Mar 8, 2011

Pepe Escobar: Gaddafi Doubles Down, More Dangerous Than Ever

From Alternet, March 6, 2011
By Pepe Escobar

You're Muammar Gaddafi, and you're sitting in your Bab al-Azizia bunker sipping green tea and surveying the odds of staying in power. Let's see. You control some neighborhoods in Tripoli; some cities in the far west, near the Tunisian border; your birthplace, Sirte. And that's it.

You may have lost like 90% of your country. You tried to get Zawiya (west of Tripoli) back and failed; those god-damned tribals betrayed you. You tried to get Misrata (east of Tripoli), and failed. You tried to get Brega - the second-largest processing and oil shipping terminal in Libya - and failed.

The Americans and Brits are dying to invade. "Experts" say you're boxed in and have only Zimbabwe as an exile destination. Venezuelan President "brother" Hugo Chavez wants to send a multinational delegation to negotiate. Negotiate what? This is your country. L'Etat, c'est moi - the state is me, King Muammar. Nobody can steal my mojo.

They froze your multi-billionaire assets from A to Z. They shut down your banks. But you've still got some dough. A whole lot of weaponry. A few (malfunctioning) jets. You have those thousands of black African mercenaries. You have the 10,000-strong special brigade led by your son Khamis. You got state TV.

So what do you do? You double down. And go for broke.

The lion sleeps tonight

Danger: the African king of kings in his bunker is like a lion resting under a tree. He knows that from the west the "rebels" - or in shorthand official narrative "al-Qaeda zombie youths on drugs" - haven't got a chance to hurt him unless they organize a very complex attack army out of many rag-tag bands with Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades in scattered towns.

He knows that the rebels in the east have to do the same - plus travel, unprotected, along an infinite desert highway just to get to Sirte, where they can be smashed by his jets and tanks.

So he knows they can defend - Zawiya, Misrata, Brega - but they don't have what it takes to attack. That gives him enough time to better plan how to go for the kill.

There's only one problem with this Lion King scenario. What if he runs out of oil?

No less than 80% of Libya's oil fields and refineries are now in the hands of those "al-Qaeda zombie youths on drugs". Gaddafi knows he needs to get Brega back - and quick. He'll go for it, again, and with a more lethal strategy. He still holds Ras Lanouf, 80 kilometers west of Brega - the refinery (220,000 barrels a day), the port and theairport. But he can't afford to lose Brega.

Brega is not exporting any oil. There are no tankers coming and going. Oil production in the southeastern fields that feed Brega has been downsized, from 90,000 barrels a day to just 11,000; there's nowhere to store them. There's no oil flowing at the Nafoora field, part of the Sirte Basin. Italy's ENI, the top foreign oil major, is repatriating all non-essential personnel. Libya's daily production dropped from 1.6 million barrels to 850,000, and will fall further.

More than this oil on storage, Gaddafi needs working refineries pumping out juice for his already cranky military machine. The crowds in liberated Benghazi say that they don't need oil money - because they never got much of from central government anyway in Cyrenaica. The problem is sooner rather than later they will need more weapons. Thus they will need oil money to buy them.

Benghazi is convulsed by rumors of Gaddafi's secret police infiltrated everywhere gathering local intel - even inside the courthouse which has been transformed into eastern liberated Libya's Revolution Central. No wonder al-Jazeera is reporting that people in Brega and Ajdabiya badly want a no-fly zone - to the horror of pan-Arab media.

It's stalemate time - and the lion is biding his time, never more dangerous when he maneuvers in the shade. Although the Algerian government has vociferously denied, officially, it is helping Gaddafi, Algeria, with 40% unemployment and across the board pent-up rage, is also on the brink. Frightful Fortress Europe, meanwhile, prays. While the Greenstream gas pipeline from Libya to Sicily is now closed (Italians are not yet freaking out), Spain dreams of the new US$1.4 billion gas pipeline from Algeria set to open in a few days.

Doomsday practitioners already visualize Algeria's oil production - 1.4 million barrels a day - soon going down the drain alongside Libya's. No wonder the head of oil research at Barclays Capital, Paul Horsnell, says things can potentially be worse than Iran 1979; "The world has only 4.5 million barrels per day of spare capacity."

Thus speculation will be king for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, the lion sleeps, tonight and in subsequent nights, musing how he'll get his juice back while a sinister chill envelops Libya all over again.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

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Silver Big News of the day

From Sherriequestioningall, TUESDAY, MARCH 8, 2011

U.S. Mint - NO 2011 Silver Eagles Until FALL! They have not sold ONE Silver Eagle in March - No Silver for them too?

You make up your own mind what is going on. Also see how they now have on their site: they will not be minting any Silver Eagles until Fall 2011!?

**2011 Silver Sales Totals** (in ounces /number of coins)
Month	One ( oz. / #coins )
January	6,422,000 6,422,000
February	3,240,000 3,240,000
March	0 0
Total	9,662,000 9,662,000

So the U.S. mint has not sold a single Silver Coin in the month of March. Wow, guess they haven't had a single person wanting to buy one so they have not minted any? Geez, what a shame. That has to be the case right? It wouldn't be they haven't been able to get any silver, especially since JP Morgan has hundreds of millions of ounces of silver for sale. They even put millions more up for sale over the weekend. JP Morgan obviously has silver everywhere, in fact so much of it they keep putting more and more offers/shorts on the Comex to try and get rid of it.

Hmm.... yet the U.S mint has not sold nor minted any coins so far for the month of March.

The below is a new message up on the U.S. Mint site. They had a different message with the 2010 coins on it last week when I looked. So I am assuming they mean this 2011 fall and not 2010 fall, since the page information has changed.

This is what the U.S. Mint has on it's site now for 2011 Silver Eagle Coins - They will not mint them until fall!? Really?

U.S. Mint -what it says about the Silver Eagles

American Eagle Silver Uncirculated Coin

American Eagle Silver Uncirculated Coins offer silver precious metal purchasers an additional collectible version of the popular American Eagle Silver Bullion Coin. These coins feature a finish similar to its bullion coin counterpart, and they are struck on specially burnished blanks at the United States Mint, West Point, N.Y. The classic Walking Liberty design by Adolph A. Weinman featured on the coin’s obverse has long been a collector favorite.
Coin Specifications

Condition:	Uncirculated
Composition:	99.9% silver
Edge:	Reeded
Facility:	West Point
Mint Mark:	W

For investors, please click on the appropriate link for information on United States Mint American Eagle Bullion Coins or to locate a bullion coin dealer near you.
On-Sale: The United States Mint is currently scheduled to release the 2011 American Eagle Silver Silver Uncirculated Coins in the early fall. Please continue to check our schedule product listing page for any additional updates.
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Also I read on a forum today someone claiming they have been standing for delivery of Silver off the Comex and JP Morgan has offered them 50% premium not to stand to take physical. They have turned that down as they want the physical. Now, my question is..... if 50% to 80% premiums are real, that JP Morgan is paying for people not to take physical silver and those premiums are based on paper silver...............than shouldn't physical silver start getting those type premiums at the very least??

Here is a post from last week with information from Harvey Organ about JP Morgan paying 80% premiums to those who stood for March Silver delivery.

At what point will the physical premiums match the paper premiums being given? I would say those that have physical silver for sale needs to take a close look at what premium should be charged if paper is getting 50 to 80% premiums!

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Silver and Gold Remain Near Record Highs as Greek and Portuguese Debt Hammered

Silver Shocker: One Rogue Trader Heavily Shorting The Silver Market?

In Pizza We Trust

By Silver Shield, on March 8th, 2011

Since the US Mint is apparently not going to be producing Silver Eagles anytime soon, they seeking public comment on what to do next. (See their public notice at the bottom of this post.) Oh boy, I see some fun here…
Here is my comment to coinmaterials@usmint.treas.gov.
Dear Sirs,
Since it is apparent that the US Mint will no longer be producing Silver Eagles, I would like to humbly suggest that the US Mint produce coins like the venerable Chuck E Cheese token. Short of bringing sound money back to this country, the Chuck E. Cheese token is the next best thing the US Mint could do to get America out of it’s funk. Seriously, think of it, the only other coin that gave me as much joy as a Proof 2005 Silver Eagle, was a Chuck E. Cheese token. When I was child hopped up on sugar and pizza, these Chuck E. Cheese tokens were the greatest thing ever. Now we have a once in a lifetime opportunity to spread that joy to the whole country.
The Chuck E. Cheese token reflects America much better than the Silver Eagle does anyway. The Silver Eagle represents old fashion stuff like Patriotism, Liberty, Honest Money, and a Belief in God. The Chuck E. Cheese token represents eating pizza, getting high on sugar, fun without consequences, playing video games until your hands cramp up, and working really hard for cheap Chinese toys. Honestly what do you think better represents America? Silver Eagles or Chuck E Cheese?
Oh, wait there is more…

http://dont-tread-on.me/in-pizza-we-trust

Charlie Sheen's Plan to Squeeze Silver Shorts

There's been a lot of speculation that there are major players caught in a short squeeze in silver. Here are a few things to consider before attempting to participate in such a squeeze:

A. It is not entirely clear there is such a squeeze

B. If it is indeed major players who are caught in a short position, they will crush anyone that attempts to squeeze them. They will change rules and do whatever it takes to break such a squeeze.

C. You will not win

Those doing the supposed squeezing are quite a mixed group, as one EPJ Daily Alert subscriber wrote to me:

A few blogs...have been awash in rumors that major players are hopelessly short in the paper market for silver. I think I'd be over stating the case only a bit if I said the rumors have gone viral. I take these rumors with a giant grain of salt but there's a whole subculture of blogs now carrying this information with hundreds if not thousands of commenters claiming they're dumping their 401(k)s, IRAs, savings accounts, insurance policies, credit cards, etc. into physical silver. I can't help but think the silver market is running face first into a mania that will all end in tears. In addition, producers are claiming marginal prices of around $5/oz. At today's spot prices, that's probably a $20-$25/oz spread. I can't see that lasting as even the most marginal producer can probably turn a profit on those spreads. Other bloggers are also reporting boiler room type setups attempting to cram silver and silver stocks down the throat of any widow willing to listen.

And, now, we have the ultimate silver warrior, Charlie Sheen. Sheen is egging the CFTC on to squeeze the silver shorts. According to FT, Sheen has taken time from his marathon interviews, and quality time with his goddesses, to write the CFTC with his very own magic fingertips to call for a reduction in contract limits for any one ~~troll~~ silver holder from 5,000 contracts to 1,500 contracts.

The battles of a great warrior never cease.

I repeat, to anyone thinking of squeezing the silver shorts, leave this battle to Charlie. Only a man with his magical power will win this battle.

Roger Hayes – Rise like lions – Council Tax Lawful Rebellion – Judge arrested

From lawfulrebellion.org

The main audio reporting for the duration of todays’ events pushed the technological limit. Live bursts from the scene and commentary: Universally Aware Blog Talk Radio show

Context>>
Roger Hayes of The British Constitution Group has long questioned the legitimacy of the council tax. Specifically, he asks how can one be made to perform – as in become legally obliged, to perform certain actions (payment) without a form of contract taking place?

Duly understood, a contract must have a signature of the parties’ agreement. This has been Roger’s key to unlocking the fraud from the get-go. There is no signature on any contract, therefore no agreement, therefore no debt and no jurisdiction without c-o-n-s-e-n-t. Period. The end. Winning. Duh.

The court cannot proceed as there is no debt, no case and no jurisdiction to hold Roger accountable under. The trick as we know involves steamrollering or getting Roger to consent to answering to ‘State your name’ – therefore agreeing to represent the corporate fiction on which the Judge operates. The trustee to the trust. The strawman. The birth certificate. The corporate you. Et-freaking-cetera. MR ROGER HAYES – a legal appelation or entity which can be held under Admiralty jurisiction and CONtract law, ancient mystery religion sacrifical voodoo law. Complicated shit which enslaves us through our ingnorance to the deception. Not any more.

History >>
Roger Hayes, nailing a previous hearing, forced the judge to demand the prosecution prepare their case adequately. He did so by repeadetly insisting on the fraudulent nature of the proceedings based upon invalid summonses. He insisted on remaining outside the Jurisdiction of the court and did so. Read the Full story on UK Column >

Rise like lions >>

People Enter the Fake McCourt for justice ‘n’ fries

The court hearing today (7th March 2011) has bought some interesting consequences for the courtroom staff, police, media and one judge of Birkenhead at the County court. 500+ protestors, organised by a collaborative effort of alternative media websites and social networking sites assembled outside the courthouse after meeting at Hamilton Square.

Hundreds more people turned up and hung around outside the court chanting

Various newspapers from the area have covered the events that proceeded:

Wirral Globe
Liverpool Echo

And websites:
World Freeman Society

RedandWhiteKop

Truth Hunter

The protest outside the courthouse remained largely peaceful and the message of lawful rebellion is truly manifesting. It is about numbers. It is about solidarity. It is about looking after one another and doing what is right to remove this corporate parasite by denying it the power to operate any more. That power is the peoples’ agreement. Do you agree? Or do you peacefully remove your consent? Lawful Rebellion is an idea. It was birthed by TPUC and John Harris. It has now spread throughout the island where beacons are lighting up everywhere. This year we must come together and stick up for one another. Fear will enslave us, Love will set us free.

http://www.lawfulrebellion.org/2011/03/08/roger-hayes-rise-like-lions-council-tax-lawful-rebellion-judge-arr

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British Tax Protesters Arrest Judge In Act Of "Lawful Rebellion"

Investment bankers salivate over North Africa

Chaos and strife create the revolutionary atmosphere in which opportunity abounds

Written by Atheo | Aletho News | March 8, 2011

Investment banking is often thought of as a field that values stability. Yet the greatest rewards are often attained through destabilization.
North African regimes and leaders have their obvious faults and flaws. Autocracies have an inherent weakness in their tendency to ossification. This basic reality is reflected not just in the obvious lack of democratic institutions, but also in the economic structures of the North African states. Regimes which have persisted for many decades tend to retain many of the economic characteristics of the era in which they were formed.

In the developing economies, during the decades prior to the neo-liberal reforms of the 1990′s, state owned industries were fostered to provide basic services such as telecommunications, transport and public utilities. Local manufacturing industries were protected from offshore competition as a means of furthering development goals and enhancing balance of trade accounts. These well established practices have come to be seen by today’s promoters of ‘free trade’ and privatization as an impediment to maximizing profits. Once established, these industries are in many cases difficult to dislodge.

Therefore, a clean break is required for restructuring of the primary domestic industries in order for international investors to reap a greater share of locally generated profits. This process is referred to as ‘creative destruction’. To facilitate the emplacement of the new order, the old order must first be swept aside. This requirement of upending the existing order explains the fact that Western neoconservatives have been promoting the revolutionary uprisings in North Africa. Neoconservative think tanks and publications are closely associated with the banking interests. Evidence of their designs on North Africa is abundant.
A 2010 Bertelsmann evaluation titled Transformation Tunisia reported:

Tunisia’s decision makers have once again advanced transformation too sluggishly. Despite the formal abolition of trade barriers for industrial goods with the European Union as of 1 January 2008, in practice, Tunisia has seen too little progress in terms of trade liberalization [emphasis added].
[The] Tunisian banking sector and capital market are regularly cited as one major hindrance to the country’s economic modernization. Although they have been formally brought up to international standards, financial supervision and regulation remain subject to political influence. This is partly due to direct state control over financial flows and partly to the state’s direct involvement therein. Although it sold its stakes in two banks in 2002 and 2005, respectively, the state remains the controlling shareholder in at least four other banks because it controls 50% of their assets. Under these conditions, top-rank bank executives are de facto appointed by the president through a controlling body.

On January 7, 2011, Elliott Abrams wrote for the Council on Foreign Relations:

“Tunisia, whose literacy rate has long been the highest in Africa at nearly 80% and whose per capita GDP is about $8,000, should have the ability to sustain a democratic government—once the Ben Ali regime collapses [emphasis added].
“Tunisians are clearly sick of looking at all the giant photos and paintings of Ben Ali that appear on walls, posters, and billboards all over the country. [...]
“If Tunisia can move toward democracy, Algerians and Egyptians and even Libyans will wonder why they cannot. This kind of thing may catch on [emphasis added]. In fact, in Algeria it may already be catching on.” (Elliott Abrams: Is Tunisia Next?)

On February 13, the New York Times described Robert Kagan as “a Brookings Institution scholar who long before the revolution helped assemble a nonpartisan group of policy experts to press for democratic change in Egypt.” [emphasis added]
Maidhc Ó Cathail has noted that:

Arianna Huffington … was prescient in a December 13, 2010 op-ed in Lebanon’s Daily Star titled “Social media will help fuel change in the Middle East.”

And also that:

Robert Kagan, who co-founded the Project for a New American Century with William Kristol in 1997, was joined on that “nonpartisan group” by PNAC founding member Elliott Abrams and PNAC deputy director Ellen Bork. Bork is currently “democracy and human rights” director at PNAC’s successor, Foreign Policy Initiative, where Kagan and Kristol are directors. Not surprisingly, Kristolwrote in the Weekly Standard on January 29 that he was “in complete agreement” with his fellow PNACers’ Working Group on Egypt in its demands that the U.S. suspend aid to Mubarak. [...]
Appearing on ABC’s This Week, Kagan looked positively sanguine about the prospects for a post-Mubarak Egypt. Like George Soros, he seems confident that Israel has “much to gain from the spread of democracy in the Middle East.”

It should be recalled that many of these same individuals and institutions were principle actors in the promotion of the ‘color revolutions’ in many of the former Soviet Republics as well as the in the failed ‘green revolution’ in Iran during the summer of 2010. Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi points out that the direction that events take is not being left to local forces:

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was interviewed by Rachel Maddow several weeks ago and revealed that Washington has already begun meddling. Albright denounced Egyptian ex-president Mubarak … and then confirmed that the National Endowment for Democracy was already hard at work in Egypt, even though Mubarak had not yet stepped down, building up infrastructure and supporting party development. Recall for a moment that Albright believes that a heavy fist is an essential part of diplomacy and that US interests always trump whatever suffering local people have to endure. [...]
Those who are aware of the insidious activities of the National Endowment for Democracy or NED, an ostensibly private foundation that spreads “democracy” and is largely funded by the government, will not be surprised to learn that it is already active in North Africa because it is almost everywhere. NED, which has a Democratic Party half in its National Democratic Institute, and a Republican Party half in its International Republican Institute, was the driving force behind the series of pastel revolutions that created turmoil in Eastern Europe after the fall of communism. Remember when the Russians and others complained about the activities of NGOs interfering in their politics? NED was what they were referring to.
Albright is in charge of the NED Dems while John McCain leads the NED GOP. [...]
Neoconservative Ken Timmerman has identified the core NED activity overseas as “training political workers in modern communications and organizational techniques,” surely a polite way to describe interfering directly in other countries’ politics.

On February 27, John McCain and Joe Lieberman visited Cairo. As reported by Politico:

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), who’s on a quick trip through the Middle East, said Sunday he found Cairo to be a “very exciting place.”
“We went to Tahrir Square today. Got a warm, enthusiastic welcome,” he said of his visit to Cairo with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Of course, to suggest that the uprisings have been orchestrated solely by these interests would ignore genuine grassroots concerns. None of this is meant to suggest that conditions for unrest were not present or that sacrifices for social change have not been made by the peoples of North Africa. It is only meant to inform as to the activities of the interventionists. The real accomplishments of the uprisings may yet predominate.
Within a month after demanding cessation of military aid to Mubarak, the very same neocon cabal was demanding military intervention in the less pliable Libya. Jim Lobe reports for IPS:

In a distinct echo of the tactics they pursued to encourage U.S. intervention in the Balkans and Iraq, a familiar clutch of neo-conservatives appealed Friday for the United States and NATO to “immediately” prepare military action to help bring down the regime of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and end the violence that is believed to have killed well over a thousand people in the past week.
The appeal, which came in the form of a letter signed by 40 policy analysts, including more than a dozen former senior officials who served under President George W. Bush, was organised and released by the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), a two-year-old neo-conservative group that is widely seen as the successor to the more-famous – or infamous – Project for the New American Century (PNAC).
Warning that Libya stood “on the threshold of a moral and humanitarian catastrophe”, the letter, which was addressed to President Barack Obama, called for specific immediate steps involving military action, in addition to the imposition of a number of diplomatic and economic sanctions to bring “an end to the murderous Libyan regime”.
In particular, it called for Washington to press NATO to “develop operational plans to urgently deploy warplanes to prevent the regime from using fighter jets and helicopter gunships against civilians and carry out other missions as required; (and) move naval assets into Libyan waters” to “aid evacuation efforts and prepare for possible contingencies;” as well as “(e)stablish the capability to disable Libyan naval vessels used to attack civilians.”
Among the letter’s signers were former Bush deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz; Bush’s top global democracy and Middle East adviser; Elliott Abrams; former Bush speechwriters Marc Thiessen and Peter Wehner; Vice President Dick Cheney’s former deputy national security adviser, John Hannah, as well as FPI’s four directors: Weekly Standard editor William Kristol; Brookings Institution fellow Robert Kagan; former Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority spokesmanDan Senor; and former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and Ambassador to Turkey, Eric Edelman.
It was Kagan and Kristol who co-founded and directed PNAC in its heyday from 1997 to the end of Bush’s term in 2005.
The letter comes amid growing pressure on Obama, including from liberal hawks, to take stronger action against Gaddafi.
Two prominent senators whose foreign policy views often reflect neo-conservative thinking, Republican John McCain and Independent Democrat Joseph Lieberman, called Friday in Tel Aviv for Washington to supply Libyan rebels with arms, among other steps, including establishing a no-fly zone over the country.

By March 6, Reuters was already reporting the hoped for results:

As entrenched monopolies and patronage give way in the Middle East and North Africa, governments in the region could open their markets further and divest some state assets.
Wealthy Gulf states such Kuwait and Qatar have little cause to sell, but post-revolutionary states such as Tunisia will likely lower protectionist barriers…
“… this crisis is going to reveal some opportunities as structures linked to old regimes will be unwound,” said Julian Mayo, investment director at Charlemagne Capital. [...]
“When you have an economy moving from socialist dictatorship to full-fledged free market, the spider in the web of that transformation will be the banks,” [emphasis added] said Bjorn Englund, who runs an investment fund focused on Iraq.

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