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Continuing developments in the Iranian nuclear saga. (See 1 below.)
More from Israel regarding Syria. (See 1a below.)
Another sub for Israel. (See 1b below.)
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Victor Davis Hanson always worth reading. (See 2 below.)
Obama's efforts in the part of the world he wanted to charm have turned sour. (See 2a below.)
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The year end rally has begun as a result of co-ordinated efforts on the part of our Federal Reserve and Central European banks to flood the world market with worthless dollars in place of worthless EUROS.
The rally is more psychologically induced and time will tell whether these co-ordinated actions will keep the ship afloat. I continue to have serious doubts but it might help the ship to get to a safer port for the time being before another wave of debt washes ashore and does more damage. (See 3 and 3a below.)
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While the press and media are hot on poor old Herman's trail maybe they should look into this. (Sent to me by a friend,fellow tennis buddy and memo reader.) (See 4 below.)
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Dick
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1)A Second Iranian Nuclear Facility Has Exploded
By Sheera Frankel
An Iranian nuclear facility has been hit by a huge explosion, the second such blast in a month, prompting speculation that Tehran's military and atomic sites are under attack. Satellite imagery seen by The Times confirmed that a blast that rocked the city of Isfahan on Monday struck the uranium enrichment facility there, despite denials by Tehran. The images clearly showed billowing smoke and destruction. Israeli intelligence officials told The Times that there was "no doubt" that the blast struck the nuclear facilities at Isfahan and that it was "no accident."
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By Michael Ledeen
Maj.-Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland, Israel's form er director of national security, told Army Radio that the Isfahan blast was no accident. "There aren't many coincidences, and when there are so many events there is probably some sort of guiding hand, though perhaps it's the hand of God," he said.
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Israel Is Not Alone Against Iran
By Amos Harel
Former Military Intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin told the Institute for National Security Studies on Tuesday, "Once Iran decides finally to move forward in developing a nuclear weapon, a whole new range of opportunities will open up for a fight which the international community will fight." "Israel is not alone in the game," Yadlin said. "When the Iranians publicly reveal that they are pushing toward a nuclear weapon, Israel will no longer be the central player in the game." "This situation requires us to maintain good channels of dialogue and understanding with those who have better operational abilities than us," Yadlin added.
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Iran Is Developing Low-Flying Cruise Missiles
By Yaakov Katz
Iran is developing an advanced low-flying cruise missile that could potentially carry a non-conventional warhead, Arieh Herzog, director of the Israel Defense Ministry's Homa Missile Defense Agency, told the International Aerospace Conference in Jerusalem on Wednesday.
In 2012, the Air Force plans to begin deploying the David's Sling missile defense system to protect against medium-range missiles including cruise missiles.
1a)Katyusha fire on Israel was Syrian warning. Turkey ready for any scenario
Military sources report that the four-Katyusha rocket volley from S. Lebanon which hit Galilee in northern Israel in the small hours of Tuesday, Nov. 29, was initiated by Hizballah commanders in South Lebanon although it was claimed by the al Qaeda-linked Abdullah Azzam Brigades. Hizballah activated a Palestinian cell it controls in the Ain Hilwa refugee camp near Sidon on behalf of its ally in Damascus, arming the cell with the rockets and marking out their firing positions and targets in Israel's Galilee.
One Katyusha blew up near the border, two inside a Galilee moshav damaging a hen coop and a fourth in a wood outside Maalot, causing damage but no injuries.Israeli artillery returned the fire.
Officers in the IDF northern command familiar with the terrain across the border, assert that those firing positions are located in a sector under Hizballah's exclusive control. It is off limits to any outsiders without the Iran-backed Shiite group's permission and knowledge.
IDF sources read the rocket attack as the Assad regime's last warning to the US, fellow NATO members and Gulf nations that Israel would be first to pay the price for their planned intervention in Syria. It would trigger a Lebanese-Israel border clash followed by a massive rocket assault on Israel. More Katyusha incidents are therefore to be expected to emphasize the message.
In Istanbul meanwhile, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said his government hopes that a military intervention in Syria will never be necessary "but is ready for any scenario."
A regime which tortures its own people has no chance of survival, he added. Turkey may consider setting up a buffer zone on its border in co-ordination with the international community in the event of a massive exodus of refugees from Syria, its foreign minister said on Tuesday.
This was the first time Turkey has publicly declared itself ready for direct military intervention in Syria in addition to providing bases in support of an allied operation.
Monday a group of military officers from NATO and Persian Gulf nations had quietly established a mixed operational command at Iskenderun in the Turkish Hatay province on the border of North Syria:
Hailing from the United States, France, Canada, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, with Turkish officers providing liaison, they do not represent NATO but are self-designated "monitors." Their mission is to set up "humanitarian corridors" inside Syria to serve the victims of Bashar Assad's crackdown. Commanded by ground, naval, air force and engineering officers, the task force aims to move into most of northern Syria.
Laying the groundwork for the legitimacy of the combined NATO-Arab intervention in Syria, the UN Independent International Commission set up to assess the situation in Syria published a horrendous report Monday, Nov. 28 on the Assad regime's brutalities. It documented "gross violations of human rights" and "patterns of summary execution, arbitrary arrest, enforced disappearance, torture including sexual violence, as well as violations of children's rights."
Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Moallem fought back by showing a press conference Monday photos of dismembered bodies of Syrian soldiers as proof of the atrocities he claimed were perpetrated by the anti-Assad opposition. He also complained that "the Arab League and others refuse to believe that there is a foreign conspiracy targeting Syria."
Western-Arab intervention in the Syrian crisis is in an advanced state of operational planning. It entails a buffer zone in northern Syria encompassing beleaguered towns, primarily Idlib, Rastan and Homs - but also Aleppo, Syria's largest city (2.5 million mostly Sunni and Kurdish inhabitants).
The protest movement never caught on in Aleppo, home to the moneyed classes who run the country's financial and trading sectors, and it was confined to the highway network feeding the city. Therefore, for the Assad regime, bringing Aleppo into the "humanitarian corridor" system under foreign military control will round of the damage caused by the economic sanctions approved this week by the Arab League. Losing Aleppo will fatally hammer the economy into the ground and rob the Syrian ruler of funding for sustaining his military crackdown to wipe out the unrest in the areas remaining under his control.
Aware of this threat, Foreign Minister al-Moallem accused the Arab League of declaring economic war on Syria
1b)'Germany approves subsidized sale of military submarine to Israel'
German official, speaking on condition of anonymity, says his country set aside $180 million to fund about a third of another Dolphin-type submarine.
By The Associated Press
A senior German official said Wednesday that the government has approved the subsidized sale of another Dolphin-type military submarine to Israel.
The official said Germany has set aside €135 million ($180 million) in next year's budget to pay for about a third of its cost.
Dolphin-class submarines are capable of carrying nuclear-tipped missiles, but there is no evidence that Israel has armed them with such weapons.
Israel already has three Dolphin submarines from Germany — one half-funded and two entirely funded by Berlin, a staunch Israeli ally.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said Wednesday a 2005 agreement between the two nations included an option for another subsidized submarine which was now activated at Israel's request.
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2) Obama 101
Few presidents have dashed so many illusions as Obama.
By VICTOR DAVIS HANSON
In the last three years, the president has taught us a great deal about America, the world, and himself.
Before Obama, many Americans still believed in massive deficit spending, whether as an article of fairness, a means to economic growth, or just a lazy fallback position to justify an out-of-control federal government. But after the failure of a nearly $800 billion “stimulus” program — intended to keep unemployment under 8 percent — no one believes any more that an already indebted government will foster economic growth by taking on another $4 trillion in debt. In other words, “stimulus” is mostly a dead concept. The president — much as he advised a barnstorming President Bush in 2005 to cease pushing Social Security reform on a reluctant population — should give it up and junk the new $500 billion program euphemistically designated as a “jobs bill.” The U.S. government is already borrowing every three days what all of America spent on Black Friday.
Obama has also taught us that prominent government intervention into the private sector often makes things worse, and invites crony-capitalist corruption. Nearly three years into this administration, it is striking how seldom Barack Obama brags about Cash for Clunkers, the Chrysler and GM bailouts, or Solyndra. He either is quiet about them or sort of shrugs, as if to say, “Stuff happens.” Even creative bookkeeping cannot mask the fact that the auto-company bailouts (begun, to be sure, by the Bush administration, but made worse under Obama) will prove a huge drain on the Treasury. No one even attempts any more to convince us that we will like Obamacare once we read the legislation, or that it will save us costs in the long run, or that it will cheer up businesses so that they will invest and hire. All that was dreamland, 2009, and this is reality, 2011, when we hear only “It could have been worse.”
Obama has also taught us that a president’s name, his father’s religion, his ethnic background, loud denunciations of his predecessor, discomforting efforts to apologize, bow, and contextualize past American actions — none of that does anything to lead to greater peace in the world or security for the United States. And by the same token, George Bush’s drawl, Texas identification, and Christianity did not magically turn allies into neutrals and neutrals into enemies.
Israel, Britain, and Eastern Europe are not closer allies now than they were in 2008. Iran is still Iran — and may be even a more dangerous adversary after the failed Obama outreach. Putin’s Russia, despite “reset” (a word we no longer much hear), is still Putin’s Russia. China still despises the U.S., and feels in 2011 that it is in a far better position to act on its contempt than it was in 2009. North Korea never got the “hope and change” message. Europe is collapsing, reminding the world where the United States is headed if it does not change course. Outreach didn’t seem to do much for the Castro brothers, Hugo Chávez, or Daniel Ortega. We are helping Mexico to sue our own states, but that does not seem to persuade its leaders to keep their citizens home. Muslim Pakistan went from a duplicitous ally to a veritable enemy. The more we bragged about Turkey, the more we could feel it holds us in contempt. We hope that the Libyan rebels and the Cairo protesters are headed toward democracy, but we privately admit that they seem to have no more interest in establishing it than we have in promoting it. In other words, Professor Obama reminds future presidents that the world will transcend their rhetoric, their pretensions, and their heritage. Other nations always calibrate their relations with the United States either by their own perceived self-interest, or by centuries-old American values and power, or both.
Barack Obama has taught us a great deal about dealing with radical Islam, an ideology not predicated on what presidents do or say. There will be no shutting down of Guantanamo as promised, and no end to either renditions or preventive detentions and tribunals. Khalid Sheik Mohammed will never be tried, as promised, in a New York courtroom not far from the scene of his mass murdering. The so-called Ground Zero mosque — once so dear to sanctimonious members of the Obama administration — will never be built; either liberal New Yorkers will quietly prevent it, or the architects of the scheme will be exposed as financial as well as cultural con artists. Obama will never again give an interview to Al-Arabiya expanding on how his own heritage will ameliorate relations with Arabs. The Cairo speech will go down in history not as a landmark creative effort to win over Muslims, but, to the extent it is remembered, as one of the most ahistorical constructs in presidential history. The Obama legacy in the War on Terror is as Predator-in-Chief — boldly increasing targeted assassinations tenfold from the Bush era, on the theory that we more or less kill the right suspected terrorists; few civil libertarians care much, apparently because one of their own is doing it.
We have learned from Obama that the messianic presidency is a myth. Obama’s attempt to recreate Camelot has only reminded us that JFK’s presidency — tax cuts, Cold War saber-rattling, Vietnam intervention — was never Camelot. We shall see no more Latinate presidential sloganeering (“Vero Possumus”), no more rainbow posters. Gone are the faux-Greek columns, the speeches about seas receding and the planet cooling — now sources of embarrassment rather than nostalgia. Chancellor Merkel won’t want another Victory Column address from someone who ducked out on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Obama himself will not lecture crowds any longer about the dangers of their fainting when he speaks; Michelle will cease all the nonsense about “deign[ing] to enter the messy thing called politics” and finally acquiring pride in the U.S. when it nominated her husband. Even Chris Matthews’s leg has stopped tingling. There will be no more Newsweek comparisons of Obama to a god. Even the Nobel Prize committee will soon grasp that it tarnished its brand by equating fleeting celebrity with lasting achievement.
“Green” will never be quite the same after Obama. When Solyndra and its affiliated scandals are at last fully brought into the light of day, we will see the logical reification of Climategate I & II, Al Gore’s hucksterism, and Van Jones’s lunacy. How ironic that the more Obama tried to stop drilling in the West, offshore, and in Alaska, as well as stopping the Canadian pipeline, the more the American private sector kept finding oil and gas despite rather than because of the U.S. government. How further ironic that the one area that Obama felt was unnecessary for, or indeed antithetical to, America’s economic recovery — vast new gas and oil finds — will soon turn out to be America’s greatest boon in the last 20 years. While Obama and Energy Secretary Chu still insist on subsidizing money-losing wind and solar concerns, we are in the midst of a revolution that, within 20 years, will reduce or even end the trade deficit, help pay off the national debt, create millions of new jobs, and turn the Western Hemisphere into the new Persian Gulf. The American petroleum revolution can be delayed by Obama, but it cannot be stopped.
One lesson, however, has not fully sunk in and awaits final elucidation in the 2012 election: that of the Chicago style of Barack Obama’s politicking. In 2008 few of the true believers accepted that, in his first political race, in 1996, Barack Obama sued successfully to remove his opponents from the ballot. Or that in his race for the U.S. Senate eight years later, sealed divorced records for both his primary- and general-election opponents were mysteriously leaked by unnamed Chicagoans, leading to the implosions of both candidates’ campaigns. Or that Obama was the first presidential candidate in the history of public campaign financing to reject it, or that he was also the largest recipient of cash from Wall Street in general, and from BP and Goldman Sachs in particular. Or that Obama was the first presidential candidate in recent memory not to disclose either undergraduate records or even partial medical. Or that remarks like “typical white person,” the clingers speech, and the spread-the-wealth quip would soon prove to be characteristic rather than anomalous.
Few American presidents have dashed so many popular, deeply embedded illusions as has Barack Obama. And for that, we owe him a strange sort of thanks.
Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author most recently of the just-released The End of Sparta, a novel about ancient freedom.
2a)U.S. Relations Have Soured Worldwide
By Peter Wehner
Hundreds of enraged Pakistanis took to the streets across the country Sunday, burning an effigy of President Obama and setting fire to American flags after 24 soldiers died in NATO air strikes. Prime Minister Gilani said his country was re-evaluating its relationship with the United States. According to Army General Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the average Pakistani’s respect for the United States is lower than ever. “[The average Pakistani who] doesn’t know the United States, doesn’t read about the United States or just watches something on television about the United States, at that level [the relations] are probably the worst they’ve ever been,” he explained. He added that the relationship between the U.S. government and Pakistan’s government is “on about as rocky a road as I’ve seen.”
Elsewhere in the world, our relations with Afghanistan and Iraq have frayed. Our relationship with Israel is at a low point, even as the Palestinian Authority ignored Obama and sought statehood through the United Nations. No progress has been made toward achieving peace in the Middle East. Our capacity to shape events in Egypt (where the Muslim Brotherhood seems to be gaining in power) and Syria (where innocent people are being massacred in the streets) is severely restricted. Iran views Obama with disdain as it continues on its march toward achieving nuclear weapons. North Korea also seems immune to Obama’s charm.
And there’s more. The efforts to “re-set” relations with Russia have failed. During the Bush presidency relations with Japan, China, India, Mexico, Colombia, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Great Britain (to name just a few countries) were better than they have been during the Obama years. Relations with France and Germany are worse now than they were in Bush’s second term (Sarkozy and Merkel doubt Obama’s seriousness on Iran and don’t see the U.S. as a reliable partner in the Eurozone crisis). America’s counsel to Europe, on dealing with its crushing debt, has been politely ignored. Sub-Saharan Africa received greater attention from the last president than the current one. Nothing significant has been done on the matter of global warming. Guantanamo Bay remains open. And polls show that the United States under President Bush was more popular in the Arab world than it is under President Obama.
With these developments in mind, I decided to re-read several of Barack Obama’s foreign policy speeches and transcripts from debates during the 2008 campaign. And what one finds are extravagant promises, from a stronger and more sustained partnership with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Japan, India, and China; to getting leaders of the biggest carbon emitting nations to join a new Global Energy Forum that would lay the foundation for the next generation of climate protocols; to ending our dependence on foreign oil; to deepening our engagement to help resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict; to closing Guantanamo Bay; to meeting (without preconditions) Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during Obama’s first year in office; to renewed respect for America in the Muslim world; to rapid economic growth in order to maintain our military superiority.
“Now it’s our moment to lead,” Obama said in an April 23, 2007 speech, ”our generation’s time to tell another great American story. So someday we can tell our children that this was the time when we helped forge peace in the Middle East. That this was the time when we confronted climate change and secured the weapons that could destroy the human race. This was the time when we brought opportunity to those forgotten corners of the world.”
Obama made these promises despite having no experience in foreign policy. No matter; his unrivaled intelligence, persuasive powers, and capacity to think strategically and anticipate events would lead to a “new era of international cooperation.”
It hasn’t quite turned out that way, has it?
Under Obama, we were supposed to see the flowering of diplomacy; what we’ve seen instead is a relentless (and welcomed) commitment to kill terrorists. As for the diplomatic failures we’ve experienced over the last three years, they cannot all be laid at Obama’s feet. The world is complicated; the problems we face are often vexing; and the United States cannot control how every country on earth conducts itself. Pakistan would be a tough nut for any statesman to crack.
Now in saying this, it should be pointed out, I’m extending significantly more grace and understanding to President Obama than he ever extended to his predecessor. Back when he was running for office, nothing was beyond Obama’s powers, or so Obama seemed to believe. Conflicts, intransigence and a burning hatred for America were easily fixable; the world would be as simple to shape as hot wax. After all, how difficult can stopping Iran’s nuclear program be for a man who said his election would heal the planet and reverse the ocean tides?
In Henry IV, Glendower says, “I can call spirits from the vasty deep.” To which Hotspur replies, “Why, so can I, or so can any man; but will they come when you do call for them?”
Obama has learned the hard way that he, like any man, can call spirits from the vasty deep — but often they will not come. And what then?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3)How to Make Sense of the European Union Disaster
By T.S. Weidler
Everything you need to know to understand the European Union can be discovered by simply glancing at the location of its headquarters. Brussels is in Belgium, which is not a real country, does not have a government, and does not have any money.
Belgium has not had a government for a year and half, yet the capital city (to the degree that a country without a government can have a capital) is host to one of the largest government organizations in the world. The ironies and paradoxes of the EU are clearly seen in the microcosm of Belgium.
Belgium was invented in 1839, when the powers of Europe decided to carve out sections of the Netherlands and Luxembourg and assigned what resulted the name "Belgium." This despite the fact that the bit of land was inhabited by Flemish, Walloons, Dutch, French, various Germans, and several other minority groups that had been hostile to each other for centuries. A group of unelected European leaders stepped in and said, "Let there be Belgium," and suddenly, there was Belgium -- but it was not a nation. Decrees do not make nations. Belgium is a haphazard collection of once-independent states with no interest in joining together and substantial reasons not to.
Over the years, Belgian governments have maintained majority rule by offering entitlements and subsidies to every niche group they can find. This is the only way to get a majority in a country with eleven major political parties divided on ethnic and linguistic lines. Naturally, it leads to dangerous deficits. It all came to a halt in the general election of June 2010. No coalition has been able to strike a deal to create a majority. Parties join together to form majorities only when there is a significant handout being offered, but with a crashing economy, nobody is willing to continue this charade. Last week the interest rate on Belgian debt jumped into crisis levels. Belgium's credit rating has been systematically cycling downward for the past two years. There is a strong secessionist movement to break into at least two independent nations, while others push for a stronger central authority to enforce unification. So Belgium hasn't had a government for seventeen months running.
Aside from debt, secession, and anarchy, there is also the matter of national defense. The powers that breathed Belgium into existence did so on the condition that it remain neutral in military affairs. Neutrality ensured that France, Germany, and Britain would have a low-lying, centrally located piece of land on which to fight wars, rather than having to deal with the unpleasantries on their own land. Belgium is whatever Europe needs it to be: a buffer zone when things are hostile, a highway for tanks when you want to go on offense, and a shooting range when the war starts. It was created for the purpose of hosting other countries' wars and is required to remain neutral so as not to spoil the fun. It has served this purpose quite well over the years. It doesn't matter that the various factions that happen to be stuck inside its borders have no desire to run a country of their own. They have to do it anyway because it is convenient for the rest of Europe. Belgium would be a joke if it weren't a tragedy.
So it goes for the EU. Germany would rather not bail out Greece and Italy, and Greece and Italy would rather not be swallowed up by the European leviathan. Doesn't matter -- they have to do it anyway because Europe is all roped together now.
The EU is not a real country. It is a collection of independent states that have no national interest in joining forces, and substantial reasons not to. It does not have a functional government, but it does have just enough of a government to make everyone's life worse, and to run up enormous deficits. Like Belgium, it has no national defense to speak of and numerous factions that are hostile to one another.
We have learned from Obama that the messianic presidency is a myth. Obama’s attempt to recreate Camelot has only reminded us that JFK’s presidency — tax cuts, Cold War saber-rattling, Vietnam intervention — was never Camelot. We shall see no more Latinate presidential sloganeering (“Vero Possumus”), no more rainbow posters. Gone are the faux-Greek columns, the speeches about seas receding and the planet cooling — now sources of embarrassment rather than nostalgia. Chancellor Merkel won’t want another Victory Column address from someone who ducked out on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Obama himself will not lecture crowds any longer about the dangers of their fainting when he speaks; Michelle will cease all the nonsense about “deign[ing] to enter the messy thing called politics” and finally acquiring pride in the U.S. when it nominated her husband. Even Chris Matthews’s leg has stopped tingling. There will be no more Newsweek comparisons of Obama to a god. Even the Nobel Prize committee will soon grasp that it tarnished its brand by equating fleeting celebrity with lasting achievement.
“Green” will never be quite the same after Obama. When Solyndra and its affiliated scandals are at last fully brought into the light of day, we will see the logical reification of Climategate I & II, Al Gore’s hucksterism, and Van Jones’s lunacy. How ironic that the more Obama tried to stop drilling in the West, offshore, and in Alaska, as well as stopping the Canadian pipeline, the more the American private sector kept finding oil and gas despite rather than because of the U.S. government. How further ironic that the one area that Obama felt was unnecessary for, or indeed antithetical to, America’s economic recovery — vast new gas and oil finds — will soon turn out to be America’s greatest boon in the last 20 years. While Obama and Energy Secretary Chu still insist on subsidizing money-losing wind and solar concerns, we are in the midst of a revolution that, within 20 years, will reduce or even end the trade deficit, help pay off the national debt, create millions of new jobs, and turn the Western Hemisphere into the new Persian Gulf. The American petroleum revolution can be delayed by Obama, but it cannot be stopped.
One lesson, however, has not fully sunk in and awaits final elucidation in the 2012 election: that of the Chicago style of Barack Obama’s politicking. In 2008 few of the true believers accepted that, in his first political race, in 1996, Barack Obama sued successfully to remove his opponents from the ballot. Or that in his race for the U.S. Senate eight years later, sealed divorced records for both his primary- and general-election opponents were mysteriously leaked by unnamed Chicagoans, leading to the implosions of both candidates’ campaigns. Or that Obama was the first presidential candidate in the history of public campaign financing to reject it, or that he was also the largest recipient of cash from Wall Street in general, and from BP and Goldman Sachs in particular. Or that Obama was the first presidential candidate in recent memory not to disclose either undergraduate records or even partial medical. Or that remarks like “typical white person,” the clingers speech, and the spread-the-wealth quip would soon prove to be characteristic rather than anomalous.
Few American presidents have dashed so many popular, deeply embedded illusions as has Barack Obama. And for that, we owe him a strange sort of thanks.
Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author most recently of the just-released The End of Sparta, a novel about ancient freedom.
2a)U.S. Relations Have Soured Worldwide
By Peter Wehner
Hundreds of enraged Pakistanis took to the streets across the country Sunday, burning an effigy of President Obama and setting fire to American flags after 24 soldiers died in NATO air strikes. Prime Minister Gilani said his country was re-evaluating its relationship with the United States. According to Army General Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the average Pakistani’s respect for the United States is lower than ever. “[The average Pakistani who] doesn’t know the United States, doesn’t read about the United States or just watches something on television about the United States, at that level [the relations] are probably the worst they’ve ever been,” he explained. He added that the relationship between the U.S. government and Pakistan’s government is “on about as rocky a road as I’ve seen.”
Elsewhere in the world, our relations with Afghanistan and Iraq have frayed. Our relationship with Israel is at a low point, even as the Palestinian Authority ignored Obama and sought statehood through the United Nations. No progress has been made toward achieving peace in the Middle East. Our capacity to shape events in Egypt (where the Muslim Brotherhood seems to be gaining in power) and Syria (where innocent people are being massacred in the streets) is severely restricted. Iran views Obama with disdain as it continues on its march toward achieving nuclear weapons. North Korea also seems immune to Obama’s charm.
And there’s more. The efforts to “re-set” relations with Russia have failed. During the Bush presidency relations with Japan, China, India, Mexico, Colombia, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Great Britain (to name just a few countries) were better than they have been during the Obama years. Relations with France and Germany are worse now than they were in Bush’s second term (Sarkozy and Merkel doubt Obama’s seriousness on Iran and don’t see the U.S. as a reliable partner in the Eurozone crisis). America’s counsel to Europe, on dealing with its crushing debt, has been politely ignored. Sub-Saharan Africa received greater attention from the last president than the current one. Nothing significant has been done on the matter of global warming. Guantanamo Bay remains open. And polls show that the United States under President Bush was more popular in the Arab world than it is under President Obama.
With these developments in mind, I decided to re-read several of Barack Obama’s foreign policy speeches and transcripts from debates during the 2008 campaign. And what one finds are extravagant promises, from a stronger and more sustained partnership with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Japan, India, and China; to getting leaders of the biggest carbon emitting nations to join a new Global Energy Forum that would lay the foundation for the next generation of climate protocols; to ending our dependence on foreign oil; to deepening our engagement to help resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict; to closing Guantanamo Bay; to meeting (without preconditions) Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during Obama’s first year in office; to renewed respect for America in the Muslim world; to rapid economic growth in order to maintain our military superiority.
“Now it’s our moment to lead,” Obama said in an April 23, 2007 speech, ”our generation’s time to tell another great American story. So someday we can tell our children that this was the time when we helped forge peace in the Middle East. That this was the time when we confronted climate change and secured the weapons that could destroy the human race. This was the time when we brought opportunity to those forgotten corners of the world.”
Obama made these promises despite having no experience in foreign policy. No matter; his unrivaled intelligence, persuasive powers, and capacity to think strategically and anticipate events would lead to a “new era of international cooperation.”
It hasn’t quite turned out that way, has it?
Under Obama, we were supposed to see the flowering of diplomacy; what we’ve seen instead is a relentless (and welcomed) commitment to kill terrorists. As for the diplomatic failures we’ve experienced over the last three years, they cannot all be laid at Obama’s feet. The world is complicated; the problems we face are often vexing; and the United States cannot control how every country on earth conducts itself. Pakistan would be a tough nut for any statesman to crack.
Now in saying this, it should be pointed out, I’m extending significantly more grace and understanding to President Obama than he ever extended to his predecessor. Back when he was running for office, nothing was beyond Obama’s powers, or so Obama seemed to believe. Conflicts, intransigence and a burning hatred for America were easily fixable; the world would be as simple to shape as hot wax. After all, how difficult can stopping Iran’s nuclear program be for a man who said his election would heal the planet and reverse the ocean tides?
In Henry IV, Glendower says, “I can call spirits from the vasty deep.” To which Hotspur replies, “Why, so can I, or so can any man; but will they come when you do call for them?”
Obama has learned the hard way that he, like any man, can call spirits from the vasty deep — but often they will not come. And what then?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3)How to Make Sense of the European Union Disaster
By T.S. Weidler
Everything you need to know to understand the European Union can be discovered by simply glancing at the location of its headquarters. Brussels is in Belgium, which is not a real country, does not have a government, and does not have any money.
Belgium has not had a government for a year and half, yet the capital city (to the degree that a country without a government can have a capital) is host to one of the largest government organizations in the world. The ironies and paradoxes of the EU are clearly seen in the microcosm of Belgium.
Belgium was invented in 1839, when the powers of Europe decided to carve out sections of the Netherlands and Luxembourg and assigned what resulted the name "Belgium." This despite the fact that the bit of land was inhabited by Flemish, Walloons, Dutch, French, various Germans, and several other minority groups that had been hostile to each other for centuries. A group of unelected European leaders stepped in and said, "Let there be Belgium," and suddenly, there was Belgium -- but it was not a nation. Decrees do not make nations. Belgium is a haphazard collection of once-independent states with no interest in joining together and substantial reasons not to.
Over the years, Belgian governments have maintained majority rule by offering entitlements and subsidies to every niche group they can find. This is the only way to get a majority in a country with eleven major political parties divided on ethnic and linguistic lines. Naturally, it leads to dangerous deficits. It all came to a halt in the general election of June 2010. No coalition has been able to strike a deal to create a majority. Parties join together to form majorities only when there is a significant handout being offered, but with a crashing economy, nobody is willing to continue this charade. Last week the interest rate on Belgian debt jumped into crisis levels. Belgium's credit rating has been systematically cycling downward for the past two years. There is a strong secessionist movement to break into at least two independent nations, while others push for a stronger central authority to enforce unification. So Belgium hasn't had a government for seventeen months running.
Aside from debt, secession, and anarchy, there is also the matter of national defense. The powers that breathed Belgium into existence did so on the condition that it remain neutral in military affairs. Neutrality ensured that France, Germany, and Britain would have a low-lying, centrally located piece of land on which to fight wars, rather than having to deal with the unpleasantries on their own land. Belgium is whatever Europe needs it to be: a buffer zone when things are hostile, a highway for tanks when you want to go on offense, and a shooting range when the war starts. It was created for the purpose of hosting other countries' wars and is required to remain neutral so as not to spoil the fun. It has served this purpose quite well over the years. It doesn't matter that the various factions that happen to be stuck inside its borders have no desire to run a country of their own. They have to do it anyway because it is convenient for the rest of Europe. Belgium would be a joke if it weren't a tragedy.
So it goes for the EU. Germany would rather not bail out Greece and Italy, and Greece and Italy would rather not be swallowed up by the European leviathan. Doesn't matter -- they have to do it anyway because Europe is all roped together now.
The EU is not a real country. It is a collection of independent states that have no national interest in joining forces, and substantial reasons not to. It does not have a functional government, but it does have just enough of a government to make everyone's life worse, and to run up enormous deficits. Like Belgium, it has no national defense to speak of and numerous factions that are hostile to one another.
All historical evidence suggests that Europe is a fragmented and dangerous place, with constant wars covering its entire history. It is the only continent on which something called "The Hundred Years' War" ever happened. In the last century, some of these constant small battles were saved up and unleashed as the two biggest wars in world history. But even WWI and WWII were not enough to satisfy the bloodlust haunting Europe. There was also the small matter of a Soviet occupation of half the continent and countless feuds within feuds. Italy just completed its 61st change in government in 66 years. Spain was ruled by a dictator up until 1975 and had its first democratic election in 1977. Germany, of course, tried to take over the world twice, and always followed the advice of bumper stickers by thinking globally and invading locally. The effort to make these nations suddenly join together in happiness and love is one of the most foolish ventures ever conceived. It is unraveling now. It would be a joke if it weren't tragic.
The EU is Belgium writ large. A group of unelected officials from around Europe got together and dreamed up the EU, then arbitrarily made it happen. Now it is in the position of managing the countless factions of Europe. Constant bailouts and subsidies are the only things that keep everyone happy. There isn't enough money to keep up the charade, and there are considerable efforts to break it up. Each nation of the EU is held together by nothing more than the selfish decrees of others. It is crashing as you read.
Europe has come full circle. The EU has taken over Italy and Greece and installed unelected puppet regimes there. Belgium, a puppet nation dreamed up by Europe with no history, no government, and no money, finds itself ruling puppet governments of the two foundational sources of European civilization because they have no money. In WWII Germany went through Belgium to take over France. Now Germany is going through Belgium to take over Italy and Greece.
This is all you need to know about the EU. It is a messy assortment of peoples haphazardly crammed together, with no functional government, saddled with extremely high debt. Belgium was created as a puppet nation with no historical roots. Now it's been converted into a base from which all of Europe is held together as a puppet nation with no historical roots. The EU, like Belgium, is not strong enough to govern its various factions, nor does any freedom-lover desire it to be. The cradles of European history, Athens and Rome, are swallowed up by a puppet newcomer. It would be tragic if it wasn't an outrage.
The next EU takeover will probably be Spain, and there will be more after that. At some point Europe will fall. The only question is the direction in which it falls. It may fall into totalitarianism, or it may dissolve back to its historical national divisions. There are mounting efforts in both of these directions already, and there will be tremendous instability either way. Do not be surprised if there is war. Watch what Belgium does.
T.S. Weidler is the editor of a $1.4-million line of research databases and the sole operator of hermancainfacts.com.
3a)Experts: Central Bank Move Doesn't Solve Core Problems, May Fuel Inflation
By Forrest Jones
Coordinated action from the world's Central Banks to inject liquidity into the European financial system may spark a global stock-market rally, but it won't solve the underlying issues plaguing the European economy such as a political unwillingness to carry out tough reform policies, experts say.
The U.S. Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Central Banks of Canada, Britain, Japan and Switzerland have agreed to lower the cost of existing dollar swap lines by 50 basis points, a half percentage-point cut, a move that makes it easier for banks in Europe to get access to dollars.
The Central Banks say in a joint statement that cutting interest rates on swap lines — short-term loans in this case denominated in dollars — will prevent a credit crunch from striking the global economy.
Banks often borrow from one another in dollars mainly because U.S. interest rates are so low.
In Europe, where credit is tight due to sovereign default scares, banks need to tap the European Central Bank (ECB) for those dollars, and today's rate cut on the swaps basically makes it cheaper and easier to do so.
"In short, European banks were finding it too expensive to make dollar loans, which hurt their ability to lend dollars and encouraged them to sell euros. This depressed the value of the euro and restricted credit in Europe. The ECB arranged to borrow dollars more cheaply from the Fed, so it could ease this market," CNBC says in an analysis of the deal.
The move does not represent the U.S. government shipping taxpayer money abroad but rather, makes it easier for banks worldwide to tap and borrow from the pool of dollars flooding the global economy.
A side effect, however, could include inflation.
"The new dollars have the potential to spark inflation—which could result in higher interest rates and higher taxes as the government combats inflation," CNBC adds, pointing out that inflation is not yet a problem in the U.S. as of now.
The move is all well and good, says Mohamed El-Erian, co-head of Pimco, the world's largest bond fund. But it doesn't address fundamental spending and other issues that European governments need to confront, which include pooling bailout money together to prop up weaker economies.
"First, these monetary institutions feel that, again, they have to move because other entities have continued to be too slow and too ineffective; and second, they feel that they cannot, and should not ignore an actual or anticipated need to relieve acute pressures within the banking system," El-Erian writes in a Financial Times blog.
There are two ways to look at the move, one sees a glass half full and the other half empty, El-Erian adds.
"The hope is that central banks are acting because, looking forward, they feel confident that other policymakers will finally catch up with a big and spreading debt crisis that has serious implications for growth, jobs and inequality. The fear is that they are acting because they feel that they must again pre-empt yet another set of potential disappointments."
The Federal Reserve points out the move is necessary in that providing cheaper dollars to the ECB will alleviate a credit crunch there.
"The purpose of these actions is to ease strains in financial markets and thereby mitigate the effects of such strains on the supply of credit to households and businesses and so help foster economic activity," according to a Federal Reserve statement.
U.S. banks, meanwhile, aren't threatened by liquidity issues, the Fed adds.
"U.S. financial institutions currently do not face difficulty obtaining liquidity in short-term funding markets. However, were conditions to deteriorate, the Federal Reserve has a range of tools available to provide an effective liquidity backstop for such institutions and is prepared to use these tools as needed to support financial stability and to promote the extension of credit to U.S. households and businesses," the Fed's statement reads.
Other experts agree with the Fed that the move is a helpful one, but point out it won't steer the global economy towards greener pastures and add the ensuing stock-market rally night not last.
"More people just bought stocks than know what a central bank swap line is," writes Peter Tchir of TF Market Advisors, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Furthermore, while stock markets may be shooting up on a relief rally, the dollar could suffer.
"Global central banks are opening the spigots and the casualty has been the dollar," says Kathleen Brooks, research director at Forex.com, MarketWatch reports.
"The extension of the dollar swap lines essentially means that dollars will be available cheaply and on request for the next 15 months to Europe's troubled financial sector, which will probably greedily eat them up after being starved of much-needed dollar funding since the summer."
Other analysts applaud the move, pointing out that while it won't solve problems, it is a step in the right direction.
"This is something that is very welcome. This will not solve all deep-based funding problems which are due to the sovereign debt crisis," says Silvio Peruzzo, an economist at RBS in London, Reuters reports.
"But there is an issue with dollar liquidity, especially with foreign currency and this measure addresses that. This helps the margin and also shows that Central Banks remain at unease with what certainly is very significant distress."
Other experts add they hope to see more concrete steps to support the financial system in Europe to follow.
"This is not a game changer for the debt crisis. It's relieving some strains but it's not meant to tackle the actual sources of these problems. There I think there is still quite a way to go on the policy ground. There needs to come a credible package," says Nick Kounis, Head Of Macro Research At ABN Amro, Reuters adds.
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4)“Very Interesting Bit Of Detective Work”
1. Back in 1961 people of color were called 'Negroes.' So how can the Obama 'birth certificate' state he is 'African-American' when the term wasn't even used at that time?
2. The birth certificate that the White House released lists Obama's birth as August 4, 1961. It also lists Barack Hussein Obama as his father. No big deal, right? At the time of Obama's birth, it also shows that his father is aged 25 years old, and that Obama's father was born in " Kenya , East Africa ". This wouldn't seem like anything of concern, except the fact that Kenya did not even exist until 1963, two whole years after Obama's birth, and 27 years after his father's birth. How could Obama's father have been born in a country that did not yet exist? Up and until Kenya was formed in 1963, it was known as the " British East Africa Protectorate".
3. On the birth certificate released by the White House, the listed place of birth is "Kapi'olani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital ". This cannot be, because the hospital(s) in question in 1961 were called "KauiKeolani Children's Hospital" and "Kapi'olani Maternity Home", respectively. The name did not change to Kapi'olani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital until 1978, when these two hospitals merged. How can this particular name of the hospital be on a birth certificate dated 1961 if this name had not yet been applied to it until 1978?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The EU is Belgium writ large. A group of unelected officials from around Europe got together and dreamed up the EU, then arbitrarily made it happen. Now it is in the position of managing the countless factions of Europe. Constant bailouts and subsidies are the only things that keep everyone happy. There isn't enough money to keep up the charade, and there are considerable efforts to break it up. Each nation of the EU is held together by nothing more than the selfish decrees of others. It is crashing as you read.
Europe has come full circle. The EU has taken over Italy and Greece and installed unelected puppet regimes there. Belgium, a puppet nation dreamed up by Europe with no history, no government, and no money, finds itself ruling puppet governments of the two foundational sources of European civilization because they have no money. In WWII Germany went through Belgium to take over France. Now Germany is going through Belgium to take over Italy and Greece.
This is all you need to know about the EU. It is a messy assortment of peoples haphazardly crammed together, with no functional government, saddled with extremely high debt. Belgium was created as a puppet nation with no historical roots. Now it's been converted into a base from which all of Europe is held together as a puppet nation with no historical roots. The EU, like Belgium, is not strong enough to govern its various factions, nor does any freedom-lover desire it to be. The cradles of European history, Athens and Rome, are swallowed up by a puppet newcomer. It would be tragic if it wasn't an outrage.
The next EU takeover will probably be Spain, and there will be more after that. At some point Europe will fall. The only question is the direction in which it falls. It may fall into totalitarianism, or it may dissolve back to its historical national divisions. There are mounting efforts in both of these directions already, and there will be tremendous instability either way. Do not be surprised if there is war. Watch what Belgium does.
T.S. Weidler is the editor of a $1.4-million line of research databases and the sole operator of hermancainfacts.com.
3a)Experts: Central Bank Move Doesn't Solve Core Problems, May Fuel Inflation
By Forrest Jones
Coordinated action from the world's Central Banks to inject liquidity into the European financial system may spark a global stock-market rally, but it won't solve the underlying issues plaguing the European economy such as a political unwillingness to carry out tough reform policies, experts say.
The U.S. Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Central Banks of Canada, Britain, Japan and Switzerland have agreed to lower the cost of existing dollar swap lines by 50 basis points, a half percentage-point cut, a move that makes it easier for banks in Europe to get access to dollars.
The Central Banks say in a joint statement that cutting interest rates on swap lines — short-term loans in this case denominated in dollars — will prevent a credit crunch from striking the global economy.
Banks often borrow from one another in dollars mainly because U.S. interest rates are so low.
In Europe, where credit is tight due to sovereign default scares, banks need to tap the European Central Bank (ECB) for those dollars, and today's rate cut on the swaps basically makes it cheaper and easier to do so.
"In short, European banks were finding it too expensive to make dollar loans, which hurt their ability to lend dollars and encouraged them to sell euros. This depressed the value of the euro and restricted credit in Europe. The ECB arranged to borrow dollars more cheaply from the Fed, so it could ease this market," CNBC says in an analysis of the deal.
The move does not represent the U.S. government shipping taxpayer money abroad but rather, makes it easier for banks worldwide to tap and borrow from the pool of dollars flooding the global economy.
A side effect, however, could include inflation.
"The new dollars have the potential to spark inflation—which could result in higher interest rates and higher taxes as the government combats inflation," CNBC adds, pointing out that inflation is not yet a problem in the U.S. as of now.
The move is all well and good, says Mohamed El-Erian, co-head of Pimco, the world's largest bond fund. But it doesn't address fundamental spending and other issues that European governments need to confront, which include pooling bailout money together to prop up weaker economies.
"First, these monetary institutions feel that, again, they have to move because other entities have continued to be too slow and too ineffective; and second, they feel that they cannot, and should not ignore an actual or anticipated need to relieve acute pressures within the banking system," El-Erian writes in a Financial Times blog.
There are two ways to look at the move, one sees a glass half full and the other half empty, El-Erian adds.
"The hope is that central banks are acting because, looking forward, they feel confident that other policymakers will finally catch up with a big and spreading debt crisis that has serious implications for growth, jobs and inequality. The fear is that they are acting because they feel that they must again pre-empt yet another set of potential disappointments."
The Federal Reserve points out the move is necessary in that providing cheaper dollars to the ECB will alleviate a credit crunch there.
"The purpose of these actions is to ease strains in financial markets and thereby mitigate the effects of such strains on the supply of credit to households and businesses and so help foster economic activity," according to a Federal Reserve statement.
U.S. banks, meanwhile, aren't threatened by liquidity issues, the Fed adds.
"U.S. financial institutions currently do not face difficulty obtaining liquidity in short-term funding markets. However, were conditions to deteriorate, the Federal Reserve has a range of tools available to provide an effective liquidity backstop for such institutions and is prepared to use these tools as needed to support financial stability and to promote the extension of credit to U.S. households and businesses," the Fed's statement reads.
Other experts agree with the Fed that the move is a helpful one, but point out it won't steer the global economy towards greener pastures and add the ensuing stock-market rally night not last.
"More people just bought stocks than know what a central bank swap line is," writes Peter Tchir of TF Market Advisors, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Furthermore, while stock markets may be shooting up on a relief rally, the dollar could suffer.
"Global central banks are opening the spigots and the casualty has been the dollar," says Kathleen Brooks, research director at Forex.com, MarketWatch reports.
"The extension of the dollar swap lines essentially means that dollars will be available cheaply and on request for the next 15 months to Europe's troubled financial sector, which will probably greedily eat them up after being starved of much-needed dollar funding since the summer."
Other analysts applaud the move, pointing out that while it won't solve problems, it is a step in the right direction.
"This is something that is very welcome. This will not solve all deep-based funding problems which are due to the sovereign debt crisis," says Silvio Peruzzo, an economist at RBS in London, Reuters reports.
"But there is an issue with dollar liquidity, especially with foreign currency and this measure addresses that. This helps the margin and also shows that Central Banks remain at unease with what certainly is very significant distress."
Other experts add they hope to see more concrete steps to support the financial system in Europe to follow.
"This is not a game changer for the debt crisis. It's relieving some strains but it's not meant to tackle the actual sources of these problems. There I think there is still quite a way to go on the policy ground. There needs to come a credible package," says Nick Kounis, Head Of Macro Research At ABN Amro, Reuters adds.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4)“Very Interesting Bit Of Detective Work”
1. Back in 1961 people of color were called 'Negroes.' So how can the Obama 'birth certificate' state he is 'African-American' when the term wasn't even used at that time?
2. The birth certificate that the White House released lists Obama's birth as August 4, 1961. It also lists Barack Hussein Obama as his father. No big deal, right? At the time of Obama's birth, it also shows that his father is aged 25 years old, and that Obama's father was born in " Kenya , East Africa ". This wouldn't seem like anything of concern, except the fact that Kenya did not even exist until 1963, two whole years after Obama's birth, and 27 years after his father's birth. How could Obama's father have been born in a country that did not yet exist? Up and until Kenya was formed in 1963, it was known as the " British East Africa Protectorate".
3. On the birth certificate released by the White House, the listed place of birth is "Kapi'olani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital ". This cannot be, because the hospital(s) in question in 1961 were called "KauiKeolani Children's Hospital" and "Kapi'olani Maternity Home", respectively. The name did not change to Kapi'olani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital until 1978, when these two hospitals merged. How can this particular name of the hospital be on a birth certificate dated 1961 if this name had not yet been applied to it until 1978?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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