h/t Gates of Vienna
The winners of that "kinetic" thing in northern Africa (the Barack Obama administration swears it's not a war) - collectively described as Friends of Libya (FOL) - were all in a jolly mood as they gathered in Paris on Thursday, with no air-conditioning but potent odors of runny Brie and Roquefort, to gloat about their United Nations-sanctioned, North Atlantic Treaty Organization-implemented "operation" for regime change in Libya.
Call it the FOL war; the R2P war (as in "responsibility to protect" Western plunder); the Air France war; the Total war; anyway, the FOL had a blast spinning their win.
The Great Arab Liberator, neo-Napoleonic President Nicolas Sarkozy, gloated, "We have aligned with the Arab people in their aspiration for freedom." Bahrainis, Saudis, Yemenis, not to mention Tunisians and Egyptians, have every right to be puzzled.
Sarko added, "Dozens of thousands of lives were spared thanks to the intervention." Even the "rebels" are spinning there are at least 50,000 dead, with NATO still hooked on a wild bombing spree.
...Securing the loot
Hours before the Paris bash, French daily Liberation published on its website a letter written only 17 days after UN Resolution 1973. In the letter, the TNC ratifies an agreement ceding no less than 35% of Libya's total crude oil production to France in exchange of Sarko's "humanitarian" support.
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Or perhaps Africans see right through the FOL's agenda; the new Libyan status as a barely disguised Western colony; and the neo-Orwellian fable of humanitarian imperialism.
Blood for oil, sure, but a 'western colony'? I think not!
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/05/2011 7:09 Comments ||
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#2
European arranged regime changes have a rather shoddy performance record on the continent of Africa as I recall. I doubt this one will fair much better.
We are so used to German self-abnegation for the sake of Europe that we can hardly imagine any other state of affairs. But the escalating protest against EMU bail-outs by Germanys key institutions go beyond the banalities of money. The fight is over German democracy itself.
Those who talk of a Fourth Reich or believe that EMU is a "German racket to take over the whole of Europe" as Nicholas Ridley famously put it -- have the matter backwards.
Germans allowed their country to be tied down with "silken chords". They are the most reliable defenders of freedom and parliamentary prerogative in Europe, precisely because they know their history.
Finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble could hardly have chosen a more toxic term than "Bevollmächtigung" or general enabling power when he requested blanket authority from the Bundestag for EU rescues, as if Weimar were so soon forgotten. He was roundly rebuffed.
You can feel the storm brewing in Germany. Within days of each other, President Christian Wulff accused the European Central Bank of going "far beyond" its mandate and subverting Article 123 of the Lisbon Treaty by shoring up insolvent states, and Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann said bail-out policies had "completely gutted" the EU law.
Both believe the EU Project has taken a dangerous turn. Fiscal powers are slipping away to a supra-national body beyond sovereign control. "This strikes at the very core of our democracies. Decisions have to be made in parliament in a liberal democracy. That is where legitimacy lies," said Mr Wulff.
Otmar Issing, the ECBs founding guru, fears that the current course must ultimately provoke the "resistance of the people". Instead of evolving into an authentic union with a "European government controlled by a European Parliament" on democratic principles, it has become deformed halfway house.
In its rush to save EMU, he said, Europe has forgotten that legislative primacy over tax and spending is the crucible of our democracies. It was monarchical assault on the power of the purse that led to Englands Civil War, and Americas Revolution.
We will find out to what extent Germanys constitutional court shares these fears when it rules this Wednesday on the legality of the EU rescue machinery, and delivers its verdict of life or death for monetary union.
The opinion will be drafted by Guido di Fabio, a Wilhelmine nostalagic and declared enemy of "libertarian nihilism". The judge has an odd outlook perhaps for the grandson of an impoverished nobleman from the Abruzzi who found work in Duisburg steel mills. He is quintessentially German now.
His remarkable 2005 book "The Culture of Freedom" decries the "enfeebled" societies of the West, and judges multiculturalism and the welfare state to have failed miserably. He calls for a "renaissance of marriage and family" and a return to "the nation as common destiny". One awaits his Nieztschean verdict on Europe with curiosity.
The court is a formidable body, the last defender of sovereignty against EU overreach in a Europe of pliant judges. "European integration may not result in the system of democratic rule in Germany being undermined," was its verdict on the Lisbon Treaty.
In a defiant warning to the European Court and the plotters and usurpers of Brussels, it ruled that the nation states are "masters of the Treaties" and not the other way round. Core areas of policy especially budgets -- "must forever remain German".
"The principle of democracy may not be balanced against other legal interests; it is inviolable."
"A blanket empowerment for the exercise of public authority may not be granted by the German constitutional bodies."
If democratic legitimacy is violated "in the course of the European integration", Germany must be prepared "in the worst case, even to refuse further participation in the European Union."
Even to refuse. The Enabling Act (German: Ermächtigungsgesetz) was passed by Germany's Reichstag and signed by President Paul von Hindenburg on 23 March 1933. It was the second major step, after the Reichstag Fire Decree, through which Chancellor Adolf Hitler legally obtained plenary powers and established his dictatorship.
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Using a word like "Bevollmächtigung" in Germany is about as bad as if he had paraphrased and said something like, "One European people, One European Nation, One European leader!" (after the Nazi "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer" -- "One People, One Nation, One Leader".
It probably made a lot of Germans collectively poop themselves.
Posted by: Secret Asian Man ||
09/05/2011 11:49 Comments ||
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#3
Somebody should explain to them that the EU and Nato are in Brussels and not Antwerp for a reason. The Germans' job is to build the cars, pay the bills and shut up. /sarc
#7
Stupid Germans! Your democracy means nothing! The Smart People[tm] will make the decisions now. It's nothing personal, it's just that The Smart People[tm] are better suited to rule, and not unreliable like a democracy. Voting is pure gambling, there is no guarantee of a positive outcome. They are also not susceptible to human weakness like the corruption of power, they are The Smart People[tm].
#8
Every time I conclude we are royally screwed, along comes a news item making me realize that the Europeans are adamant to be first over the cliff.
After Greece inevitably defaults, how eager will northern European voters be to prop up Portugal, Spain, and Italy? If either of the latter 2 default, a few significant French and German banks will fail, and then what?
Scary stuff. I'm tempted to stock up on food, guns, and ammo, but preparing for a Mad Max world doesn't exactly inspire me to action.
(Do not read if you are prone to high blood pressure, stroke or rages that could result in injury.)
Rebel without a bra: Jane Fonda said her biggest regret was not sleeping with Che Guevara... but that was to please her husband.
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If the nuclear missiles had remained, we would have fired them against the heart of the U.S. including New York City. The victory of socialism is worth millions of atomic victims."
-- Che Guevara to the London Daily Worker,
November, 1962
Lebensunwertes Leben (ger.) = Life Unworthy of Life.
#9
Jane Fonda should have been convicted of treason 40 years ago. Yes, I know how treason is defined in the Constitution: giving aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war. She allowed herself to be photographed sitting on an anti-aircraft gun, with the picture being used for anti-US propaganda. To me, that is giving aid to an enemy.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
09/05/2011 14:20 Comments ||
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#10
Jane Fonda should have been convicted of crimes against humanity for her aid to Vietanmese and Cambodian genociders, hanged and buried alongside, Goering and Himmler.
#11
I've got to agree with #9 & #10. Fonda (spit) should have been immediately arrested for treason upon return, and once the "press" objected it would have been crystal clear (as if more evidence was needed) which side they were on. Would it have made any difference? Probably not, but at least she would have been dead, or staring at a prison wall for a while. FOAD, HJ.
#14
white commie whore trash? Does that work for you?
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/05/2011 18:58 Comments ||
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#15
Jane Fondle should have been convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a miner, and hanged a long time ago. I don't give much energy to regretting not doing it, but it IS one of my life goals I haven't accomplished yet...
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/05/2011 19:44 Comments ||
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#16
Jane Fondle should have been convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a miner, and hanged a long time ago. I don't give much energy to regretting not doing it, but it IS one of my life goals I haven't accomplished yet...
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/05/2011 19:45 Comments ||
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#17
Mods, sorry about the double-post. Please correct. My computer is acting up today and didn't respond the first time I pushed "Submit".
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/05/2011 19:47 Comments ||
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#18
sorry about the double-post
In the spirit of "anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice", I would leave it if I were me.
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ION DAILY TIMES.PK > MUSLIM REBELS [MILF] DEMAND MODIFIED PEACE PLAN. New "Road Map", or else???
The Moros demand "real autonomy" vee de facto Muslim-controlled "SubState" in their region, not just another plan from Manila which focuses on socioeconomic reforms, IOW, PUT ANOTHER WAY THE MOROS WANT TO SEE THE BORDER BOUNDARIES = SURVEY MAPS.
The above is why I deemed repors of inter-MILF factionalism = breakaway Rebel Group as more EXPANSION OF PHIL JIHAD, NOT A REDUCTION OR PEACE.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.