The BRICs are Brazil, Russia, India, and China, who may be needed to help Europe with bailout money, but they’re gonna treat this like any good investor should and check the credit of the PIIGS first. That is, if they decide to help the three little PIIGS at all. Yeah, were actually talking about three countries because it turns out Ireland and Portugal are so small that they could solve their problems with some tough love and a pinch of money from some smart investors. Greece has just caused a major upheaval in just forming a new government and deciding to accept the recent bail out deal. Italy has also ended the party and brought in Mario Marti (Super Mario will probably stick) to hold Italy’s hand through the hangover to come. Spain should be nearly as much trouble as Italy’s larger economy, but somebody will be needed to cover everyone and keep the markets fluid.

This falls to Germany, but Germany can’t do it alone. Better yet, Germans refuse to do it alone. France is a large economy, but having their own economic skeletons in the closet will soon cause some chips to settle, so Sarkozy will not have the firepower to back Merkel through the long road to come. Germany will do as much as Merkel can get her electorate to stand, but that won’t be nearly enough to guarantee market confidence. Germany will have to step up by itself to guarantee any bailout money from the BRICS. If Germany does this, they will be rewarded with both the leadership of Europe as well as the continued fruits of the European economic machine. The risks, however, are large.

Strangely enough, this is an incredible turn of events if y0u think about it. Germany spent enormous money and lives in the early twentieth century while taking millions of lives in trying to dominate Europe. After all that blood and loss, Germany now finds itself being burdened with the very dominance and leadership of Europe it sought for so long. Stranger still, many Germans are seeking to shirk this opportunity. I will discuss Germany’s chance to save the world in another post, but back to the analogy. Any hope of the BRICs, or even Germany, to save the PIIGS from the big bad wolf are doomed to failure. The necessary capital will never make it to the governments that need it because the German electorate will most likely not agree to endanger the fruits of their economic frugality to save countries that they believe deserve a healthy economic purge. Outside of Europe, the Brazilians, Russians, Indians, and Chinese are feeling their own slow down and will be equally weary of sacrificing their economic success to save countries that made their bed and should now sleep in it. In addition, the best way to consolidate the recent increase in the economic power of the BRICS would be allow the European chips fall where they may. Long story short, the PIIGs are screwed.

It seems counter intuitive to make the comparison at first, but an old fart at a Tea Party rally with a sign reading “Don’t touch my Medicare” has a lot in common with a college student asking for Wall Street to pay back the TARP money (which they did, but that doesn’t get them completely off the hook). Seriously, even an anti-Obama birther has something in common with a 9/11 truther. They are all incredibly ignorant of reality and they do not represent mainstream America in any way shape or form. I think Karl Denninger’s experience with the Tea Party has more than the above parallels.

In fact, sharing a few lessons learned, Karl implores the OWS protesters to not settle on any specific demands and to not stop the occupations. In fact, “The problem with protests and the political process is that it is very easy, no matter how big the protest is, for the politicians to simply wait for the people to go home,” says Denninger. “Then they can ignore you.” His first bit of advice, to not go home, is probably more feasible with OWS protesters because of the chronic unemployment experienced by most of them this far into the recession.

Strangely enough, the biggest complaint about OWS from the right as well as most Tea Partiers seems to be their lack of specific demands, but Denninger praises this as well. “One of the things that the Occupy movement seems to have going for it is it has not turned around and issued a set of formal demands,” said Denninger. “This is a good thing, not a bad thing. Everyone is looking for a set of demands.” Denninger added that once the protesters formally approach the banks and government with a list of demands, “then somebody is going to say, ‘Well, we gave you 70 percent. Now go home.’”

Karl Denninger’s final advice to the OWS movement, “Stay on message, which is that the corruption is not a singular event,” he said. “You can’t focus in one place. You have to get the money out of politics, which is very difficult to do, but at the same time you can’t silence people’s voice.” Maybe there’s our common ground. Get the money out of politics, can’t argue with that.

http://rt.com/usa/news/tea-occupy-denninger-wall-819/

In my experience, you can find out very quickly if you are talking to a Pakistani with a logical mind not polluted by the cultural of conspiracy so rampant in Pakistan. All you need do is utter the word India. If the Pakistani you’re conversing with suddenly puffs out their chest and claims that Indian forces vastly outnumber Pakistan’s army and their country could be cut in half in a matter of days, then you have a culturally insane Pakistani who is about to justify why the ISI keeps the Taliban and the Haqqani network on a long leash.

If they shake their head and tell you that India is where the American special forces train to pose as Islamic terrorists to carry out suicide attacks and bombings in Pakistan because their Islamic militants would never kill fellow Pakistanis, then you got another loon on your hands about to tell you that American special forces assassinated Benazir Bhutto.

If they instead shake their head and simply lament that India, its economy, and its people are leaving Pakistan behind in a swamp of religious extremism with a powerless civilian government cowering before a dominant military establishment. You have now met a true Pakistani, a well educated worldly person that will probably bring up the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) and start to explain how, without the war on terror, there would’ve been a P in that BRIC somewhere.

In my opinion, this is all for the best. The Obama administration decision to move beyond the false public relationship with Pakistan and do what it takes to destroy the Haqqani network sheltering on the Pakistani side of the border was the correct choice. I don’t care what political party you affiliate yourself with, this is the classic false choice war bullshit that America always get mired in. In the Korean conflict, American forces had one hand tied behind their back when it came to crossing the 38th parallel because of China’s involvement. In the Vietnam war, the same hand was tied when it came to North Vietnam and the Ho Chi Minh trail in Cambodia and Laos. Today, we have Taliban forces attacking American units and conducting suicide assaults in Kabul before ducking back over the Pakistani border to rest, refresh, and resupply. There are even some reports coming out that Pakistan’s ISI is responsible for bringing the Taliban back from near defeat in 2002 through organization, rearming and training assistance.

The Haqqani boys are basically the closest thing on the planet to the old hardcore Al Qaeda people from a decade ago. These guys were there from the beginning during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and worked with Osama since way back then too. They have recently come to the conclusion that striking Americans any way possible is necessary. They’ve been carrying out increasingly bold attacks within Afghanistan, but are desperate to hit the US. Pakistan cherishes these individuals as an effective bulwark against an alliance between India and Afghanistan, their greatest fear. Unfortunately, Pakistan’s strategy is well known to all players and as a result of this path, Afghanistan and India have recently signed a strategic alliance pact. Pakistan didn’t like this.

I still maintain that this is all for the best. Even when Pakistan starts courting China to replace the guns and butter they used to get from the US, this action still breaks down a dangerous dynamic that holds Afghanistan hostage. Getting Pakistan to remove it’s strategic thumb from Afghanistan would be more effective than staying in Afghanistan to kill every last Taliban fighter. Removing the Haqqani network is, unfortunately, very important to US national security.

One of the things about drone attacks that the media doesn’t tell Americans very much involves women and children. Not the drone attacks gone bad that kill innocent civilians. I’m talking about many of the successful drone attacks that kill known terrorists. These hits usually kill the families surrounding these terrorists. I mention this because I myself am not so sure about the morality of assassination, especially when it means the murder of the targets family. I also mention this because Jalaluddin Haqqani, the head of the entire family-based terror network, lost eight grandchildren to a single US drone strike in September of 2008. Just in case you question the motivation of the Haqqani network to attack the United States, imagine what you would plan for the people that killed eight of your grandchildren. I know these particular grand kids would’ve been raised to kill Americans and Jews, but that doesn’t change how much the Haqqani’s want revenge. These guys cannot be overlooked for the sake of Pakistani-US relations.

The debt ceiling is set as a limit on the amount of money we pay for debt already incurred. Deciding not to raise the debt ceiling is like deciding to call up your utilities and say you aren’t going to pay for the electricity you used last month because your family spends too much on things they don’t need. It just doesn’t make any sense and the only possible result is a damaged credit rating. Low and behold, here we are, but wait…I thought we finally raise the debt ceiling at the last minute, right? No harm done…wrong.

It turns out that just going through with the practice of holding the debt ceiling hostage in order to extract concessions from political opponents is so irrational, that it was enough to cause the downgrade in the US credit rating. A timely implementation of a mix of long term spending cuts and long term tax increases (letting the Bush tax cuts expire) would’ve been the only way to avoid that credit rating downgrade. The “compromise is like date rape” attitude of the Republican leadership with that Tea Party gun to their heads made this display of political insanity possible. The genius of the Republicans will come out now when they work their magic and convince 50% of Americans that they had nothing to do with this whole mess.

The fact that most of America’s problems can be solved if both political parties simply agree to compromise highlights that America’s biggest liability is our political factionalism. Something our founding fathers actually did warn us about, the current schism in American politics is the only thing holding us back from being the country we once were.

Those leaders of Arab countries that limit the brutality with which they handle protesters will keep or lose power in a much more stable and peaceful environment, but if these leaders decide to hold onto power by their teeth, the western world will reach in and defang those leaders as they are doing to Gaddafi now. This will allow the 2011 Arab Revolutions to maintain their momentum. Hillary Clinton made a point to mention Bahrain and the forces from various Persian Gulf nations that have entered that Shiite majority country to put down protests to make that very point.

The way this military operation is played in the context of the 2012 elections will be a litmus test for Americans as far as how they want foreign policy handled in this second decade of the 21st century. We all know we can’t afford to keep our state budgets in the black, so we should also know that we can’t afford to maintain massively expensive land wars over years and sometimes decades. Spending a couple of hundred million dollars on Tomahawks from off shore while Sarkozy sends his flyboys into Libya to lead the cavalry charge sounds about right to me. Besides, US forces had to clear the skies before NATO could call it a no fly zone.

We are weaning the world, and our own massive ego, from the concept of the United States acting as the world’s police force.  If Operation Odyssey Dawn is one of those baby steps, then so be it. Maybe next time we can just cut a check to the UN and sit it all out?  Then we can start reducing the amount of that check and increasing the amount paid by China, Brazil, India, Russia and the EU.  Let’s at least start sharing the burden and the ‘morning after’ guilt for these huge international military campaigns if we can’t avoid them altogether.

It remains to be seen how fast the no fly zone can be implemented and how fast this operation will have an actual effect on forces loyal to Qaddafi as they advance rapidly towards the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. Even once the no fly zone is implemented, Qaddafi is determined enough to still advance on Benghazi and finish the job. This will inevitably lead to an escalation of the no fly zone as well as the confrontation between Qaddafi and President Obama. Obama has said that Qaddafi must go and the administration has also announced that military options beyond a no fly zone are definitely on the table. Qaddafi will test that assertion not because he thinks he should test Obama. Qaddafi is in the middle of the fight of his life and it’s between his whole family/tribe and the rest of Libya, so he has no choice but to test the entire international community. He’s going to take this whole mess as far as it can go.

If NATO gives a green light to engage Libyan forces on the coastal highway, they’ll have nowhere to run or hide and the rebels will soon be back on the advance. Obama simply can’t afford to allow a wave of revolutions for democracy in the Middle East to become halted by a dictator slaughtering his people, especially not as the 2012 election starts to heat up. This example would lead to untold deaths in Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, and other countries including places like the Ivory Coast. Obama has a chance to look strong on foreign policy while calling it the “right thing to do”, but like most presidents, his decision will happen to coincide perfectly with the strategic needs of his reelection campaign.

I personally wonder the purpose of having two people in the jet. Obviously the French Mirage that was shot down was a two seater, but the purpose of the person in the rear cockpit seat has probably changed a little under the circumstances. I’m willing to bet that the reason all those Libyan jets suddenly stopped defecting and started bombing the rebels has something to do with hardcore Qaddafi loyalists taking the back seat. They probably just keep a pistol at the ready to shoot any pilots that disobey orders. Mercenary forces mixed with Qaddafi diehard supporters are coordinating with Qaddafi’s air forces to kill Libyans who have decided to arm themselves in what has become a civil war.

Laurent Gbagbo, the illegitimate ruler of Ivory Coast, is following Qaddafi’s lead and making other dictators around the world proud. A crowd of unarmed women danced and sang through the capital of Ivory Coast, Abidjan, calling Gbagbo a thief and assassin, carrying signs calling for him to step down. This massacre, still currently on youtube, begins shortly after several armored police cars arrive. One of them was labeled police. Gunfire shortly opens up and people scatter for their lives in surprise and shock. Sandals, flip flops and protest signs littered the street…and then the person taking the video moves back to the street from which they ran to the sounds of shocked wailing. Somebody quickly ripped down some tree branches with leaves and threw them across the body of one women who’s head was blown away by the police bullets. Tree branches and soon cloth cover the rest of the heavily mutilated women before the camera comes to one poor lady shot in the back who tries to get up…she falls back down and dies on camera.

The crowd surrounds the dead and dying and begins to seethe with rage. Machetes and knives are brandished now on the news cameras in Ivory Coast. A civil war that began less than two years ago is almost guaranteed to start anew. The revolutions across the Middle East will not all be relatively peaceful as Qaddafi and his sons have proven and the dictator in Ivory Coast agrees. I think change will come to every dictatorship on the planet over the next ten years, but the sad truth remains. The next decade will be painful, just as all waves of revolution have been throughout history.

A post Mubarak Egypt will most likely honor it’s peace obligations to Israel, yet it may not be as compliant in some areas as Mubarak’s totalitarian Egypt. Any new government will most likely prefer to walk its own path while keeping a weary eye on all foreign powers, including the USA.  In fact, the recent American relationship with Egypt will be on everyone’s minds as much as Egypt/Israel relations. The man Mubarak recently put in charge of his country as a way of appeasing the protesters happens to be the Egyptian version of the director of the CIA, but this is not nearly as respectable a position as its counterpart in the US. The Egyptian intelligence service works just as hard inside the country on their own citizens as they do outside the country. Omar Suleiman, the new Vice President of Egypt is famous for eagerly torturing Egyptians as the head of Egyptian intelligence.

When asked for the DNA of a terrorist in an Egyptian prison to see if it matched the DNA of his brother, a high level terrorist killed by the US, Omar gladly offered up the entire arm of the Egyptian prisoner. You can see this guy goes the extra mile when it comes to vicious solutions, but the problem here is that he was considered a real asset during the last administration. The US regularly brought suspected terrorists to Cairo for outsourced torturing services provided by Mubarak and, his self chosen replacement, Omar Suleiman.

The Egyptian people will not accept this tyrant anymore than they’ll accept Hosni. The determination of these brave protesters seems insurmountable and every day they sit in Tahrir Square, is another day the revolutionary fire spreading across the Middle East is stoked further.  If Mubarak’s Egypt falls, the momentum will then be formidable. Jordan has the only leader, King Abdullah II, who is intelligent enough to provide the reforms his people desire, but every other government of the Middle East is up for grabs if Egypt goes down. Libya and Syria could be messy, but Saudi Arabia is the biggest domino of all.  If the house of Saud’s efforts to bribe their people in mass with funds from oil revenue doesn’t work, we could have an ultra rapid transformation of the entire region if violence erupts in Riyadh. Still, with the pressures of the Arab Spring, Saudi Arabia could enact a succession of long sought after reforms. This would mean a slower, but still rapid transformation of the Middle East to occur over the next decade.

The global economy can handle a lot, even after such a recession, but if all the oil producers in the Middle East go belly up for a few months at a time and then slowly recover under new fledgling governments, we could have a problem. Change is a good thing, but change is almost always painful in some way and this revolution has the potential to turn the oil market upside down. Oil market troubles mixed with a weakening Euro and intractable US debt issues could bring about another perfect storm that the battered global economy would be hard pressed to weather.

Scott Friedman

Washington, D.C.

This defense doesn’t clear Cohen of anything. Invoking the Nazi label on this issue is inherently misleading and nothing more than baseless political harassment. Although Goebbels took the concept of propaganda to a whole new level at the time, this black art has developed light years further since the dark days of WWII. The advertising industry alone has advanced propaganda tactics like repetitious falsehoods and other tricks to the point that some people now tune in to the Super Bowl to watch only the commercials. We don’t even want to know what US and Soviet black ops people were up to around the world in the 50s and 60s when it comes to propaganda tactics.

In fact, the essence of bogus political talking points like “Obamacare is a government takeover of America’s health care system” from the right or “The GOP has tricked its base into voting for policies that only support the rich” from the left is the same repetition. These lies are repeated enough to make political supporters believe them immediately and then they slowly wear on the minds of political opponents as well. Hopefully, such lies don’t effect critical minded independent voters as much as they have blind faith partisan voters.

The point remains…Congressman Cohen. Trotting out the Nazi flag and pinning it on the Republicans because of a common political tactic used by both political parties as well as the entire advertising industry is disrespectful of the victims of Nazi hatred and brutality.