I have known for quite a while now that the vote I cast for you in November of 2008 – my first ever vote for a member of The Big Two – was one that I would not regret, because I am still a huge admirer of your intellect, but would come to view with a great degree of disappointment and anger. Read the rest of this entry »

At this point we’ve all heard much too much about George Bush’s Axis of Evil [1]. For those of you that have been flying in outer space or tripping on some really good drugs for the last 8+ years since W. coined this phrase during his State of the Union Address on January 29th, 2002 it simply refers to the boogey men that ran Iraq, Iran, and North Korea at the time. Well Saddam Hussein is long gone and Kim Jong-Il either has 1 foot in the grave or will be poisoned by inhaling all the polyester he seems to have such a predilection for, which leaves us with Iran and its 2 headed leadership composed of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei not to be confused with the founder of the Islamic Republic Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Moosavi Khomeini the man that overthrew the last shah of Iran Mohammad Pahlavi and was counted by the US at any point in time as Public Enemy #1, 2, or 3 at the very least. First off it is worth noting that while Ahmadinejad is the public and “secular” face of Iran the Ayatollah has as much if not more power over internal affairs with this fact most evident during the recent riots and protests after the rigged election in June of 2009 when the president and his cabal worked their magic to insure that the primary challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi had ZERO shot at winning!

Which brings us to present day Iran and its ongoing efforts to enrich uranium for what they say is energy and medical purposes, but what the US, most of the EU, UN, and pretty much everyone else says is for nuclear weapons. Never mind the fact that Pakistan’s nuclear guru A.Q. Khan a man we knew had the skills to pay the nuclear weapons bills – but turned a blind eye while funding the Mujahideen’s efforts in Afghanistan against Russia in the 1980s – helped Iran get to this point in their nuclear aspirations [2]. The aim of Iranian scientists is to enrich the uranium to 20%, because this is the rate limiting step (i.e., everything else is cake!), but the question is where should this be done? The US? Fat Chance! Russia? GREAT IDEA![3]…..WAIT JUST KIDDING [4]. At this point those on the right’s belief that sanctions AND bombs or lots of shooting are the only solution to this elephant in the room is viewed as the single most awesome idea.

So along came Brazil and Turkey. You know the Rainforest and Turkish Delight people! Anyway enough with the stereotypes and back to the serious stuff. Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Brazil’s President the neoleftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva approached Mr. Ahmadinejad and proposed a fuel-swap of 2,640 pounds of low-enriched Iranian uranium to Turkey in exchange for 265 pounds of enriched uranium just prior to a vote on additional sanctions at the UN. This was a valiant effort by the leaders of Brazil and Turkey. Sure at the micro-level the deal didn’t and still doesn’t smell as good as it did/does from afar, but the point is is that this was progress no matter how you slice it and the United States managed to stamp it out before it even had a chance in order to insure: a) its status as global Decider In Chief and b) its “Special” relationship with Israel. Before you get in a huff about me being an anti-Semite let me say without a shadow of a doubt comments by the leader of Iran about the validity of the holocaust will go down in history as a combination of the dumbest, most insensitive, and anti-empirical words ever to be uttered and for that alone his credibility is null in my eyes. BUT he is still the co-captain of the Iranian ship and unless you want a complete conflagration within the entire Fertile Crescent, which would most assuredly spread to Northeast Africa and possibly areas of Southeast Asia where anti-Israeli and American sentiment is strong, you need to understand that for better or worse he is The Boss and any illusions otherwise belong at the little boys and girls table. President Obama’s press secretary indicated that he would like an invitation
to the kid’s table when he noted in discussing Iran’s rebellious ways that “While it would be a positive step for Iran to transfer low-enriched uranium off of its soil as it agreed to do last October, Iran said today that it would continue its 20 percent enrichment, which is a direct violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions” [5] I wonder if Mr. Gibbs is referring to the same UN Security Council where then US Secretary of State Colin Powell made his case for the Iraq invasion by holding up a model vial of anthrax and speaking to the administration’s certainty that Saddam had WMD? Would that be the same Security Council? Exactly! You see our Cop of Last Resort credibility is waning by the day and our “not invented here” (NIH) approach to all things Iran looks really bad. I think The Economist’s Charlemagne said it best in offering its take on what the US should do or say with respect to Turkey’s admission to the EU “SHUT up, please, you are not helping.” This is an oh so apropos piece of advice for our current administration as it relates to The Axis of Progress and nuclear proliferation. President Obama has made great strides as it pertains to G8 nuclear aspirations specifically his recent meetings with Dmitry Medvedev, but his willingness to confront the nuance that underpins Middle Eastern and Israeli nuclear tensions is and the lack of transparency with respect to the latter erodes at his credibility in the region.

At this point it would be worth stepping aside and letting the fledgling powers in Brasília and Ankara spread their (hopefully!) dovish and facilitative wings vis à vis our more blunt, slightly hyperbolic, and historically hypocritical efforts, because everyone in the Arab League has seen behind the curtain and what they saw was an image of Uncle Sam in bed with Israel. Not a pretty picture! What do we have to lose is really the question? Progress is painfully incremental when it comes to Iran and the longer we force their hand and strengthen sanctions the more resolute we make their leadership in painting an “us against them” mentality that Iranian’s no matter their political persuasion find intoxicating. If the gentlemen (and women?) from Turkey and Brazil were allowed to resume these negotiations we would for the first time in a long time be invoking Bill Clinton’s notion that our best moments come when we lead by the power of our example rather than by the example of our power. Prime Minister Erdoğan and President da Silva are not by any stretch of the imagination crazy anarchists or even lefties for that matter. They are men who see the world through a different lense than our “leadership” and for that reason alone their efforts are worthy of debate. I am not trying to legitimize Iran’s nutty leadership, rather I am saying as I have before that ISMs are not universally applicable and with this situation we have seen what our efforts have gotten us and what it has cost us in terms of geopolitical capital. It’s time to move over rover and let Jimmy take over! In this instance we were denied our primacy as Jaswant Singh former Indian foreign minister, finance minister, and defense minister put it in describing the Phoenix like emergence of Turkey on the international stage [6]. We can either embrace globalization or decoupling warts and all but we can’t have both. A little bit of both would be ideal with the former producing true multilateralism and the latter a United States of America that realizes…This ain’t our Grandparents’ diplomacy no more!

1. Cohen, R., The Other Iran, in The New York Times. 2009: New York, NY.
2. Giraldi, P., What FBI Whistle-Blower Sibel Edmonds Found in Translation: Why is her story being covered up? , in The Dallas Morning News. 2008: Dallas, TX.
3. Erlanger, S. and M. Landler, Iran Agrees to Send Enriched Uranium to Russia, in The New York Times. 2010: New York, NY.
4. Worth, R.F., Iran Avows Willingness to Swap Some Uranium, in The New York Times. 2010: New York, NY.
5. Sanger, D.E. and M. Slackman, U.S. Is Skeptical on Iranian Deal for Nuclear Fuel, in The New York Times. 2010: New York, NY.
6. Singh, J., A Hundred Weltpolitiks, in Project Syndicate. 2010.

The Department of Defense has identified 1,162 American service members who have died as a part of the Afghan war and related operations. It confirmed the death of the following American last week:

KING, Brandon M., 23, Pvt., Army; Tallahassee, Fla.; 101st Airborne Division.

According to icasualties.org:

Iraq = 4,4412 US, 179 UK, and 139 Other > 4,730 Total

Afghanistan = 1,188 US, 322 UK, and 436 Other > 1,944 Total

The dial continues to move in the wrong direction in the latter and it is speeding up! GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN MR. PRESIDENT!

There really is no need to say any more as the title says it all.

U.S. Identifies Vast Mineral Riches in Afghanistan

I wonder if Big (What a..) Dick Cheney knew about this one! He couldn’t have otherwise he would have insisted on a more concerted and muscular presence in Afghanistan throughout the War On Terror. Oh well chalk one up to good ol’ fashion Mullah Omar misdirection. Something tells me you will be hearing that Freeport-McMoRan (FCX)out of New Orleans will be getting their grubby nefarious hands involved in this operation given their robust play in the global copper market. Okay you heard it hear folks with FCX’s near monopoly on the global copper market and a large presence in gold we will absolutely see a strong push by them into this nascent opportunity. Just for the record FCX shares are currently trading at $65.26 on the NYSE, traded as high as $87 on January 8th, 11, and April 5th of this year, BUT are far below highs of $114 and 122 on October 10, 2007 and May 19, 2008, respectively. These two dates and the general peak in copper prices happened to coincide with a commercial and residential housing construction boom in China and lead some to believe that we had reached Peak Copper, although the latter has yet to be proven, but it stands to reason we will reach some sort of peak given the finite nature of copper availability, the world’s insatiable appetite for it, and the fact that last I checked creating it out of thin air ain’t an option! I will keep a keen eye on this and I suggest anyone reading this do the same as I demonstrated with an earlier posting on Roche and it’s share skyrocket in the weeks leading up to and after The Great H1N1 scare.

I would just say to the Pashtuns of Southern Afghanistan caveat emptor with Exhibit A being FCX’s Grasberg copper and gold mine in Indonesia, where the natives are restless and growing more so by the day. FCX is determined to see this mine to it’s complete exploitation given that it accounts for $4 Billion of FCX’s $6.5 Billion operating profit (i.e., Nearly 2/3). Some have even decided that peaceful protest is no longer helpful resorting instead to primitive but effective methods of “Message Delivery”. However, when the Indonesian government equips the mine bosses with a security force of 3,000 troops and police the odds are stacked against the indigenous peoples of Papua and Papua New Guinea (See Map courtesy of The Economist).

Thanks to a great article by Nelson D. Schwartz in The New York Times. Can you believe this?

Of course we have been doing the same here in the US since September of 2008 when Lehman Brothers collapsed. This type of mixing and matching would make even the most devious street hustler blush given the trickle down, up, left, and right of a group of greedy bankers and profligate sovereign governments. The idea that this type of thing couldn’t have been stopped is nonsense and to go one step further the Greenspanian idea that you don’t prick a bubble is pure hubris mixed with a large dose of Cigarette Smoking Man “After all, villains don’t think they are villains”.

What was it that John Maynard Keynes said about capitalism run wild. Oh yeah…“Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.“

Well say what you want about Lord Keynes politics and the bastardization of his work and theories by the left and the right, but the fact remains we have never seen a paradigm proved so faulty, so often, in so many disparate economies, and with so many casualties than we have with Capitalism. Don’t even think I am espousing Socialism across the board I am not and would never, but a reexamination of the facts when they change should lead us to change our minds about Capitalism as it’s universal application is clearly misguided and when you wipe away the muck and bombast very dangerous for lots of folks.

The Department of Defense has identified 1,082 American service members who have died as a part of the Afghan war and related operations. It confirmed the deaths of the following Americans this week:

NEENAN, Brendan P., 21, Specialist, Army; Enterprise, Ala.; 82nd Airborne Division.

RANKEL, John K., 23, Sgt., Marines; Speedway, Ind.; First Marine Division.

iCasualties.org to date:

Afghanistan = US 1,108, UK 294, Other 416 = Total 1,787

HOWEVER if we look at some data compiled by Iraqi Body Count we see that the costs are being forced asymmetrically upon the Iraqi people. Now whether you believe in this endeavor or not a 23:1 Iraqi Civilian to US troop casualty ratio should not be acceptable. I mean leaving aside those of you with no pulse (i.e., Dick Cheney and Donny Rumsfeld). The data below demonstrates a disturbing trend albeit one that appears to be waning for the time being. However, that is only because the fight has shifted to Helmand and Kandahar in Afghanistan not because the war against terrorism is getting cleaner and more accurate or precise.

We are talking about over 101,036 civilians killed in Iraq alone and that doesn’t account for the poor access to data and medical records, which would most assuredly push this number up by at least 5-10%. It also doesn’t account for the even worse data for Afghanistan, which I am trying to find and will post here when I do. We have dehumanized Iraqis the same way McNamara, Johnson, and Kennedy dehumanized the Vietnamese. It is a shame this is what we have to do in order to kill someone. Doesn’t take much guts and it doesn’t take much planning just a complete and utter disregard for the human condition.

The Department of Defense has identified 4,391 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war and 1,070 who have died as a part of the Afghan war and related operations. It confirmed the deaths of the following Americans yesterday:

Iraq

CULVER, Ronald W. Jr., 44, Major, Army; Shreveport, La.; Second Squadron, 108th Cavalry.

Afghanistan

BARTON, Christopher R., 22, Pfc., Army; Concord, N.C.; 101st Airborne Division.

iCasualties.org to date:

Iraq = 4,400 US, 179 UK, 139 Other = Total 4,718

Afghanistan = US 1,085, UK 288, Other 414 = Total 1,787

DOD-iCasualties to date:

Iraq = 9

Afghanistan = 15

I just read an article at Project Syndicate by Heizo Takenaka former Minister of Economics, Minister of Financial Reform, and Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications under former LDP Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi; of Japan. Who cares you may ask? And you would be right for asking that….BUT the reason we should care is that if you replaced Japanese people and places with US people and places this article would read like a John Boehner or Mitch McConnell manifesto replete with the privatization, deregulation, reduced government spending, and lower taxes (See Friedman, M) mantra of these 2 esteemed leaders of the Republican party. This would be awesome and totally worth considering if it weren’t for 1 conveniently downplayed FACT….Mr. Takenaka’s party - prior to the current DPJ government that can’t get out of its own way with respect to broken promises - had had complete autonomy in Japan for the better part of 50 years. Likewise Messrs. Boehner and McConnell along with a moderate agenda going back to Gerald Ford have been running the show since the early seventies. Okay I know there was a brief hiccup by the name of Jimmy Carter, who decided the American people needed to hear certain truths that would prove hard to swallow. Well we canned his ass the next chance we got! The point is that these Monday morning quarterbacks are incapable of acknowledging their participation in the games to which they refer. Until they do this their rhetoric and bombastic critiques of current and future regimes will - in my humble but certain opinion - be comedic at best and counterproductive to the point of being obstructionist at worst. Do the current folks in office in Japan and the US and the soon to be Green administration in Columbia have problems? Sure lots of them and their growing by the day, but to say that the trouble a/o irresponsibility starts with them, while simultaneously ignoring their own malfeasance is the reason why I just can’t imagine why anyone would give such biased and myopic voices any type of local or global platform. Enough with the sectarian rhetoric!

From an interesting article by Joschka Fischer on Project Syndicate:

“In Iraq, the question of power-sharing between Sunnis and Shia has neither been resolved or secured institutionally in such a way that would definitively prevent a slide back into civil war after the majority of US troops withdraw in 2011.“

Quite simply the reply to this is that while Sunni v. Shia may be the short-term cyclical conflict of most importance it is clear from this reader’s perspective that the long-term structural problem is the Kurdish Northeast (Large concentrated oilfields) v. the predominantly Arab rest of Iraq (Small dispersed oilfields). The Trigger Line as this separation is known will prove a chronic issue and one that no amount of troops, drones, or Maliki/Obama DoubleSpeak will resolve.

Nuance is the name of the game in Iraq and the quicker we in the US brush up on it the quicker we will be equipped to hold our politicians feet to the fire on the off chance they show their faces around town. I would imagine the heat will turn up even more when water becomes more restricting…Again a short-term cyclical (Oil) v. long-term structural (Water) paradox, only this one will be a matter of life or internal combustion. In the words of Hindu priest Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati “Without electricity, you can survive. One can’t survive without water…”

“You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline—it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.”

“There will never be a nuclear war; there’s too much real estate involved.“

Frank Zappa