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New York's Obamacare Co-op collapses, the fourth so far this year
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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One of the hare-brained schemes in the Obamacare design was the establishment of a network of nonprofit insurance companies to compete with the established insurance companies, who were repeatedly painted as evil villains during the Obamacare discussions. The non-profit insurance companies are called "Consumer Oriented and Operated Plans," usually abbreviated to "Obamacare co-ops."
There were co-ops established in 23 states, and all but one lost money in 2014, and Iowa's co-op, CoOportunity Health, failed spectacularly in December, 2014.
Four more co-ops have collapsed in 2015, and on Tuesday, New York regulators announced the collapse of the biggest Obamacare co-op in the nation, Health Republic Insurance of New York.
Furthermore, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have admitted for the first time that there will be additional failures this year. Probably someone is going to get fired for making that admission.
At times like this, I like to recall that when Jonathan Gruber said that passage of Obamacare depended on the stupidity of the American people, he was referring to Obamacare supporters, not to people like me.
The reason the co-ops were failing because they all did the same things: Since they're funded by Obamacare, they don't have to make a profit, so they gained market share by pricing premiums far below market rates. During 2014, the co-ops paid out $1.16 in insurance reimbursements for every $1.00 they collected in premiums. They could get away with this because they're government agencies and don't care who gets screwed.
The New York co-op has been even worse, paying out $1.40 in benefits for every $1 it got in premiums. They charged money-losing premiums to gain market share, but the more customers they had, the more money they lost.
I described all this last month in my article, "Healthcare.gov -- The greatest software development disaster in history".
In that article, which I posted after months of investigation, showed that the Obama administration threw away hundreds of billions of Medicare fund dollars into Obamacare exchanges, Obamacare co-ops, Obamacare risk corridors, and Obamacare web sites, all of which are drowning in red ink. The investigation revealed lying at all levels, including criminal fraud -- which will never be prosecuted because criminal acts in Obamacare are immune from prosecution.
The collapse of the New York Obamacare co-op is a sign of things to come. The $710 billion Medicare fund that Obamacare confiscated has almost completely been used up, and so we can expect to see a lot more Obamacare collapses in the next few months. Bloomberg and Daily Caller and NY State Dept. of Financial Services
Copper prices fell to $4920 per tonne on Monday, before recovering slightly. The price has been crashing, and is down 21% so far in 2015, after falling 16% in 2014. The current price is at a six-year low, just above the low of the financial crisis six years ago. The crash is expected to continue, with predicted prices at $4800 at the end of this year, and $4500 at the end of next year.
Just as the 60% collapse in the price of oil has been disastrous for exporting countries around the world, including Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, the collapse in the price of copper is rippling throughout the world.
The copper crash is being mostly blamed on the slowdown in China's economy, which is also causing drops in prices of coal, oil and metals.
The copper crash is causing crashes in the prices of stocks for mining companies. Miners are some of the largest companies in the world, responsible for hundreds of thousands of jobs in many countries. The world's largest miner is Melbourne-based BHP Billiton, whose stock price has fallen 29% in the last three months. The second-largest miner, also Melbourne-based, is Rio Tinto, which is less dependent on copper, has limited it's stock declines this year to 30%.
However, stock prices for Swiss-based Glencore Plc, the world's third-largest copper miner, fell 30% on Monday ALONE.
The result is a disaster for the African country Zambia, whose economy is heavily dependent on the price of copper. Glencore has announced plans to suspend operations in the country, which will result in the loss of thousands of jobs. Zambia's currency, the kwacha, fell 13% against the dollar on Monday alone. Glencore is also suspending operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Stock prices for another copper mining company, Phoenix AZ based Freeport-McMoRan Inc., fell over 10% on Monday, with the stock price now down 61% since the beginning of the year. Freeport announced earlier this month that it's cutting in half its operations in Chile, and will be laying off hundreds of workers.
As I've been saying for many years, the world is in a deflationary spiral in this generational Crisis era. Deflation has gripped economies in Europe, America, China and Japan.
The deflationary spiral is affecting global stock prices, which fell to a two-year low on Tuesday, at the end of the worst quarter in years. Generational Dynamics predicts that there will be a global financial crisis and stock market crash, bringing the Dow Jones Industrial Average below 3000. Mining.com and Economist and BBC and Reuters
Climate change activists are ecstatic over a promise by China to implement a "cap and trade" system in 2017 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The way it works is to create a new class of synthetic securities backed by "carbon credits." Each company receives a supply of these securities, and they can be bought and sold. Buying the securities gives a company the right to pollute more, and selling the securities obligates the company to pollute less.
As I wrote in 2007 in "UN Climate Change conference appears to be ending in farce," "cap and trade" is a financial scam, and the securities are nearly worthless, in the same way that near-worthless securities were created from subprime mortgages. European nations implemented a cap-and-trade system that not only did not reduce carbon emissions, but probably increased them.
The recently exposed debacle with Volkswagen shows what can happen. VW implemented software in its cars to cheat on emissions tests, and implemented it in millions of cars in Europe. These cars are spewing huge amounts of emissions into the air, but thanks to the cheating software, official figures show much lower emissions. Now that the scam has been revealed it will be necessary to compute new figures, and news stories indicate that the new figures will be much higher than the old ones. So much for reduced emissions in Europe.
This brings us back to China. If the Europeans, with a supposedly open economy, can so easily cheat on emissions measurements, then it will be enormously easy for China to cheat. China can claim any emissions figures it wants, and nobody will even know, just as China lies about its military budget and other economic figures.
China has committed to reach its carbon emissions targets by 2030, but what's really laughable is that China has not indicated what those targets are. So China is in a position to make up both emission statistics and emission targets as it goes along.
But already analysts are saying that China is going to have to back off from its promises, because the economy is slowing. According to an analyst:
"With slowing energy demand in a slowing economy, the last thing these companies want is an extra cost associated with a carbon emissions commitment. They’ve got enough to worry about already. The launch of a nationwide [cap-and-trade] market at a time when they are having a difficult time to survive has the risk of not having enthusiastic participants at first."
In the meantime, with China opening new coal mines every week, does anyone seriously believe that any emissions will actually be reduced? Brookings and Bloomberg
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 30-Sep-15 World View -- Copper's crashing prices cause devastating economic ripples around the world thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(30-Sep-2015)
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The Afghan Taliban return to Kunduz after fourteen years
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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The Afghan Taliban achieved a major propaganda boost and significant strategic victory on Monday by capturing the city of Kunduz in northern Afghanistan, near the border with Tajikistan. Kunduz has a population of about 300,000, and is a major transportation hub for the north of the country, providing a pathway for trade throughout Central Asia.
The Taliban have attacked Kunduz in the past but were driven back. On Monday, hundreds of Taliban fighters launched an offensive from three sides, catching Afghan forces by surprise. In the past, when there was a large contingent of US-led coalition forces, it would have been possible to stop the assault by means of air strikes on the pickup trucks carrying the Taliban fighters into the city, but attempts to create an Afghan air force have not been successful.
The Taliban have looted government buildings with intelligence information, UN offices, weapons stores, and banks with millions of dollars. In addition, the Taliban have freed 700 prisoners from the city's jails, including many very dangerous Taliban commanders and leaders. The capture of Kunduz will lead to further Taliban advances, including major operations next summer.
The Afghan military is promising to recapture the city, but any attempt to do so will result in large numbers of civilian deaths, because the Taliban are digging in to heavily populated areas.
Kunduz’s position as a potential gateway to and from central Asia makes it an attractive target for insurgents, and the government has claimed that foreign militants linked to ISIS were involved in the recent unrest, as well as militants from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). Images showing Taliban fighters driving in vehicles allegedly captured from the security forces have since been posted on social media, such as the one at the beginning of this article. BBC and Reuters and Long War Journal
Afghanistan was embroiled in an extremely bloody civil war between 1991-96, after which the Taliban took control of the government. Nato forces pushed the Taliban out of Kunduz during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.
Kunduz was the last city in the north to be held by the Taliban regime. In the aftermath, under the Nato mission, German soldiers arrived in Kunduz in October 2003 expecting to see little combat, but security had begun to deteriorate even before the Germans withdrew in late 2013.
By 2015, the Taliban were taking control of much of the area along the northern border with Tajikistan. In April of this year, the Taliban came close to capturing Kunduz. When it appeared in April that Kunduz was on the brink of falling, the government panicked and sent reinforcements. The city was saved from collapse, but residents described it as a hollow victory because of continuing widespread violence in the region. Deutsche Welle and The National (UAE - 20-June-2015)
As we reported recently ( "16-Sep-15 World View -- Russia's economic slowdown means financial disaster for Central Asia"), Russia's Vladimir Putin has been tightening his grip on Tajikistan by deploying troops to the border with Afghanistan to defend against the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh), the Taliban, and other militant groups.
Putin was quoted as saying,
"Terrorists publicly claim that they set their sights on attacking Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. They are planning to expand their activities to Europe, Russia, Central and Southeast Asia. ...The real threat of terrorist and extremist groups infiltrating the countries neighboring Afghanistan is rising. ...
Here in Tajikistan you are confronted with problems, with encroachments and attempts to rock the situation, and I would like to say that you can always count on our assistance and support."
Putin is using a similar strategy with other Central Asian countries as well.
The Taliban seizure of Kunduz provides a major boost to Putin's argument that these Central Asian countries should allow Russian troops to deploy on their soil. He could also point out that analysts believe that the militias capturing Kunduz also included fighters from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). And this comes just days after another Taliban-linked group, the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), claimed that it had taken control of large areas of Afghanistan's northern border with Tajikistan.
The international perception of the differences between Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama are becoming more pronounced. Putin is doubling down to support his client in Syria, and is deploying troops on the Afghanistan border, while Obama is doing nothing for his client in Afghanistan, and is weak and dithering in Syria and Iraq.
Obama had originally promised to end America's military involvement in Afghanistan by the end of 2014. Most of America's troops were withdrawn, but Obama extended the deadline to the end of 2016, just before he leaves office, and with a much smaller force of 9,800 troops.
The capture of Kunduz is a highly significant milestone in the increasing success of the Taliban in recapturing control of Afghanistan. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani is lobbying to slow the American troop withdrawal by arguing that "Afghanistan is shouldering the burden of fighting foreign extremism” and that ISIS is one of several extremist groups threatening the country’s stability.
After a disastrous outcome to his policies in Iraq and Syria, Obama is now facing another potentially disastrous output in Afghanistan. He will face a number of difficult decisions in the next few months. Long War Journal (25-Sept) and Foreign Policy and Deutsche Welle
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 29-Sep-15 World View -- Afghan Taliban capture of Kunduz has major repercussions for Central Asia thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(29-Sep-2015)
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Mahmoud Abbas's resignation would trigger major Mideast changes
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Rumors and speculation have been raging for the last couple of weeks, ever since Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas promised on September 17 to "drop a bombshell" at the end of the speech he'll be giving to the United Nations on Wednesday.
The initial speculation was that Abbas would repudiate the terms of the 1993 Oslo peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, on the grounds that Israel has not fully complied with the agreement, and that the agreement hasn't accomplished anything of value, since the Israelis continue to build settlements at will, peace negotiations have gone nowhere.
The Oslo agreement specifies that the PA is responsible for governing and policing the West Bank. A repudiation of that agreement would dismantle the PA and would be seen as a blow to Israel, which would then be required to govern and police the West Bank by itself, which would certainly result in frequent clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinians.
However, Israeli intelligence sources say that Abbas's associates are vehemently opposed to dismantling the Palestinian Authority. Dismantling the PA would also mean disconnecting the Palestinians from the European Commission Ad Hoc Liaison Committee on assistance to the Palestinians, which funnels over $1 billion annually to the PA's bank account, paying the salaries of over 160,000 Palestinian employees. Israel National News (17-Sept) and Al Monitor
Nonetheless, some reports indicate that Abbas will deliver an ultimatum to Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday: Freeze the settlement building and recognize the 1967 borders as a basis for negotiation, or the PA will hand back to Israel the responsibility for security in the whole of the West Bank.
On September 20, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas was quoted as saying,
"I’m already old. If in two or three months’ time I see that there’s no hope, I won’t stay in the job."
It's possible that part of Wednesday's "bombshell" announcement will be Abbas's own resignation.
Abbas has threatened to resign several times in the past. In 2011, it seemed resignation was almost certain, because of the repeated failure of the "peace process," but then his personal popularity began to increase and he started "acting like a young man again," so he didn't resign after all.
Because year after year has gone by with no progress in negotiations with Israel, Abbas may feel that he has nothing left to lose if he resigns and, at the same time, delivers an ultimatum to Israel.
Although Abbas has threatened to resign in the past, but has changed his mind each time, it's possible that this time it may actually happen, for two good reasons.
First, he was born in 1935 and is now 80 years old, and running the PA cannot be easy at his age, especially since he isn't accomplishing anything.
Second, his personal popularity has been plummeting, according to a poll conducted by Khalil Shikaki of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. The main findings of the poll, conducted between September 17-19 in Gaza and the West Bank, found:
The poll found that anger at the Palestinian Authority and the Arab world has been growing due to various factors:
So with Palestinian attitudes turning sharply against Abbas, the Palestinian government, and the Arabs, a "bombshell" announcement that combines an ultimatum with resignation is considered a possibility. Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research and Al Monitor
The Palestinian belief that the Arab world is turning against them refers to what I've written about several times, that the 2014 Gaza war brought about a major Mideast realignment, splitting the Gulf nations apart. When the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas began last summer, Egypt supported Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and turned against Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Iran and Turkey supported Hamas. This created a de facto realignment of the Mideast, with Israel plus Egypt plus Saudi Arabia plus the Palestinian Authority in alliance versus Hamas plus Qatar plus Turkey plus Iran.
Since the Gaza war, there have been other factors: the rise of the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh), the war in Yemen, the rise of Iran with the nuclear accords, and now Russia's military deployment into Syria. Whereas the "Palestinian problem" used to be the major focus of politicians around the world, today it rarely even appears in the headlines, with everything else going on. As a result, the Palestinians feel abandoned not only by the Arabs, but also by the international community.
So now, into this chaotic context, comes the possibility that Abbas may resign. As I wrote for the first time in 2003, Generational Dynamics predicts that the Israel-Palestinian "peace process" can never succeed because Arabs and Israelis will be refighting the genocidal 1948 war between Jews and Arabs that followed the partitioning of Palestinian and the creation of the state of Israel.
In 2003, I wrote that it's the survivors of the 1948 war that have prevented a war that major from occurring again. In 2003, Yassir Arafat and Ariel Sharon, both survivors of the 1948 war, were the respective leaders of the Palestinians and Israelis. Today, both of them are gone, and in fact, almost every other survivor is also gone, with Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas being the sole major leader with personal memories of the horrors of the 1948 war.
The resignation of Abbas would bring on a major leadership crisis among the Palestinians. Some polls indicate that his most likely replacement would be Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, a Gen-Xer born in 1963. This generational shift in leadership would bring major changes to the Palestinian territories, and a great deal more conflict with Israel. Al Monitor (22-Sept) and Reuters
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 28-Sep-15 World View -- Palestinian leader Abbas expected to deliver ultimatum to Israel at UN thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(28-Sep-2015)
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Iran rejects Fatalism, blames Saudi officials for 'crime'
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The worst disaster to befall the Islamic event in a quarter of a century occurred on Thursday as two large groups of pilgrims arrived together at a crossroads in Mina, a few kilometers outside the holy city of Mecca.
The Hajj is a pilgrimage to Mecca that every Muslim is required to make at least one in his lifetime. About two million Muslims from 180 countries around the world have arrived in Saudi Arabia in the past couple of weeks for their one in a lifetime Hajj pilgrimage.
On Thursday, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims were walking towards the site of one of the most important rituals, "stoning the devil," which requires throwing seven stones at a pillar representing Satan in the city of Mina. However, when two massive crowds converged on the same narrow street, the people in front were forced to stop, while the ones hundreds of meters to the rear kept on walking. All of this took place under a burning hot sun, with a temperature of 46 degrees centigrade (= 114 degrees fahrenheit). The result was that hundreds of pilgrims suffocated or were trampled to death. One eyewitness said the majority of the dead people were elderly people who were walking with their children, who were not able to leave the children behind.
Initially, Saudi officials placed the blame on the pilgrims themselves for not following safety instructions, saying that many of the pilgrims, were "undisciplined and did not follow instructions." One Saudi official blamed "some pilgrims with African nationalities" for the incident, resulting in outrage in responses like, "Anti-black, anti-poor, xenophobic, totally outrageous yet predictable response from the Saudi Monarchy."
Postings on many twitter accounts blamed the Saudis for poor administration in allowing the stampede to happen. Others blamed it simply on "human error," and supported the Saudi officials by commending the quick work by first responders after the stampede.
The stampede incident comes just a few days after a massive construction crane collapsed into Mecca’s Grand Mosque, killing more than 100 people and leaving over 200 others wounded. ( "12-Sep-15 World View -- Saudi Arabia's Grand Mosque, site of huge construction accident, has links to 9/11")
By Friday, Saudi officials were giving Fatalistic explanations. Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh told Saudi officials:
"You are not responsible for what happened. As for the things that humans cannot control, you are not blamed for them. Fate and destiny are inevitable."
Arab News (Riyadh) and BBC and Reuters
Saudi Arabia's enemy, Iran, is rejecting any claim that the stampede was the will of Allah, and is holding Saudi officials responsible.
Iran's president Hassan Rouhani gave a long-scheduled speech to the United Nations on Saturday, and used the speech to demand an international investigation into the cause of "this incident and similar incidents in this year’s Hajj rituals," referring to the crane incident.
Iran's Prosecutor General Ebrahim Raisi said:
"We will urge international courts and circles to start the trial of the Saudis for their crimes against hajj pilgrims. This is not incompetence, it's a crime."
Of the almost 800 pilgrims killed in the stampede, at least 136 were from Iran, which was more than from any other country. Iran's Foreign Ministry is protesting Saudi Arabia's handling of the disaster, and said that Saudi Arabia has yet to issue visas for an Iranian delegation to visit the kingdom to oversee the treatment of injured Iranians and the repatriation of remains. Press TV (Tehran) and Hurriyet (Turkey) and Mashable
Fatalism is relatively uncommon in the West. It's unusual for Westerners to blame even natural disasters on God's will.
In January 2010, evangelical Christian leader Pat Robinson was scorned when he said that the devastating Haiti earthquake occurred because Haiti had made "a pact with the devil" in defeating the French in 1804. He was similarly scorned linking Hurricane Katrina to abortion.
After the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, Voltaire wrote:
"Would you say, seeing this heap of victims,
That God is avenged, that their death is payment for their crimes?
What crimes, what bad things have been committed by these children,
Lying on the breasts of their mothers, flattened and bloody?
Lisbon is a city no longer. Did it have more vices
Than London, than Paris, given to doubtful delights?"
However, Fatalism is expressed more commonly in the Muslim world, according to an analysis by Daniel Pipes, following the statements by Saudi officials to blame the stampede on Fate and Destiny.
The philosophical and theological dilemma goes like this: If humans have the ability to make decisions, this diminishes God's universal powers. But if God makes all decisions, humans have no responsibility for their own deeds, negating such concepts as justice and punishment. For centuries, there have been two main Islamic schools of thought, one arguing for free will and one holding that God acts through man, and the individual has no say.
Pipes says that there are many fatalistic passages in the Koran, and gives some examples:
My own mother, a devout Greek Orthodox Christian, said that she was a Fatalist. She would often say that only God would decide the exact moment of death, and that if you happen to be uttering a swear word at the moment that God strikes you dead with lightning, they you'll go to hell.
However, it's not all one-sided, even in Islam. Pipes also quotes a number of Koran passages that contradict the fatalistic outlook:
Pipes quotes numerous Islamic and Christian scholars throughout history on the question of whether Islam is a Fatalistic religion.
Pipes also notes that neither activist Muslim crowds, such as those that overthrew governments in Iran and Egypt, nor jihadists use "Allah's will" as an excuse to sit and do nothing.
However, what Pipes finally concludes is that Muslims are no more fatalistic than Christians, and that Muslim politicians use Fatalism as an excuse. Thus, when something goes wrong, they blame "the will of Allah" in the same way that President Obama might blame George Bush or the Republicans. But when something goes right, they take all the credit, just as any politician would. CNN (13-Jan-2010) and Middle East Forum
In both Christian and Muslim theology, God/Allah is described as being omnipotent (able to do anything) and omniscient (knowing everything about the past, present and future).
Granting such powers to God yields some important conundrums and contradictions. Can God make 1+1 equal 3? Mathematical logicians would say even God can't create a mathematical contradiction. Can God create both an irresistible force and an immovable object -- a theological question that was heavily debated a century ago?
The conundrums become much more personal when they involve a human being's free will. In the Daniel Pipes essay referenced above, he quotes Bernard Lewis as follows:
In the great debate among medieval Muslim theologians on the question of predestination or free will, [chess and back-gammon] sometimes served as symbols and prototypes. Is life a game of chess, where the player has a choice at every move, where skill and foresight can bring him success? Or is it rather backgammon, where a modicum of skill may speed or delay the result, but where the final outcome is determined by the repeated throw of the dice?"
In fact, the debate over omnipotence does not lead to a theological contradiction over free will. One can say that God is omnipotent, but that he still allows individual humans free will, and only intervenes in human affairs at specific times for specified reasons.
But once you add omniscience to God's capabilities, then you reach a genuine insoluble theological contradiction with free will. If God is omniscient, and in particular knows everything that's going to happen in the future, then there's no human free will, because it's impossible for any human to do anything different from what God knows is going to happen.
From the point of view of Computer Science and Mathematical Logic, we may not have free will anyway. After all, isn't our brain just a collection of neurons and synapses just doing what they're programmed to do? One college professor that I had even took this concept a step farther, and suggested that each of our brains is nothing more than a Turing machine computer, and that God might even have inscribed each of our computer program codes in the bones of our heads and necks, just to be sure.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 27-Sep-15 World View -- After Hajj stampede disaster, Muslims debate the 'Will of Allah' thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(27-Sep-2015)
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Massive Russian military deployment into Syria and Iraq continues
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Syria has received 24 attack fighter warplanes from Russia, as well as reconnaissance aircraft and other sophisticated military equipment. In addition, at least 2,000 additional Russian soldiers are being sent to Syria.
In addition, Russia is setting up offices in Baghdad to coordinate military operations with Iran and Syria, and probably Iraq. According to Russia, the purpose of its military buildup is to fight the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh).
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, Lebanon's Iran-allied militia, on Friday explained the Russian military deployment as follows:
"The failure of America and the international coalition to bring defeat to Daesh [ISIS] was one of the reasons which called or pushed Russia to also come, and to get directly involved."
Some reports indicate that the warplanes in Syria include SU-27 jets and SA-22 air to air missiles. These weapons have no use against ISIS, since ISIS has no air power. It's likely that these weapons are directed at the United States coalition or at Israel.
This large Russian military deployment in Syria and Iraq, in alliance with Iran, is going to raise alarm bells throughout the Mideast, especially in Saudi Arabia, who see Syria and Iran as existential threats, and in Turkey, which now sees itself isolated from its historical allies in the Mideast. Jihadist groups, including al-Qaeda and ISIS, will see it as a repeat of the 1980s Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
It's amazing how quickly things are changing in Syria. A month ago, we were still talking about how the US-led coalition was failing at conducting air strikes at ISIS. Today, Russia is coming close to pushing the US-led coalition out of Syria and Iraq entirely. Fox News and Reuters and Telegraph (London)
Earlier this week, Chinese naval vessels have traveled through Egypt's Suez Canal and entered the Mediterranean Sea. According to a senior officer in the Syrian Arab Army, and confirmed by a Russian Senator, the naval vessels are headed for Syria's Port of Tartus, and that "China has joined [Russia's] military operation in Syria." The reports indicate that the Chinese vessels will reach Tartus within six weeks. No explanation is given for the long time frame.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, Chinese military cooperation with Russia in the Mideast is strongly counter to the predicted trends. As long-time readers are aware, the prediction is that the US and China would be the principal enemies in the approaching Clash of Civilizations world war, and that the US would be allied with India, Russia and Iran, while China would be allied with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Muslim countries.
Such a strong counter-trend development -- China joining Russia and Iran in defense of Bashar al-Assad, Saudi Arabia's enemy -- cannot continue indefinitely. In my opinion, there's something else going on that's not in the news reports -- namely that it's much more likely that China's military is entering the region to protect Saudi Arabia's interests. China may cooperate with Russia for a while, but in my opinion it would not take a great deal for China to turn on Russia, in order to protect the Saudis. This will be an interesting development to watch. Pravda (Moscow) and Al-Masdar (pro-Syria) and MINA (Macedonia)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 26-Sep-15 World View -- China's military heads for Syria, supposedly to join Russia thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(26-Sep-2015)
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Japan's economy returns to deflation
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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The violence between Turkey's security forces and terrorists from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has been escalating sharply, ever since a ceasefire agreement broke down in July, and Turkey's government declared war on the PKK. ( "9-Sep-15 World View -- Turkey slips into chaos as violence spreads across the country")
Since the ceasefire broke down, there have been three PKK terrorist attacks on Turkey's oil and gas pipelines. The most recent occurred on August 25, when an explosion occurred on the South Caucasus Pipeline (also known as the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline), which transports natural gas from Azerbaijan, through Georgia, and into Turkey.
Although Turkey and the PKK have been clashing off and on for three decades, the PKK have not attacked or sabotaged Turkish pipelines in the past. Now the timing of these attacks is raising suspicions that Russia is taking a role in the attacks.
Russia is deploying soldiers and weapons to Syria, as we've been reporting in recent weeks, intending to control Syria's airspace and probably Iraq's as well, and planning to form a military alliance with Bashar al-Assad, Iran and the PKK. Russia is also suing for an alliance with the US and West to fight ISIS, but the West so far has been resisting because al-Assad is a genocidal monster.
In that context, the PKK attacks on Turkey's pipelines are occurring.
The South Caucasus Pipeline that the PKK attacked on August 25 is a direct competitor to the Turkish Stream that Russia has proposed. The deal is currently being held up by Turkey who is negotiating for lower prices for energy supplied by Russia. Russia and Turkey are long-time enemies that have fought generational crisis wars with each other for centuries. Russia supplies weapons and explosives to the PKK. So for all of these reasons, the suspicion is growing that the PKK is doing Russia's bidding in the pipeline attacks.
As we wrote in "13-Sep-15 World View -- Russia opens a dangerous new chapter in Syria and the Mideast.", events are now moving very quickly in the Mideast, as it heads for an inevitable secular war that will engulf the whole region. Jamestown and Rudaw (5-Sep)
The $110 billion in U.S. funds that's already appropriated for reconstructing Afghanistan exceeds the value of the entire Marshall Plan effort to rebuild Western Europe after World War II. Large amounts of taxpayer dollars have been and continue to be lost to waste, fraud, and abuse, according to a recent report by John F. Sopko, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). And with nearly $12 billion more in reconstruction funds appropriated but not yet spent, and with billions more to follow, there's little reason to hope that the outcome will be better.
According to Sopko, there have been massive US-sponsored failures. For example:
The following sources of risk make it unlikely that the additional billions in reconstruction funds will be spent any more wisely:
The report concludes:
"We can also safely say that the struggle in Afghanistan won't be shortened, much less, won, by official happy talk and cheerleader-style press releases. Poor data and assessments not based on reality but rather biased by self-interest career advancement and rank P.R., can only lead to unrealistic judgments, unjustified hopes, and outright fantasies with no link to the reality on the ground faced every day by our many brave and dedicated career diplomats, soldiers and civic servants."
Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR)
Japan's Consumer Price Index (CPI) for August was -0.1%, the negative value indicating that Japan is returning to deflation. The last time that Japan's core inflation was negative was April 2013. Since then, the Bank of Japan has been easing monetary policy significantly in the hope of stimulating inflation, but to no avail.
Japan began going into deflation after 1990, when there was a crash on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, and a crash in Tokyo's real estate bubble. At the peak of the bubble, Tokyo's real estate had a nominal value greater than all the real estate in the United States. It's amazing that after 25 years, deflation is continuing. Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe said on Thursday that Japan's economy was no longer in deflation, so he must have been disappointed to wake up on Friday morning to the news that Japan was indeed still in deflation.
As I wrote earlier this year in "11-Mar-15 World View -- Europe, America, China economies all continue in deflationary spiral", the global economy is in a deflationary spiral.
Ever since 2003, when I started writing regularly about Generational Dynamics, I've repeatedly written that in this generational Crisis era, Generational Dynamics is predicting a deflationary spiral. Mainstream economists, on the other hand, have been predicting that inflation or even hyperinflation would begin "next year" every year since then. Mainstream economists have been dead wrong, and continue to be wrong, while Generational Dynamics is right. Barrons and Reuters
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 25-Sep-15 World View -- Suspicions grow that PKK doing Russia's bidding in bombing Turkey's pipelines thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(25-Sep-2015)
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Tempers flare as Europe looks for ways to reduce the volume of migrants
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I heard one analyst say that the language being used by the EU leaders meeting in Brussels on Wednesday was the harshest that's ever been heard in public since the beginning of the EU. I'm pretty sure that isn't true. In 2005, I wrote about an acrimonious European Union summit ending in crisis, as Jean-Claude Juncker, Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac got into a furious shouting war over agricultural subsidies.
Still, there was harsh disagreement over the plan to relocate 120,000 migrants to EU countries by means of mandatory quotes. As we reported yesterday, that plan was passed by a vote of interior ministers on Tuesday. In the past, such a controversial plan would be passed by unanimous vote, but in this case, four Central European countries voted against the plan -- Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.
It's pretty widely recognized that the plan is pretty useless anyway, for several reasons:
With regard to the last point, a web site reader posted the following comment:
"I absolutely agree with any country that opposes an imposed EU quota. It is analogous to the Americans on this website wanting to secure our OWN border.Every country deserves to retain its culture. There are thousands of different cultures on the globe, each with their own carved out territory. They have their own traditions, foods, religions, family structure, etc. This is a great thing. If the people of a country want to retain their culture, and feel strongly enough about it, then I APPLAUD them for standing up and saying "NO" to this massive push for multiculturalism. And notice, multiculturalism is only pushed on mostly white nations (America and Europe). It's a hard truth to digest, but it can no longer be ignored."
This seems like a perfectly reasonable, logical position to take, but it really isn't true, and probably has never been true at any place and time in history. Huge waves of migration have always occurred, at all times and places, and there's no way to stop them.
The population of the European Union is 503 million, so even a million migrants would add only 0.2% to the population, so I'm not sure that the word "migration" even applies. But whatever it is, there's no way to stop it.
When the World War II survivors signed the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which led to the formation of the European Union, they knew from the horrors of two World Wars that migration would always occur, and they decided that trying to stop it was one way to increase pressures that lead to war. But the painful lessons of history are never remembered, and each generation has to relearn them. That's the core principle behind Generational Dynamics. Irish Times and International Business Times and Bloomberg
At Wednesday's meeting of EU leaders in Brussels, European Council president Donald Tusk said that with "millions of potential refugees from Syria" that may arrive in Europe, "The most urgent question we should ask ourselves tonight is how to regain control of our external borders."
Rather than continuing to argue about mandatory quotas and internal borders, the meeting turned its attention to the question of how to reduce the number of migrants trying to enter Europe in the first place, and that would mean convincing them to remain in the Mideast.
The way to do that, it was thought, would be to spend a lot of money in support of the migrants, including these proposals:
With regard to this, there has been one story after another in the last year that the World Food Program has not been receiving money committed by many countries, with the result that they've had to cut back sharply on food for Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt. The WFP has had to drop one-third of Syrian refugees from its food voucher program in Middle Eastern host countries this year, including 229,000 in Jordan who stopped receiving food aid in September. According to a spokesman, the agency needed $236 million to keep the program -- even in its scaled-back version -- funded through November. No major donors have come forward.
The vote by the EU to provide $1.1 billion to the WPF will certainly be welcomed, and may prevent a lot of starvation.
But the fact is that the millions of potential migrants headed for Europe are not just going because they want a bigger plate of food for dinner. They're going because they have a dream -- steady work, going to college, sending their children to school, having a happy life -- and none of the proposals that were discussed at Wednesday's meeting will have any effect on those motivations at all. BBC and Guardian (London)
China's president Xi Jinping is visiting Seattle Washington, while the Pope is visiting the other Washington. On Tuesday evening, he gave a speech in which he highlighted the government's support for a transparent and open stock market.
"The duty of government is to ensure a fair, open market and adjust the market order and avoid panic from happening. This time, Chinese government took steps to stabilize the market and contained panic in the stock market. And that avoided a systematic crisis. Mature markets in various countries have tried similar steps. The Chinese stock market has reached the phase of self-recovery and self-adjustment."
This has produced a fair amount of laughter among analysts. Xi thinks that by jailing reporters and bloggers who use words like "selloff" or "panic," or punishing investors who "meddle" in the stock market by selling stocks, China's government has managed to take its "fair, open market" and make it reach the phase of "self-adjustment."
This is probably one of the best examples we've seen of a world leader who is publicly and clearly in a hopeless state of denial. I often say that Barack Obama doesn't have a clue what's going on in the world, or that Vladimir Putin is following a path that will bring destruction to everyone, including himself. It's tempting to think that any national leader, with access to as many experts as he wants, could not possibly be this stupid, but here we see Xi Jinping exhibiting such stupidity openly and publicly and shamelessly.
People often tell me that China would never start a war because it's bad for business or because China would lose or because some other reason. But someone who could believe that jailing reporters can end a stock market crash can also believe that China will win a war within 24 hours, because the US is too weak to fight or unwilling to fight. I hope that such people can now see the flaw in their reasoning. China Radio International (Beijing)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 24-Sep-15 World View -- China's Xi Jinping congratulates himself on stopping stock market crash thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(24-Sep-2015)
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EU votes to distribute 120,000 refugees among countries by quota
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European Union interior ministers voted on Tuesday to impose a quota system on all 28 EU countries to distribute 120,000 refugees seeking asylum. Before becoming law, the plan will be considered by the EU country presidents and prime ministers meeting in Brussels on Wednesday.
Four countries -- Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary -- voted against the proposal. However, implementation of the plan would obligate those four countries to take in their quota of asylum-seekers, as well.
Governments of dissenting countries expressed fury at the decision, some saying that they will refuse to comply. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico says he will not comply, and will not "respect this diktat of the majority." Czech President Milos Zeman said: "Only the future will show what a mistake this was." However, a government spokesman for Hungary said that Hungary will respect Tuesday's decision.
Finland abstained from the vote. Poland, which had originally opposed the proposal, voted for it, saying that "it's much better to negotiate."
Europe is expected to receive over one million migrants this year. Theoretically, the 120,000 refugees envisioned by Tuesday's plan refers only to migrants from war-torn countries, such as Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan. However, recent studies show that most of them are economic migrants from countries like Pakistan or from Africa, and so would not qualify for asylum status. Theoretically, the hundreds of thousands of economic migrants are to be deported back to their home countries.
Putting all these facts and figures together, it seems pretty clear that the plan adopted on Tuesday could not possibly come close to solving Europe's migrant problem. But at least it satisfied the need for the government to appear to be doing something. CNN and BBC and AFP
In the past few months, as thousands of migrants flooded from Turkey, through Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary and Austria, to reach Germany, Hungary became the most aggressive country in blocking migrants, by building a fence along the entire border between Hungary and Serbia. Serbia has responded by redirecting the flow of migrants into Croatia, but an infuriated Croatia is redirecting them back into Hungary -- once again infuriating Hungary.
The four Central European countries that voted against Tuesday's plan to distribute migrants to EU countries all had experiences with Turkey's Ottoman Empire. Hungary's Viktor Orbán invoked his country's experience with the Ottoman's explicitly:
"Those arriving have been raised in another religion, and represent a radically different culture. Most of them are not Christians, but Muslims. This is an important question, because Europe and European identity is rooted in Christianity.... We don’t want to criticize France, Belgium, any other country, but we think all countries have a right to decide whether they want to have a large number of Muslims in their countries. If they want to live together with them, they can. We don’t want to and I think we have a right to decide that we do not want a large number of Muslim people in our country. We do not like the consequences of having a large number of Muslim communities that we see in other countries, and I do not see any reason for anyone else to force us to create ways of living together in Hungary that we do not want to see....I have to say that when it comes to living together with Muslim communities, we are the only ones who have experience because we had the possibility to go through that experience for 150 years."
Orbán is referring to Islam’s conquest and occupation of Hungary from 1541 to 1699. According to an article in conservative Human Events:
"Nor was Hungary alone. Much of southeastern Europe and portions of modern day Russia were conquered, occupied, and terrorized by the Turks—sometimes in ways that make Islamic State atrocities seem like child’s play. (Think of the beheadings, crucifixions, massacres, slave markets, and rapes that have become IS trademarks—but on a much grander scale, and for centuries.)"
I actually have a great deal of sympathy for this argument. After all, no one wants to risk another experience like that one. My problem is that this is only half the argument.
In the research that I do for Generational Dynamics, I have constant feelings of sadness and revulsion -- at the things that human beings do to each other as a matter of course, particularly during generational crisis wars.
So one might reasonably wonder why the author of this article, or Viktor Orbán himself, had to go back 500 years to find a suitable example to reference. The Ottoman Empire is gone, but the consequences of the Ottoman victories and defeats are still felt today, as if a huge tsunami was launched hundreds of years ago, and is still washing over us today.
In particular, why not refer to the much more recent Bosnian war? That makes a similar point about atrocities, but it occurred only 20 years ago, not 500 years ago. Well, those with any knowledge of history whatsoever (including Orbán) already know the answer to that question. In the Bosnian war, it was the Christian Serbs who were committing the atrocities, and it was the Bosnian Muslims and the Catholic Croats who were the victims.
I wrote about this at length last year in "29-Jun-14 World View -- Sarajevo Serbs unveil monument to Gavrilo Princip, who triggered World War I". In that article, I quoted one historical summary of the Bosnian war as follows:
"It was during this initial wave of Bosnian Serb ethnic cleansing — orchestrated by Radovan Karadzi and his generals — that the world began to hear tales as horrifying as anything you can imagine. Militia units would enter a town and indiscriminately kill anyone they saw — civilian men, women, and children. Pregnant women mortally wounded by gunfire were left to die in the street. Fleeing residents crawled on their stomachs for hours to reach cover, even as their family and friends were shot and blown up right next to them. Soldiers rounded up families, then forced parents to watch as they slit the throats of their children — and then the parents were killed, too. Dozens of people would be lined up along a bridge to have their throats slit, one at a time, so that their lifeless bodies would plunge into the river below. (Villagers downstream would see corpses float past, and know their time was coming soon.) While in past conflicts houses of worship had been considered off-limits, now Karadzi's forces actively targeted mosques and Catholic churches. Perhaps most despicable was the establishment of so-called “rape camps” — concentration camps where mostly Bosniak [Bosnian Muslim] women were imprisoned and systematically raped by Serb soldiers. Many were intentionally impregnated and held captive until they had come to term (too late for an abortion), when they were released to bear and raise a child forced upon them by their hated enemy. These are the stories that turned “Balkans” into a dirty word.The Bosnian Serb aggressors were intentionally gruesome and violent. Leaders roused their foot soldiers with hate-filled propaganda (claiming, for example, that the Bosniaks were intent on creating a fundamentalist Islamic state that would do even worse to its Serb residents), then instructed them to carry out unthinkable atrocities. For the people who carried out these attacks, the war represented a cathartic opportunity to exact vengeance for decades-old perceived injustices. Everyday Serbs — who, for centuries, have been steeped in messages about how they have been the victims of their neighbors — saw this as an opportunity to finally make a stand. But their superiors had even more dastardly motives. They sought not only to remove people from “their” land, but to do so in such a heinous way to ensure that the various groups could never again tolerate living together."
This has nothing to do with religion. During a generational crisis war, people of any religion can turn into monsters perpetrating crimes and atrocities that are almost unthinkable. That's one of the things that make generational crisis wars unique among wars.
So, as I said, I have some sympathy for Orbán's allusion to Ottoman atrocities -- but not because those atrocities were unique in any way, but rather because they're so common, and so much a part of the human DNA -- every human's DNA. Human Events and Guardian (London) and Understanding Yugoslavia
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 23-Sep-15 World View -- Europe's refugee crisis revives Ottoman Empire fault lines thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(23-Sep-2015)
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Russia and China show interest in the Arctic's oil and gas reserves
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Russia's Northern Fleet has just wrapped up large-scale military exercises in the Arctic, which included launch 12 sea- and ground-launched cruise missiles, and defending against them with defense missile systems. Some 50 warships, submarines, and 10 aircraft took part.
Hardly a week passes without some announcement of a new Russian deployment in the Arctic region. There are 40 icebreakers, and Russia is building 11 more. There are reportedly 100 new nuclear weapons deployed in the Arctic, as well as most of Russia's strategic nuclear missile submarines. More recently, Russian announced the deployment of short-to-medium-range anti-aircraft battalions, and other air defense and naval forces. These military deployments are consistent with Russia's claims for an enormous expanse of the Arctic continental shelf, including the North Pole.
Russia's enormous claims, combined with its aggressive military deployments, are raising anxieties in other countries, particularly China.
The Arctic region has been found to have oil reserves of more than 90 billion barrels, about 13 percent of the global total. There are also 47 trillion cubic meters of natural gas reserves, 30 percent of the world total.
Although China is not an Arctic state, it has begun defining itself as a "near-Arctic state," a claim that a suspicious person might note sounds similar to the kinds of claims that China is making in the South China Sea.
China raised eyebrows last month when it refused to sign on to a global Climate Change statement. This suggests that the December 2015 Climate Change conference in Paris will not have the resounding success that climate change aficionados hope for. At the same time, China sent five warships to the Bering Strait to demonstrate China’s interest in the Arctic and its capability to function as a global blue water navy.
The Arctic and the South China Sea have in common potentially immense sources of energy for any country that controls them. So far, tensions in the Arctic are nowhere nearly as high as they are in the South China Sea, but with so much at stake, that's sure to change. Sputnik News (Moscow) and Jamestown and The Diplomat and Caixin (Beijing, 5-Feb-2015)
The US administration apparently has been caught by surprise by the speed of Russia's military deployment into Syria, just a few days after statements by US officials that they weren't sure whether Russia intended to use force in Syria at all.
To date, Russia has over 25 fighter and attack aircraft, 15 helicopters, nine tanks, three surface-to-air missile systems and at least 500 personnel on the ground in Syria. Russia is already flying surveillance drones over the country, and appears to be preparing for air strikes in defense of the Bashar al-Assad regime.
The Obama administration has issued one hard-hitting statement after another in the last few days, and Monday was no exception. Here's what we heard from Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis:
"We are keenly aware of what is happening there. We continue to believe that anything that's done in support of the Assad regime, particularly militarily, is counter-productive and risks worsening an already bad situation. ...This has the Secretary's attention and it has the attention of our senior leaders, and we're absolutely concerned about the potential for confliction and the need to de-conflict."
Well, with no de-conflicting in sight, and with ongoing confliction, it's hard to overestimate the significance of these developments, as I wrote two weeks ago in "13-Sep-15 World View -- Russia opens a dangerous new chapter in Syria and the Mideast."
The message is pretty clear that Russia is planning to take control of Syria's airspace, and possibly Iraq's as well, and that American warplanes will be forced to stay out, except with Russia's explicit permission. With Russia, Iran and Bashar al-Assad's regime in control of much of Syria and Iraq, nationalistic and belligerent responses will be triggered from militant groups, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf states.
As I've been writing for years, Generational Dynamics predicts that Iran and Russia will be US allies in the approaching Clash of Civilizations world war. Those predictions are coming true rapidly, as the Mideast heads for a secular war that will consume the region. CNN and Daily Beast
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 22-Sep-15 World View -- Russia pours military weapons and personnel into Syria thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(22-Sep-2015)
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Syriza wins election in Greece, on eve of drastic new reforms
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On the Sunday news talk shows, Republican candidate Ben Carson said that Islam is not consistent with the Constitution, and that therefore he would not advocate having a Muslim as president.
The following are excerpts from the Meet the Press transcript:
"CHUCK TODD: Let me ask you the question this way: Should a President's faith matter? Should your faith matter to voters?DR. BEN CARSON: Well, I guess it depends on what that faith is. If it's inconsistent with the values and principles of America, then of course it should matter. But if it fits within the realm of America and consistent with the constitution, no problem.
CHUCK TODD: So do you believe that Islam is consistent with the constitution?
DR. BEN CARSON: No, I don't, I do not. ... I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.
CHUCK TODD: And would you ever consider voting for a Muslim for Congress?
DR. BEN CARSON: Congress is a different story, but it depends on who that Muslim is and what their policies are, just as it depends on what anybody else says, you know. And, you know, if there's somebody who's of any faith, but they say things, and their life has been consistent with things that will elevate this nation and make it possible for everybody to succeed, and bring peace and harmony, then I'm with them."
What's interesting about this controversy is that this attitude towards Muslims is similar to widely held American attitudes towards Catholics and Jews until just a few decades ago.
As I wrote in 2006 in "President George Bush talks about a 'Third Awakening,' but he has his history wrong", Americans have always felt that their country was not just a religious nation, but was in fact a Protestant nation. In particular, Fundamentalist Protestants believed that, as the millennium approached, God would work through America to redeem mankind.
Early in the 1900s, many Americans viewed Catholics and Jews, especially Catholic and Jewish immigrants, as being ignorant, backward and superstitious. These religious fault lines finally began to disappear, but not because of any popular soul-searching or self-discovery. The religious fault lines disappeared because Protestants, Catholics and Jews began to unite against a common enemy: the atheistic Communists.
The debate between Protestants and Catholics became especially bitter when John F. Kennedy ran for President, as some Americans claimed that a Catholic president would take orders from the Vatican.
Here's a summary of what happened from the Catholic Culture web site:
"Catholics delighted by the possibility of having one of their own in the White House soon learned that other Americans were horrified by the prospect. Many feared that a member of an international, hierarchical church could not fulfill his presidential duty to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. They worried that Kennedy's Catholic faith would lead him to flout the Constitution's First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom and prohibition against the establishment of a state church.During the campaign, the anti-Catholicism that had lay dormant for decades re-emerged with a vengeance. Secularists warned of "fundamental" value differences between Catholics and other Americans, and suggested that the election of a Catholic President would open the door to theocracy. As Mark Massa noted in his book, Catholics and American Culture (Crossroad, 1999), Protestant fundamentalists harbored similar fears and launched a direct mail campaign to send more than 300 different anti-Catholic tracts to some 20 million homes before the election. Kennedy's candidacy was denounced by the nine-million-member Southern Baptist Convention and a host of other Protestant churches and associations. Clergy affiliated with the National Association of Evangelicals and other Protestant groups launched a nationwide campaign of anti-Kennedy sermons to coincide with "Reformation Sunday" on October 30, 1960. Protestants opposing Kennedy were urged to wear buttons throughout the campaign season that said, "Stand Up and Be Counted" over the numbers "1517" — a reminder to follow in the footsteps of Martin Luther, who launched the Protestant Reformation that year by nailing his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church.
Kennedy knew that he had no chance of ascending to the Presidency if he did not address the religious issue directly. Militant anti-Catholics would not be open to persuasion, but he hoped to answer their attacks in a way that reassured other Americans. His first widely publicized attempt to do so came in March 1959, when Look magazine published an interview in which he gave this quote: "Whatever one's religion in private life may be, for the office-holder, nothing takes precedence over his oath to uphold the Constitution and all its parts — including the First Amendment and the strict separation of church and state." Kennedy then highlighted his opposition to federal aid for parochial schools and to an appointment of an ambassador to the Vatican — positions that he had reversed since his earlier days in Congress, when he had supported such measures.
Kennedy's comments sparked a backlash in the Catholic press. From America to Commonweal and to diocesan papers, editors criticized his views on church and state and his claim that parochial school aid was unconstitutional. Protestant reaction, meanwhile, ran the gamut. Some were reassured by Kennedy's statements. Others — including some mainline Protestants who had initially defended him — were alarmed. Episcopalian Bishop James Pike said, ". . . far from posing the threat of ecclesiastical tyranny, [Kennedy's statement] would seem rather to represent the point of view of a thoroughgoing secularist, who really believes that a man's religion and his decision-making can be kept in two watertight compartments." Presbyterian Robert McAfee Brown surmised that Kennedy was "a rather irregular Christian." And Lutheran Martin Marty opined that Kennedy was "spiritually rootless and politically almost disturbingly secular."
The debate was so bitter that Kennedy had to address it in a televised speech on September 12, 1960:
"I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute — where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote — where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference — and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish — where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source — where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials — and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all."
According to the web site:
"Kennedy's speech appeased many non-Catholic critics. Mainline Protestant and Jewish voters warmed to his candidacy. Secular skeptics applauded his strict separationist views. And though many evangelical and fundamentalist Protestants remained suspicious, Kennedy had defused the power of their anti-Catholic appeals.Catholics, meanwhile, had mixed reactions. Kennedy already had the Catholic vote locked up, and he proceeded to win the Presidency in a squeaker against Richard Nixon with the support of four in every five Catholic voters. But historians say many Catholic bishops secretly feared a Kennedy presidency after noticing his desperation to prove his independence from the Church, as demonstrated by his Houston remarks and hard-line positions against Church-endorsed policies."
In other words, a Catholic president may have initially excited Catholics, but in the end it was even more controversial for Catholics than it was for other people, because of all the compromises.
In 1960, many Americans, including many Catholics, believed that a Catholic could not be President without violating the Constitution. Kennedy was able to obtain the approval of Americans by compromising his religious values with his political values. Catholic politicians do that all the time with issues like abortion.
Now imagine a Muslim running for President. Ben Carson didn't give a reason why he felt that a Muslim could not be President without violating the Constitution. Perhaps he will in the coming days.
But a Muslim running for President would be very similar to John F. Kennedy running for President, in that he would have to make compromises between his religious and political values. Perhaps Muslims would initially be excited at a Muslim presidential candidate, but those compromises would be even more controversial within Islam than they would be among most Americans.
Unfortunately, religious prejudice is common in all societies, even in America. When Barack Obama in 2008 said that bitter people "cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them," he was expressing his prejudice against Christian values, and equating religion with xenophobia. And there was a great deal of anti-Jewish prejudice expressed by numerous politicians during the recent debate over the Iran nuclear deal. One can only imagine the uproar at the prospect of a Jewish presidential candidate. NBC Meet the Press and Catholic Culture
There's a reason why Alexis Tsipras, the leader of Greece's far left Syriza party, chose this particular weekend for his call for snap elections. It's because he hoped to be reelected before Greece's next major financial crisis begins, which it will very soon.
The rise of Alexis Tsipras this year was amazing, starting with his initial election victory. ( "26-Jan-15 World View -- Alexis Tsipras' far-left Syriza party wins historic election in Greece")
He campaigned on promises that could never be fulfilled. He promised that he would convince Greece's lending institutions -- the European Commission (EC), European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF), formerly known as the "Troika" -- to write off most of the 300 billion euro debt, that no more harsh reforms would be required, that there would be a splurge in government spending, and that laid off public sector workers' jobs would be restored.
It was all a lie, but it got him elected. After months of government chaos that was disastrous for an already wrecked economy, Tsipras suddenly called for a national referendum on the bailout reforms. The Greek people decisively voted down accepting the austerity reforms that had been demanded by the lenders.
So then the EU gave Tsipras a "take it or leave it" ultimatum, meaning that he had to agree to new austerity reforms that were even harsher than the ones that had been rejected in the referendum, or else Greece had to leave the eurozone, and return to the drachma currency. This was a time, in July, when the banks and stock markets were closed, and the economy was in serious decline.
Tsipras agreed to the harsher austerity measures because European officials were "holding a knife at my neck." The Europeans agreed to a new 86 billion euro bailout loan in return for the austerity measures, which address various economic issues, including Greece's bloated public sector, curbing tax evasion and corruption, privatizing public businesses, and adjusting generous pension and minimum wage policies.
Greece's social security system is being described as "a ticking time bomb ready to explode," with 4 billion euros of obligations owed to pensioners. It may have to be changed beyond recognition.
It's amazing that Tsipras got elected on a campaign that rejected austerity, and then got a referendum passed that rejected austerity, and then turned around and blew away all the promises he made. Even so, he's now been elected again. It makes you wonder whether voters ever have any idea what they're doing.
But there's still a price to be paid. Greek officials have to implement deep austerity reforms within the next month, or Greece will not receive the next bailout payment in time to avoid going bankrupt. Germany's finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble apparently is still in favor of "Grexit," Greece leaving the eurozone for five years.
The lucky Greeks are fortunate to be at the epicenter of two cataclysmic crises -- the bailout crisis and the migrant crisis. The next few weeks are going to be one traumatic episode after another. Kathimerini (Athens) and Reuters and Kathimerini
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 21-Sep-15 World View -- Ben Carson's statement about Muslim President revives JFK Catholic controversy thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(21-Sep-2015)
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Russian 'refusenik' soldiers resist deployment in Syria
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Thousands of migrants travel from Turkey to the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea. Greece ferries them to the Port of Piraeus, and then buses them to the border of Macedonia, and dumps them there.
Macedonia transports them to the border of Serbia, and dumps them there.
Formerly, Serbia transported all of them to the border with Hungary, and dumped them there.
However, Hungary has built a long fence, in order to block migrants from crossing from Serbia into Hungary.
So now, Serbia's buses have been diverted, and now they're dumping the migrants on Croatia's border.
Croatia started busing them to the border with Slovenia, and dumping them there.
Slovenia is saying that it can't handle all the migrants, and is closing its border to Croatia. Slovenian police used pepper spray to ward off hundreds of migrants.
But it's Croatia's turn to be completely overwhelmed. Some 30,000 migrants are now in Croatia, and about 40,000 more are in Macedonia en route to Croatia.
Croatia is sending as many as it can to Slovenia, and is also diverting many of them east into Hungary, infuriating Hungary's government, which sent armored vehicles to its border with Croatia to block the migrants.
Croatia’s prime minister, Zoran Milanovic, called Hungary’s actions “incomprehensible”, given that no refugee wanted to stay in Hungary, and said the situation was “the ugliest thing I have seen in Croatia since the [Balkans] war”. In response, Hungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, said Croatia had “lied in the face” of Hungary.
Thousands of migrants are trapped at one border or another, or in a refugee camp in one of the countries.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, I've written many times in the last decade about the expected lineups in the approaching Clash of Civilizations world war -- China plus Pakistan plus the Sunni Muslim countries plus others versus the West plus India plus Russia plus Iran. As I've mentioned many times recently, this lineup seemed fantastical when I first described it a decade ago, but in the last couple of years it's been the trend.
However, the generational analysis methodology has never given me a clear trend for how the different European countries will fit into this lineup. One possibility is that Germany and France will lead opposing factions, as they have so often in past centuries, along the Protestant versus Catholic fault line. During the worst of Greece's financial crisis, I was watching to see if a substantial north versus south fault line would develop, although that seems to have subsided for the time being. This new refugee crisis, the worst since World War II, seems to be trending into an east versus west fault line. As winter approaches, and the stream of migrants slows down, the important thing to watch will be whether the refugee crisis subsides, or turns into something worse by spring. Perhaps it wouldn't be too far off to say that Europe's fate in the next year depends on Syria. Budapest Times and Guardian (London)
Evidence is mounting that Russia it's most capable combat forces and most advanced weapons systems to Syria. Some reports indicate that Russian troops are already engaged in combat.
Russia's evident purpose is to link up with Iranian troops in Syria, and to shore up Syria's president Bashar al-Assad. New estimates include that ISIS has 20,000 foreign troops, with 3,400 from Western Europe, and more than 5,000 from Russia and Central Asia.
As I wrote last week in "13-Sep-15 World View -- Russia opens a dangerous new chapter in Syria and the Mideast," Russia's military deployment is going to trigger nationalistic and belligerent responses from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations, from terrorists in al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front) and the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh), and from the Recep Tayyip Erdogan government of Turkey. All of these groups consider al-Assad and Iran to be existential threats.
However, reports are emerging that soldiers in Russia are being commanded to go to an unknown destination, without being told that it's Syria, but that many of them have figured it out and are refusing to go. According to one soldier interviewed by Gazeta.ru:
"We had a conversation in the unit to our command. We were told that in the country of arrival will be hot and what's important to remember about hygiene and in any case do not step outside the territory of the military unit, also explained what to do and how to behave in captivity and interrogation, - told the soldiers. - We are specifically told that the climate will unusual for us: snakes, vipers. But where specifically we were being sent, did not say, citing the secret directive of the General Staff."
The wife of one such soldier was interviewed was expressing outrage: "Why are people driven there like cattle to the slaughter? We do not want war."
US Secretary of State John Kerry made a new hard-hitting statement on the subject: "Clearly, the presence of aircraft with air-to-air combat capacity as well as ... surface-to-air missiles raises serious questions."
Russian state media is mocking Obama's "fumbling" in the face of Putin's "consistency": "It is increasingly difficult to watch the most recent coverage of the Syrian war and not be struck by how utterly illogical and convoluted it has become. But look through the media spin and it’s clear: the Russian leader's steady moves in Syria is perplexing the US." RFERL and Gazeta.ru (Trans) and CNN and Debka and Russia Today
Although everything that American presidential candidates say is undoubted of great interest to Russian media, they've been taking particular notice of a statement by Carly Fiorina at last week's Republican debate.
Fiorina was asked, "You've met Vladimir Putin, yes?", and she responded:
"Having met Vladimir Putin, I wouldn't talk to him at all. We've talked way too much to him.What I would do, immediately, is begin rebuilding the Sixth Fleet, I would begin rebuilding the missile defense program in Poland, I would conduct regular, aggressive military exercises in the Baltic states. I'd probably send a few thousand more troops into Germany. Vladimir Putin would get the message. By the way, the reason it is so critically important that every one of us know General Suleimani's name is because Russia is in Syria right now, because the head of the Quds force traveled to Russia and talked Vladimir Putin into aligning themselves with Iran and Syria to prop up Bashar al-Assad.
Russia is a bad actor, but Vladimir Putin is someone we should not talk to, because the only way he will stop is to sense strength and resolve on the other side, and we have all of that within our control.
We could rebuild the Sixth Fleet. I will. We haven't. We could rebuild the missile defense program. We haven't. I will. We could also, to Senator Rubio's point, give the Egyptians what they've asked for, which is intelligence."
The specifics of Fiorina's statement have to be debated, but this may well be the most coherent statement made by anyone at the debate. Sputnik News (Moscow) and Washington Post
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 20-Sep-15 World View -- European countries in near-chaos take turns dumping migrants thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(20-Sep-2015)
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The question of Obama as a Muslim arises in politics again
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The violence between Turkey's security forces and terrorists from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has been escalating sharply, ever since a ceasefire agreement broke down in July, and Turkey's government declared war on the PKK. ( "9-Sep-15 World View -- Turkey slips into chaos as violence spreads across the country")
The number of policemen and soldiers killed since July has now risen to more than 120. At the same time, Turkish warplanes have been pounding PKK positions for weeks, in both southeast Turkey and northern Iraq.
The Kurdish-majority town of Cizre, in southeast Turkey, has seen some of the worst violence. Buildings are riddled with bulletholes, and armored police vehicles dot the town. The government says that the operation there was to flush out the PKK from its hotbed. The violence was triggered by a suicide bombing, which the Kurds blame on the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh), accusing the government of colluding with ISIS.
At the same time, the government of president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is blaming the US and the West for supporting the "moderate" Kurds, and claiming that "Turkey's Western allies, particularly the U.S., U.K. and Germany, have become partners [indirectly] with a terror group that commits the most vulgar crimes in Turkey and supplies weapons to them."
Across Turkey, Turkish nationalism and anger towards Kurds is growing. Kurds complain that relations between Kurds and Turks are becoming increasingly tense. On Tuesday of last week, tens of thousands of people from across Turkey attended a rally in Ankara to condemn terrorism by the PKK.
All of Turkey's main political leaders have appealed for national unity and for calm, but concerns are growing that the violence could spiral into full-scale war. BBC and VOA and Daily Sabah (Istanbul) and Hurriyet (Ankara)
Following boisterous confrontations in Japan's Upper House (the Diet) that sometimes spiraled into fisticuffs, finally enacted two security laws on Saturday morning that mark a significant departure the pacifism that was embedded in Japan's constitution following World War II. The new laws are extremely unpopular and highly contentious.
The self-defense clause of the constitution permits military action only when Japan itself is being attacked. The new laws reinterpret the self-defense clause to include "collective self-defense," which would permit military action under some circumstances when an ally (such as the United States) is attacked. I discussed the meaning of "collective self-defense" in detail last year in "5-May-14 World View -- Japan debates 'collective self-defense' to protect America and Japan". Japan Times
The new laws permitting collective self-defense were adopted through the tireless effort of Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe, who made the laws a major objective of his prime ministry from the beginning.
A major part of Abe's motivation is that he was following in the path of his grandfather, Kishi Nobusuke, who served as prime minister of Japan from 1957-60.
In 1960, Kishi signed a US-Japan security treaty intended to put the relationship between the two nations on an equal basis and to restore independent diplomacy for Japan. To implement this policy he initiated an official study of the constitution's "self-defense" clause, and he encouraged Japanese self-reliance in national defense.
Kishi used his conservative parliamentary majority to ratify the treaty, but the process was extremely contentious, and Kishi resigned in the aftermath. Some analysts are now suggesting that the passage of the new security laws may result in Abe's resignation. Encyclopedia Britannica: Kishi Nobusuke
The detractors of President Obama sometimes claim that he is a Muslim, or even that he's not a citizen. There's no doubt that he was born in Hawaii, so he's a citizen.
Obama is also undoubtedly a Christian in American eyes, but the question has some ambiguities in Muslim eyes, according to a May 12, 2008, NY Times article that I quoted when I wrote about Is President Barack Obama a Muslim? in 2010.
According to the NY Times article, Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law, because his father had been Muslim. His father renounced Islam, and Obama himself converted to Christianity, so he's a Christian in American eyes. But under Muslim law, according to the NY Times, he's still a Muslim, and the conversion was an apostasy.
The NY Times concludes in 2008: "But of all the well-meaning desires projected on Senator Obama, the hope that he would decisively improve relations with the world’s Muslims is the least realistic."
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 19-Sep-15 World View -- Japan finally adopts 'collective defense' laws, departing from pacifism thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(19-Sep-2015)
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With Hungary blocked to migrants, Croatia becomes overwhelmed
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The refugee drama in Europe is riveting the world.
On Wednesday, Hungary's police finally closed the remaining gaps in the fence on the border with Serbia, but not before a violent confrontation with hundreds of migrants trying to enter Hungary.
The migrants chanted "Open the door! Open the door!" and started throwing projectiles at the Hungarian police. Some tried to break through the fence or climb over it. The police responded with tear gas, water cannon, pepper spray and batons. Some refugees shouted "F--- you, Hungary!"
Eventually the migrants broke through the fence in one place, and about 200 migrants crossed through. Abruptly, the Hungarian riot police charged into the crowd, which included women and children. The migrants tried to flee, but they couldn't get back through the fence quickly enough. Many were struck by police batons.
By morning, calm had been restored, and the Serbian police decided to take control, and told the refugees that the border to Croatia was open, and that Serbia was providing buses to take them towards to Croatian border.
According to the Croatian government, 8,000 migrants had poured across the border into Croatia in one day, on Thursday, after the border through Hungary had been closed. They hope to travel through Croatia, then then through Slovenia, then through Austria, and then to Germany.
By the end of the day, Croatia's Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic announced:
"Croatia will not be able to receive more people. ...Don’t come here anymore. Stay in refugee centers in Serbia and Macedonia and Greece. This is not the road to Europe. Buses can’t take you there. It’s a lie."
Slovenia doubled down on Ostojic's remarks, saying that any migrants arriving in Slovenia from Croatia would simply be sent back to Croatia.
The routes through Hungary and Croatia are just a small part of migrant situation in Europe.
For many migrants who have already passed through Hungary, Germany was the final destination. Police said the number of refugees arriving in Germany more than doubled on Wednesday to 7,266.
At the other end of the route, there are hundreds of migrants every day crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey, arriving in Greece, ready to make the long trip through Greece, through Macedonia, through Serbia and then -- and then where? Hungary has closed the border and Croatia is apparently going to do the same.
The only "good news" is that winter is approaching, and the volume of migrants will be slowed substantially until the spring. Sydney Morning Herald and Reuters
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The European Union’s migration commissioner, Dimitris Avramopoulos, declared Thursday that walls and violence are no solution and urged Hungary to work with the 28-nation bloc to alleviate the continent’s migration crisis:
"The majority of people arriving in Europe are Syrians. They are people in genuine need of our protection. There is no wall you would not climb, no sea you wouldn’t cross if you are fleeing violence and terror. I believe we have a moral duty (to) offer them protection."
However, Hungary's Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said:
"I find it bizarre and shocking that certain esteemed international figures have stood on the side of people who for hours were throwing stones and pieces of cement at the Hungarian police. And I’d also like to make it very clear, no matter what criticism I receive, that we will never allow such aggressive people to enter Hungary. Not even for transit purposes."
In an interview, Hungary's president was asked what he thought the migrants should do, now that the border fence was completed:
"We do not know. There are two options, Croatia or Romania. That's why we are expanding the fence now also along a part of the Romanian border. We will need to extend the fence on the Croatian border. The route ultimately is determined by the human smugglers."
Orbán insists that his main motivation is to put the human smugglers out of business:
"It is big business. From the intelligence reports it is now clear how it works: In Pakistan and Afghanistan, the smugglers sent a veritable camps, where you can buy their services. Prices vary depending on the service you want to buy: by air, sea or by land. That's why there are so many Pakistanis and Afghans among migrants."
Orbán was asked whether he fears a "clash of civilizations" in Europe:
"We all have this moral obligation. Hungary is a European and Christian country, this is our culture, and we take our responsibility and our moral duty very seriously. However, the first obligation must be to stop the influx of migrants - because 10-15% die crossing the sea. ...I prefer to call it a competition of cultures. It is obvious that Christians are going to lose this contest, if you leave a lot of Muslims in Europe. This has demographic grounds and is that Muslims can flow into unlimited numbers. We have just studied what happened in Western societies. Despite the best intentions of the local leadership, parallel societies [Christians and Muslims] have been established, the Muslim layers have not be integrated. You live next to each other.
Every country has a right to want something. We do not want that. It is a question of cultural habits. I'm not talking about God, and how we are as Christians to or Muslims. I'm talking about culture. It's about lifestyle, freedom, sexual habits, equality between men and women, our Christian culture. In this respect the Muslim community is stronger than ours."
AP and International Business Times and Die Welt (Berlin) (Translation)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 18-Sep-15 World View -- Europe's migrant crisis worsens as Hungary defends 'Christian culture' thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(18-Sep-2015)
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China continues rapid military deployment in South China Sea
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China's Vice Adm. Yuan Yubai on Sunday at a meeting in London repeated the unambiguous claim about the entire South China Sea: "The South China Sea, as the name indicated, is a sea area. It belongs to China."
Japan's Vice Adm. Umio Otsuka, who was also present at the meeting, responded by mocking and making fun of Yuan's remarks, comparing it to a wife's romantic dream.
However, for China's military, the annexation of the entire South China Sea is a repeatedly stated military objective. China is now building its third artificial island, with the apparent purpose of turning all of them into military bases, in order to use military force to annex valuable fishing grounds and oil fields that belong to other countries. China is following an extremely dangerous policy that almost always leads to a major war, with the most obvious historical example being Hitler's annexation of Czechoslovakia and Poland. China's actions are going to lead to a world war, and historians will look back on the Chinese as being worse than the Nazis. Defense One and The Diplomat
With China's increasing belligerence in the South China Sea, Japan and Vietnam announced on Wednesday that Japan will provide two patrol boats to Vietnam, provide $832 million in infrastructure aid, and take other measures to help Vietnam's military security versus China.
Although Japan does not have property claims on the South China Sea, it is still directly affected by China's belligerence. The South China Sea is the biggest commercial shipping region in the world, and Chinese control of the South China Sea would severely penalize Japan. According to one analyst, "Japan wants to give the Southeast Asian states resources so they are not totally victimized by China. Chinese assertions of sovereignty in the South China Sea scare Japan more than any other country. Almost all of its energy comes through there." The Diplomat and Bloomberg and Al Jazeera
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 17-Sep-15 World View -- Japan and Vietnam boost military ties to counter China thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(17-Sep-2015)
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Russia's Vladimir Putin tightens grip on Tajikistan at CSTO meeting
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Recent street violence in Dushanbe, the capital city of Tajikistan, is providing an excuse for Russia's president Vladimir Putin to tighten his grip on the country.
The violence caused by an alleged coup by armed groups led by a government official, deputy defense minister and general Abduhalim Nazarzoda, who attacked police posts and military bases around Dushanbe on September 4. The shootouts left more than 20 dead, including eight police officers, and Nazarzoda then fled into the hills, about 50 km outside the city, where he's still at large.
This occurred in the lead-up to Tuesday's high-level summit meeting, also in Dushanbe, of the leaders of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a mutual defense organization whose members are from the former Soviet Union -- Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, Armenia, and the host, Tajikistan.
Russia already maintains three military installations in Tajikistan, and after the recent violence, Russia's president on Tuesday pledged to "help and support" Tajikistan. Putin defended Russia's new military incursion into Syria because of threats from the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh). He said that the threat from ISIS is just as serious in Tajikistan because of the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan, and because of the rise of ISIS in Afghanistan. He suggested that more Russian troops could enter Tajikistan for the purpose of guarding Tajikistan's border with Afghanistan from ISIS. According to Putin:
"Terrorists publicly claim that they set their sights on attacking Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. They are planning to expand their activities to Europe, Russia, Central and Southeast Asia. ... The real threat of terrorist and extremist groups infiltrating the countries neighboring Afghanistan is rising. ...Here in Tajikistan you are confronted with problems, with encroachments and attempts to rock the situation, and I would like to say that you can always count on our assistance and support."
However, with an 810 mile border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan, it's not clear how many Russian troops will be required.
Putin is using a similar strategy in several countries. He justifies the Russian invasion and continued Russian military intervention in Ukraine by referring to Ukraine government officials as Nazis. And he justifies Russia's military incursion into Syria, and now into Tajikistan, by stoking fears of ISIS.
In the case of Tajikistan, however, this argument may be wearing thin. The recent violence in Dushanbe had nothing to do with ISIS; it was generated by armed rebellion within the Tajik government. EurasiaNet and The Diplomat and Reuters
The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) was formed in 2002 as a mutual defense organization seen as a counterbalance to NATO, but also claiming to seek closer cooperation with other multilateral institutions, such as the United Nations, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and NATO.
Russia is clearly preeminent in the CSTO, among the other members Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, and that's the difference that makes the CSTO different from an organization like NATO. NATO is a military alliance of countries that support each other militarily, and even though the United States is the greatest power in Nato, the other members states are clearly independent.
But CSTO is much a collection of bilateral relationships between Russia and each of the member countries. A clear example of CSTO's problems is the withdrawal of Uzbekistan from the organization in 2012.
Uzbekistan was a member of the CSTO predecessor organization, but withdrew in 1999. Uzbekistan then joined CSTO in 2006, but never ratified the guideline documents of the organization.
Uzbekistan has by far the strongest armed forces in Central Asia, and yet these forces have never participated in CSTO collective exercises, which are mainly a spectacle arranged to show off the power of the Russian military.
Uzbekistan has banned all foreign military bases on Uzbek soil, and it's believed that Uzbekistan's refusal to remain in the CSTO is a political strategy to get what it wants out of big powers like the U.S., Russia, and China, without giving up its sovereignty in return.
With its most powerful member (except for Russia) out the organization, the CSTO seems almost to be irrelevant, and not a successful counterbalance to Nato. Global Security (March 2014) and EurasiaNet (26-Dec-2012)
Russia's economic slowdown has been a financial disaster for Central Asian countries, especially Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Estimates vary, but in 2014 there were between 3-6 million migrant workers from Uzbekistan in Russia, with over 2/3 in Moscow. Some 2-3 million migrant workers from Tajikistan were in Russia.
In 2014, transfer payments from migrant workers in Russia to Tajikistan amounted to $3,349,000,000, or about 36.2 percent of that country’s GDP. The true figure was probably higher, because of informal remittance channels. Uzbekistan’s migrant workers in Russia sent home $5.5 billion in 2014.
Because of Russia's economic slowdown, remittances are expected to be less than half those amounts in 2015. This means that in Tajikistan, GDP will fall directly by 20%, and perhaps as much as 50% because of the multiplier effect.
None of these countries has the economic or political capacity to make up for these shortfalls. Indeed, the reason that so many citizens of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan went to Russia in the first place was not just for higher wages, but also due to a lack of any other jobs at home.
The loss of remittances, plus the return of millions of migrant workers, may be economically disastrous for Central Asia. Many of the migrant workers returning from Russia may decide to continue on to Afghanistan, to join ISIS or the Taliban, and so they may present a terrorist threat to their home countries. Jamestown (Paul Goble) and EurasiaNet (15-Jan-2015)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 16-Sep-15 World View -- Russia's economic slowdown means financial disaster for Central Asia thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(16-Sep-2015)
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Egypt mistakenly kills Mexican tourists, Mexico demands explanation
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On June 17, Hungary announced that it would build a steel border fence along the Serbian border to keep migrants from entering Hungary. Hungarians have been rushing to build the fence, but for the last two weeks, a small gap in the fence, about 40 m (130 ft) long became the unofficial entry point for thousands of migrants and refugees heading north into the European Union. Migrants were rushing to make it across before the gap was closed -- 4,330 on Saturday, 5,809 on Sunday.
So on Monday, all of a sudden, with no warning, a line of police blocked the gap in the fence, while workers threaded barbed wire across it.
There was confusion among the hundreds of migrants who had been waiting to cross the border. Then they were told that there was an open border crossing a mile or two away. They lined up there, as police were letting people through by ones and twos. By Monday evening, around 1,000 migrants were lined up, with some expressing their anger at the slow movement.
Hungary is taking other steps as well to reduce the flow of migrants. With the closing of the border fence, new laws will permit police to arrest and even jail any migrant that illegal crosses the fence, which may be a violation of international law. AFP and AP
A core founding principle of the European Union appeared to be unraveling on Monday, as one country after another reestablished border controls, and a contentious meeting in Brussels failed reach agreement even on the most watered-down proposal for dealing with migrants.
Hungary's president, Viktor Orbán, has been treated for months as the "bad boy" on migrant issues in Europe, and the plans to build the border fence with Serbia have been heavily condemned from the day they were announced. But the completion of the border fence has been expected for months, and so Hungary's fence was not the event that triggered Monday's events.
The major triggering event was Germany's surprise decision to restore border controls. For weeks, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel has been repeatedly hailed across Europe by human rights activists for her strong stand on giving refugees from Syria and other countries a warm welcome when they arrive in Germany.
But reality began to set in on Sunday. Although all of Germany was supposed to offer the migrants a warm welcome, in practice most of them arrived in Munich in southern Germany. When 13,000 migrants arrived in Munich on Saturday alone, a police spokesman announced that "We have reached the upper limit of our capacity." The authorities are considering using a sports venue from the 1972 Olympics, the Olympiahalle, as a temporary shelter.
Germany was has already said that it expects to receive 800,000 migrants this year alone, but some news reports have indicated that unless the war in Syria ends, there could be millions of migrants in the next two years.
Germany's vice-chancellor Thomas de Maizière announced that there would be "temporary" border controls imposed on its border with Austria. De Maizière said that refugees could "not choose" their host countries and called on other EU states to do more. He said, "The aim of these measures is to limit the current inflows to Germany and to return to orderly procedures when people enter the country."
EU's Schengen Agreement permits free movement and visa-free travel across borders of all 26 countries that signed the agreement. This meant that once a migrant reached Hungary, he could freely travel from there to Austria, and then Germany. But this huge volume of migrants, the highest since the end of World War II, was not contemplated by the Schengen Agreement.
Germany's announcement on Monday technically does not violate the Schengen Agreement because the border controls are only "temporary." However, most people assume that the border controls will continue as long as the flood of migrants continues.
Germany's surprise announcement to impose border controls started a domino effect. Austria and Slovakia said it would impose its own border controls. The Netherlands announced it would make spot checks at its borders. Sweden and Poland said they were considering border controls.
In the meantime, EU interior ministers were meeting in Brussels to decide how to handle the migrant problem. The issue under discussion was a process for distributing some of the migrants to different countries on a voluntary quota basis. However, several east European countries refused to agree to accept any migrants at all.
The fear is now growing that with all the border closings, hundreds of thousands of migrants may be stuck in transit at the border crossings, creating an extremely unstable situation.
This is potentially the greatest threat to Europe since the end of World War II. In the 1950s, Europe had been devastated by two world wars. Everybody was fearful that there could be another world war at any time. Finally, it was agreed by the war survivors that Europe had to form a union like the United States to prevent another war. That was the powerful motivation behind the 1957 Treaty of Rome. (See "Angela Merkel tries to unify a fractured Europe on its 50th birthday" from 2007.)
The text of the final declaration of the 1957 treaty states: "European unification shows that we have learnt the painful lessons of a history marked by bloody conflict."
But the whole point of Generational Dynamics is that the painful lessons of history must be learned generation by generation. One generation may learn a lesson, but their children and grandchildren will ignore those lessons, and even be contemptuous of them. Today, with the survivors of World War II almost gone, we see the lessons learned in World War II being forgotten, and we see European unification unraveling. BBC and Reuters and NY Times
Mexico is demanding a full investigation and explanation after Egyptian warplanes attacked a group of Mexican tourists in Egypt's Western Desert. Egyptian security forces killed 12 people and injured 10 more.
According to the Egyptians, the tourists were in cars not authorized for tours, and the group did not have permits for the trip.
According to a representative of the tour guides: "The tour company is licensed. They had the tourism police notification. The police representative inspected all car licenses before leaving the hotel in Cairo in the morning and heading towards the oases."
However, the attack occurred when the group took a 2 km detour off the authorized paved road, in order to get something to eat. According to the representative, "There were no warning signs and no instructions from the checkpoints on the road or the tourism policeman accompanying them."
Egypt's ambassador to Mexico, Yasser Shaban, said that the Egyptian government was taking the incident seriously, and working around the clock to provide support and assistance to the victims and their families.
Egypt's Western Desert is popular with tourists because of its spectacular landscapes. But it's adjacent to Libya, and so it's also popular with insurgents transporting weapons, drugs and militants between Libya and Egypt. Al Ahram (Cairo) and CNN
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 15-Sep-15 World View -- European Union's Schengen agreement for borderless travel unravels thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(15-Sep-2015)
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A coup for China, S. Korea, a taunt for N. Korea
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China's huge World War II victory parade earlier this month is considered a major diplomatic victory for President Xi Jinping. The massive conspicuous display projected a message of militarism, belligerence, and self-confidence, as China prepares for war with the United States. At the same time Xi himself could say "We love peace," and "China will never seek hegemony or expansion," taking the same path that Hitler took when he promised "Peace in our time." ( "4-Sep-15 World View -- China displays belligerence, militarism in WW II victory parade")
The one big humiliation for Xi was that many world leaders refused to come, but sent lower level representatives instead. This is not surprising in view of China's military belligerence, and also because of China's human rights record, which was obvious from the fact that the parade took place on the site of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre that killed thousands of college students. But even more humiliating was the fact that no leaders from Indonesia, Malaysia, or almost all other Asian countries accepted the invitation to come. Joongang Daily (Seoul) and VOA
The on major Asian leader who attended China's World War II victory parade was South Korea's president Park Geun-hye. Park's attendance is considered significant for Xi. Park was the only leader of a liberal democracy in attendance, and since Park is considered to be an ally of the United States, her attendance at China's parade is a small symbolic repudiation of that alliance.
For Park herself it was a significant political coup. She was honored to be placed right next to Russia's president Vladimir Putin and Xi himself on the reviewing stand. At the same time, North Korea's child dictator Kim Jong-un chose not to even attend the parade, after being informed that he would not be on the reviewing stand at all, but placed to the side. On parade day, North Korea was represented by Choe Ryong-hae, an obscure North Korean official who was forced to sit in the furthest corner in the rear.
Park's meeting with Xi almost seemed to taunt North Korea. Park and Xi have already met six times, three times in Beijing, while Kim Jong-un has never once met with Xi.
North Korean state media has been extremely critical of Park's meeting with Xi at the victory parade, especially their talk of reunification, and the suggestion that if North and South Korea were to reunify, then that would be the end of North Korean's nuclear weapons development program.
Of course, nothing like that is even remotely possible, but North Korean officials were infuriated that Park and Xi even had the discussion. According to North Korea state media:
“What need do the Korean people have to pathetically entrust the question of unification and of inter-Korean relations to outside forces? One inconsiderate word or one rude action would be enough to turn the agreement into a useless scrap of paper and to return inter-Korean relations to the point of conflict."
Despite all that, Park's attendance at the Beijing event was highly controversial in South Korea, and was a puzzle to many, even her supporters.
Relations between China and North Korea have been strained since the death of Kim Jong-il, and the selection of Kim Jong-un as president. According to one Seoul analyst: "From Xi's point of view, Kim Jong-un is just a young man. Park is the same age as Xi and they have shared experiences. So he's probably not the right partner to sit down and have a heart-to-heart with Kim Jong-un." Hankyoreh News (Seoul) and Sydney Morning Herald and Joongang Daily (Seoul)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 14-Sep-15 World View -- S. Korea's President Park basks in the afterglow of successful visit to China thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(14-Sep-2015)
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How is Vladimir Putin different from Ronald Reagan?
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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I've written thousands of Generational Dynamics analyses since 2003, and there are certain themes that have been repeated dozens and dozens of times:
Many of these predictions are well over ten years old, based on generational analyses available at the time. Just to take one example, one way (of several) that I knew ten years ago that Iran would become our ally is that in the early 2000s, Iranian college students were having large pro-American demonstrations. Today, those college students are 30-40 years old, moving into positions of power, and changing Iran's politics, waiting for the survivors of the 1979 Great Islamic Revolution to die off.
In the last few days it's become clear that Russia is in the midst of a massive, aggressive military injection of weapons and ground troops into Syria, and that Russia's forces will fight alongside those of the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, fighting (and exterminating) Sunni populations, whether the populations are linked to the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh), or linked to Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front), or whether they're simply ordinary, innocent men, women and children.
It's hard to overestimate the significance of this development, and how it will move the above list of war scenarios forward by quite a bit.
Here are some examples:
There are powerful generational forces pushing the Mideast in the directions that I listed at the top of this article. In the last couple of years, we've seen the Mideast descend step by step into war. The arrival of Russia's military in Syria continues the trend in a major way. Al-Jazeera and CBS News and Debka
As we described two days ago in "11-Sep-15 World View -- Russia, Iran sending troops to Syria as chemical weapons use grows", Putin's plan is to form a broad international coalition to support the al-Bashar regime, but nominally to fight ISIS. The coalition would unite Syrian forces, Russian forces, Iranian forces and Western forces, and would receive a mandate from the United Nations Security Council.
I would like to say that there isn't a snowflake's chance in hell that the Obama administration would go along with this disastrous plan, but after what we've seen in the administration's willingness to bend over backwards to accommodate the demands of Russia and Iran in other areas, we really can't count on anything.
Russia opened the dialog on Friday with a call for military-to-military cooperation between the Russians and Americans in Syria, in order to avoid "unintended incidents." The message seems to be pretty clear that Russia is planning to take control of Syria's airspace, and possibly Iraq's as well, and that American and Israeli warplanes will be forced to stay out.
President Obama issued a hard-hitting warning to Russia on Friday, saying, "But we are going to be engaging Russia to let them know that you can't continue to double-down on a strategy that is doomed to failure."
I like to reference Debka's newsletter because it contains valuable insights into what's going on, but it's written from Israel's point of view, and sometimes gets things wrong. This week's subscriber-only newsletter (sent to me by a subscriber) contains an analysis of the Russia's objectives in Syria:
A web site reader asked the following question:
"How is Russia's president Vladimir Putin supporting Syria's Bashar al-Assad different than Ronald Reagan supporting Iraq's Saddam Hussein in the 1980s [in the Iran-Iraq war]? Both of them were extremely brutal and committed horrific atrocities, with the protection of a superpower allowing them to get away with anything they wanted. Saddam could match Assad, perhaps even exceed him in brutality."
It's an interesting question, but I think that there are differences.
We might as well start with our alliance with Josef Stalin's Russia in WW II. Stalin had killed millions of people brutally, including millions of people by starvation in Ukraine.
But we allied with Stalin because he was the lesser of two evils.
In the 1980s, Iran had kidnapped our diplomats, and was practically declaring war against us and Israel. Prior to Saddam's use of chemical weapons in 1988, Saddam was considered the lesser of two evils. (Although Henry Kissinger once said of the Iran-Iraq war that "It's a pity that both sides can't lose.")
Russia is using the same argument -- that al-Assad is the lesser of two evils, the other evil being ISIS.
The problem with Russia's argument is that ISIS didn't exist when Russia began supporting al-Assad.
Let's review what happened: Bashar al-Assad has killed tens of thousands of innocent Sunni women and children using Russia's heavy weapons, he's killed children by sending missiles into exam rooms and bedrooms. He's used Sarin gas against his own people, 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 so with complete impunity, and has been doing so for many years. That's good enough for me to call him a psychopathic genocidal monster and a war criminal.
Vladimir Putin and Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei are also war criminals because they're supplying weapons to al-Assad to commit genocide.
The actions of these three war criminals drew jihadists to Syria from all over the world, resulting in the creation of ISIS, and resulting in over 11 million Syrian refugees, hundreds of thousands of which are now flooding into Europe, creating a refugee crisis comparable to WW II. And the suffering of these millions of Syrian refugees is of no consequence to Syria, Russia or Iran. In fact, my guess is that Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad and Iran's Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei are all rubbing their hands with glee over the suffering they've caused, because it distracts the West from their military actions.
So Russia's argument that it's only supporting the "lesser evil" is not valid because when Russia began supporting al-Assad, the other "evil" was peacefully protesting innocent men, women and children. Putin and al-Assad took steps that created ISIS, the "other evil," and now they're justifying their actions by saying that they have to fight the evil that they're responsible for.
It's almost impossible to believe how much damage these three war criminals have done to the world, with complete impunity. If this kind of disaster had been predicted five years ago, no one would have believed it.
At least it makes it easier for us to understand how Hitler got away with it for so long.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 13-Sep-15 World View -- Russia opens a dangerous new chapter in Syria and the Mideast thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(13-Sep-2015)
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1979 takeover of Grand Mosque led to al-Qaeda and 9/11
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Almost 100 pilgrims were killed on Friday night and 238 injured when a construction crane crashed through the roof of the Grand Mosque in Saudi Arabia's holy city of Mecca. Terrorism is not suspected. Heavy rains and strong winds, following several days of strong sandstorms, are blamed for the construction accident.
The Grand Mosque was built in the 16th century to enclose the Kabaa, the rectangular building at the center of the mosque, the holiest shrine in all of Islam. The Kabaa itself was pre-Islamic, and was a shrine to Arab polytheists.
When Mohammed returned to Mecca in 630, he ordered the destruction of the idols that were kept in the shrine, cleansing it of polytheistic associations. When Muslims face Mecca to pray, they're actually facing the Kabaa.
This year, the Grand Mosque was going through the latest of its many enlargements and modifications, to accommodate larger and larger crowds that attend the annual Hajj ceremony. Three million Muslims from around the world are expected for the Hajj, which this year runs between September 21-26. Friday's construction accident is not expected to affect the Hajj. Arab News and Telegraph (London) and BBC
It's ironic that Friday's construction accident took place on 9/11, since a Salafist takeover of Mecca's Grand Mosque in 1979 was the event that lit the fuse that led to the 9/11 attack.
There were three events in 1979 that shook the Arab / Muslim / Persian world to its core.
One event, which occurred just as the year was ending, was a Salafist takeover of the Masjid al-Haram, or the Grand Mosque, led by terrorist Juhayman al-Oteibi. On November 20, 1979, al-Oteibi led about 500 young jihadists to seize the Grand Mosque. It took two weeks for a massive Saudi army effort to retake the Mosque. By the end, the official death toll was 127 soldiers and 117 militants. Unconfirmed reports indicate that over 1,000 civilians lost their lives.
The young jihadists who took over the Mosque were re-fighting a crisis war that had occurred in the 1920s between the al-Saud family and a Salafist group known as the Wahhabis. At that time, the crisis war was resolved with an agreement that the al-Saud family would rule Saudi Arabia, but would follow the strict, austere demands of the Wahhabis.
By 1979, that agreement had broken down, and many of the reforms that were allowed, such as additional freedoms for women, were considered abandonment of "true Islam," and the al-Oteibis were demonstrating against the al-Saud family. The takeover of the Grand Mosque was the culmination of those protests.
However, the takeover might not have occurred at that time, were it not for two other major events that took place in 1979, inflaming the Oteibis.
One was Iran's Great Islamic Revolution, which brought a radical theocratic Shia government to Iran, threatening to take over the leadership of the Islamic world from Saudi Arabia.
The other was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which was seen as invasion of a Muslim country by a mostly Christian outside army.
These three events shook the entire Arab - Persian - Muslim world, and were destabilizing to the al-Saud government. The Saudi Arabian government encouraged all Salafists to travel to Afghanistan to fight the infidel invaders. One of those young Salafists was the extremely wealthy Osama bin Laden, who used the support and funding from Saudi Arabia to form al-Qaeda ("the base"), on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The Afghan war ended in 1989, and bin Laden and the other Salafists returned to Saudi Arabia. However, it was another major event that led the bin Laden and the Salafists to break completely with the Saudi government. In 1990, for the first time in over a century, one Muslim country invaded another Muslim country and completely took it over -- that was Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. The Saudi government then invited America and the West to come use Saudi Arabia as a base with which to launch a military action to free Kuwait from Iraq.
Osama bin Laden was never part of the al-Oteibi revolution that took over the Grand Mosque in 1979, but bin Laden completely adopted al-Oteibi's repudiations of the al-Saud family, and some of al-Oteibi's acolytes joined al-Qaeda.
The next event that shook the Muslim world, particularly Saudi Arabia, occurred on September 11, 2001, when plane hijackers destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City, and investigations showed that 15 of the 19 hijackers, including the mastermind Osama bin Laden, were all Saudi Arabian nationals, turning the country Saudi Arabia into an international pariah. Encyclopedia Britannica and Dawn (Pakistan, 19-Nov-2009) and The Saudi-Wahhabi Pact
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 12-Sep-15 World View -- Saudi Arabia's Grand Mosque, site of huge construction accident, has links to 9/11 thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(12-Sep-2015)
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Assad regime and ISIS are apparently BOTH now using chemical weapons in Syria
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Russia had been denying reports that Russia is building a new military base in Syria", but as usual, Russia's denials were a total lie. Differing reports now indicate that Russia has already sent heavy weapons and dozens to hundreds of troops to Syria, though the buildup appears to be limited for the time being.
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov now confirms that the huge Russian transport planes landing in an airport near Latakia, a port city on the Mediterranean, are carrying weapons and Russian servicemen. According to Lavrov:
"If it’s necessary, we will act in full conformity with the Russian legislation, international law and our obligations, exclusively on the request and consent of the government of Syria and other countries of the region, if there is a talk about helping them fight terrorism."
Other reports confirm that two Russian Navy tank landing ships are moored at the Port of Tartus, also on the Mediterranean Sea, where the Russians have a naval base. According to the reports that the ships are offloading armored vehicles as well as nearly 50 Russian marines. The weapons and soldiers are arriving from Russia's Sevastopol port in the Black Sea, in Crimea, which Russia invaded and annexed last year.
Further reports indicate that hundreds of troops from Iran's élite Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) have also arrived, and are deployed northwest of Damascus near the border with Lebanon.
The first reports that Iran was planning to deploy troops in Syria came several months ago. ( "5-Jun-15 World View -- With Syria's army nearing collapse, Iran plans massive troop deployment".) That massive troop deployment appears to be occurring now. Fox News and Washington Post and Washington Free Beacon
According to one analysis, Russia's president Vladimir Putin does not really want to end up in a quagmire in Syria, but is using the threat of a massive Russian military deployment to Syria to blackmail the West into accepting "Putin's plan" for Syria.
Putin's plan would be to form a broad international coalition, targeting the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh). The all-inclusive anti-ISIS coalition would unite Syrian regime forces with Western forces and Russian forces against ISIS, and would receive a mandate from the United Nations General Assembly. Putin plans to address the UN General Assembly in mid-September, and may discuss the plan then.
The plan would mean that Western forces would join with Russia and Iran to prop up the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, with the nominal objective of fighting ISIS. Russia's power and military base in the Mideast would be firmly established, and the West could relieve Russia of the job of defeating ISIS and al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front), which Putin sat back and watched.
Some European leaders, including Italy's former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and France's former president Nicolas Sarkozy, have expressed interest in the plan because it relieves tensions with Russia in Ukraine, and they would like to mediate a rapprochement.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, "Putin's plan" is absolutely fascinating. I've been saying for ten years in the in the coming Clash of Civilizations world war, Iran, Russia and India would be allied with the United States and West, while the Sunni Muslim nations would be allied with China.
Ten years ago, that Generational Dynamics prediction seemed completely fantastical, but for the last couple of years we've seen in coming true, step by step. "Putin's plan," if adopted, would be a major step in bringing that prediction closer to reality.
Whatever else happens, there's absolutely no doubt that the Sunni nations, starting with Turkey and Saudi Arabia, would be infuriatedly opposed to any such plan for the West to align with Iran and al-Assad, who Sunni leaders consider to be existential threats to their countries. Jamestown
Chemical weapons experts hired by the BBC have determined that both chlorine gas and mustard gas have been used in the conflict in Syria.
The chlorine was delivered by helicopters, according to witnesses, and only the regime of Bashar al-Assad has helicopters in Syria. The al-Assad regime has been for years using planes and helicopters to flatten entire villages, including innocent women and children, with barrel bombs loaded with explosives, metals, and chlorine gas dropped from helicopters. Al-Assad has also used deadly Sarin gas to hundreds of innocent civilians.
However, the mustard gas is something new in this latest conflict. It causes severe burning of the skin, eyes and respiratory tract, and can be absorbed into the body through inhalation, ingestion or by coming into contact with the skin or eyes. The agent reacts with water in skin cells and in the lungs to literally tear apart cellular structures. It can cause severe eye and lung damage and can also cause blindness. It was outlawed by international convention after World War I, but was used by Saddam Hussein in 1988 against the Kurds and some Iranians, killing over 10,000 people in possibly the worst chemical weapons disaster in history.
Germany's foreign intelligence agency has collected evidence that it was ISIS jihadists that used mustard gas in an attack in Iraq. It's believed that the gas came from Saddam Hussein's old stockpiles of mustard gas that he used in the 1988 attack, though it's also possible that ISIS has manufactured the chemical weapon themselves.
On Thursday, the UN Security Council authorized an international investigative body to investigate the use of chemical weapons in Syria, and to establish who is responsible. The resolution has been pending for months, but had been opposed by Russia because Russia did not want an official finding that the al-Assad regime is responsible. It's not clear why the Russians changed their minds, but it may be because the use of mustard gas means that the use of chemical weapons is increasing. BBC and AP and International Business Times and AP
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 11-Sep-15 World View -- Russia, Iran sending troops to Syria as chemical weapons use grows thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(11-Sep-2015)
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Four more Arab countries join war in Yemen with ground troops
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Israel and Egypt announced on Wednesday that Israel will reopen its embassy in Cairo Egypt, four years after the last embassy was closed on September 9, 2011.
The closure was triggered by an event that occurred in August of that year. Palestinian terrorists launched an attack on Israel from Egyptian soil in North Sinai. In the gunfight that followed, five Egyptian policemen were shot by Israeli forces.
This was the year of the "Arab Awakening." The government of Hosni Mubarak had been overthrown, and many people in Egypt were calling for the abrogation of the 1979 peace treaty that Israel and Egypt had signed. At the same time, there was a big escalation in violence between Israel versus Hamas in Gaza. Rockets from Gaza were striking Israel and Israeli warplanes were striking targets in Gaza, both on an almost daily basis.
On September 9, hundreds of Egyptians stormed the Israeli embassy, ransacking the building, and burning the Israeli flag. Egypt's government declared a state of emergency, and promised to prosecute those responsible for the violence. Israel responded by closing the embassy and withdrawing the embassy staff from Egypt.
During the last four years, many things have happened that have actually drawn Egypt and Israel closer together. Terrorism in North Sinai has continued and grown, threatening both countries, and giving the two countries a joint role in fighting it. The July 2013 army coup that overthrew Egypt's elected president, Mohamed Morsi, and expelled his Muslim Brotherhood government, was followed by a long purge of Muslim Brotherhood supporters, with thousands tortured, jailed or killed. Since Hamas was an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt and Israel were allied in opposing Hamas in Gaza. During last summer's 60-day war between Gaza and Israel, many people believed that Egypt was on Israel's side.
A new embassy building will be built, but the location has not been officially disclosed for security reasons. In the meantime, the Israeli ambassador will execute his duties from his residence in Egypt.
In June, Egypt appointed a new ambassador to Israel to fill a post left vacant since Morsi ousted the previous envoy in 2012. Al Ahram (Cairo) and Al Bawaba (21-Aug-2011) and Reuters
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As we reported two days ago, Qatar is sending 1,000 troops to join the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Iran-back Houthis in Yemen, joining troops already on the ground from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and United Arab Emirates (UAE). Qatar's announcement was considered to be a major escalation in the Yemen war.
It's now emerging that Morocco, Sudan, Jordan and Kuwait will also be sending ground troops into Yemen. By the end of the week, nine coalition members are expected to have forces fighting on the ground alongside Saudi troops. In addition to Qatar's 1000 troops, Egypt will be sending 800 troops armed with tanks and military transport vehicles.
According to a senior Egyptian military source: "We have sent these forces as part of Egypt's prominent role in this alliance. ... The alliance fights for the sake of our brotherly Arab states, and the death of any Egyptian soldier would be an honor and considered martyrdom for the sake of innocent people."
It seems that barely a day goes by without some news about the growing war that's engulfing the entire Mideast. International Business Times and Arab News
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 10-Sep-15 World View -- Israel reopens its embassy in Cairo Egypt after four years thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(10-Sep-2015)
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Egypt's army starts 'The Martyr's Right' operation in North Sinai
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Egypt's army has begun a new operation called "The Martyr's Right" in North Sinai, and reports that 29 terrorists were killed on Tuesday, the first day of the campaign. The target was the terror group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (ABM - Ansar Jerusalem - Champions of Jerusalem), which has conducted numerous attacks in Egypt's Sinai, along the border with Israel and Gaza, and last year changed its name to "Sinai Province," meaning "Sinai Province of Islamic State," when it repudiated its allegiance to al-Qaeda and declared its allegiance to the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh).
In July, Sinai Province conducted simultaneous coordinated terror attacks at 15 different locations in Northern Sinai, causing Egypt to declare that it was in "a state of war." Shortly after that, Egypt's military conducted a massive military operation against the group, and declared that it had brought the Sinai 100% under control.
The Martyr's Right campaign is the largest military operation in North Sinai since then. According to Egypt's Major general Mohamed Ali Belal, the operation is based on new information, and is supported by the Bedouin tribes in the area:
"A comprehensive campaign has been launched based on an estimation of the situation and fresh information about many hideouts and targets. Such campaigns are undertaken with a clear plan ... and with a timeframe. ...Tribes largely support this operation, [but] tribes are not playing a direct role in the operation."
The operation comes days after the Sinai Province released a video documenting its attacks on the military in Sinai, including footage of a wire-guided missile strike that destroyed a navy vessel. ( "17-Jul-15 World View -- ISIS-linked terrorists sink Egyptian navy ship amid Suez Canal expansion".) That attack was seen at the time as a major escalation by the terrorists. Al Ahram (Cairo) and AFP
It's hard to think of any phrase that better describes what's been going on in Turkey for the last few weeks other than "is descending into civil war."
On Sunday, a roadside bomb attack in southeastern Turkey killed 16 Turkish soldiers, and another bombing on Tuesday killed 14 Turkish policemen. Both bombings are blamed on the separatist terror group Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Turkey and the PKK fought an off and on civil war for almost four decades, but finally agreed to a ceasefire in 2012. On July 20, there was a massive terrorist attack in the town of Suruç, and on July 23, Turkey declared war on PKK.
In response to the terror attacks, Turkey launched dozens of airstrikes on PKK camps in the Kandil mountains in northern Iraq for the first time since the 2012 ceasefire. Then on Tuesday, Turkish ground troops entered northern Iraq on Tuesday for the first time since 2011, conducting what an official termed a "short-term" operation to hunt PKK terrorists behind attacks on Turkish soldiers and police.
These attacks on northern Iraq have presented a problem for the United States, because the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, which governs the civilian Kurdish population in northern Iraq, and has been a U.S. ally in fighting against ISIS, has complained that the Turkish airstrikes are killing civilians. Zaman (Turkey) and VOA and Turkish Weekly
The rapidly escalating conflict between PKK terrorists and Turkish security forces has triggered violence across Turkey. A number of anti-terror marches in Turkey turned violent when supporters of the pro-government Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) attacked the headquarters and local offices of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).
Dozens of demonstrators pelted the HDP headquarters in Ankara with stones, while in another city, an angry mob of 150 people set fire to four shops owned by Kurdish businessmen.
In another city, 500 people marched through a neighborhood populated by Kurdish seasonal workers, and began attacking homes and setting some on fire.
An incident that went viral was triggered when a Kurdish man posted on Facebook a picture of himself wearing the uniform of the peshmerga military force of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), alongside the message, "It is an honor to wear this uniform." The man was tracked down, beaten up, stripped, and forced to kiss a statue of Atatürk (the founder of modern Turkey). Hurriyet (Istanbul) and Bloomberg and Hurriyet
An angry mob of nearly 100 people tried to storm the Istanbul offices of the daily newspaper Hurriyet on Tuesday. They did not get past a police barricade, but they smashed windows with sticks and stones.
The attack was triggered by a complaint by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Hurriyet had tweeted a news story on Sunday that distorted his words. The story referred to the recent PKK terrorist attack that killed 14 police officers. Hurriyet quoted Erdogan as saying that the attack would not have occurred if Erdogan's AKP party had won more Parliament seats in the recent elections.
The attack on Hurriyet's offices was blamed on incitement by a group of internet trolls supporting the AKP. Zaman (Turkey) and Zaman
The anger and violence between nationalists and Kurds in cities across Turkey seems to be growing worse, and has done so steadily ever since Erdogan declared war on the PKK in July, ending the 2012 ceasefire.
I've been writing for many months that the Mideast is headed for a new sectarian and ethnic war, and particularly this year that the entire Mideast appears to be deteriorating into war. (See for example "19-Jul-15 World View -- Behind the scenes in the Iran nuclear deal".)
In just the past few days, we've seen the Yemen civil war escalate with the planned deployment of 1,000 Qatari troops, we've seen plans by Russia to deploy Russian troops to Syria, making it for the first time a war between Muslims and Christians, and we've seen the continuing flood of 11 million Syrian refugees into other countries, including the countries of Europe.
Now we have a new element -- a growing war in Turkey between ethnic Turks and Kurds. This is part of the overall trend, and brings us another step closer to all out-war throughout the entire Mideast. Hurriyet (Turkey)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 9-Sep-15 World View -- Turkey slips into chaos as violence spreads across the country thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(9-Sep-2015)
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Britain's RAF drones target and kill British nationals in Syria
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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United Arab Emirates (UAE) is just ending three days of mourning and more than 45 soldiers from UAE, 5 from Bahrain and 10 from Saudi Arabia were killed in Yemen on Friday, in the deadliest day so far for Saudi-led military campaign against Houthis in Yemen. A Houthi missile attack hit an ammunition dump about 120 kilometers east the capital city Sanaa, killing the soldiers.
The Iranian-backed Shia ethnic Houthi militias seized Sanaa last September, forcing the president Saudi-backed Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi to flee to the south to the port city of Aden, Yemen's second largest city. The Houthi militias then swept south, first capturing Taiz, the third largest city, and continuing to the south to Aden. Hadi was forced to flee to Saudi Arabia as a government in exile.
A Saudi-led coalition began airstrikes in Yemen on March 26. At that time, the Saudis announced that they expected to defeat the Houthis without any Saudi ground troops, although UAE ground troops have been deployed. There have been occasional reports of Saudi troops in Yemen, but they've all been denied. The announcement that Saudi and other coalition troops were killed in Yemen on Friday is significant not only because of the casualties, but also because it's the first open admission that there have been Saudi troops fighting in Yemen.
The UAE and Saudi Arabia have pledged to quickly avenge the deaths of their soldiers. Both Saudi and UAE warplanes pounded Houthi targets with heavy airstrikes over the weekend.
According to one UAE official, "They were Emirati and Arab heroes as well. ... The martyrdom of our servicemen in Yemen is a symbol of sacrifice and reflects our high values that call for solidarity with Arab brothers." VOA and Gulf News and Emirates 24/7
In what is described as a major escalation in the war in Yemen, Qatar is significantly increasing its involvement in the war by deploying about 1,000 ground troops backed by armored vehicles and Apache helicopters. The crown prince of Abu Dhabi announced the deployment, and related it to the deaths of dozens of coalition soldiers on Friday, highlighted with nationalism and xenophobia:
"Our armed forces ... are more resolved and determined to liberate Yemen and flush out the scum after the tragic incident."
Although Qatar has taken part in the air campaign, this will be the first time that Qatari troops have entered Yemen. Al Jazeera and Gulf News and Reuters
Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron said on Monday that Royal Air Force (RAF) drones in Syria had targeted and killed three British nationals who, he said, had joined the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh), and were planning terrorist attacks on British soil.
Cameron said that the strikes did not require the approval of Parliament because it was an act of "self-defense" for which there was a "clear legal basis." He said, "We should be under no illusion. Their intention was the murder of British citizens. So on this occasion we ourselves took action." He added:
"My first duty as Prime Minister is to keep the British people safe. That is what I will always do. There was a terrorist directing murder on our streets and no other means to stop them. This Government does not for one moment take these decisions lightly.But I am not prepared to stand here in the aftermath of a terrorist attack on our streets and have to explain why I did not take the chance to prevent it when I could have done."
The announcement comes amid speculation that Cameron is preparing the ground for a military intervention in Syria. Guardian (London) and Telegraph (London)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 8-Sep-15 World View -- In major Yemen war escalation, Qatar is deploying 1,000 ground troops thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(8-Sep-2015)
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Migrant workers in Maine being replaced by blueberry-picking machines
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Ten years ago, more than 5,000 migrant farm workers, mostly of Latin American, Caribbean, Native American or Canadian aboriginal origin, would come to Maine each year to pick 60 million pounds of blueberries between late July and Labor Day. It was grueling work, but it was also a way of life, providing several hundred dollars in pay each week. Today, Maine's blueberry crop is much larger, about 90 million pounds, but only about 1,500 migrant farm workers are needed.
The difference is blueberry-picking machines, heavy pieces of machinery, each operated by a driver, and each replacing several migrant farm workers. The machines require flat farmland, so there is still a need for migrant workers in the gullies.
According to one manufacturer, Littau, berries picked by machines are better than berries picked by humans:
"Berry plants, such as Raspberries, release ripe fruit at an optimum time when the fruit is fully ripe. At this time the berry is as heavy and sweet as it will ever be. Once this time has passed (often a 1-2 day window) the plant regains its previous hold on the fruit. Machine picking can cover much more acreage in a short time, reducing labor, and harvesting the berries quickly to keep them fresh and healthy. Machine harvesting also picks the entire plant, not only what is visible on the outside of the bush. Machine harvesting is a perfect repeatable process set to pick exactly how you configure it, unlike hundreds of hand laborers who have their own opinion of what is under or overripe. Another advantage of machine harvesting is our cleaner fan system. The cleaner fan system allows the operator to separate debris from the berries and regulates how ripe of berries will be kept or discarded. For example, if an overripe berry is picked by the machine the cleaner can be set to remove it before it gets dropped into the crates automatically."
AP and Littau Harvester
As we wrote two days ago, Hungary finally gave in to the massive flow of migrants, after having tried to do everything possible to impede their flow -- especially at the southern border with Serbia and at the train station in Budapest. But when thousands of them began walking along the M1 motorway for the 200 mile trek to Vienna Austria, Hungary finally gave in, and provided over 100 buses to carry them to the border with Austria.
Also on Saturday, Austria announced it would permit the migrants to pass through the country to their final destination which, for most of them, was Germany, where Chancellor Angela Merkel had promised them a warm welcome. Many Austrian citizens helped out on Sunday by driving to Budapest and then driving back to Austria with as many migrants as their cars could carry.
But on Sunday, Austria's Chancellor Werner Faymann announced that enough was enough:
"We have always said this is an emergency situation in which we must act quickly and humanely. We have helped more than 12,000 people in an acute situation. Now we have to move step-by-step away from emergency measures toward normality, in conformity with the law and dignity."
At the railway station in Munich, Germany, there were 6,800 arrivals on Saturday. 13,000 more were expected to arrive on Sunday, and then another 11,000 more on Monday. Authorities in Munich have been setting up beds in a disused car showroom and a railway logistic center, but they're running out of room.
Hungary's prime minister Viktor Orbán blames Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel for the huge flow of migrants and refugees from Syria:
"As long as Austria and Germany don't say clearly that they won’t take in any more migrants, several million new immigrants will come to Europe."
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 7-Sep-15 World View -- As expected, Austria follows Hungary in saying 'No more migrants' thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(7-Sep-2015)
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The cost of repudiating the Truman Doctrine
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In what is potentially a major escalation in the growing sectarian wars in the Mideast, intelligence officials are saying that Russia appears to be building a new military base in Syria, in the Mediterranean port city of Latakia, with an airfield and prefabricated housing units for up to 1,000 personnel.
Images and videos are emerging that show Syrian and Russian combat troops fighting alongside each other, with troops shouting orders to one another in Russian. According to one unnamed intelligence official:
"If they're moving people in to help the Syrian government fight their own fight, that's one thing. But if they're moving in ground forces and dropping bombs on populated areas, that's an entirely different matter."
Russia justifies its military intervention in support of the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad because of the rise of the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh), without mentioning that Russia, Iran and al-Assad are directly responsible for the rise of ISIS, by conducting a genocidal campaign against innocent Sunni women and children, after they peacefully protested in 2011.
US Secretary of State John Kerry is strong strongly disapproving of the Russian action. According to a statement by the State Dept.:
"The secretary made clear that if such reports were accurate, these actions could further escalate the conflict, lead to greater loss of innocent life, increase refugee flows and risk confrontation with the anti-ISIL coalition operating in Syria."
The statement makes it clear that, unless Russia desists, then the US will treat the situation harshly and issue another statement.
As I've been writing for many, many months, there is no war of Muslims versus Christians. The war in the Mideast and Asia is Muslims versus Muslims, with the number of Christians killed minuscule compared to the number of Muslims killed. As I've said many times, this Muslim versus Muslim war is going to engulf the whole region, and will pull in the rest of the world.
Well, Dear Reader, guess what? If it's true that Russian troops are fighting alongside Syrian troops against Sunni militants, then we have the first war of Muslims versus Christians. This is a generational Awakening era, where increasingly nationalist and xenophobic populations are willing to start and escalate wars, with no fear of the consequences. You can be certain that this will only escalate. Telegraph (London) and Reuters
I've written many times about the Harry Truman's Truman Doctrine of 1947, which made America policeman of the world. The doctrine is highly controversial today, but its justification is that it's better to have a small military action to stop an ongoing crime than to let it slide and end up having an enormous conflict like World War II. Every president since WW II has followed the Truman Doctrine, up to and including George Bush. Barack Obama is the first president to repudiate the Truman Doctrine, essentially leaving the world without a policeman.
The Truman Doctrine has always been heavily criticized, but it's done much to preserve peace for decades. Now, since 2011, we see in full fury what happens to the world without a policeman.
Since the Syrian conflict began in 2011, Russia's support has been essential to the survival of al-Assad. Al-Assad, a member of the Alawite/Shia religious group, began using heavy weapons on peaceful Sunni Muslim demonstrators. He's flattened entire Sunni villages with Russia's heavy weapons, he's killed children by sending missiles into exam rooms and bedrooms, he's killed hundreds with Sarin gas, and he continues to kill countless more with barrel bombs loaded with explosives, metals, and chlorine gas dropped from helicopters.
Al-Assad's genocidal sectarian attack on Sunnis caused the formation of Iraqi rebel groups, such as the Free Syrian Army (FSA). But it also triggered a worldwide tsunami of young men from around the world traveling to Syria to fight against al-Assad, joining the al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front), and causing the creation of ISIS.
Al-Assad predicted a quick victory in 2012, and that might have happened if his only enemy had been the FSA. But he began to suffer defeats at the hands of al-Nusra and ISIS, and his regime could only continue with the help of a massive supply of heavy weapons from Russia, fighters from Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and fighters from the Lebanon-based Iran-back terror group Hezbollah.
But even with all that massive support from other countries, the al-Assad regime has been losing the war against al-Nusra and ISIS, so that now he's apparently going to need Christian Russian troops to support him.
All of this has happened as a consequence of Barack Obama's repudiation of the Truman Doctrine. It's too late to do anything now, but with no policeman, al-Assad was able to conduct his Sunni extermination campaign in 2011. The most damaging example of all was Obama's flip-flop about the "red line" of al-Assad's use of chemical weapons, which, combined with America's total withdrawal from Iraq, signaled to all sides in the Mideast that they were free to kill anyone they wanted with impunity. It's as if all the policemen were withdrawn from New York City, and then everyone expressed surprise when the city exploded in multiple gang wars.
We've had seven years of a president with absolutely no clue what's going on in the world, and it's been a disaster. We have no need for eight years of another president who has no clue what's going on in the world. And by that I also mean that we have no need for a president whose idea of foreign policy is to stoke nationalism, xenophobia and hatred by repeatedly suggesting that all Mexicans are rapists and murderers, which is about as disastrous a policy as possible.
Nor do I accept anyone's claim that the president can hire a staff of experts who will tell him what to do. President Obama has repeatedly ignored the advice of army generals and other experts, because he believes that he's always the smartest person in the room, no matter who else is in the room. So the claim about hiring a staff of experts is just an excuse for not knowing anything. In the meantime, the situation in Mideast worsens every day, and the nicest thing that anyone can say about American foreign policy in the Mideast is that it's totally incoherent.
I hear a lot of rhetoric and hot air by politicians on all sides, as long as I can stand listening to it, but I'm waiting to see if there's anyone who actually knows what's going on. I'm afraid I'm going to have to wait a long time.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 6-Sep-15 World View -- Russia may be building a new military base in Syria thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(6-Sep-2015)
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Austria agrees to allow migrants to pass through Austria
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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There are potentially millions of refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan who are trying to reach Europe, especially Germany, along a route that goes through Turkey, then through Greece, then through Macedonia, then Serbia, then Hungary, then Austria, and then Germany. There are men, women and children, including whole families. They're traveling by whatever means are available -- walking, buses, trains, or hitchhiking.
Quite honestly, I've been (and am) puzzled by Hungary's actions during the last few weeks. Everyone seems to agree that none of the migrants wants to stay in Hungary; they all want to pass through, on their way to Germany or Sweden. So the easy solution for Hungary, I would guess, would be to do what Greece, Macedonia and Serbia have been doing -- let them into the country, and provide ferries, buses and trains to get the out of the country as quickly as possible, so that the migrants become someone else's problem.
Instead, Hungary has been doing everything possible to impede the migrants' travel during the last two weeks, including the following:
It appears that, slowly but surely, Hungary is moving in the direction of taking the path of least resistance -- just let the thousands of migrants pass through Hungary unimpeded, into Austria, and then let Austria deal with them. Hungary Today
According to Hungary's prime minister Viktor Orbán, German is responsible for the "mess" in Budapest, because Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel has offered to settle 800,000 migrants this year. According to Orbán, this announcement encourages thousands more migrants to attempt to reach Germany. According to Orbán, the current "Grand Migration" has unlimited supply and sooner or later, we could find that "we’ve become the minority on our own continent."
In an article written on Thursday, he said:
"We must not forget that those who are coming in have been brought up under a different religion and represent a profoundly different culture.The majority are not Christians but Muslims. That is an important question because Europe and European culture have Christian roots.
Or is it not already, and in itself, alarming that Europe's Christian culture is barely able to uphold Europe's own Christian values? ...
The people want us to control the situation and protect our borders. Only when we have protected our borders can we ask questions about the numbers of people we can take in, or whether there should be quotas.
[It is] pretty depressing that, aside from Hungary -- or the Spaniards -- no one wants to protect the borders of Europe."
Angela Merkel responded:
"To the extent that we have in mind Christian values, then I think it is important that the dignity of every human being ... be protected everywhere it is in danger. ...[On the asylum issue], Germany is doing what is morally and legally required, nothing more or less, [and the international refugee convention] is not only valid in Germany but in each European (Union) member state."
In Brussels, EU President Donald Tusk also reacted to the article, saying that "for me Christianity in public and social life means a duty to our brothers in need. Referring to Christianity in a public debate on migration must mean the humanity to our brothers ... (and) readiness to show solidarity." Hungary Today and AFP
Several hours after Hungarian officials announced that buses would transport thousands of migrants to Hegyeshalom, on the Austrian border, Austria's Ministry of the Interior published a statement:
"Vienna (OTS) - Hundreds of refugees are currently underway on foot from Hungary towards Austria. Police and Red Cross are prepared for the arrival of refugees. Every refugee in Austria can apply for asylum.... Each application for asylum is individually subjected to a procedural test.In according with EU and Austrian law, the validity of the application for asylum in Austria is checked under Dublin Regulations, and possibly the applicant will be transferred back to the relevant Member state.
In the event that there is no protection in Austria, coercive police measures may be carried out, but only in the light of proportionality. ...
For the Austrian security authorities, what stands above all is to prevent human tragedies. The ultimate goal is therefore the maintenance of security and order. It's further important that people seeking medicines or humanitarian care need to be treated immediately. The police officers will work closely with relevant charities. It also aims to prevent people falling into the hands of unscrupulous traffickers.
A solution of the current situation can only be ensured in the spirit of European solidarity."
This talk of "procedural tests" and "coercive police measures" implies to me that the Austria will now face exactly the same chaos next week that Hungary dealt with during the last two weeks. Austria's Interior Ministry (Translation)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 5-Sep-15 World View -- After weeks of chaos, Hungary appears to be giving in to the flood of migrants thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(5-Sep-2015)
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China sends warships to Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Led by China's President Xi Jinping, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) put on enormous military display on Thursday for its "Commemoration of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and Victory in the World Anti-Fascist War."
The stock markets have been shut down until Monday, to prevent any embarrassing plunges. The skies were blue, a color rarely seen in Beijing, because all the factories had been shut down for the parade.
Xi Jinping announced that the number of troops in China's army will be cuty by 300,000, and that:
"China will remain committed to peaceful development. We Chinese love peace. No matter how much stronger it may become, China will never seek hegemony or expansion. It will never inflict its past suffering on any other nation,"
There are one or two things that Xi didn't mention. One thing he didn't mention is that the size of the army is decreasing from 2.3 million to 2 million, which makes it the largest army in the world.
He also didn't mention that while China is reducing its ground forces, it's previously announced huge expansions in its naval forces, as it prepares for war with the United States.
He said that China's military capabilities would contribute to international peace and security, but he didn't mention that China is building military bases on reclaimed land in the South China Sea, and that China is militarily threatening Vietnam and the Philippines, including innocent fishermen who have used these waters to fish for centuries. When Xi says "We love peace," and "China will never seek hegemony or expansion," what he means is that China is repeating Hitler's path in World War II, promising "Peace in our time," but also annexing other people's territories. China will be peaceful with any country that exactly as the Chinese tell them to do, and China will militarily kill any country that doesn't.
The more I read about Xi Jinping, the more I conclude that he's delusional. He talks about the "China dream," which is for China to pass America and to have the most powerful military in the world, especially pushing the United States navy out of the Pacific and Indian oceans. He and many Chinese believe that the United States is becoming weaker every day, and has lost its will to fight. This is the delusion of a man who understands nothing about history but believes that he understands everything.
China is preparing for a pre-emptive attack in the belief that they will win the war quickly, which makes Xi Jinping and the Chinese people as stupid as Hitler and the Nazis. History's greatest disasters are brought about by the stupidest and most delusional people, and this time the stupidest and most delusional people are Xi Jinping and Chinese. Those Chinese who survive will deeply regret their almost unbelievable stupidity, as they go down in history as worse than the Nazis.
Xi said on Thursday:
War is like a mirror. Looking at it helps us better appreciate the value of peace. Today, peace and development have become the prevailing trend, but the world is far from tranquil. War is the sword of Damocles that still hangs over mankind. We must learn the lessons of history, and dedicate ourselves to peace."
Xi and the Chinese prove every day that they have absolutely no clue what the lessons of history are.
At the end of the parade, 70,000 white doves were released, followed into the skies by thousands of colorful balloons Xinhua and Independent (London)
For Thursday's parade, there were hundreds of tanks, nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, drones, fighter jets, with 12,000 goose-stepping soldiers rolling through Tiananmen Square in Beijing. One of the highlights was the "Flying Shark," the J-15 long-range, multi-purpose carrier-borne fighter jet.
Also displayed was the Dongfeng-5B or 'East Wind 5' intercontinental strategic nuclear missiles, which has an estimated range of 12,000 to 15,000 kilometers, and is designed to target American cities.
The star of the show was the Dongfeng-21D anti-ship ballistic missile touted as a "carrier killer," which was paraded for the first time. The missile is specifically designed to target American aircraft carriers.
China has not seen any military conflict since it was defeated in a 1979 war with Vietnam, and so it has no battlefield experience using the equipment put on display. According to one analyst:
"The biggest problem for the [People's Liberation Army] is integrated warfare, which it has never experienced before. Integration is essential in modern warfare. ...[China’s military] has a problem integrating the navy and the air force because of its rigid hierarchy, inter-service rivalries and lack of decision-making powers at the command level."
China's display of belligerence and raw military power, taking place in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, the site of the brutal, bloody 1989 massacre of thousands of college students, to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the "Victory of the Chinese People’s Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War," was snubbed by many world leaders.
Russia's president Vladimir Putin was there, returning the favor from when Xi Jinping attended Russia's WW II victory parade in May. Xi stressed the importance of close relations with Russia, and Putin said he was deeply impressed by the grand commemoration and military parade.
South Korea's President Park Geun Hye was there, but North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un was not. Kim had been invited, but he demanded as a condition for attending that he sit next to Xi Jinping on the reviewing stand. Instead, the Chinese placed him off to one side. So the child dictator snubbed the event and refused to attend at all. China reversed the snub by scheduling talks between Xi and South Korea's president Park.
Western countries, including the U.S., France and Britain, sent former ministers. But Germany was represented only by its ambassador.
The failure to attract more world leaders was not a disaster for Xi Jinping, but it was not a triumph either, and was a big disappointment. Deutsche Welle and Xinhua and Yonhap (8/24) (Seoul)
To further demonstrate China's belligerent intentions towards the United States, five Chinese warships have been sailing in international waters in the Bering Sea near Alaska.
The visit by the warships coincided with President Barack Obama's visit to Alaska earlier this week, and they are part of Thursday's victory parade to show how China plans to expand militarily in the Pacific Ocean. Reuters and Shanghaiist
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China accuses Japan for rewriting some of World War II's history, but China isn't shy about doing its own rewriting, when it's convenient.
Xi Jinping on Thursday bragged about how the forces of China's Mao Zedong had been important and underappreciated factor in defeating Japan in World War II. However, it wasn't Mao's forces that fought the Japanese. For the most part, it was Chiang Kai-shek's forces that bore the brunt of the fighting. Mao held back his forces, and then used then to defeat Chiang in the civil war that followed WW II in 1945-49.
Last month, China released a film called "The Cairo Declaration," recreating a 1943 conference in Cairo by Allied leaders, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, to discuss strategy for defeating the Nazis and Japanese. The poster for the movie shows a picture of the actor who plays Mao Zedong, but Mao didn't even attend the meeting. China was represented by Chiang Kai-shek.
According to one art critic, "By featuring Mao, who was not present at the meeting, but excluding Chiang, the poster shows no respect for history nor to Mao." Military.com
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 4-Sep-15 World View -- China displays belligerence, militarism in WW II victory parade thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(4-Sep-2015)
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Thailand seeks to stop illegal Uighur migration flows
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Thai officials have arrested a suspect in last month's bombing of the Erawan Hindu Shrine in Bangkok. It's believed that the arrested man is a Turkish national, although Thai officials are refusing to confirm that, pending DNA and fingerprint tests. In the last couple of days. four new arrest warrants have been issued. All four have been for men identified as Turkish nationals.
Thailand was shocked last month by the bombing of the Erawan Shrine, a Hindu shrine in Bangkok, Thailand, killing 20 people, with no one claiming responsibility. When we first reported the bombing, there were various suspected perpetrators, including the "red shirts" or the "yellow shirts" or the Malay Muslims.
There was one other possibility considered less likely -- that the perpetrator was using the bombing to protest the Thai government's forcibly returning 109 Uighurs to China, after they had left China to travel to Turkey. China had demanded their return, and Thailand complied, infuriating the Uighur community.
Now it's beginning to increasingly appear that the perpetrators were either Uighur activists or Turkish nationals. If this is confirmed, it would be major embarrassment for all three countries -- Turkey, Thailand and China. Khaosod (Bangkok)
The Uighurs are a Muslim Turkic ethnic group living in China's northwestern border province, Xinjiang. Uighur activists have demanded the secession of Xinjiang province, resulting in bloody crackdowns from Chinese security forces.
In July, 2009, thousands of Uighurs rioted and demonstrated against Chinese rule. Chinese officials accused the Uighurs of attacking Han Chinese in their home, and struck back against the Uighurs brutally. The Uighurs say that the CCP discriminates against them. They resent the flood of Han Chinese "colonizing" the region, taking all the good jobs, leaving the menial jobs for the Uighurs. They also point out that there's language discrimination, since few Han speak the Uighur language.
After these violent confrontations between the Uighurs and Han Chinese in Xinjiang in July, 2009, a flood of Uighurs migrated to Southeast Asia, including Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Burma and Malaysia. China did everything possible to close off those routes, but disaffected Uighur dissidents began to travel to Turkey, which would not only provide refuge, but also offer Uighurs employment opportunities and support networks, where they may engage in anti-Chinese advocacy activities.
Thailand has become a hub for illegal immigration, and was a big part of the story earlier this year about Rohingya Muslims being smuggled out of Myanmar (Burma) for travel to Indonesia.
Last year, hundreds of Uighurs, including women and children, were found living in squalid conditions in camps in Thailand run by human smugglers. They all claimed that they were citizens of Turkey, and many of them were deported to Turkey.
However, under considerable pressure from China, Thailand forcibly repatriated 109 Uighurs to China earlier this year. This caused outrage in the Uighur community, resulting in riots and demonstrations at the Chinese embassies in Turkey and Thailand.
The United Nations Human Rights Commission deemed Thailand’s decision to be a “flagrant breach of international law,” while Human Rights Watch described Thailand’s apparent cave in to Chinese pressure as both “shocking and disturbing.”
It appears that the Uighur is becoming increasingly important in Southeast Asia, and may well become the focal point of future violent conflicts. The Diplomat(8/28) and Guardian (London) and The Diplomat(7/11)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 3-Sep-15 World View -- Turkish nationals and Chinese Uighurs suspected in Thailand bombing thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(3-Sep-2015)
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Oil volatility illustrates exogenous factors affecting Wall Street
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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China's Shanghai stock market index fell 1.2% on Tuesday, which isn't that much, but possibly more significant was China's Caixin manufacturing index, which showed the quickest factory contraction in China in years. China's economic slowdown is raising concerns around the world. Japan's Nikkei index fell 4% on Tuesday, and stocks in London fell 3%.
Tuesday was a very rocky day on Wall Street, with the Dow falling 570 points at one point, ending the day down 470 points, or 2.8%.
With the S&P 500 Price/Earnings ratio (stock valuation index) above 20, far above the historical average of 15, Wall Street stocks are in a huge bubble that must burst and collapse at some point. ( "28-Aug-15 World View -- Explanation of Price/Earnings ratio and Stock Valuations")
It's impossible to predict when that will happen, but as I've been saying for a few weeks, it may be happening right now. The analogy with the 1929 crash is as follows: The market peaked on September 3, and fell steadily after that, not reaching a bottom for three years, only reaching a bottom on July 11, 1932. However, when people talk about "the 1929 crash," they're not talking about any of that. They're talking about October 28, 1929, when stocks fell 13% in one day, and the country was in a state of panic that's still imprinted on people's memory to this day (like September 11, 2001, for a different reason).
The current volatility in stock prices -- surging upward one day, falling the next -- is a sign that a collapse may be near. If stock prices settle down, then things can continue as before. But if this volatility continues and grows, especially with astronomically high stock valuations, it's a sign that the inevitable panic may be close.
If we are in fact now in the middle of a collapse of the stock market bubble, then a day like October 28, 1929, has not yet occurred. That day will come at some point, possibly soon, and it will be remembered for decades. CNN and USA Today and CNN
It's not just stocks that are extremely volatile -- it's commodities too. Oil was the most extreme. The price of a barrel of oil has been surging, up 27% in three days, to $49.20 per barrel (West Texas Intermediate) on Monday. Then on Tuesday, it fell 7.7%, back to $45.41.
The price of oil is set globally. China's stock prices are set in China. Neither of these is controlled by the American economy, and yet they affect the American economy.
This leads to a concept that I've been developing that the current Wall Street stock market bubble is being affected far more by exogenous factors than by domestic factors, and that this is a change from previous bubbles.
The 1929 stock market bubble was almost completely internal to the United States. The late 1990s bubble was based almost entirely on technological financing within the United States. The 2007-8 financial crisis was caused by the deflation of the American real estate bubble and deleveraging of subprime mortgage backed synthetic securities, almost always from American banks.
But today's bubble is largely exogenous. Yes there's a Wall Street bubble, but this time Wall Street is heavily interlocked with stock markets and financial centers around the world, and the Wall Street bubble is smaller than all the other bubbles put together.
I understand that total debt in the United States is $60 trillion, of which $18 trillion is federal government debt. I've also read that total debt in the world is $230 trillion. So, once again, the debt exposure of the United States is big, but only a small fraction of the world debt, in countries with whose economies are interlocked with ours. That means that if almost anyone else sneezes, then we catch a cold.
I've actually been nibbling at this theory for a few weeks. I've been trying to explore some of these concepts in the currency area, when I've been writing about the devaluation of the Chinese yuan, then the devaluation of the Afghanistan tenge, and then crashing of commodities and various African currencies. These actions have all strengthened the US dollar, making the US goods and services less competitive in the world. In addition, this past weeks there was news that China is selling off over $100 billion of US Treasuries. This will strengthen the American dollar even more, possibly significantly, and the make the US even less competitive in world trade. This would be an example of how the current situation is significantly different from previous ones, because today we're reacting to exogenous events, not internal ones as in the past.
If these observations about exogenous events are correct, then America may have less control over what's happening than even the already clueless mainstream analysts and politicians believe. Bloomberg and Dow Jones and Bloomberg(8/27)
Every day for the last four days, the Shanghai stock market index fell sharply in the opening, down 4-6%. But then, in the afternoon, like magic, the index starts to rise, so that by the end of the day, it's only fallen 1% or so.
It turns out that this afternoon magic is a conscious policy by the Chinese. Every day around 2 pm, the Chinese used government-backed funds to make huge purchases of shares in large capitalization companies.
According to analysts, individual retail investors are selling off in the morning, and then Chinese officials are intervening in the afternoon. Chinese officials do not want anything to spoil their World War II victory parade celebration on Thursday. However, this kind of intervention may end on Friday, after the victory parade has ended. Bloomberg
Investors and journalists in China are becoming extremely nervous about aggressive actives Chinese officials to investigate or arrest bloggers and journalists who write about what's happening in the stock market and investors "meddle" in the stock market by selling stocks.
According to reports, Chinese authorities arrested almost 200 people over the weekend. These include journalists, critics and traders. Once arrested they're forced to confess. One local journalist was forced to confess on national state television that he had spread information that caused "panic and disorder."
When stocks started plunging, Chinese authorities issued censorship instructions on June 23:
"Radio and television stations must substantially cut down on coverage of the stock market and strictly observe the following rules:Necessary coverage of the stock market must be completely balanced, objective, and rational. Do not join the chorus of the bull or bear market. Rationally lead market expectations to prevent inappropriate reports from causing the market to spike or crash.
Without exception, discontinue discussions, expert interviews, and on-site live coverage. Do not conduct in-depth analysis, and do not speculate on or assess the direction of the market. Do not exaggerate panic or sadness. Do not use emotionally charged words such as “slump,” “spike,” or “collapse.”
Strictly report according to information released by the China Securities Regulatory Commission. Resolutely avoid promulgating false information.
Programs on securities must be produced and broadcast by the broadcast organization. Do not rent or transfer time slots, do not broadcast programs produced by consulting organizations, and do not embark on commercial ventures with consulting organizations."
Similar rules apply to reporting on the Tianjian industrial disaster last month. Daily Express (London) and Reuters and China Digital Times
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 2-Sep-15 World View -- China leads a worldwide stock selloff thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(2-Sep-2015)
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Troops from Chechnya fighting on both sides in Ukraine
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Protesters outside the parliament building in Kiev, the capital city of Ukraine, killed a national guardsman and injured near 90 other national guardsmen on Monday. The violence is blamed on a highly nationalistic political party Svoboda ("Freedom"), sometimes accused of being neo-Nazi.
The protesters are opponents of a bill discussed in the parliament. The bill would grant special autonomous status to the Donbas (East Ukraine), the region being held by ethnic Russians following last year's Russian invasion of both Crimea and the Donbas. Russia annexed Crimea after invading it, but the Donbas has been much more problematical for Russia.
According to one legislator opposing the law, it is "a betrayal of Ukrainian national interests" by giving too much autonomy to the Russian separatists:
"They get their own police, their own courts, prosecutors, taxes, they have the right to special relationships with neighboring Russian regions. So what next, will they be allowed to open their own embassies tomorrow? ...Europe is selling us out and giving us up as it did Czechoslovakia in 1939. This is a humiliation of the national dignity of the Ukrainian nation."
The legislation to grant the Donbas special autonomous status is a central part of the so-called "Minsk agreements," a peace agreement negotiated in Minsk, Belarus, in February.
Ukraine's president Petro Poroshenko was opposed to the Minsk agreements because they dismember the country Ukraine even further, following the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea.
However, France, Germany and the United States pressured Poroshenko to accept the deal in the hope that by providing Russia's president Vladimir Putin an honorable way to back down, then he might actually do so. With Russia in severe economic trouble from plunging oil prices, Putin may be anxious to be free of the enormous expenses of supporting the Donbas separatists.
Monday's violence suggests that there's a long fight head to get the law passed. There's a great deal of opposition to granting the separatists so much autonomy, and Poroshenko may be unable to pull together all the votes he needs when there's a final vote later this year.
The Russian separatists may not go along with it either. They're discussing holding elections in October under their own rules, not Ukrainian ones. This would effectively negate the Minsk agreement. Reuters and Bloomberg
Reports indicate that Russian militias fighting in Donbas often contain troops from Chechnya, Dagestan or Ingushetia or other non-ethnic Russia groups.
There are indications that this is a conscious Moscow policy, mainly because ethnic Russians often sympathize with the Ukrainians.
According to one Moscow analyst:
"Because ethnic Russians, even the most pro-Putin and most committed vatniks ... in an extreme situation always find a common language and point of contact with Ukrainians. ...There are many occasions when Russian ‘volunteers’ phone Ukrainian ‘fighters’ and say: well, guys, you’d best get away from here, we will be firing on you there.’ Such situations are not rare in the opposite direction as well."
The situation is further complicated by the fact that some Chechens are fighting on the side of Kiev. There are two battalions of about 150 Chechen fighters each on the Kiev side in Ukraine. Many of these fighters might otherwise have gone to Syria.
Russia’s military presence in and occupation of Donbas territory is much less popular among Russian-speaking Ukrainians than Putin initially predicted in 2014. However, Chechens appear to be willing to fight on either side. Paul Goble and Jamestown (13-Aug) and Washington Post
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 1-Sep-15 World View -- Kiev violence triggered by proposal to give east Ukraine more autonomy thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(1-Sep-2015)
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Web Log Summary - 2016
Web Log Summary - 2015
Web Log Summary - 2014
Web Log Summary - 2013
Web Log Summary - 2012
Web Log Summary - 2011
Web Log Summary - 2010
Web Log Summary - 2009
Web Log Summary - 2008
Web Log Summary - 2007
Web Log Summary - 2006
Web Log Summary - 2005
Web Log Summary - 2004
Web Log - December, 2016
Web Log - November, 2016
Web Log - October, 2016
Web Log - September, 2016
Web Log - August, 2016
Web Log - July, 2016
Web Log - June, 2016
Web Log - May, 2016
Web Log - April, 2016
Web Log - March, 2016
Web Log - February, 2016
Web Log - January, 2016
Web Log - December, 2015
Web Log - November, 2015
Web Log - October, 2015
Web Log - September, 2015
Web Log - August, 2015
Web Log - July, 2015
Web Log - June, 2015
Web Log - May, 2015
Web Log - April, 2015
Web Log - March, 2015
Web Log - February, 2015
Web Log - January, 2015
Web Log - December, 2014
Web Log - November, 2014
Web Log - October, 2014
Web Log - September, 2014
Web Log - August, 2014
Web Log - July, 2014
Web Log - June, 2014
Web Log - May, 2014
Web Log - April, 2014
Web Log - March, 2014
Web Log - February, 2014
Web Log - January, 2014
Web Log - December, 2013
Web Log - November, 2013
Web Log - October, 2013
Web Log - September, 2013
Web Log - August, 2013
Web Log - July, 2013
Web Log - June, 2013
Web Log - May, 2013
Web Log - April, 2013
Web Log - March, 2013
Web Log - February, 2013
Web Log - January, 2013
Web Log - December, 2012
Web Log - November, 2012
Web Log - October, 2012
Web Log - September, 2012
Web Log - August, 2012
Web Log - July, 2012
Web Log - June, 2012
Web Log - May, 2012
Web Log - April, 2012
Web Log - March, 2012
Web Log - February, 2012
Web Log - January, 2012
Web Log - December, 2011
Web Log - November, 2011
Web Log - October, 2011
Web Log - September, 2011
Web Log - August, 2011
Web Log - July, 2011
Web Log - June, 2011
Web Log - May, 2011
Web Log - April, 2011
Web Log - March, 2011
Web Log - February, 2011
Web Log - January, 2011
Web Log - December, 2010
Web Log - November, 2010
Web Log - October, 2010
Web Log - September, 2010
Web Log - August, 2010
Web Log - July, 2010
Web Log - June, 2010
Web Log - May, 2010
Web Log - April, 2010
Web Log - March, 2010
Web Log - February, 2010
Web Log - January, 2010
Web Log - December, 2009
Web Log - November, 2009
Web Log - October, 2009
Web Log - September, 2009
Web Log - August, 2009
Web Log - July, 2009
Web Log - June, 2009
Web Log - May, 2009
Web Log - April, 2009
Web Log - March, 2009
Web Log - February, 2009
Web Log - January, 2009
Web Log - December, 2008
Web Log - November, 2008
Web Log - October, 2008
Web Log - September, 2008
Web Log - August, 2008
Web Log - July, 2008
Web Log - June, 2008
Web Log - May, 2008
Web Log - April, 2008
Web Log - March, 2008
Web Log - February, 2008
Web Log - January, 2008
Web Log - December, 2007
Web Log - November, 2007
Web Log - October, 2007
Web Log - September, 2007
Web Log - August, 2007
Web Log - July, 2007
Web Log - June, 2007
Web Log - May, 2007
Web Log - April, 2007
Web Log - March, 2007
Web Log - February, 2007
Web Log - January, 2007
Web Log - December, 2006
Web Log - November, 2006
Web Log - October, 2006
Web Log - September, 2006
Web Log - August, 2006
Web Log - July, 2006
Web Log - June, 2006
Web Log - May, 2006
Web Log - April, 2006
Web Log - March, 2006
Web Log - February, 2006
Web Log - January, 2006
Web Log - December, 2005
Web Log - November, 2005
Web Log - October, 2005
Web Log - September, 2005
Web Log - August, 2005
Web Log - July, 2005
Web Log - June, 2005
Web Log - May, 2005
Web Log - April, 2005
Web Log - March, 2005
Web Log - February, 2005
Web Log - January, 2005
Web Log - December, 2004
Web Log - November, 2004
Web Log - October, 2004
Web Log - September, 2004
Web Log - August, 2004
Web Log - July, 2004
Web Log - June, 2004