Geopolitical thread

[shyamd]

The Evangelicals of America. They need to subdue Israel for their dogma to become dominant.

Check the last bit about Bibi being tight with evangelicals CUFI:

http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/diplomania ... r-1.413374

[Philip]

Fascinating if true!

ttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/a ... 76426.html

An IoS investigation: To the Chinese and the Indians, the spoils of a terrible war

Allies pay in blood while others plot to exploit Afghanistan’s rich natural resources
David Randall , Jonathan Owen

Xcpts:

The money and blood pit that is Afghanistan – where the US and Britain have expended more than 2,100 lives and £302bn – is about to start paying a dividend. But it won't be going to the countries which have made this considerable sacrifice. The contracts to open up Afghanistan's mineral and fossil-fuel wealth, and to build the railways that will transport them out of the country, are being won or pursued by China, India, Iran, and Russia.

Click HERE to view 'land of opportunity' graphic

The potentially lucrative task of exploiting Afghanistan's immense mineral wealth – estimated to be worth around £2trn, according to the Kabul government – is only in the early stages. But already China and India in particular are doing deals and beginning work. Facilities already established are being protected by local army and police, part of whose funding, and most of whose training, has been a US/UK responsibility.

The anomaly of two Afghanistans – one of massacres, roadside bombs, and battles with the Taliban, the other of commercial deals in the hundreds of millions – is not lost on observers. Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell, a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, said: "The Chinese are self-interested. I don't blame them for that. But it is on the backs of the sacrifice made by [the] British and Americans and others, the sacrifices we have made which we hope after 2014 will lead to a more stable and secure Afghanistan, and for the Chinese to capitalise on that doesn't go down well. I don't think it will go down well with the British public. China is a wealthy country in today's world and it's wrong that they are not prepared and haven't been prepared to contribute to the enormity of the task that we have had to face in dealing with Afghanistan."

Dr Richard Weitz, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at Hudson Institute said: "From our perspective, China should have done more in terms of security. From their perspective, they didn't need to; they could free-ride, we were going to do it anyway. They didn't see any point because all they would do is incur a lot of sacrifice and antagonise the Taliban and the global terrorist movement, and they'd rather let us incur that."

But others think any involvement in Afghanistan's development, especially by regional powers, is beneficial. Peter Galbraith, former deputy head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, said: "Western companies are exceptionally timid when it comes to operating in places where there is even the remotest hint that it might be a little risky, and the Chinese are not and are willing to go to these places. And the Chinese have business practices that Western countries ... let's just say that Chinese generosity towards local officials exceeds that of what Western companies are capable."

Afghanistan's mineral wealth extends over a huge range of valuable resources: iron, gold, copper, niobium (used in hardening steel), uranium, marble, cobalt, mercury, caesium, molybdenum (a metal which can withstand high temperatures and is used to make various alloys), and other rare earth minerals. The country has especially valuable deposits of lithium, the metal used in the world's batteries. Indeed, a Pentagon official is on record suggesting that Afghanistan could be "the Saudi Arabia of lithium".

As far back as 2008, China agreed a deal to develop the Aynak copper mine in Logar province. This is said to be the world's second largest deposit of high-grade copper. The Afghan National Police has deployed 1,500 officers to guard the mine, while some 2,000 US soldiers provide general security in the province.

An Indian consortium has secured the rights to two blocks in the huge Hajigak iron ore field, the other block going to a Canadian firm. India will also contribute to the establishment of an Institute of Mines in Kabul, and last October signed a strategic partnership with Afghanistan.

The deals are not confined to minerals. In late December, China's state-owned National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) won a contract for three oil fields in Zamarudsay, Kashkari, and Bazarkhami in the northern provinces of Sari Pul and Faryab, which will make it the first foreign company to exploit Afghan-istan's oil and natural gas reserves. The intention is that CNPC will build a refinery within three years, and this will be guarded by dedicated units of Afghan police and army.

Chinese state firms have also been involved with seven infrastructure projects, including roads in Kondoz and Jalalabad. They have also won contracts for telecommunications systems in Kandahar and Kabul. And last year, the Asian Development Bank announced it had allocated more than $200m for the development of the gas wells of Sheberghan, and an attendant pipeline. Italy, Turkey and Germany are also actively pursuing deals.

American and British involvement is low-key at present. PricewaterhouseCoopers is advising the Ministry of Mines in Kabul, and the US bank JP Morgan is active, having put together a consortium that won rights to the Qara Zaghan gold deposits.

Many point out that security, especially after US forces cease active operations in 2014, will be crucial, and could yet scupper major exploitation. But Afghanistan has just opened its first major railway and is planning half a dozen more. China, Iran, Pakistan and India all have government or corporate plans for separate rail projects across Afghanistan. Turkmenistan is completing its own plans for another line, and it was Uzbekistan that built the first major rail link, a 47-mile line from the border town of Hairatan to Mazar-i-Sharif in the north of Afghanistan.

Andrew Grantham, an editor for Railway Gazette who runs a website chronicling the history of Afghanistan's failed rail projects of the past, says: "It's not just people drawing lines on maps and saying, "Wouldn't this be nice?"

For now, plans for Afghanistan's railroads are progressing bit by bit. As part of its agreement to develop a massive copper mine in Aynak, the China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC) is being asked to build a 575-mile railway from the mine, south-east of Kabul. One branch would head to the Pakistani border, another in the opposite direction through the capital and connecting with the new Hairatan line in the north. The Afghan government is also negotiating with the Indian-led consortium that won the contract for the equally huge iron deposits at Tajigak in central Afghanistan for the companies to fund a 560-mile railroad – likely through Iran – to bring out the heavy ore.

The plan is to build a series of short, cross-border tracks to Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan and Iran. The tracks would connect to each other inside the country's north by railways built by Iran from the west and China from the east.

"We would be able to import and export to Russia, Turkey, and even European countries," says Noor Gul Mangal, Afghanistan's deputy public works minister. Opening new transport gateways would also reduce Afghanistan's dependence on neighbouring Pakistan as its only link to sea ports.

Sir William Patey, the outgoing British ambassador to Afghanistan, made an impassioned plea that countries investing in post-war Afghanistan "protect their assets" by making greater contributions to the security budget. "We welcome foreign investment from these countries if it improves infrastructure and improves the prospects of ordinary Afghans," he said. "We welcome Russian and Chinese investment, we want to see Pakistan and India invest in copper and oil and gas. But it would be even more heartening if these countries could set aside a budget to help with the security effort; particularly after coalition forces leave.

"There seems to be an assumption that Afghanistan, Britain and America will cover security. But it really needs a more collective effort from the international community; particularly with a security bill that is now more than £4bn a year."

Additional reporting: Kunal Dutta and Brian Brady

The expert views

"Chinese investors – who are able to brush off risk, ignore the bottom line, and grease palms as needed – have capitalised effectively on the sacrifices made by Isaf [the US-led coalition] partners over a decade."

Dr Frederick Starr

Chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Washington

"China has been willing to take some economic risks in that regard .... Mining and other extractive industries are likely to be profitable in Afghanistan only in conditions of relative security and so what you might be saying is that China is betting on our success and we should be welcoming others to do the same, including our own investors."

Ambassador James Dobbins

Director of the RAND International Security and Defense Policy Center, and a former Special Assistant to the US President

"Russia and Uzbekistan have gained by transiting goods into Afghanistan. China has gained by scooping up untapped mining wealth. And yet, these and other neighbouring states, save for Pakistan, avoided sharing the burdens of war."

Malou Innocent

Analyst at US think tank the Cato Institute

"I see China, on balance, playing a positive role. On the security front, nobody wanted to see a rising Chinese military power intervening in Afghanistan .... On the economic front, China bought a huge chunk of US government debt, which in turn financed US military intervention in Afghanistan ... China is also an inspiring, market-friendly role model for developing countries in the region."

Dr Leif Rosenberger

Economic Advisor, US Central Command

"China will be a net economic winner upon a US withdrawal. But so what?"

Aziz Huq

Assistant Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School

[svinayak]

No secret deal with India during 1971 war: Kissinger

Veteran diplomat Henry Kissinger, the architect of the US' historic opening to China, has denied that that the US struck a secret pact with India to prevent an attack on West Pakistan in 1971.

"India and the former Soviet Union had made a near-alliance around this time. It was in the national interest of the US to preserve West Pakistan," said Kissinger, a Nobel Peace laureate, while delivering the keynote address at the India Today Conclave on Friday night.

This was a bluff by Kissinger and US in 1971 and they sent the 7th fleet CvG to IOR
India took a step back.
They noticed that India reacts to bluff and Indian leadership are cautious when there is threat and this was used by the US for the next 25 years to keep India inside the region and do a India-Pakistan equal.
Read his book 'My White House Years' and lot of things are explained and not explained.
They figured out the jihad terror bluff against India also will work and they pursued it for decades.

Kissinger bluffed for the next 30 years against India with Pakistan becoming a nuclear state.
This bluff was called bogus when Op Parakram was done in 2002.

KISSINGER IS THE BIGGEST BLUFF ON THE PLANET EARTH.

[abhishek_sharma]

Fire When Ready: Obama's targeted drone strikes -- even on Americans -- aren't illegal. In fact, there's a solid legal foundation and a number of checks and balances upholding his right to take out terrorists.

Books on US Intelligence Services

[Philip]

Kissinger is the master manipulator of the 20th post-WW2 century. He manipulated opil prices so that the Shah could pay for his western weaponry,enriched US oil companies and ruined the economies of many smaller independet nations who would not toe the US line in the Cold War. He was the prime propagator of the US foreign policy mantra of, "they may be b*stards,but they're our b*stards",which saw the US supporting eviltude (as Dubya Bush would've described it),dictators,despotic sheikdoms,military regimes,across the globe,who toed the US line in the Cold War. We saw his chicanery exposed during '71,where Mrs.G. taught a splendid lesson in statesmanship to both Kissinger and Nixon. Their hatred of her was well documented in the Watergate tapes and other recently available documents.

However,one must admire Kissinger as a man who served his nation's interests to the hilt. He has been along with his russian counterpart Gromyko,the two most influential diplomats during the last 50 years.Sadly,in India we miss a man of his calibre,as we have right now a doddering sartorially obsessed foreign minister who cannot even make out which speech is his to read out to the world at the UN!

Absolutely sick!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -boys.html

Dutch Roman Catholic Church 'castrated at least 10 boys'
At least 10 teenage boys or young men under the age of 21 were surgically castrated "to get rid of homosexuality" while in the care of the Dutch Roman Catholic Church in the 1950s.

Sources told Mr Dohmen that the surgical removal of testicles was regarded as a treatment for homosexuality and also as a punishment for those who accused clergy of sexual abuse.

[svinayak]

http://www.globalissues.org/article/77/ ... arms-sales
Military Propaganda for Arms Sales

That the armament firms have been active in fomenting war scares and in persuading their countries to adopt warlike policies and to increase their armaments.
That armament firms have attempted to bribe government officials, both at home and abroad.
That armament firms have disseminated false reports concerning the military and naval programs of various countries, in order to stimulate armament expenditure.
That armament firms have sought to influence public opinion through the control of newspapers in their own and foreign countries.
That armament firms have organized international armament rings through which the armament race has been accentuated by playing off one country against another.
That armament firms have organized international armament trusts which have increased the price of armaments sold to governments.


— J.W. Smith, The World's Wasted Wealth II, (Institute for Economic Democracy, 1994), p. 224

But, this was not of the arms industry of today. Smith was quoting the League of Nations after World War I, when "Stung by the horrors of World War I, world leaders realized that arms merchants had a hand in creating both the climate of fear and the resulting disaster itself." But it sounds familiar, right? It summarizes quite well the problems of today as well. Justification for arms and creating the market for arms expenditure is not a new concept. The call to war and fear-mongering is an old tradition.

During the Cold War for example:

President Eisenhower, in his final address to the nation before leaving office in 1961, issues a rather extraordinary warning to the American people that the country "must guard against unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

— David McGowan, Derailing Democracy, (Common Courage Press, 2000)

Military propaganda is a common theme stereotyped in the developing nations that are undergoing some sort of conflict such as civil wars or border disputes, for example. However, in the developed countries, (the majority of weapons, large and small are created in the industrialized nations) there are also more subtle ways of ensuring that your view points are widely agreed upon, such as military contractors supporting commercials, journalists and even pouring tax payer's money heavily into Hollywood.

As a Foreign Policy in Focus paper, titled "Military Industrial Complex Revisited - How Weapons Makers are Shaping U.S. Foreign and Military Policies" by William D. Hartung shows, in the USA for example, the most powerful nation, the large weapons producers have a lot of influence over Washington and have helped maintain the amazingly large military budget of approximately $300 billion dollars in post-Cold War periods.

[Jarita]

The Evangelicals of America. They need to subdue Israel for their dogma to become dominant.

Check the last bit about Bibi being tight with evangelicals CUFI:

http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/diplomania ... r-1.413374

They've been tight since the formation of protestant christianity

[nawabs]

An emerging-market coalition
Old rivalries must be buried to nominate a non-American head for the World Bank

http://www.business-standard.com/india/ ... on/468683/

Here we go again! The World Bank will have to appoint a new president in June, and we hear the same broken record again about why the European monopoly on the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) leadership and the US’ on the World Bank’s should be indefinitely perpetuated. And each time things boil down to something like: “Yes, times have changed and, yes, candidates from other parts of the world should of course be considered… But not this time please!”

Remember the charade about Europe imposing Christine Lagarde at the IMF under the pretext that, in view of the European crisis, nominating a European candidate well-versed in the intricacies of European politics and of the depth of the European economic debacle was a necessity? We are getting the US version of the same story, in which Washington must impose its candidate because, given the times, it would be very difficult to secure the World Bank’s funding from the US Congress if its head is not an American. As The New York Times reported on March 13, Washington has already informed the other G20 member countries that it intends to retain control of World Bank leadership.

A group of developing countries is challenging the US’ hold on the World Bank president’s position by nominating two very credible candidates — Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s finance minister, and Jose Antonio Ocampo, the Colombian finance minister. But with its vote share and the expected support from Europe – returning the favour of Ms Lagarde’s election at the IMF – Washington will ensure that another American succeeds Robert Zoellick at the end of June. The jockeying from US candidates for the job has been quite intense in the last few weeks, with Jeffrey Sachs and Larry Summers busying themselves in unabashed self-promotion. The White House may want to create some pretence of being more sensitive to the wishes of some emerging countries – which have announced their support for the nomination of Jeffrey Sachs – by nominating the development economist despite the antipathy of the Treasury department towards him.


This, however, will not address the real issue: that the US and Europe have the last word when it comes to the top nominations at the IMF and the World Bank. That the Americans and the Europeans want to keep the privileges and power of a bygone era should not surprise anyone. What is, however, quite astounding is the supine acquiescence, if not docility, of other countries – India and China included – in accepting tacitly the continuation of this anomaly, even as these countries don’t miss an opportunity to remind the rest of the world that their voice should now be taken into account more seriously. Of course, one can easily guess China’s calculations in keeping quiet about Christine Lagarde’s automatic appointment at the IMF, despite the European pledges when Lagarde’s predecessor – Dominique Strauss-Kahn – was nominated for that job that the selection process at the IMF would change.

Whatever the short-term calculations, and without underestimating the difficulty to break the long-held US-European monopolies, it is about time some of the big emerging market economies – China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Korea, South Africa – showed that they are serious about adjusting the Bretton Woods institutions to the new realities of the global economy. Otherwise, they had better stop talking about it. In that respect, one has to give Mexico credit. It did not hesitate to make a bid for the IMF leadership last year. Also, as this year’s chair of the G20, Mexico is reiterating the demand for a clear and transparent process of nomination based on merit instead of the existing one, which eliminates any possible candidacy originating from the 6.2 billion people – out of a world population of seven billion – who don’t have the “privilege” of being American or European.

Of course, there is no ignoring the rivalries, frictions and contentious issues that exist between, say, India and China or Mexico and Brazil. However, the stakes in ensuring that existing international economic and financial institutions reflect the perspectives and interests of the emerging market economies better should be high enough strategically to help transcend – at least momentarily – specific bilateral rivalries and contentious issues. Contrary to what people thought a few years ago, the roles of the IMF and the World Bank are not going to diminish in the years ahead. The institutions are going to become even more important as, respectively, a major stabiliser of the international monetary and financial system and as a source of funding for emerging market economies facing huge financial needs for the do-or-die development of their human resources and physical infrastructure.

Let’s face it: whatever their increasing weight on the international scene, neither China nor India or Brazil or Mexico alone is currently in a position to challenge the US or European monopolies. It is only by creating a coalition that these countries would show enough determination. That would create enough pressure for Washington or the European capitals to understand that it is time to adjust.

Once again, making the necessary joint effort to break this US-EU monopoly is not any kind of ego massage or status-seeking exercise on the part of emerging market economies. It is a matter of protecting strategic economic and geopolitical interests in a global environment marked by rapid changes in economic, monetary and financial situations. That requires the existing international institutions and available tools to function in a way corresponding to the priorities and perspectives of the greatest possible number of countries.

This is directly linked to the question of whether the G20 – much publicised at the time of its creation as a new global governance structure that would reflect the emerging economic and geopolitical realities – will remain mostly a discussion club or will become an effective platform for tackling global challenges. Will governments in Delhi, Beijing, Brasilia, Seoul or Mexico City understand that the stakes are high enough to go beyond their differences or divergence on one issue or another, and achieve the kind of “coalition of the willing” that will ensure that their interests are really taken into account?

[svinayak]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBUvZDSY2D0



http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2011/3 ... depop.html



Behind London's War Drive: A Policy To Kill Billions

by Nancy Spannaus
[PDF version of this article]
Nov. 14—At the conclusion of World War II, all people of conscience were horrified to learn of the full extent of the genocide which had been carried out by German dictator Adolf Hitler. While tens of millions were killed by all manner of means—from the war, to euthanasia, to death camps, and the like—Hitler's attempt to wipe out the Jewish population by killing 6 million Jews, became an emblem for his more general extermination policy. "Never Again," was the cry. "Never again" will we allow systematic mass murder to be carried out in order to exterminate populations.
Yet today, it is not 6 million, but 6 billion members of the human race who are threatened with deliberate mass murder. And it is an unresolved question as to whether patriots of the nations which can stop this extermination, will act to prevent it, in time.
Adolf Hitler was not representative of the German nation, of course, any more than cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer is representative of Americans, or Jack the Ripper of the English. Hitler was a puppet of ruling circles in Great Britain, who created the genocidal ideology he embraced, and deployed the funds and other resources to bring him to power. And while Hitler was defeated by a coalition largely dependent upon Franklin D. Roosevelt's United States, those evil British circles, centered on the monarchy, did not die with him.
So today, as the British Empire again finds itself threatened with disintegration and bankruptcy, we find it steering another puppet: this time the President of the United States. Yes, Barack Obama is also a bought-and-paid for lunatic, like Hitler, and the Emperor Nero before him, who has been charged by the British Empire with the mission of implementing the policies that will lead to world depopulation, this time on almost-unfathomable scale.
In a statement issued today, Lyndon LaRouche again laid the issue on the line:
"If Barack Obama is not thrown out of office soon, civilization is in mortal danger," LaRouche said. "The British monarchy is out to destroy the United States as we know it, and Obama is its puppet instrument for accomplishing exactly that. The overall objective of this London-centered oligarchy is to reduce the world's present population from the current official level of 7 billion to fewer than 1 billion.
"That is the issue that can no longer be dodged, if mankind is to survive the coming weeks and months. The present drive for World War III, beginning with the targeting of Iran and Syria, is driven by the British commitment to wipe out more than 80% of the human race, just as Prince Philip has demanded on numerous public occasions. Those who try to deny this reality are endangering mankind by their failure to face the truth."
In the pages that follow, I draw on the more than 40-year history of LaRouche and his movement's war against the evil genocidalists centered in the British monarchy, to make it, once again, perfectly clear what the intent of this enemy of the human race is. The British are not the first empire to seek global depopulation; indeed such a policy is characteristic of imperial oligarchies going back as far as history is known. But, as today's incarnation of the Roman Empire, the British royal family rules over a global financial imperium which now demands the culling of the human race, by the killing of up to 6 billion people.
If you think that's irrational, you're right. But face reality: It is just such genocidal irrationality that Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth, and President Barack Obama represent. And if you don't act to stop them, you are as good as dead.
I. The British Objective: Depopulation

Start with the most outspoken proponent of the British genocide policy, Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) president emeritus, His Royal Highness Prince Philip. The sadistic Philip, who founded the WWF in 1961, in collaboration with his dear Nazi friend Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, has no qualms about stating his objective for reducing the human population. He considers people to be just another kind of animal, which must be controlled in order to maintain the kind of world order over which the oligarchy wishes to exert unchallenged rule.
"In the event I am reborn, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation," Philip told Deutsche Presse Agentur, during a trip to Germany in August 1988. In fact, Philip already behaves as a virus, spreading the people-hating and de-industrializing ideology which lies at the heart of the so-called environmentalist movement that has been taking over the world since President John F. Kennedy's death. With the resources and power of the British monarchy at his disposal, he has done a hideously effective job.
Key to the poison which the WWF and representatives like Philip spread, is the insidious and anti-scientific idea of a limited "carrying capacity" for supporting the human population, in alleged parallel to such a carrying capacity for animal species. Ignoring the millennia-long history of human progress, Philip and his passel of acolytes who pollute universities, governments, and civic institutions internationally, assert that man must "compete" with "other animals" and nature for the resources to survive, and that even advances in technology—such as advances in agricultural productivity—only postpone the "inevitable" barrier to expansion.
Representative is the following statement by the Prince:
"You cannot keep a bigger flock of sheep than you are capable of feeding. In other words conservation may involve culling in order to keep a balance between the relative numbers in each species within any particular habitat. I realize this is a very touchy subject, but the fact remains that mankind is part of the living world.... Every new acre brought into cultivation means another acre denied to wild species."
Bunk, murderous bunk.
Optimum Population Trust

While the WWF itself has generally tried to keep a distance from outright calls for killing off populations—although its policies against high-technology development result in precisely that conclusion—it has spawned other organizations to do the job. Most prominent among them are the Optimum Population Trust (OPT) and the Global Footprint Network (GFN). Both of these institutions specialize in coming up with estimates of how many billion people must be eliminated, in order to "save the environment."
The OPT, which works closely with the WWF and other related organizations, has "population reduction" as its main objective. Its outlook is well reflected by one of its main patrons, the genocidal maniac Paul Ehrlich, who kicked off a massive population control movement in the United States in 1968 with his book The Population Bomb. Ehrlich, who is still active, won a gold medal from the WWF in 1987, and established the Zero Population Growth organization in the U.S. As of 1994, he was calling for a reduction of human population from 6 billion to 1.5-2 billion.
"A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people," Ehrlich wrote in The Population Bomb. "We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions."
Under this "philosophy," the OPT—which calls itself a "charity," has declared that Great Britain has to cut its population in half, and that, as of 2009, the world population has to be cut by two-thirds. In a July 2007 report titled "Youthquake," OPT compared the births of human beings to the devastation of earthquakes, and suggested the need for compulsory birth control. They asked:
"Might humanity have to suffer the kind of death-dictated control to achieve stabilisation, or reduction by a population crash—a mass cull through violence, diseases, starvation or natural disasters—which biology dictates for all other species when their numbers exceed the limits of their environment's carrying capacity?" (emphasis added)
In a March 2009 press release, entitled "Earth Heading for 5 Billion Overpopulation?" the OPT estimated the world's sustainable population at 5 billion—but didn't stop at that. It projected that the addition of more people would mean that by 2050, "when the UN projects world population will be 9.1 billion, there will be an estimated 5 billion more people than the Earth can support."
So, now the aim is to eliminate 5 billion people. You might consider that mass murder, but the UN Population Fund does not. It featured the OPT's director, Roger Martin, as a presenter of its own "State of World Population 2009" report in the run-up to the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference.
Global Footprint Network

Working with the OPT and the WWF is the Global Footprint Network, which, in cooperation with the Zoological Society of London, has taken up the job of setting up a Living Planet index, which determines how many people should live (and die) in every country. According to a report the GFN released on the occasion of the 2009 UN Copenhagen Summit, three-quarters of all nations on Earth are using up more resources than they claim the "Earth's biocapacity" can sustain. They demanded immediate action by governments and international agencies to reduce population, starting with at least a third (2 billion).
How to do that? First, cut living standards, and "reward" nations for reducing population. More repulsive methods, such as war and disease, are left unstated.
But we have not yet come to the most extreme aim, that of calling for a reduction of human population to below 1 billion. The prize for that goes to John Schellnhuber, head of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research, who was made a Commander of the Most Excellent Order (CBE) of the British Empire in 2004, by Queen Elizabeth.
Schellnhuber—who is a longtime collaborator of President Obama's Science and Technology Advisor, John P. Holdren—told a March 13, 2009 pre-meeting of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference that his studies had calculated "estimates for the carrying capacity of the planet, namely below 1 billion people," if his policy of eliminating all modern energy sources (fossils fuels and nuclear) were not implemented. In fact, the world population would be reduced to that level—eliminating 6 billion people—through the implementation of that insane policy.
'Natural' Genocide

On March 10 of this year, Prince Philip chaired a meeting of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts (RSA), of which he is president. There, he cheered on one of the most anti-human presentations known to this author, by the knighted "naturalist" Sir David Attenborough.
Attenborough, who was receiving an RSA prize, proceeded to give a speech which was rallying cry against the "one element" he claimed was behind all the "disasters that continue increasingly to afflict the natural world," "the unprecedented increase in the number of human beings on this planet." Malthus was right, Attenborough said, but people are afraid today to talk about curbing population. This is "tragic," he said.
Philip virtually beamed as Attenborough spoke. In the question-and-answer period, he took the occasion to brag a bit about how he was the one who recruited Prince Bernhard to be the first president of the WWF, and how he insisted, against opposition, that the point of "conservation" was not to please people, but for the animals' sake.
He could have added, for the sake of the human animals who make up the British Royal family.
II. Dirty Bertie Russell Lives

As LaRouche elaborated in his book-length feature in the Fall 1994 Fidelio magazine,[1] "How Bertrand Russell Became an Evil Man," the evil that is the British Empire came into its own in 1688, when William of Orange invaded the island, and started the process that led to Britain becoming the "new Venice." By the latter part of the 18th Century, the radical imperialist ideology of depopulation fanatic Thomas Malthus, free-trader Adam Smith, and liberal imperialist Jeremy Bentham had been put into place.
The Malthusian doctrine, imported whole cloth from the Venetian Gianmaria Ortes, took aim specifically at the recently established United States, which was expanding its population by leaps and bounds. Malthus wrote "An Essay on the Principle of Population" in 1798, wherein he declared that population growth had to outgrow the increase in the means of subsistence. Thus, punitive measures had to be taken to discourage population growth. No welfare, no support should go to poor children—they should be left to die (as in California and other U.S. states today).
Malthus was blunt:
"All children who are born, beyond what would be required to keep up the population to a desired level, must necessarily perish, unless room be made for them by the death of grown persons.... Therefore ... we should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavoring to impede, the operations of nature in producing this mortality; and if we dread this too frequent visitation of the horrid form of famine, we should sedulously encourage the other forms of destruction, which we compel nature to use.
"Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague. In the country, we should build our villages near stagnant pools, and particularly encourage settlement in all marshy and unwholesome situations. But above all we should reprobate specific remedies for ravaging diseases; and restrain those benevolent, but much mistaken men, who have thought they are doing a service to mankind by protecting schemes for the total extirpation of particular disorders."
Malthus, a demented parson, eventually was hired as a professor at Haileybury College, for the British East India Company, and his drivel became establishment "thought." But it was not until the end of the 19th Century that the Malthusian outlook was popularized for the world at large by those arch-imperialists Bertrand Russell and H.G. Wells, whose evil went so far that they would not even shrink from the detonation of nuclear war.
Depopulation, by Any Means Necessary

Lord Bertrand Russell came by his degeneracy hereditarily, from a Brutish noble family in the late 19th Century. His sometime sidekick H.G. Wells had no such pedigree, but succeeded in attracting the attention of oligarchical circles with his bestial novels, and entering into the milieu of the imperialist elite, in particular, the Huxley family.
The LaRouche movement's book, The New Dark Ages Conspiracy of 1978 provides the gory details on the outlook and activities of this crew, whose bestiality of outlook—against the "lesser races," the "unfit," industrial progress, and the American outlook in general—knows virtually no bounds. But it is in Russell and Wells that we see the most naked statement of intent for maintaining the global rule by the oligarchy by any means necessary, including nuclear war.
First, just to briefly establish Russell's strictly Malthusian, people-hating outlook, I quote two documents. In his 1923 Prospects of Industrial Civilization, he writes:
"Socialism, especially international socialism, is only possible as a stable system if the population is stationary or nearly so. A slow increase might be coped with by improvements in agricultural methods, but a rapid increase must in the end reduce the whole population to penury ... the white population of the world will soon cease to increase. The Asiatic races will be longer, and the negroes still longer, before their birth rate falls sufficiently to make their numbers stable without help of war and pestilence.... Until that happens, the benefits aimed at by socialism can only be partially realized, and the less prolific races will have to defend themselves against the more prolific by methods which are disgusting even if they are necessary."
Even more shameless was Russell's discussion of population in his 1951 The Impact of Science on Society:
"But bad times, you may say, are exceptional, and can be dealt with by exceptional methods. This has been more or less true during the honeymoon period of industrialism, but it will not remain true unless the increase of population can be enormously diminished. At present the population of the world is increasing at about 58,000 per diem. War, so far, has had no very great effect on this increase, which continued through each of the world wars.... War ... has hitherto been disappointing in this respect ... but perhaps bacteriological war may prove more effective. If a Black Death could spread throughout the world once in every generation, survivors could procreate freely without making the world too full.... The state of affairs might be somewhat unpleasant, but what of it? Really high-minded people are indifferent to happiness, especially other people's."
You think it would be impossible for an elite to actually call for the mass destruction of human beings, in order to make Lebensraum for their desires? Indeed, Russell does not leave any doubt. And he becomes even more explicit about the potential "nuclear option" in the postwar period, when, in the Bulletin of Atomic Sciences and public radio interviews, he explicitly called for a "preventive war" with nuclear weapons against Soviet Russia, in order to enforce a world government. While he claimed that the proposal was intended as blackmail, to force the Russians into submission, he did not hesitate to add,
"Of course you can't threaten unless you're prepared to have your bluff called."
Yes, this is the same Bertrand Russell who has been acclaimed as the "pacifist" leader of the Ban the Bomb movement. Yet then, as now, there was no excuse for people not being horrified at the evil in Russell's oligarchical policy.
Indeed, a whole grouping of what were popularly portrayed as "mad scientists," such as Dr. Leo Szilard, took up the Russell vision as a mission, developing scenarios for "controlled" wars through nuclear exchanges. What would guarantee such wars remained "contained?" Absolutely nothing.
While operating more in the "cultural" field, novelist H.G. Wells was equally disgusting and vile in his promotion of bestialization, his attack on industrial progress, and his promotion of civilization-destroying war as a tool of the oligarchy's determination to eliminate nation-states, and hold on to world power. This "vision" is elaborated most clearly in his The Shape of Things to Come, which was both a movie, and a seemingly endless academic book, in which the international oligarchy carries out a decades-long war of annihilation which bombs civilization back into the Stone Age, in order to then establish a globalized society based on eugenic, anti-human "science," which rules by allegedly benevolent dictatorship of the peoples of the Earth, whose numbers would be regulated with precision.
'People Are Cancer'

Don't delude yourself that such perverts are Russell and Wells are restricted to British elite circles. Through infection of all areas of American society, in the wake of the British assassination of Abraham Lincoln, especially the world of academia, this British Malthusian outlook has polluted a huge section of the intellectual elite in the United States itself. Indeed, that was and is the British oligarchical plan: to destroy the major threat to their world domination, the republic of the United States of America.
In the wake of another British assassination of an American President, this time John F. Kennedy, the stage was set for an explosion of anti-human propaganda which insisted, like Russell and Malthus, that scientific progress itself led to more and healthier people, and therefore would push the world to become "too full." Working in tandem with the explicitly British-run pro-genocide institutions, such as the World Wildlife Fund, a whole set of depopulation institutions and policymakers went into action in the United States.
I will highlight only a few. Start with Paul R. Ehrlich of "people are cancer" fame, whom we cited above. He produced his The Population Bomb in 1968, which became a "best-seller" in the milieu of the rampaging counterculture. Ehrlich forecast immediate mass death from the shortage of food, and, when asked what must be done, said, "We must rapidly bring the world population under control, reducing the growth rate to zero or making it negative. Conscious regulation of human numbers must be achieved. Simultaneously, we must, at least temporarily, greatly increase our food production."
Among Ehrlich's proposals was forced sterilization, perhaps by putting sterilizants in the water supply. Obama's current "science" advisor Holdren is notorious for having studied with Ehrlich, and collaborated with him in coming up with such hideous, and totally unscientific proposals.
Ehrlich was not simply speaking for himself, of course. He had the political support of the Malthusian lobby in the U.S., which had promoted these very genocidal policies before Hitler did, but had to tone them down in the course of the war. The Population Crisis Committee, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and many others were working behind the scenes to reintroduce their eugenicist vision—now "revised" to be a means of "saving the environment," and improving the "quality of life" for fewer, and fewer, and fewer people.
Simultaneous with Ehrlich, came a huge international boost for the anti-population campaign, with the publication of Limits to Growth, which projected "inevitable" mass death if action was not taken to control population. In fact, as MIT-based authors Dennis Meadows and Donna Forester later admitted, their projections were a fraud, in that they were based on no improvements in existing technologies. But the book served the purpose of popularizing the zero-growth idea, and creating the climate in which the Club of Rome was established in 1972.
There was nothing American about the Club of Rome. Its founders, Britian's Alexander King and Italy's Aurelio Peccei, both veterans of NATO intelligence, were aggressive proponents of reducing population (on the order of 2 billion below what was projected as year-2000 levels), squelching industry, and eliminating the sovereign nation-state. They claimed that "limited resources" meant that population had to be contained, and that "blind human proliferation is the basic factor" in the major world's problems.
For explicitness, it's hard to beat this Club of Rome statement from its 1991 The First Global Revoltuion: "In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill.... But in designating them as the enemy, we fall into the trap of mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself."
"American" academics did pick up on these ideas, in spades. Take Garrett James Hardin, an ecologist turned propagandist for cutting population, who came up with the famous "lifeboat" image for human survival. In the midst of the 1974 Ethiopian famine, Hardin came forward, in true Malthusian fashion, to say that providing food aid to the starving was ill-advised, because we just had too many people; to survive, we had to throw the weaker overboard.
State Department consultant and academic William Paddock prescribed a similar approach with Mexico's crisis of the mid-1970s. In an interview with EIR in 1975, he said: "The Mexican population must be reduced by half. Seal the border and watch them scream." When asked how the population reduction would be accomplished, Paddock said, "By the usual means: famine, war, and pestilence."
War on Population

It may appear that the flamboyant calls for genocide, such as those of Paddock and Hardin, have been drummed out of public policymaking. Wrong. They have just become a part of the quiet institutional apparatuses which the British financial empire uses to maintain control, such as the World Bank, the IMF, and even the U.S. Department of State.
Take the case of the late Robert Strange McNamara, noted for his "body-count" approach as Defense Secretary to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, and his emphasis on population control during his presidency at the World Bank. The following quote conveys his mentality, in that it starts with the objective of holding down population.
"There are only two possible ways in which a world of 10 billion people can be averted. Either the current birth rates must come down more quickly. Or the current death rates must go up.
"There is no other way.
"There are, of course, many ways in which the death rates can go up. In a themonuclear age, war can accomplish it very quickly and decisively. Famine and disease are nature's ancient checks on population growth, and neither one has disappeared from the scene...."
The implications of such a mentality governing the World Bank (not to mention other UN institutions such as the UN Fund for Population Activities) are vast, of course. Enter the famous "conditionalities" for population control, in order to meet the alleged "carrying capacities" of various nations. Among the means used, forced sterilization is known to be one; can one rule out intentional wars?
Certainly not. During British agent Henry Kissinger's tenure as National Security Advisor, he oversaw the drafting of National Security Study Memorandum 200, a policy statement making population reduction in the developing sector nations, especially those with raw materials the United States had determined it needed, U.S. policy. This document, which has never been repealed, was not declassified until 1989 but its message is chilling. Discussing the objective of maintaining a reliable flow of raw materials into the U.S., the relevant section of NSSM 200 reads:
"Concessions to foreign countries are likely to be expropriated or subjected to arbitrary intervention. Whether through government action, labor conflicts, sabotage, of civil disturbance, the smooth flow of needed materials will be jeopardized. Although population pressure is not the only factor involved, these types of frustrations are much less likely under conditions of slow or zero population growth. Consequently, reduction of population in these states is a matter of vital U.S. national security." (emphasis added)
Subsequent memoranda, not to mention the actions, of the Kissinger era in foreign policy shaping make it clear that this was not merely an academic statement, but that the United States deliberately intervened to promote "population wars" to reduce such "pressures." The Iran-Iraq War was one of which he famously bragged. George H.W. Bush's Gulf War was identified by Lyndon LaRouche at the time as another. Then, of course, there is Africa, which the Malthusians constantly complain has the highest birth rate in the world—and, by aid of manipulation and impoverishment from British and other intelligence services and financial institutions, remains in a condition of almost constant fraticidal and genocidal warfare. Obama has jumped in to participate in this policy with all four feet.
Green Genocide

The British Empire's depopulation policy has one other major weapon: the "Green" movement. As I will elaborate in more detail in the next section of this report, denial of the fruits of scientific and technological progress may be a slow way to eliminate population, but it is an extremely reliable one. And under conditions of extreme weather conditions, to which our planet is being subjected due to galactic forces, it may also become an "efficient" means of wiping out large sections of mankind—as Russell and Wells might say.
Most relevant to our story here is the Green policy toward nuclear energy. There is no question but that the survival, and progress, of our human family of 7 billion people today, absolutely requires a massive expansion of nuclear power, combined with a crash program for reaching ignition for nuclear fusion plants and moving on to matter-anti-matter reactrs. Denial of electric power to a population is murder—and that's what the Greens intend to do.
Formally, of course, the Obama Administration and the British government do not eschew nuclear power. The British are even contemplating a significant expansion of their nuclear power capacity, although Obama has not. But both governments, in contrast to China and Russia, in particular, are carrying out crippling budget cuts against the science required to expand and maintain nuclear power—including against the space program—virtually guaranteeing that there will be no skilled manpower available to maintain nuclear capacity. And, both governments have carried out a foreign policy toward nations aspiring to develop civilian nuclear energy, which reeks of the Malthusian agenda of denying this life-saving capability to poorer nations.
As Lyndon and Helga LaRouche have documented in-depth, today's "green" is the new "brown"—brown as in fascist suppression of technologies required for a human standard of living, and prospect for development. That Obama would appoint John Holdren, who was not only notorious for his work with genocidalist Paul Ehrlich, but also for his work with Bertrand Russell's world government Pugwash organization, as his Science and Technology Advisor, simply further establishes his credentials as a puppet of the British Malthusian oligarchy.
III. LaRouche Dared Call It Genocide

LaRouche's breakthroughs in economic science, starting in the late 1940s/early 1950s, gave him a unique insight into the genocidal nature of the British oligarchy's "economics." Through denial of the specifically creative powers of the human mind, LaRouche understood, the British-school economists were ultimately committed to an outlook of zero growth, and collapse of civilization. The result, as in the case of previous empires, most notably the Roman Empire, would be genocide and depopulation, because the very nature of mankind and the universe in which we live requires constant qualitative progress, at constantly higher level of energy flux density, and idea density as well.
LaRouche took on the Russellites early on, in the form of anti-human systems analysis freaks like Norbert Wiener. Once he had established a political association, in the late 1960s, he directed that organization to go after the British Malthusian zero-growth movement, just as it was being launched en masse in 1968-172. Most importantly, LaRouche and his movement also presented the antidote to war and genocide—a program for scientific progress based on the highest ideals of the nation state. While the subject is vast, I shall touch some of the highlights.
One of the LaRouche movement's early pamphlets on the issue, put out in 1972, asserted that the anti-science movement was nothing but a "Blueprint for Extinction." By contrast, LaRouche advocated the crash development of nuclear power, and in 1974, participated in the founding of the Fusion Energy Foundation.
Also in 1974, Helga Zepp, leader of the newly established LaRouche movement in Europe, carried out a highly public intervention at the UN's decennial Population Conference in Bucharest, Romania, confronting leading depopulator John D. Rockefeller III as pushing genocide on the Third World as a "Rockefeller baby." At that point, the LaRouche movement became the international counterpole to the British Malthusian movement, a status which was further confirmed in 1982, when then Helga Zepp-LaRouche established the Club of Life, to counter the Club of Rome.
In his famous election-eve television appearance in 1976, U.S. Labor Party candidate LaRouche dramatically exposed the genocidal intent behind the Carter election campaign, controlled as it was by Rockefeller's Trilateral Commission and associated oligarchical institutions. LaRouche went after key Carter advisor George Ball, who, in his Diplomacy for a Crowded World, had called for triage against Mexico, including the reduction of the Mexican population from 58 million to 28 million. This is a war policy, LaRouche said—and Carter must be stopped to prevent World War III.
Carter's election represented a chilling victory for the British Malthusians, and the newly elected President immediately pressed for both nuclear confrontation with the Soviets, and a takedown of the advanced technology basis for industrial progress. LaRouche responded in 1977 with the initiation of his Beam Weapon Defense program, which eventually became known as President Reagan's SDI. The concept represented not only a means of war avoidance, by making nuclear missiles obsolete—directly countering the Bertrand Russell approach—but also a scientific revolution into a new plateau of economic development for the planet as a whole, all based on collaboration between the leading nuclear powers of the time, the United States and the Soviet Union.
In 1978, LaRouche commissioned The New Dark Ages Conspiracy, whose purpose, as he put it in his "How Bertrand Russell Became an Evil Man," was to show the horrifying things that had happened in the 20th Century, which would not have happened without Russell's role. The exposé was more than timely, as the Carter Administration moved to consolidate a depopulation agenda, by producing such government policy documents as the "Global 2000 Report," which, like the Club of Rome's "Limits to Growth," mandated ultimately genocidal "conservation" and anti-technology measures.
Throughout the 1980s, the LaRouche movement continued the battle against the depopulators, and the green genocide movement, even as the British Malthusians consolidated their intellectual grip over the political and institutional policy apparatuses in the United States and internationally. That consolidation was independent of political party, as exemplified by the formation of a Futures caucus in the U.S. Congress in 1988, which included both Newt Gingrich and Al Gore.
The fall of the Berlin Wall, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, represented a significant turning point for the British Malthusians, who, up to that point, had had to maintain some commitment to high technology in the face of potential Soviet competition. Now, finally, they thought they had a free path to the one-world, deindustrialized, depopulated dictatorship which Bertrand Russell had envisioned nearly 100 years before.
To carry that out, however, they would have to destroy the FDR/American System tradition in the United States, as well as crush any other potentially challenging nation-state, especially Russia and China. Over the course of three Bush terms in the Presidency, and three years of Barack Obama, they have made significant progress in destroying the United States—but, on the international front, there is significant resistance.
Which brings us to the current decisive crisis point. The British Empire is bankrupt, but determined to rule the planet, and they have a puppet as President of the United States whom they intend to use to that end. The U.S., along with British assets Israel and Saudi Arabia, are already moving toward accomplishing the British oligarchy's goal, by pursuing a confrontation with Syria and Iran which would lead directly into thermonuclear confrontation with Russia and China. Knowledgeable members of Obama's Administration, as well as public evidence, confirm that the President is in an uncontrolled Nero state-of-mind, determined to impose his will on any one who gets in his way. No one can assert that Obama would not carry out the ultimate "irrationality," by detonating thermonuclear war.
There are many people, survivors of the war and the Holocaust, who said to themselves after World War II, that they wished they had moved to stop Hitler while they still had a chance. There will be very few, if any, survivors around to mourn that lost opportunity in stopping Barack Obama, if he goes ahead with the British monarchy's planned war against Russia and China. There is no sane alternative, but to remove Obama from office now

[ramana]

We might see the transformation of PRC right now just as the FSU changed overnight.

[abhishek_sharma]

U.S. struggles with Iran for influence in Iraq

Combat Camera: The year's best US military photography.

What message were U.S. officials trying to send by releasing the results of a CentCom Iran war game?

[abhishek_sharma]

Stalin's daughter defected to US in 1967 (and she sought asylum in New Delhi). Why did she do so?

[KrishnaK]

Is this the geopolitical or the fantastic conspiracy theories thread ?

[abhishek_sharma]

The 8 worst "hot mic" blunders of all time.

Genetic weapons, you say?

We Can't Drone Our Way to Victory in Afghanistan

Book Review: All the Missing Souls: A Personal History of the War Crimes Tribunals

My Europe

[Prem]

Gradual Economic Shift Happening Slowly

India Minister: BRICS Exim Banks Finalizing Credit Pact

NEW DELHI – The export-import banks of the BRICS group of five emerging economies are in advanced stages of concluding pacts on extending credit in local currencies, India's minister for commerce and industry said Tuesday. There is a large untapped growth potential of intra-BRICS trade and investments which we are presently focusing on for exploitation," Anand Sharma said in a statement, a day ahead of a conference of trade ministers from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Such an initiative would contribute to enhanced intra-BRICS trade and investment, and also facilitate economic growth when the global economy continues to hobble, Mr. Sharma added.

[Prem]

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-I ... oreign-aid
Look who's saving the world: BRICS pump up foreign aid

The so-called BRICS — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — are upping their foreign assistance by leaps and bounds at a time when traditional donors’ aid budgets are frozen.For more than a half-century, Western donors have dominated international aid. Rich countries such as the United States, Canada, Britain, and Japan have sent resources, technical expertise, human capital, and ideas to help countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia develop economically.But over the last half-decade, the traditional flow of money has begun to shift dramatically, according to a report released today by Global Health Strategies Initiatives, an international nonprofit. The so-called BRICS countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — are increasing their foreign assistance by leaps and bounds at a time when traditional donors’ aid budgets are frozen or even decreasing.

Traditional donors still vastly outspend their peers in the BRICS. But as the BRICS begin to play a larger role, they stand to reshape not just the budgets but the entire philosophy of international aid. While aid efforts in the past have often been conceived and designed in Western capitals, BRICS countries are refocusing on approaches and innovation conceived in and made for the global South.“Rather than seeing [beneficiary countries] as grantees, they are more likely to see them as partners,” says Sridhar Venkatapuram, a lecturer at Cambridge University and contributor to the report.Of course, like traditional donors, the BRICS also bring their own baggage to the table. Aid tends to align with geopolitical interests and focus on areas that are linked to the countries’ domestic economies or priorities. But Western countries have long had a monopoly on using development assistance to curry favor. It’s only natural for the world’s rising powers to get into the game.
India takes lessons abroad
Take India, for example, which succeeded in eradicating polio in February 2012, just three years after reporting the highest caseload of any country in the world. The country’s success was locally driven: The government poured in $1.49 billion over a decade to inoculate the population and build the local health infrastructure necessary to treat the disease. Now it’s looking to take its experience elsewhere. Over the last three years, India has spent $100 million on health projects overseas, largely focused on building up local medical systems and transferring expertise.

[Prem]

Should there be a thread on Rising BRICS and Global Shift ,Its effect in reshaping this century and beyond?
Any Guru/ taker to do the Initiation/ Mundanl ceremony .

[Atri]

Very good video acharya ji.. Refer to Purusha Sukta and Purusha-medh...

[Samudragupta]

Should there be a thread on Rising BRICS and Global Shift ,Its effect in reshaping this century and beyond?
Any Guru/ taker to do the Initiation/ Mundanl ceremony .

BRICS is pure BS...it is a mechanism floated mainly by the Russians so that they can boot out the West from the leadership position....recently China is taking up the role of Russia in this forum and will try to dominate the forum through its predatory policies....The safeguard of IBSA created by India provides a cusion and also the gives us a glimpse of the strategic value of the BRICS to the respective countries.......

[Prem]

http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/s ... 120329.htm
India, China light up relations amidst Tibetan grief

Chinese President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh lit an oil lamp to mark the launch of the "Year of India-China Friendship and Cooperation" on Thursday after the two leaders met and discussed the state of their country's bilateral relations.The Chinese side had, earlier in the day, described China's relations with India as having "a very sound momentum of growth and development." ven the border issue was said to be progressing in a smooth way with the mechanism of the regular meeting of the special representatives while the two countries are able to maintain peace and tranquillity on the Line of Actual Control.Indian officials, on their part, have characterised the bilateral ties as a "mature relationship' but the popular impression in both countries is of two rivals with a long history of irritants and mistrust. A Year of Friendship and Cooperation with its multiple levels of interactions and a variety of cultural, economic, academic, political and people to people exchanges can be expected to change the mood.The two leaders had a wide ranging discussion on bilateral, regional and international issues. Among India's top concerns is the growing deficit in its trade with China and it has been seeking access into Chinese market for its exports of IT products and pharmaceuticals. President Hu Jintao's current visit to India is his last visit before he steps down from office in the change of guard in China later this year. The Chinese side was keen to ensure that nothing marred the president's visit to India and his presence at the BRICS summit, even thought tragic self-immolation by a young Tibetan activist in Delhi had cast a show over it. Beijing has been embarrassed by the series of self-immolations by monks and activists in Tibet and Qinghai region in China to protest Beijing's policies towards Tibet

[Prem]

http://www.eurasiareview.com/29032012-b ... -analysis/
BRICS For A New Global Order – Analysis
C. Raja Mohan

THE leaders of China, India, Russia, Brazil and South Africa meet in Delhi this week (28-29 March), one cannot but wonder how an improbable concept from Wall Street – the heart of Western capitalism – could have such a remarkable influence in the international system. Coined a decade ago by Goldman Sachs to promote an investment fund in emerging markets, BRICS is now either lionised or denounced as a countervailing bloc against the West.For many in the developing world, chafing under Western dominance since the end of the Cold War, the BRICS forum has emerged as the definitive new tribune and a potential foundation for different and more equitable world order. For those in the West, so accustomed to dominating the international political discourse during the last two decades, the prospect of a powerful non-Western bloc is deeply disconcerting.The Delhi summit is likely to examine a proposal to create an inter-governmental development bank by the BRICS nations. The summit is also likely to extend solid support to the business communities from their countries to deepen trade and investment ties. However the declarations from the Delhi summit will also indicate how the BRICS manage some of their current differences on global political issues, particularly relating to the Middle East.On Syria, China and Russia had vetoed a recent Arab League sponsored resolution in the United Nations Security Council, while India and South Africa have voted for it. The recent Presidential statement from the Council on Syria reflected a consensus that should facilitate a common position among the BRICS in favour of a ceasefire in Syria and negotiations between the government and the opposition.

[abhishek_sharma]

Whatever happened to arms control?

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Israel's Secret Staging Ground

Interview: James Baker, former US Secretary of State (Video) Part 1 Part 2

[abhishek_sharma]

The Dams of Chongqing

Does the U.S. military have the resources for an Asian century?

5 Must-Read Articles for Your Weekend

[abhishek_sharma]

The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty: Technical Issues for the United States

Power and Weakness by Robert Kagan Discussion on 10th anniversary

Cassidy's study of AfPak COIN: A review

A missed opportunity at the World Bank

Don’t Fear a Nuclear Arms Race in the Middle East

The irrelevance of America's withdrawal from Iraq

Why Obama's Iran oil sanctions don't really wall off Americans

[ramana]

Economist worries about future of NATO summit coming up in Chicago!

http://www.economist.com/node/21551464

NATO’s sea of troubles
Europe’s financial crisis and America’s “pivot” to Asia are a double blow for the alliance

AS PREPARATIONS begin for NATO’s Chicago summit in May, the 63-year-old alliance is facing a perfect storm of problems. Even if it can overcome them, the organisation that has formed the bedrock of European security since the ending of the second world war, and which only a few years ago aspired to become “global NATO”, faces a future of reduced means and more modest ambitions.

The gloom might seem surprising. Last year’s Libya mission was a success. With Britain and France leading from the front and America from behind, NATO waged a sophisticated air war that achieved everything it set out to do within seven months, causing remarkably little damage to vital infrastructure or harm to civilian life. Even in Afghanistan, NATO members have largely kept to the commitments they made at the latest summit in Lisbon two years ago and are set to stay the course until the agreed on, if inglorious, exit of combat forces at the end of 2014.

Quietly and without much fuss (except from the ever-grumpy Russians) the first phase of the new ballistic-missile defence system to protect Europe from an attack by a rogue state (ie, Iran) is being deployed. Spain has provided a base for Aegis missile-defence ships, Turkey is the site for a new X-band radar and SM-3 interceptors will find homes in Poland and Romania.

But the big picture is a lot more troubling. Europe’s economic crisis has put further pressure on already shrunken national-defence budgets. In its annual report “The Military Balance”, the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) noted that for the first time in modern history, Asian defence spending is about to overtake that of Europe.

Compounding that problem is America’s strategic pivot towards the Western Pacific, in response to China’s rapid military expansion. Published in January, the new “strategic guidance” only confirmed trends that have been gathering pace for many years. America’s statement that Europe should now be a producer of security, rather than a consumer, combined with an announcement that a quarter of the remaining American forces stationed in Germany would soon be coming home, carried an implicit warning to the European members of NATO.

Turning on Tripoli

In retrospect, the Libyan war may have been in several ways a turning point for the alliance. It was the first NATO campaign in which Britain and France, rather than America, were in the driving seat. Some members of the Obama team were convinced of the need for humanitarian intervention and a demonstration of support for the Arab spring. But others, notably the then-defence secretary, Robert Gates, saw no vital American strategic interest at stake and were determined to provide only just enough help to ensure that the slender arsenals of the European allies did not doom the mission.

In his valedictory speech—given in mid-campaign—Mr Gates lambasted his European allies for the slow progress against a puny opponent and for failing to invest in the capabilities that America was forced to provide, such as air-defence suppression, ISTAR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance) and aerial refuelling. Unless the Europeans plugged those gaps, he questioned, how much longer would America see NATO as a militarily useful partner?

Some of Mr Gates’s criticisms were unfair. Those gaps exist in part because America has urged its allies to avoid useless duplication. But his main point was that Europe had grown used to a free ride on American defence spending (which, as a share of GDP, is about three times the European NATO average). Instead it should at least be able to take care of security in its own backyard. This does not challenge—at least directly—NATO’s main promise, of American help against an attack on a European member country. But in future, America may be reluctant to lead even from behind in helping the Europeans deal with emerging threats or humanitarian calamities in their own near abroad.

In response NATO’s energetic secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, is touting something he calls “smart defence”—a new label for the 20-year-old idea of pooling and sharing resources, setting better priorities and encouraging countries to specialise in the things they are best at. Mr Rasmussen hopes members will agree to more than 20 projects before the Chicago summit, each led by one member country. These include the pooling of maritime patrol aircraft; the acquisition of five Global Hawk long-range reconnaissance drones; and a support package for deployed helicopters. Other schemes covering logistics, training and force protection are expected to follow.

Despite universal lip service to smart defence, scepticism abounds. François Heisbourg, chairman of the IISS and of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, says that governments all too often choose jobs in defence companies at home over military logic.

Libya also showed how national vetoes over the use of military assets can disrupt missions. When it comes to “wars of choice” European countries with different histories and geographies may disagree. Only eight out of 28 allies conducted strike sorties over Libya. Germany, which abstained on the UN resolution authorising the mission, went so far as to withdraw its crews from NATO warning and control aircraft and its warships from other NATO missions in the Mediterranean. In a future conflict, if, for example, one or two countries that had made a large contribution to a pooled fleet of air-to-air tankers decided to sit out the campaign, what would happen to the assets they had paid for and helped to operate?

Mr Rasmussen is looking at “assurance of availability” contracts signed between participants in a pooling arrangement. But even if this would raise the political bar for refusing to take part, no contract can remove the risk altogether. Furthermore, the voters of the biggest and richest country in European NATO—Germany—are resistant to the use of force in almost any context. That hangs uncomfortably over the whole smart-defence idea.

The endgame in Afghanistan casts a gloomy shadow, too. After the optimistic early years, many are now impatiently counting the days to December 2014 when NATO is due to cease combat operations and the transition to Afghans’ responsibility for their own will in theory be complete. A NATO training mission will endure beyond 2014, but its longevity will depend on how Afghan forces perform. The picture will be messy, confused and probably disappointing.

But, for all its woes, the mission gave the alliance cohesion and a purpose that it may now lack. Some European governments feel that their support for a war with little popular backing may have been taken too much for granted by America. But on the ground, respect has grown. American generals have been surprised and gratified by their allies’ grit in a largely thankless task. They have also noted how even allied forces of initially limited effectiveness improved dramatically after working alongside their American partners. That shared experience will rapidly become just a memory. As American combat brigades leave Europe, joint training will suffer. That will hurt one of NATO’s central objectives: interoperability between American and European forces.

The summit will reaffirm the strength of the transatlantic partnership and Mr Rasmussen will insist that smart defence can confound the cynics and pave the way for “doing more with less”. But what the future is more likely to hold is benign neglect by America and declining military ambition in Europe. In other words, unless something changes, NATO will end up just doing less with less.

[ramana]

So Western Europe fears the historical ghosts of North Africa bordering the Mediterranean and Russia from the east. Germany wants to be neutral.

Europe is energy deficient.

[shyamd]

Ramana ji, it's always been like that. Germany view is aligned with the US. France because they want to be an independent global power they play off relations with the Russians hence The news that they want to sell shiPs to Russia even recently. French also team up with the UK on issues now and then to scuttle German/US plans.

If you notice UK isn't that integrated with Europe and they prefer their special relationship with the US. US doesn't encourage them to integrate either. Although as Britain gets insulted by the US, France and the uk are planning to share defence to save costs.

For Germany, their view is Europe + US. German position on the Libyan war was neutral.

Decision to finish gaddafi was taken as soon as Benghazi kicked off. As soon as NATO decided to participate the pieces began to fall in place. The pillar of NATO is France and Germany with the US.

Refugee problem is not new for EU. Libyans are being armed by the French. Egypt is on its knees.

Since 2000 there has been a debate on how far to extend NATO to close to Russian borders. The Georgian war put halt to that and sent a strong message to all the states applying for NATO membership in eastern Europe.

Since the late 90s the west think that a Russia under democracy is more likely to be less of a threat and will probably be closer to the US interests. So, the Russians found this out. Putin was very smart, he trained a coup intervention force of loyal youth. Each youth were trained in combat and given some military training. The force was around 30,000 and they have to live within 3 hours of the capital to join. The 3 hours is very important because whoever intervenes within the first 12 hours can seriously threaten and prevent the coup from succeeding.

Russia needs 2 things to become a super power once again - Azerbaijan and Ukraine.

Why these 2?

Azerbaijan is the link for central Asia pipelines. If you get this, the rest of the former soviet central Asian states will swiftly fall in line.

Ukraine has around 55 million people and tonnes of resources.

As the US retreats, I think it will rely on turkey and possibly Iran to keep its hold on Azerbaijan and Russian interests there.

Germany will be the defender against Russia and will be the powerful state. Just as Rome retreated and relied on its frontier states to take care of its security interests as the roman decline started, the US is doing the same. Hence why we are seeing closer German strategic relations with Israel.

The problem for the US is, if they lose Europe then their hold in the GCC becomes weak. Hence why the GCC is building its relations with India up. You will see more strategic cooperation between the two. The gulf looks around and it sees untrustworthy allies and they barely survive in a hostile environment.

Just as vijayanagar empire integrated to face the Islamic threat, today the gulf will form into a union very soon.

The EU is on its knees, no one wants to admit it but the euro is about to finish. Everyone all the big banks the Arabs are pulling their money out and throwing it towards India. China has its issues as has been discussed in the economics thread.

I don't know how you guys feel living in the US, from outside the feeling is the US is getting more split internally, the republican party candidates look like jokers and there isn't anyone really credible. It really feels like the US is in decline.

Think about the security scenario in 3 years time.

[ramana]

ShyamD, Lets look from energy resources prism.
There are six or seven oil giants. Most of them are US based. BP is the European oil giant. After the Gulf Oil spill Bp is weakened. Take that into consideration when the EU move into Libya started. Off course this might be farthest from their minds and they are pure as driven snow in their motives to spread democracy to Arab dictatorships but now Libyan oil is in EU bucket!

The treaty of Aix-La-Chappelle in 1764, saw the rise of two Middle European powers: Prussia (now Germany), European Russia(now Russia). The geo-politics in Europe since then is how to balance the rise of these two powers?

Its back to the future again.

[shyamd]

BP is actually joint US and Britain. That was the point Cameron made to Obama. But obama picking on BP was against british interest. Then a major row was sparked off with obama planning to impose laws on lloyds of London another major pillar of the british. Thankfully cameron stood his ground and prevented Obama from doing anything.

Yes, they need oil but they already had a contract after tony Blair's visit and the Italians had the biggest contracts anyway. It will be interesting to see why they actually went in. I am not convinced oil is the main reason. I mean the Chinese and India still have their contracts. Today oil is govt to govt it's not like the 70s and 80s where the fields were actually owned partly by big oil co's. aramco is state owned. Kurdistan, the state gets loads of cash the operators make hardly anything. BP in the south of Iraq, complain that they are hardly making any money due to the stringent contract conditions.

Essentially there are 2 powers as you said Russia and Germany. France is the middle rate power. They were pissed off after reunification as it was their dominant power status was swiftly eroded.

French were negotiating rafale sales prior to the operation. France sees the western part of the med as their sphere of influence. Anything that happens there has to go through Paris.

But in terms of investment they stole gaddafi's cash and they can easily use that to pay back their costs anyway and maybe more.

[svinayak]

Good scenario but several factors are different.

The problem for the US is, if they lose Europe then their hold in the GCC becomes weak. Hence why the GCC is building its relations with India up. You will see more strategic cooperation between the two. The gulf looks around and it sees untrustworthy allies and they barely survive in a hostile environment.

That is why US/UK have parked themselves in Iraq. They are working on the new map of the middle east. They are going to be in Af-Pak for the next 30 years.
These are the signs when they are retreating and they are losing their total dominance. This dominance started when they defeated the ottoman empire in 1917 in WWI.

There is going to be confrontation between a combined Gulf and the Chrsitian west. This can come in if the Gulf states discover that Anglo American power can be disloged from the area if they can. This could be World War III but of a different nature.

They want to protect and expand the greater Israel area including Jordan and northern Iraq. They want to control Libya and Egypt as thier long term region since EU need the protection in the southern flank. Iran will be kept weak with war and the Saudi region will be split based on OIL politics. They will make sure that their access to central asia is kept clear for the next 30-50 years.

[shyamd]

And if the gulf dislodge the US from the area do you think that it will help them?

[svinayak]

They may try. THe hold of the BRitish inside the Gulf states is too much and even now they have to depend on the BB.
But the gulf states are a long way for a complete independence from any of the western powers. They are sitting on the most important commodity of the mankind.

[shyamd]

Drop the conspiracy theory and come to strategic analysis. First is who will dislodge the US ( a nation with 13 aircraft carriers), second is who will protect the GCC once the US leaves(who will gve them modern weapons)? And lets say the oil co's are kicked out do you think a weak US economy is good for the other customers and not to mention the dollar link? Both are tied to the hip.

British are out of the game and have been after 1990, they decided after Falklands they wont enter into another war on their own.

[svinayak]

Dont talk about conspiracy theory in a geo polticial thread first.
Nobody will leave the area. But the dominance of the anglo american power will decline in the region. That is what we are talking about. Who will replace that partial vacuum. It will be Russia, China and India. Is this difficult to understand.

These countries will hedge by giving contracts to companies from these countries. They will reduce the internal influence of anglo american powers.

[shyamd]

Yes I agree with what you say above but not what you say about the Gulf trying to dislodge them. And another thing -there is no way US will leave that area to someone else. US and India share the same interests there, but even India wont enter yet - it will only enter as a partner to the US. PRC is not taken seriously by them. Russia cant.

I was referring to your comment:

This can come in if the Gulf states discover that Anglo American power can be disloged from the area if they can. This could be World War III but of a different nature.

They want to protect and expand the greater Israel area including Jordan and northern Iraq.

Greater Israel? I still remember Ariel Sharon begging on live television for more jews to migrate. There is no chance for a greater israel, that is just a conspiracy theory.

[devesh]

India and US most certainly don't have the same interests in ME. US coddling of Islamists shows this. of course, as long as the present basic structure of Indian rashtra remains, there is this illusion of that "same interests" of US and India in ME. but once this structure collapses, Indian interests will aggressively turn against Islamism. so this supposed "same interests" is actually not true. it is a forced jacket that India is coerced into wearing.

[shyamd]

I am talking about oil security and safe passage of oil. You know there are other issues besides islamism in the world .

[paramu]

What is US's interest in oil security in middle-east? US imports more oil from Canada than total oil import from middle east. This is in addition to that from Mexico, Venezuela etc.

[svinayak]

Greater Israel? I still remember Ariel Sharon begging on live television for more jews to migrate. There is no chance for a greater israel, that is just a conspiracy theory.

You think so

[svinayak]

India and US most certainly don't have the same interests in ME. US coddling of Islamists shows this. of course, as long as the present basic structure of Indian rashtra remains, there is this illusion of that "same interests" of US and India in ME. but once this structure collapses, Indian interests will aggressively turn against Islamism. so this supposed "same interests" is actually not true. it is a forced jacket that India is coerced into wearing.

This is a good topic and needs a seperate thread.
This same interest nonsense is exposed in the Iran for oil relations.