*** 5-Aug-15 World View -- Britain's National Health Service (NHS) faces existential financial crisis

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Criminality and fraud in Veterans Administration and Obamacare
• Britain's National Health Service (NHS) faces existential financial crisis
• Summary of Obamacare findings

****
**** Criminality and fraud in Veterans Administration and Obamacare
****


Veterans Affairs plaque

I've told a number of people that I was researching an article on
Healthcare.gov, the greatest IT (information technology) disaster in
history. I have in fact found a great deal of criminal fraud in the
Healthcare.gov web sites software development projects, but I haven't
finished the article yet because I've expanded it substantially to
include an economic analysis of Obamacare. I hope to have it done
within the next couple of weeks.

By way of introduction, it's worthwhile reviewing what's happened
with the Veterans Administration healthcare system.

In 2006, far-left NY Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote the following,
describing the Veterans Administration (VA) health care system:

<QUOTE>"[The VA's] success story is one of the best-kept
secrets in the American policy debate. ... [Conservative] pundits
and policy makers...can’t handle the cognitive
dissonance."<END QUOTE>

Krugman is not known for his intelligence, or for much else besides
his loony left ideology. After Krugman wrote this, the horror show of
the VA health system began to come out in the media.

We now know that the VA system is loaded with fraud, corruption,
lying, and unbelievably poor health care services. Since this has
been well-reported in the media, we won't do more than list some of
the well-documented problems:

• Veterans on waiting lists had to wait many months to get
  medical services, while administrators lied and provided phony waiting
  lists to the VA.
  
• Workers at VA hospitals were often ordered by their superiors to
  lie to VA about waiting times.
  
• Dr. Jose Mathews, former chief of psychiatry for the St. Louis VA
  Health Care System, was bullied, demoted and harassed by superiors
  and co-workers when he became a whistleblower and reported that
  psychiatrists there were seeing patients less than four hours a day.
  Mathews also discovered that false data was being entered into
  veterans' medical records.
  
• Another whistleblower, Dr. Katherine Mitchell, medical director of
  the Iraq and Afghanistan Post-Deployment Center of the Phoenix VA,
  told Congress of long and secret waiting lists.
  
• In Chicago, employee bonuses were tied to manipulating wait time
  data.

The bottom line is that apparently no one in the VA actually gave a
damn about medical care for veterans.

This appears to be exactly what's happening in Obamacare, according to
the research that I'll be reporting within a couple of weeks.

There will also be a separate article posted on my web site on
academic research into the general problem of sabotage, fraud and
subversion in software development projects. This will be of interest
to academic researchers and software development managers. Forbes (23-May-2014) and St Louis Today (8-Jul-2014)

****
**** Britain's National Health Service (NHS) faces existential financial crisis
****


UK National Health Service (NHS) launch leaflet, July 1948

Those who favor copying the United Kingdom's single-payer National
Health Service (NHS) should be aware that on Monday it was announced
that NHS is facing an existential financial crisis. NHS health care
providers are forecasting a deficit of over $3 billion in 2015-16.
The deficit is growing rapidly, and the NHS is being required to find
$35 billion in "efficiency savings" by 2020.

According to a letter sent on Monday to NHS from David Bennett, head
of the Monitor agency that monitors the NHS:

<QUOTE>"As you know, the NHS is facing an almost
unprecedented financial challenge this year. Current plans are
quite simply unaffordable. As I have said before, if we are to do
the best we can for patients we must leave no stone unturned in
our collective efforts to make the money we have go as far as
possible."<END QUOTE>

This week, the NHS is being told to take the following steps in
response to the financial crisis:

• Staffing: Hospitals and other providers are being told
  to fill vacancies "only where essential," in order to cut down the
  number of people providing medical services.
  
• Waiting times: Currently, hospitals have to see 90% of
  patients requiring an overnight stay within 18 weeks of a referral
  from a GP (General Practitioner). Those waiting time requirements
  will be scrapped.
  
• Waiting times: Currently, 95% of day patients must be seen
  in the same timeframe. Those waiting time requirements will also be
  scrapped.

These minor tweaks to the NHS system will not come anywhere close to
providing the required $35 billion in "efficiency savings." A massive
restructuring will be required.

According to the Labor Party's health secretary Andy Burnham:

<QUOTE>"This is a sign of a serious deterioration in NHS
finances. It suggests that the financial crisis in the NHS is
threatening to spiral out of control and hit standards of patient
care.

The suggestion that hospitals can ignore safe staffing guidance
will alarm patients and the Government must decide if it will
overrule this advice.

Morale in the NHS is already at an all-time low and doctors have
lost confidence in the Health Secretary.

It will raise further questions about how the Government can
possibly fulfil commitments on a seven-day NHS without the money
to back it up."<END QUOTE>

Not surprisingly, with so much money involved, the NHS is filled with
criminality and fraud, just as in the case of Obamacare and the
Veterans Administration. A study last year by Portsmouth University
found that fraud alone is costing the NHS something like $8 billion a
year. Some of the fraudulent activities include:

• Non-payment of prescription charges by patients
• Medical professionals claiming for work they have not done
• Dentists making claims for non-existent patients
• GPs (General Practitioners) falsifying records to claim extra
  payments
• Consultants putting in for bogus overtime.

Not surprisingly, "the NHS in recent years has stopped measuring its
own losses," according to the report. When an organization stops
collecting early warning data, that's a sure sign that a problem is
turning into a full-scale disaster.

Britain's dentistry services have already become so bad that many
people are buying "do-it-yourself (DIY) dentistry kits" that can be
obtained from local stores. According to one resident, "DIY dentistry
is fairly common round here. They sell a lot of those first aid kits
... and you’ve got people taking care of their whole family’s teeth
with them."

The NHS financial crisis is so enormous that nobody doubts that it
will seriously impact patient care. The NHS is facing a massive
restructuring.

By American standards, an 18-week waiting time is ridiculously long,
and now the NHS is scrapping even that waiting period. Any American
who uses the NHS as a model has to be a total moron. Independent (London) and BBC and Independent (London) and BBC (24-Mar-2014) and
Guardian (3-Apr-2015)

****
**** Summary of Obamacare findings
****

The following is a brief summary of my findings that I will be
posting within a couple of weeks:

• The core problem with Healthcare.gov was that each web site
  should have cost $10-20 million to develop, but the Obama
  administration provided $150-200 million per web site. In order to
  spend all that money, contractors hired thousands of programmers, many
  of them incompetent. The resulting disaster enormously humiliated the
  Obama administration, which was well deserved.
  
• Healthcare.gov web sites are already outdated technology, so
  there's no chance of upgrading to mobile phones and tablets. Also,
  with a code base of hundreds of millions of lines of code, the web sites are
  unsupportable. In the endgame, these dinosaur web sites will have to
  be thrown out.
  
• The Medicaid expansion made millions of new people insured,
  creating a major financial crisis in Kentucky and other states.
  Obamacare imposed what I call "Nixon-Obama price controls," to
  emphasize the fact that the imposed Medicaid price controls are as
  destructive to our economy as Nixon's price controls in the 1970s that
  destroyed the economy for a decade.
  
• Obamacare confiscated the $710 billion Medicare insurance fund
  that workers have been paying into for decades, and used it to fund a
  bunch of Obamacare entities. These entities were supposed to be
  self-sustaining by now, as the Medicare money runs out, but they're
  almost all financial disasters: Obamacare exchanges, Obamacare risk
  corridors, Obamacare co-ops, and Obamacare web sites. In the endgame,
  these will all have to be thrown out.
  
• The $710 billion Medicare insurance fund has essentially been
  thrown into the garbage, with almost nothing to show for it.
  
• The number 12 million of "newly insured" people is essentially
  fraudulent because it doesn't take into account the many millions of
  people who are effectively uninsured, either because they're on
  Medicaid and can't find a doctor who takes Medicaid, or because
  they're on a standard "bronze" plan with a $10,000-12,000 deductible,
  and have to pay all their medical bills anyway.
  
• Before Obamacare, any uninsured person could get medical care in a
  hospital emergency room. The Obamacare endgame is that the only place
  where a Medicaid patient will get medical care is in a hospital
  emergency room, where they'll get $50 worth of medical services, since
  that's the Medicaid reimbursement to the hospital. As before, only
  people with private health insurance will get good medical
  care.

UK's National Health Service, Veteran's Administration health care, and
Obamacare all share the same things: fraud, criminality and worsening
health care. Unfortunately, there's little chance that any lessons
will be learned.

By the way, I'm perhaps uniquely qualified to do this analysis. I'm
an apolitical, non-ideological, highly analytical writer. I have
decades of experience in software development (Resume: http://www.jxenakis.com/resume).
And I also have decades of experience as a tech journalist, including
two years as Boston Bureau Chief of InformationWeek Magazine, and ten
years (part time) as Technology Editor for CFO Magazine (Examples:
http://ww2.cfo.com/author/john-xenakis/).


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Veterans Administration, Obamacare,
Healthcare.gov, Paul Krugman, Jose Mathews, Katherine Mitchell,
Britain, National Health Service, NHS, David Bennett,
Andy Burnham, Portsmouth University,
Medicaid, Medicare insurance fund, Obamacare exchanges,
Obamacare risk corridors, Obamacare co-ops, Obamacare web sites

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*** 6-Aug-15 World View -- U.S. program to train Syrian rebels appears near collapse

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Hundreds of migrant deaths in Mediterranean highlight Libya-Calais relationship
• U.S.-trained Free Syrian Army's Division 30 suffers major defeat
• US program to train rebels in Syria appears flawed from the start

****
**** Hundreds of migrant deaths in Mediterranean highlight Libya-Calais relationship
****


Migrants in raft rescued from capsized boat on Wednesday (AFP)

In the latest mass migrant death in the Mediterranean Sea, a boat from
Libya with 600-700 migrants capsized just as rescue boats were
approaching. Apparently the migrants became excited by the
approaching rescue inflatable boats, and all crowded on one side of
their ship, causing it to capsize and sink within a couple of minutes.

Most of the deaths were of people who were in the cabin below
deck. Traffickers charge migrants a lower "below deck" fare than
they charge migrants to remain on deck. However, traveling
below deck in a massively overcrowded boat brings a much high
risk of death.

Migrants are crossing the Mediterranean in massive numbers this
summer. In a single weekend in June, Italian authorities rescued
5,800 migrants. The total number to have arrived by boat from Libya
into Italy and France is over 100,000 so far this year.

In the meantime, the migrant crisis in Calais, France, is continuing
unabated. ( "31-Jul-15 World View -- 'Swarm' of migrants causing crisis at Eurotunnel from France to Britain"
)

There are now some 5,000 migrants camping out in the migrant camp
known as "The Jungle" on the outskirts of Calais, which is near the
entrance to the Eurotunnel that connects France to Britain through the
English Channel.

It's believed that many of the 5,000 migrants around Calais were among
the 100,000 that crossed the Mediterranean to Italy and Greece. It's
suspected that authorities in France and Italy, wanting to get rid of
the problem, actively encouraged the migrants to go north to Britain.

Illegal migrants may try to make their homes in any of the European
countries, but Britain is a favorite destination because of liberal
welfare and medical services policies, and because they prefer an
English-speaking country. Irish Times and Telegraph (London)

****
**** U.S.-trained Free Syrian Army's Division 30 suffers major defeat
****

The al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front) has delivered a
stinging defeat to the U.S.-trained Free Syrian Army Division 30, just
days after it entered the battlefield for the first time. Of the
50-60 man division, seven men, including three of the group’s leaders,
were captured and taken prisoner on Wednesday of last week by
al-Nusra. On Friday, al-Nusra killed one more man, and wounded 8
others. Then on Monday of this week, five more men were captured.

In June of last year, the Obama administration announced a program
costing $500 million, later increased to $1.1 billion, to train 5,000
"moderate" rebel fighters per year in Syria to fight the so-called
Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh).

However, last month, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter was asked by
Congress how many of the 5,000 had been trained in the last year, and
he answered that only 60 had been trained.

Those 60 trained rebels made up the Free Syrian Army Division 30, the
division that was decimated by al-Nusra in a series of attacks in the
past week, putting the viability of the division and of the entire
rebel-training program into question.

According to reports, the attacks by al-Nusra were a surprise to the
American military, because they believed that al-Nusra would "welcome
Division 30 as an ally in its fight against the Islamic State."

In fact, after last Friday's fighting, Division 30 put this statement
on its Facebook page: "Division 30’s command calls, for the second
time, on our brothers in Jabhat al-Nusra to cease these actions,
preserve the blood of Muslims and protect unity." However, that was
followed by the new al-Nusra attack on Monday. Guardian (London) and Middle East Eye and Vox

****
**** US program to train rebels in Syria appears flawed from the start
****

On Wednesday, the BBC World Service broadcast an interview with
Captain Ammar al-Wawi, one of the remaining survivors of Division 30.
My transcription:

<QUOTE>"How come Daesh was created in a very short time, 6 to
12 months, then fights the entire world in Iraq and Syria, and
occupies 50% of both Syria and Iraq with no international support,
but this plan backed by many countries, trains only 54 fighters in
6 months?

The Americans are ready to train and form a national army of
15,000 fighters, and they say they're ready to back it financially
and militarily. In addition to the air cover.

The truth is that in the six months only 60 fighters have been
trained, so if only 60 fighters get trained every 6 months, we'll
need decades to train 15,000."<END QUOTE>

The BBC also spoke to Robert Ford, the US Ambassador to Syria until
last year, and was asked whether the rebel training program is off to
a bad start (my transcription):

<QUOTE>"Yes, it's a terrible start, it's an awful start. The
program from the beginning had a serious structural problems. The
entire vision of the program made little sense, when they insisted
that the fighters the Americans would train pledge -- in writing
no less -- that they would only fight the Islamic State, and never
fight the Assad regime, even though, as your correspondent
mentioned, the Assad regime has been fighting them for four years,
killing far, far, far more Syrians than the Islamic State ever
did, as awful as the Islamic State is. ...

Second problem is - the Americans didn't have a good sense before
they started as to whether or not they would provide close air
support, and there were the delays that you talked about. ...

And the bigger problem, though, really is, will people that the
United States trains, but who pledge to fight only IS -- will they
be viewed as loyal patriotic Syrians fighting in this horrible
civil war by the other groups, or will they be viewed as American
stooges, and basically as an American fifth column, and therefore,
they will be more or less on their own all the time? ...

You're not going to be able to bomb the Islamic State into
oblivion. We've just had stories based out of American
intelligence sources earlier this week on the AP that American
intelligence estimates that the IS basically replaced all of their
casualties from American bombing with new recruits during the past
year."<END QUOTE>

Right now, the $1.1 billion Obama administration program to train
"moderate" Syrian rebels to fight ISIS appears to be collapsing, and
it's not clear if the administration is able to do anything to save
it. BBC

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Libya, France, Calais, Mediterranean, Italy,
Greece, The Jungle,
Syria, Free Syrian Army, Division 30, Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Nusra Front,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Ash Carter, Ammar al-Wawi, Robert Ford

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*** 7-Aug-15 World View -- As Iran rises in the Mideast, Kurds benefit in Iraq and Syria

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• As Iran rises in the Mideast, Kurds benefit in Iraq and Syria
• Saudi Arabia suffers deadliest terrorism attack in years
• Puerto Rico default triggers selloff in municipal bond funds

****
**** As Iran rises in the Mideast, Kurds benefit in Iraq and Syria
****


Kurdish women fighting ISIS in Iraq (AFP)

While the Iran nuclear deal has thrown the entire Arab world into
political disarray, and while Turkey is increasingly at war with the
terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the "moderate" Kurds are
looking at what is apparently the best chance they've had in decades
to get a Kurdish state.

The Arabs, Iran, Turkey, the al-Assad Syrian regime, the Kurds, and
the U.S. are all involved in the war in Syria and Iraq in one way or
another, all with completely different objectives. But they all have
one thing in common: They're all fighting the so-called Islamic State
(IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) -- more precisely, they're all fighting
ISIS and using the fight against ISIS as a cover for their own
objectives.

The Kurds are one of America's key allies in Iraq and Syria in the
fight against ISIS, and have benefited from airstrikes from the US-led
coalition. With the help from these airstrikes, the Kurds have
successfully taken control of substantial territory in northern Syria
and Iraq, along Turkey's border.

Furthermore, the Kurds are getting substantial help from Iran.
Reports are that Iran convinced the regime of Syria's president Bashar
al-Assad to grant the autonomy and de facto local independence
to the Kurds in Western Syria, and Iran convinced the Shia-led
government in Iraq to give the a higher level of autonomy to the Kurds
in Iraq.

As we wrote in "26-Jul-15 World View -- Turkey bombs ISIS targets in northern Syria to set up 'safe zone'"
, the Kurds in northern Syria are separated into two
large enclaves, one in the east up the border with Iraq, and one in
the west. If the Kurds can unite those two regions, then it can
declare the entire region a Kurdish state, possibly including
parts of Iraq, southeastern Turkey, and even northwestern Iran.

Even without a Kurdish state, Turkey would face on its southern border
a stable and sustainable alliance headed by Iran, with the al-Assad
government in Syria, Hezbollah, the Shia-controlled government, and
Kurdish forces. This would give Iran control of a strip of land from
Iran to the Mediterranean, isolating Turkey from the rest of the
Mideast, and almost encircling Turkey with Iran's allies.

With or without a Kurdish state, this would be intolerable to Turkey.
That's why Turkey needs its 110-km wide "safe zone" in northern Syria,
separating the two Kurdish enclaves. The announced purpose of the
"safe zone" was to provide a refuge to Syrians from ISIS, but that's
not as important an objective as providing a refuge to Turkey from
Iran and the Kurds. Geopolitical Monitor and Al Arabiya

****
**** Saudi Arabia suffers deadliest terrorism attack in years
****

A suicide bomber struck a Sunni mosque in the southwestern city of
Abha in Saudi Arabia on Thursday, killing at least 13 people, 10 of
whom were security or police forces. There have been previous attacks
on Shia mosques in Saudi Arabia's east, perpetrated by the ISIS-linked
Najd Province terrorist group. Since this time the target was a Sunni
mosque in a city on the border with Yemen, the initial reactions were
to suggest that the perpetrators were Houthi terrorists from Yemen,
where the Saudis are fighting a war against the Iran-backed Houthis.

However, a previously unknown Sunni terrorist group, identifying
itself as ISIS-linked "Hijaz Province," claimed responsibility for the
terrorist attack. The "Hijaz" name is a reference to the historic
western part of Saudi Arabia that is home to Islam's holiest sites of
Mecca and Medina.

The attack was devastating, and it was the deadliest attack against
Saudi security personnel in years. It's certain to increase demands,
both domestically and internationally, for the Saudis to become more
heavily involved in fighting ISIS in Syria, possibly putting
troops on the ground.

These demands will come at a time when Saudi Arabia, popularly thought
to be one of the richest countries in the world, is running out of
money, forcing the government to borrow money by issuing bonds. The
loss of reserves is caused by a sharp rise in military spending and a
collapse in oil prices, the main source of revenue. Saudi Gazette and AP and CNN

****
**** Puerto Rico default triggers selloff in municipal bond funds
****

Individual investors pulled $308 million from municipal bond funds in
the last week, in a reaction to Puerto Rico's failure to make a $58
million debt repayment on Tuesday, putting Puerto Rico in technical
default.

Puerto Rico is seeking to restructure its $72 billion of debt, which
is widely held because the 10% interest is "triple-tax free," meaning
that you can earn 10% interest every year and not have to pay federal,
state or municipal tax on the interest you collect.

In the midst of the growing economic crisis, a severe drought is
causing a water shortage, and is forcing businesses to temporarily
close, public schools to cancel breakfast service and people to find
creative ways to stay clean amid sweltering temperatures. Bloomberg and VOA


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Kurds, Turkey,
Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK, Bashar al-Assad, Hezbollah,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Saudi Arabia, Abha, Yemen, Houthi, Hijaz Province,
Puerto Rico

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*** 8-Aug-15 World View -- UNHCR: Greece's islands Kos, Chios, Lesbos are in 'total chaos' over migrants

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Hungary speeds up construction of anti-migrant border fence
• UNHCR: Greece's islands Kos, Chios, Lesbos are in 'total chaos' over migrants

****
**** Hungary speeds up construction of anti-migrant border fence
****


Hungary's border fence is to be completed by end of August (Reuters)

According to Hungary's prime minister Viktor Orbán, who is personally
disliked by other EU leaders, more than 100,000 migrants have crossed
into Hungary from outside the EU since the start of 2015. Most of the
migrants have crossed into Hungary from Serbia, which is not an EU
country.

On June 17, Hungary announced that it would build a 175km (109 mile)
steel border fence along the Serbian border to keep migrants from
entering Hungary. ( "25-Jun-15 World View -- Hungary and Austria in disagreement over migrants"
)

The fence was originally scheduled for completion by the end of
November, but now construction has been sped up, with the intention of
building it by the end of August. The government is using prisoners
and unemployed people to build the fence as quickly as possible. In
addition, Hungary plans to deal with migrants caught cutting through
the fence by "punishing [them] in an exemplary manner," including
prison sentences.

But in a sense, building the fence is backfiring. As word spread
among migrants planning to come to Hungary that the fence was being
built, many of them sped up their plans. As a result, daily numbers
of migrants caught by police have been rising steadily, from 300 a day
in April to 400 daily in May, to 1,500 a day since mid-July. BBC and AP

****
**** UNHCR: Greece's islands Kos, Chios, Lesbos are in 'total chaos' over migrants
****

Although Italy has been the country most in the news recently with
regard to migrants arriving in Europe, with Calais France close
behind, the country that's actually had to deal with the most migrants
is Greece.

About 124,000 migrants have arrived in Greece this year, about 50,000
in July alone. In most cases, they arrive via Turkey mostly from
Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Their first point of arrival in Greece
is usually three Greek islands: Kos, Chios and Lesbos.

The UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) agency said on Friday
that the situation on the three Greek islands is "total chaos," with
inadequate accommodation, water and sanitation. According to Vincent
Cochetel, the European director of the agency, the facilities for
refugees on the Greek islands were "totally inadequate," and Greece
must "lead and coordinate" the efforts of the EU countries:

<QUOTE>"On most of the islands there is no reception
capacity, people are not sleeping under any form of roof. So it's
total chaos on the islands.

After a couple of days they are transferred to Athens, there is
nothing waiting for them in Athens."<END QUOTE>

Greece's prime minister Alexis Tsipras has been highly critical of
European officials on the issue of Greece's bailout, and is demanding
aid to handle the tsunami of refugees: "The EU is being tested on the
issue of Greece. It has responded negatively on the economic front -
that's my view. I hope it will respond positively on the humanitarian
front." BBC and Reuters


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Hungary, Viktor Orbán, Serbia,
Greece, Kos, Chios, Lesbos, Alexis Tsipras,
UN High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, Vincent Cochetel

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Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

*** 8-Aug-15 World View -- UNHCR: Greece's islands Kos, Chios, Lesbos are in 'total chaos' over migrants

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Hungary speeds up construction of anti-migrant border fence
• UNHCR: Greece's islands Kos, Chios, Lesbos are in 'total chaos' over migrants

****
**** Hungary speeds up construction of anti-migrant border fence
****


Hungary's border fence is to be completed by end of August (Reuters)

According to Hungary's prime minister Viktor Orbán, who is personally
disliked by other EU leaders, more than 100,000 migrants have crossed
into Hungary from outside the EU since the start of 2015. Most of the
migrants have crossed into Hungary from Serbia, which is not an EU
country.

On June 17, Hungary announced that it would build a 175km (109 mile)
steel border fence along the Serbian border to keep migrants from
entering Hungary. ( "25-Jun-15 World View -- Hungary and Austria in disagreement over migrants"
)

The fence was originally scheduled for completion by the end of
November, but now construction has been sped up, with the intention of
building it by the end of August. The government is using prisoners
and unemployed people to build the fence as quickly as possible. In
addition, Hungary plans to deal with migrants caught cutting through
the fence by "punishing [them] in an exemplary manner," including
prison sentences.

But in a sense, building the fence is backfiring. As word spread
among migrants planning to come to Hungary that the fence was being
built, many of them sped up their plans. As a result, daily numbers
of migrants caught by police have been rising steadily, from 300 a day
in April to 400 daily in May, to 1,500 a day since mid-July. BBC and AP

****
**** UNHCR: Greece's islands Kos, Chios, Lesbos are in 'total chaos' over migrants
****

Although Italy has been the country most in the news recently with
regard to migrants arriving in Europe, with Calais France close
behind, the country that's actually had to deal with the most migrants
is Greece.

About 124,000 migrants have arrived in Greece this year, about 50,000
in July alone. In most cases, they arrive via Turkey mostly from
Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Their first point of arrival in Greece
is usually three Greek islands: Kos, Chios and Lesbos.

The UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) agency said on Friday
that the situation on the three Greek islands is "total chaos," with
inadequate accommodation, water and sanitation. According to Vincent
Cochetel, the European director of the agency, the facilities for
refugees on the Greek islands were "totally inadequate," and Greece
must "lead and coordinate" the efforts of the EU countries:

<QUOTE>"On most of the islands there is no reception
capacity, people are not sleeping under any form of roof. So it's
total chaos on the islands.

After a couple of days they are transferred to Athens, there is
nothing waiting for them in Athens."<END QUOTE>

Greece's prime minister Alexis Tsipras has been highly critical of
European officials on the issue of Greece's bailout, and is demanding
aid to handle the tsunami of refugees: "The EU is being tested on the
issue of Greece. It has responded negatively on the economic front -
that's my view. I hope it will respond positively on the humanitarian
front." BBC and Reuters


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Hungary, Viktor Orbán, Serbia,
Greece, Kos, Chios, Lesbos, Alexis Tsipras,
UN High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, Vincent Cochetel

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This will not end well. It is notable that in Europe there were major issues with "stateless peoples" during the interwar years, a problem that crested on the eve of WW2. Hanah Arendt mentioned this in "The Origins of Totalitarianism." History does not repeat but it rhymes.

*** 9-Aug-15 World View -- 9-Aug-15 News -- Haiti's parliamentary elections promise little besides chaos

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Haiti's parliamentary elections promise little besides chaos
• Mulattos versus Noirs in Haiti

****
**** Haiti's parliamentary elections promise little besides chaos
****


Haiti after the January 2010 earthquake

Today (Sunday), Haiti will hold its first parliamentary elections
since the massive January 2010 earthquake that killed more than
200,000 Haitians, and devastated the entire country.

The elections were supposed to be held in 2011, but they were
postponed repeatedly because toxic Haitian politics, led by president
Michel Martelly, a former carnival singer known as "Sweet Micky."
Martelly was elected in 2011 as a supporter of the majority "noirs,"
or descendants of slaves. The Parliament dissolved itself in January
of this year, and since then Martelly has been governing by decree.
Martelly is still popular, but these days he's accused of being too
authoritarian, more in league with the minority "mulattos," supported
by international élites.

More than 1,800 candidates from dozens of parties will be on the
ballots on Sunday, running for 138 open legislative seats. It will
take days or weeks to count the ballots and determine the winners, and
then there will be runoff elections on October 25. October 25 is also
the day when presidential elections will take place. Martelly will
not be eligible to run for another term, but there will be more than
50 other candidates for voters to choose from. If necessary, a
presidential runoff election will take place on December 27.

It's hoped that with fresh leadership, the country can finally begin
to recover from the 2010 earthquake.

There has already been huge amounts of money donated to rebuilding
Haiti after the earthquake, but it doesn't seem to have done much
good. Bill Clinton and the Clinton foundation raised millions of
dollars. Celebrities organized high-profile benefits. The American
Red Cross raised almost $500 million, promising to rebuild homes,
schools and infrastructure. According to a recent investigation, the
actual number of permanent homes built through the Red Cross in Haiti
is six. Thanks to the investigation, Red Cross officials have been in
the process of making excuses. The money appears to have gone into
the pockets of crony organizations in the form of grants which the Red
Cross says can't be publicly disclosed. Apparently, these were all
American organizations, not Haitian organizations, so little of the
$500 million seems to have reached Haiti.

Because of the massive numbers of candidates, few people expect the
elections to produce the kind of leadership that Haiti needs, or that
Haiti will anytime soon be able to completely recover from the
devastation of the 2010 earthquake. International Business Times and BBC and
Chicago Tribune and NPR

****
**** Mulattos versus Noirs in Haiti
****


Light-skinned mulatto girl, with dark-skinned noir girl (AfroEurope)

During the 1700s, Haiti was an extremely wealthy French colony, thanks
to crops sugar, rum, coffee and cotton -- and thanks to the efforts of
500,000 slaves that the French had imported from Africa.

By the end of the 1700s, there were three groups of Haitians: The
"whites," native Europeans; the "noirs" or "blacks," native black
Africans whom the French imported as slaves; and the "mulattos," the
children of mixed European and African blood.

At that time, the mulattos were theoretically free, but in practice
had as few rights as the noirs. In 1791, the noirs and the mulattos
united in a violent slave rebellion that led to a 13-year civil war,
resulting in formal recognition, in 1804, of Haiti as the second
Republic in the Western hemisphere. However, the United States didn't
grant Haiti diplomatic recognition until 1862 -- when Lincoln's
Emancipation Proclamation freed America's slaves during the Civil
War.

Today the mulattos are a small French-speaking minority, under 5% of
the population, generally light-skinned, but a "market-dominant"
minority, controlling well over 50% of the nation's wealth. The noirs
generally live in extreme poverty, and speak Creole, a mixture of
French and African language elements. (Other different variations of
Creole are spoken throughout the Caribbean, including parts of
Louisiana.)

After the whites were overthrown in 1804, the mulattos became the new
élite class. There was a new crisis civil war in the late 1840s,
followed by several decades of peace and the growth of a Haitian
intellectual culture. However, there was one bloodless coup after
another, resulting in a succession of dozens of Presidents.

The 1915 coup was different, in that it turned into a major
generational crisis rebellion. With total anarchy breaking out,
President Woodrow Wilson eventually felt it necessary to take complete
control of all governmental and financial institutions in Haiti.

The American armed forces remained in Haiti for 20 years, withdrawing
only in 1934.

American armed forces came back in 1994, when it appeared that Haiti
was once again heading for anarchy. The same thing happened in 2004.
Now, since the earthquake, things are worse than ever.

Haiti is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, and
is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, with 60% of the
population living under the poverty line, earning less than $2.44 a
day. Racist hatred between the mulattos and noirs still runs deep in
Haiti. Haiti is in a generational crisis era, and between the poverty
and the racism, the future does not look good for the country.
AfroEurope (Dec-2012) and The Star (Myanmar)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Haiti, Michel Martelly, Sweet Micky,
Bill Clinton, Clinton Foundation, American Red Cross,
mulattos, noirs, whites

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail

*** 10-Aug-15 World View -- Japan's Shinzo Abe 'insults' Korea in plans for commemorating end of WW II

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Japan's Shinzo Abe raises controversy at Hiroshima commemoration
• Japan's Shinzo Abe 'insults' Korea in plans for commemorating end of WW II
• Palestinians promise to continue efforts to pursue Israeli 'criminals'

****
**** Japan's Shinzo Abe raises controversy at Hiroshima commemoration
****


Doves fly over the Atomic Bomb Dome in Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima on Thursday (Reuters)

Japan has been holding a series of very emotional commemorations, 70
years after American forces dropped atomic bombs on two Japanese
cities, bringing World War II to an end. On Thursday there was a
commemoration in Hiroshima, and on Sunday it was in Nagasaki.

Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe called for a nuclear-free world in
his speech on Thursday:

<QUOTE>"Here today, at the opening of the Hiroshima Peace
Memorial Ceremony on the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing, I
reverently express my sincere condolences to the souls of the
great number of atomic bomb victims.

I also extend my deepest sympathy to those still suffering from
the aftereffects of the atomic bomb even now.

Seventy years have passed since that morning. A single atomic bomb
dropped here in Hiroshima deprived a tremendous number of people,
numbering around 140,000, of their precious lives and turned the
city into ruins. In this catastrophe, even those who narrowly
escaped death suffered unspeakable hardships in the days to come.

Looking around the city of Hiroshima today, we see that this City
of Water has undergone a robust restoration and transformed itself
into an International City of Peace and Culture. This morning as
we mark 70 years since the atomic bombing, I once more profoundly
contemplate how precious peace is.

As the only country to have ever experienced the horror of nuclear
devastation in war, Japan has an important mission of realizing a
world free of nuclear weapons by steadily carrying out a
succession of realistic and practical measures. We also have a
duty to communicate far and wide the catastrophic humanitarian
impact of nuclear weapons, across generations and beyond national
borders."<END QUOTE>

However, there was some controversy because Abe's speech omitted
mention of the "three non-nuclear principles": Japan will not build or
maintain nuclear weapons, and will permit any nuclear weapons on its
territory. Activists expressed concern that the last of these three
principles will be negated by passage of security legislation that
will re-interpret the pacifist constitution that permits military
action only in self-defense. (See "5-May-14 World View -- Japan debates 'collective self-defense' to protect America and Japan"
)

The two commemorations have revived the decades-old moral debate over
whether America should have used nuclear weapons at all, since so many
civilians were killed, first by the explosion and then afterwards by
radiation poisoning.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the fact that nuclear
weapons were used is no surprise at all. During a generational crisis
war, the value of an individual human life keeps falling, until the
explosive climax of the war. At that time, the value of a human life
is almost zero, and any means or method or weapon will be used to end
the war, irrespective of civilian casualties. In fact, in WW II this
was already apparent long before the nuclear weapons were dropped. In
1944, the Allies sent tens of thousands of soldiers onto the beaches
of Normandy, knowing that thousands would be shot down and killed like
fish in a barrel. The firebombing of Hamburg, Dresden and Tokyo in
1944 and 1945 actually killed more civilians than the nuclear weapons
did.

Some of the criticism directed at President Truman for authorizing the
atomic bombings was that Japan was about to surrender anyway, because
the Soviet Union was entering the war against Japan. A historical
analysis on the BBC made by Dr. Anthony Best, professor at London
School of Economics, specializing in the history of Japan, made the
following points:

• After the firebombings, there really was no viable moral or
  ethical argument for NOT using the atomic bomb. The bomb had been
  designed with Germany in mind. The Germans had surrendered, but Japan
  was continuing. Why would you not use this new weapon to end this
  conflict?
  
• Radiation poisoning and sickness were not well understood at the
  time.
  
• Neither President Truman nor anyone else had any information that
  the Japanese were about to surrender, even in view of Russia's
  entering the war.
  
• Earlier in the year, the battle of Okinawa saw very high American
  casualties, as well as very high Japanese civilian casualties. If the
  bomb hadn't been used, there were plans later in 1945 for an American
  invasion of Japan's islands, and the Japanese were making extensive
  preparations to fight to the death, training the army, but also arming
  civilians. There would have been massive casualties on both
  sides.
  
• Why were the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki chosen? This was a
  new weapon, and this was its first use. In order to assess what this
  weapon would do, it had to be used on a city that had not been
  previously touched by conventional weapons.

Generational Dynamics predicts that there will be no nuclear-free
world, and that by the time that the climax of the next world war is
reached, every nuclear weapon in the world will have been used as a
weapon somewhere. BBC and Japan Times and Shingetsu News Agency

****
**** Japan's Shinzo Abe 'insults' Korea in plans for commemorating end of WW II
****

On Thursday, Japan's prime minister will give a speech commemorating
the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, when Japan
surrendered, several days after the bombing of Nagasaki.

The planned statement is major news in South Korea, where officials
are waiting to see if Abe will apologize for Japan's use of Korean
and Chinese "comfort women" during World War II. Two of Abe's
predecessors have apologized, and both Korea and China are urging Abe
to use words such as "aggression," colonial rule," "remorse" and
"apology" in the upcoming statement.

However, Abe is apparently going to be guided by a report submitted
last week by "The Advisory Panel on the History of the 20th Century
and on Japan’s Role and World Order in the 21st Century," a panel
established by Abe in February to provide input to Thursday's
statement. The report recommends that Abe express remorse, but not
apologize.

According to an editorial in the Korea Times, the panel's
recommendations actually insulted the Koreans by differentiating
between China and Korea, and claiming that "The Korean governments'
policy on Japan has vacillated between 'reason and emotion.'"
According to the editorial, "It befits all modifiers Japan is infamous
for ― cunning, crafty and sly." Arirang (Seoul) and Korea Times and Japan Focus

****
**** Palestinians promise to continue efforts to pursue Israeli 'criminals'
****

Palestinians are calling for revenge after the second victim of last
weekend's 'Jewish terrorism' died on Saturday. ( "1-Aug-15 World View -- Tensions with Palestinians soar after brutal Israeli settler 'price tag' attack"
)

An 18-month-old Palestinian boy was killed last weekend when attackers
used Molotov cocktails to set two homes on fire in the West Bank. On
Saturday, the child's father died. The brother and mother are still
being treated in a hospital.

The brutality of the Jewish settler "price tag" attack has shocked
even most Israelis. Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has
promised that the "Jewish terrorists" would be brought to justice, but
so far no one has been charged.

However, three Israelis have been given "administrative detention,"
and this has caused controversies of its own. Israel holds hundreds
of Palestinians in administrative detention, but this is the first
time it's been used to detain Jews. Furthermore, the three Israelis
were not linked to last weekend's attack.

Israel defends its use of detention for up to six months without
trial, saying it is needed to stem violence and allow for further
investigation in cases where there is insufficient evidence to
prosecute, or where going to court would risk exposing secret
informants.

However, human rights activists in Israel object to the use of
administrative detention against either Israelis or Palestinians.
According to activist Sarit Michaeli:

<QUOTE>"These recent government actions look more like an
attempt to divert attention and appease public outrage following
this terrible attack in Duma than a real effort to enforce the law
on settlers who attack Palestinians.

There is a very long-term and clear unspoken policy to not enforce
the law in these situations, by the Israeli authorities, to turn a
blind eye, to not conduct proper police investigations into these
matters, and therefore it's very hard to see how a couple of
arrests will change that."<END QUOTE>

The Palestinian Authority government said Saturday it is planning to
continue its diplomatic and legal efforts to pursue Israeli
“criminals.”

A spokesman for the government in Ramallah said the father's death is
"further proof of the gravity of the crime committed by a group of
settler terrorists," adding that the "presence of Israeli occupation
is the reason for all crimes committed against our people. The only
way to stop these crimes is by ending this occupation." Jerusalem Post and Reuters and Jerusalem Post


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Japan, Shinzo Abe, Hiroshima, Nagasaki,
Germany, Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Harry Truman,
Anthony Best, London School of Economics, Okinawa,
China, South Korea,
Palestinian Authority, Israel, Price tag attack, Sarit Michaeli

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

*** 10-Aug-15 World View -- Japan's Shinzo Abe 'insults' Korea in plans for commemorating end of WW II

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Japan's Shinzo Abe raises controversy at Hiroshima commemoration
• Japan's Shinzo Abe 'insults' Korea in plans for commemorating end of WW II
• Palestinians promise to continue efforts to pursue Israeli 'criminals'

****
**** Japan's Shinzo Abe raises controversy at Hiroshima commemoration
****


Doves fly over the Atomic Bomb Dome in Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima on Thursday (Reuters)

Japan has been holding a series of very emotional commemorations, 70
years after American forces dropped atomic bombs on two Japanese
cities, bringing World War II to an end. On Thursday there was a
commemoration in Hiroshima, and on Sunday it was in Nagasaki.

Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe called for a nuclear-free world in
his speech on Thursday:

<QUOTE>"Here today, at the opening of the Hiroshima Peace
Memorial Ceremony on the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing, I
reverently express my sincere condolences to the souls of the
great number of atomic bomb victims.

I also extend my deepest sympathy to those still suffering from
the aftereffects of the atomic bomb even now.

Seventy years have passed since that morning. A single atomic bomb
dropped here in Hiroshima deprived a tremendous number of people,
numbering around 140,000, of their precious lives and turned the
city into ruins. In this catastrophe, even those who narrowly
escaped death suffered unspeakable hardships in the days to come.

Looking around the city of Hiroshima today, we see that this City
of Water has undergone a robust restoration and transformed itself
into an International City of Peace and Culture. This morning as
we mark 70 years since the atomic bombing, I once more profoundly
contemplate how precious peace is.

As the only country to have ever experienced the horror of nuclear
devastation in war, Japan has an important mission of realizing a
world free of nuclear weapons by steadily carrying out a
succession of realistic and practical measures. We also have a
duty to communicate far and wide the catastrophic humanitarian
impact of nuclear weapons, across generations and beyond national
borders."<END QUOTE>

However, there was some controversy because Abe's speech omitted
mention of the "three non-nuclear principles": Japan will not build or
maintain nuclear weapons, and will permit any nuclear weapons on its
territory. Activists expressed concern that the last of these three
principles will be negated by passage of security legislation that
will re-interpret the pacifist constitution that permits military
action only in self-defense. (See "5-May-14 World View -- Japan debates 'collective self-defense' to protect America and Japan"
)

The two commemorations have revived the decades-old moral debate over
whether America should have used nuclear weapons at all, since so many
civilians were killed, first by the explosion and then afterwards by
radiation poisoning.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the fact that nuclear
weapons were used is no surprise at all. During a generational crisis
war, the value of an individual human life keeps falling, until the
explosive climax of the war. At that time, the value of a human life
is almost zero, and any means or method or weapon will be used to end
the war, irrespective of civilian casualties. In fact, in WW II this
was already apparent long before the nuclear weapons were dropped. In
1944, the Allies sent tens of thousands of soldiers onto the beaches
of Normandy, knowing that thousands would be shot down and killed like
fish in a barrel. The firebombing of Hamburg, Dresden and Tokyo in
1944 and 1945 actually killed more civilians than the nuclear weapons
did.

Some of the criticism directed at President Truman for authorizing the
atomic bombings was that Japan was about to surrender anyway, because
the Soviet Union was entering the war against Japan. A historical
analysis on the BBC made by Dr. Anthony Best, professor at London
School of Economics, specializing in the history of Japan, made the
following points:

• After the firebombings, there really was no viable moral or
  ethical argument for NOT using the atomic bomb. The bomb had been
  designed with Germany in mind. The Germans had surrendered, but Japan
  was continuing. Why would you not use this new weapon to end this
  conflict?
• Radiation poisoning and sickness were not well understood at the
  time.
• Neither President Truman nor anyone else had any information that
  the Japanese were about to surrender, even in view of Russia's
  entering the war.
• Earlier in the year, the battle of Okinawa saw very high American
  casualties, as well as very high Japanese civilian casualties. If the
  bomb hadn't been used, there were plans later in 1945 for an American
  invasion of Japan's islands, and the Japanese were making extensive
  preparations to fight to the death, training the army, but also arming
  civilians. There would have been massive casualties on both
  sides.
• Why were the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki chosen? This was a
  new weapon, and this was its first use. In order to assess what this
  weapon would do, it had to be used on a city that had not been
  previously touched by conventional weapons.

Generational Dynamics predicts that there will be no nuclear-free
world, and that by the time that the climax of the next world war is
reached, every nuclear weapon in the world will have been used as a
weapon somewhere. BBC and Japan Times and Shingetsu News Agency

****
**** Japan's Shinzo Abe 'insults' Korea in plans for commemorating end of WW II
****

On Thursday, Japan's prime minister will give a speech commemorating
the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, when Japan
surrendered, several days after the bombing of Nagasaki.

The planned statement is major news in South Korea, where officials
are waiting to see if Abe will apologize for Japan's use of Korean
and Chinese "comfort women" during World War II. Two of Abe's
predecessors have apologized, and both Korea and China are urging Abe
to use words such as "aggression," colonial rule," "remorse" and
"apology" in the upcoming statement.

However, Abe is apparently going to be guided by a report submitted
last week by "The Advisory Panel on the History of the 20th Century
and on Japan’s Role and World Order in the 21st Century," a panel
established by Abe in February to provide input to Thursday's
statement. The report recommends that Abe express remorse, but not
apologize.

According to an editorial in the Korea Times, the panel's
recommendations actually insulted the Koreans by differentiating
between China and Korea, and claiming that "The Korean governments'
policy on Japan has vacillated between 'reason and emotion.'"
According to the editorial, "It befits all modifiers Japan is infamous
for ― cunning, crafty and sly." Arirang (Seoul) and Korea Times and Japan Focus

****
**** Palestinians promise to continue efforts to pursue Israeli 'criminals'
****

Palestinians are calling for revenge after the second victim of last
weekend's 'Jewish terrorism' died on Saturday. ( "1-Aug-15 World View -- Tensions with Palestinians soar after brutal Israeli settler 'price tag' attack"
)

An 18-month-old Palestinian boy was killed last weekend when attackers
used Molotov cocktails to set two homes on fire in the West Bank. On
Saturday, the child's father died. The brother and mother are still
being treated in a hospital.

The brutality of the Jewish settler "price tag" attack has shocked
even most Israelis. Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has
promised that the "Jewish terrorists" would be brought to justice, but
so far no one has been charged.

However, three Israelis have been given "administrative detention,"
and this has caused controversies of its own. Israel holds hundreds
of Palestinians in administrative detention, but this is the first
time it's been used to detain Jews. Furthermore, the three Israelis
were not linked to last weekend's attack.

Israel defends its use of detention for up to six months without
trial, saying it is needed to stem violence and allow for further
investigation in cases where there is insufficient evidence to
prosecute, or where going to court would risk exposing secret
informants.

However, human rights activists in Israel object to the use of
administrative detention against either Israelis or Palestinians.
According to activist Sarit Michaeli:

<QUOTE>"These recent government actions look more like an
attempt to divert attention and appease public outrage following
this terrible attack in Duma than a real effort to enforce the law
on settlers who attack Palestinians.

There is a very long-term and clear unspoken policy to not enforce
the law in these situations, by the Israeli authorities, to turn a
blind eye, to not conduct proper police investigations into these
matters, and therefore it's very hard to see how a couple of
arrests will change that."<END QUOTE>

The Palestinian Authority government said Saturday it is planning to
continue its diplomatic and legal efforts to pursue Israeli
“criminals.”

A spokesman for the government in Ramallah said the father's death is
"further proof of the gravity of the crime committed by a group of
settler terrorists," adding that the "presence of Israeli occupation
is the reason for all crimes committed against our people. The only
way to stop these crimes is by ending this occupation." Jerusalem Post and Reuters and Jerusalem Post


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Japan, Shinzo Abe, Hiroshima, Nagasaki,
Germany, Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Harry Truman,
Anthony Best, London School of Economics, Okinawa,
China, South Korea,
Palestinian Authority, Israel, Price tag attack, Sarit Michaeli

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail

We knew Japan and Germany were collaborating to develop nuclear weapons and suspected Russia was as well. Even if we knew the war would be over eventually, knowing that the nuclear genie was out of the bottle, we needed to demonstrate our own will to use them. In a way I sort of wish we used them a few times after these two attacks, but prior to the advent of ICBMs. In this sense, I suppose I am a bit in league with CH86, the idea that by demonstrating a certain level of brutality, other countries might take us more seriously.

BTW - I visited Hiroshima a mere 45 years after the attacks. You could still tell. Flying in, you could see a sort of "bathtub ring" on the nearby hills - there was normal vegetation above the ring and below it, it was all stunted. In the city itself, everything was stunted - much sunnier and desert like than any other Japanese city I've been in. Beyond that, there was just something different, that I could not quite put my finger on. Something was just awry, discombobulated. A really bizarre feeling, walking around the streets of downtown Hiroshima in 1990.

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

We knew Japan and Germany were collaborating to develop nuclear weapons and suspected Russia was as well. Even if we knew the war would be over eventually, knowing that the nuclear genie was out of the bottle, we needed to demonstrate our own will to use them. In a way I sort of wish we used them a few times after these two attacks, but prior to the advent of ICBMs. In this sense, I suppose I am a bit in league with CH86, the idea that by demonstrating a certain level of brutality, other countries might take us more seriously.

BTW - I visited Hiroshima a mere 45 years after the attacks. You could still tell. Flying in, you could see a sort of "bathtub ring" on the nearby hills - there was normal vegetation above the ring and below it, it was all stunted. In the city itself, everything was stunted - much sunnier and desert like than any other Japanese city I've been in. Beyond that, there was just something different, that I could not quite put my finger on. Something was just awry, discombobulated. A really bizarre feeling, walking around the streets of downtown Hiroshima in 1990.

I visited around 1996 or so when I was in the Navy in Yokosuka, and I didn't notice any of that. I drove into the city though, rather than flew. It seemed very much like any other modern Japanese city. (Of course there was that building with the dome that was left standing as a symbol of the attack.) I guess I didn't look that closely.

I did visit Nagasaki on the same road trip. Very charming city that still somehow had an "old feel" to it (cobbled streets, oldish-looking neighborhoods and the like)--not sure how much of that was restoration, or whether some structures withstood the blast (like that anomalous Hiroshima building) due to the very hilly geography of the city. Visited memorial museums in both cities--very moving.

There were a couple of news stories on the BBC last week that said
that rebuilding of Hiroshima began almost immediately -- within a
couple of days -- and seemed to imply that the city was back to normal
within a few months.

*** 11-Aug-15 World View -- Vladimir Putin increasingly trapped as Russia's GDP plunges 4.6%

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Wave of violent terrorist attacks strike across Turkey
• Vladimir Putin increasingly trapped as Russia's GDP plunges 4.6%
• Europe's bond yields go negative

****
**** Wave of violent terrorist attacks strike across Turkey
****


Turkish soldiers patrol near the border with Syria last month (AP)

Terrorist opened fire at the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on
Monday. No one was killed during the assault, but one of the two
female attackers was killed by police as she fled. A far left
terrorist group, the Revolutionary People's Liberation Army-Front
(DHKP-C) took credit for the attack.

Earlier Monday, an overnight bomb attack at a police station in
Istanbul injured three policemen and seven civilians and caused a fire
that collapsed part of the three-story building. Unknown assailants
later fired on police inspecting the scene of the explosion, sparking
another gunfight with police that killed a police officer and two
assailants. No one has claimed responsibility, but government sources
blame the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Also on Monday, four policemen were killed in southeastern Turkey when
terrorists fired at a helicopter, and when an armored vehicle was
attacked by a roadside bomb. Once again, the PKK was blamed.

Things seem to be changing very quickly in Turkey, ever since the July
20 massive terror attack on Suruç.

Since then Turkey has rapidly changed from a country determined
to avoid war to a wars on multiple fronts, fighting the
self-described Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) in Syria
and Iraq, the PKK in northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey,
and now the DHKP-C in Istanbul. It's amazing how quickly things
can change.

The Revolutionary People's Liberation Army-Front (DHKP-C) is listed as
a terrorist organization by the United States and Turkey, and was
responsible for a suicide bombing of the US embassy in Ankara in 2013.
Both the PKK and the DHKP-C are far left terrorist organizations, and
they've cooperated in the past, although it's not known whether
Monday's attacks were coordinated by the two groups. Today's Zaman (Istanbul) and Hurriyet (Ankara) and AP

****
**** Vladimir Putin increasingly trapped as Russia's GDP plunges 4.6%
****

Russia's recession deepened substantially in the second quarter,
as the gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 4.6% compared with
a year earlier.

Earlier estimates that the GDP would fall only 3.6% were based on the
assumption that oil prices would be above $60 per barrel. But oil has
continued to fall, and Russian oil is now selling for just $57 per
barrel, down 47% from a year earlier. Russia relies on oil and gas
for about half of its budget revenue. This has caused the ruble
currency to lose about 20% of its value since mid-May, 43% in the past
12 months.

Russia's president Vladimir Putin is increasingly trapped, running out
of options. This is particularly true in Ukraine. Russia invaded and
annexed Crimea, and has invaded and controls eastern Ukraine. But
instead of a glorious return to Novorossia (New Russia), Russia is
stuck in a massive economic quagmire in Ukraine that's further
draining Russia's treasury.

Putin badly needs a relaxation of the Western sanctions that were
imposed after the annexation of Crimea, but for that to happen, he
would need to climb down in Ukraine, a move that would undermine the
whole rationale for his rule and infuriate the nationalist supporters
who make up his base. AFP and Bloomberg and RFE/RL

****
**** Europe's bond yields go negative
****

Germany's bond yields are below zero. France's two-year bond yields
are less than -0.2%. In fact, $1.5 trillion of securities issued by
eurozone countries have negative yields. That 23% of the market.

Normally when you purchase a bond, it's like a savings account that
pays interest. If the yield is 2%, then if you sell the bond a year
later, you could expect to have earned 2% interest.

But when a bond's yield is negative, that means that you lose money
when you sell it. You buy the bond for $1,000, and then a year later
you sell it for $998.

Why would anyone do that, you may ask? If you're a big institution
with millions of dollars, then you have to put it somewhere. With a
negative bond yield, it means that you're putting it somewhere safe,
and you're paying someone to keep it safe.

Eurozone inflation was at 0.2% in July, well below the 2% target set
by the European Central Bank (ECB). The eurozone had four months of
deflation before April. The ECB is considering more quantitative
easing to try to prevent any further deflation. Bloomberg and Reuters


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Turkey, Istanbul, Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK,
Revolutionary People's Liberation Army-Front, DHKP-C,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Russia, Vladimir Putin, Ukraine, Crimea, Novorossia, New Russia,
eurozone, European Central Bank, ECB

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Although this is partially off-topic I'm about to go on a rant here: The Problem with our current baby boomer leaders is their largely idiotic ideals. Take 9/11 for example, while the was disagreement among the boomer left and boomer right about why the attacks occurred (the left thought that we were treating the Mideast countries too badly, while the right thought that we needed to combat rogue elements there and intervene to nation-build there), the general consensus among our boomer leadership was that this was NOT a war against Islam. Boomers refused to identify Islam itself as the problem. Boomers displayed their tendency for selfishness after 9/11 when they refused to launch nuclear strikes against Muslim military and civilian targets.

If I was president during 9/11, I would have retaliated by first launching nuclear missiles against Muslim cities and population centers, then followed up with a full-scale invasion in which our troops would be given permission to fight with their "gloves entirely off". After the region had been devastated Mongol-style our forces either would have returned home after completing our mission OR we could have set up a permanent occupation regime in which the whole region of the middle east and north Africa would have been divided into military administrative regions. In the later scenario of an occupation, throughout the rural areas of the Mideast the population would by forcibly gathered into various work settlements that would have been set up in order to furnish resources to support various settlement cities and administrative cities which would have been populated by American, other Anglophone, Latin American, Indian, African, and Israeli settlers. It would have been glorious: it would have been like the days of the Spanish conquistadors all over again. Also with the construction of the various administrative cities, the building of these cities would have been carried out by Arab Muslim Labor as well as Iranian maybe even central Asian Muslim labor.

I know that on several occasions John X claimed that a full-scale response after 9/11 would have triggered a world war with either Russia or China. On the contrary I think that those countries would have probably remained neutral if my scenario outlined in the previous paragraphs had occurred. In fact world peace would have been strengthened for several decades as the brutal but expedient and in my opinion necessary response would have deterred our rival peer competitor great powers from challenging our interests for some time.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

> Although this is partially off-topic I'm about to go on a rant
> here: The Problem with our current baby boomer leaders is their
> largely idiotic ideals. Take 9/11 for example, while the was
> disagreement among the boomer left and boomer right about why the
> attacks occurred (the left thought that we were treating the
> Mideast countries too badly, while the right thought that we
> needed to combat rogue elements there and intervene to
> nation-build there), the general consensus among our boomer
> leadership was that this was NOT a war against Islam. Boomers
> refused to identify Islam itself as the problem. Boomers displayed
> their tendency for selfishness after 9/11 when they refused to
> launch nuclear strikes against Muslim military and civilian
> targets.

This does not correspond to anything I've seen. I wrote about
this sort of thing in 2010:

** American xenophobia on the Left and on the Right
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/...07.htm#e101107

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

> If I was president during 9/11, I would have retaliated by first
> launching nuclear missiles against Muslim cities and population
> centers, then followed up with a full-scale invasion in which our
> troops would be given permission to fight with their "gloves
> entirely off". After the region had been devastated Mongol-style
> our forces either would have returned home after completing our
> mission OR we could have set up a permanent occupation regime in
> which the whole region of the middle east and north Africa would
> have been divided into military administrative regions. In the
> later scenario of an occupation, throughout the rural areas of the
> Mideast the population would by forcibly gathered into various
> work settlements that would have been set up in order to furnish
> resources to support various settlement cities and administrative
> cities which would have been populated by American, other
> Anglophone, Latin American, Indian, African, and Israeli
> settlers. It would have been glorious: it would have been like the
> days of the Spanish conquistadors all over again. Also with the
> construction of the various administrative cities, the building of
> these cities would have been carried out by Arab Muslim Labor as
> well as Iranian maybe even central Asian Muslim labor.

> I know that on several occasions John X claimed that a full-scale
> response after 9/11 would have triggered a world war with either
> Russia or China. On the contrary I think that those countries
> would have probably remained neutral if my scenario outlined in
> the previous paragraphs had occurred. In fact world peace would
> have been strengthened for several decades as the brutal but
> expedient and in my opinion necessary response would have deterred
> our rival peer competitor great powers from challenging our
> interests for some time.

America is still being criticized for nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
President Bush is still being very bitterly criticized today for send
troops into Iraq. Can you imagine what the world would be like today
if President Bush had ordered that Riyadh be nuked? That anyone could
support something like that is astonishing to me.

CH,

You? Rant? I'm shocked.

*** 12-Aug-15 World View -- China's yuan devaluation a humiliating setback for 'China dream'

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• China shocks the world with sharp currency devaluation
• Yuan devaluation a humiliating setback for 'China dream'

****
**** China shocks the world with sharp currency devaluation
****


People's Bank of China

The ripples coming out of China's early Tuesday morning currency
devaluation are turning out to be larger than one might have expected.
China devalued the yuan (renminbi) currency by 2% against the dollar.
This means, for example, that Chinese-manufactured goods being sold in
the United States, or any other country, will now be 2% cheaper. It
also means that any goods manufactured in the US or Japan or any other
country being sold in China will now be 2% more expensive.

Obviously, this has big implications for global trade. It means that
China's goods will sell better in countries around the world, and that
other countries' goods will sell worse in China. So what's good for
China will be bad for everyone else.

So stocks on Wall Street and in Europe fell sharply on Tuesday. But
the implications go farther than that.

According to an analyst in India:

<QUOTE>"The devaluation will affect India's exports not only
to China but to other countries also with increasing
competitiveness of Chinese exports.

This may swell the trade deficit further, which is already
touching $50 billion, as imports from China may increase
particularly as China is having excessive capacity in diverse
sectors of manufacturing."<END QUOTE>

India's rupee currency fell sharply against the dollar, apparently
because currency traders are expecting India's central bank to be
forced to devalue the rupee as well to compete with China. Other
currencies fell sharply on Tuesday for the same reason: the euro, the
Japanese yen, the Brazilian real and the Turkish lira.

There was a "currency war" during the Great Depression of the 1930s,
and the countries that moved the fastest to devalue their currencies
were the countries that suffered the least unemployment. During the
last ten years, there have been concerns raised occasionally about a
new currency war. The China yuan devaluation is raising those
concerns to a fever pitch.

And with good reason. It's quite possible that central banks in
China's neighbors in Asia will be the first to be forced to devalue
their own currencies to compete with China. Europe may then follow
suit, in what was called in the 1930s the "race to the bottom."
Devaluation of all of these currencies will make the dollar stronger,
which could eventually crush American exports and harm American
multinational firms, so the US may be forced to follow suit.

Right now, this is just speculation, but it's a concern that's being
expressed widely today.

I've been amazed the past few years with the willingness of
governments to paper over problems by blanketing the problems with a
tsunami of money. Trillions of dollars have been thrown into global
stock markets by quantitative easing, and Wall Street stocks are in a
huge bubble. Obamacare is a financial disaster held together by the
$710 billion Medicare insurance fund, which has essentially been
thrown into the garbage with nothing to show for it.

The claim by politicians is always that the tsunami of money is only
temporary, because it buys time for the problems to solve themselves.
Thus, flooding the stock market with money is OK, because soon
economic growth will take over. Flooding Obamacare with money is OK,
because soon the various Rube Goldberg Ponzi Scheme businesses will
become self-sustaining.

Those assumptions are now provably wrong, and the only way to keep
things from collapsing is to keep the tsunami going and growing. But
even a tsunami eventually runs out of water.


S&P 500 Price/Earnings ratio at astronomically high 21.69 on August 7 (WSJ)

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, a major global
financial crisis is coming, and something will trigger it. China's
stock market bubble is imploding. Global trade is slowing
significantly. The S&P 500 price/earnings ratio is at an
astronomically high 21.69, indicating a major Wall Street stock market
bubble.

At some point, something will trigger the global financial crisis.
Maybe the China devaluation will be the trigger, by creating a domino
effect of some kind. Or, maybe the central banks of the world will
find a way to increase the tsunami of money still further, flooding
the problems for a while longer. They're certainly going to try --
though of course that's exactly what would create a currency war. All
we can do is watch to see what happens next. Reuters and Bloomberg and New Delhi TV

****
**** Yuan devaluation a humiliating setback for 'China dream'
****

The "China dream" is for China to replace the United States
militarily, by taking control of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and
also to do so financially, by replacing the dollar with the Chinese
yuan as the global reserve currency. This is the second disastrous
setback to the "China dream" within the last month.

First, in order to prove that it can replace the United States
economically, China has to prove that it can provide a world-class
stock market that can operate free of government intervention. And
that objective is completely in shreds, after the multi-trillion
dollar tsunami of money that was used to intervene in the Shanghai
stock market, almost completely destroying it as a market.

And now China has its second disaster with the surprise yuan
devaluation, effectively declaring war on other countries' currencies.

The humiliating devaluation was a move of almost complete desperation.
China's economy is in serious trouble, and that's not the worst of it.
China has a history of massive "people's rebellions" against an
oppressive government, the last one being Mao's Communist Revolution
that ended in 1949. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics,
China is now overdue for the next one, and a Chinese financial crisis
could be the trigger. Bloomberg


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, India, Europe, Shanghai

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*** 13-Aug-15 World View -- Massive explosion in Tianjin highlights China's dismal industrial safety record

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Massive explosion in Tianjin highlights China's dismal industrial safety record
• Greece's island Kos moves to center of Europe's migrant crisis

****
**** Massive explosion in Tianjin highlights China's dismal industrial safety record
****


Tianjin China

A massive series of industrial explosions occurred early on Wednesday
in Tianjin in China. There was one large explosion, equivalent to 3
tons of TNT, and followed by an enormous explosion a few minutes
later, equivalent to 21 tons of TNT. The explosions were felt ten
miles away. Hundreds of people were hospitalized. The area where the
blast happened has many factories, but also worker dormitories and
apartment buildings.

Tianjin has a population of 15 million, behind Shanghai, Beijing, and
Guangzhou. It's a major industrial hub for China, with hundreds of
Fortune 500 companies based there.

Bribery and corruption are common in China, and factory owners often
use it to evade regulations, with the result that there are frequent
building catastrophes. In July, 15 people were killed and more than a
dozen injured when an illegal fireworks warehouse exploded in northern
Hebei province. And at least 71 were killed in an explosion at a car
parts factory in Kunshan, near Shanghai, in August last year.

The Tianjin disaster is the third in a series of major recent
humiliations for China in its attempt to displace the United States as
a world economic and military leader. First, China's huge stock market bubble has been imploding,
and
China has almost destroy the Shanghai stock market as a market by
using regulations and a tsunami of money to prop it up. And then, in
the last few days, China effectively declared war on the world's
currencies with a surprise 2-3% devaluation of the yuan (renminbi) currency.
As of Thursday, China
has devalued its currency each day for three days in a row. AFP and Al Jazeera

****
**** Greece's island Kos moves to center of Europe's migrant crisis
****

Europe is facing its biggest refugee crisis since World War II. With
over 200,000 migrants having arrived in Europe this year alone,
including 124,000 in Greece, the news focus has moved from place to
place, including Italy, Athens, Hungary, and Calais.

Focus is now moving to the Greek island of Kos, where migrants have
arrived from Turkey, usually having escaped from Syria or Afghanistan.

Kos has a population of 33,000, and around 7,000 migrants are now
waiting to apply for immigration papers. On Tuesday, police beat back
migrants with truncheons and sprayed them with fire extinguishers and
teargas to prevent a stampede as they were being relocated to a local
football stadium after camping along roads and beaches for weeks.

The migrants, including women, children and the elderly, are locked in
the football stadium for hours, in the open air under an extremely hot
sun, without access to washing facilities or toilets, according to
reports. International humanitarian organizations are speaking of
"totally shameful" conditions.

Greece's government is sending a cruise liner with a capacity for at
least 2,500 people, converted with a reception center, to process
migrant arrivals. In addition, riot police from Athens have been
dispatched to Kos. The extra police deployment came after the
island's mayor warned of "bloodshed." Kathimerini and AFP


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, Tianjin, Shanghai, Greece, Kos

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*** 14-Aug-15 World View -- With rise of ISIS, violence flares in Central Asia's Fergana Valley

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Violence flares in Central Asia's Fergana Valley
• Brief generational history of Uzbekistan
• Rise of ISIS raises militant Islamist concerns in Central Asia

****
**** Violence flares in Central Asia's Fergana Valley
****


Kyrgyzstan, which has disputed borders with both Uzbekistan in the Fergana Valley, and with Tajikistan in the Isfara Valley

Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have sent troops and officials
to a Fergana Valley (or Ferghana Valley) border regions where there
are violence is increasing in border disputes. Negotiations are
ongoing to prevent the further spread of violence.

The densely populated Fergana Valley sits at the intersection of
Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. In 2009, I wrote about the
rise of the al-Qaeda linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), and
about the importance of the Fergana Valley to the U.S. for Afghan war
logistics. (See "Islamist Uzbeks lead terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan"
from
2009.)

In 2010, there was extremely bloody violence in the Fergana Valley on
the Kyrgyzstan side of the border. A U-shaped region stretching along
the border between the cities of Osh and Jalalabad was devastated,
causing hundreds of deaths, thousands of injuries, and hundreds of
thousands of refugees. ( "15-Jun-10 News -- Uzbekistan closes border to refugees from Kyrgyzstan"
)

Almost all of the casualties were Uzbek victims of Kyrgyz violence,
including violence by the Kyrgyz army. Some people blame Josef Stalin
for the carnage because, in the 1920s and 1930s, Kyrgyzstan,
Uzbekistan and Tajikistan were established as Soviet republics, and
divided by arbitrary borders in the Fergana Valley. These arbitrary
boundaries, which ignored ethnic realities, created the ethnic
tensions and rivalries that are the basis of the current violence and
atrocities that began occurring after the collapse of the Soviet Union
in 1991.

In the last few weeks, violence has been flaring separately across
Kyrgyzstan's disputed borders with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Two
days ago, there was a shootout along the border of Tajikistan and
Kyrgyzstan, which resulted in the injury of six Tajiks. And in late
June, an Uzbek border guard was wounded in a shootout on the border of
Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Both food and water are available
in the Fergana Valley, but not enough to meet the needs of
local residents. As a result, residents are blocking roads
and waterways that cross the disputed borders.

These conflicts are raising concerns that either or both might spiral
out of control into a repeat of the 2010 violence around Osh and
Jalalabad.

Unfortunately, there does not exist any durable solution to these
border conflicts short of all-out war. Each of the ethnic groups --
Uzbeks, Tajiks and Kyrgyz -- has enclaves in all three countries where
ancestors have been living for centuries, and ethnic hatred runs deep.

In the last century, population in the Fergana valley has increased
five-fold. There is plenty of water in the valley, but still not
enough for the rapidly growing population. Due to poverty and
government corruption, the Fergana Valley is becoming a hotbed of
discontent, led by Islamic radicals. Trend Agency (Azerbaijan) and The Diplomat and Strategy Page and Jamestown

****
**** Brief generational history of Uzbekistan
****

The Uzbeks are one of the many tribes that have populated Central
Asia for centuries, and the wars they fought were mainly with one
another until the Russians conquered the region in the late 1800s.
Although the wars in Central Asia were primarily ethnic,
it's worth noting that the residents are mostly Sunni Muslim,
and the Russians are Orthodox Christian.

Uzbekistan's last generational crisis war was World War I
and the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.

World War II thus occurred during a generational Awakening era for the
Uzbeks. Thus the Uzbeks stayed out of the war, and in fact carried out
a "humanitarian mission" during the war, by sheltering in their
families the hundreds of thousands of refugees from the fascist
occupied territories. There were hundreds of thousands of refugees
from Russia, Ukraine, Baltic States, Poland, and other countries.

As part of Stalin's Soviet Union, Uzbekistan became a cotton
powerhouse starting in the 1920s. In support of the cotton trade,
millions of ethnic Russians began pouring into the country, especially
into the fertile Fergana Valley.

The old Uzbek / Russian fault line became critical again, starting in
the 1980s with the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. At that time,
Uzbek militants began joining the Pashtuns in Afghanistan to fight
against the Soviets. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991,
Uzbekistan became an independent republic. A consequence was a great
deal of financial hardship for the Russians in the Fergana Valley.
The result was the first signs of Islamic fundamentalism in Uzbekistan
when some unemployed young Muslims seized the Communist Party
headquarters in the city of Namangan in the Fergana Valley.

The leaders of this terrorist action, Tohir Yuldeshev and Juma
Namangani, eventually made their way to Afghanistan in 1996, after the
Taliban had taken control of the government. They joined Osama bin
Laden and al-Qaeda, and formed the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
(IMU). The IMU has been playing an important role in terrorist acts
in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

****
**** Rise of ISIS raises militant Islamist concerns in Central Asia
****

While Central Asian countries have always been concerned about
Islamist militancy, the rise of the self-described Islamic State (IS
or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) is raising concerns about new, more
dangerous threats.

The International Crisis Group think tank estimates 4,000 people have
traveled to Syria to join ISIS. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
(IMU) last week pledged allegiance to ISIS, only days after the death
of the Taliban leader Mullah Omar was announced. These developments
are raising fears of destabilization of the Central Asian countries.

As a result, authorities are taking draconian measures to stamp out
militant Islam. Uzbekistan has banned beards, outlawed Islamic dress,
shut restaurants that refuse to sell alcohol and warned teahouses not
to celebrate the nightly end of the Ramadan fast with "Iftar"
meals. In Kyrgyzstan, where the authorities vet preachers to ensure
mosque sermons do not stir up unrest, there have been shootouts
between the secret police and militants.

However, these harsh measures risk a backlash in the form of even more
young Muslims traveling to Syria to join ISIS.

One researcher, who has interviewed ISIS militants in Central Asia,
found that poverty was not the primary motivation for joining ISIS.
Nor were they particularly knowledgeable about Islamic tenets for
fighting in such a war (somewhat refuting the popular belief that
jihadists are being trained in radical madrassas). Many joined for
reasons of social justice -- to help Muslim brothers, to fight a
regime that oppresses them, to defend the weak. Others chose to join
because of adventure, romanticism, love (especially women), their wish
to become heroes, or just because they feel the caliphate is the right
place for a good Muslim life and they want to contribute to its
development. Reuters and Eurasia Net and The Diplomat


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Central Asia, Fergana Valley, Ferghana Valley,
Osh, Jalalabad, Soviet Union, Josef Stalin,
Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, IMU,
Namangan, Tohir Yuldeshev, Juma Namangani, Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Taliban, Mullah Mohammed Omar

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Selfish Boomers love their globalism and their moronic "humanitarian" rules of engagement. Selfish boomers want desire a world federation as the end-state of civilization. When Bush and his silent and boomers advisors refused to launch total war after 9/11 and opted for a limited war, approved by democrat and republican officials, the political class showed themselves to be cowards. The most glorious age in human history lasted from roughly 338 BC to 1560 AD. However boomer ideologues like yourself and others, JohnX; have tended to admire the classical Greece of 550 BC to 404 BC. Now the boomers have embraced the "Human Rights" issue, even though it is viewed in many countries, particularly by those that are nuclear armed, to be in direct contradiction of the concept of the sovereign nation-state. One of the key reasons that both Russia and China have made diplomatic and military influence inroads in many vulnerable countries in regards to political influence, is that large swaths of the world regards the current western boomer value system which favor trade and largely suppresses the warrior archetype, many regions of the world regards this as the values of street-urchins.

*** 15-Aug-15 World View -- Japan's Shinzo Abe blames WW II on the Smoot-Hawley Tariff act

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Japan's Shinzo Abe blames WW II on the Smoot-Hawley Tariff act
• Brief generational history of Japan

****
**** Japan's Shinzo Abe blames WW II on the Smoot-Hawley Tariff act
****


Shinzo Abe looks down during his speech on Friday (Getty)

Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe on Friday gave his long-awaited
speech commemorating the 70th anniversary of VJ day, ending World War
II. It was closely watched by Asian countries, especially Korea and
China, to see if he'd renew the apologies of his predecessors
for Japan's brutality during WW II, and particularly for Japan's
use of Korean and Chinese "comfort women."

Abe did not apologize again, though he expressed profound grief. What
was really interesting was the historical perspective of his speech,
particularly his claim that Japan's actions in World War II were
triggered by the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, the June 1930 law passed by
Congress that erected enormous trade barriers and worsened the Great
Depression.

I've said many times in the past that the Smoot-Hawley Act could be
considered the beginning of World War II, so it's interesting to
me that Abe is implying the same thing.

In Friday's speech, Abe said:

<QUOTE>"After World War I, which embroiled the world, the
movement for self-determination gained momentum and put brakes on
colonization that had been underway. It was a horrible war that
claimed as many as ten million lives. With a strong desire for
peace stirred in them, people founded the League of Nations and
brought forth the General Treaty for Renunciation of War. There
emerged in the international community a new tide of outlawing war
itself.

At the beginning, Japan, too, kept steps with other
nations. However, with the Great Depression setting in and the
Western countries launching economic blocs by involving colonial
economies, Japan’s economy suffered a major blow. In such
circumstances, Japan’s sense of isolation deepened and it
attempted to overcome its diplomatic and economic deadlock through
the use of force. Its domestic political system could not serve as
a brake to stop such attempts. In this way, Japan lost sight of
the overall trends in the world.

With the Manchurian Incident, followed by the withdrawal from the
League of Nations, Japan gradually transformed itself into a
challenger to the new international order that the international
community sought to establish after tremendous sacrifices. Japan
took the wrong course and advanced along the road to war.

And, seventy years ago, Japan was defeated."<END QUOTE>

Abe left out many imperialistic acts that occurred earlier,
such as annexing Korea and part of China in 1910.

The "major blow" that Japan's economy suffered was the Smoot-Hawley
Tariff Act. The Great Depression was hurting Japan just as much as it
was hurting America but, in addition, Japan's exports of its biggest
cash crop, silk, to America were almost completely cut off.

The "Manchurian Incident" to which Abe refers, or "Mukden Incident,"
occurred a year later. On September 18, 1931, an explosion destroyed
a section of railway track owned by Japan in the city of Mukden
in Manchuria. Japan blamed Chinese nationalists, though many
believe that the Japanese military planted the bomb to provide
a pretext. Either way, Japan invaded Manchuria.

Abe said that Japan had suffered enormously for its mistakes
in WW II:

<QUOTE>"On the 70th anniversary of the end of the war, I bow
my head deeply before the souls of all those who perished both at
home and abroad. I express my feelings of profound grief and my
eternal, sincere condolences.

More than 3 million of our compatriots lost their lives during the
war: on the battlefields worrying about the future of their
homeland and wishing for the happiness of their families; in
remote foreign countries after the war, in extreme cold or heat,
suffering from starvation and disease. The atomic bombings of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the air raids on Tokyo and other cities,
and the ground battles in Okinawa, among others, took a heavy toll
among ordinary citizens without mercy. ...

Upon the innocent people did our country inflict immeasurable
damage and suffering. History is harsh. What is done cannot be
undone. Each and every one of them had his or her life, dream, and
beloved family. When I squarely contemplate this obvious fact,
even now, I find myself speechless and my heart is rent with the
utmost grief."<END QUOTE>

Having learned its lesson, according to Abe, Japan turned
into a pacifist nation, and vowed to never let anything like
that happen again. He said that it should not be necessary
for future generations to continue to apologize:

<QUOTE>"In Japan, the postwar generations now exceed 80 per
cent of its population. We must not let our children,
grandchildren, and even further generations to come, who have
nothing to do with that war, be predestined to apologize. Still,
even so, we Japanese, across generations, must squarely face the
history of the past. We have the responsibility to inherit the
past, in all humbleness, and pass it on to the future.

Our parents’ and grandparents’ generations were able to survive in
a devastated land in sheer poverty after the war. The future they
brought about is the one our current generation inherited and the
one we will hand down to the next generation. Together with the
tireless efforts of our predecessors, this has only been possible
through the goodwill and assistance extended to us that
transcended hatred by a truly large number of countries, such as
the United States, Australia, and European nations, which Japan
had fiercely fought against as enemies.

We must pass this down from generation to generation into the
future. We have the great responsibility to take the lessons of
history deeply into our hearts, to carve out a better future, and
to make all possible efforts for the peace and prosperity of Asia
and the world."<END QUOTE>

International Business Times and Dept. of State

****
**** Brief generational history of Japan
****

Japan was almost completely isolated for centuries, but in 1853, US
Commander Matthew Perry brought four warships to Edo (Tokyo). There
was a brief naval battle that the Americans won easily. In 1854,
Japan signed a treaty with the US that opened up several Japanese
ports in a limited way. In the next two years, Japan signed similar
treaties with Great Britain, Russia and the Netherlands.

This humiliating defeat triggered a crisis civil war in Japan that was
finally resolved in 1868, when the family that had ruled Japan since
1603 was overthrown. The new emperor took the name Meiji
("enlightened rule"), and the crisis war climax is known as the "Meiji
Restoration."

Generational Awakening eras, which begin around 15 years after the end
of the preceding crisis war, are always a reaction to the crisis war
by a rising post-war generation rebelling against their war survivor
parents. (America's last generational Awakening era was the
1960s-70s.)

Young people in the 1890s rebelled against the isolation of pre-war
Japan, and also took note of the successful colonization of many
countries by Britain, France, and other countries. Japan entered an
imperialist era, and from 1894-1910, Japan engaged in a series of wars
against China and Russia, resulting in one victory after another. In
the treaties resulting from these wars, Japan was given Taiwan, Korea,
and southern Manchuria, along with other territories. By the way,
Japan was not considered to be an enemy of the West at this time, but
was thought to be an advanced, "westernized" nation.

Japan became giddy with its military successes, and in the 1920s,
turned into a completely militaristic state. There was censorship of
the press, complete state control by the military, and open plans for
military expansion into China and Russia. Japan felt insulted by
America's 1924 decision to block immigration by the Japanese, and then
hurt by the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which devastated Japan's
economy and was considered almost an act of war. Japan went to war in
Manchuria in 1931, and was at war continually until the end of World
War II.

After surrendering, almost overnight, the Japanese people reverted to
their old non-imperialistic selves they used to be before Commodore
Perry's visit. The country became strongly pacifist and disbanded its
armed forces.

Today, Japan is torn between two generational crisis eras. One of
them is World War II, which was a disaster for Imperialistic Japan;
and the other is the civil war following Commodore Perry's visit,
which was a disaster for isolationist Japan.

Today, Japan is a pacifist nation, while China has become an
Imperialist nation, and an existential threat to Japan. Japan has to
struggle to find a way to reject both its isolationist past and its
Imperialist past, and still be prepared for the inevitable war with
China. The reinterpretation of Japan's pacifist constitution
to permit "collective self-defense"
is an important part of that struggle. And Friday's speech is an
attempt to describe, in words, a pathway between those two
imperatives.


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Japan, Shinzo Abe, Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act,
Manchurian Inciden, Mukden Incident, Manchuria,
Edo, Tokyo, Commander Matthew Perry, Meiji Restoration,
Britain, France, Taiwan, Korea, Russia

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

*** 15-Aug-15 World View -- Japan's Shinzo Abe blames WW II on the Smoot-Hawley Tariff act

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Japan's Shinzo Abe blames WW II on the Smoot-Hawley Tariff act
• Brief generational history of Japan

****
**** Japan's Shinzo Abe blames WW II on the Smoot-Hawley Tariff act
****


Shinzo Abe looks down during his speech on Friday (Getty)

Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe on Friday gave his long-awaited
speech commemorating the 70th anniversary of VJ day, ending World War
II. It was closely watched by Asian countries, especially Korea and
China, to see if he'd renew the apologies of his predecessors
for Japan's brutality during WW II, and particularly for Japan's
use of Korean and Chinese "comfort women."

Abe did not apologize again, though he expressed profound grief. What
was really interesting was the historical perspective of his speech,
particularly his claim that Japan's actions in World War II were
triggered by the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, the June 1930 law passed by
Congress that erected enormous trade barriers and worsened the Great
Depression.

I've said many times in the past that the Smoot-Hawley Act could be
considered the beginning of World War II, so it's interesting to
me that Abe is implying the same thing.

In Friday's speech, Abe said:

<QUOTE>"After World War I, which embroiled the world, the
movement for self-determination gained momentum and put brakes on
colonization that had been underway. It was a horrible war that
claimed as many as ten million lives. With a strong desire for
peace stirred in them, people founded the League of Nations and
brought forth the General Treaty for Renunciation of War. There
emerged in the international community a new tide of outlawing war
itself.

At the beginning, Japan, too, kept steps with other
nations. However, with the Great Depression setting in and the
Western countries launching economic blocs by involving colonial
economies, Japan’s economy suffered a major blow. In such
circumstances, Japan’s sense of isolation deepened and it
attempted to overcome its diplomatic and economic deadlock through
the use of force. Its domestic political system could not serve as
a brake to stop such attempts. In this way, Japan lost sight of
the overall trends in the world.

With the Manchurian Incident, followed by the withdrawal from the
League of Nations, Japan gradually transformed itself into a
challenger to the new international order that the international
community sought to establish after tremendous sacrifices. Japan
took the wrong course and advanced along the road to war.

And, seventy years ago, Japan was defeated."<END QUOTE>

Abe left out many imperialistic acts that occurred earlier,
such as annexing Korea and part of China in 1910.

The "major blow" that Japan's economy suffered was the Smoot-Hawley
Tariff Act. The Great Depression was hurting Japan just as much as it
was hurting America but, in addition, Japan's exports of its biggest
cash crop, silk, to America were almost completely cut off.

The "Manchurian Incident" to which Abe refers, or "Mukden Incident,"
occurred a year later. On September 18, 1931, an explosion destroyed
a section of railway track owned by Japan in the city of Mukden
in Manchuria. Japan blamed Chinese nationalists, though many
believe that the Japanese military planted the bomb to provide
a pretext. Either way, Japan invaded Manchuria.

Abe said that Japan had suffered enormously for its mistakes
in WW II:

<QUOTE>"On the 70th anniversary of the end of the war, I bow
my head deeply before the souls of all those who perished both at
home and abroad. I express my feelings of profound grief and my
eternal, sincere condolences.

More than 3 million of our compatriots lost their lives during the
war: on the battlefields worrying about the future of their
homeland and wishing for the happiness of their families; in
remote foreign countries after the war, in extreme cold or heat,
suffering from starvation and disease. The atomic bombings of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the air raids on Tokyo and other cities,
and the ground battles in Okinawa, among others, took a heavy toll
among ordinary citizens without mercy. ...

Upon the innocent people did our country inflict immeasurable
damage and suffering. History is harsh. What is done cannot be
undone. Each and every one of them had his or her life, dream, and
beloved family. When I squarely contemplate this obvious fact,
even now, I find myself speechless and my heart is rent with the
utmost grief."<END QUOTE>

Having learned its lesson, according to Abe, Japan turned
into a pacifist nation, and vowed to never let anything like
that happen again. He said that it should not be necessary
for future generations to continue to apologize:

<QUOTE>"In Japan, the postwar generations now exceed 80 per
cent of its population. We must not let our children,
grandchildren, and even further generations to come, who have
nothing to do with that war, be predestined to apologize. Still,
even so, we Japanese, across generations, must squarely face the
history of the past. We have the responsibility to inherit the
past, in all humbleness, and pass it on to the future.

Our parents’ and grandparents’ generations were able to survive in
a devastated land in sheer poverty after the war. The future they
brought about is the one our current generation inherited and the
one we will hand down to the next generation. Together with the
tireless efforts of our predecessors, this has only been possible
through the goodwill and assistance extended to us that
transcended hatred by a truly large number of countries, such as
the United States, Australia, and European nations, which Japan
had fiercely fought against as enemies.

We must pass this down from generation to generation into the
future. We have the great responsibility to take the lessons of
history deeply into our hearts, to carve out a better future, and
to make all possible efforts for the peace and prosperity of Asia
and the world."<END QUOTE>

International Business Times and Dept. of State

****
**** Brief generational history of Japan
****

Japan was almost completely isolated for centuries, but in 1853, US
Commander Matthew Perry brought four warships to Edo (Tokyo). There
was a brief naval battle that the Americans won easily. In 1854,
Japan signed a treaty with the US that opened up several Japanese
ports in a limited way. In the next two years, Japan signed similar
treaties with Great Britain, Russia and the Netherlands.

This humiliating defeat triggered a crisis civil war in Japan that was
finally resolved in 1868, when the family that had ruled Japan since
1603 was overthrown. The new emperor took the name Meiji
("enlightened rule"), and the crisis war climax is known as the "Meiji
Restoration."

Generational Awakening eras, which begin around 15 years after the end
of the preceding crisis war, are always a reaction to the crisis war
by a rising post-war generation rebelling against their war survivor
parents. (America's last generational Awakening era was the
1960s-70s.)

Young people in the 1890s rebelled against the isolation of pre-war
Japan, and also took note of the successful colonization of many
countries by Britain, France, and other countries. Japan entered an
imperialist era, and from 1894-1910, Japan engaged in a series of wars
against China and Russia, resulting in one victory after another. In
the treaties resulting from these wars, Japan was given Taiwan, Korea,
and southern Manchuria, along with other territories. By the way,
Japan was not considered to be an enemy of the West at this time, but
was thought to be an advanced, "westernized" nation.

Japan became giddy with its military successes, and in the 1920s,
turned into a completely militaristic state. There was censorship of
the press, complete state control by the military, and open plans for
military expansion into China and Russia. Japan felt insulted by
America's 1924 decision to block immigration by the Japanese, and then
hurt by the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which devastated Japan's
economy and was considered almost an act of war. Japan went to war in
Manchuria in 1931, and was at war continually until the end of World
War II.

After surrendering, almost overnight, the Japanese people reverted to
their old non-imperialistic selves they used to be before Commodore
Perry's visit. The country became strongly pacifist and disbanded its
armed forces.

Today, Japan is torn between two generational crisis eras. One of
them is World War II, which was a disaster for Imperialistic Japan;
and the other is the civil war following Commodore Perry's visit,
which was a disaster for isolationist Japan.

Today, Japan is a pacifist nation, while China has become an
Imperialist nation, and an existential threat to Japan. Japan has to
struggle to find a way to reject both its isolationist past and its
Imperialist past, and still be prepared for the inevitable war with
China. The reinterpretation of Japan's pacifist constitution
to permit "collective self-defense"
is an important part of that struggle. And Friday's speech is an
attempt to describe, in words, a pathway between those two
imperatives.


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Japan, Shinzo Abe, Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act,
Manchurian Inciden, Mukden Incident, Manchuria,
Edo, Tokyo, Commander Matthew Perry, Meiji Restoration,
Britain, France, Taiwan, Korea, Russia

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail

Even though Abe's speech could have gone further into the things Japan did wrong, I like the way he talked about the way Japan fell out of step from international / civilized norms and how its internal political culture (what little it had at the time) did not prevent the excesses which transpired. There is a good reason for him making this speech now, and that reason is not a 70th anniversary of being nuked. The real reason is the current and emerging behavior of the SCO and its Axis partners. They are the new Axis, like Japan, Germany et al were the old Axis. He is warning them of consequences, some of which may well be delivered by Japan itself, who, this time around, will be one of the Allies. Japan has enormous capabilities to mass produce nuclear weapons. Japan has one of the most advanced Plutonium cycles on the planet. It has been Japan's historic pacifism that has kept it a non nuclear weapon nation. The rationale for such pacifism fades more and more every day.

Japanese imperialism was not dominated by the prophet generation which only came to power in Japan in the early-1920s. The Japanese military had embraced expansion as early as the late 1870s. As regard to the current values of the current generation of American and other western leaders. Boomer pacifism is a disgusting insult to the warrior values of the True western way. Selfish boomers opposed using nuclear weapons after 9/11 even though they openly believe that keeping continuity with post-ww2 and awakening era values would lead to disaster; the boomers consistently block any attempt by gen-x and gen-y to take America and Europe in an entirely different direction altogether (a direction I have hinted at on this thread and elsewhere). We will be the leaders of the future, who will create a new order. The Millennials (When I mention Millennials here, I am largely referring to the younger Millennials, the ones who are in High school and college now and whose youngest cohorts appear to currently be in either middle school or late elementary school) will be the foot soldiers that will lead the way through the barrels of their guns, armor and missiles. But the selfish boomer, by refusing to cede power because of purely ideological reasons related to their idiotic moral code, and by their refusal to countenance any policy other than holding the lid, girly-men like our current boomer leaders prefer to see this dream destroyed.

*** 16-Aug-15 World View -- Germany ends its Patriot missile deployment in Turkey

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Russian women increasingly marrying Chinese men
• Germany ends its Patriot missile deployment in Turkey

****
**** Russian women increasingly marrying Chinese men
****


A big, blond Russian little girl is a favorite wife in China (Wenhuebao)

It seems like a match made in heaven. There's a shortage of men in
Russia because of super-high mortality rates, and there's a shortage
of women in China because of the decades-old "one child policy."

According to the Hong Kong paper Wenhuebao, "Russian beauties
are a good choice for Chinese men." The article says that Chinese men
have “every chance” to find a wife in Russia because “there are few
men in that country” and more than half of the women work.
Consequently, many Russian women would like to marry and have
children.

<QUOTE>"In the [Russian] Far East, the number of
Russian-Chinese marriages is much greater than you can imagine.
Many [Russian] girls from this region think that only in China
will it be possible for them to find happiness. [Thus], it is
obvious that Russian girls very much need Chinese
men."<END QUOTE>

The article adds that Russian girls like the fact that few Chinese men
"drink wine, which is extremely important for the Russian girls."

The article also recommends to Chinese men that they seek out wives in
Singapore, Japan, South Korea and Africa. However, the poorest
choices for Chinese men are Vietnamese women, according to the
article, because of the language barrier, and because they're only in
it for the money. Window on Eurasia / Paul Goble and Wenhuebao (Hong Kong) (Trans)

****
**** Germany ends its Patriot missile deployment in Turkey
****

Germany stationed batteries of Patriot missiles in Turkey, 60 miles
north of the border with Syria, in January 2013. Turkey requested the
help from NATO after a Turkish jet had been shot down by Syrian forces
in June 2012, and Syrian shellfire killed Turkish civilians four
months later. The Patriot missiles would have been used to
shoot down Syrian missiles coming into Turkey from Syria.

Germany now says that it will withdraw the Patriot missiles in January
2016. Germany gives as reasons that the deployment is expensive. In
addition, German's Defense Ministry says, "The decision was taken
after the present assessments made by the NATO in June 2015, which
concluded that the threat against Turkish territories by Syrian
ballistic missiles is very low."

In 2013, additional Patriot missile batteries were sent to Turkey by
the United States and the Netherlands. Early this year, the
Netherlands withdrew their Patriot missiles, and they were replace by
units from Spain. Deutsche Welle (Berlin) and Today's Zaman (Istanbul)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Russia, Far East, China, Vietnam,
Germany, Turkey, Patriot Missiles, Netherlands, Spain

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail

*** 17-Aug-15 World View -- Suicide attack in Pakistan means no politician is safe

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Tianjin explosion poses new threats to China's government
• Suicide attack in Pakistan means no politician is safe

****
**** Tianjin explosion poses new threats to China's government
****


Picture shows huge crater where explosions took place, with apartment buildings nearby (Reuters)

China is overdue for its next "people's rebellion," and so nothing
frightens Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials more than angry
people. And the Chinese people are expressing fury over last week's
massive industrial explosion in Tianjin, and the stonewalling
by officials.

Last Wednesday's series of explosions killed at least 112 people.
More than 700 have hospitalized, and dozens are still missing. Dozens
of the dead are firefighters who sprayed water on a warehouse to put
out the fire, and apparently ignited an explosion when the water mixed
with calcium carbide.

On Friday, there were reports that the warehouse contained between 100
and 700 tons of sodium cyanide. Sodium cyanide can be "rapidly fatal"
if it's inhaled or ingested. If it's dissolved or burned, then it
gives off the highly poisonous gas hydrogen cyanide. Regulations
permit only 10 tons of sodium cyanide to be stored in a warehouse. If
there's a rainstorm before these chemicals are cleaned up, then there
could be many further deaths.

As usual in Chinese society, the disaster exposed massive corruption.
All of these dangerous chemicals were stored close to a high-rise
apartment complex, in violation of Chinese law. This is raising
speculation about possible corruption and criminal negligence, and an
official cover-up.

In fact, CCP officials are actively trying to cover up the situation
by suppressing news. There was a televised press conference on
Friday, but the coverage cut away when questions were about to begin.
Journalists who attended the press conferences said that propaganda
officials gave no answers to questions, beyond "Let me check."
Security personnel were physically harassing foreign media trying to
speak to family members of the missing. Some people were joking that
local television in Tianjin was showing cartoons during much of the
crisis.

There are still hundreds of firefighters trying to put out the still
smoldering fire in Tianjin.

At the same time, Chinese authorities are trying to put out a raging
fire in online social media. Online users are furious at CCP
officials because family members are not being told anything and
official negligence is being covered up. Posted messages called the
situation "A real life Pinocchio," and demanded the truth, as well as
severe punishment for responsible officials.

The widespread criticism is casting doubt on the credibility of the
CCP, something that officials fear very much. And this disaster comes
just as China's economy is slowing and the stock market bubble is
collapsing. This is a potent combination for social discord.
Globe and Mail (Toronto) and BBC and
AP

****
**** Suicide attack in Pakistan means no politician is safe
****

Two suicide bombers were used on Sunday to target Shuja Khanzada, a
senior government official, Home Minister of Punjab province in
Pakistan. Khanzada was holding a Jirga (meeting) in his home with
about 100 people. Once suicide bomber stood outside the home, and the
other went inside in the meeting. The resulting explosions caused the
large concrete slabs that made up the roof to collapse, trapping
people inside. Khanzada and 17 others were killed, while dozens were
injured.

Several terrorist groups claimed responsibility, but the most likely
perpetrator was Lashkar-e Jhangvi (LeJ). I've written about LeJ many
times. It's dedicated to the extermination of all Shia Muslims,
especially the Hazara ethnic group.

Late in July, LeJ's leader Malik Ishaq was killed in gunfight
while he was in police custody. It's
believed that the gunfight was a setup by the police to allow them to
kill Ishaq, rather than return him to jail.

Shuja Khanzada has been vigorously attacking militant groups in Punjab
province, so an attack on him is not a surprise. However, this attack
may have occurred at this time because of the perception that Khanzada
was responsible for Ishaq's death.

What's remarkable is that Khanzada was certainly going to be targeted
by militants, and yet had no protection at all, since two suicide
bombers had no trouble approaching him.

Sunday's attack sends an unmistakable message to Pakistan's political
leadership across the country that no one is safe. If there are other
successful operations targeting terrorist or extremist groups, then
they can and will retaliate. There is no safe ground, and no one is
safe. Pakistan Today and Express Tribune (Pakistan)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Pakistan, Punjab, Shuja Khanzada,
Lashkar-e Jhangvi, LeJ, Malik Ishaq,
China, Tianjin, Chinese Communist Party, CCP,
calcium carbide, sodium cyanide, hydrogen cyanide

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

*** 16-Aug-15 World View -- Germany ends its Patriot missile deployment in Turkey

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Russian women increasingly marrying Chinese men
• Germany ends its Patriot missile deployment in Turkey

****
**** Russian women increasingly marrying Chinese men
****


A big, blond Russian little girl is a favorite wife in China (Wenhuebao)

It seems like a match made in heaven. There's a shortage of men in
Russia because of super-high mortality rates, and there's a shortage
of women in China because of the decades-old "one child policy."

According to the Hong Kong paper Wenhuebao, "Russian beauties
are a good choice for Chinese men." The article says that Chinese men
have “every chance” to find a wife in Russia because “there are few
men in that country” and more than half of the women work.
Consequently, many Russian women would like to marry and have
children.

<QUOTE>"In the [Russian] Far East, the number of
Russian-Chinese marriages is much greater than you can imagine.
Many [Russian] girls from this region think that only in China
will it be possible for them to find happiness. [Thus], it is
obvious that Russian girls very much need Chinese
men."<END QUOTE>

The article adds that Russian girls like the fact that few Chinese men
"drink wine, which is extremely important for the Russian girls."

The article also recommends to Chinese men that they seek out wives in
Singapore, Japan, South Korea and Africa. However, the poorest
choices for Chinese men are Vietnamese women, according to the
article, because of the language barrier, and because they're only in
it for the money. Window on Eurasia / Paul Goble and Wenhuebao (Hong Kong) (Trans)

****
**** Germany ends its Patriot missile deployment in Turkey
****

Germany stationed batteries of Patriot missiles in Turkey, 60 miles
north of the border with Syria, in January 2013. Turkey requested the
help from NATO after a Turkish jet had been shot down by Syrian forces
in June 2012, and Syrian shellfire killed Turkish civilians four
months later. The Patriot missiles would have been used to
shoot down Syrian missiles coming into Turkey from Syria.

Germany now says that it will withdraw the Patriot missiles in January
2016. Germany gives as reasons that the deployment is expensive. In
addition, German's Defense Ministry says, "The decision was taken
after the present assessments made by the NATO in June 2015, which
concluded that the threat against Turkish territories by Syrian
ballistic missiles is very low."

In 2013, additional Patriot missile batteries were sent to Turkey by
the United States and the Netherlands. Early this year, the
Netherlands withdrew their Patriot missiles, and they were replace by
units from Spain. Deutsche Welle (Berlin) and Today's Zaman (Istanbul)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Russia, Far East, China, Vietnam,
Germany, Turkey, Patriot Missiles, Netherlands, Spain

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail

Those Patriots need to be in Northeastern Germany and Poland - for shooting down Iskanders.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

*** 17-Aug-15 World View -- Suicide attack in Pakistan means no politician is safe

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Tianjin explosion poses new threats to China's government
• Suicide attack in Pakistan means no politician is safe

****
**** Tianjin explosion poses new threats to China's government
****


Picture shows huge crater where explosions took place, with apartment buildings nearby (Reuters)

China is overdue for its next "people's rebellion," and so nothing
frightens Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials more than angry
people. And the Chinese people are expressing fury over last week's
massive industrial explosion in Tianjin, and the stonewalling
by officials.

Last Wednesday's series of explosions killed at least 112 people.
More than 700 have hospitalized, and dozens are still missing. Dozens
of the dead are firefighters who sprayed water on a warehouse to put
out the fire, and apparently ignited an explosion when the water mixed
with calcium carbide.

On Friday, there were reports that the warehouse contained between 100
and 700 tons of sodium cyanide. Sodium cyanide can be "rapidly fatal"
if it's inhaled or ingested. If it's dissolved or burned, then it
gives off the highly poisonous gas hydrogen cyanide. Regulations
permit only 10 tons of sodium cyanide to be stored in a warehouse. If
there's a rainstorm before these chemicals are cleaned up, then there
could be many further deaths.

As usual in Chinese society, the disaster exposed massive corruption.
All of these dangerous chemicals were stored close to a high-rise
apartment complex, in violation of Chinese law. This is raising
speculation about possible corruption and criminal negligence, and an
official cover-up.

In fact, CCP officials are actively trying to cover up the situation
by suppressing news. There was a televised press conference on
Friday, but the coverage cut away when questions were about to begin.
Journalists who attended the press conferences said that propaganda
officials gave no answers to questions, beyond "Let me check."
Security personnel were physically harassing foreign media trying to
speak to family members of the missing. Some people were joking that
local television in Tianjin was showing cartoons during much of the
crisis.

There are still hundreds of firefighters trying to put out the still
smoldering fire in Tianjin.

At the same time, Chinese authorities are trying to put out a raging
fire in online social media. Online users are furious at CCP
officials because family members are not being told anything and
official negligence is being covered up. Posted messages called the
situation "A real life Pinocchio," and demanded the truth, as well as
severe punishment for responsible officials.

The widespread criticism is casting doubt on the credibility of the
CCP, something that officials fear very much. And this disaster comes
just as China's economy is slowing and the stock market bubble is
collapsing. This is a potent combination for social discord.
Globe and Mail (Toronto) and BBC and
AP

****
**** Suicide attack in Pakistan means no politician is safe
****

Two suicide bombers were used on Sunday to target Shuja Khanzada, a
senior government official, Home Minister of Punjab province in
Pakistan. Khanzada was holding a Jirga (meeting) in his home with
about 100 people. Once suicide bomber stood outside the home, and the
other went inside in the meeting. The resulting explosions caused the
large concrete slabs that made up the roof to collapse, trapping
people inside. Khanzada and 17 others were killed, while dozens were
injured.

Several terrorist groups claimed responsibility, but the most likely
perpetrator was Lashkar-e Jhangvi (LeJ). I've written about LeJ many
times. It's dedicated to the extermination of all Shia Muslims,
especially the Hazara ethnic group.

Late in July, LeJ's leader Malik Ishaq was killed in gunfight
while he was in police custody. It's
believed that the gunfight was a setup by the police to allow them to
kill Ishaq, rather than return him to jail.

Shuja Khanzada has been vigorously attacking militant groups in Punjab
province, so an attack on him is not a surprise. However, this attack
may have occurred at this time because of the perception that Khanzada
was responsible for Ishaq's death.

What's remarkable is that Khanzada was certainly going to be targeted
by militants, and yet had no protection at all, since two suicide
bombers had no trouble approaching him.

Sunday's attack sends an unmistakable message to Pakistan's political
leadership across the country that no one is safe. If there are other
successful operations targeting terrorist or extremist groups, then
they can and will retaliate. There is no safe ground, and no one is
safe. Pakistan Today and Express Tribune (Pakistan)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Pakistan, Punjab, Shuja Khanzada,
Lashkar-e Jhangvi, LeJ, Malik Ishaq,
China, Tianjin, Chinese Communist Party, CCP,
calcium carbide, sodium cyanide, hydrogen cyanide

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail

I have to wonder if any munitions were involved. War preparations are happening in the PRC and that's when accidents involving munitions or components / raw materials for them are more likely.