Spoke Joseph Brusuelas, David Kotok, Pat Lang, Larry Johnson, re the threats by Muammar Gaddafi that he will wreck his country and murder Libyans and burn the wells. A critical detail is what the Libyan anarchy does to the markets. Kotok is very bearish on the markets and said he was longer on cash than at any time since September 2008, and he wished he had more of the energy sector. Kotok believes oil is a one-way trade to $120 on Brent crude, and it can go much higher. Pat Lang listened to Gaddafi's speech in Arabic and says that it was even crazier than the English version. We also spoke of the sudden return of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, returning to Riyadh from Morocco at least nine months early. Trouble in the kingdom, with a protest movement planned for after prayers on Friday. Pat Lang says the Saudis will crush the Bahraini opposition. At evening's end, Joe Brusuelas mentioned that he was surprised and spooked by how bearish Kotok is, how grim and certain of worse he found Lang and Johnson. The market has not priced in the worst-case scenario of the Arab revolt. The worst case of worst cases is that Gaddafi survives, and the EU is forced to make deals with a monster. See the bottom video, from Al Jazeera, of the screams of horror of women watching Gaddafi goons wondering the streets with clubs.
There are the drawbacks to globalization. When the fabric begins to tear in one part, expect the whole thing to be in shreds soon thereafter. Printing money won’t fix it; buying gold won’t fix it; whatever Kaddafi or Mubarak or Obama do is irrelevant. We can abandon the dollar and use chopsticks instead - nothing is likely to work and no one is immune from the hammering storm that has been gathering for some time in the heart of darkest Africa.
Of course, the world’s most fragile will be the first to suffer - the hallowed poor, for the sake of whom anything and everything is done. The fact is that all of us are in trouble - collectively.
Everything is always in balance. We may not necessarily like some of the items that are used to keep our world in balance, but balance is still preferable to chaos. For some still unexplained reason America has decided to jump off the see-saw. This has sent the see-saw and all who were on it crashing to the ground. The chaos will no doubt coalesce, and whatever emerges will be in balance. It will likely not look the same as what we are used to seeing. There are many ways in which things can be balanced.
Sometimes, it’s just a matter of re-naming things without really making any changes. We put a lot into a name. We name streets and airports after people we may have heard made a (positive) difference.
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It was another beautiful sunrise at the top of the world. Mt. Everest awoke and decided that he no longer wanted to be a mountain. He wanted to be a man and move about on his spindly legs. He no longer wanted to block the winds trying to move willy-nilly from here to there; he no longer wanted to anchor the earth’s crust to keep it from moving; he no longer wanted to stop the magnetic poles from shifting erratically as the earth groans on its axis. No, he wanted to be a man, digging inconsequential holes in the ground.
By it, he would satisfied two desires simultaneously. He would satisfy man whose boundless egotism is always eager to embrace both praise and blame for anything that has ever happened. And he satisfied himself, as he was tired and bored with performing his traditional functions.
Of course, it was all just a matter of semantics. Nothing was to essentially change; except that what had been called ‘mountain‘, was now called ‘man’ and vice versa.
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/
Amusing statements to give the impression that the European community will, you know, do something. I certainly hope they don't injure themselves in the rush . . .
From The Guardian:
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Libya no-fly zone call by France fails to get David Cameron's backingNicolas Sarkozy calls for sanctions to be imposed on Muammar Gaddafi, but Britain fears UN resolution may fail to win support
Nicolas Sarkozy is leading the calls for a Nato-imposed no-fly zone to be enforced over Libya to "prevent the use of that country's warplanes against [its] population".
Sarkozy, the current president of the G8 and G20 economic forums, has also called for the European Union to impose sanctions against Libya and suggested that the assets of the family of the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, should be frozen.
William Hague, the British foreign secretary, did not join the calls for a no-fly zone, but David Cameron held out the prospect of imposing sanctions on Libya if Gaddafi continued to respond to the protests with violence.
The government is wary of antagonising the Libyan leadership while it attempts to repatriate British citizens.
In an interview with al-Jazeera television in Doha, the prime minister said: "Sanctions are always an option for the future if what we are seeing in Libya continues. Of course, if Libya continues down this path, there will be a very strong argument [for sanctions]."
Cameron's remarks appeared to be a hardening of his position from earlier in the day, when he sidestepped questions about whether he would endorse the French president's call for sanctions.
But the prime minister moved to play down the prospect of military action against Libya, saying: "I do not think we are at that stage yet. We are at the stage of condemning the actions Colonel Gaddafi has taken against his own people."
It is likely the British attitude towards a no-fly zone will toughen if and when its citizens are evacuated.
The government is also concerned that Russia and China could veto a no-fly zone at the United Nations security council, leaving the international community weakened.
Demands for a ban on flights over Libya have been made by Ibrahim al-Dabashi, the country's deputy ambassador to the UN, who is among diplomats who have abandoned Gaddafi.
He said the measure would prevent mercenaries, weapons and other supplies from reaching Gaddafi and his security forces. There have also been fears that Gaddafi could resort to bombing his own people.
Hague said he was cancelling a planned trip to Washington to handle the crisis from London, adding that it would be difficult to get a security council resolution. The council has, though, made a statement condemning Libya's actions.
Hague stressed he wanted an international inquiry into possible war crimes, saying this represented the best chance to stop murder and atrocities by the regime. "They will be held to account. They should hear that message loud and clear," he said.
British diplomatic sources stressed they were not supporting a no-fly zone at this point, because there are fears that too belligerent a western stance might serve to unite some Libyans behind Gaddafi.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, the former foreign secretary Lord Owen became the first British politician to call for a no-fly zone, adding that the west should be concerned about the possibility that Gaddafi would unleash chemical weapons.
"We know that this is a person who could unleash either chemical or biological weapons, which he possibly still has. He is one of the worst despots we have seen for many a century. He is deeply unstable, and has been for 42 years," Owen said.
He called for a UN charter chapter 7 intervention – meaning the authorisation of military and non-military means to "restore international peace and security" – to be enforced by Nato air forces with Egyptian military support to demonstrate regional backing for the effort.
He argued a no-fly zone similar to the one imposed on Saddam Hussein's Iraq in 1991 was feasible and wholly desirable. He said he believed the US would already have put its planes on alert.
Sarkozy went further than any other leading EU politician in calling for military action. "The continuing brutal and bloody repression against the Libyan civilian population is revolting," he said. " The international community cannot remain a spectator to these massive violations of human rights."
The scale of the threat to world security was underlined by reports suggesting Gaddafi had ordered the destruction of oilfields, as well as the growing likelihood that he was willing to see a massive death toll rather than relinquish power.
Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's ambassador to the UN at the time of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, counselled against a no-fly zone, saying there would be strong resistance from China and Russia since they would not want a precedent that might affect them.
He said: "We all know from recent history that interventions of this kind tend to have consequences you haven't foreseen, and I don't think we could get it together quickly enough."
The EU haspushed for an independent, UN-led investigation into the killing of protesters and other human rights abuses allegedly committed by Libyan security forces, saying they "may amount to crimes against humanity".
The proposal was contained in a draft resolution tabled by EU members ahead of Friday's emergency meeting on Libya of the Geneva-based UN human rights council.
The German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, agreed with Sarkozy that sanctions would be "inevitable" if the Libyan regime continued to put down protests so violently.
"There is a great deal of agreement with many partners in the European Union here," he said. "If this violence continues, everyone in Europe will know that this cannot go unanswered.
"I cannot imagine that, given these terrible pictures, these terrible events in our immediate neighbourhood, any other policy is possible in Europe."
Confirmation from Stratfor of what's been discussed here vis the Jasmine Revolution.
If the Chinese people were as dumb as the regime seems to think they are, they wouldn't be such awesome businessmen. The regime has had to liberalize the economy to stay alive. Regimes can't give people freedom with an eye-dropper once they've tasted it.
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Dispatch: Middle East Unrest and China's Resource Interests
February 23, 2011 | 2119 GMT
Vice President of Strategic Intelligence Rodger Baker discusses how the revolutions in the Middle East affect China’s energy interests and complicates Beijing’s ability to manage its international image abroad while maintaining social stability at home.
The Chinese government has been watching the problems in the Middle East very closely. On the one hand there’s an immediate impact obviously on the price of energy, but the Chinese have a very difficult time in balancing their foreign policy and dealing with this situation and in looking at the potential impacts on their domestic stability.
As we see these revolutions or social uprisings happen throughout the Middle East, obviously there has been an impact on energy prices. This is a big concern for Beijing, which is a major importer. But it’s not only the immediate rise in prices that matters for China. As they see these long-standing regimes start to shake, start to fall, they become concerned about their natural resource assets throughout the region.
One of the things the Chinese have had as a competitive advantage in gaining access to resources in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia is their willingness to strike deals with governments that many of the Western firms can’t or won’t for political reasons. This gives the Chinese guaranteed access to mineral resources and guaranteed access to energy resources. It sometimes brings them up against public human rights criticisms, but in the general the Chinese have been able to deal with that. As they watch this spread through North Africa they are concerned that this may have ripple effects throughout the continent and in other places as well. If the Chinese are supporting a regime that, for example, the West is not supporting or is not seen as democratic and they are doing it to gain access to minerals, to gain access to oil, if the regime starts to shake the Chinese in general will come in and try to give support either financially or otherwise.
However, if that regime falls the Chinese run the risk of being too closely linked to the previous leadership and they may have some or all of the deals that they’ve already struck broken away, taken away, given to other individuals and they will lose access to those resources. Some of the places that China may be more concerned about right now is places like Sudan, whether it spreads to places like Algeria, even countries like Zimbabwe or Venezuela, where the Chinese have built a fairly close relationship and been able to leverage their willingness to interact to gain a greater stake in the development of these areas.
As the Chinese look at shaping their image abroad and the way in which they portray these various revolutions abroad, they’re also worried about what’s happening at home. We’ve seen this so-called “Jasmine Revolution” start to happen in China. It’s unclear where it’s going to go or what’s going on with it yet, but this is the type of concern that Beijing has. You have ostensibly a movement that crosses regional boundaries; it crosses socioeconomic boundaries; and the new calls for this coming weekend now cross ethnic boundaries within China. This is the type of potential rising that Beijing would find very, very difficult to manage if it coalesces. For China, this is extremely complex to manage. On the international stage they don’t want to be perceived as a supporter of dictatorial, autocratic regimes that are being overthrown by the popular will of the people. At the same time, at home, they want to make sure that they’re not perceived as a dictatorial regime or an autocratic regime and they want to suppress their own people from being able to rise up and maybe employ the tools they’re seeing being utilized overseas.
RED UNCLE ADDS TO CHINA'S NERVOUSNESS
B.RAMAN
"Go, go, go! Forge on ahead.
"The awakened lion is roaring.
"It will smash corruption, and bury the dictatorship.
"Mighty Egypt has no room for clowns.
"With no equality or human rights, these are the roots of poverty.
"May democracy shine on the Nile.
"Its people are no longer sheep."
2. This is a song ostensibly in praise of the Egyptian Revolution, written and tuned to music by two Chinese, one of whom goes by the name Li Lei, alias Red Uncle and the other by the name Snowman.This song, which started spreading fast among the Netizens community of China, on February 17 has since been blacked out by the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, which is responsible for internal security.
3. According to Radio Free Asia, funded by the US State Department, the song was released onto Chinese video-sharing websites Tudou and Ku6 earlier last week, and had proliferated across at least 30 sites by 6.00 p.m. on February 17, according to searches on Baidu and Google.
By February 18, only two video-sharing sites still carried it, with popular YouTube-style site Tudou producing an error message instead. The music in the song on Egypt is reportedly similar to that in a popular Chinese song on Mao Zedong.
4. Radio Free Asia has quoted Li alias Red Uncle as saying that he and his songwriting partner wanted to use the song to educate their own people, as well as to support the Egyptian revolution, which brought an end to the 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak, whose picture is reportedly seen spinning away in the video. "The people of Egypt have demanded democracy," Li said. "Their political goals are very similar to those of the Chinese people. We felt we had to write this song in support of the Egyptian people.At the same time, it's also an education for us [in China]. That was the aim."
5. According to the Radio,the video was rapidly picked up and passed along by netizens across China, apparently striking a chord with many.
One netizen in the northern city of Chengde reportedly told Li that he had not heard such a rousing and motivating song in ages. Another, a bus driver in Inner Mongolia, reportedly vowed to play it to his passengers. "This guy said that he'd listened to it dozens of times over," Li claimed.
6. Red Uncle added in his interview: "Normally, you need an army to change the course of history.But the ordinary people can also rise up in revolution.And I think the Internet can speed up the rate of social progress and help make history."
7. Worried over the possible impact of the Egyptian Revolution on China, the Chinese Communist Party is reported to have set up an office for maintaining internal stability. In a paper on the internal situation in China presented at a seminar on China organised by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) of New Delhi in the beginning of December, I had drawn attention to the fact that China spends more on internal security than on its armed forces reflecting the nervousness of the Party leadership over internal stability. I had said: "Maintaining internal security against economic unrest in the Han-inhabited coastal areas and against ethnic unrest in the Tibetan and Uighur inhabited border areas has become a major concern. Chinese leaders have, of late, been speaking of their core interests and major concerns. When they talk of their core interests, they mean their disputes with other countries. In their perception, the threats to their core interests arise from abroad. When they talk of major concerns, they largely mean threats to their internal security. The Chinese authorities have seen to it that the rest of the world does not know much of the internal security situation, but it is of major concern to the leadership. This would be obvious from their enormous budgetary allocation for their internal security apparatus, which, according to the “Global Times” of August 23, amounts to US $ 76 billion. If the “Global Times” is to be believed, China spends more money for maintaining political stability than for protecting the country from external threats. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that the leadership is going slow on political reforms." ( http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers43%5Cpaper4207.html )
8. During that presentation, I had said that while the Chinese would continue to be confronted with security and stability related problems in Chinese-Controlled Xinjiang and in the so-called Tibet Autonomous Region, they should have no difficulty in maintaining stability in the Han core of the country. I am not that sure now.
9. I wrote subsequently on December 16: "Can China disintegrate under the weight of its internal security problems? This is unlikely. The undoubted economic prosperity and the interest of the homogenous Hans as a whole in ensuring that this prosperity is maintained guarantees against any tendency towards disintegration in the Han core of the country. The Tibetan and Uighur uprisings have shown that economic prosperity has not diluted their yearnings for freedom. So long as this urge for freedom remains alive, the danger of instability in the border areas will remain. India should closely monitor and study the internal security situation in China without trying to take advantage of it. An unstable and insecure China is not in India’s interest. This should not mean that India should forsake the Tibetans. They are our objective allies. We need to nurse them and help them to keep the flame of Buddhism alive in China. We need to pay more attention to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and interact with him more frequently politically and in religious matters. An alienated Tibet will always look up to India for moral support in its hours of distress. We have a moral responsibility to be attentive to their hopes and fears. How to give back the Tibetans and His Holiness their dignity as a proud civilization without causing the disintegration of peripheral China? This is a question that should keep engaging our attention." ( http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers43%5Cpaper4235.html )
10. That advice remains valid as the Chinese nervousness in the wake of the Egyptian Revolution increases. Don't wish ill of China as a State. But at the same time wish well of its people. If they want democracy here and now, why not? Let the tribe of Red Uncles multiply.May God give them strength and freedom from fear.(22-2-11)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-Mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
February 23, 2011
Dear President Obama,
You do realize that Jimmy “The Failure” Carter only lost Afghanistan to the Soviets? You’ve already lost Egypt and Libya. Inquiring minds want to know will you also be going for Saudi Arabia? I also must mention with each passing disaster your fecklessness causes American citizens have yet another country that they cannot transact business in or visit as tourists. Will we one day have to pull out of Dearborn, Michigan to the cries of Allah Akbar too? Enough of this tomfoolery, but I’ve got to be frank Mr. President, outside of the United States of America and a minority of countries it is a “kill or be killed” world. The last time we got into that type of cold hard reality of a situation globally it was World War 2, and if we lose a quarter of the worlds oil supply that the developed nations and the developing nations depend on we will be there again.
This is also one of the reasons why I’ve written so many times and mentioned that the real price of having a welfare state with open borders that is bankrupt is not just a lowered standard of living, but a country that is unable to militarily defend itself, or our interest globally. Let’s take the recent example of the Somali pirates. I can’t for the life of me understand why we are transporting them for trial? Are you kidding me? We shoot them. Then and there. Your soft hearted liberalism is not just going to get lots of people killed, it is extremely expensive. After you leave office do you think war will be a memory? How’s that Nobel Peace Prize doing?
If you had an ounce of character you’d have given it back by now.
The day is approaching when our desperate need for oil will crack the wall of liberalism with a sonic boom. Without oil this nation grinds to a halt, just like in the 70’s no politician that stands in the way of its procurement will politically survive. None. With the exception of Charlie Rangel, I’ve little doubt he will survive a thermo nuclear war. That means the last flush of liberal democrats is getting all teed up for November 6, 2012, and just like Mr. Limbaugh smacking them down the fairway, the American people are going to put all of you in hole with no political bottom. You can’t scam the American people in perpetuity. If there are enemy lets kill ‘em. If there are debts to pay off, let’s economize and formulate a transparent “no deduction or exemption” tax system, and pay them to a sensible level. If their are social needs to meet, let’s let the States meet them. I know you are not the man for this job and so do the American people. It is only a matter of time until we get to express that with our ballots. Until that time arrives would it be too much to ask if you could not make too much of the world hate the United States of America?
Respectfully,
Joe Doakes