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In Denmark you are now paid to take out a mortgage
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Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah gave a televised speech on Wednesday gloating about Wednesday's attack on an Israeli convoy that killed two soldiers. According to Nasrallah:
"If Israel thinks the resistance is deterred and is scared of a conflict, I tell you now after the attack in Qunetra, we are not afraid of war. We will not think twice about confronting the enemy and we will do so if he forces us.We don't want war but we don't fear it. The resistance in Lebanon is not concerned with rules of engagement. It is our legitimate and legal right to fight aggression, wherever and whenever it may occur."
It was a retaliation attack for Israel's January 18 airstrike at a convoy in Syria that killed two of Hezbollah's top commands, as well as five Iranians and a senior officer in Iran's élite Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC). It was feared that Hezbollah would demand additional revenge beyond the killing of two Israeli soldiers, or that Israel would strike back. Either way the fear was that something would spiral into a larger war, as had happened in 2006.
But in fact there had already been several reports that Hezbollah was signaling Israel that it was backing down and didn't want a war.
That Nasrallah wanted to back down is completely believable. As we explained two days ago, the Lebanese people are unified in being opposed to another war between Israel and Hezbollah, since the 2006 war accomplished nothing but to make like miserable in Lebanon.
In addition, Hezbollah is completely tied down in Syria. It's undoubtedly true that Nasrallah would like to be responsible for killing a few Jews, but his behavior indicates that he's much more excited by the possibility of massacring and slaughtering thousands of Muslims in Syria.
As I've been reporting for a few weeks, the real war going on in the Mideast today is not Muslims versus Westerners, but Muslims versus Muslims. The same is true in South Asia and North Africa. We have major terror attacks in Egypt and Pakistan (see below), as well as news that Chad is bombing Boko Haram positions in Cameroon. This large war of Muslims versus Muslims is growing in many countries, including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Nigeria, Mali, and others to a greater or lesser extent. Daily Star (Beirut) and Times of Israel
Although the Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria (IS or ISIS or ISIL) gets most of the press these days, thanks to their beheadings and other publicity stunts, there are still other groups fighting in Syria, and one those fights is said to be spreading. The al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front) and Western-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) are both supposed to be fighting against the army of Syria's Bashar al-Assad regime but, instead, they're fighting each other. The clashes began on Thursday, just west of Aleppo, and on Friday spread into Idlib province.
However, Ahrar al-Sham, another Islamist militia in Syria, has worked with both groups in the past, and is calling for an end to the clashes, and said the disagreement should be settled in an independent Shariah court. Daily Star (Beirut)
A powerful explosion leveled a crowded Shia mosque during Friday prayers in Shikarpur, a city 200 miles north of Karachi in southern Pakistan. At least 56 people were killed. Jundullah, a splinter group of Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP - Pakistan Taliban) claimed credit: "Our target was the Shia mosque ... They are our enemies."
TTP and its various splinter groups have in the past attacked both Sunni and Shia targets, but Jundullah has specialized in sectarian attacks against Shias. Some of these targets have been on Iranian soil, though most have been in Pakistan. Some analysts are warning that sectarian attacks are increasing in Pakistan, at a time when Muslim versus Muslim attacks of all kinds are increasing throughout the region. Daily Times (Pakistan) and AFP
After Thursday's sophisticated multi-location North Sinai terrorist attack by the ISIS-linked terror group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (ABM - Ansar Jerusalem - Champions of Jerusalem) killing 31 people and injuring dozens, Egypt's president Abdel al-Fattah al-Sisi is under heavy criticism. There was a similar terrorist attack by the same group last October, leading al-Sisi to declare a state of emergency in the Sinai, and to build a one kilometer wide buffer zone along the Gaza border, and yet ABM apparently defeated the security measures with ease.
Al-Sisi has cut short his participation in the African Union summit in Ethiopia to deal with the aftermath of the terror attack, and Egypt's army is starting wide military offensives throughout North Sinai, targeting terrorist hideouts using Apache helicopters and un-manned planes.
There is a feeling in Egypt that the harsh security measures that were taken after the October attacks have backfired, in the sense that the Bedouins living in Sinai have become even more estranged from Cairo. Al Ahram (Cairo)
Greece's new Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis met with the Eurogroup of eurozone finance managers, and quickly announced that the meeting was over. Varoufakis said that Greece did not want an extension to meet the bailout conditions, and he said that he wanted to meet with European leaders, not with technicians the "Troika" of organizations that have been bailing out Greece -- the European Commission (EC), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Greece is supposed to receive an additional seven billion euro loan at the end of February in order to made debt payments that will come due in March. Greece needs to make those payments or else declare bankruptcy and leave the eurozone. However, that money is dependent upon a review by the Troika, and Varoufakis said he would not negotiate with the Troika. Varoufakis says that Greece doesn't want the money, because it would be used to pay for things they don't care about -- namely their debts. Instead, Varoufakis wants to negotiate directly with European heads of state and negotiate staying the eurozone without going bankrupt and without leaving the eurozone.
After the meeting, eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem said, "Taking unilateral steps or ignoring previous arrangements is not the way forward." Greek Reporter and Kathimerini
As we've been reporting for some time, Europe is in a deflationary spiral which will end in a major financial panic and crisis. Now we have a new sign: Nordea Kredit, a Danish bank, is offering a mortgage with a negative interest rate -- which means that the bank lends you the money, and then pays you interest. Actually, the interest rate can vary from +0.03% to -0.03%, so not everyone will qualify for negative interest rates, but a mortgage rate of +0.03% is not that much anyway.
In a deflationary spiral, most people and businesses postpone purchases and hoard cash. Hoarding cash is socially acceptable for a residential family, but not for a bank, which is expected to lend money for business loans and mortgages. And now, with the European Central Bank planning a massive quantitative easing program, which will "print" a lot of money and pump it into banks and the stock market, banks are expected to get rid of that cash any way they can, and now we're seeing the first negative rate mortgage.
The deflationary spiral in the U.S. is not advanced as far as it is in Europe, but it's coming. Zero Hedge
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 31-Jan-15 World View -- Hezbollah backs down from war with Israel thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(31-Jan-2015)
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Greece forces compromise in planned new EU sanctions against Russia
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At least 26 people were killed and 105 injured on Thursday in a series of four coordinated terror attacks in Egypt's northern Sinai. The attacks involved car bombs and mortar rounds. They targeted army and police personnel, but civilians were killed as well.
The terror group "Sinai Province" claimed credit for the attack. The group used to be named Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (ABM - Ansar Jerusalem - Champions of Jerusalem) and was linked to al-Qaeda, but late last year pledged its allegiance to the Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria (IS or ISIS or ISIL), and changed its name to "Sinai Province."
In October of last year, ABM used a car bomb to kill 33 Egyptian troops in northern Sinai, causing Egypt's president Abdel al-Fattah al-Sisi to declare a state of emergency in the Sinai peninsula to last three months, with a curfew in force between 5 pm and 7 am. That curfew expired a few days ago, but was renewed for another three months. ( "26-Oct-14 World View -- Egypt in state of emergency after terrorist attack in Sinai")
In addition to declaring a state of emergency, Egypt closed the border with Gaza, and began building a kilometer-wide buffer zone along the border the Gaza. The buffer zone has received a great deal of criticism because it required thousands of Egyptians to leave their homes and relocate. However, al-Sisi may now announce more extreme new measures to combat terrorism. Al Ahram (Cairo) and Reuters
With Greece's new radical far-left prime minister Alexis Tsipras questioning EU sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, Russia is considering financial aid to Greece. According to Russia's Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, Greece has not yet requested assistance from Russia, but a request would be considered:
"Well, we can imagine any situation, so if such [a] petition is submitted to the Russian government, we will definitely consider it, but will take into account all the factors of our bilateral relationships between Russia and Greece, so that is all I can say. If it is submitted we will consider it."
Both Russia and Greece are Orthodox Christian countries, and have a long history of economic and cultural ties, and of course the Nazis invaded both countries during World War II. Almost 13% of Greek imports came from Russia in 2013, according to the IMF. CNBC and CNN
Last week, ethnic Russians in east Ukraine, backed by heavy weapons and possibly thousands of soldiers from Russia, launched an attack on the port city of Mariupol, although so far they've held back from an all-out assault on Mariupol. It's assumed that Russia's objective is to create a land bridge between Russia and Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia invaded, occupied and annexed last year.
In view of this new military attack, the European Union in Brussels issued a statement saying that all 28 EU nations agreed that Russia "bears responsibility" for the attack on Mariupol. On Tuesday, however, the new Greek government issued a statement that
"[The EU statement] was released without the prescribed procedure to obtain consent by the member states, and particularly without ensuring the consent of Greece. In this context, it is underlined that Greece does not consent to this statement."
Hungary, Slovakia, and Austria had also voiced objections earlier. These are the countries whose economies are most negatively affected by the anti-Russia sanctions.
The result was an emergency meeting on Brussels on Thursday. Although the Russian sanctions were a completely separate issue from the bailout of Greece, one EU official implied that they might be linked:
"You just cannot, on the one hand, demand from Europe to show solidarity with your own country like Mr. Tsipras does and then, as a first official step, split the joint European position."
So Greece's Finance Minister said on his blog that it was all just a big misunderstanding:
"The problem was that [Alexis Tsipras], and the new Greek government, were never asked! So, clearly, the issue was not whether our new government agrees or not with fresh sanctions on Russia. The issue is whether our view can be taken for granted without even being told of what it is!"
At Thursday's meeting, EU extended the existing sanctions on Russian officials until September but, at Greece's insistence, did not add anyone new to the list of sanctioned individuals. Greece indicated that it was prepared to use its veto to block sanctions in the future. Reuters and Russia Today and Greek Reporter and Kathimerini
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 30-Jan-15 World View -- ISIS-linked terrorists kill dozens in Egypt's northern Sinai thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(30-Jan-2015)
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Israel promises revenge after Hezbollah attack kills two soldiers
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On his first days on the job, Greece's new Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras moved quickly to implement costly government programs that Brussels and Germany have warned him against. Wednesday's announcements included halting the sale of the state-owned Public Power Corporation of Greece (PPC), halting the privatization of the port of Piraeus, raising pensions for those on low incomes, and reinstating some fired public service workers.
The Athens Stock Market index plunged 4%, with bank stocks falling over 12%. The Greek 10-year bond yield was at an unsustainable 10.3%, meaning that Greece would have to pay 10.3% interest to anyone willing to lend it money.
As if that weren't enough, Tsipras delivered what one commentator called "another 'up yours' to the Germans": He visited the National Resistance Memorial at Kaisariani where, on May 1, 1944, German Nazi forces executed 200 Greek citizens, mostly Communists.
In a recent article ( "26-Jan-15 World View -- Alexis Tsipras' far-left Syriza party wins historic election in Greece"), I asked whether Greece's new far left prime minister Alexis Tsipras would be pragmatic, seeking an agreement with Brussels and Germany, or delusional, believing that he can bully the Europeans into accepting huge new spending programs by Greece's government. After Tsipras' first days on the job, it appears that he's heading in the direction of being delusional. Kathimerini and Guardian (London)
In the worst Hezbollah attack on Israel since the two were at war in 2006, Hezbollah fired anti-tank missiles at a convoy of Israeli military vehicles in Shebaa Farms in Israeli-occupied southern Lebanon. The attack killed two soldiers and injuring several others. Israel responded by firing at least 25 artillery shells into Lebanon. Apparently, one of these artillery shells killed a Spanish member of the UN peacekeeping force that's supposed to separate Hezbollah from Israeli forces.
According to a statement from Hezbollah:
"At 11:25 [Wednesday morning] the Qunaitra Martyrs unit targeted with appropriate missile weapons an Israeli military convoy comprising several vehicles and [transporting] Zionist officers and soldiers causing the destruction of several vehicles and inflicting many casualties on the enemy."
Hezbollah made it clear that the attack was made in revenge for a January 18 Israeli airstrike at a convoy in Syria that killed two of Hezbollah's top commands, as well as five Iranians and a senior officer in Iran's élite Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC). However, it's feared that Hezbollah will demand additional revenge beyond the killing of two Israeli soldiers.
Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that "Those behind the attack today will pay the full price," and compared the situation to the run-up to summer's Gaza war:
"To anyone who tries to challenge us on the northern border, I suggest that they look at what happened here, at the Gaza Strip. Last summer Hamas took the hardest blow ever since its establishment and the IDF is ready to act, with might, in all sectors. Security is above all."
Ron Prosor, Israel's ambassador to the UN Security Council, said that Hezbollah is violating the Security Council resolution that was passed following the 2006 war, which demands the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon:
"For years, Hezbollah has been stockpiling weapons in Southern Lebanon in violation of Security Council resolution 1701. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah regularly threatens Israel and his terrorist organization took responsibility for this morning’s attack. Hezbollah has the military capabilities, it has made its intentions clear, and this morning we saw the results.Israel will not stand by as Hezbollah targets Israelis. Israel will not accept any attacks on its territory and it will exercise its right to self-defense and take all necessary measures to protect its population."
Hezbollah and Israel have been building up to a new war ever since the 2006 war ended. The fear is that, with the heated rhetoric and tit-for-tat violence, the time will be now. Daily Star (Beirut) and Telegraph (London) and Algemeiner (New York)
In 2006, Hezbollah abducted two Israeli soldiers patrolling near the Lebanon border. Within four hours, Israel panicked and launched a full-scale war with Hezbollah, with no plan and no objectives. The war was a disaster for both Israel and Lebanon. Israel accomplished nothing but to destroy a great deal of Lebanon's infrastructure.
Some people in Lebanon favored Israel to win the 2006 war, and some favored Hezbollah. But once the war ended, all the people of Lebanon were united in not wanting anything like that to happen again. And so it became taboo for Hezbollah to provoke Israel again and risk another attack. Wednesday's attack breaks that taboo, and is the worst Hezbollah attack since the 2006 war.
The taboo was clearly stated in a Wednesday editorial in Beirut's Daily Star:
"Hezbollah’s reaction to Israel’s targeting of its convoy in Syria less than two weeks ago came as no big surprise Wednesday, as the resistance party was being pushed – both politically and physically – by Israel into a response. But it is imperative now that Hezbollah thinks of what is best for all of Lebanon, not just the party itself.The party has made it clear that the attack in the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms came in retaliation for Israel’s deadly attack on its convoy. And Iran – which also lost a general in the attack – sent a warning to Israel Tuesday. But in terms of Syria’s place within all this, amid the numerous attacks against it by Israel over the last few years – the latest one occurring early Wednesday morning – it still seems it is unable or unwilling to retaliate itself.
Israel cannot claim to have been shocked by Hezbollah’s response, which it surely expected. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and many close to him in government will indeed have welcomed Hezbollah’s response, for parliamentary elections in March are fast approaching, and war is always good for a hawkish leader’s ratings.
This is just one of the many reasons that Hezbollah must now act with wisdom, caution and also a degree of humbleness. It would do Israel too many favors now to escalate the situation on the border.
Hezbollah must think of the entire country, and not just its own interests and pride. Lebanon cannot afford the response that Israel is promising. The country is in such a precarious security position that a new conflict could prove disastrous."
The concern is that now that the taboo is broken, then the floodgates are open. (Sorry for the mixed metaphor.) Hezbollah's leaders may feel that they have not extracted enough revenge for Israel's January 18 attack, and Israeli leaders have already promised retaliation for Wednesday's attack. Even if neither side wishes a war, a war may occur anyway through miscalculation, as each side retaliates for the other side's previous retaliation. That's pretty much how last summer's Gaza war began, and it could happen again. Daily Star (Beirut)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 29-Jan-15 World View -- Greece's Alexis Tsipras escalates confrontation with Germany thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(29-Jan-2015)
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ISIS-linked group takes credit for hotel bombing in Tripoli Libya
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Militants linked to the Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria (IS or ISIS or ISIL) took credit for an attack on the the Corinthia Hotel, Libya's most elegant hotel, in the capital city Libya. The attack combined gunfire and a grenade. Of the nine people killed, five were foreigners, including American, one Frenchman, and the rest from unspecified Asian countries.
In the 2011 civil war that ousted Muammar Gaddafi, the United States "led from behind" in a Nato operation that aided anti-Gaddafi tribes. Many of these tribes were united in overthrowing Gaddafi, but afterwards splintered into two loose confederations. The government in the west is Libya Dawn, with Islamists and militia from the Misrata region, in control of Tripoli. The second government is the internationally recognized government, headquartered in Tobruk in the east. In addition, an al-Qaeda linked terrorist group, Ansar al-Sharia, is operating in Libya with headquarters in Benghazi, where it was responsible for the attack that killed American ambassador J. Christopher Stevens in 2012. In recent months, a number of individuals in Libya have pledged themselves to ISIS, and have traveled to Syria for terrorist training. Some may already have returned.
The 2011 Nato operation did not pacify Libya, and so Gaddafi would have to be acknowledged as correct when he warned that Libya would descend into chaos if he were ousted. Even worse, there was no follow-on from Nato, and huge storehouses of Gaddafi's weapons were left unprotected, and those weapons have spread throughout Northern Africa and beyond, via al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
However, it must be noted that Libya is in a generational Crisis era, and that conflicts between militias began well before the ouster of Gaddafi. Indeed, it was one of those conflicts that led to the civil war in which Nato intervened. We can never know what would have happened in Libya if Nato had not intervened, but in view of Libya's generational timeline, it's quite likely that Libya would have sunk as deeply into chaos as it did with the Nato intervention.
The war in Libya is becoming more violent every day. As I've been reporting for several weeks, there is a large and growing Muslim versus Muslim war already in progress, not just in Libya, but across North Africa, the Mideast and South Asia. This war is of historic proportions, and will affect all of us. Reuters and CNN
Just as there are now two competing governments in Libya, there are also two competing national oil corporations, with oil tankers and pipelines becoming war targets. Libya holds the largest oil reserves in Africa, and in good times has produced up to 1.6 million barrels of oil per day. Since its militia wars began, however, daily production has dropped as low as 200,000 barrels. However, the oil production began to fall long before the civil war that ousted Gaddafi, thanks to conflicts between militias during Muammar Gaddafi's reign. VOA and Reuters
Russia's financial crisis deepened on Monday, as ratings agency Standard & Poors cut Russia's rating to BB+, which is junk status. The move had been widely anticipated, but the value of the ruble fell 6% against the dollar. Russia is still at investment grade with the two other major ratings agency, Moody's and Fitch, although many analysts expect them also to lower Russia's rating to junk status in the near future.
Russia's financial troubles stem from years of generous spending programs based on an oil price of $100-120 per barrel, as oil production is Russia's biggest industry. But facing oil prices now below $50 per barrel, and with no spare industrial capacity because of lack of industrial investment in the last two decades, Russia has no way to generate foreign reserves. Add to that, the Ukrainian invasion has turned out to be very expensive, and the Western sanctions have made it almost impossible for Russian entities to borrow money. The result is that Russians are moving their dollar-denominated accounts and assets to other countries, fearing that their bank accounts might be frozen. The result is that Russia's economy is in a downward spiral, with no visible way of recovering. Moscow Times and Forbes
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 28-Jan-15 World View -- S&P lowers Russia's bonds to junk status thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(28-Jan-2015)
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Australian backlash grows over knighthood for Queen Elizabeth's husband
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Kurdish forces announced on Monday a major victory over the Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria (IS or ISIS or ISIL), having driven all ISIS forces out of Kobani Syria, a town strategically located on the border with Turkey.
The battle over Kobani dominated news coverage for a while starting in summer of last year because ISIS had committed so many of its men, weapons and other resources to capturing the town, largely occupied by Kurds. Syrian PYD Kurdish militias were losing ground to ISIS, even with the help of daily American warplane strikes. Tens of thousands of Kobani refugees were pouring into Turkey as refugees.
Note: Peshmerga = Kurdish militias in Iraq. PYD = Kurdish militias in Syria. PKK = Kurdish anti-government insurgents in Turkey.
Then, in October, Turkey had a major policy reversal, and announced that it would, after all, allow Iraqi peshmerga Kurdish militias to cross the border from Iraq into Turkey, travel over Turkish soil, and then cross the border into Kobani in Syria. This was a big problem for Turkey, and actually caused a political rift, because Turkey has fought an insurgency by PKK Kurdish insurgents in Turkey over the last two decades. So it was a surprise when Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced in October that this would be permitted. The peshmerga forces from Iraq were heavily armed, and their aid to the PYD are now given credit for turning the tide in the battle of Kobani.
Numerous analysts have stated that the U.S. administration's announced military strategy of airstrikes-only, without "boots on the ground," has no chance of pushing back ISIS. The battle of Kobani is actually an example of the kind of battle that these analysts have been describing as necessary, but with Kurdish peshmerga forces supplying the boots. However, there is no other publicly-declared example of US-led forces closely coordinating militarily with a ground force to battle ISIS.
The withdrawal of ISIS from Kobani raises the question of what ISIS is going to do next with the forces that have become available. Zaman (Turkey) and Cihan (Turkey) and Zaman (Turkey)
Turkey on Sunday opened its biggest refugee camp to house 35,000 people fleeing from the fighting in Kobani. There are 1.7 Syrian refugees in Turkey, of which 200,000 have come from Kobani. The majority of the refugees live outside camps, sometimes on the streets and in shantytowns, creating tensions with the local population. Turkey has some 24 camps, housing 265,000 Syrian refugees. Zaman (Turkey)
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Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott has awarded Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, with an Australian knighthood, the country's highest honor. Prince Philip is the husband of Queen Elizabeth, who is Australia's ruling monarch in name only.
According to Australia's Defense Minister Kevin Andrews, Prince Philip's contribution to Australia has been "phenomenal":
"It doesn't cost us anything to give him this award. How else do we say, in a sense, thank you to someone who's given six decades of public service? I think it's a phenomenal contribution. He's still doing it in his 90s now and I think we should just be generous about it."
However, many MPs were angered and dismayed by the award. One said that the award was "a stupid announcement" and "manifestly amazing in the worst possible way." Another said, "I thought it was wackily quaint and anachronistic. But now it's just become an acute embarrassment, just plainly ridiculous." Australian Broadcasting
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 27-Jan-15 World View -- Kurdish militias drive ISIS out of the Syrian town of Kobani thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(27-Jan-2015)
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Is Greece's Alexis Tsipras pragmatic or delusional?
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The girlfriend (or common law wife) of 40 year old Alexis Tsipras, Greece's new Prime Minister, seems to be a perfect fit for him. They're both good looking, and they share common radical far left political beliefs.
38 year old Peristera (Betty) Baziana was an activist in the Greek Communist Party Youth in high school, where she met Tsipras, and joined him protests and school occupations. They've lived together for 17 years, but don't believe in marriage. Their first son, Pavlos, was born in May 2010. Their second son was born in June 2012, and was named Orpheus and Ernesto, after Ché Guevara, a hero of Tsipras. Greek Reporter
Greece's radical far left politician Alexis Tsipras has led his Syriza party to victory in what is being called a historic election, because of its implications for Europe and the eurozone. Tsipras's campaign slogan had been "Hope is coming!" In a victory speech reminiscent of Barack Obama's 2008 victory speech, when he promised that the world would be a different place on January 21, the day after he took office, Tsipras promised that "the period of austerity" is over:
"Greece leaves behinds catastrophic austerity, it leaves behind fear and authoritarianism, it leaves behind five years of humiliation and anguish.Our priority from the very first day will be to deal with the big wounds left by the crisis. Our foremost priority is that our country and our people regain their lost dignity."
Leftists were dancing in the streets in Athens when the first exit poll results were announced, and they were joined by visitor from left-wing parties in Italy, Germany, Spain and elsewhere. Voters were reacting to huge budget cuts and heavy tax rises during six years of crisis that has sent unemployment over 25 percent and pushed millions into poverty.
Here are some of the promises that Tsipras made during the campaign:
As I wrote several times during the various Greek crisis periods of the past years, there is no solution to Greece's debt problem. Saying this did not require a crystal ball; it simply required doing some simple arithmetic. As we'll discuss further below, obvious truths are simply ignored by everyone, when they're not part of the narrative or either the left wing or the right wing. Now Tsipras has come up with his own non-solution.
Greece has already received some 240 billion euros in bailout loans. It needs an additional 10-20 billion euros in loans this year, starting in March, just to avoid bankruptcy -- and that assumes that the austerity measures are kept in place. With Tsipras's spending splurge, that figure could easily go up to 30-50 billion euros. Are Greece's creditors, including the IMF and Germany, going to lend that kind of money to Greece to fund a spending splurge? The question answers itself.
However, there's another side to this, and this is probably what Tsipras is counting on. Tsipras's Syriza is an umbrella party for a number of far-left, communist and marxist policies, who will not tolerate any compromise by Tsipras. So Tsipras will go to Brussels and say, "Hey help me out guys. If you don't give me the 50 billion euros I need, then my government will collapse, Greece will be forced to leave the eurozone, and that will be a disaster for you guys, because you need Greece more than Greece needs you." Kathimerini and BBC
The neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, which has in the past demanded that anyone not of Greek ancestry be deported from Greece, has come in third place in the voting, at 6.3%. This is behind Syriza, at 36%, and New Democracy, at 28.2%. New Democracy is headed by the departing prime minister Antonis Samaras, and was the governing party until this election.
This is a remarkable showing for Golden Dawn, despite the fact that the party's leader and most of its lawmakers are behind bars, facing charges of participating in a "criminal organization" accused of murders, brutal attacks on migrants and others, extortion and arson. These crimes include the Sept. 2013 murder of a leftist rapper, Pavlos Fyssas. AP and Kathimerini
I've told this story several times over the years, but it's highly relevant today:
When I heard Obama campaigning in 2008, saying that with his election the earth would heal and the tides would recede, and making other ridiculous promises, I didn't think much of it, since politicians always say ridiculous things when they're campaigning, and then they pull them back after the election.
After the election, when I heard Obama continue saying the same things, that the world would be a different place starting on January 21, then I knew we were in trouble, and the thought that came into my mind was, "Holy crap! If he really believes his campaign rhetoric, then he must be delusional." Since then, Obama has had one foreign policy disaster after another.
So now Greece's Alexis Tsipras is in the same situation, following an election in which his major campaign promises were, in effect: "After I'm elected, 2+2 will equal 5."
Now, it really doesn't matter whether Tsipras is the greatest orator in the world, or the most charismatic leader in the world, or the smartest person in the world, or the best politician in the world. 2+2 does not equal 5, and never will equal 5. Just as Obama blames the Republicans and Fox News for 2+2 not equaling 5, Tsipras will blame his political opposition in Athens, his political opposition in Brussels, the "Nazi" Germans, the European Central Bank (ECB), or the International Monetary Fund (IMF). But no matter whom he blames, 2+2 will never equal 5.
Tsipras and Obama both have a common personality type that I began writing about frequently in 2007 (See "The nihilism and self-destructiveness of Generation X.") I've seen this personality type frequently, almost always among Gen-Xers, not only in politicians, journalists and other public figures, but also in the computer industry, where I've personally seen it lead to disaster, as well as in my personal life.
I've written about many examples of this in the 12 years I've been developing Generational Dynamics. In the mid-2000s, it was perfectly obvious that there was a huge housing bubble, and I wrote about it constantly. I sold my own condo in November 2005, at the height of the bubble. But the problem is that a housing bubble does not fit the ideological narrative of either liberals or conservatives, and so the delusion was massive. Mainstream financial analysts, economists and journalists would say, "Housing prices can't go down -- people have to live somewhere," and "Banks won't foreclose -- it's not in their interest to do so" and "These housing construction firms know what they're doing, and they wouldn't be building houses if it were just a bubble." It wasn't until 2009 that mainstream economists began saying that there had been a housing bubble years earlier. Duh!
The personality type that I'm describing is common today in Generation-Xers, who drive public opinion, and I've seen in many of them the two major characteristics of someone with this personality type:
This is why such people are delusional. When a decision leads to bad results, it must be because other people are sabotaging it, and since the decision could not possibly have been bad, he doubles down on it. He knows with absolute certainty that 2+2=5, and when it doesn't turn out that way, then other people are to blame, and he has to take additional steps to force 2+2 to be 5, which it never can be. Those additional steps create the disaster.
As an example, one disaster in the last decade was the financial crisis that followed from the collapse of the housing bubble that didn't even exist because everyone has to live somewhere.
So in the days and weeks ahead, we're going to see whether or not the radical left Tsipras is pragmatic or delusional. If he proceeds pragmatically, if he works for some compromise that everyone, including Brussels, the ECB, the IMF and the Germans, can go along with, thus ending the crisis, then he'll turn out to be an intelligent politician and leader, which will surprise a lot of people, most of all me.
But if he doubles down, and pursues a policy of blackmailing Brussels and the Germans, saying in effect "You need me more than I need you, the eurozone needs Greece more than Greece needs the euro, and so I can do whatever I want, and you'll have to go along with it," then we can anticipate the worst of all possible scenarios. Bloomberg
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 26-Jan-15 World View -- Alexis Tsipras' far-left Syriza party wins historic election in Greece thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(26-Jan-2015)
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Russians re-invade Ukraine, targeting Mariupol port city
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Measles was eliminated in the United States in 2000, but 71 new cases of measles have been reported in the last month. The number is expected to climb. Almost all of the measles patients had not received measles vaccinations, or had had only one of the two required vaccine shots.
62 of the cases were in California, with the rest in Utah, Washington, Colorado, Oregon, Arizona and Mexico. Almost all the patients had visited Disney theme parks in Anaheim around Christmas, or had contact with someone who had visited Disneyland.
The resurgence in measles is being blamed on the anti-vaccine movement -- people who are refusing to allow their children to be vaccinated. Many of them have refused vaccinations because they still believe now-discredited research linking the measles vaccine to autism.
In California, most of the measles cases are occurring in certain pockets, in places where there is a community reluctance to vaccinate.
The measles vaccine first became available in 1963, and had eliminated measles in the United States by 2000. But that announcement caused many parents to decide that it was no longer necessary to vaccinate their children, and now measles is reappearing. However, starting last year, the number of parents refusing to vaccinate their children declined slightly, and is expected to decline further this year. Mercury News (San Jose) and SF Gate (San Francisco) and LA Times
In a significant escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, ethnic Russians in east Ukraine, backed by heavy weapons and possibly thousands of soldiers from Russia, are apparently launching an attack on the port city of Mariupol. Mariupol is a strategic objective that would give the Russians access to the Sea of Azov, and would provide much of what's needed to secure a land bridge between Russia and Crimea. Russia invaded, occupied and annexed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula a year ago, and has had to bear enormous expenses supplying troops and civilians in Crimea by sea. Conquest of additional Ukrainian territory to provide a land connection between Russia and Crimean would result in considerable cost reductions. The attack comes just one day after the east Ukrainian Russians rejected a ceasefire agreement reached last September, when an east Ukrainian leader, Alexander Zakharchenko, announced, "We have started an offensive on Mariupol." On Saturday, Zakharchenko said that the Mariupol offensive would be "the best possible monument to all our dead."
Russia's government claims that it's had nothing to do with the new offensive, but an AP reporter saw convoys of pristine heavy weapons arriving last week, apparently in preparation for this attack.
Apparently we're now going to have to deal with another period of Russian government statements in clear contradiction to reported facts, and so it's a good idea to recall what happened last year. Russia claimed they weren't invading Crimea, just as Russian troops were invading Crimea. Russia claimed that they wouldn't annex Crimea, just before they annexed Crimea, a clear violation of international law. Russia claimed that there were no Russian troops in east Ukraine at a time when Russian troops were entering east Ukraine. On September 5, Russia signed an international peace agreement (the "Minsk protocols") in which they committed to a political compromise in east Ukraine, and then repeatedly violated their own agreement. Basically, anything that comes from Russian state media or Russia's government should be considered to be a lie. Washington Post and BBC and AP
The coup by the Iran-backed Shia al-Houthi militias, taking control of the ministerial government functions in Sanaa, the capital city of Yemen, followed by the resignation Yemen's Sunni president Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, appear to have sparked several groups into action on Saturday, further destabilizing the country:
The Yemeni parliament is scheduled to meet on Sunday to discuss Hadi's resignation, which has not yet been accepted, or to appoint a successor. Al Jazeera and World Bulletin (Turkey) and Gulf News and AFP
For years, the U.S. has been conducting counter-terrorism operations, including drone strikes, targeting Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), with the cooperation of Hadi, who just resigned, and his predecessor, the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was ousted by Hadi in 2011.
On Friday, the Washington Post reported that the U.S. has been forced to suspend counter-terrorism operations in Yemen, because of the government takeover by the vitriolicly anti-American Houthis. However, administration officials are saying that the drone strokes and other operations are continuing, but without the aid of information from Yemeni intelligence agencies, which are now controlled by the Houthis. Washington Post and Guardian (London)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 25-Jan-15 World View -- Measles outbreak being blamed on the 'anti-vaccine movement' thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(25-Jan-2015)
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More on the political realignment of the Mideast following the Gaza war
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The death on Thursday of Saudi Arabia's 90-year-old King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud and the subsequent appointment of his younger half-brother, 79-year-old Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud, is raising a number of questions about whether Saudi policies are going to change under the new leadership. The consensus is that the succession was carefully planned in advance to preserve stability and continuity, but still, some concerns have been raised. Most of the media coverage has been about women's rights, but there are other issues of greater geopolitical significance.
First, Yemen is along Saudi Arabia's southern border and as we've been reporting, the government has collapsed, and no one knows who's running the country today, let alone who will be running the country next week. The Iran-backed Shia Houthis have taken over most of the government buildings in the capital city Sanaa, and may thus be considered the de facto government, but the Houthis have made it clear that they want to run the government without actually being officially in charge. One of the reasons for this gracious reluctance is that the Saudis have made it clear that they won't tolerate a Shia government in Yemen. In the meantime, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which is headquartered in Yemen, is taking advantage of the chaos in Sanaa to link up the other Sunni tribes in preparation for a sectarian war, while the tribes in the far south of Yemen are declaring their intention of seceding.
Next, Iran is Saudi Arabia's bitter enemy, and Iran is gaining influence throughout the Mideast, at Saudi expense. In fact, last year Iran bragged that Sanaa is fourth Arab capital in Iran's grasp, joining "the three Arab capitals who are already a subsidiary of the Iranian Islamic revolution," and part of "the greater jihad." The other referenced Arab capitals are Beirut Lebanon, Baghdad Iraq, and Damascus Syria. Iran is also supporting Shia activists in eastern Saudi Arabia and in Bahrain. Saudi Arabia has urged both Israel and the U.S. to go through with much-discussed plans to take out Iran's nuclear facilities with military strikes.
The meteoric rise of Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria (IS or ISIS or ISIL) is obviously of concern to the Saudis, as it is of concern to everyone in the Mideast. It's widely believed in the West that some tribal elements in Saudi Arabia are providing funds and support to ISIS, with the intention of eventually overthrowing the al-Saud government, replacing it with an ISIS or Wahhabi government.
An interesting sidebar is that the Saudis have discussed building a 600-mile barrier along its northern border, to provide protection from ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and another fence along its southern border, to provide protection from the Houthis in Yemen. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years ago, we've seen fences built along the southern border of the U.S., around all the borders of Israel, and along the border between Greece and Turkey. These would be two new fences.
Oil policy could play a big part in the decision making of the new King. Oil prices have fallen 60% since June of last year, mainly thanks to fracking in the United States, and the Saudis are being pressured by some other oil-producing countries to reduce oil output, to boost oil prices. Immediately after the death of Abdullah, the Saudis reassured the world that there would be no reduction in oil output. Oil prices increased briefly, but soon decreased again. BBC and Reuters and Daily Mail (London)
Like many Arab Sunnis, the Saudis are appalled that Syria's president Bashar al-Assad has been conducting virtual genocide against his own people. Syria's Shia/Alawite president Bashar al-Assad has flattened entire Sunni villages with Russia's heavy weapons, he's killed children by sending missiles into exam rooms and bedrooms, he's killed dozens with sarin gas, and he's killed countless more with barrel bombs loaded with explosives, metals, and chlorine gas. In addition, he's used electrocution, eye-gouging, strangulation, starvation, and beating on tens of thousands of prisoners on a massive "industrial strength" scale, and does with complete impunity, and in fact with encouragement and support from Russia and Iran.
The Saudis blame the rise of ISIS on al-Assad's actions (as do I). The Saudis are furious that the U.S. did nothing to stop al-Assad's genocidal attacks on Sunni Arabs in Syria, and are particularly contemptuous of President Obama's "red line" flip-flop, allowing al-Assad to use chemical weapons on his own people with impunity.
In a recent interview, Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud likened ISIS to the Mafia, saying that they are "more criminal than they are religious." His own anecdotal evidence suggested to him that the group's members were more concerned with "robbing" and "looting," with many only joining the organization for the money.
This is potentially an explosive situation, because it's not clear how long the Salafist factions in Saudi Arabia will continue to tolerate al-Assad's genocidal actions. Whether the West likes it or not, the new Saudi leadership may decide it has no choice but to take its own action against al-Assad. CNBC and Deutsche-Welle
As I've written several times last year, there has been a major Mideast realignment following the Gaza war, bringing Israel plus Egypt plus Saudi Arabia plus the Palestinian Authority in alliance versus Hamas plus Qatar plus Turkey plus the Muslim Brotherhood. The split was extremely vitriolic, especially between the Saudis and Qataris, and although the differences were papered over late last year, there's little doubt that the feelings are as strong as ever. And the mediator who got everyone to agree to paper over the differences was none other than Saudi King Abdullah, who has now passed away.
This is a deep, simmering issue in the Arab world, and the new King of Saudi Arabia is going to be at the center of it. All the Arab states have as a policy the destruction of "the Zionist entity," at least at the lip service level. But there are plenty of open questions. When something happens that forces both the Saudis and Qataris to choose between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, will they both choose the same side or different sides? Once again, this is a potentially explosive situation that only time can resolve.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 24-Jan-15 World View -- Death of Saudi's King Abdullah raises concerns about policy changes thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(24-Jan-2015)
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Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah dies
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The agreement reached on Wednesday between Yemen's Sunni president Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi and the Shia leader Abdel-Malek al-Houthi or the insurgent Houthi militias collapsed within 24 hours after it was agreed. It was not so much an agreement between equal partners, anyway. It was much more a set of demands forced on Hadi by the Houthis. On Thursday morning, al-Houthi refused to remove his troops from Sanaa, and Hadi resigned, taking his cabinet with him.
Most commentators agree that what the Houthis wanted was for a weakened Hadi to remain as president, where he could be controlled by the Houthis. The Houthis apparently do not want to take complete control of the government, and so Hadi's resignation presents them with a problem. The Houthis announced that they are appointing a military council to select a successor, but the choice is going to be tricky.
Hadi was the deputy of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, and when Saleh was forced out by a coup in 2012, Hadi was the "safe choice" to replace him, someone that everyone could live with. Thus, Hadi's resignation now, along with his cabinet, creates a power vacuum that will be very hard to fill.
For Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the chaos in the capital city Sanaa is a golden opportunity. AQAP has been partially held in check by US drone strikes coordinated with the Hadi government, but now AQAP may have nothing to hold them back. AQAP is going to tap into the discontent of all the Sunni warlords and Sunni tribes, pointing to the Iran-backed Shia militias in power and the overthrow of the Sunni president, who was supported by Saudi Arabia. The nightmare scenario is a full-scale sectarian war between the Sunnis and Shias. Reuters and BBC
The resignation of the government of Yemen's president Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi was enough to trigger an announcement by Yemen's southern separatist movements to call for secession. North and South Yemen were united in 1990, and this is a call to split Yemen in two again.
Police and other security officials in southern Yemen say they are no longer taking orders from Sanaa. Houthi militants have already seized and taken control of almost all state-run media announcements, and during the televised announcement by southern leaders to break with Sanaa, Houthi officials cut off the live televised feed, further angering people in the south. Middle East Eye and APA (Anadolu Agency - Baku)
Saudi Arabia's 90-year-old king Abdullah bin Abdulaziz died on Thursday. His younger brother, 79-year-old crown prince Salman bin Abdulaziz will succeed Abdullah.
There are concerns that Saudi Arabia is now going to join the unrest that's been spreading throughout the Mideast in the last four years. However, with Abdullah ailing in recent months, Salman has been taking on most of Abdullah's responsibilities, and so it's hoped that things will be calm for the time being. BBC and CNN
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 23-Jan-15 World View -- Yemen government resigns, creating power vacuum for AQAP to fill thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(23-Jan-2015)
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Leader of Germany's anti-Muslim Pegida movement resigns over Hitler photo
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Officials in the anti-Islam Pegida movement ("Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes," or "Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West") forced the group's leader Lutz Bachmann to resign on Wednesday, after it emerged that he had posted a picture of himself posing as Hitler on his Facebook page two years ago. His troubles increased on reports that he had called refugees "animals" and "scumbags." Bachmann said that the Hitler photo was a joke, and apologized for the inappropriate remarks about refugees. However, the incident has been a huge embarrassment to Pegida, which bills itself as a moderate political movement, and rejects characterizations as "neo-Nazi." One German official said, "Anyone in politics who poses as Hitler is either a total idiot or a Nazi." Pegida's "anti-Islamization" protests have been growing larger and larger each week since they began on Monday. However, anti-Pegida protests have grown larger than the Pegida protests, especially since the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris. In Leipzig on Wednesday, about 7,000 Pegida demonstrators were blocked by 20,000 counter-protesters, while the police worked to keep the two groups apart. Deutsche-Welle and BBC
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Yemen's president accepts Houthi demands, possibly resolving crisis
Yemen's president Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, surrounded by Houthi militias after his own presidential guard had been defeated, agreed to all of the demands of the leader Abdel-Malek al-Houthi of the Shia Muslim group backed by Iran. The Houthis will be given positions of power in all state institutions, and will not be required to withdraw their forces from the capital city Sanaa, as they had committed previously in an September agreement. Hadi had no choice but to accede to this agreement, but it remains to be seen whether it will be acceptable to the Sunni tribes south and east of Sanaa. Concerns have been increasing that a Houthi coup would unite the moderate Sunni tribes with the terrorists in al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), leading to a sectarian war. Indeed, a statement on Wednesday from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) of mostly Sunni Arab nations warned that they "would take all measures necessary to protect their security, stability and vital interests in Yemen." It's hoped that Wednesday's agreement will head off a larger conflict. Others point out that the Houthis are in power, and may not be satisfied by stopping with the gains they've already made. AFP and Reuters
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 22-Jan-15 World View -- Yemen's president accepts Houthi demands, possibly resolving crisis thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(22-Jan-2015)
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Obama calls for Congressional approval of military action
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The U.S. military on Monday night has moved two amphibious ships, the USS Iwo Jima and USS Fort McHenry, from the Gulf of Aden to the southern Red Sea, in preparation to evacuate the U.S. embassy in Sanaa, the capital city of Yemen, if it becomes necessary.
Iran-backed Shia al-Houthi militants stormed the presidential palace in Sanaa, and are reported to be approaching the private residence of president Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, where he's thought to be. The Prime Minister's resident is also under attack. One government minister called the actions "the completion of a coup."
Shortly afterwards, Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, the head of the al-Houthis went on nationwide television and gave a kind of rambling State of the Yemen address, which was full of threats and accusations:
As we reported yesterday, analysts were hoping that the al-Houthis would stop short of taking complete control of Yemen's government, because of the consequences that would result. But after today's events, including the harsh personal criticisms of Hadi, it appears very likely that the existing government is about to collapse. The al-Houthis are already in de facto control, and today's events seem close to formalizing that control. CS Monitor and AP
Last year in June, President Obama announced that the U.S. would send 300 American advisors to train, advise and support the Iraqi securities forces fighting the Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria (IS or ISIS or ISIL). Since then, this number has been increased, one step at at time, from 300 to 800 to 1500 to 3100. He said that this was "not mission creep." He insisted that the "U.S. will not be putting boots on the ground." The goal is "to degrade and ultimately destroy the terrorist group known as ISIL." ( "8-Nov-14 World View -- Obama sharply escalates U.S. involvement in Iraq war") All of this was in addition to air force strikes against ISIS.
In Tuesday's State of the Union address, Obama said:
"In Iraq and Syria, American leadership – including our military power – is stopping ISIL’s advance. Instead of getting dragged into another ground war in the Middle East, we are leading a broad coalition, including Arab nations, to degrade and ultimately destroy this terrorist group. We’re also supporting a moderate opposition in Syria that can help us in this effort, and assisting people everywhere who stand up to the bankrupt ideology of violent extremism. This effort will take time. It will require focus. But we will succeed. And tonight, I call on this Congress to show the world that we are united in this mission by passing a resolution to authorize the use of force against ISIL. We need that authority."
I thought that air strikes against ISIL were already "the use of force." So it's not clear whether this is a further escalation, or whether it's simply requesting the legal authority to take the military action that's already taking place. (The phrase "We need that authority" was added to the prepared text.)
I have not yet heard any military analyst claim that Obama's strategy will succeed in its goal "to degrade and destroy ISIS." Every analyst I've heard says that American "boots on the ground" will be required.
In fact, as I've been reporting repeated in the last few weeks, there is a growing Muslim versus Muslim war in the Mideast, South Asia and North Africa, with tens of thousands of Muslims slaughtered every year. Generational Dynamics predicts this will spiral into a full scale regional war, and after that into a world war.
In the speech, Obama did not brag about Afghanistan, except to say, "Instead of Americans patrolling the valleys of Afghanistan, we’ve trained their security forces, who’ve now taken the lead." Obama was burned after withdrawing from Iraq without leaving a residual force, and today it's far from clear how the withdrawal from Afghanistan will fare. Washington Post and Guardian (London)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 21-Jan-15 World View -- U.S. prepares Yemen evacuation as Houthis apparently complete coup thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(21-Jan-2015)
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Muslim vs Muslim war escalates in Nigeria and Yemen
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As I've been reporting for the last few weeks, there is a large and growing war in the Mideast and South Asia of Muslims at war with Muslims. Where a few dozen Westerners may be killed in terror attacks each year, the Muslim versus Muslim war is killing tens of thousands of Muslims every year, mostly civilians. This Muslim versus Muslim war is almost invisible in the West, which focuses on the occasional terrorist acts. There is almost no evidence of a war between Islam and the West, and it's increasingly clear that things like the Paris Charlie Hebdo terror attacks have as their primary purpose the public relations value of attracting disaffected young men from the West to come to Syria or Yemen for training in terrorist skills, to aid in the slaughter of other Muslims. ( "12-Jan-15 World View -- Is Islam at war with the West?") Judging from the global daily news coverage, this public relations plan has been remarkably effective.
So today's news is about three countries participating in this huge Muslim versus Muslim war, and how the war is escalating in each of the three countries.
The fight against Boko Haram in Nigeria is becoming more international, as troops from neighboring Chad entered Cameroon to fight Boko Haram there. Boko Haram terrorists kidnapped 80 people in northern Cameroon over the weekend, many of them children and young girls.
Boko Haram gained international notice when they kidnapped hundreds of schoolgirls, aged 12-25, on April 16 last year, in order to sell them into sexual slavery or force them to marry its fighters. Last week, Boko Haram burned down the town of Baga in northeast Nigeria, and 15-20 other nearby villages, killing up to 2000 resident civilians.
Cameroon's has been fighting Boko Haram in northern Cameroon apparently more successfully than Nigeria has been fighting Boko Haram. It's widely believed that some of Nigeria's politicians and parts of Nigeria's army support Boko Haram. With a presidential election scheduled for next month no February 14, the country is almost paralyzed in confronting Boko Haram.
Boko Haram's goal is to mimic the Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria (IS or ISIS or ISIL) in setting up an "Islamic State" in Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad. There are reports that Boko Haram has been linking up with elements of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), making it a much more international terror group. The fear is that Boko Haram is going to gain so much power that it force Nigeria's government to collapse completely. All Africa and CNN and Guardian (London)
Iran-backed Shia al-Houthi militias surrounded the presidential palace in Sanaa, the capital city of Yemen, on Monday, clashing with Yemen's army. President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi doesn't actually live in the presidential palace, but it's believed that he's hiding out there during the escalated fighting.
This major escalation in the fighting is threatening the stability of Yemen, which is already one of the poorest countries in the world. If the Shia militias take full control of Sanaa, then there would be several consequences: The warlords of Sunni tribes have promised to take control of oil fields, essentially starving Sanaa of income; al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) will become more active; and southern tribes would call for the secession of South Yemen, which had only joined with North Yemen in the early 1990s.
Another fear is that the war in Yemen will spiral into a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iran has been providing military and financial aid to the al-Houthis, while the Saudis have refrained, so far, from getting involved. However, the Saudis have also made it clear that if the Shia al-Houthis gain control of Yemen, or if Yemen's government collapses, then Saudi Arabia will intervene.
For all of these reasons, some analysts believe that the current al-Houthi military initiative is little more than political posturing, to gain political leverage as a new Yemen constitution is being considered. According to this view, the al-Houthis could have taken control of Sanaa several months ago, but didn't do so because they don't want to be in control of the government. Governing costs a lot of money that they don't have, and they can't count on money from Iran, which is having its own financial problems. Instead, the al-Houthis want to have a major minority position in whatever government evolves. Al-Jazeera and Reuters
Israel's armed force have gone on alert after Iran confirmed on Monday that Sunday's Israeli air strike that killed Hezbollah commanders also killed Gen. Mohammad Ali Allahdadi of Iran's élite Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), as well as five more Iranians.
As we reported yesterday the air strike on the convoy was a heavy blow to Hezbollah because it killed two of Hezbollah's top commanders. But now it turns out that it's also a heavy blow to Iran's IRGC, which means that Israel's air strike was a strike at all three: Hezbollah, Iran and Syria.
Iran does not like to admit that it has IRGC forces in other countries. According to some analysts, the IRGC has about 150,000 fighters in its al-Quds paramilitary force, and also has a navy and air force. It's primary mission is to foment terrorism in other countries, but its forces are currently fighting in Iraq and Syria.
At this point, it's not a question of whether, but only a question of how and when Hezbollah, Iran and Syria will strike back. Hezbollah claims that it has 60-100,000 rockets that it could use to strike anywhere in Israel. Iran might also strike at Jewish targets in other countries, as it has in the past struck at Jewish targets in Bulgaria and Argentina. Or Hezbollah may abduct Israeli soldiers near the border with Lebanon -- a move like this triggered the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Everyone "knows" that a war between Israel and Hezbollah is coming. Hezbollah is so tied down in Syria, that it may not want to risk a full-scale war at this time, and so may decide to strike back only symbolically. However, even a symbolic strike could cause the situation to deteriorate quickly, and Israel and Hezbollah may find themselves in a war earlier than either of them expected. McClatchy and YNet
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 20-Jan-15 World View -- Israel on alert after Iran confirms its general was killed by Israel thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(20-Jan-2015)
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Miss Lebanon may lose her title over selfie with Miss Israel
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A selfie of four girls, in which Miss Lebanon Saly Greige is posing next to Miss Israel Doron Matalon, with wide smiles on their faces, may get Greige kicked out of the Miss Universe contest. Miss Slovenia and Miss Japan also appear in the selfie. Social media in Lebanon is being harshly critical:
"You could have avoided mingling with the Israeli contestant like previous Lebanese contestants have done throughout the years. And if you were harassed like you say, you could have at least avoided the huge smile [we see] on your face."
Greige could be stripped of her Miss Lebanon title, and kicked out of the Miss Universe contest, but Greige said it wasn't her fault:
"From the first day I arrived at the Miss Universe pageant I was very careful not to take any pictures with Miss Israel, who tried repeatedly to take pictures with me. While I was preparing with Miss Slovenia and Miss Japan to get our photograph taken, Miss Israel jumped in and took a selfie with her phone and posted it on social media. This is what happened. I hope you continue supporting me."
In 1993, Miss Lebanon Huda al-Turk was stripped of her title for posing with a picture with Miss Israel at the time.
Lebanon's government will launch a full-scale investigation on Monday. Daily Star (Beirut)
Lebanon and Israel are both on edge after an Israeli air strike in Syria killed two Hezbollah commanders. Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is promising revenge, and there are fears that tit for tat retaliation might spiral out of control.
An Israeli helicopter struck a convoy of Hezbollah operatives, killing 12. One of the dead is field commander Jihad Mughniyeh, 25, the son of top commander Imad Mughniyeh. Imad was on the United States' most wanted list for terrorist when he was killed in Damascus by a car bomb in Damascus in 2008, allegedly from the Israelis. Imad's son Jihad had been taking a more prominent role since his father's death, and was overseeing operations in the Golan Heights.
Also killed was field commander Mohamad Issa, chief of Hezbollah operations in Syria, making this strike a major blow against Hezbollah, according to reports.
A Hezbollah statement confirmed the names of six Hezbollah fighters that had been killed, but omitted the names of six fighters from the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) that are fighting alongside their Hezbollah counterparts. Iran has been supplying IRGC troops to Syria's president Bashar al-Assad and to Hezbollah, as well as to Iraq's army, but has denied doing so. YNet (Israel) and Daily Star (Beirut) and Ya Libnan (Lebanon)
Many analysts expect the European Central Bank (ECB) to announce on Thursday a quantitative easing (QE) program, in which it will purchase hundreds of billions of euros of bonds issued by the various eurozone countries. Effectively, the ECB will be "printing money," and giving it to the individual countries.
Several countries, including the U.S. and Japan, have been aggressively pushing QE for years, but the ECB has resisted it because of fears of harming the euro currency and because the Germans have been opposed.
But pressure on the ECB to start QE has been increasing, along with numerous eurozone financial problems:
The markets are widely expecting QE to be announced this week, and as the US QE situation has shown, that money just goes into the stock market, so that the top 1% make even more money. So if there's no QE announcement this week, then disappointed investors may sell off, causing the stock market to fall.
Some analysts are concerned that whatever the ECB tries, it will be too little too late. Pressure from Germany may keep the ECB program from being too aggressive. Furthermore, other countries started QE years ago, and it may be too late to catch up. Forbes and Bloomberg and Brisbane Times (Australia)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 19-Jan-15 World View -- Lebanon on edge after Israeli air strike kills Hezbollah commanders thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(19-Jan-2015)
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Swiss franc revaluation panics East European currency markets
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As I reported last week ( "13-Jan-15 World View -- Concern rising over Muslim 'no-go zones' as terror breeding grounds"), Britain's prime minister David Cameron called a Fox News contributor "an idiot" when he said that Birmingham England was "totally Muslim, and that non-Muslims just simply don't go in." The contributor was Steve Emerson, self-described as "an internationally recognized expert on terrorism," who described similar "no-go zones" in England and France.
Emerson himself apologized, and Fox News issued a retraction, pointing out that only 21% of the Birmingham population is Muslim, as I reported. But Fox News has received a continuing stream of backlash, ridicule and criticism this week for the error.
On Saturday evening, news anchor Julie Banderas on Fox News read the following statement (my transcription):
"A correction now. Over the course of this last week, we have made some regrettable errors on air, regarding the Muslim population in Europe, particularly with regard to England and France.Now this applies especially to discussions of so-called no-go zones, areas where non-Muslims allegedly aren't allowed in, and police supposedly won't go.
To be clear, there is no formal designation of these zones in either country, and no credible information to support the assertion that there are specific areas in these countries that exclude individuals based on solely on their religion.
There ARE certainly areas of high crime in Europe, as there are in the United States and other countries, where police and visitors enter with caution. We deeply regret the errors, and apologize to any and all who may have taken offense, including the people of France and England."
According to a Fox News spokesman, it's highly unlikely that Emerson will ever be booked again on Fox News. Washington Post
Back in September 2011, as we reported at the time, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) conduct a major experiment. Switzerland is not part of the eurozone, so has its own currency, the Swiss franc. Before the 2008 credit crisis, one euro could buy you 1.65 Swiss francs. But then the Swiss franc became stronger and stronger, and the euro became weaker, and by August 2011, the two currencies were at parity, meaning that one euro could buy you just one franc. This did a great deal of harm to Switzerland's tourist and export business, since people with dollars or euros could buy less and less in Switzerland.
So the SNB announced that it was going to "print" billions of Swiss francs, and use them to purchase euros. It was an incredible experiment. They guaranteed that the franc would not become stronger than 1.20 francs per euro.
They actually kept that promise. The SNB now has hundreds of billions of euros on its balance sheet that it doesn't know what to do with. The euro to Swiss franc exchange rate has been almost flat since then, at 1.20 francs per euro.
Until Friday. Suddenly, and without notice, and much to the surprise of the financial community, the SNB abruptly abandoned the printing program. They issued this statement, where "CHF" is the symbol for the Swiss franc:
"The Swiss National Bank (SNB) is discontinuing the minimum exchange rate of CHF 1.20 per euro. ...The minimum exchange rate was introduced during a period of exceptional overvaluation of the Swiss franc and an extremely high level of uncertainty on the financial markets. This exceptional and temporary measure protected the Swiss economy from serious harm. While the Swiss franc is still high, the overvaluation has decreased as a whole since the introduction of the minimum exchange rate. The economy was able to take advantage of this phase to adjust to the new situation.
Recently, divergences between the monetary policies of the major currency areas have increased significantly – a trend that is likely to become even more pronounced. The euro has depreciated considerably against the US dollar and this, in turn, has caused the Swiss franc to weaken against the US dollar. In these circumstances, the SNB concluded that enforcing and maintaining the minimum exchange rate for the Swiss franc against the euro is no longer justified."
When they refer to "a trend that is likely to become even more pronounced," many believe that they're referring to reports that the European Central Bank (ECB) is going to start its own "printing" program, using quantitative easing (QE) to purchase bonds and make billions or trillions of additional euros available.
The results were dramatic. The franc immediately strengthened to above parity with the euro, and closed at parity (1 euro for 1 franc) by the end of the day, 20% stronger than before. In currency trading, a 2-3% change is considered big. A 20% move could be disastrous (just as a 20% fall in the stock market could be disastrous).
Financial markets went into panic in Croatia and Serbia on Friday. Hundreds of thousands of people have loans denominated in Swiss francs in these two countries, and the amount of debt owed by these people effectively increased by 15-20% in one day. Newspaper headlines read "Catastrophe" and "Debt crisis" and "Swiss strike."
At least two currency brokerages in the U.K. filed for bankruptcy by the end of the day, and others across the globe may follow next week. The reason that currency brokerages are filing for bankruptcy is that their clients are applying for bankruptcy. In many cases, investors made currency bets based on margin, and after the SNB move, they're no longer able to meet margin calls. This means that the brokerages that funded these margin debts are now responsible for them, driving some of them into bankruptcy.
If I were to take a guess, I would guess that there are top secret meetings going on this weekend of Fed officials and ECB officials, with the purpose of finding a way to prevent this situation to spiral into a global panic. DPA and Reuters and Swiss National Bank and XE.com - Euro vs Swiss Franc historical conversion chart
Thousands of police and troops are in the streets of Belgium, Germany and other countries, hoping to head off new terror attacks. This following the terror attacks in Paris two weeks ago, and raids targeting returning Syrian jihadists in the last few days. In Belgium, police are stationed in buildings within the Jewish quarter of Antwerp and the Jewish Museum in Brussels. Troops will reinforce police at least until Thursday. This is the first time in decades that troops have been on the streets of Belgium.
Police in Athens Greece arrested four people allegedly connected to a foiled terror plot that last week's police action in Belgium had foiled. The alleged mastermind was identified as a Belgian of Moroccan descent.
Up to 300 members of the military will be stationed at locations such as the U.S. and Israeli embassies in Brussels and NATO and EU institutions. AFP and VOA
Muslims across the world have expressed revulsion at the jihadist attack on the journalists of Charlie Hebdo in Paris last week, but they're also expressing fury that Charlie Hebdo insulted Islam by publishing a new satirical cartoon depicting Mohammed, something that's forbidden in the Muslim culture.
Protests are common on Fridays, after midday prayers, and on this Friday there were thousands of protests in many countries, including Sudan, Russia's North Caucasus, Mali, Senegal, Mauritania and Jordan.
However, in Pakistan's port city of Karachi, three people were injured as police battled activists from the Jamaat-e-Islami party, who were trying to enter the French consulate.
In Niger, at least ten people have died in violence on Friday and Saturday, as rioters burned churches and cars, and attack French-linked businesses. All of the dead were civilians, with most killed inside burned churches or bars. Guardian (London) and AFP
At a press conference on Friday with UK prime minister George Cameron, President Barack Obama discussed the difference between the U.S. and Europe with respect to Islamic terrorism (my transcription):
"Europe has some particular challenges. The United States has one big advantage in this whole process. And it's not that our law enforecement or our intelligence services etc are so much better, although ours are very very good, and I think europeans would recognize that we've got capabilities that others don't have. Our biggest advantage is that our Muslim populations -- they feel themselves to be Americans, and there is this incredible process of immigration and assimilation that is part of our tradition that is probably our greatest strength.Now that doesn't mean that we aren't subject to the kinds of tragedies that we saw at the Boston Marathon, but that I think has been helpful. There are parts of Europe where I think that's not the case, and that's probably the greatest danger that Europe faces. Which is why as they respond, as they work with us to respond to these circumstances, it's important for Europe not to simply respond with a hammer and law enforcement and military approaches to these problems, but there also needs to be a recognition that the stronger the ties of a north African or a Frenchman of North African descent to French values, French Republic sense of opportunity -- that's gonna be as important, if not more important, in over time solving this problem. And I think there's a recognition across Europe and it's important that we don't lose that."
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 18-Jan-15 World View -- Thousands in Muslim countries protest cartoon depiction of Mohammed thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(18-Jan-2015)
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Fearing bank runs, Greece's banks make emergency aid request
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In a move that some are describing as purely symbolic, at least for the time being, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has opened a preliminary investigation into war crimes committed by Israel during the summer 2014 Gaza war.
Once Mahmoud Abbas, representing the State of Palestine, made the request to the ICC, the prosecutor Fatou Bensouda is required by ICC policy to conduct a preliminary investigation, to determine whether she should launch a complete formal investigation. She has two options, in that she can decide to launch the formal investigation, or decide not to. However, there's no timeline or deadline. In fact, according to one analyst, there are already pending preliminary investigations for Afghanistan, Colombia, Georgia, Guinea, Honduras, Iraq, Nigeria and Ukraine, so Israel would just be another one. If she does launch a formal investigation, there could be war crimes charges against both Israeli leaders and Hamas leaders.
It's far from clear whether the ICC has the jurisdiction to take on this case. The U.N. General Assembly voted in November 2012 to create a State of Palestine, but it's not a member of the U.N., and only has observer status. There is no precedent for a non-member (like the Holy See) to join the ICC. For the ICC to have full jurisdiction in this case, there would have to be an affirmative vote of the Security Council, and the U.S. has already indicated that it would veto such a resolution. Al Jazeera and LA Times and Washington Post
Moody's Investors Service cut its rating on Russia's government bond to Baa3 from Baa2. This puts the bonds just one notch above the non-investment grade, or "junk status."
Moody's lowered the bond grade to Baa2 in October, just three months ago. According to Moody's today:
Moody's one-notch downgrade to Baa2 in October 2014 balanced an increasingly subdued growth outlook -- in part reflecting Russia's weak institutional strength and the challenging geopolitical environment -- against the government's still extremely strong balance sheet.
The negative outlook reflected the fragile nature of that balance, with both the growth outlook and the government's fiscal position exposed to further shocks that could more profoundly undermine consumer and investor confidence, hastening the erosion of fiscal and foreign currency buffers.
As evidenced by the recent further steep falls in oil prices and the exchange rate, these shocks have materialized. According to Moody's, the severe -- and likely to be sustained -- oil price shock, alongside Russian borrowers' highly restricted international market access due to ongoing sanctions, is undermining economic fundamentals and increasing financial stresses on both the public and private sectors. In its updated growth outlook for Russia, Moody's now expects real GDP contractions of around 5.5% in 2015 and 3% in 2016, bringing real growth over the 10 years through 2018 to virtually zero.
Last week, Fitch Ratings downgraded Russia’s credit rating to BBB- from BBB, which is also just one step away from junk level. In December, Standard & Poor's revised Russia’s rating to BBB-, saying there is a 50 percent possibility it will drop Russia to junk level in mid-January 2015. Moody's Investors Service and Russia Today
Two of Greece's banks have requested an emergency credit line under the Emergency Liquidity Assistance program, or ELA. Neither bank plans to use the money at this stage, but it requested out of concern over a possible bank run following the January 25 election. The radical far left Syriza party is leading in the polls and is expected to win. The party's leader, Alexis Tsipras has said that he will renege on Greece's austerity commitments that it made in return for its 240 billion euro bailout paid so far. There is a possible "Grexit" scenario with Greece will leave the eurozone and start printing drachma currency again, which would substantially devalue existing Greek bank accounts.
Fearing this scenario Greek bank account holders have been withdrawing money from Greek banks and depositing the money foreign banks, where it would be safe from Grexit. Bank deposits fell by 3 billion euros in December, and have been accelerating since then.
Tsipras has said that Greece will not leave the eurozone because the eurozone needs Greece more than Greece needs the eurozone. He may be right. There are new reports that Eurogroup members are considering offering Greece a six-month bailout extension, and possibly renegotiating a new bailout package. A Eurogroup meeting of eurozone finance ministers will take place one day after the elections to decide what to do next. Bloomberg and Kathimerini
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 17-Jan-15 World View -- International Criminal Court opens probe into Israel's war crimes thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(17-Jan-2015)
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Lithuania asks citizens to prepare for Russian invasion
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Belgium police raided ten locations where it was suspected that home-grown jihadists returning from Syria were planning terror acts. One location was in the town of Verviers, where two suspected terrorists were killed after a shootout, and the others were spread across the capital city Brussels, which is also the capital city of the European Union.
Police believe that the terrorists were planning a "major attack," although there was no evidence of an imminent threat. The counter-terrorism raids come one week after the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in Paris, though it's not believe that the two are linked. AFP and Bloomberg
The Belgium raids highlight a rapidly worsening problem: That disaffected young people from any country can go to Syria and receive terrorist training from the Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria (IS or ISIS or ISIL), and then return home and use their newly acquired skills for a terror attack.
I've been discussing this issue for almost two years, but the graphic at the top of this article illustrates it beautifully. The actions of Syria's Shia/Alawite president Bashar al-Assad to conduct a genocidal war of extermination against innocent Sunni women and children in his own country, using weapons supplied by war criminal Vladimir Putin, have turned Syria into a magnet for depressed and disaffected young men around the world who think that they'll find true happiness maiming and killing other people. (The graphic is from October 2014, so the figures may have doubled or tripled by now.)
The most significant development of the last year has been the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, led by the charismatic Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, who is attracting even more would-be jihadists to populate his self-declared caliphate.
The events of the last couple of weeks have seen another major, significant development. The Charlie Hebdo attackers were trained in Yemen by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), before ISIS ever gained prominence. In the last few days, AQAP has been crowing about how they were responsible for the Charlie Hebdo attack. The new development is that the leaderships of ISIS and AQAP are apparently now in competition with each other to be most fashionable and trendy terror group, so that they'll attract the most would-be jihadists.
Unfortunately, there's every sign that these trends are going to accelerate. It takes only a few lone-wolf jihadists, after getting some training in Syria or Yemen, to set off a bomb or launch a gunfire assault, and it's apparently the desire to both ISIS and AQAP leaders to encourage such attacks. The number of young men willing to go to Syria and Yemen to get terrorist training is growing, and the number of young women going to Syria to marry a terrorist because maiming and slaughter is so erotic is also growing. So the simple math is that there is going to be more of these attacks.
In Belgium on Thursday, the police were able to act before it was too late. It's doubtful that they'll always be so lucky. Washington Post (11-Oct-2014)
For most of the last century, Lithuania was part of the Soviet Union, and only achieved independence in 1991, after which it joined Nato and the European Union. But the recent Russian invasions of Georgia and Ukraine, annexing territory from each, has led Lithuania's government to issue a manual on "How to Survive a Russian Invasion."
The main advice is:
"Keep a sound mind, don’t panic and don’t lose clear thinking. Gunshots just outside your window are not the end of the world."
In the event of invasion, the manual says Lithuanians should organize themselves through Twitter and Facebook and attempt cyber-attacks against the enemy.
In case of Russian occupation of Lithuania, the manual advises demonstrations and strikes or "at least do your job worse than usual" as resistance techniques. Reuters and Russia Today
The University of Glasgow Historical Thesaurus of English web site was launched on Thursday. It contains 800,000 words from Old English to the present day, based on the Oxford English Dictionary, arranged into detailed hierarchies within broad conceptual categories such as Thought or Music. According to the university, it is the world's only complete historical thesaurus published in any language.
193 words for "drunk," include drink-drowned, jug-bitten, swilled, bumpsy, drunk as wheelbarrow, muckibus, half-shaved, grogged, pickled, swizzled or elephant's trunk, many from the 1600s.
Instead of "darling," try: honey, babe, my dove, lamb, mopsy, flitter-mouse, prawn or my ding-dong.
The Historical Thesaurus has been under development since 1965, and some 230 linguists have been involved in the project. Daily Mirror (London) and University of Glasgow Historical Thesaurus of English
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 16-Jan-15 World View -- Belgium police raid multiple groups of returning Syrian jihadists thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(16-Jan-2015)
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Pope canonizes first Sri Lanka saint, calls for national unity
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More than half a million people attended a seafront mass in Colombo, the capital city of Sri Lanka, on Wednesday, as Pope Francis announced that Reverend Joseph Vaz had been canonized as a saint. Vaz was a 17th century Indian missionary who revived the faith in Sri Lanka during a time of anti-Catholic persecution by Dutch colonists, who were Protestant Calvinists.
The Pope's visit comes five years after the end of Sri Lanka's 26-year civil war. Sri Lanka has two major ethnic groups, the majority Sinhalese, mostly Buddhist, who control the markets and the government, and the minority Tamils, mostly Hindu, who were rebelling against the government to create a separate Tamil state. The Pope said that he hoped that religion could help heal the divisions between Sinhalese and Tamils, just as Saint Joseph Vaz had helped bring the peace in the 17th century.
The Pope encouraged the Sri Lanka government to appoint a "truth commission" to determine what happened in the civil war, to bring about healing:
"The process of healing also needs to include the pursuit of truth, not for the sake of opening old wounds, but rather as a necessary means of promoting justice, healing and unity."
This was actually a swipe at the Sinhalese government, which has been accused by the U.N. Human Rights Council of having committed genocide during the civil war. Although the war ended in 2009, there are still some Tamil groups in Sri Lanka and in the European diaspora that would like to revive the war, and the Pope's nice-sounding remarks give encouragement to those groups.
Here's an excerpt from a letter sent by a Tamil leader to the Pope, shortly before his visit:
"I am Mrs. Ananthy Sasitharan, an elected member of Northern Provincial Council in the island. I am working for the people who lost their family members in the last phase of the genocidal war waged on Tamil people in the North-East. We have been tracing the whereabouts of many of the cases that are being regarded in the records as ‘missing persons’. ...I hope that Your Holiness is aware of the fact that the underlying conflict in the island is a 60-year-long genocide against Tamils. It has claimed the lives of most of the talented people from our traditional homeland in the North-East. A significant number of our resource people are forced into exile. The remaining Tamils are forced to live as second-class citizens, facing various forms of oppressions, colonization, Sinhalicisation and finally Buddhicisation of the traditional Tamil homeland through Sinhala militarisation.
During your visit, the Sri Lankan political leaders ... will be fighting for the opportunity to kiss your hand and get your blessings. ... The political leaders and their military commanders of the Colombo government are seeking to protect themselves and their system from its crime of genocide. ...
Your Holiness, please do not be fooled by their false promises on protecting ‘minorities’. In fact, transforming Tamils into their ‘minorities’ was their first step in the genocide. Tamils are not a minority in our own traditional homeland, which is subjected to systematic Sinhala Buddhist colonization with a genocidal motive. ...
We look at Vatican, as a moral guardian of humanity. The Catholic Church, having witnesses among the people, has a moral duty to safeguard the people from the protracted crime of genocide."
As this letter shows, the civil war ended in 2009, but the tensions and emotions that drove the civil war are still burning. Reuters and Guardian (London) and TamilNet
Mahinda Rajapaksa was first elected president of Sri Lanka in 2005, and led Sri Lanka to victory over the Tamils in the civil war that ended in 2009. His political party, the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), has won almost every local and national election since then. In October of last year, sure of victory, Rajapaksa called for a new election for January 8, a year earlier than he had to.
However, Rajapaksa's own Health Minister, Maithripala Sirisena, declared that he would create a new party, the New Democratic Front (NDF), and oppose Rajapaksa. Even two weeks ago, it was thought that Rajapaksa would score a major victory. But when the election was over and they counted the votes, everyone was shocked that Sirisena won. Rajapaksa was hailed as a unifier when he graciously conceded defeat to Sirisena.
Then it turned out that, on the morning of election day, Rajapaksa realized that he might lose, and he sought the support of the army in overturning the results of the election. Only after they failed to back him did he concede.
The campaign spokesman of the new president claimed on Saturday that the Sri Lankan army had defied Rajapaksa's orders to use force to keep him in power:
"The army chief got orders to deploy the troops on the ground across the country. They tried attempts to continue by force. The army chief defied all the orders he got in the last hours.We spoke to the army chief and told him not to do this. He kept the troops in the barracks and helped a free and fair election."
However, Rajapaksa denies that there was any coup plot. According to his spokesman:
"When U.S. State Secretary John Kerry spoke to Rajapaksa over the phone, the former president assured him there will be a smooth power transition as stipulated in the constitution."
Whether the allegations of a coup attempt are true or false, the damage has already been done in the sense that the election results have been clouded, and in the future, Tamils will view election results with suspicions of Sinhalese tampering. Ada Derana (Sri Lanka) and South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP - India) and Economist
As long-time readers may recall, as the Sri Lanka civil war approached a climax in May 2009, every news organization and analyst that reported on the civil war were predicting that the civil war would continue on for months or years, because it had already gone on for 26 years.
As far as I know, every analysis in the world was wrong except the Generational Dynamics analysis. As I had been saying for months earlier, the Sri Lanka civil war was a generational crisis war, headed for an explosive climax, and when that climax was finally reached, then the war would be over once and for all. The comparison I made was to the surrender of Berlin and Tokyo that ended World War II once and for all.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, civil wars are very interesting studies because they're self-contained. With a war involving two or three nations, it gets complicated to sort out the various ethnic groups, religions, and generational timelines. But in the case of a civil war, such as the Sri Lanka civil war, you have two opposing sides with the same generational timelines, and with a clear fault line separating. The result is that the generational timelines for civil wars are more predictable than for multi-nation wars.
Let's illustrate this in the case of Sri Lanka.
The Sri Lanka civil war was fought between two ancient races: The Sinhalese (Buddhist) and the Tamils (Hindu). WW II was a crisis war for India and for Ceylon, the former name of Sri Lanka. There was relative peace on the island until 1976, when the Tamils began demanding a separate Tamil state, and formed a separatist group called the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), or just "Tamil Tigers."
A non-crisis civil war began in 1983, and the low-level violence continued until a peace treaty was signed in 2002. In the next few months, the peace treaty has been unraveling, and in the last couple of weeks it appears closer to a full-scale crisis civil war.
In 2006, the fighting became a lot more serious and by 2008 it was a full-fledged generational crisis war. The major characteristic of a crisis war is that the value of an individual life goes to zero, while the only thing that matters is the society and its way of life. To illustrate this, I always like to point to the Allied storming of Normandy Beach in 1944, where the American soldiers were shot down like fish in barrel. Subsequently, the allies firebombed and destroyed Dresden, and then nuked two Japanese cities.
WW II had a literally explosive climax, but the Sri Lanka civil war had a climax that was just as explosive, though not literally, and just as genocidal. The Tamils had been using civilians as shields. Since the Sinhalese army did not want to kill innocent civilians, this Tamil tactic worked for years. In January, 2008, the Sri Lankan military commanders promised to "defeat the Tamils once and for all" by the end of 2008. This was a signal that the lives of civilians would no longer matter, and that the army would attack the Tamil Tigers even if it meant killing civilians. (See "Sri Lanka government declares all out war against Tamil Tiger rebels" from January 2008.)
Finally, in May 2009, the Sinhalese army trapped the Tamil Tiger militants in a U.N.-declared "safe zone" and slaughtered them, including a number of civilians, although 50,000 civilians that had been trapped there were freed. That was the end of the war. (See "Tamil Tigers surrender, ending the Sri Lanka crisis civil war" from May 2009.)
The genocidal climax of a civil war is particularly shameful for both sides, because the mass slaughter was not directed at foreigners, but against cousins, brothers and neighbors.
Once a crisis civil war ends, the country goes through a Recovery Era, where the traumatized survivors pass laws and create institutions whose purpose is to guarantee that such a war will never happen again, not to their children and not to their grandchildren.
Sri Lanka is now in the midst of a Recovery Era. Tensions are high and bitterness is deep, but there's no more war, at least for the time being. But there's a new generation rising, young people with no personal memory of the horrors of the civil war. After about 15 years after the climax, there's a generational Awakening Era, and they begin to make their voices heard. Young Tamils will demand an end to discrimination, and many young idealistic Sinhalese will join them. But then the incidents of violence will start, expanding into low-level violence, and the cycle will continue.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 15-Jan-15 World View -- Sri Lanka follows a predictable pattern after its civil war thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(15-Jan-2015)
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Paris France's Charlie Hebdo attacks provoke anti-Pegida protests in Germany
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It's far from certain, but the impending Greek crisis rerun during the next month poses a real threat that Greece might have to leave the eurozone and start printing drachmas again, with the result that bankers and politicians are drawing up contingency plans in case it happens.
The radical far left Syriza party is maintaining a "stable and sharp edge in the polls," according to one analyst, for the January 25 election, meaning that Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras is the most likely person to be Greece's next Prime Minister. Tsipras has promised that if he wins, then Greece will renege on the austerity commitments it made when it received a 240 billion euro bailout that has already been paid. In particular, he took a swipe at Germany when he promised that the country will "write down most of the nominal value of debt... That's what was done for Germany in 1953, it should be done for Greece in 2015."
Greece is in serious economic trouble. It has to come up with 4.6 billion euros in bond maturities in March, and 31 billion euros total by the end of 2015. On the income side, tax revenues have been 40-50% below expectations. In February, Greece has to pay creditors 2 billion euros, and must pay another 4.5 billion euros to International Monetary Fund (IMF) this year.
So Greece needs another bailout, and both sides are playing a game of chicken. Germany says Greece won't get the new bailout unless they stick to the existing austerity commitments. Tsipras says that they're reneging on the commitments, and that Europe will have to provide the bailout anyway.
Most analysts believe that "Grexit", the Greek eurozone exit, will be avoided because some compromise will be reached. But in the 1950s, the game of chicken was played with two cars racing at each other until one car or the other turned away, and we know that sometimes neither car turned away, with explosive results. Greek Reporter and Nasdaq and Greek Reporter
Germany's anti-Islam Pegida movement fielded 25,000 protesters in Dresden on Monday, the largest number ever. The Pegida movement ("Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes," or "Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West") protests have been growing in size since Pegida was launched in October.
There has also been a growing opposition, and 100,000 Germans attended anti-Pegida counter-demonstrations. The growth of the anti-Pegida movement was spurred by the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris last week by Islamic jihadists. As I've been writing, the number of Islamic terror attacks is expected to increase as collateral damage to the growing Muslim versus Muslim wars in the Mideast, South Asia and North Africa. ( "12-Jan-15 World View -- Is Islam at war with the West?")
According to some historians, Dresden is the perfect city for the growth of the Pegida movement, because of its role in World War II. In February 1945, American and British bombers dropped 4,000 tons of explosives on Dresden, destroying the city. Twenty-five thousand people were killed. The anniversary is still marked every year with protest marches through Dresden’s rebuilt center. The history shapes the worldview of many Pegida supporters. According to Werner Patzelt of Dresden University:
"The argument runs basically like this: Dresden has been destroyed by Americans and English bombers. Americans have never stopped bombing around the world. Now they bomb in the Near East [Middle East]. They destroy states there. As a result, we have so many refugees."
Patzelt adds that Russian flags seen during Pegida marches indicate the desire among some for a counterweight to American power. VOA and Globe and Mail and Bloomberg
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 14-Jan-15 World View -- Europe prepares for Greece's possible exit from eurozone thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(14-Jan-2015)
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France to deploy 5,000 police to protect Jewish schools
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Steve Emerson, self-described as "an internationally recognized expert on terrorism", appeared on Fox News on Sunday evening, and was asked about "no-go zones." He said that there are a number of European cities "where sharia courts were set up, where Muslim density is very intense, where the police don't go in, and where it's basically a separate country almost, a country within a country." He added:
"In Britain, it's not just no go zones, there are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim where non-Muslims just simply don't go in. And parts of London, there are actually Muslim religious police that actually beat and actually wound seriously anyone who doesn't dress according to Muslim, religious Muslim attire. So there's a situation that Western Europe is not dealing with."
When Britain's prime minister David Cameron was asked about it, he said:
"Frankly I choked on my porridge and thought it must be April Fool's Day. This guy is clearly a complete idiot."
Perhaps Emerson's hysterical remarks were in some way forgivable, but one is tempted to agree with Cameron. In 2006, the Congressional Quarterly did an informal survey of Mideast "experts" in Washington, including some who had been analysts for years, and discovered they were abysmally ignorant. One so-called expert, for example, thought that al-Qaeda was a Shia Muslim organization.
That Congressional Quarterly caused some British politicians to smirk about dumb Americans. So the London Times did a similar survey of British politicians, and found that they were equally ignorant. (See "Guess what? British politicians and journalists are just as ignorant as Americans" from 2007.)
As I wrote at the time, I've had many shocks and surprises since I started writing about Generational Dynamics in 2002, but probably no more shocking than the realization that I now know more about the history and current events about the world than do 99.9% of the politicians, analysts, journalists, pundits and others in Washington. This is a reflection on how much work I've done, but it's even more a reflection of the sheer arrogance and stupidity that pervades Washington -- and London. And of course I've written many times about the open lying about stock valuations on CNBC and Bloomberg TV.
So it's not really surprising that a self-described "internationally recognized expert on terrorism" Steve Emerson says incredibly stupid things, since saying incredibly stupid things is the norm.
Fox News later issued a retraction, pointing out that 21 per cent of Birmingham population is Muslim, with 46.1 per cent identifying themselves as Christians.
Emerson himself issued the following apology:
"I have clearly made a terrible error for which I am deeply sorry. My comments about Birmingham were totally in error. And I am issuing this apology and correction for having made this comment about the beautiful city of Birmingham. I do not intend to justify or mitigate my mistake by stating that I had relied on other sources because I should have been much more careful. There was no excuse for making this mistake and I owe an apology to every resident of Birmingham. I am not going to make any excuses. I made an inexcusable error. And I am obligated to openly acknowledge that mistake. I wish to apologize for all residents of that great city of Birmingham. Steve Emerson PS. I am making donation to Birmingham Children's Hospital."
Birmingham Mail and YouTube and IBN Live and Fox News
Emerson's remarks have revived a controversy over "no-go zones" in Europe and elsewhere, which might be breeding grounds for terrorism. France has identified 751 Zones Urbaines Sensibles (ZUS - Sensitive Urban Zones). These are sometimes informally called "no-go zones," because it's claimed that they're almost entire Muslim, self-governing with Sharia law, and where even the police never go.
Other places where it's claimed that these no-go zones exist are in Birmingham England, Hancock New York, and Dearborn Michigan.
It turns out that France's list of ZUS is from 1996, and many of them are simply places where urban renewal projects have been planned, because of poverty and crime. Today, some of them have been rehabilitated, some are poor but non-violent, and some are poor and occasionally violent.
The ZUS were in the news in 2005, when there were several days of Muslim violence in the suburbs of Paris. However, these were not recent immigrants. In most cases, the youths were French citizens who were second and third generation Moroccans, Turks and Arabs whose parents and grandparents came to France in the 1960s and 1970s, seeking a better life.
Mideast blogger Daniel Pipes started blogging about France's no-go zones in 2006, and updated his blog repeatedly, sometimes with horror stories. Then, in a January 2013 update, he wrote:
"Jan. 16, 2013 update: I had an opportunity today to travel at length to several banlieues (suburbs) around Paris, including Sarcelles, Val d'Oise, and Seine Saint Denis. This comes on the heels of having visited over the years the predominantly immigrant (and Muslim) areas of Brussels, Copenhagen, Malmö, Berlin, and Athens.A couple of observations:
For a visiting American, these areas are very mild, even dull. We who know the Bronx and Detroit expect urban hell in Europe too, but there things look fine. The immigrant areas are hardly beautiful, but buildings are intact, greenery abounds, and order prevails.
These are not full-fledged no-go zones but, as the French nomenclature accurately indicates, "sensitive urban zones." In normal times, they are unthreatening, routine places. But they do unpredictably erupt, with car burnings, attacks on representatives of the state (including police), and riots.
Having this first-hand experience, I regret having called these areas no-go zones."
As Pipes points out, the unrehabilitated no-go zones are similar to high-crime areas in American cities, such as the Bronx, Detroit and Chicago. And he might have mentioned the far worse situation in Mexican cities where drug cartels are in charge.
The fact that unrehabilitated Muslim no-go zones are similar to high-crime areas in large cities everywhere would be cause enough for concern, but it's believed that these are breeding grounds for would-be jihadists planning to commit terrorist acts. It's known that some 1,200 young French citizens have gone to Syria for training, possibly to return to France with new terror skills, and it's feared that many of them may be coming from the unrehabilitated ZUS. Catholic Online and Snopes and France - government and Trip Advisor and Daniel Pipes
Four Jews were killed on Friday in an attack on a kosher supermarket, in an attack that was linked to the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris two days earlier. France's president François Hollande responded by promising the Jewish community would be protected by the French army, "if necessary." The interior minister announced on Monday that 5,000 security forces and police will protect the 700 Jewish schools in the country, though how long this protection will continue was not announced.
Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has annoyed French politicians by urging French Jews to move to Israel, but in fact that was already happening prior to Friday's attack. A record 7,000 Jews emigrated from France to Israel in 2014. According to historian Marc Knobel:
"There are Jewish people living in sensitive neighborhoods where anti-Semitism has become a daily part of life for them. They feel uneasy. Some are scared to go the synagogue or put their children in Jewish schools because they feel something might happen.Netanyahu persuading Jews to come to France is not new. It's a policy started by Ariel Sharon in 2002. They see it as logical where Jews are living in situations of peril to tell them to come to Israel."
As I've been reporting the last few weeks, there is a growing Muslim versus Muslim war, with Muslim militias and armies killing Muslims throughout the Mideast, South Asia and Northern Africa. The collateral damage from this war is an increase in terrorist acts in Europe and elsewhere, and many of these terrorist acts may target Jews. Nationalism and xenophobia are increasing in Europe and elsewhere, and Generational Dynamics predicts that this trend will continue and lead to war. AFP and The Local (France)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 13-Jan-15 World View -- Concern rising over Muslim 'no-go zones' as terror breeding grounds thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(13-Jan-2015)
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Is PEGIDA a neo-Nazi movement, or just a grass roots protest?
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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In several recent articles, I've been describing the massive and growing war of Muslims against Muslims in the Mideast, South Asia and Northern Africa. I've made the point that Islam is NOT at war with the West, and that the terrorist attacks, such as this past week's Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, were collateral damage from the real war, the war between Muslims and Muslims.
The following are some comments that I received.
"I come to your site every day because I believe you have something valuable to say, but when you make this statement, you destroy your credibility.
'As I've been reporting repeatedly, there is no Muslim war against the West. Even in the last week, when a score of people in Paris were killed, thousands were killed in Boko Haram massacres in Nigeria, while hundreds more were killed in Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia and other countries.'Muslims are surely fighting against each other - but to declare the war is only happening on one front is nothing less than selective denial. Hitler fought the West, but you might remember he fought on an "Eastern Front" too. Save your credibility sir, Islam is at war with everyone, including their own families."
I've been writing about Muslim violence since 2003 -- thousands of articles. I have, on file, almost 90,000 news stories that I've copied and pasted from media sources around the world. I've read all of these, as well as millions more that I didn't copy. In addition, I've listened to untold thousands of hours from the BBC, al-Jazeera, and domestic news services.
With all of that input, I find plenty of terrorist acts, but I cannot find any evidence of an actual war by Muslims against the West -- as measured by actual behavior, not by the rantings of Muslim terrorists and jihadist leaders.
As I've described in recent articles, there have been fewer than 9,000 Christians killed in individual terrorist acts in the 13 years since 9/11/2011. Now that's a lot of Christians, but it's not what I would call a war, except in a symbolic sense. For it to be a real war, you would need to see Muslim armies attacking Europe or America.
On the other hand, there are militias and large armies of Muslims attacking other Muslims in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Mali, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. EACH YEAR there are 50,000 or so Muslims killed by these armies, five times as many killed each year as Christians were killed in THIRTEEN YEARS.
I want to emphasize what a big difference this is. Individual terrorist acts by individual terrorists are bad, but they're not the same as large armies conducting a real war.
In some ways this is just semantics. For most people, there isn't much difference between being at war with Islamist jihadists versus being at war with Islam.
I think it's dangerous for the West not to know who their real enemy is. Those who say that "Islam is the enemy of the West" or "All Muslims are enemies of the West" are doing a disservice because, if they're believed, then resources will be wasted fighting the wrong enemy. Indeed, it's quite possible that that's exactly what the ISIS and AQAP leaders want -- to see the West waste their resources attacking "Islam" or "all Muslims", rather than ISIS or AQAP or other Muslim terrorist jihadists.
For more discussion, see the following articles:
"10-Jan-15 World View -- Up to 2000 Nigeria civilians killed in three-day Boko Haram massacre"
"8-Jan-15 World View -- The historic dilemma of the West versus the Muslim jihadists"
"1-Jan-15 World View -- The three most important dangers for 2015"
"29-Dec-14 World View -- Do news organizations ignore jihadist attacks on Christians?"
"Once there is a resolution of the Sunni-Shia schism within Islam, it needs to be clearly understood that this resolution is only the beginning. John's comments make no provision for dealing with the ideology of radical Islam after the resolution of their internal conflict (I have come to believe that there is no Islam other than radical Islam). I can't stress forcefully enough that Islam is not a religion... it is a mind set. Islam makes no provision for the accommodation of anything other than Islam - it isn't just about Allah, it's about Allah in government, it's about Allah in speech (the "rationale" for todays murders in Paris), it's about Allah in school, it's all about Allah in every single aspect of life. Further, to be clear, and make no mistake, there is an Imam someplace who is willing to issue a fatwa that is going to tell you just exactly what that means, and how you WILL comply with orthodox (as he sees it) Islam, under penalty of death. Understand: there is no aspect of life that is outside of the purview of Islam."
Islam is just as much a religion as Christianity is. Or, if you like, Christianity is also just an ideology, in view of Christian Nazis who killed Jews and other Christians, or Irish Protestants who killed Catholics.
"John, on most occasions we are in sync. Here we shall have to agree to disagree.Grew up in Dearborn, MI - largest Muslim community in the U.S. The high school I attended was 30% Muslim - now it's 100% Muslim. Developed an unfavorable attitude first hand - Muslims are routinely strident, belligerent, and combative. After high school, I lived in Turkey for a year - at the time Turkey was the most moderate of the Muslim countries. Living in a Muslim country made me understand what I saw in high school. I can remember leaving Ankara in 1967 looking out the airplane's window thinking: "... no one will believe what I tell them about this place... God help the world if these people ever get money...." That was over 45 years ago, and now they have the money to buy arms, and explosives, i.e. the means to carry out their mentality; and there is no longer a powerful moral America with the will to stop them.
Muslims are a problem wherever they alight. Philippines, Timor, Myanmar, India, Kashmir, China, Russia, Israel, Britain, France, Nigeria, Thailand, Kenya, et al. Virtually every airplane hijacking since 1970 has been by Muslims, not Christians. ... The only time Muslims seek freedom and tolerance is when they are a significant minority; when they achieve a significant plurality, or majority it is their way or the sword, they have no compunction regarding impressing their will - Sharia Law - upon all. They tolerate nothing, it's Allah, or die - it's Sharia for all. Muslims believe that anyplace Muslims have occupied is theirs forever, anyplace Muslims have prayed is theirs forever. ...
And Christianity is certainly not without issues, but here we are discussing the differences between Christianity and Islam. The difference between Christianity, and Islam is that the embrace of Christianity is voluntary, with no direct physical harm, or ill consequences suffered if one rejects the conversion. As recent events have made clear, in Islam the conversion is not voluntary; it's convert, or the sword - the conversion is coerced and once converted, should you desire to exit Islam, it is a capital offense subjecting you to death. ...
While Christianity has its dark chapters, those are not taking place now. At this moment the Christian Church is as was given to us through the Enlightenment and to a somewhat lesser degree by the American Revolution (the inherent value of life, honesty, the rule of law, personal freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and many more, among others)."
Your final remark about "dark chapters" is where your argument contradicts itself.
You claim that Christianity and Islam are fundamentally different in that Islam isn't even a religion -- it's an ideology or mind set. To support that claim in practice you would have to prove two things: not only that Christianity and Islam have had different cumulative outcomes throughout centuries of history, but also that Christianity could never return to a new "dark chapter" in the future.
I claim you have no hope of proving either of those. All you can hope to prove is that AT THE PRESENT TIME Islam is producing different outcomes than Christianity. And the latter may in fact be true, as the examples you've given illustrate. But that means that Islam and Christianity are both religions, and differences in outcomes are only temporal.
Why would such temporal differences exist? For the answer to that, we look to a generational analysis.
WW II is still remarkably fresh in the minds of most Christians. How was it possible for the entire Christian German population to turn into Nazis and create the Holocaust to exterminate Jews, and also to turn on the Christian French population, the Christian British population, and also the Orthodox Christian Russian population. This is still a matter of shame throughout the world Christian community, and it affects every Christian's attitudes to people of other religions.
But there is no similar collective memory in the Muslim community. For Muslims, the destruction of the Ottoman Empire (in 1922) was in the far more distant past than WW II, and to them was not a cause for shame among Muslims, but a cause for shame among Europeans and Russians, including Christians and Jews. Furthermore, the loss of the Istanbul Caliphate is a gaping hole in the Muslim psyche.
That brings us to Iran's Great Islamic Revolution and the Iran/Iraq war (1979-1988), which is as important to Islam as WW II is to the West. This was a generational crisis war largely in the Shia Muslim community. The problems that you described as Muslim problems are actually almost always Sunni Muslim problems. Since Shia Muslims have had a generational crisis war much more recently than Sunni Muslims, then have far different attitudes and behaviors. So your argument about Islam falls apart even when you consider temporal differences between Shia and Sunni Islam.
Finally, as another counterexample to the uniqueness of Islam, the shame of WW II does not extend to the Buddhist community, and the Buddhists in Burma (Myanmar), led by a Buddhist monk, are massacring innocent Muslim women and children, razing entire villages. The Muslims under greatest attack are Rohingya immigrants, but the Buddhists have even attacked Muslim villages that have existed for hundreds of years.
This comment was in response to an article on PEGIDA, a growing 'anti-Islamization' movement in Germany.
"You interpret PEGIDA as the rise of some neo-Nazi movement. Writing to you this very moment from Germany, I can assure you that thousands of Germans are most decidedly NOT parading around shouting "Deutschland für Deutsche! Ausländer raus!" That was/is the slogan of the far right, to use the phrase, and you are wrong to conflate it and them with PEGIDA.This movement, a grass roots protest, arose in the former GDR [Communist East Germany], a region that has more familiarity with totalitarian government than you or I have. They know a lie when they are being forced to believe it, first under the SED dictatorship, as socialism, and now under the EU and its constant cheerleaders and propaganda. If you are located on the continent, you will be only too aware of this. If you are not, then you are, as I posted previously, writing with a less than full understanding."
The article was not about me. What I was doing in my article was reporting that European leaders are describing Pegida as neo-Nazi or xenophobic.
In fact, Pegida organizer Kathrin Oertel agrees with my reporting: "Or how would you see it when we are insulted or called racists or Nazis openly by all the political mainstream parties and media for our justified criticism of Germany's asylum seeker policies and the non-existent immigration policy?"
So Oertel agrees with me that many Europeans view Pegida as xenophobic or racist or Nazi. My personal opinion is that Hungary's Jobbik and Greece's Golden Dawn are neo-Nazi, but Pegida is only "a little bit xenophobic," at least so far.
"To make the claim that this is the echoes of the 1930s all over again is patently false. There is not mass unemployment, there is not anarchy, there is no hyperinflation, there is no war just lost, there are no humiliating reparations, there is no loss of territory, no occupation by foreign powers. Would you like me to continue? Today's Germany is a modern, peaceful, prosperous and surprisingly tolerant country. Did you know it took in more refugees from the Yugoslavia conflict than all the other countries put together?"
Oh, really? Unemployment rate at 25% in Greece and Spain, 16% in Italy, above 10% in other eurozone countries. Hyperinflation was an early 1920s phenomenon -- deflation was a 1930s phenomenon, same as today. No humiliating reparations, but humiliating bailout accusations between Germany and Greece, with the same effect. No loss of territory or occupation, but floods of Syrian and African refugees evoking the same emotions.
"But given that a phobia is an irrational fear, there is nothing irrational in witnessing whole areas of the town or city where you were born and raised becoming nothing less than foreign enclaves filled with people who refuse to integrate, let alone be able to even if they should want."
I don't disagree with your characterization, and I might well feel the same way in those circumstances.
As a student of history, surely you must see the similarities with the 1930s. The Nazis gave very "rational" reasons for their attitudes towards Jews -- Jewish bankers had made money from the reparations, Jews had sold out the Germans, etc. One can always find "rational" reasons for any emotion.
But that doesn't change the point that I'm making. Xenophobic and neo-Nazi movements are spreading across Europe today, and Pegida is one of them, even if it's in its early stages. This is a trend that's been growing for years, particularly since the rise of Generation-X, and the trend is going to continue and grow.
By the way, suppose you were King of Europe. What would you do? Deport all the Muslims? Lock them up in camps? Close the borders to Syrian women and children fleeing starvation and bloody massacres? Sink their boats and let them drown in the Mediterranean? What would you do, and why would what you would do be better than what the neo-Nazis would do?
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 12-Jan-15 World View -- Reader comments: Is Islam at war with the West? thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(12-Jan-2015)
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'Anonymous' declares war on terrorist web sites
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Criticism is mounting against French officials for not doing more to prevent Wednesday's terrorist attack by means of closer surveillance of the two brothers who carried out the attack. One of them, Cherif Kouachi, had been convicted on terrorism charges in 2008, while the other, Said Kouachi had traveled to Yemen in 2011 and was believed while there to have been trained in jihadist skills by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Both were on the U.S. no-fly list. When Said returned from Yemen in 2012, both Kouachi brothers were placed under close surveillance, but after a while the surveillance was reduced.
Some problems have no solution. You can prove mathematically that there's no solution to the problem of squaring the circle. There's no mathematical proof in this case, but there's still no solution to the problem of preventing "lone wolf" terrorist attacks.
Thousands of young men from around the world have gone to Syria to learn terrorist skills from training by the Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria (IS or ISIS or ISIL), almost 1,000 of them from France alone. Many, like the Kouachi brothers, return to their home countries to prepare terrorist attacks. If the Kouachi brothers and all others like them were to be kept under constant surveillance, it would take a virtual army of surveillors, and even then many would be missed.
It's believed that there are thousands of people across Europe on government surveillance lists. These lists include not only returning jihadists, but people suspected of financial crimes, sex crimes and other serious offenses. Hurriyet (Ankara)
A senior AQAP official, Harith al Nadhari, is claiming that "The operation was directed by the leadership of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)." He does not claim credit for the attack, but said that France in particularly was targeted because of the cartoons portraying Mohammed.
As I've been reporting repeatedly, there is no Muslim war against the West. Even in the last week, when a score of people in Paris were killed, thousands were killed in Boko Haram massacres in Nigeria, while hundreds more were killed in Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia and other countries. This is a massive and growing war of Muslims against Muslims that is both ethnic (tribe against tribe) and sectarian (Sunni and Shia against each other).
AQAP is embroiled in its own war, far from Paris. The Sunni jihadists in AQAP in Yemen are under attack by Shia Houthi militias thought to be supported by Iran. The Houthis have made substantial gains in the last six months, and are threatening the gains that AQAP made before that.
With so much on their plate in Yemen, one might ask why AQAP would even be interested in what's going on in Paris. Apparently what's going on is a competition between al-Qaeda and ISIS. If there are thousands of young men going to Syria to train with ISIS, those are thousands of young men who might instead have gone to Yemen to train with AQAP, which is what Said Kouachi did in 2012, before ISIS rise to prominence.
AQAP is fully involved with the war in Yemen, while ISIS is fully involved with the war in Syria and Iraq. Every war has both a military component and a public relations component, and the attack on Paris was part of AQAP's public relations component.
It wasn't long ago that al-Qaeda was Numero Uno in the terror business, but they've been eclipsed in the last year by ISIS. Maybe AQAP directed the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, maybe not. But claiming to have done so is a way of trying to return to prominence. Thus, the Paris attack is collateral damage in the real growing war between Muslims and Muslims, and we can expect more of the same. Guardian (London) and Fox News
Cyber-terrorist group Anonymous, which has attacked many government, military and commercial web sites in the paste, is now naming terrorist web sites as their next target. According to a statement:
"Message to the enemy of the freedom of speech.January 7, 2015, freedom of speech has suffered an inhuman assault. Terrorists broke into the premises of the "Charlie Hebdo" newspaper and shot in cold blood several satirical cartoon artists, journalists and two policemen. The killers are still at large. Disgusted and also shocked, we cannot fall to our knees. It is our responsibility to react."
The statement was followed by a YouTube video directly confronting Al-Qaeda and ISIS on the Paris massacre. Russia Today and Pastebin and YouTube
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 11-Jan-15 World View -- France officials criticized for not stopping Charlie Hebdo terror attack thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(11-Jan-2015)
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Cameroon requests international help to fight Boko Haram
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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After a coordinated three-day rampage on the town of Baga in northeast Nigeria, as well 15-20 other nearby towns, up to 2000 resident civilians have been killed. The towns are now "virtually nonexistent" according to local officials:
"These towns are just gone, burned down. The whole area is covered in bodies."
This would make the massacre among the most deadly terror attacks in history.
There's supposed to be a Multi-National Joint Task Force, a French-sponsored alliance of Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Chad, stationed in a army base near Baga. The base was supposed to provide protection for Baga and the other nearby towns. But last Saturday, there were only Nigerian soldiers in the army base, and Boko Haram overran the base, as the Nigerian troops once again fled rather than fight. The massacre in Baga began four days later.
Following the philosophy of better late than never, Nigerian ground forces backed by air strikes are now fighting to reclaim Baga and the military base.
In April 2013, Boko Haram abducted over 200 schoolgirls from a school in Chibok. Those girls are still missing.
Nigeria is one of the biggest oil producers in the world. It's thought that Boko Haram is trying to create a secessionist state in northeast Nigeria. NBC News and Reuters
President Paul Biya of Cameroon is appealing for international military help to fight Boko Haram. According to Biya, Boko Haram has gone beyond being a regional threat to being a global threat that has attacked Mali, the Central African Republic and Somalia:
"A global threat calls for a global response. Such should be the response of the international community, including the African Union and our regional organisations."
The appeal follows a threat from Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau in a youtube video posted on Monday:
"Oh Paul Biya, if you don’t stop this, your evil plot, you will taste what has befallen Nigeria ... Your troops cannot do anything to us."
The "evil plot" is Biya's attempt to rid Cameroon of Boko Haram. ( "30-Dec-14 World View -- Cameroon's air force bombs Boko Haram positions, forcing retreat") Biya ordered air strikes after the terrorists began crossing the border from Nigeria and attacked villages in Cameroon's north. Nigerian Tribune and AFP
Washington Examiner and Daily Beast
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 10-Jan-15 World View -- Up to 2000 Nigeria civilians killed in three-day Boko Haram massacre thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(10-Jan-2015)
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Qatar may be turning against Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Last summer's Gaza war between Israel and Hamas tore open a gash between Arab and Mideast countries, with Qatar, Turkey and Iran strongly supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoot Hamas, versus Egypt, the Palestinian Authority and Saudi Arabia opposing Hamas, hence supporting Israel. The differences were expressed with extreme vitriol, especially after Hamas was thoroughly defeated by Israel in the war. But Saudi Arabia managed to convince Qatar to a reconciliation prior to the big Arab summit meeting last month.
Hamas's defeat is only a small part of their problems. Hamas used to have a headquarters office in Damascus, Syria. But in 2011 Syria's genocidal president Bashar al-Assad started exterminating innocent Sunni women and children, forcing a split between al-Assad and Hamas's leader, Khaled Mashaal. After months of rumors, Mashaal and Hamas HQ moved to Doha, Qatar, allowing Mashaal to direct the summer Gaza war from afar.
Now, thanks to the reconciliation, there are reports that Qatar is throwing Mashaal out of Doha. Hamas is denying the reports, but other reports are saying that if Mashaal stays in Doha, then he has to agree to keep a very low profile, and not do anything to embarrass Doha. A Hamas official was quoted as saying, "Hamas was asked at least not to engage in any high-profile political activities that may be interpreted as Qatar still supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, particularly after the Egyptian–Qatari reconciliation."
If Mashaal leaves Doha, then he has three choices: Ankara Turkey or Tehran Iran or Khartoum Sudan, the capitals of the three countries that still support Hamas. Iran is a particularly problematic choice, because Hamas still strongly opposes al-Assad while Iran supports al-Assad, and because Hamas is Sunni Muslim while Iran is Shia Muslim, so they have little in common except their common hatred for Israel.
Current speculation is that Mashaal and Hamas headquarters are headed for Ankara. Daily Sabah (Ankara) and Asharq Al Awsat (Riyadh)
Russia is on a long-term holiday that started two weeks ago and ends on Monday, January 12. At that time, the banks and the stock exchange will reopen, and it's feared that both the ruble and the Moscow stock exchange will fall sharply. Russia's economy is being hit hard by multiple problems: Russia's main source of income has been deeply slashed because oil prices have been collapsing. The inflation rate has grown from 6.5% to 11.4% in a few months, with food prices growing at 15.4%.
The invasion and occupation of eastern Ukraine and annexation of Crimea are much more expensive than expected. Now that Russia has "bought" eastern Ukraine, it's stuck with it, and has to provide aid. Russia has almost no spare industrial capacity, and badly needs massive investment and new technologies that are not forthcoming. Western sanctions have made it impossible for Russian companies to borrow money, forcing them to drain their reserves. Capital is flowing out of Russia as Russians with dollar-denominated accounts and assets move them to other countries, fearing that their accounts might be frozen.
Russia's president Vladimir Putin may have no choice but to impose capital controls, which would prevent anyone's dollar reserves to move out of Russia to foreign banks. But the people who would be hurt most would be Russia's elite oligarch class who, up till now, have been Putin allies. If Putin is forced to impose capital controls, it may be a game changer in that he may lose the support of his biggest allies.
The only good news was an announcement that the price of vodka will decrease from $7 per liter to $6 per liter. This will be accomplished by lowering taxes on vodka. Lowering taxes is not something that the Russian government can afford, but it's thought that with cheap vodka the people will be happier. Jamestown and Guardian (London)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 9-Jan-15 World View -- Russia faces economic cliff on Monday, January 12 thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(9-Jan-2015)
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Eurozone inflation rate becomes negative, falling into deflation
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Wednesday's terrorist attack in Paris requires an appraisal of where the world stands today:
Wednesday's terrorist attacks in Paris are certain to exacerbate these trends.
This was not a random shooting. The terrorists were well trained in using assault weapons, and the attack was carried out with clockwork precision, probably after being planned for weeks. They spoke perfect French, leading to the speculation that they were home-grown terrorists who had gone to Syria for training. The terrorists murdered the editor and several cartoonists at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which had published cartoons and articles mocking Islam and the Prophet Mohammed. They shouted, "We have avenged the prophet" and "Allahu akbar" (God is great). It's said to be the deadliest terror attack on French soil in 50 years, since 1961 when a right-wing paramilitary organization opposed to France's withdrawal from Algeria blew up a train killing 28 people.
Some Muslim leaders are blaming the attack on the victims. According to one Sunni Muslim scholar, it came as a response to "extremism from the other side." "When freedom of thought oversteps boundaries and legitimizes and encourages the insult of other religions, there will be such consequences." I disagree with this conclusion. In my opinion, it's the other way around, with the mocking of Mohammed purposely triggered by the actions and PR strategy of the jihadists.
Wednesday's attack is creating a backlash within the populations of the West, especially Europe:
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, this is the kind of thing that happens during generational Crisis eras. In World War II, Japanese were interred, while Germans were not. Today, Muslims are under suspicion (probably with worse to come), while Chinese are not.
This isn't true only in the West. In China, for example, anti-American and anti-Japanese xenophobia are also growing.
As the world today goes deeper into a generational Crisis era, we can expect xenophobia and nationalism to increase in nations around the world. The world becomes a more dangerous place every day, and the growing Muslim versus Muslim war is just one part of it. It's only a matter of time until somebody does something that triggers a real war. AFP and USA Today and Bloomberg and Telegraph (London) and The Trumpet
The inflation rate in the eurozone has been extremely low for years, as we've reported several times, and in December it crossed over into deflation, with an inflation rate of -0.2%. The deflation is being blamed on the falling price of oil. Deflation in Europe is an important story, and there's a lot more to be said, but it's been squeezed out by the news from Paris. Maybe tomorrow. BBC and Eurostat
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 8-Jan-15 World View -- The historic dilemma of the West versus the Muslim jihadists thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(8-Jan-2015)
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Hamas blasts Abbas's plan to re-submit statehood resolution to the Security Council
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It's Christmas in Bethlehem today (Wednesday). Bethlehem is unique in that it celebrates Christmas three times each year:
About 50% of the Palestinian Arab Christian community across Israel and the Palestinian territories belong to the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, and celebrate Christmas on January 7. Jerusalem Post and Middle East Monitor
It's been a week since Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas suffered a humiliating defeat in the U.N. Security Council, when it rejected, without even requiring a U.S. veto, Abbas's resolution that would require Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian territories to pre-1967 borders by 2017.
Following the rejection, Abbas signed the documents to apply on behalf of the State of Palestine to join the International Criminal Court (ICC), in order to bring war crimes charges against Israeli officials. Israel retaliated by withholding $175 million in tax collections from the PA.
According to one theory, this was all part of a larger plan. This theory suggests that Abbas knew that the Security Council vote would be rejected (which is certainly true), and that he wanted an excuse to join the ICC. The purpose is to shape the narrative of conflict, changing it from the "peace process" to "war crimes." Joining the ICC means that Israeli soldiers and commanders could be arrested and tried for war crimes when they travel abroad.
As of January 1, the makeup of the Security Council has changed, with Angola, Malaysia and Venezuela replacing Rwanda, South Korea and Argentina as non-permanent members. Abbas has said that he plans to re-submit the resolution, expecting that with the new membership he would get the required nine votes for passage. However, there would still be a U.S. veto in that case.
However, Hamas is completely opposed to any submission to the Security Council, because a successful resolution would "legitimize Israeli occupation." According to Hamas co-founder Mahmoud Zahar:
"This Palestinian resolution is catastrophic and has no future on the land of Palestine. The future belongs to the resistance. We will continue to work to liberate all the land and achieve the right of return for Palestinian refugees. Hamas will not accept anything less than all the lands that were occupied in 1948."
Once again, Abbas is trying to calm the waters by seeking a solution that might avoid all out war between Palestinians and Israelis. As I've written many times, Abbas was born in 1935, and survived the horrific 1948 war between Jews and Arabs that following the partitioning of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel. Like most survivors of generational crisis wars, Abbas has literally devoted his life to doing everything possible to prevent that horrific kind of war from occurring again. As regular readers know, Generational Dynamics predicts that he will not succeed in preventing that horrific war, though he may continue to postpone it.
In fact, the man that most Palestinians consider the most likely successor to 80-year-old Abbas is the fiery 53-year-old Mohammed Dahlan, who announced on Saturday that he would form a united front in opposition to Abbas. According to Dahlan:
"Most of the Palestinian people oppose the proposal that [Abbas] put forward [at the Security Council]. This was a hasty and reckless decision that wasn’t made with the unified consensus of the Palestinians. The proposal was changed a number of times without consultation of the decision makers. This was a decision that constitutes a new disaster for relations with Israel which will bring shame and destruction of the Palestinian issue."
Bloomberg and Palestine Chronicle and Times of Israel
The Obama administration said Monday it was reviewing its annual $440 million aid package to the Palestinians because of their effort to join the International Criminal Court to pursue war-crimes charges against Israel. Under American law, any Palestinian case against Israel at the court would trigger an immediate cutoff of U.S. financial support. Membership itself doesn't automatically incur U.S. punishment. AP
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 7-Jan-15 World View -- Bethlehem celebrates the second of its three Christmases thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(7-Jan-2015)
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Surge in migrants from Cuba trying to reach the U.S. illegally
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The anti-Islam PEGIDA movement ("Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes," or "Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West") protests have been growing in size since the movement's founding in October, but they're also stirring counter-protests by those considering Pegida to be xenophobic.
In Cologne on Monday evening, 20,000 residents gathered on the streets to block Pegida protests in that city, carrying banners that read "Nazis, out!" "We will not let a racist mob run free on Cologne's streets." In addition, the lights on bridges over the Rhine and the Cologne Cathedral were turned off. According to the dean of the cathedral, "We don't think of it as a protest, but we would like to make the many conservative Christians [who support Pegida] think about what they are doing." The Pegida demonstrations were canceled in Cologne.
But in Dresden, where Pegida is headquartered, 18,000 people turned up for one anti-immigration rally, carrying signs that said, "Germany for Germans!" and "No to Islamization of Europe!"
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has publicly condemned Pegida. Deutsche Welle and BBC
A couple of weeks ago, on a day when investors were in a drunken euphoria because the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 421 points, I pointed out that if the market could go up 421 points in one day, then it could just as easily go down 421 points in one day. That didn't quite happen on Monday, but there was a plunge of 331 points, illustrating how dangerous the recent drunken euphoria is. Indeed, a number of things happened in unison.
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil fell briefly below $50 per barrel on Monday, before settling at $50.44 per barrel, representing a plunge of 4.3%. It was just a few months ago that it was in the range $100-110 per barrel. Although lower oil prices means lower gasoline prices, it's also signaling a decrease in demand, as the global economy slows down and continues its deflationary spiral.
European stocks also fell on Monday, from 2-4%. The fall in oil prices affected a number of energy companies, resulting in something of a domino effect, and a new report showed that Germany is getting closer to deflation.
The euro currency tumbled to a nine-year low against the dollar, based on widespread concerns that the European Central Bank (ECB) is going to start "printing money" (quantitative easing), in order to bail out Greece again.
In his weekly investors newsletter, investment guru John P. Hussman says that he's in the camp that believes that "the likelihood of a market loss on the order of 40%, 50% or even 60% in the next few years is quite high."
Generational Dynamics predicts that we're headed for a global financial panic and crisis. According to Friday's Wall Street Journal, the S&P 500 Price/Earnings index (stock valuations index) on Friday morning (January 2) was back up to an astronomically high 18.66. This is far above the historical average of 14, indicating that the stock market is in a huge bubble that could burst at any time. Generational Dynamics predicts that the P/E ratio will fall to the 5-6 range or lower, which is where it was as recently as 1982, resulting in a Dow Jones Industrial Average of 3000 or lower.
It's not known even today what the event was that triggered the 1929 panic, except that conditions just prior to the panic were similar to conditions today -- an astronomically high P/E ratio, and a period of highly volatile wild swings in stock prices. Motley Fool and AP and Bloomberg and Dow Jones and John P. Hussman
As we recently reported, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel has reportedly said that she's prepared to support Greece leaving the eurozone, and returning its original drachma currency, if Greece abandons the austerity commitments it made in return for the 240 billion euro bailout that has already been paid.
Polls are showing that the radical far left Syriza party, led by Alexis Tsipras, is poised to win Greek elections on January 25. With Tsipras promising to renege on Greece's austerity commitments, Merkel's remarks have triggered a major debate in Europe.
Here are some of the things that various analysts and politicians are saying:
Despite 25% unemployment in Greece, the Germans are not prepared to make significant concessions to Tsipras, because significant concessions have already been made -- Greece has been allowed more time to pay down its debt than originally agreed and interest payments have been largely discontinued.
The existing aid programs for Greece are set to expire at the end of February. It's pretty certain that there's going to be a major new Greek crisis during the next two months, although no one knows how that crisis is going to turn out. Greek Reporter and Der Spiegel and AP
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According to the Coast Guard, the rate of Cuban migrants attempting to reach the U.S. illegally has more than doubled since the December 17 announcement restoring diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States. Cubans on the island are speeding up their plans to make the trip because they fear that immigration laws are about to change, making it more difficult to avoid deportation. Miami Herald
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 6-Jan-15 World View -- Wall Street, European stocks, euro, oil all plunge on Monday thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(6-Jan-2015)
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Iran's Rouhani challenges Khamenei in speech demanding reforms
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We've been reporting recently on the growing war between Muslim tribes and sects that is threatening to engulf the entire Mideast, and Yemen is part of that trend. During 2014, at least 7,000 people were killed, including at least 1,200 civilians.
This last year saw the rise of the al-Houthis, an Iran-backed Shia tribe, originally from northwest Yemen on the border with Saudi Arabia. In September, the al-Houthi militias moved south and captured Sanaa, the nation's capital, ousting the Sunni-led government. Since then, they've continued to take control of additional mainly Sunni provinces, and it's now thought that the al-Houthis control about 70% of the army's capabilities. It's believed that the al-Houthis are being backed by former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The al-Houthis are opposed by two Sunni groups. One is al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), currently considered to be the most dangerous branch of al-Qaeda. The second is the Islamist Al-Islah movement, a collection of Sunni tribes that have lost power since the Houthi takeover, and who are now cooperating against AQAP against the al-Houthis.
There's a third power center -- a growing secessionist movement in the south. Prior to 1994, North Yemen and South Yemen were two separate countries.
The international community had hoped that Yemen would be stabilized by a peace plan agreement made last year in February to divide the country into six federally organized regions. However, al-Houthi leader Abdel-Malek al-Houthi announced in a televised address on Saturday that he was completely rejecting the peace agreement. Beware of any attempts to overthrow the revolution," he said. Al-Arabiya and AP and AEI Critical Threats Project
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday called for an end to the country's international isolation by curbing corruption and mismanagement with reforms that are opposed by Supreme leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei and by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC). According to Rouhani:
"Our economy will not prosper as long as it is monopolised (by the government). The economy must be rid of monopoly and see competition.It must be freed of insider speculation, be transparent, all people must be aware of the statistics. If we can bring transparency to our economy, we can fight corruption.
Our political life has shown we can't have sustainable growth while we are isolated."
Rouhani has threatened to call a national referendum if he can't get the reforms he's demanding:
"As the enforcer of our constitution, I would like, even for once, to see conditions ripe to implement a tenet of the common law calling for major issues - economic, social, political and cultural - to be put to public referendum rather than parliamentary vote.Some 36 years have passed now and this article has not been enforced even once."
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, Iran is in a generational Awakening era, just one generation past the 1979 Great Islamic Revolution and the Iran/Iraq war that ended in 1988. There is a "generation gap" splitting the hardline survivors of the crisis wars from the younger generations growing up after the war. This is similar to America in the 1960s, when there was a generation gap between the World War II survivors and the generations growing up after the war.
As I've been writing for ten years, Iran's younger generations are generally pro-American and not particularly anti-Israel. Iran will be our ally in the coming Clash of Civilizations world war. Payvand (Iran) and Reuters
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 5-Jan-15 World View -- War in Yemen expands as Shia al-Houthis threaten new Sunni provinces thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(5-Jan-2015)
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Israel cuts payments to Palestinians in retaliation for ICC bid
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Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel has reportedly said that she's prepared to support Greece leaving the eurozone, and returning its original drachma currency, if Greece abandons the austerity commitments it made in return for the 240 billion euro bailout that has already been paid. During previous Greek crisis events, it was feared that Greece leaving the eurozone would completely destabilize the euro currency, but reportedly Merkel believes that the euro has become sufficiently strong to withstand a Greek exit.
The new crisis may be precipitated with the snap elections on January 25. The radical far left Syriza party, led by Alexis Tsipras, is now ahead in the polls, at 30.4%. Tsipras has promised to renege on Greece's austerity commitments. He also promised to do away with a real estate tax, freeze house foreclosures, raise the minimum wage and reinstate a 12,000 euro ($14,400) tax-free threshold to help low earners.
How would Tsipras like to pay for all these enormous social programs? There's going to be a policy meeting of the European Central Bank (ECB) on January 22. At that meeting, there may be an announced plan for the ECB to "print money" by purchasing billions of dollars in government bonds (quantitative easing). In that case, Tsipras would like the ECB to purchase billions of dollars worth of worthless Greek bonds, so that Greece can use that money to pay for all the welfare handouts. I can just imagine Angela Merkel agreeing to that scenario. This is shaping up to be quite a spectacle. Deutsche Welle and Kathimerini
It's once again necessary to evacuate villagers near the India-Pakistan border in Kashmir and Jammu, after gunfire was exchanged this week between Indian and Pakistani forces. Two people, including a 13-year-old girl, were killed and eight more injured, in several incidents, with casualties on both sides.
Kashmir was a major battleground for the 1947 Partition war that following the partitioning of the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan, one of the bloodiest wars of the last century, and there have been two more wars fought across the Line of Control (LoC) separating Pakistan and India since then. There have been gunfire incidents across the LoC for years, though it's been relatively peaceful since a cease-fire agreement in 2003. However, as we reported in October, there was a new round of gunfire, the worst in years. At that time, Pakistan said that Indian forces resorted to "unprovoked firing," while India blamed Pakistan for firing first, and promised "effective retaliation."
With regard to this week's new fighting, India's military said:
"Pakistani troops resorted to unprovoked and heavy firing and mortar shelling on posts and civilian areas along [the border]. [Border Security Force] troops gave a befitting reply."
In response, Pakistan's military accused India of an unprovoked barrage of artillery, and the Defense Ministry issued a threat:
"In the past six-seven months, we have tried to better our ties with India so that peace can prevail. But it seems that they do not understand this language. I believe, we will now communicate with India in the language they understand."
The thing that has definitely changed in the last six-seven months is that both sides are significantly hardening their positions, and exhibiting a willingness to shoot first and ask questions later. India Times and Kashmir Watch
The decision by Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas last week to apply on behalf of the State of Palestine to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) has brought retaliation, as originally promised by Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel is withholding $175 million in tax collections from the PA. This is money that Israel collects administratively on behalf of the PA in taxes and fees. The amount being withheld is the collections from December.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called the move an act of "piracy" and a "collective punishment" against the Palestinian people:
"If Israel thinks that through economic pressure it will succeed in diverting our approach from freedom and independence, then it is wrong. This is the money of the Palestinian people and Israel is not a donor country."
Israel's left-wing opposition was also critical of the move, saying, "Netanyahu has no real solution to Israel's deteriorating situation on the world stage. Whoever is weak in the face of (Palestinian President Abbas) and fails to act to take steps that will protect IDF soldiers in The Hague cannot really stop this trend." They're opposing Netanyahu in the upcoming elections, and recommending negotiating with Hamas, rather than with Mahmoud Abbas.
There's a feeling of déjà vu in this situation. In December 2012, Israel withheld $100 million in tax revenues from the PA in retaliation when Mahmoud Abbas applied to the United Nations General Assembly to create a state of Palestine with non-member observer status. However, the tax payments were reinstated shortly afterwards. AP and YNet
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 4-Jan-15 World View -- Far left Greece election victory may trigger confrontation with Europe thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(4-Jan-2015)
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Obama administration imposes additional sanctions on North Korea
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Over an eight-day period, mosques in cities across Sweden -- Eslöv, Eskilstuna, and Uppsala -- were torched in arson attacks. The words "Go home Muslim shit" were written on the main door of Uppsala's mosque on Thursday, after someone threw a Molotov cocktail at the building. Nobody was injured.
The series of mosque attacks follows the surge in popularity of the "Sweden Democrats" party, a far-right anti-immigration party. (The phrase "far right" has different meanings in Europe and America.) The party won 13% of the vote in September elections, and recent polls put the party's support at over 17%. In early December, the Sweden Democrats precipitated a government crisis by withdrawing its approval of the government's proposed budget.
Prime Minister Dagens Nyheter Löfven said that:
"I will never act in a way that would give power over the country's development to a neo-fascist single issue political party that neither respects human diversity or Sweden's democratic institutions."
Löfven called for new snap elections on March 22.
However, the three mosque attacks appear to have changed the country's mood considerably. After the first attack, Löfven was able to reach a deal with the main opposition alliance, allowing him to avoid the snap elections without compromising with the Sweden Democrats.
The public appears to have a mixed reaction to the wave of xenophobia exposed by the arson attacks on the mosques. More than a thousand demonstrators took to the streets in Sweden on Friday to protest the spate of attacks on mosques, carrying a banner that said "Don't touch my mosque." On the other hand, some online forums saw some Swedes praising the arson attacks. The Local (Sweden) and AFP and Deutsche Welle
President Obama on Friday for the first time formally accused North Korea of being responsible for the cyber attack on Sony Pictures. Also, for the first time, Obama signed an executive order applying new sanctions specifically in retaliation for the cyber attack. Obama had previous promised a "proportionate response" to the attack. The executive order "is a response to the Government of North Korea’s ongoing provocative, destabilizing, and repressive actions and policies, particularly its destructive and coercive cyber attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment," according to the White House.
There are already in place numerous sanctions against North Korea related to its development of nuclear weapons, and so the new sanctions are not expected to make much of a difference beyond their symbolic significance. White House and USA Today
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 3-Jan-15 World View -- Sweden shocked by arson attacks on three mosques in eight days thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(3-Jan-2015)
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Palestine to join the International Criminal Court
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In drama on the high seas, the Italian coast guard has rescued two large merchant ships in the Mediterranean, packed with migrants from Syria, Eritrea, and Africa. The first ship contained 975 migrants, and the second ship has 450 migrants.
This is a new development. In the past we've seen migrants come to Europe in creaky little boats or even inflatable dinghies, sent out into the open sea with a few dozen migrants in the hope that Italy's navy or a passing merchant ship will respond to distress calls.
In the case of the two cargo ships, the people smugglers packed hundreds of people into each one, after typically collecting thousands of dollars from each migrant, and sent the ship out into the open sea with no crew, running on autopilot. The Italian navy was able to board the first ship and take control of it. At this writing, there is a major naval operation in progress to do the same with the second ship.
2014 was a record year for both migrant crossings and migrant deaths. At least 3,072 people died while trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe, though an unknown number may have drowned without being rescued. And nearly 200,000 migrants attempted the crossing. In 2013, there were about 700 deaths, out of an attempted 60,000 crossings. BBC and Toronto Star
At least 76,021 people died in the Syria conflict in 2014, up from 73,447 in 2013, 49294 in 2012, and 7,841 in 2011.
Of the 2014 total, 17,790 were civilians, including 3,501 children.
The Syrian war is currently the biggest component of the escalating Muslim versus Muslim war throughout the Mideast. AFP
Palestine Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas, acting on behalf of the State of Palestine, has signed the Rome Statute, on the path to joining the International Criminal Court (ICC). The intent is to bring war crime charges against Israel, but there are a number of legal hurdles. The ICC Prosecutor must first recognize Palestine as a full member and accept its signature to the Rome Statute. Palestine can then submit complaints to the ICC, but it's up to the Prosecutor to determine whether to order a preliminary investigation, and then a full criminal investigation. In that case, Israel will also be able to bring charges against Hamas for war crimes committed during the Gaza war. Guardian (London) and Jerusalem Post
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 2-Jan-15 World View -- European migrant crisis escalates with crewless cargo ships thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(2-Jan-2015)
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Iran-Saudi Arabia tensions increase further as oil prices fall
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Prices of West Texas Intermediate oil fell another 82 cents on Wednesday, to $53.27 per barrel. It was just few months ago that the price was over $100 per barrel, and oil exporting countries, including Iran, Russia and Venezuela, are facing financial crises as a result.
Saudi Arabia is refusing to cut production in the face of falling oil prices, and many Iranians are accusing the Saudis of purposely letting prices fall in order to conduct economic warfare on Iran. According to an article in the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) weekly newsletter:
"The most recent Aal-Saud oil war against Iran, Russia, and Venezuela, waged at the command of the American bosses, is the newest and most overt Aal-Saud hostility... First of all, the new Saudi oil war proves once again that as long as [Iran's] budget is based [almost entirely] on oil, the enemy can exploit this weapon in order to pressure Iran. For this reason, there needs to be an initiative, once and for all, so that [Iran's] revenues will not be oil-based; therefore, senior Iranian political and economic leaders must seriously address the 'resistance economy' [plan] emphasized in recent years by [Supreme] Leader [Ali Khamenei], so that we can neutralize weapons of this kind.Now that Saudi Arabia is using all its capabilities to harm Iran, the Islamic Republic [of Iran] can also use all the means at its disposal to pressure this obsolete, deteriorating regime. Iran has many options for harming Saudi Arabia. Because this tyrannical, medieval family is now at its nadir, all Iran needs to do is to use a single one of these means so that nothing remains of the entity named the Aal-Saud regime or of Saudi Arabia itself.
Increased public protests, particularly in the oil-rich eastern [and largely Shi'ite-majority] areas of Saudi Arabia, have undermined the legitimacy of Saudi [rule]. These anti-[Saudi] regime protests are not unique to this part of Saudi Arabia; they are [also] happening in other parts of it. Additionally, the Houthis [in Yemen], who are considered Aal-Saud's sworn enemies, are at Saudi Arabia's back door [Yemen]; all they have to do is lift one finger for the disintegrating Aal-Saud corpus to collapse.
Saudi Arabia no longer has the respect it once had from its Arab neighbors – and has serious problems with some of them. On the other hand, its support for the terrorist organization ISIS, and its operation of it, has spawned great hatred of Saudi Arabia in public opinion, in both the region and the world. Elements of ISIS that have been fattened by the Saudi regime have become sworn enemies of Saudi Arabia. Apparently, Saudi Arabia's free oil money cannot stop the increase in the weakness of the Aal-Saud regime."
Other analysts list serious problems facing the Saudi regime:
On top of that, Saudi Arabia is facing a looming succession crisis as the 91-year-old King Abdullah has been taken into a Riyadh hospital. The country's next ruler will almost certainly be a generation or two younger, and all the above problems could suddenly become more serious. Memri and Al Monitor and Business Insider and Platts Financial
No one can seriously doubt that the world has become a much more dangerous place in 2014, and so now is a good time to review the most three most important dangers to watch out for in 2015:
Any one of these three could explode in 2015, and they're interrelated in the sense that one of these major crises could be the trigger for the others.
There is one crisis that isn't as dangerous as I'd expected. I thought that Ebola would have spread far more than it has already, but it hasn't. The mistake that I made was that I didn't believe it was possible for Ebola to spread so wildly throughout Western Africa, and stop at the borders of Mali and Côte d'Ivoire. But in fact that has happened, and I'm still astonished that the international community was successful in doing that.
The Ebola crisis is far from over, and it's still possible that there may be major outbreaks in other places, especially war zones and crowded cities. But for now, it looks like the worst is not going to occur.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 1-Jan-15 World View -- The three most important dangers for 2015 thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(1-Jan-2015)
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