Why should new-born babies live? They shouldn’t, Ethicists say

February 29, 2012 1 Comment

by Luis R. Miranda
The Real Agenda
February 29, 2012

“An ethicist is one whose judgment on ethics and ethical codes has come to be trusted by a specific community, and (importantly) is expressed in some way that makes it possible for others to mimic or approximate that judgement. Following the advice of ethicists is one means of acquiring knowledge.”

The impossibility to save all babies that are born into this world is not an uncommon situation. The decision to save a mother and not the baby during a birth or vice-versa isn’t new either. What is new is questioning if it is OK to kill a baby even though it was born perfectly healthy. Some ethicists today are even omitting the question itself and advancing the idea that after-birth abortion should be seriously considered. But for what purposes? In a recent paper published in the Journal for Medical Ethics, ethicists explain that ‘after-birth abortion’ or killing a newborn should be allowed under all circumstances where abortion is, and those situations include the ones where a baby IS NOT disabled. In other words, the authors of this paper are openly advocating eugenics under the premise that neither a fetus not a new-born have the moral status of an actual person.

The paper, written by Dr. Francesca Minerva, CAPPE, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia; had the support of Alberto Giubilini. Mr. Giubilini is affiliated to the Department of Philosophy and the University of Milan, Milan, Italy, the Centre for Human Bioethics, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, while Ms. Minerva is affiliated to the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia and the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Oxford University, Oxford, UK.

In what kind of drugs does anyone have to be to advocate for the murder of unborn or born children. Only an arrogant, disarranged and ethically compromised group of people who follow a eugenics way of thinking could push for such a policy. The authors claim that even when a fetus or a baby is healthy, becoming a mother can be a psychological burden for a woman and therefore murdering babies should be considered as an option to alleviate that burden. THey also argue that if it’s not the mother who is mentally out of balance, perhaps it is her existing children the ones who will be mentally affected by the arrival of the new-born. “We need to assess facts in order to decide whether the same arguments that apply to killing a human fetus can also be consistently applied to killing a newborn human,” say the authors.

Amazingly, the paper makes a case that it should be an even more common practice to abort fetuses just because there is a suspicion of a genetic defect, which according to them can be detected through medical tests. However, since some tests are not good enough to detect certain complications originated from inherited genes or genetic mutations, fetus abortion or new-born abortions should also be considered as a preventive step to avoid the arrival of unwanted human beings. “…genetic prenatal tests for TCS are usually taken only if there is a family history of the disease. Sometimes, though, the disease is caused by a gene
mutation that intervenes in the gametes of a healthy member of the couple. Moreover, tests for TCS are quite expensive and it takes several weeks to get the result. However, such rare and severe pathologies are not the only ones that are likely to remain undetected until delivery; even more common congenital diseases that women are usually tested for could fail to be detected,” reads the paper.

These two people seem to believe that a philosopher or a group of them has the moral, medical or academic authority to determine what the future of a baby should look like, as they cite that “philosophers” have proposed euthanasia as an alternative in the past, and therefore it is nothing new to kill a baby, even if it is perfectly healthy. “It might be maintained that ‘even allowing for the more optimistic assessments of the potential of Down’s syndrome children, this potential cannot be said to be equal to that of a normal child,” they assert. This kind of thinking was typical during the Nazi holocaust where in addition to Jews, Armenians and other ethnic groups, the sick, the old and the handicapped were murdered for the sake of purifying the race. Their eugenicist assessment continues: “…to bring up such children might be an unbearable burden on the family and on society as a whole, when the state economically provides for their care.”

Minerva and Giubilini summarize their mindset by stating that the unconfirmed potential of any fetus to become a person who has less that a perfect life, is an opportunity to justify abortion, or after-birth abortion in the case of babies who were permitted to live. “the fact that a fetus has the potential to become a person who will have an (at least) acceptable life is no reason for prohibiting abortion. Therefore, we argue that, when circumstances occur after birth such that they would have justified abortion, what we call after-birth abortion should be permissible,” they say. Then they propose that instead of calling a child’s murder by its name — infanticide –, it should be toned down by calling it after-birth abortion, a term that can be easily related to since large portions of the society are accustomed to hearing about abortion as a consideration when there are medical emergencies or when a mother or a doctor decide it is the best option. For the authors, infanticide or euthanasia are not such when the interests of the unborn baby or those of the family call for the murder of that same human being.

Shockingly, both Minerva and Giubilini take the moral ground when advocating for infanticide. They consider that since neither a fetus not a new-born have the MORAL standing of a PERSON, it is not possible to damage a newborn by preventing his or her birth or from preventing the development or the potential of this being to become a fully developed PERSON in the moral sense. According to their analysis, neither a fetus nor a new-born have the right to live because they lack the properties that allow for that right to exist. “… neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’. We take ‘person’ to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her.” They go on to echo a talking point that well-known eugenicists as well as modern philanthropists and members of the medical establishment commonly use to impose environmental policies — that humans are animals — and that just as animals, mentally retarded humans, for example, do not have the capacity to value their existence and therefore are not persons. The premise that humans are animals — an ill conceived one since humans are not animals, but mammals; the trait that we share with other animals, is often paraded as a justification to murder the sick, the elderly, the poor and now the babies.

Even the liberal mainstream media have unveiled the agenda behind a not so secret aspect of modern eugenics campaign. Click the image to read the article.

“Merely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing someone a right to life.” Then they try to swindle the reader by asserting that the previous description is true for fetuses where abortion is considered or criminals who are punished with death. One question that immediately comes to mind is, What crimes has a fetus or a new-born committed in order for Minerva and Giubilini to compare it to a convicted criminal? The second question is, Aren’t innocent people often convicted of crimes they did not commit and sentenced to death anyway? A third questions is, do abortion practices as they are today in any way moral, just because they are permitted or widely accepted? Reading further into their paper makes me think that these two medical academics are not completely sane by pushing the ideas they a support in their published paper. Perhaps another incredible fact is that the Journal for Medical Ethics gives legitimacy to claims like ones in the paper that seek to appease the people regarding the murder of other human beings. It is like when the United States government decided to baptize the murder of Libyans by calling its attack on that country as Kinetic Action, instead of plain out mass murder through military action.

The authors completely omit the fact that although they are unable to express it verbally, fetuses and new-borns do feel pain and that the current practices used to perform infanticide do inflict pain on those living beings. Instead, they claim that pain can only be measured by the limitation that a PERSON is submitted to, which prevents him or her to accomplish his or her aims, and that since fetuses and new-borns are not  PERSONS, there is no pain inflicted when they are murdered. “hardly can a newborn be said to have aims, as the future we imagine for it is merely a projection of our minds on its potential lives,” the authors say. Here again, Minerva and Giubilini agree that the plans and lives of those who are already alive, such as siblings and parents of the new-born are more important than letting a perfectly healthy new-born live. They stress that given the potential for their lives — that of the parents and siblings — to be negatively or even positively affected by the birth of a child, those parents and siblings should resource to infanticide to end with the inexistant potential consequences that only their minds — Minerva’s and Giubilini’s — are capable of guessing ahead of time.

While reading their paper, I realize that Minerva’s and Giubilini’s train of thought is ill conceived for at least three reasons. First, they believe, although it is not properly supported in the paper, that there are moral or other justifications to kill a fetus or a new-born. Second, they equal a fetus to a new-born. Third, they believe that neither a fetus nor a new-born are PERSONS because of commonly accepted conventions that say so, instead of writing their analysis based on comparisons on the presence of biological functions, for example, which all fetuses, new-borns and PERSONS share. This is a typical case of nitpicking whatever works out to get a point across and to publish a paper that advocates for the murder of innocent beings that in their view are not human or PERSONS.

What good could it come from a medical establishment that believes that humans can be equaled to animals, or that a new-born is not a PERSON and that therefore it should be permissible to murder it? How can we trust our lives into the hands of human haters who advocate infanticide, and in other situations euthanasia or even mass murder just because their conventions dictate that handicapped or mentally retarded people do not have a life worth living? Who are they to determine what a life is worth and whose life should be preserved and who are candidates for murder?

“An ethicist is one whose judgment on ethics and ethical codes has come to be trusted by a specific community, and (importantly) is expressed in some way that makes it possible for others to mimic or approximate that judgement. Following the advice of ethicists is one means of acquiring knowledge.”

Will you continue to trust ethicists blindly?


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Syria: Rogue Elements Rampant

February 29, 2012

by Felicity Arbuthnot
Global Research
February 29, 2012

“The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists.” (J.EdgarHoover, 1895-1972.)

Smelt any proverbial rats, lately? If not, you have not been paying attention, there are plenty about.

Consider for instance this: “Assad must halt his campaign of killing and crimes against his own people now” and “must step aside …” Hilary Clinton (Asia Times, 9th February 2012.)

“I strongly condemn the Syrian government’s unspeakable assault … and I offer my deepest sympathy to those who have lost loved ones. Assad must halt his campaign of killing and crimes against his own people now. He must step aside …” said President Barack Hussein Obama. (i)

Yet responsibility for US victims, in their hundreds of thousands, spanning Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, in Guantanamo, Bagram, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, are wholly unaccountable – and uncounted..

Responsibility for tyrannicide (including the horrific, state sponsored assassinations of Osama bin Laden and others, Libya’s Head of State, Colonel Quaddafi, have, seemingly entered a Presidential memory hole.)

“This (Syria’s) is a doomed regime as well as a murdering regime. There is no way it can get its credibility back either internationally or with its own people”, Britain’s little Foreign Secretary, William Hague, chimed in obediently, from the Washington script, on Sky News.

“Because the regime is so intransigent, because it is conducting ten months unmitigated violence and repression – more than 6,000 killed, with 12,000 or 14,000 in detention and subject to every kind of torture and abuse – it is driving some opponents to violent action themselves”, concluded Hague.

Hypocrisy reigns supreme. Walking distance from Hague’s office: “living in style and protection”, is Bashar Al Assad’s Uncle Rifaat, under whose Defence Brigades onslaught killed up to perhaps thirty thousand people in the city of Hama, which was also partially destroyed, Falluja style. The thirtieth anniversary of a truly terrible event is commemorated today, 25th February. (See Robert Fisk, Independent, 25th February 2012.)

Of Libya, in March 2011, Obama stated: “Going forward, we will continue to send a clear message: The violence must stop. Muammar Gaddafi has lost legitimacy to lead, and he must leave. Those who perpetrate violence against the Libyan people will be held accountable. And the aspirations of the Libyan people for freedom, democracy and dignity must be met.”(ii.)

An anomaly (apart from the script similarity): In Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, deaths resultant from US-UK and “allied” actions are: “impossible to verify”, by Washington and Whitehall.

Indeed, this month, the (UK) Parliamentary Select Committee on Defence, issued a Report, after an Inquiry in to operations in Libya, stating that: “Britain has no way of knowing how many civilians died in the Libyan conflict as a result of Nato bombing.” (iii)

Back in March 2011, however, the exact figure of Quaddafi’s victims was “known.” Coincidentally, it was also exactly 6,000, stated a “political analyst” – using remarkably State Department-similar phraseology.(iv)

As under Saddam Hussein in Iraq (with no diplomatic presence) in Libya and now little in Syria – with no point of contact bar, seemingly, a satellite dish fitter, in Coventry, England, alleged to be the “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights” – exact death and casualty figures are always miraculously available.

A new nemesis appears on the horizon – or “Arab street”- and precise numbers are trumpeted. Yet when Western forces, “Viceroys”, “Intelligence” services, “mentors” and myriad, general meddlers, mercenaries and marauders pitch up, murder and occupy, none are available.

Of course no proposed invasion (sorry, “humanitarian intervention”) regime change and accompanying mass slayings would be complete without forces of a wicked tyrant switching off electricity to babies incubators.

For anyone who has forgotten the details, the (1990-1991) Iraq model went like this: vast US government employed PR agency, Hill and Knowlton (“we create value by shaping conversations: we start them, we amplify them, we change them. We can connect seamlessly with all of your audiences…”)produced a fifteen year old girl called “Nayirah”, a “Kuwaiti with first hand knowledge of … her tortured land.”

“I volunteered (tears) at the Al Addan Hospital .. I saw the Iraqi soldiers ..with guns, they took fifteen babies out of incubators, left them on the cold floor and took the incubators.”

Strangely, no one asked why she didn’t pick them up and wrap and tend to them, or checked who she really was.

She was the daughter of Saud al Sabar, the Kuwaiti Ambassador to US. The incubators story of course, was a complete fabrication.

October 10th 1990, Amnesty presented evidence against Iraq with Hill and Knowlton at the Congressional Human Rights Caucus on Capitol Hill. Amnesty International trustingly endorsed the incubator story. Apparently never investigating who “Nayirah” was, and in a charged situation, whether propaganda might not be rampant.

“Amnesty US Executive Director, John Healey, compounded the incubator baby story in testimony to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on 8th.January 1991. The carpet-bombing of Iraq began nine days later.”(v)

Amnesty, enjoined by Human Rights Watch, are amongst the most enthusiastic champions of Syrian intervention and onward to Armageddon. Glen Ford writes all you ever need to know.(vi)

The first Syria incubator baby story surfaced last August. “Syrian government troops”, had cut the electricity. It was quickly exposed as beyond questionable.(vii)

Another one came up on 8th February (viii) with numbers varying from eighteen poor mites, to a subsequent eighty. With both tales, as the Iraq version, no distraught parents, extended family, were found, no funeral gatherings, then the stories, too, quietly vanished.

Coincidentally, the current Speaker of the eighty eight Member Arab Inter-Parliamentary union, which backs intervention in Syria, is Kuwaiti, Ali Al-Salem Al-Dekbas, calling for all Syria’s Ambassadors to be expelled, confrontation with Russia over her stance – and in remarkable US-speak, for swift intervention, to stop the Syrian government “killing (their own) people.” (Reuters, 4th February 2012.)

The new Executive Director of Amnesty International USA, is Suzanne Nossel, formerly Hillary Clinton’s Deputy Assistant for International Organization Affairs, at the State Department. She has also previously worked for Human Rights Watch.

She: “… has launched several campaigns against Iran, Libya and Syria.”(viii)

The allegation that Kuwait gave Amnesty $500,000 for backing the Iraq incubator baby story has never gone away. But the little island, famously once called:”An oil company posing as a state”, with population just 2,595,628 (July 2011) which includes 1,291,354 non-nationals, also has powerful American-proxy clout.

In 1999, an agreement was signed between the USA and Kuwait for a permanent US force to be stationed there, in twelve facilities (there are a further eight “spares”, seemingly not currently in use.)

The agreement for the bases, incidentally, was named: “Operation Desert Spring.”(x)

Here is a further coincidence. In March 2010, Libya was voted, near unanimously, on to the UN Human Rights Committee, after a glowing Report on human rights progress. After a ferocious campaign by Geneva based UN Watch(xi) not only were they expelled from it, but nineteen months later, their country lay in ruins, their leader lynched and most of his family dead.

Last November, Syria was elected to the Committee and the fifty eight Member Arab board added their votes to the country’s place on UNESCO panels.

UN Watch railed that: “Western democracies, unanimously elected Syria to a pair of Committees – one dealing directly with human rights issues – even as the Bashar al-Assad regime maintains its campaign of violence against its own citizens.“ Syria’s Committee places, as Libya before it, died a death.

Amnesty’s Ms Nossel, unsurprisingly, has spoken at a number of events with UN Watch Director, Hillel Neuer, a Montreal born attorney, whose career has included serving as a judicial law clerk for Justice Itzhak Zamir, at the Supreme Court of Israel.

In March last year, there seemed a glimmer of hope that the US and “allies”, would back away from repeating the tragic disaster that was unfolding in Libya – and had already struck Afghanistan and Iraq.

Secretary of State Clinton committed on CBS (27th March 2011) that the US would not intervene in the way it had in Libya.

Now, it seems, a miracle is needed, as it emerges Saudi Arabia and Quatar are among those subsidizing insurgents with vast sums – as French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe announced that the EU is about to further tie the government’s hands, by freezing the assets of the Syrian Central Bank, from 27th February. Syria is already under a crippling raft of sanctions.(xii) France was, of course, one of the leading and most enthusiastic cheerleaders for the destruction of Libya.

At the same “Friends of Syria” Conference in Tunis (24th February 2012) UK Foreign Minister William Hague declared that the UK recognized the insurgents and Hilary “We came, we saw, he died” Clinton called Russia and China:”despicable”, for their veto at the UN, which may well have blocked further “intervention.”

The US said it will consider military assistance to the insurgents – a representative of them said they were already receiving “western aid.”

With “friends” like these, Syria certainly needs no enemies.

The US has, of course, “despicably”, vetoed thirty five UN peace Resolutions relating to the Middle East(xiii) including on“Operation Cast Lead”, the 2008-2009 Israeli Christmas-New Year onslaught on Gaza, and Israel’s 2006 blitzkrieg of Lebanon.

A “new world map.”

Chillingly, no outrage, or cries of “despicable” has been given to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement, in Switzerland, the day before the Tunisia conference, that there: “would be no Lebanon in the new world map.”(xiv)

He stated, further, that an Israeli strike against Lebanon would be supported by the United States and Gulf States countries.

There surely is a wildlife park of elephants in the room. Given George W. Bush’s “Crusade”; the belief by extreme right Israeli circles in their control of the Middle East: “from the Nile to the Euphrates” and General Wesley Clark’s revelations of 2007, that the Pentagon planned:“(taking) out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran”, there is an obvious question, sparked by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s confidence over a Lebanon attack:

Are these AIPAC and Israel’s wars?

Notes

i. http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/04/obama-condemns-unspeakable-assault-in-syria/?hpt=hp_t2

ii. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2057191,00.html

iii. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/295199/20120208/nato-libya-civilian-death-toll-mps.htm#ixzz1lzVEfpgS

iv. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/168203.html

v. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/search?index=books&linkCode=qs&keywords=0520083989 (For timely reminder that propaganda sells wars, well worth revisiting. A crash course.)

vi. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29422

vii. http://electronicintifada.net/blog/ali-abunimah/how-cnn-helped-spread-hoax-about-syrian-babies-dying-incubators

viii. http://bikyamasr.com/56287/18-babies-killed-in-syrias-homs-as-power-cut/

ix. http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2012/01/us-state-departmentfake-ngo-conflict-of.html

x. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Kuwait

xi. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24151

xii. http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/factbox-sanctions-imposed-on-syria

xiii. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/UN/usvetoes.html

xiv. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/228277.html

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Agenda 21: Full Spectrum Domination

February 29, 2012 1 Comment

by Daisy Luther
Inalienably Yours
February 29, 2012

The peace-loving tree huggers at the UN have devised a plan for the world.   The friendly folks a the UN’s Department for Sustainable Development  have a master plan for us all.

Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment.

So let’s see if we understand this correctly.  A plan of action.  Got it.  To be taken globally…okay – everyone must participate.  In every area in which human impacts on the environment….yep, that covers everyone and everything in the entire world.  It’s a warm fuzzy way to take over the world!  Group hug, anyone?

Agenda 21 is an action plan that was developed at a summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.  You can read the entire plot HERE but the general idea is that the group of “leaders” intends to have a collective finger in every pie on the planet.

I.  SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DIMENSIONS

The first section of the pact…ahem….plan, deals with the people of the world. Particularly, the DSD wants to “help” those in Third World countries live better….they should be told how to make more money by putting everyone to work in perfect accordance with the goals of the Agenda, how to maintain their health through vaccinations and modern medicine, how to govern themselves, how to control their populations and how to make decisions that will concur with the ideals of the Agenda.

II.  CONSERVATION AND MANAGEMENT OF RESOURCES FOR DEVELOPMENT

This section includes protection of the atmosphere, land, mountains, ocean and fresh waters. So basically everything in the environment of a given country.  This means that historical ways of using these resources could be outlawed, changing the basic ways of life for the indigenous people to make way for “progress” and “sustainability”.  This gives control of all natural resources to the good folks of the DSD.

Section 2 (specifically Chapter 9, subsection #8) also uses the disproven science of global warming to further the controls placed on the acquisition and use of resources.  This section of the articles of Agenda 21 confers vast taxation on resources, while allowing huge companies to use the green ideology to receive carbon credits, reallocating money from the power to the rich under a cloak of green hypocrisy.

….the United Nations is demanding $76 trillion from the first world over the next 40 years to encourage the development of “green” technologies in the third world. The defense of such a reckless agenda has rested on the unwarranted claim that the globe was hovering on the precipice of environmental devastation. “Green” ideology has become the bulwark of older agendas: The nations of the West must end their own prosperity, because that is only “fair” — and it necessary to save the world from Capitalist greed.  from The New American

By specifically outlining the management of all natural resources, it disallows the use of them for any but the 1% in power, effectively keeping people from farming, fishing, mining or otherwise harvesting the innate supplies provided by their environments.III.  STRENGTHENING THE ROLE OF MAJOR GROUPSThe language in this section implies empowerment of women, children, unions, farmers, and indigenous peoples.  However, if you dig deeper you’ll discover that all of this equality actually means the abolition of personal property, the demise of rural living, mandatory birth (population) control, and the “redevelopment” of cities.  This is Communism 101.  They intend to warehouse people in small areas for a multi-fold goal.  It will make them easier to control, easier to poison and/or chemically sterilize through managed food and water supplies, and will leave remove personal ownership of natural resources.  The slight-of-hand empowerment will actually take away the rights of families by disallowing ownership of personal property, curtailing their physical liberty by making all transportation public, and providing a pro-Agenda education/brainwashing for all.IV.  MEANS OF IMPLEMENTATION

This section describes how to get the whole world on board the happy train to Agenda 21-land.  Redistribution of financial resources (i.e., taking it away from some and sharing it among others), technology (public transit, “equal” distribution of energy usage, monitoring of behaviours through big brother technologies) science and environmentalism (removing people from rural areas to “save” the natural resources from pollution and mismanagement), re-education (brainwashing with propaganda) and restructuring of local governments (installing puppet leaders).

AGENDA 21: NOT JUST FOR 3rd WORLD COUNTRIES

All of this peace and love isn’t just for developing countries.  The principles of Agenda 21 are insinuating themselves into the lives of North Americans and Europeans at warp speed.  With the decline of the American farm, people are being funnelled into the cities in search of work.  With the decline of the economy, fewer people can afford private transportation and are therefore limited to the places that public transit will take them.  Support of the local down-trodden is geared to further incite class warfare.  Separation of families through child protection agencies, big brother parenting,  and the dumbing down of our education system is planned to break down our society even further.  Publicly funded health care will dictate toxic vaccinations, secretive sterilization, eugenics of the elderly and less-productive members of society, and mandated birth control.

AGENDA 21 IS FULL-SPECTRUM DOMINATION BY THE 1%.

 
Nothing has been left out.  It guarantees both birth control and death control.  It promises the basic essentials of life in return for submission. It exchanges critical thinking for re-education and brainwashing.  It destroys the epicenter of the family, society and culture, allowing only one way to live.  It groups the population into small contained areas to be more easily controlled.  It takes away from some to give to others who will be more easily managed by the promise of a full belly and a warm shelter.It’s a parasitical representation of the 1%, feeding on the 99.Agenda 21.
Divide.
Dumb down.
Conquer.For more information on Agenda 21:
The UN’s Plan for Your CommunityWhat Is Agenda 21?The Quiet Coup

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Europe is Pouring Money into the Banker’s Bottomless Pockets

February 28, 2012

SpiegelOnline
February 28, 2012

A German minister has broken with the official government line by saying Greece should be encouraged to quit the euro. The comment, made to SPIEGEL, comes ahead of Monday’s parliamentary vote on the second bailout. Some newspapers, including the tabloid Bild, agree that it’s time for Greece to leave.

Monday’s German parliamentary vote on the second bailout package for Greece has been overshadowed by a rift within Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right coalition about the wisdom of granting fresh aid, with Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich saying Greece should be encouraged to leave the euro.

In an interview with SPIEGEL published on Monday, Friedrich said: “Greece’s chances to regenerate itself and become competitive are surely greater outside the monetary union than if it remains in the euro area.” He added that he did not support a forced exit. “I’m not talking about throwing Greece out, but rather about creating incentives for an exit that they can’t pass up.” It was the first time a member of the German government called on Greece to leave the currency.

An opinion poll published in Bild am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday showed a majority of Germans agrees with Friedrich, a member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union.

According to the survey conducted by pollster Emnid, 62 percent said they wanted parliament to vote “no” on Monday afternoon. Only 33 percent were in favor. Almost two-thirds said they were convinced that Greece can’t be rescued from state bankruptcy. The parliament is all but certain to back the €130 billion ($175 billion) package because the opposition Social Democrats and Greens have said they will side with the coalition and vote in favor of the aid.

Friedrich’s comment brought him criticism from his coalition partners as well as the opposition.

Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, a member of the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP), the junior partner in Merkel’s coalition, told the newspaper Die Welt on Monday: “I don’t understand the political speculation about a Greece outside the euro zone. What has been negotiated and agreed should apply, on both sides.”

The parliamentary group leader of the opposition Green Party, Jürgen Trittin, described Fredrich’s comments as “absurd” and called on Merkel to restore order in her ranks. “I ask myself how much longer the chancellor wants to keep on watching the goings-on in her coalition,” he told the public radio station Deutschlandfunk.

“It’s a difficult matter and no one knows if it will succeed,” said Trittin, referring to the bailout. “But if we don’t take this step today, failure is guaranteed.”

The Social Democrats issued a statemented saying: “The CSU is completely out of control.”

German media commentators are divided on Greece. But the mass-circulation Bild newspaper, a reliable barometer of German public sentiment, comes out strongly against it on Monday. It runs the banner headline “STOP!” on its front page and appeals to German lawmakers not to pass the bailout. It also features short statements from leading German economists saying the fresh aid won’t solve Greece’s problems and calling for the country to leave the euro.

In an editorial, Bild writes:

“Against its better judgment, Europe is pouring money into a bottomless barrel. Europe can only master this crisis if it does what most experts have long been demanding. The Greek economy can only become competitive and resume growth with its own currency — not with the strong euro. Continuing with the old recipes won’t work. That is why today’s parliamentary vote will be bad for Greece, bad for Germany and bad for Europe.”

The left-wing Berliner Zeitung writes:

“Let’s remain realistic. Greece won’t manage to get back on its feet even with the second bailout package. The planned debt cut won’t be enough, the reforms aren’t getting underway and the country is breaking down under the weight of the austerity programs. Even Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble doesn’t rule out that new bailout packages will be needed soon. Greece lacks an important instrument for restoring its health: it’s own currency. If Athens had one, the country could devalue its money in order to become cheaper in the world market. A weak currency can work like a huge economic stimulus program.”

“A Greek exit from the euro zone would not end the EU’s solidarity with Greece. That’s because Greece could still count on help from its EU partners. The rescue could end up being cheaper and — far more importantly — less painful for the Greeks.”

The conservatve Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

“If Greece quits, it will fall back 12 years into the year 2000 — and how many years would the other members of the euro zone go back in time? They would deliver three-fold proof that they’re firstly not capable of objectively assessing a country’s application to join (which would make any future expansion of the euro zone questionable), secondly that they’re incapable of even getting a small partner through (let alone a slightly bigger country one day) and thirdly that they can’t make the realization of their political visions irreversible.

“This wouldn’t just cause Schadenfreude among the global competitors but raise the question wether membership of the EU itself is final or if it wouldn’t be wise for some countries to orientate themselves elsewhere such as Moscow or Tehran.

“And once the permanence of the EU has been rocked to its foundations, this part of the world wouldn’t fall back to 2011 or 2001 but to the years 1991, 1981 or even further back.”

Filed under English, Politics, World Tagged with , ,

Israel will not wait for US permission to attack Iran

February 28, 2012

PressTV
February 28, 2010

Israeli official say they will not alert the US if they decide to launch a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities amid growing war threats against Tehran.

An unnamed US intelligence official said Israelis argue that if they keep Washington in the dark, it is unlikely that the US would be held responsible for failing to stop Israel’s potential assault.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Military Affairs Ehud Barak have delivered the message to senior US officials who have visited Israel, the Associated Press reported.

In a similar report published by The Telegraph on Tuesday, Israeli sources said US President Barack Obama was rebuffed last month when he demanded private guarantees that no strike would go ahead without White House notification, suggesting Israel no longer plans to “seek Washington’s permission.”

Over the past few months, several US officials including Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and top lawmakers have visited Israel to reportedly dissuade Tel Aviv from attacking Iran.

Israeli officials are also scheduled to hold talks with senior US officials including Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta about Iran’s nuclear energy program.

Israeli officials have recently ramped up their war rhetoric, threatening Iran with military strikes in case the US-engineered sanctions against the country fail to force Tehran into abandoning its nuclear energy program.

Iran has promised a crushing response to any military strike against the country.

The United States, Israel and some of their allies accuse Tehran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear energy program, using this pretext to impose sanctions against Iran and threaten the country with military attack.

Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency. So, it is entitled to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Meanwhile, a report published by The Los Angeles Times on Friday said that 16 US intelligence agencies believe Tehran is not seeking to build nuclear weapons.

Filed under Asia, English, World Tagged with , , , ,

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