The City was in shock last night after the apparent suicide of a millionaire financier haunted by the pressures of dealing with the credit crunch.
Kirk Stephenson, who was married with an eight-year-old son, died in the path of a 100mph express train at Taplow railway station, Berkshire.
Mr Stephenson is believed to have taken his own life after succumbing to mounting personal pressures as the world’s financial markets went into meltdown.
The death of the respected 47-year-old City figure evokes memories of the 1929 Wall Street crash in America and comes as:
• Bradford & Bingley teeters on the brink of nationalisation after a dramatic share price slump.
• David Cameron faced embarrassment on the eve of the Tory conference after members of a secretive club of Conservative donors were linked to the ‘short-selling’ of Bradford & Bingley.
• Gordon Brown was wrongfooted by Shadow Chancellor George Osborne, who announced plans to set up an independent watchdog to police the Treasury and strip it of key powers if the Conservatives win the next Election.
New Zealand-born Mr Stephenson, who owned a £3.6million, five-storey house in Chelsea and a retreat in the West Country, was chief operating officer of Olivant Advisers.
Last year, the private equity firm tried to buy a 15 per cent stake worth almost £1billion in Northern Rock before the bank was nationalised, bidding against Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
Action Alert!
A vote on Paulson and Bernanke bailout plan could literally come at any moment, and it is crucial that you immediately express your opinion to Congress.
The picture painted by the supporters of the bailout is dire. President Bush reinforced this notion in his address to the nation last night and again urged Congress to act immediately.
Remember what happened the last time the executive branch warned of horrible consequences and rushed legislation through Congress? We got the Patriot Act, which to this day threatens our civil liberties on an unprecedented scale.
We do know that our economy is in for a rough ride. These bad mortgage-related assets will have to be cleared out and the market will have to reset. The only question is how that will happen.
The easy way out is to continue the same practices that got us to this point. We can put $700 billion, for starters, in the hands of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (a former CEO of Goldman Sachs) and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, and let them spend the money on whatever they wish.
This option will only delay the economic downturn, which will only be worsened.
Or, we can take this opportunity to end the federal government's interference in the marketplace, truly embrace free market capitalism, and return to a sound monetary system.
The Federal Reserve's practices of easy credit and monetary inflation have crashed our economy, and now they're asking us to trust them to fix it.
When you call Congress to express your outrage at the bailout, tell them you want real solutions.
It is time for Congress to:
1.) End the Bailouts - Congress must revoke the Federal Reserve's authority to bail out failed businesses at your expense.
2.) Cut Taxes and Curb Regulation - If we really want to stimulate businesses and revive the market, we need to cut corporate and capital gains taxes, spurring investors to come back to the market and making it easier to attract new workers and clients. It is also time to end failed legislation like Sarbanes-Oxley, which has crippled capital markets, diminished our competitiveness, and greatly harmed small businesses.
3.) Reduce Spending - We must freeze all non-entitlement spending by the federal government at current levels and eliminate wasteful spending both domestically and in our trillion-dollar overseas budget. Our debt has to come down, and it won't until we start living within our means.
4.) Reform the Monetary System - If we are to have long-term economic progress, we must end the system of printing money out of thin air. The current laws limiting the circulation of gold and silver-backed currency must be overturned. We can no longer base our money on the empty promises of bureaucrats that it is sound.
The federal government is trying to scare us into accepting more tyranny. Don't stand for it.
The picture painted by the supporters of the bailout is dire. President Bush reinforced this notion in his address to the nation last night and again urged Congress to act immediately.
Remember what happened the last time the executive branch warned of horrible consequences and rushed legislation through Congress? We got the Patriot Act, which to this day threatens our civil liberties on an unprecedented scale.
We do know that our economy is in for a rough ride. These bad mortgage-related assets will have to be cleared out and the market will have to reset. The only question is how that will happen.
The easy way out is to continue the same practices that got us to this point. We can put $700 billion, for starters, in the hands of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (a former CEO of Goldman Sachs) and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, and let them spend the money on whatever they wish.
This option will only delay the economic downturn, which will only be worsened.
Or, we can take this opportunity to end the federal government's interference in the marketplace, truly embrace free market capitalism, and return to a sound monetary system.
The Federal Reserve's practices of easy credit and monetary inflation have crashed our economy, and now they're asking us to trust them to fix it.
When you call Congress to express your outrage at the bailout, tell them you want real solutions.
It is time for Congress to:
1.) End the Bailouts - Congress must revoke the Federal Reserve's authority to bail out failed businesses at your expense.
2.) Cut Taxes and Curb Regulation - If we really want to stimulate businesses and revive the market, we need to cut corporate and capital gains taxes, spurring investors to come back to the market and making it easier to attract new workers and clients. It is also time to end failed legislation like Sarbanes-Oxley, which has crippled capital markets, diminished our competitiveness, and greatly harmed small businesses.
3.) Reduce Spending - We must freeze all non-entitlement spending by the federal government at current levels and eliminate wasteful spending both domestically and in our trillion-dollar overseas budget. Our debt has to come down, and it won't until we start living within our means.
4.) Reform the Monetary System - If we are to have long-term economic progress, we must end the system of printing money out of thin air. The current laws limiting the circulation of gold and silver-backed currency must be overturned. We can no longer base our money on the empty promises of bureaucrats that it is sound.
The federal government is trying to scare us into accepting more tyranny. Don't stand for it.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
NYPD Pigs kill another - with a taser
Police fired a Taser at a naked Brooklyn man armed with only a fluorescent light tube yesterday, sending him falling to his death from a second-floor ledge after he went on a 40-minute rant.
Iman Morales' mom begged cops not to hurt her son, telling them he's sick - then watched in horror as he plunged from the top of the roll-down gate on which he'd been perched.
An Emergency Services officer, acting on the orders of his boss, fired at the 35-year-old man at around 2 p.m., as he waved the 8-foot fluorescent light tube, police sources said.
"His body froze up and he fell face-first," said Sean Johnson, who witnessed the drama at 489 Tompkins Ave. in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Morales, who crashed 10 feet to the pavement, died a few hours later at Kings County Hospital.
Asked if police followed the proper protocol for using a Taser, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said, "That's being reviewed."
Amid his mostly unintelligible rant, Morales was heard yelling, "You're going to kill me. I'm going to take everyone with me."
He also screamed, "I'm going to die. You're all going to die with me."
Morales first emerged hanging out a third-floor window after a blowup with his mother at around 1 p.m., witnesses said.
Twenty minutes later, he climbed the fire escape to the fourth floor, where he tried to force his way into a neighbor's apartment.
"He tried to come into my window and I ran out," said 40-year-old Tonya Wright.
"He said, 'Let me in.' I told him, 'I'm not letting you in.' "
Morales then headed to the second floor and screamed to the crowd, which included his frantic mom.
"She was saying, 'No! No! Don't hurt him. He is sick,' " Wright said.
With police shouting for him to get down, Morales made his way to a ledge above a the gate.
"Walk down now! Move down!" the police can be heard shouting to him on video.
He then picked up the light tube and waved it in the air before jabbing cops who had climbed out of the windows above.
"When he was poking the cop, people were laughing," Johnson said.
He refused orders from the officers and continued his incoherent tirade.
Finally, one of the ESU cops on the street shot him with the Taser.
"He just fell face first," said witness Sean Brown. "People were screaming and yelling. It was wrong."
It was unclear what set off the episode, but, said Johnson, "once he started hitting the cop with that pole, that's when it turned serious."
Morales had one prior arrest, for a Manhattan petit larceny.
"This is very out of character," said the building's superintendent, Charlene Gayle, 31.
"Nice guy, clean cut, well kept, never irrational. Didn't have irrational behavior."
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
There goes your country
A message from Ron Paul
Dear Friends,
Whenever a Great Bipartisan Consensus is announced, and a compliant media assures everyone that the wondrous actions of our wise leaders are being taken for our own good, you can know with absolute certainty that disaster is about to strike.
The events of the past week are no exception.
The bailout package that is about to be rammed down Congress' throat is not just economically foolish. It is downright sinister. It makes a mockery of our Constitution, which our leaders should never again bother pretending is still in effect. It promises the American people a never-ending nightmare of ever-greater debt liabilities they will have to shoulder. Two weeks ago, financial analyst Jim Rogers said the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made America more communist than China! "This is welfare for the rich," he said. "This is socialism for the rich. It's bailing out the financiers, the banks, the Wall Streeters."
That describes the current bailout package to a T. And we're being told it's unavoidable.
The claim that the market caused all this is so staggeringly foolish that only politicians and the media could pretend to believe it. But that has become the conventional wisdom, with the desired result that those responsible for the credit bubble and its predictable consequences - predictable, that is, to those who understand sound, Austrian economics - are being let off the hook. The Federal Reserve System is actually positioning itself as the savior, rather than the culprit, in this mess!
• The Treasury Secretary is authorized to purchase up to $700 billion in mortgage-related assets at any one time. That means $700 billion is only the very beginning of what will hit us.
• Financial institutions are "designated as financial agents of the Government." This is the New Deal to end all New Deals.
• Then there's this: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." Translation: the Secretary can buy up whatever junk debt he wants to, burden the American people with it, and be subject to no one in the process.
There goes your country.
Even some so-called free-market economists are calling all this "sadly necessary." Sad, yes. Necessary? Don't make me laugh.
Our one-party system is complicit in yet another crime against the American people. The two major party candidates for president themselves initially indicated their strong support for bailouts of this kind - another example of the big choice we're supposedly presented with this November: yes or yes. Now, with a backlash brewing, they're not quite sure what their views are. A sad display, really.
Although the present bailout package is almost certainly not the end of the political atrocities we'll witness in connection with the crisis, time is short. Congress may vote as soon as tomorrow. With a Rasmussen poll finding support for the bailout at an anemic seven percent, some members of Congress are afraid to vote for it. Call them! Let them hear from you! Tell them you will never vote for anyone who supports this atrocity.
The issue boils down to this: do we care about freedom? Do we care about responsibility and accountability? Do we care that our government and media have been bought and paid for? Do we care that average Americans are about to be looted in order to subsidize the fattest of cats on Wall Street and in government? Do we care?
When the chips are down, will we stand up and fight, even if it means standing up against every stripe of fashionable opinion in politics and the media?
Times like these have a way of telling us what kind of a people we are, and what kind of country we shall be.
In liberty,
Ron Paul
Dear Friends,
Whenever a Great Bipartisan Consensus is announced, and a compliant media assures everyone that the wondrous actions of our wise leaders are being taken for our own good, you can know with absolute certainty that disaster is about to strike.
The events of the past week are no exception.
The bailout package that is about to be rammed down Congress' throat is not just economically foolish. It is downright sinister. It makes a mockery of our Constitution, which our leaders should never again bother pretending is still in effect. It promises the American people a never-ending nightmare of ever-greater debt liabilities they will have to shoulder. Two weeks ago, financial analyst Jim Rogers said the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made America more communist than China! "This is welfare for the rich," he said. "This is socialism for the rich. It's bailing out the financiers, the banks, the Wall Streeters."
That describes the current bailout package to a T. And we're being told it's unavoidable.
The claim that the market caused all this is so staggeringly foolish that only politicians and the media could pretend to believe it. But that has become the conventional wisdom, with the desired result that those responsible for the credit bubble and its predictable consequences - predictable, that is, to those who understand sound, Austrian economics - are being let off the hook. The Federal Reserve System is actually positioning itself as the savior, rather than the culprit, in this mess!
• The Treasury Secretary is authorized to purchase up to $700 billion in mortgage-related assets at any one time. That means $700 billion is only the very beginning of what will hit us.
• Financial institutions are "designated as financial agents of the Government." This is the New Deal to end all New Deals.
• Then there's this: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." Translation: the Secretary can buy up whatever junk debt he wants to, burden the American people with it, and be subject to no one in the process.
There goes your country.
Even some so-called free-market economists are calling all this "sadly necessary." Sad, yes. Necessary? Don't make me laugh.
Our one-party system is complicit in yet another crime against the American people. The two major party candidates for president themselves initially indicated their strong support for bailouts of this kind - another example of the big choice we're supposedly presented with this November: yes or yes. Now, with a backlash brewing, they're not quite sure what their views are. A sad display, really.
Although the present bailout package is almost certainly not the end of the political atrocities we'll witness in connection with the crisis, time is short. Congress may vote as soon as tomorrow. With a Rasmussen poll finding support for the bailout at an anemic seven percent, some members of Congress are afraid to vote for it. Call them! Let them hear from you! Tell them you will never vote for anyone who supports this atrocity.
The issue boils down to this: do we care about freedom? Do we care about responsibility and accountability? Do we care that our government and media have been bought and paid for? Do we care that average Americans are about to be looted in order to subsidize the fattest of cats on Wall Street and in government? Do we care?
When the chips are down, will we stand up and fight, even if it means standing up against every stripe of fashionable opinion in politics and the media?
Times like these have a way of telling us what kind of a people we are, and what kind of country we shall be.
In liberty,
Ron Paul
Friday, September 19, 2008
The Party’s Over
By Patrick J. Buchanan
The Crash of 2008, which is now wiping out trillions of dollars of our people’s wealth, is, like the Crash of 1929, likely to mark the end of one era and the onset of another.
The new era will see a more sober and much diminished America. The “Omnipower” and “Indispensable Nation” we heard about in all the hubris and braggadocio following our Cold War victory is history.
Seizing on the crisis, the left says we are witnessing the failure of market economics, a failure of conservatism.
This is nonsense. What we are witnessing is the collapse of Gordon Gecko (”Greed Is Good!”) capitalism. What we are witnessing is what happens to a prodigal nation that ignores history, and forgets and abandons the philosophy and principles that made it great.
A true conservative cherishes prudence and believes in fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets and a self-reliant republic. He believes in saving for retirement and a rainy day, in deferred gratification, in not buying on credit what you cannot afford, in living within your means.
Is that really what got Wall Street and us into this mess — that we followed too religiously the gospel of Robert Taft and Russell Kirk?
“Government must save us!” cries the left, as ever. Yet, who got us into this mess if not the government — the Fed with its easy money, Bush with his profligate spending, and Congress and the SEC by liberating Wall Street and failing to step in and stop the drunken orgy?
For years, we Americans have spent more than we earned. We save nothing. Credit card debt, consumer debt, auto debt, mortgage debt, corporate debt — all are at record levels. And with pensions and savings being wiped out, much of that debt will never be repaid.
Our standard of living is inevitably going to fall. For foreigners will not forever buy our bonds or lend us more money if they rightly fear that they will be paid back, if at all, in cheaper dollars.
We are going to have to learn to live again without our means.
The party’s over
Up through World War II, we followed the Hamiltonian idea that America must remain economically independent of the world in order to remain politically independent.
But this generation decided that was yesterday’s bromide and we must march bravely forward into a Global Economy, where we all depend on one another. American companies morphed into “global companies” and moved plants and factories to Mexico, Asia, China and India, and we began buying more cheaply from abroad what we used to make at home: shoes, clothes, bikes, cars, radios, TVs, planes, computers.
As the trade deficits began inexorably to rise to 6 percent of GDP, we began vast borrowing from abroad to continue buying from abroad.
At home, propelled by tax cuts, war in Iraq and an explosion in social spending, surpluses vanished and deficits reappeared and began to rise. The dollar began to sink, and gold began to soar.
Yet, still, the promises of the politicians come. Barack Obama will give us national health insurance and tax cuts for all but that 2 percent of the nation that already carries 50 percent of the federal income tax load.
John McCain is going to cut taxes, expand the military, move NATO into Georgia and Ukraine, confront Russia and force Iran to stop enriching uranium or “bomb, bomb, bomb,” with Joe Lieberman as wartime consigliere.
Who are we kidding?
What we are witnessing today is how empires end.
The Last Superpower is unable to defend its borders, protect its currency, win its wars or balance its budget. Medicare and Social Security are headed for the cliff with unfunded liabilities in the tens of trillions of dollars.
What we are witnessing today is nothing less than a Katrina-like failure of government, of our political class, and of democracy itself, casting a cloud over the viability and longevity of the system.
Notice who is managing the crisis. Not our elected leaders. Nancy Pelosi says she had nothing to do with it. Congress is paralyzed and heading home. President Bush is nowhere to be seen.
Hank Paulson of Goldman Sachs and Ben Bernanke of the Fed chose to bail out Bear Sterns but let Lehman go under. They decided to nationalize Fannie and Freddie at a cost to taxpayers of hundreds of billions, putting the U.S. government behind $5 trillion in mortgages. They decided to buy AIG with $85 billion rather than see the insurance giant sink beneath the waves.
An unelected financial elite is now entrusted with the assignment of getting us out of a disaster into which an unelected financial elite plunged the nation. We are just spectators.
What the Greatest Generation handed down to us — the richest, most powerful, most self-sufficient republic in history, with the highest standard of living any nation had ever achieved — the baby boomers, oblivious and self-indulgent to the end, have frittered away.
The Crash of 2008, which is now wiping out trillions of dollars of our people’s wealth, is, like the Crash of 1929, likely to mark the end of one era and the onset of another.
The new era will see a more sober and much diminished America. The “Omnipower” and “Indispensable Nation” we heard about in all the hubris and braggadocio following our Cold War victory is history.
Seizing on the crisis, the left says we are witnessing the failure of market economics, a failure of conservatism.
This is nonsense. What we are witnessing is the collapse of Gordon Gecko (”Greed Is Good!”) capitalism. What we are witnessing is what happens to a prodigal nation that ignores history, and forgets and abandons the philosophy and principles that made it great.
A true conservative cherishes prudence and believes in fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets and a self-reliant republic. He believes in saving for retirement and a rainy day, in deferred gratification, in not buying on credit what you cannot afford, in living within your means.
Is that really what got Wall Street and us into this mess — that we followed too religiously the gospel of Robert Taft and Russell Kirk?
“Government must save us!” cries the left, as ever. Yet, who got us into this mess if not the government — the Fed with its easy money, Bush with his profligate spending, and Congress and the SEC by liberating Wall Street and failing to step in and stop the drunken orgy?
For years, we Americans have spent more than we earned. We save nothing. Credit card debt, consumer debt, auto debt, mortgage debt, corporate debt — all are at record levels. And with pensions and savings being wiped out, much of that debt will never be repaid.
Our standard of living is inevitably going to fall. For foreigners will not forever buy our bonds or lend us more money if they rightly fear that they will be paid back, if at all, in cheaper dollars.
We are going to have to learn to live again without our means.
The party’s over
Up through World War II, we followed the Hamiltonian idea that America must remain economically independent of the world in order to remain politically independent.
But this generation decided that was yesterday’s bromide and we must march bravely forward into a Global Economy, where we all depend on one another. American companies morphed into “global companies” and moved plants and factories to Mexico, Asia, China and India, and we began buying more cheaply from abroad what we used to make at home: shoes, clothes, bikes, cars, radios, TVs, planes, computers.
As the trade deficits began inexorably to rise to 6 percent of GDP, we began vast borrowing from abroad to continue buying from abroad.
At home, propelled by tax cuts, war in Iraq and an explosion in social spending, surpluses vanished and deficits reappeared and began to rise. The dollar began to sink, and gold began to soar.
Yet, still, the promises of the politicians come. Barack Obama will give us national health insurance and tax cuts for all but that 2 percent of the nation that already carries 50 percent of the federal income tax load.
John McCain is going to cut taxes, expand the military, move NATO into Georgia and Ukraine, confront Russia and force Iran to stop enriching uranium or “bomb, bomb, bomb,” with Joe Lieberman as wartime consigliere.
Who are we kidding?
What we are witnessing today is how empires end.
The Last Superpower is unable to defend its borders, protect its currency, win its wars or balance its budget. Medicare and Social Security are headed for the cliff with unfunded liabilities in the tens of trillions of dollars.
What we are witnessing today is nothing less than a Katrina-like failure of government, of our political class, and of democracy itself, casting a cloud over the viability and longevity of the system.
Notice who is managing the crisis. Not our elected leaders. Nancy Pelosi says she had nothing to do with it. Congress is paralyzed and heading home. President Bush is nowhere to be seen.
Hank Paulson of Goldman Sachs and Ben Bernanke of the Fed chose to bail out Bear Sterns but let Lehman go under. They decided to nationalize Fannie and Freddie at a cost to taxpayers of hundreds of billions, putting the U.S. government behind $5 trillion in mortgages. They decided to buy AIG with $85 billion rather than see the insurance giant sink beneath the waves.
An unelected financial elite is now entrusted with the assignment of getting us out of a disaster into which an unelected financial elite plunged the nation. We are just spectators.
What the Greatest Generation handed down to us — the richest, most powerful, most self-sufficient republic in history, with the highest standard of living any nation had ever achieved — the baby boomers, oblivious and self-indulgent to the end, have frittered away.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Ron Paul: Wake Up!!
Congressman Ron Paul discusses the current financial market turmoil, and what the end result will be for us - the tax payers.
Go Ron Go!!! Buy Gold Now!!
Go Ron Go!!! Buy Gold Now!!
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Unrest in Bolivia - U.S. ambassadors expelled
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — President Evo Morales on Saturday accused an opposition governor of using foreign thugs against government supporters in violence that has claimed at least 18 lives and prompted him to declare martial law in a breakaway province.
In a bid to defuse the bitter dispute over a new constitution and land reform that threatens to tear apart the poor Andean nation, Chile called for an emergency meeting of South American leaders on Monday.
"A larger tragedy has to be avoided," said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a strong ally of Bolivia's leftist president, confirming he would attend the meeting.
Morales described as an ambush a gunbattle in the eastern province of Pando on Thursday that led him to impose martial law the next day. "These people were massacred," he told a news conference on Saturday.
Interior Minister Alfredo Rada said 16 people were killed in the clash — the majority of them peasants who back Morales — and authorities said another two people died Friday at Pando's main airfield as government troops took control, opening fire to disperse protesters.
Bolivia's first indigenous president said he would not hesitate to extend the state of siege if necessary to the other three pro-autonomy provinces in eastern Bolivia where separatists seized government offices and natural gas fields last week in the gravest crisis of his nearly 3-year-old presidency.
Government opponents are demanding Morales cancel a Dec. 7 referendum on a new constitution that would help him centralize power, run for a second consecutive term and transfer fallow terrain to landless peasants.
The emergency summit in Chile comes after both Morales and Chavez expelled the U.S. ambassadors in their countries to protest what they say is Washington's inciting of anti-government protesters in Bolivia.
U.S. officials call the accusations baseless.
Nonetheless, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said Saturday he would reject an invitation he had received to meet with U.S. President George W. Bush out of "solidarity" with Bolivia in its diplomatic spat with Washington. Ortega also backed Morales' claims against the U.S. He did not say why or when he had been invited to the White House.
At Saturday's news conference, Morales said "Brazilian and Peruvian assassins under the command of the governor of Pando" took part in what he said was an ambush of government supporters.
Pando Gov. Leopoldo Fernandez denied having anything to do with the violence, saying it was not an ambush but rather an armed clash between rival groups.
"The government has a great ability to distort things, and its arguments are always the same, accuse without reason," Fernandez told Radio Fides.
Peasant leader Antonio Moreno told The Associated Press in a phone interview that the violence began when he and several truckloads of companions came upon an opposition blockade on a jungle highway. He said there was some fighting, then suddenly a man exited a vehicle and fired on the farmers with a submachine gun.
"The campesinos fled to the mountain, while others jumped into the river," Moreno said.
National Health Minister Ramiro Tapia told Erbol radio that isolated shooting incidents involving opposition protesters Saturday were making it difficult for the military to enforce martial law in Pando's capital, Cobija, on the border with Brazil.
Interior Ministry officials told the AP that they expected more bodies to turn up from Thursday's violence, which occurred 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the provincial capital of Cobija.
The state of siege prohibits people from gathering or carrying weapons. It was declared hours after Morales and opposition governors from the four eastern provinces agreed to hold talks aimed at ending the crisis.
"We all agree that we have to look for a point of compromise," said Carlos Dabdoub, autonomy secretary in Santa Cruz — Bolivia's richest province and the center of anti-Morales opposition — on Friday.
But the following night, opposition governors announced that dialogue would be broken off if there are any more deaths in Cobija, and said in a statement that they would travel there Sunday to stand with Fernandez.
The protests temporarily disrupted natural gas exports to Brazil, Bolivia's No. 1 customer.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Saturday that he would attend the regional gathering in Chile if Bolivia requests it, and urged the Andean nation's government and opposition to determine goals for the summit.
"If we make a decision that neither side respects, then the meeting will be useless," Silva told reporters.
He also appealed for gas supplies to continue, saying, "We have a contract, and therefore this contract must be respected."
In a bid to defuse the bitter dispute over a new constitution and land reform that threatens to tear apart the poor Andean nation, Chile called for an emergency meeting of South American leaders on Monday.
"A larger tragedy has to be avoided," said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a strong ally of Bolivia's leftist president, confirming he would attend the meeting.
Morales described as an ambush a gunbattle in the eastern province of Pando on Thursday that led him to impose martial law the next day. "These people were massacred," he told a news conference on Saturday.
Interior Minister Alfredo Rada said 16 people were killed in the clash — the majority of them peasants who back Morales — and authorities said another two people died Friday at Pando's main airfield as government troops took control, opening fire to disperse protesters.
Bolivia's first indigenous president said he would not hesitate to extend the state of siege if necessary to the other three pro-autonomy provinces in eastern Bolivia where separatists seized government offices and natural gas fields last week in the gravest crisis of his nearly 3-year-old presidency.
Government opponents are demanding Morales cancel a Dec. 7 referendum on a new constitution that would help him centralize power, run for a second consecutive term and transfer fallow terrain to landless peasants.
The emergency summit in Chile comes after both Morales and Chavez expelled the U.S. ambassadors in their countries to protest what they say is Washington's inciting of anti-government protesters in Bolivia.
U.S. officials call the accusations baseless.
Nonetheless, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said Saturday he would reject an invitation he had received to meet with U.S. President George W. Bush out of "solidarity" with Bolivia in its diplomatic spat with Washington. Ortega also backed Morales' claims against the U.S. He did not say why or when he had been invited to the White House.
At Saturday's news conference, Morales said "Brazilian and Peruvian assassins under the command of the governor of Pando" took part in what he said was an ambush of government supporters.
Pando Gov. Leopoldo Fernandez denied having anything to do with the violence, saying it was not an ambush but rather an armed clash between rival groups.
"The government has a great ability to distort things, and its arguments are always the same, accuse without reason," Fernandez told Radio Fides.
Peasant leader Antonio Moreno told The Associated Press in a phone interview that the violence began when he and several truckloads of companions came upon an opposition blockade on a jungle highway. He said there was some fighting, then suddenly a man exited a vehicle and fired on the farmers with a submachine gun.
"The campesinos fled to the mountain, while others jumped into the river," Moreno said.
National Health Minister Ramiro Tapia told Erbol radio that isolated shooting incidents involving opposition protesters Saturday were making it difficult for the military to enforce martial law in Pando's capital, Cobija, on the border with Brazil.
Interior Ministry officials told the AP that they expected more bodies to turn up from Thursday's violence, which occurred 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the provincial capital of Cobija.
The state of siege prohibits people from gathering or carrying weapons. It was declared hours after Morales and opposition governors from the four eastern provinces agreed to hold talks aimed at ending the crisis.
"We all agree that we have to look for a point of compromise," said Carlos Dabdoub, autonomy secretary in Santa Cruz — Bolivia's richest province and the center of anti-Morales opposition — on Friday.
But the following night, opposition governors announced that dialogue would be broken off if there are any more deaths in Cobija, and said in a statement that they would travel there Sunday to stand with Fernandez.
The protests temporarily disrupted natural gas exports to Brazil, Bolivia's No. 1 customer.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Saturday that he would attend the regional gathering in Chile if Bolivia requests it, and urged the Andean nation's government and opposition to determine goals for the summit.
"If we make a decision that neither side respects, then the meeting will be useless," Silva told reporters.
He also appealed for gas supplies to continue, saying, "We have a contract, and therefore this contract must be respected."
Monday, September 8, 2008
US military trained Georgian commandos
The US military provided combat training to 80 Georgian special forces commandos only months prior to Georgia’s army assault in South Ossetia in August.
The revelation, based on recruitment documents and interviews with US military trainers obtained by the Financial Times, could add fuel to accusations by Vladimir Putin, Russian prime minister, last month that the US had “orchestrated” the war in the Georgian enclave.
The training was provided by senior US soldiers and two military contractors. There is no evidence that the contractors or the Pentagon, which hired them, knew that the commandos they were training were likely be used in the assault on South Ossetia.
A US army spokesman said the goal of the programme was to train the commandos for duty in Afghanistan as part of Nato-led International Security Assistance Force. The programme, however, highlights the often unintended consequences of US “train and equip” programmes in foreign countries.
The contractors – MPRI and American Systems, both based in Virginia – recruited a 15-man team of former special forces soldiers to train the Georgians at the Vashlijvari special forces base on the outskirts of Tbilisi, part of a programme run by the US defence department.
MPRI was hired by the Pentagon in 1995 to train the Croatian military prior to their invasion of the ethnically-Serbian Krajina region, which led to the displacement of 200,000 refugees and was one of the worst incidents of ethnic cleansing in the Balkan wars. MPRI denies any wrongdoing.
US training of the Georgian army is a big flashpoint between Washington and Moscow. Mr Putin said on CNN on August 29: “It is not just that the American side could not restrain the Georgian leadership from this criminal act [of intervening in South Ossetia]. The American side in effect armed and trained the Georgian army.”
The first phase of the special forces training was held between January and April this year, concentrating on “basic special forces skills” said an American Systems employee interviewed by phone from the US army’s Fort Bragg.
The US military official familiar with the programme said the Pentagon hired the military contracting firms to help supplement its own trainers because of a lack of manpower.
The second 70-day phase was set to begin on August 11, a few days after war broke out in South Ossetia. The trainers arrived on August 3, four days before the conflict flared on August 7. “They would have only seen the inside of a hotel room,” quipped one former contractor. Neither MPRI nor American Systems would speak at length to the FT about the programme.
American Systems directed questions to the US army’s Security Assistance Training Management Organisation (Satmo) at Fort Bragg, part of the US Army’s Special Warfare Center School. Satmo sends trainers, mainly special forces but also contractors, to countries such as Yemen, Colombia and the Philippines. Satmo trainers generally work with forces involved in counter-insurgencies, counter-terrorism or civil wars. A Satmo spokesman declined to comment.
One US military official familiar with the programme said it emerged from a Georgian offer to the US in December 2006 to send commandos to Afghanistan to work alongside American special operations forces.
According to this person, the US told Georgia that the offer should be made through Nato, which welcomed the offer but informed Georgia that its forces would need additional training to meet the military alliance’s standards.
While the programme is not classified, there is a lack of transparency surrounding it, though US military officials said the lack of publicity was not part of an effort to keep the programme secret. Other US military training programmes in Georgia have their own websites and photo galleries.
A US European Command spokesman confirmed the existence of the programme only after reviewing an e-mail sent by MPRI recruiters that was obtained by the FT. According to the e-mail, which did not mention Nato operations, former US special operations forces would receive $2,000 ($1,150, €1,400) a week plus costs as trainers. “We can confirm the programme exists, but due to its nature and training objectives we do not discuss specifics to ensure the integrity of the programme and force protection of the trainers and participants,” he said.
James Appathurai, Nato’s spokesman in Brussels, said: “Georgia has made an offer to provide forces to Isaf in the last two years. But until now these Georgian forces have not joined the Isaf mission.” An official at a senior Nato member state said it was understood that the forces had been trained by the US, but that the forces had not passed a certification process under which all potential members of the Isaf mission are vetted.
Additional reporting James Blitz in London
Conflict in the Caucasus
The conflict between Russia and Georgia began on the night of August 7, when Georgian forces, including commando units, tanks and artillery, assaulted the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali.
Russia says that at least 133 civilians died in the attack, as well as 59 of its own peacekeepers, according to figures released this week.
In response Russia launched a mass invasion and aerial bombardment of Georgia, in which 215 Georgians have died, including 146 soldiers and 69 civilians.
The revelation, based on recruitment documents and interviews with US military trainers obtained by the Financial Times, could add fuel to accusations by Vladimir Putin, Russian prime minister, last month that the US had “orchestrated” the war in the Georgian enclave.
The training was provided by senior US soldiers and two military contractors. There is no evidence that the contractors or the Pentagon, which hired them, knew that the commandos they were training were likely be used in the assault on South Ossetia.
A US army spokesman said the goal of the programme was to train the commandos for duty in Afghanistan as part of Nato-led International Security Assistance Force. The programme, however, highlights the often unintended consequences of US “train and equip” programmes in foreign countries.
The contractors – MPRI and American Systems, both based in Virginia – recruited a 15-man team of former special forces soldiers to train the Georgians at the Vashlijvari special forces base on the outskirts of Tbilisi, part of a programme run by the US defence department.
MPRI was hired by the Pentagon in 1995 to train the Croatian military prior to their invasion of the ethnically-Serbian Krajina region, which led to the displacement of 200,000 refugees and was one of the worst incidents of ethnic cleansing in the Balkan wars. MPRI denies any wrongdoing.
US training of the Georgian army is a big flashpoint between Washington and Moscow. Mr Putin said on CNN on August 29: “It is not just that the American side could not restrain the Georgian leadership from this criminal act [of intervening in South Ossetia]. The American side in effect armed and trained the Georgian army.”
The first phase of the special forces training was held between January and April this year, concentrating on “basic special forces skills” said an American Systems employee interviewed by phone from the US army’s Fort Bragg.
The US military official familiar with the programme said the Pentagon hired the military contracting firms to help supplement its own trainers because of a lack of manpower.
The second 70-day phase was set to begin on August 11, a few days after war broke out in South Ossetia. The trainers arrived on August 3, four days before the conflict flared on August 7. “They would have only seen the inside of a hotel room,” quipped one former contractor. Neither MPRI nor American Systems would speak at length to the FT about the programme.
American Systems directed questions to the US army’s Security Assistance Training Management Organisation (Satmo) at Fort Bragg, part of the US Army’s Special Warfare Center School. Satmo sends trainers, mainly special forces but also contractors, to countries such as Yemen, Colombia and the Philippines. Satmo trainers generally work with forces involved in counter-insurgencies, counter-terrorism or civil wars. A Satmo spokesman declined to comment.
One US military official familiar with the programme said it emerged from a Georgian offer to the US in December 2006 to send commandos to Afghanistan to work alongside American special operations forces.
According to this person, the US told Georgia that the offer should be made through Nato, which welcomed the offer but informed Georgia that its forces would need additional training to meet the military alliance’s standards.
While the programme is not classified, there is a lack of transparency surrounding it, though US military officials said the lack of publicity was not part of an effort to keep the programme secret. Other US military training programmes in Georgia have their own websites and photo galleries.
A US European Command spokesman confirmed the existence of the programme only after reviewing an e-mail sent by MPRI recruiters that was obtained by the FT. According to the e-mail, which did not mention Nato operations, former US special operations forces would receive $2,000 ($1,150, €1,400) a week plus costs as trainers. “We can confirm the programme exists, but due to its nature and training objectives we do not discuss specifics to ensure the integrity of the programme and force protection of the trainers and participants,” he said.
James Appathurai, Nato’s spokesman in Brussels, said: “Georgia has made an offer to provide forces to Isaf in the last two years. But until now these Georgian forces have not joined the Isaf mission.” An official at a senior Nato member state said it was understood that the forces had been trained by the US, but that the forces had not passed a certification process under which all potential members of the Isaf mission are vetted.
Additional reporting James Blitz in London
Conflict in the Caucasus
The conflict between Russia and Georgia began on the night of August 7, when Georgian forces, including commando units, tanks and artillery, assaulted the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali.
Russia says that at least 133 civilians died in the attack, as well as 59 of its own peacekeepers, according to figures released this week.
In response Russia launched a mass invasion and aerial bombardment of Georgia, in which 215 Georgians have died, including 146 soldiers and 69 civilians.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Israel of the Caucasus
WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 (UPI) -- NATO guarantees that an attack against one member country is an attack against all are no longer what they used to be. Had Georgia been inside NATO, a number of European countries would no longer be willing to consider it an attack against their own soil.
For Russia, the geopolitical stars were in perfect alignment. The United States was badly overstretched and had no plausible way to talk tough without coming across as empty rhetoric. American resources have been drained by the Iraq and Afghan wars, and the war on terror. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov put it, Washington must now choose between its "pet project" Georgia and a partnership with Moscow.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili evidently thought the United States would come to his side militarily if Russian troops pushed him back into Georgia after ordering an attack last Aug. 8 on the breakaway province of South Ossetia. And when his forces were mauled by Russia's counterattack, bitter disappointment turned to anger. Along with Abkhazia, Georgia lost two provinces.
Georgia also had a special relationship with Israel that was mostly under the radar. Georgian Defense Minister Davit Kezerashvili is a former Israeli who moved things along by facilitating Israeli arms sales with U.S. aid. "We are now in a fight against the great Russia," he was quoted as saying, "and our hope is to receive assistance from the White House because Georgia cannot survive on its own."
The Jerusalem Post on Aug. 12 reported, "Georgian Prime Minister Vladimir Gurgenidze made a special call to Israel Tuesday morning to receive a blessing from one of the Haredi community's most important rabbis and spiritual leaders, Rabbi Aaron Leib Steinman. 'I want him to pray for us and our state,'" he was quoted.
Israel began selling arms to Georgia seven years ago. U.S. grants facilitated these purchases. From Israel came former minister and former Tel Aviv Mayor Roni Milo, representing Elbit Systems, and his brother Shlomo, former director general of Military Industries. Israeli UAV spy drones, made by Elbit Maarahot Systems, conducted recon flights over southern Russia, as well as into nearby Iran.
In a secret agreement between Israel and Georgia, two military airfields in southern Georgia had been earmarked for the use of Israeli fighter-bombers in the event of pre-emptive attacks against Iranian nuclear installations. This would sharply reduce the distance Israeli fighter-bombers would have to fly to hit targets in Iran. And to reach Georgian airstrips, the Israeli air force would fly over Turkey.
The attack ordered by Saakashvili against South Ossetia the night of Aug. 7 provided the Russians the pretext for Moscow to order Special Forces to raid these Israeli facilities where some Israeli drones were reported captured.
At a Moscow news conference, Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, Russia's deputy chief of staff, said the extent of Israeli aid to Georgia included "eight types of military vehicles, explosives, landmines and special explosives for clearing minefields." Estimated numbers of Israeli trainers attached to the Georgian army range from 100 to 1,000. There were also 110 U.S. military personnel on training assignments in Georgia. Last July 2,000 U.S. troops were flown in for "Immediate Response 2008," a joint exercise with Georgian forces.
Details of Israel's involvement were largely ignored by Israeli media lest they be interpreted as another blow to Israel's legendary military prowess, which took a bad hit in the Lebanese war against Hezbollah two years ago. Georgia's top diplomat in Tel Aviv complained about Israel's "lackluster" response to his country's military predicament and called for "diplomatic pressure on Moscow." According to the Jerusalem Post, the Georgian was told "the address for that type of pressure is Washington."
Haaretz reported Georgian Minister Temur Yakobashvili -- who is Jewish, the newspaper said -- told Israeli army radio that "Israel should be proud of its military which trained Georgian soldiers" because he explained rather implausibly, "a small group of our soldiers were able to wipe out an entire Russian military division, thanks to Israeli training."
The Tel Aviv-Tbilisi military axis was agreed at the highest levels with the approval of the Bush administration. The official liaison between the two entities was Reserve Brig. Gen. Gal Hirsch who commanded Israeli forces on the Lebanese border in July 2006. He resigned from the army after the Winograd Commission flayed Israel's conduct of its Second Lebanon War. Hirsch was also blamed for the seizure of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah.
Israeli personnel, working for "private" companies with close ties to the Israel Defense Forces, also trained Georgian soldiers in house-to-house fighting.
That Russia assessed these Israeli training missions as U.S.-approved is a given. The United States was also handicapped by a shortage of spy-in-the-sky satellite capability, already overextended by the Iraq and Afghan wars. Neither U.S. nor Georgian intelligence knew Russian forces were ready with an immediate and massive response to the Georgian attack Moscow knew was coming. Russian double agents ostensibly working for Georgia most probably egged on the military fantasies of the impetuous Saakashvili's "surprise attack" plans.
Saakashvili was convinced that by sending 2,000 of his soldiers to serve in Iraq (who were immediately flown home by the United States when Russia launched a massive counterattack into Georgia), he would be rewarded for his loyalty. He could not believe President Bush, a personal friend, would leave him in the lurch. Georgia, as Saakashvili saw his country's role, was the "Israel of the Caucasus."
The Tel Aviv-Tbilisi military axis appears to have been cemented at the highest levels, according to YNet, the Israeli electronic daily. But whether the IAF can still count on those air bases to launch bombing missions against Iran's nuke facilities is now in doubt.
Iran comes out ahead in the wake of the Georgian crisis. Neither Russia nor China is willing to respond to a Western request for more and tougher sanctions against the mullahs. Iran's European trading partners are also loath to squeeze Iran. The Russian-built, 1,000-megawatt Iranian reactor in Bushehr is scheduled to go online early next year.
A combination of Putin and oil has put Russia back on the geopolitical map of the world. Moscow's oil and gas revenue this year is projected at $201 billion -- a 13-fold increase since Putin succeeded Boris Yeltsin eight years ago. Not shabby for a wannabe superpower on the comeback trail.
For Russia, the geopolitical stars were in perfect alignment. The United States was badly overstretched and had no plausible way to talk tough without coming across as empty rhetoric. American resources have been drained by the Iraq and Afghan wars, and the war on terror. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov put it, Washington must now choose between its "pet project" Georgia and a partnership with Moscow.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili evidently thought the United States would come to his side militarily if Russian troops pushed him back into Georgia after ordering an attack last Aug. 8 on the breakaway province of South Ossetia. And when his forces were mauled by Russia's counterattack, bitter disappointment turned to anger. Along with Abkhazia, Georgia lost two provinces.
Georgia also had a special relationship with Israel that was mostly under the radar. Georgian Defense Minister Davit Kezerashvili is a former Israeli who moved things along by facilitating Israeli arms sales with U.S. aid. "We are now in a fight against the great Russia," he was quoted as saying, "and our hope is to receive assistance from the White House because Georgia cannot survive on its own."
The Jerusalem Post on Aug. 12 reported, "Georgian Prime Minister Vladimir Gurgenidze made a special call to Israel Tuesday morning to receive a blessing from one of the Haredi community's most important rabbis and spiritual leaders, Rabbi Aaron Leib Steinman. 'I want him to pray for us and our state,'" he was quoted.
Israel began selling arms to Georgia seven years ago. U.S. grants facilitated these purchases. From Israel came former minister and former Tel Aviv Mayor Roni Milo, representing Elbit Systems, and his brother Shlomo, former director general of Military Industries. Israeli UAV spy drones, made by Elbit Maarahot Systems, conducted recon flights over southern Russia, as well as into nearby Iran.
In a secret agreement between Israel and Georgia, two military airfields in southern Georgia had been earmarked for the use of Israeli fighter-bombers in the event of pre-emptive attacks against Iranian nuclear installations. This would sharply reduce the distance Israeli fighter-bombers would have to fly to hit targets in Iran. And to reach Georgian airstrips, the Israeli air force would fly over Turkey.
The attack ordered by Saakashvili against South Ossetia the night of Aug. 7 provided the Russians the pretext for Moscow to order Special Forces to raid these Israeli facilities where some Israeli drones were reported captured.
At a Moscow news conference, Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, Russia's deputy chief of staff, said the extent of Israeli aid to Georgia included "eight types of military vehicles, explosives, landmines and special explosives for clearing minefields." Estimated numbers of Israeli trainers attached to the Georgian army range from 100 to 1,000. There were also 110 U.S. military personnel on training assignments in Georgia. Last July 2,000 U.S. troops were flown in for "Immediate Response 2008," a joint exercise with Georgian forces.
Details of Israel's involvement were largely ignored by Israeli media lest they be interpreted as another blow to Israel's legendary military prowess, which took a bad hit in the Lebanese war against Hezbollah two years ago. Georgia's top diplomat in Tel Aviv complained about Israel's "lackluster" response to his country's military predicament and called for "diplomatic pressure on Moscow." According to the Jerusalem Post, the Georgian was told "the address for that type of pressure is Washington."
Haaretz reported Georgian Minister Temur Yakobashvili -- who is Jewish, the newspaper said -- told Israeli army radio that "Israel should be proud of its military which trained Georgian soldiers" because he explained rather implausibly, "a small group of our soldiers were able to wipe out an entire Russian military division, thanks to Israeli training."
The Tel Aviv-Tbilisi military axis was agreed at the highest levels with the approval of the Bush administration. The official liaison between the two entities was Reserve Brig. Gen. Gal Hirsch who commanded Israeli forces on the Lebanese border in July 2006. He resigned from the army after the Winograd Commission flayed Israel's conduct of its Second Lebanon War. Hirsch was also blamed for the seizure of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah.
Israeli personnel, working for "private" companies with close ties to the Israel Defense Forces, also trained Georgian soldiers in house-to-house fighting.
That Russia assessed these Israeli training missions as U.S.-approved is a given. The United States was also handicapped by a shortage of spy-in-the-sky satellite capability, already overextended by the Iraq and Afghan wars. Neither U.S. nor Georgian intelligence knew Russian forces were ready with an immediate and massive response to the Georgian attack Moscow knew was coming. Russian double agents ostensibly working for Georgia most probably egged on the military fantasies of the impetuous Saakashvili's "surprise attack" plans.
Saakashvili was convinced that by sending 2,000 of his soldiers to serve in Iraq (who were immediately flown home by the United States when Russia launched a massive counterattack into Georgia), he would be rewarded for his loyalty. He could not believe President Bush, a personal friend, would leave him in the lurch. Georgia, as Saakashvili saw his country's role, was the "Israel of the Caucasus."
The Tel Aviv-Tbilisi military axis appears to have been cemented at the highest levels, according to YNet, the Israeli electronic daily. But whether the IAF can still count on those air bases to launch bombing missions against Iran's nuke facilities is now in doubt.
Iran comes out ahead in the wake of the Georgian crisis. Neither Russia nor China is willing to respond to a Western request for more and tougher sanctions against the mullahs. Iran's European trading partners are also loath to squeeze Iran. The Russian-built, 1,000-megawatt Iranian reactor in Bushehr is scheduled to go online early next year.
A combination of Putin and oil has put Russia back on the geopolitical map of the world. Moscow's oil and gas revenue this year is projected at $201 billion -- a 13-fold increase since Putin succeeded Boris Yeltsin eight years ago. Not shabby for a wannabe superpower on the comeback trail.
Distant Drums at Sarah's Party
by Patrick J. Buchanan
Friday, September 05, 2008
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The American Right has just died and gone to
heaven.
Last night's convention address by Sarah Palin here in St. Paul has
confirmed the bold decision of John McCain to choose the Alaska
governor as his co-pilot and united the Republican Party as it has
not been since the second term of Ronald Reagan.
A wild enthusiasm for Sarah Palin has brought conservatives home to
John McCain, and GOP leaders of all hues -- from Fred Thompson to
Mitt Romney to Mike Huckabee to Rudy Giuliani -- to the rostrum to
lacerate the liberal media for their five days of feral assaults on
Sister Sarah.
The war the right lives for, against the people the right truly
loathes -- the liberal media elite who savagely "Bork" every true
conservative who gets on the path to national power -- has been
reignited.
Positive polarization has been achieved. The Republican Party has
been united and invigorated. The enthusiasm gap with the Democratic
ticket has been closed. And the issues upon which the base loves to
fight -- the Culture War and Right to Life -- are back on the table.
Palin's beautifully crafted and delivered acceptance speech, after
Rudy's gleeful excoriations of the pretensions of Obama, will rank
as a night to remember in convention history.
Yet, as the familiar battle lines form up for the delicious
eight-week war that lies ahead, one hears a distant thunder. And
the seriousness of the hour we are in comes home.
U.S. troops have crossed into Pakistan to attack Taliban and
al-Qaida units in the privileged sanctuary of the tribal areas just
across the border from Afghanistan. Have we just thrown a rock into
the biggest hornet's nest on earth?
How will the Pakistani government and people react to this U.S.
incursion into their country to fight a war their own army has been
reluctant to wage? How will the tribal peoples react? Will the weak
new democratic regime, united only in its hatred of deposed
President Musharraf, fall?
What is the future of this Islamic nation of 170 million, with its
five-dozen nuclear weapons, that was once America's great ally in
South Asia, but is now seething with anti-Americanism?
In Afghanistan, the Taliban move closer to the capital Kabul as
hardly a day goes by without U.S. armed forces being charged with
the accidental killing of Afghan women and children. Is this even a
winnable war, after seven years of fighting? And, if so, at what
cost?
While the convention hears claims of victory in Iraq and an early
return of U.S. troops, there are reports the Nouri al-Maliki
regime, in collusion with Iran, wants the Americans out to settle
accounts with the U.S.-sponsored Sunni militias and the Kurds over
who rules in Baghdad and Kirkut.
Is the end of America's long and costly war in Mesopotamia to be an
Iraq incorporated into a Shia crescent led by Tehran?
Arnaud de Borchgrave reports that Israel, having supplied Mikheil
Saakashvili's army with weapons and training prior to his invasion
of South Ossetia, had hoped to use Georgian airfields to fly
strikes against Iran. The Russians are said to be furious and
considering new military aid to Syria.
Now one reads of Dutch intelligence agents, who had infiltrated
Iran's nuclear program to sabotage it, being withdrawn, as the
Dutch believe a U.S. strike on Iran may be imminent.
Vice President Cheney is in Tbilisi promising $1 billion in new
aid, as Prime Minister Putin of Russia is asking why, if this aid
is humanitarian, it is being brought into the Black Sea in U.S.
warships.
In Moscow, President Medvedev and his foreign minister are talking
of a Russian sphere of influence like the one the United States has
demanded for two centuries with its Monroe Doctrine -- a sphere
from which all foreign military blocs and foreign troops are to be
excluded.
This is a direct challenge to administration and neocon plans to
bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. John McCain may declare, "We
are all Georgians now!" -- but, are Americans, or Europeans, truly
willing to go to war with a nuclear-armed Russia to keep Joseph
Stalin's birthplace under a regime led by an erratic hothead who
launched what may be the dumbest war in history, which he lost
within 24 hours?
In June of 1914, a powerful flotilla of the Royal Navy was anchored
in the German port of Kiel on a friendly visit where British naval
officers visited German warships on the invitation of Adm. Von
Tirpitz, and the Kaiser himself inspected the great new British
battleship George V, in the uniform of a British admiral.
The festive occasion was interrupted and ended by news of the
assassination of the Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand in
Sarajevo in the Balkans, where neither British nor Germans had
vital interests.
Six weeks later, the two nations had plunged into the bloodiest war
in history. Today, as Republicans celebrate the last hours of a
hugely successful convention, and Democrats seethe at the hiding
they took, are we as a nation drifting inexorably for new
confrontations and larger and wider wars?
Friday, September 05, 2008
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The American Right has just died and gone to
heaven.
Last night's convention address by Sarah Palin here in St. Paul has
confirmed the bold decision of John McCain to choose the Alaska
governor as his co-pilot and united the Republican Party as it has
not been since the second term of Ronald Reagan.
A wild enthusiasm for Sarah Palin has brought conservatives home to
John McCain, and GOP leaders of all hues -- from Fred Thompson to
Mitt Romney to Mike Huckabee to Rudy Giuliani -- to the rostrum to
lacerate the liberal media for their five days of feral assaults on
Sister Sarah.
The war the right lives for, against the people the right truly
loathes -- the liberal media elite who savagely "Bork" every true
conservative who gets on the path to national power -- has been
reignited.
Positive polarization has been achieved. The Republican Party has
been united and invigorated. The enthusiasm gap with the Democratic
ticket has been closed. And the issues upon which the base loves to
fight -- the Culture War and Right to Life -- are back on the table.
Palin's beautifully crafted and delivered acceptance speech, after
Rudy's gleeful excoriations of the pretensions of Obama, will rank
as a night to remember in convention history.
Yet, as the familiar battle lines form up for the delicious
eight-week war that lies ahead, one hears a distant thunder. And
the seriousness of the hour we are in comes home.
U.S. troops have crossed into Pakistan to attack Taliban and
al-Qaida units in the privileged sanctuary of the tribal areas just
across the border from Afghanistan. Have we just thrown a rock into
the biggest hornet's nest on earth?
How will the Pakistani government and people react to this U.S.
incursion into their country to fight a war their own army has been
reluctant to wage? How will the tribal peoples react? Will the weak
new democratic regime, united only in its hatred of deposed
President Musharraf, fall?
What is the future of this Islamic nation of 170 million, with its
five-dozen nuclear weapons, that was once America's great ally in
South Asia, but is now seething with anti-Americanism?
In Afghanistan, the Taliban move closer to the capital Kabul as
hardly a day goes by without U.S. armed forces being charged with
the accidental killing of Afghan women and children. Is this even a
winnable war, after seven years of fighting? And, if so, at what
cost?
While the convention hears claims of victory in Iraq and an early
return of U.S. troops, there are reports the Nouri al-Maliki
regime, in collusion with Iran, wants the Americans out to settle
accounts with the U.S.-sponsored Sunni militias and the Kurds over
who rules in Baghdad and Kirkut.
Is the end of America's long and costly war in Mesopotamia to be an
Iraq incorporated into a Shia crescent led by Tehran?
Arnaud de Borchgrave reports that Israel, having supplied Mikheil
Saakashvili's army with weapons and training prior to his invasion
of South Ossetia, had hoped to use Georgian airfields to fly
strikes against Iran. The Russians are said to be furious and
considering new military aid to Syria.
Now one reads of Dutch intelligence agents, who had infiltrated
Iran's nuclear program to sabotage it, being withdrawn, as the
Dutch believe a U.S. strike on Iran may be imminent.
Vice President Cheney is in Tbilisi promising $1 billion in new
aid, as Prime Minister Putin of Russia is asking why, if this aid
is humanitarian, it is being brought into the Black Sea in U.S.
warships.
In Moscow, President Medvedev and his foreign minister are talking
of a Russian sphere of influence like the one the United States has
demanded for two centuries with its Monroe Doctrine -- a sphere
from which all foreign military blocs and foreign troops are to be
excluded.
This is a direct challenge to administration and neocon plans to
bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. John McCain may declare, "We
are all Georgians now!" -- but, are Americans, or Europeans, truly
willing to go to war with a nuclear-armed Russia to keep Joseph
Stalin's birthplace under a regime led by an erratic hothead who
launched what may be the dumbest war in history, which he lost
within 24 hours?
In June of 1914, a powerful flotilla of the Royal Navy was anchored
in the German port of Kiel on a friendly visit where British naval
officers visited German warships on the invitation of Adm. Von
Tirpitz, and the Kaiser himself inspected the great new British
battleship George V, in the uniform of a British admiral.
The festive occasion was interrupted and ended by news of the
assassination of the Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand in
Sarajevo in the Balkans, where neither British nor Germans had
vital interests.
Six weeks later, the two nations had plunged into the bloodiest war
in history. Today, as Republicans celebrate the last hours of a
hugely successful convention, and Democrats seethe at the hiding
they took, are we as a nation drifting inexorably for new
confrontations and larger and wider wars?
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Thousands rally at Ron Paul convention
MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (CNN) -- While Republicans pow-wowed in St. Paul, supporters of Ron Paul threw their own party in neighboring Minneapolis. Freedom brings people together," Paul said before a sold-out crowd at Tuesday's Rally for the Republic.
Paul, who said he entered the presidential race reluctantly, told the roaring audience, "I lost my skepticism. I hope you lost your apathy."
As the congressman stepped on stage, red, white and blue confetti fell from the ceiling during a two-minute standing ovation.
Paul said he entered the presidential race not because of what he wanted to do but because of what he did not want to do.
"I did not want to run people's lives. I did not want to run the economy and I did not want to run the world. I didn't have the authority to do it, and I didn't have the Constitution behind me to do it," said Paul, who has served in the House of
Representatives for more than 30 years.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
About Me
Sixburgh
