're selling their most liquid asset, government bonds, which pushes bond prices down and yields up. If that's true, then it could be an early sign of a bigger selloff in stock markets in the weeks to come.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 7-Jul-13 World View -- Mohamed Morsi's replacement in Egypt may be 'better' for Israel thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(7-Jul-2013)
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U.S. employment shifts from full-time to part-time
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There were fierce clashes between opponents and supporters of deposed president Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo, Alexandria, and other cities on Friday, leaving over 30 deaths and hundreds of injuries. Some deaths were caused by army live fire. Furious Morsi supporters poured out of mosques into the streets after Friday midday prayers to hold "Day of Rejection" protests, to reject the coup that overthrew Morsi, and to demand that Morsi be reinstated. In Cairo, the clashes took place on the 6 of October Bridge, so named to commemorate the beginning of the Yom Kippur war on October 6, 1973, when Egypt's army crossed the Suez Canal to attack Israeli fortifications. The widespread euphoria that followed the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak two years ago is now long gone, and Egyptians are now turning against each other, threatening civil war. Morsi opponents are calling for massive new protests on Sunday. Al-Ahram (Cairo) and Al-Jazeera
Syria's rebel forces have been fairly disorganized in their opposition to the monolithic machine of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad. Things got even worse for them this week when their most influential faction, Syria's Muslim Brotherhood, was dealt a blow by Egypt's coup that deposed president Mohamed Morsi, one of the leaders of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. In fact, al-Assad has been openly gloating the last few days over Morsi's fall, saying:
"What is happening in Egypt is the fall of so-called political Islam. This is the fate of anyone in the world who tries to use religion for political or factional interests."
Al-Assad doesn't bother with "political Islam." His army, and their allies from the terror group and Iran client Hezbollah, are in the process of trying to repeat their success in al-Qusair, where they flattened the city with heavy weapons killing thousands of civilians last month. This month they're flattening the city of Homs, where thousands more civilians are expected to be killed.
We now have a better idea of why the Administration finally panicked and postponed Obamacare's employer mandate on Tuesday. According to Friday's jobs report, the economy created 195,000 new jobs during June -- which is the figure that the analysts on CNBC are euphorically quoting.
But what they're not saying is considerably darker. The number of part-time jobs (working under 35 hours per week) increased by 360,000, while the number of full-time jobs actually FELL by 240,000. A lot of this can be attributed to the postponed Obamacare employee mandate. (See yesterday's article, "5-Jul-13 World View -- Eurozone and Obamacare continue their parallel economic collapse")
There appears to be a big shift going on from full-time to part-time employee and employers refusing to hire full-time workers, since any full-time worker requires a very big financial commitment with Obamacare. The one-year postponement may relieve the situation, but probably not my much, since the same mandate is supposed to be in place a year later. Zero Hedge and Washington Post
In yesterday's article, I compared Obamacare with some historical government attempts to control large markets. A major reason why all such attempts fail is that the government creates a huge bureaucracy to control the markets as they exist on that day. As soon as the bureaucracy is in place, it's no longer capable of coping with changes in technology or other changes in global markets, and the bureaucracy collapses of its own weight.
The same is true of Britain's National Health Service (NHS), which was designed in the 1950s and is no longer able to cope with new technologies. The result is that Britain is moving in the opposite direction to Obamacare, and is instituting pilot projects to privatize the NHS. In one project, hundreds of NHS employees are being transferred to British Telecom, which will use new technologies to do such things as monitor people with long-term conditions in their own homes. The privatized services will produce better outcomes and save billions of dollars. The bureaucrats and the unions are fighting any attempts at privatization, for fear of losing their jobs. BBC
Doku Umarov, the Islamist terror leader from Chechnya, is calling on jihadists around the world to attack the Winter Olympics games to be held in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi in 2014. Russia's law enforcement agencies are planning massive security measures to ensure safety to all visitors of the Olympic games. Undoubtedly, Umarov will receive a lot of help from jihadists returning from Syria, where they received training and experience while fighting Russia's client and friend, Bashar al-Assad. Pravda (Moscow)
MERS coronavirus is in the same family as the SARS virus that was raising pandemic concerns a decade ago, mostly in Asia. Since MERS was discovered in September, 2012, it has been spreading slowly in the Mideast, where there have 40 deaths out of 70 cases, mostly in Saudi Arabia. However, earlier cases were discovered retroactively, the earliest being in Jordan in April, 2012. In comparison to SARS, MERS is considerably more deadly, but does not transmit from human to human as efficiently, so there's no significant pandemic fear at the present time. However, concerns are growing that a pandemic might begin in October triggered by a mutation in the virus that might occur when millions of Muslims from around the world arrive in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, for the Hajj, their once in a lifetime pilgrimage. National Post and Saudi Embassy - Hajj
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 6-Jul-13 World View -- Angry 'Day or Rejection' protests in Egypt lead to dozens killed thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(6-Jul-2013)
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What can we expect from Obamacare?
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With the postponement of a crucial part of Obamacare, and a new bond crisis in Europe, Obamacare and euro currency appear to be collapsing in parallel, as the global financial crisis continues to worsen and heads for worldwide panic.
Portugal's government is collapsing because its austerity measures are failing. Portugal's government had to agree to the austerity measures in May, 2011, in order to receive a 78 billion euro bailout. Since then, Portugal has been feted as an example of a country doing the right thing. But unemployment is at 17.6%, and there are 932,000 people without jobs. Two cabinet ministers resigned this week over bitter disagreements over the financial program.
But Europeans are panicking since the real bombshell occurred on Wednesday, when Portugal's 10 year bond yields briefly spiked up above 8%, before falling back to 7.47% by the end of the day. This is the market interest rate that Portugal will have to pay and investors are demanding if they're going to lend money to Portugal by purchasing bonds. Everything above 6% is considered unsustainable, since debt keeps growing exponentially. (For comparison, the yield on U.S. 10 year Treasuries is 2.5%. For Germany, it's 1.65%.)
If you look at the above graphs, you can see why people are suddenly panicking. Beginning in May, Portugal's bond yields started spiking up again, and the trend line is up again. Apparently, Portugal is going to need another bailout. Furthermore, the "contagion" issue is rising, as Spain's bond yields are also going up, though not as quickly as Portugal's.
What happened in May? Well, there were the disastrous unemployment figures that were announced in April. Also, there was the disastrous Cyprus bailout that was completed in April. Since then, there has been bad economics news almost every day, and investors are responding to that by demanding higher and higher interest rates on Portuguese, Spanish and Italian bonds.
As the eurozone heads into the next crisis round, it's well to remember that nothing that the European politicians say can be believed. I've documented many overt lies by these politicians during the various Greek bailout crises. In fact, Jean-Claude Jüncker, chairman of the Eurogroup finance ministers at the time of one of these crises, was quoted as saying, "When it becomes serious, you have to lie."
As I've said many times, there's a good reason why the European politicians can't agree on a solution to the euro crisis. It's not because there are three or four really good solutions, and they can't agree which one to take. It's because there are NO solutions at all, and all they can do is cover their ass and hope that somebody else will be blamed when the inevitable total disaster comes. In the meantime, they'll make up numbers that are obviously false, and the credulous mainstream press will simply repeat them. BBC
According to Friday's Wall Street Journal, the S&P 500 Price/Earnings index (stock valuations) on Friday (June 28) morning was 18.41, which is a new recent high, and astronomical by historic standards, indicating that stocks are far overpriced, and the bubble is worse than ever. The bubble started growing again when the Fed reversed itself, and said there are no plans in the foreseeable future to end the $85 billion per month quantitative easing program. The historical average is 14, and as recently as 1982, the index was down to 6. It appears to be headed that way again, which means that the Dow Industrials will fall to below 3000.
As I've written many times, the financial analysts on CNBC and other mainstream financial media lie about stock valuations constantly, claiming that stocks are "cheap," and P/E ratios are around 9 or 10. (See, for example, "14-Apr-12 World View -- Wharton School's Jeremy Siegel is lying about stock valuations" from earlier this year.) Whether it's politicians in Europe or Washington, or analysts on CNBC, lies and fraud and extortion have become the norm today.
When Obamacare was announced in 2009, I called it "a proposal of economic insanity," and I've said repeatedly since then that it can't be implemented. (See "Obama's health plan, a proposal of economic insanity, appears to be losing support" from 2009.)
I made this statement because I've seen this movie before. Obamacare is worse than Nixon's 1970s wage-price controls, and those were an unmitigated catastrophe.
The 1970s movie is continuing, as the administration postpones the business mandate for a year. Just as Nixon's wage-price controls were so disastrous that they collapsed of their own weight, Obamacare is doing the same.
Unfortunately, they waited so long for this postponement that most of the damage has already been done. Millions of businesses have already changed their policies to reduce employment, or to keep part-time employment below 30 hours per week, and they now have no incentive to reverse direction, since they're facing the same disastrous policy in 2015. This means that the poor and the minorities will find it even harder to find jobs, which means that they won't have any health insurance at all.
The only core thing left is the "individual mandate." So now we're supposedly going to hear how perfectly young, healthy poor people are going to be forced to buy a government-endorsed health policy, or pay a large fine. This disaster is far from over.
And just like the European politicians and the analysts on CNBC, President Obama and the politicians who work for him are accomplished liars who will say anything they can get away with.
It was just a couple of weeks ago the President Obama said that the Obamacare implementation was on track, as others were pointing out that it that it was facing massive problems. Obama probably knew months ago that this announcement would have to be made, but he decided to lie constantly since then, just like Jean-Claude Jüncker, who said, "When it becomes serious, you have to lie." AP
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Obamacare is supposed to impose government controls on the entire medical services sector of the U.S. economy. A person would have to be exceptionally stupid to believe that's even possible, but here we are.
With the business mandate now postponed, and with the individual mandate likely to be postponed, it's possible that the entire thing will be canceled, sparing the country an economic disaster.
But if the mandates ARE implemented, we can get an idea of what will happen by looking back at Nixon's wage-price controls. The following summary is from a paper, Nixon wage-price controls - Forty Years After The Freeze by William N. Walker, who worked for President Nixon and played a major role in the implementation.
Obamacare has been an enormously divisive issue among the American people, but Nixon's wage-price controls were extremely popular among both Democrats and Republicans. The inflation rate was 4%, and the American people thought that government could do anything, particularly lower the inflation rate. So Nixon announced a wage-price freeze on August 15, 1971.
The rules were simple in the first phase: neither prices nor wages could increase, period. Virtually the only exception was raw agricultural products. As one politician said, "Remember, Virginia, when it’s a cucumber you can raise the price, but when it becomes a pickle, it’s frozen."
Powerful bureaucracies were set up to control inflation. first there was a Cost of Living Council, and after 90 days there was a Price Commission to control prices, and a separate Pay Board to limit wage increases.
At first, everything seemed OK, and the inflation rate actually fell to below 3% in the next few months. But by June, 1972, less than a year later, the inflation rate started climbing sharply, as "Phase III" was being introduced. According to Walker:
"What no one understood at the time was that economic conditions had undergone a profound and dramatic change. The cycle of wage-driven price hikes had been broken during Phase II. But government and private forecasters uniformly failed to recognize that demand had begun putting such severe pressure on supplies that within a matter of months, prices of virtually all commodities -- foodstuffs, minerals and petroleum -- would explode, reaching historic highs. The rate of inflation shot up to 11% by the summer of 1973, leaving Phase III in shambles."
Then the Administration got tougher, and started threatening major industries. The Cost of Living Council targeted major U.S. oil companies for price increases, and got the IRS to launch an immediate investigation. (As we now know, the Obama administration's IRS is also targeting political enemies with investigations.) Similar threats were made to the food industry.
By mid-1973, there were big gasoline shortages and huge food price increases, according to Walker:
"The Administration had anticipated some pressure on food prices during the first half of 1973 and had retained mandatory, though looser, controls over the food industry during Phase III. The results, however, were worse than even the most pessimistic predictions. During the first quarter of 1973, consumer food prices shot up at an annual rate of 29.8% while the wholesale price index for farm products rose at an annual rate of 51.9%. Red meat prices alone surged at an annual rate of 90% during the quarter."
There were more regulations, more investigations, and more freezes, but prices continued to skyrocket, with the inflation rate topping 12% (that's TWELVE percent) by the end of 1974.
The program ended on April 30, 1974. It was a disaster for the U.S. economy from which it didn't recover until the Reagan administration a decade later.
Another drastic government economic program that led to disaster was Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward, implemented in China in 1958. The following summary is from John King Fairbank's 1986 book, The Great Chinese Revolution 1800-1985.
500,000,000 peasants were taken out of their individual homes and put into communes, creating a massive human work force. The workers were organized along military lines of companies, battalions, and brigades. Each person's activities were rigidly supervised.
Mao's stipulated purpose was to mobilize the entire population to transform China into a socialist powerhouse -- producing both food and industrial goods -- much faster than might otherwise be possible. This would be both a national triumph and an ideological triumph, proving to the world that socialism could triumph over capitalism.
The individual peasants and managers were required to report the size of the crop harvests up the line to the central government, but there was no way to guarantee that the reports were accurate.
On the one hand, there was no economic incentive for the farmers and managers to provide accurate reports, since everyone in a socialist society is paid the same ("according to his need").
On the other hand, there was no independent check of the crop harvest estimates. If the population had been much smaller, then the central government might have been able to send out enough bureaucrats to check the reports, or at least do spot checks. But with about a billion peasants, no such meaningful checks were possible.
For the farmers and managers themselves, there was plenty of political incentive to overreport the crop harvest results.
Early in 1959, and again in July 1959, officials in Mao's government had begun to see that the program was failing. Their objections were rewarded with punishment. Mao was determined to follow his ideological course, no matter what else happened.
As a result, even though actual crop yield in 1959 was a little smaller than it had been in 1958, the crop reports added up to an enormous increase in production, more than a doubling of output.
By the time that Chairman Mao was finally ready to accept the situation, it was too late. There was too little food to feed everyone, and tens of millions died of starvation.
Chairman Mao was disgraced by the disastrous failure of the Great Leap Forward, and his critics proliferated.
Hopefully, the postponement of the business mandate is the first sign of a total collapse of all the Obamacare mandates. If that doesn't happen, then history tells us that the results will be far worse than even the most pessimistic forecasts: massive doctor shortages, massive insurance shortages, massive price increases for insurance and services, poor medical services, shortages of medicines and medical devices, and so forth. Furthermore, assume that every politician, especially President Obama, will lie almost time he opens his mouth. Expect that anyone who doesn't toe the line will be harassed and treated harshly by investigations by the IRS and other government agencies. (Paragraph modified. 5-Jul)
No matter what happens, parts of Obamacare will still survive -- like the parts about preexisting conditions, or parents insuring their kids to age 26. Whatever parts remain, Obama will claim that Obamacare is a success because those things have been implemented, and he will get his political legacy anyway.
Whether in Europe or America or China, politicians are always the same: No matter how much damage and destruction they cause, they always make sure that they come out on top.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 5-Jul-13 World View -- Eurozone and Obamacare continue their parallel economic collapse thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(5-Jul-2013)
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President Obama's Egypt statement does not use the word 'coup'
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The army had given Egypt's elected president Mohamed Morsi and its Muslim Brotherhood party 48 hours to negotiate with the Tamarod ("Rebellion"), the opposition represented by massive crowds in Tahrir Square in Cairo and in cities across Egypt. When the deadline expired on Wednesday afternoon, the army took action. It blocked all the streets with armored personnel carriers, it shut down all the pro-Muslim Brotherhood television stations, and it issued some 300 arrest warrants for Muslim Brotherhood members.
The military chief-of-staff Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi appeared on a televised press conference and announced a "roadmap" that includes the following:
The army was responsible for governing Egypt for about a year following the fall of Hosni Mubarak, and it seemed pretty clear that they have no desire to have to govern again. At the press conference, El-Sisi gave the podium to a series of non-army officials, including the Coptic Orthodox patriarch and nobel peace prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, who may yet become president of Egypt. The press conference also included a representative of the extremely religiously conservative Salafist al-Nour party, who have been just as shut out by Morsi as the liberals and secularists.
The army has appointed Judge Adly Mahmoud Mansour, 67, head of Egypt's High Constitutional Court (HCC) to be the interim president until new presidential elections can be held.
The only major group that didn't take part in the army's press conference was the Muslim Brotherhood. They were invited, but declined to attend. About 30% of Egypt's population are Muslim Brotherhood supporters, and they are currently furious. So far, there have only been sporadic acts of violence between the pro-Morsi and anti-Morsi groups, but it seems likely that much worse violence is to come. Al-Ahram (Cairo) and Al-Ahram
Egypt's army is claiming that its coup is not really a coup. The reasoning is that a real coup is done in secret, killing the leader and the replacing him with the leader of the coup plotters. But what happened on Wednesday is not a coup. It was the army enforcing the will of the vast majority of the people, and then providing a roadmap to return to civilian rule within a few months.
The reason that the army is saying this kind of transparent nonsense is that Egypt receives $1.5 billion in U.S. aid per year, and the U.S. has a strict law that aid will be terminated to any country where the army stages a coup against a democratically elected leader.
Everyone understands that it would be a disaster for the entire region, including Israel, if U.S. aid to Egypt were suspended. For that reason, both Cairo and Washington are being very careful not to use the word "coup" when describing what happened on Wednesday.
President Barack Obama issued a very tough statement that did not use the word "coup":
"The United States is monitoring the very fluid situation in Egypt, and we believe that ultimately the future of Egypt can only be determined by the Egyptian people. Nevertheless, we are deeply concerned by the decision of the Egyptian Armed Forces to remove President Morsy and suspend the Egyptian constitution. I now call on the Egyptian military to move quickly and responsibly to return full authority back to a democratically elected civilian government as soon as possible through an inclusive and transparent process, and to avoid any arbitrary arrests of President Morsy and his supporters. Given today’s developments, I have also directed the relevant departments and agencies to review the implications under U.S. law for our assistance to the Government of Egypt."
As of this writing, nobody seems to know where Mohamed Morsi is, and he may have been arrested. Certainly some of his supporters have been arrested. So one part of Obama's statement has already been violated.
The last sentence is the most threatening. It says, in essence, that aid may be cut off if Egypt doesn't return to civilian rule quickly. CBS News and White House statement
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 4-Jul-13 World View -- Egypt's army deposes Morsi in a non-coup coup thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(4-Jul-2013)
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Egypt's Morsi gives angry, desperate speech to save his job
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The job of Egypt's president Mohamed Morsi appeared increasingly shaky on Tuesday in another day of massive anti-Morsi protests countered by much smalled pro-Morsi protests, as as five cabinet ministers and several other high government officials all resigned from the government. At the end of the day, a furious Morsi gave an hour-long televised speech running past midnight, punching the air and pounding the podium, warning that he was the country's legitimately elected president and must be permitted to serve out his four-year term:
"It is normal after revolution for there to be opposition and support. We wrote a constitution and it was (passed) via referendum. We had legitimacy afterwards, and this legitimacy is what guarantees for us that there be no infighting between us and no bloodshed if we respect it. ...The old regime don’t want democracy. They’re used to rigging elections. They don’t know what democracy and freedom of expression are. They are using the youth and those suffering from the economic problems to sow chaos and violence. Why doesn’t this violence appear until they announce they will change the regime and abort democracy? ...
My message to you all, to the opposition, is that I will stand by this legitimacy. And to the supporters who respect democracy and love legitimacy, safeguard Egypt and the revolution. Don’t let the revolution be stolen from you, opponents and supporters. ...
I want to say some clear points... There is no alternative for legitimacy, constitutional legitimacy, legal legitimacy, the legitimacy of elections held before. After this I decided there is no alternative for legitimacy and keeping an open channel for dialogue...Legitimacy is the only guarantee against violence. The old regime won’t return....If this initiative isn’t accepted, the country will go down a dark road and we’ll be back to square one.
To save the nation we need to sacrifice, but not against each other....when we announce jihad that must be against foreign enemies and not against each other. We sacrifice for our country and I am the first to sacrifice. If the cost for legitimacy is my blood I will give it easily. There are many challenges but the biggest is not to fall in the trap and take the country in the wrong direction, and make our enemies happy.
My iron will is with my people and is unshaken."
The army has issued an ultimatum saying that unless a political agreement is reached by Wednesday, then they will lay out a political roadmap to amend the constitution and have elections within six months. Morsi's defiant speech was his response.
According to one report, the army turned against Morsi two weeks ago, when he was speaking at an international conference on Syria being held in Cairo. At that conference, he used the word "infidels" to denounce both the Shia militants supporting Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, and the secularists opposing him in Egypt. Even worse, Morsi suggested that Egypt's army join the fight against al-Assad. According to one anonymous army source, "The armed forces were very alarmed by the Syrian conference at a time the state was going through a major political crisis."Al-Ahram (Cairo) and Reuters
Hosni Mubarak, who ruled Egypt for decades until he was deposed by the January 2011 "Egyptian revolution," and is now in jail, says that he stepped down in 2011 because he wanted to respond to the demands of the people and to "save lives." He says that Morsi should step down for the same reason. Al-Arabiya
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The Afghan Taliban are taking credit for a truck bomb and gun attack on a Nato supply company, killing nine people, including four Nepalese, one Briton, one Romanian, and three Afghans. According to the Taliban statement:
"An important foreign logistic and supply facility was attacked, first by an explosive-filled truck which removed all the barriers and followed by devoted mujahideen armed with small and heavy weapons entering the base."
You may recall, Dear Reader, that this is the same Taliban to which the U.S. administration is making one concession after another, in its desperate attempt to reach a peace agreement with, rather than face a military disaster as troops are withdrawn in 2014. President Barack Obama said recently that he expected "a lot of bumps in the road" to achieving a peace settlement, and so I guess this major attack on a Nato facility in Kabul is just one of those bumps. At any rate, the "peace process" will continue. AFP
Spiegel is reporting that Greece can expect a new "haircut" after Germany's elections three months from now. According to the report, the reason that German chancellor Angela Merkel is saying that no new haircut will be necessary is because doing so would her reelection chances.
What we're talking about here is investors who hold bonds issued by Greece (Greece's version of U.S. Treasury bonds). When the bailout agreement on July 21, 2011, was announced with great joyous fanfare and singing and dancing, the eurozone finance ministers said that these investors would have to take a 21% "haircut," meaning that they would lose 21% of their investment, and that they would do "voluntarily." Things went downhill after that. Every time the eurozone finance ministers held a meeting, the amount of the haircut went up -- to 50%, then 60%, then 70%, and finally at 74%. That is, an investor who held $1 million in Greek bonds would now have only $260,000 in bonds. So if the report is correct, then investors in Greek bonds are going to lose even more.
However, that crisis is at least 3 months off. Greece faces a much bigger crisis this weekend. Representatives of the "troika" of organizations bailing out Greece -- the European Commission (EC), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) -- are in Athens again this week, and they're saying that Greece has not sufficiently reduced its public sector to meet its bailout conditions. If Greece fails to convince the troika that it's on target, then IMF rules will require that it back out of the bailout, and Greece will go bankrupt in August, when it has to pay about 2.2 billion euros to bondholders. So it's going to be one of those weekends when everyone is in a state of panic, and then on Sunday night a new agreement is announced with great joyous fanfare and singing and dancing, and it will be just as much of a scam as all the other bailout announcements.
Meanwhile, the government in Portugal appears to be collapsing, as two cabinet ministers resigned this week over bitter disagreements over the terms of Portugal's bailout program. Like Greece, Portugal is far from meeting the austerity commitments for its bailout, and the economy appears bleaker every week. Spiegel and Reuters and BBC
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 3-Jul-13 World View -- Aghan Taliban scores another big terror attack in Kabul thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(3-Jul-2013)
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How the world recognized the Taliban government in Afghanistan
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Sunday's pro- and anti-government protests were the largest in the history of Egypt. Still, there was no way to be certain that they would lead to worsening political chaos, or whether they would just peter out, especially with Ramadan approaching on July 8. But on Monday, the army made a stunning move that practically guarantees political chaos -- by issuing a statement that threatened president Mohamed Morsi and sided with his political opposition, the Tamarod movement. ("Tamarod" is the Arabic word for rebellion.)
The anti-government crowds in Cairo's Tahrir Square were considerably smaller on Monday than they were on Sunday, but within an hour of the army making its statement the crowd in Tahrir Square doubled in size, demanding that Morsi step down. The crowd was further cheered later when army helicopters, trailing large Egyptian flags, flew of Tahrir Square in open support for the Tamarod.
At the same time, the pro-Morsi crowds at Cairo's Nasr City were absolutely furious, chanting "Down with military rule," "Egypt's legitimacy is with the president" and "We love you Morsi." Pro-Morsi protests erupted in violence in scattered incidents across Egypt. One ultra-conservative group, a staunch supporter of the president, urged Morsi supporters nationwide to hit the streets to peacefully express the need to "respect the constitution and the public will." Al-Ahram (Cairo) and Al-Jazeera
The statement issued by the army on Monday demands political resolution within 48 hours if politicians wish to prevent intervention by the army. I find this to be a truly remarkable statement, well worth reading in its entirety:
- "Egypt and the whole world witnessed yesterday demonstrations by the great people of Egypt expressing their opinion in an unprecedented, peaceful and civilized way. Everyone saw the movement of the Egyptian people and heard their voices with the greatest respect and concern. It is necessary that the people receive a reply to their movement and the call from every party with any responsibility in the dangerous circumstances surrounding the nation. As a main party in the considerations of the future and based on their patriotic and historic responsibilities to protect security and stability, the armed forces state the following:
- The armed forces will not be a party in the circles of politics or governance and are not willing to step out of the role defined for them by the basic ideals of democracy based on the will of the people.
- The national security of the state is exposed to extreme danger by the developments the nation is witnessing, and this places a responsibility on us, each according to his position, to act as is proper to avert these dangers. The armed forces sensed early on the dangers of the current situation and the demands the great people have at this time. Therefore, it previously set a deadline of a week for all political forces in the country to come to a consensus and get out of this crisis. However, the week has passed without any sign of an initiative. This is what led to the people coming out with determination and resolve, in their full freedom, in this glorious way, which inspired surprise, respect and attention at the domestic, regional and international levels.
- Wasting more time will only bring more division and conflict, which we have warned about and continue to warn about. The noble people have suffered and have found no one to treat them with kindness or sympathize with them. That puts a moral and psychological burden on the armed forces, which find it obligatory that everyone drop everything and embrace these proud people, which have shown they are ready to do the impossible if only they feels there is loyalty and dedication to them.
- The armed forces repeat their call for the people's demands to be met and give everyone 48 hours as a last chance to shoulder the burden of the historic moment that is happening in the nation, which will not forgive or tolerate any party that is lax in shouldering its responsibility.
- The armed forces put everyone on notice that if the demands of the people are not realized in the given time period, it will be obliged by its patriotic and historic responsibilities and by its respect for the demands of the great Egyptian people to announce a road map for the future and the steps for overseeing its implementation, with participation of all patriotic and sincere parties and movements - including the youth, who set off the glorious revolution and continue to do so - without excluding anyone.
- A salute of appreciation and pride to the sincere and loyal men of the Armed Forces, who have always borne and will continue to bear their patriotic responsibilities toward the great people of Egypt with determination, decisiveness and pride. God save Egypt and its proud, great people."
Following this statement, an army spokesman asserted that army doctrine does not allow for "military coups":
"Egyptian Armed Forces' doctrines do not include military coups as a policy. The armed forces already deployed on Egypt's streets in 1977, 1987 and 2011 and this did not lead to a coup, but rather [led the army] to stand with the will of the great Egyptian people and their desire for reform and change.The armed forces statement was issued to push all political players to find a solution to the current political crisis and reach national reconciliation in line with the demands of the Egyptian people."
It's believed that the army is getting revenge for president Morsi's actions following his election as president last year. After Hosni Mubarak was deposed, the army was governing the country. During his campaign, Morsi promised that his government would be for all the people, not just for his own Muslim Brotherhood.
As soon as he was elected, Morsi immediately nullified decrees that had been issued by the army, and issued new decrees giving himself dictatorial powers that could not be contravened by either the army or the courts. He took steps to give all government powers to his Muslim Brotherhood cronies, and even used this power to allow the Muslim Brotherhood to rewrite Egypt's constitution. The result is that Morsi has been governing for his own minority of supporters, and not for all the people. These power plays are now coming home to roost for Morsi. Al-Jazeera and Al-Ahram (Cairo)
In 1997, in the aftermath of the bloody genocidal civil war that had wracked Afghanistan since 1990, the Taliban increased in political power. The Taliban were ethnic Pashtun Sunni Muslims who many people thought could bring the war-torn country back together. The Taliban in Afghanistan were negotiating with the government of Pakistan to gain recognition, and on May 25, 1997, Pakistan announced its official recognition. Prior to the formal announcement, the envoys of Russia, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the US, China, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan were taken into confidence, and their reactions were surprisingly positive.
The Taliban had promised that their government would be for all the people, not just for their own Pashtun people. The assessment of Pakistan and other governments was that as the new multiethnic entity demonstrated its staying power, the Taliban would become more moderate, but within days it became clear that this assumption was ridiculously naive. Their short-lived success made the Taliban insufferably arrogant and Pakistan was told to immediately introduce their distorted interpretation of Islamic tenets in the country.
Four years later, the Taliban helped Osama bin Laden launch the 9/11/2001 attacks on the United States. The News (Pakistan)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 2-Jul-13 World View -- In stunning intervention, Egypt's army sides with protesters against Morsi thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(2-Jul-2013)
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Burma Buddhists protest Time's portrayal of 'Buddhist Terror'
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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In towns and cities across Egypt, millions of people filled the streets in competing protests by against and for president Mohamed Morsi, with hundreds of thousands of people in Cairo alone. The protests were almost entirely peaceful, but with isolated incidents of violence that killed two people in separate incidents in Cairo suburbs.
Anti-Morsi protesters complained Morsi had allowed the economy to collapse, and that he had governed for the benefit of the Muslim Brotherhood, and not for all the people of Egypt. They claim to have 22 million signatures on petitions demanding that he step down.
Pro-Morsi protesters responded that Morsi is the first legitimately elected president of Egypt, and that he should be allowed to finish his 4-year term. Most pro-Morsi supporters also support a version of Sharia law that's much stricter than the versions supported by the liberals and secularists.
This was the biggest protest in the history of Egypt. Everyone is breathing a sign of relief that there was so little violence, but with millions of people on the streets, there's the feeling that Egypt is like a coiled spring, ready to snap. Officials are hoping that things will remain relatively peaceful until Ramadan begins on Monday, July 8, at which time many people expect the demonstrations to peter out. Al-Ahram (Cairo) and BBC
The al-Qaeda linked Sunni Muslim terror group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), have vowed that "Our mission [in Pakistan] is the abolition of this impure sect and people, the Shias and the Shia Hazaras, from every city, every village, every nook and corner of Pakistan," and on Sunday they continued to pursue that mission. LeJ claimed responsibility for a suicide bomber attack in a Shia Hazara neighborhood of Quetta that killed at 28 people and wounded dozens more. This is just the latest in a series of gun and bomb attacks by LeJ on Hazara communities in and around Quetta in southwestern Pakistan that have killed hundreds of people this year alone. LeJ is an offshoot of the Pakistani Taliban (Tehrik-e-Taliban or TTP). Although sectarian violence is hardly new in Pakistan, Sunni vs Shia sectarian violence has sharply increased in recent months from Africa to India, as a result of the conflict in Syria, which itself is turning into a proxy war between Sunnis and Shias. The News (Pakistan) and Reuters
Also on Sunday, a remote control bomb killed at least 17 people in a busy marketplace in Peshawar, in northwest Pakistan, injuring dozens more, resulting in almost 50 deaths between the two terrorist attacks. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the Peshawar attack, but it's assumed to be the work of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP - the Pakistan Taliban), who have been conducted many terrorist attacks in the northwest and in Pakistan's tribal region. Pakistan's new prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, made a campaign promise to negotiate a peace with TTP, but not surprisingly it seems that promise won't be fulfilled. On Sunday, TTP were apparently targeting a convoy of a government paramilitary force, but the convoy escaped the bomb and the marketplace bore the brunt. TTP has promised to stop killing civilians with terrorist attacks, but apparently that promise won't be kept either. Express Tribune (Pakistan) and Dawn (Pakistan)
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More than 1,000 people, including about 100 Buddhist monks, rallied on Sunday to support a decision by the Myanmar/Burma government to ban sale or distribution of the July 1 edition of TIME magazine. The magazine's cover story was a reaction to April's mob attack on Muslims in Burma (Myanmar) by thousands of Buddhists, including many Buddhist monks, led by Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu, who calls himself the "Buddhist Osama bin Laden." (See "5-Apr-13 World View -- Meiktila, Burma, violence has echoes of Kristallnacht")
The magazine's cover has a photo of Wirathu as "The Face of Buddhist Terror." Burma's government has banned the magazine saying that it might trigger new violence. Sunday's protesters called for legal action against the magazine and its editorial team and carried placards saying, "We support monk Wirathu who is just trying to protect our religion." However, other Burmese claim that only a small minority took part in the Muslim genocide, and most Burmese oppose it. Kyodo and The Diplomat
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 1-Jul-13 World View -- Millions fill Egypt's streets with mostly peaceful protests thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(1-Jul-2013)
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