US offered Israel advanced weaponry in exchange for delaying Iran attack
Instead of drumming up a war to meet the needs of the political moment, B.O. is trying to drum up a fake temporary “peace(?)” or something that could pass for it to the undiscriminating.
Now, what could be the motivation for THAT? Hmmmm. Oh, here it it, right in the article:
Under the proposed deal, Israel would not attack Iran until 2013, after US elections in November this year.
Such a deal for Israel. Yeah, right!
So How Much is This New Conflict War Costing?
Ever wonder how much a Tomahawk missile costs? How about 110 of them? And what effect will those prices have on GOP attemps to trim the budget? Those are the questions that many are asking as American involves itself in yet another international conflict. And the answers aren’t too settling.
Well, DUH! Fighting even a limited high-tech war is an expensive business, in any sense of the word!
The question that remains unanswered is what in the world are we really trying to accomplish with this one. There’s info out there that the best organized eastern Libyan opposition to Qaddafi is our old fave al-Qaida. Not wouldn’t THAT be an improvement to Muammar? (NOT!)
We would be better advised to husband our resources, and not be involved with this one….Like, if you’re hiking down the trail and come upon a scorpion dueling with a rattlesnake, would you choose a side and get involved? No thanks!
Frankfurt Airport Shooting an Act of Islamic Terror, European Officials Say
Suspect, 21, Accused of Killing Two U.S. Servicemen in Germany; Shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ During Attack
Having been mugged by reality enough times, the Euros, in spite of political correctness, are getting the point:
Authorities in Europe are calling the shooting at a Frankfurt, Germany, airport that claimed the lives of two U.S. servicemen an act of Islamic terrorism, though U.S. investigators said it is too soon to tell.
Too soon to tell? If one starts shooting at US troops while shouting the jihadi battle cry, what else is needed, besides a willingness to actually engage in thought? This is commented on more fully:
Obama’s state of Islamic denial
Note to Barack: ‘Allahu akbar’ is a Muslim war cry
U.S. troops are gunned down by a shooter who screams “Allahu akbar!†before opening fire. Official statements are rushed out: The perpetrator was a lone wolf; his motive was unclear; there are no links to terrorism. Sound familiar? It should, because when Islam is the cause of American tragedy, President Obama hides his head in the sand.
Methinks this commentator is too generous in his description of B.O.’s stance. The Chief would say that at best, his head is somewhere else where the sun doesn’t shine.
…the White House still obstinately refuses to discuss the jihadist motives of the terrorists involved. [emphasis added]
The Obama administration’s knee-jerk instinct to deny reality in hopes it will go away is clearly not working. How many Americans have to die before Mr. Obama at long last admits the nature of the Islamist threat that killed them?
Or, to think the unthinkable, does B.O. have a higher loyalty than to the United States that dictates his feckless and pusillanimous response to the state of war that has been declared against us by the international Islamist movement?
First, the House Energy and Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee is acting to undo the FCC’s sidestep around the courts to impose so-called “net neutrality” rules.
House Panel to Vote on ‘Disapproving’ Net Neutrality
The congressional assault on network neutrality regulations adopted by the Democratic-led Federal Communications Commission in December continues Wednesday, when the House Energy and Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee votes on a “resolution of disapproval” designed to derail the requirements, which prohibit the blocking or degrading of online competitors.
So, what’s so bad about this? Imagine you build a railroad, so you can make some money delivering freight to the locations along your line. A would-be competitor decides this is unfair, since his delivery via truck is much more expensive, and not as efficient. So…should he be given the right to use YOUR line to deliver HIS freight, with exactly the same cost and priority as you do? That could be called “freight neutrality”…sort of reminds me of something out of Atlas Shrugged, when stated in those terms.’
When put in terms of the interned, it becomes “Net Neutrality”, additional regulation of the most free and open part of the economy, which will inevitably result in degradation of the net, as elaborated on by House Speaker Boehner commenting on the same issue, as well as the problem of the ballooning national debt:
Boehner rips bid to regulate Internet
Debt likened to Sputnik threat
House Speaker John A. Boehner lashed out against efforts to regulate Internet traffic before an audience of evangelical Christian media leaders and pointedly responded to President Obama by comparing the challenge of the burgeoning national debt to the Sputnik-era space race.
In a speech to religious broadcasters that received a sustained ovation at his conclusion, he said free expression is under attack by a power structure in Washington populated with regulators who have never set foot inside a radio station or a television studio.
“We see this threat in how the FCC is creeping further into the free market by trying to regulate the Internet,†Mr. Boehner said. “The last thing we need, in my view, is the FCC serving as Internet traffic controller, and potentially running roughshod over local broadcasters who have been serving their communities with free content for decades,â€
Sounds about right, as does this:
But, the Ohio Republican warned, one threat “dwarfs others in terms of the danger it poses to freedom and our children’s future.â€
“You may recall President Obama, in his State of the Union address, talking about a ‘Sputnik moment,’ the moment that shocks our generation into getting serious. In my view, America’s ‘Sputnik moment’ is our shocking national debt,†he said.
Boehner also commented on another fundamental communication issue that has been under some discussion recently:
Mr. Boehner also inveighed against any effort to reinstate the so-called “Fairness Doctrine,†whose 1987 elimination led to the rise of a vibrant talk-radio industry.
“Our new majority is committed to seeing that the government does not reinstate the Fairness Doctrine,†he said.
Mr. Boehner said Rep. Greg Walden, Oregon Republican, “has teamed up with another former broadcaster, Congressman Mike Pence of Indiana, to introduce legislation to help keep the airwaves free. I expect the House to act on this measure as well.â€
Untested & unready
B.O., Hill both inept on Mideast
Can you say “poor situational awareness”?
“It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep,” it began. “But there’s a phone in the White House and it’s ringing. Something’s happening in the world.
“Your vote will decide who answers that call. Whether it’s someone who already knows the world’s leaders, knows the military, someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world . . . Who do you want answering the phone?”
Now we know the answer: neither of the above.
Unfortunately, the current administration is proving to be as incompetent in the Middle East as was that of Jimmy “Peanut” Carter. It’s hard to decide which was worse…Carter had that ultimate example of fecklessness that was the Iran hostage crisis, but on the positive side, he DID deserve some propers for the Camp David Accords. B.O. on the other hand has not YET had a disaster on the scale of the hostages, but then too, he hasn’t accomplished anything worth while, either.
One can only hope that as the Egyptian situation settles out that the Muslim Brotherhood doesn’t get power and cancel the treaty that resulted from the Camp David meetings.
No negative result of B.O.’s foreign policy activities would be too much of a surprise at this point.
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood eyes unity gov’t without Mubarak
The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest opposition group,is in talks with other anti-government figures to form a national unity government without President Hosni Mubarak, a group official told DPA on Sunday.
Although the Muslim Brotherhood is officially banned from running for elections for parliament, some movement members have presented candidacy for parliament as independents.
This would NOT good for the U.S., indeed or for Western Civilization itself:
The process of settlement [of Islam in the United States] is a “Civilization-Jihadist” process with all the word means. The Ikhwan [M.B.] must understand that all their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” their miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim’s destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who choose to slack. [This description was in a Dallas Morning News piece by Rod Dreher, but is apparently no longer accessible there.]
For a bit more up to date explanation and treatment go here. This link includes an instructive look at one of the previously noted apologists ostriches.
Administration mouthpieces, and others who are currently downplaying any threat from the Muslim Brotherhood, either have a severe case of poor situational awareness, or some other agenda than the national interest and survival of United States constitutional principles.
Well, at any rate, made with American technology!
China used downed U.S. fighter to develop first stealth jet
China was able to build its first stealth bomber using technology gleaned from a downed U.S. fighter, it has been claimed. Beijing unveiled its state-of-the-art jet – the Chengdu J-20 – earlier this month. Military officials say it is likely the Chinese were able to develop the stealth technology from parts of an American F-117 Nighthawk that was shot down over Serbia in 1999.
I know that imitation is supposed to be the sincerest form of flattery…but in this case it would be better if that honor could have been avoided.
The PRC is the new USSR as far as the US is concerned.
Iran Placing Medium-Range Missiles in Venezuela; Can Reach the U.S.
Iran is planning to place medium-range missiles on Venezuelan soil, based on western information sources[1], according to an article in the German daily, Die Welt, of November 25, 2010. According to the article, an agreement between the two countries was signed during the last visit o Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to Tehran on October19, 2010. The previously undisclosed contract provides for the establishment of a jointly operated military base in Venezuela, and the joint development of ground-to-ground missiles.
The Chief recently finished reading Michael Dobbs’ One Minute to Midnight, his engaging, authoritative, and detailed account of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, and how we were able to avoid a thermonuclear war largely due to the fact that grown-ups (Kennedy and Krushchev) were at least nominally in charge, and in spite of a spontaneous flow of negative events were able to engineer a mutually tolerable conclusion to the situation. (By the way, the book is a great read…sort of Tom Clancy for real!)
Unfortunately one doubts that with Obama, Hugo Chavez, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the players today, that the character and level of rationality available will prove to be adequate to maintain sanity, to say nothing of national security.
The situation that is unfolding in Venezuela has some resemblance to the Cuba crisis of 1962. At that time, Cuba was acting on behalf of the USSR; now Venezuela is acting on behalf of Iran. At present, the geopolitical situation is very different: the world is no longer ruled by two superpowers; new nations, often with questionable leaders and the ambition of acquiring global status, are appearing on the international scene. Their danger to the free world will be greater if the process of nuclear proliferation is not stopped. Among the nations that aspire to become world powers, Iran has certainly the best capabilities of posing a challenge to the West.
Back in the 1962, thanks to the stern stance adopted by the then Kennedy administration, the crisis was defused.
Nowadays, however, we do not see the same firmness from the present administration. On the contrary, we see a lax attitude, both in language and in deeds, that results in extending hands when our adversaries have no intention of shaking hands with us. Iran is soon going to have a nuclear weapon, and there are no signs that UN sanctions will in any way deter the Ayatollah’s regime from completing its nuclear program. We know that Iran already has missiles that can carry an atomic warhead over Israel and over the Arabian Peninsula. Now we learn that Iran is planning to build a missile base close to the US borders. How longer do we have to wait before the Obama administration begins to understand threats?
Pray.
KUHNER: Assassinate Assange
Web provocateur undermines war on terror, threatens American lives
Julian Assange poses a clear and present danger to American national security. The WikiLeaks founder is more than a reckless provocateur. He is aiding and abetting terrorists in their war against America. The administration must take care of the problem – effectively and permanently.
…the Obama administration refuses to stop Mr. Assange. His previous document dumps disclosed the names and identities of foreigners working with the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq – individuals actively involved in defeating al Qaeda and the Taliban. Their exposure could lead to many of them being killed, tortured or targeted by insurgents. Mr. Assange is directly responsible for endangering their lives. He is an active, willful enabler of Islamic terrorism. He is as much a threat as Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahri. In short, Mr. Assange is not a journalist or publisher; rather, he is an enemy combatant – and should be treated as such.
Kuhner’s piece has more to say on this all, with more gory details on the damages as well as the near total fecklessness of the B.O. administration in its failures to deal with national security issues:
Mr. Obama, however, could not be bothered with any of this. For him, foreign policy is a distraction – something to be crammed into his schedule as he seeks to transform America into a multicultural social democracy.
The United States is paying a severe price for Mr. Obama’s negligence. This is the greatest diplomatic crisis since the late 1940s, when communist agents in the U.S. government provided atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. The world is witnessing the absurd, almost surreal spectacle of the American superpower standing helpless in the face of a lone hacker. Her diplomatic secrets are no longer safe; her allies and friends are being betrayed; and her cyber-enemies are free to roam with impunity. America is no longer feared or respected.
Rope, hacker, tree. Some assembly required.
My tendency has been to just note in passing, to the accompaniment of internal headshakes and and recognition of the tendency of B.O.’s administration to not economize in its travel plans when wretched excess will do, the amazing scope of The One’s latest travel extraviganza to India.
Even with a jaded expectation that this spectacle is inevitable given the nature of the beast, a report from India that 34 US Naval combat ships are yet another part of the plans broke through the Chief’s shell of cynicism, and caused him to catch his breath in amazement due in part to the Naval connection, and the realization of exactly what is taking place.
34 warships sent from US for Obama visit
The White House will, of course, stay in Washington but the heart of the famous building will move to India when President Barack Obama lands in Mumbai on Saturday.
Communications set-up and nuclear button and majority of the White House staff will be in India accompanying the President on this three-day visit that will cover Mumbai and Delhi.
He will also be protected by a fleet of 34 warships, including an aircraft carrier, which will patrol the sea lanes off the Mumbai coast during his two-day stay there beginning Saturday. The measure has been taken as Mumbai attack in 2008 took place from the sea.
Oh yeah, there were a few boats with outboard motors that moved into Mumbai an dropped off the Islamoterrs in ’08. A carrier battle group plus other deep-water combattant ships is just the ticket to stop something like that from happening again? NOT.
Admittedly, given that B.O. (or any President) is visiting overseas, security, communications, etc. is of necessity huge…hence the Chief’s initial lack of getting exercised about the entourage…but this? Just to add a bit of historical and military perspective:
FDR was able to travel to Newfoundland aboard a single Navy cruiser during the height of the N. Atlantic U-boat war to meet with Churchill. He later traveled to Casablanca, Cairo, and Teheran to meet with foreign leaders during the war. Casablanca at the time had been recently seized from Vichy France, and French troops had recently been involved in combat against the U.S. concerning that issue. Neither Cairo nor Teheran were exactly noted as being completely stable places: Teheran was available since the Persian Shah was elsewhere…after playing diplomatic footsie games with the Nazis. Roosevelt somehow thought he might be able to survive with fewer than 3,000 staff plus additional military security forces. (He was right!)
Another perspective is the 34 Navy ships. According to the US Navy web site as of today there are 288 deployable battle force ships as of today. As this is written, there are 147 ships underway (away from home ports), and 110 ships on deployment. SO…about 1/3 of the total US deployed Naval force, or 12% of the total US combat fleet will be at Mumbai to defend B.O.
Seems a bit much, at least, especially when deployments and operational commitments have been placing a heavy load on the ships and personnel, but what does THAT matter to His Eminence? Not much.
Copenhagen Suborbitals prepare to launch first private rocket, astronaut into space
WANT to go to space?
You could pay millions to get on board someone else’s [Russia’s] spacecraft as a tourist, spend six years at uni garnering the relevant NASA qualifications [not these days, with the shuttle program having it’s death rattle and no replacement in sight], or hitch-hike aboard the next alien construction fleet that passes through.
Or you could just build your own.
Yankee ingenuity? Uh…not quite…
A group of engineers in Denmark are preparing to do just that – launch a home-built rocket, along with a human passenger, more than 100km into the sky.
Dubbed HEAT1X, the rocket will be launched from a floating barge in the sea just outside the Danish border, 12 nautical miles from shore.
And it will be towed out there by a submarine built by one of the men behind the rocket project.
Home-brew submarine?…Not a narrow range of interests! At this rate soon DENMARK will have a more active native manned spaceflight program than the US!?
Good for them, shame on us.
Chief’s Preface: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” – George Santayana
A view from the land of Oz, “down under”:
Sun Could Set Suddenly on Superpower as Debt Bites
Question:
We have been raised to think of the historical process as an essentially cyclical one. We naturally tend to assume that in our own time, too, history will move cyclically, and slowly.
Yet what if history is not cyclical and slow-moving but arhythmic, at times almost stationary, but also capable of accelerating suddenly, like a sports car? What if collapse does not arrive over a number of centuries but comes suddenly, like a thief in the night?
Concept:
Great powers and empires are complex systems, which means their construction more resembles a termite hill than an Egyptian pyramid. They operate somewhere between order and disorder, on “the edge of chaos”, in the phrase of the computer scientist Christopher Langton.
Such systems can appear to operate quite stably for some time; they seem to be in equilibrium but are, in fact, constantly adapting.
But there comes a moment when complex systems “go critical”. A very small trigger can set off a phase transition from a benign equilibrium to a crisis. Complex systems share certain characteristics. A small input to such a system can produce huge, often unanticipated changes, what scientists call the amplifier effect.
Application:
Empires exhibit many of the characteristics of other complex adaptive systems, including the tendency to move from stability to instability quite suddenly. But this fact is rarely recognised because of our addiction to cyclical theories of history.
What are the implications for the US today? The most obvious point is that imperial falls are associated with fiscal crises: sharp imbalances between revenues and expenditures, and the mounting cost of servicing a mountain of public debt.Think of Spain in the 17th century: already by 1543 nearly two-thirds of ordinary revenue was going on interest on the juros, the loans by which the Habsburg monarchy financed itself.
Or think of France in the 18th century: between 1751 and 1788, the eve of Revolution, interest and amortisation payments rose from just over a quarter of tax revenue to 62 per cent.
Finally, consider Britain in the 20th century. Its real problems came after 1945, when a substantial proportion of its now immense debt burden was in foreign hands. Of the pound stg. 21 billion national debt at the end of the war, about pound stg. 3.4bn was owed to foreign creditors, equivalent to about a third of gross domestic product.
Go to the linked article for the gory details on our current circumstances that lead to a harrowing conclusion:
For now, the world still expects the US to muddle through, eventually confronting its problems when, as Churchill famously said, all the alternatives have been exhausted. With the sovereign debt crisis in Europe combining with growing fears of a deflationary double-dip recession, bond yields are at historic lows….
We should be so blessed!
Australia’s post-war foreign policy has been, in essence, to be a committed ally of the US.
But what if the sudden waning of American power that I fear brings to an abrupt end the era of US hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region? Are we ready for such a dramatic change in the global balance of power?
Judging by what I have heard here since I arrived last Friday, the answer is no. Australians are simply not thinking about such things.
A favourite phrase of this great country is “No dramas”. But dramas lie ahead as the nasty fiscal arithmetic of imperial decline drives yet another great power over the edge of chaos.
Hopefully more of us will start to remember a few inconvenient historical facts in time to make a difference.
Obama lawsuit invites fortified state militia
Constitution leaves room for Arizona to secure border
OK. The Feds are challenging Arizona’s mild attempt to reinstate some semblance of enforcement to laws put in place, but subsequently not enforced by them. This of course is on the grounds that the states cannot act to enforce Federal law. This proposition raises some points of interest.
Does this mean that states (and localities) then must also not enforce any state or local laws against illegal drug trafficking, possession, or use, all of which are against Federal law also? Also, what then about localities and states that have licensed and tolerate businesses whose entire existence is in violation of Federal laws–specifically the so-called “medical marijuana” trade? According to common law wouldn’t this de-facto administrative annulment of Federal law establish a precedent for similar de-facto state and/or local administrative annulment of other Federal laws?
If this is the case then there is no basis for the Federal suit opposing Arizona’s willingness to take on part of the neglected task of the Feds to enforce their own laws. If it is NOT the case, then the Federal government is directly violating the equal protection of the Constitution by arbitrarily choosing to selectively enforce SOME of its laws while simultaneously ignoring others! (Just wondering, you know?)
Meanwhile, to get back to the point of the above cited and linked op-ed is that even if Arizona is NOT upheld by the court system, it is far from helpless in the face of the ongoing Mexican invasion…Arizona still has some options, ones that are fully allowable under some rather specific terms of the Constitution:
(Uff da! Here’s that pesky 2nd Amendment rearing it’s head again!)
…Arizona can form and expand its own state militia. Such forces were common when our nation was founded, and the Second Amendment recognizes that a “well-regulated Militia” is “necessary to the security of a free State.” In short, Arizona and other states can raise and arm their own military forces. But, for what purpose can such forces legally act?
(Ooops! Not JUST the 2nd Amendment at work.)
The Constitution is informative here. In Article IV, Section 4, the federal government is required to “protect each [state] against Invasion; and [on request of the state government] against domestic Violence.” As St. George Tucker noted, this provision guards against “the possibility of an undue partiality in the federal government,” for example a “sectional” president who might, for political reasons, decline to protect states in a certain region. Today the federal government, at the direction of the president, has declined to carry out its duty under Article IV. Leaving aside its other possible consequences, this intentional failure to protect Arizona raises the question of what action the state is now entitled to take under the Constitution.
[emphasis added]
Yes, what indeed CAN Arizona (and by extension any other state) do in this case?
This brings us to Article I, Section 10, Clause 3, which provides that “No State shall, without the Consent of Congress … engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.
Did you catch that? States MAY go to war under some circumstances WITHOUT “the Consent of Congress”!
“So, the militias organized and armed by a state may go to war when the state has been invaded or is in imminent danger. This is clear under Article I, and plainly justified when the federal government has deliberately failed to protect against invasion as required by Article IV. As Joseph Story explains in his treatise on the Constitution, the prohibition against states engaging in war is “wisely” limited by “exceptions sufficient for the safety of the states, and NOT justly open to the objection of being dangerous to the Union.”
So, the concluding summary from the piece:
At the time of our nation’s founding, the states surrendered certain limited powers to the federal government. Logically, foremost among the enumerated powers delegated to the new central authority were those relating to foreign affairs, including the war powers. But the states were prudent; they had a logical concern that if the federal government should fail in its duty to protect them from “invasion” or “imminent danger,” perhaps for reasons of political “partiality,” then the states should have a robust right to defend themselves, including by armed force. And so they do.
Hmmmm. Federal government “fails in its duty to protect”…for reasons of political “partiality”…? Sounds sort of familiar, somehow.
Remember the Blitzkrieg before it’s too late
First, a basic history review:
Seventy years ago today, on May 10, 1940, the German armed forces launched the deep-penetration attack through southern Belgium to the English Channel that split the French and British armies in two – a form of warfare known to the world as Blitzkrieg or “lightning war.” Three weeks later, the campaign ended with the German subjugation of France, Belgium and the Netherlands and Britain’s ignominious withdrawal from the European continent.
To contemporary Western military observers accustomed to the grinding attrition battles of World War I, Germany’s incredibly successful Blitzkrieg seemed magical. But there was no magic. For any great victory to occur, the winning side must get most things right while the losing side gets most things wrong.
How did this happen?
The Germans got most things right. They integrated new technology into new organizations – radio communications, tanks, armored infantry and air power – under vastly superior battlefield commanders, commanders who led Germany’s superbly educated, physically fit and trained soldiers from the front, not the rear. But it’s what the British and French got wrong that should command America’s attention.
First the Brits:
In the 1920s, Britain’s top generals focused the British army on organizing, training and equipping its troops to police the declining British Empire. British military leaders decided the only enemy Britain would fight for at least 10 years would be a colonial enemy, a hostile tribesman or insurgent. The long-term results of this thinking were nearly fatal to Britain.
As far as the frogs were concerned:
In France, where defense spending rose to account for one-third of all government expenditures by 1939, there was no shortage of modern equipment, only a shortage of competent senior leadership in the general-officer ranks. “Methodical battle,” a concept of war-fighting emphasizing set-piece battles and the application of preplanned firepower over maneuver, was enshrined as the French national vision of future war. Its strategic effect was devastating.
(France fell is six weeks.)
Now for the really scary bit; what are WE doing lately?
Today, stars will only fall on American Army and Marine officers who religiously embrace counterinsurgency inside the Islamic world as the future. The notion that the generals have “discovered” a military solution to Islam’s societal misery in the form of counterinsurgency is untrue, but no one in the White House, the Senate or the House, let alone the media, is willing to challenge it.
Sad but true!
But armies are what they do, and, for the moment, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps are light constabulary forces designed to police Muslim Arabs and Afghans with AK-47 rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and mines. This conversion to light forces designed to operate from fixed bases while depending heavily on timely and accurate air strikes for effectiveness and survival has left American ground forces in a weakened, vulnerable state.
For the United States, the critical military lesson of May 10, 1940, means avoiding Britain’s mistake of optimizing its forces to fight weak insurgents, especially when Muslim rebellions against unwanted American military occupations are easily avoided. It also means understanding that future conflicts will involve wars among nations and alliances of nations waged by powerful armed forces for regional power and influence; fights for energy, water, food, mineral resources and the wealth they create. Otherwise, the generals’ current obsession with counterinsurgency will leave the American armed forces as unprepared for a real war in 10 years as the British and French forces were for their confrontation with Germany in 1940.
Of course, it is claimed that now there is no likelihood of anyone being able to fight a “real war” against us, right?
(Move along folks, nothing to see here. Ignore that 800 lb. gorilla that lives just to the north of the South China Sea; or what his buddy in the USSR Russian Federation is up to with continuing to develop shiny new high-performance aircraft, subs, nuclear weapons, missiles, and tanks. No concerns at all, right?)
Remember, the economy is on the way to recovery. B.O. says so!
Even the world’s most savvy stock-market giants (e.g., Warren E. Buffett) have warned over the past decade that derivatives are the fiscal equivalent of a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) – potentially lethal. And the consequences of such an explosion would make the recent global financial and economic crisis seem like penny ante. But generously lubricated lobbyists for the unrestricted, unsupervised derivatives markets tell congressional committees and government regulators to butt out.
While banks all over the world were imploding and some $50 trillion vanished in global stock markets, the derivatives market grew by an estimated 65 percent, according the Bank for International Settlements. BIS convenes the world’s 57 most powerful central bankers in Basel, Switzerland, for periodic secret meetings. Occasionally, they issue a cry of alarm. This time, derivatives had soared from $414.8 trillion at the end of 2006 to $683.7 trillion in mid-2008 – 18 months’ time.
The derivatives market is now estimated at $700 trillion (notional, or face, value, not market value). The world’s gross domestic product in 2009: $69.8 trillion; America’s, $14.2 trillion. The total market cap of all major global stock markets? A mere $30 trillion. And the total amount of dollar bills in circulation, most of them abroad: $830 billion (not trillion).
One of the Middle East’s most powerful bankers conceded recently that even after listening to experts explain the drill, he still does not understand derivatives and therefore doesn’t trust them and won’t have anything to do with them. And when that weapon of mass destruction explodes, he explained, “Our bank’s customers, from all over the world, will be saved from the disaster.”
Keep those numbers in mind as you consider this:
Today’s massive new derivatives bubble is driving the domestic and global economies, far outstripping the subprime-credit meltdown.
Hopefully not belatedly, Congress is considering legislation to curb the use of derivatives and other methods that artificially boost returns. But 13 members of Congress or their wives used derivatives to magnify their daily moves.
“We have met the enemy and he is us!”
And one measure proposed by Sen. Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas Democrat, would bar banks from trading in derivatives. This, in turn, would push almost $300 trillion beyond the reach of regulators. Derivatives would become still more opaque. Some say abolish derivatives trading in the U.S. and push it offshore.
Possible results?
The now-bloody Greek tragedy over its debt crisis is echoing through the Federal Reserve and the halls of Congress. Greece’s public debt exceeds 100 percent of its economy versus 90 percent (at $13 trillion) for the United States. If you add unfunded U.S. liabilities for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the long-term shortfall is $62 trillion, or about $200,000 for each American. At least that’s the estimate of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. And Peter Peterson himself says he’s now in the business of promoting awareness about public borrowing.
With probable trader error plunging the Dow Jones into a 1,000-point tailspin and back up in 16 minutes, economic and financial prognostication made astrology look respectable. Could Greece be a harbinger of ugly things to come for the rest of the world? Prominent investor Marc Faber, hedge fund manager Jim Chanos and Harvard’s Kenneth Rogoff told Bloomberg China’s economy will slow and possibly “crash” within a year as the nation’s property bubble is set to burst.
Meanwhile the economic recovery continues apace, with the unemployment rate moving back to 9.9%, or 17.1% if ALL of it is counted.
This sort of progress can easily result in recovering the experience of the 1930.
Maybe that’s what B.O. means. Isn’t Obamunism marvelous?
Admiral: China’s buildup aimed at power past Asia
The commander of U.S. military forces in the Pacific said Thursday that the buildup of Chinese armed forces is continuing “unabated” and Beijing’s goal appears to be power projection beyond Asia.
“China’s rapid and comprehensive transformation of its armed forces is affecting regional military balances and holds implications beyond the Asia-Pacific region,” said Adm. Robert F. Willard, the Pacific Command leader. “Of particular concern is that elements of China’s military modernization appear designed to challenge our freedom of action in the region.”
The comments in testimony to the House Armed Services Committee are likely to fuel an ongoing debate inside the U.S. government among military, policy and intelligence officials over whether China’s military buildup is limited to a future conflict with Taiwan or whether China harbors global military ambitions.
Uh…just a hint: the ChiComs don’t require aircraft carriers and long-range anti-ship missiles to deal with Taiwan if they decide to pull that trigger.
From the London Telegraph:
Is China’s Politburo spoiling for a showdown with America?
The long-simmering clash between the world’s two great powers is coming to a head, with dangerous implications for the international system.
China has succumbed to hubris. It has mistaken the soft diplomacy of Barack Obama for weakness, mistaken the US credit crisis for decline, and mistaken its own mercantilist bubble for ascendancy. There are echoes of Anglo-German spats before the First World War, when Wilhelmine Berlin so badly misjudged the strategic balance of power and over-played its hand.
There are a lot more gory details in the piece…it’s not cheerful reading.
A part of the overall problem is this:
China opposes US and EU demands for yuan revaluation
Premier Wen Jiabao made it clear during a press conference marking the end of the country’s parliamentary meetings that he did not think the yuan was undervalued and blamed the US for the deterioration in relations between the two superpowers.
He made a renewed call for the US to take concrete action to reassure investors about the security of the dollar, declaring he was still worried about China’s considerable holdings of US Treasury securities, currently standing at just under $900bn (£596bn).
The premier’s comments offered little comfort for US President Barack Obama as he considers growing demands from US businesses and unions to impose trade sanctions against cheap Chinese products. He has urged China to adopt a more “market related exchange rate” and is considering whether to go a stage further and name China as a “currency manipulator.”
An increase in tension has been fuelled by US arms sales to Taiwan and the visit of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader, to Washington along with the attacks on Google which has threatened to withdraw from China unless it can be assured it can run its search engine without interference.
There had been hopes that Premier Wen’s press conference, the Chinese leadership’s traditional platform for sending coded signals to the rest of the world about policy shifts, would provide some pointers to change but economists saw no sign of any movement on the crucial currency question.
So far the deterioration in relations has been reflected by an increase in the level of rhetoric but economists fear President Obama may be forced into tougher action.
Stay tuned.
Shuttle flights would continue under new proposal
The space shuttle era could get a new lease on life under a bill filed today by U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.
The measure would delay the shuttle’s planned retirement in 2010 until NASA is confident that a replacement spacecraft is ready or that the shuttle and its massive payload bay is no longer needed to keep the International Space Station afloat through 2020.
The 37-page bill also authorizes an additional $1.3 billion in NASA spending next year above President Barack Obama’s request of $19 billion. The extra money would help prepare NASA for as many as two additional shuttle flights per year after 2010, as well as fund new spacecraft development.
“This must not be an ‘either or’ proposition where we are forced to choose between continuing to fly the shuttle to service the station and maintain our independence in reaching space, or investing in the next generation of space vehicle. We can and must do both,†Hutchison said in a statement.
The Chief doesn’t always appreciate Sen. Hutchinson’s brand of semi-conservatism, but in this case she’s spot-on:
…the Hutchison measure emphasizes the need for NASA to have a government-run system that could lift astronauts into space. The new bill also calls for the “continuation or modification†of programs initiated under the Constellation program.
“While commercial transportation systems may contribute valuable services, it is in the United States’ national interest to maintain a government operated space transportation system for crew and cargo delivery to low-Earth orbit and beyond,†it notes.
The private spaceflight efforts need to encouraged, and have administrative hurdles lowered. At the same time, as noted above, a continuing ability for the US to directly access the orbital high-ground is absolutely critical as a matter of national security…the space station be damned!
A number of articles have been posted from the former leaders of the COMBLOC during the former Cold War have been coming up lately that seem like that same old deja-vu all over again.
Putin: Russia to build new strategic bomber
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Monday that Russia will build a new strategic bomber, a move that comes as the nation tries to upgrade its aging military arsenal.
Putin said in televised remarks that work on the bomber must follow the development of a prospective stealth fighter, which made its maiden flight in January and was hailed by the government as a big step in military modernization efforts.
“We won’t limit ourselves to just one new model,” Putin said at a government meeting that focused on military aviation. “We must start work on a prospective long-range aircraft, our new strategic bomber.”
A few things come immediately to mind.
Firstly, this development is taking place in spite of continuing bumps in the reconstruction of the post-Soviet economic and technical infrastructure. In spite of the cost, the ex-KGB Putin has decided that this is the direction to go…and logically…who is there to aim these new weapons platforms at…but the United States?
Secondly, note the comment…”We won’t limit ourselves to just one new model”, as Obamamerica lurches sloooooooowly towards the F-35 which is going to be ready at some undetermined point in the future, and is supposed to be used by the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps in spite of the widely diverse demands from the different service branches. Combat aircraft have to do more than just fly, but the Obamamaniacal defense wonks are incapable of figuring this out.
Thirdly, and obviously, they are simultaneously going to beef up and improve their strategic bomber inventory with a new plane. Our plans? Er…what plans?
Meanwhile, there is this love note from those paragons of respecting human rights who hang out in Beijing:
China PLA officer urges challenging U.S. dominance
China should build the world’s strongest military and move swiftly to topple the United States as the global “champion,” a senior Chinese PLA officer says in a new book reflecting swelling nationalist ambitions.
The call for China to abandon modesty about its global goals and “sprint to become world number one” comes from a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Senior Colonel, Liu Mingfu, who warns that his nation’s ascent will alarm Washington, risking war despite Beijing’s hopes for a “peaceful rise.”
ChiCom military rise? Like for instance their planned drive to build a 600-ship blue-water “People’s Liberation Army Navy”, complete with aircraft carriers, as just ONE example that comes readily to mind.
“As long as China seeks to rise to become world number one … then even if China is even more capitalist than the U.S., the U.S. will still be determined to contain it,” writes Liu.
Rivalry between the two powers is a “competition to be the leading country, a conflict over who rises and falls to dominate the world,” says Liu. “To save itself, to save the world, China must prepare to become the (world’s) helmsman.”
“The China Dream” does not represent government policy, which has been far less strident about the nation’s goals.
You can believe as much of that as you wish, but the Chief isn’t reassured…ever hear of the old “good cop, bad cop” game?
On a slightly different but still diagnostic note, comes this post-Olympic item from Russia:
Medvedev demands resignations over Olympic flop
President Dmitry Medvedev demanded Monday that Russian sports officials step down over the country’s dismal performance at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
Russia, a traditional winter sports powerhouse, won just 15 medals — with only three golds — in one of its worst performances. Officials said before the games that 30 medals and a top-three finish in the medal standings was the target.
Russia placed 11th for golds and sixth in the overall medal count.
In televised comments, Medvedev said if those responsible for preparing the athletes don’t resign then the decision will be made for them. He did not mention anyone by name.
…”but we know who you are!”
In nine Winter Olympics between 1956 and 1988, the Soviet Union failed to top the medal standings only twice, finishing runner-up on those occasions.
Medvedev lamented that Russia “has lost the old Soviet school … and we haven’t created our own school — despite the fact that the amount of money that is invested in sport is unprecedentedly high.”
YIKES! It’s a good thing that Stalinist type purges are out of style over there (at least for now), or there might be a new GULAG Olympic Sports Center in say…Novosibirsk or someplace equally salubrious.
By now, most are aware of the attempted bombing of the NW airlines flight into Detroit. The episode and its aftermath do little or nothing to reassure that airline security is any better than it was before this incident. The experience of flying is rapidly transmogrifying into a virtual signing in to a state of voluntary imprisonment, with no pesly Constitutional nicities to be troubled about. (If prisons treated inmates like some of the TSA regulations treat airline passengers, the ACLU would be in full cry and out for blood.)
A Michigan man who was aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 says he witnessed Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab trying to board the plane in Amsterdam without a passport.
Kurt Haskell of Newport, Mich., who posted an earlier comment about his experience, talked exclusively with MLive.com and confirmed he was on the flight by sending a picture of his boarding pass. He and his wife, Lori, were returning from a safari in Uganda when they boarded the NWA flight on Friday.
Haskell said he and his wife were sitting on the ground near their boarding gate in Amsterdam, which is when they saw Mutallab approach the gate with an unidentified man….While Mutallab was poorly dressed, his friend was dressed in an expensive suit, Haskell said. He says the suited man asked ticket agents whether Mutallab could board without a passport. “The guy said, ‘He’s from Sudan and we do this all the time.’â€
HUH? Boarding an international flight WITH NO PASSPORT? WTF? Putting this along with the fact that there was no prior reservation, the ticket was one-way and bought with cash, MIGHT a rational person suspect that there was “something rotten in Denmark”? (OK – actually Netherlands, but you get the picture.) NOT confidence inspiring circumstances.
Two al Qaeda Leaders Behind Northwest Flight 253 Terror Plot Were Released by U.S.
Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the al Qaeda plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet over Detroit were released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison in November, 2007, according to American officials and Department of Defense documents. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the Northwest bombing in a Monday statement that vowed more attacks on Americans.
American officials agreed to send the two terrorists from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia where they entered into an “art therapy rehabilitation program” and were set free, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.
Guantanamo prisoner #333, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi, and prisoner #372, Said Ali Shari, were sent to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 9, 2007, according to the Defense Department log of detainees who were released from American custody. Al-Harbi has since changed his name to Muhamad al-Awfi.
Both Saudi nationals have since emerged in leadership roles in Yemen, according to U.S. officials and the men’s own statements on al Qaeda propaganda tapes.
Transferred from Gitmo to art therapy in Saudi Arabia? HUH? Political correctness run amok here, or what?
Napolitano: No indication of larger terror plot
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says there is no indication that the man who attempted to destroy an airliner in Detroit on Christmas Day is part of a larger terrorist plot.
Napolitano refused to say whether Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has a connection to al-Qaida, citing the ongoing criminal investigation.
The phrase “poor situational awareness” comes immediately to mind.
Failed plane bomber Umar Abdulmutallab has bragged to FBI agents that there are more young men plotting to launch attacks on the West.
The 23-year-old Nigerian has told security chiefs of a sinister network in Yemen who are ready and waiting to strike.
The reports come after The Sun revealed that cops fear that 25 British-born Muslims are plotting to bomb Western airliners.
The fanatics, in five groups, are now training at secret terror camps in Yemen.
And finally – the responses after the fact – a serious misapplication of admittedly limited security resources.
‘Absolute chaos’ at NYC airports
Innocent fliers: TSA has gone plane insane
Airline passengers thwarted the Christmas Day terror plot — and now passengers are getting the shaft.
International fliers are falling victim to insanely repetitive security questions, invasive pat-downs and overzealous flight attendants who restrict their every move, passengers fumed yesterday.
For all the gory details read the article.
As far as we are concerned here at the Chief’s outpost…automotive travel is definitely the way to go.
This reads like something from Neal Stephenson’s cyberpunk sci-fi novel Snow Crash:
Somali sea gangs lure investors at pirate lair
In Somalia’s main pirate lair of Haradheere, the sea gangs have set up a cooperative to fund their hijackings offshore, a sort of stock exchange meets criminal syndicate….
It is a lucrative business that has drawn financiers from the Somali diaspora and other nations — and now the gangs in Haradheere have set up an exchange to manage their investments.
One wealthy former pirate named Mohammed took Reuters around the small facility and said it had proved to be an important way for the pirates to win support from the local community for their operations, despite the dangers involved.
“Four months ago, during the monsoon rains, we decided to set up this stock exchange. We started with 15 ‘maritime companies’ and now we are hosting 72. Ten of them have so far been successful at hijacking,” Mohammed said.
72 “maritime companies” pirate bands organized? WTF?
This is like the urban phenomenon of the “known crack house”…everybody KNOWS what’s going on, and where it is going on, but nobody with responsibility is willing to do the job of cleaning up the mess. The whole reason the United States built it’s Navy was to protect against (North African Islamic) piracy. We DO still have a Navy, but nobody in the administration apparently is willing to commit effective force to clean up this repeated infestation of African Islamic piracy.
Bob Ainsworth criticises Barack Obama over Afghanistan
It’s GOT to be bad when even the IngSoc government thinks B.O. is too squishy on the war.
Bob Ainsworth, the defence secretary, has blamed Barack Obama and the United States for the decline in British public support for the war in Afghanistan.
Mr Ainsworth took the unprecedented step of publicly criticising the US President and his delays in sending more troops to bolster the mission against the Taliban.
A “period of hiatus†in Washington – and a lack of clear direction – had made it harder for ministers to persuade the British public to go on backing the Afghan mission in the face of a rising death toll, he said.
Senior British Government sources have become increasingly frustrated with Mr Obama’s “dithering†on Afghanistan, the Daily Telegraph disclosed earlier this month, with several former British defence chiefs echoing the concerns.
But Mr Ainsworth is the first Government minister to express in public what amounts to personal criticism of the US president’s leadership over the conflict which has so far cost 235 British lives.
“It ain’t that pretty at all.”
Let’s see…B.O.’s had the information and proposals from HIS selected commanding combat General since August. It’s now November. Meanwhile the conduct of the war continues to stagnate, our local allies hold their breath as they wait to decide whether and/or when to jump ship, and any potential local allies take another look at the possibilities of making an accomadation with the Islamoterrs.
White House aides: No Afghan decision before Thanksgiving
President Obama will not announce his decision on sending more troops to Afghanistan before the Thanksgiving holiday, senior aides said Thursday.
The news came as the president greeted 1,500 troops at Osan Air Base in South Korea, just before boarding Air Force One and heading back to Washington after an eight-day trip to Asia.
Obama and his top military and diplomatic aides have been deliberating for months over how to proceed in Afghanistan, where the United States and its partners have sought for eight years to defeat the Taliban and deny al-Qaeda a safe haven from which it can plan and launch attacks.
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, has stated that without the deployment of up to 40,000 additional troops within the next year, the mission “will likely result in failure.”
Plenty of time for global junketing, complete with his 70 car motorcade, but forget about the troops being left to wither on the vine while B.O. continues to dither.
Holder’s move to criminalize terrorists shows that he has totally lost his situational awareness, or else has determined to put a bullet into the war on terrorism by enabling some of the worst of the worst a very real chance of getting a legal pass.
Trying KSM in Civilian Court: Inconsistent, Indefensible, Inexplicable
Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a federal civilian court is inconsistent, indefensible and inexplicable.
It is inconsistent with Holder’s own decision to try Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in a military commission. It is indefensible in light of the unmistakable intentions of the Framers of the Constitution. It is inexplicable by any prudential analysis of the national interest in dealing with an enemy like al-Qaida.
Some strange ideological impulse—rather than common sense and respect for the rule of law—is driving the Obama administration to give special treatment to the perpetrator of one of the greatest war crimes ever committed against the United States.
Go on and read the rest of the gory details of this legal travesty.
Here’s more on this from another source, detailing the warm fuzzy connection of al Qaeda and the ACLU:
Al Qaeda’s Civil Liberties Union
“I’ll talk to you guys after I get to New York and see my lawyer.” That, according to former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, is what September 11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) said when he was captured in March 2003.
President Bush had another idea, one that involved protecting the national security interests of the United States. (What a concept!)
But of course the Bush administration did not grant KSM his wish. Instead, the master terrorist was seen as a potentially vital source of intelligence on al Qaeda, which had caught America sleeping less than two years earlier. If U.S. intelligence officials could get him to talk, the Bush administration and the U.S. intelligence community reasoned, then they could learn many of al Qaeda’s well-guarded secrets. And talk, KSM did. So much so, in fact, that he became the U.S. government’s “preeminent source” on al Qaeda and even the “most prolific” detainee in custody. While in the CIA’s detention, he identified (both wittingly and unwittingly) numerous of his fellow al Qaeda terrorists and divulged the details of much of al Qaeda’s post-September 11 plotting.
What could have been?
If KSM were initially shipped to New York for trial, however, the outcome would most likely have been very different. As former DCI Tenet writes in his book At the Center of the Storm: “I believe none of these [counterterrorism] successes would have happened if we had to treat KSM like a white-collar criminal – read him his Miranda rights and get him a lawyer who surely would have insisted that his client simply shut up.”
And sadly, we’re left with the prospects of what Holder, B.O, et al have lined up for the country:
Who are KSM’s lawyers, in any event? They are members of the ACLU’s John Adams Project, which is run in conjunction with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL). The John Adams Project represents Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the four other 9/11 conspirators the Obama administration has decided to move to U.S. soil for trial. Thus, it is not surprising that the ACLU has praised the controversial move, saying it was “a major victory for due process and the rule of law.”
It is nothing of the sort, but the ACLU consistently portrays itself in this light–as if it is only concerned with protecting the “rule of law.” The reality is quite different. The ACLU has worked diligently to undermine America’s stance in what was formerly known as the “war on terror,” and has even been willing to disseminate propaganda on behalf of our jihadist enemies.
It’s worth remembering that KSM was not just a strategic/tactical planner for al Qaeda’s 9-11 strike. He was willing to get up close and personal with his terrorism, being the one who confessed to CIA interrogators that he personally and tortuously beheaded US reporter Daniel Pearl: “I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew Daniel Pearl, in the City of Karachi, Pakistan.”
This is the slime that Holder, and presumably B.O. think is justified in being granted the full panoply of Constitutional rights of a U.S. citizen. F.E.T.E.
B.O. administration non-decisiveness chickens are starting to come home to roost.
Is Yemen the most dangerous new front in the war on terror?
In case you don’t recall, one of Major Hasan’s internet e-mail pen pals is Yemeni Sheikh Anwar al-Awlaki.
Sheikh Anwar’s latest blogpost describes Major Hasan as a “hero”, a man of conscience. Given that the cleric says other Muslims have a right, or a duty, to behave similarly, army investigators will no doubt be keen to see who else was in contact with him. But the blog is worth reading for other reasons, too. Last month, for instance, Sheikh Anwar told us to expect the unexpected. But the message had nothing to do with Fort Hood. Instead, his focus was closer to hand: “Could Yemen be the Next Surprise of the Season?” he asked.
The Yemen situation is truly what the Brits might refer to as “a sticky wicket”.
The multiple crises afflicting Yemen are not a surprise to anyone who has been watching, and certainly not to those in Washington. There is every reason to suppose that the US authorities are far more alarmed over events there than they were over Major Hasan, but they have been similarly unsure how to react. Some commentators in the Middle East are starting to see this as a trend: an uncertainty over how to deal with the Muslim world is leading to disaster.
Yemen, which occupies an important position at the tip of the Red Sea and on the borders of Saudi Arabia, is home to three separate conflicts. One is against al-Qaeda, which has put down strong roots in the territory, the ancestral home of the Bin Laden clan. One is against secessionists in the south. The third is the most obscure, the most seemingly pointless, but the most destructive: a long, drawn-out campaign against an insurgency by a group of Shia tribalists known as the Houthis.
Fir the gory details of Yemen (“It ain’t that pretty at all.”) go to the piece. Meanwhile, on other fronts of WW-IV, formerly known as the G.W.O.T., things aren’t much better:
…In the Occupied Territories, America has scuppered its Palestinian ally Mahmoud Abbas by allowing him to set conditions for talks with Israel which it then allowed Israel to ignore.
On Iran, Washington set a deadline for a response to a proposed deal on enriched uranium, and then let the deadline pass. Israel and Saudi Arabia, who both regard Iran as a mortal enemy, are taking counsel.
In Afghanistan, it has just given itself more time to decide whether to send extra troops. Can Hamid Karzai even consider himself a friend of America any more?
The trend was summarised by Riad Kahwaji, the chief executive of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, in a research note yesterday: “It is a bad time to be an American ally.” He quotes one Arab official as asking, “With a weak and hesitant ally, who needs enemies?”
No such uncertainty affects the Houthis, whose slogan could not be clearer: “God is Great; Death to America; Death to Israel.” [emphases added]
As is common these days…one needs to go to the UK press to get a decent picture of events.
When it comes to Iran, the U.S. may be facing a cataclysm
Victor Davis Hanson is a military historian; Robert Baer a former CIA field officer. Both have studied the Middle East for decades, traveled to the area repeatedly in recent years and written about the region extensively. And both have become convinced that we may be facing a cataclysm.
Hanson and Baer each presented his analysis during an interview this past week. Although they differ on certain matters, they agree on five observations.
There is more of the backstory on each of these in the article, but that doesn’t make the situation look any better.
The first: If not already capable of doing so, Iran will be able to produce nuclear weapons in mere months.
The second observation: The Iranians have no interest in running a bluff. Once able to produce nuclear weapons, they will almost certainly do so.
The third observation: As the Iranians scramble to produce nuclear weapons, the Obama administration appears too feckless, inexperienced or deluded to stop them.
The Chief doesn’t know whether it is the fecklessness, inexperience, or delusion that is causing the problem. Probably all three!
The fourth observation: Israel cannot tolerate a nuclear Iran.
The final observation: Iran would retaliate.
“Iran’s deterrent doctrine is to strike back everywhere it can,” Baer explained. “We should expect the worst.” Iran would attack American supply lines in Iraq and command Hezbollah to start a civil war in Lebanon. It would fire surface-to-surface missiles at every oil facility within range, wreaking devastation in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states while removing millions of barrels of oil a day from the world markets. The economy of the entire globe would suffer a paroxysm. The Middle East could descend into chaos. The U.S. would experience the worst crisis in decades.
After the assassination 95 years ago of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the great powers of Europe engaged in meaningless diplomatic maneuvers. “Austria has sent a bullying and humiliating ultimatum to Serbia, who cannot possibly comply with it,” British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith confided in a letter. “[W]e are in measurable, or at least imaginable, distance of a real Armageddon.”
A big nation attempting to humiliate a small nation in a way the small nation simply cannot accept. Unseriousness among great powers. A gathering sense of impending catastrophe. Once again, it may be Armageddon time.
Like the lyric of an old Warren Zevon song: “It ain’t that pretty at all!”.
Russia’s Leaders See China as Template for Ruling
Nearly two decades after the collapse of the Communist Party, Russia’s rulers have hit upon a model for future success: the Communist Party.
Or at least, the one that reigns next door.
Like an envious underachiever, Vladimir V. Putin’s party, United Russia, is increasingly examining how it can emulate the Chinese Communist Party, especially its skill in shepherding China through the financial crisis relatively unbowed.
United Russia’s leaders even convened a special meeting this month with senior Chinese Communist Party officials to hear firsthand how they wield power.
In the words of Rod Stewart:Â “Every picture tells a story, don’t it?”
A police state is a police state – whether you call it the “Communist Party of (insert country here)”, “United Russia”, or the “National Socialist German Workers Party”, it’s just different sides of the same coin.
Obama loosens missile technology controls to China
President Obama recently shifted authority for approving sales to China of missile and space technology from the White House to the Commerce Department — a move critics say will loosen export controls and potentially benefit Chinese missile development.
The president issued a little-noticed “presidential determination” Sept. 29 that delegated authority for determining whether missile and space exports should be approved for China to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.
Even Bill Clinton had enough shame to do stuff like this under the radar. As fas as B.O. is concerned, why bother.
Of course, the message to the country is “Nothing to see here. Move along folks. Go back home and watch NBC some more.”
Commerce officials say the shift will not cause controls to be loosened in regards to the export of missile and space technology.
DUH…by delegating the authority for approval DOWN the chain of command…the controls have ALREADY been loosened!
Besides…there is no reason to change the regulatory setup…unless there is already the intention to use the changed system to sell our technology to the ChiComs.
Eugene Cottilli, a spokesman for Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security, said under new policy the U.S. government will rigorously monitor all sensitive exports to China.
Right…they will be monitored. Logically, this means that they will be occurring! Otherwise, there would be nothing to monitor! (Dang! That pesky logic…)
The presidential notice alters a key provision of the 1999 Defense Authorization Act that required that the president notify Congress whether a transfer of missile and space technology to China would harm the U.S. space-launch industry or help China’s missile programs.
How can a “presidential notice” repeal a law? Did I miss something here?
The law was passed after a late-1990s scandal involving the U.S. companies Space Systems/Loral and Hughes Electronics Corp. Both companies improperly shared technology with China and were fined $20 million and $32 million, respectively, by the State Department after a U.S. government investigation concluded that their know-how was used to improve China’s long-range nuclear missiles.
This was the afore-mentioned Clintonista “problem” with missile tech security.
Section 1512 of the 1999 law requires the president to certify to Congress in advance of any missile equipment or technology exports to China that the export will not harm the U.S. space-launch industry and that “missile equipment or technology, including any indirect technical benefit that could be derived from such export, will not measurably improve the missile or space launch capabilities of the People’s Republic of China.”
Of course, if B.O. is ignoring Congress on this, Congress will surely respond vigorously, right?
Oh…yeah…THIS Congress…never mind.
The B.O. administration seems unable to get itself organized in the middle east, with the resulting development of serious economic consequences, as illustrated by the unfortunate pattern of the following articles found online today…as contradictory as they are.
White House angry at General Stanley McChrystal speech on Afghanistan
At the time that General McChrystal was appointed, B.O. pledged to take care of the needs of the force as communicated by the commanding general…that WOULD be McCrystal. Ooops! When he says something that B.O. doesn’t want to hear, it’s a different story. Support for the war apparently only goes so far now that the election is over.
According to sources close to the administration, Gen McChrystal shocked and angered presidential advisers with the bluntness of a speech given in London last week.
Truth is a bitch!
The next day he was summoned to an awkward 25-minute face-to-face meeting on board Air Force One on the tarmac in Copenhagen, where the president had arrived to tout Chicago’s unsuccessful Olympic bid. In an apparent rebuke to the commander, Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary, said: “It is imperative that all of us taking part in these deliberations, civilians and military alike, provide our best advice to the president, candidly but privately.”
This ignores the situation that McChrystal’s requests were made weeks ago, with hardly a “Howdy do?” In reply. B.O. doesn’t seem able to realize that military combat doesn’t operate according to the whims of his attention…or rather, inattention.
Less than perfect decisive action is generally better than no action at all, which has been the White House pattern of late.
If there was an incipient plan to cut out and abandon the effort (without commenting on the merits of THAT), then there MAY be some rationale to the non-response from Washington, but…that’s NOT what they are insisting:
White House: Leaving Afghanistan not an option
The White House said Monday that President Barack Obama is not considering a strategy for Afghanistan that would withdraw U.S. troops from the eroding war there. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that walking away isn’t a viable option to deal with a war that is about to enter its ninth year. “I don’t think we have the option to leave. That’s quite clear,” Gibbs said.
If that’s really the case, not to put a fine point to it, then it’s past time for B.O. to s–t or get off the pot!
In addition, to completely have two opposite trends at the same time, comes SECDEF Gates
Taliban Afghan momentum due to lack of U.S. troops
The Taliban has the momentum in Afghanistan now because of the inability of the United States and its allies to put enough troops into the country, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Monday.
HUH?
Firstly, Gates essentially is agreeing with McChrystal that we do not have enough troops in-country to successfully do the job: so now both the Commanding General AND the Secretary of Defense apparently don’t buy into B.O.’s pusillanimous inaction.
Secondly, is the United States Secretary of Defense REALLY saying that this is due to the “INABILITY of the United States and its allies to put enough troops into the country” [emphasis added]? We are UNABLE to carry out a policy that would enable winning the war in Afghanistan?
Anyone else remember B.O. proclaiming that AFGHANISTAN was the “central front” of the war on Islamoterrs, in contrast to Iraq? Apparently that was then (campaign mode) and this is now (Administration mode).
However it plays out, our allies and so-called allies are betting that the United States uner B.O. is a paper tiger, so they are getting together behind our back and planning to slip it to us financially and economically, apparently with no fear of possible effective response:
In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar. Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.
The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.
Our reaction thus far is in any practical sense, ineffectual, as we slip towards an expansion of Cold War II.
The Americans, who are aware the meetings have taken place – although they have not discovered the details – are sure to fight this international cabal which will include hitherto loyal allies Japan and the Gulf Arabs. Against the background to these currency meetings, Sun Bigan, China’s former special envoy to the Middle East, has warned there is a risk of deepening divisions between China and the US over influence and oil in the Middle East. “Bilateral quarrels and clashes are unavoidable,” he told the Asia and Africa Review. “We cannot lower vigilance against hostility in the Middle East over energy interests and security.”
This sounds like a dangerous prediction of a future economic war between the US and China over Middle East oil…
God help us…we’ll need it if we don’t start to get our sh… er… stuff together.
US giant bunker-buster bomb project rushed since Iran’s Qom site discovered
The Pentagon has brought forward to December 2009 the target-date for producing the first 15-ton super bunker-buster bomb (GBU-57A/B) Massive Ordinance Penetrator, which can reach a depth of 60.09 meters underground before exploding. DEBKAfile’s military sources report that top defense agencies and air force units were also working against the clock to adapt the bay of a B2a Stealth bomber for carrying and delivering the bomb.
30,000 pounds?! Uff da!
Congress has since quietly inserted the necessary funding in the 2009 budget.
Dang! Who’d have thought Congress could do anything besides increase taxes or pass new restrictive regulations QUIETLY?
All this urgency indicates that the Obama administration has been preparing military muscle to back up the international condemnation of Iran’s concealed nuclear bomb program, its sanctions threat and his willingness to join the negotiations with Iran opening on Oct. 1 in Geneva. Tehran may have to take into account a possible one-time surgical strike against its underground enrichment facility as a warning shot should its defiance continue. In particular, the world powers this week demanded that Iran open up all its nuclear facilities and programs to full and immediate international inspection. Failure to do so could bring forth further US military action.
A LIGHT IN THE FOREST? This could be a sign of the survival of SOME rationality in the White House.  One can only hope!
According to our military sources, the earliest date for the accelerated Pentagon program to produce a super bunker buster bomb mounted on a stealth bomber is December 2009 or January 2010. This too is three years ahead of its original schedule.
How could this have been speeded up three years early? Samuel Johnson’s observation comes to mind: “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”
Stay tuned.