Dustbins I Have Known
A friend in Egypt sent the following assessment of the situation there yesterday:
1. Most commentators tend to make it [the unrest in Egypt] a “western oriented strongman” v. Islamist thing, whereas the Islamists are already very well placed within this regime, including the military and the security services.
2. Recent Pew poll shows one-in-five Egyptians support Al-Qaeda. Egyptians I spoke to thought this as understatement.
3. The MB [Muslim Brotherhood] seems certain to emerge on top at some point, only question is when. That will give them state-resources for their sophisticated agitprop and penetration efforts in the West.
There is a possibility that if Mubarak falls, it will have an effect analogous to the collapse of the shah during Jimmy Carter’s presidency. The same friend with Egyptian connections noted that very extreme poverty depicted in the “Happyland” post could be found in Egypt. He sent a link to pictures, showing garbage scavengers in Egypt, called the zabbaleen, who consist almost exclusively of Coptic Christians. They have traditionally used pigs to recycle trash. But these porcine aides have been outlawed by the Mubarak government.
This governmental decision poses a major setback to the Zabbaleen because pigs are an essential component to their recycling and sorting system, in which the pigs eat all of the organic waste. Immediately after the culling of pigs, observers have noticed a visible increase of trash piles and piles of rotting food on the streets of Cairo.
That Egyptian government’s decision to clamp down on scavengers should lead to rotting piles of garbage should be no surprise. I remember Marcos-era efforts to ban garbage scavengers for cosmetic reasons resulting in the same thing. One thing the scavengers knew that the leaders in their palaces didn’t was that garbage could not be wished away. But you could, with some effort, make something out of it.
The idea was alien to the dictators. The rot, you see, was not in the heaps but elsewhere; less in the scavengers than in the heart of the dictatorial system. Failing systems are sumps of bad ideas, which have for a long time been subsisting on rent-taking and cronyism. Regimes which are about to fall can never get rid of all the toxic ideas circulating in their memory space, like a bad operating system that is full of memory leaks and dysfunctional background processes. At some point you either reboot or face the Blue Screen of Death.
Until then such regimes are happy to occupy themselves with irrelevant trivia. The Egyptians were determined to get rid of the Nilotic version of Happyland’s Smokey Mountain. Why? Probably because they were easier to get rid of than the Muslim Brotherhood. “There are also worries that the Egyptian government is seeking to remove the Moqattam Village, also known as ‘Garbage City’ entirely and relocate the Zabbalean further outside of Cairo 25 km away to a 50-feddan plot (1 feddan = 1.038 acres), in Cairo’s eastern desert settlement of Katameya.” That would not only pointlessly oppress the Copts, once the inhabitants of Egypt before the Islamic conquest and now reduced to scraping the streets clean of trash, but probably produce even higher piles of trash in Cairo. But that’s how it goes. Given the enormous security challenges facing the country, a Google search on “gays in the military” yields 2.5 times more hits than “Mubarak Egypt.”
As Marie Antoinette was reputed to have said, “if people can’t eat bread, let them eat cake.”
The alternative is to side with the aging Sunni despots who are headed for the grave and the ash heap of history.
A generation of ideologues have spent the Western legacy into the dirt to pursue their fantasy. Now the mansion is dark and water may soon be cut off. The creditors are waiting at the door and calls to friends go unanswered.
Is this a case of the despot calling the cartel black? (or vice versa?)
Epic fail or designer crash?
The system was swarmed with debt, strangled with red tape, it wasn’t jammed with welfare recipients, but homefare recipients. The system overload caused it to crash. It wasn’t a bug, or even a spider. It was a “buyer’s dump”, home loans with no underwriting standards, forcing developers to build piles upon piles of houses nobody was going to live in.
Capitalism was fed garbage by the leftists, who held their faces down in it, knowing full well it was going to collapse, and the regulations force fed them more and more…then blockaded any attempt to clean up the mess until it crushed under its own gorged weight.
They then seized as much of the system as they could and are not going to let go without a fight.
the deal that obama set up with his state of the union speech was something we talked about a lot last year. He’s going to let the pubbies do all the heavy lifting with regards to budget cutting and then pee all over them for their efforts. (then take credit for a better economy in 2012)if they turn timid he’ll call them hypocrits.
Heavy wet snows in and around washington dc snapped power lines all over the place. starbucks & the public libraries are closed. the few local coffee shops are jammed with people. I’ve found a corner to work this afternoon in borders bookstore.
Eygpt gets its Tiananenmen Square Moment.
Man bravely stands in front of armored vehicle.
Well, maybe culling garbage is what makes this country great.
Well Cal I like frozen dinners.
There’s a paleostinian guy with a christian name nearby who runs a tobacco store and he tells me that Cairo is the sort of ‘Las Vegas’ of the region, the sin city where people go to party.
What’s happening in Egypt is very bad. Mubarak being deposed by an Islamist mob is much worse than what happened with the Shah of Iran. The political pressure in Egypt has been building up to explode for decades. It was no surprise that Mohamed Atta was an educated Egyptian. People should be aware that Al Qaeda’s origins are rooted in the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood and Al Qaeda’s number two man Ayman al-Zawahiri is an Egyptian. It is conceivable that the next government of Egypt will be controlled by Al Qaeda or something worse. It’s horrible to think what will happen to Egypt’s Coptic Christian population (they’re descended from the original Egyptians who built the pyramids). This is a catastrophe waiting to happen…
The probability of anything good coming out of the challenge to the old dictatorships of the Middle East is slim to none. The probability of anything resembling democracy or any other form of representative government emerging from the chaos is minus zero.
The ideological wind blowing across the Mediterranean favors the Muslim Brotherhood and other like-minded Islamic actors who have little or no regard for government institutions or national borders. The real danger to civilization is that these yahoos start counting all the warplanes and tanks in the region as part of one Islamic army in the mold of the 7th Century beast that sprang from the Arabian desert.
You can bet that there is more than one imam who goes to bed at night dreaming of green flags flying over Vienna.
I just saw that El Baradei is going to Cairo to try to set up an interim government.
In Davos today they are Bullish about the developments in the Arab world
On the one hand—
“The official rhetoric now emanating from the region’s bankers, business leaders and politicians is that this turmoil will be relatively short-lived and “contained”.
After all, the argument goes, the countries across the Middle East differ greatly from each other (let alone the rest of the emerging markets).
And being optimistic, it is possible to argue that the current political upheaval could be good for the region’s economic growth in the long run, by forcing structural reform.
Or as Masood Ahmed, Middle East director of the International Monetary Fund, observed on Thursday:
“There is now rising concern about the chronic levels of youth unemployment in the Middle East, and these events have shown that governments need to address this.
If they do, that could unlock human resources and really boost growth.”
Investors, in other words, might almost give a cheer.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d8c3b42e-2a47-11e0-b906-00144feab49a.html
But on the other hand–
It could be a ” fat tails” issue “(or events that seem so unlikely to occur that they are usually ignored, until they suddenly strike with a vengeance)”
As Churchill said–he was always looking for a one handed economist
I wonder if the current government in Eygpt will resort to using the military to crack down on the protesters. They’d run the risk of some military strongman(men) taking over in that case???
The command and control is kept in the hands of those who are supposed to be loyal to the government but chaos can breed oportuinity for lower level officers.
Strongest ever nuke warhead in Russian hands.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwlXllNkjtY
So will they sell the slightly weaker ones to the Muslim Brotherhood? Iran? Hugo dude?
An Egyptian friend explained how it was all someone else’s fault.
My friend said, Walt
It’s not our fault
The fault is Alexander’s
He stole our land
And gave us sand
And camel trail meanders
Then Cleo ran
That Caesar man
And after that came Nappy
But Brits said Hey
That ain’t no way
To make those Wogs all happy
Then Rommel came
And played his game
Till he ran out of panzers
And had to run
Chased by a ton
Of Kingi Georgi’s lanzers
From pyramid
To great El Cid
This was a land of greatness
A Pharaoh’s smile
A houri’s guile
But now the hour’s lateness
Compels us all
To heed the call
For throwing out Mubarak
And that is why
I simply sigh
And wish it were you Barack
Egypt and the Islamic world are in terrible trouble . Perhaps we can bail them out. Let the American people decide what number they choose to deliver, not the FED. Our choices are:
million: six zeroes
billion: nine zeroes
trillion: twelve zeroes
quadrillion: fifteen zeroes
quintillion: eighteen zeroes
sextillion: twenty-one zeroes
septillion: twenty-four zeroes
octillion: twenty-seven zeroes
novillion: thirty zeroes
decillion: thirty-three zeroes
undecillion: thirty-six zeroes
duodecillion: thirty-nine zeroes
tredecillion: forty-two zeroes
quattuordecillion: forty-five zeroes
quindecillion: forty-eight zeroes
sexdecillion: fifty-one zeroes
septendecillion: fifty-four zeroes
octodecillion: fifty-seven zeroes
novemdecillion: sixty zeroes
vigintillion: sixty-three zeroes
I believe Zimbabwe can show us the way.
Vic
“As Churchill said–he was always looking for a one handed economist.”
Vic
Your memory is corrupted — almost hopelessly. That’s a famous Truman quote. It’s the last line in his complaint WRT the advice from his economic team in the late 40′s.
They’d all have an opinion — and then follow that up with, “On the other hand …”
And then proceed to contradict their thesis so completely that to suffer them is to waste one’s time.
And that’s where you stand: you’re so inaccurate so often that to read your posts is a waste of time. No one can rely upon anything you say because — on the evidence — you’ll post just about anything.
You either never vet your material or you’re crippled in memory.
Hit the books, please.
can we just relocate the Israelis here to the States and let these idiots just go after each other? before you mock this suggestion, what’s a better idea short of nuking a bunch of Islamic cities? i’ve been sick of this region for 30 years and it only looks to be getting worse.
The interesting thing about those who have been consigned to the dustbin of history is that, with few exceptions, they never realized their final fate until they were there. It was simply inconceivable to them that their glorious empires or cultures could ever be shattered or fall.
And that, IMHO, is why they fell. Those who prosper realize that it is both a mixture of luck and hard work, and that they can fall. The idiots inhabiting the dustbin of history were so convinced of their invincibility and moral superiority that it forever blinded them to the light of reality. Its far easier to believe you are Superman than it is to actually be Superman.
toadold @ 11 said:
“I wonder if the current government in Eygpt will resort to using the military to crack down on the protesters.”
The standard failure modes after the dictator tells his military to crack down on the protesters are either the military refuses to obey the order or the military joins ranks with the protesters. My guess is the Egyptian military will eventually join ranks with the protesters. Also standard operating procedure would require use of El Baradei to topple Mubarak and then replacement of El Baradei with a cleric after political power was achieved. My guess is that El Baradei has less than 2 years left to live.
The situation in Egypt has been simmering for a long time (Anwar El Sadat was murdered in 1981 by Islamic fanatics). The Islamic Brotherhood was founded in 1928 and declared illegal in 1954. All Egyptian top leaders have known Islamic fanaticism as a dagger pointed at their throats but none of them were effective in dealing with it. The problem seems to flow directly from Egyptian society and appears to be intractable. How would Atatürk deal with Egypt? [comment #2]
Any one game to think this could lead to a Caliphate in 2, 5 maybe 10 year period? Will we see the rise of a new era of Islamic Crusading? Maybe it is Islam that will become the new Superpower not China! It seems everyday more and more people believe 0bama and the Demoncrats have ruined America’s future, its all down hill for now on… Days of Noah will come!
I was about to ask that if Egypt falls to the islamists what would that portend to Saudi Arabia and Jordan? But it’s looking like that question answered itself. Could we be seeing the islamist version of the domino theory?
Faith among the garbage collectors
Cairo’s extraordinary dump priest and his ‘Cave Cathedral’
CAIRO, Egypt — Father Sama’an has possibly the most unusual parish in the world. It is located on Muqattam Mountain, home to 30,000 garbage collectors or — zabbaleen — in Cairo. But this extraordinary man has brought a wonderful beauty to the ashes of this area teeming of narrow dirt lanes — a parish church that is a modern marvel not just for the garbage collectors, but for all who visit it.
His incredible “Cave Cathedral” is the largest church in the Middle East. It seats 20,000 and would do justice to the Hollywood Bowl with its modern sound system, and closed-circuit television. It is spectacular, as a huge overhanging rock covers most of the amphitheater. The church is affiliated with the Coptic Orthodox church that has about 6 million adherents in Egypt, or 13.5 percent of the total population.
As word has spread through the Middle East about the Muqattam “Cave Cathedral,” it has drawn together evangelicals, Orthodox, and Catholics. Its pulpit has attracted not only the Coptic Orthodox pope, but also western evangelicals.
Many in the congregation had spent the day collecting and sorting through a mountain of garbage. Cairo’s 14 million people daily produce an estimated 7,000 tons of garbage, but municipal and private trucks collect less than 50 percent of the city’s refuse. During the past 35 years, thousands of Christians, fleeing poverty in rural Upper Egypt, have congregated into villages within Cairo’s garbage dumps, collecting trash and recycling metal, plastic, paper, and bones. Although the villages are disease-prone and poverty-stricken, the Christian community has emerged, as believers have developed schools, health clinics and churches.
Through an interpreter, the priest explained that his ministry began. “It started because of one Egyptian garbage collector,” he said. “Through him, I became a changed man and eventually a worker for the Lord.
“I was living in Cairo, and was a counselor in one of the big companies. I had lost one of my precious watches. It was very expensive and I was very sad. One day, I received a knock at my door. A man in a long dirty dress, carrying a bag, asked me if I had lost something. I asked him how he knew that I lost something. I was afraid of him. The garbage man told me he had asked at all of the apartments in the building and everyone had denied that they lost something and when I took the garbage from here and while separating the garbage at home, I found something. ‘So, sir, please tell me what you lost.’ I told him I lost a watch.
“He took it out and said, ‘Is this the one you lost?’ I was shocked. I told him to please come in and asked him his name and where he lived. I also asked him, ‘Why did didn’t you take the watch for yourself?’ He replied, ‘My Christ told me to be honest until death.’ ‘You are a Christian?’ I asked him and he said he was. I didn’t know Christ at the time, but I told him that I saw Christ in him. This watch was very expensive, it cost about $11,000.
Read more: Faith among the garbage collectors http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=3556#ixzz1CGzzPy2S
15. blert
“You either never vet your material or you’re crippled in memory.
Hit the books, please.”
Blert, I am so sorry. You appear to have come down with “Habuian Dipolmacy”, which can be serious.
I’ve called House for a consult.
Best (and give the SOB’s heck) ahh, I mean “Treat Me Nice”, Elvis reorded 9/15/1957
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4i1TfjnVDI
The Egyptian scavengers remind me of those in Happyland. From my book:
There wasn’t an actual church on the garbage dump itself, but in the immediate vicinity there was the St. Joseph the Worker Parish. Scavanging was a prestigious occupation in the Tondo Foreshore and those who plied the trade considered themselves to be honestly employed. There were, however, a vast army of petty crooks living in the immediate vicinity. If you had friends among them, a request for a lost watch would probably produce several. Some the of 75-jewel “Rolex” variety. Others would be the real McCoy with the watch strap broken as if snatched from some wrist, which it probably was.
The very poor are probably quite similar to each other the world round.
This is quite dangerous. Like Iraq, Egypt has a highly educated population with a large number of minority moslesm sects with sympathies towards AlQueda and other radical moslem groups. Right now, the 2 most dangerous countries on the planet are likely Pakistan and Egypt, mainly because of instability and antipathy toward the current government. And having a Marxist in charge in the US makes it even more dangerous, since Marxism and Islam are the same ideology that just uses different vehicles to power.
Given the enormous security challenges facing the country, a Google search on “gays in the military” yields 2.5 times more hits than “Mubarak Egypt.”
Oh, come on.
Not only is “Google hit counting” an invalid measure in and of itself…
But Egyptian-produced content will be in Arabic, not English; you’re effectively counting only American/Anglosphere interst.
“Gays in the military” is a 20 year old issue in American politics.
“Mubarak Egypt”? Only become interesting to most people this week.
Note that if you do a Google news search you get three times as many hits for the latter as for the former. News sources are plainly more interested in Egypt’s protests, which is exactly as one would expect.
Charles @ 2 “He’s going to let the pubbies do all the heavy lifting with regards to budget cutting and then pee all over them for their efforts. (then take credit for a better economy in 2012)”
This is how Bill Clinton inherited the earth. According to the partisans, especially the press, is turned on and off like a switch and does not have periods of growth of growing seasons.
Xxxxxxxxxxx
‘——————————————————————————————–‘
This would be a good time to stop sending money to Egypt. First because we are funding an unpopular tyrant, and to avoid any embarrassment when the fascists sieze power. This will look bad so we can follow if up by defunding Israel, declaring victory in Iraq, pulling the plug in Afghanistan. Once that sinks in we could reduce are staffing and funding levels of in Korea and Germany by 30% every year, then maybe send the UN packing. Maybe they could relocate it on one of those islands in Dubai.
Habu: “Strongest ever nuke warhead”? No.
I wasted my time watching that video, and it’s about claims ofa new missile (with some sort of “thermal shielding” to make it hard for ABM systems to detect. Nothing about a new or stronger warhead.
But that’s unsurprising, since the “strongest ever” nukes were made in the early 60s – and then everyone switched to significantly smaller ones, as the larger explosions were mostly just wasted energy.
That’s assuming that the whole thing isn’t just posturing bullshit, of course, which I have no reason to believe. The only point of an ABM-evading nuclear missile that you announce is deterrence – and the way to deter with it is to actually demonstrate it.
(Much as the US quite openly demonstrated the laser ABM system we were developing. To make the point to the entire world that it wasn’t just talk.)
Russia hasn’t demonstrated it.
That tells me it’s not real, or not nearly as good as Moscow wants us to believe.
(Note that “RT” is owned by the Russian state via TV-Novosti, and thus, given the lack of a free press in Russia, we can assume that any especially defense-related content is produced according to the Kremlin’s direction.
So I wouldn’t lose sleep about it.
I also definitely wouldn’t lose sleep about the Russians selling nukes to anyone. They don’t want Iran to have a nuclear arsenal, particularly. Chavez is a joke, and they don’t like the Muslim Brotherhood any more than we do – they blame them for much of their trouble with Chechnya.)
Eggplant – 7 “What’s happening in Egypt is very bad. … This is a catastrophe waiting to happen…”
I respectfully disagree. What is bad is being obligated to up hold the whims of a despot. Egypt had to be tip toed around in the past. They are now one step closer to being a free fire zone when the next ‘non-marxist’ adminstration steps in. Be glad and ask how this will triangulate with the other despots in the region like Tehran or the house of Saud?
HEADLINE:
Egyptian protests intensify, as clashes spread across the Middle East
Egyptian police have been fighting protesters in intensifying clashes, and demonstrations have reported from Yemen and Gabon – a sign that defiance against authoritarian rulers in the Middle East is spreading.
So the press is explaining that ALL demonstrations are predicated on the fact that the ME has authortarian rulers …. WOW, if that is true it sure took those countries in revolt a LOOONG time to wake up. I think this is simply a reaction to the shortage of Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies.
A friend of mine who lives in Kom Ombo, Egypt called me and said he was told that a special drop from Burpelson Air Force Base was planned for tomorrow to counter the effects of El Baradei and his evil doers.
Seriously what’s the problem…Islams are nuts so a rational person has to expect things like this. I am sure our friends the Soviets will step in to aid in restoring calm. If not then our friends the Chinese can step in and teach the ME how to play KENO , which the Chinese invented. Of course it won’t be played for money, that would be gambling, but rather for who gets to decapitate the first western hostage.
27. Sigivald
I am glad we found you. We’ve been looking for the EXPERT on the latest Soviet nuclear bombs and thank goodness you showed up at just the right time.
Tell us, what was it like consulting with the highest Soviet military on their “new” bomb? Do they have any other secrets you can let us in on today?
Well anyway you can thank the person who produced the video and let them know that you know the truth.
#7 Eggplant
You are dead on right about the origins of Al Quada, and I will bet that there is probably no non-military person within 100 yards of the Oval Office who knows it. [Alternatively, there may be those there who are depending on it.]
There are important matters in play in North Africa and the Middle East that are being ignored in this country in favor of Charlie Sheen’s latest post-party hospitalization or the “unexpected” existence of snow in winter. [The latest "unexpected" jump in unemployment is being blamed on snow, which apparently did not ever happen before 2008.]
First to Egypt. As Eggplant notes, the most likely result of what is happening there is going to be a government run by the Muslim Brotherhood. The Camp David peace treaty between Egypt and Israel will probably not long survive. Israel, being totally surrounded by hostile regimes, and with the assurance that Gaza will once again have open access to weapons from outside; will have a far greater rational incentive to strike pre-emptively. In a world where those surrounding them are developing nuclear weapons to strike Israel; the reasons to make that pre-emptive strike conventional are shrinking by the day. And while one can exercise moderation with a conventional strike to avoid offending the rest of the world too much, there is no practical reason not to go for an absolute knock-out blow once you have to use strategic weapons; because the rest of the world is going to be your open enemy anyway. Israel will be totally isolated economically, and one can not rule out military strikes by other powers. Indeed, the demonstrated willingness to use strategic weapons on all who threaten Israel may be the only thing that keeps the rest of the world from striking them.
When a small, besieged country is continually insulted, attacked, and threatened with extinction and genocide …. eventually they may take you seriously and figure that they have nothing to lose.
The other alternative in Egypt is a military coup and dictatorship, however the Muslim Brotherhood is quite strong among company and field grade officers.
But let us look at a few less cataclysmic sequalae. I have been watching some investor blogs this morning. There are reports that some Egyptian army units are refusing orders to suppress the demonstrators in Suez. The question has been raised about the Suez Canal remaining open if the disturbances continue.
Even though it is down from its peak, 1 million bbls/day of oil still go north through the Canal destined for Europe. The cut off of that much oil for any length of time [and there would eventually be substitution by VLCC/ULCC's coming the long way around] is not going to help the Eurozone’s already shaky economy.
In addition, there are other effects on Europe that are not good. We have to step back a bit to explain.
1) All the economic powers in the world are engaged in a game of beggar-thy-neighbor, functionally devaluing their own currency to maintain exports. This by definition is inflation, more money chasing each item for sale. Much of the run up in the price of gold and oil has been because the money chasing it is worth less per unit. That inflation is not likely to end soon.
2) This has raised the price of food.
3) Grains are in short supply. There are 5 major grain producers in the world. The US, Russia, Canada, Australia, and to some extent Argentina. I admit that off of the top of my head, I do not know what Argentina and Canada are producing, but I have heard nothing of bumper crops. Russia has banned all grain exports because of drought and fires; in an attempt to feed their own people. Australia is coming off of a series of droughts, and this year for much of the country instead of drought they are more suited for growing rice due to massive rainfalls and flooding. The US is devoting 1/3 of its grain output for energy inefficient ethanol production, instead of for food. You can’t make this stuff up.
There is less grain for all that money to chase. Thus the price rises even more. I mentioned Europe. There may be some measurable effect on food prices there, but not as bad as in the underdeveloped world.
Food riots are taking place in North Africa and the Middle East. It includes Egypt. It brought down the government of Tunisia. There are riots in Morocco, Algeria, the Sudan, and of course also across south Asia.
Question: Where do the majority of Muslims in Europe come from, and are still coming from? North Africa’s Mediterranean rim.
Here is the problem for Europe. If this continues, even ruling out war in the Middle East; what are the odds that the less than totally integrated Muslim population of Europe will not take to the streets in support of their ethnic, national, and religious fellows? While such activity has already been proven to be good for the European car industry, and bad for its car insurance industry; what level of disturbance will there be [will the real estate and life insurance industries become involved], and what cost will it have on Europe?
Subotai Bahadur
26. Annoy Mouse
Great Powers have to be concerned about the full audience when they send pricy ‘signals’ such as you propose.
In fact, any attempt the back away from prior assurances would produce blow-back you couldn’t deal with.
Unilateral de-funding at a time of extreme need mean your diplomacy is impeached.
It is better to be steadfast and wrong than a JFK flip-flop flake.
A perfect example from history was Nixon’s logistical surge bailing out Golda Meir — the life long American Democrat now Prime Minister of Israel. He did so over the protests of the Pentagon and the better judgement of Dr. Kissinger. ( Dr. K. only wanted to dribble it in.)
If the Resident had any sense at all he’d back up the autocrat with displays of force and a food subsidy. This option, being very dependent upon just how far gone the situation is.
Carter showed us the results of Annoy Mouse diplomacy. The after-taste is brutal.
The real tragedy here is that we are not ready for it. The West ought to have been in the business of opposition to these despots while maintaining such relationships as were necessary under the rules of peace.
But the West was not even ready to support opposition to the Iranians. And now it is scrambling to urge “reform” on Mubarak. And even though the relative number of retuns for search terms between Mubarak and “gays in the military” may not be the best indicator of attention between the two, I think it is fair to say that the political system has spent inordinate amounts of money on such trivialities as 1) deciding to prosecute War on Terror suspects in civilian court, 2) DADT and the effect of 3) sonar on whales than it has on the subjects that substantively matter.
That general misplacement of attention is reflected in what is happening now. Policy was talking to domestic constituencies, not to the Arab street. And when it was not talking to domestic constituencies, it was talking to the foreign despots.
The West had the majority on its side in Lebanon for two elections running. The Iraqis, by their cooperation with the CENTCOM essentially fought on our side. We had a staunch ally in Israel. There were thousands fighting the Ayatollahs on the streets of Teheran.
All the polls showed that America was far more popular in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon than anywhere else. It was hated most in Egypt and Pakistan. And therefore that was where the diplomats placed their trust. This is called leaving the adults in charge.
If only half the interest which the Islamists are showing to influence the protests in Cairo were shown by the West, we would be streets ahead.
Petraeus went in and among the people, agitating rather than defending. We should be agitating rather than defending. Instead we are counseling failing regimes to appreciate the virtues of democracy. The Democracy Agenda, a day short and a dollar late. If the MB wins, it will have been because the West shot itself in the foot.
The only “good” outcome from an Egyptian collapse would be if the analogy to the Shah’s Iran extended to Obama becoming a one-term President partly as a result.
well for one I will go with the muslim brotherhood taking over. …and things to get a lot worse for most people. just as you say ..like when the shah of Iran was deposed.
I was in Egypt a while back …and came away with the profound feeling that “these people could not have built the pyramids”
sadly I am also thinking these people could not have put someone on the moon ..let alone bring them back when in the USA.
Dude, what are you guys saying? I thought there was a strong secular, democratic component to what is happening in Egypt. Now we’re talking about the next caliphate? Geez, we’re just excited about Jimmer Freddette scoring 43 points on San Diego St. last night. Strange world…
a lot of people think democracy is going to break out in Tunisia and Egypt etc. ….please take a look at what is happening. It will be very bad. I am not in any way defending the current dictator, but it will be worse after he is gone.
Egypt will go hard core islam as will Tunisia.
There is no strong America to help or support democracy …when there was a chance of that last year in Iran the clown AKA barry the president did not even mention it. if anything his actions signaled he would not help.
I actually am not a pessimist but I do think there is a whole lot of bad on the horizon.
A charity that I through my nickel at has a branch in the Phillipines. Their main thrust is to get kids a K through HS education who otherwise couldn’t make it, parents to poor for tuition usually. They’ll work with a local school in most cases.
The help often is tuition, school supplies, but also sometimes includes 3 meals a day and some take home stuff for week ends.
They’ll help whole families to the extent that they can to keep a kid in school. When that last typhoon/flooding thing hit, it killed a lot of the low level jobs that the parents depended on, so they were scrambling for extra money to tide people over. It is like trying bail out the Titanic with a teaspoon of course but maybe someday one of the kids will make a difference. When looking at the Sari-Sari photos I thought about them.
The thing is the kids with parents are the lucky ones no matter how poor.
Blert – We live in a time where it is clear that our nation is living beyond its means. It is on the verge of bankruptcy except that we can print more money. I personally don’t agree that we need to be the world’s police, primarily because we do not have a monolithic government that could be counted on even a foolish consistency. We taught the despots of the world that if you screw with the USA then we are going to invade you and kick your ass. The demoncrats of this nation taught the world an equal and opposite lesson. If you punish tyrants the Left will call you BusHitler and the US government will be destroyed by the press. If the US could follow through with anything that made sense more than half of the time I’d agree with you. Please explain to me why we help garrison South Korea while sending dollars, petroleum, and nuclear energy products to the north? Perhaps you can explain to me why the Germans give no substantive aid to the Nato forces in Afghanistan, don’t want to be shooters and such, while we maintain bases in that nation, the very nation that publically besmirches our national interests, our national leaders (the non-Marxist ones) and we the American people on the other hand are told that we couldn’t reduce are presence in Germany, a role that began over 60 years ago, because of the negative effect it would have on their local economy. And Egypt, supporting a despot is going to hold the flood of Islamism back? Are you kidding me? And Israel, what can I say about Israel? They have all of the heavy lifting to do now because since we are preoccupied with DADT and other forms of looking pretty and smelling good, they, Israel will either perish or nuke the bejesus out of their enemies. No, I think your diplomacy stinks. L
et’s give it a few decades and see who was right.
sb @ 31: I didn’t realize these were food riots, if they are doesn’t that pretty much guarantee they will succeed in toppling the current government? I thought that was pretty much an iron law.
I’m of the school that says, let em have it. Cut off the funding, swap their Copts for our muslims (one for one), tell the U.N. to handle it. We’re done saving the world from itself.
I don’t think we can abandon Mubarak right now. But we cannot be invested in his regime. That means that he should both get notice and that the search must be on, in conjunction with whatever democratic forces we can find to ally with in Egypt, to select the next CEO.
The West should have already been set to do this. And now it must do from necessity what it not do from choice. Wade in and find ways to create a democratic successor regime which will not be “one man, one vote, one time”.
The problem is whether the capability can be achieved in time. This is like going from a couch potato slob to a triathlete in five weeks. Can it be done? Maybe. But it’s sure going to hurt. And whether or not the current crop of diplomats can motivate themselves to try — like Hillary Clinton — is an imponderable.
32. blert
“the better judgement of Dr. Kissinger”
Let me give you atruly horrid example of the sainted Dr. Kissenger and his “better judgement”
In late April 1975 I was sent to Saigon to courier out some very important papers. The Chief of Station asked my office if I could stay a few extra days to aid in burning all the tons of TS paper. They said yes.
Back in Paris Dr. K was still trying to negotiate a peace settlement. The frigg’in NVA were lieterally right outside the city , shelling it. It was Dr’ K’s ego that prevented us from getting the thousands of indiginous Vietnamese out who had worked for us …then chaos set in as the Embasssy staff began to leave and the Vietnamese who aided us were locked out..yes a few made it out but at least 10K were left to the NVA …that’s what it meant to have the US as an employer who had promised to save all who helped us. Because the ego of Dr. K wouldn’t allow a departutre sooner because he knew it would weaken his negotiating position……he had no F’ing position but he did have an ego and it cost the lives of thousands who had helped us for ten plus years. But they were just “gooks” so what did he care? Fact is he didn’t care, he was just interested in remaining known as the modern von Metternich.
I get a bit animated about Dr. K and his ego because I worked with many of the people who probably were torture and killed.
Vanitas Vanitatum, Omnia Vanitas
“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity”
Are we witness to a new domino theory? Seems like the fuse is lit and the big bang is just months away. Imagine that Egypt’s Army gets nukes(or try’s to get them) from the Iranians or the Norks. Motivation for the Israelis to strike first. Time is not on their side. Our foreign policy in the ME is a disaster and until we get a John Bolton in as Sec. of State, we are going to be watching a complete political melt down and lots of bloodshed as the religion of peace takes vengeance on the dictators, Copts, Jews and we infidels.
From the editors at NRO “…Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice famously said we had traded freedom for stability in the Middle East and gotten neither.”
Mubarak Should Go — But Not Yet
Earlier I said:
“What’s happening in Egypt is very bad. … This is a catastrophe waiting to happen…”
Annoy Mouse @ 28 responded:
“I respectfully disagree. What is bad is being obligated to up hold the whims of a despot. … They are now one step closer to being a free fire zone when the next ‘non-marxist’ adminstration steps in.”
I can only agree that Mubarak is a despot/dictator as was Anwar El Sadat. It is my contention that a despot/dictator like Sadat or Mubarak with a thin veneer of democracy was probably the best that Egyptian society could allow. I also agree that Obama is too incompetent to do anything to help the Egyptians. A point that we can argue about is whether Mubarak could have done something with Egyptian society to evolve it into a genuine democracy. Again my rhetorical question: “What would Atatürk have done?” It maybe that genuine democracy is incompatible with Islamic culture. This is one of the reasons why George W. Bush’s experiment in Iraq has been very interesting.
Annoy Mouse’s comment about Egypt becoming a “free fire zone” expresses my deepest fear for Egypt. I’ve been to Egypt. For the most part, Egyptians are very nice people. One of my best friends is a Coptic Egyptian. The Copts should be treasured by humanity for their noble culture and historic achievements. If evil monsters like al Qaeda ends up ruling Egypt then the Copts will face genocide or expulsion from Egypt. We’ll see a repeat with the Copts of what happened to the Egyptian Jews after 1948 and the Ashkenazi Jews in Germany after the rise of Hitler. This represents a major calamity for the Human Race. [comment #3]
39. Annoy Mouse
It is impossible to expect consistency and logic of the human animal.
True, we have military bases in Germany, Korea and whatnot…
True, we are the world’s policeman…
The last time we tried the isolationist schtick promoted by the Libertarians we REALLY regretted it.
The world has gotten too small — and messy.
Our long strategy is to muddle along, that is all. The Resident can’t even think through to next week when it comes to diplomacy. So, I’ll grant you that America is about to do everything wrong.
It is transparent to me that the Resident is and always has been a muslim.
Hence, there is no way that he’ll move to stop the muslim brotherhood until it comes after him. BTW, some of the leading lights of the MB have rejected AQ.
——-
The DEEP issue in the Maghreb & Araby is unchecked population growth running into system constraints. THIS is the fundamental that drives all. If Egypt were able to feed itself the current unrest would not happen.
Ironic, isn’t it? These lands are EXACTLY the granaries of Rome. How things change in 2,000 years!
No matter the twist or turn the Malthusian collision is going to be a train wreck.
Perhaps another post will turn up from me — it was unceremoniously snatched from my keyboard a minute ago but doesn’t appear in this thread yet. Ah well — clumsy fingers.
Good anaylsis, W. While we might not want to abandon Mubarak, change is coming to the Middle East and we’re backing a losing horse right now. (So what’s new?)
On another note, the Telegraph is reporting that rioting is breaking out in Gabon. It’s unclear if they think Gabon is in the ME — it is not (look at the map of Africa, south of Cameroun). It is also not Muslim. Or barely anything else. The Gabonese are known to their neighbors as singularly unmotivated — they import Nigerians and Camerounians to do all manner of labor (imagine that!) This news, if true, makes one wonder if they really are as unmotivated as reputed. Or if the writer in the Telegraph was confusing the country with Yemen.
VDS describes what its like to be slowly swallowed by an alien culture.
http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/welcome-to-the-odd-ball-club/?singlepage=true
48. F
Just an idea. I try, unless I’m on fire, to compose my thoughts on WORD and save them. Then I copy them to this site. If they get lost I still have a back up to what is sometimes an hours work .
But then sometimes I donut am it be get all medssed up fo i dunt tipe much gud.
In the next hours we can only hang on. In the time horizon of a week we might, with some luck, have enough assets in Egypt to slip out the back door and meet the right locals, speak to them in Arabic and figure out the pressure points and become players. Remember revolutions are full of factions looking for allies.
God grant that we know the frauds from the genuine article. And here the weight of bureaucracy and civil service will tell against us. But that’s in the scale of days.
In the scale of weeks the US might make up its mind about whether it wants to get back in the Democracy business. Lebanon is low hanging fruit. Why not push back where we can instead of standing around waiting for Mubarak to croak. Dare we act?
Also in the scale of weeks it is possible to ask ourselves the question: is Israel still an ally? If it is, then we ought to stop diddling with the settlements issue and start thinking about how Israel can help make Syria worry.
In the same time frame, one ought to ask: is it really a good time to withdraw from Iraq? Is there nothing that can be done to use the position there to stir up problems in Iran?
That brings us to the scale of months. All this day and week movement presumes that the administration may now be open to switching their “engagement” policy back to a democracy agenda. Whether the the think tanks, lobbies and political special interest groups can be persuaded to eat crow. They can be helped with a little ketchup perhaps, but it will be crow just the same. And there’s the rub. They won’t. Death before discredit, dishonor being an alien term.
Which brings us to the scale of years: two to be precise. The Obama administration is like a corpse in the cockpit with its hands locked on the controls. It will neither fly, nor let anyone else fly the plane. “Como el perro del hortelano, que ni come ni deja comer.” Won’t either sh*t or get off the potty. To that there is no answer but the political process, or the hope for some conversion on the Road to Damascus. The metaphor is appropriate, alas. Let us hope that its meaning is still remembered.
39. Annoy Mouse
I agree with you on your major points. Some thoughts:
Back in the 6th century BC, in his classic, “The Art of War”, Sun Tsu observed, “Know your enemy, and in a thousand battles you will not be defeated.” Sadly, we ignore the Chinese grand master’s lesson, and actively eschew the acquisition of useful knowledge about our terrorist enemy. After the 9/11 Commission found that the CIA and FBI could have prevented the attacks of September 11th, had they only more effectively shared and communicated their intelligence to the White House, the Administration could have ensured a dynamic and efficient system of American intelligence simply by reforming and/or streamlining the two agencies. Instead, the Administration did nothing to improve either agency, instead creating an entirely new government agency, the Department of Homeland Security, whose most obvious contribution to homeland security to date is a puerile, and now universally-ignored, color-coded Alert Level system.
Terrorism itself is only a tactic of violence; it finds its roots in an ideology and thus cannot be defeated by military might alone. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelan, founded in 1975 in Sri Lanka as the first terrorist organization to make widespread use of suicide bombing, are amazingly still blowing themselves up as part of their independence movement there (talk about dedication!), simply because they are still not independent from Sri Lanka, and thus can still recruit their martyrs with an effective narrative of foreign oppression and victimization. The near-infinite willingness of a people to willingly slaughter themselves in an ideological protest against foreign occupation has been confirmed over and over, from the Algerian resistance to French occupation, to America’s own experience in Vietnam.
Back in 1998, Cato Institute scholar Ivan Eland had already been looking at the facts, and as a result, he had already begun to note the growing trend of America’s terrorist threat, corresponding directly and invariably with American intervention into the Middle East. Unlike both Bush, Clinton, and obama, Eland was already keenly aware of al-Qaida, Hezbollah, and their growing threat to American interests.
Here are some partial excerpts of his prescient work, from his 1998 paper Does U.S. Intervention Overseas Breed Terrorism? The Historical Record:
July 2, 1915: The Senate reception room in the U.S. Capitol was damaged by a homemade bomb built by Erich Muenter, a former Harvard professor who was upset by sales of U.S. munitions to the Allies in World War I.
June 5, 1968: Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, former attorney general and senior policy adviser to President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan, who had grown up on the West Bank and regarded Kennedy as a collaborator with Israel.
March 1971: A bomb exploded in a U.S. Senate restroom, causing extensive damage. The bombing came at a time of rising opposition to U.S. policies in Vietnam.
November 4, 1979: Supporters of the Ayatollah Khomeini seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iran, capturing hostages that were not freed until January 1981. The embassy was captured as a protest against long-time U.S. support for the unpopular shah of Iran.
July 22, 1980: Ali Akbar Tabatabai, a former press counselor at the Iranian embassy in the United States during the shah’s reign, was assassinated by the Islamic Guerrillas of America (IGA) after he had supplied U.S. officials with a manifesto of the IGA that advocated strategically planned terrorism on U.S. soil and assassinations of U.S. officials, stating, Any American can be targeted… no American is innocent… as long as U.S. foreign policies are to the detriment of the Islamic community.
April 8 and October 23, 1983: Islamic militants, funded by Iran and supported by Syria, suicide bombed the U.S. embassy and U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 290 people and wounding 200 more. The attack remains the deadliest post-World War II attack on Americans overseas. The Americans were supporting the Christian government in Lebanon against the Muslim militias by training and arming the Lebanese National Army. The U.S. Marines were later withdrawn from Beirut, prompting a Hezbollah spokesman to brag that the $martyrs! had finally forced the Marines out of Lebanon.
April 5, 1986: Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi sponsored the bombing of the La Belle nightclub in West Berlin, which was frequented by U.S. servicemen. The United States retaliated for the La Belle bombing with air strikes against Tripoli and Benghazi, Libya. In retaliation for the U.S. air strikes on Libya, an American hostage in Lebanon was sold to Libya and executed; Libyans attempted to blow up the U.S. embassy in Lomé, Togo; a Libyan agent, Abu Nidal, hijacked Pan Am Flight 73 in Karachi, Pakistan, killing several Americans; The Japanese Red Army, under contract from Abu Nidal, planted a bomb at the USO military club in Naples, Italy, on the two-year anniversary of the air strikes, killing five; and two Libyan agents bombed Pan Am Flight 103, killing 270 people, 200 of whom were Americans.
March 10, 1989: A pipe bomb exploded beneath a van owned by the commander of the U.S.S. Vincennes, who had shot down an Iranian airliner over the Persian Gulf (killing 290 civilians) during U.S. participation in the $tanker war! against Iran.
March 12, 1991: During the Gulf War, a U.S. Air Force sergeant was blown up by a remotecontrolled bomb placed at the entrance of his residence in Athens, Greece. November 17!, the deadliest terrorist group in Greece, November 17, which attacks U.S. targets because of American imperialism-nationalism!, claimed responsibility for the attack.
February 26, 1993: A group of Islamic terrorists detonated a massive van bomb in the garage of the World Trade Center in New York City. The Egyptian perpetrators were trying to kill 250,000 people by collapsing the towers. Ramzi Yousef, the leader of the terrorists, said the intent was to inflict Hiroshima-like casualties to punish the United States for its foreign policy toward the Middle East. The perpetrators considered augmenting the explosion with radiological or chemical agents that would have increased the casualties.
April 15, 1993: Seventeen Iraqis were arrested as part of government plot to assassinate former president George Bush on a visit to Kuwait, in retaliation for the Gulf War against Iraq.
June 1993: Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman–a militant Egyptian cleric–and other radical Muslims conspired to destroy several New York landmarks on the same day. Funding for the operation apparently came from Iran and was funneled through Sudan, attempting to punish the United States for its policies toward the Middle East.
October 3, 1993: Osama bin Laden’s operatives trained Somali tribesmen who conducted ambushes of U.S. peacekeeping forces in Somalia in support of clan leader Mohamed Farah Aideed, causing the death of 18 American Army Rangers, and the dragging of dead American soldiers through the streets of Mogadishu. An indictment of his followers alleged the United States–an $infidel nation!–had a nefarious plot to occupy Islamic countries, as demonstrated by its involvement in the peacekeeping operation in Somalia and the Persian Gulf War. The incident led to the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Somalia, which bin Laden called his group’s greatest triumph.
November 13, 1995: A car bombing of a military complex in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia–which housed a U.S. military advisory group–killed 7 people (including 5 Americans) and wounded 42 others. Muslim militants seeking to topple the Saudi monarchy and push the infidel United States out of Saudi Arabia carried out the bombings. Three groups, including the Islamic Movement for Change, claimed responsibility. U.S. officials suspect that Osama bin Laden was involved….
We can fill in the rest for there have been literally thousands of terrorist attacks over the years, thousands.
Years later, 9/11 ushered in the modern War on Terrorism, and we, with characteristic ignorance of the documented connection between American aggression in the Middle East and Islamic terrorism against America, only further augmented interventionist U.S.
We must find a better way. I have proposed the most dynamic and forceful signal to date. Nuke certain cities and countries. As I pointed out if we took out a million it would send a signal not to mess with us and we could get out of nation building and negotitate from a position of strength. The Chinese may beat us to the nogotiating table though since they have made tremendous inroads in establishing diplomacy in the ME.
Time will tell . We do know the entire dynamic seems to be changing rather rapidly.
http://whiskeys-place.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-2011-is-not-1995.html
Whiskey disagrees that the analogy of today to 1995 is valid because clinton had oil prices which today would be equivalent to $24@barrel and a booming stock market.
whereas today oil prices have nowhere to go but up, the stockmarket is growing subpar and state and municipalities may have to declare bankruptcy. like everyone else he didn’t buy the dem arizona meme. he thinks all this will be viewed unfavorably by Single White Professional Ladies. swpl. because their own pocketbooks will be directly affected–and presidents like football coaches have to perform.
(he hasn’t got that at least on the nationsl level the dems plan to force the pubs to lead on budget cuts so as to heap all blame for ills on them–but perhaps these cuts won’t affect swpl so much –hard to say.)
whiskey believes that the key swing constituency is swpl because all other groups are already set in their way to 2012.
I’m not sure that I disagree with him.
A local radio broadcaster –Plante, I believe–said the pubbies need to have running townhall meetings on CNN with dems to discuss politically difficult budget cuts so as to prevent and pre empt the dems from demagoguing budget cuts in the liberal media.
sounds good to me.
now if the pubbies do everything right–they can set up a booming economy for 2012 except for oil prices. cramer says oil prices above 90@ barrels will cause problems.
here’s a graph of gas at the pump prices
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=EMM_EPM0_PTE_NUS_DPG&f=W
W…well said.Time is of the essence in the ME, and we are looking at a “blue screened” PC on Obama’s desktop and he doesn’t know how to reboot.
Oh yes…if we nuked them then perhaps we could withdraw our troops from some of the 175 nations where we currently have troops stationed. Geez there are what , only 200 nations on the damn globe…WTF are we doing in 175 of them?
A nuke in the right place would send the right message and many of the troops could come home.
NEWS FLASH…. President 0bama announced today that there is a Silver Lining in collapse of the Egyptian government. President 0bama explained that with Egypt’s collapse it has freed up over 2 Billion in foreign Aide that can be applied to the looming SS disaster (not really, he thinks it better spent on the DoE). President 0bama also expressed hope that with further Middle Eastern Governments possible collapsing he will have more money to spend! 0bama also expressed his willingness to bow to whoever takes power in these great countries that have been so long exploited by America…
Richard, I agree in principle that we should have done something to stabilize Mubarak, but I’m afraid that window has already been missed. I fear that we are now faced with a Morton’s Fork: no matter what action we take, the Muslim Brotherhood will come out on top and our reputation will be further damaged.
Our task now is to figure out how we can contain the situation for a while until we can stake out a better position. I’m very concerned about the Israel thing for two reasons, only one of which is the obvious threat to Israel itself. The other thing is that a budding caliphate might use threats against Israel to distract us and tie up our resources while it actually pursues another plan — I’m not sure what that plan might actually be, but there are a lot of possibilities.
51. wretchard
To that there is no answer but the political process, or the hope for some conversion on the Road to Damascus. The metaphor is appropriate, alas. Let us hope that its meaning is still remembered.
……………
Galatians 1:11-24 (New International Version, ©2010)
Paul Called by God
11 I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. 12 I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.
13 For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. 14 I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. 15 But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being. 17 I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus.
18 Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas[a] and stayed with him fifteen days. 19 I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother. 20 I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie.
21 Then I went to Syria and Cilicia. 22 I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. 23 They only heard the report: “The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” 24 And they praised God because of me.
……………….
As long as we’re on the topic of suicide bombings and other forms of ME terrorism, any BCers have thoughts about the book glorifying suicide bombers that was found in the Arizona desert last week just north of the border?
“The book, In Memory of Our Martyrs, was spotted Tuesday by a U.S. Border Patrol agent out of the Casa Grande substation who was patrolling a route known for smuggling illegal immigrants and drugs.
Published in Iran, it consists of short biographies of Islamic suicide bombers and other Islamic militants who died carrying out attacks. . . . Agents also say that the book appears to have been exposed to weather in the desert ‘for at least several days or weeks.’ . . .
Statements from U.S. officials, including FBI director Robert Mueller, have raised serious concerns in recent years over ‘OTMs’ — or illegal immigrants other than Mexicans — who have crossed the southwest border at alarming rates.
Mueller testified before the House Appropriations Committee in March 2005 that ‘there are individuals from countries with known Al Qaeda connections who are changing their Islamic surnames to Hispanic-sounding names and obtaining false Hispanic identities, learning to speak Spanish and pretending to be Hispanic.’ . . . . U.S. Border Patrol statistics indicate that there were 108,025 OTMs detained in 2006, compared to 165,178 in 2005 and 44,614 in 2004.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/01/27/iranian-book-celebrating-suicide-bombers-arizona-desert/?test=latestnews
Wretchard’s description of the Obama administration as being like a corpse in the cockpit with its hands locked on the controls. It will neither fly, nor let anyone else fly the plane is chillingly apt.
Time to re-read Lawrence Wright’s “The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11″.
Cover to cover required reading to explicate the who what when where, and how. And the events in Egypt’s recent past, and how they will be played out (vengefully). And especially the players dead and those very much alive who are shaking in their chadors as they fight or take flight in the scrums that will proceed the main event that will inevitability take place in Cairo.
Iran had its’ Jimmy Carter and then the Grand Ayatollah Khomeini.
Will Egypt have its’ Barrack Obama then Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Imagine the heroes welcome through the streets of Cairo, for the good doctor. It will make the entrance of Khomeini’s back into Tehran in 1977 look like a Kiwanis parade.
The national security state must be in overdrive trying to discern what the the hell is going on.
“Good morning Mr. President this is the state of the World this bright and sunny morning”. “What do you suggest we prioritize this morning Mr. President.”
“Eggs sunny side up, hold the bacon.”
If Egypt falls then apart from a possible southern threat to Israel you have to figure how it affects the position of Saudi Arabia and of course, the Suez. The Suez is vital not only for shipping but also for naval deployments.
My guess is that even if the MB wins, they won’t go obviously ape. They are smooth operators. So they’re likely to push all of Europe’s buttons, including its prejudices and fears and continue the rout of America’s foreign policy.
There is really no point to saying anything disparaging about Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. History is taking care of that already. Even shutting down Julian Assange to recall their own embarassing leaks proved beyond the capacity of the Smartest Man in the World-Nobel Peace Prize Winner and his able assistant, the Smartest Woman in the World.
We are talking about people who have said the War on Terror actually doesn’t exist, and that things can be handled by giving a speech in Cairo to the ‘Muslim world’. To have it fall to the MB would be too cruel.
I am truly mortified for them. Their fall has been as humiliating as can be imagined.
I enjoy reading the opinions, ideas, theories, etc that are posted here but I find it fascinating that so many here express themselves with the idea that someone (anyone) on this blog has any real influence on the outcome of the event being discussed then there are those that talk like they or us can influence someone (again anyone) that is in power to read/consider what is being posted here… it real boggles the mind to think people really feel they or their ideas expressed here will or are going to make a difference… Its all talk, thats it just toughts, there will be no action taken becuase of what is said here.
#63
While I do not wish to give an exaggerated impression of the readership of this site, I have been told by authors who have interviewed certain high ranking individuals that reference has been made to the Belmont Club.
That is nothing special. The Internet is like that. Like everybody else, high ranking individuals have their favorite sites. There’s no reason this can’t be one of them. And in fact, it is one of them for certain persons.
A helpful thing to remember about Paul’s vision on the way to Damascus is that A.) he was in Israel B.) He had just come from a sojourn from in saudi arabia.
what happened to st paul in saudi arabia?
we’ll never know…
but since
a.)saudi arabia likely had jewish synaguges
b.)it was outside roman control–
I’ll bet that visit had something to do with his vision on the road to damascus.
an analogy for anyone interested would be Jesus on his visit outside Israel to the phonecian/caananite city Tyre. There he cures a woman’s demon posessed daughter and feeds 4000 phonecians/caananites. Compare that to Jesus feeding of 5000 in Israel–Jesus after feeding the 5000 has to leave Israel– perhaps–because the Jerusalem temple priests and lawyers were laying for him.
Then map that over on to paul who first persecuted christians and then
left the country for saudi arabia.
guess what he would have happened to a temple zealot in saudi arabia:-)
(now I say this in jest because its just a fun “speculation/explanation” of the same order as saying that fire by night and smoke by day that the hebrews saw in sinai was the volcanic ereption of the Greek island of Thera)
62. wretchard / Richard
yes the tooth paste is out of the tube. I think you have most of it right but the MB may not be able to control their minions…
…I suspect we will see more violent off-shoots. I also think obama is with them not against them.
remember it is not just what he (the clown obama) does and says …it is also what he doesn’t say that is speaking loudly.
Sorry CW but your comments will not affect how people discuss things here.
“This is a catastrophe waiting to happen”
Actually, Ithink the waiting is over.
Siggy. Qu33r5 in the military has NEVER been an issue with the military. The pushy, obnoxious ones had “accidents”, the forms were filled out and that was that.
It is an homosexual delusion that if exposed to qu33r5, hetro’s become qu33r. Doesn’t just happen. So repealing DADT won’t change a thing.
The military is still a high risk environment. Large objects moving fast will turn an unwary human into a smear in the blink of an eye.
63. CharlesWhite
Sorry, but I have read posts here that showed up a few hours later on the MSM. Next time it happens I’ll let you know. Then we can debate the co-ink-see-dinks involved.
Sorry about the typo is the previous post but the censor has it and won’t let go. Nothing I do is worth the time od the FCC but the maggots under the cow flop love me.
E@7: Al Qaeda’s origins are rooted in the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood
The relationship between the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda and the Saudi Wahhabists is apparently complicated.
Sayyid Qutb was an Egyptian and a ‘leading theologian’ of the Muslim Brotherhood. Bin Laden was/is a noted disciple of Qutb.
Of the 19 911 Al Qaeda hijackers, 15 were Saudi nationals and members of the Wahhabist sect.
From wiki:
However, once Al Qaeda was fully organized, they denounced the Muslim Brotherhood’s reform through nonviolence and accused them of “betraying the cause of Islam and abandoning their ‘jihad’ in favour of forming political parties and supporting modern state institutions”.
And Here:
Osama Bin Laden, founder of Al-Qaeda is not considered to be a true follower of Wahhabi Islam. However, he was nurtured in the Wahhabi tradition and in fact developed a somewhat independent theology that is not totally inconsistent apparently, with its tenets, based on the ideas of Hassan Al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb (“Qutbism”) Abul Ala Maududi, Afghani and others as transmitted by Ayman Zawahiri. Many of his followers were originally Wahhabis and many of the Madrassahs that turn out Al-Qaeda members are financed by Wahhabis.
And this from Stephen Schwartz in 2003:
Al-Qaeda represents Wahhabism in its purest form – a violent fundamentalist doctrine that rejects all non-Wahhabi Islam, especially the spiritual forms of Islam. Wahhabism is an expansionist sect intolerant of Shi‘ite Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and Hinduism; in fact, Wahhabists seek to challenge and destroy these faiths. The Saudi-Wahhabi threat must not be underestimated; it requires our grave attention.
Three sources – three views.
If the CIA/NSA, CENTCOM, MI6/ ECHELON etc had not modeled, assigned probabilities and designed responses to the situations in Egypt/Tunisia then we should declare ourselves as missing a Cerebral Cortex.
We have,in fact, a state-of-the-art Cerebral Cortex, Amygdala and CNS
Cisco, Face Book, Twitter, Google etc are all US intelligence assets.
Mubarak has been dying for years, we clearly designed a number of succession plans.
We knew about the coming food price escalation a long time ago
–the consequences were predictable
–for the Arab world, for India,China and Africa.
I am not privy to the cube within the cubes
–but this is not 1979
–the US knows what is going on, we know what we are going to do, and we have sophisticated models and capabilities in place to achieve fundamental American interests as the outcome.
Some countries will be unhappy with the new map of the ME, but it will be what it will be and America has been prepared for some time
–General Petraeus gave plenty of advanced notice last Spring, when he ran CENTCOM–Max Boot did not like the General Petraeus vision
–too bad
It is what it is
–plan B
O’s Rage?
…-
“Jan 27, 8:04 PM EST”
“Egypt: Internet down, police counterterror unit up”
“CAIRO (AP) — Internet service in Egypt was disrupted and the government deployed an elite special operations force in Cairo on Friday, hours before an anticipated new wave of anti-government protests.
The developments were a sign that President Hosni Mubarak’s regime was toughening its crackdown following the biggest protests in years against his nearly 30-year rule.
The counter-terror force, rarely seen on the streets, took up positions in strategic locations, including central Tahrir Square, site of the biggest demonstrations this week.”
[...]
“The United States, Mubarak’s main Western backer, has been publicly counseling reform and an end to the use of violence against protesters, signs the Egyptian leader may no longer be enjoying Washington’s full backing.
In an interview broadcast live on YouTube, President Barack Obama said the anti-government protests filling the streets show the frustrations of Egypt’s citizens. “It is very important that people have mechanisms in order to express their grievances,” Obama said.
Noting that Mubarak has been “an ally of ours on a lot of critical issues,” Obama added: “I’ve always said to him that making sure that they’re moving forward on reform, political reform and economic reform, is absolutely critical to the long-term well-being of Egypt.”
“And you can see these pent-up frustrations that are being displayed on the streets,” Obama said.
In a move likely to help swell the numbers on the streets, the Muslim Brotherhood ended days of inaction to throw its support behind the demonstrations. On its website, the outlawed group said it would join “with all the national Egyptian forces, the Egyptian people, so that this coming Friday will be the general day of rage for the Egyptian nation.”"
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_EGYPT_PROTEST?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-01-27-19-37-02
YBR…
ONE correction…
Osama is of Yemeni father & Saudi mother… Has big time resentments against Daddy & Daddy’s patron: the King of Saudi Arabia.
The 15 were all of YEMENI blood… NOT Saudi.
There is a unique deal struck way back in the day whereby King Saud guaranteed his Yemeni warriors that they would forever after have unlimited rights to cross into his lands. Further, the King established that his diplomats would permit any and all Yemenis — at will — to travel on Saudi documents. Thusly, a Yemeni can walk in off the sand and promptly get a Saudi passport. Living and working in the Kingdom is entirely unnecessary. This is a little known fact that the MSM keeps glossing over. It also explains why the Kingdom is paranoid about Yemeni political developments that permit AQ to operate in Yemen. Yemenis formed 100% of OBL’s original Black Watch. Only as time passed did this or that non-Yemeni get into that exclusive club.
In many ways OBL is a frustrated civil warrior. At bottom he wants to run the show and liquidate the entire existing royal family.
This or that Saudi shunted money to him over the years. Now that the Kingdom has woken up to the peril that money has mostly been cut off. But there are round about ways for AQ to still get money that dupe the Kingdom. There are so many dark pools for sustaining jihad it’s hard to see the well ever going dry.
wretchard @ 64 said:
“While I do not wish to give an exaggerated impression of the readership of this site, I have been told by authors who have interviewed certain high ranking individuals that reference has been made to the Belmont Club.”
I believe that Belmont Club has impact. I keep seeing phrases in the MSM and public comments made by politicians that first appeared in Belmont Club. I believe journalists and politicians search the Internet for fresh ideas and Belmont Club is one of the first places they visit.
Quite frankly, I’m in awe of Wretchard’s intelligence and writing ability. Any journalist or politician with more than two functioning brain cells should see this as well. [comment #4, last]
b@73:
The 15 were all of YEMENI blood… NOT Saudi.
In many ways OBL is a frustrated civil warrior. At bottom he wants to run the show and liquidate the entire existing royal family.
So, aside from the implication that the ME is driven by corruption under the guise of religion, rather than the other way around, with which I happen to agree; aside from that, the Yemeni/’civil warrior’ context supports the Al Qaeda intent of instigating war between KSA and USA, which Bush wisely avoided. As someone here mentioned not too long ago.
Are the Saudi’s that innocent, I wonder?
The byzantine ME culture is making fools of the Bull Conner western world.
USA needs to strategize a calm way out of the ME boiling cauldron, starting with an energy policy/program. They don’t play by our rules – and they won’t for quite a long time.
After reading Wretchard’s thoughts on this thread and after reviewing an earlier comment of mine on the neutering of Syria and the following, it is nice to be appreciated
74. allen
#35 Wretchard said, Re: Egypt
That is the most worrisome thing, because I don’t believe events are going to stop in Cairo. And whatever else is coming around the bend is going to have to be handled by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. So God help us all.
January 26, 2011 – 6:47 pm Link to this Comment
What will the United States and Israel do about the scuttling the sophisticated military hardware (naval vessels, e.g.) provided to Egypt by the last several American administrations at the behest of DoS? All this was supposed to make Egypt a more “secure” ally and strengthen its ability to “control” the Muslim Brotherhood.
Israel’s folly in returning the Sinai to Egypt after Israel’s victories in 1956, 1967 and 1973 is starting to take on strategic implications at this point. (ditto control of the Suez Canal). If provoked (or given any reasonable pretext) Israel should remediate its former folly.
Although daunting might best describe Israel’s growing insecurity with the unfolding events in Lebanon and Egypt, coupled with the incompetence of Mrs. Clinton’s DoS, that very incompetence might be manipulated to Israel’s advantage when the time for military action is demanded. Using the metaphor of Tommy, “that deaf, dumb and blind kid” may cease to be an Israeli foreign policy distraction.
January 27, 2011 – 6:16 am
I’m seeing reports that Mohd El Baradei is heading to Egypt to lead the opposition. I need not say anymore about that.
I remember, pointing out here back during the June uprising in Iran how what’s his face was no liberal and was part and parcel of the original revolution. However, it was also pointed out just because he was the leading figure in the movement it did not mean that he would be able to hang-10 to leadership of a new government. First and most obvious the uprising failed.
The crowds may say they are sick of the despotism of Mubarak, but too often it is not despotism but the despot they are trying to knock out of power. I remember hearing about some bombing in Saudia Arabia where the demands of the bombers were talking about freedom of speech and the like. I dismissed it out of hand as being a group of people who want to the freedom to tell what other people they can not say.
In re “The blue screen and time to reboot” meme, I would suggest that the situation is much simpler and more pernicious than that.
Obama is a Mac user par excellence, and knows nothing but “Click another icon and hope for the best.” The idea that he might have some influence on the situation is subsumed by “Why doesn’t somebody do something?”
This is where we see another instance of the Beijing consensus.
Cut off all media access, shoot to kill until they stop coming. Wash up the blood before morning.
Any wagers that Chinese advisors are landing in Egypt as we speak?
Derek
As compelling as these events are wonder how, if at all, they are connected to the world wide financial crisis. I, and others, have pointed to this article in a previous thread. The gist of the article is that there exists a conspiracy to undermine all national financial institutions across the globe and create a crisis that will be solved by a worldwide financial regime run from one central bank. Yeah, I know, big, hairy conspiracy theory. Be that as it may, the question on my mind is, what links might there be between the events in the Middle East and North Africa? Are these events anticipated or unforeseen? Will they be used to advance the plan or will they impede it?
rdw/78; but somebody IS doing something. Nobody knows what, exactly, other than that petrodollar recycling by OPEC has been a huge credit generator for USA, and Yemen, sparsely-populated and a vulnerable and wide-open failed state, wraps around the entire southern border of OPEC central power KSA, and that Holder’s political party is in thrall to George Soros, whose stated lifetime goal is to crash the Dollar as the global reserve currency (in which the oil trade is conducted), very likely (many think)on behalf of USA’s permanent nemesis in the bowels of the Kremlin –who was the traditional sponsor of Egypt until Nassar died in 1970 and still the main armorer for same through the Yom Kippur War, when new Russian wire-guided antitank manpads very nearly knocked out Israel’s armored forces until the IDF adjusted and poured the air force into ground attack missions.
The Battle of the Chinese Farm –very good short article that corrects an omission error in my #81.
Wretchard == Socrates? Methinks.
I’d like to touch on a brief mention in the main article – that regimes get bogged down in their prior decisions. To wit, China’s one child policy. Someone on high said we’ve got a population problem and so the policy became holy writ. Suicide! After one generation the breeder population is less than one half. The preference for male children assured that. Two generations equals one quarter. Geometric progression is a bitch.
@74. Eggplant
I gladly grant you two of my 4 allotted posts. Have at it….if it’s ok by W.
63. Charles White
It never occurred to me that any movers & shakers were reading these essays or the comments, nor would it matter if I did. I find these discussions informative, stimulating and thought provoking. Except that occasionally someone remarks on my offerings I have no way to know if anyone is actually reading my stuff or if it is sublimating into the eVoid. For all I know others here just see my nom de plum and say to themselves, “Hmph! Tamquam, that crank! What’s he maundering on about now? Better skip him and move on to the next one in the queue.”
But just in case I want to take this opportunity to give a shout out to [ . . .], whose name must not be mentioned.
Time for a little retro culture:
The Eastern world, it is explodin’,
Violence flaring, bullets loadin’
You’re old enough to to kill,
But not for votin’.
You don’t believe in war,
But what’s that gun you’re totin’?
And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin’
And you tell me over and over and over again my friend
You don’t believe, we’re on the eve of destruction?
For those versed in strategies for prepping the battlefields, the picture is pretty clear what the attempted strategy of implementation most probably is throughout the Islamic Middle East. Maybe consider these operative elements at play and who their command structures are…to connect the dots. al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Muslim Brotherhood, and so many more unclassified units and organizations, that most Americans are totally unaware of.
The Middle East is a chess board and the game has methodically and more aggressively been in progress since the 90′s….although initiated in 1948 with the Arab-Israel war. Its a religious war spreading far beyond that of inter-State and regional sect dominance. If Egypt fall and into the wrong hands, consider the perimeter around Israel and the consequences of that in conjunctions to the wider battlefields being prepared by the radical Islam elements around the world.
The Egypt situation is potentially very serious on several fronts for the U.S. and its obligations through the UN to certain Islamic nations….and Israel. The Obama gang obviously has had no clue how to deal with the Islamic regions other than to continue cuddling Saudi Arabia for whom we’re obligated to defend militarily and to posture with Iran in thinly veiled and empty rhetoric of inferred threats.
If memory serves, Hafez Al-Assad, father to the present leader of Syria, sent his armies in 1982 to besiege then assault the city of Hama to suppress a rebellion organized by the Muslim Brotherhood, which had spread throughout the Muslim word after beginning in Egypt in the 1920′s.
The point of that seems to be that there are vast fractures and faults in the Islamic community, of which the Shi’a / Sunni antagonism are only the the best-known in the USA. Others in these comment streams have mentioned the titanic bloodletting in China following the nominal end of WWII. More recently we’ve seen how the collapse of dominating central governments (CCCP and Tito) remove restraints that had held ethnic groups in check for generations. It’s easy to imagine that the fall of Mubarak or the Yemeni government could lead to similar chaotic spasms.
Discussing these scenarios here, reading the insights of other commenters far more learned in history and politics than I, helps me make sense of the general trends.
Okay, if “A” happens, cash out your 401(k) and use it to discretely purchase high-silver-content coins.
If “B” occurs, start buying canned foods and band-aids.
If “C” happens, check the expiration dates on the potassium iodide bottle, and put new batteries in the radiation detector.
If “D” happens, un-earth all those Vietnam-era contraband items, and make sure the cart ridges are in usable condition.
If “C” AND “D” happen, bug out!
>;-)
“The Obama administration probably ended at the beginning of 2011. It cannot think itself out of problems that it cannot understand.”
Understanding is an attitude, a state of mind. This type of mind does not seek understanding, it seeks to impose understanding–its own, believes it can brainstorm past anything, and lives for those moments.
‘The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav’n.’
Twain’s comment about history not repeating but rhyming is true here with a vengeance. For anyone who has the time, I suggest an exceptional book by one of the greatest historians of the British Empire, Wm. Roger Louis. The book’s title is “The British Empire in the Middle East, 1945-1951.” It’s uncanny how the British faced almost exactly the same problems we’re facing now with reactionary regimes trying to suppress popular movements. Moreover, they were trying to deal with these problems under many of the same financial and political constraints. It is also worth noting that their policy eventually failed utterly, capped by America’s knifing them in the back at Suez. It would be karmic retribution if America supplanted the British only to fall prey to the same devils we supported in bringing their “moment in the Middle East” to an end.
Peter Boston@8:
“You can bet that there is more than one imam who goes to bed at night dreaming of green flags flying over Vienna.”
No doubt true. I’ve also seen maps of the world showing everything green in the future. The grandiosity of these clowns is impressive.
But I’ll make you a guarantee. Absolute 100% probability. Several, in fact.
1) Islamists will never take Switzerland. I really don’t know about Austria…no doubt they have a shot at France, Spain, Italy, Britain (sadly), and Germany. But they’ll never, ever, EVER take Switzerland. Nobody ever will except the Swiss. God, I admire that country. I also expect that they’ll have great difficulty with the rest of Europe, truth be told. At base, the savagery (now temporarily latent) of Europe is second only to (possibly) some countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
2) Islamists will never take the US. Obama could offer them the keys to the Whitehouse and congress could pass a constitutional amendment that Islam is the state religion, and still it would be an absolutely impossible job, for many of the same reasons as they can’t take Switzerland. If Switzerland would be a beehive for them (and it would) the US would be 40 acres of solid beehives. I don’t like what could happen, but I don’t stay up at night worrying about Islamism here at home. It just can’t happen. It will never be more than a boutique religion here, and just lately not a popular one.
3) Islamists will never take Australia. Malaysia and Indonesia they already have, and I really don’t know about NZ or Tasmania, but the Aussies, outside of the city centers, are just too damn pigheaded. Nobody’s ever going to make them do anything they don’t feel like doing, and I would never try. I thought Crocodile Dundee was a big stereotype, but later I met some Aussies on business. Holy crap. Great guys to have a beer with, but you don’t want to be on the other side of a fight with them.
All that’s immaterial though in the long run. Islamism simply cannot advance much farther than it has at this point. It’s already rotting in the center, and no Islamic country that doesn’t have oil has any kind of economy at all. Even the Egyptians get a ton of foreign aid just to keep it together, a lot of it from us, and they’re a supposed “leader” in the Islamic world.
And the rest of the world seems to be growing a spine. When was the last country flipped to Islamic from something else? Everybody, even the ones who whine about “Islamophobia”, has noticed that all around the periphery of the Islamic world it is one giant battle line. Nobody wants to be subsumed by that mess, so they’re fighting back and hard. As the cheap oil runs out, the Saudis won’t be able to keep stirring up trouble elsewhere either, nor will even the Iranians.
Oil has given a lifeline to Islamism, but that lifeline won’t last many more decades. Maybe less than one, depending on how truthful the Saudis and others have been about the size of their reserves. And really, though it’s going to be a very painful adjustment, the sooner the better as far as I’m concerned. I’d rather see China become the world’s next “lone superpower” than Islam. Islam is just plain lousy at running governments, as it’s proven over and over again.
walt/13; more superlatives. Robust muse you got.
CharlesWhite @19 – “Any one game to think this could lead to a Caliphate in 2, 5 maybe 10 year period?”
That would be a very welcome state of affairs. Our ‘leaders’ nearsightedness would no longer suffice as a foreign policy.
Clue to the clueless : brutal secular dictatorships are just about the best the West can (or should) expect from Muslim societies. Whether a ruthless Ataturk, or even a vicious Saddam Hussein, or any in the long string of commie to extreme right wing despots across the arc of Islam. From Indonesia to Kyrgistan, from Iran to Cairo, if a secular strongman will suppress and channel Islam, then we have less to fear from the genocidal Muslim world. No matter how corrupt and brutal, the Muslims are already screwed because they’re Muslim. Why should we risk annihilation by sponsoring insane movements that will only unleash the destruction of Islam upon our heads? For this is what supporting “freedom movements” across Islam guarantees in the long run. Pining for idiotic dreams among these barbaric anti-human Islamic societies is the bane of our age, and assures that staggering oceans of OUR blood will flow in the future because of this insane romantic folly. That, and the willing admission of Muslims in their millions into our previously safe precincts. We mindlessly confer our most precious freedoms, citizenship, privileges and rights upon them, which will, in the end, rob us of all of it when they eventually subvert it all. As an example, I give you the suppression of our free movement because Muslims live and travel freely now among us. If that were not so, we’d fear no terror against our persons or our homelands. The same is true of the widening net of free speech suppression so that this filthy population does not get incensed at their infidel hosts. Free speech is a dead letter already in Europe when it comes to the subject of Islam. It will happen here too and is already under way. If the vile Muslim were not here decamped and threatening violence, we’d never fear to speak out against them or their blood drenched psychotic religion.
We live in sickening, twisted times.
Lets back up a second. The military runs Egypt NOW. Mubarak is a front man for the Military, just as his predecessors were.
pinched from wikipedia;
# Promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General / Air Marshal (1974)
# Commander of the Air Force and Deputy Minister of Defense (1972)
# Chief of Staff of the Air Force (1969)
That’s right. A General and commander of the Egyptian Air Force.
So the military will replace him with another General. An Army one this time.
pinched from Wikipedia;
“The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, the senior uniformed officer, is Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi and the Chief of General Staff is Lt. Gen. Sami Hafez Anan.”
One of these two will be the new President. The other the new Vice President. The MB won’t whine. They have made peace with the Egyptian military after Sadat’s assassination and the crackdown that followed. The ones left that is. Rumors have the MB death toll between 30 and 60 thousand. The MB is represented in the Egyptian Military and I doubt that there is any difference in objectives, just how those objectives are gained.
The Military wants the weapons technology the USA is delivering. They think that they got their arse kicked because the weapons they bought from the Soviets were junk. Those weapons WERE junk but that isn’t why they got their arse kicked. So the Militry thinks things will work out better if they have an edge in weapons when they try again….And they will.
The backbone of the EAF is 216 F-16s. Mig is trying to sell them 29′s.
King of the dance in the ground forces (army) is the M1A1. Several battalions worth. Goal is 1500.
So as long as the MB feels the Military is getting ready to over run Israel, or at least try again, they won’t put any roadblocks in the way. So all that will happen is the name on the door will change.
Besides, all the riots in the Me are food riots. There are a billion Muslims ONLY because the west is feeding them. They (Islam) cannot grow enough food to feed themselves. The ground is good and wet here in the states, All that global Warming has left it ready for a good crop. In half a year or so, there won’t be any food shortage, artificial or otherwise.
mac@90 – “It is also worth noting that [British] policy eventually failed utterly, capped by America’s knifing them in the back at Suez.”
At least Churchill was repatriated before our failure.
The role of the Army is why bringing democracy to the Third World is so tricky. The Army means control over crony capitalism. It means control over the economy. The Hezbollah, the Syrian Baath, the Revolutionary Guard, the Egyptian Army all play the same function. They are the big red button which everyone, including the radical Islamists want to control.
Creating a functioning democracy in the Third World means sending the Army back to the barracks. And that can only be done by growing the Army’s share in the goodies, but growing the civilian share faster, so that in the end, everybody is better off but the distribution permanently favors the private sector.
Sometime this is done by an Ataturk or Lee Kwan Yew, but not often. Mostly power corrupts. The role of a country like the US is to put enough “force in being” behind the the civilianizing trends to make a long term shift possible.
And in the end democracy is like most elements of culture, a habit. The art of building democracy lies in building democracy. That is more than a tautology; it recognizes that only when people come to like their liberties are they prepared to preserve them.
We are kept back by invisible walls. It is habit, custom and usage that make a country what it is. When the Army finally refuses to run a Third World country it will be because “that’s the way we do things here.”
Rice was right about our ME policies. Basically, relic of habit form the cold-war where we had our strong-men and Soviets had theirs. After the cold-war, there was an opportunity to push our strong men towards responsible democracy and freedom.
Suez is too important to be terrorist state controlled. Therefore, Israeli capture and control would be preferable to Europe and everyone else. Egypt is extremely vulnerable via Answan.
MB knows or should know those facts. My guess is that they will back a more sympathetic strong man and wring concessions out of him.
Here’s a thought, since we are playing global chess and not with real lives on this site. Israel takes the Copts and gets them to move to Siani, give them Suez and create an independent buffer state and likely cut off Hamas in Gaza.
w/97; –Tradition!
I am truly mortified for them [Obama and H. Clinton]. Their fall has been as humiliating as can be imagined.
I’m not sure they’ve noticed.
And Habu’s comment about Dr. Kissenger’s ego, isn’t that – when you get down to it – the root problem with the mediocrities we’ve burdened ourselves with? Their egos far outweigh their abilities, but they’ve never met a mistake they didn’t want to double down on. Of course it’s easier when you’re playing with other people’s money and lives, I suppose. Especially when admitting a mistake means paying with your own ego. Your ego vs. someone elses life… hmmmm.
Seems to me you need a functional sense of morality, or at least loyalty, to decide to sacrifice your own ego for some stranger’s life, liberty or happiness. Expecting that sort of morality or loyalty used to be “the way we do things here” but I’m afraid “we” isn’t as all-encompassing as it used to be.
jmh/100; I’m not sure they’ve noticed
…neither am i. Anyone who might be, ought to refresh on the last third of
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_the_strategy.html
(tamquam/80; this is a companion piece for the Canada Free Press article you linked. The CFP describes what happened, the above the why of what happened –these two articles from 2008 and 2009 need to be re-publicized, what with Obama’s post-November MSM re-arming ”move to the center”)
The really awful outcome: an Islamist government, millions of Copts forced to flee (to where?) + a suicidal attack on Israel that, by its inevitable catastrophic failure, succeeds in touching off a regional war.
That’s…..pretty bad. I don’t think all that will actually happen. That’s not what scares me. It’s the probability that–if even some of it does–the US Government has not the faintest idea what to do about it.
Dear Dr. Bones,
The Fernández y Podhòretz neospecimen is of greater prosopographical interest than literary, so I have decided to eat dessert first and do the easy part, namely Concerning a Possible Flaw in “Heads We Win, Tails Barry Loses”.
I may or may not get around to discussing Don Ricardito’s personal neoproblems vis-à-vis the staff an’ bigmanagement of PJM. There is no hurry, and the more evidence that piles up, the better.
(( I also take my own advice, because at _URL cit._ I suggest that Don Ricardito should have split this scribble down the muddle. ))
Happy days.
JHM @ 103
Been huffing copy machine toner again is my guess…
What is so much fun is that the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) started out as a student organization and then got funding in the 1950′s from ‘Our Friends’ the Saudis. One of the first terrorist groups to stand up after the PLO was HAMAS which is an ‘armed wing’ of MB. MB expanded into places like Tunisia and actively recruited members not just in the Arab world, but even as far afield as the US. OBL matriculated through MB as well as most of the other high level aQ members, with OBL having his own set of cells before he went to Pakistan. It was in the mid-1990′s that his Egyptian organization got in contact with the Red Mafia for the procurement of nuclear materials… a plot uncovered by the French, if memory serves.
‘Our Friends’ the Saudis also promulgate their religion in the Caribbean, South and Central America, and into the Far East, as other commenters have noted. The MB was involved early on in Pakistan to help get active mosques and recruitment systems set up there… which was fine with the Pakistanis as the ISI had been doing similar since the 1950′s against India and, later, Afghanistan. That got aQ entrance into the post-Soviet ‘stans and such lovely places as Georgia via the native Pakistani terror organizations that had contacts in that region.
So now, nearly 6 decades after funding of MB started by ‘Our Friends’ the Saudis, we have global problems with radical Islam of the Wahhabi, that is Saudi, stripe.
Too bad we were too civilized to adopt a Westphalian foreign policy to not have dealings with Nation States exporting religion. If you want an idea of what Christianity was like pre-Westphalia, just look at the domains where KSA and Iran have been able to export their brands of Islam. Let us hope that we can avoid what happened to Europe during the 30 Years War to get us to Westphalia so we can get a similarly enlightened view of religion and the Nation as mediated by Nature and man… its a real shame that we must re-learn this lesson. And it will be much worse this time around than it was last time but that is the heavy burden of being civilized: doing the right thing no matter the monetary cost. It was really so much cheaper to get cheap oil from ‘Our Friends’ the Saudis… we sold off our heritage and being civilized to do so.
I read the headlines of several publications and many say”Eqypt on the Brink”
Now other than the chaos brink what brink? Are the Egyptians going to lead the ME into democracy, (like fur sure dude)….brink, brink…where’s the edge and if you go over where do you end up?
I hadn’t read where Eqypt or others were cauldrons of “brinkness”. Hadn’t heard until last week the Mubarek was a tyrant.(sure he probably is but the goat herders and camel violators … well you just didn’t hear about them being on the brink. Does brink have another meaning in the ME?
Has Coptic Cairo whooped up some sic transit gloria mundi
,which suddenly became a war cry?
Well I just hope this doesn’t cost the USA another two or three trillion dollars when a nice nuke could solve the immediate problem.
I’m still curious as to the arcanum arcanorum
Back when Bush was being criticized for pushing for democracy in the ME, I kept thinking here are two propositions that cannot both be true – only a small fraction of Muslims are extremist and if ME countries go democratic the extremists will take over. If MB takes over Egypt it is a clarifying moment in that respect.
I do understand from reports that water cannons are being employed and that rubber bullets are being fired at those “on the brink”
But it never says in any of the reports if the water cannon is set on the “gentle rain setting” or the harder “invigorating pulsating setting”… I did however hear that the rubber bullets were really recycled Faber #2 pencil erasers so I was immediately releived.
buck smith @107
Please realize that ME and democracy is an oxymoron.
I was left wanting after reading the “word” from Wiki on Egypt.
Is anyone in the BC crowd an Eqyptologist and can provide us with a short chrestomathy?
#74 Eggplant
I agree with your opinions regarding the possible wide-ranging influence of BC. However, you may have shot yourself in the foot with the following comment, “Any journalist or politician with more than two functioning brain cells should see this as well.”
I believe that two functioning brain cells is the MAXIMUM allowed for these two professions.
I suspect recycled military control will be the outcome, as a few have predicted above. I agree that Egypt can not really ‘go Islamist’ as it already has, in terms of the popularity of the MB and Islamists. The army and police are indeed chock-full of such people, if my guess is right. After all, who murdered Anwar Sadat? Islamist soldiers.
I believe that the situation in Egypt may eventually force Israel back into Sinai. At least then we will have Gaza surrounded.
As Richard wrote, this Administration is a complete disaster. Do not forget Obama’s thrill at going to Egypt, or that he insisted on the MB being present at his ‘unifying’ speech there. Mubarak did not attend, I believe.
I enjoy some of the comments about cutting aid to Israel, etc. From the Israeli perspective, and given the general deterioration in American education levels and Administrations elected, this is far from a bad idea. Though ultimately impractical for both parties.
Good luck to us all.
I cannot think of one islam dominated state that will embrace democracy.
there is not possible to have democracy in an islamic state.
you can talk about it all you want ..even if a majority of the people wanted democracy it would not happen. (the only exception might be Iran because they are a bit more educated then the average muslim country)
look how the rule of law is being circumvented in the USA by one clown and a small group of marxists! in fact democracy is dead in the USA right now …because you have elections (with considerable fraud) doesn’t make a democracy. the elected representatives need to speak for the people for it to be a democracy.
it is just the ascension of the liar obama that opens your eyes to the fact that there hasn’t been democracy in the USA for some time.
Over at “The American Thinker” the world gets this offfering.
The Rest of the World and Obama
By Steve McCann
Now Mr. McCann is proud of his work in Ghana and other places as well he should, someone has to go to Ghana or they might flop over into “chaos” too.
But after that we get an entire piece on what could be summed up in a sentence, “The World is Laughing at US” he continues. Writers apparently can’t do one sentence pieces and keep their jobs so they recite yesterdays news that is known by all sentient people. Yeah maybe the guy in Moose Poop , Montana doesn’t know squat but it does get a bit peevish to daily hear a recap of what we know……..obama is an idiot who has done more damage to the USA in two years than rap music has done in twenty and the world is laughing at us.
Let me finish with this. There isn’t a person reading this who will see the USA recover it’s status or get out of the debt we have undertaken in our lifetimes. Why? Because we live in a society of “entitlement” and if you take that away we’ll be getting hosed (well, we’re already getting hosed) by our government with water cannons and real bullets and then we can really show the world what chaos is all about.
There is an old saying on Wall Street. Bears make money , and Bulls make money , and Pigs get slaughtered……guess who the pigs are? Which way to the abattoir?
H@52: The Chinese may beat us to the nogotiating table though since they have made tremendous inroads in establishing diplomacy in the ME.
Oh????????????
The Chinese … establishing diplomacy????? … in the ME???????
But I agree with the general tenor of the thesis that it is very hard to make a case for continued western presence in the ME for purposes other than containing the export of violence, and there are only a limited number of ways that can be accomplished, most of which are “Long War” type activities, one of which is not.
USA will generate another trillion dollars, but the lives lost in a badly conceived and poorly executed conflict are gone for good, without benefit of righteous cause.
YBR
Yeah the Chinese are all over the ME; Example: From Hurley’s Market Shoppers Guide.
Oil topped the agenda of President Hu’s recent visits to Morocco, Nigeria, Kenya and Saudi Arabia, as the world’s second-leading importer of crude strives to ensure a steady stream of supplies to satisfy Chinese demand (al-Jazeera, April 22). Compared to its neighbors, however, Yemen’s yield of approximately 400,000 barrels per day makes it a modest player on the international oil markets (U.S. EIA, Statistics 2006). A lack of investment over the years has also stymied further export potential for crude. Nevertheless, increasing Chinese and global demand for crude are raising the profile and importance of all oil producers, including marginal producers such as Yemen. Yemen is also seeking investment to exploit its potential as a major exporter of Liquefied Natural Gas, another area of growing Chinese interest (Yemen Times, April 5, 2003).
To this end, the recent talks culminated in a series of lucrative trade and commercial agreements to include an array of joint ventures between Chinese and Yemeni businesses, particularly in the area of oil and gas exploration and improving the productivity of old oil wells and refining capabilities. China’s oil giant Sinopec will expand its growing presence in the Yemeni oil market. Sinopec already signed a US$72 million contract in January 2005 to expand its oil prospection and production operations in Yemen’s eastern region. With a $120 million investment, Beijing has also agreed to finance the modernization of a cement factory. Two major investments in the electricity sector totaling approximately $186 million were also finalized (Lebanon’s Daily Star, March 24). Other deals included Chinese ventures in Yemen’s telecommunications and mineral sectors and an agreement to enhance technology cooperation and transfer (Yemen Times, April 9; Xinhua, April 7).
In a move characteristic of Chinese public diplomacy elsewhere in the Middle East, Hu emphasized the ancient tradition of commerce linking China and Yemen, which stems back to the sixth century through the silk trade and the Port of Aden’s historic role as a commercial hub in the region. Hu went on to praise Yemen for being one of the first countries to establish relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and emphasized growing trade ties between the two countries, which topped $3.4 billion in 2005, up from approximately $800 million in 2004 (Yemen Times, April 9; Arab News, September 10, 2004).
Beijing’s Middle East diplomacy highlights converging interests on a host of vital issues affecting China and Yemen. Among other things, China has traditionally been vocal in its support of the Yemeni and Arab position on the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians—namely, Beijing’s criticism of Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian land as a key impediment to a lasting peace. China will host a Palestinian delegation, including a senior representative from Hamas, during the upcoming Arab-China Cooperation forum in Beijing (al-Jazeera, May 17).
Likewise, Sanaa supports the “One China” principle and regards Taiwan as a sovereign part of Chinese territory. A key facet of Chinese diplomacy in the Middle East and elsewhere is securing support for the principle of “One China” in order to sideline Taiwan diplomatically in the international arena. Yemen also sides with Beijing in its dispute with the international community regarding Tibet and China’s human rights record. During a five-day visit to Sanaa in March by a delegation led by Wang Jiarui, head of the International Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Chinese dignitaries thanked Yemen for its loyal support for China on the issue of Taiwan, Tibet and human rights (Xinhua, March 8).
Yemen’s Strategic Significance
China’s growing interest in Yemen is not only related to its strategy of strengthening its economic and energy ties to the oil-rich countries of the Arabian Peninsula and the greater Middle East; given Yemen’s location, it is also part of Beijing’s efforts to project power in the Horn of Africa. China’s strong economic and military ties to Sudan and expanding relations with Kenya are a critical component of this strategy.
Yemen occupies a vital strategic position because of its location on the southwestern side of the Arabian Peninsula and across the shore from the Horn of Africa, adjacent to the Red Sea chokepoint known as the Bab al-Mandab and busy shipping lanes connecting the Suez Canal in the north stretching to the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean. As it has demonstrated by its presence in the Panama Canal Zone and the Egyptian Suez Canal, China places a premium on establishing footholds in or near strategic communication and commercial chokepoints across the globe. Yemen’s position adjacent to the Bab al-Mandab fits this larger pattern of Chinese strategic thinking.
Yemen and the Horn of Africa have also become areas of vital concern for U.S. planners since the September 11 attacks. Countries such as Djibouti are already home to a sizeable U.S. military presence that is likely to grow as Washington looks to reduce its footprint in areas where force deployments pose political burdens to allied host governments amidst popular opposition to U.S. troops and policies in the region. In this context, China’s inroads into Yemen must be seen as an attempt by Beijing to diplomatically offset growing U.S. influence in the region. Ongoing violence and instability in Sudan and Somalia, and the region’s history as a base of operations for terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and maritime piracy, have also raised its profile. Yemen, the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden, is also regarded as a hotbed of radical Islamists and al-Qaeda activity.
Yemen Looks to China
Sanaa has been quick to realize the economic benefits of expanding relations with Beijing. Yemen sees a potential for greater Chinese investment, which would provide a needed boost to its fledgling economy. China is now Yemen’s largest trading partner. According to Jazim al-Najar, Yemen’s foreign trade director general, trade between both countries has been growing at an annual rate of 20.7 percent since 1999. This includes a 100 percent increase in Yemeni exports to China and an over 400 percent increase in Chinese exports to Yemen (Yemen Observer, April 4).
During meetings with Chinese businessmen in Beijing and Hong Kong, President Saleh offered free land to investors willing to invest at least $10 million in the local economy. Yemen also secured Chinese assurances that it will provide millions in economic development aid and a series of low interest loans. Yemeni businessmen accompanying Saleh during the trip were also promised greater access to the Chinese market (Yemen Times, April 10).
There is a geopolitical component to Yemen’s stake in closer ties to China. Yemen sees an emerging China as a counterweight to U.S. bilateral pressure and overall involvement in the region. According to a recent report issued by Yemen’s Ministry of Production and Commerce, U.S. security support far outweighs its economic assistance, which is predicated on Sanaa meeting a number of criteria, including expanding political reforms (NewsYemen, April 6).
The United States broke off ties with Yemen between 1991 and 1996 in retaliation for Sanaa’s position in the Gulf War. Both countries have since established close relations. Despite its strong ties with Washington, which include close military and intelligence cooperation, Sanaa often faces criticism from the Bush administration for allegedly failing to do enough in the war on terrorism. The February escape of convicted members of al-Qaeda—implicated in the October 2000 attack against the USS Cole in the Port of Aden and the October 2002 strike against the French oil supertanker Limburg off the southeast coast of the country—from a prison in the capital has shed light on what many in the Bush administration see as Yemen’s inability to deal with a dangerous radical element within its borders. The United States is also critical of Yemen’s reported lack of progress toward greater political reform, another sore point in relations between the two countries.
Yemenis harbor deep resentment toward the United States for its longstanding policies in the Middle East, especially for Washington’s staunch support of Israel and for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Sanaa hopes that China will eventually challenge the United States on issues such as the Palestine-Israel conflict and Iraq, which would help defuse tensions at home. Yemen also sees China as a positive example to emulate in terms of political and economic development. Some Yemenis are even calling for the establishment of a “Yemen-China Center” in Yemen to encourage a greater Chinese role in the country (Yemen Times, March 10, 2005).
These geopolitical and domestic factors make it difficult for Sanaa to maneuver between its commitments to Washington and the growing disenchantment and frustration among Yemenis for its unpopular pro-U.S. stance. In this sense, Beijing sees a window of opportunity to enhance its position, while Sanaa hopes to decrease dependence on Washington. Sanaa also welcomes China’s apparent disregard for developments in Yemen’s political reform process and internal affairs more generally.
Conclusion
By all accounts, the burgeoning relationship between China and Yemen will continue to flourish. Without providing further details, Yemeni sources even hinted at the potential for greater security cooperation (Lebanon’s Daily Star, March 24). Although it is unlikely that ties between China and Yemen will expand dramatically in the security sphere in the foreseeable future, Beijing will continue to see Sanaa as a useful strategic partner in furthering its regional agenda.
Slightly O/T if money can ever be O/T..permission still requested however.
At the moment the stock market is down a bit, nothing of real note since traders hate uncertainty and it’s a Friday so many are short covering and selling a few speculative assets just in case there is real chaos found in the ME…shocking.
HOWEVER this market is due for a huge correction, 20%+ This entire rally is totally synthetic,based on the huge addition of the FED adding electronic zeros to our money ..they really don’t “print” but a fraction of what they produce with the zeros right out of thin air). There is nothing behind this rise but institutional traders, investment houses and brokerages trading amoung themselves and driving the price up in the most dishonest and subversive way they can. However they can’t continue, it can’t be done.
The government helps out by producing totally bogus numbers but if you look deeper, say at the Baltic Dry Index you can see that it’s a ruse on the rubes. Get out of US dollars. Not only is the market due for a huge correction but an entire world is now against the US as a reserve currency and our WMF negotiators are as adept as obama is at world politics. Yes, it’s gonna be a Presidential size dump.
All that from a Shoppers Guide. I’ll have to pay more attention next time buying groceries.
My initial surprise or question related to the Chinese experience in Africa where escalating tension between local labor pools and Chinese management started to make headlines about a year or two ago, but gained very little actionable traction because, well, apparently not enough money or psychological resources remaining to mitigate the African evolution into the labor-management conflict stage of commercialized production.
I wonder if the Chinese will adjust their international presence to provide a more harmonious interaction with indigenous populations.
PA Cat @ 60:
And yet those same U.S. officials steadfastly refuse to close and defend that southwest border.
It appears to me that the plan is to let the terrorists enter the country, then spin their bad acts as another excuse for further restrictions on our liberty.
Agoraphobic Plumber @ 91:
I really, really wish I could share your optimism, but I can’t.
Islam is not our only enemy; Communism is at least as great and Communists have firm footholds in the U.S. (Actually they’re past footholds. We’re up to our waists in Communists, and I fear we’ll soon be in over our heads.)
Actually, this is neither new rocket nor a new warhead. This is hardly news, too, since Putin announced the thing on TV a year ago. Simply now it was produced industrially and given to military. It is a new construction of re-entry vechicle: they put movable aerodinamic fins on it and a programmable inertial navigation system to control their movements, which makes it capable to maneuver during re-entry at hypersonic speed (5-7 Mach number). This makes the traectory of descent from upper point of ballistic curve unpredictible and allows to avoid interceptors.
#117 Habu
Put it simpler, this is a combination of ICBM and a cruise missile, only with hypersonic speed at the end game cruise mode.
H@117: HOWEVER this market is due for a huge correction, 20%+ This entire rally is totally synthetic
Copper is up.
But Robert Schiller agrees that market is “overpriced based on fundamentals”.
The counterpoint argument claims valuation metrics are close to historical averages.
Jamie Dimon claims money is pouring into private equities, but I suppose bias is a legitimate issue there.
“Synthetic” markets are easier to massage than the ones driven by animal spirits.
YBR/118
“I wonder if the Chinese will adjust their international presence to provide a more harmonious interaction with indigenous populations.”
I believe at this point in history they will do anything they feel they need to do to gain the upper hand, in all areas (except a republican based democracy) on th USA. They are verbally growing more contentious toward the US while wooing the rest of the world, in particular the third world at specific choke points.
What amuses me, in a grim sort of way, is the thought of the Chinese exercising the same mindset they brought to Africa with the volatile multitudes of hyper-charged Islamic populations in the ME. They – the Chinese – may well find themselves being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the world of international diplomacy with rueful memories of the USA experience.
It’s going to require ten years, and probably closer to twenty, to reconstitute an effective political class in this country. I doubt my Golden Years are going to be very golden.
# 117 Habu
Absolute agreement about the market being flooded with fictional Federal Reserve money. I would direct the Gentle Readers to the concept of the Fed’s “Permanent Open Market Operations” [POMO] wherein the Fed is funneling made up money to 5 brokerage firms connected to the administration [all of which were involved up to their ankles (head first) in the financial/housing collapses since 2007]. Those firms use what is called High Frequency Trading [computers dueling with other computers and the few poor schlubs still in the market] to manipulate about 2 dozen stocks slowly upward. These are the critical stocks in the DJIA and S&P. For instance, Apple is weighted as about 28% of the S&P.
The stock market itself is nothing like a real market where prices are discovered by trades. If you do not have access to those HFT computers, you are the mark.
Things to watch:
1) As Habu says, Baltic Dry Index- measures the usage of ships to transport goods. No ship, usage, no international trade. It has been plummeting,
2) When reading economic statistics from the BLS, wait a few weeks before even thinking about believing them. For the last two years +, every announcement has been quietly followed by a “revised” figure that is always worse than the original, but not publicized.
3) We have changed how we count unemployment several times since the Great Depression ended. What they announce is the “U-3″ figure, which basically only counts those filing for Unemployment Insurance. The closest thing to reality is the “U-6″ figure which counts those whose benefits have run out, who are “discouraged” because they cannot find work, and those who are forced to take part time instead of full time work. This still undercounts, but is the closest they have. Note that if you work 1 hour during the month, you are counted as “employed” and not “unemployed”. U-6 is close to 20%. Another figure to watch is Labor Force Participation; what percentage of the working age population is employed. We are at generational lows.
Taking GDP figures as probably overstated, we are in poor shape. Back when I was in college, shortly after we had chased the mastodons out of Boulder County [sadly we did not wipe out the proto-Moonbats] we were taught that a recession is two consecutive quarters where stated GDP minus % inflation is less than %population growth. I think that when we sort it out, we are definitely in a recession. They say that except for food and energy, we have no inflation. How many of us exclude food and energy in our lives. One can make a good argument that we have passed 4 quarters, which puts us in Depression territory.
4) Another figure to watch is job creation. We need 100k-200k new jobs every month just to break even; to account for deaths, retirements, and population growth [and yes, illegal immigrants are population growth]. Anything less than that and we are still losing ground.
5) If you can find them, the SEC collects data on corporate stock sales by each corporation’s officers. They are allowed to trade in their own company’s stock, just have to report it and in theory not use insider information. The aggregate ratio has been running 1,000-3,000 shares sold for every share bought each week for over a year. You think that they may know something that we don’t? Some of it is just exercising stock options because they need the cash. But the trend is overwhelming.
If I was not an impoverished retiree and unable to invest; I would not be in any part of any market. I would be purchasing physical commodities for delivery and possession [do not bet on paper/digital unless you are short of TP], and arable land in a congenial community where neighbors will help each other.
Moving back on topic [Egypt] note that the supposed saviour of Egypt who is being set up as the front man to replace Mubarak is Mohamed Mustafa ElBaradei, Nobel Peace Prize winner for 2005 [given for political reasons like Obama's pre-emptive award for being Obama]. ElBaradei was head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency. He was a staunch defender of Saddam Hussein, and of every Islamic effort to develop nuclear weapons and other WMD [including Iran's]. He made the proverbial “3 Monkeys” look absolutely moral; because in addition to hearing, seeing, and speaking no evil about Islamic nukes, he added “arrogantly lie like hell”.
I do not know if he is MB or AQ; but he is very much on their side. If he becomes the figurehead leader of Egypt, expect the MSM to go orgasmic about the new “Egyptian George Washington”. Just keep in mind that they have said that every new Soviet leader, Chinese leader, and head of the KGB was also really a closet small “d” democrat since the 1920′s. Mohamed Mustafa ElBaradei is not a friend of the West or especially the US.
Now I will try to post this. I had just started to type and had gotten as far as Habu’s name when my caffeine deficient fingers hit something and it posted just Habu’s name at #122. I could not start over, so I am doing this in the edit box and hope it will work. [It didn't so I had to start a new posting.]
Subotai Bahadur
YBR/124
Oh, you mean Jamie Dimon. Chairman of the Board, President and CEO. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co…..that Jamie boy?
Of course he’s gonna say that since he’s a major player in the receipt of the FED’s largess and also one of the hot air specialists trying to keep the balloon up. Institution like his do not have bad trading days, just the Joe Sixpack has the bad day.
Wire houses, banks, and investment bankers took the FED money under the veil of doing some greater good for the investors. They didn’t. They used the money to crate a carousel for their types only where they move billions daily to manipulate various markets. But they will need many more QE’s to continue. They’ll get them but by that time the unfunded pension funds, pensioners, and investors of the 90′s will have all become informed as to the game that is being played.
Imagine if suddenly everyone in the United States had the amount of money they owned instantly doubled. Would the U.S. economy be twice as healthy? Of course not. Very quickly prices would rise to meet the new level of money……
Well, in the United States today our “authorities” are pumping massive amounts of new dollars into the system. That is one reason why so many people are so upset about the Federal Reserve’s “QE II” program. The Federal Reserve is creating money out of thin air and pumping it into the financial system.
The first people that get their hands on this new money are Wall Street banks and major financial institutions. The idea is that eventually all of this new money will “trickle down” and will help average Americans, but that just does not seem to be happening.
In addition, when the U.S. government goes into more debt, this also creates more money. The U.S. government has accumulated far more new debt during the last two years than it ever has in any other two year period. When the U.S. government spends all of this money that it borrows it introduces a massive amount of new money into the system.
There are many ways to measure the money supply, and one of the most basic is M1. Thanks to the actions of the Federal Reserve and the U.S. government, the money supply is rising at an almost exponential rate at this point. The money supply has grown rapidly at various points in the past, but what we are witnessing now is really unprecedented…..it’s a helium balloon.
So what happens when you have a lot more money chasing roughly the same number of goods and services?
Well, you have inflation of course.
Are our “leaders” alarmed by any of this?
No, in fact they plan to pump up the money supply even more. The Federal Reserve seems content to continue their “quantitative easing” program and obama is proposing all kinds of new federal spending which will be funded by more debt.
So the truth is that we had better have some significant “economic growth” during 2011. That ain’t gonna happen, not in “real ” terms. If this amount of money is pumped into our financial system and we don’t see any “economic growth” then that would be an indication of a major league economic breakdown and given a true unemployment rate of 23% growth isn’t possible.
But instead of looking at things rationally, many mainstream economists are hailing the fact that the U.S. economy may grow by a few percentage points in 2011 as a sign that happy days are here again.
According to a recent article in USA Today, economists are becoming increasingly optimistic about 2011, and the consensus seems to be that economic growth in the United States will fall somewhere between 3 and 4 percent….if that comes true it will be a lie, pure and simple.
People don’t seem to realize that just because more money is changing hands and just because financial markets are going higher that it doesn’t mean that the economic situation is improving…..
If a rising GDP and a soaring stock market truly were strong indicators of economic health, then Zimbabwe would have been one of the strongest economies on the planet over the last 10 years.
Inflation changes everything.
Unfortunately, official U.S. government inflation figures have become so manipulated that they are of basically no value at this point. Whenever one particular category starts to experience significant inflation, the U.S. government simply removes that category from the inflation calculations. Over the past 40 years the way that inflation is calculated has been changed way too many times.
If you really want to get a good idea of what is happening with inflation, a good thing to do is to look at the basic commodities that everyone uses around the world.
For example, according to the United Nations, the global price of food hit an all-time high in December. Not only that, but almost every major agricultural commodity that you could possibly name experienced a double-digit percentage increase in price during 2010.
In addition, the price of oil is steamrolling towards $200 a barrel. In fact, many analysts are convinced that the price of oil will set a new all-time record in 2011.
A recent editorial in Newsweek was not optimistic that we will be able to stem this rising tide of inflation….
The final dam to stopping $150-a-barrel oil and $4-a-gallon gas is being breached, as financial regulation continues its daily erosion into worthlessness.
So what is the answer to these problems?
Well, according to many of the top “economic leaders” in the world, the solution is to create even more money and even more credit.
Between 2000 and 2009, the total amount of credit in the world grew from 57 trillion dollars to 109 trillion dollars. That’s 109 with twelve zeros. Now the World Economic Forum says that we need to grow the total amount of credit by another 100 trillion dollars over the next ten years to “support” ( read keep helium in the balloon) the anticipated amount of “economic growth” around the world that they expect to see. Balderdash.
Does that make any sense?
We have to double the amount of debt in the world so that the world economy can grow?
But this is what the world economic system has become at this point. It is a never ending debt spiral that requires constantly increasing levels of debt and paper money.
That is a huge reason why precious metals such as gold and silver are becoming so popular. Investors are becoming sick and tired of the constantly inflating paper currencies. Gold and silver are both very much in demand right now. For example, the Chinese and Indians are voraciously gobbling up gold right now. Also, the Central Bank of Russia has announced plans to purchase 100 metric tons of gold per year in order “to replenish the country’s gold reserves”.
But what about average Americans? What is going to happen to them in a world where prices are rising rapidly?
Well, the answer is very simple. In an environment of rapidly rising prices, the standard of living for most Americans is going to go down.
In this economic environment, employers are simply not going to increase salaries or even hire people, fast enough to keep up with the rising price of food, gas and health care. New college graduates are facing a world of practically NO US jobs available at all, perois…this for the next 10 years+.
In addition, there are tens of millions of Americans that are on fixed incomes. As prices rise, those fixed incomes will simply not go as far.
So the truth is that most Americans are going to find their finances stretched even thinner in the months and years to come.
Inflation is the thief. When prices rise it means that the purchasing power of all the dollars that we have accumulated goes down.
But for our politicians, inflation can be a helpful thing. They can take inflation-fueled “economic growth” numbers and claim that their policies are working and that the economy is becoming healthier.
A year from now when these jokers trot out their “economic growth” numbers and yet the cost of nearly everything you buy has increased dramatically, don’t you believe their propaganda.
Yes, U.S. economic numbers are most likely going to experience a little bit of inflation-fueled “growth” in 2011.
But it will not mean that our economy is improving. We are sinking as is the EU and yes, even bloated China.
Fifteen years ago Japan did what we are doing and they are still suffering. The US citizen is being raped by our FED and financial community with the aid of our government who firmly believe that these “central players” are the ones who should control all the money. The government supplies the lies with bogus monetary figures and the financial world grows fat on the ever leaner American carcass.
Hope this helps.
I left out one thing.
The federal deficit for the fiscal year 2011, which ends Sept. 30, is projected at between $1,200 billion and $1,500 billion.
Thus, the $100 billion in cuts the firebrands are pushing, and few think they will get, add up at best to 8 percent of the deficit and 2.5 percent of the $3.87 trillion budget obama proposed.
The national debt just crossed the $14 trillion mark.
Smartest guys in the room. Any room. Correction. Any abattoir.
I understand the basic position, Habu. Just playing a little Devil’s Advocate.
I am disturbed and confused, in equal measures, by the current state of the markets, not to even expand the venue to include ‘exogenous’ events. Rational is not a word that comes to mind.
As far as the banks, like it or not – and the smell is a little nauseating, but, like it or not, the banking system had to be salvaged – and salvaged first. My predictive guess is that the devastation wrought by a failed banking system would have been orders of magnitude more cruel to a broader segment of the population. It’s a point of argument but let’s not do that now.
The insider selling, the smooshy metrics, the HFT, and the looming energy shortage (2011?) – all suggest that this market is not a healthy environment for retail investors.
As a short personal note, I am generally on board with the yelling and screaming, but I just emerged from a four-day dive into high-level stress and I can’t deal with any of it right now.
@100, I tend to agree that Obama’s gang probably have no appreciation of the situation they are in. If you were to put them in a deep hole with a step-stool at the bottom, they’d stand on top of the step-stool and convince themselves that they had a commanding view of their surroundings.
YBR/131
“but, like it or not, the banking system had to be salvaged – and salvaged first.”
It is highly debateable and now admitted by many that TARP was a futile exersice and a failure. First of all we are not talking about a total systemic failure of all the banks. The banking system would have survived without the investment banking firms that were in trouble. If you look at the players who breathed life into TARP and paniced the public behind them with lies and a huge dose of URGENCY OR WE”LL ALL DIE you find that bankruptcy would have been the best route to take.
TARP was suppose to be used to loan out to homeowners when the securitized mortgage backed tranches of the investment houses and peddled to the world began to unravel due to the immisible mixing of sound money with vacuous money.
Well, the investment bankers and banks simply took the money and rebalanced their income statements and balance sheets and practically NO lending went on. They lent the money to foreign governments at very nice rates and once again taxpayer money was simply inflated and debased. The little money Joe Sixpack managed to hang on to was devalued via inflation.. It was a SCAM orchastrated by men who had all worked at Goldman Sachs. The citizens were screwed while the bonuses handed out that year were at new record levels.
The Fedsury is HYPERINFLATING the money supply.
That’s the ONLY term for it.
Such action is a fiscal narcotic. The good feelings are entirely front loaded.
When it breaks bad it’s a cliff function. Prices start to move — particularly those of DAILY LIVING. These completely out pace prices for fixed assets.
Real Estate values ( as adjusted ) go DOWN in hyperinflation. Why? Credit/leverage becomes impossible to get. One must pay pure cash for all real estate during hyperinflation. This crashes real estate in real terms.
Likewise, it becomes impossible to sell going concerns on credit. Indeed, most businesses go under because they’re built on a customer credit model. Hence wholesalers go belly up across the board. Likewise any business that extends credit gets cooked.
All activity based upon recreation collapses because there’s no time or money for such. Hence the restaurant trade gets destroyed. Resort communities go bankrupt due to an astounding collapse in cash flow. What gains are made against debt are offset by a near total absence of visitors.
Nationally, pensions are destroyed wholesale. This is fulsomely underway right now: ZIRP is a killer. ZIRP also means that all minds focus on how to play the value of money instead of how to grow a business.
The Resident has fully Cloward-Piven’d his nation — and can’t figure it out.
His next ambit is to destroy the Republicans and especially the Tea Party.
That is how the Zero campaigns. He’s been successful in getting his opponents picked off or anti-selected. McCain is exactly the boob that Obama wanted to run against. Conservative voters stayed home and it was a rout.
——–
Behind all of this is the woeful conduct of the MSM. For the most part they are indoctrinated and too young and dumb to figure anything out.
One wit described those talking heads as ‘meat puppets’ — that’s right on target.
Fox, in particular, staffs its financial news broadcasts with hot babes — none apparently over the age of 33. They then flesh out the screen with young men under the age of 38. This provides the audience with pretty viewing — and empty, too.
——-
Globally, C-P strategy is breaking all the chains loose: Malthus and his four horsemen are out of the stable.
Egypt is — as predicted by yours truly — in a food price crisis. It will get very much worse very quickly. First world audiences don’t understand that the boys on the street are rioting over just the leading edge of price increases. VAST price increases are only weeks away. Millions of Egyptians are shortly to find that they literally can’t afford to eat. Ditto for the rest of the third world.
Oxfam is going to run out of gas. Funding will shrink and food costs are skyrocketing.
This wave of famine is going to hit Iran big time. She’s a major food importer. Naturally she’s at war with exactly those nations growing enough food to export internationally.
Likewise, Pakistan imports food. It’s not as bad off as Iran — but the nasty flooding hurt the crop.
@128 Habu, “A year from now when these jokers trot out their “economic growth” numbers and yet the cost of nearly everything you buy has increased dramatically, don’t you believe their propaganda.
Yes, U.S. economic numbers are most likely going to experience a little bit of inflation-fueled “growth” in 2011.
But it will not mean that our economy is improving.
Turnabout would be fair play in this regard, but not, of course for us consumer schlubs. What I mean is that energy costs eat up any sort of progress made (domestically) in our economy when the price of energy goes up, and I think higher energy costs are a reasonable consequence of *new* controllers of the Suez canal.
S.o. mentioned Clinton enjoyed a rising stock market and low energy prices, so re-election was not a problem.
I also remember high barrel prices and big hit at the pump in 2006, perhaps in 2005 as well, and once this delivered for democrat party in 2006 election, one of the first things Pelosi did was promise to lower gas prices. Of course she could do no such thing, but she must’ve known who could, to give such confidence. Shumer subpeonaed some oil company execs to throw some bread to the circus, but, for now, and the next year, two years, one has to ask, when and for how long will barrel price start climbing, and will it effect 2011 (yes), but go back down in 2012, to help Barak’s re-election bid?
I’m sure the vultures will be fat and happy after a years worth of gouging the market for all of 2011, but will they be prepared to lower the price for Barak re-elction bid? Most likely, but can they curb their ambitions when conquering geography, the *new* old fashioned way, and screwing the west is their main objective? We shall see…
Right now it seems that those who campaigned for domestic production and “drill baby drill!” will be vindicated in the short term, during 2011, when the “lean carcass” will be bled for all its worth.
Obama regime thinks just like those autocrats, that he can make his populace suffer at his will, and then can call back the dogs (in 2012), when it suits him.
I just wonder how much autocratic socialism the electorate is prepared to endure, at the hands of de 0ne, and for his (and his cronies) alone.
Mariner@120:
“Islam is not our only enemy; Communism is at least as great and Communists have firm footholds in the U.S. (Actually they’re past footholds. We’re up to our waists in Communists, and I fear we’ll soon be in over our heads.)”
Meh. Communism had a stronger foothold in the 50s, is my feeling. McCarthy caught a lot of flak and has been demonized, but he was right. Communists had very strong presences in both the state department and Hollywood.
What we face is actually more insidious, and that is the academy and press being intent on us flipping to communism-lite, AKA Western European style Democratic Socialism. Thing is, Europe is waking up and finding that it’s not sustainable, even with us footing the bill for most of their strategic security. It sure as hell can’t go on, and I’ve seen signs that they’re actually moving more in our direction.
And then there’s the general discontent with the first step toward being Western Western Europe, the health care brouhaha. The house has voted to repeal. The senate can bottle it up and if not then Obama can veto, but only for another two years. This last time around, the Repubs had a lot of defending to do besides pressing to win senate seats. Next time the Dems are MUCH more vulnerable, and we’ll see that in their votes on an unpopular health care law. If we don’t, we’ll see a Republican senate. Obama will never give it up, so he’d better hope the Repubs get a supermajority and can steamroll his veto, because if he vetoes repeal, we’ll be stuck with another one-party-rule situation and that won’t be good either, I don’t think.
Finally, the same thing goes for the commies as goes for the Islamists. There are a LOT of guns around, particularly outside the major cities. I (and most of my friends) have a couple of guns that were purchased through an FFL and are subject to public confiscation. And then we have our real guns (with lots of ammo) that will never be found until we decide it’s time. For the record, I really, really hope they just rust away to nothing without ever having to be used outside of occasional practice.
Communism isn’t any more popular here than Islamism, and they’ll never be able to do anything to us by force unless they use nukes. And unlike the Islamists, the commies aren’t crazy or stupid. They never tried anything openly before, and they never will.
Habu -
Ben Smith at Politico:
The consensus of economists and policymakers at the time of the original TARP was that the U.S. government couldn’t afford to experiment with an economic collapse. That view in mainstream economic circles has, if anything, only hardened with the program’s success in recouping the federal spending.
A study this summer by former Fed Vice Chairman Alan Blinder and Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi was representative of that consensus. They projected that without federal action — TARP and the stimulus — America’s gross domestic product would have fallen more than 7 percent in 2009 and almost 4 percent in 2010, compared with the actual combined decline of about 4 percent.
The Democrats hated the vote because it was an elite bailout of wealthy bankers, which it was. The Republicans hated the vote for the elevation of federal power in the markets, which it was. Both sides feared “economic collapse” as per Rep. Kanjorski’s claim that $550 billion disappeared in a matter of hours in an “Electronic Run of the Banks” on Sept 15.
TARP worked, but it remains an issue because nobody can get the second half right – fixing the Main St economy. (The miserable performance within the ranks of banking management cannot be excused , overlooked or forgotten.)
The stimulus bill (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) that followed was an embarrassing failure.
So here we are.
Actually, if you look carefully at that photo, you’ll see that Obama is bowing to Harper.
Want to know where this is heading?
Read the “Apocalypse Code” update to the “Late Great Planet Earth”.
Biblical prophecy is being revealed before our very eyes and no one wants to acknowledge it. All of the actors from Revelation, Isaiah, and Daniel are falling into place.
Woe onto man they do not see that the wrath of the Lord will not be restrained for but a few more days.
YBR/137
Good for Mr. Smith.
I too have read economists and ecomonic historians who don’t believe TARP was necessary. An come on man what do you thinl anyone at the FED is going to say. The families that own the FED get a cool 6% on every dollar that does out the door and the Governors know that. Plus they aren’t going to buck the Invstment Bankers because guess what..almost all the FED owners are ininvestment banking including one of the founders un the Ladrich Act J.P. Morgam
It’s abit like walking into a barber shop and asking if they think you need a haircut…what do you think they’re gonna say, NO?
Please check these out.I won’t take you much time.
Tarp critics
http://tinyurl.com/6cgvjn5
http://tinyurl.com/6dmqk7z
http://tinyurl.com/6jah5j4
So if some of you have watched the Youtube features then ask yourself this.
If OUR banking system needed to be SAVED (with TARP money) so that the entire country wouldn’t collaspe then what the hell was the money going out the back door to foreign investment for and practically none going to American Banks?
Mr. Smith at Politico has his economists and I can line up an equal number that will repudiate all they say.
NONE of the bailouts were an absolute necessity. It was a CON on the American taxpayer.
Subotai Bahadur/127
on my #117
Sir,
It is gratifying to find another with a comprehensive knowledge of markets and how they function, the signs to look for, the levers that are pulled etc.
On Computer based trading:
Computer-based trading gives broad power to high-tech algorithms to proceed with buy and sell orders without human intervention, based on a series of parameters that set things into motion. The software is designed to work on the scale of millionths of a second. Reuters reports that 60 percent of trading in the U.S. is computer-based.
Now can Reuters be challenged…of course because I have heard that the figure is actually approacing 70%…
Now tell me , does the average investor have a chance of beating the market?
*************
Also the nexus of the foreign banks that received TARP money via US banks and the US banks themselves is that they are all associated in interlocking directorates with the closed private stock corporation known as the FED. Keep watching this year as investigation unpeel the onion.
#140
Last sentence, first para should read:
not this: founders un the Ladrich Act J.P. Morgam
this: founders of the Aldrich Act, J.P. Morgan
Apologies
Egypt protests: America’s secret backing for rebel leaders behind uprising
http://tinyurl.com/5vyfso8
This is why the USA is a very dangerous ally to have.
Just asl Iran,Taiwan,look at the Prague Spring,South Vietnam, Rhodesia, Cuba circa 1959 ..this list is long and distinguished.
Well hug a duck, Habu.
Lisa Myers, Media Bimbette?
Dennis Kucinich, Mr AC/DC?
Well, enough with the witless rejoinders. I’m split down the middle on this issue.
The bankers bestowed generous bonus and compensation packages hiding behind contract and rule of law, while the Kudlow megaphones were criticizing extended unemployment benefits. The amount and depth of reprehensible behavior was thicker than the fog surrounding some of the TARP money. Maiden Lane III (IIRC) was anything but pristine.
I return to Ben Smith’s words:
The consensus of economists and policymakers at the time of the original TARP was that the U.S. government couldn’t afford to experiment with an economic collapse.
The level of uncertainty threw the issue into risk management mode: can we afford not to do this, given what we know now (not to mention the playful tinkering of bank runs lurking ominously on the periphery of complete collapse)? Congress decided the answer was no, and as I said above, they ALL hated it.
So here we are.
Government can do very little to stimulate an economy but they can do any number of things to strangle an economy, which I think sort of captures why the Step 2 part (getting the Main St economy back on line) is so hard.
The biggest mistake made by the Obama administration was failing to reorganize their priorities in response to the depth and potential duration of this recession and recovery. They have effectively tabled the carbon initiatives, but universal health care could have been postponed for a more economically robust recovery period.
Dueling economists are one issue, one that is not too compelling because of the “one-handed” effect of the “dismal science.” So leaving that aside, the other issue is the abysmal accounting of so much money destined for blithe distribution to central banks around the world.
The Rep Grayson interrogation was quite good. The Bernank looked cornered. The amount in question directed at foreign banks was $200 billion (IIRC?), out of $700 billion, with final TARP cost to taxpayer around $25 billion (wiki.) I too would like to know where that money went. I support Ron Paul’s efforts to open up the Fed but don’t see that happening. Ever.
YRB/145
Well, if you and I REALLY knew all the skinny we’d be rolling in it ..ah money that is..
Yeah , let’s call it a great colloque and leave it there. It’s been a pleasure YRB. Nice to be here at the BC to do a bit of badinage.
All the best,
Habu
Same to you Habu.
Looks like your gold and silver portfolio’s gonna have some serious legs. Dennis Gartman got back in. Probably a few others that I missed. I do think the market is poised to “correct” possibly up to 20%. I withdrew enough to live on for three years and left the rest in. So there it is. The Fed life support can’t go on forever. At some point, the economy has to reassert the ‘animal spirits.’ When is a matter of interest.
YBR
Well I keep running between my Montana property and FL. II just about have the Montana place all fitted out to survive almost anything…I have food stores with 10 year shelf lifes, expensive water filtration systems, hnad tool ,like saws ,drills etc …
I may never use any of it but ……
My gold and silver is such a nice pillow. The Canadian currency is nice and I have a few other strategies that I am putting into place ….just watch, I’ll choke on a chicken bone tomorrow … but I’m getting ready to trade my 350 Z with 12,000 miles on a Cobra. Not the Ford, the real deal replica..it’s brand new and , well, zoom, zoom….later..wifey calling, ah ordering me off this machine.
H
Ben Smith and basically all TARP supporters make a good case that “no TARP” would’ve been a disaster –but they are all doing game analysis from halftime. One must study the first and second quarters to understand that there was something more important at stake than bailing out banking. (sigh)
Right on about Al Baredi –it’s astonishing –think about it –that the former head of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, the man who singlehandedly did more to protect Saddam and worse, the Iran Bomb, than anyone on earth, should emerge at the head of the Egyptian revolution.
And the revelations via wikileaks (see habu above, and drudge) about the USA having a hand in the subversion of Mubarak, or better said, the subversion of itself, the USA, via the subversion of a vital ally –in favor of the UN protector of the Iran Bomb –see anything falling into place? Not that Hosni was any great shakes but it HAS been peaceful, and Egypt’s economic growth HAS outstripped many –including USA –most of the last few years.
Food shortages driving revolution? Do you realize that USA has an ethanol mandate still in effect? Consuming one third of the USA-grown class of foodstuffs that north africa needs? Even now the mandate, a full year after science and the USG has had to finally admit that ethanol is worse for pollution than the fossils that “due to pollution” it replaces? and it was just a week or three ago raised by 50% to 15% of the mix for 2001 and newer vehicles? Even after all the food problems had begun and the revelations come about pollution?
Ah, jeez –i could go on forever and ever…but if we want to understand what’s happening in north africa, not to mention what’s inside our presidential administration, i think we need to include in our reading today’s Nyquist, The New Russian Threat, and also, think hard before deciding there is anything feckless about Obama and Hillary re the collapse of the USA position in the middle east.
Rueters News This came out YESTERDAY
5 essential truths missing from financial crisis report
Jan 27, 2011 16:44 EST
2008 financial crisis | Fed | financial reform | housing crisis | subprime mortgage crisis
When I think about what government officials and banking executives knew before the blowup of 2008, I think about the people of Fortuna, a small town nestled next to an active volcano in Costa Rica.
Like the residents of Fortuna, Federal Reserve and Treasury officials knew they were watching a soon-to-erupt volcano with the combination of residential lending, derivatives and banking abuses. The regulators, rating agencies and banking industry were clearly in denial about the worst-case scenario.
As the consensus conclusions of yesterday’s Financial Crisis Commission (FCIC) report showed, “the captains of finance and the public stewards of our financial system ignored warnings and failed to understand and manage evolving risks within a system essential to the well-being of the American public.” Human folly, greed and hubris caused this $11 trillion debacle.
Not only did regulators fail to regulate, certain tainted parties (AIG, Citi, Goldman, Bank of America) were rescued during and after the crisis. Although the commission has said it “has referred” certain matters to the Department of Justice, no indictments have been announced’
The most vexing part of the report is the realization that all the major players knew there were problems and did nothing to stem the blowup.
Alan Greenspan and the Fed knew about toxic predatory lending and subprime mortgages. One of the Fed’s only true watchdogs, the late governor Edward “Ned” Gramlich, warned of these lending abuses as early as 2000.
The “maestro” of disaster Greenspan even encouraged homeowners to take out risky adjustable-rate loans as he was measuring and reporting on how much they were tapping their home equity.
Because they knew regulators weren’t going to act until lava was flowing into their offices, players like Goldman gamed the system and not only got bailouts for their derivatives positions, they were able to make even more money during the confusion.
While I agree with the crisis commission’s major points, they missed some key details that still need to be addressed:
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were printing money.
The mortgage giants were originally created to insure home mortgages for the middle class. In reality, they were a profitable machine that enriched mostly their top executives and investors during their bull run. Using borrowed money, they resold and securitized their debt along with home mortgages with a 75-to-1 leverage ratio. That meant they only had $1 in capital to cover every $75 they borrowed. The market had this nod-and-wink understanding that Congress would bail them out if they got into trouble, which is exactly what happened. Now wards of the state sitting in a financial holding cell, these entities weren’t protecting the American Dream, they were printing funny money. They should be broken up and their portfolios sold off. If the government wants to stay in the mortgage business, guarantees should be based on real assets, not leverage.
The Fed was impotent.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, under now-Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, discovered that Lehman Brothers had 900,000 derivatives contracts outstanding and decided to investigate — only one month before the firm collapsed! In the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, the Fed was granted even more power to regulate the banking system, a big mistake. The Fed is the banking system. It’s like pilots doing their own air-traffic control. If it wants to do the right thing, the Fed should start by dismantling the “too big to fail” doctrine and break up Citi and Bank of America.
You can’t over-regulate derivatives.
FCIC member Brooksley Born, (she was ignored, then fired) who chaired the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), had sounded numerous warnings about derivatives during her tenure. After the Clinton Administration signed off on deregulation of over-the-counter derivatives in 1999, the market exploded to $673 (folks those are bigger now, still out there and ripe for an explosion) trillion without any regulation or transparency. There are still loopholes in financial reform that will not shed enough light on these dangerous vehicles that she said “were the center of the storm.” They should all be covered by stringent capital requirements and policed by the CFTC, which along with the SEC, needs real money from Congress to do its job.
Ratings agencies need to be policed. really, duh.
They rubber-stamped some 45,000 defective mortgage securities with AAA ratings. They need a real government watchdog checking their work (paging the GAO). The ratings sheriff was in the saloon when the bad guys came to town.
Change the compensation system.
Every major private player — from the Fannie/Freddie execs to the Bear Stearns traders — had the same incentive. If profits go up, so does your bonus package. So every short-term move you make is geared toward making you rich from a quick commission on a subprime loan to goosing up the perceived quality of a mortgage securities tranche.
Greed will never be eliminated from the human character and the commission’s report didn’t explore the psychology of this flaw. Yet Congress should either enact a tax on short-term trading and speculation or force financial service companies to compensate based on other performance measures that have more social value. Otherwise, the volcano will blow again. The next time, though, there won’t be enough money in the world to repair the devastation.
Obama’s crew would not have been able to have done even a fraction of the damage done, had it not come into office with the crisis at precisely the stage it was at when the crew came in. That the multiple fronts of the ‘blow off’ (see “long-con”, terminology) happened as they did when they did and in the sequence, is a plain statement of the power behind this attack on the free world. An early clue that the timetable existed: Sen Schumer’s jawboning up the run on Indymac, when it just wouldn’t develop even though the predicates had been laid.
In every case, the Dunbar Number of conspirators took heat in the ‘blow-off’, but had already made so much money in the run-up that many may have participated even had they not been Progressives to the man & woman. Franklin Raines at Fannie, for example, made 50 million illicitly before he was caught and fined 3 million.
http://gata.org/node/9461
More than half of lending under the Fed’s term auction facility — the largest of its crisis programmes — went to foreign banks. Details of the varied uses to which they put it may add to political criticism of the Fed
excerpt from link, read much more
***
At the end of 2007, hedge fund billionaire John Paulson invested $15 million in the leftist non-profit, Center for Responsible Lending, their largest single donation ever. Around the same time, Paulson and his employees contributed over $100,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, headed, at the time, by Sen. Chuck Schumer. Roughly six months later, CRL and Sen. Schumer both launched a highly public attack on the California-based mortgage lender, Indymac. The lender failed, wiping out the investment of thousands of people. Roughly six months after that, John Paulson, in partnership with George Soros, bought up the remnants of Indymac for pennies on the dollar.
It is a drama that no longer surprises us, unfortunately. Wealthy investors use their access to elected officials and their checkbook to advocacy groups for private profit. But this story has a twist; a top executive of CRL when this deal went down, Eric Stein, is now working at the Treasury Department, heading up the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Mr. Stein will be the chief federal official designing regulations to protect consumers. Right.
This is that story
The American Thinker article states:
In addition to making it easier for ACORN groups to force banks into making risky loans, this also paved the way for banks like Superior to package mortgages as investments, and for the Government Sponsored Enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to underwrite them. These changes created the conditions that ultimately lead to the current financial crisis.
Did they not know this would occur? Were these smart people, led by a Harvard graduate, unaware of the Econ 101 concept of moral hazard that would result from the government making implicit guarantees to underwrite private sector financial risk? They should have known that freeing the high-risk mortgage market of risk, calamity was sure to ensue. I think they did.
My reading of the commenters on this site (obviously excluding the larger pool of lurkers) is that they fall into three groups:
One is convinced of the “long con” intent behind the 2008 market crash (by interests both ideological and economic, which mostly align but not always); one belongs to the Grand Incompetence Camp of Good Intentions and Unintended Consequences, especially when bankers are involved, say every 50-60 years; and one is agnostic, just not sure.
For every Ben Smith, there is a James Simpson (Am. Thinker). My question is how does one occupy that space of Grand (Bezmenov) Design without discounting the random, the true outliers, and, well, the fallibility of the Designers?
Linbeck’s Interstate Compact approach is promising.
Improving the caliber of the political class is another.
What is the Republican/Conservative message? We’re not Democrats?
Suddenly, the citizenry is being asked to balance their short-term life challenges with the nefarious long-term Design which may not align too well with one’s definition of health and well-being.
I’ll leave it there.
Except to add that I fully agree with the Reuter’s article above from Habu and the earlier article linked by buddy larsen describing in excruciating and compelling detail (in terms of d@mning evidence – how much more is required?) the role of banking and financial services. No level of hell is deep enough for that group.
But the ideological corollary of intent, as articulated by James Simpson in the opening quotes – for one thing it is hard to ascribe that depth of intellectual gravitas to most of Washington.
Franklin Raines was no deeper than his freezer. A massive crook, on the scale of Madoff. But a devious ideologue?
YBR & Buddy
Well that settles it..you guys can run the country and I’ll look after the babes and the outdoor type stuff. Fair enough? You guys get the power, the bitchy power women, the planes and the heartburn and sleepless nights while I ‘ll do the hard work. OK?
H
P.S. Can my title be Double Secret Interior Maybe/Maybe Not Secretary ..also can I have Pelosi’s airplane? Also no Senate confirmation hearings.
Washington Post…today above the fold/
“Cairo falls into near-anarchy”
Well I say that’s p*ss poor…NEAR isn’t good enough. It’s gotta be full on or nothing…
Also is Mubarguy the hoser or the hosee?
Ha. Boehner is flying commercial. I’m guessing no love there.
According to wiki, Eric Stein resigned from his federal post last year.
Where is Elizabeth Warren? Last I heard she was doing the publicity circuit in defense of the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which nobody wanted as ‘too much’ regulation.
The human and political distance between a Warren and a Stein was probably a bridge too far.
Four Reasons Why the Government is Destroying the Dollar
The United States government has four interrelated motivations for destroying the value of the dollar:
1. Creating money out of thin air on a massive basis is all that stands between the current state of hidden depression, and overt depression with unemployment levels in excess of those seen in the US Great Depression of the 1930s.
2. It is the weapon of choice being used to wage currency war and reboot US economic growth.
3. It is the most effective way to meet not just current crushing debt levels, but to deal with the rapidly approaching massive generational crisis of paying for Boomer retirement promises.
4. Political survival and enhanced power for incumbent politicians
see the rest here, plus the bearded lady: http://tinyurl.com/4c4h5gm
Also is Mubarguy the hoser or the hosee?
In the ME, I think it depends on what day of the week it is.
My gut says that the whole blow-up is more positive than negative. It could force what passes for government over there to pay more attention to their local constituencies and less attention to international gamesmanship, for which they are not particularly cut out I would add. At least get the leaders thinking about the role of government, communal civility, public service.
A reasonably stable domestic constituency is a necessary prerequisite to establishing a serious international presence. Without the home base as evidence of a workable system, the international voice resonates with not much consequence or import.
With that little gem of deeply researched chauvinistic insight, I have a Saturday to attend to.
Keep the homeboys running for cover (that would be the Eric Stein’s).
Hosni Mubarek was struck from the same mold as Hamid Karzai and Benazir Bhutto- western educated elected/anointed leaders ‘friendly’ to USA.
I’m OK with discontinuing that trendline.
The global elite (I am surmising) is not.
YBR, thank you for the opportunity to force myself to clarify my basis of suspicions. Alas, a four or five point rebuttal is already forming in my fevering skull, and it doesn’t even get past preamble to chapter one. I’m gonna need some time to condense to blog-length yet make it read like the good case it is. And it’s Saturday for me too, i’ve got to try to bring in some sheaves. If i don’t catch you with it in time to appear on this thread –i’ll with w’s indulgence drop it in elsewhere as an ”o/t to YBR” as soon as i have it worth the reading.
In the meantime, let me point out something you know is true: there is a sort of conspiracy that does not conform to the normal definition of a group effort with a pointed goal in mind. Yet it is also much tighter than the generalized ”moral hazard” sort of general behavior alignment on specific failures of ethics and/or morality.
Think of the opening of the Clinton Era as bringing together in DC many movers and shakers who, in their private conversations, identify weaknesses in USA’s legal/financial/political system, and rather than saying in the old historical manner, “We could DO that, but it would be bad for the country” instead say “We could do it, and it would be bad for the country”.
BTW, re Elizabeth Warren, i get the impression that, in bringing in a TARP oversight congressional monitor a person with enough credibility to staunch the then-flaming public opinion re such things as the AIG bonuses and the paying off @ 1:1 of Goldman Sachs’ AIG positions, the Treasury and Fed got someone they thought they could control via her Harvard affiliations. But, they got instead what they had told the public she was. So, she is being run through the ‘feather gauntlet’ until she is exhausted enough to drop the Carry Nation hatchet in the Potomoc and play ball.
bl@160: YBR, thank you for the opportunity to force myself to clarify my basis of suspicions.
Ouch. Not sure how to take that, as in thanks for the opportunity to straighten out your ignorant @ss!
It’s OK. I’m not yet immune to being straightened out.
But I will note this from an earlier, longer, pedantic, and discarded post that the conspir-ers are quickly marginalized through any combination of ridicule, faux and semi-faux narratives, and political boots on the ground tasked with containing the spread of the intellectual contagion.
Doesn’t mean Things aren’t True but it does mean (1) Main St has to be careful acting in the absence of crystal clear direction and (2) without a credible rebuttal position, the game is quickly lost, such as the Ron Paul story and a lot of the Palin story, not to even mention the Bush Republicans. Framing and credibility are important.
But I absolutely agree about the growing ranks of those who say “We could do it, and it would be bad for the country”.
Unfortunately I think someone like Palin would be (quite unintentionally which is a scarier outlier scenario) bad for the country. As I’ve said before, I would be happy with a small army of technically competent administrators and executors, like Mitt Romney. Pizazz optional.
And this really is it for me since this thread must be on the verge of closure.
Further thought on my run to cover in #160 –the problem is this: state the case in blog length and it’s just an assertion. Support the assertion and you have a book-length project. For example, on this thread i’ve mentioned Raines and Schumer/Indymac –note that i’ve barely made it to Summer of 2008, and only via selected major-headlines, and only on the fraud front, not the oil futures or stock market. Scratching the surface of the surface of the surface. But, what the hell, read the first few paras of this, and note the crush of reliable conspiracy soldiers who had by July 2008 long coalesced into useful-idiot service.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/07/was_schumers_attack_on_indymac.html
RE: Conspiracies.
Since I had professional training @ CIA I can fully attest to the fact that OUTSIDE the ligit covert world conspiracies flourish at the higher altitudes of government.
While I was of course never involved in one myself (for that would be wrong as Nixon sagaciously spoke into the hidden microphone)one does here of others who are chin deep in evil.
Secretaries over candlelight dinners will say many interesting gossipy things ..I could never confirm any of them but enough outcomes of the gossip turned into reality that one easily is seduced into believing they are very real.
Then I channelled Brutus and Cassius and knew they existed.
An example is that I heard many years prior to the official announcement that Algore had invented the Internet ..now how’s that for proof!
Saturday chores and marketing immediately ahead…….ugh
Note the July 2008 article’s closing para:
Just imagine how much damage Schumer and his party will do should they control all three branches of the federal government
Schumer, the ‘senator from Wall Street’ –as he is often characterized. The president of the NY Fed at the time was one Timothy Geithner, and the man who had removed honest Hank Greenberg from AIG, thus providing the bullet for the murder weapon by opening the secret vaulting of the secret CDS buildup, was Eliot Spitzer.
soon enough, ex-CEO of Goldman Sachs Hank Paulson, the Sec of the Treasury, would use the sudden revelation of this CDS buildup to lure/shove Lehman over the cliff –thus stampeding the world over the financial cliff right behind LEH.
Meanwhile, LEH’s big chief Dick Fuld, who had insulated himself in the same way that AIG’s Joe Cassano had, that is by having become in the last 18 months ‘increasingly erratic and unapproachable’ –had made in his last six years at LEH some 480 million dollars in bonuses –a compensation breakout that is a crime story in itself.
***
…and, then, there’s the extremely incriminating circumstances setting up the vast naked shorting of the ‘Bank Panic of September 2008′
***
and these are just general details off the top of my head. Spitzer, the least camera-loved man in show biz, has his own show on CNN now –having escaped the aquittal of Greenberg via the Clintonian ‘lipstick exit’.
***
…and just look at all the probing of all this that the Obama admin has done. Just enough, a vague general FBI pronouncement or two referring to subjects but driftingly, to avoid the number ‘zero’.
buddy larsen (and Habu! Dep Sect of Civil Discourse and Marketing)-
Maybe I misspoke. I am 80% in the financial conspiracy camp. It’s the “intent” behind CRA that I question. If not CRA, something else would have opened the floodgates to securitized investment vehicles as a means of maintaining double digit yields and returns. Derivatives were a disaster waiting to happen, especially in a country that had long since abandoned production for services and that had long ago bought off the ratings agencies. What did they think was going to happen?
(Home ownership was long considered as a reasonable way to stabilize families and neighborhoods and reduce crime and poverty, thereby strengthening the Middle Class. The concept is labeled as naive by many/most on this board, which may in the glare of hindsight have merit. The Big Problems continue to defy Easy Solutions.)
Regardless of how the two levels of conspiracy interact, it is obvious to me, that the ideologues were vastly outplayed by their financial counterparts. In fact, the word ‘rout’ comes to mind.
See if I can squeeze this in.
Me too, YRB –i’m an 80/20 guy too. In this case the 80 is the chance that things are what they seem, and the 20 is the chance of a chance miracle of chance, but, hey, that’s still 80/20!
I cannot believe I have to repeat myself — again.
The nexus of the fiasco was the CBC. For ever and ever the Marxist Congressional Black Caucus wanted the Quangos to vector funds into the ‘hood.
Under Jimmah the first step was taken: CRAPolicy. However, that particular legislation only affected urban center banks and did NOT suck in Freddie and Fannie.
Reagan & Bush I blocked further transgressions.
Comes ’92 and the season of the vote is upon us. The Boston Fed spews out a white paper detailing how the urban banks didn’t lose enough money during the Rte 128 boom to justify their rate spread in the ghetto.
Comes the Clenis: CRAPolicy is revisited and expanded with a Democrat Congress.
But the biggest change comes after the Clenis loses the House in ’94.
With no prospect of enabling legislation the Gorelick is invoked. Under the watchful eyes of Rubin great craft is used to suborn the mega-banks into a quid pro quo: they’ll be permitted to congeal into a new money trust and become to big to fail IF and only IF they roll over on CRAPolicy. More specifically in conjunction with F & F and the ratings agencies a river of credit is to be directed at the ghetto by the Clenis. He’s in hot water over his below the belt operations — so it’s up to the banking cartel to pull the vote across the line: Straight Party Line that is.
And so it is, in the late 90′s the Clenis and the Gorelick and the Rubin completely warp our financial markets. It was easy to dupe the Repubs. They never looked under the counter to see who was on her knees.
MERS was established. The engine of synthetic credit was established. ( it functioned as a printing press — counterfeit credit that is ) Monopoly rents became available. Leverage to the moon made all prior performance metrics history.
Rubin jumps to Citicorp and starts taking his $1,000,000 per moth annuity for doing nothing at the office. The Gorelick self-shunts over to the Freddie gravy train –takes down millions for no work. The Clenis survives AND leaves a bomb under Bush II. It’s certain to detonate in under eight years. The Clenis saves the Democrat Party by keeping JFK out of office and the blast zone.
The CBC frustrates all attempts by Bush and McCain to stop the runaway train.
Then, in the fulness of disaster, the props are pulled out by one high-powered Democrat hedge fund operator after another. Massive naked-short selling shunts mega-millions to them.
At every stage of the game it is the mega-wealthy Democrats who end up with the cash. The roll call / role call is long. All Democrats.
From Buffett to Paulson to GS and on.
Bush, never an economist, nor a trader is in over his head. Paulson leads him around on a leash. Thusly all of Paulson’s main trading rivals are destroyed in only months.
GS is up past its eyeballs in fraud and misrepresentations. Not to worry. They’ve captured the regulators. Likewise the Money Trust is able to submit entirely fake foreclosure documents by the thousand — no problem!
That MERS defrauds all local governments across the land, no problem.
THE key reason so much TARP money went overseas was to buy back/ cover bad paper that the Money Trust had parked over there. France, in particular, would have gone bankrupt as a nation. Her leverage was that great and her ties to her mega-banks that close. To understand just look at Iceland and Ireland. Yeah, France was as levered as those two. The big difference: atomic weapons.
Rubin, Gorelick, Clenis all conspired to establish a re-newed Money Trust and extracted political rents from it in favor of the DEMOCRAT PARTY. PERIOD.
YBR & Buddy
” In fact, the word ‘rout’ comes to mind.”
I think that’s a very fair, measured statement. I rhymes with trout which rhymes with out which is the state of the average investor in MBS…without $$$.
Now I’m more a 90/10 guy….90% we hang and 10% we shoot.
Wow, is Egypt fraying a bit or is it just a bad B movie?
Now. I just looked up the number of tribes in North Africa, muslim it gave ma this feeeling about the future.
http://tinyurl.com/4eykpoo
this is the right one
http://tinyurl.com/46taf3d
Bravo, blert, you magnificent bastard you!
Habu, you too, re yet another prediction rolling out onto the showroom floor.
YBR, search the Gary Gensler wiki, and very carefully read the ‘bio’ section. That is if wiki hasn’t excised even more details. He’s your forrest gump. In order to build the secret financial bomb, they needed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act to hide it (while building it out of ‘insurance’, in the basement of AIG). In order to fuse it, they needed the dark pools. In order to create the dark pools, they needed Sarbox. In order to write Sarbox they needed Enron (take a look at Enron’s board of directors sometime –they’re nearly all in the Obama administration!). Gensler, of Goldman Sachs, was there hauling water at every stage. He is now Obama’s head regulator, the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Commodities are your current world commie revolution vehicles.
b@168:
It was easy to dupe the Repubs.
Now, I’m thinking you wish you hadn’t written that. Those nice Republicans.
Rubin, Gorelick, Clenis all conspired to establish a re-newed Money Trust and extracted political rents from it in favor of the DEMOCRAT PARTY. PERIOD.
No. Not period.
Jack Abramoff
Tom DeLay
Randy “Duke” Cunningham
Mark Foley
Dennis Hastert
Ralph Reed
Ted Stevens
Dan Rostenkowski
Rick Renzi
Larry Craig
I don’t buy the thesis that corruption is a function of ideology. The Republican ranks were cleaned out under Bush. Guess whose turn it is now?
buddy – I don’t need to research Gary Gensler. I know who he is and I understand the basic outline of the financial services contribution to recent history. I object to the imposition of an ideological veneer to something that can be explained by Occam’s razor, which is to say corruption favoring the prepared mind – or the greased palm. The story is this: consolidating financial power and access. Not that complicated really. Certainly not new.
Pursuant to the Camp David accords, how much foreign aid have we given to Egypt? Why do we shore up oppressive regimes in this way? Are we really more secure as the result of giving foreign aid? What would be the short and long term effects of cutting off all foreign aid throughout the world?
YBR…
Those clowns were NOT in on the CRAPolicy scam…
For example the Duke was on his own string.
Hastert — there are rumors — but he’s DEAD.
BTW Dan Rostenkowski was a Democrat.
Ralph Reed what was his office?
Ted Stevens ended up being exonerated — MAJOR DEMOCRAT malfeasance in the case: dis-barred, no less!
Abramoff, what was his office?
Man… your list needs some work.
Cheers…
The DEMOCRAT sweepstakes inre the Real Estate/Wall Street hyper-fraud makes your list look as petty as the dollar amounts and the impact on our liberties.
We’re three or four orders of magnitude apart. It’s that vast.
blert -
Wasn’t talking real estate (CRA) or public office.
Was talking public sector corruption.
The Dems pushed CRA but the Repub’s jumped on board with Compassionate Conservatism and Bush’s lukewarm support of the allegations against the GSE’s. Time to Look the Other Way.
(And BTW, “office” is not a prerequisite for influence. In fact, it’s increasingly becoming a liability.)
In the end we’re arguing something major or something minor. Your call. Either all politicians are corrupt or it’s only the Dems.
Lukewarm?
The CBC SHOT DOWN every rational attempt to rein in the Quangos with bitter invective: racism!
To equivocate between a scam that has crippled the nation — indeed the world — and some run-of-the-mill corruption is like equating Adolf Hitler with Charles Manson.
While both perps were race & rage based maniacs…
Manson can’t hold a candle to the evil that is Hitler.
Likewise to throw up a handful of miscreants in the Republican Party to smear the guilt is bizarre.
Let’s go down you list:
Jack Abramoff — lobbyist — non-elected.
Tom DeLay — after 5 (?) attempts rabid Democrat finally gets blood from Grand Jury. Double jeopardy?
Randy “Duke” Cunningham — soloist — Mr. Earmarks
Mark Foley — Democrat Speaker of the House — no charges brought
Dennis Hastert — Republican Speaker of the House — no charges brought
Ralph Reed — media analyst and critic — not elected
Ted Stevens — exonerated after death — prosecutor DISBARRED! MAJOR malfeasance
Dan Rostenkowski — Democrat — Ways and Means — guilty as sin
Rick Renzi — never heard of Rick
Larry Craig — sexual scandal — no money involved — case impossible to bring due to Constitutional grounds: no member en route to Congress can be charged with a crime, period.
blert: To equivocate between a scam that has crippled the nation — indeed the world — and some run-of-the-mill corruption is like equating Adolf Hitler with Charles Manson.
The nation is not crippled – let alone the world – by the CRA legislation.
Muslims?
I’m going to let this rest for awhile.
If W so desires, he can elevate the discussion to an upper thread.
handful of miscreants in the Republican Party
?????????????
More than a handful is wasted.
hyc/174; one might say, the aid is to convert a dynamic unknown potential of trouble into the static known trouble of potential.
YBR/173; okay, i won’t press the matter, but your list of names is pretty strained –Reed is squeaky clean, i think, and the worst scandal on the list is Rostenkowski –a Democrat. The rest of ‘em altogether never moved much money, what they moved was the progressive partisan press, and yes that, big time. Not to absolve them, but their one-off schemes and moral twists are not even penny ante stuff, compared to what blert and the others are talking about.
Buddy – Abramoff never moved any money?????
However, moving with the gist of what you – and blert – are suggesting, then Pub’s are penny-ante cons, while Dems are Big Time cons.
You’re going to have a miserable time selling that to Main St – with or without Palin. Just sayin’.
The Republicans need a more positive platform.
I’m beginning to understand the “Party of No” critique.
The Pubs intentionally don’t do that because of ‘unintended consequences.’
So there you are.
What happened? Somebody mentioned Hitler and it didn’t kill the thread?
I forgot to uncheck the notice box and youse guys gossip is bloating my mail box.
HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER
There that should do it!
s/182, LOL –but, if you hear a knock on your door, don’t answer it -!
YBR/181; i’m not even a pubbie, just a indie conservo, but i do have to *ahem* that remark and allow as to how that is a slice of Dem agitprop i hope you haven’t really swallered. If you have, the emetic purge step 1 is to search [ congressman ryan roadmap ] and, y’know, read it.
h/170; great clip, great film –thanks –
YBR…
You are conflating flesh wounds healed by a bandage with mortal wounds.
If you truly expect perfection in humanity…
Well, join a monastery.
For you will NEVER find the perfection you seek among the vain and vexatious who walk and talk and gambol and list in the halls of power.
In all your list — no space for al-Gore? If vanity were not a fault of man — the boy would have no being at all!
buddy & blert -
No, haven’t swallowed anything.
Just tried to lob a few softball hints that the country is center, maybe center right and very very turned off by the ideological chauvinism. A conservative-ish platform would have more (adult) appeal with an anti-corruption message than with an anti-Dem/socialist message, which seems to come fully equipped with an exponential deterioration function. I too am center right which limits my contributions to this board.
And blert as far as Washington corruption, we were doing fine in the pre-global days when the Washington wheels were greased by a little corruption. It all balanced out. Occasional sexcapades in the fountains but more good than bad. When the country went global, the balance went out the window. We need to get it back. Which pretty much means cowboy clean-up time, and, ahem, some attitude adjustment.
(Rick Renzi is AZ mafia and Ralph Reed got caught up in the Abramoff network – no jail but his star leveled out.)
(And cowboy cleanup includes the CBC – crooked as a dog’s hind leg.)
(I leave Al Gore alone. He’ll never emerge from 2000.)