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World War 3, The Big Prize, & Europe's Gigantic Debt Minefield
Submitted by James H. Kunstler via Kunstler.com,
In case anyone didn’t get ISIL’s message from their latest video in which 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians have their heads sawn off, here it is: “We’re executioners, not warriors.” Those gouts of blood spilled on a Libyan beach amount to ISIL’s welcome mat to the mass execution of the Euro-American west. The dignity of a funeral is not even on the program.
What we’ve got now with apocalyptic Jihadism spreading clear across the region from Pakistan to Morocco, and Europe blandly ignoring it across the Mediterranean, is an epochal face-off that will change the world. It comes at an odd moment in history, namely as the massive oil wealth of the Middle East and North Africa enters decline. It was that oil wealth that provoked a population spike in a desolate corner of the planet the past century. Now there is a huge over-supply of young men there with nothing to do but act out their angry psychodrama over having no future. When a whole peoples’ prospects for a decent life on Earth dwindle to zero, is it any wonder that they become preoccupied with end-times visions of feasts and virgins awaiting in an after-life?
Partly what you’re seeing over there is an internal fight to control what’s left of the treasure. That battle has already had the strange consequence of disabling the oil production capacity in places like Iraq and Libya, where there is still a lot of oil, but not enough political stability to allow the complicated business of extraction and transport to take place. What’s more there has also been tremendous damage to the oil infrastructure in these places, some from deliberate sabotage, some from shelling and bombing, and a lot from sheer neglect and deferred maintenance. Oil refineries and transport terminals are very delicate machines that require constant loving care.
It’s self-evident now that ISIL would like to control as much of the remaining oil wealth as possible — though I doubt they have the competence to run it for long even if they appear to control the terrain. The Euro-American west always has the option of completing the destruction with bombs and missiles, but then they would also be destroying their own future oil supplies and hence their modern industrial economies.
The Big Prize, of course, is the grand fortress of Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is surrounded by Islamic maniacs now, with Yemen recently fallen to the south, the ever-hostile Iranian Shi’a across the Persian Gulf, disintegrating Iraq and Syria to the north, and the festering human compost heap of Egypt and then Libya across the Red Sea. And, of course, along the saddle of the Levant there is Israel with all its enemies and problems. Arabia has a new King, 79, rumored to be weak in the head. The oil revenue is way down and the population still grows, and too many young men have nothing to do but marinate in Wahhabist fantasies. If Saudi Arabia falls apart, it’s game over for modern life as the West has known it (and much of Asia now, too).
The USA, meanwhile, has managed to embroil itself in a completely unnecessary and idiotic struggle over Ukraine, a place of no real strategic importance to us. And in doing so we’ve managed to alienate perhaps the one nation with the will and the motivation to oppose Jihadism, namely Russia, with its vast southern border facing the immensity of Islamic Central Asia.
Europe, meanwhile, is preoccupied playing games with itself over money. Today is supposedly crunch time for Greece. The so-called Troika — the European Central Bank, The European Union bureaucrats, and the International Monetary Fund — still expects Greece to continue to pretend to pay back its debt. That’s been the meaning of “austerity” until now. But Europe is a gigantic debt minefield that no one can really walk across. Other parts of it than Greece are just waiting to blow up, and will, and it’s unclear whether Europe is even paying attention to the blood-red welcome mat that was laid out in Libya last weekend. The true meaning of “austerity” will become clear when Europe finds itself forced to fight World War Three at the same time that its banking system implodes.
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Actually, I just talk out loud to myself and see what sticks.
FAR more homicides are committed using fists, bats, knives, cars, etc. than guns . . . . . give it a rest.
so you're saying that Americans are a bunch of sociopaths with a tendency towards violence?
or, do you have your head up your ass?
It's off the huffnpuffcompost for you trader1...hate this ..!..
LOL ;-)
this is the source: http://usconservatives.about.com/od/capitalpunishment/a/Putting-Gun-Deat...
I don't know. It seems to me that a large mid East war would encourage Canada, Russia, Venezuela, shale oil in the states,Alaska etc etc. Let the idiots in the middle east jihad each other into the stone age. Undoubtedly they would destroy most of the infrastructure out of spite if nothing else.
War in the middle east would probably be bullish for economies elsewhere. Just imagine the money lending and war materiels to be manufactured. The key would be to sell to the warriors and not join in.
Once a winner is decided the new regime can begin their debt slavery to the good old bankers.
When there peace in EU, we have to give them back their physical gold when ask. But with war in EU and Netanyahu publicly asking the Jews to return to Israel it is a wakeup call for EU, it about time you look beyond ISIS and Russian, the script are being play now to you UNSAFE.
END GAME banker will win.
If we all are looking at head line by control media.
"The Big Prize, of course, is the grand fortress of Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is surrounded by Islamic maniacs now..."
Excuse me. But Saudi is also stuffed full of Islamic maniacs. Did Mr Kunstler miss that? And their maniacal fanaticism is as bad or worse that most other Islamic maniac countries. Most worrying is that it has the ear of Washington and its allies.
this convinces me more and more, that USA should be wiped from the map. Including all of the inhabitants.
Where are you from jano? Ha HA rhetorical question
Nice Jano, you are a complete moron!
"whether Europe is even paying attention to the blood-red welcome mat that was laid out in Libya last weekend. The true meaning of “austerity” will become clear when Europe finds itself forced to fight World War Three at the same time that its banking system implodes."
- It's unclear to me if the US-Europe Banking System is capable of fighting a war, being in a financial war and being in a financial Crisis
- That would be a new kind of three front war not discussed much
- Prepared for 1 years wars or 1 year of air campaigns is NOT the same as being ready for a World War with a major Military Nation like China or Russia... where on the other hand history has shown both Russia and China have played without real capitalism in the past while maintaining all infrastructure and military (sort of toughen them up didn't it)
"Maniacs" do the job by hand.
The civilized do it by pushing buttons 3000 miles away.
Look. ISIS or no ISIS, Saudi has been pissing its oil up the wall at such an alarming rate (among other things, by giving away gasoline) they'll be a net importer of oil by 2030, by which time, apparently they plan to have moved into a more sustainable scam---investment banking. American money, material and men are going to defend someone's hedge fund.
More to the point, the banksters don't have a choice between defending the House of Saud and $200 oil. At best, they're buying themselves a decade or so before $200 oil and wholesale writeoffs on government debt that can't be serviced at such oil prices.
The only sensible thing to do is to start paying people in civilized countries like Russia what it actually costs to drill for oil, and tell the Arabs and the banksters to go pound sand.
The Israelis will be fine, believe me. When the oil runs out the gun money for Hamas, Fatah and company will run out with it.
If ME oil is not available, American oil will skyrocket in price and the closed rigs will open.
Way to go GW, Cheney and Obummer. Murica! Murica! Murica!
There's some pretty convincing evidence that a tactical nuke was used by Kyiv against the rebels in eastern Ukraine in August of 2014. Check out the video at the following link:
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/02/13/kiev-missile-nuked-donetsk/
If the nukes are flying then WWIII has already started.
It was not a nuke, that was a fuel air detonation, a smaller version of the MOAB
Central banks and tyrants make wars - that is their by-product. Currently, the world is filled with both.