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The Top 30 Global Geopolitical Hot Spots for 2012
The Council on Foreign Relations has released their politically-correctly-named 'Preventive Priorities Survey' or put another way - where-in-the-world-is-stuff-going-to-hit-the-fan-next report. The report is designed to help the US policy community comprehend where the next conflict will occur in the world and the relative catastrophe factor. The 3 tiers of chaos offer a menu of drivers-for-war, likely terrorist targets, and political tensions. Notably they include such systemic factors as the European debt crisis, budgetary limits, and Saudi political instability's impact on oil supplies at Tier 1 (most critical) contingencies.
Tier I
Tier I are contingencies that directly threaten the U.S. homeland, are likely to trigger U.S. military involvement because of treaty commitments, or threaten the supplies of critical U.S. strategic resources. They include:
- a mass casualty attack on the U.S. homeland or on a treaty ally
- a severe North Korean crisis (e.g., armed provocations, internal political instability, advances in nuclear weapons/ICBM capability)
- a major military incident with China involving U.S. or allied forces
- an Iranian nuclear crisis (e.g., surprise advances in nuclear weapons/delivery capability, Israeli response)
- a highly disruptive cyberattack on U.S. critical infrastructure (e.g., telecommunications, electrical power, gas and oil, water supply, banking and finance, transportation, and emergency services)
- a significant increase in drug trafficking violence in Mexico that spills over into the United States
- severe internal instability in Pakistan, triggered by a civil-military crisis or terror attacks
- political instability in Saudi Arabia that endangers global oil supplies
- a U.S.-Pakistan military confrontation, triggered by a terror attack or U.S. counterterror operations
- intensification of the European sovereign debt crisis that leads to the collapse of the euro, triggering a double-dip U.S. recession and further limiting budgetary resources
Tier II
Tier II are contingencies that affect countries of strategic importance to the United States but that do not involve a mutual-defense treaty commitment. They include:
- political instability in Egypt with wider regional implications
- a severe Indo-Pak crisis that carries risk of military escalation, triggered by major terror attack
- rising tension/naval incident in the eastern Mediterranean Sea between Turkey and Israel
- a major erosion of security and governance gains in Afghanistan with intensification of insurgency or terror attacks
- an outbreak of widespread civil violence in Syria, with potential outside intervention
- an outbreak of widespread civil violence in Yemen
- rising sectarian tensions and renewed violence in Iraq
- a South China Sea armed confrontation over competing territorial claims
- a mass casualty attack on Israel
- growing instability in Bahrain that spurs further Saudi and/or Iranian military action
Tier III
Tier III are contingencies that could have severe/widespread humanitarian consequences but in countries of limited strategic importance to the United States. They include:
- military conflict between Sudan and South Sudan
- heightened political instability and sectarian violence in Nigeria
- increased conflict in Somalia, with continued outside intervention
- political instability in Venezuela surrounding the October 2012 elections or post-Chavez succession
- political instability in Kenya surrounding the August 2012 elections
- renewed military conflict between Russia and Georgia
- an intensification of political instability and violence in Libya
- violent election-related instability in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
- political instability/resurgent ethnic violence in Kyrgyzstan
- an outbreak of military conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, possibly over Nagorno Karabakh
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So......we're all fucking doomed? I think that's what's implied by these maps. It's the ripple effect.
nah, the maps are just showing "what interests the USA", that's all
A good thing is that the USA is not interested in Peru.
A bad thing is that China is.
First Bullet:
Sounds like PNAC 2.0
Always have to wonder how the CFR knows these things...
Soros probably tips them
so the solution is to invade everywhere to preempt this type of risk. We're not going to sit around and even wait for someone to contemplating thinking about considering something to threaten us before we TAKE ACTION
That Russia is "Tier 3" and purportedly of limited strategic importance to the U.S. on the mapping above tells it all.
Could there be any greater self-delusion?
http://thespiritoftruth.blogspot.com/2009/05/russias-secret-war-plans.html
This is the plan being broadcast, with just one level of weak cipher.
Short message, something wicked this way comes. Tiers I II and III can be co-mingled into a conflagaration. Look at Pakistan. Land of the Pure. Epicenter.
ORI
/the-plan/
Notice how in the TIER 1 potential calamities US is potential victim of every single other region of the world - and not in any case or issue a cause.
Nice CIA disinformation work aimed at the sheeple and dummies everywhere, including potential zerohedege dummies.
After all, only idiots overlook the logical fact that "terrorism" itself by definition is the original "counter-terrorism".
That is to say, terrorism arises as reaction, as counter, to original terrorism.
US bankster-militarist terrorist empire is - the - original - terrorism, which causes, any responsive counter terrorism from anywhere else.
Pak instability will be used as a reason for US to remain planted in Afghan. Look for election turmoil and protests to start. US will try tdrag India in on the nuke scare/terror front. All the while Saudi announced this week it will go nuclear whihc is after all the Pak program anyway. Karzai brough to heel.
On Kenya the US AFRICOM is backing the Ethiopia and Kenya push into Somalia to carve out the Indian Ocean beachfront while isolating Eritrea at the UN.
Expect a ratcheting up of Baluch insurgency into the iran 2012 elections...US virtual embassy a first strike
as for political instability/resurgent ethnic violence in Kyrgyzstan duly note that the incoming adminsitration has already said that the US Minas aiorbase is done come 2014. Expect more violence to flair in and around the CHINA border and a growing footprint of the Uighors which purportedly get their funding of all place Pakistan? Then again the Haqqani network was apparently once the blue eyed boys of yours truly. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2011%5C09%5C27%5Cstory_27-9-2011_pg7_1
Look for a replay in venzuela as the Spring rise up around this stooge. http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/05/05/3087575/grandson-of-holocaust-survivors-to-challenge-chavez
Same goes for mexican elections...
As for the Congo elections US western support for Kabilia against the populist who claims massive corruption (juxtopose against the immediate reflex Russia outcry). US deployed troops to Uganda JIC. Royalties shape perception in the copper belt...http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14913456
As for Nigeria look for escalating insurgency upon which Africasom will deployu trainers. The US has already offered help. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-08/16/c_131053147.htm
Rinse wash repeat..
eureka had a moment when he said:
That's because the CFR has always been a Lackey Squad for the military industrial financial complex.
Correct. This is superbly explained in Michael Scheuer's book Imperial Hubris. After reading it, I came to understand the rational reasons behind so much of the hostility, not toward America, but toward the US government, from middle eastern populations. Scheuer illustrates how Osama bin Laden made public his plans to draw the United States into a war with Iraq, his reasons for doing so, and the goal he hoped to achieve (bankrupting the United States). He also explains how rank-and-file CIA agents were ignored and impeded when trying to bring this to the attention of their superiors. While not trying to turn this into an amazon.com review, I highly recommend this book.
Because they help start these things?
you mean the bilderberg group
Two different tentacles of the same squid ... disseminating plans down to selected or promising insiders.
Bilderberg to around 100 financial, political and corporate heads each year (about half are first-timers each year).
CFR to a few thousand useful bureaucrats, diplomats, managers, reporters and politicians each year.
They are not planning groups (the planning is done at a higher level, but includes a few seniors from Bilderberg and CFR and includes input from Bilderberg discussions and CFR working groups). The annual meetings are better described as recruitment and discussion groups.
im not a supporter of this site but i alwasy liked it...i live in chicago and this drove me to get prepared...(this site if you use it will alter your thinking becasue you will realize that the USGov... does have a purpose) a must read...:) they are specul8rs too:)
http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/ops/hsc-scen-1.htm
Wanna bet?
Peru is the world's largest single source of coca leaves, providing about two-thirds of the total cocaine produced in the world.
http://www1.american.edu/ted/perucoca.htm
I was speaking geopolitically re Peru. True re coca leaf production. They are also duking it out with Mexico every year to be No. 1 in silver production. They are No. 2 in copper and No. 5 in gold. Food products too (coffee, fish meal).
Note that there has been practically no reaction at all (although a little nervous here in Peru) re business and geopolitical responses to the election of President Ollanta Humala.
China bought Peru´s BIG iron ore producer years ago, and is sniffing around for other hard assets to use some of their pìle of dollars.
@ macholatte
Following up you comment re coca, I pass along the following personal story. Almost 30 years ago I briefly brought up green coffee (unroasted) beans from Peru to the USA. I was down for a visit and went to the Huallaga River valley to visit the actual cooperative that grew and dried the coffee beans. Near the end of my visit, I asked them if they would take me to a chacra to see an actual coffee tree, as I had never seen one before (at least close up). So they took me to a nearby farm.
After viewing the tree, its flower and beans at different stages of growth, the owner came by, shirtless with a machete on his belt. We conversed a bit more. He then pointed out a scrawny bush and said that it was a coca plant! So of course I took a picture... He then offered to take us over to his pit where they put the coca leaves in gasoline and sulphuric acid (the next step after harvesting hte leaves). I declined, as I had already seen earlier the helicopters taking off (from Tingo Maria) with masked soldiers going out on raids looking for Sendero Luminoso and drug traffickers... I did not want to spend 10 years in a Peruvian prison...
I hope you chewed some leaves! I hear that in their natural form with a little lime they are a nice and mild stimulant.
no problem - panama [minus the canal?] , columbia [pre-wash laundry facilities via c,wf,.etc.], and s. korea [american motors replacement?]
And why is this bad? Please enlighten.
Good question.
China is beginning to have a lot of clout. It would be a pity to see other great powers make preferential trade agreements (among other things, like buying the silver, copper and gold mines) and have us get left out. But, if China a growing presence (of course it is), then we just have to accept that and move on.
"help the US policy community comprehend where the next conflict will occur in the world"
They don't need a CFR map to tell them anything ... they create all the conflicts themselves.
Divide et impera.
http://journey-to-alpha.blogspot.com/2011/12/europe-divided-again.html
"Tier II are contingencies that affect countries of strategic importance to the United States but that do not involve a mutual-defense treaty commitment."
Boooooooooooooooring. Who cares about them? Get it through your head, the US is the center of the universe!
CFR, Conspiracy-Formulating Reptiles, fork-tongued globalist shills par excellence.
"There's always an Arquillian battle cruiser, or a Corellian death ray, or an intergalactic plague about to wipe out all life on this miserable little planet. The only way these people can get on with their happy lives is that they Do. Not. Know about it."
— Agent K, Men in Black
Well I finally found some proof that the US government creates terrorist. I even found a video of them doing it:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/100312.html
Whose side would you be on in a fight...the little boy or those imperial troopers?
That is just fucked up.
Just don't watch the related YouTube videos involving US soldiers and puppies.
You'll have to revise your definition of fucked-up.
BONGO STRIKES BACK!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74-WSM0xTyE
The corporate structured government is at fault more than an 18 year old that is taken when he is emotionally ripe for indoctrination and taught to kill. That is his worth in society- to maim and kill for his country (when in reality it's for coporate profits). Killing goes against every lesson he was taught growing up and somehow, at 18 in the military, he has to marry two totally opposite views to survive in war.
If you think about the blood curdling screams you hear when a person has been shot and is slowly fighting a losing battle for their life in agony from a bullet wound, body parts and guts flying from a mortar shell, the smell of flesh, piss, and feces from bodies being ripped apart in a fire fight- if you experience this on a continual basis in combat, you have to ask what does that do to one's psyche?
It's not hard for good versus bad to go out the window. Sure killing a sheep is wrong to us. But weren't we taught that killing people was wrong growing up? And then to be taught at 18, oh it's okay to kill for your country...and then you see the human agony that goes with killing for your country, when do you start to question all that you were taught?
If beating the brains out of a helpless sheep is wrong, then why isn't sending a missile strike on a village that rips apart the bodies of women and children and sends organs, blood and limbs flying every which way wrong? Isn't that more fucked up? If there's an outcry over this sheep, where's the outcry over drone attacks and all the other atrocities of war?
You are preaching to the choir on that. I don't know why people are so silent. Maybe if they were exposed to some visuals of maimed children things would be different, but the media does a good job of protecting thr U.S. citizen's fragile phyche from those awful images. We have to keep them shopping after all.
Sick fuck
That's just some guys killing a goat. How is this more proof than all the documented brutalities against people? If this was the worst they did, then there wouldn't be much of an issue.
What about Abu Ghraib and all the other tortures and killings?
What about a whole war (with all the associated civilian deaths) being fought on a lie?
Guys being cruel to a goat shouldn't be an issue compared with all the other shit that has been done.
stealing the kids sheep and beating it in front of the kid is bad. It is on video making it more difficult for some to deny. Yes they also rape and shoot and bomb innocent people every day...but this one is on youtube.
Dog,
In all fairness, the kid looked like he was pushing the goat/sheep into the center of the soldiers. More likely than not, they bought it for some purpose and didn't steal it from the kid.
That part of the world isn't exactly "humane" to animals. Just like here, they are used for sport in ways that seem unusual to us.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzkashi
Re: brutalities against people...We get it.
Same gang here:
http://www.darkmoon.me/2011/crimes-of-the-bolsheviks-edited-by-isabella-fanfani/
Dear god that is terribly fucked up. Watching people do that to an animal with pleasure proves just how fucked you can become when sent to a war. These sort of things should be shown on TV on a regular basis to demonstrate this simple truth. Incredible to me that anyone no matter how disturbed could find pleasure in something like this.
It's from the freakin Council on Foreign Relations. That's the oligarchies public relations agency.
It's what they want you to think. Ask yourself why does the Council on Foreign Relations want me to beleive this information?
What is their agenda?
Are they sowing the seeds of war? Isn't that what they always do?
10 years ago you weren't even supposed to mention the CFR it was "just another crazy conspiracy theory".
Ah, Russia, Russia, The Council on Foreign Relations always ignores you...
poor Rodina...
Ghordius
UK is not up there either on any tier.
Russia is tier 3
That's because London riots are mildly comic and make for great US television during sweeps week...
We aim to entertain. ;-)
Plus, we ain't got no guns and if queuing were an Olympic sport we'd get gold every time.
Shame shooting is a sport and queuing isn't really
Queuing is not a sport, it's a way of (British) life.
As much as I hate it elsewhere, in London it's so natural to do it that I enter a Zen-Trance state while doing it. bzzzz, bzzzz, bzzzz.
--------
What! They ignored you? Must be infiltrated Frenchmen trying to snub!
At times like this I like to ask myself, "What would Nigel Farage say ?"
No need to ask, see here http://www.ukip.org/content/latest-news/2563-real-eu-debate-is-just-beginning
"I fear we will now see an avalanche of financial market regulations over which we will now be in a permanent voting minority" -Farage
Um, see here:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/why-uk-trail-mf-global-collapse-may-have-a...
I guess maybe the US, Canadian and European financial entities should be blamed that the City of London is an unregulated financial racket?
that's, right - he's a shill for the 'london financial district', period
god save the #&*% queen'y
good interview, thanks 4 da link.
towards the end he uses Iceland as an example of a succes story.
Your right about the UK. I think it is because the map shows what will effect the US if said entity is attacked. So the risk to the UK is mass casualty terror. However it would have little risk to draw in the US. I do think they have missed Argentina's blockade of the Falkland Islands and the UK recent deployment of the HMS Duke of York.
i say start the Facebook revolution there all ready !
wasn't there that shiny "restart" button a while ago.
Scare the sheeples... check.
' a mass casualty attack on the U.S. homeland or on a treaty ally'
Wow. Could you be a little less specific?
Being more specific does not help so much for passing nifty legislation that turns the Constitution into toilet paper. Generic fear works much better of course.
I thought it means the "dirty nuclear bomb" attack - of course the target would be a stadium in Denver.
-----
Call me oldfashioned, for me Scary Nr.1 is "a highly disruptive cyberattack on U.S. critical infrastructure"
From what I understand (which is quite limited), the powergrid is huge deal in terms of destructive potential if a cyberattack (or any other attack that is) where to cause enough damage. Yeah, I would put that up there on my list of things to worry about as well.
I have also read that solar flares can do damage too - but, not much anyone can do about that.
The power grid is so brittle that a cyber-attack is not necessary. Low tech would do plenty of damage.
In the good ol' summertime with the right temp, humidity and load working in your favor, one would only need a...
Forget it. No sense in giving anyone any ideas.
Truth is the damage has been done. No recovery in the US(despite the bs headline data)
US is its own worst enemy but don't tell them that. "We got guns and shit" "They won't take me to a FEMA camp" etc etc.
Meanwhile they're building the gulag around where you live so one day you just wake up in one without a chance for revolt.
Fear not, for we have the Judicial Branch, those stalwards of The Constitution, protecting us.
If only the sheeple understood what "contingencies" meant...no fear, the media will break it down for them...WAR.
To be honest, I don't think many sheeples will read this report. This doesn't involve a Kardashian, so most the Sheeple will never now it ever existed. To sheeple: The market always goes up, the dollar has value, Russia is a capitalist democracy, stores always have food, the government acts in our best interest and Ron Paul is some crazy
A well placed drone at their next confab would solve many problems in the world.
It is hard to find a more criminal and immoral org then this council of snakes.
I must question an organization that counts both Henry Kissinger and Erin Burnett (cnbc/cnn LameStream Media fame) as members.
Its a fuckin club - both meanings a group of individuals that beat you over the head with their propaganda. They are quoted everywhere with no context or explanation of who they are or what they represent.
NPR or FOX - they both use CFR propaganda as sources for stories. They are ubiquitous and invisible another tool of the oligarchs. A stick in your eye to blind you.
Fox may quote them, but NPR uses them as expert backup.
do the aliens have the same map?
They have better maps.
Yes, but the Aliens have no context, so on their globe Antartica is at the top of the globe and being the 1.5 times as large as USA is considered more important.
Also the aliens prefer cooler climates, so the equatorial map is strictly for flyovers. They also have markers for crash areas like
Cape Girardeauhttp://ufocasebook.com/missouricrash.html
of course their is no intelligent life in the universe so aliens don't exist, they are just an illusion like fiat currency.
seem like the US and their socalled international community doesn't make up a big part of the real world.
empire deflation ;-)
There is no real world. Just our perceptions.
I want to thank the banks for the opportunity to buy Janurary/April puts while vol is down today.
I will be loading up on Dec. 31
My guess it comes from tier III. Funny how we are a tier one hotspot. All of us believers in protecting our family and loved ones are enemy number 1.
Now you see why after 9/11 they told you to prepare for an emergency?
So they could bust you for it later.
Think of it as planting the seeds of Keynesian job creation.
Kyrgyzstan is a country... good to know.
To the globalist shill, everything outside of their small cadre of nutbags is a "threat".
Also if the above Tier I bulletpoints are true, it only furthers the argument that the US should not be tying itself down to these treaties.
Let's make a graphic that combines:
- possible scenarios nobody cares about. North Korea? WTF? An economy smaller than that of Terra Haute, Indiana
- possible scenarios that are just that. Mass casualty terrorist attack - sure, also mass casualty earthquake, astroid hitting earth, pandemic... all possible.
- scenarios that are just incredibly stupid. Drug violence in Mexico is 90%+ the result of the Mexican govt waging war against the cartels. It's not a US issue and it's not becoming a US issue.
Then just say "there's going to be some war or economic shit happening"
Really. Get a life.
Um, actually its the US assinine drug policy that treats adults like children in favor of the nanny state saying what adults can and cannot put in their own bodies that is the REAL reason for that violence. Get rid of the black market markup on drug prices in the US and that violences goes away in months as the drug lords lose all their financing for weapons. Just like NAFTA and the implosion of rural mom and pop farming in mexico due to subsidized corn from giant agribusiness and resultant EXTREME immigration issues due to mexican economic collapse, the source of the problem is stupid US policy, what's happening in mexico is just a symptom.
Winner winner chicken dinner!
pods
Bring the Gold
Sons of Anarchy suggested the US is arming one cartel.
Which makes one reconsider Fast and Furious gun debacle and the recent revelations DEA has been handling drug money for the cartels.
But none of that is unusual, CIA and the Golden Triangle, Iran-Contra.
History does love to repeat itself and cold warriors do enjoy a game plan that works.
Wouldn't surprise me at all. Big money is made from theft, banking, drugs, weapons and energy. Everything else pales in comparison. You will note that all of those industries have a very incestuous relationship with government. Another name for theft is taxes and yet another name for theft is peace keeping humanitarian overseas contingency operation.
skull and bones, the east india tea company...these people have been dealing drugs for at least a couple centuries.
Well, that's what happens when criminals rule the world via the ballot box. It makes their own operations that much more profitable by not only creating a black-market, but having the ability to use the law to eliminate competition.
It's a true win-win for the gangsters. The war on meth for instance. Meth was widespread in rural environments. Today, those sites have been largely eliminated, but there is even more meth on the streets, as it comes up from Mexico by the train car full instead.
Meth is easier to cook than tuna noodle casserole.
Methamphetamine has been used in America since it was discovered. It wasn't entirely prohibited from over the counter drugs until 1971.
Vicks inhalers contained amphetamine as its active ingredient and was sold nation wide.
We had no meth lab problems, then it was banned and voila, meth labs, thefts of precusors and violence and lawyers.
Black markets are wonderful for profits, but bad for society. Making your customers criminal is a crazy idea only the oligarchy could design.
http://media.photobucket.com/image/airline%20inhaler%20methamphetamine%2...
This should not be construed as an endorsement of amphetamine use or abuse,although american fighter pilots continue to use methamphetamine as policy and you will be banned from flying as a pilot if you object or refuse to take your dose.
this is wrong.
The meth problem is a result of natural selection..aka evolution.
Selective pressure has been applied via the drug war and has been in favor of meth. If given a choice, users would choose narcotics or coca-derived products which are not physically destructive like meth is.
However, when competitive pressure favors meth so much (because it can be cooked easily inside the country and needn't transit a border), users who want a high go for that. If they stamp meth out, it will favor sniffing glue and solvents.
This is just how things are. Many people desire to use drugs and will find something to get high with. Either you steer them toward an addiction which is manageable like opiates or you progressively force them to rot their brain on paint thinner. Africans even resort to sniffing shit.
http://media.photobucket.com/image/airline%20inhaler%20methamphetamine%2...
Merry: That ad is for a benzedrine inhalor. While it is an amphetamine, it is not methamphetamine.
Amphetamines as a class of stimulants act similarly on the central nervous system. Benzadrine or methamphetamine, its like arguing about beer or wine.
The larger and more important point isn't the exact chemistry, but the fact this supposed evil, destructive, satanic drug was once a benign over the counter product and it didn't destroy society or cause the end of the universe, which is the exact opposite of the anti-drug propaganda that you are soaking in daily.
Here's a link that is short and explains the differences between benzedrine and MA:
http://methoide.fcm.arizona.edu/infocenter/index.cfm?stid=172
Meth could arguably be healthier for the consumer since it causes less cardiovascular effects. I guess thats why meth-heads don't have so many heart attacks.
and here's an overview of everything about the stimulant class (much longer)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dextroamphetamine
The part about drug policy is patently false. All the models I've seen indicate that full legalization in the US would lead to the cartels taking over Mexico as they stand to benefit from the initial surge in demand before they change their business model. So much like NAFTA, if you announced today you're legalizing drugs you're basically destroying Mexico within two years.
Yes, NAFTA had a terrible initial impact and was implemented in a very stupid way, I agree, but the new generation in Mexico (outside of Mayan strongholds that get everything for free anyway) sees the implosion of the mom and pop farms as a very positive thing. Mom can be a chambermaid in Cancun and make about 50x more than when she was tending to her farm using prehistoric methods.
that is BS...cartels already run america. The CIA skull and bones cartel controlling the flow out of AF Pak.
The last thing the prison industiral drug running complex wants is legalization and if they can scare you into keeping prohibition with nonsensical stories about how we are just having a drug war for the benefit of MEXICO!!!
really?! you think cheney was for the drug war because he gave a shit about mexicans!? your out of your mind.
"all the models I've seen" - never trust a model unless you can verify the data and presumptions used to build the model.
Most models are built from the answer backwards, ie how do i show house prices rising?
It's like writing a story starting at the ending and working backwards.
The U.N. single convention on narcotics treaty is the backbone of global war on drugs, this was pushed through by the U.S. at the behest of the great drug warrior Harry Anslinger, the man who testified before congress that smoking marijuana would make you kill your father and rape your mother (literally) thus causing tens of millions of people to be imprisoned and billions of dollars in black market profits.
Dissolve the U.N treaty, and nations could treat drugs anyway they want. Mexico has already legalized possesion of marijuana, heroin and lsd for personal use. Something not widely discussed in the lamestream media.
Marijuana is legal for personal use in Switzerland, Italy, Portugal,Mexico and certainly other nations as well.
Narcowars are not occurring in Europe.
Gangsters ran the liquor industry during prohibition, business men run it now. When drugs are legal, all the gangster will become business men or move into the other blackmarkets like human trafficking and stealing cable tv.
You may or may not know this, but the Netherlands is currently rolling back much of its liberal drug policy (yes, coffee shops are mostly going to be gone by next year) because surprisingly enough the people running the business are not business men and if you allow them to sell drug X and bring the price of X down then they're going to go ahead and sell X^2.
I'm not against legalization, I'm just telling you the effect on Mexico if you just say "drugs are legal" tomorrow won't be all that pretty.
I've been to Amsterdam and you can't buy anything but cannabis products in a "coffee house" . There are other drugs for sale on the streets, just like in America and every other nation on the face of the earth.
The decrim of cannabis in the Netherlands has been successful in reducing cannabis use among Dutch teens (which is probably bad for their livers, since they prefer beer & wine and ginjiver )
The recrim of cannabis is a political deal, based on zero facts
The Dutch are a black eye on the american war on drugs, I'm sure secret money is being paid to those political leaders who are valiant drug warriors.
The cats out of the bag. Most people know cannabis is harmless compared to any other drug including aspirin. I think the Dutch drug warriors will have a bigger problem putting the genie back into the bottle then they realize.
Right, conspiracy theories are always preferrable to simple explanations (that the Dutch, German, Belgian and French people are overall unhappy with drug tourism and with the human excerment involved in dealing)
Let's start with your correct assertion that cannabis is fairly harmless. (I'll point out though that it's also fairly useless and that there is a small percentage of the population who will go schyzophrenic after even a short period of use)
If the cartles derive 60% of their PnL from cannabis and you legalize it and cause prices to go down tenfold, then they will have to find new sources of income, which will mean increasing the marketing efforts of whatever remains illegal.
Therefore you'll have more dangerous drugs coming into the country and more violent crime.
That's just how free markets work :)
I don't want to shit in your Wheaties, but step back a bit and examine it all in context. The best, simplest solution is to have no drugs on earth, obviously not practical, 2nd best solution make all drugs legal for adult use.
Destroys the black market, diminishes misuse of police and government resources on an unsolvable problem.
Some people will die, some people will become addicts, same as now, same as it ever was - except less people in jail, less money wasted on a farce largely predicated on racial bias.
The war on drugs is a failure, yet it is clung to by its proponents as tightly as a heroin addict clutches at his next fix. The war on drugs is the ultimate addiction to a meme that destroys all it touches.
You seem like a bright fellow, think about it and see if you can find the holes in your own thinking. I'm much too busy to do all your thinking for you.
May all your Martinis be dry.
Sure, sure, that would be ideal in some dream world.
But reality isn't made up of sharp transitions and global agreements. The option you present is not on the table and is not going to be on the table during our lifetime.
Of the options that are on the table, letting Mexico continue to do what they're doing without massive changes in the legal changes of drugs in the US is better than making such changes. I'm not saying it's better ideologically, just that it's likely to minimize the long term damages, and that it reduces the risk of Mexico destabilizing, defaulting (yet again), confiscating foreign property, etc.
I like my Martinis on the dirty side.
you're a fucking idiot.
If drugs were legalized in the US, there would be NO NEED TO TRANSIT MEXICO.
Do you people bother to THINK before speaking?
You mean there's no reason other than good weather, cheap labor, cheap land, lax regulation? You mean like there's no reason to grow berries, avocados, scallions in Mexico? You mean like there's no reason to make appliances there? Or maybe you mean like there's no reason except Coca doesn't grow that well in the US and needs to be shipped by someone from somewhere.
The best cannabis is grown indoors where you can control the environment and the pollen as well as the lights and nutrients.
Most mexican weed is grown outdoor in america on federal land by mexicans.
Cocaine is a pretty generic product, it will be grown where it is cheapest, when it is legal. Mexico doesn't grow much coca, its still a south american product.
Cannabis has become a boutique botanical, it comes in a rainbow of colors and flavors and smells. It is the cannine of the plant kingdom, you can grow a poodle or a great dane.
Most cannabis in america is grown by middle class folks trying to pay the bills.
When cannabis is legal in the USA, which will occur by the end of the decade, most people will continue to buy cannabis that they know was raised organically for health reasons. If Mexico can't keep e.coli off their produce, I doubt they can keep it off their other farm products like cannabis et al.
We can't afford the luxury of a drug war in a collapsing economy where we can no longer afford roads and post offices. Some people will die, some will become addicts, same as it is now, same as it ever was.
I'd hate to break it to you but "most people" don't buy locally grown organic anything and even if they do they end up getting e.coli from organic CA grown spinach because organic produce is far far more likely to be contaminated due to the use of, well, organic fertilizer. :)
Most people buy cheap crap made wherever it's cheapest to make.
Most cocaine is brought in by the Mexican cartels.
You're not affording the luxury of a drug war, you're affording the luxury of dealing with criminal cartels that are on the defensive as opposed to the shit show in Columbia that's been taking a very long time to end. If you think these folks are just bringing in weed or even other drugs then let me know next time you're down in Mexico and your ATM card gets cloned, your daughter gets kidnapped, your house title is stolen or you just happen to be in the path of a bullet trying to meet the head of a local judge.
Keep thinking inside that little box you've built and everything will be swell.
There is a differene between composted manure and shit, one has been used for centuries for gardening and crops, the other is just fecal matter, a proper manure or compost operation will produce sufficient heat to destroy all e.coli bacteria. Its not difficult to understand, look it up on google.
The reason Mexico is not the United States is too long a topic to even consider opening up. Its all about economics, the allocataion of scarce resources. Drugs are a trade commodity, that sell at a huge markup to cost. Whenever you have arbitrage, you have gangsters, whether they wear suits and ties or bandannas and guns, whether they swap worthless equity instrument or smuggle drugs, they are doing so for the same reasons, money and power.
Should we continue on our march to destroy the american middle class we shall soon join mexico and its narco warriors.
The drug war is a luxury and a tool of control, it is the #1 tool of the police to seize property on a whim, supported by "I smelled pot" - the phrase that negates the entire constitution.
The drug war is causing the violence in Mexico and Colombia, not stopping it or slowing it down and our government is spending our hard earned dollars on this farce, money that could be spent on the 1 in 4 children who live in poverty in our 1st world nation.
The drug war is a pork barrel and a leash around the necks of the citizens, that holds us still while the government steals the wallet out of our back pockets.
The drug war is a boot on our throats, extinguishing our lives and we pay for the boot that strangles us.
It is insanity by definition.
most of the drug violence in mexico, is a hostile takeover of the national cartel, by the international cartel
Hey Stag,
How about a cartoon of GI Joe putting down his arms and picking up a shovel to dig himself out the hole he is sinking into, one of his own making.
Global cop is a full time job om
I WANT FRANCE DOWNGRADEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeee
Get in line bitch ;)
Coincidently, that is not on their list. Totally a pitch black swan to the US 'intelligence'.
Even Sesame Street now
Nothing new there, unfortunately. Scrooge McDuck, for instance.
Then of course, the original Ebeneezer, as defended here by Butler Shafer.
http://mises.org/daily/3952
Carl Barks who invented and drew Scrooge McDuck always took great pains to say he was a self made man. He made his first fortune in the gold fields of Alaska.
Way too much information is available courtesy of wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_the_Klondike
If you can locate the Carl Barks book (or a pdf) it is a nice yarn and paints an idea of how the world was seen in simpler times.
Though McDuck owned gold and mining operations he never hedged or used synthetic derivatives.
Someone should make Bingo cards out of these potential events.
me thinks there will be one global geopolitical/economic hotspot next year: earth
I did not see where they factored in the orgy of corruption going on in DC. Must have been overlooked.......
The CFR should really concern us, as an unelected NGO it's far too powerful and influential..
Edward Mandell House, chief advisor and constant companion of President Woodrow Wilson, led the group that founded the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) which eventually spawned the Trilateral Commission (TC).
Charles Seymour’s The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, as described in the book Financial Terrorism, “notes that this man was the ‘unseen guardian angel’ behind the passage of the act creating the Federal Reserve. House’s Marxian goal for America could not be achieved without either the Fed or the income tax, both of which came to life in 1913. Once initiated, the two mechanisms began speeding America toward the totalitarian socialism favored by Marx.”
The secret network to control virtually all mankind by a powerful and well-connected few, detailed by Georgetown professor Dr. Carroll Quigley in Tragedy and Hope, became the Royal Institute of International Affairs in England and the CFR in America.
JR,great post.
Seconded
House also worked closely with the Morgan's and the Rockefeller's.
Col House wrote a interesting book.
http://www.voltairenet.org/IMG/pdf/House_Philip_Dru__Administrator.pdf
check it out and you'll see what was going through the heads of some of the people who helped create the income tax and the federal reserve bank. Written 100 years ago...truth is stranger than fiction.
I'd rather be walking on the sun
Fuck the CFR. Fuck the Trilateralists. Fuck Bilderberg. Fuck the UN.
how about fukk abiotic oil?
This is CFR's laundry or "to do" list full of fabulous options!
Since I'm in the holiday spirit, it brings a vivid image into my mind:
Henry Kissinger is sitting on Santa's lap at the Mall of Amerika. Little Henry says, "Santa, can I please have a false flag attack on the US, a provocation of Iran, and some martial law for Christmas? Can I have them ALL.....puleeeeeeeeeeze?"
This info is NOT what the CFR is "worried might happen".....these are all the things that they either WANT to happen or will try to PROVOKE!
If you don't know much about the CFR, get busy!
A great expose is: "Shadows of Power" by James Perloff.
Would make a great stocking stuffer...ha ha!
Change Santa to Satan, add a car chase and lots of tits and you've got a killer screenplay.
Perhaps the only hope for Obama will be another false flag event. There must be a reason that all the FEMA camps are now being outfitted by Haliburton (no less).
These FEMA camps are in Maryland in a test tube.
I think at this point of the game the only option they have left would be an Alien Invasion. Don't forget the twilight episode that the Keynesians use as a model example for economic resurgence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1Fzzs7oVaA&feature=player_embedded
At this point of desperation I wouldn't put it past them...
"a highly disruptive cyberattack on U.S. critical infrastructure" --could this be a proliferation of political and economic education web sites?? hmm? maybe to enlighten the sheeple hmm? No wonder its a Tier 1--- very scary for the status quo-
CFR: Zionist bullshit
That list is both politically motivated (cyber war = mass junket for gubermint cheese & SOPA to squish naughty dissenting Anons / OWS) and not particularly astute.
File under cliff notes for armchair generals and/or Congressmen.
South America is the place to go !!
Hey Peru, SHHHHHHHHHHHHHh!!!!!!!!!!!
There are too many of us already and anti-gringo violence is on the rise and
Be careful of what you ask for
Ciao, hombre viejo
Didn't we just read about the Falklands heating up again on ZH? Where's that on this list?
Umm, how about just a map of countries where TS*won't*HTF?
hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, vindaloo, phal
it's a chilli pepper planet
That whole mapping system would have more credibility if the United States was colored to snow that she is the greatest threat to herself.
Gee, only 30?
I'm SO relieved...
Lmao! These psychos never mention how their policy decisions which are aimed at trying to unify and rule the world under their kleptomaniacal command, are bringing about most of these conflicts! And also how each of these issues is only relevant to THEIR continued power – not to anyone's self-sovereignty or well-being!
Laff.
The Drug War has one purpose and one purpose only, to make the Military Industrial Complex a lot of money.
Was pretty good at eroding property rights in America as well(asset forfeiture laws), helped militarize the police, not just about making money, making Americans slaves is also a goal.
Goat may have been a crime of passion.
Tier I are contingencies that directly threaten the U.S. homeland, are likely to trigger U.S. military involvement because of treaty commitments, or threaten the supplies of critical U.S. strategic resources. They include:
============================================
Is that FINLAND marked in red there? I mean, there are some tough guys over there all right, but what are the Finns gonna do to you? Vote inconveniently for the US at an EU summit?
". . . or threaten the supplies of critical U.S. strategic resources . . ." Wait a minute, though -- does that include vodka?
Well, they´re part of the Eurozone.
RE: The Goat.
Senate repeals bans on assplay and bestiality in Military.
Also: The Army's Latest Innnovation: A Sandwich That Stays Fresh for Two Years.
http://patdollard.com/2011/12/senate-repeals-bans-on-assplay-and-bestial...
............Fuck You's sacks of shit CFR members.
But really ,really ...really FUCK YOU DAVID ROCKEFELLER....
Iran/US saber rattling CIA Drone.
http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/iranus-sabre-rattling/us-drone-lost-over-iran-was-on-cia-operation.html