*** 5-Dec-12 World View -- Concern grows over chemical weapons as Syria's war turns against al-Assad

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Syria's war turns against Bashar al-Assad
• United States prepares for military action in Syria against chemical weapons
• Nato approves Turkey's request for Patriot missiles on Syrian border
• Vietnam lodges a new protest with China over South China Sea belligerence

****
**** Syria's war turns against Bashar al-Assad
****


Nato has approved Patriot anti-missile system for Turkey (BBC)

Many analysts are saying that after 20 months of war in Syria, there
has been a recent shift in the fighting that makes a victory by the
opposition rebels over president Bashar al-Assad a real possibility.
The rebels are better armed, and better trained to use the weapons
they have. There are reports that they can shoot down al-Assad's
warplanes and helicopters with shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles,
supplied by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. In a major strategic shift,
they're closing in on al-Assad's seat of power in Damascus. The
Russians are still opposed to any external intervention in Syria, but
they're no longer committed to al-Assad personally. (However, Iran is
still committed personally.) AP

****
**** United States prepares for military action in Syria against chemical weapons
****

With the war turning against Bashar al-Assad, analysts are saying that
al-Assad is facing three choices:

• Flee into exile. (In the past, there was talk of him fleeing
  to Moscow with his super-hot wife Asma and his kids.)
  
• Fight to the death with conventional weapons.
  
• Try to delay defeat by using chemical weapons (sarin or mustard
  gas), despite harsh warnings from American and European
  administrations that this is a "red line" that would prompt outside
  military action.

Fears about chemical weapons use were heightened over the weekend
by satellite photos showing movement of al-Assad's chemical weapons,
and reports that they're moving into position for battle.

As we reported two months ago ( "13-Oct-12 World View -- U.S. preparing for worst-case chemical weapons scenario in Syria"
), the United States military
has sent troops to Jordan to prepare to take action against the use
of chemical weapons. Since then, American forces in Jordan, Israel
and Turkey have gone on high alert, and are preparing for military
action in Syria.

The al-Assad regime has issued a widely-quoted statement that they
"would not use chemical weapons, if it had them, against its own
people under any circumstances." In the first place, al-Assad's word
is worthless, and it might even be argued that this statement means
that he WILL use chemical weapons against his own people. And second,
this statement ostentatiously omits mention of external forces,
whether American, Turkish, Jordanian, or Israeli.

This statement also omits another possibility -- turning the chemical
weapons over to Hizbollah or another terrorist group, and allow THOSE
people to use chemical weapons against al-Assad's people. Bloomberg and Debka

****
**** Nato approves Turkey's request for Patriot missiles on Syrian border
****

Nato announced on Tuesday that it was approving Turkey's request to
deploy the Patriot anti-missile system on Turkey's border with Syria.
There have been fears expressed that the system would be used to
establish a no-fly zone over Syria, like the no-fly zone that was
established over Libya last year. However, Turkey and Nato have
committed that the system will be used for defensive purposes only,
especially out of fear that the al-Assad regime will launch chemical
weapons into Syria. (It's not certain that the Patriot anti-missile
system is effective against such weapons.) At any rate, things are
moving rapidly in Syria right now, while the Patriot system will
require several weeks to deploy. AP

****
**** Vietnam lodges a new protest with China over South China Sea belligerence
****

It seems that almost every day there's a new act of belligerence on the part
of China, as it pursues its "Lebensraum" policy to confiscate as much property
as possible that belongs to other nations. On Tuesday, Vietnam lodge a
new protest with China, saying that Chinese boats had intentionally blocked
and damaged a Vietnamese seismic survey vessel operating in Vietnam's
internationally recognized exclusive economic zone. The incident occurred
on November 30.

As we've reported , China last week
issued a statement that starting in 2013 they would be boarding and
seizing any ships in China's "territorial waters," which they claim
include the entire South China Sea. This is one of the world's
busiest commercial shipping routes, and if China starts boarding and
seizing commercial ships of America or other nations, there is going
to be a military response. Bloomberg and Washington Times


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Saudi Arabia, Qatar,
Jordan, Israel, Turkey, Hizbollah, Nato, Patriot system,
Vietnam, China, South China Sea

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*** 6-Dec-12 World View -- U.S. prepares for military intervention in Syria over chemical weapons

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Four Egyptians killed in clash between pro- and anti-Morsi protesters
• U.S. says that Syria's Assad is preparing to use chemical weapons
• Thousands of U.S. troops arrive near Syria on USS Eisenhower

****
**** Four Egyptians killed in clash between pro- and anti-Morsi protesters
****


Demonstrator holds up a pro-Morsi poster (Al-Ahram)

Four Egyptians were killed and hundreds injured in fighting that
followed a "massive attack" by Muslim Brotherhood supporters of
president Mohamed Morsi on opposition protesters. The attack by Morsi
supporters occurred as the perception has been growing that widespread
opposition to Morsi is causing him to lose his legitimacy as
president.

Morsi had a great deal of legitimacy two weeks ago, after he
successfully engineered a cease-fire between Israel and Gaza. A
number of commentators say that Morsi apparently believed at that time
that he had enough prestige that there would be little opposition to
his constitutional decree giving himself dictatorial powers. That was
a bad misjudgment, and opposition demonstrations have been increasing,
even more so after the Muslim Brotherhood led Constituent Assembly
came out with a draft constitution that embodied Islamic Sharia law.

Morsi made additional mistakes by refusing to reach out to the
opposition. Morsi gave a speech last week in the face of growing
opposition, but he directed the speech only to his supporters, without
reaching out to the opposition. Now he's refusing any compromise in
the draft constitution, and he's called for a nationwide referendum on
December 15 to ratify the constitution.

Morsi's attitude towards the opposition is almost identical to
President Barack Obama's attitude toward his opposition. He made no
attempt to compromise with Republicans when he pushed through the
Democratic Congress the huge fiscal stimulus and the Obamacare bills.

Although there have been no violent attacks by Obama supporters the
way that Morsi supporters attacked the opposition on Wednesday, there
have been a number of moves by Obama and his supporters to incite
violence against Republicans -- calling Tea Party members
"teabaggers," calling pretty much anyone who disagrees with an Obama
policy a "racist," condoning of violence and rape by Occupy Wall
Street protesters, and the call to violence and war against the Tea
Party last year by Teamsters president James Hoffa, when he said:

"We are ready to march. Let’s take these sons of
bitches out and give America back to an America where we
belong."

Hoffa's call to violence was, in fact, heeded two weeks later by
hundreds of members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union
members (ILWU) labor union, who violently attacked guards protecting a
non-union grain terminal in the Port of Longview in Washington state.

Obama has been doubling down on the "racist" charges recently, after
it was revealed that U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice lied about the
situation in Benghazi, and that the deception and cover up spread to
senior administration figures, and possibly to Obama himself. Obama
can usually count on the mainstream media to support him, no matter
what he does, and to join him in calling his oppoents "racist." But
if Obama keeps doubling down on the "racist" as his only defense to an
increasing level of accusations, then he's going to incite additional
violence.

Morsi's aides have said that he'll give a new presidential address to
the nation on Thursday. Egyptians will be watching to see whether he
takes a hard line again, infuriating the opposition, or whether he
reaches out to the opposition and seeks compromise, infuriating his
supporters.

Obama and Morsi are very similar -- both "hope and change" candidates
who won on the basis of personality, and who are now refusing to
compromise in any way. This cannot end well. Al-Ahram (Cairo) and CNN

****
**** U.S. says that Syria's Assad is preparing to use chemical weapons
****

U.S. officials say that they've confirmed that the regime of Syria's
president Bashar al-Assad has mixed the precursor chemicals for sarin,
a deadly nerve gas, and loaded the gas into bombs. It's believed that
the gas has been loaded in aerosol form into canisters that can be
dropped from planes. Iraq's president Saddam Hussein's forces killed
5,000 Kurds with a single sarin gas attack on Halabja in 1988. Once
mixed, the sarin gas has to be used within 60 days, or it becomes
ineffective. NBC News

****
**** Thousands of U.S. troops arrive near Syria on USS Eisenhower
****

The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier transited the Suez Canal
from the Persian Gulf on Saturday, with 8 fighter bomber squadrons of
Air Wing Seven on its decks and 8,000 sailors, airmen and Marines, and
is now off the coast of Syria, according to unconfirmed reports.
According to an unnamed U.S. official:

"The muscle is already there to be flexed. It’s
premature to say what could happen if a decision is made to
intervene. That hasn’t taken shape, we’ve not reached that kind of
decision. There are a lot of options, but it [military action]
could be launched rapidly, within days."

Yesterday, Nato approved Turkey's request for Patriot anti-missile
systems on the border with Syria. According to Turkey's Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu:

"The protection from NATO will be three dimensional:
one is the short-range Patriots, the second is the middle-range
Terminal High Altitude Air Defense [THAD] system and the last is
the AEGIS system, which counters missiles that can reach outside
the atmosphere."

Debka and Russia Today


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood,
Teamsters, James Hoffa, Syria, Bashar al-Assad, sarin nerve gas,
Iraq, Saddam Hussein, Halabja, USS Dwight D. Eisenhower,
Nato, Turkey, Patriot systems, Ahmet Davutoglu

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*** 7-Dec-12 World View -- Egypt's president Morsi refuses any compromise on constitution

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Egypt's president Morsi refuses any compromise on constitution
• Brotherhood offices torched, hundreds of casualties, as violence continues in Egypt
• Geithner, representing Obama, refuses any compromise in fiscal cliff negotiations
• Rate of decline in Russia's population doubles from previous decade

****
**** Egypt's president Morsi refuses any compromise on constitution
****


Mohamed Morsi addressing the nation

An angry Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi addressed the nation on
Thursday, in a much anticipated speech that many hoped would offer
some compromise to end the violence in Cairo. Instead, he accused the
opposition of being remnants of the old Hosni Mubarak regime, and
vowed he would never tolerate anyone working for the overthrow of his
"legitimate" government. He invited the opposition to a
"comprehensive and productive dialogue", but gave no sign that he
might offer any meaningful concessions, so that "comprehensive and
productive dialogue" apparently means doing everything his way. He
said:

"It is my duty ... to protect institutions of the
nation," he said. "I will always fulfill this role, no matter how
much pressure or what the situation."

Another one of Morsi's advisors quit in protest on Thursday, following
three such resignations earlier in the week. AP

****
**** Brotherhood offices torched, hundreds of casualties, as violence continues in Egypt
****

After Wednesday's "massive assault" by Muslim Brotherhood supporters
of Egypt's president Mohamed Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in
Cairo was torched, as were several regional MB offices. Tens of
thousands of Morsi supporters and opponents fought each other on
Thursday, leaving at least six dead and 700 injured. Al-Ahram (Cairo)

****
**** Geithner, representing Obama, refuses any compromise in fiscal cliff negotiations
****


Mohamed Morsi and Barack Obama

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, representing president Barack
Obama, said Wednesday that the Obama administration is “absolutely”
ready for the U.S. economy to go over the “fiscal cliff” rather than
accept a budget deal that doesn’t include higher tax rates for top
earners:

"There’s no prospect in an agreement that doesn’t
involve those rates going up on the top 2 percent of the
wealthiest Americans."

As I've written in the past, both "hope and change" candidates who won
on the basis of personality, and who are now refusing to compromise in
any way.

In the next few months, we should be seeing a third example of this
"hope and change" phenomenon.

Imran Khan, one of Pakistan's greatest cricket players of all time,
once voted as the "Sexiest Man of The Year" by Australia Magazine Oz,
is the "hope and change" candidate who is expected to win next year's
presidential election. Khan is running on vitriolicly anti-American
platform, referring to Pakistan's relationship with America as "client
and master." If and when Khan wins, it will be interesting to see
whether he refuses any compromise with his opposition as well.
AP and Indian Express

****
**** Rate of decline in Russia's population doubles from previous decade
****

The fact that Russia's population has been declining has been known
for some time, but new analyses of the 2010 census show that the
decline is much more rapid than previously estimated -- nearly doubled
during the past decade compared to the rate in the 1990s. However,
it's even more significant that the share of ethnic Russians in the
population is declining relative to the others, both indigenous and
immigrant, but not as significantly as had been the case in the 1990s,
largely because fertility rates among many non-Russian peoples have
declined, approaching those of the ethnic Russians. Many non-Russians
and especially Muslim writers suggested that the decline of the ethnic
Russians reflected "high infant mortality, low fertility, emigration,
poor health, a short life expectancy and a culture that supported high
levels of consumption of alcohol." Jamestown


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood,
Hosni Mubarak, Timothy Geithner, Fiscal cliff,
Pakistan, Imran Khan, Russia

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Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

**** Rate of decline in Russia's population doubles from previous decade
****

The fact that Russia's population has been declining has been known
for some time, but new analyses of the 2010 census show that the
decline is much more rapid than previously estimated -- nearly doubled
during the past decade compared to the rate in the 1990s.

That's some cute data manipulation they did there. Population in Russia peaked in '91, but didn't really start to fall off until the second half of that decade. It continued to fall at more or less the same rate until the second half of the '00s, where it stabilized and then started moving back up in '09 (and continues to do so). You only get the 'more than' comparison if you very carefully pick your start point and endpoint for your time periods. In the case of the data the Jamestown people are referencing, the points are 1989-2002-2010.

But it feeds into whatever narrative to do so. Ultimately, w/e.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

That's some cute data manipulation they did there. Population in Russia peaked in '91, but didn't really start to fall off until the second half of that decade. It continued to fall at more or less the same rate until the second half of the '00s, where it stabilized and then started moving back up in '09 (and continues to do so). You only get the 'more than' comparison if you very carefully pick your start point and endpoint for your time periods. In the case of the data the Jamestown people are referencing, the points are 1989-2002-2010.

But it feeds into whatever narrative to do so. Ultimately, w/e.

I understand your point, but I think it's worth pointing out that
those figures were not derived by the Jamestown author (Paul Goble),
but were quoted from a link to a study by the Institute of Demography
- National research university - Higher school of economics - in
Moscow. If they're fudging the figures, then it's probably because of
some larger motive in Russian politics that's supplying the narrative.

By the way, I've read stuff by Paul Goble in the past, and have found
him to be a pretty reliable analyst.

Originally Posted by niedermen

Not true. Until about 1990 Iran's fertility rate was equal to, if not higher, that of other Middle Eastern and North African countries.
http://www.google.com/publicdata/exp...l=en&ind=false

Thanks for the link. This contradicts some information that I got
from other sources, but it appears that the link has the correct data.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

I understand your point, but I think it's worth pointing out that
those figures were not derived by the Jamestown author (Paul Goble),
but were quoted from a link to a study by the Institute of Demography
- National research university - Higher school of economics - in
Moscow. If they're fudging the figures, then it's probably because of
some larger motive in Russian politics that's supplying the narrative.

It's not fudging the figures (which are, after all, pretty much in line with other estimates that had been done on an ongoing basis). It's fudging the analysis. The claim that population decline had 'doubled' from 'the previous decade' presents a very clear picture of a country in a demographic death-spiral. And that's in fact the way the Jamestown paper presents it. However, since the decline over the 'previous decade' (1989-2002) is given as a simple difference between startpoint and endpoint, it misses the fact that the first part of that decade saw a rise, and then the middle and latter part a decline much more pronounced than the yearly average over the period would indicate.

Here. This picture perhaps makes the point better.



That's a dip, not a death-spiral.

As to the other point the analysis makes, that the share of ethnic russian in the population is plummeting, that's simply not true. A glance at the census data being discussed shows that, while self-reported ethnic Russians fell from 81.53% of the overall population to 80.64% in the 1989-2002 period, it had actually gone slightly up to 80.90% by 2010. That is, the exact opposite of what the analysis said.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

It's not fudging the figures (which are, after all, pretty much in line with other estimates that had been done on an ongoing basis). It's fudging the analysis. The claim that population decline had 'doubled' from 'the previous decade' presents a very clear picture of a country in a demographic death-spiral. And that's in fact the way the Jamestown paper presents it. However, since the decline over the 'previous decade' (1989-2002) is given as a simple difference between startpoint and endpoint, it misses the fact that the first part of that decade saw a rise, and then the middle and latter part a decline much more pronounced than the yearly average over the period would indicate.

Here. This picture perhaps makes the point better.



That's a dip, not a death-spiral.

As to the other point the analysis makes, that the share of ethnic russian in the population is plummeting, that's simply not true. A glance at the census data being discussed shows that, while self-reported ethnic Russians fell from 81.53% of the overall population to 80.64% in the 1989-2002 period, it had actually gone slightly up to 80.90% by 2010. That is, the exact opposite of what the analysis said.

OK, then what is the Institute of Demography? Is this really a research organization,
or is it a political organization? And if political, is it pro-Putin or anti-Putin?

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

OK, then what is the Institute of Demography? Is this really a research organization,
or is it a political organization? And if political, is it pro-Putin or anti-Putin?

I've never heard of an Institute of Demography. Where is that referenced?

The Jamestown article, in addition to referencing the Census study (for which I gave the direct link) done by the Federal State Statistics Service, also references a writer at mk.ru (that is "the Moscow Komsomol") and one at ansar.ru (this one I had to research a bit; turns out it's the go-to sit for the small number of russian nationalists to hear about the horrors of Islam). Then there's the livejournal blogger, Illarionov. Poking through his blog posting the Jamestown people referenced, it looks like they pretty much did a translate-dump. The error in the numbers for ethnic-russians-as-a-percentage seem to come straight from him. I've left a note in the comments there to see what the deal might be with the numbers he gave, since they don't reflect at all what the study says.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

I've never heard of an Institute of Demography. Where is that referenced?

The Jamestown article, in addition to referencing the Census study (for which I gave the direct link) done by the Federal State Statistics Service, also references a writer at mk.ru (that is "the Moscow Komsomol") and one at ansar.ru (this one I had to research a bit; turns out it's the go-to sit for the small number of russian nationalists to hear about the horrors of Islam). Then there's the livejournal blogger, Illarionov. Poking through his blog posting the Jamestown people referenced, it looks like they pretty much did a translate-dump. The error in the numbers for ethnic-russians-as-a-percentage seem to come straight from him. I've left a note in the comments there to see what the deal might be with the numbers he gave, since they don't reflect at all what the study says.

The article quotes those population figures as coming from
demoscope.ru. Going to "demoscope.ru", I clicked on "Translation",
and then on the British flag. From there I learned that this
web site is from the "Institute of Demography at the National Research University Higher School of Economics".
Googling that brought me to:
http://www.hse.ru/en/demo/about

> About the Institute

> History of the IDEM

> The HSE Institute of Demography (IDEM) was founded in February
> 2007.

> However, the history of the institute as a research center started
> almost 20 years earlier as the IDEM considers itself as a
> conceptual successor to the Center for Human Demography and
> Ecology (CHDE), which was founded in 1988 as part of the USSR
> Academy of Sciences as an initiative of Anatoliy Vishnevskiy.

> Leading Soviet and Russian researchers worked at the CHDE and the
> traditions of such publications as Population of Russia, the
> annual demographic report, the Population and Society bulletin and
> the Demoscope Weekly e-publication, were established by CHDE staff
> and are continued by the HSE IDEM.

> CHDE was an academic institution, and teaching was not a priority
> of its members. Nevertheless, leading research fellows regularly
> taught introductory, basic and special courses on methods of
> demographic analysis, methods of historical demography, the
> demographic history of Russia and demographic policy in various
> Moscow universities, including the HSE.

> IDEM's Mission as a Research Institution

> blah, blah, blah

The contact information is given as:

Director: Anatoliy Vishnevskiy
Address:
Rooms 300, 301, 303, 304,305,306,307,309
Building D. 40-1, Myasnitskaya
Moscow 101000 Russia

Got it. Demoscope is an online journal published by a department at the VShE, an extremely new college-type school. If the figures in the Jamestown article came from there, that's sort of a serious indictment of the quality of that school (in fact, their offerings as per their website are ... kind of .. weird). It's got very much a University-of-Phoenix feel to the whole thing.

I can't find anything on the Russian Internet about them at all that wasn't written by them themselves -- with the exception of one guy claiming that they were/are funded by one of Soros' front-groups -- which is also... weird. Russian internet geeks love to write about pretty much anything and everything; a black hole in coverage/opinion about a public entity is really out of the ordinary. I can't get a feel on their angle from anything I can find on them.

In any case, the 'facts' as they claim them from the 2010 Russian census are transparently not true, as a cursory examination of the second or third table in the publicly-available census report makes clear. It really does leave one wondering who those guys are, and what function they are supposed to be serving.

*** 8-Dec-12 World View -- Is Syria's Assad likely to use his aging chemical weapons arsenal?

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Is Syria's Assad likely to use his aging chemical weapons arsenal?
• Syria's opposition increasingly frustrated by lack of American support
• Egypt's president Morsi considers making concessions to opposition

****
**** Is Syria's Assad likely to use his aging chemical weapons arsenal?
****


Saddam Hussein, in the last days of his trial, who was convicted and hanged for crimes that included using sarin and mustard gas on the Kurds (AP)

There have been growing fears in the last week that a desperate Syrian
president Bashar al-Assad was positioning chemical weapons for use in
the near future, but some experts are suggesting that the weapons are
too old to be used effectively. Syria is thought to have hundreds of
tons of chemical weapons material, including not only sarin and
mustard gas but possibly also the nerve agent VX, which, like sarin,
kills by attacking the central nervous system. However, these weapons
date back almost 40 years when Assad’s father, President Hafez Assad,
began accumulating them. Iraq's Saddam Hussein used sarin and mustard
gas on Kurds in northern Iraq in 1987-88, killing thousands of people,
and some experts believe that Saddam transferred his remaining
chemical weapons to al-Assad in 2002, just prior to the American
ground invasion of Iraq. The use of such old technology weapons could
backfire, and could end up killing al-Assad's troops as well as the
opposition troops, and some analysts suggest that al-Assad would
refrain from using them for that reason. AP

****
**** Syria's opposition increasingly frustrated by lack of American support
****

At a moment when Syria's rebels are closing in on Damascus and have a
chance of toppling president Bashar al-Assad, the United States
administration will be unable to influence events because they've avoided
getting too deeply involved. Though the administration has provided
diplomatic pressure, humanitarian relief and nonlethal aid, it has
been unwilling to supply arms or to use U.S. military force to set up
a no-fly zone, as it did in the Libyan civil war last year.
Some analysts are concerned that lack of American involvement is
causing some Syrian rebels to link up with terrorist militias.

On the military side, the U.S. seems to preparing to get involved. As
we've reported, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier
transited the Suez Canal on Saturday, and is now stationed off Syria's
shores. Debka, which sometimes gets things wrong, is quoting its
military intelligence sources as saying that Nato-Arab military
intervention in Syria is imminent, with participation of the U.S.,
France, Britain, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar. the
French aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle carrying a complement of
marines is deployed in the Mediterranean, having joined the USS
Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group and at least five British warships
which are also carrying a large marine force. LA Times and Debka

****
**** Egypt's president Morsi considers making concessions to opposition
****

Friday is usually the biggest day for protests in the Arab world,
because people pour out of mosques onto the streets after Friday
midday prayers. Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians took to the
streets on Friday in Cairo and cities around Egypt to protest the
policies of president Mohamed Morsi. The demonstrations were mostly
peaceful, with only a few injuries. Morsi's cabinet sent out signals
that several concessions were being considered to end the turmoil.
These included amending several of the more controversial articles of
the draft constitution, and postponing the referendum on ratifying the
constitution. However, there will only be a postponement "if the
opposition accepts dialogue without preconditions. ... The political
forces who demand the delay of the referendum must provide guarantees
that there will not be appeals [against the delay] in courts."
Al-Ahram (Cairo)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Syria, Bashar al-Assad, sarin, VX, mustard gas,
Iraq, Saddam Hussein, USS Dwight D. Eisenhower,
Charles De Gaulle aircraft carrier,
Egypt, Mohamed Morsi

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Memories of Iraqi WMD, anyone?

*** 9-Dec-12 World View -- Egypt's Mohamed Morsi cancels his decree, but not the referendum

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Egypt's Mohamed Morsi cancels his decree, but not the referendum
• Will President Obama follow Morsi's example?
• North Korea says it may delay its long-range rocket launch
• Panic spreads as Mayan apocalypse date December 21 approaches

****
**** Egypt's Mohamed Morsi cancels his decree, but not the referendum
****


Mohamed Morsi addressing the nation on Thursday

Seeking to end the turmoil of the last few days on the streets of
Cairo, late on Saturday, Egypt's president Mohamed Morsi revoked the
controversial constitution decree of last month, giving himself
dictatorial powers. This was one of the two demands of the opposition
protesters. The other demand, which Morsi refused to meet, was that
the referendum on the ratification of the new draft constitution,
embodying Sharia law, be postponed past its currently scheduled
December 15 date. It will take a couple of days to see whether
opposition accepts this compromise, or rejects it as insufficient and
returns to the streets.

In the past few days, I've referred to the similar between President
Obama and President Morsi -- both of them "hope and change" candidates
who won on the basis of personality, and who then refused to
compromise in any way. Since Morsi has softened his own stubbornness
towards his opposition, perhaps this is a signal that Obama will do
the same.

****
**** Will President Obama follow Morsi's example?
****

However, as similar as the two presidents are, there is one big difference
between them from the point of view of generational theory. Morsi was
born in 1951 and is clearly in Egypt's Boomer generation. Obama
was born in 1961, and is clearly in Generation-X.

However, this requires some additional explanation. As many people
know, the standard definition of Gen-X starts them in birth year 1963
or 1964. But from the point of view of generational theory, what
matters is when a child is old enough to know what's going on, and is
able to adopt generational attitudes and behaviors, usually around
five years old. So in generational theory, the Boomers start from
birth year 1942, and the Gen-Xers start from birth year 1959. So
President Obama is definitely a Gen-Xer, as far as generational theory
is concerned.

But there's more to the story. Generation-X is in the "Nomad
archetype" in generational theory, so-called because generations in
this archetype feel disaffected and alienated from society. The
previous Nomad generation was called the Lost Generation, the soldiers
who fought in World War I, and then were "rewarded" with joblessness
and homelessness. The second generation following a crisis war is the
one most beset by crime, alcohol and other social problems.

An important sub-class of the Nomads are the "early Nomads," born
around 15 years after the end of the preceding generational crisis
war, the leading edge of the second generation after the crisis war.
What I've discovered about "early Nomads" is that they're the greatest
heroes and greatest villains in history. (Conspiracy theorists should
note that I first wrote about this in 2005, long before I knew
anything about Barack Obama.)

For example, in one of the most brutal terrorist crimes of the last
decade, hundreds of children were brutally murdered in a school in
Beslan, North Osettia, in Russia, in 2004. The mastermind was Shamil
Basayev, a Chechen terrorist who was an early Nomad. Other monsters
who were early Nomads (based on the generational timelines of their
respective countries) were Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
(leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq), Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Leon
Trotsky.

But there were also many heroes who were "early Nomads," including
Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Charles
de Gaulle. So early Nomads seem to occupy a special place in history,
whether for good or for ill.

So this brings us back to President Obama, who is an early Nomad.
Will he be a hero, a villain, or neither? That remains to be seen,
and may depend more on the course of events than anything else.

But the immediate question is whether Gen-Xer Obama is going to soften
his stubborn refusal to compromise in the way the Boomer Morsi did.

The signs aren't good. As we reported
two days ago, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner,
representing president Barack Obama, quite openly said that the
president would rather send the country off the "fiscal cliff" than
compromise on taxes. This statement has been supported by a number of
Democrats who apparently are looking forward to sending the country
off the "fiscal cliff," because they believe that the Republicans will
be blamed for it.

This is the epitome of Gen-Xer nihilism, destructiveness and
self-destructiveness.

It's worth noting that there are several definitions of Nihilism,
falling into two categories that we might describe, using the
terminology of bipolar disease, as the "depressive" category and the
"manic" category. The "depressive" category of Nihilism was the
original philosophical view that life was meaningless and empty, along
with the denial of real existence. There are variations of this that
question whether life exists or, perversely, whether anything BESIDES
life exists.

But the definition of Nihilism that we're most interested in is the
"manic" category.

It began in Russia in the 1860s as a "Nihilist Movement," reacting to
Russia's humiliating loss in the Crimean War in the 1850s. According
to this movement, existing social and political institutions must be
destroyed in order to clear the way for a new state of society.

Although the original movement ended, Nihilism in this form permeated
the Russian Revolution. Stalin and Trotsky destroyed every Russian
institution possible to bring about Communism as a form of
government, and led Russia into more than a decade of bloody civil
war. Adolf Hitler was so destructive that he's sometimes referred to
as a nihilist.

So, we don't know what kind of "early Nomad" president Obama will
finally turn out to be, but for now, it appears that he wants to send
America off the "fiscal cliff" in order to save America -- the epitome
of Gen-X nihilism. It will be a very pleasant surprise if he
compromises after all. Al-Ahram (Cairo)

****
**** North Korea says it may delay its long-range rocket launch
****

North Korea had planned to launch a long-range rocket between December 10-22,
but they're now saying that they may delay the launch. According to
the (North) Korean Central News Agency (KCNA):

"Our scientists and technicians are now seriously
examining the issue of readjusting the launching time of the
satellite for some reasons."

but the report didn't state what those reasons are. The attempt last
April to launch such a rocket ended in a humiliating failure, where
the rocket exploded shortly after launch, and the North Koreans
presumably don't want to risk something similar happening again. In
the meantime, the Japanese military has been ordered to shoot down the
missile if its flight path is at all threatening to Japanese
territory. Yonhap (Seoul) and VOA

****
**** Panic spreads as Mayan apocalypse date December 21 approaches
****

December 21 is the day predicted centuries ago by the Mayan calendar
for the apocalypse that will end the world, and panic is spreading
among believers. Panic buying of candles and essentials has been
reported in China and Russia, and there's been an explosion in sales
of survival shelters in America. Russia's prime minister Dmitry
Medvedev commented on the Mayan prediction:

"I don't believe in the end of the world. At least,
not this year."

Telegraph (London)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, Generation-X,
Nihilism, North Korea, Mayan apocalypse

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*** 10-Dec-12 World View -- Mauldin: Looming crisis, state budgets soon to be under siege

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Venezuelan women openly weep as Hugo Chávez faces malignant cancer
• Latest climate charge conference is an even greater farce than previous ones
• Reviewing the 'Climate Change' issue
• Arab League votes $100 million per month in aid to Palestinian Authority
• Mauldin: Looming crisis, state budgets soon to be under siege

****
**** Venezuelan women openly weep as Hugo Chavez faces malignant cancer
****


Hugo Chavez (Trome)

Venezuela's president Hugo Chávez announced late Saturday that his
doctors has found new cancer malignancies, and that he would have
to return to Cuba on Sunday for a fourth operation:

"It has been decided, it is necessary, absolutely
necessary, absolutely essential, to undergo further surgery and
that should happen in the coming days, even doctors recommended it
was yesterday (Friday). ...

[With] the favor of God as in the past, we will be victorious.

Such are the circumstances of life, I still clung to Christ,
clinging to my lord, clinging to hope and faith. I hope and I pray
to God to give them good news in the coming days and we can continue
together to build what we have to do for the homeland."

Chávez said Vice President Nicolas Maduro would take over if he is
incapacitated, and urged supporters to vote for him if an election is
held.

Chávez has had three previous operations in Cuba to remove cancel.
Nonetheless, many Venezuelans were shocked by the announcement, since he had
claimed to be completely cured before his October 7 re-election as president.

Rallies and prayer meetings were held across Venezuela on Sunday to
show support and to pray for a quick recovery. Many were weeping in
sadness, as in the case of housewife Gladys Millan, 45, who said,
"Onward, my president. I love you, we need you, not only us but many
other countries." Trome and Reuters

****
**** Latest climate charge conference is an even greater farce than previous ones
****

Every year, climate change activists expend astronomical amounts of
carbon emissions to attend a climate change conference in some world
class vacation spot. When they get there, they sit by the pool except
to go to an occasional air-conditioned meeting room or to seek out a
BBC reporter in order to whine about how the United States creates all
the evils in the world.

The latest climate change conference ended on Saturday in Doha, Qatar,
the carbon emissions capital of the world. The conference was
characterized by even greater farce than previous conferences.

Previous climate change conferences had the objective of getting the
United States involved in the "carbon trading system," which would
allow banksters to create carbon trade derivative securities that
would put trillions of dollars into banksters' pockets with a new set
of synthetic securities even more fraudulent than synthetic subprime
mortgage-backed securities that caused the financial crisis.

Well, apparently that fraud is now considered to be down the drain.
This week's conference replaced it with a new objective: To get the
United States to pay into a $100 billion "financial reservoir" called
a "Loss and Damage Fund," to be used to pay developing nations huge
amounts of money to compensate for "loss and damage" from climate
change caused by America. The climate change activist freaks insist
that the Loss and Damage Fund could be financed by a tax on financial
transactions or airline levies, or by reducing the "immoral, obscene
level of expenditures" on fossil fuels. They regard all this money as
"free money" that they could use for their purposes, with no loss to
anyone else.

It's embarrassing that the United States participated in this circus,
because President Obama wants to prove how "committed" he is to saving
the world from climate change. But in fact, the climate change freaks
at the conference were FURIOUS at Obama, because he let them down and
didn't agree to pay money into the "Loss and Damage Fund." But fear
not. The Administration agreed to support a "Loss and Damage Fund"
for some unnamed time in the future, allowing them to blame the
Republicans if they win in 2016.

The conference also agreed to extend the moribund Kyoto Protocol,
which was about to expire, to 2020.

You remember the Kyoto protocol, don't you? It was never ratified by
the United States. Al Gore, who is the greatest climate change circus
freak of all, tried to push this through the Senate in 1997, when he
was vice-president. The attempt failed by a vote of 99 to 0 -- a
unanimous vote against it.

So the Kyoto Treaty is a worthless peace of garbage that even
Democrats unanimously rejected, which may explain why the Obama
administration is so devoted to it. We have Wall Street "experts"
openly lying about stock valuations on CNBC, and we have politicians
in Brussels and Washington openly lying about climate change and the
financial crisis, while the Obama administration commits itself to
this farce. Respectable people are gangsters, and gangsters are
treated as respectable people.

****
**** Reviewing the 'Climate Change' issue
****

Let's just go over some things about the climate change issue.

Climate science is not rocket science. When a rocket scientist tests
his conclusions, the whole world can see whether or not the rover
lands on Mars without crashing. There's no politics or guesswork in
the final outcome.

Climate science is "science" only in the same way that sociology is
science. They take measurements of weather around the world, do
statistical analyses and create computer models, and reach some
conclusions. Once they've determined statistically that it's getting
warmer here or getting colder there or getting wetter here or dryer
there, that's the end of the "science." The rest is all guesswork and
politics.

Just as sociologists choose ideological targets to "blame" for
poverty, climate scientists choose ideological targets to "blame" for
climate change. Carbon emissions were chosen as the thing to "blame"
because that's where the money is and what the politicians want.
Correlating climate change to carbon emissions is not science, it's
guesswork and politics.

Just to take one other possibility: There are 20,000 or so earthquakes
a year, almost all of them too small or too remote to make the news.
However, there are some reports that the number of major earthquakes
has been increasing in the last 15 years, especially in the "ring of
fire" in the Pacific, where a large number of earthquakes and volcanic
eruptions occur. Is that caused by carbon emissions? Why not?

More to the point, perhaps these 20,000 earthquakes per year and the
volcanic eruptions are modifying and shifting ocean currents, causing
the Arctic ice to melt. That seems to me to be a more likely
explanation than carbon emissions, but you never here it mentioned by
the climate "scientists."

And even if you assume that the climate science is all true, and even
if you assume that carbon emissions are the cause, it's still a
financial scam, because there's no technical solution to the problem
right now, and making trillions of dollars available to banksters will
definitely not solve anything except hasten the worsening of financial
crisis.

And making billions of dollars available to corrupt warlords and
leaders of developing nations so they can build themselves larger
palaces and larger Swiss bank accounts won't reduce carbon emissions
either.

And even if you assume that the climate science is all true, and even
if you assume that carbon emissions are the cause, and even if you
assume that the technology exists, then some company will market it
and quickly become very wealthy. We don't need Solyndra-type fiascos
to bring carbon-related technologies to market. It will instantly be
as popular as the Model-T Ford that solved the horse crap emissions
problem a century ago.

In fact, I expect new nanotechnology and intelligent computer
technology to begin to provide solutions to the carbon emissions
problems in the 2020s, and this can't be sped up. Things happen in
their own time. You can't invent the car before you've invented the
wheel.

I have a very long memory. In 1970, I read an article in Ramparts
Magazine that "scientists" had "proved" that because America was
polluting the oceans so much, all the oceans would be covered with a
layer of green algae by 1980. In 1972, the "Club of Rome" published a
report on the Limits of Growth that "scientists" had "proved" that
within a few decades, the world would grind to a halt because of
pollution. It turned out that they had reached their conclusions
because of a bug in their Fortran program. There's no end to this
kind of crap. And recall that we used to believe in "global cooling"
rather than "global warming."

So if you're a "climate change activist," you're welcome to believe
anything you want, but don't confuse what you believe with science.
BBC and Guardian (London)

****
**** Arab League votes $100 million per month in aid to Palestinian Authority
****

The members of the Arab League voted on Thursday to provide the
Palestinian Authority with a $100 million monthly "financial safety
net." On November 29, the United Nations General Assembly voted to
create a state of Palestine, and Israel's reaction was to announce the
building of 3,000 new West Bank settlements, and to withhold $100
million in tax collections to the Palestinian Authority. PA president
Mahmoud Abbas requested the financial aid from the Arab League to
compensate for the loss of the tax revenue. Reuters and Al-Jazeera

****
**** Mauldin: Looming crisis, state budgets soon to be under siege
****

I like quoting analyst John Mauldin, because he's phony in a different
way than almost all the other financial analysts. The ones on CNBC
and Bloomberg television tell full-throated lies about stock
valuations constantly, as I've documented many times, naming names and
quoting quotes. (See, for example, "14-Apr-12 World View -- Wharton School's Jeremy Siegel is lying about stock valuations"
from earlier this year.) Respectable
people are gangsters, and gangsters are treated as respectable people.

Siegel is a moron, but Mauldin actually understands the sophisticated
mathematics behind price/earnings ratios (stock valuations): Divide
the stock price by last year's earnings. That computation is too
complex for the geniuses on CNBC, who are constantly claiming that
valuations are at historic lows, when in fact they've been
historically high continuously since 1995.

But Mauldin understands the math. He just fails to draw the obvious
conclusion -- that by the Law of Mean Reversion, stocks are going to
fall to the Dow 3000 level. He just pretends that stock valuations
will stay historically high forever, so that he won't lose any of his
multi-million dollar clients. As I say, that's a lot less phony than
the liars and morons on CNBC.

In his latest column, Mauldin quotes himself from 2004:

"Unless steps are taken soon, it is possible we can
see shortfalls approaching $1 trillion–$2 trillion in
state-sponsored pension funds within 10 years. A deficit of this
size on the state level can truly be called a crisis. A tax
increase or other adjustments to fund this will be a large drag on
the economy."

That was a pretty good prediction, though he complains that "I caught
some flak for being so pessimistic about the potential problems,"
which I can understand, since I've been called a crazy psychopath a
number of times, though much more rarely in recent years now that
everything I've been writing keeps coming true.

His column contains an analysis by Ed Easterling of Crestmont Research
which says, in essence, that Mauldin's 2004 prediction is now coming
true, mainly because public sector labor unions are bankrupting the
pension systems and the state taxpayers who are on the hook to make up
the shortfall, and because estimates of stock market returns are wild
overestimates. Easterly concludes:

"The result is an ongoing gap of near 4% annually that
will cause an ever-widening shortfall for state pension plans.
The problem is not a gap created by a unique event in 2008, but
rather it is the result of an environment that started about a
decade ago.

That gap, moreover, will not move at glacial pace presenting a
subtle 4% shift each year. Rather, with the force of an
earthquake, periodic market declines will reveal large
chasms."

I certainly hope that no long-time reader of these Generational
Dynamics articles is dumb enough to still be in the stock market.
John Mauldin


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, climate change,
Loss and Damage Fund, Kyoto Protocol,
Arab League, Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority,
John Mauldin, Ed Easterling, Crestmont Research

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*** 11-Dec-12 World View -- Egypt's opposition plans mass rally in Cairo on Tuesday

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Egypt's president Morsi to allow the army to arrest people
• Egypt's opposition plans mass rally in Cairo on Tuesday
• U.S. tries to slow growth of 'Al-Qaeda in Iraq' in Syria
• Mercedes-Benz gives Pope Benedict XVI a new Popemobile

****
**** Egypt's president Morsi to allow the army to arrest people
****


A tank rolls down the street in Cairo (Reuters)

Egypt's president Mohamed Morsi has given the army the power to arrest
civilians. The power is similar to the "temporary" emergency powers
that former leader Hosni Mubarak kept in place for decades, allowing
civilians to be arrested and incarcerated for no reason. However,
Morsi says that the new power was requested by Egypt's Supreme
Electoral Commission to secure the voting process during the upcoming
referendum vote on the new constitution. According to Morsi, the new
powers will expire once the constitutional referendum vote has been
completed. Al-Ahram (Cairo)

****
**** Egypt's opposition plans mass rally in Cairo on Tuesday
****

Opposition leaders are not mollified by Sunday's announcement by
Egypt's president Mohamed Morsi that he was rescinding his
constitutional decree that gave him dictatorial powers. They point
out that the purpose of the decree in the first place was to push
through a new draft constitution, and to establish a date for a
referendum vote to ratify it. Since the referendum vote is still
being held, canceling the decree at this point is an empty gesture,
according to opposition leaders. The opposition is calling for mass
rallies in Tahrir Square in Cairo on Tuesday as a final attempt to
stop the referendum, while supporters of Morsi are also calling for a
"million man march" to counter the opposition demonstration. But
opposition forces lack unity, while Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood is very
well organized to get its supporters out to vote, and so, many
analysts consider it unlikely that they'll be able to stop
ratification. LA Times and Al-Ahram (Cairo)

****
**** U.S. tries to slow growth of 'Al-Qaeda in Iraq' in Syria
****

The U.S. State Department designated the Jabhat al-Nusra (the "Nusra
Front") militia fighting Bashar al-Assad's government in Syria a
foreign terrorist organization on Monday. During the Iraq war,
terrorist militia fighters from Syria crossed the border into Iraq and
joined al-Qaeda in Iraq to fight the Americans. Now those fighters
are traveling back into Syria to fight the al-Assad regime, and Jabhat
al-Nusra is essentially the Syrian wing of al-Qaeda in Iraq (Islamic
State of Iraq, or ISI). The group has been having an increasing
number of successes in Syria, and the State Department designation is
an attempt to slow its growth. Nonetheless, Jabhat al-Nusra is taking
its place alongside al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP),
Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb
(AQIM) among the major al-Qaeda linked terrorist groups in the world.
However, this designation also complicates the American strategy in
Syria, since the collapse of al-Assad's government could mean that
control of the country and its chemical weapons could pass Jabhat
al-Nusra. Foreign Policy and CS Monitor

****
**** Mercedes-Benz gives Pope Benedict XVI a new Popemobile
****


Mercedes-Benz's new M-Class Popemobile

Mercedes-Benz has delivered a new M-Class Popemobile to Pope Benedict
XVI. The rear bench seats have been replaced with
hydraulically-assisted thrones. Compared to previous Popemobiles,
there's more standing room in the back, with more glass area and
better interior illumination. Digital Trends

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood,
Supreme electoral Commission,
Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Islamic State of Iraq, ISI,
Jabhat al-Nusra, Nusra Front, Syria, Bashar al-Assad,
Pope Benedict XVI, Mercedes-Benz, M-Class Popemobile

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*** 12-Dec-12 World View -- Left-wing union violence continues to increase in America

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Left-wing union violence continues to increase in America
• Terrorist group Jabhat al-Nusra gains support in Syria after U.S. designation
• France urges immediate military intervention in Mali
• North Korea launches long-range rocket

****
**** Left-wing union violence continues to increase in America
****


Steven Crowder (L) slugged in the face by union supporter on Tuesday (Fox News)

A legislative battle in Michigan over "right to work" labor laws,
which unions oppose, has led to calls for violence from union
officials and one of their legislative supporters, and actual violence
by union supporters.

Fox News contributor Steven Crowder was punched in the face by a
pro-union protester, breaking one of his teeth, while another
pro-union protester shouted "get the f--- out of my face!"

Democratic representative Doug Geiss said:

"We’re going to pass something that will undo 100
years of labor relations and there will be blood, there will be
repercussions, we will re-live the battle of the
overpass."

The "battle of the overpass" refers to a bloody 1937 confrontation
between union organizers and Ford security guards. Terry O’Sullivan,
general president of the Labor International Union of North America
threatened supporters of the labor legislation: "We are going to take
you on and take you out."

The latter is reminiscent of the the call to violence and war against
the Tea Party last year by Teamsters president James Hoffa, when he
introduced President Obama by saying:
"We are ready to march. Let’s take these sons of bitches
out and give America back to an America where we belong." Hoffa's
call to violence was, in fact, heeded two weeks later by hundreds of
members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union members
(ILWU) labor union, who violently attacked guards protecting a
non-union grain terminal in the Port of Longview in Washington state.

In my opinion, the first important call for left-wing violence began
with the 2006 Hollywood film "Death of a President" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0853096/, which seemed to me to have
the purpose of inciting violence against President Bush. After
President Obama was elected in 2008, mainstream news commentators such
as CNN's David Gergen and Anderson Cooper were inciting violence
against Tea Partiers by referring to them with the epithet
"teabaggers."

Left-wing violence in America has been sporadic, though there has been
a lot more in Europe, where it's triggered countervailing right-wing
violence, particularly in Greece. In this generational Crisis era, we
can expect this kind of violence to continue growing. CBS News (Detroit) and Fox News

****
**** Terrorist group Jabhat al-Nusra gains support in Syria after U.S. designation
****

The group Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian wing of al-Qaeda in Iraq, has
been designated as a foreign terrorist organization, as we've
previously reported.
The
designation has generated a fresh wave of support for Jabhat Al-Nusra,
which has been credited with executing numerous sophisticated attacks
against the Syrian regime and playing a crucial role in weakening the
latter. Syrian opposition websites and online campaigns on Facebook
and Twitter have called on the public to take part in support rallies
for Jabhat Al-Nusra to be held this coming Friday, under the slogan
"No to American Involvement [in Syria] – We Are All Jabhat Al-Nusra."
At the same time, the designation has also generated increased
anti-U.S. sentiment among Syrians. Memri

****
**** France urges immediate military intervention in Mali
****

France has urged rapid foreign military intervention in Mali after the
country's prime minister, Cheikh Modibo Diarra, was arrested and
ordered to resign by the army. The northern two-thirds of Mali is
under control of al-Qaeda linked jihadist groups, and France fears
that if an Islamist state becomes firmly entrenched there, then it
will serve as a base for terrorist attacks on Europe, especially
France. However, other European countries and America are skeptical
of a military intervention. Russia Today

****
**** North Korea launches long-range rocket
****

North Korea unexpectedly launched its long-range rocket test on
Wednesday morning, after having announced on Sunday that it was
extending its launch window to December 29. North Korea claims that
the purpose of the test is to put a satellite into orbit, but it's
thought that the real purpose was to develop a nuclear weapon delivery
system that can reach the western United States. Japan had indicated
that it would should the missile down if it threatened Japanese
territory, but that didn't happen, even though the rocked passed over
Okinawa. The Chosun Ilbo (Seoul)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Steven Crowder, Michigan, right to work,
Doug Geiss, Terry O'Sullivan, James Hoffa, Teamsters,
Death of a President, Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra,
France, Mali, North Korea, Japan

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*** 13-Dec-12 World View -- Darfur war may explode again soon into full-scale genocide

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Darfur war may explode again soon into full-scale genocide
• History of the Darfur war
• Assad escalates Syria war again with Scud missiles

****
**** Darfur war may explode again soon into full-scale genocide
****


Darfur refugee camp

Violent protests by hundreds of students in Khartoum, the capital of
Sudan, were broken up by police using heavy teargas on Wednesday. The
increasingly potent protests, four days so far, were protesting the
mysterious deaths of four deaths on December 7 of four Darfuri
students, and the disappearance of two others. The bodies of the dead
students were found in a canal after they went missing following their
participation staged by students from Darfur to protest the
university's tuition increases, in violation of their own signed
agreements.

This comes at a time when money and troops are being withdrawn from
the U.N.'s Darfur peacekeeping force, while violence against the
millions of Darfuris in refugee camps is increasing. The U.S. labeled
this a genocidal war in 2004 and the U.N. expended enormous resources
to separate the sides and stop the fighting.

The war in Darfur, which is a western region of Sudan, has been an
interesting case study for Generational Dynamics, since I've been able
to follow it since it turned into a generational Crisis war in 2003.
(The other war in that category was the Sri Lanka war, which became a
crisis war in 2006, and reached a climax when the Tamil Tigers
surrendered in May, 2009. Sri Lanka is currently in a generational
Recovery era.)

The war began in the 1970s, but the world only discovered
it in 2004, and then it became the most popular war in the world, with
famous movie stars visiting, one after the other.

****
**** History of the Darfur war
****

Low level violence began in the 1970s between two ethnic groups, one
of farmers and the other of camel herders. (There was a similar
conflict between farmers and cowboys in the United States in the
1800s.) Farmers are infuriated when herds of animals trample their
crops. They'd respond by building fences, and that infuriates the
herders. (A more detailed history can be found in my 2007 article,
"Ban Ki Moon blames Darfur genocide on global warming"
)


Sudan and neighboring countries. Southern Sudan is now a separate country, South Sudan

Prior to 1983, disagreements could be resolved by the elders,
but things changed because of the drought and famine that ran from 1983-85.
Both farmers and herders were forced to travel to regions with water,
and that brought the two sides into closer contact. It also lessened
the role of local leaders, with the result that both farmers and
herders began to turn to Khartoum for help.

In Darfur in 1987, there were outside agitators on both sides,
resulting in a brief war.

The two groups of Darfuris -- herders and farmers -- could also be
distinguished ethnically as Arabs and non-Arabs, respectively. But
that distinction had never before made as much difference as the
individual tribal identifications, according to Sudan expert Alex de Wall.

A brief 1987 Darfur war was instigated by Libyan leader Muammar
Gaddafi, who for years had been trying to start up a "pan-Arab"
movement across northern Africa, under his leadership. He
distinguished between the two groups of Darfuris -- herders and
farmers -- could also be distinguished ethnically as Arabs and
non-Arabs, respectively. He recruited the "Arab" herders, and tried
to agitate them to be part of his attack force on the neighboring
country Chad. That attempt failed, but the identity group name "Arab"
stuck, and later became associated with the élite group running the
government in Khartoum, who also think of themselves as "Arabs," and
the other Darfuris as "non-Arabs," or just "Africans."

Once that happened, the conflict became international, with outsiders
taking the side of the "Arab" herders or the "African" farmers, depending
on their ideology.

In the 1990s, the level of low-level violence increased in Darfur
between the two groups. If you're standing in Khartoum, Darfur is
almost 1,000 miles away, and seems as far away as the moon, and the
Darfuris might as well be an alien species. All the Sudan
government wanted was for the Darfuris to take care of themselves,
and leave Khartoum alone. Khartoum was already fully engaged in
another war, with other ethnic groups in what is now South Sudan.

In the 1990s, the Khartoum government essentially delegated the
responsibility of policing the region to the Arab Janjaweed militia,
formed from certain groups of herders. This was an ideal solution to
Khartoum, since it meant that the "African" and "Arab" Darfuris
would have to solve problems themselves, and Khartoum would stay out
of it. This would leave the Sudanese army free to focus on the
southern war.

The transition from low-level violence to a full-fledged generational
crisis war occurred in 2002-03. There were two shock events that
triggered this transition.

The first occurred in April, 2002. The young men of one ("African")
farmer village in central Darfur complained to the district
authorities that they were being harassed by a herder ("Arab") militia
group. The shock that they and the farmers received was that, instead
of getting help, the young men were jailed, and so was a lawyer who
tried to represent them. This infuriated and radicalized the Darfuri
"African" farmers, especially the younger generation.

Jailing the young men was a catalyst the led to the formation
of the Darfur Liberation Front.

The second shock event (the "regeneracy") occurred on February 26,
2003. The Darfur Liberation Front attacked a police station to take
back their lost weapons from the time of the arrest. This action
radicalized the "Arab" herders, especially the Janjaweed militia,
who previously were supposed to be an impartial police force.

This led to panic in Khartoum. Suddenly the Darfuris, though still
1,000 miles away, turned overnight into a huge mass of millions of
people ready to attack Khartoum itself!

In the mass hysteria that followed, the conflict escalated into a
full-scale genocidal war. The Janjaweed militias (herders) began
a program of mass murders, rapes, genocide and scorched earth.

It was only in 2004 that the word "discovered" Darfur. Jesse Jackson,
the so-called anti-war activist, wanted President Bush to send troops
into Darfur to stop the slaughter. Joe Biden wanted to move troops
out of Iraq, where there no civil war, into Darfur, where there was
civil war. He wanted to stop the Darfur civil war with just 2,500
American troops, to "end the carnage" and "stop the bleeding." ( "Still tilting at windmills, the UN will send 'peacekeepers' to Darfur"
)

The United Nations put millions of Darfuris into tents in the middle
of the desert, and dozens of aid organizations sent food in. The idea
was to spend $2 billion a year to "stop the bleeding," and then send
Kofi Annan in to negotiate a peace deal that would end the war and
bring peace to the region.

A generational crisis war MUST run its course. If you can imagine
Kofi Annan's grandfather trying to negotiate a peace deal in 1944
between Britain and Germany, or between Japan and the United States,
then you can imagine how ridiculous it was to expect a peace deal
between the Sudan "Arabs" and "Africans."

Earlier, I mentioned the Sri Lanka civil war. That war ran its course
and reached a crisis era climax in 2009, which I described in detail
while it was occurring, as well as before and after.

But the Darfur civil war has NOT run its course, and has NOT reached a
climax. You still have millions of Darfuris out in the middle of the
desert, being protected by a dwindling number of U.N. peacekeepers.
Once the peacekeepers are gone, the massive program of genocide,
rapes, mass murders and scorched earth will begin again, and this time
the war will reach a climax. Sudan Tribune
and Reuters

****
**** Assad escalates Syria war again with Scud missiles
****

The regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad is escalating the war
further by firing Scud missiles within Syria, presumably at rebel
groups, according to U.S. officials. The missiles were fired from the
Damascus area into northern Syria. They did not cross the border into
Turkey, but they came close. Analysts say the Assad government
maintains up to 400 of the short- and medium-range Russian-developed
Scud missiles. CNN


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Darfur, Sudan, Muammar Gaddafi,
Syria, Bashar al-Assad

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*** 14-Dec-12 World View -- Japan scrambles F-15 jets to challenge Chinese surveillance plane

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Japan scrambles F-15 jets to challenge Chinese surveillance plane
• China commemorates the 1937 Massacre at Nanking (Nanjing)
• Russia admits that opposition may win in Syria
• Greece finally gets its bailout commitment
• Europe kicks the can down the road again

****
**** Japan scrambles F-15 jets to challenge Chinese surveillance plane
****


A photo released by the Japan Coast Guard of the Chinese surveillance plane

According to China:

"Chinese and Japanese aircraft were involved in a
standoff in the skies above the [Senkaku/Diaoyu] Islands on
Thursday.

The situation remains under control, but Tokyo seems intent on
upping the ante, observers said.

A Chinese marine surveillance plane, B-3837, was sent to join
vessels patrolling the territorial waters around the islands,
which belong to China, on Thursday morning, said a statement
issued by the State Oceanic Administration on its website.

The plane arrived in the area at about 10 am and conducted joint
patrols with a fleet of four surveillance ships.

The fleet ordered the Japanese ships that had entered China's
territorial waters to leave the area immediately, the statement
said.

Warned by the Japanese coast guard, the Chinese aircraft responded
that it was flying in Chinese airspace, Japan's JiJi Press quoted
the coast guard's 11th regional headquarters in Naha, Okinawa
Prefecture, southern Japan as saying.

The Japanese Air Self-Defense Force scrambled F-15 fighter jets to
the area, Japan's Kyodo News Agency reported.

Japan's Defense Ministry accused the air patrol of an "airspace
intrusion"."

According to Japan:

"Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura says the jets
were sent in response to a Chinese Oceanic Administration airplane
that was spotted near the islands. He said Japan has lodged an
official protest and summoned the Chinese ambassador in Tokyo.

"It is extremely deplorable that China's official airplane
conducted an airspace invasion of Japan's territory today, on top
of their intrusion of territorial waters for three days in a row,
as of today, despite our repeated warnings."

A spokesperson for the Japanese prime minister's office confirmed
to VOA that in addition to the F-15s, a E-2C "Hawkeye" observation
aircraft was also scrambled from Naha, Okinawa.

The Japanese government described the incident as the first ever
"intrusion" by a Chinese plane into what Japan considers its
airspace.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei said the plane's
mission was "completely normal." "The Diaoyu Islands and
affiliated islands have been part of China's territory since
antiquity," said Hong. "China's surveillance plane flying in
airspace over the Diaoyu Islands is completely normal. China calls
on Japan to halt illegal activities in waters around Diaoyu
islands and airspace.""

It's very hard to get past the feeling that China is planning
something major very soon. In the South China Sea, China has
established a strong military presence, and has threatened to board
and seize foreign ships that enter its "territorial waters" -- which
they claim are the entire South China Sea, even areas that
historically belonged to other nations. And now China has escalated
the confrontation in the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands with a surveillance
plane. The amount of escalation seems to increase every week, and
China may be preparing for much more in the next few months. China Daily and Japan Times / Kyodo and VOA

****
**** China commemorates the 1937 Massacre at Nanking (Nanjing)
****

The confrontation between Chinese and Japanese aircraft occurred on
the 75th anniversary of the December 13, 1937, start of the "Massacre
at Nanking (Nanjing)," during which Japanese soldiers allegedly raped,
massacred and killed some 300,000 Chinese civilians. The Massacre at
Nanking is the most potent symbol of today's Chinese nationalism and
hatred of the Japanese. On Thursday, 10,000 people attended a
ceremony at the Nanking massacre memorial hall, built on a pit where
thousands of victims were buried. South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)

****
**** Russia admits that opposition may win in Syria
****

In what some people are describing as a major reversal of position by Russia,
Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said:

"We have to face up to reality: The trend is that the
Syrian regime, the government is increasingly losing control,
losing more and more territory.

Sadly, a victory by the Syrian opposition cannot be ruled out. ...

[Syria's Opposition Coalition] are saying that victory is just
around the corner: ‘We will soon take Aleppo and then we will take
Damascus,’ and saying they are in control of 60 percent of
territory."

It's worth noting that in the last few days, the U.S. administration
made an important concession to Russia's point of view, by designating
Jabhat al-Nusra as a foreign terrorist group in Syria, as we reported.
Russia is plagued by al-Qaeda
linked terrorists in its own North Caucasus southern provinces, it was
concerned that an opposition victory in Syria would put additional
al-Qaeda linked terrorists in power, further threatening Russia in the
Caucasus. Ria Novosti (Moscow) and Telegraph (London)

****
**** Greece finally gets its bailout commitment
****

A summit of European financial ministers agreed to release some 50 billion
euros in bailout loans in the next few months, allowing Greece to pay
meet its immediate debt payments and avoid going bankrupt. According to
Greece's Prime Minister Antonis Samaras:

"Over the next few months, we’ll get 52.5 billion
euros, which is something nobody had expected. About 40 billion
of this will stay in the country [to recapitalize the banks and
pay money owed to suppliers], and the rest is being used to reduce
our debt. 'Grexit' [the slang term for 'Greek exit from the
eurozone'] is dead, Greece is back on its feet.

Within the next few weeks, we’ll complete the recapitalization of
our banks, which will help liquidity and boost job creation, which
is the top priority.

Some people expected us to be out of the euro and cannot believe
that we are staying in. We have restored trust in Greece abroad;
now we will restore the dignity of the Greek people."

The Europeans also announced a "banking union," which will bring
control of national banks under the control of the ECB. After months
of "kicking the can down the road," European officials are
congratulating themselves and each other for finally solving the euro
crisis. Kathimerini

****
**** Europe kicks the can down the road again
****

Over a year ago, I proposed the "Kick the Can Theory," which says that
if you want to predict what Europe is going to do, always assume that
they'll do the minimum possible to get through today's crisis,
postponing the real underlying causes for a few weeks or months, after
which the next crisis will be worse. The "Kick the Can Theory" has
been proven true every single time so far, and the current agreement
is no different.

Here's a BBC interview with Peter Spiegel, Brussels Bureau Chief for
Financial Times (my transcription). He was asked his opinion of
Thursday's European agreements:

"To be perfectly honest, there are some deals that are
done, but as usual, there are things left undecided. They're
going to have to come back to Greece, they're going to have to
come back to banking union in the new year, and to be honest, the
most pressing issues in both places have not been dealt with.

On the Greece side of things - look they still haven't gotten
Greece's debt level back to a sustainable level, a level where
Greece can sustain itself. They postponed a huge chunk of that
debt relief -- they're going to decide it next year, in some cases
in 2014 because they didn't want to take the hard decision, of
whether they're going to take haircuts on their own bailout loans,
so real tough decisions postponed again on Greece.

And on banking union, yes, there was a major decision to set up a
single supervisor. The problem is that's the easy part of this
new banking union. The hard part is -- who's going to pay for it?
If we're going to say that the euro zone is going to centralize
control over banks, what happens when you have to bailout the
Spanish banks again? Who pays for that?

And what is very clear from the words of both [German Chancellor]
Angela Merkel and [German Finance Minister] Wolfgang Schäuble
during the banking union debate -- they want to kick that can down
as far as they can. It was originally going to be some time next
year. It now looks like the middle of 2014.

That's a day that's way too late for some of these countries,
particularly Ireland. Ireland's supposed to come out of its
bailout program next year. It needs some certainty on what it's
going to be doing with its 60 billion euros in bank debt that was
supposed to be shifted away from the Irish sovereign and onto this
new banking union.

So these are decisions that people felt as recently as June needed
to be taken by the summit, by December. Clearly now the Germans,
the Dutch, the Finns, some of these others are pushing that not
into next year, but potentially into the year after that.

[Question: [France's president] François Hollande said the euro
crisis is behind us. You don't think he's right?]

His predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, almost said the exact same thing
a year ago today. If you remember, there was the ECB with its
bazooka, came out with something called the LTRO which is
basically cheap financing for Europe's banks. Everyone patted
themselves on the back, said this crisis is over.

It is remarkable now, after another ECB intervention, that the
French president is again patting himself on the back for
resolving the crisis. I mean, call me skeptical. I've been
covering this now for over two years. Every time the crisis is
determined to be done, and called "over," it rears its bloody/ugly
head again, and if you look at places like - not just Greece but
Spain, where the economy is really in a tailspin, their banking
sector's still in real trouble, their private ability to borrow in
the private sector - there's a real credit crunch there. The real
problem in Spain, a country that is much bigger than Ireland, than
Portugal, than Greece, that haven't been dealt with. Call me
skeptical. I've heard these declarations before, and I'm a
cynical reporter, I guess, but I just don't think this crisis is
done."

As I've said many times in the past, no solution exists for the Greece
problem. It's not that there are three or four different solutions,
and the different European factions simply can't agree which solution
to implement. The actual problem is that there are zero solutions, so
all they can do is kick the can down the road.

The reasoning behind the repeated efforts to postpone the problem is that
people believe that if they can stall long enough, then the real estate
and credit bubbles of six years ago will return. They keep saying that
the economy will start to grow again next quarter and it never does,
because the bubbles are still contracting, and will continue to do so.
There will be no real growth again until well into the 2020s.

So anyway, the "Kick the Can Theory" is proven correct one more time.

By the way, the "Kick the Can Theory" also applies to America's
"fiscal cliff" negotiations. BBC Podcast (MP3)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Japan, China, Senkaku, Diaoyu,
Massacre at Nanking, Nanjing, Russia, Syria,
Mikhail Bogdanov, Greece, Antonis Samaras, banking union,
Kick the Can Theory, Peter Spiegel

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*** 15-Dec-12 World View -- Outrage grows that U.S. did not jail anyone at HSBC bank for money laundering

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Outrage grows that U.S. did not jail anyone at HSBC bank for money laundering
• President Obama gives tear-filled statement about Newtown school shooting
• U.S. will send 400 troops with Patriot systems to Turkey-Syria border
• Russia supplies Syria with supersonic Iskander missiles to counter Patriots

****
**** Outrage grows that U.S. did not jail anyone at HSBC bank for money laundering
****


HSBC - The World's Laundry Bank (ZeroHedge)

HSBC, a bank headquartered in Britain, with huge presence in the
United States, settled with the Department of Justice on Thursday over
money-laundering charges that supported a breathtaking array of
international criminal and terrorist activity -- including drug
cartels in Mexico and Colombia and illegal financial transactions for
terrorists in Iran, Sudan, Myanmar and Libya. HSBC violated the Bank
Secrecy Act and the Trading with the Enemy Act, involving hundreds of
thousands of transactions that laundered billions of dollars.
According to the DOJ statement:

"HSBC is being held accountable for stunning failures
of oversight – and worse – that led the bank to permit narcotics
traffickers and others to launder hundreds of millions of dollars
through HSBC subsidiaries, and to facilitate hundreds of millions
more in transactions with sanctioned countries. The record of
dysfunction that prevailed at HSBC for many years was
astonishing."

HSBC was essentially the central banker for the criminal world,
laundering huge flows of money supporting criminal activities and
terrorism around the world. But as we know, the Obama administration
Department of Justice under Eric Holder adamantly refuses to prosecute
any banker, no matter how big or obvious the crime, because bankers
make such huge financial contributions to their campaigns. In this
case, HSBC was given a slap on the wrist -- a fine representing about
a week's worth of profits. No one is going to jail.

What excuse is the DOJ giving for not sending anyone to jail?
According to several reports, the DOJ is saying that sending someone
from HSBC to jail would destabilize the entire banking system. The
only thing it would destabilize is political contributions to the
politicians.

Financial writer Mike Taibbi is furious:

"It doesn't take a genius to see that the reasoning
here is beyond flawed. When you decide not to prosecute bankers
for billion-dollar crimes connected to drug-dealing and terrorism
(some of HSBC's Saudi and Bangladeshi clients had terrorist ties,
according to a Senate investigation), it doesn't protect the
banking system, it does exactly the opposite. It terrifies
investors and depositors everywhere, leaving them with the clear
impression that even the most "reputable" banks may in fact be
captured institutions whose senior executives are in the employ of
(this can't be repeated often enough) murderers and
terrorists. Even more shocking, the Justice Department's response
to learning about all of this was to do exactly the same thing
that the HSBC executives did in the first place to get themselves
in trouble – they took money to look the other way.

And not only did they sell out to drug dealers, they sold out
cheap. You'll hear bragging this week by the Obama administration
that they wrested a record penalty from HSBC, but it's a
joke."

As I've pointed out a number of times, we're seeing a repeat of 1930s
Germany, where respectable people were gangsters, and gangsters were
treated as respectable people.

As usual, many Gen-Xers as usual are supporting the DOJ decision not to
send anyone from HSBC to jail. Here's possibly the sleaziest defense of
all from one of the sleaziest Gen-X economists, Felix Salmon:

"[I]t’s important to put HSBC’s crimes in context. The
United States, in its role as global hegemon and guardian of the
world’s only real reserve currency, has unapologetically taken the
opportunity to use its economic power to push its geopolitical
agenda. For instance, if you’re an Iranian business and you want
to do business in dollars, the US is determined to make your life
as difficult as possible. The US might have no jurisdiction over
Iranian businesses, but it does have jurisdiction over nearly all
the important banks in the world, since it’s impossible to be a
global bank without having some kind of presence in the US. And —
as Argentina is finding out right now in its court case against
Elliott Associates — if you want to send dollars around the world,
you basically have to send them through the USA.

To put it another way, the laws that HSBC broke were laws designed
to bolster the international standing of the US relative to Iran
and other countries: they were geopolitically motivated, and the
intended target was not the international banking system, with
which the State Department has no particular beef, but rather
countries the State Department doesn’t like."

This is probably the epitome of the most sickening Gen-X stupidity.
But what I found interesting is that there are dozens of comments
following Salmon's article, and almost every one is contemptuous of
Salmon. Here a sample:

"What a piece of krap.

The Government could have prosecuted individuals without
destroying HSBC as an Institution.

When you launder money for terrorists and murderers and drug
cartels, you should be out of business. Your executives should be
prosecuted.

Were you paid by HSBC to write this article?"

There were so many comments like this, that Salmon had to add an
"update" paragraph to his article, saying that it would be OK to
prosecute executives. The problem with this feeble attempt to save
his reputation is that his reasoning about the U.S. being an evil
global hegemon picking on poor little Iran applies to the executives
as well. What a pathetic piece of work!

But I'm actually taking heart from all this. You have dozens of
comments expressing the highest contempt for Salmon and his article.
Many of these commenters, possibly most, are Gen-Xers themselves, and
I take this as a hopeful sign that Gen-Xers are finally beginning to
realize that the moral values and ethics promoted by the World War II
survivor generations weren't so full of shit after all. It appears
that the Gen-Xers are finally learning some hard lessons. Maybe, just
maybe, there's hope for Generation-X after all. U.S. Department of Justice and Mike Taibbi (Rolling Stone) and Felix Salmon (Reuters)

****
**** President Obama gives tear-filled statement about Newtown school shooting
****

President Obama, who through his silence condones, supports and
encourages violence by union thugs, on Friday gave a tear-filled
statement saying that violence in schools has to end, "regardless of
politics." CBS NY

****
**** U.S. will send 400 troops with Patriot systems to Turkey-Syria border
****

US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta paid a surprise visit to US
troops at Nato's Incirlik Air Base in Adana, Turkey, and authorized
the dispatch of two Patriot anti-missile system batteries to Turkey,
to be deployed on Turkey's border with Syria. In addition, 400 U.S.
soldiers will be sent to Turkey's border with Syria to operate the
Patriot systems. Germany and the Netherlands have also authorized
their own Patriot systems to be deployed to Turkey, with supporting
troops. The U.S. now has ground troops in Jordan and Turkey on
Syria's border, as well as an aircraft carrier fleet in the
Mediterranean near Syria's coast. Zaman (Istanbul)

****
**** Russia supplies Syria with supersonic Iskander missiles to counter Patriots
****

Russia has sent to Syria a shipment of Iskander ground to ground
missiles, which travel at hypersonic speed of over 1.3 miles per
second (Mach 6-7), and which can't be traced or destroyed by the
Patriot system. This is considered a "game changer," and is forcing a
re-evaluation of the entire American and Nato strategy toward Syria
and the Mideast. Pravda (Moscow) and Debka


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, HSBC, money laundering, Eric Holder,
Mike Taibbi, Felix Salmon, Newtown school shooting,
Turkey, Syria, Leon Panetta, Incirlik air base, Patriot system,
Russia, Iskander missiles

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*** 16-Dec-12 World View -- Memories of the slaughter at Beslan, North Ossetia

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Memories of the slaughter at Beslan, North Ossetia
• Ukraine's sale of weapons to Syria's rebels backfires
• Troubled Afghanistan counter-insurgency projects are costly and ineffective

****
**** Memories of the slaughter at Beslan, North Ossetia
****


A man touches a wall with pictures of children who died in the Beslan massacre (Reuters)

One of the saddest stories I covered in the last decade was the
terrorist attack on September 1, 2004, on a school in Beslan, a small
city in the Russian province of North Ossetia. The attack took place
over three days. Islamist terrorists took control of a large
elementary school, and all the children were held as hostages in the
gymnasium. Finally, Russian security forces stormed the building, and
what was left afterwards were the charred remains of 341 bodies, half
of them children. The perpetrator was terrorist leader Shamil
Basayev.

Almost as shocking as the attack itself, was what happened afterwards.
(From 2005: "Russia infuriated over ABC 'Nightline' interview of Shamil Basayev"
)

In July, 2005, ABC News Nightline, willing to exploit violence for
politics, aired a lengthy interview with Shamil Basayev himself,
allowing him to explain on worldwide television why the Beslan
massacre was justified:

"It’s not the children [of Beslan] who are
responsible. Responsibility is with the whole Russian
nation... If the war doesn’t come to each of them individually, it
will never stop in Chechnya.” Asked if a Beslan-type attack could
occur again, Basayev said: “Of course ... As long as the genocide
of the Chechen nation continues, as long as this mess continues,
anything can happen."

Russia was infuriated by this interview. An envoy of Vladimir Putin
said that America "is encouraging terrorism by employing 'dual
standards.'" President Alu Alkhanov of Chechnya said:

"I was startled by how they allowed this person, who
openly claimed responsibility for dozens of terrorist attacks in
Russia, which claimed hundreds of human lives, to voice new
threats against Russia and the Russian people. My opinion is that
those who gave the floor to Basayev, have not fully realized what
threat this person and other terrorists like him pose to the whole
world. We will never succeed in the fight against terrorism if
such an approach is adopted toward terrorists. Virtually no
peaceful place remains on the planet. The world should present a
united front against terrorism and refrain from dividing
terrorists into good ones and bad ones."

Shamil Basayev died
a year later
in a huge explosion. There was evidence that he died in the midst of
preparing for a new terrorist attack to coincide with the upcoming G-8
summit in St. Petersburg. Vladimir Putin said, "For the bandits, this
is just retribution for our children in Beslan ... and for all the
terrorist attacks they carried out in Moscow and other regions of
Russia."

****
**** Ukraine's sale of weapons to Syria's rebels backfires
****

In spite of opposition by Vladimir Putin's Russia, Ukraine has been
shipping arms to Syrian opposition forces through Arab proxies,
including Saudi Arabian proxies. Weapons crates found in the Syrian
city of aleppo show the arms, including AK-47 semi-automatic rifles,
were shipped from Ukraine. However, Syrian rebels have been confusing
Ukraine with Russia, and assume that Ukraine is supplying weapons to
the Bashar al-Assad regime as well as to the rebels. Therefore,
Syrian rebels have retaliated by kidnapping Ukrainian and Russian
journalists and threatening to attack both countries’ diplomatic
missions in Syria. Jamestown

****
**** Troubled Afghanistan counter-insurgency projects are costly and ineffective
****

A study by McClatchy shows that numerous humanitarian projects in
Afghanistan are extremely costly, and either ineffective or
counterproductive. In the rush to rebuild Afghanistan, the
U.S. government has charged ahead with ever-expanding development
programs despite questions about their impact, cost and value to
America's multi-billion-dollar campaign to shore up the pro-Western
Afghan president and prevent Taliban insurgents from seizing control.
Many of these projects were begun in the Bush administration, and were
failures at the time. The Obama administration said the failures were
caused because the Bush administration was distracted by the Iraq war.
So the Obama administration revamped the programs, and tripled the
costs from $1 billion to $3 billion. But now the failures are
continuing, despite the increased costs. McClatchy

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Russia, Beslan, North Ossetia,
Shamil Basayev, ABC News Nightline, Vladimir Putin,
Chechnya, Alu Alkhanov, Ukraine, Syria,
McClatchy, Afghanistan, Taliban

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*** 17-Dec-12 World View -- Japan's leadership shifts sharply right in a return to nationalism

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Japan's leadership shifts sharply right in a return to nationalism
• Assad bombs a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria
• Iran's Ahmadinejad cancels visit to Turkey over Syria disagreements
• Reminder: Generational Dynamics World View available through e-mail

****
**** Japan's leadership shifts sharply right in a return to nationalism
****


New Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (Reuters)

Japan's conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), led by Shinzo
Abe, won an overwhelming election victory in the Diet (the Lower House
of parliament) on Sunday, gaining 320 out of 480 seats, or 2/3 of the
house. This is a "veto-proof majority," in the sense that the LDP can
override and pass a bill even if it's defeated in the Upper House.
The LDP was returned to power after ruling Japan for 50 years, before
it was ousted in 2009.

This was a devastating defeat for the ruling Democratic Party of Japan
(DPJ), and the current prime minister Yoshihiko Noda. Noda was
elected only 3 years ago, but many believe that his loss was caused
by bad luck - the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster on his watch.

Abe is taking advantage of a new nationalist wave in Japan, following
the confrontation between Japan and China over the Senkaku/Diaoyu
islands. This level of tension increased sharply last week, when
Japan scrambled war jets to confront a Chinese surveillance plane that
traveled into the islands' airspace. ( "14-Dec-12 World View -- Japan scrambles F-15 jets to challenge Chinese surveillance plane"
)

Abe says that the islands indisputably belong to Japan:

"China is challenging the fact that (the islands) are
Japan’s inherent territory. Our objective is to stop the
challenge. We don’t intend to worsen relations between Japan and
China."

He will also seek to permanently base public servants on the islands
to strengthen Japan's effective control.

It's hard to see what he means that "we don't intend to worsen
relations," unless perhaps he's making the point that relations
between Japan and China are already so bad and so hostile, that it
really doesn't make any different what he does.

Abe has indicated some other policy changes that will infuriate the
increasingly nationalistic and belligerent Chinese. He intends to
establish closer relations with the U.S. and the Obama administration.
He intends to revoke a 1993 Japanese admission that Japan used Chinese
women as "comfort women" during World War II. He intends to amend
Japan's constitution, removing the pacifist provisions that have been
in place since the end of WW II. And he plans to resume personal
visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, containing Japanese dead from WW II,
including 14 convicted or accused Class A war criminals. Abe also
plans a pro-nuclear policy, and to reverse the closings of nuclear
plants that have occurred since the Fukushima disaster.

The Japanese electorate signaled its sharp move to the right in other
ways as well. The newly formed ultra-nationalist Japan Restoration
Party became the third largest party in the Diet, while the pacifist,
anti-nuclear Tomorrow Party of Japan suffered a major setback.
The Asahi Shimbun and Japan Times

****
**** Assad bombs a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria
****

The regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad sent new shock waves
through the Arab world on Sunday, when his warplanes bombed the
Yarmouk refugee camp, which houses hundreds of thousands of
Palestinian refugees and their descendants. The camp was set up in
1957 for Palestinians displaced by the war between Arabs and Jews
following the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. The regime
attack was a surprise because although al-Assad has been targeting
Sunni Muslims across Syria, the Yarmouk camp houses the radical
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an anti-Israel group
that has been supporting al-Assad regime in the current conflict.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said,

"We call on the warring sides in Syria to spare the
Palestinian people and their camps in Syria. [The bombing of the
refugee camps] must be stopped immediately.

We also call on the international community to take immediate
action to provide protection to our people in Syria."

Al-Jazeera

****
**** Iran's Ahmadinejad cancels visit to Turkey over Syria disagreements
****

Relations between Iran and Turkey continue to deteriorate, because the
two countries support opposite sides in the conflict in Syria. Iran
is a staunch defender of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, and has
provided troops and weapons to al-Assad. Turkey used to have a close
relationship with al-Assad, until the current conflict began, but now
they're mortal enemies, with Turkey hosting well over 100,000 Syrians
in refugee camps along the border. Iran's president Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad had been scheduled to visit Turkey on Monday. Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the central city of Konya for
an annual ceremony marking the death of Rumi, the 13th century Sufi
mystic. However, Iran is furious that Turkey is installing Nato
Patriot missiles along its border with Syria, and Iran's military
chief said that the move could lead to a "world war." The larger
picture is that Iran has been trying for decades to gain hegemony over
the entire Iranian peninsula, and has been courting terrorist groups
in Yemen, Lebanon, Jordan and Gaza with weapons and money. On the
other side, Turkey hopes to regain some of the role that it played
when it was the head of the Ottoman Empire, and also hopes to gain
hegemony over the Arabian peninsula. The two are headed for a
collision. Reuters and Arab News

****
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KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Japan, Shinzo Abe, Liberal Democratic Party, LDP,
Democratic Party of Japan, DPJ, Yoshihiko Noda,
Senkaku, Diaoyu, China, comfort women, Yasukuni Shrine,
Japan Restoration Party, Tomorrow Party,
Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Yarmouk refugee camp,
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine,
Iran, Turkey, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
Konya, Lebanon, Jordan, Gaza

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At the least I would expect the deposited dirty money from drug traffickers, terrorists, and thug regimes be confiscated by the US Government.

Perhaps Ukraine is confused with Russia because all infidels look alike.

*** 18-Dec-12 World View -- After 20 years of deflation, Japan's new leader will try devaluation

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Silvio Berlusconi, 76, to marry stunning 27 year old brunette
• Thousands of Palestinians flee Syria's Yarmouk refugee camp
• After 20 years of deflation, Japan's new leader will try devaluation

****
**** Silvio Berlusconi, 76, to marry stunning 27 year old brunette
****


Francesca Pascale with Silvio Berlusconi

European political leaders were horrified last week when Italy's
former premier Silvio Berlusconi said that he would make a comeback
and seek a fifth term as prime minister. Germany's chancellor Angela
Merkel and France's then-president Nicolas Sarkozy were delighted when
he resigned last year, because they blamed him for the financial
condition of Italy, and because they felt that his "bunga bunga
parties," always attended by gorgeous women, some of whom he
(allegedly) slept with, sullied the names of honorable politicians
everywhere. Now that he may return again, they can barely conceal
their disdain.

But on Monday, 76 year old Berlusconi had a different kind of
announcement: That he was engaged to be married to a stunning 27 year
old brunette beauty, Francesca Pascale. Pascale was a founding member
of a support group called "Silvio, we miss you." She has previously
said the three most important things in her life are her family,
politics and Mr. Berlusconi. It's said that she was jealous of the
other women in Berlusconi's inner circle.

Berlusconi, a billionaire, announced the engagement on Monday on a tv
talk show:

"It's official, I have got engaged to Francesca
Pascale and finally I feel less lonely. There is a 49 year age
difference between us. She is a beautiful girl on the outside and
even more beautiful on the inside, of solid moral principles, she
is very close to me, she loves me and I feel the same way. My
daughter Marina appreciates her and loves her very much
too."

Spiegel and Iconcast and Christian Post

****
**** Thousands of Palestinians flee Syria's Yarmouk refugee camp
****

The Yarmouk refugee camp in southern Syria, home of hundreds of
thousands of Palestinian refugees of the 1948 Arab-Jewish war, and
their descendants, was bombed by president Bashar al-Assad's air force
on Sunday, as we reported

yesterday. On Monday, rumors that Syrian government forces were
massing for an attack sent thousands of residents of the refugee camp
running south across the border to Lebanon. Yarmouk residents are
split between pro-Assad and anti-Assad forces, and there have been
sporadic gunfights between the two groups for months. LA Times

****
**** After 20 years of deflation, Japan's new leader will try devaluation
****

Japan's economy has been in a deflationary spiral ever since the huge
1980s real estate and stock market bubble began to crash in 1990. The
Tokyo stock exchange index is still down 75% from its bubble high at
the end of 1989. Now, Japan's newly elected leader, Shinzo Abe, plans
to make a full-scale effort to end the deflation by pressuring the
Bank of Japan to use quantitative easing to flood the market with
money. This will devalue the yen, relative to the dollar and other
currencies, and make Japan's exports cheaper on the world markets.
Massive amounts of quantitative easily in the U.S. and Europe have not
been successful in reversing deflation or in growing the economy, so
many people believe that it won't be effective in Japan either. It's
worth pointing out here that macroeconomic models have been
consistently wrong about almost everything for the past six years.
Even before that, economics did not predict and can't explain the tech
bubble at the end of the 1990s, the real estate bubble, the credit
bubble, the 2007 credit crunch, or anything that's happened since
then, and they don't have a clue what's going to happen in 2013. Now
they're going to repeat some of these same policies in Japan, when
they don't have the vaguest clue what's going there either. Telegraph (London)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Italy, Silvio Berlusconi,
Francesca Pascale, Syria, Yarmouk refugee camp,
Bashar al-Assad, Japan, deflation, Shinzo Abe

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