No wondder the United States insisted that its Syria ceasefire deal with Russia remain secret! It turns out that one of the US demands was that the Syrian air force must be prohibited from attacking al-Nusra Front (al-Qaeda in Syria). Crazy conspiracy theory? Listen to John Kerry’s own words at the UN last week:

Why US kept Syria truce terms secret:
Syrian planes prohibited from flying over areas where al-Nusra is present
i.e. US protecting al-Qaeda pic.twitter.com/LQ6NuUZqSI

— the Lemniscat (@theLemniscat) September 22, 2016

Kerry argued at the UN that it would be impossible to separate Washington’s “moderates” from al-Qaeda while al-Qaeda was under attack:

Now, I have said to Russia many times it’s very hard to separate people when they are being bombed indiscriminately and when Assad has the right to determine who he’s going to bomb, because he can, quote, ‘go after Nusrah’ but go after the opposition at the same time because he wants to.

Does this make any sense? It seem much more logical to argue that the threat of being bombed alongside al-Qaeda would be the greatest incentive for “moderates” to separate themselves from al-Qaeda as soon as possible!

You would think Washington would tell its “moderates”: “You must cease and desist from fighting alongside al-Qaeda in Syria within the next 48 hours or you will yourselves become targets of Syrian, Russian, and coalition planes.”

Instead Washington argues that because its “moderates” refuse to separate from al-Qaeda the Russians and Syrians must stop attacking al-Qaeda!

George W. Bush famously said, “either you’re with us, or you are with the terrorists.” But what happens when Washington itself is “with the terrorists”?

This article originally appeared on the Ron Paul Institute website.

Please donate to the Ron Paul Institute

The post In Kerry’s Own Words: Syria Prohibited from Attacking al-Qaeda appeared first on Gold And Liberty.

Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank are discussing merger talks. The fact that these meetings are occurring is a signal that Germany’s banking troubles are indeed accelerating.

The banks are desperately seeking ways to cut costs and improve profitability. Their plans include restructuring and job cuts using highly unconventional measures. In June, Reuters cited anonymous sources saying that Commerzbank was exploring the option of hoarding billions of euros as a way of avoiding paying a penalty to the European Central Bank, thanks to negative interest rates.

Their main problems derive mostly from low and negative interest rates. These lenders are used to depending on interest-rate margins for income while offering some services to depositors at either low or no cost. Low interest rates have significantly eroded their ability to make money. It has become difficult for German banks to incentivize customers to deposit their money in their vaults. These inefficiencies — and the intense competition within the German banking sector — have already led to serious financial difficulties. If one combines these factors with the new challenge of declining interest rates, what possible positive impact can they expect to incur?

Interestingly, rates are not just low within the context of American history but they also happen to be at their lowest levels ever in over 5,000 years of civilization.

That’s 5,000 years of interest rates, which are currently lower than the 1930’s Depression Era.

Deutsche Bank is not merely Germany’s biggest bank but the political role that it plays in Germany is unique compared to other countries. Deutsche Bank’s importance to Germany is many times greater than that of an investment bank like Lehman Brothers was to the U.S. in 2008. Deutsche Bank is technically a private bank, however it is informally tied to the government and formally tied to most major German corporations. The bank’s fate will have an impact on the entire country.

And then there’s Italy, whose banking crisis is not just confined to its borders.

Italy’s non-performing loan issues are common knowledge. Who will be forced to deal with settling Italy’s impaired debt? That’s a political question and the answer depends, in large measure, on who holds Italian bank debt.

The U.S banks are not shielded from Europe’s banking problems. There is a substantial amount of uncertainty and risk.

The consequences of these failures pyramid the crisis due to the European Unions’ regulations. The European Central Bank and the central banks of member countries cannot bail out failing banks by recapitalizing them. The bail-in strategy is, in theory, a mechanism for ensuring fair competition and stability within the financial sector across the Eurozone.

The bail-in process can potentially apply to any liabilities of the institution that is not backed by assets or collateral. The first 100,000 euros ($111,000) in deposits are protected in the sense that they cannot be seized, while any money above that amount can be.

Germany insisted on the bail-in process.

The Bank for International Settlements stated that German banks are the second-most exposed to Italy, after France, with a total exposure of $92.7 billion. Is it any wonder that gold demand has increased?

Italy’s ongoing banking crisis is presenting yet another threat to the stability of the ECB.

Commerzbank’s financial statements revealed that its Italian sovereign debt exposure was 10.8 billion euros ($12.1 billion).

Deutsche Bank’s net credit risk exposure to Italy is 13.3 billion euros as of the end of December 2015. Its gross position in Italy is 35.4 billion euros. Deutsche Bank is sitting on $41.9 trillion worth of derivatives.

The Consequences Are Significant

Gold is the only safe haven left in the world. Indeed, the metal has been a form of currency for centuries. Whenever countries followed a strict gold standard and used it as their currency, their economies were stable. But governments have always surpassed their means with costly spending, causing them to abandon the gold standard to fund their inefficiencies. I think gold is beginning a multi-year bull market as it’s the only asset class that will be able to maintain its’ ‘store of value’ during this impending crisis. In fact ‘gold mania’ is about to take off as global central banks implement negative interest rates, which is an ideal environment for gold to surge higher.

Gold does have a historical store of value. central banks and institutions horde it as a reserve. And they do not want to sell it. On the contrary, many want to accumulate even more. Therefore, gold’s characteristic role in regard to sovereign reserves is still intact even amid the fascinating evolution of central banking and institutional finance.

by Chris Vermeulen

The post Europe’s Banking Crisis, Negative Rates And Gold appeared first on Gold And Liberty.

Why is liberarianism catching on so fast in Brazil, and what can a libertarian movement accomplish on a huge scale in a country like Brazil?

The answer is simple: look at what The Free Brazil Movement accomplished recently.

An activist group of people, called The Free Brazil Movement, started a movement in Brazil. They were frustrated by the centrally planned government which has driven the nation to the “worst recession in Brazil in recorded history.” One simple fact to make that point: it takes 14 times longer to start a new business in Brazil compared to the U.S.

Below video shows how revolutionary the internet really is: it helped a small group of activists to spread the word through the internet and social media in particular, which was the basis of the long impeachment process of the Brazilian President Rousseff.

The anger of the Brazilian people, which was voiced by The Free Brazil Movement, could lead to restoring democracy in Brazil.

Before you watch the video, you should realize the fundamental thought of The Free Brazil Movement:

How is it that so many people still believe that the government can solve the country’s problem given that the opposite has always been proved to be reality. The philosophy of our libertarian movement is that politics are NOT derived from reasoning but from culture. So a new cultural identity based on freedom should be established first in order to change politics.

This is a must watch without any doubt.

The post Libertarianism In Action: Free Brazil Movement Impeached President Rousseff appeared first on Gold And Liberty.

Presented without comment (must see video):

The post Hillary Clinton’s Most Memorable Interview Ever appeared first on Gold And Liberty.

In recent months, more and more of our clients and friends from overseas are asking us whether it is safe to travel to Europe. These fears are understandable, given the media coverage of the tragic events that occurred this year. The press painted a sinister and truly graphic picture of Europe as a war zone, as a target of global terrorism. The attacks in Brussels, the horrors we saw in Nice on Bastille Day and the Normandy Church attack, as well as the Munich shooting – all were tragic and shocking to us all. Nevertheless, as a Swiss and European citizen (noting that Switzerland is a federal republic within Europe but not part of the EU), I can confidently and emphatically reassure our clients: Yes, Europe is safe, to visit, to live, and to do business in. Similar attacks occur worldwide – only this past weekend, there were bombings in New York and New Jersey. Does this mean that New York is no longer safe? These fears and concerns make it all the more important that we go deeper and understand where they came from, see how they were fostered and fuelled, so that we can hopefully dispel them altogether and regain confidence and trust in our societies.

When did Europe become a “high-risk” destination?

Time and time again I argue it all goes back to media propaganda. When the headlines one routinely comes across read: “2016 already marred by nearly daily terror attacks” (USA Today), “Terror deaths in Western Europe at highest level since 2004” (BBC), and “Terrorism Scares Away the Tourists Europe Was Counting On” (The New York Times), the reader gets a clear message, and public opinion is successfully steered towards fear. These headlines are typical examples of “media hysteria”, which is combined with political hysteria and opportunism. Media hyperbole fuelled the political and economic uncertainty that we all feel today and that underlines the climate of our times, thereby creating the perfect storm.

The reality is that whether Europe is safe or not, is itself a shortsighted question: This climate of fear extends well beyond Europe, it is the same everywhere – we are all living in this overwhelming environment of insecurity, instability and uncertainty. I am very vocal when it comes to my disapproval of today’s media and its portrayal of news and developments. Dr. Daniele Ganser, the founder of the Swiss Institute for Peace and Energy, explains that the problem of our times is “media competence”. We have grown too dependent on mainstream media as a source of information. We wait to receive what is served to us – this does not necessarily mean that information is withheld or intentionally twisted; it could be simply lumped in the evening news, a mashup of actual news reporting and advertisement, or “sponsored content” or “advertorials” – bought and paid for by corporations, lobbying groups and Political Action Committees (PACs) alike. More often than not, the receiver finds himself confused about what was reported in the first place, unable to tell fact from fiction. The mainstream media is not objective – the quality and integrity of the information is compromised and since we only get to hear one side of the story, i.e. theirs, our own perspective becomes biased.

Fear sells!

In Europe, our sense of political instability has been on an upward trajectory for quite some time. We have been dealing with some major issues over the past year, like the Brexit vote, which took the continent by storm. Indexes on investor confidence slumped after the vote, concerned by the impact of Brexit on the British economy and the already weak European economy as a whole. While we are still keeping a close eye on the reaction of the EU, so far, there are no fundamental causes for concern or real destabilizing effects that we can point at. Other problems have also troubled the continent, like the rise of populist and secessionist parties over the past few years, and of course, the refugee crisis, which does indeed pose significant challenges. Ultimately, it is true that Europe has a lot on its plate. But the U.S. is not all that different: The presidential election appears to reflect the most toxic and divisive campaigning that I have personally seen, as both sides are trying to polarize and tear the nation apart. Americans have also seen increased violence; shootings, attacks, and police brutality dominate their news headlines.

In parallel, we have the underlying but hugely important, economic instability: The U.S. and European economies have never really recovered from the 2008 financial crisis. In fact, our international economic system is crumbling. The public is suffering from decreasing real disposable income, an economic slowdown with no real GDP growth to drive the economy, and instead depends on more government intervention to keep the cycle going. Public opinion is controlled by the media that is overwhelming us with stories of terrorism and brutal crime – these stories get more covers and prime time coverage than ever, for one simple reason: fear sells! The public is made more fearful, more helpless, and more importantly, more powerless to react and take action. After all, it is easier to trigger panic when someone already has his back against the wall.

Reality check: the West is “free” from terrorism

Let’s put these fears into perspective and test the argument on “media correctness”. For example, British newspaper, The Express, warned its readers before the summer holidays, with a map that reveals “the most DANGEROUS destinations in Europe”. With this map below, The Express is telling its readers that Europe, including Britain, is on high alert for potential terrorist attacks.

Source: The Express

BUT when we dig deeper and look up other sources, we find another map (below), by the Global Terrorism Index (an online database with information on terrorist events worldwide since 1970): This map clearly shows that Europe and the U.S. have little to worry about, when compared to the rest of the world. If we look at numbers: The Global Terrorism Index says that since 2000, only 2.6% of deaths from terrorism took place in the West (which encompasses Europe, the U.S., Canada and Australia), including 9/11.

It also reported that in 2014, there were 32,685 deaths from terrorism worldwide, up 80% from 2013, out of which, only 38 deaths (a mere 0.11%) were recorded in the West including 18 in the United States, which ranked 35th on the Index.

In the same year, the United States reported a total of 2.6 million deaths. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention identified the top two causes of death as heart disease, followed by cancer. Accidents, identified as “unintentional injuries”, ranked 4^th , having caused 136,053 deaths. My intention in juxtaposing these figures to the mainstream narrative is not to downplay the severity of terrorism, and the tragic losses incurred by it, but to show the scale of the horror the media reports is really overblown.

Why? As I said before, fear sells. It sells papers, it sells on TV, because people consume news and commentary and opinions that grab their attention in such a visceral way. It’s a kind of masochistic sensationalism. But if we succumb to fear, then based on what we’ve seen in the attacks this year, it would mean we shouldn’t use the metro or go near an airport, or even a mall – we will just imprison ourselves and lose control of our own lives. Where would we be today if the people of New York and the world in general had succumbed to the horror of 9/11?

That is one perspective, but perhaps it goes deeper than that: This climate of fear also gets votes to people who offer simplistic answers to complicated questions, who sell to cheap promises of a better future: “if only you vote for them, they have the magic bullet for every problem”. Fear short-circuits analytical thinking, so arguments and policies and ideas cannot be adequately scrutinized. Panicked people don’t stop to question the premises of an argument, or to doubt the intentions behind a policy or to fact-check and do their own research: they just accept whatever “solution” is offered to them.

The fact is that everyone, everywhere is on high alert – this the reality of our world since 9/11. We are all prone to the same risks and threats of terrorism – there is not one destination that is significantly more risky. Although ISIS is related (or at least claims to be) to many attacks recently, the fact is that 80% of attacks are carried out by what the Index describes as “lone wolf terrorists”, which are not necessarily related to Islamic extremism. However, the fact remains, that terrorist attacks and the victims they claim, have been steadily on the rise since 9/11, as the following chart shows. Even if it isn’t “in our own backyard”, we should still stop and consider the root causes, what is driving this phenomenon today, as well as the consequences on the global geopolitical stage.

Media propaganda as a diversion

Attacks, and figures aside, we all should look at the big picture and consider history as a guide. It becomes clear that the media is the primary tool of the state to disseminate its propaganda, which essentially follows a strategy of “divide and conquer”, or how I see it, puts us on the path for a clash of civilizations.

Division ensures that the state is not being challenged. We must remember that when governments crumbled in recent years, as was the case in the past too, they turned to violence, more often than not against their own people! More control (and violence) helped prolong the power grip of the establishment at the cost of civil rights and liberty of the individual. But it could never avoid its downfall.

The headlines we are reading are playing on our fears; a distraction from the true and great dangers we are facing that could potentially threaten our civil liberties. This is the end-game of the establishment, and therefore, the power of the individual to question the status quo is their greatest threat.

This article originally appeared on Mountain Vision.

The post Is It Safe To Travel To Europe? appeared first on Gold And Liberty.

In this video interview on Memri TV, Syrian poet Adonis gives an in-depth view on why religion and state should be separated in the Arab world.

We have selected two quotes which tell the fundamentals of the story, but recommend listening in to the full interview.

If we really want to embark on a new phase, we must conduct a new reading of Islam. We must examine the relations between text and life.

By linking religion with political rule, we turn religion into a mere tool in the hands of the regime. This consitutes aggression against people, because it prevents thoughts, freedom, democracy. Therefore, we must free religion from the clutches of political rule. Is this possible? Yes, it is, but it requires a peaceful, non-violent, struggle.

The post Syrian Poet Adonis: Progress Impossible In Arab World Without Separation of Religion and State appeared first on Gold And Liberty.

This is an overview of Lew Rockwell’s Best-Selling Books on Amazon for September 2016:

1. Hidden History: An Exposé of Modern Crimes, Conspiracies, and Cover-Ups in American Politics – Donald Jeffries

2. Conspiracy Theory in America (Discovering America) – Lance deHaven-Smith

3. The Law – Frederic Bastiat

4. The Problem with Socialism – Thomas DiLorenzo

5. Nullification: Reclaiming Consent of the Governed (The Wilson Files) – Clyde N. Wilson

6. The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government – David Talbot

7. Dr. Feelgood: The Shocking Story of the Doctor Who May Have Changed History by Treating and Drugging JFK, Marilyn, Elvis, and Other Prominent Figures – Richard A. Lertzman

8. Anatomy of the State Paperback –  Murray Rothbard

9. Against the State: An Anarcho-Capitalist Manifesto – Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

10. Our Enemy, the State – Albert Jay Nock[

11. Washington’s KKK: The Union League During Southern Reconstruction –  John Chodes
12. Economics in One Lesson – Henry Hazlitt

13. Battlefield America: The War On The American People – John W. Whitehead

14. Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America’s Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years – Russ Baker

15. LBJ: From Mastermind to “The Colossus” – Phillip F. Nelson

The post Learn Real History and True Conspiracies by LewRockwell appeared first on Gold And Liberty.

On the heels of the Fed’s annual meeting in Jackson Hole, “extraordinary” monetary policy may be the new normal. Janet Yellen refuses to raise rates for now, and Former Chair Ben Bernanke openly questions whether the Fed’s Treasury-laden balance sheet—swollen after successive rounds of QE—will ever be unwound. Real growth is flat, real incomes are stagnant, inflation is higher than the government admits, and millions of Americans still haven’t recovered from the Crash of ’08.

Is economics broken? Have we entered a new era of technocratic impotence, where mainstream economists simply have run out of monetary policy tools? Can we undo the damage caused by the Fed’s relentless attack on savers? Do most professional economists understand the role of interest rates at all? And what kind of revolution is needed to save economics as a profession?

Dr. Joe Salerno, professor of economics and Academic VP of the Mises Institute, joins us to makes sense of it all.

Listen to Joe Salerno and Jeff Deist: Economics is Broken

Courtesy of Mises.org

The post Joe Salerno: Economics is Broken appeared first on Gold And Liberty.

When Murray Rothbard was a young student, he wrote under the pen name Aubrey Herbert. I thought he made it up. Not so. There really was a man named Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert. He was a member of the British Parliament. He lived from 1838 to 1906. He was a disciple of Herbert Spencer who kept Spencer’s youthful idealism long after his mentor lost it. He was the author of “The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State.”

That much I’ve known for a while, but I never bothered to read Auberon Herbert’s work. I did that recently, and I think I’ve found my muse. This man was incredible. I can’t say I’ve ever read more luxurious and erudite prose in defense of human liberty. And it’s not like the work of many people writing at the time, good on some stuff and bad on other stuff. Herbert’s writing is awesome on all subjects: property, markets, slavery, empire and colonialism, civil liberties, universal rights, and the state. He spoke about rights and the social consequences of violating rights with equal passion.

He wrote and spoke at a time of rising socialism in Europe. Britain resisted for a while, and Herbert was part of the reason. He presented one of the last clarion calls for pure liberty that occurred in the old world before World War I. He applied every effort to stopping the rise of the total state.

He penned his most famous writings in the 1870s, and they represented the best and most elaborate of the classical liberal school. He held the torch of liberty high and spoke out, consistently and constantly, for the principle of voluntarism. He viewed every state action that contradicted the principle of liberty to be a violation of rights.

From his days in Parliament, Herbert came to be frustrated over the lack of fundamental questions regarding the purpose of politics. So many were involved in the attempted micro-regulation of every industry, all services, matters of state, and civic order, that state regulation of life was an ongoing threat. Herbert came to be appalled at how little thought was put into what this would do to people. Every law, every mandate, every rule, had to be enforced by violence against property and against people. They all violated the natural liberty that had giving rise to the glory of civilization at the time.

“Sooner or later,” he wrote, “every institution has to answer the challenge, ‘Are you founded on justice? Are you for or against the liberty of men?’”

Herbert argued that all state action violates the liberty of person, a liberty that should only be constrained according to Spencer’s rule: all should be permitted so long as no one is harmed.

It takes people’s property so that the politicians can use it. It takes away liberty so that the state can regulate industry. It takes away industry and creativity so that the state can enact its own plans. Looked at this way, everything the state is and does contradicts the principle of liberty.

An excellent example is national education. All the best-educated and well-to-do people seem to believe it is necessary. Taxes are levied against the richest in England, for they are the only ones with enough money to pay for it. The buildings are built and the teachers are hired. But who runs the system and who establishes the priorities for what is taught, when, and how it is taught? The elites and the rich. It is they whose views hold sway, while the working classes and the poor have very little to say about the matter. In the end, though the rich are bearing the greatest burdens of financing the system, it is the poor who bear the burdens of obeying the masters in charge of the system. This is contrary to justice.

It is also creates a system inconsistent with progress. National education means one plan for all, imposed without creativity or the possibility for adaptation to change. One view of religion must prevail at the expense of all other views. This is not tolerance but imposition, and it locks out perspectives that are different from those of the rich who administer the system. But cut the cord completely, grant full rights to all to their property and their own decisions, and tolerance at once becomes the rule.

As for self-responsibility, all state education drains it from parents. They are treated as if they can’t be trusted, and, in time, they come to confirm that perception. Public education acculturates the entire population to become passive and disempowered. This is contrary to progress because progress requires experimentation, toleration of differences, and celebration of new ideas and new ways of doing things.

Herbert further argues that any time a task is placed upon a government department, progress in that task comes to a halt. The system is frozen. To make a change appears dangerous to the bureaucracy, even revolutionary. Change happens to government agencies only under great pressure, and, even then, the change is perfunctory and cosmetic — enough to satisfy the public but not enough to fundamentally change the system. (The TSA comes to mind here, but so do all other government agencies.)

It is true in every sector of life, whether commerce, health, religion, family, or foreign relations. Once you grant the state the power to regulate some aspect of life, there will be no end to the arguments for how power is used. People will disagree on priorities. What makes one person happy makes another furious. What pleases one person pillages another. To realize the plans for one group is to subvert the plans of another. The result is a war of all against all, each interest group vying for control of the levers of power. This is not unity or peace but division, conflict, and war.

The state, despite the best of intentions, is always in the business of harm.

A person is either free or not free. It is not possible to split this difference and make a compromise, even by majority vote. Freedom is indivisible, Herbert said. Either our volition is our own or it is taken away and exercised by the state.

What are the implications of Herbert’s analysis? Taxation must be abolished and replaced by voluntary contributions to the government. If people are unwilling to pay, it is evidence that they do not consider the service rendered to be worth the price.

All monopolies and privileges granted by the state must be abolished, whether in education, the postal service, or trade. That includes libel law, since no one has a right to his or her reputation. When people call each other bad names, they must face those consequences themselves.

All state services must be abolished, including poor laws, nationalized mines, religious restrictions, and government subsidies for industry.

All restrictions on individual behavior must be abolished. That includes restrictions on alcohol and drug consumption, prostitution, mandatory vaccinations, and divorce. All must be free to do what they wish without being impeded by government decree. That includes repealing compulsory education laws, laws restricting what one does on Sunday, and child labor laws.

Finally, justice demands the end to all colonialism and imperialism against neighboring states. All people everywhere should be free to choose their own government. Nothing should be imposed on anyone, foreign or domestic.

Herbert was a voluntarist who rejected the term “anarchism,” which he took to mean lawlessness. He also rejected the use of violence in the reform of the system, writing that it is a different matter to hate the current system versus loving liberty. To love liberty is to seek peace, understanding, and universal rights and cooperation. To hate the system is to use every tactic to overthrow it, including violence. That second path does nothing to secure a lasting liberty.

As for socialism, Herbert saw it as a system resting fundamentally on force by the government against person and property. All the theories of socialism come down to this: the government can do to anyone whatever it wants in the guise of collectivization or any other excuse. It is a map for the total state — the total abolition of liberty.

Postscript

Nothing substitutes for reading Herbert’s own words. Here are a few choice quotations:

“I no longer believed that the handful of us — however well-intentioned we might be — spending our nights in the House, could manufacture the life of a nation, could endow it out of hand with happiness, wisdom, and prosperity, and clothe it in all the virtues.”

“Compulsory taxation means everywhere the persistent probability of a war made by the ambitions or passions of politicians.”

“If you mean to have and to hold power, you must do whatever is necessary for the having and holding of it. You may have doubts and hesitations and scruples, but power is the hardest of all taskmasters, and you must either lay these aside, when you once stand on that dangerous, dizzy height, or yield your place to others, and renounce your part in the great conflict. And when power is won, don’t suppose that you are a free man, able to choose your path and do as you like. From the moment you possess power, you are but its slave, fast bound by its many tyrant necessities.”

“In politics quite as much as in medicine the local evil is often but a symptom of the systematic evil, and only to be removed when some condition of life, at first sight unconnected with it, is altered.”

“Each man must be left free so to exercise his faculties and so to direct his energies as he may think fittest to produce happiness; — with one most important limitation, which must always be understood as accompanying the liberty of which I speak. His freedom in this pursuit of happiness must not interfere with the exactly corresponding freedom of others. Neither by force nor by fraud may he restrain the same free use of faculties enjoyed by every other man. This then, the widest possible liberty, is the great primary law on which all human intercourse must be founded if it is to be happy, peaceful, and progressive.”

“Whatever party names we may give ourselves, this is the question always waiting for an answer, Do you believe in force and authority, or do you believe in liberty?”

“Either you must treat men as self-responsible, as bearing their own burdens, and making their own lives, as free in thought, word and action, or you must treat them as so much political matter, which any government that can get into power may protect, restrain and fashion as it likes.”

“There are some persons who hold that the more money you can extract by legislation from the richer classes for the benefit of the poorer classes the better are your arrangements. I entirely dissent from such a view. “

“Justice requires that you should not place the burdens of one man on the shoulders of another man, even though he is better able to bear them. In plainer words, that you should not make one set of men pay for what is used by another set of men.”

“Under voluntary systems there is continual progress, the constant development of new views, and the action necessary for their practical application; under political systems, immobility on the part of the administrators, discontented helplessness on the part of those for whom they administer.”

“Cut the cord, give us full freedom for differing amongst ourselves, and it at once becomes possible for a man to hold by his own convictions and yet be completely tolerant of what his neighbor says and does.”

“If you desire progress, you must not make it difficult for men to think and act differently; you must not dull their senses with routine or stamp their imagination with the official pattern of some great department. If you desire progress, you must remove all obstacles that impede for each man the exercise of his reasoning and imaginative faculties in his own way; and you must do nothing to lessen the rewards which he expects in return for his exertions.”

“A great department must be by the law of its own condition unfavorable to new ideas. To make a change it must make a revolution.”

“To live in a state of liberty is not to live apart from law. It is, on the contrary, to live under the highest law, the only law that can really profit a man, the law which is consciously and deliberately imposed by himself on himself.”

“It is impossible for us to make any real advance until we take to heart this great truth, that without freedom of choice, without freedom of action, there are not such things as true moral qualities; there can only be submissive wearing of the cords that others have tied round our hands.”

“Private property and free trade stand on exactly the same footing, both being essential and indivisible parts of liberty, both depending upon rights, which no body of men, whether called governments or anything else, can justly take from the individual.”

“No amount of state education will make a really intelligent nation; no amount of Poor Laws will place a nation above want; no amount of Factory Acts will make us better parents.”

“Set men up to rule their fellow-men, to treat them as mere soulless material with which they may deal as they please, and the consequence is that you sweep away every moral landmark and turn this world into a place of selfish striving, hopeless confusion, trickery and violence, a mere scrambling ground for the strongest or the most cunning or the most numerous.”

“It is only you, treading in the blessed path of peace and freedom, who can bring about the true regeneration of society, and with it the true happiness of your own lives.”

This article originally appeared on FEE.org, and is written by Jeffrey Tucker.

The post A Radical Libertarian in the British Parliament appeared first on Gold And Liberty.

The Money Project is an ongoing collaboration between Visual Capitalist and Texas Precious Metals that seeks to use intuitive visualizations to explore the origins, nature, and use of money.

How Much Money Have Humans Created?

The dollar amounts are so staggering, that simply telling you how much money humans have created probably wouldn’t convey the magnitude.

However, by using data visualization in this video, we can relate numbers in the millions, billions, and trillions to create the context to make it more understandable.

Starting With Context

The median U.S. household income of $54,000 is a number that most people can relate to. It’s enough money to save up to buy a car, or maybe even a house depending on where you live.

Multiply that income by eight, and that number is now big enough to count as being in the top 1% of earners. People in the “one percent” make at least $430,000 per year.

Famous celebrities and businesspeople have fortunes that dwarf those of many “one percenters”. Actor George Clooney, for example, has a net worth of $180 million. Meanwhile, author J.K. Rowling is estimated to have a net worth of roughly $1 billion according to Forbes.

Zuckerberg takes things to a whole new level. His net worth worth is $53 billion, thanks to the value of Facebook stock. Lastly, Bill Gates regularly tops the “richest people” lists with a wealth of $75 billion – though lately that number has been a little higher based on stock fluctuations.

However, even the wealth of the richest human on Earth is not enough to get up to our unit of measurement that we use in the video: each square is equal to $100 billion.

The World’s Money

Some of the world’s biggest companies take up just a few squares with our unit of measurement. ExxonMobil for example has a market capitalization of about $350 billion, and the world’s largest public company by market capitalization, Apple, is at about $600 billion.

The total of the world’s physical currency – all coins and bills denominated in dollars, euros, yen, and other currencies – is about $5 trillion.

Meanwhile, if we add checking accounts to the equation, the number for the amount of money in the world goes up to $28.6 trillionaccording to the CIA World Factbook. This is called “narrow money”.

Add all money market, savings, and time deposits, and the number jumps up to $80.9 trillion – or “broad money”.

But that’s nothing compared to the world of Wall Street.

Wall Street

All stock markets added together are worth $70 trillion, and global debt is $199 trillion.

That’s all impressive, but the derivatives market takes the cake. Derivatives are contracts between parties that derive value from the performance of underlying assets, indices, or entities. On the low end, the notional value of the derivatives market is estimated to be a whopping $630 trillion according to the Bank of International Settlements.

However, that only accounts for OTC (over-the-counter) derivatives, and the truth is that no one actually knows the size of the derivatives market. It’s been estimated by some that it could be as high as $1.2 quadrillion, and others estimate it could be even higher.

There are many financial critics who worry about the risk that these contracts pile onto the global financial system. With the sheer size of the derivative market dwarfing all others, it’s understandable why business mogul Warren Buffett has called derivatives “financial weapons of mass destruction”.

About the Money Project

The Money Project aims to use intuitive visualizations to explore ideas around the very concept of money itself. Founded in 2015 byVisual Capitalist and Texas Precious Metals, the Money Project will look at the evolving nature of money, and will try to answer the difficult questions that prevent us from truly understanding the role that money plays in finance, investments, and accumulating wealth.

The post How Much Money Have Humans Created? appeared first on Gold And Liberty.

Four of the world’s biggest banks and one of the largest brokers in the world have teamed up to create a new blockchain based currency, the Utility Settlement Coin, which would be used to clear and settle financial market trades. UBS, Deutsche Bank, Santander and BNY Mellon, as well as the broker ICAP, are lobbying Central Banks to get on board with the idea and they hope for a USC commercial launch by early 2018.

When the concept of the USC first made mainstream headlines in late August, the reports mainly stuck to the basic facts in the joint press release, as outlined above, and few analysts and commentators endeavored to go deeper into the details. It’s in these details, however, where the real story lies.

The benefits, as advertised 

The aim of this disruptive new technology is to speed up clearing and settlement processes in financial markets, by opening up access to resources and systems so far exclusive to central banks: the real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system (used for high-value transactions that need to be settled instantly), and central bank-issued cash.

By switching clearing and settlement to a blockchain based system, the banks could restructure and cut costs on their back office operations, by eliminating the need for trade processing and record keeping; this would allow them to put both time and resources to better use. Or as UBS’s Hyder Jaffrey put it: “What that allows us to do is to take away the time these processes take, such as waiting for payment to arrive. That frees up capital trapped during the process.”.

The benefits of faster, cheaper clearance and real-time settlement could also conceivably “trickle down” to clients, allowing the banks to provide their services for a better price. After all, the scale of the problem USC aims to do away with is significant: The total cost to the finance industry of clearing and settling trades is estimated at $65bn-$80bn a year, according to a report by Oliver Wyman.

Another projected advantage of the new system is the transparency and “provability” that is inherent in the blockchain technology. The distributed ledger means that every user has a copy of all the transactions, constantly and automatically updated, thereby minimizing the possibility of human error, record manipulation and tampering. In this sense, the USC could increase security and eliminate the need for trust in transactions.

The nuts and bolts

The USC, developed by Clearmatics Technologies, is a hybrid of a digital currency and a settlement system. It implements blockchain technology and would be entirely backed by cash assets held at a central bank. It will be convertible at parity with all the main currencies including USD, EUR, GBP and CHF. The blockchain technology is indeed the most important and innovative element of this system, as it enables the users to record and distribute details about the ownership and the transfer of assets, optimizing traditional processes. The bank consortium believes that USC will become an “industry standard” to clear and settle financial trades over blockchain, used officially between major financial institutions.

Many have described the USC as a “bitcoin for banks”, a reference to the cryptocurrency that has polarized public and expert opinion over the last years. However, unlike bitcoin, the USC is not a new decentralized standalone currency, but rather a digital counterpart of the existing major currencies, backed by Central Banks; UBS has made it clear that using the USC would be equivalent to using the real corresponding currency. The only thing bitcoin actually has in common with the USC is that they both use the blockchain technology. What this means in practical terms, is that the new “coins” will be stored on a network of computers, and after all of them confirm that a transaction has indeed taken place, the details will be recorded in the “chain”, in computer code. This chain, or distributed ledger, will be constantly updated with all new transactions and the records, securely encrypted, will be accessible by everyone in the system; they are however tamper-proof, timestamped and cross-verified by the entire network. As shown in the diagram below, this new system eliminates the need for a central authority or regulator.

Traditional clearance and settlement process vs. distributed ledger technology

The USC can be seen as “cash” only within this settlement system, and even then the role it plays is more akin to a token, or an accounting unit. However, this “currency” element sets this venture apart from numerous other attempts to use the blockchain technology to reduce costs in the financial industry. And as the consortium behind the USC is lobbying central banks to accept their system as a universal clearing platform, they hope this will give them a decisive advantage: “Digital cash is a core component of a future financial market fabric based on blockchain technologies. There are several digital cash models being explored across the Street. The Utility Settlement Coin is focused on facilitating a new model for digital central bank cash.”, said Hyder Jaffrey, head of fintech innovation at UBS.

Criticism and Risks

The concept, as presented, promises optimized efficiency for all parties involved and a modernized, streamlined new settlement system that cuts costs and frees up frozen capital. A number of potential risks and complications, however, start popping up when one takes a closer look at the premises and assumptions that the USC is founded on, as well as the possible consequences that might follow, should these requirements be met.

Initial doubts concern the realistic chances that such a concept could really be implemented, and successfully make the transition from theory into practice. For the USC to work, it would take more than four banks to accept and adopt it; broad industry acceptance would be an essential requirement. That seems particularly challenging in a time when competing concepts abound: There’s already competition from projects like Citibank’s Citicoin, Goldman Sachs’ SETLcoin, while only recently several major Japanese banks announced they are working on their own blockchain settlement system, similar to the USC, and the European Securities and Markets Authority, as well as the Bank of Russia, are also developing their versions. A recent World Economic Forum report revealed that by 2017, 80% of all global commercial banks will have initiated projects using the blockchain technology. It’s hard to imagine a smooth road ahead for the USC to prevail as the global industry standard.

Assuming this first hurdle is successfully overcome, more serious concerns would arise. Apart from potential vulnerabilities that arise from the fact that the USC, as presented, would be a digital “currency”, backed by a basket of fiat currencies, in turn backed and controlled by Central Banks, the operational problems go beyond that. As Bloomberg’s Matt Levine wrote, regarding the true nature of the USC’s stated functional aim, “You don’t get your dollars any faster; you just get your pseudo-dollars faster. To get the dollars faster, you’d need to speed up the Fed’s central-ledger technology. But for many purposes — for example, just doing more transactions with other banks — the pseudo-dollars are just as good as dollars. If every bank signs on for this, then they can go out and buy more securities with their pseudo-dollars, and rarely need to bother with the Fed.”

The consortium proclaims that the USC will be entirely backed by Central Bank assets, and therefore would, in essence, be a Central Bank Coin, with the all the guarantees and assurances that involves. However, the platform itself would be owned and operated privately, while the blockchain “self-verifying” capabilities give banks a technical excuse to circumvent existing processes, allowing them to settle without having to pledge collateral at central banks as they do today. Concerns over abuse of the system, as well as possible security breaches of such a global scale, take center-stage, since at the end of the day, all the risk of potential recklessness is outsourced to the underlying “backer”, the Central Banks and ultimately the tax payers; perhaps a moment of deja-vu, echoing the build-up to the post-2008 bailouts.

This article originally appeared on Mountain Vision, and was written by Chief Investment Officer Dirk Steinhoff.

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This article is based on an interview by Andy Duncan (FinLingo.com) with Claudio Grass, managing director of Global Gold Switzerland, a precious metals boutique designed to offer rock solid solution during a harsh (banking) crisis.

How do you see the current situation in banking particularly in Europe?

One interesting indicator is that today not bankers make the highest average salaries any longer but they have been replaced with government servants. Overall I would say it is bad, but that was predictable. The system and the assumptions underlying the whole sector is just not sustainable, and printing money out of thin air does not create wealth as it meantime is clear that it is destroying capital in the form of savings. All the state interventions have backfired and the current monetary policy with low / negative interest rates are putting an insupportable pressure on the banks. Actors have been allowed to get away with reckless and catastrophic positions for too long. The history of bailouts has sent the message that such actions don’t really have consequences, and therefore my understanding is that moral hazard and risk linked to it have increased.

Do you think we ever actually got out of the 2008 crisis or do you think that this money printing and quantitative easing has just been keeping that crisis on ice?

The mainstream narrative is that the sluggish growth we have seen over the last year’s is a part of the recovery process, and it’s only because of unexpected demand such as the refugee crisis, tensions with Russia and so on. So these are the excuses that the economy has been so asthmatic, and in my view this is a poor excuse for a failing system. The problems are structural, and all of the states’ effort to patch them up are in vein. Therefore QE and low rates are the economic equivalent of an artificial coma so they didn’t fix any of the problems from 2008, they simply postponed in the enitable hoping for a miracle.

Deutsche Bank in Germany has been in the news most recently, and they do look to be in serious trouble. There has been lots of graphs in newspapers showing a similar share price movement to Deutsche Bank as compared to Lehman Brothers 8 years ago. Now Deutsche has this massive 14 billion dollar fine from the US regulators, and Chancellor Merkel said she is not going to bail them out. If Deutsche Bank would go bankrupt, do you think that the central banks would then just bail them out anyway?

You heard the same message from the Italian banks. Both countries’ governments have indeed made it clear in public that there is no chance of bailouts. However, since the problems keep getting worse, and the toxic infection in the banking system is becoming a real issue, I would not be surprised if they reverse their position and go ahead with more bailouts. I really believe that they are trapped. If they let a bank like DB go under a lot of savers will suffer a serious hit; if they bail out it will be at the expense of even more tax payers. If they fail it will be a sound choice but
both are politically problematic, and, at the end of the day, it will always be a political decision.

I would imagine that they will get bailed out but won’t this cause Chancellor Merkel all sorts of political problems with the Italians because they have been told that their banks cannot be bailed out. To your point, isn’t a political solution of bailing out going to create a huge political problem between Italy and Germany?

I really believe they will always come up with a political solution. If they are going to support Deutsche Bank, then basically they would also have to support the Italian banks. That’s the way it has been in the past. I think they will stick to the same mechanisms in the future.

What do you think this will do to currencies like the euro if the ECB just prints a huge fest of trillion euro notes to bail all these different banks out, particularly in Spain and Italy, as well as in Germany? What do you think this will do to currencies: will the central banks around the world get together to manage that situation?

Most people don’t understand money. However, it becomes more and more obvious that people feel uncomfortable when they hear about trillions of currency checked into the financial system. People are increasingly asking themselves where this money is coming from, and the explanation they hear is that central banks can create this out of thin air. I always underline that if we will do the same on a private basis we would go to jail. So overall a lot of people have realized that we are in a hard currency war for years already, and that everything goes on until it stops. So the question is how much more can they print in euros before the euro itself is going down to its intrinsic value which 0? We can see so many cracks within the Eurozone that it is question of time when exactly it will break up. I might be that the euro is going to fail before the Eurozone breaks apart as a political construct. Therefore I will not rule out another hard euro crisis in the near future.

Listen in to the interview to hear the remaining discussion about the following topics:

• Could the Eurozone actually bring down the EU as well as have terrible repercussions for the banking system?
• As an Austrian economist what should be done in this situation: should the whole of banking system just be allowed to find its own feet or or should the chip should just fall where they will?
• How to protect from rapidly depreciating currencies? Hint: part of the answer is owning physical gold and silver, stored outside the banking system, ideally in safe and internationally diversified jurisdictions.
• How is it to work as a Mises ambassador?
• We have seen in the last week different hedge funds pulling their money out of Deutsche Bank. What activity have you seen at Global Gold, in the gold market: are people piling into gold more in the last week?
• We have got this circle of black swans flying all around the world. At the moment, when do you think that the big crisis is going to hit? Or can you not predict that could it be tomorrow / in two years / in five years time?

(go to 7 minutes and 56 seconds)

The post Banking Crisis 2016 – A Perfect Black Swan Storm About To Hit? appeared first on Gold And Liberty.

Dr. Ron Paul reveals in this video how a UK based PR firm “Bell Pottinger” was paid more than half a billion dollars to create false videos and other propaganda operations in support of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. Dozens of other firms also had Pentagon contracts to spin the war.

Mr. Paul asks his audience: “Are we being propagandized with our own money?”

A must-listen.

From RT.com:

The Pentagon paid a UK PR firm half a billion dollars to create fake terrorist videos in Iraq in a secret propaganda campaign exposed by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

PR firm Bell Pottinger, known for its array of controversial clients including the Saudi government and Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s foundation, worked with the US military to create the propaganda in a secretive operation.

The firm reported to the CIA, the National Security Council and the Pentagon on the project with a mandate to portray Al-Qaeda in a negative light and track suspected sympathizers.

Both the White House and General David Petraeus, the former general who shared classified information with his mistress, signed off on the content produced by the agency.

The Bell Pottinger operation started soon after the US invasion of Iraq and was tasked with promoting the “democratic elections” for the administration before moving on to more lucrative psychological and information operations.

Former employee Martin Wells told the Bureau how he found himself working in Iraq after being hired as a video editor by Bell Pottinger. Within 48 hours, he was landing in Baghdad to edit content for secret “psychological operations” at Camp Victory.

The firm created television ads showing Al-Qaeda in a negative light as well as creating content to look as though it had come from “Arabic TV.” Crews were sent out to film bombings with low quality video. The firm would then edit it to make it look like news footage.

They would craft scripts for Arabic soap operas where characters would reject terrorism with happy consequences. The firm also created fake Al-Qaeda propaganda videos, which were then planted by the military in homes they raided.

Employees were given specific instructions to create the videos. “We need to make this style of video and we’ve got to use Al-Qaeda’s footage,” Wells was told. “We need it to be 10 minutes long, and it needs to be in this file format, and we need to encode it in this manner.”

The videos were created to play on Real Player which needs an internet connection to run. The CDs were embedded with a code linking to Google Analytics which allowed the military to track IP addresses that the videos were played on.

According to Wells, the videos were picked up in Iran, Syria, and the US.

“If one, 48 hours or a week later shows up in another part of the world, then that’s the more interesting one,” Wells explained. “And that’s what they’re looking for more, because that gives you a trail.”

The Pentagon confirmed the PR firm did work for them under the Information Operations Task Force (IOTF) creating content they say was “truthful.” The firm also worked under the Joint Psychological Operations Task Force (JPOTF). The Pentagon said it could not comment on JPOTF operations.

US law prohibits the government from using propaganda on its population, hence the use of an outside firm to create the content.

Documents show the Pentagon paid $540 million to Bell Pottinger in contracts between 2007 and 2011, with another contract for $120 million in 2006. The firm ended its work with the Pentagon in 2011.

In 2009, it was reported that the Pentagon had hired controversial PR firm, The Rendon Group, to monitor the reporting of journalists embedded with the US military, to assess whether they were giving “positive” coverage to its missions.

It was also revealed in 2005 that Washington based PR company the Lincoln Group had been placing articles in newspapers in Iraq which were secretly written by the US military. A Pentagon investigation cleared the group of any wrongdoing.

The post PR Firm Gets $500 Million To Spin Iraq War appeared first on Gold And Liberty.

The decision of Britain to leave the European Union had emerged as a significant element in the turning of the economy of the UK. The split of Britain and European Union had made a serious impact on the stock markets, flow of investments, value of currency and other economic indicators.

Economists did their analysis of the post breakup with Brussels and stated that it would shake the global economy. As Britain announced their exit on June 23, the world economy experienced several fluctuations in the economic indicators. The immediate repercussions were the fall of sterling, low investments, and downslide of stock markets. The equities, commodities, currencies, stock futures, bonds and stocks were sold off due to fear across the world. There was panic that lead to forced selling by the traders to hedge against the risk.  Hence, the sterling plunged to its worst fall against the dollar claiming it as a Black Day.

But Wait… there’s a positive trend emerging

There are two sides to the coin, the positive side of the BREXIT is now emerging; leaving all the concerns behind, the economic index has surged and many indicators are positive. The figures have come across as a sigh of relief for investors and have performed better in the short term than anticipated. The upside of economic figures has emerged as a positive that may set moods of good business sentiment. The analysis and charts are actually not depicting a gloomy story of Post –Brexit; with the result figures, we are witnessing an upside in terms of trade, growth, consumer spending, and business sentiment.

The economic data after split have not shown any sign of economic collapse, as visualized in several charts with positive post-Brexit data points (source: Bloomberg). The early days may have to experience a slow start but the results are reassuring by far. Campaigns declaring a deep economic shock have proven to be false as the share prices have increased.  Now, it is visible that consumers have been patient and have ignored the gloomy predictions. The repercussions were exaggerated and are promising for the future of UK. Another segment which has shown signs of stabilization post vote is the housing sector. The market has recovered substantially after June and has potential demand.

Does this indicate a meaningful Business Rebound?

Still so far, markets have not been damaged by Brexit. Long term investors must hold their shares as history indicates that markets recover after financial crisis steadily. The future is challenging ahead but central banks have thought of easing the monetary policies to boost the growth of the nation. It has been done to deal with the uncertainties caused due to the exit of Britain from EU. The Central Bank would act as a shock absorber against any fallout due to uncertainty.

Though today, Britain is experiencing an uncertain period, there are hopes of negotiation deals for faster growth and development of new immigration policies. The markets’ fall was short lived because the index is majorly dominated by the multinational or transnational enterprises, who earn revenue from overseas. The profit is largely related with dollar linked currencies and hence they are shielded by the exit of Britain.

Overall, Britain has recovered from the initial shock but still is in the midst of economic recovery. With political stability, the UK markets have plenty of room to bounce back. With subsequent recovery, investors hope to gain confidence and opt for long term investments. The concern for Britain is the deficit of government budgets; today it needs inflows of funds for investment that may boost the economy upside. Business rebound and improvement in service sector can be the key to success with rise in employment, and higher tax receipts. The efforts should be made to reduce the government deficit that would lead to economic development.

The post 4 Charts Showing Positive Post-Brexit Economic Trends appeared first on Gold And Liberty.

You read that right. Not only is Italy selling 50-year bonds, but people are lining up buy them.

Italy’s first 50-year bond sale had huge demand

(Reuters) – Italy sold its first 50-year bond on Tuesday as some investors bet the European Central Bank may soon add ultra-long debt to its asset-purchase stimulus scheme.About 16.5 billion euros of orders were placed for the bond – 5-1/2 times the expected sale amount, despite concerns over Italy’s banks and an upcoming referendum that could unseat its prime minister.

Many of the fund managers who lend to Italy – and those who have already bought 50-year bonds from France, Belgium and Spain this year – may not live to see it paid back. Those who signed up to Ireland’s 100-year bond in March almost certainly won’t.

But they could make quick gains if the ECB extends the maturity limit on its bond-buying scheme later this year, in an attempt to prolong its 1.7 trillion euro programme.

Analysts say such a move could be among tweaks expected in December to allow the central bank to continue quantitative easing beyond its scheduled end in March 2017.

“It is one of the least sensitive options from a political, technical and legal perspective,” said Frederik Ducrozet, senior European economist at Swiss wealth manager Pictet.

For those not familiar with Italy, a good place to start is the Wikipedia list of Italian prime ministers. Spoiler alert: They’ve had a million of them, and few have lasted more than a couple of years. This is the quintessential ungovernable society.

Meanwhile, its banks are pretty much zombies, loaded with fatal levels of bad debt but still shambling around thanks to repeated bailouts. The government runs consistently excessive deficits, so its debt load is growing at an unsustainable rate. And its people are more worried about protecting antiquated labor and tax regulations than competing successfully in a modern global economy.

And yet bond investors love the country’s debt. The reason, as the above article explains, is that no one thinks of these bonds as Italian. Once the ECB buys them up (at a nice premium to the initial sale price) they’ll become, in effect, German debt, guaranteed, via the ECB, by that much stronger, better managed economy.

So in the minds of bond buyers they’re not lending money for 50 years, but more like six months, until the ECB starts snapping them up. Which means the ECB is, in effect, directly funding the Italian government with newly-created Euros. Italy – and the rest of the peripheral eurozone countries – are thus handed an effectively-unlimited credit card allowing them to spend whatever they want, safe in the knowledge that it’s all covered by their friends in Brussels and Berlin.

Wonder how they’ll handle that freedom?

By John Rubino | Original source DollarCollapse.com

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In a sharp deterioration of relations, the U.S. on Monday suspended diplomatic contacts with Russia over Syria, while Moscow halted cooperation on a joint program for disposal of weapons-grade plutonium.

The U.S. move followed a threat last week from Secretary of State John Kerry after new Russian and Syrian attacks on the city of Aleppo. The State Department said Russia had not lived up to the terms of an agreement last month to restore the cease-fire and ensure sustained deliveries of humanitarian aid to besieged cities.

“This is not a decision that was taken lightly,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement. “Unfortunately, Russia failed to live up to its own commitments … and was also either unwilling or unable to ensure Syrian regime adherence to the arrangements to which Moscow agreed.”

“Rather, Russia and the Syrian regime have chosen to pursue a military course, inconsistent with the Cessation of Hostilities, as demonstrated by their intensified attacks against civilian areas, targeting of critical infrastructure such as hospitals, and preventing humanitarian aid from reaching civilians in need, including through the September 19 attack on a humanitarian aid convoy,” he said.

An airstrike last month hit a United Nations humanitarian aid convoy, killing 20 people. The United States has accused Russia of hitting the convoy, but both Russia and Syria deny it.

Monday’s announcement came just hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin suspended a Russia-U.S. deal on the disposal of weapons-grade plutonium, in a move that also underscored rising tensions between Washington and Moscow.

Putin’s decree cited Washington’s “unfriendly actions” and the United States’ inability to fulfill its obligations under the 2000 deal as reasons for the move. Under the agreement, which was expanded in 2006 and 2010, Russia and the U.S. each were to dispose of 34 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium, enough material for about 17,000 nuclear warheads.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said patience had run out with Russia.

“What is clear is that there is nothing more for the United States and Russia to talk about with regard to stopping the ongoing violence in Syria and that is unfortunate,” he told reporters.

He said the U.S. would withdraw personnel that it had dispatched to take part in the creation of a joint U.S.-Russia center that was to have coordinated military cooperation and intelligence had the cease-fire taken hold. The suspension will not affect communications between the two countries aimed at de-conflicting counter-terrorism operations in Syria.

Last week, amid the deteriorating conditions, Kerry threatened to suspend contacts with Russia unless “immediate” action was taken to ease the situation. Despite no improvements, however, he did not order the suspension until Monday.

Original source: NBCNews.com

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Join us tonight for an information packed show as we break down the latest news in the first hour followed by economist Joseph E. Meyer in the second hour.

With the 2016 Presidential election under a month away we will be covering the important news related to the election. Wikileaks continues to release Hillary Clinton emails and we will be covering the important and relevant emails as well as other geopolitical news.

In the second hour we will be joined by Economist Joseph E. Meyer – President of Meyer and Associates. Joseph Meyer continues to be a solid and informative guest on local and national television and radio programs centered on investment related issues and the process of arbitration/mediation in both the NASD and the NYSE. He is featured on many of the nation’s most notable national and international radio and television outlets, as well as newspapers and magazines. His website can be found here –www.straightmoneyanalysis.com/

Courtesy of www.HagmannAndHagmann.com

The post News followed by Economist Joseph E. Meyer On The Hagmann Report appeared first on Gold And Liberty.

“People don’t trust Hillary Clinton, and no one can agree on why,” begins a sympathetic piece on the Democratic Party presidential candidate in Fast Company last July.

In a CNN poll that same month, only 30 percent of Americans believed Clinton to be “honest and trustworthy.”

If voters don’t know what to make of Clinton or how to read her, the blame may lie directly with the candidate herself. In an April 2013 speech made public by WikiLeaks last week, Clinton confided:

Politics is like sausage being made. It is unsavory, and it always has been that way, but we usually end up where we need to be. But if everybody’s watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position.

That last “public vs. private” comment quickly made the media rounds, and confirmed – for her critics – Clinton’s deliberate duplicity on a number of policy positions.

WikiLeaks has provided an opportunity to delve into some of these, so let’s take a look at one very prominent feature of Clinton’s foreign policy agenda: Syria, a country that stands at the center of a potential global confrontation today.

Not a Syrian uprising; a regime change plan

A 2012 email released by WikiLeaks last year shows that, behind the scenes, Clinton’s State Department was calculating its Syria policy using entirely different metrics than its publicly-stated narrative of supporting reforms and rejecting violence:

It is the strategic relationship between Iran and the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria that makes it possible for Iran to undermine Israel’s security — not through a direct attack, which in the thirty years of hostility between Iran and Israel has never occurred, but through its proxies in Lebanon, like Hezbollah, that are sustained, armed and trained by Iran via Syria. The end of the Assad regime would end this dangerous alliance. Israel’s leadership understands well why defeating Assad is now in its interests.

The email, written by an unidentified person and included within the WikiLeaks ‘Clinton archive,’ lays out a plan:

Washington should start by expressing its willingness to work with regional allies like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar to organize, train and arm Syrian rebel forces. The announcement of such a decision would, by itself, likely cause substantial defections from the Syrian military. Then, using territory in Turkey and possibly Jordan, US diplomats and Pentagon officials can start strengthening the opposition… Arming the Syrian rebels and using Western air power to ground Syrian helicopters and airplanes is a low-cost high payoff approach.

Arming a Syrian rebellion from outside the country was already a consideration “from the very beginning,” according to a recent WikiLeaks release of a June 2013 speech by Clinton:

So, the problem for the US and the Europeans has been from the very beginning: What is it you – who is it you are going to try to arm. And you probably read in the papers my view was we should try to find some of the groups that were there that we thought we could build relationships with and develop some covert connections that might then at least give us some insight into what is going on inside Syria.

Certainly, we know that by early 2012, the Obama and Erdogan administrations had struck a deal to establish a rat-line transporting weapons and ammunition from Libya to Syria – via the CIA and MI6, and funded by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The attack on the US consulate in Benghazi which killed US Ambassador Christopher Stevens was only a temporary setback. Weapons and financial assistance to militants in Syria, however, continued to flow from America’s regional allies without any US pushback, even though Washington clearly knew arms were being siphoned to extremists.

A declassified DIA document from August 2012 circulated to Clinton’s State Department states plainly that “the Salafist, Muslim Brotherhood and AQI (Al-Qaeda in Iraq) are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria” and that “the West, Gulf countries and Turkey support the opposition.”

But if US Special Forces were involved in driving arms and fighters into Syria in early 2012, the groundwork would have had to have begun many, many months before. The US military’s unconventional warfare (UW) strategyrequires that target-state population perceptions are first “groomed” into accepting an armed insurrection, using “propaganda and political and psychological efforts to discredit the government”…creating “local and national ‘agitation’”…helping organize “boycotts, strikes and other efforts to suggest public discontent”…before beginning the “infiltration of foreign organizers and advisors and foreign propaganda, material, money, weapons and equipment.”

You get an idea of how this “propaganda” and “grooming” works in a June 2011 email from Clinton’s recently-departed Director of Policy Planning Anne-Marie Slaughter, who openly calls for fabricating sectarian narratives to incite Syrian protestors:

This suggests US should be making much more of the ways in which Syrian regime is simulating violence. Can’t we call for a meeting of the UNSC where we do not call for action but simply present information along the lines of what is recounted below so as to ‘bring it to the attention of the Council’ in a way that then has greater credibility globally? Making the point repeatedly that the regime wants this to look like/turn into sectarian violence? At the very least that can be broadcast back into Syria in various ways that will encourage protestors. There is an information war going on; we can do much more to elevate and legitimate the truth.

This is business as usual for a US State Department well-versed in sowing sectarian discord in the Middle East – all while publicly denouncing sectarian strife. A WikiLeaks email from 2006 shows that this thinking was already well-entrenched in Foggy Bottom, with a focus on “exploiting vulnerabilities” – particularly “sectarian” ones – inside Syria.

Fueling the sectarian Jihad

By late 2011, US intelligence had assessed that Al-Qaeda was operating inside Syria. This information was public, but not widely disseminated. Instead, Clinton’s team focused heavily on flogging the narrative that “Assad must go” because of his government’s widespread human rights violations.

Clinton liberally used the “humanitarian” pretext to advance a regime change agenda – pushing, behind the scenes, for increased assistance to militants and direct US military intervention, while publicly decrying the escalating violence inside Syria.

But did she give a toss about keeping Syrians safe? The evidence suggests otherwise. In this new WikiLeaks release of a speech to the Jewish United Fund in August 2013 – “flagged,” incidentally, by her staffers who worried about its content – Clinton outlines one possible Syria policy option:

One way is a very hands off, step back, we don’t have a dog in this hunt, let them kill themselves until they get exhausted, and then we’ll figure out how to deal with what the remnants are. That’s a position held by people who believe there is no way, not just for the United States but others, to stop the killing before the people doing the killing and the return killing are tired of killing each other. So it’s a very hands off approach.

To any observer of the foreign-fueled Syrian war of attrition, it looks very much like Clinton opted for this course of action.

And given that Washington’s allies in the Syrian fight consisted mainly of head-chopping, jihadist foot soldiers, Clinton’s scenario of a killing field to keep all sides “exhausted” may have even been the starting plan.

These fighters came equipped with a militant, sectarian mindset courtesy of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar – under the supervision, of course, of a CIA that cut its teeth doing the exact same thing with the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan.

A WikiLeaks email sent from Hillary Clinton to her now-campaign chief John Podesta in August 2014 shows that the former Secretary of State is fully aware that her allies were partial to supporting terrorists:

While this military/paramilitary operation is moving forward, we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.

Qatar and Saudi Arabia are, of course, two staunch US allies in the region that host American military bases and, apparently, also support ISIL.

Another October 2013 Clinton speech “flagged” by her campaign staff, and released by WikiLeaks this week, has her saying:

The Saudis and others are shipping large amounts of weapons – and pretty indiscriminately – not at all targeted toward the people that we think would be the more moderate, least likely, to cause problems in the future.

The State Department knows all too well that both fighters and weapons are fungible in the Syrian militant marketplace. It is a key reason the US has always resisted naming those groups it considers “moderate” rebels. Arms and supplies to US-backed groups have often found their way to ISIL and Al-Qaeda, with photo evidence aplenty making the social media rounds.

Despite these loaded disclosures, Clinton and other US policymakers still flog outdated narratives about an “evil Syrian regime killing innocent civilians” while ignoring the narrative they know to be true: bloodthirsty jihadists armed to the teeth by ideologically-aligned US allies.

This Syrian conflict – privately, at least – is about regime change at all costs for the hawkish side of the policy establishment which includes the CIA, Pentagon brass and Clinton. Publicly, however, it’s still about “crimes against humanity” – whatever that means today.

Earlier this month, Clinton began to publicly reveal that truth in advance of the November presidential election. Reuters reports Clinton as saying “removing President Bashar al-Assad is the top priority in Syria.”

She is also once again touting a “no-fly zone” over Syria – much as she did with Libya. In yet another speech ‘flagged’ by her campaign and released by WikiLeaks – this one delivered to Goldman Sachs at their CEO conference in June 2013 – Clinton explains:

To have a no-fly zone you have to take out all of the air defense, many of which are located in populated areas. So our missiles, even if they are standoff missiles so we’re not putting our pilots at risk – you’re going to kill a lot of Syrians. So all of a sudden this intervention that people talk about so glibly becomes an American and NATO involvement where you take a lot of civilians.

So Clinton is advocating for a no-fly zone despite the fact that she recognizes she’s “going to kill a lot of Syrians.” Which then puts that other speech of hers about letting Syrians “kill themselves until they get exhausted” into context.

Her only regional allies in this endeavor will be the Saudis and Qataris, who we now know support ISIL and other terrorists inside Syria. We also know that Clinton will continue to ignore this indiscretion – not because of what she says, but because of what she does.

Her public-versus-private position on the Saudis, after all, has been bandied about since the 2010 WikiLeaks State Department cables were released.

In 2009, a secret WikiLeaks cable signed off by then- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reads, in part:

Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide…Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, LeT (Laskhar-e Taiba), and other terrorist groups…It has been an ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority.

Yet by 2011, Clinton was ushering through the biggest weapons sale to Saudi Arabia in US history – a massive $67 Billion arms dump into the epicenter of global terror.

Clinton is not averse to cashing in on Saudi riches for her and her family’s foundation either. The Clinton Foundation has received millions of dollars from Saudi, Qatari and other Gulf sources, despite the role their governments have played in funding global Jihad. And her campaign manager’s brother, Tony Podesta, just signed on to furnish the Saudi government with very expensive public relations services earlier this year.

There is something schizophrenic about Hillary Clinton’s compartmentalization of issues that speaks to the very competence of her judgment. Her whole private-versus-public-positions shtick is antithetical to the transparency, process and accountability demanded by democracy.

She speaks of her Iraq “mistake,” yet we have still not heard what lessons she has learned. And it grates, because we can see she has repeated them again and again, in Libya and in Syria.

The “public” Hillary Clinton supports self-determination, freedom and human rights for Syrians. The “private” Hillary Clinton supports the wholesale massacre of Syrians by a closely allied network of depraved sectarian terrorists – in order to weaken Iran and strengthen Israel.

If you’re one of those Americans who don’t trust her, you have good reason. At this point it is hard to ascertain if Clinton herself knows what her truth is anymore.

Reprinted from RT.

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The term “New Middle East” was introduced to the world in June 2006 in Tel Aviv by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (who was credited by the Western media for coining the term) in replacement of the older and more imposing term, the “Greater Middle East.”

This shift in foreign policy phraseology coincided with the inauguration of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Oil Terminal in the Eastern Mediterranean. The term and conceptualization of the “New Middle East,” was subsequently heralded by the U.S. Secretary of State and the Israeli Prime Minister at the height of  the Anglo-American sponsored Israeli siege of Lebanon. Prime Minister Olmert and Secretary Rice had informed the international media that a project for a “New Middle East” was being launched from Lebanon.

This announcement was a confirmation of an Anglo-American-Israeli “military roadmap” in the Middle East. This project, which has been in the  planning stages for several years, consists in creating an arc of instability, chaos, and violence extending from Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria to Iraq, the Persian Gulf, Iran, and the borders of NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan.

The “New Middle East” project was introduced publicly by Washington and Tel Aviv with the expectation that Lebanon would be the pressure point for realigning the whole Middle East and thereby unleashing the forces of “constructive chaos.” This “constructive chaos” –which generates conditions of violence and warfare throughout the region– would in turn be used so that the United States, Britain, and Israel could redraw the map of the Middle East in accordance with their geo-strategic needs and objectives.

New Middle East Map

Secretary Condoleezza Rice stated during a press conference that “[w]hat we’re seeing here [in regards to the destruction of Lebanon and the Israeli attacks on Lebanon], in a sense, is the growing—the ‘birth pangs’—of a ‘New Middle East’ and whatever we do we [meaning the United States] have to be certain that we’re pushing forward to the New Middle East [and] not going back to the old one.”1 Secretary Rice was immediately criticized for her statements both within Lebanon and internationally for expressing indifference to the suffering of an entire nation, which was being bombed  indiscriminately by the Israeli Air Force.

The Anglo-American Military Roadmap in the Middle East and Central Asia 

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s speech on the “New Middle East” had set the stage. The Israeli attacks on Lebanon –which had been fully endorsed by Washington and London– have further compromised and validated the existence of the geo-strategic objectives of the United States, Britain, and Israel. According to Professor Mark Levine the “neo-liberal globalizers and neo-conservatives, and ultimately the Bush Administration, would latch on to creative destruction as a way of describing the process by which they hoped to create their new world orders,” and that “creative destruction [in] the United States was, in the words of neo-conservative philosopher and Bush adviser Michael Ledeen, ‘an awesome revolutionary force’ for (…) creative destruction…”2

Anglo-American occupied Iraq, particularly Iraqi Kurdistan, seems to be the preparatory ground for the balkanization (division) and finlandization (pacification) of the Middle East. Already the legislative framework, under the Iraqi Parliament and the name of Iraqi federalization, for the partition of Iraq into three portions is being drawn out. (See map below)

Moreover, the Anglo-American military roadmap appears to be vying an entry into Central Asia via the Middle East. The Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are stepping stones for extending U.S. influence into the former Soviet Union and the ex-Soviet Republics of Central Asia. The Middle East is to some extent the southern tier of Central Asia. Central Asia in turn is also termed as “Russia’s Southern Tier” or the Russian “Near Abroad.”

Many Russian and Central Asian scholars, military planners, strategists, security advisors, economists, and politicians consider Central Asia (“Russia’s Southern Tier”) to be the vulnerable and “soft under-belly” of the Russian Federation.3

It should be noted that in his book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geo-strategic Imperatives, Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former U.S. National Security Advisor, alluded to the modern Middle East as a control lever of an area he, Brzezinski, calls the Eurasian Balkans. The Eurasian Balkans consists of the Caucasus (Georgia, the Republic of Azerbaijan, and Armenia) and Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan) and to some extent both Iran and Turkey. Iran and Turkey both form the northernmost tiers of the Middle East (excluding the Caucasus4) that edge into Europe and the former Soviet Union.

The Map of the “New Middle East”

A relatively unknown map of the Middle East, NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan, and Pakistan has been circulating around strategic, governmental, NATO, policy and military circles since mid-2006. It has been causally allowed to surface in public, maybe in an attempt to build consensus and to slowly prepare the general public for possible, maybe even cataclysmic, changes in the Middle East. This is a map of a redrawn and restructured Middle East identified as the “New Middle East.”

MAP OF THE NEW MIDDLE EAST

Note: The following map was prepared by Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters. It was published in the Armed Forces Journal in June 2006, Peters is a retired colonel of the U.S. National War Academy. (Map Copyright Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters 2006).

Although the map does not officially reflect Pentagon doctrine, it has been used in a training program at NATO’s Defense College for senior military officers. This map, as well as other similar maps, has most probably been used at the National War Academy as well as in military planning circles.

This map of the “New Middle East” seems to be based on several other maps, including older maps of potential boundaries in the Middle East extending back to the era of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and World War I. This map is showcased and presented as the brainchild of retired Lieutenant-Colonel (U.S. Army) Ralph Peters, who believes the redesigned borders contained in the map will fundamentally solve the problems of the contemporary Middle East.

The map of the “New Middle East” was a key element in the retired Lieutenant-Colonel’s book, Never Quit the Fight, which was released to the public on July 10, 2006. This map of a redrawn Middle East was also published, under the title of Blood Borders: How a better Middle East would look, in the U.S. military’s Armed Forces Journal with commentary from Ralph Peters.5

It should be noted that Lieutenant-Colonel Peters was last posted to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, within the U.S. Defence Department, and has been one of the Pentagon’s foremost authors with numerous essays on strategy for military journals and U.S. foreign policy.

It has been written that Ralph Peters’ “four previous books on strategy have been highly influential in government and military circles,” but one can be pardoned for asking if in fact quite the opposite could be taking place. Could it be Lieutenant-Colonel Peters is revealing and putting forward what Washington D.C. and its strategic planners have anticipated for the Middle East?

The concept of a redrawn Middle East has been presented as a “humanitarian” and “righteous” arrangement that would benefit the people(s) of the Middle East and its peripheral regions. According to Ralph Peter’s:

International borders are never completely just. But the degree of injustice they inflict upon those whom frontiers force together or separate makes an enormous difference — often the difference between freedom and oppression, tolerance and atrocity, the rule of law and terrorism, or even peace and war.

The most arbitrary and distorted borders in the world are in Africa and the Middle East. Drawn by self-interested Europeans (who have had sufficient trouble defining their own frontiers), Africa’s borders continue to provoke the deaths of millions of local inhabitants. But the unjust borders in the Middle East — to borrow from Churchill — generate more trouble than can be consumed locally.

While the Middle East has far more problems than dysfunctional borders alone — from cultural stagnation through scandalous inequality to deadly religious extremism — the greatest taboo in striving to understand the region’s comprehensive failure isn’t Islam, but the awful-but-sacrosanct international boundaries worshipped by our own diplomats.

Of course, no adjustment of borders, however draconian, could make every minority in the Middle East happy. In some instances, ethnic and religious groups live intermingled and have intermarried. Elsewhere, reunions based on blood or belief might not prove quite as joyous as their current proponents expect. The boundaries projected in the maps accompanying this article redress the wrongs suffered by the most significant “cheated” population groups, such as the Kurds, Baluch and Arab Shia [Muslims], but still fail to account adequately for Middle Eastern Christians, Bahais, Ismailis, Naqshbandis and many another numerically lesser minorities. And one haunting wrong can never be redressed with a reward of territory: the genocide perpetrated against the Armenians by the dying Ottoman Empire.

Yet, for all the injustices the borders re-imagined here leave unaddressed, without such major boundary revisions, we shall never see a more peaceful Middle East.

Even those who abhor the topic of altering borders would be well-served to engage in an exercise that attempts to conceive a fairer, if still imperfect, amendment of national boundaries between the Bosphorus and the Indus. Accepting that international statecraft has never developed effective tools — short of war — for readjusting faulty borders, a mental effort to grasp the Middle East’s “organic” frontiers nonetheless helps us understand the extent of the difficulties we face and will continue to face. We are dealing with colossal, man-made deformities that will not stop generating hatred and violence until they are corrected. 6

(emphasis added)

“Necessary Pain”

Besides believing that there is “cultural stagnation” in the Middle East, it must be noted that Ralph Peters admits that his propositions are “draconian” in nature, but he insists that they are necessary pains for the people of the Middle East. This view of necessary pain and suffering is in startling parallel to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s belief that the devastation of Lebanon by the Israeli military was a necessary pain or “birth pang” in order to create the “New Middle East” that Washington, London, and Tel Aviv envision.

Moreover, it is worth noting that the subject of the Armenian Genocide is being politicized and stimulated in Europe to offend Turkey.7

The overhaul, dismantlement, and reassembly of the nation-states of the Middle East have been packaged as a solution to the hostilities in the Middle East, but this is categorically misleading, false, and fictitious. The advocates of a “New Middle East” and redrawn boundaries in the region avoid and fail to candidly depict the roots of the problems and conflicts in the contemporary Middle East. What the media does not acknowledge is the fact that almost all major conflicts afflicting the Middle East are the consequence of overlapping Anglo-American-Israeli agendas.

Many of the problems affecting the contemporary Middle East are the result of the deliberate aggravation of pre-existing regional tensions. Sectarian division, ethnic tension and internal violence have been traditionally exploited by the United States and Britain in various parts of the globe including Africa, Latin America, the Balkans, and the Middle East. Iraq is just one of many examples of the Anglo-American strategy of “divide and conquer.” Other examples are Rwanda, Yugoslavia, the Caucasus, and Afghanistan.

Amongst the problems in the contemporary Middle East is the lack of genuine democracy which U.S. and British foreign policy has actually been deliberately obstructing.  Western-style “Democracy” has been a requirement only for those Middle Eastern states which do not conform to Washington’s political demands. Invariably, it constitutes a pretext for confrontation. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan are examples of undemocratic states that the United States has no problems with because they are firmly alligned within the Anglo-American orbit or sphere.

Additionally, the United States has deliberately blocked or displaced genuine democratic movements in the Middle East from Iran in 1953 (where a U.S./U.K. sponsored coup was staged against the democratic government of Prime Minister Mossadegh) to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, the Arab Sheikdoms, and Jordan where the Anglo-American alliance supports military control, absolutists, and dictators in one form or another. The latest example of this is Palestine.

The Turkish Protest at NATO’s Military College in Rome

Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters’ map of the “New Middle East” has sparked angry reactions in Turkey. According to Turkish press releases on September 15, 2006 the map of the “New Middle East” was displayed in NATO’s Military College in Rome, Italy. It was additionally reported that Turkish officers were immediately outraged by the presentation of a portioned and segmented Turkey.8 The map received some form of approval from the U.S. National War Academy before it was unveiled in front of NATO officers in Rome.

The Turkish Chief of Staff, General Buyukanit, contacted the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, and protested the event and the exhibition of the redrawn map of the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.9 Furthermore the Pentagon has gone out of its way to assure Turkey that the map does not reflect official U.S. policy and objectives in the region, but this seems to be conflicting with Anglo-American actions in the Middle East and NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan.

Is there a Connection between Zbigniew Brzezinski’s “Eurasian Balkans” and the “New Middle East” Project?

The following are important excerpts and passages from former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski’s book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geo-strategic Imperatives.Brzezinski also states that both Turkey and Iran, the two most powerful states of the “Eurasian Balkans,” located on its southern tier, are “potentially vulnerable to internal ethnic conflicts [balkanization],” and that, “If either or both of them were to be destabilized, the internal problems of the region would become unmanageable.”10

It seems that a divided and balkanized Iraq would be the best means of accomplishing this. Taking what we know from the White House’s own admissions; there is a belief that “creative destruction and chaos” in the Middle East are beneficial assets to reshaping the Middle East, creating the “New Middle East,” and furthering the Anglo-American roadmap in the Middle East and Central Asia:

In Europe, the Word “Balkans” conjures up images of ethnic conflicts and great-power regional rivalries. Eurasia, too, has its “Balkans,” but the Eurasian Balkans are much larger, more populated, even more religiously and ethnically heterogenous. They are located within that large geographic oblong that demarcates the central zone of global instability (…) that embraces portions of southeastern Europe, Central Asia and parts of South Asia [Pakistan, Kashmir, Western India], the Persian Gulf area, and the Middle East.

The Eurasian Balkans form the inner core of that large oblong (…) they differ from its outer zone in one particularly significant way: they are a power vacuum. Although most of the states located in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East are also unstable, American power is that region’s [meaning the Middle East’s] ultimate arbiter. The unstable region in the outer zone is thus an area of single power hegemony and is tempered by that hegemony. In contrast, the Eurasian Balkans are truly reminiscent of the older, more familiar Balkans of southeastern Europe: not only are its political entities unstable but they tempt and invite the intrusion of more powerful neighbors, each of whom is determined to oppose the region’s domination by another. It is this familiar combination of a power vacuum and power suction that justifies the appellation “Eurasian Balkans.”

The traditional Balkans represented a potential geopolitical prize in the struggle for European supremacy. The Eurasian Balkans, astride the inevitably emerging transportation network meant to link more directly Eurasia’s richest and most industrious western and eastern extremities, are also geopolitically significant.Moreover, they are of importance from the standpoint of security and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and more powerful neighbors, namely, Russia, Turkey, and Iran, with China also signaling an increasing political interest in the region. But the Eurasian Balkans are infinitely more important as a potential economic prize: an enormous concentration of natural gas and oil reserves is located in the region, in addition to important minerals, including gold.

 The world’s energy consumption is bound to vastly increase over the next two or three decades. Estimates by the U.S. Department of Energy anticipate that world demand will rise by more than 50 percent between 1993 and 2015, with the most significant increase in consumption occurring in the Far East. The momentum of Asia’s economic development is already generating massive pressures for the exploration and exploitation of new sources of energy, and the Central Asian region and the Caspian Sea basin are known to contain reserves of natural gas and oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea.

Access to that resource and sharing in its potential wealth represent objectives that stir national ambitions, motivate corporate interests, rekindle historical claims, revive imperial aspirations, and fuel international rivalries. The situation is made all the more volatile by the fact that the region is not only a power vacuum but is also internally unstable.

(…)

The Eurasian Balkans include nine countries that one way or another fit the foregoing description, with two others as potential candidates. The nine are Kazakstan [alternative and official spelling of Kazakhstan] , Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia—all of them formerly part of the defunct Soviet Union—as well as Afghanistan.

The potential additions to the list are Turkey and Iran, both of them much more politically and economically viable, both active contestants for regional influence within the Eurasian Balkans, and thus both significant geo-strategic players in the region. At the same time, both are potentially vulnerable to internal ethnic conflicts. If either or both of them were to be destabilized, the internal problems of the region would become unmanageable, while efforts to restrain regional domination by Russia could even become futile. 11

(emphasis added)

Redrawing the Middle East

The Middle East, in some regards, is a striking parallel to the Balkans and Central-Eastern Europe during the years leading up the First World War. In the wake of the the First World War the borders of the Balkans and Central-Eastern Europe were redrawn. This region experienced a period of upheaval, violence and conflict, before and after World War I, which was the direct result of foreign economic interests and interference.

The reasons behind the First World War are more sinister than the standard school-book explanation, the assassination of the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian (Habsburg) Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo. Economic factors were the real motivation for the large-scale war in 1914.

Norman Dodd, a former Wall Street banker and investigator for the U.S. Congress, who examined  U.S. tax-exempt foundations, confirmed in a 1982 interview that those powerful individuals who from behind the scenes controlled the finances, policies, and government of the United States had in fact also planned U.S. involvement in a war, which would contribute to entrenching their grip on power.

The following testimonial is from the transcript of Norman Dodd’s interview with G. Edward Griffin;

We are now at the year 1908, which was the year that the Carnegie Foundation began operations.  And, in that year, the trustees meeting, for the first time, raised a specific question, which they discussed throughout the balance of the year, in a very learned fashion.  And the question is this:  Is there any means known more effective than war, assuming you wish to alter the life of an entire people?  And they conclude that, no more effective means to that end is known to humanity, than war.  So then, in 1909, they raise the second question, and discuss it, namely, how do we involve the United States in a war?

Well, I doubt, at that time, if there was any subject more removed from the thinking of most of the people of this country [the United States], than its involvement in a war.  There were intermittent shows [wars] in the Balkans, but I doubt very much if many people even knew where the Balkans were.  And finally, they answer that question as follows:  we must control the State Department.

And then, that very naturally raises the question of how do we do that?  They answer it by saying, we must take over and control the diplomatic machinery of this country and, finally, they resolve to aim at that as an objective.  Then, time passes, and we are eventually in a war, which would be World War I.  At that time, they record on their minutes a shocking report in which they dispatch to President Wilson a telegram cautioning him to see that the war does not end too quickly.  And finally, of course, the war is over.

At that time, their interest shifts over to preventing what they call a reversion of life in the United States to what it was prior to 1914, when World War I broke out. (emphasis added)

The redrawing and partition of the Middle East from the Eastern Mediterranean shores of Lebanon and Syria to Anatolia (Asia Minor), Arabia, the Persian Gulf, and the Iranian Plateau responds to broad economic, strategic and military objectives, which are part of a longstanding Anglo-American and Israeli agenda in the region.

The Middle East has been conditioned by outside forces into a powder keg that is ready to explode with the right trigger, possibly the launching of Anglo-American and/or Israeli air raids against Iran and Syria. A wider war in the Middle East could result in redrawn borders that are strategically advantageous to Anglo-American interests and Israel.

NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan has been successfully divided, all but in name. Animosity has been inseminated in the Levant, where a Palestinian civil war is being nurtured and divisions in Lebanon agitated. The Eastern Mediterranean has been successfully militarized by NATO. Syria and Iran continue to be demonized by the Western media, with a view to justifying a military agenda. In turn, the Western media has fed, on a daily basis, incorrect and biased notions that the populations of Iraq cannot co-exist and that the conflict is not a war of occupation but a “civil war” characterised by domestic strife between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.

Attempts at intentionally creating animosity between the different ethno-cultural and religious groups of the Middle East have been systematic. In fact, they are part of a carefully designed covert intelligence agenda.

Even more ominous, many Middle Eastern governments, such as that of Saudi Arabia, are assisting Washington in fomenting divisions between Middle Eastern populations. The ultimate objective is to weaken the resistance movement against foreign occupation through a “divide and conquer strategy” which serves Anglo-American and Israeli interests in the broader region.

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya specializes in Middle Eastern and Central Asian affairs. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Notes

1 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Special Briefing on the Travel to the Middle East and Europe of Secretary Condoleezza Rice (Press Conference, U.S. State Department, Washington, D.C., July 21, 2006).

http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2006/69331.htm

2 Mark LeVine, “The New Creative Destruction,” Asia Times, August 22, 2006.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HH22Ak01.html

3 Andrej Kreutz, “The Geopolitics of post-Soviet Russia and the Middle East,” Arab Studies Quarterly (ASQ) (Washington, D.C.: Association of Arab-American University Graduates, January 2002).

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2501/is_1_24/ai_93458168/pg_1

4 The Caucasus or Caucasia can be considered as part of the Middle East or as a separate region

5 Ralph Peters, “Blood borders: How a better Middle East would look,” Armed Forces Journal (AFJ), June 2006.

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/06/1833899

6 Ibid.

7 Crispian Balmer, “French MPs back Armenia genocide bill, Turkey angry, Reuters, October 12, 2006; James McConalogue, “French against Turks: Talking about Armenian Genocide,” The Brussels Journal, October 10, 2006.

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1585

8 Suleyman Kurt, “Carved-up Map of Turkey at NATO Prompts U.S. Apology,” Zaman (Turkey), September 29, 2006.

http://www.zaman.com/?bl=international&alt=&hn=36919

9 Ibid.

10 Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geo-strategic Imperatives (New York City: Basic Books, 1997).

11 Ibid.

Related Global Research articles on the March to War in the Middle East

US naval war games off the Iranian coastline: A provocation which could lead to War? 2006-10-24

“Cold War Shivers:” War Preparations in the Middle East and Central Asia 2006-10-06

The March to War: Naval build-up in the Persian Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean 2006-10-01

The March to War: Iran Preparing for US Air Attacks 2006-09-21

The Next Phase of the Middle East War 2006-09-04

Baluchistan and the Coming Iran War 2006-09-01

British Troops Mobilizing on the Iranian Border 2006-08-30

Russia and Central Asian Allies Conduct War Games in Response to US Threats 2006-08-24

Beating the Drums of War: US Troop Build-up: Army & Marines authorize “Involuntary Conscription” 2006-08-23

Iranian War Games: Exercises, Tests, and Drills or Preparation and Mobilization for War? 2006-08-21

Triple Alliance:” The US, Turkey, Israel and the War on Lebanon 2006-08-06 

The War on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil 2006-07-26 

Is the Bush Administration Planning a Nuclear Holocaust? 2006-02-22 

The Dangers of a Middle East Nuclear War 2006-02-17 

Nuclear War against Iran 2006-01-03 

Israeli Bombings could lead to Escalation of Middle East War 2006-07-15 

Iran: Next Target of US Military Aggression 2005-05-01 

Planned US-Israeli Attack on Iran 2005-05-01

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