Category: Geopolitics

Chavez Strategies backfiring

Strategies backfiring: South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Even though oil hit $75 a barrel last week, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has begun to stumble in his efforts to buy elections for his friends in Latin America.

Simon Bolivar' painting is conspicuous in both pictures with Morales & Sandanista NoriegaIt is clear why Chávez is using his diatribe and his country's oil revenue to try to get allies elected throughout the hemisphere: His anti-American economic block is crumbling. Despite his objections, Peru and Colombia signed free trade agreements with the United States. That came after Central America and the Dominican Republic had done the same.

That was too much for Chávez to take. Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay have socialist governments, but refuse to accept his leadership or his ego. Brazil encourages moderation in the region as it jockeys with Venezuela to see who can be the true leader for South America. Chile is governed by a socialist president, but continues to practice a free market economic policy.

Fortunes Of Kings, Queens And Dictators

Forbes.com – Magazine Article
What do Cuba’s fatigue-wearing president Fidel Castro and Monaco’s playboy bachelor Prince Albert have in common? Not much other than lofty positions and vast fortunes. It’s a diverse group that includes a British queen, an African dictator and a few Middle Eastern potentates.

Click here to see ten wealthy rulers and click on this link on the next page

For another controversial dictator, Fidel Castro, we assume he has economic control over a web of state-owned companies, including El Palacio de Convenciones, a convention center near Havana; Cimex, retail conglomerate; and Medicuba, which sells vaccines and other pharmaceuticals produced in Cuba. Former Cuban officials insist Castro, who travels exclusively in a fleet of black Mercedes, has skimmed profits from these outfits for years. To come up with a net worth figure, we use a discounted cash flow method to value these companies and then assume a portion of that profit stream goes to Castro. To be conservative, we don’t try to estimate any past profits he may have pocketed, though we have heard rumors of large stashes in Swiss bank accounts. Castro, for the record disagrees, insisting his personal net worth is zero.

Fidel Castro was furious when Forbes magazine estimated his fortune at $550 million last year. This year, the magazine upped its estimate of the communist leader’s wealth to a cool $900 million.
Castro had said he was considering suing after Forbes released its 2005 list, scoffing then his wealth was estimated to be close to that of the queen of England.

“Do they think I am (former Zairian President) Mobutu (Sese Seko) or one of the many millionaires, those thieves and plunderers that the empire has suckled and protected?” he said last year, referring to his capitalist archenemy, Washington.

Socialism Dead?

TCS Daily – Why Isn’t Socialism Dead?

The Christian’s life is transformed because he accepts the myth that Christ will one day return and usher in the end of time; the revolutionary socialist’s life is transformed because he accepts the myth that one day socialism will triumph, and justice for all will prevail.

How many times have Christians in the last two thousand years been convinced that the Second Coming was at hand, only to be bitterly disappointed — yet none of these disappointments was ever enough to keep them from holding on to their great myth. So, too, Sorel argued, the myth of socialism will continue to have power, despite the various failures of socialist experiments, so long as there are revolutionaries who are unwilling to relinquish their great myth.

Men need myths — and until capitalism can come up with a transformative myth of its own, it may well be that many men will prefer to find their myths in the same place they found them in the first part of the twentieth century — the myth of revolutionary socialism.

The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam

The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam (Hardcover) > Read an Excerpt

The first of these is that a Muslim’s relationship with his God is one of fear. A Muslim’s conception of God is absolute. Our God demands total submission. He rewards you if you follow His rules meticulously. He punishes you cruelly if you break His rules, both on earth, with illness and natural disasters, and in the hereafter, with hellfire.

The second element is that Islam knows only one moral source: the Prophet Muhammad. Muhammad is infallible.

The third element is that Islam is strongly dominated by a sexual morality derived from tribal Arab values dating from the time the Prophet received his instructions from Allah, a culture in which women were the property of their fathers, brothers, uncles, grandfathers, or guardians. The essence of a woman is reduced to her hymen. Continue reading “The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam”

Will Europe become a Muslim State?

Commentary – Europe's Two Culture Wars
Nihilism rooted in skepticism, issuing in the bad faith of moral relativism and Western self-loathing, comforting itself with a vacuous humanitarianism: not only is this not marvelous, it has contributed to killing Europe demographically, and to paralyzing Europe in the face of an aggressive ideology aimed at the eradication of Western humanism in the name of a lethally distorted understanding of God’s will.

America’s 1st War on Terrorism

Terrorism In Early America
Almost 180 years ago our infant country attacked Tripoli under circumstances that are eerily similar to contemporary times. That conflict, immortalized in the Marine Corps Hymn, "From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli" called the Tripolitan War or the Barbary Pirate War, came shortly after we gained our independence from England. The United States chose to fight the pirates of Barbary, rather than pay tribute, as did all the other nations who traded in the Mediterranean Sea. The decision was bold, but the eventual victory by the tiny United States Navy broke a pattern of international blackmail and terrorism dating back more than one hundred and fifty years of European appeasement.

Iran replaces Syria in Southern Lebanon

Telegraph | News | Iran's spies watching us, says Israel
"When the Syrians were in Lebanon it was easy for us to control Hizbollah," said an officer with Israel's northern command. "If things got too tense we could put pressure on Damascus and the Syrians would act quickly to calm things down."

Although the Lebanese government technically controls the border area, its military is not considered strong enough to control Hizbollah, which takes its orders directly from Teheran.

Castro could drill off Florida coast

Castro could drill off Florida coast
Who can blame him? Castro has for years looked for new opportunities to develop his economy in the face of our trade embargo. He could only expect to rely on Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's oil and gas giveaway for so long. So, with the intention of claiming billions of dollars in new revenues and reducing his country's dependence on foreign energy, Castro has taken to the high seas in an effort to acquire and produce as much oil and gas as he can. Continue reading “Castro could drill off Florida coast”

THE ESSENCE OF AL QAEDA

The Essence of Al Qaeda
Dr. al-Faqih heads the Saudi opposition group, Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA), and is a widely acknowledged expert on al Qaeda. This 02/04 interview is still a devestating read.

Zawahiri impressed upon Bin Laden the importance of understanding the American mentality. The American mentality is a cowboy mentality– if you confront them with their identity theoretically and practically they will react in an extreme manner. In other words, America with all its resources and establishments will shrink into a cowboy when irritated successfully. They will then elevate you and this will satisfy the Muslim longing for a leader who can successfully challenge the West.

Old States, New Threats

Old States, New Threats

Globalization is a cultural and economic phenomenon — not a system of international security.Borders may be eroding and stateless terrorist groups like al-Qaeda proliferating, but don't be fooled: The traditional state remains the most dangerous force on the international scene. Perhaps the greatest security threat we face today is from a paranoid and resentful state leader, armed with biological or nuclear weapons and willing to make strategic use of stateless terrorists.

We don't live in a democratic world so much as in a world in the throes of a very messy democratic transition, so national elections combined with weak, easily politicized institutions produce a lethal mix — dictators armed with pseudo-democratic legitimacy.

We are entering a well-armed world, with more players than ever who can unhinge the international system and who have fewer reasons to be afraid of us. That's why a resentful state leader, armed with disruptive technologies and ready to make use of stateless terrorists, poses such a threat. Hussein was a wannabe in this regard. According to a Joint Forces Command study, parts of which appeared in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs, he was preparing thousands of paramilitary fighters from throughout the Arab world to defend his regime and to be used for terror attacks in the West. Looking ahead, Ahmadinejad would also be a prime candidate for such tactics, as would Chavez, given his oil wealth and the elusive links between South American narco-terrorists and Arab gangs working out of Venezuelan ports.

We face a world of unfriendly regimes, even as our European allies are compromised by burgeoning Muslim populations and the Russians and Chinese deal amicably with dictators, because they have no interest in a state's moral improvement. Never before have we needed a more unified military-diplomatic approach to foreign policy. For the future is a multidimensional game of containment.