Foreign Confidential ™
Foreign News and Analysis Since April 2005 -- formerly China Confidential -- What's Really Happening in the World
Friday, June 22, 2012
EU Leaders Agree to Push Stimulus as Crisis Worsens
But Merkel Still Stands for Austerity During Depression
Job Creation at Last the Rallying Cry
Good news. European leaders are apparently at last opposing overly aggressive Germany, which has been bent on forcing its weaker neighbors to accept austerity--severe spending cuts--during the worst economic crisis since the Second World War. Read more.
None dare call it imperialism? Germany's policy could be considered a form of economic imperialism as it aims to overthrow the status quo through the economic restructuring of entire nations. Pauperizing the middle and working classes, stripping them of political power, reducing them to Third World (developing/emerging nation) levels, dismantling social services for once and all, rolling back the clock to a distant, brutal time when workers could more easily be ground up, used and discarded like so much garbage or industrial waste … in the name of competitiveness … and fiscal reform … these seem to be the strategic objectives of Berlin's perfidious policy.
Prominent Political Scientist Supports Iran Getting Nukes
Kenneth Waltz says Iran acquiring atomic arms would be a good thing; even more alarmingly, perhaps, a nuclear-armed Iran is now considered an inevitability by many, if not most, Washington insiders. Read more.
Incredible. Waltz is a so-called neorealist, or defensive realist. If he was alive today, the father of political realism, Hans J. Morgenthau, who was both a leading critic of the Vietnam War, seeing it as an unnecessary and unwise intervention, and a strong supporter of Israel, would surely be shocked--maybe even sickened--by the reasoning. Morgenthau (under whom this reporter was privileged to have studied) stressed the crucial importance of a nation's intentions in the context of understanding an imperialist foreign policy as one that aims to overthrow the status quo, or power relations among nations.
Like Germany in the years leading up to World War II, Iran is pursuing an imperialist foreign policy; unlike Hitler, however, whom Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad clearly admires, the Islamist nation is making its intentions known, musing openly about Israel's destruction, a "world without America and Zionism," etc. That Waltz and others who share his hair-brained views can't or refuse to see this, that they are repeating or simply ignoring the fatal error of Neville Chamberlain and the advocates of appeasement, is astonishing--and frightening.
A nuclear-armed Iran is inevitable? Apocalyptic clerical fascists with atom bombs--inevitable? Heaven help us if that's the case.
Endnote: There is a real need to take back realism--to revive classical political realism--in light of Waltz's nutty neorealism and the "offensive realism" of John Mearsheimer, a fierce critic of Israel.
Syria's Fate, Russia's Fear: Analysis
Turkey and the West are backing a Muslim Brotherhood takeover of Syria, which is increasingly likely to split along sectarian lines. At the end of the day, Russia will accept an ethnically divided Syria rather than allow it to become a springboard for Islamist penetration of Russia itself. Read more.
The East is a tricky place. But Washington appears to have learned nothing from the horrific blowback of its massive, covert intervention in Afghanistan, which, along with aiding and allowing the Islamist takeover of Iran, unleashed the clerical fascist monster that is rightwing political Islam. The author of the above-referenced analysis is spot-on--but diplomatic. Given the way events have unfolded, Moscow must believe that Washington remains wedded to its decades-old policy of trying to manipulate Islamism in order to contain and arguably crack apart Russia (and China).
The Obama administration has clearly and effectively embraced Islamism while decimating Al Qaeda and killing its notorious leader, Osama Bin Laden, a man who might never have amounted to anything, politically, but for America's secret war in Afghanistan--the largest-ever covert operation in U.S. history. Apart from AQ and its best known affiliates, all other Islamist groups and governments are considered OK to "engage" (appease and align with) by an administration that is ironically regarded as "progressive" by its admirers and leftwing by its critics.
There is nothing progressive about rightwing political Islam. "Moderate" radical Islam is a deadly oxymoron. Fascism is fascism is fascism. Shame on the Democratic administration and on Republican politicians, like John McCain, who persist in stupidly referring to fascists as "freedom fighters." The U.S. debases itself--and insults the memory of all those who perished in the Second World War battling to defeat fascism or as innocent victims of the Nazi-fascist murder machine--by backing a modern-day Hitlerian menace that aims to enslave humanity and, with that objective in mind, will not rest until it brings about America's destruction and the destruction of Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.
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Copyright © 2012 Foreign Confidential™
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Stalemate in Syria?
Syrian civil war--a stalemate seems to be setting in as a fighter pilot defects to Jordan.Read more.
Beyond Spying: 'Flame' Can Attack and Destroy Computers
Understanding the most sophisticated computer virus--click here.
Austerity-Mad Elite Ignoring 1930s Lesson
Harsh austerity in recession/depression destabilizes democracy. Read more.
Related Article: Nowotny Backs Down
Greece Threatened With Formal Third World Status
Another win for German austerity: Greece could be relegated to "emerging market" status.Read more.
Greece Swears in Pro-Austerity Prime Minister
Samaras Takes Office Before Cabinet Announced
The three-party coalition will be weak and could easily collapse within a few months. Read more.
Comment: The EU was a good idea--up to a point. But the common currency was a bad idea. German austerity amid recession was an even worse idea--the harsh measures have failed everywhere. Greece is in a depression; Greek democracy, increasingly in danger of being overthrown. What is happening is unprecedented in the history of postwar Europe; that Germany should be chiefly responsible for the devastation is disturbing, to say the least.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
World Leaders Urge 'Fiscal Responsibility' as Europe Falls
Presidents and Prime Ministers Argue About Austerity Vs. Stimulus
Leaders of the UK, Germany, and South Korea are insisting on austerity, incredibly, with Europe on the brink of collapse and the United States stuck in a managed (for now) depression. Read more.
Seoul has nerve. If not for Washington, South Korea would long ago have been conquered by China-backed North Korea. A defense dependent that is reliant on the physical presence within its borders of some 30,000 U.S. troops really has no business lecturing its ally and other nations about anything.
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