Kissinger calls Iran a ‘weak and small country with inherent limits’; Muslims and Han Chinese clash in Western China, killing 156+; G-8 to dictate radically tyrannical “green” policies; Fed economist warned of a collapse if interest rates didn’t raise in 2003; Shanghai, HK, and Indonesia take steps away from dollar hegemony; India to steal more land from the poor to multinational corporations; Thomas Woods schools some mindless, so-called ‘progressive’ tyranny cheerleaders; and more…
Only thing sad about Robert McNamara’s death was that he wasn’t locked up at the time or at the end of the gallows for the world to see. I agree with Lew Rockwell, Jr. and Butler Shaffer on this 110%.
“Iran is a relatively weak and small country that has inherent limits to its capabilities,” Fmr. U.S. Secy. of State Henry Kissinger told Der Spiegel. Reports yesterday said Saudi Arabia has granted Israel consent to use its airspace to strike Iran and VP Joe Biden said Israel has the “sovereign right” to make a first strike on Iran. The Israel Air Force will be training with NATO for long-range missions.
Kidnapped former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, Nobel peace laureate Mairead Maguire, and six other activists were released from Israeli detainment today after being arrested for bringing humanitarian aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip that Israel has turned into a concentration camp. (BBC) “Richard Falk, the United Nations special rapporteur for human rights in the Palestinian territories, said… that the seizure of the boat was unlawful and that the Israeli blockade of Gaza constituted a ‘continuing crime against humanity.’,”
Israeli settlers in the West Bank continue to bitch about settlement freezes because of the existing infrastructure and make the “natural growth” argument. Why doesn’t anyone mention the fact that Palestinians are reproducing at a faster rate than Israelis? This is the old Palestinian argument for a one-state solution, constantly rejected for decades. “Many of Israel’s approximately 220 settlements and outposts have a reputation for being populated by ideologues and religious zealots who want to stake an Israeli land claim,” reports Edmund Sanders. This isn’t “natural growth”. This is colonization. This is genocide. (LAT)
Riots in the “deeply segregated” Western Chinese city of Urumqui kill at least 156 and wound over 800. “Many Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim group, resent rule by the Han Chinese, and Chinese security forces have tried to keep oil-rich Xinjiang under tight control since the 1990s.” The Chinese gov’t shut down the marketplace, internet services, online bulletin boards, and Twitter to block communications (NYT). The state of Xinjiang is known as “the other Tibet“. World Uighur Congress pressure group spokesperson, Alim Seytoff, told al Jazeera, “The root cause of the problem is really the Chinese government’s long-standing repressive policies.” (1:10):
“What if the Uighurs were Christian rather than Muslim?” by Glenn Greenwald (Salon): “Rather than support and venerate them, we instead spent this decade declaring them to be “enemy combatants” and locking them up in Guantanamo — despite the fact that they have never evinced any interest in doing anything other than resisting Chinese persecution, and have certainly never taken actions against the U.S. (as even the Bush administration ultimately admitted)…. So predictable: ordinarily, on the Right, there would be nothing more Satanic than a tyrannical Communist regime suppressing the religious freedom of its citizens — except when the minority in question is Muslim, in which case they side with and adopt the propaganda of the Communist regime and disgustingly depict the regime as the victim. The Muslims resisting persecution are — needless to say — “terrorists.”… Mr. Greenwald also commented on VP Biden’s hypocrisy regarding Iran.
65.7% oppose the 30-year-old Chinese one-child “family planning policy”, despite its massive propaganda effort. (IPS)
Former Goldman Sachs VP of equity strategy Sergey Aleynikov was arrested by the Feds after Goldman reported secret program trading codes had been stolen.
“Relations between Iraq’s various Kurdish, Arab and Turkoman ethnicities are going through a new round of complications since a provision in the draft constitution of the country’s northern Kurdistan region declared a range of disputed areas part of the historical Kurdish homeland, infuriating non-Kurds in the country,” writes Mohammed Salih (IPS). “An ethnic flash-point, Kirkuk has witnessed a dramatic rise in violence over the last few weeks. Two bombs in Turkoman and Kurdish parts of the province left hundreds dead and injured signaling a clear determination by insurgent groups to exploit ethnic tensions…. And while Arabs in Baghdad are increasing pressure to force Kurds to back down from their claims to disputed areas, Kurdish leaders appear to be more responsive to criticism from within Kurdistan.”
Iraq to implement a national ID card within two years. (PTV)
Two Georgia police sergeants are allowed to resign from the force after tasering a Waffle House waiter for shits and giggles. See Jonathon Turley’s post here.
G-8 leaders will look to cut carbon emissions by 50% by 2050, based on a letter from 22 scientists. 31,478 American scientists signed a petition reading: “The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.”
“In the lead-up to the G-20 summit Pittsburgh Organizing Group’s Tactical Training Initiative will hold 11 events on the following topics: participating in an action, working the media (for anarchists), an intro to global and political economic frameworks, corporate research, and lockboxes and lockdown devices.” See the schedule at InfoShop News.
“Three pairs of Shanghai companies with their Hong Kong and Indonesian counterparts signed contracts… to be the first to settle business deals in the Chinese currency [renminbi]. Executives said the move would save costs and avoid exchange rate risks.” (NYT)
“It was only a question of time before the desirability of the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency would be questioned,” writes David Woo of Barclay’s Capital (FT). “Over the past decade, the U.S. has failed to fulfil its basic obligation as the issuer of the global reserve currency: maintaining the dollar’s value.”
“The government is printing lots of money and borrowing even more; that’s not the basis for a sound currency,” Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings, told Bloomberg. “The idea that anybody would lend money to the U.S. government for 30 years at 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 percent interest is mind-boggling to me.”
Interest rates should’ve doubled by at least 2008 from 3.5% or “the debt could just explode”, Federal [sic] Reserve senior economist Thomas Laubach, wrote in 2003. (Telegraph)
“At least one person was killed and others were wounded today as riots broke out at the airport in Tegucigalpa when the Honduran military refused to allow the jet carrying ousted President Manuel Zelaya to land,” writes Jason Ditz (AntiWar.com) See pictures here.
“U.S. Special Forces briefing to Congressman Miller exposes involvement in 19 Latin American countries during 2009 including Honduras” (Wikileaks) This briefing is dated 17 May 2009. Congressional, judicial and military protests to Pres. Zelaya holding a survey to revise/edit the constitution arose months beforehand.
This week, the Indian Parliament is looking to enhance its right to steal land to hand over to corporations, in the name of “industrialization”. Land’s been stolen from self-sufficient agrarian communities in India in the effort to “liberalize” the economy at a high rate over the last 15-20 years. A lot of that stolen land outside of Mumbai or Bangalore types of cities go unused — and if it’s still occupied by the previous owners, high rents/fees force them off. “The ‘model legislation’ would also seek to impose forfeiture of land acquired for industrial use and not developed within about four years…. The Congress party-led government is hoping to amend the Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation Act,” writes Henny Sender and James Lamont — paraphrasing Kamal Nath, minister of road transport and highways (FT).
“Wall Street gears up to trade California IOUs”… You can’t make this stuff up. (FT)
The U.S. and Russia agreed on a framework to reduce their “nuclear arsenals the limits for warheads linked to … [strategic delivery systems should be] within the range of 1,500-1,675 units” within seven years of their treaty (AJE). On Tuesday, President Obama will meet with Russian PM Vladmir Putin who recently said, “If those who made the atomic bomb and used it are ready to abandon it, along with — I hope — other nuclear powers that officially or unofficially possess it, we will of course welcome and facilitate this process [of nuclear disarmament] in every possible way.”
“Stationing of a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, admission of Ukraine and Georgia into NATO and Western involvement in the North Caucasus — none of these are bargaining chips for the Russians. They oppose them without qualification, and they are non-negotiable,” Russia expert Charles Gaddy told Der Spiegel.
Salud to Thomas Woods for giving a ‘fuck off and read, kid!’ in his recent TakiMag article to the know-nothing, obsessively regurgitating WonketteObamaNation groupies for their ignorant criticism of a congresswoman asking reasonable questions to the Federal [sic] Reserve chieftain and Wall St. butt-boy Treasury Secy. Timothy Geithner. Said congresswoman isn’t the brightest light in the chandelier, but this is a typical tool of idiots — to take every person who agrees with everything said by someone unsavory and condemn the former as unsavory with a whole philosophy of ideas, independent. Why? Because it saves illiterate people the embarrassment of admitting they know nothing of the philosophy. You just point the finger at one person you don’t like reading up on it and poof!, you’ve saved yourself from actually reading the rationale. Sad disease contracted from the false god of democracy — worshiping people over understanding ideas.
Little Alex in Wonderland 