Sunday, September 2, 2018

Peace Plan For Middle East Involved PA Confederation With Jordan, Pope Seeks Talks To Avert 'Humanitarian Catastrophe In Syria



Abbas: Trump offered us peace plan based on confederation with Jordan



Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday said at a meeting with left-wing group Peace Now and members of the Knesset that Trump's negotiation team had offered him a peace deal based on a confederation with Jordan.

Abbas commented that he would agree to such a plan under the condition that Israel were part of the confederation.

"I want a three-party confederation with Jordan and Israel and I am asking Israel to accept such a proposal," Abbas was quoted as saying.

According to him, it was Israel that refused to negotiate on important issues and even to meet him in the past.

"I met Trump four times," Abbas emphasized, arguing that he was in favor of a demilitarized state of Palestine.

"I have a problem with Netanyahu, not with the Likud," he clarified.










Abbas says Trump team offered Palestinian-Jordanian confederation

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas says the Trump administration’s Middle East team offered him a political plan for a Palestinian-Jordanian confederation.
Abbas says he expressed willingness to agree to a potential confederation only if Israel agreed to join.
He makes the remarks at a meeting with Knesset members and activists from the NGO Peace Now in Ramallah.
He says that when US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Jason Greenblatt and adviser Jared Kushner floated the idea of a confederation he expressed support for the proposal.
“I said: ‘Yes, I want a tripartite confederation with Jordan and Israel, and I asked whether the Israelis would agree to such a proposal.'”
Abbas goes on to say that he supports Israel’s security, and wants to solve the Palestinian refugee problem.
He claims that Netanyahu is refusing to sit down and begin peace talks. He says Netanyahu has turned down several meetings initiated by Russia, Japan, the Netherlands and Belgium.
“I have a problem with Netanyahu, not Likud,” he says.
Abbas says that he has met with Trump four times, and that the US president told him he supported the idea of a demilitarized Palestinian state that will be defended by NATO forces. He adds, however, that he is against the Trump administration’s peace plan.
He also slams the US decision to cut funding to UNRWA, saying the administration was “trying to sabotage” the Palestinian aid agency.


Pope seeks talks to avert ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ in Syria

Pope Francis is pressing for negotiations to avoid a “humanitarian catastrophe” from a looming battle in Syria.
Francis appeals to the international community and “all the actors involved” to use diplomacy, dialogue and negotiations “in respect for international humanitarian law and to safeguard the lives of civilians.”
Addressing faithful in St. Peter’s Square, Francis says “the winds of war are still blowing and troubling news reaches us about the risks of a possible humanitarian catastrophe” in Syria’s Idlib province.
That’s where Syrian opposition forces have dug trenches around their bases, anticipating a ground offensive on their last major stronghold. The battle for Idlib might be the last in seven years of civil war.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians in the Idlib area have nowhere to flee.

French FM says Syria’s Assad has ‘won the war’

France’s foreign minister says Syrian President Bashar Assad has won his country’s civil war but won’t “win the peace” without a political solution brokered by the international community.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian also reiterates threats of Western retaliation if Assad cedes to the “temptation” of using chemical weapons in the looming battle for the northern Idlib province, the last major opposition stronghold.
Le Drian says on France-Inter radio that “Assad won the war, we have to state this. But he hasn’t won the peace.”
He says that even if Assad’s forces retake Idlib, that won’t solve the problems that unleashed the war seven years ago.
He says France will press at this month’s UN General Assembly for a political solution in Syria, and is holding talks with Russia, Turkey and Iran to push them to use their influence with Assad to ensure political negotiations after the war ends.


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Saturday, September 1, 2018

Rumors Of War





Provocations Have A History Of Escalating Into War



The Russian Government and President Putin are coming under pressure not from US sanctions, which are very good for Russia as they force Russia into independence, but from Russian patriots who are tiring of Putin’s non-confrontational responses to Washington’s never-ending insults and military provocations. Russian patriots don’t want war, but they do want their country’s honor defended, and they believe Putin is failing in this job. Some of them are saying that Putin himself is a West-worshipping Atlanticist Integrationist.


This disillusinonment with Putin, together with Putin’s endorsement of raising the retirement age for pensions, a trap set for him by Russia’s neoliberal economists, have hurt Putin’s approval ratings at the precise time that he will again be tested by Washington in Syria.

Putin wants to avoid war, because he knows it would be nuclear, the consequences of which would be dire. He knows that the US and its militarily impotent NATO allies cannot possibly conduct conventional warfare against Russia or China, much less against both. Putin also undersrtands that the sanctions are damaging Washington’s European vassals and could eventually force the European vassal states into independence that would constrain Washington’s belligerence.

Even with Russia’s new super weapons, which probably give Putin the capability of destroying the entirety of the Western World with little or no damage to Russia, Putin sees no point in so much destruction, especially as the consequences are unknown. There could be nuclear winter or other results that would put the planet into decline as a life-sustaining entity.


Whereas I endorse Putin’s strategy and admire his coolness as a person who never lets emotion lead him, there is nevertheless a problem. The people in the West with whom he is dealing are idiots who do not appreciate his statesmanship. Consequently, each time Putin turns the other cheek, so to speak, the insults and the provocations ratchet upward.

The Russian forces deployed around Syria with their hypersonic missiles are more than a match for the US forces assembled to attack Syria. However, American hubris can certainly prevail over facts, in which case Putin would have to destroy the sources of the attack. By not committing in advance, Putin retains flexibility. Washington’s attack, like its previous attack on Syria, might be a face-saver, not a real attack. Nevertheless, sooner or later Russia will have to deliver a firmer response to provocations.

So, the question for Andrei Martyanov, The Saker, and for Putin and the Russian government is: How long does turning your other cheek work? Do you turn your other cheek so long as to allow your opponent to neutralize your advantage in a confrontation? Do you turn your other cheek so long that you lose the support of the patriotic population for your failure to defend the country’s honor? Do you turn your other cheek so long that you are eventually forced into war or submission? Do you turn your other cheek so long that the result is nuclear war?
I think that Martyanov and The Saker agree that my question is a valid one. Both emphazise in their highly informative writings that the court historians misrepresent wars in the interest of victors. Let’s give this a moment’s thought. Both Napoleon and Hitler stood at their apogee, their success unmitigated by any military defeat. Then they marched into Russia and were utterly destroyed. Why did they do this? They did it because their success had given them massive arogance and belief in their “exceptionalism,” the dangerous word that encapsulates Washington’s belief in its hegemony.


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Extensive Damage And Casualties From Missile Attack On Damascus Military Air Base



Massive missile attack reported at Damascus military air base



Large explosions were reported at a Syrian military air base early Sunday in an attack widely attributed to Israeli warplanes. However, Syria denied an attack had taken place.
The reported strike occurred just after midnight at Mazzeh air base near Damascus, a key regime facility thought to have been targeted by Israel in the past.
The Lebanese al-Meyadeen news outlet, seen as closely linked to the Shiite Hezbollah terror group, claimed that the explosions were the result of an Israeli missile strike.

Five missiles were reported to have targeted the air base.
Eyewitnesses reported large blasts and pictures shared on social media showed large explosions, as well as what appeared to be air defense missiles streaking in the sky.

A Syrian official had earlier said that the base was targeted by a missile strike. It claimed that missiles had been intercepted by Syria’s air defense systems.

Israel generally does not comment on reports of strikes in Syria.

The reported strike came as senior US officials from the State Department were in Israel to discuss Syria with Israeli officials.
In January 2017, Syria accused Israel of launching missiles that hit the Mazzeh base, and threatened repercussions. Israeli missiles also reportedly targeted the base in late 2016.
Officials in Jerusalem have said they take action to stop the transfer of advanced weapons to terror groups and to keep Iran from gaining a foothold in the country; Dozens of strikes inside Syria have been attributed to Israel.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that Israel would continue taking action against Iran and its proxies in Syria, and would not be affected by a defense cooperation agreement signed between Damascus and Tehran.

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Explosions Reported Near Damascus, Ammunition Storage Facility Hit






Repeated blasts were heard from the direction of Syria's Mazzeh Military airbase Near Damascus on Sunday, Reuters reported.
According to the source in Syrina Intelligence services, the unannounced airstrike hit an ammunition storage facility at a Mazzeh military airbase, however, the ilitary airfield was not affected.
​The source specified that Syrian air defense systems had repelled the airstrikes. The Times of Israel newspaper reported, citing sources, that the strikes had been conducted by Israeli aircraft.
​
DETAILS TO FOLLOW


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The Venezuela Disaster



Venezuela – An Economic Catastrophe In Images


For economists the dire downward spiral of Venezuela’s economy holds the same fascination black holes hold for physicists. Both illustrate what happens amid the most extreme conditions imaginable. It is thought that this may potentially provide clues of a more general nature. The remnants of massive imploded stars are inanimate and many light years distant; regardless of how violent conditions in their vicinity are, they cannot touch us. Unfortunately, extreme economic conditions definitely involve a great deal of human suffering.

“We are the humanist socialism that will save the world”, from Venezuelan cartoonist Weil (he always draws the dear leaders with big wads of dollars sticking out of their pockets, making them look like otherworldly birds – look for his work on the intertubes).
From the perspective of Austrian economic theory, a hyperinflation event essentially represents a highly compressed, extreme version of the boom-bust cycle referred to as a “crack-up boom” (note: the original German term coined by Ludwig von Mises was “Katastrophenhausse” – the literal translation would be “catastrophic boom”).
In a past article on forced saving we inter alia discussed the post WW I crack-up boom in the Weimar Republic, one of the most infamous hyperinflation events in history. The data available on this disaster are remarkably comprehensive and detailed and demonstrate that Austrian capital and business cycle theory indeed offers the by far most accurate explanation of the boom-bust cycle.
Recent developments in Venezuela are very similar. There is definitely a crack-up boom underway, but it differs of course in a number of details from the Weimar experience. Every slice of economic history is unique in some way after all, but the underlying economic laws driving economic history nevertheless remain universally and time-invariantly applicable.
Not too long ago our good friend Keith Weiner also mentioned Venezuela, mainly in the context of criticizing too simplistic views of the factors driving price inflation such as the quantity theory of money). Obviously the supply of money is just one of these drivers – the demand for money and the supply of and demand for goods and services are the others.
This is also why the purchasing power of money is not truly measurable, as no fixed yardstick to measure it with exists. There is no such thing as a “general level of prices” anyway – this is a logical fallacy. Keith correctly points out that in Venezuela – and this is something one can observe in almost all hyperinflation cases – it is not only money printing that has triggered the slump in purchasing power, but also a collapse in production, which has happened for more than one reason.





As assorted socialists continually assure us, what they have in Venezuela is luckily not 'real socialism'. They were definitely full of praise for “Chavismo” though when high oil prices still helped mask the crumbling of the country’s economy. Some people such as Jeremy Corbyn no longer even mention Venezuela nowadays, after frequently informing us in the past how wonderful Chavez-style socialism was.
In Venezuela production collapsed very quickly after the socialist dictatorship of Chavez (and later Maduro) weakened property rights to such an extent that no sane person was prepared to take entrepreneurial risks with their capital any longer.
The entire gamut of interventions from the imposition of price controls to outright confiscation of businesses was implemented with the aim of transforming Venezuela into a full-scale command economy. Amid heavy money printing and a concomitant slump in production and imports, the demand for money eventually collapsed as well – triggering the hyperinflation phase.
It should be pointed out that capital consumption was already quite advanced before the advent of Venezuela’s socialist rulers, as their predecessors had gradually undermined the market economy for decades. Naturally, these previous interventions were also accompanied by a lot of money printing.
All interventionist governments consider the suppression of interest rates to be a cure-all – and it can of course mask structural economic problems for quite some time, as a rule up to the point when the bulk of previously accumulated capital has been consumed.



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