The Arab Awakening: The Name Changes, But Will the Song Remain the Same?

From FPIF, , March 3, 2011

By Rob Prince

If you can't beat 'em, try smothering 'em with a bear hug. 

While no doubt the United States is quite nervous about where all the Middle East protests are headed – the unknown factor rattles the stock market and oil prices – the Obama Administration, not without internal divisions, has, grudgingly,  accepted the need for some change – democratization and shifts in economic policy – in the region.

It is tactically clever (and realistic) to ride the wave – rather than oppose it outright. Those discredited dictators – the Mubaraks, Ben Alis – around whom the United States has built and cultivated its post World War II Middle East policy have moved from 'category asset' to 'downright-liability'. For the moment, let's bypass the question of whether this new moral epiphany results from 'a position of principle' or rather, simply a response to the flow of events that the Obama Administration neither expected nor for which it was prepared.

It is precisely the element of the unknown which scares U.S. policy makers, plus the fact that the administration has tried to play down: most of the corrupt regimes which are 'facing their maker' have had strong political and military support from Washington (and the European Union) for decades.

It is easier to praise the democratic upsurge, criticize repressive crackdowns with arms and tear gas that usually has 'made in USA' on it and to avoid the U.S. military interventionalist impulse, when, as with Tunisia, strategic interests are less at play. It becomes  more difficult as the protest wave comes closer to the oil producing and transporting region as with Egypt, and almost irresistible when oil production itself is involved as it is with Libya.

Watching the pressure grow for a U.S. and/or NATO military intervention in Libya to oust Gaddafi and end the growing bloodshed there, one has to wonder if anyone has learned anything from history? The answer seems to be 'apparently not much'. We've been 'kind of' here before.

A U.S. military intervention in Libya is – let me say it frankly – an extremely bad idea. It will strengthen Gaddafi's hand; he's long been able to rally support against the big outsider bully (who did in fact try to assassinate him by cruise missile in April, 1986). It would undoubtedly inflame anti-American sentiment throughout the region, pull the United States into yet another military quagmire adding to the current list (Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia). To their credit, it appears that both Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (in a recent speech) want none of it…for the moment. 

How long ago was it that popular support was mobilized for military intervention to unseat a ruling tyrant from an oil producing country and 'liberate' its people? The end result to that 'crusade' is a country destroyed, maybe a million people dead, 3½ million or so made refugees, an oil industry privatized and 'enduring' U.S. military bases, some as large as medium sized American cities, in Iraq.

The Tunisian people resolved the debate within a paralyzed Obama Administration over whether or not to support Zine Ben Ali in his political death rattle by massive, largely peaceful demonstrations that forced the president and his influential wife to flee.

But not every social movement can place roses in tank gun turrets and not get blown to bits for it. Let us hope that Libya does not descend much further into civil war, that its people in not-so-peaceful revolt – methods forced upon them by objective conditions – can end the debate in Washington, London, Paris, etc. – overthrowing Gaddafi and defeating private armies and mercenaries. It's a tall order.

Supporting 'pliant' third world nationalism 

With China making inroads into Africa, (imagine, they offer loans to poor African countries without structural adjustment criteria!) the U.S. will be well served to embrace Middle Eastern democracy for obvious reasons. But as long as the United States – and many of the core countries of the world economy – are addicted to oil at a time of tight oil markets, dramatic shifts in U.S. Middle East policy in support of dramatic democratization are unlikely. 

The Obama Administration hopes the changes will be 'manageable', that new political figures (or older ones forced to make concessions) won't diverge too much from U.S. global economic and security policies. Like other U.S. administrations since Truman, it has long supported a certain kind of pliant Third World nationalism.

The nationalism of Ben Ali, Mubarak – or better, Pinochet – has suited it far more than that of Nasser and Lumumba.

Of course, the Obama Administration has no choice but to accept the changes unfolding and with which they can hardly keep up. Then again, we have seen that Washington has plans for the Middle East, though the peoples of the Middle East have their own, largely yet to be defined, agendas.

Nor is Washington's policy of 'celebrating democracy' while quietly working to dampen its impact particularly new. In the 1980s, at the same time Ronald Reagan was trying to smother Nicaraguan democracy, he was making different moves in the Philippines.

Will it be Cuba 1959 or the Philippines 1986?

In early 1986, a great Filipino democratic wave broke the back of the Marcos dictatorship. The issues were more or less the same as in the Middle East today: growing income inequality, crushing poverty and debt, massive corruption and repression. As the demonstrations swelled to 'Tahrir Square proportions' then U.S. President Ronald Reagan sent Senator Paul Laxalt to offer Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos a deal he couldn't refuse.

If his autobiography is to be believed, Laxalt successfully negotiated Marcos' departure from power. The deal included the promise of safe haven in Hawaii plus U.S. protection of Marcos' billion dollar assets. Sound familiar?

Marcos, whose family wealth today by some estimates might top $50 billion, was removed with much fanfare. The Filipino people celebrated and for good reason. However, while the tyrant and his wife with her famous 2,000 plus pairs of shoes (a novice by the way compared to Tunisia's Leila Trabelsi) were forced to flee to Honolulu, 'the system' remained largely unchanged. It was a bit more open politically, but…

• The new government honored the enormous debt burden the country had incurred during the Marcos years. The economic policies that were at the root cause of the crisis were hardly altered.
• The Filipino strategic relations with the United States remained unaltered.
• The crushing poverty has remained largely intact; the decay of health, educational infrastructure hardly improved.

The leadership's face changed, but 'the system' remained essentially the same. A quarter of a century later, the Philippines remains a country mired in debt, its government still addressing appalling poverty, its democratic moment a distant memory of things past. The Marcos children are making a political comeback in the Philippines, running for public office. Could this happen to the Ben Ali, Trabelsi, Mubarak and Khadaffi offspring?

Are these the kind of changes that the Obama Administration is working for in Tunisia, Egypt and beyond?

Rob Prince is the publisher of the Colorado Progressive Jewish News.
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Related:
Unrest in the Middle East and Africa - Country by Country

NM Rothschild & Sons Are Moving In For The Kill

by Raymond L’Heureux 

The World Bank/IMF is owned and controlled by NM Rothschild & Sons plus 30 to 40 of the wealthiest people in the world. For over 150 years they have planned to take over the planet through money. The former chief economist of the World Bank, Joe Stiglitz, was fired in 2000. He pointed out to top executives that every country the IMF/World Bank forced their way into ended up with a crashed economy, a destroyed government, and some even broke out in riots. Former President of the World Bank/IMF Sir James Wolfensohn, would not comment on his dismissal.
Before Joe Stiglitz was fired he took a large stack of secret documents out of the World Bank.
These secret documents from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund reveal that the IMF required nations:
1. To sign secret agreements containing 111 destructive items. (I’d love to get a hold of that list)
2. To agree to sell off their key assets – water, electric, gas, etc.
3. To agree to take economic steps which are devastating to the nations involved.
If they do not agree to these steps they are cut-off from all international Import/Export. If you can’t borrow money in the international marketplace, no one can survive, whether you are people, corporations or countries. If that doesn’t work they overthrow the government and rewrite history.


The Argentina Plan
Inside documents from Argentina show the top-secret Argentine plan. This was signed by Sir James Wolfensohn, the former president of the World Bank. Argentina has had six presidents in five weeks because their economy is completely destroyed. This happened because they started out in the end of the 1980s with orders from the IMF and World Bank to sell-off all their assets, public assets, like their water system. Then they taxed the people. They created big government and big government handed it off to the private IMF/World Bank. They pay off the politicians billions in Swiss bank accounts.
Cronies like Citibank grabbed half the Argentine banks. British Petroleum grabbed pipelines in Ecuador. Enron grabbed water systems all over the place. The problem is that they are destroying these systems as well. You can’t even get drinking water in Buenos Aires. It is not just a question of theft. It is more than someone getting rich at the public expense. And the IMF just got handed the Great Lakes. They have the sole control over the water supply now. The IMF and the World Bank is 51% owned by the United States Treasury.


Remember What We Learned From Enron
The water system of Buenos Aires was sold off for a song to Enron. A pipeline was sold off, that runs between Argentina and Chile. The globalists then blew out Enron after transferring the assets to another dummy corporation. .
They come in, pay off politicians to transfer the water systems, the railways, the telephone companies, the nationalized oil companies, and gas stations, ect, ect… – The appointed or selected politicians then hand over raped assets to the IMF for nothing. The Globalists pay them off individually, billions a piece in Swiss bank accounts. Their plan is total slavery for the entire population.

IMF Planned Riots

The IMF/World Bank have been systematically tearing nations apart, whether it’s Ecuador or Argentina or America and Israel. Privatization equals Pillaging and Rape. Steal from the people and hand over everything to the IMF/World Bank.


The world is in flames.
They know that when they squeeze a country and destroy its economy, you’ll get riots in the streets. And they admit that because you have riot, all the capital runs away from whatever country and that presents the opportunity for the IMF to move in for the serious takeover.
It really is an imperial economy war meant to implode countries and now they have started in America. They are damn greedy. Chief investigators of the State of California said that that it’s not just the stockholders that get ripped off. They suck millions, billions even trillions of dollars out of the public pockets. Where are the assets? See, everybody says there are no assets left. They transfer all assets to other corporations and banks.


Rothschild – The Plague Of The Red Shield
Burrow into NM Rothschild & Sons, you’ll find it all there. The IMF/World Bank implosion, four points, how they bring down a country and destroy the resources of the people. First you open up the capital markets. That is, you sell off your local banks gold to foreign buyers. Then you go to what’s called market-based pricing or even silver. That’s the stuff like in California where everything is free market and you end up with water bills no one can pay. Then open up your borders to trade. It’s like the opium wars. This isn’t free trade; this is coercion trade. This is war. They are taking apart economies through this system. China has a 50% to 60% tariff on the U.S. but the U.S. has a 2% on them. That’s not free and fair trade. It’s to force all industry into a state of one world order that the globalists control 100%.


“Beware of calls to return to a gold standard. Why? Simple. Because never before has so much gold been so concentrated outside of American hands. And never before has so much gold been in the hands of international governmental bodies such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. In fact, the IMF now holds more gold then any central bank.” ~ Bill Still

by Raymond L’Heureux on Wednesday, March 2, 2011

James Petras: Roots of the Arab Revolts and Premature Celebrations

From Lahaine.org, 03.03.2011:

Most accounts of the Arab revolts from Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, Yemen, Jordan, Bahrain, Iraq and elsewhere have focused on the most immediate causes: political dictatorships, unemployment, repression and the wounding and killing of protestors.

They have given most attention to the “middle class”, young, educated activists, their communication via the internet, (Los Angeles Times, Feb. 16, 2011) and, in the case of Israel and its Zionists conspiracy theorists, “the hidden hand” of Islamic extremists (Daily Alert Feb. 25, 2011).

What is lacking is any attempt to provide a framework for the revolt which takes account of the large scale, long and medium term socio-economic structures as well as the immediate ‘detonators’ of political action. The scope and depth of the popular uprisings, as well as the diverse political and social forces which have entered into the conflicts, preclude any explanations which look at one dimension of the struggles.

Read essay [PDF]

Hitlery Clinton declares international information war

From RT,  03 March, 2011:

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testifies before a Senate Appropriations Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, March 2, 2011 (AFP Photo / Rod Lamkey Jr)

The US is losing the global information war, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared while appearing before a congressional committee to ask for extra funds to spread US propaganda through new media.

Clinton said existing private channels are not good enough to handle the job, naming as rivals Al Jazeera, China's CCTV and RT – which she watches, she added.

Clinton was defending her department’s budget in front of the House’s Committee on Foreign Affairs on Wednesday.

Clinton said the US should step up its propaganda effort and get back “in the game” of doing “what we do best.”

“During the Cold War we did a great job in getting America’s message out. After the Berlin Wall fell we said, ‘Okay, fine, enough of that, we are done,’ and unfortunately we are paying a big price for it,” she said. “Our private media cannot fill that gap.”

“We are in an information war and we are losing that war. Al Jazeera is winning, the Chinese have opened a global multi-language television network, the Russians have opened up an English-language network. I’ve seen it in a few countries, and it is quite instructive,” she stated.

Things have changed a lot since the days when Western media outlets, including BBC and CNN, had a monopoly on the coverage of world news. More and more viewers across the world tune into various foreign media to get a fresh take on events.

It is all in the numbers. For instance, RT’s presence on YouTube is a real hit: almost 300 million views, when CNN International is struggling to reach 3 million.

RT’s constantly growing audience is an indication that the days of media monopoly are over and that people are demanding more multi-polar thinking.

One of the latest examples is Al Jazeera’s coverage of the unrest in the Middle East and North Africa, which by most accounts outshone the US media’s presentation of events.

Not everyone, however, is happy with the wider variety of media options. The head of the federal agency that manages the US’s government-run international broadcasting has basically called all those foreign media enemies.

Last year Walter Isaacson, who heads the federal agency that manages the US’s government-run international broadcasting, including the Voice of America, warned against the influence of foreign media.

“We can’t allow ourselves to be out-communicated by our enemies,” he said, in a now-infamous pitch to get his agency more funding. He did, however, later backtrack on his statement, saying that he was misunderstood.

Journalist and filmmaker Danny Schechter says the US can no longer maintain a monopoly on information. 

“The United States feels defensive in part because it can no longer monopolize not only the terms of authority in these countries, but also the terms of the debate,” he said. “There is other information out there. There are other points of view and those points of view are profoundly damaging to a country that believes that its point of view is the only point of view.”

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Related:

Troll-bots army not targeting U.S. targets, Centcom says

Jeff Stein
Washington Post

The U.S. Central Command says its new “Persona” social media "infiltration" software is designed to cozy up to extremist bloggers overseas, not law-abiding Americans chatting on Facebook or similar sites.

Earlier this month, the Web buzzed with a report that the software was designed to “manage ‘fake people’ on social media sites and create the illusion of consensus on controversial issues,” implying that the Defense Department was targeting critics of the war in Afghanistan and other conflicts.

Further compounding a sinister view of the software was the discovery of e-mails from the head of a company implicated in “dirty tricks” against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and a pro-labor organization, which discussed how such technology could be used.

Read Full Article

China "Attacks The Dollar" - Moves To Further Cement Renminbi Reserve Currency Status

From ZeroHedge,  by Tyler Durden 03/02/2011


In a surprising turn of events, today's biggest piece of news received a mere two paragraph blurb on Reuters, and was thoroughly ignored by the broader media. An announcement appeared shortly after midnight on the website of the People's Bank of China.

The statement, google translated as "Pragmatic and pioneering spirit to promote cross-border renminbi business cum on monitoring and analysis to a new level" is presented below:

Reuters provides a simple translation and summary of the announcement: "China hopes to allow all exporters and importers to settle their cross-border trades in the yuan by this year, the central bank said on Wednesday, as part of plans to grow the currency's international role. In a statement on its website www.pbc.gov.cn, the central bank said it would respond to overseas demand for the yuan to be used as a reserve currency. It added it would alsoallow the yuan to flow back into China more easily." To all those who claim that China is perfectly happy with the status quo, in which it is willing to peg the Renmibni to the Dollar in perpetuity, this may come as a rather unpleasant surprise, as it indicates that suddenly China is far more vocal about its intention to convert its currency to reserve status, and in the process make the dollar even more insignificant.

International Business Times provides further insight:

This is all part of China’s plan for the internationalization of its currency, which may, in the decades to come, threaten the global ‘market share’ of other currencies like the US dollar.

Previously, China also announced that bilateral trades with Russia and Malaysia will begin to be conducted with the yuan and the ruble and ringgit, respectively.

Other moves on the part of China to internationalize its currency include allowing foreign companies to issue yuan-denominated bonds and relaxing rules for foreign financial institutions to access the yuan.

Aside from the efforts of the Chinese government, fundamentals also point to the increasing international popularity of the Chinese currency.

China is already the leading trade partner with Australia and Japan. It’s also the leading or a large trade partner with many of its smaller neighbors. The purpose of having foreign currencies is to conduct foreign trade and investment, so the yuan is expected to become a more attractive currency for China’s trade partners, espeically as the government continues to relax restrictions.

The reason for this dramatic move may be found in what Stephen Roach wrote a few days ago inProject Syndicate:

In early March, China’s National People’s Congress will approve its 12th Five-Year Plan. This Plan is likely to go down in history as one of China’s boldest strategic initiatives.

In essence, it will change the character of China’s economic model – moving from the export- and investment-led structure of the past 30 years toward a pattern of growth that is driven increasingly by Chinese consumers. This shift will have profound implications for China, the rest of Asia, and the broader global economy.

Like the Fifth Five-Year Plan, which set the stage for the “reforms and opening up” of the late 1970’s, and the Ninth Five-Year Plan, which triggered the marketization of state-owned enterprises in the mid-1990’s, the upcoming Plan will force China to rethink the core value propositions of its economy. Premier Wen Jiabao laid the groundwork four years ago, when he first articulated the paradox of the “Four ‘Uns’” – an economy whose strength on the surface masked a structure that was increasingly “unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated, and ultimately unsustainable.”

The Great Recession of 2008-2009 suggests that China can no longer afford to treat the Four Uns as theoretical conjecture. The post-crisis era is likely to be characterized by lasting aftershocks in the developed world – undermining the external demand upon which China has long relied. That leaves China’s government with little choice other than to turn to internal demand and tackle the Four Uns head on.

The 12th Five-Year Plan will do precisely that, focusing on major pro-consumption initiatives. China will begin to wean itself from the manufacturing model that has underpinned export- and investment-led growth. While the manufacturing approach served China well for 30 years, its dependence on capital-intensive, labor-saving productivity enhancement makes it incapable of absorbing the country’s massive labor surplus.

Instead, under the new Plan, China will adopt a more labor-intensive services model. It will, one hopes, provide a detailed blueprint for the development of large-scale transactions-intensive industries such as wholesale and retail trade, domestic transport and supply-chain logistics, health care, and leisure and hospitality.

Obviously, a reserve currency would be not only extremely useful, but quite critical in achieving the goal of China's conversion to an inwardly focused, middle-class reliant society. And even that would not guarantee a smooth transition. However, should China really be on a path to a step function in its evolution, the shocks to the system will be massive. Roach puts this diplomatically as follows:

But there is a catch: in shifting to a more consumption-led dynamic, China will reduce its surplus saving and have less left over to fund the ongoing saving deficits of countries like the US. The possibility of such an asymmetrical global rebalancing – with China taking the lead and the developed world dragging its feet – could be the key unintended consequence of China’s 12th Five-Year Plan.

A less diplomatic version implies that the relationship between China and the US would suffer a seismic shift in which the game theoretical model of Mutual Assured Destruction, and symbiotic monetary and fiscal policies, would no longer exist, allowing China to pursue its fate completely independent of any economic shocks that the increasingly distressed United States may be going through.

And confirming that the PBoC announcement is far more serious than the amount of airtime allotted to it by the mainstream media, is the just released article in Spiegel "China Attacked the Dollar" (google translated):

The Chinese central bank surprised with a spectacular announcement: The would-be superpower wants to handle their entire future foreign trade in yuan, not in dollars. Beijing shakes America's claim to represent the key currency - with serious consequences for the U.S..

The announcement was inconspicuous , but it has the potential, to permanently change the balance of power on the world currency market: China strengthens the international role of the yuan. All exporters and importers will, this year, be allowed to settle their business with their foreign partners in Yuan, the central bank said on Wednesday in Beijing.

This will respond to the growing importance of the yuan as a global reserve currency. "The market demand for cross-border use of the yuan rises," said the central bank. The PBoC had previously tested this plan by allowing 67 000 enterprises in 20 provinces to run their business abroad in yuan. The trade volume amounted to the equivalent of €56 billion.

Now the amount of yuan to be extended, it should be handled much more business in Chinese currency - and less in the U.S. Chinese companies trade at present often in dollars, they are thus dependent on the decisions of the U.S. Federal Reserve to pay on it in a rising oil price and will have pay higher transaction fees than necessary. That should change now.

Currently, the People's Republic can hardly take yuan out of the country and even that is monitored within the boundary of all legitimate capital flows. Chinese exporters have to change a large part of their euro, yen or dollars at a fixed rate revenue in yuan. Foreign companies wishing to do business in China must do so in Yuan, they can exchange their money in the People's Republic. Tourists are allowed a maximum of 20,000 yuan and exporting. Yuan an international market can not occur - and not on supply and demand-based exchange rate.

Needless to say, should the yuan be seen increasingly as a reserve currency, all of this, and virtually everything else is about to change.

The only question is whether or not the Yuan will cement its status at the top of the currency pyramid by allowing the backing of the currency with individual or a basket of commodities. If that were to happen, it would be the last nail in the coffin of the already terminally ill dollar.
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ShadowStats' John Williams Explains Why It's All Been Downhill Since 1973

CIA Agent Davis Accused of Orchestrating Terrorism

From truth-out.org, March 2, 2011

By David Lindorff

The ongoing case of Raymond Davis, the CIA contractor facing murder charges in Lahore for the execution-style slaying of two apparent agents of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, is apparently leading to a roll-back of America’s espionage and Special Operations activities in Pakistan.

A few days ago, Pakistan’s Interior Department, which is reportedly conducting a careful review of the hundreds of private US contractors who flooded into Pakistan over the last two years, many with “diplomatic passports,” and many others, like Davis, linked to shady “security” firms, arrested an American security contractor named Aaron DeHaven, a Virginia native who claims to work for a company called Catalyst Services LLC.

The Catalyst Services LLC website describes the company, with offices in Afghanistan, Dubai, the US and Pakistan, as having experience in “logistics, operations, security and finance,” and as having a staff led by “individuals who have been involved in some of the most significant events of the last 20 years,” including “the break-up of the Soviet Union, the US effort in Somalia, and the Global War on Terror.”

DeHaven is being held on a 14-day remand, charged with overstaying his visa and with living in an unauthorized area.

Meanwhile, the English-language Express Tribune in Pakistan reports that according to ISI sources, 30 “suspected US operatives” in Pakistan have “suspended” their operations in the country, while 12 have fled the country.

The paper quotes the Pakistan Foreign Office as saying that 851 Americans claiming diplomatic immunity are currently in Pakistan, 297 of whom are “not working in any diplomatic capacity.” The paper says that the country’s Interior Department claims that 414 of the total are “non-diplomats.” The majority of these American operatives, the paper says, are located in Islamabad (where the US is building a huge fortress-like embassy reminiscent of the one in Baghdad), with the others in Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar. Most are suspected of being involved in covert missions that report to the US Joint Special Operations Command, with many suspected of being active-duty Special Forces personnel from the Army’s Delta Force. (The website of the JSOC says its responsibility is “synchronizing Department of Defense plans against global terrorist networks and, as directed, conducting global operations.”)

As I reported earlier, both Pakistani and Indian news organizations are claiming, based upon intelligence sources, that Davis was involved in not just intelligence work, but in orchestrating terrorist activity by both the Pakistani Taliban and the terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has been linked to both the assassination of Benezir Bhutto and the capture and beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Multiple calls to members of both groups were found by police on some of the cell phones found on Davis and in his car when he was arrested in Lahore.

It is unclear how far the blow-up in Pakistan over the exposure of America’s role in stirring up unrest in that country will go. Clearly, the ISI and the Pakistani military have long had their own complicated relationship with the Pakistani Taliban, and much of the current anger in both the ISI and the military has to do with the US being found to be working behind their backs, including in its contact with those groups.

But things have been complicated too by mounting public outrage over Davis’s brazen slaughter of the two Pakistanis, who reportedly were tailing him because of concerns about the nature of his activities, and who reportedly were both shot in the back. This public outrage has been further stoked by both a subsequent suicide by the 18-year-old bride of one of the victims, and by the death of an innocent bystander mowed down by a second vehicle carrying several more US contractors which sped to Davis in response to his call for assistance following the shooting. That vehicle, after running down the bystander, raced to sanctuary at the US Consulate. The men in the car, never identified by the consulate, were spirited out of the country by the US so they could avoid arrest.

(Pause here, dear reader, for a moment and just reflect on what the US public reaction would be if a Pakistani intelligence “contractor” working out of a Pakistani consulate in, say, Los Angeles, killed two young motorcyclists, and a car full of other Pakistani contractors, racing to his aid, drove the wrong way down a crowded street, ran over and killed an innocent bystander, raced back onto consulate grounds, and then the men in that vehicle, sought by police, were spirited out of the country by Pakistani officials. Hold that thought.)

Further complicating matters for the US, the province of Punjab, of which Lahore is the capital, is run by the opposition party, headed by former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif. Sharif, who still has presidential aspirations, has no incentive at all to make things easy for the country’s ruling party by letting Davis go. Indeed, with public opinion running almost 100% in favor of trying Davis for murder, Sharif can only gain by insisting that the court system have the final say.

Pakistan’s central government, led by President Asif Ali Zardari, clearly wants to put the Davis incident behind it by having him declared to have diplomatic immunity. Foreign Office sources allege that Zardari pressured the Foreign Office in early February to backdate a letter identifying Davis as being a “member of staff” of the US Embassy in Islamabad, which would have afforded him such immunity from prosecution. But the country’s foreign minister at that time, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, reportedly refused, saying, “On the basis of the official record and the advice given to me by the technocrats and experts of the Foreign Office, I could not certify him (Raymond Davis) as a diplomat. The kind of by blanket immunity Washington is pressing for Davis, is not endorsed by the official record of the Foreign Ministry.”

Qureshi has subsequently been ousted and replaced by Zardari.

The reality is that the US, as required, on Jan. 25, submitted to the Foreign Office its annual list of those employees of the US Embassy whom it classified as “diplomats” warranting diplomatic immunity. That list had 48 names on it, and it did not include the name Raymond Davis. Only a day after Davis’s Jan. 27 shooting of the two Pakistani motorcyclists, on Jan. 28, did the US submit a “revised” list, to which Davis’s name had been appended.

The US initially said Davis was an employee of the Lahore Consulate, and Davis himself told arresting police officers that he was a contractor working out of the Lahore Consulate, a role that would not afford him any diplomatic immunity, as consular workers, under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations only receive immunity for their “official duties,” and in any case lose even that limited immunity in the case of “grave crimes.” (You can hear Davis make that statement himself in a cellphone video that is available at the bottom of the ThisCantBeHappening! home page.)

His current legal problems, and the public demand that he be tried (and then hanged) for the killings, has definitely led to a reduction in US undercover operations in Pakistan, and to a pullback of at least some of the Special Forces personnel secretly operating there. It will take considerable finesse for the US and the Zardari government to put the the relationship back together–if the Pakistani military and the ISI even want to restore it–finesse that the US has not been very good at displaying.

So far, in fact, the US response to Davis’s arrest has been a bullying one: to bluntly and publicly threaten Pakistan with a loss of foreign and military aid–a threat that seems empty given the American need for Pakistani assistance in supplying its military in Afghanistan, and its need for at least covert permission to continue sending Predator and Reaper drones across the border to attack Taliban suspects in the tribal border areas. US bluster, and some clumsy efforts to forge records that would purport to show Davis had diplomatic immunity–all widely exposed in the Pakistani media–have only served to further stoke public outrage.

Meanwhile, local authorities in Lahore at the prison where Davis is being held, are so worried that the US may try to have him killed to prevent him from spilling the beans about his activities–for example explaining why the camera he was carrying held photographs of Pakistani military installations as well as of mosques, madrassas and other schools–that they have reportedly posted special guards (unarmed as an added precaution) around his cell, and have been monitoring his food. Davis was reportedly even denied a box of chocolates sent by the US Consulate in Lahore, for fear it might have been laced with poison. 

________

Related:

Pakistan: Can America Get Away With Murder?

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Too late to jail bank CEOs; only revolution will succeed

From The Burning Platform:

I wonder when they will find Paul Farrell’s body floating in a lake. He is relentless and he is 100% right.

Four time bombs that will blow up Wall Street
Commentary: Too late to jail bank CEOs; only revolution will succeed

By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Put Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein in jail for six months, and all this will stop, all over Wall Street and America, a former congressional aide tells Matt Taibbi in his latest Rolling Stone attack, “Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail? Financial crooks brought down the world’s economy — but the feds are doing are doing more to protect them than to prosecute them.”

Taibbi’s right, everyone knows Wall Street’s run by a bunch of dictators who are doing more damage to democracy and capitalism than North Africa’s dictators. But jail the CEOs of Goldman, Citi, B. of A. or my old firm Morgan Stanley? Too late.

Berkshire contemplates acquisitions

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Only a revolution will stop Wall Street’s self-destructive capitalism. And watching the people revolt against dictators like Mubarak and Gadhafi reminds us of the spirit that sparked America’s revolution in 1776. But today we need a 1930s-style revolution.

During the S&L crisis two decades ago America had a backbone, indicted 3,800 executives and bankers. Today’s leaders have no backbone. Besides jail time won’t reform the darkness consuming Wall Street’s soul. We’re all asleep, in denial about the moral crisis facing America. Yes, we need a new revolution.

Jail time? We’ve heard that many times before. Journalists have been beating that dead horse for three years. Jailing CEOs made sense in early 2009. But our naïve president missed that opportunity, instead surrounded himself with Wall Street insiders as Bush did with Blankfein’s predecessor. Trojan Horses manipulating a Congress filled with clueless Dems mismanaging tired Keynesian theories.

Taibbi got it right: Washington’s error was in protecting Wall Street’s billion-dollar crooks when they should have been prosecuting CEOs for criminal behavior in getting us into the 2008 mess. So today, the political statute-of-limitations has run. Jail solution is wishful thinking, like praying to the tooth fairy for a miracle. Time for action. Time for a revolution on Wall Street.

Jail Wall Street? Old news. They got away with it. We chickened out

“Jail Bank CEOs” makes a great sound bite in the cable pundits’ echo chamber. Remember Taibbi’s earlier indictment of Goldman Sachs: the “world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”

But so what? Just three years after Wall Street’s crooks “brought down the world’s economy” Goldman’s Blankfein and his buddies are paying record bonuses, and laughing at us.

Seriously, think about it folks: Since the 2008 meltdown magazines and newspapers have analyzed the 2008 crash to death. It really is old news, history. Journalists churned out book after book: “Greenspan’s Bubbles,” “House of Cards,” “Trillion Dollar Meltdown,” “13 Bankers,” “Dumb Money,” “Bailout Nation,” “All the Devils Are Here,” “The Big Short,” “Too Big to Fail,” “The Failure of Capitalism,” “This Time is Different,” “And Then the Roof Caved In,” on and on, ad nauseum. All talk, no action, and no effect.

Get it? With every book, every editorial, every expose the past three years, Wall Street bankers actually grew stronger, got richer, more arrogant, bolder on bonuses, impervious to attacks, even taunting us, like the dictators Mubarak, Ben Ali and Gadhafi, confident they could do no wrong, confident no one would rebel. Jail? Our moment to act is long past. We blinked.

Yes folks, Wall Street is the “Comeback Kid” story of the 21st century. Like a terrorist in a horror film, Wall Street thrives on threats. Three short years ago, Wall Street was virtually bankrupt, a ward of the state. We could have jailed “just one” of them back then, when they were down for the count. Instead, we bailed them out! Made them richer. Gave them $13.7 trillion, loans, credits, cash, asset buyouts. Gave them keys to the Treasury. They didn’t just recover, they “ran the tables,” to use a blackjack/pool metaphor. Now Wall Street dictators have absolute power, ruling Washington, America, you and me.

Yes, America’s bankrupt, but the rich just do not care

Admit it, we lost the opportunity. Jail a bank CEO and Wall Street will miraculously reform? You’re joking, right? Wall Street got away with a “legal” bank heist. Today the should-be/would-be inmates are running the prison.

Wall Street’s corrupt banks have lost their moral compass … their insatiable greed has become a deadly virus destroying its host nation … their campaign billions buy senate votes, stop regulators’ actions, manipulate presidential decisions. Wall Street money controls voters, runs America, both parties. Yes, Wall Street is bankrupting America.

Wake up America, listen:

• “Our country is bankrupt. It’s not bankrupt in 30 years or five years,” warns economist Larry Kotlikoff, “it’s bankrupt today.”
• Economist Peter Morici: “Capitalism is broken, America’s government is two bankrupt political parties bankrupting the country.”
• David Stockman, Reagan’s budget director: “If there were such a thing as Chapter 11 for politicians” the “tax cuts would amount to a bankruptcy filing.”
• BusinessWeek recently asked analyst Mary Meeker to run the numbers. How bad is it? America really is bankrupt, with a “net worth of a negative $44 trillion.” Bankrupt.

And it will get worse. Unfortunately, nothing can stop America’s self-destructive Wall Street bankers. They simply do not care that their “doomsday capitalism” is destroying themselves from within, and is bankrupting America too.

One mega-millionaire sent me an email after reading my Jan. 4 column, “America’s worst 10 years start now.”

“Paul, you may well be right about the coming decade, but the rich exist in a different world from the one you write about. They live privileged lives in gated communities. Meet for holidays at the world’s elite resorts. The richest just aren’t worried about today’s economy like your readers. Their issues revolve around who’s the best masseuse, best Pilates teacher, best concierge medical doctor, which private school to choose, what investments they are making at this time, etc. Folks at the top are not concerned with the underlying deterioration of America, except in the abstract, because they aren’t directly affected. That’s why no amount of information from you will ever change things. To them, it’s irrelevant. Best wishes, always enjoy your stuff.”

4 ticking time bombs that will ignite the Wall Street revolution

Yes, the rich live in a different world. And no, information won’t change them. But a revolution will. Revolutions build slowly over a long time. Then, suddenly, a critical mass, a flash point, something totally unexpected ignites the ticking bomb.

It happened recently in a remote Tunisian village. Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old college graduate, unable to pay bribes, set himself on fire to protest police confiscation of his unlicensed vegetable cart. That triggered a revolution. And his death rapidly led to the collapse of a 24-year dictatorship.

Today we have four hot time bombs, tick-ticking, soon to make history; any one can easily accelerate the revolution that’s already killing Wall Street from within.

1. Wealth gap: Super-Rich vs class wars, death of democracy

The gap: In one generation, America’s wealthiest 1% has exploded from 9% to 23% of America’s income, while middle-class income has stagnated. Even Buffett admits: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and winning.”

But my rich friend tells the real story, of their social disconnect. The rich just don’t care. They live in a different world, live by a self-centered code lacking a moral compass. The public welfare is honored only if supported by tax benefits.

The wealth gap is widening and soon something unpredictable will ignite a Wall Street revolution.

2. Wall Street’s doomsday capitalism vs rule by anarchy

A key Supreme Court decision accelerated and codified Wall Street’s ability to use billions stolen from taxpayers to lobby Washington and solidify its power, all for its own self-interest, through campaign payola, senators’ votes, presidential access, manipulation of regulators, grabbing tax benefits, etc. And it’s every man and woman for themselves.

Don’t believe it? Know this, democracy is dead and you’re in denial. Wall Street CEOs and Forbes 400 billionaires are either engaged in a secret conspiracy, or a classic anarchy picking apart America, oblivious of the fact they are setting up the next big revolution.

3. Pentagon’s perpetual war machine vs America’s budget time bomb

The mathematics of our $75 trillion Social Security and Medicare deficits often seem insurmountable, but can be recalibrated. However, the war-loving mindset of America’s neocons — fueled by China’s military actions, the insatiable expansion of our military spending and a Pentagon prediction that global population growth — is putting more and more pressure on the world’s scarce resources, and will, in turn, increase global wars and the demand for more war spending, increasing the risk of sudden revolutions everywhere.

4. Global population explosion vs resources, jobs, better lifestyles

As the world population explodes from 7 billion to 10 billion in the next generation, the demand for more jobs and the pressure on scarce resources will increase, while expectations will fall as the ratio of haves to have-nots increases, making the world all around Wall Street a burning powder keg setting up a revolution.

Bottom line: Forget jailing Wall Street’s dictators. It’s naïve and too late. We missed that opportunity. But a revolution will do the trick, give us a second chance to jail the crooks.

Until then, remember, these four factors are building to a head, merging into a critical mass that will accelerate into a revolution and destroy Wall Street from within: The widening wealth gap, capitalism’s new rule-by-anarchy, the high cost of feeding the Pentagon’s costly war machine, and the huge global population explosion.