France: On the Brink Of Financial Disaster

There is an old Parisian song where the lyric goes something like this:” J’ai deux amours, mon pays et Paris”. I have two loves my country and Paris. That about summarizes my sentiment about the country that I grew up in – Toulouse, France, I love it for it gave me and my family –safety, security and a joie de vivre. But much of that sentiment is quickly disappearing as I visited my nephews this summer.

 Paris had changed.

  It had aged.  Not in the way that cities normally transmute into a blurriness of excessive pedestrians or  vehicles crawling upon vehicles .

I sat on at a café on Boulevard Montparnasse  watching the endless line of clochards begging for one more euro.  This time it was not the intermittent beggar asking for another centime for his Beaujolais.  What I was witnessing were elder men and women shabbily dressed, pandering for the next meal.  It reminded me of early memories that I had run away from- of the homeless men and women looking for food and shelter after World War II. 

  But there were no Nazi prisoners of war eating next to me at the Displaced Persons Camp.  They were ordinary French citizens trying to eke out a meager existence on sustenance that had disappeared in some bureaucratic bureau.    

The roads from the Charles De Gaulle Airport were pocked with holes that had long been condemned into a vehicular pit of annoyance. And on the walls alongside the highway into Paris, the graffiti in French and Arabic were no longer the hint of some avant-garde art movement.  The graffiti was a clear statement of neglect by the city to even attempt to wipe away the words of desecration or the Anarchic symbols of defiance. 

The French, young and old, complained to me about their pension,  whether it would or would not be there.  But no mention was made of Hollande’s  announcement that  the rich would be taxed by 70% if they made over a million dollars.  The absence of discussion on this point was very clear to me.  No one but no one, including doctors, lawyers, software engineers or businessmen, could conceivably think of ever making one million dollars a year legally.  My nephews, both talented software executives in Fortune 500 companies, could not conceivably think of exiting France with their incredible unique talents and come to the United States to embark on an entrepreneurial venture.  It was too risky.  They had the security of their jobs.  The certainty of their pensions and the four to six weeks of vacation promised them, year in,  year out.  So as a serial entrepreneur,  I explained to them that the beauty and uniqueness of my adopted country,  America,  was that one could fail and start again and again , without any social stigma.  But those words, as well as my Franglish, fell on deaf but appreciative ears.  Above all else, the French can be truly polite.

On October 9, 2012 President Francoise Hollande announced that he wanted to reduce France’s budget deficit while dealing with rising labor costs and increasing unemployment as well as a growth rate of .2%.  So, I decided to write this blog as a warning to my family and friends in France that your country is headed for a major economic crisis,  approaching that of a complete economic collapse.  Perhaps, I may exaggerate a bit but Hollande’s government faces several major challenges.

  The first is that the average hourly labor cost of France is 34.2 Euros [44.37$] versus that of the more productive,  efficient  German laborer who makes only 30.1 Euros. 

At the same time, the unemployment rate is rising to 10.1% --the highest rate in 13 years. The key sectors of the French economy – automobile manufacturing , construction, and retail have shrunken significantly. Hundreds of thousand workers will have to be fired in order reduce the high costs of labor.  Like Spain and Italy, both in the throes of economic chaos, France will enter into a period of economic disarray that will force the French labor unions to strike and oppose Hollande’s inevitable implementation of a severe austerity program. I suspect that the most radical of the labor unions –the General Confederation of Labor and the Workers’ Force, will call for massive strikes and riots.

On September 30^th,  40,000 workers and sympathizers went to the street in what most connoisseurs of  French demonstrations consider ‘quite mild’.  But I can assure the French,  after having witnessed scores of riots , bombings - that this is only a prelude to what will be a major confrontation between the brave Gendarmes and the irresistible forces of the disgruntled workers.  I still remember the riots on the Left Bank when the students took over the Sorbonne and burnt books.  It was not a pleasant sight at all. Much blood was spent and many bodies were mangled in some distorted form of defiance.

The Greens [the subordinate partners of the French Government] and the leftist factions of the Socialist Party to which some of my family members still belong will undoubtedly challenge the EU document for a French Austerity Plan signed by President Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

  In summary,  France is financially in terrible shape.  It may not realize it yet, much like it did not really believe the Germans would invade France. But this time, unfortunately, France has been usurped by German economic prowess.  What Germany could not achieve through military conquest in two major world wars with France, it will achieve through an economy that is more dynamic, more efficient and more productive.

  Once again, France has failed to live up to it’s vainglorious past.  It has fallen into a state of economic somnambulism from which it may never awaken.

  The thirty –five hour work week and the six week vacations did not work.  It simply stalled the moment of truth—France is- and will always be-- lazy, complacent and delusional about a history that was never theirs- and a future that will never be within their children's reach.  

C’est dommage!

Ainsi soit-il!

MEMORANDUM TO AMERICAN JEWS: DON”T ATTACK OBAMA-LEARN! BEFORE YOU SPEW VENOM!

For the past several months, I have been exceedingly disturbed by the vitriolic words of hatred and racism I hear from American Jews who know little or nothing about Obama and his personal and professional relationship with the Jewish religion.  But first,  let me make it clear, that I am not religious nor partisan.  I have served four Republican Presidents-- Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Bush Sr and one very maligned Democratic President Jimmy Carter [who was the only one to ever personally create a treaty between Israel and Egypt and is not an anti-semite].  

At present,  I feel that both Romney and Obama are wanting in their qualifications for the leadership of the Free World.  However, I find it more disconcerting and irrelevant in these discussions of who is the candidate that is  ‘best for the jews’.   This  question belies the more important issue of who can serve this country best-- not Israel.  Believe it or not, Israel can handle its own state of affairs without American Jewish intervention.  It’s convenient for the Israelis to manipulate  American Jewish sentiments but that has little to do with the underlying strategic and tactical requirements of both countries with regard to their respective interests in the Middle East.

  As I have written before,  the Iranian Nuclear Bomb is not, and will not be, the central concern of either country.  The key issue will remain the ongoing contest between Saudi-sponsored hegemony through Sunni fighters versus Iranian domination utilizing Hezbollah , Hamas and the IRG.  Furthermore, the relationship between Israeli covert operations and the CIA /military cooperation are time-tested and well embedded into the fabric of both countries’ national security structures.  For those of you who might visit Tel Aviv,  Israel- take time out to visit the statue erected by the Israelis to the father of CIA counter-Intelligence---James “Jesus” Angleton [also view the film “The Good Shepherd”].

  As for Obama and Judaism,  perhaps the following points of fact might be of interest to American Jews and others who are rabid pro-Israel supporters:

[1] Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s former Chief of Staff and now the Mayor of Chicago, worked during the 1991 Gulf War as a civilian volunteer assisting the Israel Defense Forces repairing truck brakes in one of Israel’s most dangerous bases in the northern sector of the country. Furthermore, and far more importantly, his father, Dr Benjamin M. Emmanuel, a Jerusalem–born pediatrician, was once a member of the terrorist group the Irgun Zvai Leumi or ETZEL led by former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. 

This credential signifies to me a greater commitment to the state of Israel than the ‘empty verbiage’ and the ‘cowardly’ history of most of the Jewish Neocons whose parents were either ex-Trotskyites, conscientious objectors, or justly simply ‘ineffective’ during WWII as thousands of jewish refugees were refused entrance into the USA even after they were off the shores of Miami [see the movie “The Ship Of Fools”]. 

[2] American Jews will be most surprised by the fact that Capers Funnye,  first cousin once removed of First Lady Michelle Obama,  received a Bachelor’s of Arts degree in Jewish Studies and Master of Science in Human Service Administration from the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago.  He is the Chief Rabbi for the mostly African –American Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation of Chicago.  He is also the first African-American member of the Chicago Board of Rabbis and serves on boards of the Jewish Council On Urban Affairs and the American Jewish Congress of the Midwest and is active in the Institute for Jewish and Community Research.  He was ordained a rabbi by the Israelite Rabbinical Academy of 1985. He presides over a congregation that is somewhere between Conservative and Modern Orthodoxy. 

Unlike most American Jews, who were born to their ancestral heritage, Rabbi Funnye was raised a Methodist and converted to Judaism- feeling a sense of intellectual and spiritual liberation in the constant examination that he saw Judaism encourages. 

  I think that most American Jews should listen to the following words that the Honorable Rabbi said before they  make any untoward comments.

Rabbi Funnye said, “ I am a Jew , and that breaks through all color and ethnic barriers.”

 AMEN!

US Contains Saudi, Qatari and Lebanese Gun Runner, Okab Saqr, From Inciting Further Syrian Violence. 

In an unusual display of multiagency coordination,  the Obama administration has effectively placed the brakes on an escalating sectarian war waged in Syria. Through both exemplary covert, overt, military and diplomatic efforts, the Obama White House has forced the Saudis, Qataris and Okab Saqr, a Lebanese surrogate for the Saudi family from shipping more lethal weapons to the so-called ‘freedom fighters’ from Homs and Hama from turning the civil war in Syria into a regional conflagration that could precipitate a Third World War.

  At present, Saudi Arabia , UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Al Qaeda, Salafists,  CIA , mercenaries from many other countries are attempting to overthrow the minority Alawite- dominated Syrian Government of Bashar Assad supported vigorously by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah.  Whether one considers this conflict religious in nature or geopolitical, the basic reality is that if it is not contained , one way or another by the US, it will turn into a wildfire that would spread to the very nations that instigated the war—Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE , and war-tested radical islamists from Afghanistan and Iraq.

In other words, if the US were to allow the Syrian rebels access to more lethal weapons as their supporters requested then the world would watch a ‘blow back’ phenomena the likes of which we have never seen before. What do I mean? 

Let me be more explicit.  The failing, dysfunctional government of Saudi Arabia,  ruled by a council of self-anointed ersatz ‘kings’ and  ‘princes’ of questionable hereditary lineage  and political legitimacy have in effect called for a ‘jihad’ or ‘Holy War’ against the ruling Alawites of Syria- ostensibly  in support of their ‘Sunni brothers’.   Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. The Saudi family,  a compilation of self–indulgent, hypocritical, poorly educated Wahhabis [second class quality of Koran studies] has spent countless billions of dollars over decades to sustain their fragile , corrupt governments by paying off every ‘terrorist’ group that might threaten their power directly .  In essence, think of the Saudi rulers as spoiled, infantile, narcissistic,  self-indulgent,  lazy,  entitled tribesmen fearful of their own people, and even more fearful of the Wahhabi Clerics [ a second class of educated Koran ‘interpreters’ created by the British Imperial Government some one hundred years ago —not equal to the true Koran experts found in Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon or even in Qum, Iran]---who have funded any young man wanting to fight against any power in either Iraq, Afghanistan and now Syria.  Saudi Arabia is the quarter master,  financier and gun runner for the so-called Sunni Liberation Wars --- a false narrative created for the sole purpose of ridding the fragile kingdom of any potential military or political threat to their viability.  For decades the British protected this farce of incestuous clanship in order to extract oil from the eastern part [near Bahrain] of Saudi Arabia.  Then the Americans in the guise first of the CIA , then the Oil Companies—Anglo-American [Aramco ] Oil Company,  then in 1991 in the First Persian Gulf War arrived to keep this teetering eggshell of a government from falling down just like “Humpy Dumpty’. 

  Despite these aforementioned attempts by the US and other allies [including Israel] to keep the Saudis in power,  they still insisted on precipitating  an unnecessary war against Bashar Assad who was no more or less a dictator than the despotic rulers of Saudi Arabia with their whip-lashing clerics who enforced ‘Wahhabism’  against their own women and other non-believers. The real cause of their support of Okab Saqr,  a nefarious Lebanese gunner run, and the newly anointed surrogate for the former corrupt Prime Minister of Lebanon Hariri [whom I knew] is the Saudi desire to neutralize the Shi’ite influence of Iran that is spreading throughout the Middle East.  But in this conflict of Sunni versus Shi’ite, the Saudi Kingdom is in a much more precarious condition than Iran, a country that has been around for not one century but a millennia. 

From my thirty year experience in the Middle East, the outcome is self-evident.  Saudi Arabia will fall from it’s own weight of inertia,  self-indulgence,  flagrant spending, internal debauchery and secondary treatment of the it’s female and male citizenry.  It will fall from the weight of it’s own ineptitude. That is evident to the US and Turkey as well as Iran. So the Saudis should behoove the advice of the temperate professionals of the US government, the cunning maneuvers of Putin, the absence of Chinese support and Turkeys’ constant shifting positions.
  In summary, this blog is the announcement of what I believe, is the beginning of the end of the failing Saudi Kingdom and the inevitable rise of Turkish and Iranian power in the Middle East.

This blog is also a salute to the temperance shown by the Obama Administration in the impressive covert machinations of the White House ;  the titrated  CIA support of the ‘rebels’;  as well as the tireless efforts of diplomats  and the US military personnel working beneath the penumbra of strategic foresight and tactical expediency. Our government has handled this flammable situation in Syria and Turkey with adroit professionalism and impressive soto voce. 

Congratulations to our professionals who work selflessly overseas without bravado or unnecessary political spotlight.  In contrast, the ‘princelings’ of the oil drenched, parched deserts of Saudi Arabia and the UAE best be prepared for an exodus precipitated by their own greed, fear, and out-sourcing of reckless murder. The Hariri’s of the world can be ‘neutralized’ at ‘will’ with ‘plausible deniability’ from Marbella, Spain to Bozeman, Montana.

Believe me, no leader is indispensable to a country.         

Catalan Independence: Artur Mas , The New Leader

In a recent interview Artur Mas, an economist, and new leader of the the Catalan Independence Movement said, “ Our ideal is to be part of the United States of Europe”. Mas poses the biggest threat to Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s incompetent, corrupt Madrid government. 

Mas,  an obscure public servant,  who worked under the charismatic Jordi Pujol who ran Catalonia for more than two decades, threw caution to the wind and bypassed  his superiors in the Catalan  party and just grabbed the mantle of  independence  and freedom , declaring that Madrid could no longer subjugate the juggernaut economic force of Catalan which provides forty per cent of Spain’s GDP.

One colleague was completely surprised by this brave act of courage. “We all knew Mas as an efficient technocrat and one of our very best managers, but I don’t think many people expected him to show such courage and patriotic feelings,”said Josep Maria Vila d’Abdal,  a local mayor and member of Mas’s political party, Convergencia i Unio.

Equally important is the self-deprecating attitude of a true hero of independence. Mas insisted that his separatist movement was ‘not about personal ambition’, adding that he would retire from politics once Catalonia achieved sovereignty . Like all quiet hero he is not only willing to sacrifice his life to the cause but also the lives of his wife and his three children.

  In contrast, Rajoy who has no professional qualifications to understand or manage economics, complex financial issues or lead an efficient government. He is replete with hubris and self–aggrandizement, so much so,  that he will risk using his police to kill Spanish journalists,  students and any dissidents who counter his diktats.  Franco, in any disguise, is still Franco.  Even when he wears the convenient label of Socialist, Conservative or Liberal. They are all simply political conveniences for sheer power acquisition and crony capitalism.

  Many of you following me can read the sequence of blogs where I demanded Catalonia independence as well as regional autonomy for the Basque Region,  Andalusia, Navarre, and Seville and other parts of Spain. You will also view the videos I have posted to see the brutal retaliations of Rajoy’s despotic regime when it is challenged by it’s own people from all walks of life---workers, students, bureaucrats, businessmen , teachers, and peasants. 

  Again, I encourage the wonderful people of Iberia,  to declare their respective regional independence so that one day the country of Spain – an artifact of false historical narratives and Franco Fascist brutality---can be freely represented as the Iberian Autonomous Region,  part of “The United States of Europe’.

Never forget!!!

  Over one million Spaniards died for freedom since 1933 up until now.  We can never forget their sacrifices. So let us continue the struggle for freedom until  that one day in the near future we can honor their collective memories.  

In the words of the famous poet, Garcia Lorca,  who died under Franco’s repression , let me recall this poem:

Jaca negra, lunas grandes , Y aceitunas en mi alforja,  Nunca llegerai a Cordoba, 

Cordoba, lejana  y sola. 

(please excuse any mistakes in my Spanish, its been a long time, about thirty years since I spoke these words)

Memorandum:  Major General Qassem Suleimani, Commander of Quds Forces, [“Jerusalem Forces]. Islamic Revolutionary Guards [IRG]. Special Forces.

CC: Supreme Leader of Iran , Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Subject:  Iranian Sanctions: The Fall Of The Rial And the Beginning of The End For The Regime. 

From: Dr Steve Pieczenik MD, PhD, Hostage Negotiator, Iran Hostage Siege, Psychological Warfare, Agitation Propaganda, Expert in Regime Change. 

General Suleimani,  let me express my admiration for your incredible accomplishments as strategist and tactician of the Islamic Revolution initiated by Ayatollah Khamenei’s  father Ayatollah Khomeini whom I knew quite well from my negotiations during the Iran Hostage Siege in 1979. There is no question that without you, Ayatollah Khamenei could never have fulfilled any of the mandates that his brilliant father had imposed on both Iran and the Islamic world.  So if you might excuse my impudence,  I write this memo, first to you and then copy Khamenei  because both you and I know all too well it is that you and not he is the real genius behind the amazing success of Iranian influence around the world against the dysfunctional Saudi Arabian regime,  consisting of profligate and debauched Sunnis  and of course, the bellicose Zionists of Israel. 

So, if I may,  I would just like to reiterate to my readers the successes that, you alone had accomplished.  But because of your personal loyalty to your patron Khamenei,  you appropriately gave him his dues attributing your successes to his spiritual leadership when, in fact, you know that he had nothing to do with them.  

Unfortunately,  Khamenei’s  father,  The Truly Supreme Ayatollah Khomeini confided to me in a moment of personal reflection during my negotiations with him when we both digressed about our respective families,  (something that I had felt professionally obliged to conceal until now) that his son, Khamenei, was not the brightest of his children. But also that Khomeini was concerned that like the Shah, his son had no knowledge of how to run an efficient, non- corrupt  government. That assessment, he further confessed to me, would eventually end exactly like the Pahlavi regime’s ending, with disaffection of the bazaar merchants who brought him, Khomeini and the rest of the Islamic Revolution,  to power.  Also,  Khomeini felt that his son was too weak to stop the rampant corruption that the mullahs and IRG were engaged in.  As you know,  General Suleimani, most of the IRG are now in possession of all the major industrial sectors.  But I am certain that you and your Quds would never engage in such rampant corruption. 

But, again, I digress from my major point of explaining to you how your successful expansionism has really led to the inevitable downfall of your own Islamic Regime. Please bear with me for a minute because like you , I have had quite a lot of experience in Regime Change, and let me congratulate you on your extensive exploits. 

  First, let me explain to my readers how you started during the Iran-Iraq War and then literally expanded all over the world because of your unusual talents. 

Thanks to you , the IRG supported the Kurds against the heinous acts of atrocity committed by Saddam Hussein. Then you supported the Bosnian Muslims  fighting against the Bosnian Serbs during the Yugoslavian civil wars. Of course, I do not need to mention how you had worked so effectively with our CIA and Mossad operatives during that time  and how handsomely you were compensated for your ‘freedom support’.  Also, there is no need for me to explain who you worked with- our CIA again in their famously described successes [see “Charlie’s War’ for CIA self –aggrandizement propaganda] against the Soviet War in Afghanistan. And then you even went so far as to help our ally, Massoud, in the war against the Talibans.  Remember how much you helped Condi and her gang of operatives to gain a foot hold in the Northern Region of Afghanistan.  Again, there is no need to mention how much you and the IRG received in remuneration for those ‘brave freedom actions’.  During that time, you and your cronies were fighting with the USA.  But clearly Khamenei received a significant part of the CIA cash that was handsomely distributed around. You and I know all too well how dollars are an amazing cementing force for ‘freedom’ and ‘Islamic Fundamentalism’.  There is a synergy there, which by the way , I will soon bring up with concern that I have about your personal well-being. 

  But onto your further adventures where you and the Khamenei  decided to go off on your own.  As you and I know, you advertised your services around the world as organizing, training, equipping, and financing foreign Islamic Revolutionary Movements.  I must admit that this sobriquet by which your people in Iran know you by is quite catchy. If you don’t mind my saying , you and Khamenei are comparable to the Bush/Cheney duo of creating our illustrious mercenaries called ‘Blackwater’ now known as “Xe” working for no other than Bahrain. They even hired our former Chief of Police – John Timoney and others,  whom you well known from former “US Freedom Fights”. 

But for my readers,  it is important for them to understand that you and your boss specialized in four areas of expertise:[1] Hezbollah operations in Lebanon;[2] Iraqi Kurdistan;[3] Kashmir , The Bulouch and Afghanistan; [4] and Yemen. Of course, the most lucrative area of fighting and monetary coercion has come from the Pakistan /Afghanistan regions where you were paid by all sides to support one or the other side at convenient moments. Your game was so good that even our own General Stanley McChrystal tried to convince me that working with you was not against our policy dealing with terrorists but was in ‘our national interest’.  But what is one SOCOM Commander?  You have dealt with so many of our self-promoting Generals and Admirals,  Directors Of CIA and CIA operatives that it is amusing to both you and me that the American and Israeli citizenry  really considers you a ‘real threat’.  Remember that time when you and your accomplices were identified as ‘trying to assassinate’ a Saudi Ambassador.  Now that was a real hoot!! You even made our Attorney General Eric Holder, an accomplished prevaricator and incompetent,  look even more absurd as he announced that particular threat.  Fortunately for you and America , the Head of the FBI, Mueller, a more judicious, competent, level-headed professional , said ‘tongue-in-cheek’ that this scenario sounded like a ‘fake movie’.  Well, so much for our competency!  But you know exactly what our capabilities are and are not.  As you know the Israelis' all too well. Despite Bibi’s bombastic ravings about the “Holocaust” you remember all too well which Mossad operatives , Shin Bet and Israelis Air Force officers worked with you and the IRG.

  So, let me tell you my concern and the real reason I am writing this blog to you and Khamenei [but remember he is not all that bright both in running a country and more importantly in corruption]--- I am concerned about your personal welfare. 

  As one professional to another- who has spent most of his life in Regime Change and offering leaders a chance to leave their country before all hell breaks loose,  I am writing this blog or message to you.  I am genuinely concerned that the egregious corruption of the IRG has gone so far that you and even your Quds can’t stop the consequences of this outrageous corruption in the name of The HOLY PROPHET MOHAMMED. …to me that is a sin! 

But I am not a clergyman, just a simple operative like you. Here is my concern:  Your rial is falling precipitously and the merchants in Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz are getting very upset.  I know,  I has been there and even talked to them recently.  It’s one thing to create a war in the name of some ideology but it’s another to bleed the very people who had funded you in the very beginning.  As Khomeini once warned me during the Iran Hostage Siege, that if we Americans had stopped the Bizzaris –those merchants in the Bizarres—from funding him, then the Islamic Revolution would be all over.  Well as you know, I could not.  I had only eight out of four hundred FSOs who spoke Farsi. But now, you have accomplished with his not too bright son,  Khamenei, the very warning that Khomeini gave me. That’s why I congratulate you. You have singlehandedly spread the Islamic Revolution around the world only to find out that it’s biting you in the ass,  right in your back yard.  I am so sorry for being so crass. But you get the idea. Your success begot your own and Khamenei’s downfall.  As we say in Greek which I know you did not study: ”Hubris Ate Nemesis”. Translated: ”Pride is your own downfall.” That of course, means a little bit more when someone like Khamenei is not very bright, that multiplies the problem even more so. 

But enough of that psychological/political  nonsense,  let me get down to the practical issue at hand.  The end of the Iran is inevitable,  you know it and I know it.  When the students and merchants start to riot [believe it or not, even without the help of the CIA. MI-6 or Mossad] the Persians will fight and destroy the very IRG and Islamic institutions that you and your cronies had created. 

  So here is my proposition: [1] A book contract for one million dollars to be ghost written about your life and tribulations.  I guarantee,  it will be a NY Times Bestseller, I know,  I had twenty –six NY Times Best Sellers. [2] A Movie/TV/Cable Option for about $ 500,000. Right now, that’s a lot of money in Hollywood.  They lost most of their money on the Osama Bin Laden and True Valor film both authorized by Admiral McRaven and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta [a California walnut farmer—not too bright –something like Khamenei]. [3] Speeches—here you can easily get about $40,-50,000  based on the speaking fees that our illustrious experts on the MEK received for eight minute speeches.  If you don’t believe me, please look up the names of Gen James Jones; Mayor Rudolph Giuliani;  DNC Chief Howard Dean M.D.  [he may have gotten more because he is a physician]; Ex-FBI NJ Mobster Luis Freeh; Governor Edward Rendell. Listen, you will be in a great company of liars, con artists, and money grabbers.  I say this only to assure you that you really have accomplished something rather than these pretenders. 

If you add up my proposal, you would make at least TWO MILLION DOLLARS in todays’ money.  In Rials that would be about 6.8BILLION RIALS in TODAY’S BLACK MARKET. 

May I suggest that you make up your mind ASAP.  As you know the value of the Rial will fall even more and we may not have enough paper to print the Rials.

In summary,  I have offered many leaders a chance to leave their respective countries before everything turned to chaos, of all the ones I dealt with, Gorbachev,  is now happily ensconced in San Francisco,  teaching about the ‘Evil Empire”. Think of it, besides the money,  I can offer you a teaching position at MIT, Cornell [where all the neocons came from ] and Harvard [Elliot Abrams domicile] and there , you can lecture on the once extant Islamic Revolution.  Think of it... You could be the new Trotsky of the 21st Century.  It beats being hung or tortured by the very people you tortured.  Best to you and your family.   

Inshallah!!!!

Bain Capital Drenched in El Salvadorian Blood Money

Last week I wrote in my blog about the “Dream Team and Mitt Romney” and its problem in utilizing the talents of those whom I knew to be qualified to support his candidacy, despite Mitt’s personal psychological failures.  But now I understand why that particular blog had very little resonance in both the Republican and Democratic Party.  Quite frankly and rightfully so, neither party cared to comment or respond in kind. 

Clearly what I have to say is not as relevant as I might like to think which is really quite justifiable and understandable. But I thought it would be somewhat more enlightening for me to write about my activities subsequent to that particular blog. 

I then pulled out my research and notes that I had taken while I was a member of the Senior Policy Planning Staff under the Reagan Administration.  I realized that the names of the some of the  El Salvadorian oligarchs  whom I had been tasked  to ‘track’ for their ‘alleged activities’ in sponsoring the “killing squads” responsible for the deaths of 35,000 innocent civilians in a civil war that cost El Salvador 75,000 deaths were exactly the same names who had initially provided  9 million  dollars in seed money for Bain Capital. These families still live in Miami and Mitt paid a great tribute to them in a previous trip.  He had said the following, ”I owe a great deal to Americans of Latin American descent…. my partners Ricardo Poma, Miguel Duenas,  Pancho Soler, Frank Kardonski and Diego Ribadeneira.” 

My notes at the time indicated to me that these same ex-coffee barons were directly funding and supporting the Extreme Right Wing Militias who slaughtered over 35,000 Salvadorians in a Civil War that lasted from 1979-1992.  These Coffee Barons also had direct contact with a senior State Department official at the time by the now familiar name of Elliot Abrams J.D.—then Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs. The same neocon who was involved and indicted in the  Iran Contra Affair and the same individual who with his Jewish neocon associates, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, were intimately involved in planning the “stand down’ known as 9/11.  Presently,  Elliot presides comfortably at the Council On Foreign Relations at the behest of his neocon friend Richard Haass, the President of the CFR….both Abrams and Haass are advisors to the Romney campaign.

The other initial investors of Bain Capital  were:

Sir Jack Lyons, President of Jean Overseas Ltd., a Panama company , provided 2.5 million dollars. Later, Lyons was indicted on a stock fraud. 

The Crocker Family Trust from California gave close to 4.8 million dollars.

About  9million dollars came from other Latin Americans including Ecuadorians, Colombians [drug money], and Guatemala [blood money]. 

 The rest of the money came from associates at Bain Capital and Bain Consulting Group. 

So, what do I make of this discovery? Am I surprised? Clearly, I find to my dismay that whatever efforts I attempted to root out the neocons were and are a major failure. Then I realized that, like all politicians,  Mitt has no more virtue nor sin than the sociopathic panderers that politicians basically are.  It really does not matter what label we, the citizens, around the world,  might place on any self-aggrandizing individual thirsting for power rather than yearning to fight for some conviction.  In effect,  Politicians worldwide are all basically the same.  The word “compromise” is a simple substitute for ‘expediency’, ‘cowardice’, ‘ineptness’.  You pick the synonym. 

I then discovered some other notes, one written to a friend of mine in Mitt’s present campaign- warning him over a year ago ‘that Mitt had no basic values and would eventually self-destruct and bring the Republican Party down with him’.  The response was flippant but very appropriate, ”Your insight is interesting but way above my pay grade”.
Then I discovered two more notes that I had made about one month ago, warning two Liberal Democrats that Mitt was tainted with ‘blood money’.  In fear,  each responded that   he had nothing to do with the nomination of Obama.  Strange,  given the fact that each person was a major player in the Democratic Party.  I then discovered that they were afraid to use that card in case Mitt might bring up the fact that Obama had a ‘personal hit list’ in his incessant obsession with drones and their ‘collateral damage’.  Also I was aware that the Democratic Party did not want to bring up the issue of ‘blood money’ lest the present Hondurian Military Regime supported by the Obama administration also be accused of ‘killing innocent Hondurians’. 

 But a fear, especially a politicians’ fear,  is a palpable emotion.  It’s a dynamic that I have been trained to recognize, analyze and more importantly utilize.  In the case of politicians and their respective political party that personal fear is amplified multifold reflecting the candidates need for denial, distortion and lying.  All these elements are essential for creating a myth or narrative to convince the masses of voters that the candidate is beyond reproach or doubt.  Of course, this approach has less traction in the 21^st century of the internet and free access to OSINT [ Open Source Intelligence].  So the ‘actionable intelligence’ that the voter is provided with is to choose between two candidates- each with less or more virtue or substance than the other.  In short, the voting citizenry is cordoned off into an arena of farce and circus fueled by the hawkers called the ‘free press’.   

Now,  I find myself in with an interesting quandary.  Do I vote for one liar or the other? Who has lied more or less than the other? Look at Obama and his killing of Osama Bin Laden or his inability to manage a country with a large segment of unemployment and his ceaseless support of a crass oligarchy of bankers, freed from the shackles of the law.....

Or is my choice,  the Holy Sanctified,  reified,  new Elmer Gantry filled with platitudes and inane statements and a financial background replete with lies, ineptitude, greed and ‘blood money’.  It’s amazing how a spoiled Mormon born with a ‘silver spoon’ in his mouth can not equal the accomplishments of his fellow Mormons—Brent Scowcroft, the Marriotts, and Jack Anderson who truly deserve the title of Honorable Americans.  Mitt has not only brought down himself but the nefarious Republican Party. 

 So,  my decision is to wait for 2016 and hope the Republic regains some semblance of honor, certainly something less akin to an auctioneer’s bidding away our inherent freedoms, dignity and values. …on that day, I will cast my vote accordingly.       

Overthrow King Juan Carlos I: The Crooked Monarch Keeps Raping An Impoverished Spain.

The modus operandi in maintaining a failing state like Spain is to re-establish economic viability and political legitimacy.  Unfortunately , since my last blog a week ago, demanding the independence for Catalonia and the Basque provinces from Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s dysfunctional central government of Madrid has deteriorated to the point that Spain has descended into a Cantiflas-like parody of absurdity. 

Prime Minister Rajoy did exactly what the economic markets had expected –announced that the European bailout for the major Spanish banks was no way near catastrophic as portrayed by the EU auditors.  He made certain to emphasize the fact that three of Spain’s largest banks—Banco Santander SA  , Banco Bilboa Vizcaya Argentaria SA and CaixaBank SA---all won’t need to be subsidized.  Similarly,  smaller banks,  like Banco Sabadell SA,  Bankinter SA,  Kutxabank and Unicaja are also solvent.  Rajoy may be right as long as he does not properly allow the EU auditors to mark the toxic mortgages to a discount of almost sixty to eighty per cent of book value- but rather have his corrupt Madrid officials use his meager , if not existent , mark down of thirty per cent.  In other words, Rajoy,  like most politicians,  around the world, make up numbers as well as stories in order to justify his faltering leadership in a country where there is over 50% unemployment in the youth and the GDP is bottoming out into bankruptcy.

The second part of trying to salvage a faltering state and leadership is to reinvent a narrative that can seem credible enough that the legitimacy of the Spanish Republic can withstand the searing forces of regional independence.  In this case, Rajoy encouraged the ailing and crippled King Juan Carlos I to reassert his prerogative to rule Spain.  Juan Carlos, never born directly to the throne of Spain, instead he was appointed directly by Franco as HIS Successor to transition the state into a democracy. For that, Juan Carlos gets kudos for the successful transition from fascism to democracy, such as it is.

But from the very beginning of his life,  Juan Carlos was cursed to literally kill innocent victims,  animals and eventually a republic. 

When he was eighteen years old,  he accidentally shot his younger brother Alfonso -firing directly into his brother’s forehead. The story goes that Juan Carlos thought the pistol was not loaded.  Then the young king became even more famous for having killed the following animals:  nine bears [one was pregnant] in central Romania; a drunken tame bear [Mitrofan the Bear] during a private hunting trip to Russia. Then of course there was the infamous expensive hunting holiday to where he fractured several parts of his hip, trying to kill an elephant.  Due to his despicable record with the World Wildlife Federation,  he was subsequently defrocked as the Honorary President of the WWF,  portending his present imminent situation as the newly deposed Spanish King of Spain. 

What makes this narrative of regal legitimacy a fallacious prerequisite for leadership of the republic is also the fact this his past financial miscreant  behavior is his well-known sobriquet as ‘the king who rules barefoot Spain while he owns 70 cars’.  Bank records reveal that through unsavory financial ties with Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz  Al Saud, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia and his lethal Syrian henchman Mohamed Eyad Kayali,  Juan Carlos amassed a personal fortune estimated at several billion euros  despite an annual royal household salary of 8.4 million euros.

So we come back to the real question: why does Spain need King Juan Carlos?  And the answer is quite obvious. Spain has no need for this inept, non-remorseful animal-killing, corrupt individual who happens to have been picked by an illegitimate Fascist dictator as his illegitimate successor. So it is up to the Spaniards in the regions demanding independence—Barcelona, Navarre, Andalusia, and Basque--- to rightfully overthrow this Sancho Panza as well as his cohort, Don Quixote—Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy—and start all over again. This time, let the Spaniards disband the Republic Of Spain and allow the separate regions to reassert their respective autonomy, break their tie to the Euro, and reinstitute their respective currency . Without their own printing press to make their own monies, Spain will always be hostage to it’s old Axis Partner -Germany which will control it’s destiny through the fiction of the Republic as a civil or regal entity centered in Madrid.  Let the truth arise and freedom spread through all the provinces of the Confederation of Spanish Regions---the New Spain. Helas!!