Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the start of the Cold War. In an interview with Spiegel, former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt discusses the policy of nuclear deterrence during the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the stationing of nuclear weapons in Germany and the reasons behind the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The US still has dozens of nuclear war heads stationed throughout Europe, including an estimated 20 in Germany. Yet, hardly anyone thinks this makes sense any more -- apart from those at Germany's Defense Ministry.
The founder of the Schiller Institute and leader of the Civil Rights Movement Solidarity Party in Germany issued the following statement today, in response to the news that President Koehler will respect the request of the German Constitutional Court, that he not sign the Lisbon Treaty until they have ruled on legal challenges.
"This is a very good development, because it shows that Germany, at least for now, is still a Rechtstaat, or constitutional state. I am confident that the Constitutional judges will find many points where the Lisbon Treaty violates the Grundgesetz, or fundamental law, of the German republic."
Attempts to reform the European Union's institutions, already in disarray following Ireland's rejection of the Lisbon Treaty last month, have suffered fresh blows in the last 2 days with the refusal of the presidents of Germany and Poland to complete the ratification of the treaty.
(And: Merkel backs treaty)
France assumed the presidency of the European Union yesterday with some swagger. President Sarkozy is keen to use the 6 months to bolster his prestige as the saviour of the European Project, that ideological vision of ever-closer union.
While Sarkozy may at times rail against European institutions, that is because he wants them to be even less Anglo-Saxon and more protectionist than they already are, not because he opposes integration in principle.
The plans were grandiose. But now that Ireland has rejected the Lisbon Treaty, Nicolas Sarkozy will have to scale back his goals for the French EU presidency. His answer? Frenetic activity.
(Analysis: France has nowhere to go)
(Q&A: The Lisbon Treaty)
With France now in the driver's seat, EU officials today unveiled new bloc-wide social policies aimed at putting an end to discrimination in all areas. It will be up to the 27 member states to implement them.
There are now increasing indications, that the European Central Bank will raise its minimum interest rate from 4% to 4.25%, because, among other things, public opinion has now hardened into the conviction that the Europe is not only a "Teuro," but that unlike the old hard deutschemark, the new currency is as soft as cotton candy.
A parade of economists warn that the ECB is making a grave mistake, and that by attempting to counter inflation by raising interest rates, it is simply pulling the economy more deeply into the abyss.
One of the City of London's more conservative mouthpieces, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, notes that the attempt to impose a "super-state" onto the nations of Europe has now ended in failure. Further on, he cites warnings from Germany's central bank that European monetary union will eventually buckle without the cement of political union.
==>> [Very important to know!...] Let us recall the circumstances under which Germany was forced to accept European monetary union. The Berlin Wall came down in November 1989, and then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl issued his 10-Point Program, which called for close cooperation between the 2 confederated states of Germany, leading toward federation.
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher thereupon launched her "Fourth Reich" slander campaign against Germany [along with the COG "prophets"], while French President François Mitterrand threatened that France would only agree to reunification, if Germany renounced the deutschemark and agreed to the earlier anticipated monetary union.
Mitterrand advisor Jacques Attali wrote later, in a biography of his boss, that Mitterrand had even threatened Kohl with war and a revival of the Triple Entente, in the event that Germany refused to comply. Two days later, one of Kohl's closest advisors, Alfred Herrhausen, was assassinated. Kohl later described the pressure coming down on him at the EU summit meeting in Strasbourg in early December, to give up the deutschemark, as his life's darkest hour. <<==
And so, the attempt by Europe's heads of state to conduct a quasi-stealth operation to trick Europe's nations into accepting the European Constitution in the guise of the Lisbon Treaty—even after the Constitution had already been rejected by France and the Netherlands—has now boomeranged on its instigators.
It is no longer contested that energy is a legitimate security issue. But can a military alliance like NATO address energy security? Perhaps, but NATO itself must change in order to do so.
As the official representative of Russia to NATO I have to deal with what NATO representatives give as arguments, which are in fact fusty propaganda rhetoric of the Cold War. These dogmas threaten both progress in Russia-NATO relations and the prospects for global security, and even the process of cementing democracy in Russia.
A blast shook a post used by Russian troops in Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia on Wednesday but no-one was injured, Interfax reported, citing local peacekeepers. Interfax said a device exploded near the de-facto border between Georgia and Abkhazia.
The Turkish authorities detained at least 21 ultra-nationalists, including 2 prominent retired generals, on Tuesday in an investigation into a suspected plot against the government.
Feelings run high in the battle for the soul of Turkish society, a staunchly secular republic where the predominant Muslim religion has yet to find a comfortable role.
Two officials of the CIA have claimed that Osama bin Laden was on death bed as he suffered from a terminal kidney disease, and may live only for a few months. The intelligence agency also managed to get the names of some of the medications Bin Laden was taking.
One of the 2 CIA officials familiar with the report that came out 6-9 months ago, quoted it as saying, "Based on his current pharmaceutical intake we would expect that he has no more than 6-18 months to live and impending kidney failure."
Oh yes they can...
Iran says Israel's defeat in its war against Lebanon proves that is 'not in a position' to carry out an act of aggression against Tehran. Addressing journalists Tuesday at Tehran's mission to the UN, Iran's Foreign Minister suggested that Israel is in no position to wage war on Iran.
Any attack on Iran would provoke an unimaginably fierce response and add to further turmoil to the already seething oil market, the country's oil minister warned today. Tehran "is not going to be quiet," if attacked. It's "going to react fiercely, and nobody can imagine what would be the reaction of Iran."
Any military attack on Iran would have a "catastrophic" effect on the Middle East, a Russian foreign ministry official said today. "All this is very dangerous. If force is used it will be catastrophic for the whole Middle East."
Israel should use force to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, urged a former director of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency in an exclusive interview with WND. The comments from Meir Amit, one of the most esteemed figures in the Israeli intelligence establishment, are significant since, until now, he has refused to support an attack against Iran.
"I am in favor of using the power of force against Iran, because if we let things go as they are we will find ourselves in a very dangerous situation. We have good intelligence, and we shall decide what is the right timing for any attack."
Isaac Ben-Israel, a former Israeli Air Force general and now member of the ruling Kadima party, spoke with Spiegel about the limits of sanctions in dealing with Iran's nuclear program. He says Israel is prepared to mount a military strike against the mullah regime if diplomacy fails.
Seymour Hersh says Vice President Cheney prefers US attack on Iran rather than Israel as Washington has much more firepower.
"I'll tell you what Cheney says privately - what he says privately is, 'we can't let Israel go because, first of all, they don't have the firepower, we do. We have much more firepower. And secondly, if they go, we'll be blamed anyway'," Hersh said in an interview with MSNBC on Tuesday.
(And: Cheney's long path to war)
Top advisors to Barack Obama's presidential campaign have joined with advisors to John McCain and the Likudnik Washington Institute for Near East Policy, to issue a call for the next President to enter into discussions with Israel about means to deal with Iran's nuclear program, including "preventive military action."
Which country is the rogue nation? Iraq? Iran? Or the United States? The slaughtering of foreigners doesn't seem to bother the American public.
Americans take it for granted that Americans are superior and that American purposes, whatever they be, take precedence over the rights of other people to life and to a political existence independent of American hegemony.
The callousness of Americans toward the lives of other peoples is stunning. American exceptionalism has swelled Americans' heads, filling them with hubris and self-righteousness and making Americans believe that they are the salt of the earth.
The CFR's opinion...
It's time to integrate further with Canada and Mexico, not separate from them.
John McCain presents himself as a what-you-see-is-what-you-get presidential candidate: clean, pragmatic, following his convictions even when not politically expedient. He considers himself to be someone who would make an excellent foreign-policy president.
But this image sits in contrast with the International Republican Institute, for which McCain has served as board chairman since 1993. Under the cover of spreading democracy and a free-market economic system, the IRI installs US-friendly governments and undermines those that are not by supporting coups and ousters.
The last refuge of a Democratic scoundrel
Barely one month after sealing his victory in the primaries and with four months to go before the general election, Barack Obama has embarked on a campaign swing that has the declared aim of proving his patriotism.
In practice, this exercise in self-abasement before the political right is aimed not at winning votes from the Republican Party, but rather at establishing Obama's credentials with the constituency that the junior senator from Illinois values most: America's corporate and financial elite.
We Are Change Colorado has now become aware that another group, Unconventional Action, is planning on being violent at the DNC protests.
Under the link at its website, "The Strategies: How We Win," a section titled: Denver: Disrupt the DNC, clearly outlines for "Anarchists and Anti-Authoritarians" to "join (them) in Denver, Colorado, August 24th-28th as (they) engage in coordinated Direct Actions against the Democratic National Convention, its corporate sponsors, and the military/police occupation of public space."
As if this wasn't enough to report on, it seems the Denver Office of Emergency Management is planning for mass evacuations of the city during the week of the DNC. Does this mean that there is intel on a threat or that a flase flag is coming? Perhaps this is evidence of just a mere excersize to plan for the worse.
Why was the cashing out of billions of dollars just before the 9/11 attacks never investigated? It's been over 6 years since 9/11, but US regulatory entities have been slow to follow through with reports about the complex financial transactions that occurred just prior to and following the attacks.
Such research could shed light on such questions as who was behind them—and who benefited—and could help lay to rest the rumors that have been festering.
Millions of Americans are embarrassingly ill-informed and they do not care that they are. Five defining characteristics of stupidity, it seems to me, are readily apparent.
First, is sheer ignorance: Ignorance of critical facts about important events in the news, and ignorance of how our government functions and who's in charge. Second, is negligence: The disinclination to seek reliable sources of information about important news events.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the Daily Telegraph commented on the new annual report of the Bank for International Settlement, saying that its aim is to "face challenges last seen during the onset of the Great Depression." His report is a "valid warning shot of the sudden change in the world financial situation for the worse which is in process," commented Lyndon LaRouche.
US auto sales plunged in June to a 15-year low. Most analysts and major automakers now expect full-year US sales to end up near 15 million units, down from 16.15 million in 2007 because of the devastated US housing market, high gas prices and weak consumer confidence.
Forecast for US workers: Doom [and gloom!]
As automakers dropped their latest batch of awful sales numbers on the market on Tuesday, reinforcing the gloom spreading across the economy, the troubles confronting American workers seemed to intensify.
Plummeting home prices have in recent months eliminated jobs for hundreds of thousands of people, from bankers and real estate agents to construction workers and furniture manufacturers. Joblessness has accelerated, and employers have slashed working hours even for those on their payrolls, shrinking the size of paychecks just as workers need them the most.
A lawsuit filed by a Wisconsin couple against their mortgage lender could have major implications for banks should a US appeals court agree that borrowers can cancel their loans en masse when their lenders violate a federal lending disclosure law.
The judge transformed the case from a run-of-the-mill class action to a potential nightmare for the US banking industry by also finding that the borrowers could force the bank to cancel, or rescind, their loans.
Ahead of the imminent interest rate rise, Nicolas Sarkozy started again an offensive against the ECB. By contrast, Angela Merkel gave some support for the ECB saying that she was very concerned by inflation.
And the German finance minister Peer Steinbrueck echoed Mr Sarkozy's views, saying the ECB should consider the impact of its interest rate decisions on economic growth, but said he shared Ms Merkel's concern about inflation.
German press
The European Central Bank is widely expected to raise interest rates by a quarter point on Thursday in response to a steep rise in inflation. It has no choice, write German media commentators, because a failure to act now would hurt its inflation-fighting credentials.
It is unclear how energy problem will be resolved, and talk of an attack on Iran does not help. The energy markets have been seriously rattled by comments from a top Pentagon official warning that Israel may launch raids on Iran's Natanz nuclear facilities to pre-empt its acquisition of Russian air-defence missiles.
The source told ABC News that Israel would not wait until the Ahmadinejad regime had accumulated enough enriched plutonium to make a bomb. "The red line is not when they get to that point, but before they get to that point," he said.
Iran has threatened to close the Straits of Hormuz if attacked, cutting off a quarter of the world's oil supply. Such a move could drive oil to $200 or higher, bringing the global economy to its knees.
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