Bulletin N° 243
Subject : ON STRATEGIES, TACTICS, AND LOGISTICS AT
THIS MOMENT OF WAR.
17 July 2006
Grenoble, France
Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
For a long time now Information
Clearing House has proved to be a reliable source of valuable
information on American foreign policy in the Middle East. The
following information from the podcast, "Uncensored News
Reports From Across The Middle East" provides the context necessary to
understand the analyses in the items listed below.
- This video contains images
depicting the reality and horror of war and should
- only be viewed by a mature
audience. Click here to watch.
- QuickTime Video.
Item A., "The Real Aim" by Uri Avnery, offers an analysis of
the Israeli strategy of regime change in Lebanon.
In item B. Robert Fisk gives a different
analysis about Israeli aggression in Lebanon: "It's about Syria," he
warns, "this war will run out of control until ... Israel itself calls
for a ceasefire and releases prisoners. Then the international
big-hitters will arrive and make their way to the real Lebanese capital
- Damascus, not Beirut - and appeal for help."
Item C., "The Demons of Greed are
Loose : Why a Global Economic Deluge Looms" by Gabriel Kolko, is a description of
the contemporary economic environment which helps to explain Israeli
aggressions in their global context.
Item D., is Dahr Jamail's observations on why
"This is Going to be a Big War."
And finally item E., a
report on
"The Good Fight" by Ralph Nader,
is a hopeful call for new tactics to bring the war mongers in the
United States within democratic constraints and to eventually hold them
accountable for their criminal behavior.
Sincerely,
Francis McCollum Feeley
Professor of American Studies/
Director of Research
Université Stendhal - Grenoble 3
http://dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/
_____________
A.
from Information Clearning House :
15 July 2006
Information Clearing
House
The Real Aim
by Uri Avnery
THE REAL aim is to change the regime in
Lebanon and to install a puppet government.
That was the aim of Ariel Sharon's invasion of Lebanon in 1982. It
failed. But Sharon and his pupils in the military and political
leadership have never really given up on it.
As in 1982, the present operation, too, was planned and is being
carried out in full coordination with the US.
As then, there is no doubt that it is coordinated with a part of the
Lebanese elite.
That's the main thing. Everything else is noise and propaganda.
ON THE eve of the 1982 invasion, Secretary of State Alexander Haig told
Ariel Sharon that, before starting it, it was necessary to have a
"clear provocation", which would be accepted by the world.
The provocation indeed took place - exactly at the appropriate time -
when Abu-Nidal's terror gang tried to assassinate the Israeli
ambassador in London. This had no connection with Lebanon, and even
less with the PLO (the enemy of Abu-Nidal), but it served its purpose.
This time, the necessary provocation has been provided by the capture
of the two Israeli soldiers by Hizbullah. Everyone knows that they
cannot be freed except through an exchange of prisoners. But the huge
military campaign that has been ready to go for months was sold to the
Israeli and international public as a rescue operation.
(Strangely enough, the very same thing happened two weeks earlier in
the Gaza Strip. Hamas and its partners captured a soldier, which
provided the excuse for a massive operation that had been prepared for
a long time and whose aim is to destroy the Palestinian government.)
THE DECLARED aim of the Lebanon operation is to push Hizbullah away
from the border, so as to make it impossible for them to capture more
soldiers and to launch rockets at Israeli towns. The invasion of the
Gaza strip is also officially aimed at getting Ashkelon and Sderot out
of the range of the Qassams.
That resembles the 1982 "Operation Peace for Gallilee". Then, the
public and the Knesset were told that the aim of the war was to "push
the Katyushas 40 km away from the border".
That was a deliberate lie. For 11 months before the war, not a single
Katyusha rocket (nor a single shot) had been fired over the border.
From the beginning, the aim of the operation was to reach Beirut and
install a Quisling dictator. As I have recounted more than once, Sharon
himself told me so nine months before the war, and I duly published it
at the time, with his consent (but unattributed).
Of course, the present operation also has several secondary aims, which
do not include the freeing of the prisoners. Everybody understands that
that cannot be achieved by military means. But it is probably possible
to destroy some of the thousands of missiles that Hizbullah has
accumulated over the years. For this end, the army chiefs are ready to
endanger the inhabitants of the Israeli towns that are exposed to the
rockets. They believe that that is worthwhile, like an exchange of
chess figures.
Another secondary aim is to rehabilitate the "deterrent power" of the
army. That is a codeword for the restoration of the army's injured
pride that has suffered a severe blow from the daring military actions
of Hamas in the south and Hizbullah in the north.
Officially, the Israeli government demands that the Government of
Lebanon disarm Hizbullah and remove it from the border region.
That is clearly impossible under the present Lebanese regime, a
delicate fabric of ethno-religious communities. The slightest shock can
bring the whole structure crashing down and throw the state into total
anarchy - especially after the Americans succeeded in driving out the
Syrian army, the only element that has for years provided some
stability.
The idea of installing a Quisling in Lebanon is nothing new. In 1955,
David Ben-Gurion proposed taking a "Christian officer" and installing
him as dictator. Moshe Sharet showed that this idea was based on
complete ignorance of Lebanese affairs and torpedoed it. But 27 years
later, Ariel Sharon tried to put it into effect nevertheless. Bashir
Gemayel was indeed installed as president, only to be murdered soon
afterwards. His brother, Amin, succeeded him and signed a peace
agreement with Israel, but was driven out of office. (The same brother
is now publicly supporting the Israeli operation.)
The calculation now is that if the Israeli Air Force rains heavy enough
blows on the Lebanese population - paralysing the sea- and airports,
destroying the infrastructure, bombarding residential neighborhoods,
cutting the Beirut-Damascus highroad etc. - the public will get furious
with Hizbullah and pressure the Lebanese government into fulfilling
Israel's demands. Since the present government cannot even dream of
doing so, a dictatorship will be set up with Israel's support.
That is the military logic. I have my doubts. It can be assumed that
most Lebanese will react as any other people on earth would: with fury
and hatred towards the invader. That happened in 1982, when the Shiites
in the south of Lebanon, until then as docile as a doormat, stood up
against the Israeli occupiers and created the Hizbullah, which has
become the strongest force in the country. If the Lebanese elite now
becomes tainted as collaborators with Israel, it will be swept off the
map. (By the way, have the Qassams and Katyushas caused the Israeli
population to exert pressure on our government to give up? Quite the
contrary.)
The American policy is full of contradictions. President Bush wants
"regime change" in the Middle East, but the present Lebanese regime has
only recently been set up by under American pressure. In the meantime,
Bush has succeeded only in breaking up Iraq and causing a civil war (as
foretold here). He may get the same in Lebanon, if he does not stop the
Israeli army in time. Moreover, a devastating blow against Hizbullah
may arouse fury not only in Iran, but also among the Shiites in Iraq,
on whose support all of Bush's plans for a pro-American regime are
built.
So what's the answer? Not by accident, Hizbullah has carried out its
soldier-snatching raid at a time when the Palestinians are crying out
for succor. The Palestinian cause is popular all over the Arab word. By
showing that they are a friend in need, when all other Arabs are
failing dismally, Hizbullah hopes to increase its popularity. If an
Israeli-Palestinian agreement had been achieved by now, Hizbullah would
be no more than a local Lebanese phenomenon, irrelevant to our
situation.
Less than three months after its formation, the Olmert-Peretz
government has succeeded in plunging Israel into a two-front war, whose
aims are unrealistic and whose results cannot be foreseen.
If Olmert hopes to be seen as Mister Macho-Macho, a Sharon # 2, he will
be disappointed. The same goes for the desperate attempts of Peretz to
be taken seriously as an imposing Mister Security. Everybody
understands that this campaign - both in Gaza and in Lebanon - has been
planned by the army and dictated by the army. The man who makes the
decisions in Israel now is Dan Halutz. It is no accident that the job
in Lebanon has been turned over to the Air Force.
The public is not enthusiastic about the war. It is resigned to it, in
stoic fatalism, because it is being told that there is no alternative.
And indeed, who can be against it? Who does not want to liberate the
"kidnapped soldiers"? Who does not want to remove the Katyushas and
rehabilitate deterrence? No politician dares to criticize the operation
(except the Arab MKs, who are ignored by the Jewish public). In the
media, the generals reign supreme, and not only those in uniform. There
is almost no former general who is not being invited by the media to
comment, explain and justify, all speaking in one voice.
(As an illustration: Israel's most popular TV channel invited me to an
interview about the war, after hearing that I had taken part in an
anti-war demonstration. I was quite surprised. But not for long - an
hour before the broadcast, an apologetic talk-show host called and said
that there had been a terrible mistake - they really meant to invite
Professor Shlomo Avineri, a former Director General of the Foreign
Office who can be counted on to justify any act of the government,
whatever it may be, in lofty academic language.)
"Inter arma silent Musae" - when the weapons speak, the muses fall
silent. Or, rather: when the guns roar, the brain ceases to function.
Ane just a small thought : when the State of Israel was founded in the
middle of a cruel war, a poster was plastered on the walls: "All the
country - a front! All the people - an army!"
58 Years have passed, and the same slogan is still as valid as it was
then. What does that say about generations of statesmen and generals?
___________
Uri Avnery is an Israeli author and
activist. He is the head of the Israeli peace movement, "Gush Shalom".
__________________
B.
from Robert Fisk
13 July 2006
The
Independent
Beirut waits as Syrian masters
send Hezbollah allies into battle
by Robert Fisk
It's about Syria. That was the frightening
message delivered by Damascus yesterday when it allowed its Hizbollah
allies to cross the UN Blue Line in southern Lebanon, kill three
Israeli soldiers, capture two others and demand the release of Lebanese
prisoners in Israeli jails.
Within hours, a country that had begun to believe in peace - without a
single Syrian soldier left on its soil - found itself once more at war.
Israel held the powerless Lebanese government responsible - as if the
sectarian and divided cabinet in Beirut can control Hizbollah. That is
Syria's message. Fouad Siniora, Lebanon's affable Prime Minister, may
have thought he was running the country but it is President Bashar
Assad in Damascus who can still bring life or death to a land that lost
150,000 lives in 15 years of civil conflict.
And there is one certain bet that Syria will rely on; that despite all
Israel's threats of inflicting "pain" on Lebanon, this war will run out
of control until - as has so often happened in the past - Israel itself
calls for a ceasefire and releases prisoners. Then the international
big-hitters will arrive and make their way to the real Lebanese capital
- Damascus, not Beirut - and appeal for help.
That is probably the plan. But will it work? Israel has threatened
Lebanon's newly installed infrastructure and Hizbollah has threatened
Israel with further conflict. And therein lies the problem; to get at
Hizbollah, Israel must send its soldiers into Lebanon - and then it
will lose more soldiers.
Indeed when a single Merkava tank crossed the border into Lebanon
yesterday morning, it struck a Hizbollah mine, which killed three more
Israelis.
Certainly Hizbollah's attack broke the United Nations rules in southern
Lebanon - a "violent breach" of the Blue Line, it was called by Geir
Pedersen, the senior UN official in the country - and was bound to
unleash the air force, tanks and gunboats of Israel on to this frail,
dangerous country. Many Lebanese in Beirut were outraged when gangs of
Hizbollah supporters drove through the streets of the capital with
party flags to "celebrate" the attack on the border.
Christian members of the Lebanese government were voicing increasing
frustration at the Shia Muslim militia's actions - which only proved
how powerless the Beirut administration is.
By nightfall, Israel's air raids had begun to spread across the country
- the first civilians to die were killed when an aircraft bombed a
small road bridge at Qasmiyeh - but would they go even further and
include a target in Syria? This would be the gravest escalation so far
and would have US as well as UN diplomats appealing for that familiar,
tired quality - "restraint".
And prisoner swaps is probably all that will come of this. In January
2004, for example, Israel freed 436 Arab prisoners and released the
bodies of 59 Lebanese for burial, in return for an Israeli spy and the
bodies of three Israeli soldiers.
As long ago as 1985, three Israeli soldiers captured in 1982 were
traded for 1,150 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners. So Hizbollah knows
- and the Israelis know - how this cruel game is played. How many have
to die before the swaps begin is a more important question.
What is also clear is that for the first time Israel is facing two
Islamist enemies - in southern Lebanon and in Gaza - rather than
nationalist guerrillas. The Palestinian Hamas movement's spokesmen in
Lebanon yesterday denied that there was any co-ordination with
Hizbollah. This may be literally true but Hizbollah timed its attack
when Arab feelings are embittered by the international sanctions placed
on the democratically elected Hamas government and then the war in
Gaza. Hizbollah will ride the anger over Gaza in the hope of escaping
condemnation for its capture and killing of Israelis yesterday.
And there is one more little, sinister question. In past violence of
this kind, Syria's power was controlled by the Hafez Assad, one of the
shrewdest Arabs in modern history. But there are those - including
Lebanese politicians - who believe that Bashar, the son, lacks his late
father's wisdom and understanding of power. This is a country,
remember, whose own Minister of Interior allegedly committed suicide
last year and whose soldiers had to leave Lebanon amid suspicion that
Syria had set up the murder of Rafik Hariri, Lebanon's former prime
minister, last year. All this may now seem academic. But Damascus
remains, as always, the key.
It's about Syria. That was the frightening message delivered by
Damascus yesterday when it allowed its Hizbollah allies to cross the UN
Blue Line in southern Lebanon, kill three Israeli soldiers, capture two
others and demand the release of Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails.
Within hours, a country that had begun to believe in peace - without a
single Syrian soldier left on its soil - found itself once more at war.
Israel held the powerless Lebanese government responsible - as if the
sectarian and divided cabinet in Beirut can control Hizbollah. That is
Syria's message. Fouad Siniora, Lebanon's affable Prime Minister, may
have thought he was running the country but it is President Bashar
Assad in Damascus who can still bring life or death to a land that lost
150,000 lives in 15 years of civil conflict.
And there is one certain bet that Syria will rely on; that despite all
Israel's threats of inflicting "pain" on Lebanon, this war will run out
of control until - as has so often happened in the past - Israel itself
calls for a ceasefire and releases prisoners. Then the international
big-hitters will arrive and make their way to the real Lebanese capital
- Damascus, not Beirut - and appeal for help.
That is probably the plan. But will it work? Israel has threatened
Lebanon's newly installed infrastructure and Hizbollah has threatened
Israel with further conflict. And therein lies the problem; to get at
Hizbollah, Israel must send its soldiers into Lebanon - and then it
will lose more soldiers.
Indeed when a single Merkava tank crossed the border into Lebanon
yesterday morning, it struck a Hizbollah mine, which killed three more
Israelis.
Certainly Hizbollah's attack broke the United Nations rules in southern
Lebanon - a "violent breach" of the Blue Line, it was called by Geir
Pedersen, the senior UN official in the country - and was bound to
unleash the air force, tanks and gunboats of Israel on to this frail,
dangerous country. Many Lebanese in Beirut were outraged when gangs of
Hizbollah supporters drove through the streets of the capital with
party flags to "celebrate" the attack on the border.
Christian members of the Lebanese government were voicing increasing
frustration at the Shia Muslim militia's actions - which only proved
how powerless the Beirut administration is.
By nightfall, Israel's air raids had begun to spread across the country
- the first civilians to die were killed when an aircraft bombed a
small road bridge at Qasmiyeh - but would they go even further and
include a target in Syria? This would be the gravest escalation so far
and would have US as well as UN diplomats appealing for that familiar,
tired quality - "restraint".
And prisoner swaps is probably all that will come of this. In January
2004, for example, Israel freed 436 Arab prisoners and released the
bodies of 59 Lebanese for burial, in return for an Israeli spy and the
bodies of three Israeli soldiers.
As long ago as 1985, three Israeli soldiers captured in 1982 were
traded for 1,150 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners. So Hizbollah knows
- and the Israelis know - how this cruel game is played. How many have
to die before the swaps begin is a more important question.
What is also clear is that for the first time Israel is facing two
Islamist enemies - in southern Lebanon and in Gaza - rather than
nationalist guerrillas. The Palestinian Hamas movement's spokesmen in
Lebanon yesterday denied that there was any co-ordination with
Hizbollah. This may be literally true but Hizbollah timed its attack
when Arab feelings are embittered by the international sanctions placed
on the democratically elected Hamas government and then the war in
Gaza. Hizbollah will ride the anger over Gaza in the hope of escaping
condemnation for its capture and killing of Israelis yesterday.
And there is one more little, sinister question. In past violence of
this kind, Syria's power was controlled by the Hafez Assad, one of the
shrewdest Arabs in modern history. But there are those - including
Lebanese politicians - who believe that Bashar, the son, lacks his late
father's wisdom and understanding of power. This is a country,
remember, whose own Minister of Interior allegedly committed suicide
last year and whose soldiers had to leave Lebanon amid suspicion that
Syria had set up the murder of Rafik Hariri, Lebanon's former prime
minister, last year. All this may now seem academic. But Damascus
remains, as always, the key.
__________________
C.
from Gabriel Kolko :
15 July 2006
http://www.counterpunch.org/kolko06152006.html
"The Demons of
Greed are Loose"
Why a Global Economic Deluge Looms
by Gabriel Kolko
People
who know the most about the world financial system are increasingly
worried, and for very good reasons. Dire warnings are coming from the
most "respectable" sources. Reality has gotten out of hand. The demons
of greed are loose.
What is that reality? It includes a number of factors. Alone they would
be exceedingly serious; combined, they are very likely to be lethal.
First of all, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been undergoing
both a structural and intellectual crisis. Structurally, its
outstanding credit and loans have declined dramatically since 2003,
from over $70 billion to a little over $20 billion today, leaving it
with far less leverage over the economic policies of developing
nations--and even less income than its expensive operations require. It
is now in deficit.1
A large part of the IMF's problems are due to the doubling in world
prices for all commodities since 2003 -- especially petroleum, copper,
silver, zinc, nickel, and the like -- that the developing nations
traditionally export. While there will be fluctuations in this upsurge,
there is also reason to think it may endure because rapid economic
growth in China, India, and elsewhere has created a burgeoning demand
that did not exist before, when the balance-of-trade systematically
favored the rich nations.
The U.S. has seen its net foreign asset position fall as Japan,
emerging Asia, and oil exporting nations have become far more powerful
over the past decade, and have increasingly become creditors to the
U.S.2 As the U.S. deficits mount, with its imports being far greater
than its exports, the value of the dollar has been declining -- 28 per
cent against the euro from 2001 to 2005 alone.
Equally important, the IMF and World Bank were severely chastened by
the 1997-2000 financial meltdowns in East Asia, Russia, and elsewhere,
and many of the two institutions' key leaders lost faith in the
anarchic premises, descended from classical laisser-faire economic
thought, which guided policy advice until then. "{O]ur knowledge of
economic growth is extremely incomplete," many in the IMF now admit,
and "more humility" on its part is now warranted.3
Worse yet, the whole nature of the global financial system has changed
radically in ways that have nothing whatsoever to do with "virtuous"
national economic policies that follow IMF advice. These are ways the
IMF cannot control. The investment managers of private equity funds and
major banks have displaced national banks and international bodies such
as the IMF, moving well beyond the existing regulatory structures and
they have "reintermediated" themselves between the traditional
borrowers, both national and individual, and markets. They have
deregulated the world financial structure, making it far more
unpredictable and susceptible to crises. They seek to generate high
investment returns, which is the key to their compensation, and they
take mounting risks to do so.
A "brave new world" has emerged in the global financial structure, one
that is far less transparent because there are fewer reporting demands
imposed on those who operate in it. Financial adventurers are
constantly creating new "products" that defy both states and
international banks. The IMF's managing director, Rodrigo de Rato, at
the end of May, 2005, deplored these new risks -- risks the weakness of
the U.S. dollar and its mounting trade deficits have magnified greatly.4
In March of this year the IMF released Garry J. Schinasi's book, Safeguarding
Financial Stability, giving it unusual prominence then and
thereafter. In essence, Schinasi's book is alarmist, and it both
reveals and documents in great and disturbing detail the IMF's deep
anxieties. Essentially, "deregulation and liberalization", which the
IMF and proponents of the "Washington consensus" advocated for decades,
have become a nightmare, creating "tremendous private and social
benefits" but also holding "the potential (although not necessarily a
high likelihood) for fragility, instability, systemic risk, and adverse
economic consequences."
Anyone who reads the data in Schinasi's superbly documented book will
share his real conclusion that the irrational development of global
finance, combined with deregulation and liberalization, has "created
scope for financial innovation and enhanced the mobility of risks".
Schinasi and the IMF advocate a radical new framework to monitor and
prevent the problems now able to emerge, but success "may have as much
to do with good luck" as policy design and market surveillance.5
Leaving the future to luck is not what economics originally promised.
The IMF is desperate, and not alone.
As the Argentina financial meltdown proved, countries that do not
succumb to IMF and banker pressures can play on divisions within the
IMF membership, particularly the U.S., comprising bankers and others to
avoid many, although scarcely all, foreign demands. About $140 billion
in sovereign bonds to private creditors and the IMF were at stake,
terminating at the end of 2001 as the largest national default in
history. Banks in the 1990s were eager to loan Argentina money and they
ultimately paid for it. Since then, however, commodity prices have
soared and the growth rate of developing nations in 2004 and 2005 was
over double that of high income nation, a pattern projected to continue
through 2008.
As early as 2003 developing countries were already the source of 37
percent of the foreign direct investment in other developing nations.
China accounts for a great part of this growth, but it also means that
the IMF and rich bankers of New York, Tokyo, and London have far less
leverage than ever. Growing complexity is the order of the world
economy that has emerged in the past decade, and with it has come the
potential for far greater instability, and dangers for the rich.
High-speed Global Economics
The global financial problem that is emerging is entwined with
an American fiscal and trade deficit that is rising quickly. Since Bush
entered office in 2001 he had added over $3 trillion to federal
borrowing limits, which are now almost $9 trillion. So long as there is
a continued devaluation of the U.S. dollar, banks and financiers will
seek to protect their money and risky financial adventures will appear
increasingly worthwhile. This is the context, but Washington advocated
greater financial liberalization well before the dollar weakened. The
world now has a conjunction of factors that have created a far greater
risk than the proponents of the "Washington consensus" ever believed
possible.
There are now many hedge funds, with which we are familiar, but they
now deal in credit derivatives and numerous other financial
instruments. Markets for credit derivative futures are in the offing.
The credit derivative market was almost nonexistent in 2001, grew
fairly slowly until 2004 and then went into the stratosphere, reaching
$17.3 trillion by the end of 2005.
What are credit derivatives? The Financial Times' chief capital
markets writer, Gillian Tett, tried to find out. She failed. About ten
years ago some J. P. Morgan bankers were in Boca Raton, Florida,
drinking, throwing each other into the swimming pool, and the like, and
they came up with a notion of a new financial instrument that was too
complex to be easily copied (financial ideas cannot be copyrighted) and
which was sure to make them money. But she was highly critical of its
potential for causing a chain reaction of losses that will engulf the
hedge funds that have leaped into this market.6 It for reasons such as
these, as well as others, even more opaque, such as split capital
trusts, collateralized debt obligations, and market credit default
swaps, that the IMF and financial authorities are so worried.
Banks simply do not understand the chain of exposure and who owns what.
Senior financial regulators and bankers now admit as much. The
Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund meltdown in 1998, which
involved only about $5 billion in equity, revealed this. The financial
structure is now infinitely more complex and far larger. The top ten
hedge funds alone in March 2006 had $157 billion in assets. Hedge funds
claim to be honest but those who guide them are compensated for the
profits they make, which means taking risks. But there are thousands of
hedge funds and many collect inside information, which is technically
illegal but it occurs anyway. The system is fraught with dangers,
starting with the compensation structure, but it also assumes a
constantly rising stock market and much, much else. Many fund managers
are incompetent. But the 26 leading hedge fund managers earned an
average of $363 million each in 2005; James Simons of Renaissance
Technologies earned $1.5 billion.
There is now a consensus that all this, and much else, has created
growing dangers. We can put aside the persistence of imbalanced budgets
based on spending increases or tax cuts for the wealthy, much less the
world's volatile stock and commodity markets which caused hedge funds
in May to show far lower returns than they have in at least a year. It
is anyone's guess which way the markets will go, and some will gain
while others lose. Hedge funds still make lots of profits, and by the
spring of 2006 they were worth about $1.2 trillion worldwide, but they
are increasingly dangerous.
A great deal of money went from investors in rich nations into emerging
market stocks, which have been especially hard-hit in the past weeks,
and if they leave them the financial shock will be great. The dangers
of a meltdown exist there too.
Problems are structural, such as the greatly increasing ratio of
corporate debt loads to core earnings, which have grown substantially
from four to six times over the past year because there are fewer legal
clauses to protect investors from loss, and to keep companies from
going bankrupt when they should. So long as interest rates have been
low, leveraged loans have been the solution. With hedge funds and other
financial instruments, there is now a market for incompetent,
debt-ridden firms. The rules some once erroneously associated with
capitalism -- probity and the like--no longer hold even on paper.
Problems are also inherent in speed and complexity, and these are very
diverse and almost surreal. Credit derivatives are precarious enough,
but at the end of May the International Swaps and Derivatives
Association revealed that one in every five deals, many of them
involving billions of dollars, involved major errors. As the volume of
trade increased so did errors. They doubled in the period after 2004.
Many deals were scribbled on scraps of paper and not properly recorded.
"Unconscionable" was outgoing Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan's,
description. He was "frankly shocked." Other trading, however, is
determined by mathematical algorithm ("volume-weighted average price"
it is called) for which PhDs trained in quantitative methods are
hired.7 Efforts to remedy this mess only began in June of this year and
they are very far from resolving a major and accumulated problem that
involves stupendous sums.
Stephen Roach, Morgan Stanley's chief economist, on April 24 of this
year wrote that a major financial crisis was in the offing and that the
ability of global institutions to forestall it -- ranging from the IMF
and World Bank to other mechanisms of the international financial
architecture are utterly inadequate. Hong Kong's chief secretary
in early June deplored the hedge funds' risks and dangers. The IMF's
iconoclastic chief economist, Raghuram Rajan, at the same time warned
that the hedge funds' compensation structure encouraged those in charge
of them to increasingly take risks, thereby endangering the whole
financial system.
* * *
The entire global financial structure is becoming uncontrollable in
crucial ways its nominal leaders never expected. Instability is
increasingly its hallmark. Financial liberalization has produced a
monster, and resolving the many problems that have emerged is scarcely
possible for those who deplore controls on those who seek to make
money, whatever means it takes to do so. Contradictions now wrack the
world's financial system, and if we are to believe the institutions and
personalities who have been in the forefront of the defense of
capitalism, it may very well be on the verge of serious crises.
______________
Gabriel Kolko is the
leading historian of modern warfare. He is the author of the classic Century
of War: Politics, Conflicts and Society Since 1914 and Another
Century of War?. He has also written the best history of the
Vietnam War, Anatomy
of a War: Vietnam, the US and the Modern Historical Experience.
His latest book, The
Age of War, was published in March 2006.
Notes
1 IMF Survey,
March 13, 2006, p. 66.
2 Philip R. Lane and G. M. Milesi-Ferretti, "Examining Global
Imbalances," Finance & Development, March 2006, pp. 38-41.
3 Roberto Zagha et al, "Rethinking Growth," Finance &
Development, March 2006, p. 11.
4 Raghuram Rajan, in Finance & Development, September 2005,
pp. 54, 58; IMF Survey, May 29, 2006, p. 147.
5 Garry J. Schinasi, Safeguarding Financial Stability: Theory and
Practice, pp. 8, 14, 17.
6 Gillian Tett, "The dream machine," Financial Times
magazine, March 25/26, 2006, pp. 20-26. Also Financial Times,
March 20, 2006.
7 Financial Times, May 31, 2006; June 8, 2006.
_____________
D.
from Dahr Jamail :
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006
Subject: "This is going to be a big war."
http://dahrjamailiraq.com
"This is going to be a big war."
You can always spot them a mile away-he was
white, middle-aged, overweight, hair cut close to hide the pattern
baldness, red face, wearing a Harley Davidson motorcycle t-shirt and
shorts. All of the aforementioned is acceptable in the Middle East, of
course, minus the shorts. Aside from a few places like Beirut, wearing
shorts in the Middle East isn't exactly being respectful of the native
culture.
But when you are a mercenary, I suppose that's damned low on your
priority list.
Then there was the other one-I noticed him in Chicago before we board
our Royal Jordanian flight to Amman. A 30-something white man, eyes
wide open, looking over his shoulder constantly, chewing gum so hard
his jaw muscles protruded. Blue-flames tattooed on his right arm above
the wrist-running up under his sleeve I don't know how far up his arm.
His tan combat boots and tan backpack kind of gave him away too,
despite his wearing civilian clothing.
During my flight I sat near a kind Palestinian man from the West Bank.
The older gentleman works in Dallas, and is retiring from his
electronics store which he is happy to tell me is being passed along to
his kids. His wife remains in the West Bank, so that's why he's moving
back home. I asked him what it's like to go home.
"I spend the night in Amman then the next day it takes sometimes the
full day to cross the bridge and get through the checkpoints. We have
the Jordanian border, the Israeli checkpoint, and another to get
into the West Bank," he says, "Each time they take all our things out,
search them and us, then if we're lucky we're waved through."
I ask him how he deals with it, personally, without losing his mind.
"Oh, all I can do is laugh, because if I lose my temper, if anyone
loses their temper, the soldiers [occupation soldiers] just go away for
3-4 hours until they feel like returning. So we all just stay calm and
behave gently and with dignity. They have all the power. We have none.
So what else can we do?"
Behaving like a typical Arab, he invites me to his home anytime I'm in
the area.
Landing in the heat of Amman, I left the plane and walk past a
Jordanian man holding a small piece of paper up which read,
"Blackwater." Of ourse it's for one (or both) of the men I described
above…and soon I ee him greeting the man who prefers to wear shorts in
the Middle East.
Not too much has changed in the airport in Amman, aside from the new
Starbucks. Of course, the Cinnabon had already been here for at least a
couple of years.
Meanwhile, plenty has changed in the region since I was here one year
ago. Wednesday, after having two of their soldiers captured by
Hezbollah fighters, the government of Israel has sent ground troops,
backed by aircraft and artillery, into Southern Lebanon. It's the first
ground operation by the Israelis in Lebanon since they withdrew from
occupying Lebanon in 2000. Just what the Middle East needs-another
country to be occupied; the move is akin to dumping jet fuel on a
raging fire.
The prime minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, referring to how his country
would respond to having two of their soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah,
told a joint news conference with visiting Japanese Prime Minister
Junichiro Koizumi, "The Lebanese government is responsible. Lebanon
will pay the price."
Adhering to his favorite policy of collective punishment, Olmert,
added, "…those responsible for the attack will pay a high and painful
price." So attack a country because a rebel group in south Lebanon
captured two soldiers. And so the madness continues, as an Israeli air
strike on a house in Gaza on what they claimed was targeting a "Hamas
top militant leader" killed nine Palestinians, including seven children
from one family.
Syrian Vice President Faruq al-Shara stated recently that Israel's
occupation of Arab land lays at the root of the new crisis that found
Israeli troops entering Lebanon. Let's have some more jet fuel. Looks
like I've picked an interesting time to visit Syria.
Meanwhile, Baghdad burns as over 100 people have been killed in
sectarian violence since Sunday.
A short flight has me landing in Damascas, then racing through the
streets as warm air flows through the open taxi windows. The pale green
lights mark the tops of minarets around the city, the rest of the
lights twinkling in the background as we found our way to my hotel.
After checking in, I dropped my bag and began to walk out for some
food, only to find Abu Talat at the front desk. A long bear hug and the
typical cheek kissing of Arab men, and we meet again after over one
year since we last were together. I'd given him the name of my hotel,
but was suspect as to whether he would have a successful trip out of
Baghdad, with the extremes of violence over the last three days there.
He tends to not go far from home when that occurs, but alas, he decided
to go after obtaining a promise from his son not to leave his home
under any circumstances.
Also typical of Arab men, we walk down the sidewalk holding hands, en
route to a café, talking a mile a minute. He tells me how
horrible it is in Baghdad. He lists his family members and relatives,
one by one, who have left already for good. "Those who can afford to
fly are purchasing one way tickets Dahr," he says, "For they have no
intention of coming back. Aside from my own children and wife, I am the
only one of my relatives left in Iraq."
The fighting is everywhere, he tells me. Now that the U.S.
military/Rumsfeld (who was just in Baghdad) and Khalilzad have declared
war on the Shia Mehdi Army, accusing them of terrorism, all bets are
off. Of course, the timing of this with Israelis attacks against
Hezbollah couldn't be more perfect. Coincidence?
"The fighting is everywhere, and there is no way the Americans can
control it now," Abu Talat adds, "The Shia are fighting each other for
control of Basra, while also fighting the Sunni."
"It is civil war now in Iraq, no doubt," he continues, "But no matter
who you ask, no one will admit it. Because people are too afraid to
admit this. People prefer to deny it."
Even back at our hotel, there are at least two other Iraqis, who have
come here for surgery, since all of the senior doctors have long since
left Baghdad to save their own lives.
The next day, Thursday, we awoke with our eyes glued to al-Jazeera on
the television. Israeli warplanes bombed Beirut's Rafiq al-Hariri
airport. At least two air strikes were reported while Lebanese
anti-aircraft guns fired feebly at the jets, according to witnesses.
Israeli jets also bombed bridges linking south Lebanon to the rest of
the country, and 22 civilians were killed last night by Israeli attacks
in southern Lebanon.
In response to the bombings, Hezbollah claims to have fired 60 rockets
into northern Israel.
The Israeli justification for bombing the airport in Beirut and pushing
into southern Lebanon is that two of their soldiers were captured. In
classic newspeak, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said of the
incident, "It is an act of war by the state of Lebanon," conveniently
omitting the bombings in the occupied territories, including civilians
on a beach, by Israeli forces over the last weeks.
"This is going to be a big war," Abu Talat tells me while we watch
plumes of smoke billowing from locations within Lebanon, "This is even
more important for us to cover than Iraq, and you know how much I love
Iraq."
_____________
E.
from Ralph Nader :
15 July 2006
http://www.votenader.org/issues/index_home.php
Dear Friend,
Can you count the number of times your liberal friends have railed over
your support of the Nader/LaDuke Green Party campaign in 2000?
Didn't you understand that the two Parties own all the votes and that
everyone else should just accept the reality of a Two Party elected
dictatorship?
Never mind that in the 19th century, small parties initiated the
agendas of reforms in the electoral arenas for the abolition of
slavery, women's right to vote and labor and farmer living standards.
How many times and how many ways have you responded to such political
bigotry, such imperious exclusivity of the ever more corporate
dominated and militaristic Democratic Party?
Here are some responses to the carriers of Two Partyitis that I have
found productive of some common sense and fairness:
"Well, don't you think Gore won the 2000 election and that it was taken
from him in Florida before, during and after Election Day? Read Jeffrey
Toobin's Too Close
to Call showing that Gore did win in fact."
"Well, shouldn't you concentrate on Republican thieves in that
election, or why the Democrats did not landslide this bumbling Texas
Governor with a terrible record of leaving both adults and children
behind his corporate paymasters."
"Well, don't you think we all have an equal right to run for electoral
office? Isn't that our First Amendment right of speech, petition and
assembly?"
"Besides, does it surprise you to know that, according to Democratic
exit polls, Green votes in 2000 came more from voters who otherwise
would not have voted and who would have voted for Bush?"
"Another surprise--University of Wisconsin scholar Solon Simmons
analyzed the effects of the Green vote on the Democrats and
concluded--well, see VoteNader.org
for his study."
"And what, oh, liberal admonishers, what is your breaking point with a
Democratic Party that will not stop Republican madness in the Congress
and has become very good at electing very bad Republicans for the last
10 years?"
"Obviously, they have reached no breaking point over the Party's going
along with militaristic, boomeranging foreign policy, corporate
dominated government, little enforcement against corporate crime, fraud
and abuse, commercial money controlling elections, and severe neglect
of the need of millions of Americans for a living wage, health
insurance, affordable housing, cleaner environment, and a fair tax
system."
Without a competitive democracy that removes obstacles to smaller Party
and independent candidates, little political renewal to wrest our
government away from corporate control back to an informed people will
occur.
Imagine if nature did not allow seeds to sprout. Or if our laws allowed
big business to block small business and entrepreneurs.
Where would the renewal and innovation come from?
Without any considered breaking point, such voters signal to their
least worst candidate that they can be taken for granted. So they get
taken. Meanwhile, the corporate interests keep pulling both Parties in
their direction. The least worst voters, making no demands on their
least worst candidates, forfeit the opportunity to pull in the opposite
direction.
Why is this? Because the least-worst voters are prisoners of a
220-year-old winner take all electoral college system that has bred two
party domination and Third Party subordination. And they're not willing
to fight for political reforms that would release them from this
political prison.
Thus, both parties worsen every four years, and are less and less
likely to address the necessary future directions for our country and
its people.
How fortunate that in the 19th century, enough voters rejected
least-worst voting between the Whigs and Democrats or the Republicans
and Democrats to light the way for the basic reforms of that period
that we now take for granted. They did this by voting for a large
variety of small Parties which had an easier time getting on the ballot
than their counterparts do today.
Liberal admonishers must realize that winning the most votes for their
candidates doesn't mean they will win the election. The machinery of
manipulation and theft of elections is expanding in new and malicious
ways.
Which is why Jeffrey Toobin's widely-acclaimed book-length
investigation of what went on in Florida 2000 is so compelling today.
In Too
Close to Call, Toobin, the non-partisan legal analyst for the New
Yorker Magazine and ABC News, concludes:
"But still, the election of 2000 will not go away, because in any real
moral and democratic sense, Al Gore should have been declared the
victor over George W. Bush--in the popular vote, in Florida, and in the
Electoral College."