Sunday

The Daily WAR (09-29)

Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
 
 
 
 
 
    With battle lines sharpening, the German government appears determined to resist calls to spend an additional €40 billion to fight its way out of the recession, according to officials attending a meeting in the Chancellery in the past week.
    Chancellor Merkel is being pulled in all directions as she plans a Jan. 5 follow-up to a meeting of German government officials, business executives and union leaders she called two weeks ago to discuss ways to counter the recession.
    The dispute over taxes has even led to a wedge between the 2 conservative parties that support Merkel, her Christian Democratic Union and its allied party in Bavaria, the Christian Social Union.
    Taxes must be lowered immediately, the CSU said. Merkel said she preferred to wait until after the federal elections.
    Under new leadership, the CSU is aiming to win back disaffected voters in time for the European Parliament elections in June and the federal elections in September largely by adopting a more independent line from the Christian Democratic Union.
 
    Germany's government in 2008 was tested by the world's financial crisis and the military mission in Afghanistan while frictions dominated the ruling coalition.
    Seen as a whole, German foreign policy in 2008 came across as fractured and heading in too many directions.
    Foreign policy expectations for 2009 are low: in October, Steinmeier won his party's support to face Merkel in next year's election.
    An election campaign pitting Merkel vs. Steinmeier is likely to water down German foreign policy even more.
 
 
 
    Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, may be relishing his country's assumption of EU leadership in January for very different reasons - as an opportunity to publicise views which other EU leaders will not enjoy hearing.
    For Klaus -- a steely, bespectacled economist who came to sudden prominence after the Czechoslovak revolution against communism -- is a vehement Eurosceptic. He believes the EU has echoes of the old Soviet bloc he used to live under.
    So during the coming months he will brood in his residence in the castle high above Prague, refusing to fly the EU flag, and will unlikely let the opportunity pass to snipe at what he once called "business class Eurocrats" lording it over "economy class Slavs", as this most combative of Czechs condemns the error of Europe's ways.
 
 
 
    Yona Metzger, the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel, talks to Spiegel Online about the Abraham as the father of all 3 monotheistic religions -- Islam, Christianity and Judaism -- and explains how that connection could be a starting point for a dialogue of peace between them.
    [WAR: No, Abraham is NOT the father of those religions!]
 
    Israel launched more air strikes on Gaza today amid signs of an imminent ground assault.
 
    Long-term preparation, careful gathering of information, secret discussions, operational deception and the misleading of the public - all these stood behind the Israel Defense Forces "Cast Lead" operation against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, which began Saturday morning.
    Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over 6 months ago, even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas.
    The final decision was made on Friday morning, when Barak met with Chief of Staff General Ashkenazi, the head of the Shin Bet Security and the head of the Military Intelligence Directorate. Barak sat down with Olmert and Livni several hours later for a final meeting, in which the trio gave the air force its orders.
 
    Russia was one of the first to respond, with a foreign ministry spokesman calling for an immediate halt to attacks by both forces.
    The European Union likewise called for a return to the cease-fire, saying there was "no military solution in Gaza" and urging Israel to allow the resumption of humanitarian aid.
 
    Israeli warplanes have reportedly flown low over south Lebanon as the regime's forces started their second day of attacks on Gaza Strip. "At least 5 aircraft overflew the Bint Jbeil region (south of Beirut) and headed for the port town of Tyre" farther north.
 
    The CIA has secured co-operation from ageing Afghan warlords by providing them with an unusual incentive – Viagra.
    A warlord aged 60, who was struggling to satisfy his 4 younger wives, was holding back information that could be crucial to American interests.
    A clandestine CIA operatives who was visiting sensed an opportunity and reached into his bag for a small gift of four blue pills. "Take one of these," he said. "You'll love it."
    Four days later, the CIA man returned to a beaming warlord – whether there were any smiles form his wives was not reported.
    The warlord furnished the CIA with invaluable details of Taliban supply routes and movements before requesting more pills.
 
    All this would fit nicely into the scheme of Obama'a guru – Professor Brzezinski.
    He would love a war between the Armed Forces of Pakistan supporting secular-liberal parties against Resistance to Indo-US occupation of Afghanistan and Kashmir.
    That, in his view, would be a 'good war' that could yield a victory to the US at very little cost.
 
    The Central Intelligence Agency has warned the Bush administration of a possible nuclear war between India and Pakistan.
    The turmoil in Afghanistan and Pakistan could spill over into Jammu & Kashmir, prompting Indian leaders to take aggressive and retaliatory action, according to the CIA.
    In assessing the security situation in the region, a CIA report observed: "Continued turmoil in Afghanistan and Pakistan will spill over into Kashmir and other areas of the subcontinent, prompting Indian leaders to take more aggressive pre-emptive and retaliatory actions."
 
 
 
    Russ Baker's new book ("Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It In The White House, And What Their Influence Means for America.") presents an account of the US government that is both remarkably new and extensively documented.
    According to this account, George H W Bush, the father of the current president, devoted his career to secret intelligence work with the CIA many years before he became the CIA director, and the network of spies and petroleum plutocrats he began working with early on has played a powerful but hidden role in determining the direction of the US government up to the current day.
    New research and newly highlighted information assembled by Baker presents at least the strong possibility that Bush was involved in assassinating President Kennedy, and that Bush was involved in staging the Watergate break-in (and the break-in at Dan Ellsberg's psychiatrist's) with the purpose of having these break-ins exposed and the blame placed on President Nixon.
 
    Upon the demise of Soviet Union 18 years ago, President George HW Bush announced the emergence of a New World Order. But he was to soon prove his pious pronouncements to be mere rhetoric, a deception.
    The grossly unjust and archaic economic, political and military "uni-polar" world order, or the "New World Order" as Bush had called it, collapsed just 18 years after it was born.
    A "New Multi-polar World Order" is now emerging that is likely to create a balance of power with a hope for stability. Some even prefer to call it the Real World Order in which the US will no more be able to control the international agenda.
 
    A 2nd conference has been posted on the docket for the US Supreme Court over the issue of Barack Obama's eligibility to occupy the White House, this one scheduled a week after Congress is to review the Electoral College vote tabulation.
    The latest issue posted is a request for an injunction on the election results pending the resolution of a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by attorney Philip J. Berg, a case that is docketed for a similar conference among the justices on January 9th. Berg's original case raises questions about Obama's eligibility and his injunction request first was filed early in December.
    It was submitted to and rejected by 2 different justices before it came before Justice Scalia on Dec. 18th. Then just before Christmas the docket was updated to reflect that the motion had been "distributed for conference of January 16th."
 
    The designated US secretary of state is expected to appoint Middle East envoys from a group of shady and pro-Israeli diplomats.
 
    Members of a posh Upper East Side synagogue suffered a $2 billion bloodbath in Bernie Madoff's epic Ponzi scheme. The synagogue was a breeding ground for Madoff investors.
    Meanwhile, the FBI admitted that the Madoff scandal had grown so large that it was forced to shift agents from counterterrorism operations to the alleged swindler's case, among other Wall Street scandals.
 
 
 
    The steep drop in oil prices may not be over yet, says the CEO of Gulf Oil.
    While oil has tumbled more than $100 off its $147 a barrel high in the summertime, the price of US light, sweet crude could yet move as low as $25, and even $20 if current conditions persist, Gulf''s CEO said on CNBC.
 
    So what a horrible year that was.
    A full-blown credit crunch, of the kind I have never witnessed before, alongside a nasty commodity-price shock. One was the worst since the 1930s, the other the biggest since the 1970s.
    The commodity shock is over but the credit crunch is still very much with us.
 
    It's that time of year when business journalists feel compelled to gaze into their crystal balls and prophesy the events of the next 12 months.
 
    While 2008 has been a tough year, all signs point to 2009 being much worse. Here is what I see on the horizon for the upcoming year.
    In the meantime, you should be doing everything you can to stay informed, protect your ass(ets) and prepare for the transition ahead.
 
    Global interconnectedness was brought home to us this year, and in the worst possible way.
    One underlying message of the credit crunch and resulting recession was that national economies are now closely tied together, and when some of the large players catch a cold, the rest of us have no immunity.
    And there was a sting in the tail. Not only are we more closely linked to other economies than ever before, but the speed of our communications — an example of which is the logistics chain that enabled the laptop to be put together — means problems in one part of the world are rapidly transmitted to others.
 
    It may seem perverse that in this new era of reckoning — with consumers finally tapped out, government coffers lean and banks paralyzed by fear — many economists have concluded that the appropriate medicine is a fresh dose of the very course that delivered the disarray: Spend without limit. Print money today, fret about the consequences tomorrow.
 
    As many writers have tried to point out, mainstream economists understand neither the cause of nor the solution to the financial crisis.
 
    Retailing has always been a tough business.  Now it's a brutal business.  Some observers now predict that more than 25% of retailers may go bust in the the next 2 years.
 
 
 
    Samuel Huntington, a political scientist best known for his theory of a clash of civilizations, died Wednesday on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, Harvard University announced over the weekend. He was 81.
    He argued that in a post-Cold War world, violent conflict would come not from ideological friction between nations, but from cultural and religious differences among major civilizations.
    He identified those civilizations as Western (including the US and Europe), Latin American, Islamic, African, Orthodox (with Russia as a core state), and Hindu, Japanese and "Sinic" (including China, Korea and Vietnam).
 
    The internet has overtaken newspapers as a source for national and international news for Americans, according to survey.
    However, the survey by the Washington-based Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that television remains the preferred medium for Americans.
 
Playing with fire...
    It is science's star experiment: an attempt to create an artificial sun on Earth — and provide an answer to the world's impending energy shortage.
    In the spring, a team will begin attempts to ignite a tiny man-made star inside a laboratory and trigger a thermonuclear reaction.
    Its goal is to generate temperatures of more than 100 million degrees Celsius and pressures billions of times higher than those found anywhere else on Earth, from a speck of fuel little bigger than a pinhead.
 
    The planet Venus beams in your southwest sky at dusk and early evening. However, three other worlds are visible at dusk and early evening: the thin waxing crescent Moon, and the planets Jupiter and Mercury.
    Starting 30 to 45 minutes after sunset, look for the moon and Jupiter to the lower right of Venus.
    [WAR: This is another one of those "close ones." This evening after sunset, there will be a crescent Moon -- but it appears (from astronomy software SkyGlobe) that it won't rule with the stars at night. But I will have to verify it through observation.
    So if the Moon and stars don't rule together tonight, then they will tomorrow night. So that will make Tuesday the 1st day of the 10th month.]
 
 
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