I am invested to the gills in a Canadian gold mining company so, on the most fundamental level, I agree with you!

11 Billion in US debt dumped by foreign central banks (see next to last paragraph):

http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/080820/fannie_freddie_shares.html

but not Russia. Do I detect a big under the table quid pro quo??!!

quote:

Originally posted by leitmotiv:
I am invested to the gills in a Canadian gold mining company so, on the most fundamental level, I agree with you!

Sigh. I wish i had an option. paycheck to paycheck here pretty much. I wanted to buy gold when it was $270.... no cash then, no cash now

Yeah our 'positions' are pretty similar. Not many have a clue what is coming on the financial side. Gonna be a big shock for a lot of very nice people.

Can't see how any of us are going to come out of this without scorched fur, at the least. Good luck!

SHOWDOWN:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D92M5GM81&show_article=1

hmmm....this Poland Missile issue could be more significant than Georgia.

It has the words '1962 Cuban Missile Crisis Repeated' written all over in a font size that even a blind man could read...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis

quote:

Originally posted by MB_Avro_UK:
hmmm....this Poland Missile issue could be more significant than Georgia.

It has the words '1962 Cuban Missile Crisis Repeated' written all over in a font size that even a blind man could read...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis

Could be, but I'm afraid it is a coming Russian answer to the US missile shield what we'll be comparing to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Since the Cuban Missile Crisis was, similarly (or ironically if you want), in a way an answer to US deployment of thermonuclear tipped intermediate range ballistic missiles Jupiter and Thor in Turkey, from where they could reach Moscow in 15 minutes after launch.

Already there are rumors of a Russian naval/air/land base complex with nuclear weapons being considered for Syria. This would put the screws on Israel and end their freedom of action in the Middle East.

Of course, if Russia really wants to retaliate, they will redeploy their missile subs, the ones they have left, off the U.S. coast.

This could get very ugly very fast.

Yes, TT, the strategic miscalculation of this current crisis is eerily similar to 1962. Americans forget that showdown was resolved by both sides withdrawing their forward-deployed missiles (although the U.S. side of the bargain was kept secret from the public).

Back-door US-Russian contacts to de-escalate war of words - after Moscow threatens to nuke Poland

DEBKAfile Special Report and Analysis

August 20, 2008, 12:00 PM (GMT+02:00)

DEBKAfile reports that both powers have begun acting to cool the rhetoric and review relations, after spokesmen in Washington - and especially Moscow - raised the threat level of their oratory to its highest pitch since the Cold War’s end.
Friday night, Aug. 15, Russia’s deputy chief of staff Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn warned Poland it was “exposing itself to a strike 100 percent.”
He said any new US assets in Europe could come under Russian nuclear attack. Russian forces would target “the allies of countries having nuclear weapons” to destroy them “as a first priority,” said Gen. Nogovitsyn.
At the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russian president Dimitry Medvedev dismissed the claim that the US missile interceptors in Poland were a deterrent against rogue states like Iran as “a fairy tale,” insisting they were aimed against Russia. Warsaw, which will receive 10 batteries in return for American aid to boost its air defenses, later invited Russia to visit the site and see for itself.
President George W. Bush said "The Cold War is over… Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century."
He said Russia’s invasion of Georgia had damaged its credibility and the US stands with the people of Georgia and called for the withdrawal of “invading forces from all Georgian territory.”
Russian and Georgian presidents have both signed the ceasefire brokered by France. But Russian troops and tanks and marauding irregulars in the areas under their control had still not left Georgia by Saturday. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said extra security arrangements needed to be put in place before a withdrawal could begin, in defiance of US demand that Russian troops leave immediately.
After meeting German chancellor Angela Merkel, Medvedev said he could not see South Ossetia and Abkhazia living with Georgia in one state.”
US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice persuaded Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili to sign on the dotted line Friday night. DEBKAfile’s political sources report that, as in most cases when international tensions and violence reach dangerous levels, the big powers have instituted secret diplomacy to cool the situation before it gets out of hand in order to formulate new modes of conduct and relations.
This process began with Rice’s visit to France and Tbilsi.
In five hours of arm-twisting, she persuaded Saakashvili to accept clarifications to the ceasefire accord which contradict Washington’s spirited assurances for Georgia’s “territorial integrity.”
Russian troops allowed to remain in Georgia would be “very limited to a light patrolling ability, such as a few kilometers outside of South Ossetia, not the right to maintain a presence inside Georgia.”
Furthermore, “Russian peacekeepers” would be allowed to “implement additional security measures” until international security can be put in place.
This clause authorizes on behalf of the US and Europe the narrow security strips, which DEBKAfile’s military sources revealed two days ago the Russians are establishing 300-500 meters deep outside the South Ossetian and Abkhazian borders with Georgia.
This American concession was designed as initial impetus for quiet diplomacy with Russia on a settlement in Georgia.
The other concession, which will unfold in time, is the removal of the Georgian president, another of Moscow’s conditions for ending the crisis. It is hard to see Saakasvhili surviving the outcry at home when the extent of his military and diplomatic failures is revealed to his people.
Furthermore, his highly charged speech Friday was watched with pursed lips by Condoleezza Rice and clearly embarrassed his sponsors in Washington. While Bush declared the Cold War is over, Saakashvili heaped verbal coals on the standoff with Russia to keep it ablaze.

Russia needs a serious, longterm prospect for EU membership. I mean an honsest path, not a perfidious path as offered to Turkey.

Everything else will just not work in the long run.

yes , russia needs to be brought into the club, so to speak. and not just eu membership.

this policy of always making russia the outsider will just lead to more trouble in the future.

The only hope is for a deescalation with an Obama victory and a "tough love" program for establishing mutual limits beyond which each side won't transgress such as existed in the Cold War. Bush has managed to do Cuba '62 in reverse. Brilliant.

quote:

the strategic miscalculation of this current crisis is eerily similar to 1962. Americans forget that showdown was resolved by both sides withdrawing their forward-deployed missiles (although the U.S. side of the bargain was kept secret from the public).

Maybe I'm missing something Leit, but the Cuban crisis was over forward deployed offensive missiles. The missiles proposed for basing in Poland are ABMs which are defensive missiles and of such limited number that they don't represent any hinderance toward a Russian strike anyway.

This appears to be a sphere of influence, not a military, issue. The Russians want their post WW2 buffers back and the nations that suffered under their domination for decades are scrambling for any Western leverage they can get to keep the Bear at bay. This has momentum that precedes Bush no matter what one may think of him, pro or con. How this will play out is probably along the lines of what you posted above re: secret high level talks. Somehow I doubt any of us will "know" what the actual agreement(s) is for decades to come. Just my $0.02

100% Correct. The analogy is not exact in the case of the missile types. Since Russia has decided to make the existence of ABM systems near its borders practically a casus belli, we are talking about two dissimilar but equally provocative weapons systems. It's definitely a sphere of influence issue. I am not a Bush hater, but I think he magnificently mistimed a showdown with the bear when he needs the bear to let us have a clear run at Iran, if necessary.

I was watching CNN this morning. A reporter in Poland was asking Poles whether they believed the U.S. would defend them against Russia. One man who looked to be in his 40s had absolute faith the U.S. would do so. She asked two older gents who had been through WWII. Both of them guffawed.

quote:

She asked two older gents who had been through WWII. Both of them guffawed.

We (the West) definitely abandoned them to the Soviets and I can't imagine how they can forgive us. Remember the 1980s, though, when the Sovs decided deploying short range nukes along the NATO/Warsaw Pact borders was a good idea. The quick counter deployment by NATO made them back off rather quickly once they figured out that no amount of hysterical peace protests or threats were going to change NATO's stance. I still believe this was one of Europe's finest hours. They had the loaded gun pointed at their collective heads and their leadership didn't blink.

I don't know who said it but there is a great deal of truth in it: "Russians play chess, Americans play poker, and the diplomacy of each reflects it". When you look at the Soviet Union over the dacades of the cold war their moves were carefully calulated to determine how far they could go without resistance. When resistance popped up, they backed off. I believe/hope they are doing the same now. But I've been wrong many, many times before as my better half reminds me on a daily basis