Archive for May 11th, 2008
Global Food Riots Protend Trouble for the US Dollar
Global Food Riots Protend Trouble for the US Dollar
By: Chris_Galakoutis
On a trip to Canada recently I couldn’t help but notice the extensive media coverage paid to the worldwide food price inflation, as well as the riots breaking out in many countries over food shortages.
And of course the list of reasons given by the so-called ‘economists’ interviewed are completely devoid of the one all important reason fueling what may arguably become an epic food price inflation: the declining value of the US dollar.
Many countries around the world peg their currency to the dollar, either through what are called soft or hard pegs.
As I have written on numerous occasions, these countries are paying the price for their ‘loyalty’ by importing the inflation the US is creating. In order to support the US currency and keep theirs from appreciating, countries must create more of their own and sell it in the open market to buy dollars. This increased supply of their own currency fuels the inflationary conditions in their own countries.
Akin to a destructive typhoon that has hit shore in some and about to in others, the inflation monster wasn’t an issue so long as it was gestating and churning over open water after developing and departing US shores.
But as it starts to hit the many nations foolish enough to have invited the storm, the question that arises is how will the affected countries respond?
In my opinion, as this food crisis grows and civil unrest intensifies worldwide, all nations impacted by it will finally be forced to stand up and walk off this particular field of dreams.
For if it is one thing and one thing alone that all politicians understand it is power, and remaining in power. And in most places that means votes.
The question for the longest time has been ‘when,’ as in when will countries begin to un-peg from the dollar. That’s already happened in some places, but I believe is about to pick up pace as prices of not only food but also all basic necessities spiral out of control. The un-pegging will cause those foreign currencies to strengthen, bringing down domestic prices virtually overnight.
Authorities here in the US have, up until now, been able to ‘fool’ the people into believing there was no inflation, by working to bring down the cost of their big screen TV’s and other imported consumer electronics. By doing so, the rising costs of life’s necessities have been camouflaged, as it were, since the average consumer was left par for the course after all was said and done.
But in a slowing economy and home equity cash-out’s a thing of the past, the now frugal consumer is hurting, having to carry and service large debt while also feeling the full force of the price increases for everything from food, energy, health care and all other necessities that can not be outsourced on the cheap.
As this inflation spread it can therefore mean only one thing: countries will let go of their currency pegs sooner rather than later.
This will come as a complete and total shock to those currently calling for a massive dollar rally and corresponding collapse of gold and commodities prices.
It is why we have been picking up more of our favorite gold, silver and energy stocks this past week. Some of these stocks are trading it ridiculously low prices, a few approaching their cash on hand. It is these stocks that will have the most explosive moves to the upside in the months ahead.
The MurkyMarkets.com website by Christopher G Galakoutis is a running macroeconomic commentary on the state of the financial markets with emphasis on gold, silver, the currency markets and energy. Visitors to our new site are always welcome.
US professor of international law to support Iran against Israel
US professor of international law to support Iran against Israel
A leading American professor of international law has voiced readiness to represent Iran in an international court on Israeli crimes.
“I am ready to represent Iran in an international tribunal for trying the Zionist regime on charges of genocide of Palestinians and the blockade in the Gaza Strip,” Francis Boyle, professor of law at the University of Illinois, told Fars News Agency.
According to the news agency, Boyle demanded his proposal to be submitted to the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Professor Boyle accuses Israel of committing ‘Nuremberg offenses’ against the Palestinians.
Boyle has recently been calling for the impeachment of US President George W. Bush.
Boyle is author of Palestine, Palestinians and International Law, The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence, Defending Civil Resistance Under International Law, The Future of International Law and American Foreign Policy, Foundations of World Order: The Legalist Approach to International Relations 1898-1921, and The Bosnian People Charge Genocide.
MK/DT
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=54883§ionid=351020101
link
Boyle on Wikipedia
Francis Anthony Boyle (born 1950) is a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago and Harvard Law School. He also received a Ph. D. in political science from Harvard University.
Between 1988 and 1992 Boyle was a member of the board of Amnesty International USA. Boyle also charged that Amnesty’s staff had been infiltrated by US and UK security services (see Covert Action interview below) a claim hotly disputed by many in the human-rights community.
From 1991 to 1993, Boyle was a legal advisor to the Palestine Liberation Organization. Boyle is currently a member of the Nobel Peace Prize for Governor George H. Ryan Committee.
Professor Boyle has also made controversial comments about the Middle East, accusing Israel of committing “Nuremberg offenses” against the Palestinians, an allusion to the actions of Nazi Germany.
more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Boyle
link
The Big Lie
Palestine, Palestinians and International Law
By Francis A. Boyle
I am not Arab. I am not Jewish. I am not Palestinian. I am not Israeli. I am Irish American. Our People have no proverbial “horse in this race.” What follows is to the best of my immediate recollection:
The Big Lie
Growing up in the United States during the late 1950s and early 1960s while strongly supporting the just struggle of African Americans for civil rights, I was brainwashed at school as well as by the mainstream news media and popular culture to be just as pro-Israel as everyone else in America. Then came the 1967 Middle East War. At that time, my assessment of the situation was that Israel had attacked these Arab countries first, stolen their lands, and then driven out their respective peoples from their homes. I then realized that everything I had been told about Israel was “The Big Lie.” Israel was Goliath, not David.
I resolved to study the Middle East in more detail in order to figure out what the Truth really was.
Of course by then I had already figured out that everything I was being told about the Vietnam War also constituted The Big Lie. The same was true for U.S. military intervention into Latin America after the Johnson administrations gratuitous invasion of the Dominican Republic. The same for the pie-in-the-sky “Camelot” peddled by the Kennedy administration after the Bay of Pigs invasion/fiasco and its self-induced Cuban Missile Crisis that was a near-miss for nuclear Armageddon. So I just added the Middle East to the list of international subjects that I needed to pay more attention to in my life.
Chicago
… By the end of Professor Binders course in the Winter of 1970, I had become convinced of three basic propositions: (1) that the world had inflicted a terrible injustice upon the Palestinian People in 1947-1948; (2) that there will be no peace in the Middle East until this injustice was somehow rectified; and (3) that the Palestinian People were entitled to an independent nation state of their own. I have publicly maintained these positions for the past three decades at great cost to myself.
In particular, I have been accused of being everything but a child molester because of my public support for the Palestinian People. I have seen every known principle of Academic Integrity and Academic Freedom violated in order to suppress the basic rights of the Palestinian People. In fact, there is no such thing as Academic Integrity and Academic Freedom in the United States of America when it comes to asserting the rights of the Palestinian People under international law.
… By comparison, Harvards Center for Middle East Studies was then basically operating as a front organization for the . and probably the Mossad as well. No point anyone wasting their time studying Middle East Politics at Harvard.
Nevertheless, I entered Harvard in September of 1971 in order to pursue a J.D. at the Harvard Law School and a . in Political Science at the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Government. The latter was the same doctoral program that had produced Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Samuel Huntington, and numerous other Machiavellian war-mongers trained by Harvard to “manage” the U.S. global empire. In other words, Harvard trained me to be one of these American Imperial Managers: “There but for the Grace of God go I!”
For the next seven years at Harvard I was quite vocal in my support for the Palestinian People, including and especially their basic human rights, their right to self-determination, and their right to an independent nation state of their own. …
While in residence as an Associate at the Harvard Center for International Affairs (CFIA) from 1976-1978, I also came into contact with Walid Khalidi. I was present for the dramatic off-the-record confrontation between him and Shimon Peres at the standing CFIA Seminar on “American Foreign Policy” then conducted by Stanley Hoffmann at their old headquarters on 6 Divinity Avenue. Peres refused to budge even one inch no matter how flexible Khalidi was. A harbinger for the Middle East Peace Negotiations over a decade later.
As a most loyal and grateful Harvard alumnus (J.D. magna cum laude, A.M., Ph.D.), I must nevertheless state that it is shameful and shameless that Harvard never granted a tenured full professorship to Walid Khalidi because he is a Palestinian despite the fact that he is universally recognized as one of the worlds foremost experts on the Middle East. This gets back to my previous observation that there is no point studying Middle East Politics at Harvard. ..
http://www.counterpunch.org/boylebiglie.html
A Secret Afghanistan Mission Prepares for War with Iran
A Secret Afghanistan Mission Prepares for War with Iran
Those predicting war with Iran or some Bush-Cheney October surprise attack on Tehran are constantly looking for signs of military preparations: a B-52 bomber that mistakenly takes off from North Dakota with nuclear-armed cruise missiles; a second or third aircraft carrier entering the Persian Gulf; a B-1 crashing in Qatar.
Since the most likely path to war with Iran is not Marines storming the beach but a strike on nuclear facilities and “regime” targets, signs such as these can often just be mirages. The true strike is not necessarily going to come with any warning, and the U.S. military has developed an entire system called “global strike” to implement such a preemptive strike.
A secret mission conducted last August over Afghanistan caught my eye because it tells us everything we need to know about the ability of the U.S. military to conduct a bolt-out-of-the-blue attack in Iran. It also tells us how useless such a strike might be.
On Aug. 12, 2007, four F-16CJ fighters took off on an 11-hour mission from Iraq to Eastern Afghanistan, crossing the airspace of six different nations, before dropping more than a dozen precision-guided bombs on Taliban targets. The crews of the record-breaking flight received the coveted Clarence MacKay Trophy for 2007, an award given annually for “the most meritorious flight” of the year.
The secret mission had never before been attempted, according to the Air Force, and the pilots were allotted a two-minute window of attack at the end of their 2,100-mile flight. The entire non-stop mission, which took 13 aerial refuelings, was the equivalent of flying from New York to Los Angeles and back.
The mission was a success, according to the Air Force: It resulted in “direct hits” that allowed coalition ground forces to “conduct raids on Taliban positions.”
However, a check of the news out of Afghanistan for the week of Aug. 12 reveals no real air strike of significance. On Aug. 12, the wire services reported fighting near the Pakistani border and the death of three U.S. soldiers and their Afghan interpreter from a roadside bomb. Further fighting was reported on Aug. 13 and Aug. 14, but no significant bombing missions in support of U.S. or Afghan forces. On Aug. 15, the Afghan government announced a large scale three-day operation in the area of Tora Bora, an operation launched in response to the killing of three U.S. soldiers by IED earlier that week. Officials said nearly 50 suspected Pakistani and Taliban militants were killed in air and ground operations. Coalition aircraft carried out two sorties to target the Taliban positions in that area, an Afghan official said.
I don’t doubt that the F-16CJ night mission was complicated and historic, as well as physically and mentally demanding. The crews, according to the Air Force, worked with new operating instructions and went into the unknown. The squadron commander had only 18 hours to plan and prepare for the attack. The mission was so secret, furthermore, it was not listed on the daily Air Tasking Order, the daily schedule distributed throughout the U.S. military, further complicating aerial refuelings and overflights.
If on Aug. 12, 2007, the United States had killed Osama bin Laden or scored some major victory in Afghanistan, one might fully appreciate the mission and the award of the MacKay Trophy. But I suspect that what was important here is that the mission went like clockwork, not that something important in Afghanistan was destroyed.
None of this is to besmirch the effort or the achievement. But if this was really a rehearsal to attack Iran, it was a mission where getting the airplanes over the target was more consequential than what was actually bombed.
