from STRATFOR
A Serial Bomber in Phoenix
May 31, 2012 | 0900 GMT
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Stratfor
By Scott Stewart
A small improvised explosive device (IED) detonated at a Salvation Army distribution center in Phoenix, Ariz., on the afternoon of May 24. Two Salvation Army employees discovered the explosive device, which was concealed inside a yellow, hand-held 6-volt flashlight, as they were sorting through a box of donated items. The IED exploded when one of the employees picked up the flashlight and attempted to turn it on. The blast was not very powerful, and the two employees suffered only minor injuries.
This was the third incident in the Greater Phoenix area in recent weeks involving an IED concealed in a flashlight. Two explosive devices very similar to the May 24 IED exploded May 13 and May 14 in Glendale, Ariz., a city in the Greater Phoenix metropolitan area. Both devices were abandoned in public places. In the May 13 incident, a woman discovered a yellow, hand-held 6-volt flashlight next to a tree outside a Glendale business. When the woman picked up the flashlight and attempted to turn it on, it exploded, causing minor scratches and bruises to her face and hands. It also inflicted minor wounds to a woman beside her. The next day, a man found an identical flashlight in a ditch where he was working in another part of Glendale. He was lightly injured when the flashlight exploded as he attempted to turn it on.
So far, the explosive devices have failed to cause significant injury or death, but they do seem to indicate that there is a serial bombmaker operating in the Phoenix area. While it is not yet clear what the bombmaker's motives are, past cases of serial bombers suggest that the publicity he has received and the fear he has invoked will likely influence him to continue manufacturing explosive devices until he is captured. (Based on earlier cases involving serial bombers, it is also safe to assume that the culprit in the Phoenix area is a man.) The bombmaker's method of concealing his explosive devices may also change after gaining publicity for this wave of attacks. Finally, there is a chance that the destructive effect of the bombmaker's devices will increase as he becomes more proficient at building IEDs.
Serial Bombers
Serial bombmakers vary greatly in skill, motivation and affiliation. Most bombmakers involved with militant groups are, in effect, serial bombers, especially when they are exceptional bombmakers such as those we discussed in the May 17 Security Weekly. These include individuals such as Abu Ibrahim of the Black September Organization, Yahya Ayyash of Hamas or al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's Ibrahim Hassan Tali al-Asiri. Such individuals typically create hundreds, if not thousands, of innovative explosive devices for their groups' terrorist operations over a span of many years.
However, not all serial bombmakers are associated with a militant group. There is a long history of individuals who have operated as serial bombers. From 1940 to 1956, George Metesky, who was known in the media as "The Mad Bomber," deployed 33 IEDs, 22 of which detonated, and injured 15 people. Metesky was angry after being denied disability pay following an injury he sustained while working for Consolidated Edison, Inc. After planting two explosive devices in 1940, Metesky observed a self-imposed moratorium on bombing attacks during World War II. He deployed the bulk of his devices -- pipe bombs -- from 1951 to 1956. He attacked not only Consolidated Edison, but also theaters, the New York subway system, the New York Public Library, Radio City Music Hall, Grand Central Station and other targets. Metesky was arrested after Consolidated Edison personnel managers identified him based on details he provided in threatening letters.
One of the most famous serial bombers in recent years was Theodore Kaczynski, also known as the "Unabomber." UNABomb was an FBI case name that stood for "University and Airline Bomber" -- Kaczynski's first targets. From May 1978 until April 1995, Kaczynski deployed 16 IEDs that killed a total of three people and injured 23 more. Like the Metesky case, it was Kaczynski's writings that allowed him to be identified, though it was Kaczynski's brother who identified him for authorities. As demonstrated in his manifesto, titled Industrial Society and Its Future (1995), Kaczynski was motivated by a fear of technology. He called for a revolution against modern society's "industrial-technological system."
Eric Rudolph first came onto the scene in July 1996 when a bomb he planted in Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park detonated during the 1996 Summer Olympics. Rudolph also conducted IED attacks against abortion clinics in Atlanta in 1997 and in Birmingham, Ala., in 1998 and against a gay bar in Atlanta in 1997. Rudolph's IED attacks killed two and wounded more than 100. Rudolph was motivated by his extreme anti-abortion and anti-homosexual convictions.
Not all serial bombers have intended to kill their targets. From 1994 to 2006, an unidentified bombmaker known by the media as the "Italian Unabomber" planted dozens of small IEDs in various locations in Italy. While many of the IEDs were pipe bombs, the Italian bombmaker also concealed IEDs in cans of tomato paste, cigarette lighters, church votive candles and in items intended to target children, such as bottles of soap bubbles, colored markers and Kinder Eggs. The size of many of these devices suggests that the bombmaker hoped to maim and terrorize his victims but not kill them. A suspect was arrested in the Italian case but was later acquitted, and the case has never been officially solved. Since many serial bombmakers, such as Metesky and Kaczynski, go through periods when they suspend bombmaking activity, it is possible that the Italian bombmaker is still at large and will attack again.
The Learning Curve
Of these historical examples, Rudolph stands out because from the beginning of his campaign he used relatively powerful devices that were constructed with a main charge of commercial dynamite and that contained nails as added shrapnel. From the outset, Rudolph appeared to have been bent on killing. This is different from the case of the Italian Unabomber. Rudolph's explosive devices also functioned as designed, and his first device proved deadly, an accomplishment aided by the fact that he was constructing them from stolen commercial explosive components rather than dealing with homemade bomb components and explosive mixtures.
However, all serial bombmakers must overcome a learning curve. A bombmaker's first explosive devices typically malfunction or only partially detonate until he perfects his craft. For example, the two devices Metesky deployed in 1940 failed to explode, but when he resumed his bombing campaign in 1951, his first device functioned as intended. Still, of the 33 devices Metesky planted, one-third of them did not function as designed. Likewise, Kaczynski's initial explosive devices caused only light injuries. It was not until the 1980s that his bombs began to cause significant injuries to their victims, and he did not kill his first victim until 1985. By the mid-1990s, Kaczynski had become very deadly. His last two bombing attacks, in December 1994 and April 1995, both proved fatal.
A malfunction is not uncommon when a self-taught bombmaker constructs an IED using a new design and does not have the time or the place to test it. Essentially testing the explosive device when he deploys it, the bombmaker applies lessons from one operation to the next to improve his devices. This progression of bombmaking competence has also been displayed in many cases involving militant groups. Based on these cases, we believe it is highly likely that if the Phoenix bombmaker is not identified and arrested, he will continue along the learning curve and eventually construct more powerful -- and thus more deadly -- IEDs.
At this point it is unclear what is motivating the serial bombmaker in Phoenix. Young men sometimes construct small IEDs for their own amusement -- and not necessarily for use in an attack -- but in such cases they usually want to watch their devices detonate, oftentimes even recording the detonations to post them online. They will sometimes use such devices in pranks, such as to blow up mailboxes, but again, they usually like to observe the results.
Abandoning IEDs in booby-trapped items for people to find and activate suggests a different motive. Reports suggest that there were ceramic shards and BBs added to the Phoenix devices. This indicates that the devices were intended to harm people rather than just scare them. There are reports that a pair of dice was found at the scene of one of the Glendale explosions, which has led some to speculate that the dice were left by the bomber as a calling card. Similarly, the box containing the booby-trapped flashlight in the Salvation Army attack also held books that were predominately concerned with murders and serial killers; this may also prove to be some sort of calling card.
A Bombmaker's Signature
Forensic science has come a long way since the days of Metesky. Urged along by international terrorism cases and cases like the Unabomber investigation, bomb investigators, chemists and forensic technicians are far more advanced in their craft than they were a few years ago.
In a bombing, the evidence is not completely vaporized as many people believe. Certainly, the explosive charge may be mostly or completely detonated, but it will still leave behind traces of chemical residue that allow the explosive to be identified. In addition, portions of the main charge often times will not be detonated, especially with homemade explosive mixtures. Although they are frequently shattered and scattered, significant portions of the device's firing chain often can be recovered in a careful bomb crime scene investigation. It is not unusual to find batteries, wires, switches or pieces of clock or circuit board during a post-blast investigation. Sometimes pieces of the aluminum body of a blasting cap can be found.
In the case of the Phoenix bombings, the fact that the flashlights did not explode with much force will likely assist the police in their post-blast investigation, since device components were probably not thrown very far or even that badly damaged. It is also possible that an identifiable fingerprint or trace DNA evidence can be recovered from the explosive device. If used in the construction of the device, electrical tape is often an excellent place to recover such evidence.
Like other craftsmen, bombmakers tend to do things a certain way and to repeat it from project to project. They also favor certain components and tend to string these components together in much the same way. They will often connect the wires together in the same manner, use the same type of solder, connectors or tape, and in many cases they will even use the same tools to cut wires or other items, leaving tool marks that can be compared microscopically. All these unique factors combine to form what is referred to as a bombmaker's "signature." In many cases this signature is as unique and personalized as an actual written signature.
According to reports, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) laboratory is working on the Phoenix case. The ATF lab has many decades of working post-blast investigations and, along with the FBI, has been heavily involved in maintaining something called the U.S. Bomb Data Center, which is a repository of data pertaining to bombing investigations that can be cross-referenced to uncover ties to past cases. The ATF lab, like the FBI lab's explosives section, also maintains an extensive database of bomb components and other signature items.
However, unless there is a bomb signature item, fingerprint or trace DNA evidence that can be readily connected to a suspect, or unless authorities are able to trace one of the components (such as the flashlight) back to the place of purchase, it is likely that the bombmaker will attack again -- serial bombers usually do. The next time, the devices may be disguised in a different manner and may be more powerful.
Read more: A Serial Bomber in Phoenix | Stratfor
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
The Scarborough Shoal Dispute in America’s Asia-Pacific Pivot
RSIS presents the following commentary The Scarborough Shoal Dispute in America’s Asia-Pacific Pivot by Catherine Samaniego. It is also available online at this link. (To print it, click on this link.). Kindly forward any comments or feedback to the Editor RSIS Commentaries, at RSISPublication@ntu.edu.sg
No. 090/2012 dated 28 May 2012
The Scarborough Shoal Dispute in America’s
Asia-Pacific Pivot
By Catherine Samaniego
Synopsis
The intensifying tension between China and the Philippines over Scarborough Shoal calls for an impartial intervention from the US. The peaceful resolution of the dispute lies in how the US successfully maneuvers between its traditional ally and its biggest competitor.
Commentary
FRICTION IN China-Philippine relations vis-à-vis the cluster of rock formations in South China Sea, known as “Scarborough Shoal,” has been rekindled not long after the US announced its pivot to the Asia-Pacific. While the Philippine government is actively seeking U.S. support in addressing the issue, China has staunchly discouraged third-party involvement in an attempt to prevent internationalization of the dispute.
Safeguarding the Sea Lines of Communication
In November 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proclaimed the US’s landmark return to Asia-Pacific, dubbing the 21st century as “America’s Pacific Century.” For many, this marked the beginning of the reinforcement of US presence in the region; but for some, this was merely a “continuation,” on the premise that the US never departed the region. Nevertheless, the resurgence of US interest in the western Pacific is neither driven solely by its desire to maintain its hegemonic status nor impede the transformation of a China-centered regional system. Rather, part of this strategy is also to assure that the existing maritime disputes do not escalate into an all-out naval warfare that could jeopardize the navigability of the Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC).
The South China Sea is undoubtedly a vital artery of the world economic system and is integral to the pursuit of American objectives in Asia, contributing approximately US$ 1.2 Trillion to the US economy. Since this altercation may only be expected to heat up as interest groups from both sides continue to fan the flames of nationalism, it would not be in the US’ best interest to assume a passive stance and allow this critical stretch of water to turn into a battlefield.
Assumptions and Misperceptions
Although Philippine leaders have publicly claimed that its biggest ally is obliged to provide protection by virtue of the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT), the US has been careful not to release any official statement confirming or denying this. An important underlying issue in this context is the varying interpretations of the stipulations therein. In contrast to the assumptions made by Philippine officials with respect to the MDT, some have come to conclude that this security cover only applies to acts of aggression by a foreign military entity on the main Philippine islands. This notion stems from the fact that the US has offered no indication as to whether or not it fully and officially recognizes Scarborough Shoal as part of Philippine territory.
Therefore, in spite of the deployment of the nuclear-powered fast attack submarine USS North Carolina, there is no concrete guarantee that the US would come to the Philippine’s rescue if push comes to shove. At the moment, this development may only be interpreted as an attempt by the US at appeasing the Filipinos and flexing its political muscle. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that such an action could contribute to the escalation of the conflict by provoking China.
For all its burgeoning military capabilities, China has been exercising great restraint in reacting to Philippine claims, as evidenced by the absence of Chinese warships from the disputed area. China realizes that resorting to force could not only potentially weaken its relations with the rest of ASEAN, but adversely affect its unsettled maritime disputes with Japan and the Koreas as well.
Furthermore, argued analysts, the Chinese government could be using the flare-up as a means of veering attention away from scandals involving one of its top political figures, Bo Xilai, and the blind civil rights activist, Chen Guangcheng. In other words, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) may be seizing the opportunity to sustain its credibility by disguising intra-Party challenges with the veil of political unity and patriotism.
The US as a mediator
Preserving US interests in the Asia-Pacific alongside a flourishing China need not be tantamount to conflict. Needless to say, US involvement must fall within certain limits to attest to its supposed neutrality, and to allow tensions in China-Philippine relations to subside. It can do so by promoting peaceful means geared toward compromise as opposed to conflict, as laid out in the ASEAN-China Declaration of the Code of Conduct on the South China Sea 2002 (DOC).
In line with China’s refusal to bring this matter to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), it has been suggested that the US’ ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) might hold the key to the settlement of the dispute, as this would strongly compel China to comply. However such a likelihood can be safely ruled out by two factors: 1) China’s exemption from the provisions of UNCLOS concerning the demarcation of maritime boundaries based on “historic title;” and 2) the foreseen constraints US adherence might inflict on its own strategic mobility.
On that account, the most sensible step would be for the US to refrain from provocative acts so as not to invite a hostile response. Doing so would help diminish the possibility of a naval conflict in the South China Sea that could threaten free access to SLOCs. Given China’s self-restraint in deploying warships to Scarborough Shoal, there should be relatively little concern about an escalation of conflict, provided that the US and the Philippines do not undertake efforts that could be perceived by China as threatening.
Ultimately, both China and the Philippines must realize that they have very little to benefit from treading along the shores of fervent nationalism. Therefore, they have no other option but to engage in collaboration in an increasingly interdependent world.
The writer, who is a candidate for Masters in International Relations, is an intern with the Centre for Multilateral Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University.
Medvedev Warns of Danger of 'Nuclear Apocalypse'
This article, by Helga Zepp LaRouche, shows that there is no distinction between the total collapse of the western monetary system which is now taking place, and the effort by London and Wall Street, using their tool Obama, to provoke a war with Russia and perhaps China, possibly using "regime change" wars against Syria or Iran, or both, to get at Russia. This article appears in the May 25, 2012 issue of Executive Intelligence Review. Mike Billington
Medvedev Warns of Danger
of 'Nuclear Apocalypse'by Helga Zepp-LaRouche
May 18—It is obvious how dramatic the world situation is, when Charles Dallara, the managing director of the International Institute of Finance, characterizes the results of an exit from the Eurozone by Greece as "between catastrophic and Apocalypse," and Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev warns a day later: "Infringing on national sovereignty could lead to a nuclear Apocalypse," as Russia Today headlined his remarks. Apparently different subject areas—yet both processes are most closely connected.
On the eve of his visit to the United States for the meeting of the G8, and the immediately following NATO summit, Medvedev delivered an unequivocal warning at the International Legal Forum in St. Petersburg. The policy of certain Western states, of violating the national sovereignty of certain states under the pretext of humanitarian intervention, he said, could easily lead to full-scale regional wars, including the use of nuclear weapons. With that statement, the Russian government once again conveyed the message that President Vladimir Putin had delivered himself in a decree issued immediately after taking office: Russian will not allow further aggressive wars under the pretext of humanitarian intervention according to the model of the war against Libya—in this case, against Syria, Iran, and other states.
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin had previously pointed out that Eastern Europe is making itself a target and a hostage, when it participates in a strategy of encirclement against Russia, and Chief of the General Staff Gen. Nikolai Makarov had recently announced, at a security conference in Moscow, the possibility of carrying out a preventive strike against the planned U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense System in Eastern Europe, in the case that the U.S. and NATO stick to their current scheme. Therefore, the world finds itself at the brink of a Third World War.
President Putin is said to have transmitted the same message via Russian diplomats across the globe to the respective host nations, a policy of absolute respect for national sovereignty, that by now is called the "Putin Doctrine." The Russian President responded immediately after his inauguration to the creation of the so-called "Atrocity Prevention Board" of the Obama Administration, a new government agency that, under the pretext of combatting violations of democracy and human rights, topples regimes disagreeable to it.
Application of the Blair Doctrine
Obama is essentially only implementing the so-called Blair Doctrine, which former British Prime Minister Tony Blair had put forward in his infamous 1999 speech in Chicago during the Kosovo War. Blair asserted at that time that the era of the Peace of Westphalia, and with it the respect for national sovereignty, was over. In its place the "Community of States," by which he naturally meant the Anglo-American empire, is to have the authority to make military interventions for "humanitarian purposes." Ever since, this has meant in practice that all states that defy the empire, based upon the special relationship between the United States and Great Britain, will be designated as belonging to the "Axis of Evil," and regime change will be brought about, be it through military intervention, sanctions, or subversive activities.
The pressing issue now is the destabilization and drive for regime change against Syria and Iran. It is no secret that the so-called opposition in Syria is directed and financed from London, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, and to a great extent consists of al-Qaeda networks, the subject of a present probe in the American Congress. It is likewise known that members of the Israeli secret service have for a long time conducted false-flag sabotage operations in Iran, and may have taken part in the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. It is also known that in the Arabian Sea, the eastern Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean, there are enormous American, British, Canadian, and other naval flotillas, which have at their command a potential for nuclear destruction that is orders of magnitude greater than that which would be deployed in a regional conflict in the Near East and Persian Gulf region.
At the latest, in late Summer of last year, when Putin and Medvedev had announced the switch of their offices, the same apparatus that was already responsible for the "Orange Revolution" against Ukraine and diverse other revolutions, had attempted, in vain, to set into motion a so-called "White Revolution" against the Russian government. It must have been clear to everyone that the intention of the British Empire was regime change for Russia as well. In the context of the forward deployment of U.S. ballistic missile defense systems in Europe by the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, along with Obama's policy of encirclement of China in the Pacific, it is obvious that, for the Russian government, the tripwire has been reached, the absolute limit which can't be exceeded without catastrophe.
Respecting International Law
In his St. Petersburg speech, Prime Minister Medvedev emphatically opposed the line that the system of international law has become obsolete. Even if it, like everything else in life, must be modernized, that must not mean that its essential principles be abandoned. It would be especially dangerous to violate the fundamental principles of the UN Charter, which is the only court of justice before which the international community can bring its problems. And the UN Charter underscores the highest power of law and the sovereignty of states. The extremely important concept of national sovereignty may not be undermined, otherwise the global order would be in danger.
Military operations against other nations, circumventing the UN; the conferring of legitimacy to a particular political regime by foreign governments instead of by its own population, again circumventing international institutions—all of this degrades the situation in the world, Medvedev said, and precipitous military interventions into the affairs of other nations have shown themselves to lead only to the assumption of power by radical forces. "Such actions, which undermine state sovereignty, can easily lead to full-scale regional wars, and even—I am not trying to scare anyone here—to the deployment of nuclear weapons. Everyone should remember this especially when we analyze the concept of national sovereignty," said Medvedev with unmistakable emphasis.
Especially U.S. Congressmen and Senators who have ties to the military are, like the Russians, in a state of highest alert over the possibility that President Obama, in a repeat of the war of aggression against Libya, could set into motion military operations against Syria and Iran, and possibly even against Russia and China. This is demonstrated by the legislation introduced by Democratic Sen. Jim Webb (Va.), whose resolution demands that Obama obtain the agreement of the Congress before launching so-called humanitarian interventions; and also by Republican Rep. Walter Jones (N.C.), whose resolution, HCR 107, would initiate the impeachment of the President in the event of unprovoked military actions without the consent of Congress. In the text of his bill, Senator Webb emphasized—in a clear allusion to the Blair Doctrine—the significance of the American Constitution, which, in contrast to British law, grants the right to declare war exclusively to the Congress (and not to a king or prime minister.)
Without the anti-war mobilization that Lyndon LaRouche launched in November of last year, and without the massive interventions of leading American military officers, the wars against Syria, Iran, and thereby against Russia and China, would in all probability have already taken place. On May 15, Gen. James Cartwright (ret.), who, until last September, was acting head of U.S. the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned that the concept of "Air-Sea-Battle" was demonizing China, and that Russia had a justified concern that the U.S. ballistic missile defense system in Europe would destroy the strategic balance. "There's the potential," he said, "that you could, in fact, generate a scenario in which, in a bolt from the blue, we launch a pre-emptive attack, and then use missile defense to weed out their residual fires [that is, destroy their second strike capability—HZL].... We're going to have to think our way out of this."
No Illusions About Obama!
The U.S. military officers are less romantically befogged than many Europeans, who still don't wish to recognize that Obama is in no way the Messiah, as he was depicted during the 2008 election, but on the contrary, has not only propagated the policies of George W. Bush, but has actually escalated them on all fronts. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) permits the indefinite detention of persons, including Americans, anywhere in the world, without due process; drone deployments have killed roughly 5,000 people in the past three years, including many civilians; Obama has repeatedly overridden the constitutional rights of the Congress, and, in the tradition of [Nazi crown jurist] Carl Schmitt, ruled by decree; and above all, he has demonstrated, in the case of the war against Libya and the brutal execution of Qaddafi, that he is absolutely prepared to flout the Constitution.
In light of the imminently threatening confrontation with Russia and China, it is clear to many patriotic Americans that only impeachment proceedings pursuant to Section 4 of the 25th Amendment can prevent a great catastrophe.
The war danger is obviously not the result of anything that Russia and China are doing, but rather simply that they exist and are led by governments that are focusing on economic growth and scientific and technological progress, while the trans-Atlantic world is going under, with its casino economy and Green policy. And as long as the European nations submit to the diktat of the EU and consequently the policy of the British Empire, we are caught in a trap.
There is a way out: the immediate implementation of a two-tier banking system in the tradition of Franklin Roosevelt's Glass-Steagall law; the reclaiming of national sovereignty over one's own monetary and economic policy, and a credit system for the reconstruction of the real economy, with an economic miracle for southern Europe as part of the construction of the Eurasian Land-Bridge.
—translated from German by Daniel Platt
House Passes HR 4133 Binding the US to Israel and Their War Agenda
"ANOTHER BIG WARM AND FUZZY...
Israel [Rothschild proxy] will now have "unlimited access" to U.S. [Taxpayer] funds from the [Rothschild-owned] Federal Reserve Bank.
That's so they can destroy those nasty Iranian Muslim "Terrists."
GEEEEEZ, THOUGHT THIS GUY OBAMA WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A MUSLIM..."
House Passes HR 4133 Binding the US to Israel and Their War Agenda
Susanne Posel
Infowars.com
May 25, 2012
Without any mainstream media coverage at all, the House of Representatives passed the United States – Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act of 2012 (USIESC).
The USIESC, written by Eric Cantor , claims there is a need to provide Israel with unlimited military and financial aid as a result of the disturbances caused by the Arab Spring.
Israel will have an essentially unlimited amount of funds allocated to them through the Federal Reserve Bank. The country will also enjoy an “expanded role of NATO” that consists of an “enhanced presence at NATO headquarters and exercises”.
The USIESC pledges the US government’s “commitment” to assist Israel in remaining a Jewish State; as well as protection from the UN if the UN Security Council resolves to hold Israel accountable to international laws.
The US government’s counter-terrorism unit will also aid Israel by any means.
This USIESC asserts that “supported by the American people” [SIC!!!] the US government will “repeatedly affirm the special bond [Host-Parasite] between the United States and Israel” and that the two countries have “shared values and shared interests.” [SIC!!!]
If there were ever language to suppose that there were a merging of these two nations, the USIESC fits that bill.
The Executive Summary of USIESC says that “the following actions to assist in the defense of Israel” are:
(1) Provide Israel such support as may be necessary to increase development and production of joint missile defense systems, particularly such systems that defend the urgent threat posed to Israel and United States forces in the region.
(2) Provide Israel assistance specifically for the production and procurement of the Iron Dome defense system for purposes of intercepting short-range missiles, rockets, and projectiles launched against Israel.
(3) Provide Israel defense articles and defense services through such mechanisms as appropriate, to include air refueling tankers, missile defense capabilities, and specialized munitions.
(4) Allocate additional weaponry and munitions for the forward-deployed United States stockpile in Israel.
(5) Provide Israel additional surplus defense articles and defense services, as appropriate, in the wake of the withdrawal of United States forces from Iraq.
(6) Strengthen efforts to prevent weapons smuggling into Gaza pursuant to the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access following the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and to protect against weapons smuggling and terrorist threats from the Sinai Peninsula.
(7) Offer the Israeli Air Force additional training and exercise opportunities in the United States to compensate for Israel’s limited air space.
(8) Expand Israel’s authority to make purchases under the Foreign Military Financing program on a commercial basis.
(9) Seek to enhance the capabilities of the United States and Israel to address emerging common threats, increase security cooperation, and expand joint military exercises.
(10) Encourage an expanded role for Israel within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), including an enhanced presence at NATO headquarters and exercises.
(11) Expand already-close intelligence cooperation, including satellite intelligence, with Israel.
USIESC goes on to claim that: “Iran, (3) which has long sought to foment instability and promote extremism in the Middle East, is now seeking to (4) exploit the dramatic political transition underway in the region to undermine governments traditionally aligned with the United States and support extremist political movements in these countries.”
On the contrary, Israel and the US have been the biggest proponents of violence toward unprovoked nations in recent times. The collaboration of the US, Israel and NATO, with help from CIA operatives al-Qaeda and other US funded terrorist groups, have synthesized fake revolutions (i.e. the Arab Spring) to destabilize foreign governments and force regime changes.
Right now, al-Qaeda is being used by the Obama administration to force the Syrian President out of office through repeated attacks and massive killing of innocent Syrians.
In Africa, specifically the south Sudan region, Obama has teamed up with Israel to create the new nation of South Sudan by using terrorism to force their current government out.
USIESC continues its assault on Iran: “At the same time, (5) Iran may soon attain a nuclear weapons capability, a development that would fundamentally threaten vital American interests, destabilize the region, encourage regional nuclear proliferation, further empower and embolden Iran, (6) the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, and (7) provide it the tools to threaten its neighbors, including Israel”.
Although publicly, both the Obama administration and the Israeli government have admitted that Iran has absolutely no intention of building nuclear weapons. Both governments assume that by using words like “they may” or “they might” denotes a definite intention to do so.
The Mullahs that have ultimate authority in Iran have stated numerous times that the acquisition and use of nuclear weapons goes against the law of Islam. Independent studies, outside of the US and Israeli reach, have also confirmed that not only does Iran not have nuclear weapons at present, but are not perusing their allocation.
To justify the fabricated “need” to assist Israel in remaining “safe” the USIESC states : “As a result, (8) the strategic environment that has kept Israel secure and safeguarded United States national interests for the past 35 years has eroded.”
At the present time, Israel is in possession of an estimated 200 – 300 nuclear weapons. They are the covert superpower of the world. Israel also enjoys one of the most intensive and explicit armies in the world. While Israel continues to invade the sovereign nations that surround them, they are not being invaded themselves.
The USIESC is a propaganda piece of legislation designed to set the stage for full military support of Israel when they launch an unprovoked strike against Iran. While now, there are campaigns to coerce a fake grassroots effort to force a regime change in Iran, the inevitability of war declarations are looming in the distance.
China and Russia have made it clear that they have absolutely no intention of ending their relations with Iran.
The distractions in the mainstream media concerning Obama are just that. The sudden inflation of gay rights in the political arena and other nonsensical and unimportant social memes are being touted as if they will define our nation.
The USIESC has clearly set a precedent and definition of who America is.
The Obama administration, under careful control of the global Elite, is consolidating powers with Israel in a joint effort to take over the world . . . by toppling one government at a time.
Susanne Posel’s website is Occupy Corporatism.
For further edification:
The power of the AIPAC Lobby
Experts detail the danger of Israeli lobby in US politics
Israelis brag how they run the USA.
The Egyptian Election and the Arab Spring
from STRATFOR
The Egyptian Election and the Arab Spring
May 29, 2012 | 0905 GMT
Stratfor
By George Friedman
The Egyptian presidential election was held last week. No candidate received 50 percent of the vote, so a runoff will be held between the two leading candidates, Mohammed Morsi and Ahmed Shafiq. Morsi represented the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party and received 25.3 percent of the vote, while Shafiq, a former Egyptian air force commander and the last prime minister to serve in Hosni Mubarak's administration, received 24.9 percent. There were, of course, charges of irregularities, but in general the results made sense. The Islamist faction had done extremely well in the parliamentary election, and fear of an Islamist president caused the substantial Coptic community, among others, to support the candidate of the old regime, which had provided them at least some security.
Morsi and Shafiq effectively tied in the first round, and either can win the next round. Morsi's strength is that he has the support of both the Islamist elements and those who fear a Shafiq presidency and possible return to the old regime. Shafiq's strength is that he speaks for those who fear an Islamist regime. The question is who will win the non-Islamist secularists' support. They oppose both factions, but they are now going to have to live with a president from one of them. If their secularism is stronger than their hatred of the former regime, they will go with Shafiq. If not, they will go with Morsi. And, of course, it is unclear whether the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the military committee that has ruled Egypt since the fall of Mubarak, will cede any real power to either candidate, especially since the constitution hasn't even been drafted.
This is not how the West, nor many Egyptians, thought the Arab Spring would turn out in Egypt. Their mistake was overestimating the significance of the democratic secularists, how representative the anti-Mubarak demonstrators were of Egypt as a whole, and the degree to which those demonstrators were committed to Western-style democracy rather than a democracy that represented Islamist values.
What was most underestimated was the extent to which the military regime had support, even if Mubarak did not. Shafiq, the former prime minister in that regime, could very well win. The regime may not have generated passionate support or even been respected in many ways, but it served the interests of any number of people. Egypt is a cosmopolitan country, and one that has many people who still take seriously the idea of an Arab, rather than Islamist, state. They fear the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Islamism and have little confidence in the ability of other parties, such as the socialists, who came in third, to protect them. For some, such as the Copts, the Islamists are an existential threat. The military regime, whatever its defects, is a known bulwark against the Muslim Brotherhood. The old order is attractive to many because it is known; what the Muslim Brotherhood will become is not known and is frightening to those committed to secularism. They would rather live under the old regime.
What was misunderstood was that while there was in fact a democratic movement in Egypt, the liberal democrats who wanted a Western-style regime were not the ones exciting popular sentiment. What was exciting it was the vision of a popularly elected Islamist coalition moving to create a regime that institutionalized Islamic religious values.
Westerners looked at Egypt and saw what they wanted and expected to see. They looked at Egyptians and saw themselves. They saw a military regime operating solely on brute force without any public support. They saw a mass movement calling for the overthrow of the regime and assumed that the bulk of the movement was driven by the spirit of Western liberalism. The result is that we have a showdown not between the liberal democratic mass and a crumbling military regime but between a representative of the still-powerful regime (Shafiq) and the Muslim Brotherhood.
If we understand how the Egyptian revolution was misunderstood, we can begin to make sense of the misunderstanding about Syria. There seemed to be a crumbling, hated regime in Syria as well. And there seemed to be a democratic uprising that represented much of the population and that wanted to replace the al Assad regime with one that respected human rights and democratic values in the Western sense. The regime was expected to crumble any day under the assaults of its opponents. As in Egypt, the regime has not collapsed and the story is much more complex.
Syrian President Bashar al Assad operates a brutal dictatorship that he inherited from his father, a regime that has been in power since 1970. The regime is probably unpopular with most Syrians. But it also has substantial support. This support doesn't simply come from the al Assads' Alawite sect but extends to other minorities and many middle-class Sunnis as well. They have done well under the regime and, while unhappy with many things, they are not eager to face a new regime, again likely dominated by Islamists whose intentions toward them are unclear. They may not be enthusiastic supporters of the regime, but they are supporters.
The opposition also has supporters -- likely a majority of the Syrian people -- but it is divided, as is the Egyptian opposition, between competing ideologies and personalities. This is why for the past year Western expectations for Syria have failed to materialize. The regime, as unpopular as it may be, has support, and that support has helped block a seriously divided opposition.
One of the problems of Western observers is that they tend to take their bearings from the Eastern European revolutions of 1989. These regimes were genuinely unpopular. That unpopularity originated in the fact that the regimes were imposed from the outside -- from the Soviet Union after World War II -- and the governments were seen as tools of a foreign government. At the same time, many of the Eastern European nations had liberal democratic traditions and, like the rest of Europe, were profoundly secular (with some exceptions in Poland). There was a consensus that the state was illegitimate and that the desired alternative was a European-style democracy. Indeed, the desire to become part of a democratic Europe captured the national imagination.
The Arab Spring was different, but Westerners did not always understand the difference. The regimes did not come into being as foreign impositions. Nasserism, the ideology of Gamal Abdel Nasser, who both founded the modern Egyptian state and set the stage for an attempt at an Arab revolution, was not imposed from the outside. Indeed, it was an anti-Western movement, opposed to both European imperialism and what was seen as American aggression. When Hafez al Assad staged his coup in Syria in 1970, or Moammar Gadhafi staged his in Libya in 1969, these were nationalistic movements designed to assert both their national identity and their anti-Western sentiment.
These were also unashamedly militaristic regimes. Nasser, inspired by the example of Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, saw his revolution as secular and representing mass sentiment, but not simply as democratic in the Western sense. He saw the military as the most modern and most nationally representative institution. He also saw the military as the protector of secularism.
The military coups that swept the Arab world from the 1950s to the early 1970s were seen as nationalist, secularist and anti-imperialist. Their opponents were labeled as representing Western interests and corrupt and outmoded regimes with close religious ties. They were not liberal regimes, in the sense of being champions of free speech and political parties, but they did claim to represent the interests of their people, and to a great extent, particularly at the beginning, they earned that claim.
Since the realignment of Egypt with the United States and the fall of the Soviet Union, with which many of these states were allied, the sense that these regimes were nationalist declined. But it never evaporated. Certainly they were never seen as regimes imposed by foreign armies, as was the case in Eastern Europe. And their credentials as secularists remained credible. What they were not were liberal democracies, but they weren't founded as such. From the Western point of view, that delegitimized everything else.
What the Westerners forgot was that these regimes arose as expressions of nationalism against Western imperialism. The more that Westerners intervened against them, as in Iraq, the more support at least the principle of the regime would evince. But most important, Westerners did not always recognize that the demand for democratic elections would emerge as a battleground between secular and religious tendencies, and not as the crucible from which Western-style liberal democracies would emerge. Nor did Westerners appreciate the degree to which these regimes defended religious minorities from hostile majorities precisely because they weren't democratic. The Copts in Egypt cling to the old regime as their protector. The Alawites see the Syrian conflict as a struggle for their own survival.
The outcome of the Egyptian election, which now pits a former general and prime minister of the Mubarak regime against the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, demonstrates this dilemma perfectly. This is the regime that Nasser founded. It is the protector of secularism and minority rights against those who it is feared will impose religious law. The regime may have grown corrupt under Mubarak, but it still represents a powerful tendency among the Egyptians.
The Muslim Brotherhood may win, in which case it will be important to see what the Egyptian military council does. But the idea that there is overwhelming support in Egypt for Western-style democracy is simply not true. The issues Egyptians and those in other Arab countries battle over derive from their own history, and in that history, the military and the state it created played a heroic role in asserting nationalism and secularism. The non-military secular parties don't have the same tradition to draw on.
As in many Arab countries that underwent Nasserite transformations, the army remains both a guarantor against Islamists and of the rights of some religious minorities. The minorities are the enemy of the resurgent religious factions. Those factions may win, but regardless of who prevails, the outcome will not be what many celebrants of the Arab Spring expected. We are down to the military and the Islamists. The issue is no longer what they are against. This year's question is what they are for. This is not Prague or Budapest and it doesn't want to be.
Read more: The Egyptian Election and the Arab Spring | Stratfor
The Egyptian Election and the Arab Spring
May 29, 2012 | 0905 GMT
Stratfor
By George Friedman
The Egyptian presidential election was held last week. No candidate received 50 percent of the vote, so a runoff will be held between the two leading candidates, Mohammed Morsi and Ahmed Shafiq. Morsi represented the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party and received 25.3 percent of the vote, while Shafiq, a former Egyptian air force commander and the last prime minister to serve in Hosni Mubarak's administration, received 24.9 percent. There were, of course, charges of irregularities, but in general the results made sense. The Islamist faction had done extremely well in the parliamentary election, and fear of an Islamist president caused the substantial Coptic community, among others, to support the candidate of the old regime, which had provided them at least some security.
Morsi and Shafiq effectively tied in the first round, and either can win the next round. Morsi's strength is that he has the support of both the Islamist elements and those who fear a Shafiq presidency and possible return to the old regime. Shafiq's strength is that he speaks for those who fear an Islamist regime. The question is who will win the non-Islamist secularists' support. They oppose both factions, but they are now going to have to live with a president from one of them. If their secularism is stronger than their hatred of the former regime, they will go with Shafiq. If not, they will go with Morsi. And, of course, it is unclear whether the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the military committee that has ruled Egypt since the fall of Mubarak, will cede any real power to either candidate, especially since the constitution hasn't even been drafted.
This is not how the West, nor many Egyptians, thought the Arab Spring would turn out in Egypt. Their mistake was overestimating the significance of the democratic secularists, how representative the anti-Mubarak demonstrators were of Egypt as a whole, and the degree to which those demonstrators were committed to Western-style democracy rather than a democracy that represented Islamist values.
What was most underestimated was the extent to which the military regime had support, even if Mubarak did not. Shafiq, the former prime minister in that regime, could very well win. The regime may not have generated passionate support or even been respected in many ways, but it served the interests of any number of people. Egypt is a cosmopolitan country, and one that has many people who still take seriously the idea of an Arab, rather than Islamist, state. They fear the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Islamism and have little confidence in the ability of other parties, such as the socialists, who came in third, to protect them. For some, such as the Copts, the Islamists are an existential threat. The military regime, whatever its defects, is a known bulwark against the Muslim Brotherhood. The old order is attractive to many because it is known; what the Muslim Brotherhood will become is not known and is frightening to those committed to secularism. They would rather live under the old regime.
What was misunderstood was that while there was in fact a democratic movement in Egypt, the liberal democrats who wanted a Western-style regime were not the ones exciting popular sentiment. What was exciting it was the vision of a popularly elected Islamist coalition moving to create a regime that institutionalized Islamic religious values.
Westerners looked at Egypt and saw what they wanted and expected to see. They looked at Egyptians and saw themselves. They saw a military regime operating solely on brute force without any public support. They saw a mass movement calling for the overthrow of the regime and assumed that the bulk of the movement was driven by the spirit of Western liberalism. The result is that we have a showdown not between the liberal democratic mass and a crumbling military regime but between a representative of the still-powerful regime (Shafiq) and the Muslim Brotherhood.
If we understand how the Egyptian revolution was misunderstood, we can begin to make sense of the misunderstanding about Syria. There seemed to be a crumbling, hated regime in Syria as well. And there seemed to be a democratic uprising that represented much of the population and that wanted to replace the al Assad regime with one that respected human rights and democratic values in the Western sense. The regime was expected to crumble any day under the assaults of its opponents. As in Egypt, the regime has not collapsed and the story is much more complex.
Syrian President Bashar al Assad operates a brutal dictatorship that he inherited from his father, a regime that has been in power since 1970. The regime is probably unpopular with most Syrians. But it also has substantial support. This support doesn't simply come from the al Assads' Alawite sect but extends to other minorities and many middle-class Sunnis as well. They have done well under the regime and, while unhappy with many things, they are not eager to face a new regime, again likely dominated by Islamists whose intentions toward them are unclear. They may not be enthusiastic supporters of the regime, but they are supporters.
The opposition also has supporters -- likely a majority of the Syrian people -- but it is divided, as is the Egyptian opposition, between competing ideologies and personalities. This is why for the past year Western expectations for Syria have failed to materialize. The regime, as unpopular as it may be, has support, and that support has helped block a seriously divided opposition.
One of the problems of Western observers is that they tend to take their bearings from the Eastern European revolutions of 1989. These regimes were genuinely unpopular. That unpopularity originated in the fact that the regimes were imposed from the outside -- from the Soviet Union after World War II -- and the governments were seen as tools of a foreign government. At the same time, many of the Eastern European nations had liberal democratic traditions and, like the rest of Europe, were profoundly secular (with some exceptions in Poland). There was a consensus that the state was illegitimate and that the desired alternative was a European-style democracy. Indeed, the desire to become part of a democratic Europe captured the national imagination.
The Arab Spring was different, but Westerners did not always understand the difference. The regimes did not come into being as foreign impositions. Nasserism, the ideology of Gamal Abdel Nasser, who both founded the modern Egyptian state and set the stage for an attempt at an Arab revolution, was not imposed from the outside. Indeed, it was an anti-Western movement, opposed to both European imperialism and what was seen as American aggression. When Hafez al Assad staged his coup in Syria in 1970, or Moammar Gadhafi staged his in Libya in 1969, these were nationalistic movements designed to assert both their national identity and their anti-Western sentiment.
These were also unashamedly militaristic regimes. Nasser, inspired by the example of Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, saw his revolution as secular and representing mass sentiment, but not simply as democratic in the Western sense. He saw the military as the most modern and most nationally representative institution. He also saw the military as the protector of secularism.
The military coups that swept the Arab world from the 1950s to the early 1970s were seen as nationalist, secularist and anti-imperialist. Their opponents were labeled as representing Western interests and corrupt and outmoded regimes with close religious ties. They were not liberal regimes, in the sense of being champions of free speech and political parties, but they did claim to represent the interests of their people, and to a great extent, particularly at the beginning, they earned that claim.
Since the realignment of Egypt with the United States and the fall of the Soviet Union, with which many of these states were allied, the sense that these regimes were nationalist declined. But it never evaporated. Certainly they were never seen as regimes imposed by foreign armies, as was the case in Eastern Europe. And their credentials as secularists remained credible. What they were not were liberal democracies, but they weren't founded as such. From the Western point of view, that delegitimized everything else.
What the Westerners forgot was that these regimes arose as expressions of nationalism against Western imperialism. The more that Westerners intervened against them, as in Iraq, the more support at least the principle of the regime would evince. But most important, Westerners did not always recognize that the demand for democratic elections would emerge as a battleground between secular and religious tendencies, and not as the crucible from which Western-style liberal democracies would emerge. Nor did Westerners appreciate the degree to which these regimes defended religious minorities from hostile majorities precisely because they weren't democratic. The Copts in Egypt cling to the old regime as their protector. The Alawites see the Syrian conflict as a struggle for their own survival.
The outcome of the Egyptian election, which now pits a former general and prime minister of the Mubarak regime against the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, demonstrates this dilemma perfectly. This is the regime that Nasser founded. It is the protector of secularism and minority rights against those who it is feared will impose religious law. The regime may have grown corrupt under Mubarak, but it still represents a powerful tendency among the Egyptians.
The Muslim Brotherhood may win, in which case it will be important to see what the Egyptian military council does. But the idea that there is overwhelming support in Egypt for Western-style democracy is simply not true. The issues Egyptians and those in other Arab countries battle over derive from their own history, and in that history, the military and the state it created played a heroic role in asserting nationalism and secularism. The non-military secular parties don't have the same tradition to draw on.
As in many Arab countries that underwent Nasserite transformations, the army remains both a guarantor against Islamists and of the rights of some religious minorities. The minorities are the enemy of the resurgent religious factions. Those factions may win, but regardless of who prevails, the outcome will not be what many celebrants of the Arab Spring expected. We are down to the military and the Islamists. The issue is no longer what they are against. This year's question is what they are for. This is not Prague or Budapest and it doesn't want to be.
Read more: The Egyptian Election and the Arab Spring | Stratfor
Monday, May 28, 2012
The Scarborough Shoal Dispute in America’s Asia-Pacific Pivot
RSIS presents the following commentary The Scarborough Shoal Dispute in America’s Asia-Pacific Pivot by Catherine Samaniego. It is also available online at this link. (To print it, click on this link.). Kindly forward any comments or feedback to the Editor RSIS Commentaries, at RSISPublication@ntu.edu.sg
No. 090/2012 dated 28 May 2012
The Scarborough Shoal Dispute in America’s
Asia-Pacific Pivot
By Catherine Samaniego
Synopsis
The intensifying tension between China and the Philippines over Scarborough Shoal calls for an impartial intervention from the US. The peaceful resolution of the dispute lies in how the US successfully maneuvers between its traditional ally and its biggest competitor.
Commentary
FRICTION IN China-Philippine relations vis-à-vis the cluster of rock formations in South China Sea, known as “Scarborough Shoal,” has been rekindled not long after the US announced its pivot to the Asia-Pacific. While the Philippine government is actively seeking U.S. support in addressing the issue, China has staunchly discouraged third-party involvement in an attempt to prevent internationalization of the dispute.Safeguarding the Sea Lines of Communication
In November 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proclaimed the US’s landmark return to Asia-Pacific, dubbing the 21st century as “America’s Pacific Century.” For many, this marked the beginning of the reinforcement of US presence in the region; but for some, this was merely a “continuation,” on the premise that the US never departed the region. Nevertheless, the resurgence of US interest in the western Pacific is neither driven solely by its desire to maintain its hegemonic status nor impede the transformation of a China-centered regional system. Rather, part of this strategy is also to assure that the existing maritime disputes do not escalate into an all-out naval warfare that could jeopardize the navigability of the Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC).
The South China Sea is undoubtedly a vital artery of the world economic system and is integral to the pursuit of American objectives in Asia, contributing approximately US$ 1.2 Trillion to the US economy. Since this altercation may only be expected to heat up as interest groups from both sides continue to fan the flames of nationalism, it would not be in the US’ best interest to assume a passive stance and allow this critical stretch of water to turn into a battlefield.
Assumptions and Misperceptions
Although Philippine leaders have publicly claimed that its biggest ally is obliged to provide protection by virtue of the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT), the US has been careful not to release any official statement confirming or denying this. An important underlying issue in this context is the varying interpretations of the stipulations therein. In contrast to the assumptions made by Philippine officials with respect to the MDT, some have come to conclude that this security cover only applies to acts of aggression by a foreign military entity on the main Philippine islands. This notion stems from the fact that the US has offered no indication as to whether or not it fully and officially recognizes Scarborough Shoal as part of Philippine territory.
Therefore, in spite of the deployment of the nuclear-powered fast attack submarine USS North Carolina, there is no concrete guarantee that the US would come to the Philippine’s rescue if push comes to shove. At the moment, this development may only be interpreted as an attempt by the US at appeasing the Filipinos and flexing its political muscle. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that such an action could contribute to the escalation of the conflict by provoking China.
For all its burgeoning military capabilities, China has been exercising great restraint in reacting to Philippine claims, as evidenced by the absence of Chinese warships from the disputed area. China realizes that resorting to force could not only potentially weaken its relations with the rest of ASEAN, but adversely affect its unsettled maritime disputes with Japan and the Koreas as well.
Furthermore, argued analysts, the Chinese government could be using the flare-up as a means of veering attention away from scandals involving one of its top political figures, Bo Xilai, and the blind civil rights activist, Chen Guangcheng. In other words, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) may be seizing the opportunity to sustain its credibility by disguising intra-Party challenges with the veil of political unity and patriotism.
The US as a mediator
Preserving US interests in the Asia-Pacific alongside a flourishing China need not be tantamount to conflict. Needless to say, US involvement must fall within certain limits to attest to its supposed neutrality, and to allow tensions in China-Philippine relations to subside. It can do so by promoting peaceful means geared toward compromise as opposed to conflict, as laid out in the ASEAN-China Declaration of the Code of Conduct on the South China Sea 2002 (DOC).
In line with China’s refusal to bring this matter to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), it has been suggested that the US’ ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) might hold the key to the settlement of the dispute, as this would strongly compel China to comply. However such a likelihood can be safely ruled out by two factors: 1) China’s exemption from the provisions of UNCLOS concerning the demarcation of maritime boundaries based on “historic title;” and 2) the foreseen constraints US adherence might inflict on its own strategic mobility.
On that account, the most sensible step would be for the US to refrain from provocative acts so as not to invite a hostile response. Doing so would help diminish the possibility of a naval conflict in the South China Sea that could threaten free access to SLOCs. Given China’s self-restraint in deploying warships to Scarborough Shoal, there should be relatively little concern about an escalation of conflict, provided that the US and the Philippines do not undertake efforts that could be perceived by China as threatening.
Ultimately, both China and the Philippines must realize that they have very little to benefit from treading along the shores of fervent nationalism. Therefore, they have no other option but to engage in collaboration in an increasingly interdependent world.
The writer, who is a candidate for Masters in International Relations, is an intern with the Centre for Multilateral Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Keystone XL Would Raise Gas Prices, Report Finds
JR: AMEN!
I'VE BEEN TOUTING THIS FROM THE BEGINNING!
Keystone Pipeline Investment Warning
Keystone XL Would Raise Gas Prices, Report Finds
05/22/2012
WASHINGTON -- The Natural Resources Defense Council on Tuesday released a report dispelling the myth that the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would lower gas prices. Rather, the opposite is true, findings show.
On a conference call with reporters on Tuesday, report author and NRDC attorney Anthony Swift called the pipeline's impact on gasoline prices "one of the most misunderstood issues surrounding the proposed Keystone XL," adding that when TransCanada originally proposed the pipeline, they pitched it as a way to increase the cost of oil in the United States, providing increased revenue for Canadian producers. Since then, proponents of the pipeline in the United States have pitched it as a means of decreasing U.S. gasoline prices.
Swift's study examined these two conflicting claims, and findings suggest that the former is the true one. "Our study has found that Keystone XL is likely to both decrease the amount of gasoline in U.S. refineries for domestic markets and increase the cost of producing it, leading to even higher prices at the pump," Swift told reporters.
TransCanada did not immediately return a request for comment.
The report found the pipeline will increase U.S. gasoline prices by three mechanisms, most immediately by reducing the amount of gasoline produced in the United States. The pipeline will divert crude oil from Midwestern refineries, which are designed to produce as much gasoline as possible from a barrel of oil, to Texas Gulf refineries, which are designed to produce as much diesel as possible from a barrel of oil. The result in the immediate to short term will be a decline in gasoline production and an increase in diesel, according to the report.
Other findings in the report include that the pipeline will increase the price of crude oil in the Midwest and Rocky Mountains by over $20 a barrel, increasing the cost of Canadian tar sands by as much as $27 billion annually. These higher crude oil costs are expected to lead to deteriorating financial conditions in Rocky Mountain and Midwestern refineries, which could in turn result in decreased production. That's because if Midwestern refineries are forced to pay a higher price for oil, as East Coast refineries already do, they will be forced to respond by reducing their production and further decreasing U.S. gasoline supplies, according to the report.
These findings come as the House and Senate are in conference to hammer out a final version of the transportation bill. A provision in the House version of the bill would approve the pipeline, overriding President Obama’s rejection of the pipeline application in January, but a similar provision has not, as yet, been included in the Senate's version. The president has promised to veto any measure that includes Keystone XL approval.
Friday, May 25, 2012
USTBond Tower of Babel Teeters
USTBond Tower of Babel Teeters
Published : May 24th, 2012
The Biblical story is told of a tower built ever higher in order to achieve contact with the heavens, lest they be scattered upon the earth. They were scattered when the tower fell. Fast forward to today, where the earth has a multitude of tribes, languages, and several major alphabets. When the Lehman Brothers failure occurred, and the Fannie Mae and AIG activities were to be concealed under court orders, the land turned barren, and a financial plague befell the Western nations led by the United States. They were after all, the keepers of the ark (printing press for USDollars). But a plague of debt locusts was cast upon the US nation, with annual $1.5 trillion deficits. The Americans in their unending arrogance, chose to speak from the tower top and to proclaim 0% forever, suspending gravity. They have attempted to force free money to finance their USGovt debts, to preserve power, to ensure privilege, but in doing so they defy nature in testing gravity itself.
The recent losses from JPMorgan have proved to be much more based upon suspending gravity with 0% official rates in the Delta-Hedging complex game tied to the vast over-burdened Interest Rate Swap contracts, rather than the European sovereign bonds as first claimed. The Jackass is on record on May 11th, aided by the indefatigable forensic analyst Rob Kirby, in pointing to Interest Rate Swap stresses from the sudden March and April movement in the 10-year USTreasurys within the strained bloated USGovt sovereign bond market. The IRSwap setbacks were the underlying cause of the JPM losses. The giant bank does not want attention give to this derivative tool which controls the bond market in a devious artificial manner. As far as debt is concerned, the United States is Greece times 100. It is Italy times 20. It receives a pass from the bond market, precisely because the nation prints the money and controls the vast Interest Rate Swap support mechanism. But the tower is finally exposed.
The IRSwaps act like giant buttresses to support the evergrowing USTreasury Tower of Babel that stretches to the sky. Every year, the expansive tower grows another $1.5 trillion higher. Every year, the challenge grows exponentially for the JPMorgan master financial engineers to apply their control panel magic to achieve equilibrium. Every year, the degree of difficulty becomes more arduous. Every year, the tower must withstand the high winds from Europe, where the bond market is doing more than undergoing stress. It is crumbling before our eyes. In a way, Europe helps to conceal the great strains from the broken USTreasury Bond market, held together by interest derivatives. Few analysts connect the failure of the Draghi LTRO funds to the JPMorgan losses. They do not grasp the gravity of the USTBond problem. They prefer to focus on FINREG for regulatory changes centered on the Volcker Rule, or on the division of proprietary trading. They focus on the personalities of the so-called Whale. Now a new verb has entered the lexicon, as a firm was just "Iksil-ed" to mean they suffered massive leveraged losses in a high risk game of playing god in the financial markets. JPMorgan cannot hedge since THEY ARE THE MARKET. What the Whale or JPMorgan do is attempt to maintain balance of the USTreasury Tower of Babel, which grows every year to try to touch the sky, to achieve the perfect world. They scrape the devil's attic door instead.
THE ULTIMATE PROBLEM
Without any doubt whatsoever, the ultimate problem is that the bond market cannot defy the natural forces (gravity on the tower) from enormous new supply coming to the USTBond market (higher tower) in the form of $1.5 trillion deficits, and keep the bond yield at 0% for the FedFunds and under 2.0% on the TNX. Essentially the 0% rate is an engineering display of the most extreme arrogance. It is tantamount to placing the buttress support structure at a very low position. The sovereign bonds of Southern Europe with their 5% or 6% bond yields have the equivalent of buttresses place in very high positions, sufficient to endure the whips and sways from the high winds and routine vagaries dealt by the never-ending global financial crisis. In my opinion, the global financial crisis is far more than that. It is instead a global monetary war, to preserve the USDollar supremacy at all costs, with victims being the Western banking systems and the Western economies. The entire platform that supports the major fiat currencies is collapsing, namely the sovereign bonds. The platform is breaking at its weakest points, where it has non-homogeneous planks in Southern Europe that do not fit together. Imagine how the USTreasury Bond market would look if all 50 states had their own sovereign debt as components to the entire USGovt. Imagine each year the $1.5 trillion in debt were apportioned as 15% to California, 4% to Texas, 8% to New York, 8% to Florida, in shared responsibility. Imagine each state had its own bond traded in a market that strived for equilibrium, each with a unique bond yield, all tethered to the USDollar. The United States would fracture in six months from the stress, not the least factor for which would be the apportionment of syndicate banker benefit and divvying up the war costs. That is Europe in parallel.
HIDDEN TOOL WITH GRAND DECEPTION
Back to the ultimate problem. The USTreasury Bond market cannot defy the natural forces from enormous new supply coming to the USTBond market in the form of $1.5 trillion deficits, and keep the bond yield at 0% for the FedFunds and under 2.0% on the TNX. To add strain to the tower, the foreign buyers have removed themselves due to the grand debasement of the USDollar from the program. Too much hidden USDollar output comes behind the curtains. They are disgusted that the US bankers make unilateral decisions on central bank monetary policy, like setting the 0% rate, like monetizing another $1 trillion in USTBonds or USAgency Mortgage Bonds, like consenting to lavish executive bonuses to those responsible for fracturing the global financial ramparts, all done without consulting foreign creditors. Their significant US$-based bond holdings are eroding in value, not earning a yield in compensation for risk. The 0% payout is an insult to creditors, especially during constant QE initiatives. The published CPI measure of 2% to 3% is another insult, when 8% to 10% is the reality.
Many inexperienced observers, naive bank analysts, clueless fund managers, and deceptive news anchors fail to ask the basic question of how the USTBond market can continue with 0% when supply is an annual flood of $1.5 trillion in new debt while the demand is vanishing from the absent foreign creditors. It is hardly a mystery. The visible piece is the USFed itself with its awkwardly named Quantitative Easing initiatives, which make it sound so sophisticated and professional. Its bond monetization is highly destructive, since it is effectively pure hyper monetary inflation. The wayward financial market mavens crave even more QE, even more monetary inflation flows to aid the market, without realizing the utter destruction of capital. They might notice out of the corner of the eye some rising costs, but they minimize them in their mental process. They deceive themselves into thinking that the financial assets will rise in value also. Except valuation is greatly distorted. The end result is that the cost structure is rising without benefit of rising incomes. In many cases, where liquidation is often the rule, the end products are not rising in price. So profit margins are squeezed, businesses are shut down, equipment is taking offline, and workers are cut along with incomes. The zinger is the globalization concept, when China hit the scene. The Western economies cannot withstand the competition. The West has in effect replaced much of its legitimate income sources with debt from dubious areas like home equity. The home foreclosure movement is a direct consequence of Chinese industrialization.
ENGINEERED FLIGHT TO SAFETY
The hidden tool to maintain the 0% interest rate when supply grows by $1.5 trillion annually, and when dependence on the USFed for bond monetization picks up the slack, is the Interest Rate Swap contract. JPMorgan would prefer that the public not learn about it. Back in December 2010, Morgan Stanley added $8 trillion to its Interest Rate Swap book in a single quarter. Look to see the wondrous effect from that lever pulled behind the curtain. Bear in mind that the accounting for the derivative book, listed in the Office of the Controller to the Currency, is quarterly and tallies the past quarter of activity. My belief is there is more lag to the proper accounting. Notice how the 10-year USTreasury Bond yield (aka TNX) went from a threat to the 4.0% mark in early 2010 and rallied hard all the way down to the 2.4% mark by summer's end. The US financial press hailed a grand flight to safety in the USGovt Bond securities. No such flight to safety like a thundering herd was part of the reality landscape. Let the chart be shown with GREEN text to reflect the application of USDollars from the financial engineering rooms.
What the Interest Rate Swap does is to create artificial demand for the end product USTBond, no real buyer, in a magnificent display of 50:1 leverage, sometimes as much as 100:1 leverage. Repeat that -- no real buyer of the USTBond, all artificial, all coming from the IRSwap device. Few bond experts even realize this fact of bond life. The pronounced effect on the US bond market brought about a change in sentiment, and reinforced the phony notion that investors were flocking to the USTBond market for safety. The reality was the exact opposite. Bill Gross of PIMCO was exiting the USTBond market. A slew of foreign creditors exited the USTBond market. The bank analysts were confused, unable to explain the rally in USTBonds and falling bond yields when supply was growing in a big way, but demand was vanishing. The USFed had to admit its bond purchases within its QE initiative in order to explain the inconsistency. The huge annual deficits and departure of bond buyers forced the USFed into the open, where they had to admit their QE and its hyper monetary inflation.
ENGINEERED REJECTION OF USGOVT DEBT DOWNGRADE
In early August 2011, the debt rating agency Standard & Poors downgraded the USGovt debt. It was an insult of high order, delivered during the Greek Govt Bond crisis, as the Southern European bond market was under great scrutiny and strain. The JPMorgan situation room was obviously tipped off, pressed into action, and ready at the Interest Rate Swap lever. The result was profound as the TNX fell from 3.2% down to under 2.0% by the time the dust cleared. Notice a near accident in June in the USTBond market just before the big decline in bond yields, a big oops! The TNX jumped from 2.88% to 3.20% in a single week, a hefty 32 basis point scare. The JPM situation room responded quickly. Word leaked out about the S&P debt downgrade, the first in US history. The market move was becoming clear, a selloff. The Interest Rate Swap lever was yanked, and the effect pulled down the TNX significantly, as the financial press obediently proclaimed a victory over the S&P defiant downgrade. It was all phony, again!! The USGovt barkers even pounded the tables to point out a grand market contradiction of the Standard & Poor debt downgrade of the USGovt debt. Victory over the marketplace was won, and no big debt insurance contract rise either. All hail the IRSwap weapon in private Wall Street offices, of course without recognition of its heavy usage.
By this time, in late summer 2011, the financial market sentiment had solidified its phony psychological notion of the USTreasury Bond being a reliable safe & secure place to hide. The USFed was repeating its assured interest yield paid to Excess Bank Reserves, another false story. In reality, the USFed was paying the big US banks to place their Loan Loss Reserves at the USFed in order to conceal the insolvency of the USFed balance sheet. The big US banks compounded the flagrancy of the action by removing loss reserves later, calling them profit, in order to conceal their own business decline and deep deterioration. They did so because they became dangerous illiquid.
USFED STUCK AT 0% FOREVER
Something happened in March 2012. It is not entirely clear. Perhaps it was simply the stupidity of the Bernanke Fed in declaring the need to embark on an Exit Strategy at some point soon. Once more, Professor Bernanke is
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Subterranean Cities for the Elite
http://www.henrymakow.com/subterranean_secrets_by_fritz.html
Subterranean Secrets by Fritz Springmeier
May 21, 2012
North portal, Cheyenne Mountain
"Not only is our government focused on building deep secret cities, but so are Illuminati families."
by Fritz Springmeier (henrymakow.com)
The beautiful artwork in ancient Spanish caves, or the catacombs in Rome remind us that man has always had an underground presence.
During the 1990s, my research repeatedly brought me in contact with individuals who stated that they had been in deep underground military bases.
Of course a number of these are openly admitted by the American government, for instance Cheyenne Mountain.
And many are not. I discovered that not only was our government focused on building deep secret cities, but the Illuminati families were also.
Furthermore, they were using technology that the public was unaware existed. The idea behind it all was to create safe and secret places for themselves.
tunneling machine
Witnesses have described elevators going miles down, super-fast trains, back-up government agencies, genetic experiments, warehouses of stock piled materials, and a non-human human hybrid project.
But what continues to haunt me was the look one eyewitness gave me when he said, "Fritz, you don't have a clue. What is going on is beyond all you have thought of." And after that, there was a stoned-faced mask on his countenance.
DIAMOND HEAD
My first experience with this subject was when I was a fifth grader in Hawaii. On one field trip we were taken inside the iconic Diamond Head volcano where the government of Hawaii had an unused facility in case they needed to flee a nuclear holocaust.
I realized the government had placed their survival on a higher priority than the people they supposedly served. The rest of us sheeple were to be left to die. Your tax dollars at work.
The American government secretly received a boost in their abilities to build underground when they brought over Xaver Dorsh in Operation Paperclip. He was head of the Nazi's Todt Organization which built some incredibly sophisticated underground cities for the Nazis.
Bear in mind this organization had built the Autobahn for the Nazis far in advance of our Interstate system. The American and Russian governments have kept secret how sophisticated these underground Nazi cities were.
For years, I had tried to track these Deep Underground Military Bases and their purposes, doing such things as traveling to Dulce, NM. When I met Phil Snyder (right) who had worked on these bases, I was excited to compare my discoveries/info to his firsthand knowledge.
We were able to share information several times until he was suicided the day before we were to meet again. Afterwards, I placed my information on the 140 American DUMB bases in my Deeper Insights book in the middle of book between part 1 and part 2.
Different agencies have their own underground installations. That explains why there are so many.
The NSA, CIA, FEMA, Naval Intelligence, the Air force NORAD and others all need their own secret underground bases. Some of the work with strategic reserves, nuclear activities, secret weapons, communications and computers, and hardened defense structures are legitimate activities for underground bases.
And others, genetic manipulation (like human cloning), individual mind control, population control, and lethal ways to kill populations, are not. We have truly lost control over our government. If you'll pardon the pun, it is truly out of oversight.
BLACK OPS
Area 51, NV (left) and White Sands Missile base, NM have been large tracts of land where underground installations have allowed for exotic black ops research. Unfortunately, the information that leaks out does not sound good.
These black ops are not projects for the public good. Many of them are downright scary. Some are bizarre like keeping a severed human head alive. And instead of being U.S. government projects, many of the levels on these bases actually belong to the Illuminati and their secret world government, which has been operating since 1954.
Besides vast tracts of land in sparsely populated regions, the ocean has become a grand place to locate secret bases.
What are some of these bases like? Some have facilities for growing food. Many are connected. Spokes link areas to other areas. Hi-tech camouflage and quick shutting entrances conceal the entrances. Witnesses claim non-human species inhabit the lower levels.
My personal take on these things is that this is a modern-day example of the Nephilim that were created by interbreeding in ancient times. So we are witnessing more apocalyptic signs.
The same shivers that ran down my spine as a ten year old student when I went into the underground city at Diamond Head volcano near Honolulu continue today when I contemplate these bases and their uses.
These bases are designed so the elite could survive a nuclear war or world-wide epidemic, or a natural disaster like an asteroid hit, reversal of the earth's pole, or a galactic dust cloud which they allow us to endure while they live in safety.
Whatever disaster they see coming, they are prepared.
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