The Race for the Keys
As the Mubarak regime goes into the last stages of existence, the race is on for the real treasures of a great state. Not the relics of antiquity, valuable as these may be, but the intelligence assets of a government which for decades traded them in exchange for Western financial and political support. With the ultimate fate of the Egypt uncertain, and the final extent of Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence uncertain, the disposition of those assets will assume the utmost importance.
The problem goes back to the difficulties of making sausage. People like to eat them, but not many want to know how they are made. The Western voting public likes to avoid being blown up in subways or being otherwise inconvenienced. That means they have to be protected from certain hard men.
To avoid the political risks inherent in interrogating terrorist suspects, much of the work was outsourced to foreign intelligence agencies, of which Egypt’s was one. The CIA’s former chief of the bin Laden unit, Michael Scheuer, gave this testimony to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in April 2007 on the subject of ““Extraordinary Rendition in U.S. Counter terrorism Policy: The Impact on Transatlantic Relations.” “Rendition” is a legal of way of getting other intelligence agencies to do what you don’t want to be seen doing.
The CIA’s Rendition Program began in late summer, 1995. I authored it, and then ran and managed it against al-Qaeda leaders and other Sunni Islamists from August, 1995, until June, 1999.
A.) There were only two goals for the program:
1.) Take men off the street who were planning or had been involved in attacks on the U.S. or its allies.
2.) Seize hard-copy or electronic documents in their possession when arrested; Americans were never expected to read them.
3.) Interrogation was never a goal under President Clinton. Why?
–Because it would be a foreign intelligence or security service without CIA present or in control.
–Because the take from the interrogation would be filtered by the service holding the individual, and we would never know if it was complete or distorted.
–Because torture might be used and the information might be simply what an individual thought we wanted to hear.
B.) The Rendition Program was initiated because President Clinton, and Messrs. Lake, Berger, and Clarke requested that the CIA begin to attack and dismantle AQ. These men made it clear that they did not want to bring those captured to the U.S. and hold them in U.S. custody.
1.) President Clinton and his national security team directed the CIA to take each captured al-Qaeda leader to the country which had an outstanding legal process for him. This was a hard-and-fast rule which greatly restricted CIA’s ability to confront al-Qaeda because we could only focus on al-Qaeda leaders who were wanted somewhere. As a result many al-Qaeda fighters we knew were dangerous to America could not be captured.
2.) CIA warned the president and the National Security Council that the U.S. State Department had and would identify the countries to which the captured fighters were being delivered as human rights abusers.
3.) In response, President Clinton et al. asked if CIA could get each receiving country to guarantee that it would treat the person according to its own laws. This was no problem and we did so.
–I have read and been told that Mr. Clinton, Mr. Burger, and Mr. Clarke have said since 9/11 that they insisted that each receiving country treat the rendered person it received according to U.S. legal standards. To the best of my memory that is a lie.
C.) After 9/11, and under President Bush, rendered al-Qaeda operatives have most often been kept in U.S. custody. The goals of the program remained the same, although the Mr. Bush’s national security team wanted to use U.S. officers to interrogate captured al-Qaeda fighters
1.) This decision by the Bush administration allowed CIA to capture al-Qaeda fighters we knew were a threat to the United States without on all occasions being dependent on the availability of another country’s outstanding legal process. This decision made the already successful Rendition Program even more effective.
Those days, of course, are over. Guantanamo was not bad as an operational concept. But as a political concept it would never fly. Although rendition had many shortcomings, not in the least the fact that the contractor — like Egypt — could give the U.S. what they want distorted and cherry-picked; and despite the fact that anyone interrogated under rendition would fare far worse than the waterboarding that KSM was subjected to, it had the supreme virtue of keeping all the rough stuff at legal arm’s length from Western politicians. And that, of course, was the most important thing of all.
Like the more prosaic forms of outsourcing, rendition was aimed in part at finding people to do the jobs that “Americans won’t do.” Now, with the imminent transfer of the outsourcing firm to new management, there is the real prospect that the agents, contacts, files, sources and databases which made Egypt so useful will soon be in the hands of those against whom it was directed in the first place. They not only get the sausage, they get the sausage factory.
To imagine the scale of the calamity, here is Scheuer again on the intelligence consequences of trying Khalid Sheik Mohammed in New York City: “In terms of U.S. national security, the New York trials will yield a wealth of intelligence information — both substantive data and details about CIA and FBI sources and methods — to our Islamist enemies. This is an unnecessary and self-inflicted wound on America by the Obama administration.”
If Egypt’s intelligence assets — and the insight they give into standing methods for fighting terrorists — fall into Iran’s hands it would put anything that could have been lost in the KSM New York trial in the shade. And that would only be the beginning. Scheuer also believed that any look into the guts of operations would show just how brutal the war against the jihad has been and create a wave of hatred against American foreign policy and Israel. That is not an unlikely prospect given that Egyptian oppositionists are calling for an inquiry into human rights violations during the Mubarak years. About the only thing you can be sure of is that if the MB comes out on top, the MB is not likely to be portrayed in an unflattering light.
As this site has often argued, morality always has a price. You either pay it — like the saints and the heroes — and endure the danger from upholding your principles. Or you eat the sausage and don’t ask where it comes from.
embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt
The Obama administration, and perhaps a whole political generation, is about to face the question of whether there’s a free lunch. Having said that, it is quite likely that the Iranian secret service, the Syrians, and al-Qaeda are probably running as had as they can to get their hooks on the keys. Those intelligence assets represent, depending on how you look at it, a record of brutality or incalculable value. Maybe they represent both. How hard will the administration fight to protect them, to snatch them up before the enemy does, is an interesting question. Or is that also beneath them?
Update:
Jimmy Carter, reacting to events in Egypt, said recent developments were an “earth-shaking event” and that Hosni Mubarak “will have to leave.” He also claimed the Muslim Brotherhood “has stayed out of it”.
Carter’s remarks came at Maranatha Baptist Church, where he regularly teaches a Sunday School class to visitors from across the country and globe. …
“This is the most profound situation in the Middle East since I left office,” Carter said Sunday to the nearly 300 people packed into the small sanctuary about a half mile from downtown Plains. …
Carter described his relationship with Mubarak, whom protesters want ousted from power.
“I know Mubarak quite well,” Carter said. “If Sadat had a message, he would send Mubarak.” …
As the unrest raged and escalated, Mubarak appointed Omar Suleiman, the country’s intelligence chief, as vice president.
“He’s an intelligent man whom I like very much,” Carter said.
Carter has maintained a relationship with Suleiman over the years.
“In the last four or five years when I go to Egypt, I don’t go to talk to Mubarak, who talks like a politician,” Carter said. “If I want to know what is going on in the Middle East, I talk to Suleiman. And as far as I know, he has always told me the truth.”
The former president, who performs work throughout the world for fair elections through The Carter Center in Atlanta, said this was not a revolution “orchestrated by extremists Muslims.
“The Muslim brotherhood has stayed out it,” Carter said.
Well that’s good to know. Things were worrying for a time. It’s interesting to speculate how much of Carter’s thinking reflects the appreciation within the Obama Administration. But although Carter may prove right about the non-involvement of the Muslim Brotherhood in the biggest political opportunity since Jimmy left office, would it be wise to bet the farm on it? Does this mean that it’s time to stop racing for the keys or is it wiser to start building relationships with whoever comes after?
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The U.S. appealed for an orderly transition to lasting democracy in Egypt
She is kidding…Right?
Tanks are in the streets, jets are overlying the capitol, and much of the government is now in Switzerland.
Uhhhh…And the Secretary calls for an orderly transition? Sure…any day now…
Ya right, this administration do something… Come on now we are know the first words from this loser-n-chief will be “Its Bushes Fault” echoed loudly by the MSM. I am not certain Mubarak is completely gone yet but let’s face it Egypt will go Islamic ether immediately or very soon after, the question is; If 0bama has always been behind the upraising in Egypt, is he also behind the fall of the Saudi’s, Jordanian King Or will he pronounce his secret support only after these countries go viral? either way doesn’t it seem odd that this “I am a Christian” leader sure seem to do things to help along the Islamic cause more than the secular or Christian ones??? This man is more and more acting (but not sounding) like a Islamic “Manchurian” dupe.
Would some please ask Hillery Clinton exactly how minorities such as the Coptic Christians will be treated in a country that has a vast majority of Muslims and groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. Even she knows a Constitutional Republic is not possible in Egypt at this time. She should be quietly trying to get a more moderate Military Dictatorship in the short term. What tools does the US Government have in this mess? Military aid, medical supplies and food. Food being the one thing with the most short term leverage. I don’t think Obama is tough enough or realistic enough to use food as a bargaining chip, but if he had the United States best interest in mind food would be the first chip played.
The first step in an orderly transition is to have the VP Omar Suliman–the spy chief-become President with the Egyptian Army maintaining order.
Suliman has a long relationship with western intelligence agencies and has good relations with Israel.
A lot of officers in the Egyptian Army have studied at US staff colleges and have good relations with the US.
The Army is the key to stability, they should oversee a process of institutional reform lasting 1 to 5 years–the Turkey Model.
W: As this site has often argued, morality always has a price. You either pay it — like the saints and the heroes — and endure the danger from upholding your principles. Or you eat the sausage and don’t ask where it comes from.
The author of the book of Hebrews, possibly Luke, said, “Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.”
Not only have most Christians in America not accepted the danger of upholding their principles, they haven’t even sacrificed their treasure. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were done on borrowed money, passing the burden off on following generations. Security has become more important than freedom. Grandma Doris Jones gets strip searched, lest Fayid Mohammad cry about being “profiled”. Flying in the face of the 1st Amendment these alleged Americans call for the government to ban construction of a mosque in the same neighborhood as the “sacred” Ground Zero, when not even the Temple in Zion is sacred in Christianity, let alone any other physical location.
Yeah, that whole “orderly transition” thing is a breeze. Why, right here in the good old USA we have to call out the Army, Air Force and Navy to oversee every election. That’s just the price of an “orderly transition” in a “non-dictatorship” like Egypt (Biden, Friday).
Obviously, what is needed more than anything else is a good ole potluck dinner. May I suggest Haiti as the model?
After WW-II Winston ChurchiLl did not want to conduct the Nuremberg trials. He knew there would be a price for inviting the Soviets to sit in public judgment on their former nazi allies. What Churchill wanted to do with the nazis was kill them.
What we have done is demean ourselves by allowing the corrupt and dictatorial to judge us. Process has become the enemy of Liberty. Now Iran’s front man el-Baredi is edging close to power in Egypt.
With the Moslem Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, Iranian Rev. Guards etc. we need to grab squeeze for info and eliminate. Focus on the enemy and leaches like Mubarak and the Saudis will have less room to play.
Now I see Fox News extolling “spontaneous demonstrations” in solidarity with the Egyptian people. In the background I see yellow signs from the communist front group International ANSWER.
The first step in an orderly transition is to have the VP Omar Suliman–the spy chief-become President with the Egyptian Army maintaining order.
The problem is that may not be how the cookie crumbles. When a dictatorship falls and replaced by election, two large groups of people often find themselves making policy. The NGO-niks, who are largely well intention but inexperienced, and the stone killers of the long-term resistance.
The key dilemma facing any US administration is how to defend its interests within a system that it cannot control, because that is the definition of accepting an Egyptian democracy. The best course is probably to take whatever intel stuff you can under direct or trusted control and wait to see how it shakes out. At this point no one knows for sure.
The Army will remain a player simply because it has the guns. But since it may contain a substantial number of sympathizers belonging to this, or to that faction a lot is up for grabs. Historically the end of Great States is a goldrush time. The people who know where the good stuff is hidden do best.
And this is where preparation for a regime change pays off. The assets that are out there can be used in two ways, they can be evacuated or they can be used in the post-Mubarak play. Of course the other side will not be sitting idle and may in fact be doing a symmetrical thing.
Mostly what I see in the current US regime is words in one direction and actions in another, blaming the EEEVILL BOOOSH for everything they talk about. So I suspect that US assets in Egypt are heavily engaged in damage control. But if they fail, the Bush blaming will escalate.
Kaplan’s Imperial Grunts (http://www.amazon.com/Imperial-Grunts-American-Military-Philippines/dp/1400034574/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1296419111&sr=8-1) discusses how DOD is using American military aid to make friends with junior and mid level officers and NCOs around the world. As much help as we have given the Egyptian services, I would have hope in a military-run power structure. But I also have heard that the military has become separated from the rest of the society there, which is likely true in most countries with the social/economic problems that Egypt has. But on the street they seem to be getting along.
el Baradi seems to be in bed with the MB as well as the irans. He would not be good news.
1. allen:
You make the profound mistake of listening to a Clinton on foreign affairs. It is sheep fodder, nothing more.
Hmmm, I wonder how the countries of East Asia are going to react if the Suez gets closed and the price of everything goes up. I can see some member of the Muslim Brotherhood waking up in a mainland Chinese cell. If the US and the rest of the West don’t want to play the nasty game they may have to live with the consequences of others moving into the vacuum.
At one time there was a “tale” about a multiple axis spinning room somewhere in Hong Kong were sources of nastiness were softened up. There were high intensity flashing lights, random loud and quite sounds, and the room “moved.” No physical damage done but very hard to take for even an hour.
Intelligence, once thought to mean
An IQ test as it was seen
By those who seem to feel we’re all alike
Is not the same as we have here
Details of things that some hold dear
Like what we have and where it’s best to strike
Intelligence, once called G2
Is destined for the eyes of few
And must on no account see light of day
That’s why the files in Cairo must
Remain in hands of those we trust
And if they don’t there might be hell to pay
As agents on our side are killed
And voices that we need are stilled
As bearded men read secret stuff with glee
One hopes that much to their surprise
The secret stuff that meets their eyes
Has dates that end in 1963.
O/T Permission requested
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Is Something Serious Up at Treasury?
On Sunday, Treasury Secretary Geithner will have dinner at Treasury with former secretaries of the Treasury.
What’s up with this? There was no indication on the weekly Treasury schedule, put out just a day ago, that this dinner was planned. Very unusual.
On top of that, the Treasury put this notice out at 9:00PM on a Saturday night. Sure looks like a rushed meeting to me.
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2011/01/is-something-serious-up-at-treasury.html
******
This can mean only two things:
1) The current rigging operations need to kick into high gear as the US is loosing control of the US Dollar and commodities. Geithner has called all the past official market rigging leaders to put their heads together to come up with a new game plan.
OR
2) We have reached the tipping point and it is now time to pull the plug on all market rigging operations allowing the USD to implode and gold and silver to skyrocket. All of these Treasury Secretaries were heavily involved with the Implementation of the Gold Standard process (aka “The Road to Roota”).
For Private Road Members refresh yourself with what was said here:
Confirmation From “The Insider”
http://www.roadtoroota.com/members/406.cfm
That’s EXACTLY how it’s about to go down!
As for me, I have no idea which options are being discussed at this meeting but judging from the attendees I’m betting on OPTION NUMBER 2!
…or maybe it’s their weekly card game.
We’ll know as soon as the markets gyrate next week!
Buckle up…
Bix
Well now, you have to realize that those who did the rendition “interrogations” for us were interrogating al-Qaeda jihadists, and are probably doing what they can to keep their roles secret, come what may. for that matter, their identities may already be pretty well-known locally, would emails or even videos change anything? mmm. mebbe. if they aren’t shredded already, if they were made in the first place.
–
Isn’t this Suliman (sp?) the same guy who has been giving arms to Hamas? No friend of Israel.
A challenge.
How many are familiar with the following? The prize, a set of steak knives.
* Hodge conjecture
* Reimann hypothesis
*Yang -MIlls existence and mass gap
These are but three of seven as of January 2011 unsolved math problems. Heres the take.
**********
The Millennium Prize Problems are seven problems in mathematics that were stated by the Clay Mathematics Institute in 2000. As of January 2011, six of the problems remain unsolved. A correct solution to any of the problems results in a US$1,000,000 prize (sometimes called a Millennium Prize) being awarded by the institute. Only the Poincaré conjecture has been solved, by Grigori Perelman, who declined the award.
The seven problems are:
1.P versus NP problem
2.Hodge conjecture
3.Poincaré conjecture (solved, see solution of the Poincaré conjecture)
4.Riemann hypothesis
5.Yang–Mills existence and mass gap
6.Navier–Stokes existence and smoothness
7.Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture
So why do I bring these up?
Well, math is precise and logical. Man is not.
The ME , Egypt and all the other Islamic countries remain totally tribal at their core and unlike the above “unsolvable math problems” that will one day be solved and proofs offered in those solutions man is not going to find any “eternal proofs” for peace on Earth. This holds particularly true in areas (read most of the world) where tribal loyalties remain the prime moving force…..sometimes with shifting alliances as swiftly moved as the sirocco moves the desert sands. And these tribes are animated by a horrific philosophy that is bent to fit their mood.
It is absolute folly for the USA and its allies to believe we can “teach” a republican form of democracy to the ME world. It would have taken another thousand years of colonial rule to extinguish the tribal hatreds, if they ever could be broken.
We simply need oil and allies for OUR own security.
But now the rapidly accelerating nuclear proliferation, primarily sub rosa, is subverting the entire world’s safety. I have my solution but I am a man and therefore not as precise and logical as mathematics, nor is any man. However, if it is OUR security we want to protect so that our liberties are no blown by the sirocco then we must make the best irrational decision we can make and that is to subdue the threats to our nation before the sands bury us. Time and tide wait for no man. We must decide to be the winner or accept a losing position.
The steak knives await anyone who can find a final solution to a tribal world.
For some bizarre reason the MSM can’t spit out the words: food riot.
Here and there English speaking Egyptians make it PLAIN: they’re desperately hungry. One said he and his family have been with out food for a full day! It’s his primary concern.
The civil disruption can only make this worse. Food distribution is going to be very scary from here on.
DC/10–more like sheep fodder after it’s been biologically processed.
The following is an interesting link concerning events in Egypt:
http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110128-agenda-george-friedman-egypt
Key quotes:
“the Western media is immediately assuming that these are democratic reformers out there because they talk to the ones who speak English and they tend to be democratic reformers. We don’t know what the Muslim Brotherhood is doing, or capable of doing.”
“ElBaradei is the Gorbachev of Egypt. Gorbachev is deeply loved by Americans and profoundly loathed by the Russians. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Elbaradei is loathed, but he hardly has deep and effective political roots in the country. Remember that the Army has been the dominant force in Egypt since 1956; … the default thinking is that, regardless of these demonstrators are doing, it will be some military person coming on and succeeding Mubarak.”
The Stratfor analysis follows my own thinking:
1) Media coverage of events in Egypt is the usual MSM leftist garbage and should be ignored.
2) After the smoke clears and the dust settles, ElBaradei will either be killed or forced into exile. He’ll remain visible until he ceases to be useful to the actual players.
3) Mubarak is probably finished (it might take a month or two for him to finally disappear). The big question is whether a military strong-man/tyrant (a young Nasser/Sadat/Mubarak clone) takes over or the Moslem Brotherhood (MB) comes out on top. If the Moslem Brotherhood takes over then Egypt is in deep manure.
4) Obama has no clue. He has no business being President.
The Egyptian government has been suppressing the MB for decades. Successive Egyptian governments have killed hundreds of thousands of MB members but new members have always reappeared from the grass roots (it’s been like trying to kill a hydra one head at a time). The MB’s strength comes from basic weakness in Egyptian culture, i.e. Islam. Basic Darwinism has made MB members harder and harder to kill. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk established a secular state in Turkey only after the ruthless suppression of Islam. Atatürk prohibited wearing Islamic dress, replaced Arabic script with Latin script, established legal equality for women and created a secular education system based upon western models. Atatürk encountered vigorous opposition to his reforms from the Turkish religious community. He responded by slaughtering a large fraction of the Turkish Islamic hierarchy, i.e. most villages had their mullahs hung from trees at town entrances. Atatürk was an atheist and didn’t compromise with Islamic religious leaders. Unfortunately the successive Egyptian dictators have not appreciated this essential aspect about Atatürk’s policy and unwisely tried to coexist with Islam.
10. Don Carlos
1. allen:
You make the profound mistake of listening to a Clinton on foreign affairs. It is sheep fodder, nothing more.
With respect, I have made no such mistake. Rather, I pointed out the cognitive dissonance of this administration, various governments, and all those bloggers who hold the hope of a future “orderly transition”. With reference to the Mideast-Egypt of today, such a vain hope is equivalent to planning pothole repair in Berlin, April 1945.
At this writing, I expect to see, any minute, some charismatic LTC from the Egyptian army step forward to bring order. The army not only has a role to play, but in my opinion will be proved to be the king maker. This has been too well scripted to be otherwise.
When you read reports of hundreds demonstrating rather than hundreds-of thousands, something is amiss. When you read of about 100+ deaths related to demonstrations rather than unknown thousands, something is amiss.
Whether provable, I cannot say, but my feeling is that I am watching a choreographed performance the equal of Balanchine’s best.
Best
MAPOF FOOD RIOTS WORLDWIDE
http://tinyurl.com/4cejv3t
OK..try this one… Food Riots Worldwide
http://tinyurl.com/4zlbhtc
*** After you get the map up click the back arrow and it will fill in the spots. (Lord please, I’m using up a lot of credibility)
Blert, Toadold, Imagine the food riots if the Suez is closed and Saudi crude no longer flows! Talk about dominoes falling!
There is a vacuum of leadership in the West; Buraq and Hillary have abdicated that role. The West will do little when the once unimaginable calamities begin. And they are beginning.
Habu: Could it be that Geithner knows there will be worldwide shortage of crude and food and that extend and pretend is about to collapse as a result?
Wretchards concern over rendition intel getting out as well as all other US/Egypt intell over the past 30 years is well taken
My experience is it’s already on diskd being dissiminated to all who have the money to buy it..ie Sovs, China ..just about everyone will be reading about it in the NYT within a week.
Thermite on a safe.
No one knows what it’s for.
Ash keeps the secret.
It has been evident for some time that the Obama administration, in its search for the Philosopher’s Stone, has come into possession of an old spinning wheel that turns gold into straw. Maybe there’s a rhyme in the administration’s policies, but there seems to be no recognizably rational reason.
The LA Times describes the administration’s efforts to reassure its allies in the region and yet abandon Mubarak.
Of course the Saudis are no more democratic than Mubarak. They have exactly the same liabilities as the Egyptian strongman, if not more. These despots will clearly see that once street riots become widespread, President Obama will drop them faster than a Sixties head dropped acid. They know full well that the Obama administration was in an alliance of convenience that has ceased to be convenient.
But betrayal is always a two street, even among, or rather especially among thieves. One possible response would be for these allies to get even more repressive, knowing they are on their own and to mend their fences with either Syria or Iran, because the time tested way of bringing Washington to heel is to flirt with the enemy. Unless the Obama administration embarks on a democracy agenda in earnest they will simply get the worst of both worlds. Lie down with dogs. Get up with fleas.
23. Unsk
Yep, I do. In their attempts to keep the ball in the air they have just pumped dollars but this latest exogenous ME event that appears to have “legs” was probably NO WHERE in their calculations and it could be a rather nasty time ahead.
From a purely selfish standpoint my gold and silver holdings are going to skyrocket. So I say to the FED and Treasury.
http://tinyurl.com/ybvklce
Redstate is reporting that the AFL-CIO, through its local affiliates and nationwide union walk-outs, was instrumental in bring about regime change in Tunisia and are active elsewhere. http://www.redstate.com/laborunionreport/2011/01/30/the-american-lefts-role-in-leading-mid-east-regime-change/
There is also an entity called Movements.Org sponsored Google, YouTube, Facebook, MTV, CBS News, MSNBC, as well as the Columbia Law School and the U.S. State Department, that been pushing Regime Change since it’s Alliance of Youth Movements Summit that occurred December 3-5, 2008 and was referenced in the Wikileak and noted by Wretchard in a previous thread.
josh/14, no, there’s two Suliemans –the Iranian AlQoods chief and the Egyptian spook.
The Egyptian Sulieman, Omar by name, is said to’ve ‘hated Bush and Condi’ but not Obama and Hillary. Reason? Bush and Condi had pushed him hard to reform, and Obama and Hillary have not. Now suddenly Obama is flip flopping, saying yes he HAD been so pushing. But not according to Omar Sulieman.
Ten minutes or so ago, some admin defender on TV said “Obama doesn’t want to be seen abandoning Mubarak too quickly, as this will hurt America’s standing with our other allies in the region”.
I…i…don’t…know what to s-s-say…i hope none of our allies were w-w-watching that tv show.
***
Habu/13; my bguess, the meeting is about a major initiative toward gun control that Obama will reveal very soon (so it is said) –so Treasury as ATF will be doing some coordinating of message with the past vicars.
When one takes an honest look at this country we are, as an ally, as duplicitous as any on Earth. The list is a long and distinguished one and it is not predicated on “being on the right side of history” either. It has many fathers, self preservation, greed for wealth and primacy, and the biggest one maintenance of POWER.
The unalloyed truth is that we do not live up to the beautiful words of our own founding documents. We had to be bombed before we entered WWII….we allowed the Brits to take a huge hit while we lived la dolce vita.
Ask yourself this. If you lived in Taiwan, South Korea, or Israel would you sleep well at night knowing past US history?
Buddy/30
I don’t see ATF involved in this at all. This is obviously a “panic” pulling together of money brains. Any ATF agenda could easily wait for normal procedure through the system.
No, as I stated, this is being done to cobb together some type of superglue to keep our economy alive while a vital area of the world comes unglued.
This “revolutionary” movement has a chance of doing one thing …..creating seismic chaos throughout the region,including Saudia Arabia and it’s oil. Iran of course will do all it can to disrupt the USA’s interests in the region as will the Chinese.
The market tomorrow will open down 200+ points on this.
When one takes an honest look at this country we are, as an ally, as duplicitous as any on Earth.
You can only keep shafting people if they fear you or hope against hope you can still save them from some greater fear. But the worst possible thing a weakling can do is shaft others.
If I had one criticism to level at Barack Obama’s policy of simultaneously betraying his pals while proceeding to reduce their fear of him, that would be it.
Jimmy Carter’s statement is appalling. While arguably SWA, and not ME, the idea that: “This is the most profound situation in the Middle East since I left office,” is absurd.
In no particular order: Israel blew up an Iraqi nuclear reactor; Iraq invaded Kuwait; Israel blew up a Syrian nuke plant; Iran and Iraq fought a bloody war; Desert Shield/Desert Storm; Clinton’s attack on Iraq and Sudan. I could go on, but this isn’t even hard.
Perhaps he’s taking narcissism lessons from BHO.
It appears that the very advent of the Obama Administration unleashed lots of temblors around the world. Once his policies began to be seen, the fear increased. Now that the results of some of those policies are visible – not that the US by any means ’caused’ the Egyptian situation on its own – it is getting worse. Hilary Clinton looks panic-stricken over Egypt. That Jimmy Carter is excited over ‘change’ in Egypt is just another sign of how dangerous Carter II (Obama) really is.
The U.S. is crumbling a hundred ways to Sunday. I wake up seeing that Dear Leader, in the midst of a global crisis, spent the day watching his daughter’s basketball game and partying with the press corps; navel gazer and Pulitzer Prize winning smug idiot Thomas Friedman is now lecturing us that we should take governing lessons from Singapore; Dennis Kucinich files suit after biting into an olive pit in the Congessional cafeteria; Chik-Fil-A is being accused as anti-gay for being closed on Sundays and Obaamacare waivers are being dispensed like Pez to financial supporters of Obama. We are no longer the least bit serious about serious matters and we deserve what we get. Oh, I forgot-even though Walter Cronkite was a reprehensible partisan, I’m sure that the daily exploits of Lindsey Lohan, Charlie Sheen and those intellectual “bubble-butts,” the Kardashian sisters would not make the cut for a national news story. God help us.
obama and his socialist took a powerful nation and gave it the face of a coolie who worked in guano pits in Peru during the last century. Then he signaled the world to come and get us.
Middle East: The dog that didn’t bark
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/01/30/middle-east-the-dog-that-didnt-bark/
when the SHTF Barky is nowhere to be found.
Again, starting a pool on when the U.S. Embassy in Cairo is taken hostage.
33. Wrechard
that is the quote of the day for me.
I think there is one heck of a sh!t storm on the horizon and the muslim brotherhood will be the ones doing the shafting.
Folks……they’ll be a short intermission while we watch the US abdicate it’s role as a world leader.
Revised estimate:
Market will lose 500+ points tomorrow. Computer trading will be halted several times as market circuit breakers come online. Those levels are at levels of 10%, 20%, and 30% of the average closing price of the Dow Jones Industrial Average for the month preceding the start of the quarter, rounded to the nearest 50-point interval.
Mr. Toad’s wild ride.
LitS/35; she does for a fact look just terrible –maybe it’s an act though –
habu/32, the state dep’t is now warning USA citizens in Azerbaijan m–Baku –the Caspian terminal of the great pipeline that runs thru Georgia and supplies so much to Europe –especially southern and eastern Europe.
Baku takes us back to the local parameters of the Russian invasion of Georgia August 2008. This war is what i think may have ‘lost’ Turkey –and i still have no idea what Soros and practically the entire Dem foreign policy establishment was doing in Georgia –other than hanging out with Georgia’s Harvard man pres –in the run up to Putin crossing over the mountains.
Here’s Nyquist, writing in August 2008 during the Russo/Georgian combat phase:
One thing is certain: the Russian invasion of Georgia, if it continues, will mark a turning point. Why are the Russians acting in such a bold manner? Some may speculate that it’s about the price of oil, as the world’s second-longest oil pipeline passes through Georgia. And this point should be considered. But more than anything, the invasion impacts U.S.-Russian relations in a decisive manner. It changes the political atmosphere in Europe and the Far East, in Washington and London and Tokyo. The Kremlin strategists already know that the global economy is headed for trouble. This means growing political weakness within the democratic countries.
Already America has been weakened on many fronts. In strategic terms, this may be the perfect moment for Russia to break with the United States. There may never be a better moment to paint America as an imperialist aggressor. In Washington D.C., however, there is no desire for a break with Russia. American policy-makers have long assumed that Russia is a friendly country. They have assumed that disagreements can be worked out, and peace will prevail. There has been no real preparation for a renewed Cold War. Western politicians pose the following questions: Why should the Russians shoot themselves in the foot? Why should they damage their own economic chances? But these questions misunderstand the real situation.
The Russians see America’s weakness. First and foremost, the Americans are unwilling to bomb Iran. They have upset the Saudis by building a Shiite democracy in Iraq. The Americans have angered the Turks by supporting the Iraqi Kurds. The Americans have weakened NATO by admitting too many FSB/KGB-influenced countries into the NATO fold. The Russian leadership probably feels it is time to tip everything over. It is time to expose America’s weakness. What will President Bush do? By the time you read these words, the White House will probably have issued a statement denouncing the Russian invasion. But will American troops be sent to Georgia?
As for the moral justifications now being mounted by the Kremlin, a few words are necessary. Moscow’s claim of Georgian ethnic cleansing in Ossetia is as cynical as it is hypocritical. One only has to take a look at Chechnya. Russian atrocities in that part of the world are famous. The real issue is the fact that Georgia’s leadership threw off Moscow’s shackles and aligned itself with the United States. Even though there is no formal alliance between the United States and Georgia, the two countries have become close. There are U.S. military advisors in Georgia. The border of NATO is directly to the south. The Russian attack on Georgia may a way of testing NATO. It may, in fact, lead to the unraveling of NATO.
Would the United States send troops to Georgia?
Anticipating events, the Russians have long accused the Americans of attempting to push Russia out of the Caucasus. Russian propagandists have said that Westerners are greedy for oil (i.e., the Baku oil fields). It has even been alleged that America has fueled the war in Chechnya and seeks to destroy Russia itself. This is ridiculous, of course, but Russian nationalism is stirred by such allegations.
Noting the proximity of Azerbaijan to Iran, one ought to speculate on the fact that a war has been brewing between Iran and the U.S. for three years. By invading Georgia the Russians are assuring the Iranians of Moscow’s readiness to confront the U.S. By invading Georgia the Russians are exacerbating the global energy crisis by strengthening all anti-American forces in the Middle East.
The price of oil isn’t merely about oil. It is about food, the U.S. dollar and power-politics. Westerners, however, are always “mystified” when the Russians seem to act contrary to their own economic interest (as if economic interests were the only interests). It is true that Russia has benefitted from high energy prices. More significantly, Russia will benefit even more when the U.S. dollar collapses.
In every strategic equation losses are relative. If you are somewhat hurt and your enemy is crippled, you’ve won a great victory. After all, war is about accepting damage as well as inflicting damage. And war between America and Russia has been the game all along. Only the American side has consistently refused to recognize the fact. In Washington they have deluded themselves about Russia’s long term strategic intentions. And even now they will continue to delude themselves. American pundits will puzzle over Russia’s invasion of Georgia. And perhaps the Russians will pull back, having gained some significant concession from Washington. It is hard to say at this early hour.
If we look at Russian rhetoric and Russian actions over the past nine years we will find a pattern. In recent months the Russians have been acting as if they want to provoke a break with the Americans. They want to put themselves openly and honestly on the other side of the fence. If there is global conflict anywhere in the world the Russian government wants to take the side of America’s enemy. In Venezuela, in Africa, in the Middle East, in the Far East, the Russians want to renew the confrontation between East and West.
And this time they intend to prevail.
(end quote)
…and then a week or so later:
The Kremlin strategists believe that the United States is on the brink of a crippling dislocation. According to a July 29 Pravda article, an anonymous Russian diplomat revealed that the “Russian administration believes the United States may soon suffer from a serious political crisis.” The sequence begins with a financial crash, advances to political unrest and finally to the dissolution of American military power. As the Russian diplomat warned, “America is standing on the verge of a large-scale crisis of its own existence.”
Last month Russia’s ambassadors were called back to Moscow. On July 15 President Dmitry Medvedev spoke to them at the Foreign Ministry. “I would like to use this opportunity for an open and pragmatic conversation,” explained Medvedev to the assembled diplomats. “Russia is indeed stronger and able to assume greater responsibility for solving problems on a regional and global scale.” You see, the Cold War was not an American victory. Medvedev reminded his colleagues that they had “survived the Cold War.” And now Russia is prepared to establish “a new equilibrium.”
Medvedev’s speech was prescient: “the habit … of resorting to force … is increasing…. In such circumstances it is important to maintain restraint and to evaluate situations carefully.” When wars break out, it’s best to know what you’re fighting for; so Medvedev wanted his ambassadors to familiarize themselves with the party line before they headed back to their embassies. We should not worry about Cold War style confrontations, Medvedev lectured. “I am convinced that with the end of the Cold War the underlying reasons for most of the bloc politics and bloc discipline simply disappeared.” In other words, NATO is divided. And NATO’s violation of Yugoslavian sovereignty in 1999 now enables a devastating Russian response.
History ought to be remembered, said Medvedev. “We simply cannot accept the attempts taking place in individual countries to highlight the ‘civilizing, liberating mission’ of the fascists and their accomplices.” He was obliquely referring to anti-Communist patriots in Georgia, Ukraine and the Baltic States, and to the way they’d welcomed the German invaders in 1941. “Characteristically,” he continued, “it is those states that have such a passion for rewriting history and domestic and foreign policies that are at the same time the most zealous advocates of illegal acts, like the Kosovo precedent…. And those same states are the ones who have become ultra-nationalist in their policies, harassing national minorities and denying rights to the so-called ‘stateless’ citizens in their countries.”
Here was an obvious reference to Georgia, which was about to be invaded by Russian motorized and airborne divisions. “For us, this task is particularly important, since in many cases we are talking about abuses against Russians and Russian-speaking populations. And protecting and defending those rights is obviously one of our responsibilities.” And then, Medvedev explained Russia’s overall diplomatic strategy: “I have focused on these aspects because Europe today needs a positive rather than negative agenda.” In other words, the invasion of Georgia is not an end in itself. The real purpose of this operation, the Russian president hinted, was to highlight the dangerous obsolescence of NATO and Europe’s unrealistic expectations with regard to Russia. The old treaties will not keep the peace, he said, because they are unfair. Russia is a great power and deserves greater influence. “I’m absolutely convinced that this requires new approaches,” he explained. “That is why we proposed to conclude a new treaty on European security and to start this process at a European-wide summit.”
The invasion of Georgia now comes into focus. As President Medvedev noted, there are “flaws in the architecture of European security….” The Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) agreement is unfair because it forbids Russia from positioning large tank armies in Europe. This sort of thing won’t do, said Medvedev. What we need is “a truly open and collective security system.” What Moscow must demand, in fact, is the reform of international institutions. The old Soviet republics must be reintegrated through a strengthening of the Commonwealth of Independent States. According to Medvedev, “A strategic partnership between Russia and the EU could act as the so-called cornerstone of a Greater Europe without dividing lines….”
The formula is simple. Expose NATO’s weakness. Welcome the European Union as a mediator and deplore the meaningless twaddle of a helpless U.S. president. The West is weak and the time has come to prepare a great harvest. It is not the 1940s, Tbilisi is not Berlin, and George Bush is not Harry Truman. A new era has dawned in which the Americans stand at the sidelines. “The United States strongly supports France’s efforts, as President of the European Union, to broker an agreement that will end this conflict,” said President Bush.
What a silly, silly statement. How many divisions does the EU have?
Today the European Union confronts Russia in the same way Neville Chamberlain confronted Hitler in 1938; being outwitted and tricked in the ceasefire negotiations, there is no possible outcome other than appeasement.
(end quote)
–this stuff reads today a hundred times worse than it did in August 2008.
1/29 – more than 20 MB arrested in Egypt.
1/30 – Armed _gangs_ free Moslem militant from jails in Egypt.
Anyone else thinking what I’m thinking…?
Jimmah for prez, er veep, er not.
…-
“Carter says ‘people have decided’ in Egypt: report
(AFP) – 1 hour ago
WASHINGTON — Former US president Jimmy Carter, who brokered the existing peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, predicted Sunday that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will have to resign because “the people have decided,” a report said.
“This is the most profound situation in the Middle East since I left office,” Carter said during the Sunday religion class he teaches at a Baptist church in his hometown of Plains, in the southern state of Georgia.
Carter’s comments were reported by the Ledger-Enquirer newspaper of Columbus, Georgia. A spokeswoman for the former president did not immediately respond to AFP to confirm them.”
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hHW7cw1v2rMQ3lVW7ap4mw2amypg?docId=CNG.7bdc5ae33cb6afa079d4a84588e766f7.c21
We live in “interesting times.”
Let’s start the countdown. Hezbollah is now in control of Lebanon. And the Muslim Brotherhood could well be in charge of Egypt within a few weeks, and they want to tear up the peace treaty with Israel. Who knows what will happen in Jordan?
And as I said earlier, because in the U.S. we have platitude-spouting mediocrities for leadership, the Israelis will soon realize that help is not coming from that quarter and that they will have to cut the “Gordian Knot” for themselves. They had better get a head start on the planning. There won’t be any more “second chances” for them.
I’m banking on a major war there within the next couple of years.
Habu,
Markets down 200 tomorrow? Maybe, but then what?
Call me an optimist, but…
I expect money to begin fleeing the ME and So. Europe. Capital cannot abide instability.
And don’t forget Europe North and West of Austria. If you’re sitting in Rhineland stewarding your children’s inheritences, would you safe-keep them in Spanish real-estate and the London exchange, or would you couch them in the USA’s fortified markets?
I mean, really, where else (‘sides maybe Oz or NZ) is capital going to feel safer than in America? Keep in mind, any government that’ll press the internet “kill switch” will also declare bank holidays, seize property and “reset” their laws at will.
I’m sorry. Really I am. Call me old-fashioned, Possum, but I’m betting we’ll see capital flight from Europe and Asia into America. Not the other way around.
Al Jazeera and particularly Al Jazeera English is playing an interesting role in the ME
1/ They released the Palestine Papers last week
2/ They were very organized to provide 24/7 coverage of Egypt on 1/25/11 and have provided 24/7 coverage since then.
Yesterday Nile TV –the Egyptian state TV-had a weird all day attack on Al Jazeera with government spokesmen being interviewed by very, very nervous looking Nile TV reporters.
Then last night Egypt blocked Al Jazeera, closed their offices, denied satellite access and withdrew press credentials.
When you see the Al Jazeera English they look and sound like BBC World Service reporters.
It is based in Qatar and seems to be promoting and televising the revolution in the ME
Very good PSYOPs indeed
–you can almost see the hand of General Petraeus and CENTCOM in there somewhere—
http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/
Fascinating
- they have trumped CNN, BBC, France 24 etc
–and framed the narrative in a very credible pro US interests direction.
Despite Egypt’s attempts to block them they are continuing very intelligent live coverage/ analysis and phone interviews with reporters and Egyptians on the ground–
Habu,
Markets down 200, no, 500, tomorrow? Maybe, but then what?
Call me an optimist, but…
As a result of all the turmoil in the Levant, I expect money to begin fleeing the ME and So. Europe. Capital cannot abide instability.
And don’t forget Europe North and West of Austria. If you’re sitting in Rhineland stewarding your children’s inheritences, would you safe-keep them in Spanish real-estate and the London exchange, or would you couch them in the USA’s fortified markets?
I mean, really, where else (‘sides maybe Oz or NZ) is capital going to feel safer than in America? Keep in mind, any government that’ll press the internet “kill switch” will also declare bank holidays, seize property and “reset” their laws at will.
I’m sorry. Really I am.
Call me old-fashioned, Possum, but I’m betting we’ll see capital flight from Europe and Asia into America. Not the other way around.
It’s interesting to speculate how much of Carter’s thinking reflects the appreciation within the Obama Administration. But although Carter may prove right about the non-involvement of the Muslim Brotherhood in the biggest political opportunity since Jimmy left office, would it be wise to bet the farm on it? Does this mean that it’s time to stop racing for the keys or is it wiser to start building relationships with whoever comes after?
…………….
Obama Administration Lifts US Ban on Muslim Brotherhood Leader
Published: 01/22/10, 1:30 PM /
by Avi Yellin
http://www.israelnationalnews.com//News/News.aspx/135654
The Barack Obama administration has decided to lift a ban preventing Muslim Scholar Professor Tariq Ramadan from entering the United States. Ramadan, an Egyptian currently living in Switzerland, is a leading member of Europe’s Muslim Brotherhood branch and the grandson of the movement’s founder Hassan al-Banna. The Muslim Brotherhood is the parent organization for Hamas and some of the groups that recently merged into al-Qaeda, including Ayman al Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
Although the White House asked the court last March to uphold the Bush-era entry ban on Ramadan, the administration has now decided to lift the ban and possibly allow both Ramadan and South African Muslim activist Professor Adam Habib onto American soil. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters that the government no longer views Ramadan or Habib as representing threats to the United States. “The next time Professor Ramadan or Professor Habib apply for a visa, they will not be found inadmissible on the basis of the facts that led to denial when they last applied.”
Unsk,
The unions helped bring down The Evil Empire by retiring to Poland and telling the locals that communism sucks. They were better then.
buddy larsen,
There probably is a State Department manual giving the correct speed for abandoning a friend.
Wretchard,
Did you see that Tariq Ramadan is now getting is visa? This is the first reference to this that came up in a Google search I just did, although I read about it elsewhere yesterday:
http://muslimmedianetwork.com/mmn/?p=5742
Is this a friendship gesture to the MB?
…from Israel earlier today…
“The assumption at present is that Mubarak’s regime is living on borrowed time, and that a transition government will be formed for the next number of months until new general elections are held…”
“If those elections are held in a way that the Americans want, the most likely result will be that the Muslim Brotherhood will win a majority and will be the dominant force in the next government. That is why it is only a question of a brief period of time before Israel’s peace with Egypt pays the price…”
@Habu – Pull up. Of course we don’t live up to our ideals. Show me one who claims to and I’ll show you an MB. We live in a real world with real problems and silver has little nutritional content.
As Richard suggests, let’s hope the crypto works but otherwise let’s stay calm. The MBs are inept punks looking for a nicer spot in hell. Modernization has won and they know it.
BTW, the US IS the biggest reason for this. They saw what happened to Saddam. This country has not lost the will to repeat as necessary. Just keep buying those bonds.
matter of fact, it would not hurt to read the entire May thru September 2008 dolorosa:
http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/j-r-nyquist?page=4
(w –sorry about length of previous post –delete it after the stalwarts have a look –)
Scott/54 –good advice –just ignore my 55 –spilt milk anyway, why wallow in it –i ask myself too late to spike it –
49. steveaz
Given our current balance sheet I think Canada is a better bet on the North American continent. The EU is shaky dispite the propaganda they’re urping up about “turning the corner”
China has problems too but they have been very busy in the ME and could come out the big winner, additionally successsfully dislodging the dollar as the reserve currency. That’s the play.
Had obama done something ,anything in the last few days things might be better but the world now knows what he is and that is a coward and a blowhard …he’s pushed everbody you can name under the bus ..nope the money isn’t coming here in any vast quantities. We have nothing to offer 50 basis point CD’s?
Not only all of the preceeding but the world has a real case of heartburn about the US right now and Arabs know they aren’t welcomed here and that our population would give them hell.
++===
54. Scott
Buying US bonds is a bit daft right now.
As far as living up to our ideals don’t you think it would be nice if we gave it a try. The real world. I’m 62 and I’ve been on every continent on this globe and worked all over the world clandestinely so I need little info from anyone about the world and reality. Were you in Vietnam, Angola and Rhodesia..I was. Real world..I don’t know where your experience comes from but mine is real life experience…global experience.
The wife has called me to feast. I believe I will.
H
For what it is worth, the main value of the “keys” to those who intend to use them is their existence and the fact that the prior holder has been thrown down. For the new holder can claim that the secrets they unlock are anything they wish them to be.
For the new Lord of the Keys to depend upon the information they unlock is perilous. Only the original Masters can say whether the treasures they unlock are scrumptious delicacies or poisoned bait.
Like the One Ring in possession of anyone other than its maker, the main utility to be gained from it is for others to know that you possess it.
The best thing for Israel to do is to stay quite as a mouse about Egypt
–Bibi has followed this wise course
–” Benito” Lieberman is in Russia and facing immanent criminal prosecution for corruption when he returns–if he returns.
The Asian markets are reacting this morning and oil is moving north towards $ 100.
The impact of this uncertainty on Israel may be profound–they had geared up for minor fights with HZB, Hamas and surgical air strikes on Iran.
Egypt has 1/2 Million troops, Israel will have to prepare to mobilize a lot of their population, reorient their defense posture
–the uncertainty in the region will deter investment and smart people who can– will leave
—so Bibi is being smart by being quite–hopefully he can control the rest of his cabinet.
“Mr Suleiman is widely respected by Israeli policymakers, especially in security and military circles.
The Egyptian spy chief has for many years acted as a trusted interlocutor and go-between – for example on matters relating to the Islamist Hamas group and the situation in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
The unrest in Egypt also left its mark on the Tel Aviv stock exchange, where the two leading indices – the TA-25 and TA-100 – closed on Sunday down almost 4 % ” UK Financial Times
The author seems sorely uninformed into the matters of the CIA and their historical policies. Rendition was neither an American contrived policy nor an American CIA policy that popped up in 1995. Fortunately, past and remaining generations in the business have kept their oath…UNLIKE TODAYS POLITICIZED & PUBLICIZED GENERATIONS of the CIA.
#8 wretchard….the most “valuable” internal assets in Egypt regardless of what government operatives eventually land, is the military’s assets and resources. As to any potential “direct intel” loss to the U.S. and or Israel, may I suggest that it would not be what you may think. While Reagan had to rebuild the CIA from the dismantling of the Carter administration, the CIA has never been reconstituted since its dismantling by the Clinton Administration and remains essentially non-functional today. Todays CIA are essentially correlators of third party intel AND functioning in large part as traditional DIA operatives and analysts. SAD!
Tumult on the street calls for a classic CIA task, but we all know there are no operators in place. The US didn’t cause this revolution, but we will fail to steer the mutation toward anything positive. Clinton did indeed ravage the Company to a bunch of EEO hires and careerists who do little more than read the local paper outside their station, then upload a summary to DC.
Democrats destroy everything. Every time. The adults eventually come in and try to rebuild the hive, but it will be torn down again after the mouthbreathers go to the polls.
On Carter, he is a certifiable milkshake, completely unfit to be interviewed anymore. Reagan would have made more sense under the ravages of alzheimer’s.
Part of the national leadership function, I think, is to explain to the public what sacrifices are required to pursue a given set of ideals. It’s not impossible. Churchill famously promised his voters, “blood, toil, tears and sweat”.
Rommel was said to have disobeyed Hitler’s orders to kill enemy prisoners and Jews. Later Erwin Rommel plotted to assassinate Hitler in order to save his country. More recently, Marcus Luttrell’s SEAL unit released Afghans goatherders who stumbled on their hide rather than kill them, knowing full well they would go straight to the Taliban. In both cases they knew what the price might be.
Rommel was ordered to commit suicide and it is said that even the SS wept as he took the poison. Luttrell’s unit of four SEALs were soon fighting about 100 Taliban.
Most people aren’t Rommels or Luttells. Nor are they saints like Maximilian Kolbe who willingly took the place of a concentration camp prisoner condemned to starvation. Most of us are afraid to die; afraid to feel hurt. We don’t want to worry about bombers on a bus, an airplane or a mall. And few of us would vote for a President who told us the truth about the trade offs between morals and safety.
Which President will campaign on a platform of forswearing rough interrogation, even waterboarding and say, “I will do this even if it means plots we could have uncovered will leak through because upholding our standards is worth a few hundred lives”? He would never survive the recrimination that would come afterward. Every maimed child, every blinded mother, every shattered father would be laid at his doorstep.
Because we are afraid it is easy for politicians to lie to us. To say “you can have something for nothing.” I will give a speech in Cairo and everyone will love us. I will talk to Iran, to Syria without preconditions. We will treat terrorism like crime and in conjunction with our partners, track down the extremists.
They’ll lie to us and many of us will believe them because we like safety; we like the way sausage tastes. We like to believe in something for nothing and so we let the lie pass.
Except that the lie remains a lie. And on occasions like the crisis in Egypt, reality gives you no out. Everywhere you turn there’s a price. Do you abandon those who have trusted in you? Do you forgo their aid, in your purpose, knowing it will leave you blind to the enemy? Do you support Mubarak knowing the villain that he is? Do you ditch Mubarak, knowing the villains that will come after?
Well there’s blood on your hands either way. And it is sometimes better to get them grimed up with your eyes open than your eyes closed. And maybe you’re damned either way. But no more lies. The public should get all the truth it can stand. And for all one knows it will discover there is some heroism in it too. But you never know until you try.
Yeah, that “quiet as a mouse” routine has worked so well for Israel in the past. Warsaw comes immediately to mind. Indeed, the Jews did such a good job that the ghetto became as quiet as a tomb.
Maybe Israel can quietly allow the PA to smuggle munitions and key personnel undisturbed into Gaza. Without question that will work well.
No, I believe the Israelis need to make it patently clear that the Sinai is not the Rhineland.
#59 Victor
Re: “Benito”
Would you mind terribly if I call you Hermann? You just have that Hermanic feel.
If you ever get lonely, especially if Teresita decides to join the Little Sisters of Shrubbery, she can recommend a place where you can feel right at home. I am not permitted to comment there unaccompanied, if that will stimulate your interest.
Spooks, sandwiches, & social networking… We could have changed the world!
64. allen
Hermann is a known jew hater who often posts on mjts’ site.
too bad it’s not goering, goering, gone.
Richard, this is certainly important, but it is a mere detail compared to the strategic consequences of an Islamicist regime in Egypt.
…But no more lies. The public should get all the truth it can stand. And for all one knows it will discover there is some heroism in it too. But you never know until you try.
My God Wretchard–asking a politician, or rather Ruler, to tell the public the truth is like expecting a pig to fly. Once they are near the thousand foot cliff they will make all efforts they can to keep from going over it, and for exactly the same reasons.
No–they will make no effort to try.
The ME revolution is — in fact –being televised.
Al Jazeera appeals to the intelligent decision makers
–as opposed to the MTV crowd.
http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/
General Petraeaus for President in 2012
@64. allen
You appear to suffer from some some 65 yr old PTSD–sad
The nightmare was, in fact, pervasive, not particular
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/jan/27/hitler-vs-stalin-who-was-worse/
Re Egypt
Naive students will be co-opted buy Stalinist thugs unless the Egyptian Military takes over
–as we we pay them — they will take over and promote fundamental American interests.
The Turkey solution is the best option and that is taking place.
Sulieman, at 72, can supervise and control through the Army through the elections, he needs to appoint a sane pro American VP and the Army needs to control the container for the foreseeable future
–This model worked well for Turkey and US fundamental interests for 50+ years
–still works
Turkey has a population of 72 million, Egypt 82 Million
–the Turkey model is the solution— 6.5% GDP growth.
These changes in ME will be good for fundamental American interests
-that is what is most important
-we need to play our cards well.
Jerusalem Post quotes Egyptian protestor:
“I don’t care if we have peace [with Israel] or not,” Ahmed continued, echoing the indifference of many demonstrators who don’t have a clear agenda for what they want a future Egypt to look like , as long as it does not include Mubarak. “But will Israel allow us to have a real president? For example, Turkey elected an Islamic government, but it was their choice. Will Israel give us the freedom to make the same choice?” he asked…… http://tinyurl.com/4mk3wla
Isn’t that special. No plan just vacant idiocy. So now the germination of “It’s Israel and the USA’s fault” will begin to reverberate louder and louder. This is gonna be dandy.
Now as you know the difference between and optimist and a pessimist is, right?
EXPERIENCE
So in the coming months ole Habu is gonna need to be buttressed by the optimists so I can have an escape route when the market rises 120+ tomorrow and money fills our coffers like a trencherman (noun: a person who is devoted to eating and drinking to excess) fills his plate.
Anyway, everyone have a great night..gotta hit the rack.
Oops
*********
60. T.T. Thomas & 61. Patriot Front
Right on brothers !
59. Victor: ” Benito” Lieberman is in Russia and facing immanent criminal prosecution for corruption when he returns–if he returns.
I see that Allen has pulled the trigger on the Nazi spray gun all because you didn’t paint the Zion Project in the same glowing terms that Communist propaganda posters painted the working class in the USSR and China.
I realize this is the WWW and not USENET, but in that quarter of the Internet they have a rule called Godwin’s Law that says the longer a thread grows, the probability that someone will make a comparison to Hitler or the Nazis approaches 1.0. In which case the thread is to be closed.
Evidently one of the first steps you need to take in order to “win the future” here in the US is to get a health-care waiver from Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ crew at HHS. Winning the future in Egypt is about being able to buy some food.
Evidently one of the first steps you need to take in order to “win the future” here in the US is to get a health-care waiver from Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ crew at HHS. Winning the future in Egypt is about being able to buy some food while blaming the US and Israel for your problems. As in the Sudan, if this turns out well it was Obama’s hand if not it was Bush’s pulling the levers.
Prediction: an islamified Egypt will take American hostages. Why? Because lunatic regimes don’t know how NOT to take hostages.
Depending on who’s in the White House then, we will either cringe or else (hopefully) clean their m______r-f____ng clocks.
2nd prediction: the likelihood that an Islamonazi Egypt, starving, impoverished , crumbling, collapsing Egypt will want to develop nuclear weapons? Roughly 100%.
Interestingly the take by newly appointed vice president Omar Suleiman on the Muslim Brotherhood as revealed by wikileaks
is pretty much the same as the take on the Muslim Brotherhood over at the Long War Journal
(The two links above give a lot of history behind the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran as well as the current state of affairs–ie the importance of Suleiman in maintaining a outcome favorable to US interested can’t underestimated. He’s definitely an anti MB/Hez/hamas/Iranian guy)
Judging by this Wikileaks article the appointment of Suleiman to veep was a definite slap at Mubarak’s son Gamal.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/recently-released-wikileaks-cables-reveal-important-background-on-egyptian-uprising/
On the food riot angle: yesterday I caught Larry Kudlow’s radio show and he was swinging heavy into it, to the point of fingering Fed policy and Bernanke for skyrocketing commodity costs throughout undeveloped nations. He was citing figures about Egypt and Tunisia claiming that food costs have risen there by 36% or so. For people who spend +50% of income on food, this is a disastrous hardship, ergo the instability. On a connected tangent, I note that Sarah Palin predicted exactly this kind of thing back in her speech about QE2, one widely pooh-pooh’ed at the time as coming from a cheerleader-idiot by our betters, haha. Much was also made on Kudlow’s show about the appalling state of property rights in Egypt. Egad it’s a horrorshow, it’s a wonder rioting like this didn’t start years ago.
But now real hunger proves to be the undeniable catalyst. If this angle holds, I doubt any promises of political reforms will quell the scene and are likely to be distainfully ignored by the guys on the street.
Here’s a google list(keyword “wikileaks”) of wikileaks articles which give a pretty
in depth view of US Egyptian relations.
Teresita, you can’t close a USENET thread. WWW,yes but not USENET.
Through out all this I keep missing the part where everybody gives credit to President Bush and the Neo-cons for seeing Iraq as an opportunity to inject the virus of Democracy in the veins of despotic Islamic regimes. I laughed at the idea at the time, but it seems I’m the fool now.
Don’t know if the Muslims will make it or not but they deserve credit for the effort. If somebody steals freedom from the Egyptians it won’t be because Egyptians weren’t willing to fight and die for it.
Where are the invading for OIL socialists now?
71. ⚢ Teresita
That doesn’t work at PJM. I know because I forgot to unclick the box for the daily digest ( default is set to yes, which is sorta bogus but it’s not my blog) That was on the dust-bin post. So my e-mail gets flooded with notices. I went back and looked and it was a thread form last week that couple of regulars were gossiping on. One had mentioned Hitler and I remembered that old chestnut about naming Hitler killing a thread. Not enjoying having to clean my e-mail every few hours I pasted Hitler about 60 times in a post. Don’t know if it killed the thread but I’m not getting spammed any more. Of course there is no free lunches and I have had the last half a dozen posts not make it past the censor. Time to change IPN and my nome de’ net.
Look what happened to Anwar Sadat and Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan. Islam is rigged such that only ruthless leaders survive, neocon dreams of a spreading democratic tradition notwithstanding.
Here is the out for Obama: Democracy cannot exist without institutions of democracy underlying and supporting it and an strong constitution that protects it. There simply can be no smooth transition to democracy from dictatorship in a short period of time. A transitional plan has to be developed and carried out in carefully controlled stages. There actually may be an opportunity for Obama to trade full support for Mubarek in exchange for his implementing such a transitional plan. Does credibility exist for such a deal? Probably not. But, it might be Obama’s only chance at exercising any amount of control over the situation at this stage. And the window is rapidly closing on this possibility.
Stoicheon #80:
I saw Pres Bush’s ME strategy as having the goal do destabilzing everybody there. One reason he was so nice to the House of Saud is that otherwise they would have said “Hey, this guy is out to get US, too!”
The reaction the democracy uprising in Iran was disturbing. Everyone but everyone in or formerly in the government said “Who could have foreseen this?” Well, how about everyone who knew what the obvious secret plan was?
This is like planning the Normandy Invasion in 1944 and then staring in shock when Patton arrived at the Meuse River. Which is just what happened, the reaction not being “Hooray! On to Berlin!” but rather ”That bastard Patton! He is a full year ahead of schedule! Cut off his supplies!” But by the end of the war even the USAAF was saying they should have stopped bombing Germany at that point and used the 8th AF to fly fuel and supplies to Patton.
HABU gets egg facial over stock market?
Well the market won’t open for another hour and a half but the futures are UP on expectations that earnings coming out will be good, thus overcoming the ME problems.
So in my best political fashion I will change my position and say that the US market will open this morning. Pretty bold, huh?
What is this thing called “The Internets” that Mubarak Shut Down?
1994: “Today”: “What is the Internet, Anyway?”
ht – MLD
The Peanut Farmer says’ ” And as far as I know, he has always told me the truth.”
As far as Jimmy Carter knows!!!!!…….., OMG. Jimmy Carter still thinks he was a great president.
85. Habu
HABU gets egg facial over stock market?
Well, back during the Clinton admin days they used to just say “the previous statement is now inoperative”… /g
Habu @85,
I scrambled an egg last night and put it in the fridge just in case I need to dip my face in it this morning.
We’ll see who has yolk on their faces when today’s thru!
-S
So it begins… the revision of the Muslim Brotherhood’s history. In the coming days the Left will claim they’re not extremists.
Tharkun: Well, back during the Clinton admin days they used to just say “the previous statement is now inoperative”…
That was Ron Zeigler, Nixon’s press secretary, April 30, 1973. Jeez! Kids these days, probably watching Sesame Street instead of Watergate coverage.
89. steveaz
Yeah ..market may like “some” of the earnings, and as they always say, because they are vain, is that “the market has already discounted this or that” but right now it’s very wobbly and we shall see which market makers and which computers are programmed correctly for the exogenous events in the ME.
If not today then the day the first bad earning begin to surface or the Muslim Brotherhood takes over if the markeet isn’t bright enough to see a problem with that then , geez, go figure. We have all seen the market swing through 1000 points in a day so we’ll see.
http://tinyurl.com/6h3t2l2
This guy is lurking at the BC — for sure.
steveaz
Regardless of today or how the ME is doing the S&P P/E ratio is a bit on the rich side and the money being made is simply the big bailed out firms manipulating the market in hopes that the consumer will build more confidence and spend more. The headwind is however that real unemployment is over 20% and the workforce is saving , not spending.
This market is up only on fiat money printed in the trillions.
h @ 93: This market is up only on fiat money printed in the trillions.
yes. this market is only above 9,000 on fiat money printed in the trillions, PLUS improper manipulation by the fed/treasury and I assume private parties as their patsies.
but that boost (think: meth) is also to the underlying economy.
I would never have thought it would go this far or last this long, I give The Bernank props. If in Feb 2008 you would have told me this scenario would get us to Jan 2011 with so little catastrophe, I would have said, “go for it!” I even wonder (in public, even here on BC) whether The Bernank and El Geithner haven’t stumbled onto the truth, that given our circumstances their gross manipulations aren’t, after all, exactly the right thing to do and may NOT collapse for years more.
maybe methamphetamine is one of the basic foodgroups, after all.
82. ⚢ Teresita
AS I learned that first day in SYS101, “the difference between dreams and reality is a plan”. Unlike so many other things pounded into my overly hard head, that was a fact.
RWE, the first step on building a shiny new Hospital is clearing and levelling the ground. It can’t be done overnight.
How many popular up risings between 2003 and today in the Arab/Islamic world? How many between 1995 and 2003? I see a trend, which means cause and effect. Others see co-ink-see-dink.
We will see.
Iraq has emboldened an entire generation of Muslims. They want the same freedoms the West has and a good part of the East.
Except for the Islamic crescent and Sub-Saharan Africa, every one else either has self governence (democracy) or is on the road to it.
Winning is hard. Winning your freedom even harder. People often fail on the FIRST attenpt. Egyptians are trying. They are dying in the streets. If they are robbed this time, there will be another. I expect Iran to try again soon, especially if the Egyptians are successful.
Freedom cannot be denied, it can only be delayed.
When the despots figure that out and get with the program, we will see orderly changes of government in the Islamic crescent. It won’t look like OUR democracy, but democracy it will be.
Teresita,
I have no Nazi spray gun. You are a neo-Nazi. Note: that makes no one else a neo-Nazi. You are not the world, dear girl, although you certainly think yourself spacial. Now, if you want to apologize for having made fun of millions of dead Jews incinerated by your exemplars…Well, truthfully, I still will not be able to stand you.
Since you and your bud, Hermann (Victor), have chosen to insult an Israeli with the epithet of “Benito”, the father of Fascism, I would say you and he are projecting.
Give him the tour of your girls’ club, a place where a neo-Nazi can get some respect.
So in light of China blocking searches for “Egypt” over the internet.
http://blogs.forbes.com/gordonchang/2011/01/30/egypt-is-the-next-tunisia-what-is-the-next-egypt/
How long before the Obama executive does/attempts a unilateral block of subjects that it is uncomfortable with in the US?
I’ve said it before, Habu. And I’ll say it again.
North. American. Energy. Period.
But not just any energy stocks. High-div paying ETF’s and securities. These can deliver 3-8% of reliable annual yields, along with sizeable capital gains to come. And the terrestrial mid-stream players that profit from fuels transport and storage (PAA, TCLP, NS, FGP z.b.) stand to gain even more when new domestic sources – be they liquified coal, NG, or good ol’ crude, come on line.
Just as my crystal ball says they must. Americans will not pay OPEC’s jizya tributes for much longer. And Inmelt won’t be making America’s energy policy for ever.
Islamism and Democracy DO NOT MIX.
Further, low IQs in the polity destroy the merits of democracy.
In Hellenic days they simply restricted the vote to the educated crowd. In this manner the voters were politically aware and the votes represented a very close approximation to universal voting. This same convergence is the mathematical basis for todays polls.
It is a naive mistake to grant universal voting rights in all cases. The Hellenic solution is best. It stops tyrannical concentration of power yet doesn’t impose crazy-foolish fantasies upon the state.
Giving women, especially young women, the vote has proven, in less than a century, to be a horrific mistake. There are exceptions that prove the rule — but the vast majority of women are not at all interested in politics except on one metric: that the government give females ever more benefits — particularly in divorce.
Feminist ‘ideals’ and warped judicial outcomes in family court are destroying the family. The end game must be the destruction of the society as a whole. Naturally fem-bots can’t see that.
The only hope for islamic societies is the death of islam. As long as islam endures no society can evolve. Islam won’t let them.
The idea that Turkey is anything like it used to be is naive. Turkey can never be permitted to enter the EEC. She is in bed with Tehran. This development is one reason Wikileaks has so many cables from Ankara.
ANY Egyptian government however constructed that has ANY representation for the MB is DOOMED.
MB is almost equal to AQ — and don’t think otherwise. Qutbism, my eye!
90. Teresita
Thanks for catching and correcting my error. Alas, I can’t plead the ignorance of youth. I’m approaching old codger status and remember the Nixon days well. I knew the quote was from then and have no idea why I typed Clinton admin instead. Perhaps it was simply a “brain fart” due to incipient decrepitude… /g
A fart can be a useful thing
It gives the belly ease
They warm the bed in Winter’s cold
And suffocate the fleas
Alas when one escapes the brain
The awful truth unfolds
And feeble efforts to explain
Just show I’m getting old
b @ 99: In Hellenic days they simply restricted the vote to the educated crowd.
Thought it was the landowner crowd, or was that the Romans?
92. blert
It wouldn’t surprise me if he posts here as well.
Ambrose E-P is one of the few remaining genuine investigative journalists. I had the pleasure of talking with him a couple of times regarding one of his investigations when he was head of the Telegraph’s Washington Bureau during the Clinton years.
He eventually became such a thorn in Bill & Hillary’s side that they finally had the State Dept. pressure Telegraph management to reassign him back to London. He one of the few journalists I trust.
Allen sez: You are a neo-Nazi.
Which violates the spirit and the letter of our gracious host’s standing admontion to: 3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
I’m not crying, I’m just saying it shows Wretchard disrespect. Never mind me.
j/94, you want to watch that ‘this time it’s different’ idea –it’s always wrong in the end –though a hi-stepper can do nicely in the interim –
Meth being one of the bernanki basic foodgroups –LOL –you da master zinger –
habu. re that mkt monday prediction, we have made you a Feldmarshall and have left a loaded waterpistol on the kitchen table
miss T, if i may stick my schnozz into y’all’s contretemps, my guess on the wretchard angle is that he doesn’t mind extending a bit while that ‘oven’ remark fades out of memory. IOW, a grace note to both combatants.
bl @ 94: nothing new about market manipulation, good ol’ fashioned greed, corruption, and/or, um, y’know, … fascism.
RWE@84: I saw Pres Bush’s ME strategy as having the goal [of] destabilzing everybody there.
Or more inelegantly, Cleaning the Swamp or Reshuffling the Deck, both of which indicate a level of frustration at upper levels of ME policy.
Not to zoom too far back in focus, and I have no basis for asserting that this was intentional, but exposing the UN for the corrupt cesspool that it has become, plugging some of the more lucrative money sinks, and exposing the AQ Khan itinerary were developments of long (and short) term benefit – to the world.
HABU gets egg facial over stock market?
Timing. Timing. Timing. This market is weak (highly ‘synthetic’ and propped up by monetary policy while Congress stares in dread at fiscal policy adjustments that won’t be career-ending), and still not driven by so-called ‘fundamentals.’ It will either limp along at a tedious crawl or swing violently, quite possibly as a little more than another co-opted political tool.
Either way, the current markets are not a particularly attractive investment option for the retail sector. Recessions cycle every 4-6 years, which means the 2012-14 time period for the next one, when (1) budget deficits are likely to remain high and (2) energy pressures are likely to be elevated.
The markets are either going to be painful (as in the slow torture of the ‘feather gauntlet’) or breath-taking (as in gasping for air).
s@80: Don’t know if the Muslims will make it or not but they deserve credit for the effort. If somebody steals freedom from the Egyptians it won’t be because Egyptians weren’t willing to fight and die for it.
Couldn’t agree more.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/31/maersk-idUSDKT00523620110131
Maersk is suspending terminal operations in Egypt.
What could go wrong?
No ad-hominems, please.
Wretchard,
When Teresita makes cutesy comments about the deaths of family at the hands of Nazis, what would you have me do? Remain silent?
If she wants to walk like a Nazi and talk like one, how am I unfair for calling her out?
Judging by the pace of events so far the outcome is still fluid.
Mubarak maintains a degree of control over the army and esp the AF – but only as long as he does not order them to use force on the protestors.
It seems to me that the army knows where the bread is buttered and wants to maintain the $billions in annual military aid plus food aid from us. Many of the officers have contacts with the US counterparts. They are a potential force for stability, in that the army could install a government that allows greater public involvement while maintaining a relationship with the US and preventing MB donimance.
They are looking to the US and Obama for signals on how to proceed. If the US clearly communicates it they will oust Mubarak.
The problem is Obama does not seem to notice or care, or if he does, he does not know how to communicate clearly under what circumstances Egypt will keep getting our foreign and mil aid $. Vagueries from the press secretary are not going to convince the officers to boot Mubarak. We need another speech in Cairo!
109. allen
Don’t sweat lesbo Ms. T (she’s an admitted lesbian, has her own site).
Just ask her about The Japanese Unit 731 about which she has never answered ONE question I have put to her about it over say the last five years. There’s something she’s hiding, betcha.
731 made Dr. Josef Mengele, the Nazi’s Auschwitz Angel of Death, look like Mother Teresa.
Unit 731 ….. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731
The money quote from the Powerline guys today:
An Egyptian government in which the key players are the Muslim Brotherhood and El Baradei would be a terrible development for us; for Egypt, perhaps a catastrophic one. Some are now arguing that the MB is a relatively benign force to which we should not be opposed. Andy McCarthy explains in detail why we should fear the Muslim Brotherhood–the organization that has spawned most of today’s terrorist groups–but really, all you need to know is the Brotherhood’s motto:
Allah is our objective, the Prophet is our leader, the Koran is our law, Jihad is our way, and dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope. Allahu akbar!
That pretty well sums it up.
106. YBR
Yeah, looks like the yokes on me.
You are correct in your market estimations from where I sit, but I think I’ll just not do any more predicting.
I still say that the 60-70% computer market trades are made without a factor for exogenous events and therefore it is the market makers who are driving the minute daily gains by pulling the right levers and many are front running the market…like that’s new for the wire houses market makers.
PS. This time next week I’m taking delivery of a Shelby Cobra, the iconic one. It’s registered as a 1965. Factory Five built by a professional and it is sweet. Now I have to go find my Snoopy goggles and scarf.(and SPF 90)
Allen:
get over yourself. If you don’t like it here, the door is open.
Rules is rules. DLTSDHYWTGLSY.
If Egyptians are angry over unemployment, why doesn’t Obama just give them a bailout, and tell them to invest in green technology?
–
Habu: Just ask her about The Japanese Unit 731 about which she has never answered ONE question I have put to her about it over say the last five years.
I don’t have a dog in that hunt. I’m an American.
Don’t sweat lesbo Ms. T (she’s an admitted lesbian, has her own site).
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
Allen: When Teresita makes cutesy comments about the deaths of family at the hands of Nazis, what would you have me do? Remain silent?
And for Allen’s next trick, watch him remain silent about the evidence for the above very serious allegation, after making it and dangling it out there. Fallacy of many questions, like asking, “Have you stopped porking the help yet?”
blert: Giving women, especially young women, the vote has proven, in less than a century, to be a horrific mistake.
I get it. We need to read the Declaration of Independence literally. Only men are created equal and endowed by their creator with the right of liberty.
YBR #106:
“….exposing the UN for the corrupt cesspool that it has become, plugging some of the more lucrative money sinks, and exposing the AQ Khan itinerary….”
I am sure that today, every day, all over Europe, in Canada, Mexico, and even parts of the U.S., the sun comes over the horizon and there are people who get up, look at the dawning of a beautiful day, and then burst into tears when they realize yet again the Oil For Food Payments are not pouring into their personal bank accounts. “Damn that crusading Bush,” they mutter, “we had the perfect setup until he queered the deal. Who the hell did he think he was, Elliot Ness?”
As for Egypt and U.S. foreign policy , it appears that history repeats itself, the first time as a tragedy, the 2nd time as a farce, and the third time as Hopn’Change.
LOL #113 –just when you think it’s a hair shirt, it turns into racing colors –habu the right-wing neanderthal has mastered the Crazy Ivan –
***
the ‘egypt ETF’ (egpt) is up 7% today (down 20% over last 2 wks) –the Maersk and others are on slo down due to the comms outages messing up theior procedures –
***
judge in Florida rules on Obamacare — “unconstitutional” –now Obama is in real trouble –
***
feds kick can on Repo 105 –looks like Dick Fuld is coming home free –
blert @ 99 said:
“In Hellenic days they simply restricted the vote to the educated crowd.”
Athenian democracy during the Greek Classic (pre-Hellenic) allowed men with military training to participate in the democracy. Foreigners and women were excluded. I don’t know what the rule was concerning native born men who were unfit for military service. The post-Classic Hellenic Greek societies varied all over the map. After their defeat in the Peloponessian War, a nominal form of democracy sputtered off-and-on in Athens until the Romans finally terminated it. Various forms of democracy at the municipal level existed throughout the ancient world including within the Roman Empire, e.g. they had municipal elections in Pompei. Most of the Hellenic states were autocratic and ruled by kings or tyrants.
Josh @ 94 said:
“this market is only above 9,000 on fiat money printed in the trillions, PLUS improper manipulation by the fed/treasury….”
This is obviously true.
Josh also said:
“but that boost (think: meth) is also to the underlying economy. … I would never have thought it would go this far or last this long, I give The Bernank props. If in Feb 2008 you would have told me this scenario would get us to Jan 2011 with so little catastrophe, I would have said, “go for it!” I even wonder (in public, even here on BC) whether The Bernank and El Geithner haven’t stumbled onto the truth, that given our circumstances their gross manipulations aren’t, after all, exactly the right thing to do and may NOT collapse for years more.”
Josh, what you’re basically saying (and advocating) is the free market doesn’t work and there needs to be government intervention. This is another manifestation of socialism/central-state-planning. Modern economies are too complex to manage for long by government manipulation. This was one of the major lessons from the 20th century, i.e. socialism does not work in the long run. You certainly know this, but without the cleansing action of a recession where bad debts are defaulted on and insolvent businesses removed through orderly bankruptcy then the economic system simply grows weaker until the whole corrupt system collapses. IMHO, the only ethical justification for the Fed’s actions was the system being judged doomed and they were buying us a few more years before final collapse. I’m not convinced that we were doomed in September 2008 and the system could have been repaired. However the longer the Fed keeps printing money, the less likely it is that the system can be repaired and we really will be doomed (a self fulfilling prophecy).
Actual repair of the economic system does not begin until after the markets collapse and the corrupt financial institutions are forced through an orderly bankruptcy process.
YBR @ 106 said:
“Timing. Timing. Timing. This market is weak (highly ‘synthetic’ and propped up by monetary policy while Congress stares in dread at fiscal policy adjustments that won’t be career-ending), and still not driven by so-called ‘fundamentals.’”
As Josh and I agreed, the system is manipulated. Playing today’s stock market is like gambling in a casino where all the games are rigged. The Fed is deliberately setting up bear traps and head fakes to draw in suckers. The Fed understands how technical stock buyers make their decisions. The Fed deliberately manipulates the markets to suck the technical guys dry (this has obviously happened many times). IMHO, the only way to make money on this market is to wait for a black swan driven crash, go all in and then bail out at the next peak. Timing this would be based upon understanding Fed psychology and not upon basic market parameters like P/E ratio, chart shapes, etc.
Breaking news. A Florida DEMOCRAT judge ruled the health care bill is unconstitutional.
http://www.foxnews.com/
I’m, stunned. I figured the guy would rule
straight party line. This being the case the chances of the supremes overturning obamacare just went up a couple orders of magnitude.
egg/118 re your closing para –i agree 100%, that IS the ONLY way –with the obvious proviso that any company can at any time have a story that overpowers mkt movements up or down.
Here’s a pdf of the florida justice ruling on obamacare. I like the references to madison
James Madison, the chief architect of our federalist system, once famously observed:
If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal
controls on government would be necessary. In framing a
government which is to be administered by men over
men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable
the government to control the governed; and in the next
place oblige it to control itself.
http://www.politico.com/static/PPM153_vin.html
#114 Bill Johnson,
If you wish to chastise me for…whatever, would you mind terribly using capitalization, e.g? You remind me of a Mississippian I once attempted to read.
It’s Debka, so keep yer salt shaker handy.
Egyptian reinforcements reached northern Sinai Monday, Jan. 31 to hunt down Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip battling Egyptian forces for control of the territory. Two were captured. debkafile’s military sources report that the gunmen of Hamas’s armed wing, Ezz e-Din al Qassam opened a second, Palestinian, front against the Mubarak regime on orders from Hamas’ parent organization, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, confirmed by its bosses in Damascus. The Muslim Brotherhood is therefore more aggressively involved in the uprising than it would seem.
debkafile’s military sources report that Sunday, Hamas gunmen attacked Egyptian Interior Ministry Special Forces (CFF) stationed in the southern Egyptian-controlled section of the border town of Rafah and the Sinai port of El Arish. Saturday, Bedouin tribesmen and local Palestinians exploited the mayhem in Cairo to clash with Egyptian forces at both northern Sinai key points, ransack their gun stores and free prisoners from the local jail. Officials in Gaza City confirmed Sunday, that Hamas’s most notorious smuggling experts, including Muhammad Shaar, had broken out of the El Arish jail and reached Gaza City.
Sunday, Hamas terrorists aimed to start pushing Egyptian forces out of the northern and central regions of the peninsula and so bring Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip under Palestinian control. Hamas would then be able to break out of the Egyptian blockade of the enclave and restore its smuggling routes in full. The reinforcements from Cairo Monday were instructed to drive them back into the Gaza Strip. Early Sunday, they began moving east through the tunnels under the Suez.
#111 Habu,
I appreciate the unwarranted support.
By the way, keep the posts coming, no matter the length. Some things cannot be adequately expressed in a one-liner.
Yes, you have repeatedly asked Ruby to give an opinion on Japanese war crimes. She cannot answer and still maintain her ground.
I have asked her, respectfully, to source her Judaic remarks and “quotes”. She cannot.
We both may be attributing to malice what can best be explained by … well, a lack.
Chauncey
a/122, reminds me of a guy i knew in school, he was telling me about his gorgeous prof in his Fiction of the American South course. I asked ‘did you get to Faulkner yet?’ He said ‘oh hell no, i’m just one of the students’.
bl…
You should’ve asked if he was held after class.
115. Teresita
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLPDBGZiT54&feature=player_embedded#
The results are in our faces.
Feminist ideals — which are greatly lesbian in character — are a disaster for society — and especially for the next generation.
115. Teresita
Don’t sweat lesbo Ms. T (she’s an admitted lesbian, has her own site).
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
Are you referrring to your site or lifestyle? Either way I’ll be honest. It’s 2011 and although being a lesbian is a bit outside the norm it is really not my business. Many may argue , and with some validity, that unless a person is only a hetero then the entire ediface of Western civilization will crumble. But they said that about Rock and Roll too.
You know I’m a A-type conservative hetero (ok there was that sheep thing in New Zealand) but in that area I believe there is latitude for one’s defining their own sexuality without endangering the nation. So today’s word is legs..help spread the word.
H
128. Habu
115. Teresita
Don’t sweat lesbo Ms. T (she’s an admitted lesbian, has her own site).
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
Are you referrring to your site or lifestyle?
The name of my site is Clean Posts. Mostly Linux stuff, but if you can find something naughty feel free to bring it to my attention. I don’t have a lifestyle, I have a life. As for the Japanese war crime thing you keep harping on, I realize we who are of Asian descent all look alike to Western Round Eyes, but give me a break. I’m more red, white, and blue than Malkin.
http://www.cleanposts.com/index.php/File:Ruby2.jpg
“This time it’s different.” = “This time the market/economy won’t recover.”
The depression was the exception, not the rule, though I might be having eggs tomorrow morning.
oldsj
o/130; eggs benedict: (noun) what you have on your face in the morning after you try do something good for you but bad for the country, and it doesn’t work.
Evans-Pritchard doesn’t seem to leave much room for the Fed to cause inflation in food prices, though he did note earlier that the price surge coincided with the announcement of QE2:
“The immediate cause of this food spike was the worst drought in Russia and the Black Sea region for 130 years, lasting long enough to damage winter planting as well as the summer harvest. Russia imposed an export ban on grains. This was compounded by late rains in Canada, Nina disruptions in Argentina, and a series of acreage downgrades in the US. The world’s stocks-to-use ratio for corn is nearing a 30-year low of 12.8pc, according to Rabobank.
The deeper causes are well-known: an annual rise in global population by 73m; the “exhaustion” of the Green Revolution as the gains in crop yields fade, to cite the World Bank; diet shifts in Asia as the rising middle class switch to animal-protein diets, requiring 3-5 kilos of grain feed for every kilo of meat produced; the biofuel mandates that have diverted a third of the US corn crop into ethanol for cars.”
Buddy–I’ll have mine scrambled, no utensils, and no hands allowed.
oldsj
Hey! Teresita skipped her split personality disorder icon! How come?
#129 Teresita said…
As for the Japanese war crime thing you keep harping on, I realize we who are of Asian descent all look alike to Western Round Eyes, but give me a break.
Your malicious racism is showing through your brown shirt. “Round eye”?! Yep, that says about all that needs saying.
“Envy” is one of the worst four letter words.
o/132; Ambrose EP’s summary is useful, but he omitted the killer observation re the Dollar –vs food prices global and QE2 (and for this thought, include the Stimulous, TARP and all the spending excess) –the resultant weaker Dollar, down some 20-30% since the meltdown on the monetization alone against where it would likely be in the roomful of fellow dwarves not running the press, is spiking food entirely seperate from the supply/demand factors, just on the fact that the commodities are traded in Dollars.
If Obama wanted to do something IMMEDIATELY, he could strengthen the Dollar and thereby turn the psychology of the food price/diluted Dollar snowball –there’s still almost 150 bbl unspent of Stimulous –freeze it, freeze QE2 (still being spent out to June or July), and declare a moratorium in time for Spring planting on the conservation easements –and most of all, suspend immediately the ethanol mandate.
Of course, if Valerie Jarrett and others desire a violent world revolution, then of course, don’t do any of that.
I wish you would just ignore her. Maybe she will go away again. She destroys any thread where she participates.
i’ll duck and cover after i say this, but T –when she’s not needling people –offers a definite perspective that gotta be incorporated in realistic thinking –because it’s out there –the sort of dark cynicism that needs to be recognized in order to have the 360 degree appreciation of the field actually in play. In the world vs on the thread alone, is what i’m trine to say.
e@118: Timing this would be based upon understanding Fed psychology and not upon basic market parameters like P/E ratio, chart shapes, etc.
Nor was I suggesting otherwise in re timing, nor do I agree in re the Fed bashing.
All with good will and courtesy. I don’t want a dive into the weeds.
I hover precariously between between Habu and Steveaz. (Soooo much happening outside of the Fed venue.) Bernanke is holding his finger in the dike until the other players find their ‘animal spirits.’ (I could say that much differently but I’m trying to respect polite company.)
I’m afraid that the cleansing of complete financial collapse before we can begin anew is a little biblical.
But I also think ETF’s sound like the reincarnation of the securitized derivatives of the last decade.
Situation hopeless but not critical.
bl/136; good point, and I agree completely on the freezes. I’m surprised the Fed hasn’t hinted at dis-easing before now.
Speaking of freezes, I thought when the stimulus was announced, that it would be tough for the Dems to make it permanent. Now we have Obama in the SOTU generously offering, after raising spending from 20 to 25% of GDP, to freeze it. In the interest of fiscal discipline, you know.
oldsj
bl@136:
The qualitative arguments are legitimate but the traction is in the numbers – the quantitative.
As mentioned upthread, droughts led to food supply constraints.
Re the ‘weak’-er dollar: by what normalized metrics can culpability due to currency valuation be assigned – relative to acts of god?
138. buddy larsen
Re: Teresita
How many metamorphoses has she taken in the last 5-6 years. (metamorphosis: NOUN: A marked change in appearance, character, condition, or function.) With each new philosophy, she becomes the world’s foremost authority in a fortnight, disrupting the conversation through foolish mimicry found on the worst of the www.
If we must have a dark, cynical commentor displaying savant syndrome, she is not meeting the bill by a long shot. Moreover, why must decent folk be assailed by a racialist – “Round eyes” and “Jews-ovens”.
I go further than #137 Peter: She should be asked to leave.
Good point, YBR –mother nature is unusually prominent in the situation. I guess i could argue that the overall nervousness about paper money all over the west and thus the whole ball o wax, is particulary encouraged by the world’s central banks’ Dollars sitting in the ledgers sizzling away like dry ice every day real recovery in the host nation doesn’t assert and compel a trend reversal in the real, rather than in the administration’s increasingly pathetic rhetoric.
bl@143: compel a trend reversal in the real, rather than in the administration’s increasingly pathetic rhetoric.
Ouch. I’m guessing you would prefer something more bellicose, which, of course, runs the risk of becoming a more blame-worthy target.
I will go this far. I do not think that passion deserves – or merits – a prominent place in foreign policy.
Others will disagree.
The pivot point being ‘prominent’.
I think this applies to the other dispute on this site. One inflamed by too much passion.
Not to suggest that compelling ‘trend reversals’ could well be a fools game of central planning.
Timing and degree.
It isn’t necessary to recruit resident cretin racists. All you have to do is surf for “5” and one will float to the top of the septic tank. Scoop it up and paste.
For instance, one of the presidential contenders in Uganda belongs to the “President, Field-Marshal, Doctor Idi Amin, DaDa” fan club.
Uganda election hopeful says Amin outstrips government
“A man who expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler, Amin was denounced inside and outside Africa as a brutal dictator. Some estimates say more than 300,000 were killed during his rule.”
Yeah, he had to break 300,000 eggs to make his omelet. But he made Uganda a better place for one and all (Well, naturally, I’m not including the dead.).
“The Amin era ended in 1979 when neighbouring Tanzania invaded and helped Ugandan rebels oust him. He was given sanctuary in the name of Islamic charity by Saudi Arabia where he lived quietly with four wives until his death in 2003.”
a/142 –i can’t know how you feel, but i can empathize –the thing about holocaust jokes, or afro-americans as slaves jokes, or beans and siesta jokes about mexicans, or marry your sister jokes, is not that jews, blacks, mexicans and hillbillies can’t take it and need to be coddled –it’s that the jokes are deflating and demoralizing to critters trying to become better critters than nature alone made them in the raw. i understand it –if you’re jewish it’s got to be all that plus a planet-sized difference in that you or someone dear to you had family murdered in a bad way –a satanic way –by the same streak in human nature (albeit dressed up with snappy uniforms and great abs and grand theory and futuristical trappings inside the sovereignty of a great european heartland nation) that is still around after all the deviltry, still making the jokes more than a half century later. So if you’re jewish you’ll react –and get blamed for being touchy. And you might mis-interpret, because you can’t help but have your senses tuned –you damn well better, is history’s lesson. If others sometimes find this whole topic tiresome, they should ask themselves how unpleasant jews must find it. Youze can’t even walk away, or ignore it –youze is stuck –the eternal scapegoats.
Like old Tevye prayed in Fiddler on the roof, when the tsar’s horse soldiers were pogroming his daughter’s wedding (iirc) –’Lord, i know we’re your chosen people –but juuuust once, couldn’t you choose somebody else?’
If i was Jewish, that’d be my prayer too –
Re: Off topic disputes, Mr. A & Ms. T
We all have sensitive spots and the world occasionally jabs ‘em hard. Often we wear chips on shoulders to compensate. Doesn’t invalidate the fundamental argument any one is making. I grew up in foreign parts where us Yankees were called derisive names every day. Can’t take that stuff personally.
Once upon a midwatch in mid Pacific, I was bemoaning the unfairness of a certain officer who a short time before had failed to grant a liberty pass in a particularly juicy foreign port (Oh, those untasted fleshpots!). My shipmate listened to my grousing for a while then said, “Tamquam, don’t take yourself so seriously. Nobody else does.” After a brief moment of fury I got the point. Just another life lesson courtesy of Uncle Sam and the USN.
Tamquam, I’m sure no one appreciates the Belmont Club being turned into a venue for any personal fooferaw, tiff, or kerfuffle between myself and a variety of others. And it takes two to tussle. Accordingly, there are certain BCers who will not receive a reply from me in the future. I believe this will lead to a restoration of peace.
Looks like I doubled down too soon; keep the following…
123/2×4
I’ll take Debka for $1000, on this one.
bl, gracias for the pointer.
Ms. T, good insights, on subject, make everyone happy. Others, take note?
I think it’s time to put paid to the misuse of the word “democracy”. Democracy in its definition means majority rule, and that means that a majority can elect to take away your property, much the same as a majority of locusts can re-appropriate your harvest crop “for the good of the majority”, theirs. Our perception of democracy is based on Athenian democracy, which was to say, an oligarchy, as not everyone in greece could vote, people still held people as slaves. But people ran for office, and votes were taken, and elected officials voted on proposals. It was democratic (I switch now to the adjective “democratic”).
Nowadays, democracy is a catch all phrase that means everything from happiness to puppies, free food, government paying your mortgage, freedom to do all the things you ever wanted to do, but couldn’t because you had responsibilities, to ecstacy itself, to here it from the media covering demonstrations in Egypt.
People, “demonstrators” have been assembling in Cairo and Alexandria for eight, going on nine days now, they have burned and looted, and blamed the looting and destruction and anarchy on Mubarak regime. So, it looks like people have had no real trouble peacefully (I’m tempted to use quotation marks for “peaceably assembling”…) and they’ve had little impediment for “….the universal rights of free speech” with which obama redundantly and churlishly chided the regime
I heard Muhamad El Baraday saying how non-violent the Muslim Brotherhood is, and how they “have campaigned in elections”… wait, hold a minute, “campaigned in elections”? So they DO have elections in Egypt? And MB has campaigned in them? And this makes them legitimate? And since they haven’t done so well in elections they need to be singled out now for rulership so they can have more elections and “reforms” ? Does anyone believe that there will be anything either “democratic” or that there will be instituted anything that could pass for “democracy” there, based either on perception or definition? MB has organized themselves and this “spontaneous” “uprising” on national socialist principles of coup de tat
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/258419/fear-muslim-brotherhood-andrew-c-mccarthy
Former Turkish prime minister Necmettin Erbaken said of democracy, “democracy is like a streetcar, when you come to your stop, you get off”.
Undergirding any despotism, dictatorship, potentate or monarch is an apparatus that is intended to falsely resemble a “democracy” of a majority rule. when in fact it is a rule by an elite apparatus.
“Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention, have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of propertyand in general been as short in their lives as they are violent in their deaths.” -James Madison
“The worst dregs of society gather around the tyrant – they are people of weak character who trade servility for unearned wealth.” Etienne de la Boetie, France, circa 1550
The urge to save humanity is almost always but a false face for the urge to rule it. H.L. Mencken
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJTfwbI6lKI