Investment bankers salivate over North Africa

Chaos and strife create the revolutionary atmosphere in which opportunity abounds

Aletho News | March 8, 2011

Investment banking is usually thought of as a field that values stability. Yet the greatest rewards are often attained through destabilization.
North African regimes and leaders have their obvious faults and flaws. Autocracies have an inherent weakness in their tendency to ossification. This basic reality is reflected not just in the obvious lack of democratic institutions, but also in the economic structures of the North African states. Regimes which have persisted for many decades tend to retain many of the economic characteristics of the era in which they were formed.
In the developing economies, during the decades prior to the neo-liberal reforms of the 1990′s, state owned industries were fostered in order to provide basic services such as telecommunications, transport and public utilities. Local manufacturing industries were protected from offshore competition as a means of furthering development goals and enhancing balance of trade accounts. These well established practices have come to be seen by today’s promoters of ‘free trade’ and privatization as an impediment to maximizing profits. Once established, these industries are in many cases difficult to dislodge.
Therefore, a clean break is required for restructuring primary domestic industries in order for international investors to reap a greater share of locally generated profits. This process is referred to as ‘creative destruction’. To facilitate the emplacement of the new order, the old order must first be swept aside. This requirement of upending the existing order explains why Western neoconservatives have been promoting the revolutionary uprisings in North Africa. Neoconservative think tanks and publications are closely associated with the banking interests. Evidence of their designs on North Africa is abundant.
A 2010 Bertelsmann evaluation titled Transformation Tunisia reported:

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

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

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

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

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

And also that:

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

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

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

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

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

Of course, to suggest that the uprisings have been orchestrated solely by these interests would ignore genuine grassroots concerns. Nothing here is meant to suggest that conditions for unrest were not present or that sacrifices for social change have not been made by the peoples of North Africa. This article is only meant to inform as to the activities of the interventionists. The real accomplishments of the uprisings may yet predominate.
Within a month after demanding cessation of military aid to Mubarak, the very same neocon cabal was demanding military intervention in the less pliable Libya. Jim Lobe reports for IPS:

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

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

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

~

Related video post:
Alliance for Youth Movements: The State Dept.’s New Vehicle for Regime Change
Update March 13, 2011:
US training quietly nurtured young Arab democrats
Update March 15, 2011:
A regional strategy for democracy in the Middle East

Zalmay Khalilzad | Washngton Post | March 15, 2011

… The Middle East uprisings that hold the greatest promise are in anti-American dictatorships. The immediate challenge is to ensure the ouster of Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi. [...]
… Gaddafi’s overthrow and the consolidation of a liberal, pro-American regime would bolster prospects for reform in Iran and Syria by countering Iranian propaganda that the current revolts are Islamist in character and directed only at partners of the United States.
We can follow up with a variety of steps to foment democratic revolutions against Tehran and Damascus, beginning with clarion calls for change. These include: training and support for opposition forces in and outside the countries; pressure directed against regime officials who attack their own people, including targeted sanctions and referrals in international tribunals; surrogate broadcasting and other pro-democracy messaging; funds for striking workers; and covert efforts to induce defections by regime and security officials. …

Three Mile Island, Global Warming and the CIA

Aletho News | January 9, 2012

 

This article will examine some of the connections between the US and UK National Security apparatus and the appearance of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory beginning after the accident at Three Mile Island.

In the mid 1970s “climate cooling” was the topic of articles in popular magazines such as Newsweek with reports of meteorologists being “almost unanimous” that the trend could lead to catastrophic famines, another little ice age or worse. In 1974 Time magazine published an article titled “Another Ice Age?.” In 1975 the New York Times ran an article titled “Scientists Ponder Why World’s Climate Is Changing; a Major Cooling Widely Considered to Be Inevitable,” while in 1978 they reported that “an international team of specialists has concluded from eight indexes of climate that there is no end in sight to the cooling trend of the last 30 years, at least in the Northern Hemisphere.”

While it may be true that the “newspaper of record” is not the best source for topics that go beyond the pronouncements of official or “off the record” statements from government agents, it is instructive that the message changed by the end of the decade, after the March 28, 1979 accident at Three Mile Island which had sounded the death knell for the nuclear power industry that is.

Daniel Yergin writes that by the early 1980s “a notable shift in the climate of climate change research was clear-from cooling to warming.”1 Yergin reports that the Department of Defense’s JASON committee had concluded that “incontrovertible evidence that the atmosphere is indeed changing and that we ourselves contribute to that change,” adding “a wait-and-see policy may mean waiting until it is too late.” Political action was now being called for. That action would entail reducing carbon emissions, something which could be achieved through increased reliance on the now unpopular nuclear power industry.

Nuclear weapons programs rely on the existence of large nuclear processing facilities including mining, milling and enrichment of uranium as well as a highly specialized and experienced labor pool. While it is possible to produce nuclear weapons without a nuclear power industry it is far preferable to have a dynamic nuclear industry in place. The nuclear facilities that existed in 1979 would not last forever and the industry was seen as an essential component of the military industrial complex. These factors might have been over-riding considerations in the JASON committee report.

One of the principle scientists engaged in formulating the AGW theory was Roger Revelle, a US Navy oceanographer who was employed at the Office of Naval Research. The US Navy was actually central to the development of the civilian nuclear power industry in the US due to its reactor designs for nuclear powered submarines and ships.

Another outspoken early proponent of AGW theory was Britain’s Margaret Thatcher who also sought the construction of new nuclear power plants as well as Trident nuclear submarines along with new nuclear weapons. Her Conservative party also sought to crush the coal miner’s unions with which they had intractable disputes. Britain went on to begin construction of new nuclear power plants during the 1980s while firing tens of thousands of coal miners.

In the US, the Carter administration sponsored the establishment of the solar energy industry, another carbon free energy source. George Tenet (later named as director of the CIA) became the promotion manager of the Solar Energy Industries Association which included companies such as Grumman, Boeing, General Motors and Exxon.

In 2008 another CIA director, James Woolsey would also become involved in promoting “a Fortress America of tanks and solar panels, plug-in hybrids and nuclear reactors,”2 only in his case the service to the carbon free industry would come after the CIA stint rather than before. Woolsey has recently appeared in an anti-oil print ad for the American Clean Skies Foundation.

The Institute for Policy Studies reports on Woolsey’s focus as an energy security advisor to the John McCain presidential campaign:

A founding member of the Set America Free coalition, a pressure group aimed at highlighting the “security and economic implications of America’s growing dependence on foreign oil,” Woolsey sees himself as helping pioneer a new political coalition that combines his militarist security ideology with green politics. He says, “The combination of 9/11, concern about climate change, and $4 a gallon gasoline has brought a lot of people together. I call it the coalition of the tree-huggers, the do-gooders, the cheap hawks, the evangelicals, and the mom and pop drivers. All of those groups have good reasons to be interested in moving away from oil dependence.”3

The Set America Free coalition includes liberal groups such as the Apollo Alliance, the American Council on Renewable Energy and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
In promoting the reduction in reliance on Middle Eastern oil imports Woolsey is joined by prominent hawks such as Senator Joseph Lieberman, former Senator Sam Brownback, Representative Eliot Engel, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, former national security adviser Robert McFarlane, Thomas Neumann of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum, Frank Gaffney head of the neoconservative Center for Security Policy (CSP), Cliff May of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), Gary Bauer of American Values and Meyrav Wurmser of the Hudson Institute.

An outcome of energy independence would be greater freedom to initiate wars of aggression across the Middle East region that would destroy any potential resistance to the greater Israel project. Woolsey’s positions as an advisor to the neoconservative-led Foundation for the Defense of Democracies; and advisory board member of the Likudnik Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs might shed some light on his aims.

Notes

1 Daniel Yergin, The Quest, Penguin Press
2 Jackson West, “R. James Woolsey and the Rise of the Greenocons”
3 Tim Shipman, “John McCain Hires Former CIA Director Jim Woolsey As Green Advisor,” Daily Telegraph, June 21, 2008.

There's more to climate fraud than just tax hikes

Aletho News
December 3, 2009

By now we know that Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory has been built on a mixture of hype and massaged data. Various carbon tax schemes have been put forward, even unprecedented proposals for a world wide taxation authority to be overseen by the UN. Does it follow that the primary agenda behind the fraud was the implementing these new taxes, or, were these proposed tax schemes secondary and part of a proclivity on the part of the state to seize any opportunity to enhance revenue?

In the three decades since AGW was made into a political tool by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party, tax laws have been "reformed" many times in Britain, as well as other Western nations dominated by the AGW meme. Margaret Thatcher and her Conservative Party were known for their opposition to social leveling through taxation. Reduction of public services, combined with hectoring the disadvantaged about self reliance, were hallmarks of British politics through the 1980's and beyond. In Europe and North America, today's overall level of taxation is not higher than that prevalent in 1979.

In Britain and the US, governments have been able to utilize the issuance of sovereign debt to increase military budgets while at the same time reducing capital gains and corporate tax rates creating an era of "borrow and spend" growth for the state sector. In the US, the higher income tax brackets have come down while middle class employees have seen increased social security deductions from their paychecks. These revenues were then "borrowed" by the general fund and in fact replaced the revenues lost due to the reduction of corporate taxes.

The burden of financing government spending has been increasingly shifted to the median wage earner and away from the investor and high income earner. Adoption of a tax collection system based on the consumption of energy would seem to fit into this general pattern, since working people spend a larger portion of their earnings on energy, and goods derived from energy, than do the wealthy. However, this outcome could be easily achieved by implementing a flat tax on income or a national sales tax. The rationale used to promote the flat tax is much simpler and would have been more likely to succeed than pushing the AGW carbon tax through fraudulent scaremongering. Right now a national sales tax would be politically far easier to implement in the US.

Since the 1970's we have seen capital controls lifted allowing for the free movement of capital through most of the world. New tax credits and deductions came into existence which were, in fact, incentives for multinational corporations to shift their operations from industrialized nations to the third world. Lower corporate tax rates could be found in the third world while profits were repatriated at favorable rates. This enabled the shifting of production, and later services, to the third world through tax policies. The Kyoto protocol looked suspiciously similar to these tax policies in that it also created an advantage for the deployment of capital in low wage nations.

A "free trade" regime without tariff barriers would allow for the hyper-exploitation of third world labor while at the same time driving down first world labor costs. But due to the combined competitive disadvantages of poor infrastructure, inexperienced workforces, and transport costs, as well as the necessity of writing off stranded production assets in the developed nations, corporations based in the advanced economies demanded that their governments finance the restructuring of the global economy. Lower labor costs just couldn't compensate for the disadvantages of moving to China or India, at least not until infrastructure was improved and workforces were trained. Without government assistance offshoring corporations would fail to compete in the marketplace with established industry at home. This motive, providing advantages to investment in the developing nations, is more plausible than the commonly assumed notion that the motive behind the AGW fraud was an excuse to raise taxes on consumers. There is a weakness in this proposition that is similar to the weakness described above regarding carbon taxes though, governments could have aided their corporations through tax advantages without all the complexity and risk involved in AGW fraud.

Yet, there is another motive that is much more certain than either of the above possibilities, even more certain than the profits that Goldman Sachs stood to gain from carbon credits trading schemes. To understand this motive we must return to the time when the AGW meme was first promoted. Three Mile Island had recently been shut down following a near melt down. Unknown quantities of radioactive material were released across a vast area of Pennsylvania. 2,400 lawsuits were filed for death or disease suffered by family members which were ultimately denied access to federal courts. In the US, applications for construction of new nuclear power plants had a zero chance of approval by local authorities. The nuclear industry had come to a standstill. At the same time national policy makers, in conjunction with the military industrial complex, wanted to maintain a dynamic nuclear industry that included ongoing mining, milling, enrichment, research and development as well as a large pool of personnel with nuclear expertise. In fact, Thatcher's situation was particularly strained in that she wanted to discharge tens of thousands of coal miners, replacing them with the politically poisonous nuclear power plants. This feat would require an overriding fear, something that calls for the public to acquiesce and reserve their strong objections. There would be no way to sell such policies to the public without resorting to a paradigm changing ruse, one that defines any dissidence as a danger to the safety of society. AGW would provide that cover. In fact, it is hard to imagine any other paradigm change that could have subverted the environmentalist opposition to the nuclear industry.

If the AGW theory could be planted within a co-opted or deceived environmental movement, general acceptance of the alarmism would be seen as a victory for the environment despite the fact that CO2 is not actually a pollutant. The din of propaganda would be constant until a state of emergency appeared imminent. Nuclear power plants would be presented as the way out while the absence of any solution for nuclear waste disposal would be ignored. The high financial cost of the nuclear facilities would be absorbed later by rate payers while the government would underwrite the investor's risks.

The AGW Svengali, Al Gore, is no stranger to promotion of the nuclear industry. Since the late 70's, he has been outspoken in support of new reactors, defending the aborted Clinch River Breeder Reactor, which was was scheduled to produce weapons grade plutonium, to the bitter end. Representation of nuclear interests is actually a Gore family tradition going back to the industry's foundation. Keith Harmon Snow reports:

A 1957 study by the Brookhaven National Laboratory estimated “the consequences of a very large reactor accident at a hypothetically small nuclear plant near a large city” at 43,000 injuries, 3,400 deaths and $7 billion in 1957 losses. Congress passed the “Gore Bill” of 1956, championed by then U.S. Senator Albert Gore (Sr.) of the pro-nuclear Gore dynasty. This became the Price Andersen Act -- reauthorized by Congress again in 2002 – shielding the industry from significant liability for any major nuclear accident. The 1989 Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Catastrophic Nuclear Power Accidents determined that private nuclear corporations would be unlikely to survive unless the federal government insured the industry against such “unexpected and unknown” potential liabilities as the Bhopal disaster (Union Carbide), Agent Orange (Dow) and the Dalkon Shield.

To better appreciate the imperative of maintaining the nuclear industry one must acknowledge the tenuous hold on power that the Western elites possess. The global mass of humanity have little interest in the perpetuation of the existing power structure. While it is possible for a minority to rule over the majority, without an overwhelming technological advantage, military dominance is too costly both in lives and finance. Weapons of mass destruction have provided the ultimate terror instrument necessary to check organized challenges to military supremacy. This was why Hiroshima and Nagasaki were obliterated. Pax Americana arose from the annihilation of non-combatants. The capability of mass murder is why some nations have seats on the UN Security Council with veto power while others have one vote in the General Assembly. Maintenance of this disparity in destructive power is essential to the continued dominance over the non-nuclear nations according to Peter Phillips:

The U.S. Government is blazing a trail of nuclear weapon revival leading to global nuclear dominance. A nuke-revival group, supported by people like Stephen Younger, Associate Director for Nuclear Weapons at Los Alamos, proposes a "mini-nuke" capable of burrowing into underground weapon supplies and unleashing a small, but contained nuclear explosion. This weapons advocacy group is comprised of nuclear scientists, Department of Energy (DoE) officials, right wing analysts, former government officials, and a congressionally appointed over-sight panel. The group wants to ensure that the U.S. continues to develop nuclear capacity into the next half century.

The US nuclear energy industry is overseen by the Department of Energy, which also oversees the nuclear weapons complex through the National Nuclear Security Administration. The reliable lifespan of the current nuclear arsenal is measured in decades. Due to the untested decay characteristics of plutonium it is possible that much of the present arsenal could become unserviceable with little advance warning. The existence of a robust nuclear industry is a prerequisite for new weapons production capability which may be the main factor in Energy Secretary Chu's strident support for a new generation of nuclear power plants.

AGW has been instrumental in the resurrection of nuclear power in the US and Britain. Seen in this light the AGW fraud is not surprising. The mass collusion of lies is actually a normal occurrence when "national security" is perceived to be involved. Institutions and foundations are can be relied upon to perform their roles. Entire industries conform to the dominant anticipated cap and trade system. Other nations have been co-opted or pressed into accepting the AGW meme. One only has to examine the warmongering lies about Iraqi WMDs or Iranian nuclear weapons programs to put the AGW fraud into perspective.

Obama regime vows to "engage" Sudan

Sudan policy review

Aletho News
October 19, 2009

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unveiled the new Sudan policy of the Obama administration today expressing a goal of preventing Sudan from becoming a haven for international "terror" groups. Anonymous officials have said that they are eager to see steps taken to eliminate support for Palestinian militant groups, including Hamas. U.S. Sudan special envoy, Retired General Scott Gration, has also said the administration’s new approach was intended to prevent Sudan from serving as a terrorist haven. Barak Obama described Sudan as a "global security challenge" in his July speech in Ghana.

"We have a menu of incentives and disincentives," Clinton said, refusing to specify the potential punitive measures, though in January the Secretary of State said the Obama administration was considering the creation of no-fly zones and increased economic and trade sanctions.

The "incentives" could possibly include removing Sudan from the U.S. list of states that sponsor terrorism or ending the existing trade sanctions which have been imposed against the nation for over a decade. An executive order, signed in 1997 by then- President Bill Clinton, bans most U.S. trade with Sudan, including any imports of Sudanese goods and the export to the country of anything except food, clothing and medicine. It also bars the extension of U.S. credit to the Sudanese government. The Darfur Accountability Act, passed in 2006, requires the administration to get congressional approval and certify that Sudan is taking certain steps before those sanctions under the executive order can be lifted. The same "steps" appear to apply regarding the state sponsor of terror list; "Getting off the terrorism list is something that could happen if and only if they have taken the right steps" an unnamed source told Reuters.

From now on, the United States will maintain that genocide "is taking place" in Darfur, anonymous officials told the Washington Post, a rhetorical assertion that is backed only by "political statements" made by intervention advocates that the GAO has characterized as lacking in "objective analysis", relying on "too few data points extrapolated to an excessive degree." This new characterization of genocide addresses a prior dispute between U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice, who says that there is "ongoing genocide" in Darfur, and Scott Gration over how to characterize the violence in Darfur. Rice has long been a proponent of tough action against Khartoum. The genocide claims have been parroted ubiquitously in the Western press which has likewise parroted the demonization of Hamas by U.S. officials since Hamas won the 2006 elections.

To acquit itself of the "ongoing genocide" designation, Sudan is being asked to prove a negative, a logical impossibility. President of the Save Darfur Coalition, Jerry Fowler, says "the burden of proof is on the government of Sudan", while Ms. Rice said the administration would insist that Sudan show real evidence that conditions for civilians had begun to improve before offering incentives. The administration said that the policy calls for quarterly reviews of conditions in Darfur.

In Orwellian fashion the NYT presents the policy as "more balanced", presumably more balanced than the Bush policy which applied the 1997 sanctions and defined Sudan as a State sponsor of terrorism, but did not apply enough "pressure" according to Sudan hawks. Sudan interventionists are quite pleased with the new policy review. House Sudan caucus co-chairman Representative Frank R. Wolf, Republican from Virginia, said "considering the rumors we’ve been hearing, this policy seems very positive". Representative Donald M. Payne, Democrat of New Jersey, also a co-chairman of the Sudan caucus, said "I think the only thing the government of Sudan understands is bluntness and power." John Prendergast, co-chairman of the Enough Project, said the new policy appeared to be "a fine one."

Left unmentioned in the coverage of the policy review is the impact that the review will likely have on the heretofore promising peace talks which are underway due to the efforts of Egypt, Libya and Qatar. The next round of talks between the rebel movements of Darfur and the Sudanese government are scheduled to begin on November 16 in Doha, Qatar. Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha welcomed the Qatari hosted peace initiative saying "I think the solution to the crisis in Darfur is (above all) in the hands of the Sudanese and the citizens of Darfur."

US Climate Change Bill Promotes Nuclear Industry

"A new era for the nuclear industry"

Obama energy adviser Carol Browner announces mandates
that will result in a new generation of nuclear power plants.
Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Aletho News
October 5, 2009

The new Democratic climate change bill , introduced in the Senate by Barbara Boxer and John Kerry, contains more advantages for nuclear power than even the legislation which passed in the House of Representatives last June. Included are waste management, financing and loan guarantee arrangements, regulatory risk insurance, as well as R&D and training programs. Joseph Lieberman is understood to be preparing the fine print for the bill which is presently "short on details". The bill however does describe a "new era for the nuclear industry." Other vital findings include:

(6) even if every nuclear plant is granted a 20-year extension, all currently operating nuclear plants will be retired by 2055;

(7) long lead times for nuclear power plant construction indicate that action to stimulate the nuclear power industry should not be delayed;

(8) the high upfront capital costs of nuclear plant construction remain a substantial obstacle, despite theoretical potential for significant cost reduction;

The push for a new generation of nuclear power plants finds bi-partisan support, Democrat Barbara Boxer has said that a higher cost for carbon–which would make coal-fired plants less attractive and nuclear plants more attractive–would do the trick [in making nuclear power competitive], while Republican Lamar Alexander has said "let's start building a hundred nuclear power plants." Ever one to make extreme positions seem moderate, John McCain says the Democrats' bill falls far short, and he wants more incentives for building new nuclear plants, beyond aid the industry already gets and the advantages for nuclear under a cap and trade plan.

Unlike their political leaders the public is increasingly skeptical about the need for "climate" legislation. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press reported that 30 percent of the public considered global warming to be one of the top priorities for governmental action, placing it 19th out of the 19 options surveyed in the January 2009 survey. Barack Obama's top energy adviser, Carol Browner does not see a high likelihood of legislation being passed this year. Undeterred by popular will the EPA said on September 30, that it will require newly built or modified industrial facilities that produce more than 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year to use “best available [carbon] control technologies and energy efficiency measures.” Thus directly mandating the costlier nuclear energy whether the Congress passes a climate change bill or not. An increased cost to ultimately be borne by rate payers. The expense of nuclear energy could be viewed as another military related financial drain on America since a vibrant civilian nuclear industry is vital for the ongoing development of new nuclear weapons.

Requirements for energy sources that are actually renewable will amount to little more than shallow symbolism as their costs will remain higher yet than that of nuclear. Under the House bill wind and solar will see some mandated growth but still make up a tiny fraction of US energy generation. The lack of interest in renewable energy is made clear by the recent slashing of the already minuscule funding for wave and tidal energy research.

Marvin Fertel, president and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry lobby, justifies the claim on public largess solely on the imperative of reducing Co2, the weaker "energy independence" rationale being absent from his response to the bill:

"The U.S. nuclear energy industry supports the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050 in a way that minimizes negative impact on the economy and consumers of electricity. We appreciate the fact that Senators Kerry and Boxer recognize that nuclear energy is a critical component of any strategy to reduce carbon emissions. The nuclear energy industry appreciates their efforts, along with those of Senator Carper, to articulate the strategic value of nuclear energy in this global challenge."

As with other major pieces of legislation under consideration by the current Congress, the financial industry is a central actor, venture capitalists “are ready to pour multibillions of dollars into clean energy” if Congress passes “some kind of bill that talks about energy independence and climate change,” Boxer said.


Related articles:

(Nuclear) Energy bill moves to the Senate

- July 9, 2009

Dr. Chu's Energy Bait and Switch

- June 13, 2009