The arguments for attacking Iran are crazy, like those for attacking Iraq in response to 9-11. But that does not mean such an attack by the American and/or the Israelis will not occur.
Indeed, I think the political pressure for such an attack is increasing. My reasons for saying this are as follows:
On 11 October, Patrick Seale wrote a very important essay, Will Israel Bomb Iran. Seale described secret internal deliberations in the Israeli government over the twin questions of (1) how short a time window existed for Israel to launch a sneak attack on Iran and (2) how to suck in the United States into supporting such an attack, even if an Israeli attack was launched without US approval or if the US was kept in ignorance beforehand? Seale, who is extremely well connected and very knowledgeable on the Middle Eastern affairs, also reported the Americans knew of the Israeli discussions, and the idea of Israeli decision makers thinking their window of opportunity was closing was causing alarm in Washington.
Open Source Works, which is the CIA’s in-house open source analysis component, is devoted to intelligence analysis of unclassified, open source information. Oddly, however, the directive that established Open Source Works is classified, as is the charter of the organization. In fact, CIA says the very existence of any such records is a classified fact.
“The CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence of records responsive to your request,” wrote Susan Viscuso, CIA Information and Privacy Coordinator, in a November 29 response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Jeffrey Richelson of the National Security Archive for the Open Source Works directive and charter.
“The fact of the existence or nonexistence of requested records is currently and properly classified and is intelligence sources and methods information that is protected from disclosure,” Dr. Viscuso wrote.
This is a surprising development since Open Source Works — by definition — does not engage in clandestine collection of intelligence. Rather, it performs analysis based on unclassified, open source materials.
Thus, according to a November 2010 CIA report, Open Source Works “was charged by the [CIA] Director for Intelligence with drawing on language-trained analysts to mine open-source information for new or alternative insights on intelligence issues. Open Source Works’ products, based only on open source information, do not represent the coordinated views of the Central Intelligence Agency.”
As such, there is no basis for treating Open Source Works as a covert, unacknowledged intelligence organization. It isn’t one.
Big changes are coming. How you fare will be a function of the choices you make.
The threat is the ongoing breakdown of the global economic and political system. Things are already bad for many of us, and they will get worse for nearly everyone as the decades wear on. In almost all cases, if you stick with the current economic system: you and your family will suffer.
The opportunity is to build something new at the local level. A networked resilient community that produces most of what it needs and shares/sells/buys the rest virtually. An economic and political environment that you can have a say in.
One of the key parts of this opportunity for networked resilient communities? Local fabrication. The ability to make locally, using simple/inexpensive machines and designs downloaded from the Internet, the products we currently buy from China. This is a big idea. It's hard to get your head around. Once you do, it will change the way you think about the future. Here are three attempts to explain the idea (start with the video first).
The US military is under threat in its own country as homegrown Islamic extremists, including “radicalized troops,” are treating military installations here as prime targets, US officials warned Congress Wednesday.
The below report by Patrick Cockburn, one of the best reporters now covering the Middle East, describes the growing tensions in Iraq over the question of sharing its oil wealth among its constituent regions. Although his report is important in its own right, its contents become even more ominous when they viewed in a larger historical context:
The long view of history is likely to record the greatest ‘sins' of Iraq, Iran, and Libya prompting interventions by the West have been related to the control of oil — not nuclear weapons; not any communist leanings during the Cold War; not support of worldwide terrorism.
Each country committed the unforgivable sin of being governed at one time by nationalistic leaders who believed the oil under each country belonged to that country and should be controlled by the government of that country — therefore, these leaders had to be removed:
Iran – Mohammed Mosaddegh, a popularly elected Prime Minister of Iran and social reformer, removed by a CIA/MI6 coup in August 1953.
Iraq – Saddam Hussein, a murderous neo-Stalinist dictator and social reformer (e.g., major achievements in women's rights and education), removed by military force in 2003.
Libya – Muammar Qaddafy, a quirky tribal dictator and social reformer (e.g., major achievements in women's rights and education) removed by military force in 2011.
Click on Image to Enlarge
One short-term common denominator in these imposed regime changes was that the nationalist leader was replaced by a more compliant government that agreed to an opening of that country's oil fields to exploitation by privately owned western oil companies.
While history does not repeat itself, memories of the past condition events in the future. Over the longer term, perceived wrongs are not forgotten, and such interventions can provoke blowbacks, which in turn provoke counteractions that enmesh the intervener in a welter of increasingly complicated conflicts. In the case of Iran, for example, the 1953 coup eventually backfired in 1979, when Reza Shah Pahlavi was overthrown by the Islamic revolution led by the Ayatollah Khomeini. Khomeini then established a regime retook control of Iran's oil fields, among other things. But the Iranian game is not over, and the historical pattern of move and countermove is in play, with the nationalist (Islamic) regime of Iran again in the West's crosshairs, allegedly because of its nuclear ambitions and support of international terror. Nevertheless, the glittering temptations of re-privatizing Persian oilfields are lurking in the background, attracting the private oil capitalists of the West like flies to honey.
Finish long comment from Spinney, plus reference, plus See Also.
Where the crypto rubber meets the Road of Finance…
December 11, 2011
Why (my, all) financial systems fail — information complexity
I spent over a decade building the snappiest financial system around. In that time I pursued one goal of efficiency: reduction of complexity. This wasn't only goodness in an angelic sense, it was a pragmatic goal to reduce my own costs in building systems.
The result was pretty spectacular: we were settling trades in seconds and doing so with every leg firmly fastened to the ground. That is, the whole thing was running with direct concrete ties to assets.
But, the big players weren't interested. Indeed they were more than uninterested, they were highly interested in making sure this would never ever happen. Time after time, the message was delivered: Never. Other companies received the same message, so after a few years, I started to take it seriously.
At the time I hypothesised that the reason for this was insider fraud, or at least profits capture. The complexities were endemic and there were very few people who could see the whole picture. So, I theorised that those who could understand the complexities were cashing in on their advantage; from the inside. And some very few who cashed in were also driving the information agenda, as their success made them both wealthy and influential: more complexity.
Of course such a hypothesis is unlikely to find proof. By its very nature, how do you prove such a tendency towards chaos? Here comes an alternate perspective from ZeroHedge, citing two papers (1, 2):
And the punchline: “Liquidity requires symmetric information, which is easiest to achieve when everyone is ignorant. This determines the design of many securities, including the design of debt and securitization.” Reread the last statement as it explains perhaps better than anything, the true functioning of modern capital markets and why they are terminally broken: in order to preserve the system, the banking cartel need to make everything of virtually infinite complexity so that no one has a clear understanding of what is going on!
Phi Beta Iota: In brief, finance is fraud. As William Greider documents in his book, The Soul of Capitalism, financial instruments (incomprehensible to their own vendors) appreciated seventeen times while real assets appreciated five times. Twelve is the fraud-complexity-corruption delta.
The question has to be asked: “Why shouldn't we default and let the banks fry?”
What possible benefit it there to the people of a nation whose previous leaders “sold out” the entire country on the basis of lies from the banks, notably Goldman Sachs?
Why not default and focus on full employment and resilience at home? Why rescue German banks?
If a new financial system is emerging, anchored by the BRICS [Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa], why not focus on being attractive that that new ethical financial system instead of giving up what is left in the way of seed corn to the old predatory unethical system?
Many European Lenders Have Sold Sovereign-Default Protection to One Another
EXTRACT:
Of the total protection that European banks have written on government bonds in Europe's five most-stressed countries, nearly one-third originated from German banks.
