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China's 'Maritime Silk Road' plans threaten India in Indian Ocean
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Chemical warfare experts have examined soil samples taken from the scene of three recent helicopter attacks by the army of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad and showed sizeable and unambiguous traces of chlorine and ammonia present at the site of all three attacks. In some cases, the chemical weapons were delivered in canisters marked with their contents. Only the al-Assad regime has access to air power, making it certain that the chemical weapons attack was carried out by the al-Assad regime. Several people, including children, died and hundreds were seriously wounded by the attacks. The three attacks took place on April 11, 18 and 21, and there's additional evidence of numerous other chemical weapons attacks by the al-Assad regime. Last year, al-Assad used sarin gas to kill civilians. The attacks, once again, make Bashar al-Assad a war criminal, but since President Obama flip-flopped last year on his "red line," and did not carry out his threat to use missiles to destroy al-Assad's air force, al-Assad is free to continue to commit genocide with impunity, fully supported and supplied by Vladimir Putin of Russia. Telegraph (London)
Yesterday, we reported on off the record comments that were secretly recorded, where US Secretary of State said that Israel could become "an apartheid state."
More comments from the same speech have now been published. In them, Kerry specifically accuses the Russians of lying about the Ukraine situation, and specifically refers to Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov not only as lying, but also as "Kafkaesque":
"Intel is producing taped conversations of intelligence operatives taking their orders from Moscow and everybody can tell the difference in the accents, in the idioms, in the language. We know exactly who’s giving those orders, we know where they are coming from. ...It’s not an accident that you have some of the same people identified who were in Crimea and in Georgia and who are now in east Ukraine. This is insulting to everybody’s intelligence, let alone to our notions about how we ought to be behaving in the 21st century. It’s thuggism, it’s rogue state-ism. It’s the worst order of behavior. ...
Right now there is not a negotiation; there is a confrontation. I’m sad to report I’ve never seen such a complete, miserable, unaccountable, disgraceful walk away from a set of promises and understandings than what has taken place. I’ve had six conversations with Lavrov in the last weeks. The last one was Kafka-esque, it was other planet, it was just bizarre. Nobody is better at telling you that red is blue and black is white. ... That’s what we are dealing with."
Lavrov has been openly lying for years, as I've documented many times. But Kerry has also continually sucked up to Lavrov by either believing or pretending to believe Lavrov's garbage. Kerry is now changing his policy, though I'm not sure why. Can't he just suck up to Lavrov a little longer? What's the problem?
Franz Kafka was a brilliant early 1900s German novelist. His most famous novel was The Trial, in which a man is arrested, jailed, put on trial, convicted and executed, and he's never told what the charges against him are. This is the sort of thing that happens in Russia, and incidentally is also happening in Egypt these days.
In another of Kafka's novels, the Metamorphosis, one day a man wakes up, opens his eyes, and discovers that he's turned into a large insect. Daily Beast and SparkNotes and SparkNotes
The Mideast peace talks that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry set up last July officially collapsed on Tuesday, as the self-imposed April 29 deadline was reached. The "peace talks" were considered to be a joke around the Mideast, as the Israelis and the Palestinians rarely even spoke to each other. By the end of March, the whole thing was reduced to angry finger-pointing. John Kerry blamed Israel, suggesting that Israel is becoming an "apartheid state." Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas blamed the Israelis, saying:
"If we want to extend the negotiations there has to be a release of prisoners ... a settlement freeze, and a discussion of maps and borders for three months, during which there must be a complete halt to settlement activity."
And a senior Israeli official blamed the Palestinians, saying:
"The moment that Mahmoud Abbas gives up the alliance with Hamas, a murderous organization which calls for the destruction of the state of Israel, we will be ready to return immediately to the negotiating table and discuss all subjects."
The Palestinians have indicated that they will now take unilateral steps, including an attempted unity government between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, and applying to dozens more United Nations organizations as the State of Palestine. AFP
The Sea of Okhotsk is in the northern Pacific ocean, bordering Russia on two sides and Japan in the south. It's estimated to hold over one billion tons of gas and oil, as well as vast fishing grounds. The UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf confirmed Russia's petition that the sea is sovereign Russian territory, and Russia's president Vladimir Putin has announced that by the end of the year, the sea will be closed to all outside shipping and fishing. This will close a major fishing area to Japan and China, and forcing them to compete even more intensively elsewhere in the Western Pacific, raising tensions about their currently high levels. It may also embolden the Chinese to move even more aggressively to annex the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, administered by Japan in the East China Sea, and to annex more portions of the islands in the South China Sea. However, China will not have a strong case in those venues, since it's refused to submit the case to the United Nations for arbitration, and indeed has has been taking revenge against the Philippines for appealing to the United Nations Arbitral Tribunal. Voice of Russia and Jamestown and World Atlas
Since 2001, China has been pursuing a "String of Pearls" strategy, with ports in Gwadar (Pakistan), Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and on the east cost of Burma in the Bay of Bengal. Since then, China has announced an expansion to a "Maritime Silk Road" (MSR), which involves the construction of ports, logistical stations, storage facilities and free-trade zones across the Indian Ocean all the way to Africa. China is well on its way to developing the MSR, as shown by the ongoing search for the Malaysian Airlines 370 plane: China has been the most active and engaged participant in the search effort, with over eleven naval and Coast Guard ships scouring vast tracts of the Southern Indian Ocean. India has had no choice but to accept China's encroachment, but will have to seek a way to hedge against China's maritime thrust. Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses (IDSA - New Delhi)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 30-Apr-14 World View -- Proof that Syria's Bashar al-Assad used chlorine on civilians thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(30-Apr-2014)
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John Kerry says that Israel could become 'an apartheid state'
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Self-described Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) Narendra Modi, the leader of India's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and expected to be the next prime minister, said on Sunday that he would deport Bangladeshi immigrants:
""I want to warn from here, brothers and sisters write down, that after May 16, I will send these Bangladeshis beyond the border with their bags and baggages."
He alleged that one of his opponents supported "vote bank policies," that allowed illegal Bangladeshi immigrants to obtain forged voting IDs and ration cards for votes.
"You are spreading the red carpet for the Bangladeshis for the sake of votebank politics. If people from Bihar come, they seem to be outsiders to you. If people from Odisha come, they seem to be outsiders to you. You feel bad if Marwaris come.
But if some Bangladeshi comes, your face seems to shine. This country cannot run like this. We won't allow you to destroy the country for the sake of your vote bank politics."
Bangladesh was separated from India by the Partition, the 1947 partitioning of the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan, leading to an extremely bloody war between Hindus and Muslims. A 1971 civil war within Pakistan itself led to the separation of Pakistan from East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh.
In previous statements about deporting Bangladeshis, he appeared to distinguish Hindus from Muslims. In February, he said: "We have a responsibility toward Hindus who are harassed and suffer in other countries. Where will they go? India is the only place for them. Our government cannot continue to harass them. We will have to accommodate them here."
Actually, he's been all over the map on this issue of "Bangladeshis." Last month he alleged a conspiracy to eliminate rhinoceros to make way:
"Aren't rhinos the pride of Assam? These days there is a conspiracy to kill it. I am making the allegation very seriously. People sitting in the government ... to save Bangladeshis ... they are doing this conspiracy to kill rhinos so that the area becomes empty and Bangladeshis can be settled there."
Either despite or because of his statements on Bangledishi immigrants, as well as his promises to improve the economy, to end corruption, and to adopt a tougher, more nationalistic foreign policy with Pakistan and China, opinion polls indicate that Modi is the frontrunner for the position of prime minister. India Times and NDTV (India) and NDTV (22-Feb)
In off the record comments that were secretly recorded, US Secretary of State John Kerry said the following, with respect to the recently collapsed Mideast peace plan that he had set up:
"A two-state solution will be clearly underscored as the only real alternative. Because a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second-class citizens—or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state. Once you put that frame in your mind, that reality, which is the bottom line, you understand how imperative it is to get to the two-state solution, which both leaders, even yesterday, said they remain deeply committed to."
As I've said before, it's hard to figure out what's going on with Kerry. He burst onto the scene in 1971 when he declared to the Senate that U.S. Army soldiers were rapists and torturers and no better than Nazi stormtroopers, and he's been belittling the army and the United States ever since. As Secretary of State, he says and does one stupid thing after another, and stumbles from one foreign policy debacle to the next. Is there some deep, brilliant, core plan that he's pursuing, or is he really as dumb as he seems? Daily Beast
At least 36 people have been killed and 60 injured in a suicide bombing in eastern Iraq, two days before the country heads to the polls in the first nationwide elections since the 2011 withdrawal of US forces. The perpetrators are assumed to be the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria/Sham/theLevant (ISIS or ISIL), the same group that has broken away from al-Qaeda and is recruiting jihadists in Syria from countries around the world. The Baghdad government has been an ally of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad. The number of suicide bombings has been increasing steadily since the withdrawal of American forces in December 2011, and has particularly surged this year as the April 30 election approaches. Al-Jazeera
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 29-Apr-14 World View -- India's Narendra Modi says he'll deport 'Bangladeshis' thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(29-Apr-2014)
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MERS virus spreads more rapidly in the Mideast
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America and the Philippines are about to sign a major agreement to permit a large-scale return of U.S. military forces to bases in the Philippines. The agreement is part of the larger "pivot to Asia" that President Obama announced in 2011. For the Philippines, it will boost the 120,000 man Philippine military as China becomes more aggressive in annexing other countries' territories.
The U.S. has had military bases in the Philippines since the early 1900s, following the Spanish-American war, and the bases played a crucial role for America in World War II and the Vietnam war. Subic Bay and Clark became America's largest military bases outside the U.S., but due to a substantial growth of anti-Americanism, The Americans were thrown out in 1991. An agreement in 1999 permitted temporary visits by American forces.
Not all the details have been announced, but this appears to be a major policy reversal by the Philippines, triggered by China's aggressive actions in the South China Sea. China has already annexed the Philippines' rich fishing grounds around the Scarborough Shoal, and has announced its intention to annex by military force territories belonging to all the nations surrounding the South China Sea.
The arrival of a big American military base in the Philippines is unlikely to cause China to back down. To the contrary, it will make the Chinese public to become even more nationalistic, vengeful and warlike, and the Chinese military to become even more bellicose and aggressive. The probability of an accident or miscalculation spiraling into a larger war is increasing. Philippine Star and AFP
The MERS virus is spreading more rapidly than had been expected. Saudi Arabia has confirmed 26 more cases of MERS-CoV (the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus) in the last week, with 10 more deaths. At the same time, Egypt confirmed its first case of MERS in a man who had recently returned from Saudi Arabia.
A recent study shows that the MERS had been common in camels for at least 20 years, without spreading to humans. It was first diagnosed in Saudi Arabia about two years ago, and it's suspected that the virus mutated at that time to permit spreading to humans. The fact that it's spreading more rapidly may mean that there's been a further mutation.
MERS is similar in type to SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) that spread across Asia in 2003, infecting 8,273 people, killing 9%. MERS is thought to be deadlier, but more difficult to transmit, although the recent spike in cases may mean that it's spreading more easily. Russia Today and AFP
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 28-Apr-14 World View -- Philippines agrees to major return of U.S. military to counter China thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(28-Apr-2014)
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South Korea's prime minister resigns over ferry disaster
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U.S. ally Abdullah Abdullah got 44.9% of the vote in the first round of the eight-candidate presidential race earlier this month. In second place was Ashraf Ghani, a former finance minister and World Bank technocrat, with 31.5%. Since no candidate got 50% of the vote, a runoff election is scheduled for June 7.
Ethnic identity is becoming a major factor in the election. Afghanistan's last generational crisis war was the extremely bloody civil war fought between 1991 and 1996. The war was fought mainly between the Pashtuns in southern Afghanistan versus the Northern Alliance of Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks in northern Afghanistan. Today's Taliban terrorists are radicalized Pashtuns.
Abdullah is half Pashtun and half Tajik, but he's regarded as Tajik around the country because he fought alongside the Tajiks during the civil war. So it's perhaps not surprising that Abdullah got 80% of the vote in parts of northern Afghanistan, while getting only 3% in purely Pashtun areas in the south and east. In the election earlier this month, the Pashtun vote was split among several Pashtun candidates, but if you add together all the votes for Pashtun candidates, then it exceeds Abdullah's vote.
Non-Pashtuns have rarely been elected president, and have done poorly when they were. For example, the conservative King Habibullah was lampooned as the "son of a water carrier" and was only in power for less than a year at the end of the 1920s before he was executed.
If Abdullah does win, then he'll have to try to unify the country by befriending the Pashtuns, which won't be easy given that he was with people who were torturing, raping, decapitating and slaughtering Pashtuns just 20 years ago. Deutsche-Welle and Bloomberg
We have no way of knowing whether the massive intelligence leaks by Edward Snowden have made our missile defenses helpless against a missile attack by China, since neither the U.S. nor the Chinese government are talking about things like that.
However, there is one American enemy that is not afraid to talk about it and brag about how it's helping them prepare secret jihadist terror attacks against America and other targets: Al-Qaeda. According to John Sawers, head of Britain's secret service MI6:
"The leaks from Snowden have been very damaging, and they've put our operations at risk... It's clear that our adversaries are rubbing their hands with glee. Al-Qaeda is lapping it up."
A recent issue of the English language Inspire, in the midst of explaining how to encrypt communications to prevent Western governments from learning about terror attacks before they occur, was quite gleeful in its description of the Snowden leaks:
"Obama lied in regard of the NSA program. He asserted it did not spy on its citizens. But every dog has its day, and NSA's day came when the whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed the No Secret Agency's dark secrets. The people called for the government to observe the American principles but it did not listen. It abandoned all its privacy policies. This rogue country did not stop at spying on its citizens, it killed them too. Several of its citizens have been targeted in their extra judicial killing program."
Al-Qaeda began using encryption tools in 2007 for its online activities, and by 2009 was distributing a tool called "Asrar Al-Mujahideen" ("Mujahideen Secrets"), based on military grade security technology, to be used for communications by "anyone who wants to wage jihad with us, and we will guide him to a suitable means to kill the collaborators and the archons of unbelief – even in his bedroom or workplace."
Although the "Mujahideen Secrets" provides totally secure communications when properly used, jihadists and murderers are like other people in that sometimes they're too lazy to do things right, and many of the continued to use insecure communications channels like gmail.
However, since the Snowden disclosures, al-Qaeda has changed all its communications protocols, even refusing to accept messages that haven't been properly secured.
For example, a recent article is directed at those wishing to carry out lone wolf jihad attacks. It provides instructions for use of encryption software in communicating with al-Qaeda's "military committee," and promises help in planning and executing the attack, and takes responsibility for providing media coverage. Memri
The sinking of a ferry off the coast of South Korea on April 16, with 476 passengers, mostly students and teachers, has taken its first political casualty. South Korean Prime Minister Chung Hong-won announced his offer of resignation in the fact of furious protests for parents and family members accusing him of mishandling the situation, and not responding quickly enough to save passengers. According to Chung:
"I wanted to resign earlier but handling the situation was the first priority and I thought that it was a responsible act to help before leaving. But I've decided to resign now, not to be any burden on the administration."
Chung has a close relationship with President Park Geun-hye, and recently took trips to China and Pakistan to improve political and economic ties. With North Korea's government seemingly always in chaos, it will be important for South Korea's relationship with China to remain stable. BBC and Korea Times (4/14)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 27-Apr-14 World View -- Al-Qaeda 'rubs hands with glee' at Snowden disclosures thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(27-Apr-2014)
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Nigeria's government under fire over schoolgirl abduction
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Suicide bombers killed 31 people Friday at a campaign rally in Baghdad, Iraq, attended by thousands of supporters of Asaib Ahl al-Haq group, a hardline militant Shia group backed by Iran, and modeled after Lebanon's Hezbollah. The al-Qaeda linked Sunni Muslim terrorist group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria/Sham/theLevant (ISIS or ISIL). ISIS is the group that has been fighting both the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, and also his moderate opposition. ISIS is becoming well-established in both eastern Syria and western Iraq, as secular Shia/Sunni tensions grow throughout the Mideast. Next Wednesday's election will be the first since the US pulled out combat troops in 2011. AP and BBC
The Nigerian people are frustrated and outraged about the fact that the government appears to be doing absolutely nothing to find the location of the schoolgirls, aged 16-18, who were kidnapped by Boko Haram under cover of darkness on April 16. Attempts were made to abduct 230 girls, but 43 escaped.
The girls were abducted and carried away in trucks for many miles, and the security forces did nothing to stop them. Since then, the army appears to be doing nothing. They're not searching through forests or following up on other leads, as far as anyone can tell. The government has done nothing but produce a couple of reports, but even those have not been released to the public. Many people believe that some people in the government and some people in the army are complicit with Boko Haram. Nigeria's president Goodluck Jonathan at a recent church service claimed that Boko Haram members had infiltrated the government, and now police officials are demanding that Jonathan provide the names of the suspects.
Nigeria is half Christian and half Muslim, and this case has divided the public along religious lines. The Christians believe that Muslims in general are complicit with Boko Haram, while the Muslims believed that they're all being unfairly blamed for the horrific actions of a terrorist gang. The kidnappings took place in the far north, which is mostly Muslim, and military operations there in the past have been extremely violent, so much of the public is resisting intrusion by the army, despite the kidnappings.
Defenders of the government and the army point out that the area where the girls are being held is remote and heavily forested. It's also close to Cameroon, which means that they could slip though porous borders into nearby countries, including Chad or Niger.
Although this incident is unique in Nigeria's history, and has shocked the entire nation, Boko Haram has abducted girls before, and when they flee to escape the police, they leave the girls behind and abduct new girls. Christian girls in the past who have been rescued were sometimes found to be pregnant or have children, and others had been forcibly converted to Islam and married off to their kidnappers. Daily Post (Nigeria) All Africa and CNN
Russian military aircraft entered Ukrainian airspace several times on Thursday and Friday, raising tensions in eastern Ukraine.
Earlier, pro-Russian separatists seized a bus carrying international military observers near the eastern Ukraine town of Sloviansk, which is under control of the activists. Talks are under way to free them.
The have been a few horrific abductions and casualties and deaths in the eastern Ukraine saga, but apart from those, the situation looks more and more like a circus. I personally just can't wrap my mind around the concept that this region is on the verge of a major war.
There's plenty of rhetoric to go around. You have the government in Kiev saying, "The world has not yet forgotten World War II, but Russia is already keen on starting World War III." You have Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov responding with, "The West wants - and this is how it all began - to seize control of Ukraine because of their own political ambitions, not in the interests of the Ukrainian people." And the middle ring of the three-ring circus is Russia's armed forces on Ukraine's eastern border, with soldiers running around, tanks rolling around, and warplanes flying around to thrill people.
In the meantime, there's no upsurge of violence from the people. The pro-Russian and pro-Kiev activists aren't rising up and killing each other. The pro-Russian activists have taken over government buildings in Sloviansk and other villages, but that's more a 1960s-style Alinsky-style protest tactic, rather than a war. And if Russia's president Vladimir Putin really wanted to invade, and risk getting bogged down in a lengthy war, then he would have done so already.
It's worth noting that Russia already has its hands full dealing with the Tatars in Crimea, and that Standard & Poors ratings agency on Friday reduced the investment value of Russian bonds to near "junk" status. Russia's economy is a wreck.
I could be wrong (this is not a Generational Dynamics prediction), but my personal opinion is that eastern Ukraine is nowhere near war, and Russia is nowhere near an invasion. In other words, Putin is bluffing, in order to keep the pro-Russian activists happy, and to gain maximum leverage with the Kiev government and with the West. There may be isolated incidents of violence, and it's possible that things will get worse as the May 25 elections approach, but for the time being, I expect the circus to continue as it is. BBC and AP
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 26-Apr-14 World View -- Russian jets fly over Ukraine's air space thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(26-Apr-2014)
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Israel cancels peace talks after Palestinian reconciliation
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Ukraine is applying to join the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) as an associate member, as a move to protect the 300,000 Tatars living in 300 Muslim communities on the Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Russia. The OIC was established in 1969 "to safeguard and protect the interests of the Muslim world." It has a membership of 57 states. Russia, with a population of 27 million Muslims, is an associate member.
While the world's attention has been focused on eastern Ukraine, and the question of whether Russian troops will invade, Russia still has many problems to deal with in the newly annexed Crimea. Ukraine's OIC application is part of the growing ethnic tensions between the Crimean Tatars and the ethnic Russians. A recent statement by a Russian official that if Tatars don't like it in Crimea, "then they should leave!" is provoking fears that that Russia plans to drive all Tatars off Crimea.
Crimea is the historic homeland of the Tatars. In 1944, Russia's dictator Josef Stalin deported 200,000 Tatars from Crimea to central Asia, accusing them of collaborating with the Nazis. It was only in the 1980s and 1990s that the Tatars returned in large numbers to Crimea, particularly after the collapse of the Soviet Union and Ukraine's independence. The Tatars see today's worsening situation as a sign that Russia's president Vladimir Putin plans to repeat Stalin's mass deportation of Tatars. Islam in Ukraine (Trans) and Jamestown
So on April 10, a delegation of Crimean Tatars reached Saudi Arabia to apply for associate membership in the OIC. Although it may take a few months for the application to be reviewed, it's expected to be granted. In addition, Turkey's Foreign Ministry has issued a strong statement demanding that the rights of the Crimean Tatars be protected.
Putin responded on April 21 by signing a decree to "rehabilitate" all the ethnic groups in Crimea that suffered repression under Stalin. According to Putin:
"Taking advantage of an opportunity, I would like to inform colleagues that I have signed a decree on rehabilitation of the Crimean Tatars, the Armenian population, Germans, Greeks - all those who suffered from Stalin’s repressions."
It's doubtful that Putin's rehabilitation decree will do much to remediate the tension, which may lead to violence. That scenario is particularly possible on May 25, when Ukraine's presidential elections occur. Russian activists in Ukraine have already said that they plan to do everything possible to disrupt the elections. Particularly vulnerable will be tens of thousands of Crimean Tatars, who are still Ukrainian citizens, having refused to accept Russian passports, will try to cross the border into Ukraine's mainland to vote, and return. Itar-Tass (Moscow) and Zaman (Ankara)
Following Wednesday's announcement of a reconciliation between the two Palestinian factions -- Hamas, which governs Gaza, and the Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, which governs the West Bank -- Israel's cabinet voted unanimously to suspend all peace talks, and to take unspecified steps in retaliation against the moves.
Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he will never negotiate with a Palestinian government backed by Hamas. According to Netanyahu:
"Instead of choosing peace, Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] formed an alliance with a murderous terrorist organization [Hamas] that calls for Israel's destruction. Abu Mazen formed an alliance with an organization whose covenant calls for Muslims to wage Jihad against Jews."
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat expressed "deep disappointment" at the decision and said the following:
"Benjamin Netanyahu and his government used the split between the Palestinian factions as an excuse to reject a peace agreement in the past. Today, they are using Palestinian reconciliation as an excuse for the same thing.The only logical explanation is that the Netanyahu government does not want peace."
Jerusalem Post and Jerusalem Post
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 25-Apr-14 World View -- Crimean Tatars and Ukraine seek help from Sunni Muslim countries thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(25-Apr-2014)
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Warring Palestinian factions announce a reconciliation agreement
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I've written many times how disastrous Russia's policy has been, supplying unlimited amounts of heavy weapons to Syria's genocidal monster president Bashar al-Assad, who is conducting "industrial strength" torture and extermination on his own civilians, particularly targeting innocent Sunni women and children, which has enraged Sunnis throughout the world. As a result, Syria has become a worldwide magnet for would-be jihadists and terrorists, who go to Syria for training, before returning to make use of their new skills in their homelands.
France estimates that about 700 French citizens or residents have gone to Syria for training and to fight against al-Assad. Young people in France see the war as revolutionaries fighting against a dictatorship that's killing its people.
The administration of president François Hollande on Wednesday announced a new set of measures to stop young people from going to Syria and becoming Islamic radicals. Some of the measures are:
This all sounds a bit 1984-ish, but it's the way things are going. Radio France Internationale (RFI)
A few weeks ago we reported that U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, visiting Japan, failed to reaffirm its mutual defense treaty with Japan, and that the U.S. would defend Japan if China attacked the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. But on Wednesday, President Obama, visiting Japan, explicitly said that the U.S. would honor the mutual defense treaty:
"At the same time, the United States is going to deal directly and candidly with China on issues where we have differences, such as human rights. I’ve also told [China's] President Xi [Jinping] that all our nations have an interest in dealing constructively with maritime issues, including in the East China Sea. Disputes need to be resolved through dialogue and diplomacy, not intimidation and coercion. The policy of the United States is clear -- the Senkaku Islands are administered by Japan and therefore fall within the scope of Article 5 of the U.S. -- Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security. And we oppose any unilateral attempts to undermine Japan’s administration of these islands."
However, Obama did not say that they are Japanese sovereign islands.
There is an increasingly widespread belief that despite any promises, the U.S. under President Obama will not honor its agreement when the actual crunch time comes. President Obama has backed down from its world policemen on several recent occasions, most notably when he flip-flopped on Syria's use of chemical weapons.
According to a Japan News newspaper editorial on Thursday:
"Perhaps one motivation for Obama’s directness is to challenge a prevalent perception of weakness, both home and abroad. The U.S. Congress, media and think tanks have become harsher in their appraisal of Obama in general, particularly since Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine last month using the threat of force as leverage."
The U.S. has also recently (in February) explicitly rejected China's "nine-dash line," by which China claims sovereignty over the entire South China Sea, including regions that have historically belonged to other nations. However, the U.S. has ignored China's "salami slicing strategy," by which it has already annexed small regions in the expectation that the U.S. will do nothing -- an expectation that turned out to be correct. The Japan News and Radio Free Asia and The Japan News
The two Palestinian factions -- Hamas, which governs Gaza, and the Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, which governs the West Bank -- on Wednesday announced a reconciliation agreement. According to Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh:
"This is the good news we tell our people: the era of division is over."
This announcement was apparently hastily negotiated by the two sides, after Abbas announced that if the Mideast peace talks fail, which now appears to be a certainty, then he may step down and dissolve the Palestinian Authority, leaving the West Bank for Israel and the United Nations to govern.
The agreement calls for new elections in the fall, to elect a unity government for both the West Bank and Gaza.
The two Palestinian factions had a major political split in 2006, and went to war in 2007, when Hamas took control of Gaza. Two previous attempts at reconciliation have failed, because of disputes over power sharing. However, it's thought that this new reconciliation attempt might succeed, for the following reasons:
However, there are also plenty of reasons why this attempt might fail. The differences that brought them to war in the first place are still there.
Israel has called off any further peace talks with Abbas, on the grounds that Israel can't negotiate with a group, Hamas, that's committed to the destruction of Israel. BBC and Reuters
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 24-Apr-14 World View -- Obama says U.S. will defend Japan over Senkaku Islands thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(24-Apr-2014)
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China's commodity and real estate bubbles are bursting
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Saudi Arabia has begun recruiting soldiers the Pakistan's tribal areas, which are the stronghold of Taliban and al-Qaeda militants. According to a report on the recruitment:
"Youths skilled in firearms are given preferences.Monthly salary 75,000 rupees [$750]. Medical and other facilities will also be given.
Will be deployed on borders with Yemen and oil installations."
Preference is being given to youths skilled in using an AK-47. According to the Saudis, up to $20 billion in foreign exchange could come annually to Pakistan.
Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE and Oman are also recruiting in Pakistan. Kuwait is opening a military office in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, to recruit retired Pakistani military officers and trainers to train 11,000 Kuwaiti soldiers.
Ten years ago, based on a generational analysis, I said that the coming Clash of Civilizations world war would pit the West, India, Russia and Iran versus China, Pakistan and the Sunni Muslim countries. Ten years ago, that seemed far-fetched, but as each year goes by, the trend continues to move in that direction. Memri (4/15) and Memri
As we reported two days ago, 79 year old Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is threatening to personally retire, and also "retire" the Palestinian Authority (PA) that's responsible for governing the West Bank, leaving it to Israel and the United Nations to take responsibility. ( "21-Apr-14 World View -- Palestinian president Abbas, 79, faces life after 'peace talks' collapse")
The U.S. State Department is responding with a threat to cut off all aid to the Palestinians, according to spokesman Jen Psaki at Monday's press conference:
QUESTION: "Are you telling Abbas not to keep issuing statements and proclamations that they are going to sort of just close shop with the PA and turn over the occupation responsibility to the Israelis?"MS. PSAKI: "Well, let me speak to that, because it’s an important question. That – we’re aware, of course, of these reports and comments. That type of extreme step would obviously have grave implications. A great deal of effort has gone into building Palestinian institutions by Palestinians as well as the international community, and it would certainly not be in the interests of the Palestinian people for all of that to be lost. We – the United States has put millions of dollars into this effort. It would obviously have very serious implications for our relationship, including our assistance going forward."
The Palestinian Authority gets about $400 million in aid each year from the U.S. Members of Congress have already threatened cut aid earlier this month, after Mahmoud Abbas applied for membership in 15 United Nations organizations as the State of Palestine. U.S. State Dept. and Israel National News (3-Apr)
For the last two months, the ZeroHedge blog has been publishing a series of articles analyzing China's collapsing credit and real estate bubbles, and responding to pundits who say that the collapse isn't happening or that it's purely a Chinese domestic matter.
The latest offering shows how China has been creating huge amounts of debt by using soybean contracts in the same way that American banks used subprime mortgages. You'll recall that investors were "flipping" properties in 2004-2007, meaning that someone would buy a property, wait a few months for properties to rise, and then sell it at a profit. This pushed up the prices of all real estate. When the bubble burst, millions of people lost their homes.
China has been "flipping" soybean contracts in the same way. One Chinese business sells a contract to someone else at a higher price, and everyone makes money, as long as the price of soybeans keeps going up. And international soybean prices have been skyrocketing into bubble levels in the last two months. The problem is that international soybean contract prices have been getting ahead of China's local soybean market, which has been getting depressed. Soybean contracts are different from actual soybeans, and a price rise in one doesn't necessarily mean a price rise in the other. So when it's time for the soybean contract to be fulfilled, and the soybeans are shipped for delivery to the contract holder, the holder has to come up with the money he's committed to pay on the contract. But if he's going to be stuck with a $10 million contract in soybeans for which he can only get $3 million in his local market, then he'll go bankrupt.
This has been happening more and more frequently in the last few weeks, and it portends a bursting of the soybean bubble, along with China's credit bubble in general. Since the soybeans are being shipped from the United States and South America, a lot of soybean farmers are not going to get paid.
It's estimated that Chinese buyers are going to default on a total of about $900 million dollars in soybean contracts. That's a huge domino effect, and it's going on right now.
I recall vividly how in 2006, all the expert economists were saying that a real estate bubble is impossible because "everyone has to live somewhere," and "these building contractors know what they're doing, and wouldn't keep building in a bubble." Then in 2008, Ben Bernanke and other expert economists were saying that there was a problem, but the problem was "contained." What all this means is that the China bubble may or may not be bursting, but that the "expert" economists who say that a China bubble is impossible, or that it's "contained" domestically, don't have a clue what's going on, and are probably full of crap. ZeroHedge and Reuters
In Chicago over the weekend, 9 people were killed and 36 were wounded from gunshots. 6 children were shot on Sunday night. Almost all of it was gang violence, scattered around the city. Unfortunately, this is a typical Chicago weekend. Chicago is beginning to read like Karachi, Pakistan, or Baghdad, Iraq. Chicago Tribune
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 23-Apr-14 World View -- Arab countries recruit more soldiers from Pakistan thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(23-Apr-2014)
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China seizes a Japanese iron ore carrier ship
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The Japanese firm Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL) said on Monday, that China has impounded one of its iron ore carriers, Baosteel Emotion, while it was docked in Shanghai. A Shanghai court ruled that the ship could be seized for damages and reparations because MOL's predecessor company in 1936 chartered two Chinese freighters that were later sunk by the Japanese Navy. Japan claims that no reparations are due because of a 1972 agreement with China in which China agreed to renounce "its demand for war reparation from Japan." However, China's foreign ministry says that the claims are solely for commercial losses, and unrelated to wartime compensation.
This incident is sure to frighten Japanese companies from doing business with China, and that may be China's motive in pursuing this. China has threatened economic sanctions against Japan in the past. Japan has just reported its worst annual trade deficit in March, with export growth slowed to the weakest in a year, and this incident will only hurt Japan further. LA Times and Xinhua and Mitsui O.S.K. Lines and Business Standard
One expert explains it this way:
"It took us over a year to get the first hundred cases of this viral infection. Now in just the last two weeks, we've had a hundred cases ... there's a major change occurring that cannot just be attributed to better case detection. Something's happening.When humans readily transmit [a virus] to humans, that's what will cause a worldwide outbreak. We are very concerned that ... with what we've seen over the last two weeks ... we may be at that point now.""
The fear is that MERS-CoV (the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus) has mutated in some way that's going to make it easier to spread from one person to another. Saudia Arabia has confirmed more than 50 cases of the virus in the past week, with 13 new cases reported on Monday alone. There have been 257 cases total worldwide since it was discovered in September 2012, with 93 deaths. A new cluster was reported in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) this week. A 69-year old male Greek citizen residing in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, was diagnosed in Greece as having MERS. New cases are reported in Jordan. MERS has an incubation period of 2 weeks, meaning that you can be infected and spread the disease to other people for two weeks before you start to show symptoms yourself. The sudden rapid surge in cases is raising fears that the disease is far more widespread in Saudi Arabia than previously assumed, and that travelers to and from Jeddah are spreading the disease to other countries. CNN and Recombinomics and NPR
All 414 passengers on the April 15 Etihad Airlines flight from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to Manila, the Philippines, are being tested for MERS-CoV (the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus). At least 100 of the passengers have been tested so far, all with negative results. The need for testing was triggered when a 32-year-old overseas Filipino worker (OFW) who arrived from Riyadh on Sunday (4/20) was suspected of having MERS. Police are tracking down the remaining passengers on the 4/15 flight, and will use "reasonable force" to compel them to submit themselves for a medical examination. The police officers are also being warned to take reasonable precautions to protect themselves.
According to Philippine authorities, most government hospitals in Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries continue to employ Filipino nurses and hospital staff. Around 3,000 OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) are leaving the country daily and many of them are bound for Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries. Philippine Star (Manila)
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday that Iran would not accept any form of sexual discrimination.
Undoubtedly, Rouhani was responding to the remarks a day earlier by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, who who criticized the West's view's about "gender equality between men and women." He said, Equality is not always the same as justice; justice is always right, but equality is sometimes right and sometimes wrong." Khamenei emphasized that the most important issue for women is the sense of security and peace of mind that women find within families. Press TV (Tehran) and Business Standard
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 22-Apr-14 World View -- MERS virus cases surge in Saudi Arabia, spread to Greece, Jordan thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(22-Apr-2014)
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Massive attack on AQAP in Yemen kills dozens of militants
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Just four days after Russia, Ukraine and the West signed an agreement calling for the de-escalation of the crisis in Ukraine, a gunfight at a checkpoint in east Ukraine, killing three people, has raised fears that the agreement may collapse.
At around 2 am on Sunday morning, unidentified men in four vehicles opened fire at a checkpoint near Slavyansk manned by pro-Russian activists, killing three. The activists returned fire, destroying the two cars and injuring some of the attackers.
Russia is expressing outrage, blaming the attack on Right Sector, a nationalist militia group that was prominent in the February revolution in Kiev.
However, the Ukraine government says that forensic evidence gathered at the scene does not support the claim that Right Sector was involved, but instead appears to show that the evidence was staged to falsely implicate Right Sector.
At any rate, so far this is an isolated incident, and does not yet appear to signal the beginning of a wider war. Irish Independent
The Mideast "peace talks" between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, set up last year by the Obama administration and Secretary of State John Kerry, have never been anything but a joke, but at least they were something to talk about as supposedly providing "hope for a lasting Mideast peace, with Israel and Palestine as two separate and equal nations living side by side in peace forever."
But now the self-imposed deadline for the talks to end, April 29, is approaching, and neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis are indicating much desire to extend the deadline. Israel will never agree to return to pre-1967 borders or "right of return," and the Palestinians will never agree to recognize Israel as a Jewish state or to guarantee Israel's security.
So now, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is wondering what to do next, now that even the pretend-hope solution is disappearing. Abbas is quoted in an interview Sunday as saying:
"A new generation arrives and asks us: ‘What have you done?’ I am now 79 years old, going on 80. Time has really flown by.There is no other option except to pass the flag and move on, but it is difficult to do so now because the burden is a tough one and the responsibility is great while the dangers trump the achievements. Who of our people will support us and who will oppose us? What will the Palestinian people do? How will history judge us? The settlements endanger the peace process, and the new generation sees the two-state solution is becoming less and less likely, and that there is no escape from the one-state solution."
What does the "one-state solution" mean? It means that the Palestinian Authority (PA) would dissolve, Mahmoud Abbas would retire, and the only state left would be Israel. Either Israel or the United Nations would then be responsible for governing the West Bank. Without the "peace process," according to Abbas, this is the only remaining choice.
The major aspirant to replace Abbas is his bitter rival, 52 year old Mohammed Dahlan. Dahlan has called Abbas a "catastrophe" for the Palestinian people, and would take a much more confrontational, possibly violent approach to Israel. When Abbas asks the question, "Who of our people will support us and who will oppose us?", he's suggesting that passing the flag to Dahlan and the younger generation will lead to war -- among the Palestinians and with Israel.
Israel's economy minister Naftali Bennett responded on Sunday to Abbas' statement:
"“Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] encourages terrorism against Israel as the head of the Palestinian Authority, and then he threatens us with his resignation.If he wants to go, we won’t stop him. The Jewish people do not negotiate with a gun held against their temple."
Jerusalem Post and Jewish Telegraphic Agency
A high-level official in Yemen's government is saying that a "massive and unprecedented" military operation against Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is under way, and that at least 30 AQAP militants have already been killed. Yemen's state news agency said that airstrikes completely destroy an al-Qaeda training camp, where the fighters were "preparing to launch attacks against Yemeni and foreign interests in the area." It's believed, but not confirmed, that U.S. drones were used in the attack. CNN and AP
It's being increasingly noticed, though discussed in only hushed tones, that that there have been quite a few bankers committing suicide in the last few months. Some reports suggest, without official confirmation, that some of the bankers who committed suicide were under investigation for fraud and other irregularities. There have been 24 suicides or suspicious deaths in the last few months, six of them related to JP Morgan.
In the past couple of weeks, suicides have been replaced with murder. A banker in Lichtenstein and a banker in Belgium were both murdered, probably by disgruntled clients.
As I've said in the past, when I was growing up in the 1950s, I never understood why my parents and teachers and so many other people really hated bankers. Bankers seemed like perfectly reasonably people, and it seemed strange to me that so many people hated them. This was a mystery to me for my whole life. It wasn't until the 1970s or so that people seemed to like bankers again.
The mystery was finally solved for me in 2009. (See "An angry President Obama strongly condemns Wall Street bonuses" from 2009.) That's when I was shocked to learn that Citibank, Bank of America and other banks announced that they would continue paying million dollar bonuses to their employees that had created the financial crisis. These and other banks had caused the financial crisis by creating worthless structured securities and fraudulently selling them to investors. Paying big bonuses to people who defrauded the public for years is, at the very least, a public relations disaster.
So that's when I understood that bankers in the 1930s were like bankers today. Just like today, bankers had defrauded people in the 1920s and 1930s, although they used synthetic securities based on foreign government bonds in those days, rather than synthetic securities based on subprime mortgages as in the recent episode. (See "The bubble that broke the world" from 2007.) And people came to hate bankers so much, that the hatred lasted well into the 1950s and 1960s.
This has also led to a personal revelation for me. My mother's father was a Greek immigrant who came to Chicago and built a very successful retail candy business in the 1920s. But he "lost his business" in the 1930s, and died soon after "of a broken heart," according to my mother. I now realize what must have happened. Some banker had convinced my grandfather to invest his savings and mortgage his business to invest in foreign government bonds or other synthetic securities, and he "lost his business" when he couldn't repay his debt. My mother then had to go out and earn money to support her family. This is like so many people in the last decade who lost their homes and businesses after investing in fraudulent subprime-based securities. That would explain why my mother's hatred of bankers ran so deep, even in the 1950s. She must have blamed a banker not only for making her father lose her business, but also for causing his death and forcing her into the workplace.
There have been a million jokes and stories told about bankers and stock brokers who killed themselves in the 1930s by jumping out of buildings. The recent spate of banker suicides may be history repeating itself. And if history is any guide, and it is, then bankers are going to be even more hated in the decades to come. ZeroHedge and Prison Planet
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 21-Apr-14 World View -- Palestinian president Abbas, 79, faces life after 'peace talks' collapse thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(21-Apr-2014)
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Japan to set up an army radar base near China
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The Holy Fire ceremony is possibly the most impressive celebration in all of Christianity, and is performed each year for Orthodox Easter, which occurs this year on April 20. (This is one of the rare years where the Orthodox and Catholic Easters coincide.)
On Saturday morning, Orthodox clergymen break the seal of the door to Christ's tomb in Jerusalem and descend into the chamber. After a while, they emerge with lit candles. Believers say that the "Holy Fire" appears spontaneously from the tomb on the day before Easter to show Jesus has not forgotten his followers.
The fire is passed from candle to candle, and is flown to Athens and other cities, so that the Holy Fire can be shared by thousands of worshippers. In Athens, the ceremony begins at 11 pm on Saturday, when practically the entire country is in church. At midnight, the lights are turned off, and everyone's candle is lit with the Holy Fire from the priest's candle, as the priest says, "Christ has risen from the dead and in so doing has trampled on death and to those in the tombs he has given life." Then people head home with their lit candles, and the entire city is lit by the candles with the Holy Fire. The ceremony dates back to the fourth century, and possibly as early as the first century. HolyFire.org and Greece Travel
Ukraine's government in Kiev has announced an Easter truce in it "anti-terrorist operation" against the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. According to Thursday's agreement between Russia, Ukraine and the West, such operations may be illegal anyway.
The pro-Russian separatists continue to refuse to leave the buildings they occupy or remove the blockades they set up, as called for in Thursday's agreement.
However, the separatists are said to be disappointed that a new poll indicates that 57.2% of the people in Donetsk, the center of the east Ukraine activists, say that Kiev has not violated their rights, and 66.3% say they are against a Russian military intervention. BBC and AFP
In a move that will surely infuriate the Chinese, Japan on Saturday broke ground for a new radar station and army base on Yonaguni island, which is Japan's westernmost inhabited island, and is closer to Taiwan and China than it is to mainland Japan. It has a population of 1,500, down from about 15,000 at the end of World War II.
According to Japan's Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera:
"This is the first deployment since the US returned Okinawa (1972) and calls for us to be more on guard are growing. I want to build an operation able to properly defend islands that are part of Japan's territory."
Building the base will extend Japanese monitoring to the Chinese mainland and allow it to track Chinese ships and aircraft circling the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands.
Opinion among residents of Yonaguni island is split, with opponents fearing that the base will one day bring a military attack, and proponents hoping that the radar base will bring young soldiers and new money, and will breathe life into the wilting economy. Japan Times and Reuters and The Diplomat
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 20-Apr-14 World View -- Orthodox Christians celebrate the Holy Fire ceremony at Easter thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(20-Apr-2014)
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MERS in Malaysia raises concerns of 'super-spreader'
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A previously top secret report has emerged from China's Environmental Protection Ministry showing that 19.4% of China's farmland is contaminated with heavy metals, particularly cadmium, nickel and arsenic. The toxins come from factories and mining. Rice crops are particularly vulnerable, since rice paddies are flooded with water, so that the soil can be contaminated by a mine that's miles away. The report was released as a result of numerous scandals about tainted rice containing cadmium, which can cause kidney damage or cancer. Almost half the supplies of rice sold in Guangzhou, a major city, are contaminated with cadmium.
Chinese food traders have little regard for the dangers caused by tainted food. Investigations have shown that traders have been selling rice known to be cadmium-tainted to food processors. This is reminiscent of 2008, when some 54,000 babies fell ill and were hospitalized with kidney problems because of melamine added to milk powder to fool inspectors into thinking that it had more protein than it really had. (See "A generational view of China's growing melamine food disaster" from 2008.) AP and Shanghai Daily
Pro-Russian east Ukraine activists have refused to honor the international agreement that was signed on Thursday, saying that they weren't bound by any agreement that they were never asked to sign. As we reported several days ago, Russia's ambassador to the European Union said that any such agreement would be "betraying" the people of eastern Ukraine, and he's right -- activists are saying that Russia sold them out. They're refusing to vacate the buildings they had occupied until the Ukraine's interim government in Kiev is ousted. Russia is supporting this opposition. The White House has warned of "serious consequences" if Russia does not honor the agreement it signed.
Many commentators believe that Russia's president Vladimir Putin is looking for an excuse or just waiting until the time is right to order an invasion of east Ukraine. But he's had plenty of excuses up till now, and his 40,000 man army has been on Ukraine's border for weeks. He could have ordered an invasion at any time in the last few weeks, if he had wanted to.
It's at least as probable that Putin is looking for a way avoid invading, and to create a status quo under terms favorable to Russia. An invasion would not be quick, but would meet a great deal of local resistance. Russia's army would get bogged down in a protracted battle which, according to several analysts, Russia cannot afford. Under this interpretation, Russia's flip-flop was really an act of desperation, as he had ruled out an invasion, and he had no other viable choice. AP
MERS-CoV (the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus) raised serious concerns late last year, as it was spreading in Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries. But now two new outbreaks, one in the Middle East and one in Malaysia, is causing new concerns that the virus may have mutated and can spread more easily.
There have been 238 confirmed cases of MERS up till now, with 92 leading to death, which is a high death rate. In the last week there are 20 cases in two distinct clusters, one in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and one in Malaysia. It's known that both clusters were caused by a 54 year old man who traveled between Saudi Arabia and Singapore in mid-March, but did not become ill until April 4.
It was just such a "super-spreader" who caused the SARS virus to become an international crisis a decade ago. The fear is that the MERS virus has mutated enough to allow such a super-spreader to cause another international crisis. Arab News and Recombinomics and World Health Organization (WHO)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 19-Apr-14 World View -- China admits that 20% of its farmland is polluted with cadmium thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(19-Apr-2014)
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Nigeria in shock from double attack by Boko Haram
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In a nationally televised program on Thursday, Russia's president Vladimir Putin described southern and eastern Ukraine as Novorossiya, or New Russia, that had been part of the Russian Empire since the 18th century, until the 1920s when the European leadership decided "For God knows why," to give it to Ukraine. Putin said that he "hopes he won't have to send troops into Ukraine," but pointed out that the Duma (parliament) had given him the power to order an invasion of Crimea, if he chooses to do so. These statements were similar to the prelude to the Russian annexation of Crimean, which was justified by a historical narrative, and a statement by Putin that "we have no intention of annexing Crimea."
So it was a surprise a few hours later when Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov announced that an agreement had been reached between Russia, Ukraine and the West to deescalate the situation. In particular, the agreement called for protesters to leave illegally seized buildings. As we reported yesterday, Russia's ambassador to the European Union said that any such call would be "betraying" the people of eastern Ukraine.
Russia also backed down on the demand for "federalization," replacing it simply with a "constitutional process." There was no mention of being unaligned, which has been code word for the Russian demand that Ukraine not join Nato.
There are several possible reasons for Putin's flip-flop:
ABC News and Russia Today
Here's the full published text of the Ukraine agreement:
"The Geneva meeting on the situation in Ukraine agreed on initial concrete steps to de-escalate tensions and restore security for all citizens.All sides must refrain from any violence, intimidation or provocative actions. The participants strongly condemned and rejected all expressions of extremism, racism and religious intolerance, including anti-semitism.
All illegal armed groups must be disarmed; all illegally seized buildings must be returned to legitimate owners; all illegally occupied streets, squares and other public places in Ukrainian cities and towns must be vacated.
Amnesty will be granted to protestors and to those who have left buildings and other public places and surrendered weapons, with the exception of those found guilty of capital crimes.
It was agreed that the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission should play a leading role in assisting Ukrainian authorities and local communities in the immediate implementation of these de-escalation measures wherever they are needed most, beginning in the coming days. The U.S., E.U. and Russia commit to support this mission, including by providing monitors.
The announced constitutional process will be inclusive, transparent and accountable. It will include the immediate establishment of a broad national dialogue, with outreach to all of Ukraine’s regions and political constituencies, and allow for the consideration of public comments and proposed amendments.
The participants underlined the importance of economic and financial stability in Ukraine and would be ready to discuss additional support as the above steps are implemented."
The first steps that would have to be: "All illegal armed groups must be disarmed; all illegally seized buildings must be returned to legitimate owners; all illegally occupied streets, squares and other public places in Ukrainian cities and towns must be vacated." This would apply to eastern Ukraine cities, but it would also apply to anti-Russian "Maidan" protesters in Kiev, who are still blockading streets and occupying some buildings in the capital city. There could be some disagreements as to who has to go first.
The issue that originally triggered the months of protests and counter-protests was a desire by many in Ukraine to sign a trade agreement with the European Union, something that was bitterly opposed by Putin and Russia. The new agreement removes the demand that Ukraine be "unaligned," but it's not clear what would happen if Ukraine decided to sign the agreement after all, or to apply for membership in Nato.
As I always like to point out, major events are brought about not by politicians but by masses of people, generations of people, and politicians are irrelevant except insofar as they implement the policies demanded by the people. It's a basic principle of Generational Dynamics that this is always true, even in a dictatorship. Whether the Ukraine agreement succeeds depends on how the pro-Russian protesters in eastern Ukraine and the anti-Russian protesters in Kiev deal with it. Indeed, the pro-Russian protesters may feel betrayed, as the Russian ambassador suggested. If they stand their ground, then Thursday's agreement will be totally meaningless.
By a coincidence of timing, we may know the answer within a few days. Sunday is Easter, and this is one of those rare years when the Western Easter coincides with the Eastern Orthodox Easter. If anything can motivate protesters in Kiev and eastern Ukraine to end their protests, it would be Easter Sunday, the holiest day in the Christian calendar. So we may know by Monday whether the terms of the agreement will be met by the pro-Russian protesters in east Ukraine and the anti-Russian protesters in Kiev. Guardian
First there was Monday's massive attack on a bus station in Abuja, the capital city of Nigeria. ( "15-Apr-14 World View -- Major terrorist explosion in Nigeria's capital kills over 70")
Then on Tuesday, Boko Haram abducted over 100 schoolgirls from a school in northeast Nigeria. This act is supposed to be consistent with the meaning in the Hausa language of Boko Haram: "Western education is forbidden." But stories are spreading that there's a much more carnal motive, and that Boko Haram are using the girls as sex slaves. There have been other terrorist attacks this week as well.
The girls have not yet been found, and excuses and statements by the government, the military and police are only infuriating the parents. Parents are beginning to ignore the police and form vigilante militias to find them.
In recent months, Boko Haram has changed, in that the terror has become indiscriminate. It used to be that Boko Haram bombed government installations and Christian churches, but now anyone and anything can be a target, with motives that are unclear. The country is roughly half Muslim and half Christian. For Muslims, it's clear that the violence is all due to Islamist extremists, but Christians do not believe that Islamists would kill fellow Muslims. The result is that the country's population is becoming more polarized along Christian/Muslim lines. Deutsche-Welle and CNN
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 18-Apr-14 World View -- Russia flip-flops on eastern Ukraine thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(18-Apr-2014)
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Ukraine's 'anti-terrorist operation' turns into a fiasco
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Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei has previously declared the need to adopt a "resistance economy," to defeat the Western sanctions. Expediency Discernment Council Secretary and former IRGC (Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps) Commander Mohsen Rezaei discussed the "resistance economy":
"In my opinion, we have so far been successful in the Geneva negotiations, but these negotiations could have been done better. The wall of sanctions was not successful because we have been able to increase our oil exports. America cannot revert to the past because a lack of confidence has been created in it. Fortunately, the Ukrainian matter became a divine blessing for us, because America can no longer convince China and Russia. ...Resistance economy means the people’s jihad and that the economy must be made resistant against the enemies’ shocks and pressures. ...
Resistance economy seeks to bring the Westerners and the Americans to their knees against sanctions, to the extent that they admit that sanctions were mistake."
The "anti-terrorist operation" by Ukraine's army to strike back at pro-Russian separatist activists in cities in eastern Ukraine is turning into a fiasco, a day after it was announced by Ukraine's acting President Olexander Turchynov. Six of the Ukrainian army's armored personnel carriers (APCs) were captured by pro-Russian militants in eastern Ukraine, amid reports that Ukrainian soldiers switched sides to support the militants. The Ukrainian soldiers were obviously unhappy with being deployed against crowds of civilians.
Evidence is growing that Russian armed forces special agents are in east Ukraine, training the separatist militants with tactics -- takint over buildings, setting up blockades, fomenting protests. Speaking in London, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said Russia had sent "thinly disguised" armed groups into eastern Ukraine to spearhead the occupation of buildings.
Ukraine is not a member of Nato, but fears are growing that Russia does not plan to stop with annexing Ukraine. Latvia and Estonia are Nato members, and have large ethnic Russian communities. Nato announced that air patrols over the Baltic republics are to be increased, while Nato warships will deploy to the eastern Mediterranean and the Baltic Sea. BBC and CNN
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Vladimir Chizhov, Russia's Ambassador to European Union, was interviewed on the BBC on Wednesday. With violent pro-Russian activists in east Ukraine taking over police stations, airfields and government buildings, he was asked why the Russian government does not tell them to stand down (my transcription):
"Well I think in the current situation situation there would be seen by people in eastern Ukraine as Russia betraying them, because they want to see their interests protected, and they want to see a federalization of the country. Our view, and my personal view, is the only way to save Ukraine as a single democratic country."
The "federalization of the country" means making eastern provinces independent republics, which would make them like Crimea, and then vulnerable to Russian annexation. Ukraine is already no longer a "single democratic country," having lost Ukraine to Russian annexation.
Chizhov was asked what would happen if separatists in Russia were occupying police stations and airports. Would Moscow stand by and let this happen?
"I don't think you should draw a comparison between a legitimate government like the one in Russia and self-proclaimed government that came to power as a result of an armed coup in Kiev."
So according to Chizhov, Kiev isn't allowed to do anything to stop the violence in east Ukraine because it's not a "legitimate" government, even though it's the only government. And Russia won't even ask the protesters to stop the violence, because that would be "betraying" them. Therefore, according to Russian logic, Kiev just has to let the violence continue.
What Chizhov didn't mention is that Russia's government isn't legitimate either. The December 2011 parliamentary elections and the May 2012 presidential election were so fraudulent that they triggered massive protests, which Russia's security services brutally suppressed. ( "8-May-12 World View -- Putin becomes president of Russia again, facing harsh new challenges")
Watching Chizhov on television, one can almost see the sleaze oozing out of every pore. But the bottom line is that Russia is fomenting a "civil war" in eastern Ukraine, and apparently is preparing to invade in order to "protect" the ethnic Russians.
The one-month ceasefire that the Pakistani Taliban (Tehrik-e-Taliban - TTP) declared has now expired, and on Wednesday announced that it will not be extended. However, the TTP wants to continue the "peace talks" with complete "sincerity and seriousness" which, I assume, means that TTP will keep on blowing up crowded marketplaces and mosques while it pretends to want peace.
It recently emerged that the TTP agreed to the one-month ceasefire in the first place only because prime minister Nawaz Sharif agreed to release 19 Taliban militants from jail. Sharif secretly kept this process last month, though the secret was revealed recently. Apparently the TTP is willing to agree to a ceasefire only as long as murderers are being let out of jail.
In a more bizarre development, two factions of the TTP in Pakistan's tribal area have been fighting each other for control, and have shed a lot of blood doing so. So the TTP leadership has appealed to the Afghanistan Taliban to send a delegation to Pakistan to act as mediators between the two warring factions, and end the fighting. The Express Tribune (Pakistan) and The News (Pakistan)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 17-Apr-14 World View -- Iran says that the Ukraine crisis is 'a divine blessing' thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(17-Apr-2014)
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Mali separatists appeal to Russia for support on independence
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A day later than originally threatened, Ukraine's acting President Olexander Turchynov announced the beginning of an "anti-terrorist operation" by Ukraine's army to strike back at pro-Russian separatist activists in cities in eastern Ukraine. Later, Turchynov said the airbase at Kramatorsk had been "liberated" from "terrorists."
This clash could go either way, but based on what I've read, I personally don't feel that there's yet enough "social fuel" in this population for this to spiral into something major.
However, a victory by Kiev or even a stalemate may not be acceptable to Russia, who are thought to have been promoting chaos in Ukraine to have an excuse to invade.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that the sharp escalation of the conflict in Ukraine puts the country on the brink of civil war. Putin may be looking for an opportunity to launch a short, sharp attack to take control of east Ukraine too quickly for anyone to react. BBC and Voice of Russia
In past decades, Russia was usually allied with far left Communists and Socialists in Europe, but in this generational Crisis era, Russia is increasingly finding European allies among far right and right-wing populists. (The phrase "far right" has a different meaning in Europe and in America.) With the European Parliament elections approaching, some of these parties are increasingly open about their desire to act as an advocate for Russia in Brussels.
These parties are natural allies of Russia because of their common skepticism of immigration and concerns about Islamic extremism. But the broadest foundation for cooperation is their joint anti-Americanism, and their opposition to the European Union's close ties with the United States. According to one right-wing politician:
"Instead of playing the stooge of the US in the encirclement of Russia, Brussels must finally be able to build positive relations with Moscow and show understanding of Russian interests."
It's thought that Russia's objective is to destabilize and weaken the European political scene, and weaken the European-American alliance. Spiegel
Following the secession of Crimea from Ukraine, the Russians are becoming the go-to guys for any secessionist group in other countries.
In April, 2012, the Tuareg ethnic group declared that northern Mali was seceding from Mali, and the new country would have the name Azawad. The governing party would be called the Mouvement National de Libération de l'Azawad (MNLA). ( "7-Apr-12 World View -- Tuareg rebels declare independent state of Azawad in northern Mali") This led to an invasion in the north by al-Qaeda linked militants, followed by the introduction of a French peacekeeping force in January, 2013.
MNLA officials made a recent visit to Russia:
"[The goal was to spread] the message of the people of Azawad everywhere, particularly in the countries that are members of the UN Security Council, some of which have veto power. ...All the causes of the conflict were explained to the government of the Russian Federation. The political, social and cultural reasons for the recurring revolts and the suffering of the people of Azawad were discussed at length. The president of the MNLA's leadership, Mr. Bilal Ag Acharif, clearly expressed the necessity and the urgency of finding a solution to this never-ending conflict through a political dialogue. He reaffirmed the availability of the MNLA to operate by means of political negotiations provided that they are based on the sincere and frank willingness of all the parties."
Russia has its own secessionist issues, with some activists in Russia's North Caucasus provinces wanting to form a separate Islamic state. Russia's foreign ministry reaffirmed to the MNLA the availability of the Russian Federal government to help the different parties to find a just, equitable and durable solution for the crisis. Memri
Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Monday that Israel is holding secret talks with some Arab states to establish diplomatic ties based on a common fear of Iran. He specifically named Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, neither of which recognize Israel. Israel has signed peace deals with only two of its Arab neighbors, Egypt and Jordan. According to Lieberman,
"For the first time there is an understanding there that the real threat is not Israel, the Jews or Zionism. It is Iran, global jihad, (Lebanese Shi'ite guerrilla group) Hezbollah and al Qaeda. There are contacts, there are talks, but we are very close to the stage in which within a year or 18 months it will no longer be secret, it will be conducted openly."
However, both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait deny that any such talks are taking place or have ever taken place. According to Kuwait's foreign ministry:
"These claims are baseless. There are no meetings, official or unofficial contacts, public or secret."
A similar statement was issued by the Saudis. Reuters and Anadolu (Turkey)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 16-Apr-14 World View -- East Ukraine clashes become dangerous as Kiev strikes back thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(16-Apr-2014)
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European Central Bank to adopt negative interest rates
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Nigeria's terrorist group Boko Haram is being blamed for a massive explosion at a bus station during rush hour on Monday in Abuja, the country's capital city. More than 70 people were killed, and hundreds injured.
Boko Haram has conducted to many terrorist attacks in northeastern Nigeria that they're almost being ignored (except, of course, by the people directly affected). 1500 people, mostly civilians, have been killed this year, and 135 people were killed on Wednesday and Thursday of last week alone. These attacks have received little or no international notice, and even in Nigeria they were considered so remote they could be ignored in Abuja, where there hadn't been a terrorist attack in two years.
In the past, Nigeria's government has been largely ineffective in containing Boko Haram, and there have been suggestions that some in the army are either complicit or supporting. Monday's attack may force a change. BBC
The Fed's policy of quantitative easy, which has "printed" tens of billions of dollars of new money every month and injected it into the banking system, is now going to be copied by the European Central Bank, according to reports. For almost two years, the euro zone has been in a deflationary spiral, with the inflation rate falling, and with Slovakia, Portugal, Greece and Cyprus already in actual deflation.
On Saturday, European Central Bank president Mario Draghi said:
"The strengthening of the exchange rate requires further monetary stimulus. That’s an important dimension for our price stability."
This Delphic remark is being interpreted by experts as indicating that the ECB will soon begin "printing" money and pursuing a policy of quantitative easing. Draghi may also lower interest rates, and some reports indicate that he will implement negative interest rates. Irish Times and CNBC
The government of Ukraine in Kiev allowed its own deadline to pass on Monday morning without taking any action against the pro-Russian protesters occupying buildings in cities across eastern Ukraine. Russia continues to have tens of thousands of troops along Ukraine's border, and many fear that Russia will invade and annex eastern Ukraine, just as it annexed Crimea. However, a number of analysts are pointing out that eastern Ukraine is very different from Crimea. In Crimea, the ethnic Russian population overwhelmingly favored being part of Russia. But in eastern Ukraine, polls have shown that many ethnic Russians are strongly opposed to a Russian annexation, and there's a possibility that if the Russians invade eastern Ukraine, then they'll be fighting not only Ukraine's army, but also many civilians. For that reason, Russia's president Vladimir Putin will be very reluctant to order an invasion, according to these analysts. However, if violence in east Ukraine continues to escalate, then Kiev and Moscow may be forced to intervene militarily. CNN
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 15-Apr-14 World View -- Major terrorist explosion in Nigeria's capital kills over 70 thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(15-Apr-2014)
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Syrian army defector explains why Assad regime uses chlorine chemical weapons
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As we reported yesterday, there was a new poison gas attack on a rebel-held, apparently by Syrian government warplanes. It's assumed that the poison gas attack was under the orders of Syria's genocidal monster president, Bashar al-Assad, but the al-Assad regime blames the attack on rebels.
Zaher al Saket was a Brigadier General in al-Assad's army until he defected last year. He explains why chlorine gas was used, and how only the Syrian regime has the ability to use chemical weapons, in an interview on Sunday with al-Jazeera (my transcription):
"I was given the order by my immediate commander to use chemical weapons in August of last year. These weapons are very toxic, but not deadly. I exchanged these weapons. I gave my officers non-effective elements of these weapons. They used them because they thought they are deadly.When they started to investigate the matter, I decided to defect. In order to use the chemical weapons, you need to have the real effective elements, and the platform to use them.
The Free Syrian Army and the Islamic Battalions don't have the tools. They don't have any artillery. They don't have any missiles.
Why has the regime resorted to using chlorine mixed with cyanide in the latest chemical attacks? Because they can't be easily discovered, even if the monitoring mission arrives 48 hours later. That's why only those who have been affected is the only evidence."
Al-Zaket gave an interview last year when he defected:
Zaker Al-Saket: "There are three types of chemical weapons: harassing chemical agents, incapacitating agents, and lethal agents. When the demonstrations started, the regime used harassing agents, like any country in the world using tear gas to disperse demonstrations. As for incapacitating and lethal chemical agents - the regime used incapacitating agents at first, but when the world remained silent about this, and the regime thought that the international community did not care, it used lethal [chemical] weapons in more than 13 locations. The last incident was in Utaybah. The regime used sarin gas on three occasions, and I am increasingly afraid that they will use agents more powerful than sarin. They have VX gas and mustard gas, also known as iprit. ...
The regime's accusation that the opposition has used chemical weapons is the most compelling proof that the regime itself has used them, because the opposition does not have the means to use chemical weapons. The means of using chemical weapons are known to the whole world: airplanes, missiles, helicopters, and artillery. Worst still, this regime has binary chemical weapons. The world must understand that there are binary chemical weapons in Syria, and [Bashar Al-Assad] will use them against his people, because he is the Nero of our age."
As we described yesterday, the United Nations inspection team wrote a report proving that al-Assad was guilty of last August's sarin attack. The team did not specifically blame al-Assad, because they were not permitted to do so, but the report contained technical data that proved to outside experts that the rockets were launched from a Syrian Republican Guard unit. Memri (4/29/2013)
In three cities in east Ukraine, Ukrainian security forces are exchanging fire with pro-Russian protesters, who may be Russian-paid militants, causing several casualties. Ukraine's government in Kiev has issued an ultimatum to the pro-Russian protesters to stand down by Monday morning (by 11 pm ET Sunday), or face a "large-scale anti-terrorist operation" by Ukraine's armed forces. Ukraine’s acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, said, "We will not allow Russia to repeat the Crimean scenario in the eastern regions of Ukraine." This is assumed to mean that Turchynov will act to prevent Russia from annexing eastern Ukraine as it's already annexed Crimea.
Russia and the U.S. are blaming each other for the escalating conflict in eastern Ukraine.
According to Russia's Foreign Ministry, it's the responsibility of the United States and other Western nations to "stop the civil war":
"The Kiev authorities, who self-proclaimed themselves as a result of a coup, have embarked on the violent military suppression of the protests. Blood has already been spilled as the result of such actions in the South East. ...It depends on the West now to stop the civil war in Ukraine. ...
The western sponsors of the Maidan [Kiev] government, especially those who witnessed the Agreement [of 21 February] and are backed by the US, have to curb their out of control wards, they have to make them break away from the neo-Nazis and other extremists."
According to a statement issued by the U.S. State Dept. on Sunday:
"Russia continues to spin a false and dangerous narrative to justify its illegal actions in Ukraine. The Russian propaganda machine continues to promote hate speech and incite violence by creating a false threat in Ukraine that does not exist. We would not be seeing the violence and sad events that we've witnessed this weekend without this relentless stream of disinformation and Russian provocateurs fostering unrest in eastern Ukraine. Here are 10 more false claims Russia is using to justify intervention in Ukraine, with the facts that these assertions ignore or distort."
The statement goes on to describe proof that Russian agents are active in Ukraine, that Russian internet sites are open recruiting Russian citizens to travel to Ukraine to incite violence, and that in fact there is no spiraling civil war in Ukraine, and there wouldn't be any conflict at all if it hadn't been for Russian provocations. The statement goes on to point out that there are 35,000-40,000 Russian troops massed along the border with Ukraine, in addition to approximately 25,000 troops currently in Crimea. AP and U.S. State Dept. and Russia Today
In last weekend's Afghanistan election, results based on 10% of votes from 26 out of 34 provinces showed Abdullah Abdullah with 41.9% and Western-leaning academic Ashraf Ghani second with 37.6%. A third candidate, Zalmay Rassoul, backed by two of Karzai's brothers, trailed far behind with 9.8%.
Correction: Yesterday's report said that Abdullah is Hazara. Actually, he's mixed Tajik and Pashtun. Reuters
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 14-Apr-14 World View -- Russia and U.S. trade accusations as Ukraine issues ultimatum thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(14-Apr-2014)
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New poison gas attack reported in Syria
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Reports from both the Syrian government and rebel forces claim that a poison gas attack occurred late Friday in a central rebel-held village of Syria, killing two people and injuring more than 100. The poison gas, which is thought to be chlorine, was apparently launched during air raids that left heavy smoke over the area. The rebel groups are blaming the Syrian government, while the Syrian government is blaming the al-Qaeda al-Nusra front.
In August of last year, there was a major sarin gas attack near the capital, Damascus, killing hundreds of people. The United Nations Security Council authorized a U.N. inspection team to visit the site, but was forbidden to draw any conclusions about who was responsible. This was at the insistence of the Russians, who wanted to protect the genocidal monster president Bashar al-Assad of proof of guilt. However, the the United Nations forensic team found a very clever way to defeat the Russians. In their scientific analysis of the evidence, they included calculations of the trajectories of the rockets that delivered the sarin gas. They drew no conclusions about where the rockets were launched, but they provided enough scientific information within the report so that experts studying the report could show that the rockets must have been launched from a Syrian Republican Guard unit. So they were very cleverly able to prove al-Assad's guilt without having to say so!
The al-Assad regime agreed to remove and destroy its chemical weapons stock, but Syria's government missed a Dec. 31 deadline to remove the most dangerous chemicals in its stockpile and a Feb. 5 deadline to give up its entire stockpile of chemical weapons. It's widely believed, though unproven, that al-Assad is hiding other stores of chemical weapons. AP and AFP
There has always been a big difference in behavior between the Pakistani Taliban and the Afghan Taliban, largely because of generational differences.
The Taliban are ethnic Pashtuns, which spread from southern Afghanistan, across the border through Pakistan's tribal area, into northwestern Pakistan. I first wrote about the Afghan Taliban's behavior when I discussed the world's worst suicide bombers. According to figures published by the Jamestown foundation, in 2007 Afghan Taliban suicide bombers almost always managed to kill only themselves, or at most one other person. This is an enormous contrast to the Pakistani Taliban, who have killed literally thousands of people in suicide bombings in recent years.
The difference between the two is a result of history. Pakistan's last generational crisis war was the war between Hindus and Muslims in 1947 that followed Partition, the partitioning of the Indian subcontinent and the creation of the states of India and Pakistan. That was one of the bloodiest wars of the 20th century, but most of its generations of survivors have now disappeared, and the younger generations know only of the heroics, but none of the horrors.
By contrast, Afghanistan's last generational crisis war was the relatively recent bloody Afghan civil war of 1991-96. In 2007, 11 years after that war ended, the bloody horrors were still fresh in all the survivors' minds, and there was no motivation to inflict more horrors on themselves or others by blowing up innocent civilians in a mosque or marketplace. The result is that the bloodiest Taliban attacks in Afghanistan have come not from Afghan Taliban but from Pakistani Taliban crossing the border.
It's now seven years later, and the first generation of children growing up after Afghanistan's civil war are coming of age. Even so, there still are apparently not enough Afghan Taliban willing to blow people up, as shown by the failure of the Taliban to disrupt last weekend's presidential election with any major terrorist attacks, despite promises to do so.
Leaders of Taliban militants from Afghanistan and Pakistan have been meeting to try to work together. This attempted alliance is in its early stages, and the generational differences will continue to provide obstacles, but they are spurred on by the withdrawal this year of American and Nato forces. In one way or another, they should be expected to fill the vacuum left by the withdrawal.
We've reported several times on the ongoing "peace talks" between the Pakistani Taliban and Pakistan's government. One of the Taliban's motivations for these talks is to keep Pakistan's military from carrying out its threat to destroy militant bases in the tribal area that the militants use for cross-border attacks into Afghanistan. Reuters
A major issue in Afghanistan's presidential elections, both for Afghanistan and for the United States, is the pending "bilateral security agreement" (BSA), which will provide the legal backing to allow a contingent of American forces to remain in Afghanistan beyond the end of 2014. Current president Hamid Karzai has refused to sign the BSA, after previously promising to do so, and has left the decision to his successor. However, all three of the major runoff candidates have said they will sign the BSA if they win the election.
The three runoff candidates are described by one analyst as follows:
Ghani and Rassoul are Pashtuns, while Abdullah is a Hazara. The Hazaras and the Pashtuns were bitter enemies during the 1990s civil war, so a victory by Abdullah could mean trouble in the form of increased terrorist activity by the Pashtun Taliban. Correction: Abdullah is mixed Tajik and Pashtun. (Correction added 13-Apr) Defense One
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 13-Apr-14 World View -- The Afghanistan elections and the Afghan-Pakistan Taliban alliance thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(13-Apr-2014)
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NATO says that Russia is preparing for an invasion of Ukraine
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NATO has released satellite photos, taken between March 22 and April 2, that show the extent of Russia's military mobilization on its border with Ukraine -- including fighter jets, tanks, artillery and thousands of soldiers who are prepared to invade within 12 hours if called upon. Nato estimates that there are 40,000 troops massed at various locations along the Ukrainian border, at more than 100 different site.
Russia is claiming that the photos are doctored or are old photos, which Nato says is "categorically false." According to Russia's foreign ministry:
The US and Ukraine have no reason to worry. Russia has said several times that it is not conducting any unusual or unplanned military activity on its territory near the Ukrainian border. ...Everyday activity by Russian forces on its national territory does not threaten the security of the United States of America or other OSCE member states.
The attempts to accuse Russia of building up armed forces are groundless."
CNN and Ria Novosti
Indonesia is joining Vietnam, the Philippines and other regional countries to increase their military capabilities in preparation for an invitable military conflict with China. China has been adopting a "Lebensraum" policy of claiming all of the South China Sea as its sovereign territory, including regions that have historically belonged to Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, often for centuries. According to China, these countries have no rights to anything outside their 12-mile territorial seas, while China has the right to annex everything in sight. China has already used its vast military power to forcibly annex territories belonging to Vietnam and the Philippines, and has militarily threatened islands belonging to Malaysia. (See "29-Jan-14 World View -- China's military moves to seize Malaysia's James Shoal")
China has also claimed regions belonging to Indonesia, but Indonesian officials have avoided talking about it, for fear of upsetting the Chinese. But now Indonesia is beefing up its its military base on the Riau Islands, which borders the South China Sea, to accommodate larger fighter aircraft. China has particularly claimed the Natuna Seas, which are strategically located at the southern tip of Malacca Strait, and which are thought to contain 1.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
According to an Indonesian military official:
"China has claimed Natuna waters as their territorial waters. This arbitrary claim is related to the dispute over Spratly and Paracel Islands between China and the Philippines. This dispute will have a large impact on the security of Natuna waters."
Indonesia's government is playing down the dispute, but much of the upgrade work on the airbase has already been completed. Jakarta's strategy is to develop a "Minimum Essential Force" (MEF), which is the minimum scale of military capabilities that Indonesia should seek to deploy in response to a strategic threat. Janes Military Capabilities and The Diplomat and Jakarta Globe (3/13)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 12-Apr-14 World View -- Indonesia upgrades military base to confront China thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(12-Apr-2014)
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Israel imposes sanctions on the Palestinian Authority
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This week, Rwanda and the United Nations are commemorating the 20th anniversary of the start of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when majority Hutus tortured, burnt, raped, mutilated and killed over 800,000 of the minority Tutsis over a six month period. The commemoration speeches have been assigning blame, most often to the former colonial powers, France and Belgium. The criticisms of France were so harsh, that France chose not to send a representative to Rwanda for the ceremony.
Rwanda is 50% Catholic and 40% Protestant, but those percentages may be changing because many Rwandans blame the Catholic Church and the Vatican for complicity in the genocide, and are abandoning the Catholic Churches for new evangelical churches that have arisen since the genocide. The new evangelical religions were brought back to Rwanda by refugees returning from Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo, where they were already established.
On Monday, the representative of Rwanda to the commemoration ceremony accused members of the Catholic Church of "covering up their criminal actions" during the genocide. In particular, Rwanda is still dotted with the ruins of Catholic churches where the Tutsi sought shelter, but were massacred by the Hutus within the church, sometimes with members of the clergy acting in complicity with the killers. AFP and 7sur7(Trans)(Belgium)
The United Nations Security Council on Thursday unanimously approved the creation of a peacekeeping force for the Central African Republic. There are already 2,000 French troops and 6,500 African Union troops in CAR. The troops will be deployed on September 15. Violence between Christians and Muslims has been increasing, leading officials to fear a repeat of the bloody Rwanda genocide in 1994. CNN
Gerard Araud, France's ambassador to U.N. was interviewed on the BBC on Thursday, after the Security Council approval of deploying troops to the Central African Republic. In CAR, the Muslim Seleka militias were committing atrocities last year. The French troops disarmed the Seleka militias, but then the Christian anti-balaka militias "rushed into the vacuum" and began committing atrocities this year, for revenge. Araud was asked why the deployment is being delayed until September 15, in view of all the atrocities that are occurring, and will continue to occur. He responded that the country has collapsed and will to be rebuilt, which will take a long time, possible years (my transcription):
"Unfortunately, you know, we are facing a very challenging situation, which means that I should say, even if we have 12,000 soldiers, I'm not sure that actually the atrocities will cease.What does it mean? It means that law and order have totally collapsed in this country. There is no police, no gendarmes, no prisons. We are not facing any sort of identifiable enemy. We are facing thugs. We are facing bandits, who are killing, raping and looting. So what we have to do is -- it's long term efforts -- which means to restore, rebuild a state, and an administration in the country.
[[Question: There are some who say that the French strategy at the beginning, when the troops there targeting Seleka, were the wrong ones. They should have been there to try and stabilize both sides in the conflict, instead of targeting one group.]]
In the beginning, when we arrived in the 5th of December, the two nights before our arrival hundreds of people were killed by the Seleka. And on the other side, there was no anti-balaka, you know. So the absolute urgency in December was to disarm the Seleka, which had committed these atrocities.
What happened was when we had disarmed the Selekas, suddenly the anti-balakas which were not there suddenly rushed into the vacuum, so after that, we had to shift our positions to disarm the anti-balaka, and that's what we have been doing.
But there's a difference. The Seleka are armed groups which are organized, which were possible to disarm and contain. While anti-balakas basically are civilians - it's very difficult to disarm them.
[[Question: Do you believe that this peacekeeping force is the solution to stabilizing the CAR. We're looking a country that has no proper administration, a country that has no proper army, so to speak. Is this the solution?]]
You know, there is no army -- it's not "so to speak" -- there is no army, there is no police, there are no gendarmes. The country has totally collapsed. On one side, the peacekeeping operation will restore a modicum of law and order, but again, I'm pretty aware that there will be still crimes after the force is deployed.
We are engaging to a long term endeavor, which is to rebuild CAR, to rebuild prisons, police, gendarmerie, and to rebuild an administration. So frankly it will be long. And CAR will need everybody - the UN agencies, but also the bilateral donors, like France or the U.S. There is no quick peace."
The timeline is interesting to me. The French forces arrived on December 5, and it was just a week later, on December 12, that I wrote Christian revenge attacks on Muslims increase in CAR, and I speculated, based on a Generational Dynamics analysis, that the conflict was spiraling into a full-scale generational crisis war.
As the Mideast "peace talks" have been collapsing, Israel and the Palestinians have been taking tit-for-tat retaliation steps against each other. The Israelis blocked the scheduled release of 26 Palestinian prisoners, and the Palestinians have applied to join 15 international organizations as the state of Palestine.
On Thursday, Israel imposed economic sanctions on the Palestinian Authority. Israel will withhold taxes collected on behalf of the Palestinians, and limit their access to bank deposits in Israel. Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat has condemned the move as "Israeli hijacking" and "theft." BBC
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 11-Apr-14 World View -- France says Central African Republic has totally collapsed thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(11-Apr-2014)
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'Heartbleed Bug' requires all users to change their passwords
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A powerful explosion in a fruit and vegetable market in Islamabad, the capital city of Pakistan, killed at least 24 people and injured hundreds. It's believed that the bomb was stored in a wooden fruit crate and was detonated when the fruit crate was delivered to the market.
A Taliban linked terrorist group, United Baloch Army (UBA) claimed responsibility for the bombing, giving as reasons revenge against government security forces, and demanding a separate state for Balochistan.
However, Pakistan's Interior Ministry is denying that UBA was responsible for the bombing, and is saying that it was the consequence of a disagreement among factions of the Pakistani Taliban (Tehrik-e-Taliban - TTP). Last month, TTP announced a unilateral ceasefire, in order to give peace talks with the government a chance. ( "11-Mar-14 World View -- Terrorist bombings continue in Pakistan despite so-called 'cease-fire'")
That one-month ceasefire expires on April 10, and there is bitter disagreement among the leadership of various TTP groups about whether the ceasefire period should be extended. It's believed that the bombing attack is related to that disagreement. However, a TTP spokesman said that the TTP had nothing to do with the bombing.
Like the Mideast peace talks, the Taliban peace talks are considered something of a joke by observers. TTP originally demanded that three conditions be met before any peace talks can begin: TTP prisoners must be released from jail, the army must be withdrawn from the tribal areas where it has been fighting the Taliban, and the government must agree to impose Sharia law on the entire country. Finally, the TTP agreed to the one-month ceasefire, but it only recently emerged it turned out that this commitment was made because prime minister Nawaz Sharif agreed to release 19 Taliban militants from jail. Sharif secretly kept this process last month, though the secret was revealed last week.
If it weren't so serious, it would be amusing that both the Mideast "peace talks" and the Pakistan "peace talks" were both considered a joke, are both about to expire, and were both based on a promise to release convicted militants from jail. Daily Times (Pakistan) and The News (Pakistan)
As I reported yesterday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry blamed Israel in a Senate hearing for the collapse of the Mideast "peace talks" that he had set up last year in July. I quoted the official transcript on the State Dept. web site, but apparently there was an additional statement that didn't make it onto the web site.
Kerry said that the Mideast "peace talks" collapsed when Israel refused to release the fourth batch of prisoners who had been convicted of terrorist acts prior to the 1994 Oslo accords. And then, according to Kerry, Israel moved ahead with plans to approve 700 West Bank settlements.
"And, poof! That was sort of the moment. We find ourselves where we are."
Kerry was implying that, until that moment, the "peace talks" were on track, or close to being on track, but "poof!", Israel threw it all away.
This particular remark is infuriating Israelis, who point out that the Palestinians had broken a number of commitments, and had refused to commit to continuing the peace talks before applying to 15 United Nations agencies.
At any rate, as I've written many times, the "peace talks" that Kerry set up were never more than a theatrical show, considered a joke in the Mideast, and now Kerry is painting himself as a victim, as if to say, "I worked soooooooooooooo hard to set up these peace talks, but the two of you, especially Israel, just won't listen to me and do what I say." Jerusalem Post and Commentary
There are still military resistance groups among the Palestinians, but Palestinian leaders don't have faith in them because they don't appear to have serious, workable plans to change the status quo with respect to Israel. Instead, Palestinian leaders are pursuing two nonviolent resistance plans to defeat the Israelis:
Leaders of both Fatah and Hamas have praised both movements, but some, include Mahmoud Abbas, oppose the idea of boycotting the state of Israel, because it generates sympathy for Israel.
The total collapse of the peace negotiations, which many people now expect, will boost the anti-wall and BDS resistance movements, and without the distraction of the negotiations, these movements may be a lot more successful. Al-Monitor
Security experts are warning that a newly discovered security vulnerability exposes almost all web sites to compromise by a hacker. The bug was accidentally put into the popular OpenSSL (Open source Secure Socket Library) software library that's used to encrypt secure conversations between user browsers and web sites. The library is widely used within web servers for e-mail, banking and other web sites, but the bug permits a hacker to steal usernames and passwords of logged on users. The bug has been around since December 2011, but was only recently discovered, and was announced on Monday. Once discovered it was easy to fix, and most major web sites have fixed the bugs by now.
However, the real question is whether any hackers discovered the bug before it was announced and fixed, and have been harvesting usernames and passwords for weeks or months. This is not a far-fetched scenario, since there are teams of hackers in China, Russia and eastern Europe who work full time to discover vulnerabilities like this. For these reason, security experts are strongly recommending that all users change their passwords on all the sites they visit, starting with the most important sites.
The bug was discovered in a specific function in the OpenSSL software called the "heartbeat" function. This function causes your browser to exchange information with a web site every few seconds, in order to verify that the connection still works. The bug is that the server leaves the heartbeat information in unencrypted form in server memory for a brief period of time, and during this period a hacker could download it. For this reason, it's called the "Heartbleed Bug." CNet and Heartbleed.com
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 10-Apr-14 World View -- New terrorist bombing in Pakistan, as Taliban ceasefire expires thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(10-Apr-2014)
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Ebola continues to 'evolve rapidly' in Guinea and Liberia
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
Violence is escalating in large cities in east Ukraine, along the border with Russia, where pro-Russian protesters have stormed and looted government buildings, demanding secession from Ukraine to become part of the Russian federation. According to Ukraine's Security Service, separatists armed with explosives and other weapons were holding 60 people hostage.
Russia blamed the increasing violence on American mercenaries:
We are particularly concerned that the operation involves some 150 American mercenaries from a private company Greystone Ltd., dressed in the uniform of the [Ukrainian] special task police unit Sokol. Organizers and participants of such incitement are assuming a huge responsibility for threatening upon the rights, freedoms and lives of Ukrainian citizens as well as the stability of Ukraine."
Russia is also accusing Ukraine's government in Kiev of trying to start a civil war.
It turns out that Greystone used to be an affiliate of Blackwater and may or may not have provided security services in Russia or Ukraine. Reports of Greystone working in Ukraine are unconfirmed.
Secretary of State John Kerry, testifying before the Senate on Tuesday, called the situation by Russia to "create a contrived crisis":
"And everything that we’ve seen in the last 48 hours from Russian provocateurs and agents operating in eastern Ukraine tells us that they’ve been sent there determined to create chaos. And that is absolutely unacceptable. These efforts are as ham-handed as they are transparent, frankly. And quite simply, what we see from Russia is an illegal and illegitimate effort to destabilize a sovereign state and create a contrived crisis with paid operatives across an international boundary engaged in this initiative.Russia’s clear and unmistakable involvement in destabilizing and engaging in separatist activities in the east of Ukraine is more than deeply disturbing. No one should be fooled, and believe me, no one is fooled by what could potentially be a contrived pretext for military intervention just as we saw in Crimea. It is clear that Russian special forces and agents have been the catalyst behind the chaos of the last 24 hours. Some have even been arrested and exposed. And equally as clear must be the reality that the United States and our allies will not hesitate to use 21st-century tools to hold Russia accountable for 19th-century behavior. We have stated again and again that our preference – and the preference of our friends and allies – is de-escalation and a diplomatic solution. But Russia should not for a single solitary second mistake the expression of that preference as an unwillingness to do what is necessary to stop any violation of the international order."
What's interesting about this statement is the sharply escalating rhetoric on the American side. For months, Kerry has been following Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov around like a little puppy begging for a bone, and has been fooled every time. So the administration is now changing to a new hardline approach, with the old "reset button" approach completely abandoned.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, this illustrates how nationalism is increasing in this generational Crisis era, even in the United States. It's a small incremental increase to be sure, but it's a part of a continuing trend of increasing nationalism in countries around the world. Russia Today and ABC News and Dept. of State
The World Health Organization (WHO) is describing this as one of the most challenging situations they've ever faced. Ebola continues to spread rapidly in Guinea and Liberia, with 178 suspected cases, 106 confirmed, resulting in 111 deaths in the two countries. Spread of the virus has was given a boost when it spread last week to Conakry, the overcrowded capital city of Guinea. From there, it's spread to widely dispersed regions, and can't be contained. Cases have been reported in Sierra Leone, Mali and Ghana, but none has been confirmed. There has been some panic as, on Friday, an angry mob attacked an Ebola treatment center in Conakry, accusing the staff from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors without Borders) of bringing the disease to the town and spreading it. WHO is advising people to stay calm, though is warning that controlling the outbreak could take months. CNN
Speaking before the Senate, Secretary of State John Kerry said that the Mideast "peace talks" collapsed when Israel refused to release the fourth batch of prisoners who had been convicted of terrorist acts prior to the 1994 Oslo accords. However, he still hoped that negotiations would continue. "It is stopped. Recognize reality!" said Republican Sen. John McCain. AP
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 9-Apr-14 World View -- Russia and U.S. exchange accusations as east Ukraine unrest escalates thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(9-Apr-2014)
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Taiwan's proposed trade deal opens old wounds with China
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India's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is widely expected to win India's parliamentary elections, the first round of which began on Monday. India is the largest democracy in the world, and so national elections are held in separate regions over a five-week period.
Self-described Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) Narendra Modi is the head of BJP, and he's promising a substantially more aggressive foreign policy for India, including a promise to get tougher in territorial disputes with China. He's the "hope and change" candidate for this election, and he's expected to become the next prime minister.
Modi is also promising to review India's "no first use" policy for nuclear weapons. The no first use policy was adopted with reference to India's arch-enemy Pakistan, and the previous administration has promised that it will not be the first to use nuclear weapons in a war. However, Pakistan does NOT have a no first use policy, and so Modi is promising to review India's.
India's last generational crisis war was the war between Hindus and Muslims that followed the partitioning of the Indian subcontinent and the creation of the states of Pakistan and India in 1947. This action precipitated among the worst and bloodiest wars of the 20th century, as Hindus from the new Pakistan state migrated to the India side of the partition, and Muslims from the India side migrated to Pakistan, butchering and slaughtering each other along the way.
India's current prime minister is Manmohan Singh, born in 1932. Although he's a Sikh, he and his family witnessed the massive slaughter of the Partition war, as his family migrated from Pakistan to India at the time. Like many people who survive a generational crisis war, Singh has devoted his life to making sure that nothing like that ever happens again, and he's been remarkably conciliatory towards Pakistan and China since he became prime minister in 2004.
If Narendra Modi, born in 1950 after the Partition war, becomes prime minister, it will mark a significant generational change. Modi's Hindu nationalism is already strongly asserting itself, and it's made him very popular. If he wins, we can expect to see relations with China and Pakistan become considerably more confrontational. Times of India
A boisterous protest by hundreds of students blocking the parliament building in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, is now entering its third week. The demonstrators are protesting a proposed trade pact with China. Supporters of the pact say that it will bring new jobs to Taiwan, while opponents say that Taiwan will lose jobs to China.
The protests are opening old wounds that haven't healed since the bloody Communist Revolution civil war, when Mao Zedong's forced the Nationalist (KMT) forces, led by Chiang Kai-shek, to flee to Formosa (Taiwan), passing through Hong Kong, in 1949. China still considers Taiwan to be a province of China, but whether Taiwan will declare independence has been a highly emotional issue since 1949. Taiwan's independence movement took a big stride forward in 1989, when Taiwan's population watched in horror as China's security forces brutally massacred and killed thousands of innocently protesting students in the Tiananmen Square massacre. This triggered a Taiwan student movement called "the Wild Lily rebellion," and led to the creation of a new political party, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which explicitly favors independence. (See "Taiwan's Wild Election Battle" from 2004.)
DPP has been in power in Taiwan for about half of the last 15 years, and whenever they're in power, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Beijing totally freaks out, issuing one threat after another, saying that it Taiwan makes even one tiny step in the direction of independence, the China will declare war.
However, the KMT have been in power in Taiwan for the last five years, and relations between Taiwan and China have been relatively calm. Ironically, as I reported last month, China's new president Xi Jinping is redirecting China's ideological culture towards Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalism, and away from Mao Zedong's Marxist ideology, for fear that a new peasant revolution would throw the current CCP out in the street.
Xi Jinping also said, last year, that the situation with Taiwan could not go on much longer, with the implication that China was preparing to use military force to take control of Taiwan. It may have been that remark that triggered the anxieties that led to the current round of protests among those who are bitterly opposed to reunification with China. Reuters and LA Times
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 8-Apr-14 World View -- Narendra Modi may change India's 'no first use' nuclear policy thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(8-Apr-2014)
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Pro-Russians riot in cities across eastern Ukraine
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In Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine, pro-Russian protesters on Sunday stormed government buildings, clashed with police, hung Russian flags from the buildings and called for a referendum on independence similar to the one that led Russia to annex Crimea.
Russia's president Vladimir Putin has said that Russia has "no intention" of invading eastern Ukraine, despite the tens of thousands of Russian troops on the border, all active, well-trained, well-supplied with food and spare parts. However, Putin has also said that Russia WOULD invade eastern Ukraine if it became necessary to protect ethnic Russians.
Thus, Sunday's riots and protests are exactly the excuse that Putin needs to go ahead with the invasion. We'll have to see if he avails himself of that excuse. Itar-Tass and BBC
President Obama was visibly gloating this past week when he declared that 7.1 million people had "signed up for" Obamacare. He claimed to have no information on how many of those had even made a single payment, or how many were subsidized, or how many of these were for free Medicaid. He declared that "Obamacare is here to stay!"
When I first wrote about the "Obama's health plan, a proposal of economic insanity" in 2009, I said that this plan would never be implemented because it would destroy markets and be economically disastrous. I compared it to President Richard Nixon's wage-price controls which were not as disastrous for the markets as Obama's health plan, but still wrecked the economy for close to a decade. I've repeated that many times since then, and I'm going to repeat it today: Obama's health plan will never be implemented.
Obama's health plan called for employer mandates, individual mandates, a working federal health care marketplace, and integration of all health records in the country into the IRS's data bases. None of these things has been implemented yet, and most will probably never be implemented. In just this past week alone, close Obama advisor Robert Gibbs sent out a trial balloon, saying in a speech that the employer mandate will be killed completely:
"I don’t think the employer mandate will go into effect. It’s a small part of the law. I think it will be one of the first things to go."
Gibbs has a good sense of humor. The employer mandate is an essential core component of the law, not a small part of the law.
So the markets have been all but destroyed by Obamacare. The 7.1 million signups that Obama was gloating about are irrelevant to the markets. It's his economic philosophy that it's all right for a business to lose money, because they can make it up in volume.
Suppose President Nixon had announced something like, "Citizens, please sign up for NixonCarePriceControls, and if you sign up, you can buy as much Coca-Cola you want for just a penny a bottle." Then we can assume that many millions would sign up for NixonCarePriceControls, even more than 7.1 million. The problem is that the Coca-Cola company would go out of business. That in fact is what happened to many businesses. The one that I've always remembered was that chicken farmers were killing chickens, rather than bringing them to market, because chickens were price-controlled, while chicken feed was a commodity and could not be controlled, so it cost more to grow a chicken than the farmer could get under NixonCarePriceControls.
So the fact that 7.1 million signed up for unsustainably cheap insurance may be a victory to President Obama, but it's a disaster for the economy. The only thing that would have been worse is if 10 or 15 million people had signed up.
You'd think that an economist would have to be particularly incompetent and stupid to know nothing about an event as recent as Nixon's price controls, but incompetence and stupidity are available in abundance these days.
The public loved President Nixon's wage-price controls when they were first announced, but then the shortages started occurring -- gasoline, heating oil, red meat, soybeans, and numerous other products. Nixon did everything he could to save the controls, granting special exemptions and perks to favored people, announcing frequent rule changes to resolve each new problem as it arose, and so forth.
Nixon's wage-price controls were supposed to reduce inflation from 4% to 2%. That didn't happen. Instead, the economy was so screwed up with shortages and misallocations that the inflation rate rose to 12%.
In other words, Nixon's wage-price controls destroyed the economy, and not only accomplished nothing, but were much worse than nothing.
Now we have the same thing with Obamacare. It's hard to know what's going on with all the confusion and chaos, with Obama changing the rules every week and refusing to release any figures that he considers unfavorable. But apparently, the number of uninsured people today is comparable to the number of uninsured people before all this started. So nothing has been accomplished.
Obama has lied repeatedly and often. He's bribed cronies with perks, and extorted political enemies. Even among his ardent supporters, you'd have to be crazy to believe anything he says. He'll say one thing on Monday, and the reverse himself the next day and screw the country.
Insurance costs have significantly increased, people have lost their health insurance policies, people have lost their doctors, even people who have signed up are often not sure whether their next visit to the emergency room will be insured.
There's also a constitutional crisis on the agenda. Obama has simply ignored the constitution and changed his own Obamacare law repeatedly to suit his whims. That violates the constitution, and at some point in the next year or so, the Supreme Court is going to have its say, creating a legal and constitution disaster comparable to the HealthCare.gov IT disaster. There's apparently no law and no constitutional provision that Obama is unwilling to violate.
And the worst is yet to come, because there's a huge bill to be paid. Those 7.1 million people, as an aggregate, will incur far more medical costs than they will pay for in premiums. This means that when the bill comes due in the next few months, the insurance companies will have to be bailed out (which is apparently permitted by the Obamacare bill), and they'll have to substantially increase insurance premiums for next year. And so far, Obamacare has simply wasted something like a trillion dollars. (See "1-Dec-13 World View -- Obamacare: 500M lines of code, $500M, only 60% completed" from last year.)
And for what? What the hell was it all for? Obama announced "Mission Accomplished!", but what exactly was accomplished? What has Obamacare accomplished except to feed Obama's ego?
This brings up an important difference between Obamacare and NixonCarePriceControls. Nixon was a member of the G.I. Generation, and had fought in and survived World War II. Like most WW II survivors, he was willing to put the good of the country ahead of his own ego, because he understood how dangerous the alternative is. So when it became clear that Nixon's wage-price controls were a disaster, he ended them. It was the right thing to do, and it was for the good of the country. (Paragraph corrected. 8-Apr)
Obama is in Generation-X, whose people typically put their egos at the highest importance level, and put the good of the country about 50th down on the list. Obama is following the standard generational Nomad archetype. (See "The nihilism and self-destructiveness of Generation X" from 2008.) Obama is determined that to save something called "Obamacare" for his legacy, no matter how disastrous it is for the country. And that's just something the rest of us will have to suffer for. BenefitsPro and Forbes and Nixon's Wage and Price Freeze
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 7-Apr-14 World View -- President Obama declares 'Mission Accomplished!' on Obamacare thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(7-Apr-2014)
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U.N. leaders realizing Central African Republic genocide is unstoppable
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Russia's effortless annexation of Crimea has raised concerns in countries throughout Asia that the U.S. will not honor its commitment to defend them against attacks from other countries, such as China. When America became policeman of the world after WW II, thanks to the Truman Doctrine in 1947, the deal was that other countries could focus on economic growth and not worry about military spending, because America would rescue them if necessary. But after America took no action in Crimea or Syria, and the Obama administration appears to have completely abandoned the Truman Doctrine for the first time, many countries are understandably nervous that now they're completely on their own.
According to one analyst:
"The hard question, particularly when leaders in this region look at what is gone on in Syria, what's gone on in Ukraine, the president drawing red lines and not actually backing up its words, there are questions, legitimate questions particularly I would say in Japan what would happen if there was conflict between China and Japan? Would the United States actually come on the side of Japan as strongly as the Japanese might hope?"
In a meeting on Saturday with Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel tried to remove these fears by means of a speech full of reassuring words:
"It’s a pretty predictable, I think, reaction, not just of nations of this area and this region but all over the world. I think anytime you have a nation — Russia in this case — try to impose its will to refine and define international boundaries and violate the territorial integrity and sovereignty of a nation by force, all of the world takes note of that. ...[There is no] weakness on the part of the United States as to our complete and absolute commitment to the security of Japan. So I don’t think there is any indication or any evidence that we’re doing anything but strengthening our commitment to the security of Japan."
Hagel also said that Russia suffered unnamed "consequences" for the invasion of Crimea.
So Hagel doesn't actually say that the commitment is being strengthened. He says that "there's [no] indication or evidence" that it's not being strengthened. Pretty clever wording. He's managed to sound good, while saying absolutely nothing. If I were running an Asian nation, I wouldn't be reassured at all. Japan Times/AP
This weekend, the United Nations is commemorating the 20th anniversary of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The majority Hutus tortured, burnt, raped, mutilated and killed over 800,000 Tutsis over a six month period. As usual, we're hearing the phrase "Never again!" over and over, though it's also mixed in with recriminations, many people blaming the French and Belgians for not stopping it, and some accusing the French of actually participating.
But in the midst of the ceremonies about Rwanda, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon is saying that the genocidal acts in Central African Republic (CAR) are increasing, and the peacekeeping forces sent to stop the violence are "overwhelmed":
"The international community failed the people of Rwanda 20 years ago. And we are at risk of not doing enough for the people of the CAR today.Ethno-religious cleansing is a reality. Most members of the Muslim minority have fled. Muslims and Christians have been placed in mortal danger simply because of who they are or what they believe.
People have been lynched and decapitated. Sexual violence is on the rise. Gruesome acts have been committed while others cheered on the perpetrators. There has been total impunity – zero accountability. This must change."
As I've been writing for months, a CAR genocide cannot be stopped. This is an elemental force of nature. The last time this happened in CAR, the last generational crisis war, was the 1928-1931 Kongo-Wara Rebellion ("War of the Hoe Handle"), which was a very long time ago, putting CAR today deep into a generational Crisis era. There are probably no survivors left from the Kongo-Wara Rebellion, and so it's not surprising at all that a new war of extermination is breaking out in CAR today. It's as simple as that. This is the way that the real world works. They may say "Never again!", but the truth is "Always again!", because that's part of the human DNA, just as much as sex is. Toronto Star and United Nations and AFP
Chad is withdrawing its 850 soldiers from the 6,000 soldiers in the multination peacekeeping force in Central African Republic (CAR). There have been suspicions all along that the mostly Muslim Chadian troops were taking the side of the Muslims against the Christians in the CAR conflict. Then last Saturday (March 29), a group of Chadian soldiers fired indiscriminately into a crowded market, killing about 30 civilians and wounding another 300. According to a U.N. investigation, the perpetrators were Chadian troops, though they weren't part of Chad's troops in the peacekeeping force. According to a statement by Chad's foreign ministry explaining the decision to withdraw:
"Despite the sacrifices we have made, Chad and Chadians have been targeted in a gratuitous and malicious campaign that blamed them for all the suffering in (Central African Republic)."
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 6-Apr-14 World View -- U.S. fails to reaffirm its mutual defense treaty with Japan thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(6-Apr-2014)
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John Kerry says 'It's reality check time' for Mideast talks
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Lebanon, with a population of 5.9 million, is now hosting one million registered refugees from Syria, according to the United Nations. The one millionth refugee was registered on Wednesday, and some 2,500 new refugees are registered every day. In addition, it's thought that hundreds of thousands of additional Syrian refugees have entered the country illegally, and are not registered.
According to the United Nations, 9.5 million Syrians, about half the population, have fled from their homes, and 2.6 million have fled to other countries:
Due to the rapid deterioration of the economy and social structure in Lebanon, especially near the Syrian border, the United Nations is "making a conceptual shift in its focus" from a purely short-term humanitarian effort to a long-term effort to develop and instill "resilience." This means that instead of just providing aid to individual refugees, the U.N. will help develop employment opportunities and improve infrastructure and basic services.
However, a humanitarian analyst opposes the change in focus, because it would dilute resources:
"I think what’s a problem is when you have an emergency setting and humanitarian actors get bogged down in also dealing with development responses.If you see someone drowning you don’t start a project to build a jetty."
Prosecutors in Lebanon on Friday charged two militants with being tied to a jihadist group that have targeted military positions several times, including a recent suicide car bomb that killed three soldiers. The militants are charged with being members of the Syrian-based al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra (the Islamic Front). Al-Nusra is one of the rebel groups fighting Syria's Shia/Alewite president Bashar al-Assad, who is systematically targeting Sunni civilians.
This is the latest action by Lebanon's government to fend off a growing threat by al-Nusra to attack Lebanese government and army targets, and particularly Hezbollah, the Shia terrorist group funded by Iran. This was a shift in al-Nusra's strategy last year, after Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah announced that Hezbollah soldiers will be entering Syria to fight alongside the Syrian army to target Sunni civilians and rebels. Al-Nusra is also claiming that the government and army are allied with Hezbollah, and so should be targeted as well.
Since then there's been a string of terrorist gunfights and bombings by al-Nusra terrorists in Lebanon. But new security reports that a large number of al-Nusra militants are taking advantage of the large influx of refugees from Syria to infiltrate Lebanon in the last few days. These fighters have scattered to several refugee camps, while some are residing in secret apartments. Reports indicate that they have already rigged several stolen cars with explosives, which they plan to use on Hezbollah targets. Reuters and Daily Star (Lebanon)
It's hard to know what to say about U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. He burst onto the scene in 1971 when he declared to the Senate that U.S. Army soldiers were no better than Nazi stormtroopers, and he's been belittling the army and the United States ever since.
His appointment as Secretary of State was laughable from the beginning, but was possible only because the President believes that war is outmoded, and that he's uniquely able to end war forever, at the same time that he's healing the earth and rolling back the tides, because of his community organizer skills. John Kerry and President Obama have made fools of themselves and the United States with one debacle after another -- in Egypt, in Afghanistan, in Syria, in Lebanon, in Crimea, in Iran. It seems that there is almost no foreign policy issue that hasn't been made worse by some sort of clueless botching by this Administration.
Last July, Kerry used several carrots and sticks to get the Israelis and Palestinians to begin new "peace talks," which I and many other people said were completely pointless. The talks have gone on for nine months, and were considered a joke in the Mideast. Now, on Friday, Kerry said the following:
"Regrettably in the last few days both sides have taken steps that are not helpful.There are limits to the amount of time and effort that the United States can spend if the parties themselves are unwilling to take constructive steps. So it’s reality check time."
He's making himself the victim here. Poor John and Barack went to all this trouble, but nobody ever listens to them. If people only listened, Obama and Kerry could heal the Mideast and the world. So now it's "reality check time."
This Administration lives in a dream world where reality hasn't played much of a part. So it's hard to know what kind of "reality check" plans Kerry will make, but there's no reason to believe that they will reflect any more reality than they have in the past. Bloomberg and NY Daily News
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 5-Apr-14 World View -- Sunni jihadists in Lebanon prepare for war with Hezbollah thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(5-Apr-2014)
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Chicago has coldest winter on record
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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The average temperature in Chicago over the last four months was 22 degrees Fahrenheit, with a record 26 days at or below zero, and over 80 inches of snow, making 2013-04 the coldest winter on record. The second coldest winter was 1903-04, when the average temperature was 22.3.
Weather forecasts for the early spring are for below average temperatures. CBS Chicago
Israel has canceled the release from Israeli jails of the last of the four groups of Palestinian prisoners who has been convicted of terrorist acts prior to the 1994 Oslo accords. Releasing these prisoners, whom Palestinian officials refer to as "political prisoners," was a pre-condition to getting Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas to agree to participate in the "peace talks" that the Obama administration and Secretary of State John Kerry had been pushing last month.
The last batch of prisoners was scheduled for releast last week on Friday, and the self-imposed deadline for the "peace talks" to reach a conclusion is April 29. But both sides have been playing brinkmanship with the April 29 date approaching. Abbas demanded that hundreds more prisoners be released. Then Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu delayed last Friday's prison release. On Wednesday, Abbas applied to 15 United Nations agencies as the State of Palestine. Now, on Thursday, Netanyahu has canceled the prisoner release permanently. Whether these actions on both sides are final or temporary negotiating tactics is not known.
Kerry is said to be very downcast. He was very optimistic nine months ago, thinking that he and President Obama, the latter being the smartest person in the room, no matter what the room, thought that they would become the greatest politicians in history by bringing peace to the Mideast. But now Kerry is quoted as saying that there's nothing more he can do, and adds, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink." The "peace talks" were never anything more than a show anyway, and were considered a joke throughout the Mideast.
I've been writing about this for over ten years, since May 2003 when President George Bush issued his "Mideast Roadmap to Peace." From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, peace in the Mideast is impossible, and that the Arabs and the Jews will be re-fighting their genocidal war that began last time in 1947 with the partitioning of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel. The traumatized survivors of that war spent their lives doing everything they could to keep anything so horrible from happening to the children and grandchildren, and they succeeded in that. But now almost all of those survivors are gone, with the major exception being Mahmoud Abbas himself, and the younger generations have no hesitancy in risking steps that could spiral into all out war. When Abbas retires or dies, then the last major obstacle to such a war will be removed.
The smartest man in the room thinks that he can heal the earth, roll back the tides, and bring peace to the Mideast because he believes that politicians control events. As I've said many 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. Thus, Hitler was not the cause of WW II. 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. I invoked this principal in my report three days ago when I wrote that the Russian public may force president Vladimir Putin to order the invasion of Ukraine:
"The Russian people are experiencing passions of ferocious intensity to achieve victories that prove Russia's "greatness." If Putin is forced to back down in any way in Ukraine, it could be politically disastrous for him. Instead, he may have to find a way to maximize the "shock and awe" from his next strike."
In the case of the Mideast, a peace deal will be blocked not by the politicians but by the people, especially young people. Young people in Palestinian militias, in Gaza, or in Palestinian refugee camps, for example, will never go along with any "peace agreement." Israel has populations of settlers who refuse to give up their settlement homes, populations of Orthodox Jews who believe that control of the region is their sacred destiny, and populations of ordinary people that fear that a "peace deal" would only mean more terrorist attacks on Israel.
So from the point of view of Generational Dynamics, a Mideast peace deal really is impossible. BBC and Daily Times (Pakistan)
Freeing prisoners in exchange for "peace talks" seems to be the theme in Pakistan, as well as in the Mideast. The Taliban announced a one-month ceasefire on March 1, nominally to give "peace talks" with the government a chance.
The Pakistani Taliban (Tehrik-e-Taliban - TTP) have been demanding that hundreds of Taliban militants being help in Pakistan's jailed be freed, in exchange for continuing the "peace talks." Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has consistently denied that he would agree to release prisoners, but on Thursday it emerged that he's been releasing Taliban prisoners all along -- three on March 21, five on March 25th, and 11 on March 28. The prisoners are described as "non-combatants."
Early on Thursday, a government spokesman said, "The government has neither released any Taliban prisoner nor the prime minister gave any approval for any such measure," but later in the day it emerged that Sharif had personally authorized the release of the 19 prisoners, and is considered the release of hundreds more. Sharif kept the release secret from the public because of massive pressure from the military establishment, who oppose the release of TTP prisoners because of their alleged involvement in terror attacks across the country.
The Generational Dynamics principles that I discussed above with respect to the Mideast "peace talks" also apply here. It's generations of people, not the politicians, that decide great events, and Sharif's confused flip-flops illustrate the problem. Many in the public support, or at least passively support, the TTP, even when they conduct a terrorist attack in someone else's back yard, and choose to believe that the United States involvement in Afghanistan is the reason for the terrorist attacks. They're hopin' and prayin' that when the U.S. withdraws later this year, then the attacks will stop. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, this cannot happen. Pakistan and India are headed for a massive war, re-fighting one of the worst wars of the century, the genocidal war between Hindus and Muslims that followed the 1947 partitioning of the Indian subcontinent into the nations of Pakistan and India. Daily Times (Pakistan)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 4-Apr-14 World View -- Israel cancels the fourth prisoner release, jeopardizing 'peace talks' thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(4-Apr-2014)
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France's Ségolène Royal gets revenge over Hollande's last girlfriend
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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After last Sunday's election, when François Hollande's Socialist Party did very poorly, Hollande has been forced to reshuffle his cabinet. And now he's appointed Ségolène Royal to the cabinet, to be the French Minister of the Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy.
Royal was Hollande's girlfriend for 30 years, and mother of his four children, but they broke up in 2007, when Hollande took up with a new girlfriend, Valérie Trierweiler. Royal and Trierweiler obviously didn't get along, and had open spats in the last year. But Hollande's relationship with Trierweiler ended dramatically in January, when reporters from a magazine called Closer published 7 pages of photographs of Hollande's late night trysts with a young actress, Julie Gayet. So now, with Trierweiler out of the picture, Royal is back in Hollande's life in a big way. However, spokesmen from Hollande's administration deny his past relationships with Trierweiler or Royal have anything to do with Royal's appointment, which is based solely and purely and exclusively on her professional qualifications.
Meanwhile, Julie Gayet has done quite well for herself. She sued Closer magazine for breach of privacy, and the court has just awarded her 15,000 euros. AP and Euro News
One of the ironies of the Ukraine crisis is that, on the one hand, Russia's president Vladimir Putin is referring to Kiev's government as "fascists," while on the other hand, Putin is courting European politicians with views that range from center-right to far right to ultranational to fascist. (The phrase "far right" has a different meaning in Europe and America.) However, in most cases, what unites these far right European politicians is less that they love Putin and Russia and more that they despise the European Union.
The supporters of Hungary's Jobbik party call it patriotic and Christian, while its opponents call it everything from anti-Semitic to fascist. According to spokesman Marton Gyongyosi, "We have an interest in seeing a growing Russia that has in a very interesting way defended its own interests, and which has basically created some counter weight to the west." According to Gyongyosi, Russia is fighting for the rights of ethnic minorities in Ukraine, including the Hungarian minority of the Lower Carpathians. He says that the EU does not ensure minority rights, as ethnic Hungarians suffer a major deprivation in Slovakia and Romania alike.
Marine Le Pen, leader of France's Front National party, which did very well in last Sunday's nationwide municipal elections, was quoted quoted favorably on Voice of Russia radio as supporting Russia’s rights in Crimea. At a meeting in Moscow in January, Le Pen argued that "France is not a democracy" and praised Putin for saving Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Her colleague, Frederick Chatillon, accuses Syria's misfortunes on a "Zionist lobby." And in Britain, the UKIP leader Nigel Farage has spoken admiringly of Putin in recent days, though not directly in relation to Ukraine.
In view of all this, Moscow's denunciation of Ukraine's right-wing movements, Svoboda and Pravyi Sektor, is all the more interesting. jobbik.com and Jamestown and Al Jazeera and Voice of Russia (trans) and ImRussia (trans)
The violence in the Central African Republic (CAR) is increasing, and is moving in a new direction, according to the United Nations. There are increased tensions and clashes between the (Christian) anti-Balaka militias versus the (Muslim) Chadian soldiers in the African Union peacekeeping force (MISCA). On Saturday, 24 people were killed and 100 injured when Chadian forces fired indiscriminately into a crowd. On Monday, an anti-Balaka element threw a grenade at Chadian soldiers, before being killed by French troops.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, CAR is headed for a massive, genocidal generational crisis war, which will be just as bloody as the generational crisis war that occurred in Rwanda in 1994. It's becoming increasingly evident that this war will go beyond a civil war between Muslims and Christians in CAR, and will end up involving both French and MISCA peacekeeping forces as active participants in the war. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon is calling for a 12,000 soldier U.N peacekeeping force, but from the point of view of Generational Dynamics, this will have little effect in a population of 4.5 million, with the number of displaced people currently at 650,000 and increasing. UN OHCHR
Officials had originally hoped to confine the Ebola virus outbreak to a couple of small villages in southern Guinea, but it's continued to spread and has now invaded Conarky, the capital of Guinea. Conarky has a population of almost 2 million people, mostly crammed together in slums, so is the perfect breeding ground for the deadly virus. Panic is spreading throughout Guinea and north to the large Guinean population in Senegal, which has shut down its normally open border with Guinea. Ebola is extremely deadly and contagious, but passes from person to person only through bodily contact, so it's hoped that it can be stopped by encouraging people to use proper sanitation measures. USA Today
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 3-Apr-14 World View -- Russia's Vladimir Putin courts European far right and ultranationals thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(3-Apr-2014)
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Abbas applies to U.N. agencies as 'State of Palestine'
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday signed applications to join 15 international treaties and conventions as the "State of Palestine." In November, 2012, the U.N. General Assembly voted by an overwhelming majority to accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, lands Israel occupied in 1967. The intent is to force Israel back to its 1949 borders. It's thought that Abbas, as leader of Palestine, plans to bring charges to the International Criminal Court accusing Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity. It's unclear whether Abbas's dramatic announcement was a negotiating tactic in the Mideast "peace process," or signaled a fundamental shift in strategy. AP
For months, U.S. Secretary of State has been flying from one foreign policy debacle after another, and that records seems to have continued on Monday. Kerry left the Mideast and canceled meeting with Abbas after he failed to get agreement from both sides to continue the "peace process" after its deadline of April 29, even though, according to reports, he offered to set U.S. spy Jonathan Pollard free.
The Obama administration got these "peace talks" going last year by "convincing" the Israelis to release 104 prisoners from the jails. These prisoners had been convicted of terrorist acts prior to the 1994 Oslo accords. The release of these prisoners has been extremely controversial in Israel, with very vocal opposition from the family members of the people whom these terrorists had killed. The last batch of 26 prisoners were scheduled for release last week on Friday, but Israel has refused to release them, unless Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas agrees to extend the "peace talks" beyond April 29. Abbas in turn demanded that 1,000 more prisoners be released, including multiple murderers, and also demanded that Israel freeze settlements.
So Kerry made a special trip to the Mideast on Monday, apparently to convince Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to release the prisoners, and to sweeten the deal with the release of Jonathan Pollard. This has caused outrage in Washington from people who point out that Pollard is a major spy, and if he's going to be traded, he ought to be traded for something big -- like a Mideast peace deal. Instead, the offer is to trade him for almost nothing, just an agreement to keep the "peace talks" going for a few more months.
So we have the desperate Kerry running from his failed Ukraine peace talks to the Mideast to bribe Netanyahu to release the prisoners, who are being used as a bribe to get Abbas to continue the peace talks. This is so vomit-worthy, it's almost beyond belief, except that nothing is beyond belief these days.
Just to be clear, as we've said many times, the "peace talks" are a joke that never had any chance. Netanyahu will never agree to return to pre-1967 borders or "right of return," and Abbas will never agree to recognize Israel as a Jewish state or to guarantee Israel's security. According to some reports, the negotiators on the two sides never even met with each other, and the only people they spoke to was Kerry.
The "peace talks" were just for show, and now Kerry is trying to salvage them so he won't be responsible for yet one more debacle. So let's watch and see what the desperate Kerry and the Obama administration are going to give up next. NPR and Debka
We've written several times about major terrorist attacks across Egypt, with a Sinai terrorist group Ansar Jerusalem (Ansar Bayt al Maqdis or Champions of Jerusalem) claiming credit. Terror attacks have been on the increase since the army coup that ousted president Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood government on July 3 of last year, and Ansar Jerusalem has claimed credit for many of them. ( "17-Feb-14 World View -- Egypt's terrorism escalates with attack on tourist bus")
On March 19, Egyptian security forces raided a major bomb factory in the village of Arab Sharkas, on the outskirts of Cairo. In addition to a large cache of weapons and explosive belts, five tons of explosives were found, enough to destroy the dams that control the flow of the Nile river into the Delta. Eight terrorist cell members were arrested.
Interrogation and investigation revealed the following:
Terrorist groups have access to large quantities of heavy weapons from Libya. Egyptian security forces have been unable to obtain weapons, since the U.S. and Europe refuse to deliver arms shipments to Egypt. As a result, Egypt may be forced to turn to Russia for arms.
So, the western military intervention into Libya in 2011 was intended to save a massacre of civilians in Benghazi, but instead has made available large quantities of heavy weapons and explosives being used in Egypt and a number of other countries.
And the western military non-intervention in Syria, combined with Russia's unending shipments of heavy weapons to Syria's genocidal monster president Bashar al-Assad for use in exterminating innocent Sunni women and children, have turned Syria into a worldwide magnet for jihadists, who go for military and terrorist training and experience, to be used when they return to their home countries. Al-Ahram (Cairo) and Magharebia (US Africa Command) and Al Monitor (Washington)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 2-Apr-14 World View -- Egypt's terror cells get training in Syria and explosives from Libya thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(2-Apr-2014)
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U.S. desperately tries to salvage Mideast 'peace process'
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry departed Sunday's failed peace talks with Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, and flew to Jerusalem, where he has a "secret plan" to keep the Mideast "peace process" from collapsing on its scheduled end day, April 29. According to some reports, Kerry's plan is to go ahead with a previously rumored offer to the Israelis to release spy Jonathan Pollard, who has been in jail since 1987 for selling secrets to the Israelis. ( "25-Mar-14 World View -- U.S. may release Jonathan Pollard to keep Mideast peace talks going") This would presumably incentivize the Israelis to keep them from walking out of the hallucinatory "peace process," but it's not known what incentive Kerry plans to offer to the Palestinians to keep them from walking about. Arab News and Bloomberg
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was willing to agree to almost anything on Sunday, during his failed four hour conversation with Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, to convince the Russians to remove the tens of thousands of Russian troops from the Ukrainian border. Lavrov not only refused to agree to pull back the troops, he also demanded that Ukraine's government in Kiev rewrite the constitution to adopt a "federal" system. The federal system will essentially make each region of Ukraine a kind of independent republic, similar to what Crimea was before it was annexed by Russia. Kerry is so desperate that he would probably agree to this if it were up to him, but it isn't -- it's up to the government in Kiev, and they're not going to agree to this "federal" system.
With tens of thousands of Russian troops on the border with Ukraine, being supplied with plenty of food, clothing and spare parts, there is a great deal of concern that Russia's president Vladimir Putin will soon give the order to invade Ukraine.
However, some analysts are insisting that Russia won't invade, because they can't afford it. As weak as the Western sanctions on Russia have been, not much more stringent than preventing senior Russian politicians from visiting Disneyland, they actually are more effective than anyone really expected. The sanctions have already caused many investors to voluntarily move $60-70 billion of their money out of Russia, and it could be several hundred billion dollars by year's end. Russia's has been depending on oil sales, but those have been weak since the financial crisis, and the economy is already tanking. $100 billion in capital flight would be a disaster.
However, there are other forces at work here, and Putin may actually have no choice but to order an invasion. Putin's approval ratings have shot up to 75.7% among the Russian population, since the Crimean annexation. ( "21-Mar-14 World View -- Putin's approval ratings soar in Russia over Crimea annexation".) The Russian people are experiencing passions of ferocious intensity to achieve victories that prove Russia's "greatness." If Putin is forced to back down in any way in Ukraine, it could be politically disastrous for him. Instead, he may have to find a way to maximize the "shock and awe" from his next strike. Moscow Times and AFP and Jamestown
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 1-Apr-14 World View -- Russia demands a 'federal model' for Ukraine thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(1-Apr-2014)
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