Archive for the Sorrows of Empire category
November 14th, 2008
These reputable talking heads neatly outline the Afghan question: Princeton, escalation. Harvard, Afghanization.
I vote Hahvard.
But it seems the owner-operators are Black and Orange — real Tigers — and that Obama is in their stands.
See the 2nd comment below re CIA director Hayden’s shocking speech yesterday. It clarifies things. (Unless, err … it muddies the waters.)
In particular:Â The reality of the coming “Afghan Surge” — which both Obama and McCain sold throughout the campaign — seems a big western ground war in the Tribal Areas of northwest Pakistan early next year.
This will be the most distracting and dangerous thing on BHO’s plate.
The JFK precedent in wild, blasted bloom? See the 3rd comment below.
October 6th, 2008
Ed Note:Â See comments below for day by day, blow by blow summaries of what turned out to be the worst week in the history of the Dow 30.
Monday Morning.
After Europe’s traumatic weekend (see comments here), European stock markets fell roughly 7% Monday.
And with an hour ’til closing time, the Murdoch (formerly Dow) 30 is down another 700 points (6.8%), to roughly 9,600, breaking the psych barrier at 10,000 for the first time since 2004.
Along the way a new all-time point drop was notched — 806 — breaking the record set way back uh, let’s see … Last week.
.
The central banks and treasuries have shot most of their bullets. No one has yet taken heart.  Credit markets are broken worldwide. Nothing else now matters.
It is truly The Great (debt) Unwind that some people have been predicting for fifteen years — ever since the advent of Excel and email jolted high-tech Structured Finance to life in the money centers.
Traders this afternoon are sniffing “capitulation,” and supposing tomorrow we may have a bounce. Perhaps even coordinated rate cuts by every central bank from Tokyo to Washington.
But people with slightly longer-term views are saying Dow 8,000 might prove to be a floor.
It’s been a wild ride, since …
August 23, 2007:
MY OWN TWO CENTS, based on awareness of how vast the universe of structured finance securities is, and of how confidence in the methodologies used to rate and evaluate them has been shaken, and on watching the mortgage business get dismantled daily, is that the worst is far from over.
Recession, asset deflation (houses mostly), prolonged credit contraction. The Dustbowl returneth … But what do I know.
The sign at the Cyclone says “HOLD ONTO YOUR WIGS AND CAR KEYS.”
August 3, 2007:
The mortgage-bond failures demonstrate that the rating agency methodologies used to evaluate and rate high-tech “structured finance” bonds are seriously flawed.
This wethinks is why the private bond markets across all sectors (well beyond mortgage bonds) have seized up. The rating methodology failure means no one in the world really knows what their high-tech bonds are worth.
A radical thought, then: Perhaps the authorities might institute 90 days of price controls on the teeming mystery bonds to quell the panic …
Broad & Wall Street, 1929
October 5th, 2008
Brigadier General Mark Carleton-Smith says it’s time to talk turkey with the Taliban.
Yet, one of McCain’s big talking points in last week’s debate was the need to do a Surge over there.
September 25th, 2008
Well. Maybe we are indeed at war with Pakistan.
Paki army and US army soldiers exchanged gunfire on the ground earlier today, after the Pakis again fired at raiding US helicopters crossing the border.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Paki army fought a pitched battle with pro-Taliban joes — 50 dead or so.
Is it civil war yet?
And why are we and the Taliban both shooting at the same guys?
Let’s see, the enemy of my friend’s enemy is my enemy’s friend’s …
August 13th, 2008
Must read. Ron Suskind’s new book The Way of the World.
Hear him at Democracy Now this evening.
The facts seem well established.
And Suskind seems to think motions toward impeachment are imminent.
Yet the NY Times has so far ignored the story for almost a week.
But the Financial Times in London is not. It’s a tug of war, I guess.
July 27th, 2008
Here is an “intelligence briefing” delivered by american Herbert Meyer at the Davos gathering this past spring.
Much of what he has to say is familiar Likud Lobby fare. Europe-bashing. Certitude that the war in Iraq was a good idea. Straussian insistence that Myth (religious) must underlie successful politics.
Also seems gung ho on oil as the key to the future. Not much hope there, seems to me.
Nevertheless it’s certainly worth reading.
Comments perhaps to come when time permits.
July 24th, 2008
What a surprise, this week, to find Radovan Karadzic in custody, and the game still afoot.
(Mad Rad. A strange case. Surely nothing stranger than man walks the earth.)
One was then led to wonder about the likelihood that the likes of baby Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith might someday be indicted by international authorities for crimes in Iraq, Egypt, Guantanamo Bay and who knows where else.
A friend who knows about these things explains the international legal framework:
1. The court where our friend Radovan is about to face justice at long last is the International Criminal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). As its name implies, this court’s jurisdiction is limited to serious violations of international humanitarian law (war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide) committed on the territory of the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s.
The time-frame of the ICTY’s jurisdiction starts in 1991 and effectively ends a decade later, when the ICTY was told by the UN Security Council to cease issuing new indictments and to wind up all cases and appeals by 2010.
The Russians and the Chinese were particularly insistent on this, but the other permanent members (US, France, UK) did not object too strongly. The only reason our friend Radovan is still eligible for trial is because he was indicted by the ICTY more than 13 years ago and has been on the lam ever since.
See here for details about the ICTY, and the reasons why it cannot charge or try Feith, Rumsfeld et al.
2. There is another famous UN court based in The Hague, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court. Unlike the ICTY, the ICJ is a permanent court and won’t be told to shut down by the Security Council.
However, it has no jurisdiction to try any individuals. It’s strictly a legal venue where states can turn to resolve disputes about, e.g., the delineation of borders, observance of treaties etc. It’s essentially the large-scale equivalent of a civil court, where one can sue for damages and determinations of ownership and the like.
For more, see the ICJ’s website.
So Rumsfeld & co. aren’t eligible for prosecution in either of the above, simply because the ICTY and the ICJ lack jurisdiction.
3. But there’s also a third court in The Hague, so brand new that it’s still in rented space, awaiting construction of its permanent premises and has yet to bring its first case to trial. That new court is the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Unlike the other two Hague courts (ICJ and ICTY), the new International Criminal Court was not set up by the United Nations. The ICC is a treaty body, established by the Treaty of Rome, which came into effect on 1 July 2002, 60 days ater the 60th state had deposited its ratification of the Rome Treaty.
The ICC can prosecute individuals (not states) for serious violations of international humanitarian law specified in its statute. While it’s somewhat complicated (see the ICC’s FAQ page), the important catch for our purposes is that the U.S. is not a signatory to the Rome Treaty.
4. In short, it’s unlikely Rumsfeld et al. have reason to worry about facing prosecution by the ICC, or by any other international court at The Hague.
The eventuality that should give them reason to worry is cases brought in national jurisdictions — such as the UK court case that gave Pinochet the scare of his life back in 1999-2000, when the retired Chilean dictator came to London for a bit of quiet rest and relaxation and shopping and found himself under house arrest for 16 months, potentially facing trial for torture and other crimes against humanity.
For these reasons (again, the legal side is a bit complicated) the Bush administration’s torturers and enablers of torture, as well as certain Israeli and other officials with similarly murky pasts are well-advised these days to be consult a lawyer before they make their travel plans. See here for more on this heartening new trend.
April 29th, 2008
Oh dear.
It does seems Butch & Sundance (D.C. & Tel Aviv) are assembling their case for Mo Bigger Wo.
Yesterday, Exhibit B: a passel of glossy photos to justify war upon Iran.
And now Exhibit C: US allegations of Iran training lebanese Army of God soldiers.
West Texas Intermediate crude’s working the $120 mark these days, $116 this morning.
It seems to me Mo Wo helps McCain (sorry to say) defeat the Donkey in November, whoever (s)he may be.
It seems to me the world has returned to where it was 100 years ago — a state of war between its ears. A philosophical embrace …
It’s a movement which Bush-Cheney have led. But its possibility, in the US, rests on the spiritual (non) foundation — Abgrund — mislaid in the 80s, during the Reagantime. Materialism. Egoism. The notions that everything is just business, and greed good, and that self-improvement means going to the gym not the library … One could go on. There was a distinct cultural revolution, led by television advertising, that in retrospect may have undermined the polity.
The result is an increasingly shallow impassive apolitical body politic, upon which something as eccentric and destructive as Bush-Cheney might rest and feed.
The great banking crisis of 1907 — cured by JP Morgan and a few friends, and which led to the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank to keep such things from recurring — came back last year on the century mark precisely.
And it’s plain that the police state ethos has been on the rise in America as the currency has been collapsing … New York often feels like Berlin circa 1928 (where and when Walter Benjamin penned One Way Street).
But if we’re currently having our 1907, when may we expect our 1914?
I exhibit FDR at Chicago in 1937, brooding upon the Japanese invasion of China and Germany’s participation in the Spanish civil war, and calling upon the civilized world to gather in alliance to quarantine the aggressors:
The present reign of terror and international lawlessness began a few years ago.
It began through unjustified interference in the internal affairs of other nations or the invasion of alien territory in violation of treaties; and has now reached a stage where the very foundations of civilization are seriously threatened.
The landmarks and traditions which have marked the progress of civilization toward a condition of law, order and justice are being wiped away.
Without a declaration of war and without warning or justification of any kind, civilians, including vast numbers of women and children, are being ruthlessly murdered with bombs from the air. …
Nations are fomenting and taking sides in civil warfare in nations that have never done them any harm.
Nations claiming freedom for themselves deny it to others.
Innocent peoples, innocent nations, are being cruelly sacrificed to a greed for power and supremacy which is devoid of all sense of justice and humane considerations.
It is, therefore, a matter of vital interest and concern to the people of the United States that the sanctity of international treaties and the maintenance of international morality be restored. …
I am compelled and you are compelled … to look ahead. The peace, the freedom and the security of ninety percent of the population of the world is being jeopardized by the remaining ten percent. who are threatening a breakdown of all international order and law. …
Surely the ninety percent who want to live in peace under law and in accordance with moral standards that have received almost universal acceptance through the centuries, can and must find some way to make their will prevail.
The situation is definitely of universal concern. The questions involved relate not merely to violations of specific provisions of particular treaties; they are questions of war and of peace, of international law and especially of principles of humanity.
It is true that they involve definite violations of agreements, and especially of the Covenant of the League of Nations, the Briand-Kellogg Pact and the Nine Power Treaty. But they also involve problems of world economy, world security and world humanity.
It is true that the moral consciousness of the world must recognize the importance of removing injustices and well-founded grievances; but at the same time it must be aroused to the cardinal necessity of honoring sanctity of treaties, of respecting the rights and liberties of others and of putting an end to acts of international aggression.
It seems to be unfortunately true that the epidemic of world lawlessness is spreading.
When an epidemic of physical disease starts to spread, the community approves and joins in a quarantine of the patients in order to protect the health of the community against the spread of the disease. …
It ought to be inconceivable that in this modern era, and in the face of experience, any nation could be so foolish and ruthless as to run the risk of plunging the whole world into war by invading and violating, in contravention of solemn treaties, the territory of other nations that have done them no real harm and are too weak to protect themselves adequately. Yet the peace of the world and the welfare and security of every nation, including our own, is today being threatened by that very thing. …
War is a contagion, whether it be declared or undeclared. It can engulf states and peoples remote from the original scene of hostilities. …
If civilization is to survive the principles of the Prince of Peace must be restored. Trust between nations must be revived.
Most important of all, the will for peace on the part of peace-loving nations must express itself to the end that nations that may be tempted to violate their agreements and the rights of others will desist from such a course.
One can see and hear the entire speech here.
Vladimir Putin quoted and recapitulated in good part the argument of FDR’s speech in February 2007 — substituting, however, for Japan and Nazi Germany, the United States.
Continuing, then, to expect things to get worse before they get better.
January 7th, 2008
Hard to imagine a black man winning the Electoral College vote. (All the Southern Strategy stuff is history?) But Obama’s presence and success in the race seems to be throttling Hillary’s themes. A new way for the Donkeys to self destruct.
I still worry that if she gets the Dem nod, Vince Foster will be shot out of cannons to smear her. Maybe she would survive.
(I wish she would address it now. Does no one else recall the PBS Frontline show where Foster’s widow went on at length about the Hillary-Foster relationship? Even if the journalists have agreed to let sleeping dogs lie, does Camp Clinton think the GOPhers will do same if/when she’s nominated?)
I guess Edwards is the best candidate, although I can see he’s been a bit shrill lately for the corporate press — as the latter has increasingly refused (the Times certainly included) to seriously cover him. Reminiscent of 2000, when it was the Times (in a Sunday mag cover story) that overnight made baby Bush the Repub front runner.
So I guess I’m not optimistic re ousting the GOP. Obama is viable in the EC only in a world turned utterly on its head (which is not to say “impossible”). Hillary seems likely to get smeared with a blue valentine from Vince. And the corporatacracy has nixed Edwards.
Thus doesn’t seem to matter much — re electability — who the GOPher is. Looks to be the Donkeys’ election to lose. As in 2004.
I like Obama very much but his campaign is as ill advised a notion as I can remember seeing. In 2000 it was Ralph Nader. But today the stakes are higher (that is, we know they are higher), and Nader was never proclaimed front-runner. Nevertheless he cost Gore Florida and New Hampshire and thus the election.
Times reports today that the Draft Bloomberg campaign is alive and well. Seems he would run as a post-primaries Independent, if he does. And probably drain more support from the GOP than the Dems, as Perot did in 92, allowing Clinton to win with 43% of the vote.
Is this then the Donkeys’ best hope? A gay technocrat-billionaire from Fun City who don’t know the difference between a government and a corporation?
Meanwhile the world from Palestine to India is on fire. May be very different (again) before the November elections. Perhaps that means McCain. Or the cancellation of elections under martial law in the wake of a disaster.
Or perhaps it means it matters little who sits in that chair. Reagan was the first ventriloquist dummy of the postwar era. With him began the business of running a White House with a poster boy. Bush pere and Clinton resisted the notion. Baby Bush seems to mark its well rooted redux. The death of an institution. Seems doubtful that the occupant in 2009 will be able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
The Congress was bought and neutered (via television ad money). No doubt the state can stagger on without a real White House too. That leaves the Pentagon and the secret police as the essence of what Washington is. Sorrows of Empire.
Interesting that the collapse of the Soviet Union has been followed by the collapse, in an important sense, of the United States — i.e. the end of the world that the world wars left behind.
Does the failure of American democracy have a cost internationally? Kenya, for example?
November 22nd, 2007
Forty-four years now since the murder of the first distinctively postwar president.
The NY Times marked the occasion with an article about the Zapruder film that in passing reasserted the notion that Oswald did it.
Earlier this year the Times published a disinformative and dismissive review of David Talbot’s book Brothers, which while editorially messy contains several important new bits of information, and manages to bring the essentials to life in 400 easy to read pages.
The Times, then, still seems on the payroll.
Meanwhile Howard Hunt’s explicit confession (I was just a “benchwarmer” on CIA team) continues to be blacked out in the mainstrea media.
