Israel

Nice Job Creating More Terrorists, You Morons …

This week the US, UK, France, and a few Middle Eastern countries are conducting naval exercises in the Gulf of Persia to practice clearing mines that Iran, or other groups may place around the Straits of Hormuz in an attempt to disrupt the movement of oil tankers in the region. Mohammed Ali Jafari, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said that the “exercise is a defensive exercise and we don't perceive any threats from it. We are not conducting exercises in response.” Yet this is not the impression that is given. Just yesterday, according to the official IRNA news agency, upon the direct orders of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Iran launched a refitted Tareq-901 submarine and a Sahand destroyer into the Gulf from the port of Bandar Abbas.

• Hillary Clinton Accepts Blame for Benghazi (WSJ)
• In Reversal, Cash Leaks Out of China (WSJ)
• Spain Considers EU Credit Line (WSJ)
• China criticizes new EU sanctions on Iran, calls for talks (Reuters)
• Portugal sees third year of recession in 2013 budget (Reuters)
• Greek PM says confident Athens will secure aid tranche (Reuters)
• Fears over US mortgages dominance (FT)
• Fed officials offer divergent views on inflation risks (Reuters)
• China Credit Card Romney Assails Gives Way to Japan (Bloomberg)
• Fed's Williams: Fed Actions Will Improve Growth (WSJ)
• Rothschild Quits Bumi to Fight Bakries’ $1.2 Billion Offer (Bloomberg)

From a "Europe in pieces" to a "Europe of peace" and back?

Everyone is aware of a multitude of problems that besets our world, however the nature of these problems and why they exist is distorted by the media and by governments all over the world. Our leaders, corporate heads, military top-brass etc. all have a fairly good idea of what is really happening, they just don’t want us – the ignorant masses known as the general public to know what they know. The multiple crises on this planet are caused by our insane mode of living – one that seems to be dominated by economics. Our way of life (unfortunately now for most of the world) depends on an ever-expanding economic system, for if it is not expanding it is contracting. This system was all well and good while there was plenty of capacity for continued expansion, but unfortunately for all of us the limits of expansion are not far off.

As the day approaches when Israel may decide to launch a preemptive strike against Iran in order to cripple its nuclear infrastructure, Israeli policymakers and their allies abroad would carefully assess how the Lebanese-based group Hezbollah would react. With the debacle of the 2006 war against the Lebanese group still fresh in Israeli minds, the possibility that the "Party of God" Shi’a organization would renew hostilities against the Jewish state through cross-border raids, terrorism, or rocket attacks against its cities, will have to be part of Israel’s calculations for any “day after” scenario.  The challenges posed by the Iranian nuclear program are numerous, with many of the different nodes being interrelated. The problem is made all the more intractable by an increasingly volatile region that is sharply divided along sectarian lines. Hezbollah is but one of the many players involved, but should it choose to do so, it has the capacity to inflict great harm on Israel.

It would seem things are going from worse to worserer as, while US citizens prepare to see 30,000 drones over their own 'domestic' heads, Israel's Benjamin Natanyahu accuses Lebanon's Hezbollah of launching a previously unidentified drone (which has been shot down) over Israel last week. As the Globe and Mail reports (via AFP) -

"We are acting with determination to protect our borders," his office quoted him as saying during a visit to the frontier with Egypt.

 

"As we prevented last weekend an attempt by Hezbollah. We shall continue to act aggressively against all threats," Mr. Netanyahu said.

Since the end of the Second World War, the major powers of the world have lived in relative peace. While there have been wars and conflicts  — Vietnam, Afghanistan (twice), Iraq (twice), the Congo, Rwanda, Israel and Palestine, the Iran-Iraq war, the Mexican and Colombian drug wars, the Lebanese civil war — these have been localised and at a much smaller scale than the violence that ripped the world apart during the Second World War. Hopefully, the threat of mutually assured destruction and the promise of commerce will continue to be an effective deterrent, and prevent any kind of global war from breaking out. Nothing would be more wonderful than the continuing spread of peace. Yet we must be guarded against complacency. Sixty years of relative peace is not the end of history.

The Wars in the Middle East and North Africa Are NOT Just About Oil ... They're Also About GAS

Spoiler Alert: They’re mostly still in office  (so much for building suspense).

On October 3, 2008, 338 elected officials (263 House reps, 74 Senators and 1 President) took it upon themselves to save America from certain financial doom by passing the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, completely ignoring the will of the American people,  opting instead to fulfill a Thomas Jefferson prophesy:

“The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.” 
~ Thomas Jefferson

Back in July, when the news of the French foray into the "fairness doctrine" hit, and we learned of Hollande's plan to tax all those making over €1 million at a 75% tax rate, we said that "we are rotating our secular long thesis away from Belgian caterers and into tax offshoring advisors, now that nobody in the 1% will pay any taxes ever again." We should have also added that we are buying all the available long-dated call options in French real estate firms, with the imminent surge in luxury real estate dumping, once the French "1%" decide they want nothing to do with a regime that is hell bent on confiscating 75% of their annual cash flow at first, and slowly moving toward pocketing the balance of their assets (remember what we said in September 2011: that 30% global tax on all financial assets in a New Normal insolvent, and wealth redistributive world, is inevitable, and it is coming). Sure enough, the wholesale dump of luxury properties has now begun. AFP writes: "A flood of top-end properties are hitting the market as businessmen seek to leave France before stiff tax hikes hit, real estate agents and financial advisors say. "It's nearly a general panic. Some 400 to 500 residences worth more than one million euros ($1.3 million) have come onto the Paris market," said managers at Daniel Feau, a real-estate broker that specialises in high-end property." But that would mean that in the New Normal real estate is once again merely a credit-bubble dependent, flippable asset: not a long-term housing investment, but merely one in which the pursuit of the greater fool is all that matters (not news to anyone here, but certainly news to all those who actually believe that 'housing has bottomed').

Weekend Mideast News Roundup

To grasp what is really occurring here we must look at how authoritarian Middle Eastern regimes (or, indeed, authoritarian regimes in general)  function. Authoritarian regimes  must maintain a cloak of authority. Tyrants do not attempt to look or sound weak; they try to project an aura of invincibility and indefatigability. We saw this during the last Gulf War, where Iraq’s information minister Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf — nicknamed Baghdad Bob in the American media — shot off hundreds of absurd statements during the war about how Iraqi troops were crushing the Americans, quite in contrast to the facts on the ground and right up until American tanks were rolling through the streets of Baghdad. Baghdad Bob was not deluded. He was merely playing his role, and trying to project an aura of regime invincibility — providing propaganda for domestic consumption to keep the Iraqi population loyal to Saddam Hussein. It was a dog and pony show.

Just because the middle east did not have enough countries and/or terrorist organizations shooting at random things, in outright attempts of provocation or otherwise, here comes Israel to join the party. From Reuters: "The Israeli air force shot down a drone after it crossed into southern Israel on Saturday, the military said, but it remained unclear where the aircraft came from. "An unmanned aerial vehicle was identified penetrating Israeli air space this morning, and was intercepted by the Israeli Air Force at approximately 10 a.m. (0700 GMT)," the military said in a brief statement. Soldiers were searching the area where the drone was downed - in the northern part of the Negev desert - to locate and identify the drone, the statement said. The Negev desert is near Israel's southern borders with the Gaza Strip, Egypt, Jordan and the occupied West Bank."

The conventional validation for perpetual war in the Middle East does not hold when looked at rationally.  When the ideas of nationalism and statist glory are wiped away, the state appears as it really is: institutionalized exploitation of the masses by the few.  The undertaking of war masks this reality for a short period while accelerating the pace at which liberty is stripped away.  In the end, wars are waged to fulfill the sadistic desires of government leaders and to give them an opening to tighten their grip on society.  The parasitic class which makes up the state doesn’t just war with other states; it conducts war against the citizens it claims to protect.