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Jacques Chirac and Saddam Hussein's Oil-for-Food scam
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Jacques Chirac, who was president of France between 1995 and 2007, died on Thursday. He had previously served two terms as prime minister, from 1974-76 and 1986-88, and was mayor of Paris from 1977-1995.
According to the current president, Emmanuel Macron:
"We are remembering tonight with emotion and affection his freedom, his personality, the talent he had to reconcile simplicity and grandeur, proximity and dignity, love of the motherland and openness to the universal."
However, another French politician said anonymously: "People think Chirac is a decent guy, but not very bright. In fact, he's exactly the opposite."
In fact, Chirac was extremely controversial as president, although the thing that he was most praised for was standing up to President George Bush and refusing to join America and Britain in the 2003 war against Saddam Hussein in Iraq. According to British journalist Sophie Pedder:
"Much to criticise about his time as French president (twice), prime minister (twice) and Paris mayor. But Jacques Chirac (1932-2019) was right on Iraq, prescient about multi-polarity, brave to acknowledge France's responsibility under Vichy--and an improbable icon of French cool pic.twitter.com/KHkQE9gHaM"
Born in 1932, he was too young to fight in World War II, but later in life he was praised for acknowledging France's collaboration with the Nazis during the war, including the deportation of Jews from France to Nazi concentration camps.
As I recently described, the 2003 Iraq war occurred as the result of panic in the West over weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), 58 years after nuking of Japan in 1945 at the end of World War II. (See discussion of 58-Year Hypothesis in "2-Sep-19 World View -- Israel-Hezbollah-Lebanon border clash fizzles quickly, no repeat of 2006 war")
Saddam Hussein had used chemical weapons against the Kurds and the Iranians in 1988 at the end of the Iran/Iraq war, and had continued developing chemical weapons during the 1990s. Saddam refused UN WMD inspections under President Bill Clinton, and his response was to order bombing campaigns on military targets in Iraq.
However, military action did not go farther than that until 2003, 58 years after the nuking of Japan, as the age cohort of people who were children in 1945 suddenly became anxious that the WMDs would be used again, causing a general panic. (58-Year Hypothesis) Saddam was resolutely opposing UN inspections, and many people read this as a sign of guilt.
Most countries were convinced that Saddam was still developing WMDs, and many endorsed the British and American plan for a ground war in Iraq. The two major exceptions were Russia and France. In the case of Russia, it was thought that the reason was that the Russians still hoped to collect the $10 billion that Iraq owed to Russia, mainly for illegal arms deals.
Jacques Chirac was president of France at the time, and he announced that he would veto any UN Security Council resolution authorizing the military action. That's why so much of the mainstream media is heaping praise on Chirac.
Chirac insisted that his opposition to the Iraq war was principled, but an investigation revealed that Chirac and his family and some of his ministers were deeply implicated in a lucrative scam to divert millions of dollars of profits of the UN's oil-for-food program into their own private coffers.
So, in my opinion, Chirac does not deserve one bit of adulation he's been receiving these last two days. He opposed the Iraq war, because he didn't care how many people Saddam killed with WMDs, but he wanted to keep the fraudulent millions pouring into his coffers.
Chirac was formally charged in 2007 after he left office as president, losing immunity from prosecution. In 2011, he was found guilty of misuse of public money, breach of trust and illegal conflict of interest while he was mayor of Paris, and given a two-year suspended jail sentence.
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(27-Sep-2019)
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The default solution: No-deal Brexit
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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It's hard to know whether it's more accurate to describe the Brexit drama in Britain as a situation comedy or as a Greek tragedy. Actually it's both, since a well-written tragedy always contains some humor in the form of "comic relief," until finally the tragedy reaches its catastrophic conclusion.
What happened on Tuesday is pure comedy. The UK Supreme Court, which only came into existence in 2009, ruled that prime minister Boris Johnson's attempt to shut down Parliament for five weeks was illegal. Johnson has promised that the UK will exit the EU on October 31, and he used a parliamentary trick to suspend or "prorogate" the Parliament for five weeks, in order to give himself some breathing room to negotiate, or pretend to negotiate, a final "deal" with the EU on the terms of the Brexit, in order to avoid the hated "no deal Brexit." So the Parliament will start meeting again on Wednesday, and it should provide a lot of laughs.
The real zinger in the UK Supreme Court ruling is that the court said that when Boris Johnson went to the Queen earlier this month to ask her to prorogate the Parliament, he "misled" her about the reasons. So this means that Johnson lied to the Queen about the reasons, and that the Queen was too dumb and credulous to know the real reasons, which she and her staff could have quickly learned by reading the newspaper or turning on the TV. So the ten-year-old UK Supreme Court has firmly established itself by ruling that Johnson is a criminal and the Queen is an idiot. Somebody's going to pay for that opinion in the months to come.
The Brexit referendum was passed in June 2016, and it was clear almost immediately that it was a disaster.
The major intractable problem has been that, after the UK leaves the EU, Northern Ireland will be in the UK, and Southern Ireland (the Republic of Ireland) will be in the EU. So there will have to be solid border crossings, and tariffs placed on goods crossing the border.
There have been centuries of violent history between Ireland's indigenous ethnic Gaelic people versus the descendants of the Scottish and English invaders. This violence continued in modern times until the "Good Friday Agreement" was signed in 1998. Many people say that they fear that new border crossings would result in renewed violence.
The solution that the EU wants is called the "Irish Backstop." In this case, the border would remain completely open, and then either Northern Ireland would become part of the EU and separate from the UK, or else Britain would have to follow all EU regulations and court decisions, but have no say in making them. This solution is so ridiculous that it serves as monument to the stupidity of this whole process.
The "Brexiteers," led by Boris Johnson, claim they don't want a "no deal Brexit," so they say they're going to tweak the Backstop as part of a deal, something that the EU refuses to allow. The "Remainers" don't want to admit they're remainers, since then they would be ignoring "the will of the people," as expressed in the the 2016 referendum, so they advocate the "deal" with the Irish Backstop, hoping that means that Brexit will be abandoned entirely.
Tuesday's court decision changes nothing, except the rhetoric. It's still the case that unless a new arrangement is negotiated, then the UK Brexit will take place with no deal on October 31.
I've been saying for a long time that I expect the final result to be a no-deal Brexit, simply because the Generation-X is now in charge in Britain and the EU.
Government leaders in the 1990s were in Silent generation that grew up during the horrors of World War II, including the Nazi bombing of London, and had the skills to negotiate and compromise. Today, the Gen-Xers are in charge, and Gen-Xers have no skills to negotiate and compromise. So there are different camps in the government, each dominated by a different group of Gen-Xers, and they're all in hardened positions opposed to each other.
My expectation for a long time is that a no-deal Brexit would occur because it's the default, and it's the only option that doesn't require anyone to negotiate and compromise with anyone else. So far, that expectation has proven to be correct.
In the last year, the Parliament has repeatedly voted NO every chance it could get -- no on remaining, no on a no-deal Brexit, and noes on various "deal" Brexits. There's always a major to reject any solution, but never a majority to say YES to any proposal.
The Parliament did vote in favor of a law forbidding Boris Johnson from taking the UK out of the EU in a no-deal Brexit, but I don't understand how that would work. A no-deal Brexit is the default, so if Johnson does nothing, then a no-deal Brexit would occur automatically on October 31.
Possible scenarios in the next few weeks include leaving the EU with a no-deal Brexit on October 31, asking the EU to postpone the October 31 date, or having a new British election. However, none of these scenarios would resolve any of the differences. There are also calls for a new referendum, but there's wide disagreement on what options should be on it, and so the disagreements on the text of the referendum could be as vitriolic as the disagreements about Brexit itself.
The Brexit issue has badly split the British people, as well as the two major British political parties, the Conservative Tories and Labor, although the smaller Liberal Democrat party says that it's united in wanting to Remain. It's possible that by the time this is over, there will be a major realignment of British politics. There's also talk of drawing up a constitution for the British government, since it currently plenty of traditions, but they are not written down.
And even though Britain voted in 2016 to leave the EU, today nobody can say for sure whether Britain will actually leave the EU, and how long it will be before a decision is reached. The comedy continues, and the tragic dénouement awaits.
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(25-Sep-2019)
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Earth Day, 1970 -- déjà vu all over again
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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There's a new Children's Crusade going on, as kids in cities around the world took part in a general strike from school on Friday, and held protests with hundreds of thousands of kids in cities around the world.
On Saturday, hundreds of kids attended a Youth Climate Summit, sponsored by the United Nations. The kids demanded an end to climate change, and many said they've decided not to have children, rather than bring children into a world destroyed by climate change. They said they wanted an end to use of fossil fuels, and parroted the claim that the world come to an end if carbon emissions didn't stop by 2030.
As usual, it's really only about money. Activists demanded money for a fund to help poorer nations adapt to a warming world. The whole purpose of the Paris Climate Treaty was to extract money from the West, particularly the United States, to give to the pet projects of the activists. As far as the US is concerned, Donald Trump has already withdrawn the country from the Paris treaty, so the activists have no hope of getting American money for their pet projects.
One of the facts that the kids won't be talking about at the climate change protests is that, of all the major countries that signed the Paris treaty, there's only one that's actually reducing carbon emissions -- the United States. America's power plants will emit 2.3% less carbon dioxide this year compared to 2018. That's because of fracking and abundant supplies of natural gas.
One other thing that won't be mentioned is that China already has largest number of coal-fired power plants in the world, and that China has just announced plans for a massive number of new coal-fired power plants. You can be sure the leftist climate activists will never mention this, or anything else that criticizes their beloved Communist country.
A recent article quoted some of the predictions that climate scientists were making in 1970, in celebration of "Earth Day."
Here are some examples:
Today we can see how ridiculous these 1970 predictions by population scientists turned out to be. Below we'll show how today's predictions by climate scientists are equally ridiculous, but for now I want to make the point that these 1970 scientists were incredibly stupid.
It's a fair question: If they're scientists, then how come they were so disastrously wrong? And why would anyone think that today's scientists would be any less disastrously wrong?
To show how stupid these scientists were, look particularly at the last of the predictions referenced above. Let's assume that their prediction that came true that there wouldn't be enough food to feed the world. Then would widespread famine have occurred -- 1975 in India, all of Asia by 1990, South and Central America by 2000, the rest of the world after that? Is that guy a total idiot?
There's no way the people of India would just sit there and starve to death. And there's no way that the rest of the world would let them. The same with the other countries.
So people like Paul Ehrlich. George Wald and Peter Gunter are really stupid. It's hard to believe anyone, let alone a scientist, could be stupid enough to believe that the people in India, Asia, Africa, and so forth, would just sit there are starve to death.
So what would happen? There would be riots, demonstrations, and international conferences, but if things got really bad, there would be war. But nobody would just sit there and die of starvation, and these "scientists" are total idiots to believe so.
I will show that today's climate scientists are just as stupid as the one that predicted disaster after 1970 Earth Day.
But first, let's make note that climate scientists have been wrong, time after time. Al Gore quoted climate scientists as saying that the Arctic ice cap would disappear completely by 2013, and so those climate scientists were wrong.
And then there's the biggest prediction of them all: That the world will end unless carbon emissions end by 2030. What does that even mean? If the temperature of the earth increases by 1 degree or so, then does everyone burn to death? That's ridiculous. Maybe some polar ice caps will melt and some islands and beach fronts will disappear, but that won't be the end of the earth.
So what will really happen? Once again, the climate scientists are too stupid to understand that even if their predictions about global warming are true, it will mean war.
In fact, there will be one or two world wars in this century with or without climate change. In the last century, there were two world wars, and massive additional wars in Asia and Africa. In every century for millennia, there were massive wars on every continent and every region. So it's 100% certain to happen in this century.
You can already see the signs of it. There are millions of refugees in Asia, Syria, Africa and Latin America traveling in large groups to other countries, including America, Europe and Indonesia. There are sky-high military tensions in China and the Mideast. All that's needed is for some small event to flare up into a regional war, and then a larger war.
And what of the Paris treaty and climate change? That's just a silly fantasy anyway. The only country reducing carbon emissions is the United States, and all the other major countries are increasing their carbon emissions. In particular, China is aggressively planning a massive number of new coal-fired power plans. China needs these as it prepares to launch a world war, and will not stop building them under any circumstances.
Getting back to those kids who are protesting climate change in cities around the world, some of them have said that they won't have kids, because how can you bring kids into a world to be destroyed by climate change?
Well, with world war coming, now they have another reason not to have kids.
John Xenakis is author of: "World View: War Between China and Japan: Why America Must Be Prepared" (Generational Theory Book Series, Book 2), June 2019, Paperback: 331 pages, with over 200 source references, $13.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732738637/
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(22-Sep-2019)
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Identifying Iran as the perpetrator
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Sunday's attack on Saudi Arabia's oil infrastructure is raising concerns in four Asian countries -- China, India, Japan and South Korea -- that the world's oil markets have just taken a sharp turn for the worst that will result in continuing worldwide oil disruption and far higher prices.
The governments of China, India, Japan and South Korea have harsh differences in many areas. China's criminal annexation of the South China Sea has infuriated everyone. Japan and South Korea are having a trading war that is becoming increasingly serious and hostile every day. China and India have numerous border conflicts, and were at war in the 1960s.
But the four countries are united in their concerns about the possibility of oil prices spiking, which would hurt all of their economies. In particular, all four are warning the US against a war with Iran, which would hugely destabilize the global oil markets, and send prices sky high.
Most analysts believe that Iran perpetrated the attack, but there's a broader problem, no matter who the perpetrator was. The fact that the attack occurred at all means that it won't be long before more terrorists begin using drones to attack oil infrastructure anywhere and, indeed, any targets anywhere, with permanently high oil prices.
Sunday's attack on Saudi Arabia's oil infrastructure caused oil prices to spike 12%, the largest one-day increase in history. However, prices have retreated slightly, especially after Saudi's announcement that most of the oil production would be restored within a few days. If true, the Saudis are being lauded for the resilience they've built in to the oil infrastructure.
It's pretty much universally believed that Iran was the perpetrator, and that the attack was launched by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Iran denies responsibity for the attack, but it's generally believed that Iran is responsible, and this is the sixth attack on Saudi oil facilities in the last four months.
Iran's denials are being disregarded. The claim by the Iran-sponsored Yemeni Houthis that they launched the attack from Yemen is being disregarded, and is viewed as an attempt to shield Iran from blame.
According to several reports, all originating from US intelligence sources, the coordinated attack was extremely sophisticated. US and Saudi intelligence officials referenced have concluded that 12 low-flying cruise missiles were launched from Khuzestan in southern Iran, and 5 drones were launched from Anbar province in western Iraq.
According to officials, if the missiles had come from Yemen, then Saudi radar would have detected them. However, the Saudis were not prepared to detect missiles coming in from the north.
Even if the Saudis recovered quickly from Sunday's attack, there are concerns that Iran will simply make more attacks. It's believed that Iran's strategy is to cause oil shortages and push the price of oil above $100 a barrel, so that America will be forced to reduce the sanctions preventing Iran from selling oil. It's believed that Iran will avoid American targets, since doing so would cause an immediate military response.
Therefore, analysts are saying that there MUST be a retaliatory response, to force Iran to stop the attacks.
Few politicians or media people have the vaguest clue about Saudi Arabia's history prior to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in October. However, the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the US is very deep.
Since the 1930s, America and Saudi Arabia have had a very specific core understanding: That Saudi Arabia will guarantee to supply all the oil that America and the West need, and, in return, America and the West must guarantee the security of Saudi Arabia.
The exact details of the US-Saudi relationship have had to change from time to time, based on international events such as Iran's revolution, Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the Iraq war, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, Syria's civil war, the rise of ISIS.
While the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis and subsequent Iranian behavior drove a wedge between the US and Iran, the 1973 oil embargo, which came out of Israel's war with Egypt, did the opposite -- it cemented the US-Saudi relationship.
The core has always remained the same: The Saudis will guarantee oil, the Americans will guarantee security. That core is changing slightly, now that America has become energy self-sufficient in the last two years, but like it or not, America is still policeman of the world, but the core agreement that the Saudis will guarantee oil and the Americans will guarantee security is unchanged.
Therefore, it's believed that Donald Trump has asked the military to provide a list of options of possible responses. These options would include diplomacy (the United Nations Security Council), cyber attacks (to cripple Iran's intelligence cabilities), and special forces or missiles to proportionally attack Iran's oil production facilities.
Analysts I've heard seem unanimous in saying that there must be some response, or else Iran will simply launch more and more attacks, until there is a response.
John Xenakis is author of: "World View: Iran's Struggle for Supremacy -- Tehran's Obsession to Redraw the Map of the Middle East" (Generational Theory Book Series, Book 1), September 2018, Paperback: 153 pages, over 100 source references, $7.00, https://www.amazon.com/World-View-Supremacy-Obsession-Generational/dp/1732738610/
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(18-Sep-2019)
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Syria regime increases bombing of hospitals in Idlib
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Events in Saudi Arabia and Syria are increasing the probability that a larger war could be triggered.
Reports are that over a dozen explosive drones attacked two oil processing facilities in Saudi Arabia. This is the world's largest oil processing facility. About half of Saudi's oil production will be affected. The closure will reportedly impact nearly five million barrels of crude production a day, roughly 5% of the world's daily oil production. Saudi Arabia also supplies half of China's imported oil.
Saudi officials are saying that the damage can be repaired by Monday. Whether the Saudis are successful at this will affect the oil and stock markets on Monday.
The Houthis, the Iran-backed ethnic group in Yemen fighting against the Yemen government backed by Saudi Arabia, claimed credit for drone attacks.
However, there was a delay of several hours before the Houthis claimed credit, and some analysts are saying that this makes it unlikely that the Houthis were responsible.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed doubt that the Houthis were responsible, and laid the blame on Iran in a tweet:
"Tehran is behind nearly 100 attacks on Saudi Arabia while Rouhani and Zarif pretend to engage in diplomacy. Amid all the calls for de-escalation, Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply. There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen. ...We call on all nations to publicly and unequivocally condemn Iran’s attacks. The United States will work with our partners and allies to ensure that energy markets remain well supplied and Iran is held accountable for its aggression 3:59 PM · Sep 14, 2019·T"
It's possible that the drones were launched from Yemen, Iran or Iraq. Whether the Houthis are directly responsible or not, most analysts believe that Iran is behind the attack, especially after several recent Iranian attacks on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.
The concerns are that the drone attacks will trigger increased violence, including the following possibilities:
As we reported two weeks ago, civilians in Idlib province in Syria, where airstrikes by Syria and Russia have been increasing dramatically in recent weeks, are attacking border posts on Turkey's border in order to enter Turkey as refugees. Turkey, which already hosts almost four million Syrian refugees, has firmly closed the border to refugees from Idlib.
Reports indicate that Syrian and Russian airstrikes are specially targeting hospitals and schools, committing war crimes. Ironically, the Syrians and Russians know the coordinates of these hospitals and schools because the coordinates are being supplied by the United Nations so that the Syrians and Russians will AVOID targeting hospitals and schools. So they're using the coordinates in the opposite of the way intended. Syria's Bashar al-Assad and Russia's Vladimir Putin are two of the sleaziest leaders in the world today.
Idlib has about 3 million people, including about 70,000 anti-Assad rebels, some of whom are linked to al-Qaeda. Bashar al-Assad continues all 3 million of them to be "terrorists," to be exterminated like cockroaches. He's said as much several times, and there's no reason to disbelieve him.
More and more, the civilians in Idlib are turning against Turkey, whom they see as "traitors" and "collaborators" with the genocide being performed by Russia and al-Assad.
The worst protests on Turkey's borders are occurring in regions controlled by al-Qaeda linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS, Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Nusra Front), with the purpose of forcing Turkey to open its borders to Idlib refugees.
For the past year, the world has been watching and waiting for Bashar al-Assad to open up a full assault on Idlib as he has previously in other regions like Aleppo, Ghouta and Daraa, where he used barrel bombs on hospitals, schools, marketplaces and residential neighborhoods, along with chlorine gas and Sarin gas. Apparently he's been holding back from a full assault, possibly because of international pressure, but there's an increasing feeling that he's losing patience, and is anxious to get on with the genocide.
The Generational Dynamics prediction is that the Mideast is headed for a major regional war, pitting Jews vs Arabs, Sunnis vs Shias, and various ethnic groups against each other. The exact scenario can't be predicted, but either the drone attack or the Idlib genocide could be the spark that starts the war.
John Xenakis is author of: "World View: Iran's Struggle for Supremacy -- Tehran's Obsession to Redraw the Map of the Middle East" (Generational Theory Book Series, Book 1) Paperback: 153 pages, over 100 source references, $7.00, https://www.amazon.com/World-View-Supremacy-Obsession-Generational/dp/1732738610/
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(15-Sep-2019)
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End of relationship with Breitbart
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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There are reports that there was a very heated argument in the White House on Monday evening, principally between Trump and Bolton, over the collapse this weekend of the Afghanistan "peace negotiations" with the Taliban.
As readers know, I evaluate policies and actions based on Generational Dynamics principles. Left-wing and right-wing analyses are usually delusional and idiotic, and usually turn out to be wrong more often than right. I've written thousands of Generational Dynamics analyses in 15 years, and they've been almost 100% correct. Unfortunately for me, being right all the time when everyone else is wrong doesn't makes me popular, but only makes me universally hated and shunned, but that's the way the world is today. Maybe that's also why Bolton was fired.
So I've had mixed emotions about John Bolton. Bolton has the most realistic view of the world among the major figures in Washington, Republican or Democrat, and having someone with a realistic view of the world advising Trump is valuable. That doesn't mean that I would agree with all of Bolton's recommended policies, and in fact I don't. For example, Bolton's recommendations to force regime change in Iran is overreach, and is clearly in conflict with the Generational Dynamics view of Iran that I've been posting for years. But Bolton is still one of the few people in Washington who know what's going on in the world.
My view of Trump has changed over time. During the election campaign in 2015-16, it was initially clear every time Trump opened his mouth that he had absolutely no clue what was going on in the world. But then something very surprising and unexpected occurred -- Trump hired Stephen K. Bannon as chairman of Donald Trump's campaign, and later as Trump's principal adviser in the White House.
This is something I never dreamed would happen. I had worked off and on with Bannon over a period of years, and he's an expert on both military history and Generational Dynamics analysis. I was comforted by the fact that Trump would be guided by one of the very few people in Washington who knew what was going on in the world.
Even after Bannon left the White House, I wrote numerous articles about how Trump's foreign policy actions were completely baffling to the mainstream media, but made perfect sense once you understand Generational Dynamics analyses, particularly China's plans for war.
Trump pursued extremely successful policies (though completely baffling to the mainstream media) with respect to North Korea, China, Russia, India, and others, and I've attributed this to his grasp of the Generational Dynamics view of the world, that Bannon educated him on, along with Bannon's knowledge of history and Trump's own "Art of the Deal" instincts that have been so successful.
That brings us to Trump's Afghanistan policy. Here's the NBC News description of how John Bolton got fired:
"Most recently, the two had clashed over Trump's desire to have leaders of the Taliban visit Camp David in the days before the Sept. 11 anniversary to finalize peace talks. The idea was strongly opposed by Bolton, even as officials at the State Department argued it could move the parties closer to an agreement, officials said.Bolton has been deeply skeptical of negotiations with the Taliban. U.S. negotiators have been working under the president’s demand that a drawdown occur before November 2020 when he’s up for re-election."
One has to be careful referencing NBC news, since NBC news frequently lies about White House news, in order to make Trump look bad. However, other reports seen to confirm this explanation, so it's probably safe to assume that it's true.
Reports indicate that there was a major disagreement in the aftermath of the collapse of the Afghan war "peace negotiations," and the cancellation of last weekend's "secret meeting" at Camp David with the Taliban and Afghanistan's president. Bolton was opposed to the meeting, while Trump was apparently looking for a photo op.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the Afghan "peace talks" with the Taliban are completely farcical. The Taliban simply want to get the Americans to withdraw, so that they can go back to closing girls' schools and killing Hazaras. The Camp David photo op was harmless, but silly.
My concern with the situation is not that Trump may have wanted the meeting for domestic political purposes. My concern is that Bolton was fired for telling Trump what was actually going on, even though Bolton and Bannon and perhaps only one or two others are the only ones in Washington that have any clue what's going on in the world. So with Bolton fired, I'm not aware of anyone left in the White House who knows what's going on in the world, beyond any simplistic fatuous left-wing or right-wing ideological or political considerations.
Barack Obama never had any idea what was going on in the world, which was particularly apparent when he appointed that idiot John Kerry as Secretary of State. At the end of his term, Obama seemed to have no more knowledge of the world than he did at the beginning.
Originally, it appeared that it would be the same for Trump, until he hired Bannon as his principal advisor to educate him. Trump is still on the correct path with China and North Korea, but with Bolton gone, we may be returning to the same path as Obama, at least in Afghanistan.
So the main problem in firing Bolton is not that Trump fired someone who disagreed with him, but that Trump fired one of the very few people in Washington who know what's going on in the world.
As for the situation in Afghanistan, Generational Dynamics analysis makes it clear that there is no chance whatsoever for "peace" in Afghanistan. A meeting at Camp David is just a meeting, and has no relevance. But if all American troops withdraw, then the Taliban will take over completely, as they did until they were dislodged by the Americans in 2001. They would restore hardline jihadist policies, such as closing girls' schools, and they would beat, rape and torture the Hazaras and other ethnic enemies. They might even sponsor a new bin Laden. The Chinese, who have been developing relationships with the Taliban since 2017, would take over. Fair or not, like it or not, America will be blamed for all of it. I think Bolton understands that, but I don't know whether Trump does.
A number of people have asked me why I no longer cross-post articles on the Breitbart news web site. This is a summary of what happened.
Starting in 2010, I posted over 3,000 articles on the Breitbart web site. For a couple of years, they had almost no international coverage at all on Breitbart, except for my articles. From 2011 through 2018, I posted one or two articles every day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, missing only about 15 days during that entire eight year period.
Frances Martel took over as editor of Breitbart international news coverage in 2014. She and her staff knew little of international events and issues, beyond the usual right-wing delusions, and so my daily articles served to educate both her and her reporters about what was actually going on in the world. (Both the left wing and the right wing are totally delusional these days.)
And yet Martel always made it clear to me that she would never pay me a penny for the articles I was writing for Breitbart, even though Breitbart was making money from the ads that ran with my articles.
So a few months ago, I cross-posted an article as usual, but this one announced my book, "War between China and Japan." Martel refused to post the article unless I paid her for an "ad buy."
That was insulting and humiliating enough, but there's more. Last year, when I posted the article announcing my Iran book, I estimate that it resulted in 10-20 additional sales, so it was worth about $50 to me, give or take. I would have expected the same result from the announcement of my China book.
I don't know how much this "ad buy" would have cost -- probably hundreds or thousands of dollars -- but it's pretty clear to me that running an ad on Breitbart is almost completely worthless. In fact, if you look at the ads that they do run, they're almost all garbage.
So I've written thousands of articles for Martel, she got ad revenue from the ads that ran alongside my articles, I educated her and her staff about international events, and she refused to pay me a penny. And then she insulted me further by demanding that I pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for a worthless "ad buy," after all I'd done for her, over a period of many years. I did a lot of work for Martel and Breitbart, and they made money from me, but refused to pay me a penny. I wasn't expecting to be treated as a hero, but Martel and Breitbart treated me as a piece of garbage, and I certainly deserved better than that. But with Gen-Xers in charge, that's the way the world is today.
John Xenakis is author of: "World View: War Between China and Japan: Why America Must Be Prepared" (Generational Theory Book Series, Book 2) Paperback: 331 pages, with over 200 source references, $13.99, https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732738637/
John Xenakis is author of: "World View: Iran's Struggle for Supremacy -- Tehran's Obsession to Redraw the Map of the Middle East" (Generational Theory Book Series, Book 1) Paperback: 153 pages, over 100 source references, $7.00, https://www.amazon.com/World-View-Supremacy-Obsession-Generational/dp/1732738610/
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(11-Sep-2019)
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Israel's drone strike on Beirut targeted Iran's guided missile components
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Israel's army fired hundreds of artillery shells into southern Lebanon on Sunday, in response to a Hezbollah attack, launching two or three anti-tank missiles into an Israeli military base in northern Israel. There were no casualties on either side.
Analysts are calling the cross-border shelling the worst hostilities between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah since the end of the 2006 war between them.
Israel's army along the Lebanon border has been on high alert all week, since Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah promised retaliation for last week's drone strikes by Israel into targets in Beirut, Lebanon's capital city.
It now appears that neither Hezbollah nor Israel wants a war, and that the exchange of fire was just for show for domestic audiences.
In my article two days ago, I quoted a report from Debka saying that the drone attack was was actually a targeted assassination, targeting Iran’s Al Qods chief Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who is the Iranian commander that Hezbollah's chief Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah reports to.
A web site reader has pointed out an alternative narrative that differs from the Debka report. As I often point out, Debka reports are based on Israeli military and intelligence sources, but they sometimes gets things wrong, and apparently Debka may have gotten the Beirut drone attack quite wrong.
According to the report from the Metula News Agency, the drone attacks in Beirut were targeting a particular component, supplied by Iran, for building guided missiles, in particular an eight-ton Iranian propulsion fuel mixer. According to the report (translation):
"The industrial mixer in question was to be used to prepare missile propulsion fuel to improve their performance and increase their accuracy. It was supposed to be part of the Iran-Hezbollah program to modify the tens of thousands of primitive rockets in its possession in order to turn them into precision missiles.The equipment arrived from Iran was deposited in a storage place between residential buildings to dissuade the Israelis trying to destroy them. Hezbollah planned to take them to a safe place during the current week. ...
These devices are essential to the rocket transformation program, according to the confession of a Shiite militiaman I met on site yesterday (Tuesday) while going to observe the place of the main explosion. If the mixer can be repaired or exchanged within a few weeks, the electronic control unit, packed with expensive components, will not be available for a few months. This, as long as it can be routed from Iran escaping the raids of the Israelis, who obviously know everything that happens here in Syria, Iraq and Iran, and who choose the best time to destroy equipment likely to disturb them."
The Metula report goes on to deny other claims in the Debka report, particularly the claim that one of the drones crashed after a boy threw a rock at it.
If the Metula report is correct, then it must be a major embarrasment to Debka that they got almost every detail of the story completely wrong.
Hezbollah has thousands of unguided rockets, but few guided missiles. Israel has managed so far to thwart every attempt by Iran to supply Hezbollah with guided missiles.
Most journalists are comparing the situation today to the beginning of the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.
On July 12, 2006, Hezbollah abducted two Israeli soldiers near Israel's border with Lebanon. Israel went into a total panic, and rushed into war within four hours. There was no clear objective. Actually there was no objective at all, and no plan. The stated plans and objectives changed on a daily, sometimes hourly basis. Initially, Israel was going to use only air power. When that failed, they sent in troops.
While Israel was in a generational Crisis era, Lebanon was in a generational Awakening era, and really didn't want to fight a war. I discussed this at length in 2006 war between Israel and Hizbollah. I quoted Lebanese President Émile Geamil Lahoud as saying:
"Believe me, what we get from [Israeli bombers] is nothing compared to [what would happen] if there is an internal conflict [a new civil war] in Lebanon. So our thanks comes when we are united, and we are really united, and the national army is doing its work according to the government, and the resistance [Hizbollah] is respected in the whole Arab world from the population point of view. And very highly respected in Lebanon as well."
The Lebanese feared, above all else, a repeat of something like the 1982 massacre at Sabra and Shatila, and considered that to be a worse possibility than Israeli bombers.
So that explains why Lebanon and Hezbollah didn't want to fight in 2006. But why did Israel go into a state of chaotic panic? This panic is actually explained by the Generational Dynamics "58-Year Hypothesis."
The 58-year Hypothesis says that when some sort of calamitous event occurs, something so horrific that it traumatizes the entire population, adults and children alike, then the population will panic in some way exactly 58 years later. That's because 5-10 year old children at the time of the calamitous event all retire or die or lose power, all at once, 58 years after the calamitous event, and it's this cohort of people who panic, because they suddenly realize that they'll be gone and the calamitous event could happen again, because they won't be around to prevent it. The calamitous event has to be non-political, and one that was preventable but not prevented, and the panic comes from a fear that it will be unprevented once more.
The 58-year Hypothesis is reasonable, since it approximates the length of the active life of a cohort of people born in a given year, and it's supported by a lot of anecdotal evidence. There have now been so many examples of anecdotal evidence, that it might now be reasonable to call it the "58-Year Law."
In the case we're discussing, 2006 Israeli-Lebanon war occurred 58 years after the 1948 war between Jews and Arabs that followed the partitioning of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel. That actually explains why Israel totally panicked and pursued the war that turned into a disaster for both Lebanon and Israel. There was a cohort of people who were afraid of a major new war between Jews and Arabs, and they acted on those fears.
After the war ended, Lebanon appeared to be descending into chaos. Violence was increasing, and analysts and politicians around the world openly expressed fear of a major civil war in Lebanon between government (anti-Syrian) forces and (pro-Syrian) Hizbollah. This fear was almost universal, among international media, analysts and politicians.
I wrote that the generational analysis of Lebanon had not changed, and that a civil war at that time was impossible. I wrote that there would be a major political battle and that, at some point, "a political winner would be declared -- either the current government or Hizbollah. But there won't be a civil war." That was the generational prediction, and it turned out to be true. Late in 2008, I received the following e-mail message from a web site reader:
"I am very impressed with your site, especially when looking at some of your past predictions. I was trapped in Lebanon during the fighting and everyone was in great fear that a civil war was in progress. You predicted that it would fizzle out, and it did."
That brings us up to today, and Sunday's border clash between Hezbollah and Israel's army.
Numerous journalists have been expressing anxiety that the border clashes would trigger a new war, like the abduction of the two soldiers did in 2006. Well first off, the Israelis have learned their lessons from the 2006 war, and were certainly never going to allow themselves to panic again. They were completely crazy in 2006, but less crazy today. And Lebanon is still in a generational Awakening era, so neither side wants a war, and the cross-border shelling fizzled quickly.
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(2-Sep-2019)
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