Kuwait

For seventy years, one of the critical foundations of American power has been the dollar’s standing as the world’s most important currency. For the last forty years, a pillar of dollar primacy has been the greenback’s dominant role in international energy markets. Today, China is leveraging its rise as an economic power - and as the most important incremental market for hydrocarbon exporters in the Persian Gulf and the former Soviet Union - to circumscribe dollar dominance in global energy, with potentially profound ramifications for America’s strategic position.

The world is no safer than it was when the War on Terror began. Some of the Middle East’s most brutal dictators were removed from power, but radical jihadists have filled the vacuum of authority. Men and women are still coming home in caskets draped with Old Glory, or they come home mentally and physically debilitated. And for what exactly? If Smedley Butler was correct, and war is a racket, then there was another measure of success at work. And it sure wasn’t the promotion of universal democratic values. If empire can’t bring that, then there isn’t much of a point outside of domination. In other words, somebody benefits from imperium, and it’s not the average voter. Sooner or later the jig is up.

U.S. Busted Faking Satellite Photographs In Both Iraq Wars

With the spigot of propaganda wide open and Washington appearing increasingly bent on instigating the next war, we thought lessons from past "wars" might help the people when thinking about what is spoon-fed to them each and every day. "To Sell A War" is a documentary that first aired in December 1992 exposing the Citizens for a Free Kuwait campaign as public relations spin to gain public opinion support for the Gulf War. Among other things, it reveals that Nurse Nayirah was in fact Nijirah al-Sabah, the daughter of Kuwait's ambassador to the United States Saud Nasir Al-Sabah, coached by Hill & Knowlton to forge her infamous testimony about Iraqi soldiers removing babies from incubators, which was widely reported and repeated throughout the media.

Nouriel Roubini, Kyle Bass, Hugo Salinas Price, Charles Nenner, James Dines, Jim Rogers, David Stockman, Marc Faber, Jim Rickards, Paul Craig Roberts, Martin Armstrong, Larry Edelson, Gerald Celente and Others Warn of Wider War

Ten dark suited men entered the premises of FBME bank in Cyprus on Friday afternoon and took it hostage. The men were from the Central Bank of Cyprus (CBC). And they commandeered FBME because an obscure agency within the US government recently issued a report accusing the bank of laundering money. It just so happens that FBME... and Cyprus in general... is where a lot of wealthy Russians hold their vast fortunes. Bear in mind, there has been no proof that any crime was committed.

It’s time to think like a contrarian. Why? Because capital markets seem as bulletproof as one of those up-armored military personnel carriers you see in war zones. So what could really rattle stock, bond and commodity markets over the next 3-6 months? The go-to answer, steeped in history, is geopolitical crisis, where the logical hedges are precious metals, volatility plays, and possibly crude oil. Look deeper, however, and other answers emerge.

Worried about tensions in Kuwait, Jordan, and Iraq... the 'market' is not. With the spec positioning significantly net long, it appears 'they' have found another pain trade... as WTI Crude loses $101 and drops to 2-month lows...

Back in April, we warned of the consequences of Saudi King Abdullah has clamped down on all forms of political dissent and protests that could “harm public order”. Concerns that this law would be used to silence dissent and crackdown on basic human rights were apparently well justified, as the Wall Street Journal reported today that a Saudi court has sentenced human rights lawyer and activist Waleed Abu Alkhair to 15 years in prison for “inciting public opinion,” i.e., effectively utilizing free speech. We are currently living in one of the most interesting times in human history as we witness the transformation of society away from centralized, bureaucratic structures, into decentralized, networked organization. It’s imperative that each and every one of us does everything he or she can to make this revolutionary transition as painless as possible.

So, Iraq, Syria, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt (post gas price surges), and now Israel... As the teen deaths, rocket launches (and landings), and rhetoric fly back back and forth; it appears last week's de-escalation is off...

*ISRAEL ARMY SPOKESMAN SAYS TROOPS BEING BOOSTED ON GAZA BORDER
*ISRAELI ARMY SAYS IT IS PREPARING FOR POSSIBLE GAZA ESCALATION

The US administration has been oddly quiet so far on this... we await their 'supportive' comments.

Same stuff... different country. Once again someone (former opposition leader Musallam al-Barrak) exposed the corruption among the elites (revealed documents that allegedly prove billions of illicit financial transfers were made to senior officials, including judges) and the leaders (Kuwait officials) decided he should be arrested and charged with slander. This has caused uproar among the people as hundreds of protesters rallied overnight in support of al-Barrack, marching from his house to the jail chanting: "The people want to cleanse the judiciary!" The police in the oil-rich nation of Kuwait used tear gas and stun grenades early Thursday to disperse the protesters. As we have noted previously, uprising against government corruption is a global trend and in the case of Kuwait (which is oil-rich, the last friendly place to US in the Middle East, and has the highest per capita Twitter usage on the planet), we suspect this 'spring' is far from over.

One hundred years ago today the world was shook loose of its moorings. Every school boy knows that the assassination of the archduke of Austria at Sarajevo was the trigger that incited the bloody, destructive conflagration of the world’s nations known as the Great War. But this senseless eruption of unprecedented industrial state violence did not end with the armistice four years later. In fact, 1914 is the fulcrum of modern history. It is the year the Fed opened-up for business just as the carnage in northern France closed-down the prior magnificent half-century era of liberal internationalism and honest gold-backed money. So it was the Great War’s terrible aftermath - a century of drift toward statism, militarism and fiat money - that was actually triggered by the events at Sarajevo.

What is really going on in Iraq?

According to the latest CapGemini wealth report the number of high net worth individuals increased by nearly 1.8 million in the past year, the second biggest surge since 2000, which also happened to be the crazy days of the first tech bubble (not to be confused with the current tech bubble). In other words, the epic, unprecedented stock bubble reflated by the world's coordinated central banks, has succeeded. Succeeded, that is, if its goal was to make the world's richest people wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. As for everyone else, just over 7 billion people, better luck next time.