tagged w/ geo-politics
-
The U.N. General Assembly is set to implicitly recognize a sovereign state of Palestine on Thursday despite threats by the United States and Israel to punish thePalestinian Authority by withholding much-needed funds for the West Bank government.
A resolution that would change the Palestinian Authority’s U.N.observer status from “entity” to “non-member state,” like the Vatican, is expected to pass easily in the 193-nation General Assembly.
Israel, the United States and a handful of other members are planning to vote against what they see as a largely symbolic and counterproductive move by the Palestinians, which takes place on the 65th anniversary of the assembly’s adoption of resolution 181 on the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been leading the campaign to win support for the resolution, and over a dozen European governments have offered him their support after an eight-day conflict this month between Israel and Islamists in the Gaza Strip, who are pledged to Israel’s destruction and oppose his efforts toward a negotiated peace.
The U.S. State Department said on Wednesday that Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns and U.S. Middle East peace envoy David Hale traveled to New York on Wednesday in a last-ditch effort to get Abbas to reconsider.
The Palestinians gave no sign they were turning back.The U.N. General Assembly is set to implicitly recognize a sovereign state of... more
-
-
Gilad Sharon, son of Ariel Sharon, wrote in the Jerusalem Post that Israel should “Flatten all of Gaza.”
“There should be no electricity in Gaza, no gasoline or moving vehicles, nothing. Then they’d really call for a ceasefire,” he wrote. “We need to flatten entire neighbourhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn’t stop with Hiroshima – the Japanese weren’t surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too.”
Many Israelis and even some Zionists are ‘outraged’ but the truth must be told – Sharon’s views are fully consistent with Zionism, Israeli thinking and some aspect of Jewish culture.
For example, Sharon’s call is fully consistent with some devastating Old Testament’s passages:
‘You will chase your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you. Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; your enemies shall fall by the sword before you.’ Leviticus, 26:7–8
‘When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations … you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.’ Deuteronomy 7:1–2
‘Do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them … as the Lord your God has commanded you …’ Deuteronomy 20:16
So, both like his real father and his spiritual forefathers, the young Sharon wants to destroy the Gazans, he wants to reduce them and their civilization into dust – thoughts unfortunately embedded in the Old Testament. Though religious Jews following the Talmud rather than the Torah and may be critical of literal interpretations of the Holly book, Gilad Sharon, is a secular Israeli and yet he follows here the most banal and literal interpretation of the Biblical text.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-WaXrF6-LI&feature=em-subs_digestGilad Sharon, son of Ariel Sharon, wrote in the Jerusalem Post that Israel should... more
-
-
Russia is ready to propose a full resolution aimed at stopping the violence between Israel and Gaza if the West continues to “filibuster” the UN Security Council statement on the crisis.
“Russia is ready… to submit a draft resolution focusing on three key components,” Russia’s envoy to the UN, Vitaly Churkin told the UN Security Council during consultations on the Gaza conflict arranged at Russia’s initiative.
Morocco proposed a statement calling for a halt to the hostilities last Thursday and since then diplomats have had enough time to present their amendments in writing, Churkin said. “The fact that they introduced these amendments orally… after three days of having the Moroccan text at their disposal, they could, at least, have prepared their amendments in writing,” he said. “To me it unfortunately looks like a little bit of a filibuster attempt.”
Churkin did not name any one country that has been hampering progress and indicated “quite transparently that they will not be prepared to go along with any reaction of the Security Council.”
“Maybe it’s just a laid back attitude in a situation where we cannot afford procrastination,” he added.
In the meantime, the text of what appears to be a draft document has been leaked on the internet.
One article of the six-point document urges all parties to address the serious humanitarian and economic needs in Gaza, and to allow for the safe and unhindered access of humanitarian assistance and personnel to the Palestinian people and to ensure the unimpeded provision of humanitarian supplies throughout Gaza.Russia is ready to propose a full resolution aimed at stopping the violence between... more
-
-
According to the BBC's Paul Danahar the Israeli conditions for a ceasefire in Gaza are:
1.No hostile fire of any kind to come from Gaza into Israel including smalls arms fire at Israeli troops near the border
2.Hamas fighters must be stopped from traveling to the Sinai to carry out attacks against Israel at the Sinai/Israel border
3.Hamas must not be able to rearm - International and regional actors needed for this
4.A ceasefire must not simple be a "time-out" for Hamas, it must be an extended period of quiet for Southern Israel
Israel wants Egypt to play a "key role" in this, guaranteeing the points 2 and 3. That is just another of many attempt of dumping its Gaza problem onto Egypt. Morsi would be crazy to agree to that. There will thereby be no guarantees.
According to an U.S. official Israel also wants the Hamas official "in charge of guns" in Gaza to guarantee the ceasefire. That is a great idea but Israel killed the most able guy, Ahmed al-Jaabari, capable of not only controlling Hamas but also the other fighting groups, right at the beginning of its new war on Gaza. That has significantly reduced the chances for a long term ceasefire. There will be promises from other groups to hold fire but there can again be no guarantees.
Hamas has, of course, also demands. It wants guarantees that:
1.Israel stops its bombardments
2.promises not to enter Gaza
3.ends targeted assassinations and
4.lifts its economic blockade of the Gaza strip
Whatever the outcome no one, not even the U.S, could guarantee Israel's promises and Hamas certainly knows that Israeli promises are usually not worth the paper they are written on.
But these are now the opening position to what looks likely to become protracted negotiations.
contAccording to the BBC's Paul Danahar the Israeli conditions for a ceasefire in... more
-
-
In the US, the political focus is on some CIA, military soap opera drama and in France the political focus is on gay marriage.
***
“The approach of the Zionist Regime [of Israel] results from the lack of a firm reaction by the international community, particularly human rights organizations, towards the war crimes [committed] by this regime in the past and present,” Salehi said on Sunday.
The Iranian foreign minister made the remarks at an opening address to Syria’s National Dialog meeting in Iran’s capital, Tehran.
Nearly 200 participants, including Syrian scholars, tribal and religious leaders, the representatives of different ethnicities, minorities and the opposition are participating in the meeting hosted by Iran.
Salehi added that the international community’s indifference has led to the continuation and escalation of Israel’s crimes.In the US, the political focus is on some CIA, military soap opera drama and in France... more
-
-
"A major international naval exercise last month in and around the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea, led by the U.S. Navy with more than 30 other nations participating, located fewer than half of the practice mines laid at sea.
This outcome of the highly publicized military drills — not publicly known until now — underscores how difficult it may be for the United States and its partners to detect and incapacitate waterborne explosive devices that Iran has threatened to plant if its nuclear facilities come under attack.
Out of the 29 simulated mines that were dropped in the water, “I don’t think a great many were found,” retired Navy Capt. Robert O’Donnell, a former mine warfare director for his service, told the NewsHour. “It was probably around half or less.”
...
“I just felt that they should have done better,” said O’Donnell, clearly disappointed with the outcome of this key measure of performance. “That’s the point of the exercise, to do mine-countermine [operations] in an area, and to find the mines.”
Now a consultant, O’Donnell was invited by the Navy to observe the September exercise firsthand as it unfolded."
***
The U.S. can not attack Iran because the attack and any Iranian retaliation would increase the price of oil to new record levels. Even if Iran were not to react to any attack the expectation of a possible reaction would be enough to explode the insurance premiums for any ship entering the Strait of Hormuz. With record oil prices over more than a few weeks all major economies would experience serious damage. Poorer economies would experience high price increases for staple food with social upheavals, like the Arab spring, certain to follow.
The Iran hawks argue against this. They say that U.S. navy is capable of keeping the Strait of Hormuz open even if Iran intends to close it. Even if the Strait were temporarily closed the U.S. navy would be able to reopen it immediately. They are wrong.
The U.S. navy has for some time tried to develop new mine hunting systems to be put on the new class of oversized unarmed speedboats Littoral Combat Ships. These efforts have so far failed. When they eventually succeed the capability of the new system will likely be much less than expected.
Unless there is technological leap in mine hunting and clearing coming up (unlikely), the threat and the capability of mining the Straits is likely enough to keep Iran safe from serious military aggressions."A major international naval exercise last month in and around the Persian Gulf... more
-
-
Water can dissolve material boundaries – well known
Water is known as universal ‘solvent’ as it can dissolve a lot of substances. This is a scientific fact but even if not very clearly realized, this scientific fact works subtly in our cultures and societies since prehistory. The whole idea of cleaning things by washing and letting the dirty water flow into streams or seas works on the idea that given sufficient ‘dissolution’ the ‘dirt’ will be rendered harmless. This is not untrue so to say, as it is easily understandable that when the concentration of a solute becomes negligibly low, the solution is considered effectively harmless and suitable for human use. For less scientifically oriented:
Solution = Solvent + Solute
When we consider Water as a solvent, the solute can be practically anything (depending on its natural occurrence or domestic/industrial use) right form sodium chloride (common salt) to surfactants, from trace metals to arsenic. In nature pure or so-called distilled water is rare, what we take as water is basically solution of various substances or a suspension of various substances.
Water can dissolve geo-political boundaries – a less known hypothesis
This universal nature of water is not limited in the physical realm. It extends beyond it. Water may, given changing paradigms of world have the potential to dissolve geo-political boundaries. Or, at the very least, present us with realities that require serious consideration of this apparently far-fetched ideaWater can dissolve material boundaries – well known
Water is known as... more
-
-
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is arguably one of the main think-tanks that ushered in many of the policy changes to the global economy that has caused this international financial crisis.
The editorial "American Politics and the Second Gilded Age" from earlier this year is from Foreign Affairs, the CFR's monthly publication for America's
It's a long article, but here's a quick summary:
*******
The U.S. economy appears to be coming apart at the seams. Unemployment remains at nearly ten percent, the highest level in almost 30 years; foreclosures have forced millions of Americans out of their homes; and real incomes have fallen faster and further than at any time since the Great Depression. Many of those laid off fear that the jobs they have lost -- the secure, often unionized, industrial jobs that provided wealth, security, and opportunity -- will never return. They are probably right.
This is what the political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson call the "winner-take-all economy." It is not a picture of a healthy society. Such a level of economic inequality, not seen in the United States since the eve of the Great Depression, bespeaks a political economy in which the financial rewards are increasingly concentrated among a tiny elite and whose risks are borne by an increasingly exposed and unprotected middle class. Income inequality in the United States is higher than in any other advanced industrial democracy and by conventional measures comparable to that in countries such as Ghana, Nicaragua, and Turkmenistan. It breeds political polarization, mistrust, and resentment between the haves and the have-nots and tends to distort the workings of a democratic political system in which money increasingly confers political voice and power.
It is generally presumed that economic forces alone are responsible for this astonishing concentration of wealth. Technological changes, particularly the information revolution, have transformed the economy, making workers more productive and placing a premium on intellectual, rather than manual, labor. Simultaneously, the rise of global markets -- itself accelerated by information technology -- has hollowed out the once dominant U.S. manufacturing sector and reoriented the U.S. economy toward the service sector. The service economy also rewards the educated, with high-paying professional jobs in finance, health care, and information technology. At the low end, however, jobs in the service economy are concentrated in retail sales and entertainment, where salaries are low, unions are weak, and workers are expendable.
The dramatic growth of inequality, then, is the result not of the "natural" workings of the market but of four decades' worth of deliberate political choices. Hacker and Pierson amass a great deal of evidence for this proposition, which leads them to the crux of their argument: that not just the U.S. economy but also the entire U.S. political system has devolved into a winner-take-all sport. They portray American politics not as a democratic game of majority rule but rather as a field of "organized combat" -- a struggle to the death among competing organized groups seeking to influence the policymaking process. Moreover, they suggest, business and the wealthy have all but vanquished the middle class and have thus been able to dominate policymaking for the better part of 40 years with little opposition.
IT'S THE GOVERNMENT, STUPID
Hacker and Pierson refreshingly break free from the conceit that skyrocketing inequality is a natural consequence of market forces and argue instead that it is the result of public policies that have concentrated and amplified the effects of the economic transformation and directed its gains exclusively toward the wealthy. Since the late 1970s, a number of important policy changes have tilted the economic playing field toward the rich. Congress has cut tax rates on high incomes repeatedly and has relaxed the tax treatment of capital gains and other investment income, resulting in windfall profits for the wealthiest Americans.
Labor policies have made it harder for unions to organize workers and provide a countervailing force to the growing power of business; corporate governance policies have enabled corporations to lavish extravagant pay on their top executives regardless of their companies' performance; and the deregulation of financial markets has allowed banks and other financial institutions to create ever more Byzantine financial instruments that further enrich wealthy managers and investors while exposing homeowners and pensioners to ruinous risks.
In some cases, these policy changes originated on Capitol Hill: the Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush tax cuts, for example, and the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, a repeal that dismantled the firewall between banks and investment companies and allowed the creation of powerful and reckless financial behemoths such as Citigroup, were approved by Congress, generally with bipartisan support. However, other policy shifts occurred gradually and imperceptibly.The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is arguably one of the main think-tanks that... more
-
-
This is a good start to understanding the people and groups who are behind the politicians, the government behind the government, but I would add in a few more groups such as the Aspen Institute http://www.aspeninstitute.org/ and the and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) http://www.aei.org/.
They start the wars, revolutions and civil wars, fund corrupt dictators and other corrupt politicians, and profit when the society collapses as they steal their natural resources and infrastructure.
******
This is your real government; they transcend elected administrations, they permeate every political party, and they are responsible for nearly every aspect of the average American and European's way of life. When the "left" is carrying the torch for two "Neo-Con" wars, starting yet another based on the same lies, peddled by the same media outlets that told of Iraqi WMD's, the world has no choice, beyond profound cognitive dissonance, but to realize something is wrong.
The following list, however extensive, is by far not all-inclusive. However after these examples, a pattern should become self-evident with the same names and corporations being listed again and again. It should be self-evident to readers of how dangerously pervasive these corporations have become in our daily lives. Finally, it should be self-evident as to how necessary it is to excise these corporations from our lives, our communities, and ultimately our nations, with the utmost expediency.
International Crisis Group
www.crisisgroup.org
Click link for Board Members, Advisors, Foundation and Corporate Supporters:
Background: While the International Crisis Group (ICG) claims to be "committed to preventing and resolving deadly conflict," the reality is that they are committed to offering solutions crafted well in advance to problems they themselves have created in order to perpetuate their own corporate agenda.
Nowhere can this be better illustrated than the unrest in Egypt, which was led entirely by ICG member Mohamed ElBaradei and his US State Department recruited, funded, and supported April 6 Youth Movement coordinated by Google's Wael Ghonim. While the unrest was portrayed as being spontaneous, fueled by the earlier Tunisian uprising, ICG's ElBaradei, Ghonim, and their youth movement had been in Egypt since 2010 assembling their "National Front for Change" and laying the groundwork for the January 25th 2011 uprising.
ICG's George Soros would then go on to fund Egyptian NGOs working to rewrite the Egyptian constitution after front-man ElBaradei succeeded in removing Hosni Mubarak. This Soros-funded constitution and the resulting servile stooge government it would create represents the ICG "resolving" the crisis their own ElBaradei helped create.
Brookings Institute
www.brookings.edu
Click link for Board Members, Advisors, Foundation and Corporate Supporters:
Background: Within the library of the Brookings Institute you will find the blueprints for nearly every conflict the West has been involved with in recent memory. What's more is that while the public seems to think these crises spring up like wildfires, those following the Brookings' corporate funded studies and publications see these crises coming years in advance. These are premeditated, meticulously planned conflicts that are triggered to usher in premeditated, meticulously planned solutions to advance Brookings' corporate supporters, who are numerous.
The ongoing operations against Iran, including US-backed color revolutions, US-trained and backed terrorists inside Iran, and crippling sanctions were all spelled out in excruciating detail in the Brookings Institute report, "Which Path to Persia?" The more recent UN Security Council resolution 1973 regarding Libya uncannily resembles Kenneth Pollack's March 9, 2011 Brookings report titled "The Real Military Options in Libya."
Council on Foreign Relations
www.cfr.org
Click link for Board Members, Advisors, Foundation and Corporate Supporters:
Background & Notable Membership: A better question would be, who isn't in the Council on Foreign Relations? Nearly every self-serving career politician, their advisers, and those populating the boards of the Fortune 500 are CFR members. Many of the books, magazine articles, and newspaper columns we read are written by CFR members, along with reports, similar to Brookings Institute that dictate, verbatim, the legislation that ends up before the West's lawmakers.
A good sampling of the most active wings of the CFR can be illustrated best in last year's "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy, where CFR members from both America's political right and left feigned a heated debate over New York City's so-called Cordoba House near the 3 felled World Trade Center buildings. In reality, the Cordoba House was established by fellow CFR member Feisal Abdul Rauf, who in turn was funded by CFR financing arms including the Carnegie Corporation of New York, chaired by 9/11 Commission head Thomas Kean, and various Rockefeller foundations.
The Chatham House
www.chathamhouse.org.uk
Click link for Board Members, Advisors, Foundation and Corporate Supporters:
Background & Membership: The UK's Chatham House, like the CFR and the Brookings Institute in America, has an extensive membership and is involved in coordinated planning, perception management, and the execution of its corporate membership's collective agenda.
Individual members populating its "senior panel of advisers" consist of the founders, CEOs, and chairmen of the Chatham House's corporate membership. Chatham's "experts" are generally plucked from the world of academia and their "recent publications" are generally used internally as well as published throughout Chatham's extensive list of member media corporations, as well as industry journals and medical journals. That Chatham House "experts" are submitting entries to medical journals is particularly alarming considering GlaxoSmithKline and Merck are both Chatham House corporate members.
Conclusion
These organizations represent the collective interests of the largest corporations on earth. They not only retain armies of policy wonks and researchers to articulate their agenda and form a consensus internally, but also use their massive accumulation of unwarranted influence in media, industry, and finance to manufacture a self-serving consensus internationally.
To believe that this corporate-financier oligarchy would subject their agenda and fate to the whims of the voting masses is naive at best. They have painstakingly ensured that no matter who gets into office, in whatever country, the guns, the oil, the wealth and the power keep flowing perpetually into their own hands. Nothing vindicates this poorly hidden reality better than a "liberal" Nobel Peace Prize wearing president, dutifully towing forward a myriad of "Neo-Con" wars, while starting yet another war in Libya.
Likewise, no matter how bloody your revolution is, if the above equation remains unchanged, and the corporate bottom lines left unscathed, nothing but the most superficial changes will have been made, and as is the case in Egypt with International Crisis Group stooge Mohamed ElBaradei worming his way into power, things may become substantially worse.
The real revolution will commence when we identify the above equation as the true brokers of power and when we begin systematically removing our dependence on them, and their influence on us from our daily lives. The global corporate-financier oligarchy needs us, we do not need them, independence from them is the key to our freedom.This is a good start to understanding the people and groups who are behind the... more
-
-
The International Monetary Fund’s future leadership should reflect the growing clout of emerging economiesThe International Monetary Fund’s future leadership should reflect the growing... more
-
-
I find it endearing to witness the outpour of love from the more often apathetic public. What caused such a discharge of the 'love' energy? What is media attention or perhaps a true vibrational connection between people as a whole?
Studies in current quantum physics would suggest that this Unified Field is so interconnected that one invariably influence another. *The beat of a butterflies wings in China stirs the entire field, sending tornadoes/hurricanes* As was stated by Laura Ling, "...we could feel your love all the way in North Korea...", this holds an unparalleled assumption that WE as humans are capable of vibrational frequency distribution, especially when a large mass participates. This type of 'healing life force' is within all of us and is the main reason some would seek to manipulate the masses and direct this output.
Be vigilant with causes similar to these, for the pain and suffering of these courageous women is felt by many an unsung song daily! Remember that injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere! Free the World from the grips of the world corporations, re-align when your 'saviours' deceive or intentionally mislead as these puppet dictators were 'propped up' for situations just as these. How many more innocent people will toil fruitlessly to abolish inequality by combating the 'symptoms' of unethical geo-political practices?
Is one more what it will take for you, the final straw...or a hundred more...millions?
Project your 'vibes' for the betterment of all life at every moment of conscious awareness!
Wake up, sheeple. The time has come! Here and Now!I find it endearing to witness the outpour of love from the more often apathetic... more
-
-
Former Mexican President Vicente Fox was in San Antonio Friday, delivering a wide-ranging address about U.S.-Mexico relations that touched on trade, the drug war, comprehensive immigration reform and the United States' “mammoth” financial crisis that has spread worldwide.
Fox also delivered a message of hope — hope that someday Canada, the United States and Mexico, indeed the rest of Latin America, would function like the European Union.
“It's an extremely successful model,” said Fox, whose wife, Marta Sahagún, accompanied him. “My vision is to speed up the process of further integration.”Former Mexican President Vicente Fox was in San Antonio Friday, delivering a... more
-
-
Aijaz Ahmad: What would a rational American foreign policy look like? Part 6
Based in New Delhi, Aijaz Ahmad is The Real News Network's Senior News Analyst; Senior Editorial Consultant, and political commentator for the Indian newsmagazine, Frontline. He has taught Political Science, and has written widely on South Asia and the Middle East.Aijaz Ahmad: What would a rational American foreign policy look like? Part 6
Based... more
-
-
Coincidence? And of course these hits are always positioned against terror "suspects." Coincidence? And of course these hits are always positioned against terror... more
-
