Wednesday

The Daily WAR (09-22)

 
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    The Vatican will soon issue a new document clarifying the terms of Summum Pontificum, Cardinal Bertone has revealed. Confirming reports that have circulated around Rome in recent weeks, the Vatican Secretary of State told the Italian weekly Famiglia Cristiana that the Ecclesia Dei commission will issue instructions to "clarify the criteria for the application of the motu proprio" in which Pope Benedict XVI broadened access to the traditional Latin Mass.
    Cardinal Bertone said that the new document was needed because there have been some "confused reactions" to the motu proprio. In fact some Vatican officials have energetically criticized bishops who have failed to accept the papal directive.
 
 
 
    One of the main characteristics of the ongoing Kosovo status culminations is that the Western-US led policy has as a direct consequence the empowerment of Moscow's reach in the heart of the Balkans. The Kosovo issue has ramifications that extend to the energy security of Europe, to the Russian advancement and the relative decline of the political architecture that Washington tries to implement over the past decade.
    The EU is still divided in relation to Kosovo. The main issue amongst the bigger states is how are they going to exploit the situation to their own advantage. The Iran issue will inevitably play a decisive role for the Kosovo issue. The US cannot deal with Tehran alone and it will need Russian assistance as well. That means that trade offs will certainly appear and Kosovo is the most important of them.
    Kosovo is being seeing globally as a historical landmark in the ongoing antagonism between West vs. East and internationalists (Global village) vs. nationalists (Territorial integrity).
 
    If the deadlock in the UN Security Council over the final status of Kosovo signals any future trends, it is that Russia has finally dispensed with any lingering beliefs that it should work with the US to set the global agenda. One of the legacies that Vladimir Putin bequeaths to his successor is Russia's changed position in the world.
    Moscow no longer has any interest in making minor modifications to a policy largely predetermined in Washington. And the principal beneficiary of this changed perception may be Iran.  In the coming months, there will be ample Russian and American pledges of cooperation against Iran's persistent nuclear violations. However, the strategic landscape has changed. And that does not bode well for America's attempt to rein in Iran.
 
 
 
    The sanctity of Jerusalem does not depend on who is sovereign in the city. Hanukkah and the Annapolis conference apparently caused some hysteria among the self-appointed "guardians" of Jerusalem.
 
    The Rabbinical Congress for Peace, comprised of over 350 leading rabbis in Israel, have sent an urgent letter to President Bush requesting that he cancel his upcoming trip to Israel next week. "Even if it is not your intention, the slanted media in Israel is interpreting your visit as applying pressure to accelerate the implementation of 'Disengagement II' a move that will place in mortal danger all residents of Israel."
    [WAR: "Judah has broken faith. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the sanctuary YAHWEH loves, by marrying the daughter of a foreign god. ... (And his wife) gave birth to still another son and named him Shelah. It was at Kezib that she gave birth to him. ... Therefore the town of Aczib (Kezib) will prove deceptive to the kings of Israel." (Mal 2:11; Gen 38:5; Micah 1:14)]
 
    The Israel-Syria track holds the most promise for immediate success, and since Christmas, mediated peace diplomacy went into high gear, according to reports from Israel. Such a settlement could defeat the British Empire's plan to blow up the region in chaos—the most recent example being the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
 
    President Sarkozy's visit reaffirms his political support for the US-led occupation of Afghanistan, which is generally seen within the French ruling elite as necessary for the advancement of France's imperialist interests in Central Asia. French imperialism has significant economic interests in the region, with the French oil firm Total having made major oil, gas and pipeline investments in Turkmenistan, Iran and the other Persian Gulf countries.
    The French bourgeoisie lives in fear of the possibility that the revolutionary consequences of a serious defeat for US imperialism in Iraq and Afghanistan will make the region untenable for its economic and strategic interests. It is to protect these interests that Sarkozy has swung behind Washington's foreign policy.
    In a broader sense, US Middle East policy is largely grounded on implicitly threatening the energy supply of all its capitalist rivals, including France. The spiraling geopolitical tensions provoked by US interventions in Southwest Asia are bound up with the struggle for control of oil and gas and its delivery to the major markets of Eurasia—Western Europe and East Asia. By occupying Iraq and threatening Iran, the US is blocking the most direct pipeline routes to move oil and gas to Western Europe: through Iran or Iraq, and then to Turkey and the Balkans.
 
    Senior Afghan government officials have told reporters that 2 MI6 agents were expelled from the country last week, at the behest of the CIA, after they were caught funding Taliban units. Both men were Afghan specialists, who had been operating in the country for over 20 years.
    Not surprisingly, nowhere in the British press coverage has there been any suggestion that the MI6 machinations with Taliban may have any connection to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
    In an article scheduled for publication in the Jan. 4, 2008, issue of Executive Intelligence Review, Lyndon LaRouche charges that British intelligence, acting on behalf of Anglo-Dutch financial interests, was behind the Bhutto assassination, as part of a global "Operation Chaos," driven by the onrushing global financial crash.
    In an accompanying EIR analysis, it documents British plans to break up Pakistan, and create a separate entity in the Northwest Frontier Province and Waziristan regions of Pakistan, which border on Afghanistan and Central Asia.
 
    At this moment, and as early as sometime after January 3, 2008, the fact of the presently ongoing world monetary-financial breakdown crisis, that the present Anglo-Dutch Liberal policies are insane, will sweep through the world's population. The plan for a London-steered, Dick Cheney bombing of Iran is in trouble. A certain part of the Liberal financial-political elite is desperate. What has just occurred during recent weeks, in Pakistan and nearby, reflects the actions of a faction within the Anglo-Dutch Liberal apparatus which is now lurching into forms of desperate action not seen up to the present time.
 
    The controversy over former premier Benazir Bhutto's assassination has taken another turn with a section of her Pakistan People's Party claiming she was targeted with sophisticated "laser beam technology". Bhutto's wounds were caused not by bullets but by some sort of laser weapon, 'The Nation' newspaper said quoting sources in the PPP.
    When Bhutto was admitted to the hospital shortly after the attack, a doctor who treated her told a PPP leader that he had seen "such a case for the first time in his life." The sources also claimed both the gunshots and the bomb blast "were a decoy to hide the real shooters." The paper further quoted the sources as saying the ones blamed for the assassination by the government, did not have such technology.
 
    Here comes the world's newest superpower. The rest of the world is gloomily contemplating economic slowdown and even recession. Not in Beijing. China is set to make 2008 the year it asserts its status as a global colossus by flexing frightening economic muscle on international markets, enjoying unprecedented levels of domestic consumption and showcasing itself to a watching world with a glittering £20bn Olympic Games.
    The world's most populous nation will mark the next 12 months with a coming-of-age party that will confirm its transformation in 3 decades from one of the poorest countries of the 20th century into the globe's 3rd-largest economy, its hungriest (and most polluting) consumer and the engine room of economic growth.
 
 
 
    Ayatollah Khamenei has congratulated Christians around the world on the New Year. He called on the followers of Jesus Christ to obey the prophet and fight tyranny, injustice and corruption around the world, and deplored the fact that some governments in Christian countries violate the rights of other nations in defiance of the teachings of Jesus Christ.
 
    Prime Minister Olmert hosts President Bush and his team to discuss the contentious Iranian nuclear program. Iran's uranium enrichment program is no less a concern to us than the Palestinian issue. This is the first time that the subject will be discussed in person. We cannot say whether Israel will present to the president the information the country has on the subject. However, there is an understanding between Israel and the US on the need to pursue efforts to stop uranium enrichment."
 
    The line between the Iraq war theater and a possible Iran theater becomes increasingly blurry. It all appears to be the makings of an unwelcome, big-budget, poorly scripted sequel to a movie that bombed to begin with.
 
 
 
    A House Resolution to impeach Vice-President Cheney, Dennis Kucinich's H.R. 799, is gathering more support. The national impeachment continues to grow and generate increasing interest since being referred to the House Judiciary Committee last month.
    "There is credible evidence that the Vice President abused the power of his office, and not only brought us into an unnecessary war but violated the civil liberties and privacy of American citizens. It is the constitutional duty of Congress to hold impeachment hearings."
 
    We need to ask ourselves hard questions. Has the blood we have shed in Afghanistan and Iraq, the hundreds of billions we have plunged into these wars, and into foreign aid, made us safer? Has it made us more friends than enemies?
 
    As US presidential candidates battle it out to become the leader of the world's only superpower there is one subject on which they all, in public at least, agree - the US relationship with Israel. To leading politicians on both sides of the partisan divide the special relationship is sacrosanct, largely due, critics say, to the power of pro-Israel lobby groups.
    Those critics also say that pro-Israeli groups are set to a play a major role in the forthcoming election battle, both in terms of funding candidates and by publicly criticising any candidate critical of Israel or the US's relationship with it.
    The lobby is made up of dozens of pro-Israel political action committees that draw a large part of their support from the US Jewish community and provide funding to presidential candidates. But Christian Zionists, who are among the most vociferous supporters of Israel in the US, also play a major role.
    [WAR: As stated above: "Judah has broken faith. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the sanctuary YAHWEH loves, by marrying the daughter of a foreign god. ... (And his wife) gave birth to still another son and named him Shelah. It was at Kezib that she gave birth to him. ... Therefore the town of Aczib (Kezib) will prove deceptive to the kings of Israel." (Mal 2:11; Gen 38:5; Micah 1:14)]
 
    The process by which the next US president is selected has little to do with democracy. The 2-party system guarantees a political monopoly by corporate interests. The choice of nominee in each party is the outcome of a complex struggle within the ruling elite in which vast sums of money and a corporate-controlled media play the major role, not the sentiments and needs of the American people.
    The Democratic Party and the Republican Party are both political instruments of the American financial aristocracy. They are not identical, because they employ different appeals, have different histories, and to some extent speak for different factions of the corporate-financial elite, but the 2 big business parties have the same basic social function: maintaining the domination of American society by the corporate-financial elite and upholding the worldwide interests of American imperialism.
    Both parties would be considered right-wing in any other advanced capitalist country—the Republican Party semi-fascist or extreme right, the Democrats conservative or center-right. Both parties uphold the capitalist market as the supreme social organizing principle, while differing slightly on the degree of government regulation to be applied. Both parties uphold the "national interest" of American imperialism—i.e., its "right" to dominate the world—while differing on the exact mix of diplomacy, military force and political subversion to be used in accomplishing that goal.
 
 
 
    Crude oil futures rose above $97 in New York, extending last year's 57% gain, on speculation that US stockpiles fell for a 7th week. Oil also gained after militant attacks in Nigeria, Africa's biggest crude producer, increased concern that violence will deepen production cuts.
 
    China's currency, the yuan, hit a new high against the US dollar today. The Chinese currency had appreciated against the greenback by about 12% since a new currency regime was imposed in July 2005 to revalue and de-peg it from the dollar.
 
    US food prices have risen this year at more than twice the rate of 2006, and at a pace not seen since 1990. The outlook isn't any better. Many economists say this year's estimated price increase of about 5% could be part of a trend that threatens to ratchet up food costs for years.
 
    Industry analysts are predicting a lackluster end to an already dismal year for automakers, likely the worst in nearly a decade. Holiday discounts failed to bring consumers out of their funk.
 
    Debt experts are predicting a record number of personal insolvencies this year as excessive Christmas shopping, rising mortgage payments and soaring food and fuel costs force thousands of people over the financial edge and into bankruptcy.
 
    The world's press has been focused on the financial fallout for the banks from the credit squeeze and the crisis of liquidity following the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market in the US. This has seen the world's largest banks write off billions of dollars of assets and seek extra funding to balance their books. Less has been said about how all this will affect other corporations, their workers and the economy as a whole.
 
    The year 2007 was one of remarkable changes in the global financial system, the chief among them, it being the year that the casino of unpayable debts and off-balance-sheet fantasies finally broke down, leaving us to watch as the ramifications of that collapse spread inexorably across the planet. It was the year that the central banks went from talking tough about asserting market discipline and letting speculators take their losses, to launching increasingly desperate schemes to keep the whole system from grinding to a halt.
    We now enter 2008 in uncharted territory. The problems we saw in 2007 will only get worse, and there are new horrors to be discovered as the death throes intesify. The wave of losses we have seen thus far is but a glimpse of what is to come, as the collapse eats its way through the world's balance sheets and flows relentlessly home to the balance sheets of the commercial banks, the investment banks, the insurance companies and other financial institutions, and to the lives of people. What is coming, is something none of us has ever seen before...
 
    The bears take all in early 2008 as the insolvency crunch tightens its vice on the real economy. The downturn spreads through the Anglo-Saxon world and the euro-zone. The bail-out comes too late to avert a hard landing. Lingering oil and food inflation hobbles monetary policy through the first crucial weeks of this year. By the time it is clear that this inflation as a false alarm, even more damage has already been done.
    The big surprise in 2008 is Europe's failure to shake off the crunch. It is a victim of its half-reformed labour markets, just as it was after the US dotcom bust. But this time it lacks the crutch of a weak currency. The deflating housing bubbles in Spain, Ireland, parts of France and Italy, and soon Greece, expose the fault lines of monetary union as 2008 unfolds, and start to render the euro-zone's one-size-fits-all system unworkable. Bond spreads over German bunds edge up as the pressure mounts, then jump sharply higher.
    President Sarkozy finds a receptive mood for his Community Preference (a closed-trade bloc), and for his war on the ECB. He threatens to invoke Maastricht Article 104 on exchange policy. Spain's government crashes in March. Italy's coalition falls apart. Nationalists replace signed-up Europols in charge of all the Club Med powers. The ECB must meet Mr Sarkozy half way, or risk its own institutional destruction.
 
 
 
    Whereas close male friendships tend to revolve around hobbies, jokes, drinking, not to mention a sense of habit, female friendships generally involve a profound level of emotional commitment based on shared traumas, ecstasies and confidences. The intensity of such intimacy can be hard to explain to men.
    My conversations with female friends almost always slip into forensic examination of the complexity of relationships. A husband should be your heart's desire - the other half of your soul - but your best friend is the person with whom you discuss your husband, among other intimate matters.
 
    Around sunset tonight, US time, you will be as close to the sun as you will be for all of 2008. Earth will be at perihelion – from Greek words "peri" meaning near, and "helios" meaning sun. What's more, tomorrow morning the moon will be at apogee. Apo = farthest. Gee = Earth. The moon will be farthest from Earth tomorrow morning.
 
 
 
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