Middle East

“The government and parliament need to review the agreement signed with the United States on security because the United States does not seriously care about its fulfillment, We demand that it be annulled." 

Why do we as a nation keep on playing into the same dismal scenario and committing the same mistakes? Why this seemingly irresistible urge to fight yet another war against evil? The longer we fight, the more deeply we are seized by fear. The more we fear, the more fiercely we are determined to fight. Perhaps the point is not to win the war but to remain trapped in this vicious circle, which feels perversely comforting because it offers a sense of unified national identity as nothing else can in our otherwise deeply divided nation.

According to one US soldier who fought in Mosul from 2005 to 2006, all of the "loose talk" about retaking the city from ISIS is wishful thinking. "Look at the stories from Fallujah — a city that is 20 percent the size of Mosul," he cautions adding that even if the city could be captured and sealed off from ISIS supply lines, troops would need to "settle in for a siege and a ten-year war of attrition." 

Hitler said often that the bigger the lie, the easier it would be [for the masses] to believe.  This is no where more true than Forex.

The day of reckoning has arrived for the oil price. After a year of "Oil Price Crash" in October the world managed record production of 97.09 Mbpd. Production momentum built in the period of high price, 2007 to 2014, is proving very difficult to switch off. It must be switched off and it seems to me the most likely scenario is sharply lower oil price in the near term.

"We're gonna have to figure it out, we can't live like this. It's going to get worse and worse, we're going to have more World Trade Centers. It's going to get worse and worse, folks. We can be politically correct and we can be stupid but it's going to be worse and worse." Donald Trump said even as an AP summary of Muslim reactions to Trump can be summarized as follows: "He's trying to alienate not only the Muslim population of the United States but all the Muslims around the world."

George Orwell explained the cynical mechanism of Perpetual War in "1984" as a means to control the masses through terror and scarcity. Western Civilization has been embroiled in various continuous wars since Hitler invaded Poland. The Western public has passively abided Perpetual War, not because of scarcity, but because of consumer abundance, which was developed by virtually anonymous men like Edward Bernays in the 1920s. This is how men in the shadows transformed the American citizen into the American consumer, thus turning the public into a docile, unwitting accomplice in the mayhem which envelops the globe which so enriches those on high.

The left is now mixing terrorism and mass shootings to push a narrative to eviscerate the Second Amendment. We once again have rehashed stories about the AR-15 rifle, which isn’t as powerful as a hunting rifle and rarely used in crimes. And we have the media endorsing gun control policies that would require gun bans and confiscation. They’re insinuating parts of it, but the brash call to ban guns entirely is coming.

"There are $1.1 trillion of S&P 500 options expiring on Friday morning. $670Bn of these are puts, of which $215Bn are struck relatively close below the market level, between 1900 and 2050. At the time of the Fed announcement, these put options will essentially look like a massive stop loss order under the market. This important event falls at a peculiar time—less than 48 hours before the largest option expiry in many years. "

You've seen those internet ads that offer "one weird trick" for eliminating belly fat or boosting testosterone, right? Well, here's one weird trick for getting rid of ISIS and boosting our security from terrorism. The "trick" is non-intervention. And it is only weird in the sense that it is so uncommon in this age of war. Nonetheless, it works. The "one weird trick" has three easy steps. These steps are only "easy" for Westerners, because they basically amount to us refraining from constantly screwing things up. Once we get out of their way, the hard work will be done by locals, which is as it should be.

"...Should you continue your flagrant support of Saudi Arabia by way of foreign aid and weapons sales, you are no longer to be trusted to hold an elected position of influence. You should therefore resign, effective immediately. The question is: Is your allegiance to the people of the United States, or are you beholden to another kingdom?"

The system is beyond the point where it is merely showing stresses and fractures. Things are now falling apart and there may well be no way of putting them back together again. The media will continue to claim everything is fine, until the day of panic and reckoning when it will suddenly be the "next Greece" or "2008 all over again"... but worse.

The vicious Isis attacks in Paris represent yet another unpardonable offense; and through war, Cameron and Hollande seek to avenge the innocents who were killed and wounded. But as the humiliating outcome of the Suez war reminds us, there are some problems to which war is an unsuitable response. Across much of the greater Middle East today, we confront one such problem. For western governments to reflexively visit further violence on that region represents not a policy but an abdication of policy. It’s past time to think differently.

CNN Turkey, citing security forces officials, is reporting what appears to be yet another escalation in the middle east maelstrom as Turkish troops enter Iraq. So suddenly, just as the world is scrutinizing Turkey's role in the Islamic State oil trade, Ankara decides to send anti-ISIS troops across the border? Are they trying to secure the crude trade and guard the trafficking routes?

Saudi Arabia is at risk of becoming a major destabilizing influence in the Arab world, German intelligence has warned. Internal power struggles and the desire to emerge as the leading Arab power threaten to make the key Western ally a source of instability, according to the BND intelligence service. “The current cautious diplomatic stance of senior members of the Saudi royal family will be replaced by an impulsive intervention policy,” a BND memo widely distributed to the German press reads.