Speaks volumes about what NATO membership is really worth these days, doesn’t it?

Posted by: Nematode | Oct 8 2008 20:34 utc | 3

“We have not received the kind of support that we were requesting from our friends,” said Geir Haarde, prime minister.

Eerily close parallel here, preceding the above by only two days:

…the government has also failed to raise loans on favourable terms from “friendly countries”.

This one from Pakistan facing bankruptcy
Pakistan would turn towards China, of course, rather than Russia. But for now, the government apparently prefers to appeal to the West for sympathy on the one hand,

Mr Zardari told the Wall Street Journal that Pakistan needed a bail out worth $100 billion from the international community.
“If I can’t pay my own oil bill, how am I going to increase my police?” he asked. “The oil companies are asking me to pay $135 [per barrel] of oil and at the same time they want me to keep the world peaceful and Pakistan peaceful.”

While extorting the country on the other to acquiesce to US demands, or else, according to this almost gloating newspiece from India:
‘Pak’s bankrupt economy cannot afford world’s sanctions’

Pakistan economy was facing bankruptcy and it could not afford sanctions by the world powers, the country’s Defence Secretary Kamran Rasool reportedly told the Senate Standing Committee on Defence.
Pakistan’s financial position was very week and the country could not talk about taking on the US, he said and added that Pakistan could not succeed against terrorists without co-operation and intelligence-sharing with the United States.
If Pakistan pulled out of the alliance (with the US), it would have to bow down after international powers imposed sanctions on it and declared it a terrorist state, the Daily Times quoted him as saying at the Senate briefing.

Posted by: Alamet | Oct 8 2008 21:03 utc | 5

“There are long standing rumors that these banks were fed with lots of shady money from Russian oligarchs”
“Dubai is comparable to Iceland in that short term debt is used to finance longterm investment. Illiquid, immobile investment in form of sky scrapers and luxury apartments in Dubai’s case. Will Russia jump in when Dubai gets into trouble?”
Ironic comparison since, in the Arab world at least, there are long standing rumors that those same Russian oligarchs are the financial foundation on which Dubai was built/

Posted by: mo | Oct 8 2008 22:56 utc | 7

Connecting the Demockery GeoPoliticalPokerBluff Dots: Demand Destruction, ‘Terrorism’ & Financial Tsunami…
+ + +
The old saying of making **Hole in the Wall Street** a dart board with a good payoof was pretty much true….; if you were concentrating enough to connect the *dots*….
= = =
‘Economic Emergency’ & Islam’s GeoFinancePoker Armagideon Nuts Hand for Fiat Currency & Fractional Banking Tyranny Towers EMP Implosion Debt of Honour (Pun Intended), by Tom Clancy….
And all these multifacted financial changes were imposed on everyone’s individual lives by a handful of people in an ornate boardroom in Washington, DC, whose names few investment professionals even knew, much less the general public.
The remarkable thing was that everyone accepted the entire process, seemingly as normal as physical laws of nature, despite the fact that it was really as ethereal as a rainbow. The money did not physically exist. Even ‘real’ money was not specially made paper printed with black ink on the front and green on the back. What backed the money was not gold or something of intrinsic value, but rather the collective belief that money had value because it had to have such value.
Thus it was that the monetary system of the United States and every other country in the world was entirely an exercise in psychology, a thing of the mind, and as a result, so was every other aspect of the American economy. If money was simply a matter of communal faith, then so was everything else….
—
“A democracy is dangerous because it is a one-vote system as opposed to a Republic, which is a three-vote system. Three votes to check tyranny, not just one. Citizens have not been informed of their other two votes.”
~ Guerrylla Law for Patriots ~

Posted by: JMCGuerrylla | Oct 9 2008 1:07 utc | 9

Icelandic terror?

Gordon Brown, UK prime minister, unveiled “legal action against the Icelandic authorities” to recover lost depositors’ money as the tone deteriorated. to its lowest level since fishing and coastguard vessels skirmished in the North Atlantic in 1976. London used a law put in place after the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks to freeze about £4bn (€5bn) of the UK assets of Landsbanki, which went into receivership this week.

Posted by: b | Oct 9 2008 4:22 utc | 11

The Russian oligarch connection – Billionaire Tchenguiz takes £800m hit with forced sale of investments

Demands for the recall of loans from crisis-stricken Icelandic bank Kaupthing have forced property tycoon Robert Tchenguiz to sell major stakes in J Sainsbury and Mitchells & Butlers, Britain’s largest pub operator, realising estimated losses running to more than £800m.
…
Before the credit crunch, Tchenguiz was Britain’s most aggressive corporate agitator, waging a campaign against the dullest, most conservative boardroom strategies. Claims he could unlock billions of pounds for shareholders hidden in property freeholds brought him a formidable following.
Foremost among his targets were J Sainsbury and M&B. He built up major holdings in both and helped facilitate takeover campaigns.
Many of Tchenguiz’s other ventures are deeply intertwined with Kaupthing loans and investments. The Icelandic bank has debt and equity in Bay Restaurant Group, which includes restaurant chain La Tasca and the Slug & Lettuce bars, as well as Town & Country, parent company of the Yates’s bar chain. The businesses were bought from administrators having been previously owned by Laurel Pub Company, a Tchenguiz-owned business that failed in March.

Posted by: b | Oct 9 2008 5:43 utc | 13

Bullshit and bloody propaganda. Only yesterday I was watching TV program here in Australia telling us that we(westerners) as a generation did so poor job in raising our youngsters that we are going to be LAST GENERATION THAT WILL OUTLIVE OUR PARENTS( in 2020 there will be 65% of overweight young people…diabetes in youngsters and other metabolism related diseases, alcohol consumption is unprecedented , drugs are widespread, mental health problems in young people are horrific in numbers, stress is literally killing from young age and stress has physical as well as mental consequences…not to mention suicide rate and crime rate…).And USA is everything here at least double.
WTF we are talking about…USA better clean its own yard before they look to others.

Posted by: vbo | Oct 9 2008 6:21 utc | 15

I can’t help but wonder how the news that Iceland getting some bridging finance from russia caused bumbling Brown to confiscate their assets under some vaguely all encompassing anti-terrorism law is being received back in england’s nato ally, Iceland.
Think of all the rorts by UBS or amerikan investment banks pulled in england that have deprived many more people of much more money. Those had the english government telling investors these were the exigencies of the free market.
Iceland goes to Russia to get money to straighten out it’s books and get’s burgled by britain? WTF?
As I wrote yesterday these insinuations about Iceland and Dubai (or any arab state for that matter) having gangster funds behind them are just typical english jingoism.
We’re talking about a country that regularly gives shelter to crims and former political leaders who have bled their country white. Whatever we may think about former thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra, it isn’t england’s place to be sheltering a wanted man holed up with millions maybe billions of money the Thais claim is stolen. Thaksin Shinawatra certainly had gangster connections to turn out the urban vote where he lacked popular support without ‘extra assistance’.
The english probably planned on grabbing back the assets they sold to Iceland at over-inflated prices, for pennies on the pound. That would be why no one in europe would bail them out. Gordon prolly sent the word out to the other big EU players he wanted this favour. When Iceland went to Russia the pommie rip got defeated so now the english are blatantly using anti-terror laws for a purpose for which they weren’t intended.
Why? Because otherwise if they tried normal business law, the judiciary who are unpredictable and may make their decision on the basis of the law rather than english greed and perfidy, may not play along. This way they don’t get much of a look in.
The Icelanders would be wise to stay schtum and hire good lawyers, after shopping round to ensure their prospective law firm are not MI6 friends looking to sell them down the river, a not uncommon circumstance when small foreign nations are forced to use english commercial courts to right a wrong inflicted on them by some english entity.
If they do find the correct firm and stay the course there is every chance that G Brown will finish up with more egg on his face than he has already copped from overturned terror decisions.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 9 2008 7:30 utc | 17

Debs is Dead – please note that Gordon Brown is not English. Nor is Alasdair Darling, Chancekiller of Exchequer..

Posted by: drongo | Oct 9 2008 15:22 utc | 19

Spyware – Brown and Darling are using crisis too subvert Scotch independance. See how Royal Bank Scotland suffer biggest debts of all and not bailed out. Scotland and Wales last victims of English colonialism. It matters that Brown and Darling are remembered to be Scotch quislings because they will lose seats in English parlament when Scotland free. I know when I come to Scotland and see vicimisation of land by English.

Posted by: Kelso | Oct 9 2008 16:40 utc | 21

theodor
hello friend – but you seem to suffer a little from anti-soviet hysteria. personally i wouldnt trust anything or anyone who had their roots at the kennan institute for advanced russian studies
look, the empire is well & truly fucked – & will be fucked for some time to come. so in the hour of being fucked – demonology rears its head
‘sovietologists’ understood sweet fuck all of russia – especially after the war -it was wrong on every level – including demographics. i simply do not believe a self interested ‘scholarship’ – while there has been much discussion of tb, aids & alcaholism – i am convinced they are overstated
i’m with debs on this – vulgar marxists that we are – the demonology is pure vaudeville
there are quite simple macro economic laws that will follow @ it is clear china, russia, india & the middle east will be beneficiaries
frankly my friend – late capitalism is so fucked, so demented, so delusional, so degraded – i’d quite happily live under a caliphate – brutal but peaceful

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 9 2008 17:56 utc | 23

i couldn’t give a flying fuck what they know
I find that immensely cheering – and really, with regard to what they might hear me saying, fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke…

Posted by: Tantalus | Oct 9 2008 18:39 utc | 25

@ 22
Yeah, thanks Tantalus (and, by the way, I love your posts) and o/t yes. But, that’s the Guardian for you. Friends of mine in Fleet Street who worked for the “Gurdrian” in the old daze (so called because back in the era of linotype setters they largely employed, for financial reasons, semi literate immigrant workers who left the paper looking like an anagram or something out of “Finnegan’s Wake”) even my journalist buddies regarded it as “shrill”, but then back in the Eden and Macmillan days somebody had to be.
Okay, shock horror. But, hell, let ‘em, who cares. It’s sort of the Guardian doing the “Stand up in Trafalgar Square Paranoia Act” for the umpteenth time. There just isn’t enough staff on the civ. serv. side to sift through all this shit about us out there anyway. The kind of State that goes in for this sort of caper (if indeed they are) is not going to change no matter who shouts about it. It’s the government we got when we weren’t looking. When we were too busy making a fast buck and watching junk TV to give a toss.
Back to the question: “Is there a big fuss being made?” Certainly not by the tabloid reading masses who wouldn’t know what the word privacy even means. And just supposing it were explained to them would probably think it a good thing the government snooping on ordinary citizens.
People you talk to who are reasonably educated are very concerned, but nobody is signing petitions, leafleting door-to-door, going on marches, hunger strikes or writing to their MP (member of parliament). I think that in general people have been purposely made so distracted/controlled by the fear of terrorism, the terrorism of the current financial crisis, and the fear of either losing their jobs or their homes or both that they simply haven’t got the mental space to do anything other than a “heads down and just let’s get on with getting through the bloody week somehow or other.”
Sad, but you could almost believe the whole finance crises was contrived for the very purpose of keeping the population so distracted with angst that just about anything could be done to them in the name of State Security.

Posted by: Spyware | Oct 9 2008 19:14 utc | 27

& it is a hoot to watch these latter-days-conversions to socialism – demanding welfare at each breath & demanding nationalisation on the hour

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 9 2008 19:30 utc | 29

t
inferior, you are not
these so-called masters of the universe are clearly the masters of sweet fuck all – if wall street would only down in their dollar wrought dread & tears
for they, know nothing of blood & bone
ward churchill was technically correct to call them “little eichmans”

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 9 2008 21:00 utc | 31

if i had to depend on robert zoellick at the world bank & dominique strauss-kahn at the imf – fuck me, they are so supremely stupid, such political appointees i doubt they know the mark of their currently shit filled underpants

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 9 2008 21:12 utc | 33

Regarding the russia link upthreads, I would say that yes the health situation in Russia is horrible, but that is not news, it is a product of the 90ies when mortality rates climbed high. And from what little I have gathered the trends now are positive.

People you talk to who are reasonably educated are very concerned, but nobody is signing petitions, leafleting door-to-door, going on marches, hunger strikes or writing to their MP (member of parliament). I think that in general people have been purposely made so distracted/controlled by the fear of terrorism, the terrorism of the current financial crisis, and the fear of either losing their jobs or their homes or both that they simply haven’t got the mental space to do anything other than a “heads down and just let’s get on with getting through the bloody week somehow or other.”
Sad, but you could almost believe the whole finance crises was contrived for the very purpose of keeping the population so distracted with angst that just about anything could be done to them in the name of State Security.

Or the surveilliance society and terror laws was put in place to make sure there was no petitions, leafleting, marches or hunger strikes when the economic casino stopped paying.
Plus of course the profits of building the surveilliance society that plushtown points out.

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Oct 10 2008 2:24 utc | 35

r giap wrote: real participative democracy is long dead in the west. it is a poor burlesque hardly worth the laughs they intend
These democratically elected leaders are foul, despicable scum. In the main, but no exceptions or shades for now.
They are seeming particularly dull witted because they are taken aback, they can’t figure out all the angles, what it all means, what happens next, and most acutely what it implies for them. Them, as a group, me and my mates. Their advisors are often lackeys who make soothing noises or spout conventional wisdom, or even worse, tell them what some other powerful body will advise, think, or do. Then the grotesque chumps don’t know whether to take the advice or not, they need a meeting, a second opinion, time to test the waters, to figure the right move to please or placate those to whom they are beholden, or those who have more power than they do, which is now the US. This mess is US originated (care of the British banking system) coupled with subservience and feigned ignorance from other Gvmts / finance entities, add in stupendous greed and follow-the-leader cults (see Iceland), etc. I do believe Paulson and co. (whomever they are) saw to it that the crap was sold on, with everyone’s agreement and complicity of course.
Bush is responsible for cutting into oversight bodies with a hot knife, emasculating them, as he has done for int’l agreements, the Constitution, the rule of law, Science, ecological matters, infrastructure, and public health. Congress became a yapping fawning poodle muttering ponderous incomprehensible statements for the public. What good did the Dems do?
These leaders swarm about in a murky fog of hesitant opinion. In Western democracies, the leaders have no reason, no incentive, to act for the greater good. In fact should they intimate they might do so they become suspect. (Beyond populist appeals that are meaningless, I mean.) They are like members of a tribal society, jockeying for power in a corrupt system which then functions on the base of personal relations and an occult power rating. I heard two Americans – one in RL, one on Youtube, saying “I vote with my heart”, this statement putting a stop to all rational discussion.
We let them get away with it all. Civil Society cannot compensate for these failures.

Posted by: Tangerine | Oct 10 2008 16:02 utc | 37

well, well, welll
down, down down
bring out the tumbrils

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 10 2008 17:12 utc | 39

tangerine
in fact it’s the commentator bill bennet on that gonnoreah-ridden-golem wolf blitzer’s horrorshow. i think the evil fuck even sd recently something to the effect if you killed black males at birth then you wouldn’t have a crime wave
they are truly evil & stupid swine

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 10 2008 18:14 utc | 41