Globalist Fueled Revolutions Around the World

It's Not an Arab Revolution ... It's a GLOBAL Revolution

February 24, 2011

Washington's Blog - While the revolution in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and other North African countries may seem like an "Arab revolt", it's actually worldwide.

Protests involving thousands of protesters have recently been held in:

• Greece
• India
• North Korea
• China
• Halabja, Kut, Sulaimaniya and other Iraqi towns
• Iran
• And elsewhere
  

Predicted Years Ago

The worldwide riots are not mysterious or unforeseeable. They've been predicted for years, and are a direct result of the bad policy choices made by most nations worldwide.

The Bank for International Settlements -- the world's most prestigious financial agency, nicknamed the "central banks' central bank" -- warned in December 2008 that the bailouts and other bank rescue programs were transferring risks from private companies to nations.

As I noted at the time:

BIS points out in a new report that the bank rescue packages have transferred significant risks onto government balance sheets, which is reflected in the corresponding widening of sovereign credit default swaps (CDS):

The scope and magnitude of the bank rescue packages also meant that significant risks had been transferred onto government balance sheets. This was particularly apparent in the market for CDS referencing sovereigns involved either in large individual bank rescues or in broad-based support packages for the financial sector, including the United States. While such CDS were thinly traded prior to the announced rescue packages, spreads widened suddenly on increased demand for credit protection, while corresponding financial sector spreads tightened.

In other words, by assuming huge portions of the risk from banks trading in toxic derivatives, and by spending trillions that they don't have, central banks have put their countries at risk ....

The Root Cause: Bad Economic Policy

Specifically, nations around the world decided to bail out their big banks instead of taking the necessary steps to stabilize their economies (see this, this and this). As such, they all transferred massive debts (from fraudulent and stupid gambling activities) from the balance sheets of the banks to the balance sheets of the country.

The nations have then run their printing presses nonstop in an effort to inflate their way out of their debt crises, even though that effort is doomed to failure from the get-go.

Quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve is obviously causing food prices to skyrocket worldwide (and see this, this and this).

But the fact is that every country in the world that can print money -- i.e. which is not locked into a multi-country currency agreement like the Euro -- has been printing massive quantities of money.

By way of example only, the Economic Collapse Blog provides the following charts:

The U.S. is printing lots of money.....

Source, The St. Louis Fed

The Bank of England is printing lots of money.....

Source: The BoE

The EU is printing lots of money....

Source: The ECB

Japan is printing lots of money.....

Source: The BoJ

China is printing lots of money.....

Source: The People’s Bank of China

India is printing lots of money.....

Source: Reserve Bank of India

Moreover, the austerity measures which governments worldwide are imposing to try to plug their gaping deficits (created by throwing trillions at their banks) are causing people world-wide to push back.

As I warned in February 2009 and again in December of that year:

Numerous high-level officials and experts warn that the economic crisis could lead to unrest world-wide -- even in developed countries:

• Today, Moody's warned that future tax rises and spending cuts could trigger social unrest in a range of countries from the developing to the developed world, that in the coming years, evidence of social unrest and public tension may become just as important signs of whether a country will be able to adapt as traditional economic metrics, that a fiscal crisis remains a possibility for a leading economy, and that 2010 would be a “tumultuous year for sovereign debt issuers”.

• The U.S. Army War College in 2008 November warned in a monograph [click on Policypointers’ pdf link to see the report] titled “Known Unknowns: Unconventional ‘Strategic Shocks’ in Defense Strategy Development” of crash-induced unrest:

  The military must be prepared, the document warned, for a “violent, strategic dislocation inside the United States,” which could be provoked by “unforeseen economic collapse,” “purposeful domestic resistance,” “pervasive public health emergencies” or “loss of functioning political and legal order.”

  The “widespread civil violence,” the document said, “would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security.”

  “An American government and defense establishment lulled into complacency by a long-secure domestic order would be forced to rapidly divest some or most external security commitments in order to address rapidly expanding human insecurity at home,” it went on.

  “Under the most extreme circumstances, this might include use of military force against hostile groups inside the United States. Further, DoD [the Department of Defense] would be, by necessity, an essential enabling hub for the continuity of political authority in a multi-state or nationwide civil conflict or disturbance,” the document read.

• Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair said:

  "The global economic crisis ... already looms as the most serious one in decades, if not in centuries ... Economic crises increase the risk of regime-threatening instability if they are prolonged for a one- or two-year period," said Blair. "And instability can loosen the fragile hold that many developing countries have on law and order, which can spill out in dangerous ways into the international community."***
  
  "Statistical modeling shows that economic crises increase the risk of regime-threatening instability if they persist over a one-to-two-year period."***
  
  “The crisis has been ongoing for over a year, and economists are divided over whether and when we could hit bottom. Some even fear that the recession could further deepen and reach the level of the Great Depression. Of course, all of us recall the dramatic political consequences wrought by the economic turmoil of the 1920s and 1930s in Europe, the instability, and high levels of violent extremism.”
  
  Blair made it clear that -- while unrest was currently only happening in Europe -- he was worried this could happen within the United States.
  
  [See also this].
  

• Former national security director Zbigniew Brzezinski warned "there’s going to be growing conflict between the classes and if people are unemployed and really hurting, hell, there could be even riots."
  

• The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff warned the the financial crisis is the highest national security concern for the U.S., and warned that the fallout from the crisis could lead to of "greater instability".

Others warning of crash-induced unrest include:

• The head of the World Trade Organization

• The head of the International Monetary Fund (and see this)

• The head of the World Bank

• Senator Christopher Dodd

• Congressman Ron Paul (radio interview on March 6, 2009)
  

• Britian's MI5 security agency

• Leading economic historian Niall Ferguson

• Leading economist Marc Faber and billionaire investor Jim Rogers

• Leading economist Nouriel Roubini

• Leading economist John Williams

• Top trend researcher Gerald Calente

• European think tank Leap2020

Unemployment is soaring globally - especially among youth.

And the sense of outrage at the injustice of the rich getting richer while the poor get poorer is also a growing global trend.

Countries worldwide told their people that bailout out the giant banks was necessary to save the economy. But they haven't delivered, and the "Main Streets" of the world have suffered.

As former American senator (and consummate insider) Chris Dodd said in 2008:

If it turns out that [the banks] are hoarding, you’ll have a revolution on your hands. People will be so livid and furious that their tax money is going to line their pockets instead of doing the right thing. There will be hell to pay.

Of course, the big banks are hoarding, and refusing to lend to Main Street. In fact, they admitted back in 2008 that they would. And the same is playing out globally.

As I noted earlier this month:

Agence France-Press reports today:

The International Monetary Fund stands ready to help riot-torn Egypt rebuild its economy, the IMF chief said Tuesday as he warned governments to tackle unemployment and income inequality or risk war.

No wonder former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski ... warned the Council on Foreign Relations that:

For the first time in human history almost all of humanity is politically activated, politically conscious and politically interactive. There are only a few pockets of humanity left in the remotest corners of the world that are not politically alert and engaged with the political turmoil and stirrings that are so widespread today around the world.

***

America needs to face squarely a centrally important new global reality: that the world's population is experiencing a political awakening unprecedented in scope and intensity, with the result that the politics of populism are transforming the politics of power. The need to respond to that massive phenomenon poses to the uniquely sovereign America an historic dilemma: What should be the central definition of America's global role?

[T]he central challenge of our time is posed not by global terrorism, but rather by the intensifying turbulence caused by the phenomenon of global political awakening. That awakening is socially massive and politically radicalizing.

It is no overstatement to assert that now in the 21st century the population of much of the developing world is politically stirring and in many places seething with unrest. It is a population acutely conscious of social injustice to an unprecedented degree, and often resentful of its perceived lack of political dignity. The nearly universal access to radio, television and increasingly the Internet is creating a community of shared perceptions and envy that can be galvanized and channeled by demagogic political or religious passions. These energies transcend sovereign borders and pose a challenge both to existing states as well as to the existing global hierarchy, on top of which America still perches.

***
That turmoil is the product of the political awakening, the fact that today vast masses of the world are not politically neutered, as they have been throughout history. They have political consciousness.

***

Politically awakened mankind craves political dignity, which democracy can enhance, but political dignity also encompasses ethnic or national self-determination, religious self-definition, and human and social rights, all in a world now acutely aware of economic, racial and ethnic inequities. The quest for political dignity, especially through national self-determination and social transformation, is part of the pulse of self-assertion by the world's underprivileged.

***

We live in an age in which mankind writ large is becoming politically conscious and politically activated to an unprecedented degree, and it is this condition which is producing a great deal of international turmoil.

That turmoil is the product of the political awakening, the fact that today vast masses of the world are not politically neutered, as they have been throughout history. They have political consciousness.

Watch an excerpt:

Hundreds of Thousands Protest Across Arab World

February 25, 2011

AP - Hundreds of thousands poured out of mosques and staged protests across the Arab world Friday, some trying to shake off autocratic rulers and others pressuring embattled leaders to carry out sweeping reforms.

In the Libyan capital of Tripoli, protesters reported coming under a hail of bullets and said they saw at least seven people killed. In Iraq, troops opened fire in several cities to push back crowds marching on government offices, killing at least 12. Scuffles were reported in Yemen, while pro-reform marches in Egypt, Bahrain and Jordan were largely peaceful.

The large crowds signaled that the push for change in North Africa and the Middle East continues to build momentum. The first anti-government protests erupted several weeks ago, toppling rulers in Tunisia and Egypt and quickly spreading to other countries.

The situation remained most volatile in Libya, where longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi has cracked down hard on an 11-day-old rebellion after losing control over large chunks of the country.

In Tripoli, where Gadhafi remains in charge, protesters staged the first significant anti-government rallies in several days, trying to march from several districts to the central Green Square.

Protesters said they came under fire from pro-Gadhafi militias. One man among a crowd of thousands said gunmen on rooftops and in the streets opened fire with automatic weapons and even an anti-aircraft gun.

"In the first wave of fire, seven people within 10 meters (yards) of me were killed. Many people were shot in the head," the man, who was marching from Tripoli's eastern Tajoura district, told The Associated Press. "It was really like we are dogs."

Across cities that have come under control of the rebels, tens of thousands held rallies to support their comrades in Tripoli.

Iraq saw its biggest and most violent anti-government protests since the wave of regional unrest began. Thousands marched on government buildings and clashed with security forces in several cities, an outpouring of anger that left 12 people dead.

The protests were fueled by frustration over corruption, chronic unemployment and shoddy public services.

"We want a good life like human beings, not like animals," said Khalil Ibrahim, 44, one of about 3,000 protesters in the capital, Baghdad. Demonstrators knocked down blast walls, threw rocks and scuffled with club-wielding troops who chased them down the street.

Many Iraqis rail against a government that locks itself in the highly fortified Green Zone, home to the parliament and the U.S. Embassy, and is viewed by most of its citizens as more interested in personal gain than public service.

Iraq's deadliest clashes Friday were reported in the northern city of Mosul, where hundreds rallying outside a provincial council building came under fire from guards. Officials said five people were killed. The other deaths were reported in four other cities.

Huge crowds also turned out in Egypt, Bahrain and Yemen, but with very different goals.

In Egypt, where an 18-day uprising toppled President Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11, tens of thousands jammed Cairo's Tahrir Square to keep up the pressure on the country's military rulers to carry out reforms.

Demonstrators said they are worried the army is not moving quickly enough on reforms, including repealing emergency laws, releasing political prisoners and removing members of Mubarak's regime from power.

Thousands chanted that they won't leave until they see Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq, one of the Mubarak-era holdovers, removed from office. Some waved flags of Libya to show support for the uprising next door.

"We made Mubarak step down and we must make Shafiq also step down," said Safwat Hegazy, a protester from the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest and best-organized opposition group.

Since Mubarak's fall, the military rulers have disbanded both houses of parliament and promised constitutional reforms that will allow wider participation in elections, to be held within six months. They have also promised to repeal emergency laws that give security forces largely unchecked powers, though only when conditions permit — a caveat that worries protesters.

In Bahrain, the first Gulf state to be thrown into turmoil by the Arab world's wave of change, tens of thousands rallying in the central square demanded sweeping political concessions from the ruling monarch.

Security forces made no attempt to halt the marchers, an apparent sign that Bahrain's rulers do not want more bloodshed denunciations from their Western allies. In the early stage of the two-week-old rallies, troops had used lethal force.

The unrest is highly significant for Washington. Bahrain is home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, which is the Pentagon's main counterweight against Iran's widening military ambitions. Bahrain's Sunni monarchy, meanwhile, is under pressure from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf rulers not to yield to the Shiite-led protesters, fearing it could open footholds for Shiite powerhouse Iran.

In the Arab world's poorest country, Yemen, tens of thousands marching in the capital of Sanaa demanded that their U.S.-backed president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, step down. It was one of the largest crowds since protests erupted earlier this month.

A Muslim preacher who led Friday's prayer told protesters it was their religious duty to topple Saleh, describing him as a "devil who has driven us to the stone ages." Shouts from the crowd of "Allahu akbar," or "God is great," accompanied his words.

"We are coming to take you from the presidential palace," activist Tawakul Kermal told the gathering, addressing Saleh.

Yemen has a weak central government and an active branch of al-Qaida. Saleh has promised to step down after elections in 2013, but the demonstrators want him out now. Activists have been digging in, setting up encampments in some public areas.

A record crowd turned out Friday in Jordan, where Jordan's largest opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, has warned that citizens' patience is wearing thin with the government's "slow" moves toward reform.

Hamza Mansour, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, called for quicker steps to give Jordanians a bigger say in politics and to have them elect their prime minister — now selected by King Abdullah II. Mansour spoke to 4,000 Jordanian protesters, the largest crowd yet to take to the streets of downtown Amman for the pro-reform cause.