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Politics : Dutch Central Bank Sale Announcement Imminent? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sea_urchin who wrote (22710)	3/19/2005 10:27:20 AM
From: sea_urchin	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 81081

> China, Russia, France, Germany & Co would be delighted if the US were to become embroiled in another long and bloody campaign. And they will see to it that it is as long and bloody as possible. atimes.com >>Initially, Moscow supported Washington's "war on terrorism". However, the US invasion of Iraq changed this support into resistance, and later into active efforts to counterbalance the US. In the past two years both Washington and Moscow have sought to strengthen their influence in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Events surrounding the recent election in the Ukraine signal that the competition for influence between the US and Russia has increased. More significantly, Moscow is working diligently to strengthen its ties with Iran, Syria and China - countries that Washington considers to be adversaries. In addition to supplying Tehran with dual use nuclear technology, Russia is also selling Iran a broad array of conventional military equipment. Many believe that Moscow is also supplying Tehran with missile technology and equipment. Early this year, Israeli media reported that Russia had concluded a deal with Damascus to sell Syria sophisticated shoulder-fired and stationary missiles. Both Syria and Russia denied the existence of this deal. However, the benefits to both Moscow and Damascus from such a deal are unmistakable. Rapprochement between Moscow and Beijing in 2004 was an extremely significant geopolitical event that went largely unnoticed in the West. In addition to settling long-standing border disputes and deepening commercial ties, Russia and China agreed to hold joint military exercises in 2005. The last joint military exercises conducted by Russia and China occurred in 1958. Similar to closer relations with Syria and Iran, the newfound friendship between Moscow and Beijing has fostered Russia's sale of sophisticated military equipment to China. Interestingly, relations between Beijing and Tehran have also warmed recently. It appears clear that the Moscow-Beijing-Tehran axis is designed to counter US foreign policy in Eurasia, the Middle East and Asia. Rather than establishing economic and geopolitical hegemony around the world, the "war on terrorism" is making the US increasingly vulnerable to a sharp economic recession delivered to Washington by Moscow. The Bush administration should consider this when formulating plans to expand US power into Russia's traditional sphere of influence or to undermine Iran's government. Without this consideration, Washington risks an economic war. <<

To: sea_urchin who wrote (22710)	3/19/2005 10:31:07 PM
From: philv	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81081

We can't know for sure what military arrangements have been made between Israel & the US. But Israel has vowed not to allow Iran the means to produce nuclear weapons. Regardless of what the US desires in this case, Israel will look after her own interests first. And the US will have to go along with whatever the outcome might be and support Israel completely. After all, that's what the US bases in Iraq are for. Israeli airforce pilots, are in high spirits, hoping it will be their assignment to bomb the Iranian nuclear sites, and are in training for this mission now. imra.org.il Depending on the Iranian response, an all out war could break out. But I doubt if Iran has any good friends or allies willing to risk war with the US/Israel/Nato. The Arabs abandoned Iraq, and they will surely not lift a finger to assist non-Arab Iran. And Russia, todate, hasn't shown any desire or balls to confront or antagonize the U.S. And the growing alliance with China and Europe is just in its infancy. Besides, they are, after all, all of them, too busy chasing the mighty dollar. So, the big question in my mind is will Iran risk ending up like her neighbour, or will she pull back at the very last moment?

To: sea_urchin who wrote (22710)	3/21/2005 4:00:52 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81081

Re: But how many wars can the US undertake (allegedly) for the benefit of a bunch of right-wing, Zionist fanatics? Well, as I once put it, warfare abroad actually fulfills a domestic regulation of sorts... It's a way for the US to extract the "excess heat" out of its domestic fabric and vent it towards some convenient alien bugaboo --be it Afghanistan's Taliban, Iraq's Ba'athists, or Iran's mullahs. "I suspect that America's recurrent warmongering somehow functions as a political escapism for the American society as a whole. Although the US is waging war abroad, in remote wastelands such as Afghanistan and the Middle East, the war fulfills actually a domestic function --in pretty much the same way soccer hooliganism does in Europe." Excerpted from: Message 18732378 Re: Iran will be no walk in the park and although it might be deemed "doable" by the power-crazed neocons to drop a few nukes or whatever here and there, what happens after that? Who cares? Human decisions are not driven by pure, foolproof rationality. Otherwise the German establishment would have removed Chancellor Hitler well before 1939... and the US would have cut its losses in Vietnam well before 1972... The French would have granted Algeria independence in 1950, not in 1962 after a bloody eight-year war... etc, etc. It'll be up to historians and scholars of the late XXIst century to explain how the US, spurred by its Judeofascist elites, set off WWIII. Re: Which makes me think that China, Russia, France, Germany & Co would be delighted if the US were to become embroiled in another long and bloody campaign. And they will see to it that it is as long and bloody as possible. Well, I think you are right insofar as China is concerned: as a Confucian power, China is somehow alien to the Judeo-Christian-Muslim slugfest. And it is indeed in China's interest to prolong the conflict between the US and the Mideast. A protracted war in Iraq, extended to Iran, will drain the US's energies away from the economical battlefield and isolate the US (geo)politically. From a Chinese point of view, the Middle East mess is a useful distraction. However, I don't think Europe will gain much out of any escalation of the current war --remember Madrid 311. I believe that any attack on Iran will be preceded by terrorist strikes against European countries. Iran has already made it clear that she'll hold Europe accountable for the eventual failure of the ongoing "nuclear negotiations"... Next we must take into account the Judeofascists' need to toughen and, at the same time, neutralize public opinion in Europe. The shortest way to achieve that will be "false-flag terrorism": allegedly Islamic terrorist strikes against France, Germany,... perpetrated by US and Israeli agents in cahoots with their closet European allies. Gus

To: sea_urchin who wrote (22710)	3/22/2005 10:08:24 AM
From: sea_urchin	Respond to of 81081

> By no stretch of the imagination can the US of I deal with Iran on the ground. The opinion of Gwynne Dyer metrotimes.com >>Nor are we, in fact, even a military superpower in the way we like to think we are; in reality, our military machine can only be used against very weak countries. As he notes, “War with a serious opponent would lead to a level of American casualties that the U.S. public would not tolerate for long.”<< Also an interesting view on the US economy >>Dyer argues what other economists have told me in whispers: “The U.S. economy is a confidence trick based on everybody else’s perception that the United States is centrally important for the world’s security and that its economy is centrally important for the world economy.” That was absolutely true in 1945, and largely true even in 1985. But not anymore. If you look at only those foreign investments that could be liquidated fairly quickly, the total, he estimates, would come to about $8 trillion. If those investments started to move elsewhere, the value of the dollar could be cut in half, Dyer estimates, overnight.<<