Conservative Musings

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Friday, February 24, 2012

Is Iran Soon To Go Nuke?

The latest report for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) indicates that the Iranians are either way ahead of plans or are bluffing their way much the same as Saddam did ten years ago. Is it a bluff? If so, it is a dangerous one.

The IAEA report makes it very clear they are concerned, especially in light of military uses of the nuclear program. We quote:

"51. The Agency continues to have serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear

programme, as explained in GOV/2011/65. Iran did not provide access to Parchin, as requested by the

Agency during its two recent visits to Tehran, and no agreement was reached with Iran on a structured

approach to resolving all outstanding issues in connection with Iran’s nuclear programme."

This report cannot calm the feelings in Tel Aviv. If anything, it has to make the situation even worse. Washington should also be concerned.

Scary, at best. Deadly at worst.

Conservative Tom

New IAEA report shows Iran expands nuclear enrichment at Natanz

By Laura Rozen | The Envoy – 1 hr 26 mins ago

Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad touring Tehran's research reactor Feb. 15, 2012. (AFP/Getty)A new UN atomic watchdog agency report raises concerns about Iran's expansion of enrichment activities, as well as its continued foot-dragging in refusing to answer questions about suspected military dimensions of its nuclear program. But the new assessment also hinted at possible technical problems Iran is experiencing, nuclear experts said.

The 11-page report (.pdf), issued by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Friday, comes as the international community is considering how to respond to Iran's expressed readiness to resume negotiations on its nuclear program. It also comes on the heels of the IAEA's expression of frank disappointment over being denied a visit to the Parchin military base at the conclusion of their two-day trip to Iran this week. Agency inspectors want to determine if a building on the site was used to carry out tests of an explosive device.

The agency's latest report shows that Iran has rapidly expanded the number of centrifuges installed at its main Natanz uranium enrichment facility, reaching 9,000 today compared to 6,000 last fall. (It's not clear that all of the installed machines are operating, the agency said.) Still, the assessment offers hints that Iran is having trouble with its more advanced centrifuges. Nuclear experts speculated that because of international sanctions Iran may be having trouble procuring the steel needed for the more advanced centrifuge models.

In the meantime, nuclear experts are puzzled by aspects of Iran's behavior at a more sensitive nuclear enrichment site: the Fordow facility built deep in a mountain near Qom, which is considered less vulnerable to possible military strikes.

Among the concerns for nuclear watchdogs, Iran keeps changing its declared work plan for the facility, which Iran did not disclose until the international community detected it in 2009.

"The sheer fact they keep changing it raises questions about why it was originally built," Paul Brannan, an Iran nuclear expert with the Institute for Science and International Security, told Yahoo News in an interview Friday.

While Iran has placed the outer casings of 2,000 older-generation centrifuges at the Fordow site, according to the new IAEA report, it has not installed the actual machines. Brannan said he found that behavior "strange."

"By only installing the outer casings and not the whole machines, they may be sending a warning about what they intend to do," he said. "Either way, it's not clear whether or not they actually have the capability to install the entire machines in those numbers."

"Is it a bluff?" he continued. The Iranians "know how significant Fordow is. If they put in the two thousand machine casings, but not the actual machines, it is sending a signal."

Israel considers Iran's enrichment activities at Fordow a particular cause of alarm, because it believes the facility is less vulnerable to Israeli air strikes given its placement in a fortified bunker in a mountain.

Understanding Muslims--Kill Americans!

When you read the response to the Obama apology to the Koran burning, you should realize the people with whom we are dealing are not rational, thinking individuals. They are reactionary terrorists who will take any mention of Islam, Muslims, Korans as a negative and a reason to riot and threaten. It is time to remove all of our support from Afghanistan, burn the bases we have set up, destroy all improvements we have made and exit stage right. Let the animals fight over the spoils!

Our American lives and American treasure are too precious to waste one more day on these people. They view us as invaders, so let's leave.

Conservative Tom

Taliban's Response to Obama's Apology: 'Kill Them, Beat Them, Take Them as Prisoners'

By Patrick Goodenough

February 24, 2012

Afghan, angry about the burning of Qurans, gather outside an American military base during an anti-U.S. demonstration in Mehterlam, Laghman province east of Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, Feb. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

(CNSNews.com) – In the wake of President Barack Obama sending a three-page letter to Afghan President Hamid Kharzai, apologizing for U.S. forces having mistakenly burned some Qur'ans at a U.S. air base in Afghanistan, the Taliban is calling on Muslims to kill Americans or beat them and take them as prisoners.

The call for violence against U.S. troops in Afghanistan came as Muslims in South Asia and elsewhere prepared for Friday prayers--a potentially volatile time.

Islamist groups in Pakistan, meanwhile, drummed up protests against the burning of the Qur’ans, with some leaders appealing for jihad against the United States.

Echoing incendiary calls by the Taliban for Muslims to react violently to the mishandling of the religious texts, militant leaders charged that the incident was a deliberate plot against Muslims.

Two U.S. troops and at least seven Afghans have been killed in three days of rioting in Afghanistan.

“We should not be satisfied with mere protests and empty slogans but the military bases of the invaders, their military convoys and their troops should become a target of our courageous attacks,” spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement directed to Taliban fighters and the “zealous and faithful people of Afghanistan.”

“Kill them, beat them, take them as prisoners and teach them such a lesson that they never summon the courage to abuse the Holy Qur’an again,” he said.

Mujahid said the Taliban called on the world’s Muslims to condemn the incident, "both practically and verbally and back the legitimate struggle of the Muslim Afghans” against the “American aggressors.”

At least one demonstration was planned in Kabul on Friday, and the U.S. Embassy warned American citizens there may be more, possibly violent protests after the end of Friday prayers.

While President Hamid Karzai and Afghan government officials called for calm and encouraged provincial and religious leaders to do likewise, there was no comparable appeal from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a bloc of the world’s Muslim nations.

OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu issued a statement condemning the Qur’an incident but saying nothing about the deadly reaction or the various groups’ calls for violence.

The OIC said Ihsanoglu described the incident at the Bagram military base as “a deplorable act of incitement and called on the concerned authorities to take swift and appropriate disciplinary action against those responsible.”

“The OIC secretary-general said that the act was contrary to the the common efforts of the OIC and that of the international community including the United States government, to combat intolerance, and incitement to hatred based on religion and belief,” the statement said.

It said Ihsanoglu welcomed the apologies from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) commander Gen. John Allen and their assurances that the incident would be investigated and not be allowed to happen again.

The independent Daily Outlook Afghanistan reports that the Afghanistan Ulema Council, a body of top religious scholars, declared in a statement that apologies were not sufficient, and that “those behind the tragic incident must be punished and sent to jail.”

One militant cleric had a more dire fate in mind for those responsible. “Several times the foreign troops have desecrated the sacred book and then got away with mere apologies,” Maulvi Nasrullah told the Pajhwok Afghan News service, demanding that the culprits be sentenced to death.

‘Conspiracy’

In the Pakistani city of Quetta, the pro-Taliban Islamist group Jamiat-ul Ulema-e-Islam organized a rally Thursday which police said drew some 500 people.

“The burning of Qur’ans is a conspiracy to hurt the feelings of Muslims,” radical cleric Fazal Muhammad told the protestors. He urged Muslims to wage jihad against the U.S. “so they don’t even dare invading any other Muslim country in future,” the Karachi-based daily Dawn reported.

Other groups taking part in the protest included the Islamist political party Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Jamaat ud-Dawa (JuD), an ostensibly charitable group which the State Department calls a “front operation” for the terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Toiba.

In Lahore, members of the JI’s student wing – the largest student group in Pakistan – also protested, with the group’s leader declaring that JI would not permit the Pakistani government to reopen supply lines to the ISAF forces in Afghanistan.

Last spring, Islamist organizations and media in Pakistan played a key role in fueling anger both in that country and neighboring Afghanistan after the pastor of a small Florida church burned a copy of the Qur’an.

For almost two weeks after Terry Jones’ March 20 stunt the incident received little media coverage in the Islamic world – with the exception of Pakistan, where groups like JI and JuD issued fiery denunciations and organized protest rallies.

Protests then spread to Afghanistan, where – after Friday prayers on April 1 – Muslims roused by imams’ unfounded claims that hundreds of Qur’ans had been burned in the U.S. stormed a U.N. compound, in an attack that left seven foreign U.N. workers and four Afghan civilians dead. Another 12 people were killed during two further days of rioting.

In other reaction to this week’s incident at Bagram, the Lebanese Shi’ite militant group Hezbollah said “the action of the foreign troops is a new crime that reveals U.S.-Zionist desecration of Islamic sanctities and ridicules the feelings of more than one billion Muslims.”

Illegal Lemonade Stands

John Stossel

Want to open a business in America? It isn't easy.

In Midway, Ga., a 14-year-old girl and her 10-year-old sister sold lemonade from their front yard. Two police officers bought some. But the next day, different officers ordered them to close their stand.

Their father went to city hall to try to find out why. The clerk laughed and said she didn't know. Eventually, Police Chief Kelly Morningstar explained, "We were not aware of how the lemonade was made, who made the lemonade and of what the lemonade was made with."

Give me a break. If she doesn't know, so what? But kids trying their first experiment with entrepreneurship are being shut down all over America. Officials in Hazelwood, IllinoisIll., ordered little girls to stop selling Girl Scout cookies.

It made me want to try to jump through the legal hoops required to open a simple lemonade stand in New York City. Here's some of what one has to do:

-- Register as sole proprietor with the County Clerk's Office (must be done in person)

-- Apply to the IRS for an Employer Identification Number.

-- Complete 15-hr Food Protection Course!

-- After the course, register for an exam that takes 1 hour. You must score 70 percent to pass. (Sample question: "What toxins are associated with the puffer fish?") If you pass, allow three to five weeks for delivery of Food Protection Certificate.

-- Register for sales tax Certificate of Authority

-- Apply for a Temporary Food Service Establishment Permit. Must bring copies of the previous documents and completed forms to the Consumer Affairs Licensing Center.

Then, at least 21 days before opening your establishment, you must

arrange for an inspection with the Health Department's Bureau of Food Safety and Community Sanitation. It takes about three weeks to get your appointment. If you pass, you can set up a business once you:

-- Buy a portable fire extinguisher from a company certified by the New York Fire Department and set up a contract for waste disposal.

-- We couldn't finish the process. Had we been able to schedule our health inspection and open my stand legally, it would have taken us 65 days.

I sold lemonade anyway. I looked dumb hawking it with my giant fire extinguisher on the table.

Tourists told me they couldn't believe that I had to get "all those permits." A Pakistani man said: "That's crazy! You should move to Pakistan!"

But I don't want to move to Pakistan.

Politicians say, "We support entrepreneurs," but the bureaucrats make it hard. The Feds alone add 80,000 pages of new rules every year. Local governments add more. There are so many incomprehensible rules that even the bureaucrats can't tell you what's legal. In the name of public safety, politicians strangle opportunity.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Greek Bailout-- Is A Greek Tragedy Next

We continue to read the issues with Greece and its bailout with concern and trepidation. Our concern is, will it transpire as planned and are there contingencies in place should it not go the way they want. Additionally, we hope it will not cause other countries (Italy, Portugal, Spain for example) to follow suit due to deteriorating financial conditions. There also should be some reservation on the banks and how they will react to the near default and the provisions put in place. For example, will they ever lend to Greece again and if they don't, how does the country build itself back?

Our trepidation is one we have expressed earlier. Will Germany have to take over the Greek economic system and therefore actually conquer the country without firing a shot? If Portugal, Spain and Italy follow suit, will Germany also take over those countries?

We have not been a party to the negotiations and we doubt even those closest to the agreement could answer our rather basic questions, as this will have to work itself out. As far as we know, there never has been a country that was saved from default. We are in virgin territory. Will the Greeks live up to their agreements, if not, what occurs? Do they go on their own and if so, who lends them money. Surely, no international bank would. Do they go back to barter. If their economy would be run by another country, how would their citizens react?

The Greeks are going to have a lot of luck to get through this and come out the other side without major damage. We definitely wish them luck. Hopefully, the creditor nations will learn from this experience and make better decisions for the next country that comes down the bankruptcy pike.

Conservative Tom

Greece's bailout is back in private sector hands

By Ben Rooney | CNNMoney.com – 9 minutes ago

It looks like Greece will avoid an outright default in the short run now that eurozone finance officials have signed off on a second bailout for the debt-stricken nation.

But the rescue package worth €130 billion is contingent on a historic debt reduction agreement with private sector investors that must be approved before any bailout money can be released.

Assuming private sector investors sign off, Greece should be able to secure the funds it needs to make a €14.5 billion bond payment in March.

The terms of the private sector agreement include a write down of 53% on the face value of Greek government bonds, steeper than the previous 50% reduction agreed to in October.

The proposal will now be presented to members of the Institute of International Finance, which represents the private sector. The IIF's full committee will review the details and make a decision "in accordance with their own individual processes," according to a statement.

IIF director Charles Dallara said in an interview with CNN's Richard Quest that he expects a high participation rate, but he acknowledged that each investor has the right to make their own decision.

Eurozone approves new $173B bailout for Greece

Under the terms of the agreement, Greece's debt load will be cut by about €107 billion, equal to 50% of the nation's estimated economic output for the year. It will also reduce the amount of debt Greece needs to refinance over the coming years by roughly €150 billion, according to the IIF.

In addition to the write down, investors would exchange existing bonds for securities with lower interest rates. At the same time, investors would receive securities that could increase in value as the Greek economy improves, and EU officials would kick in a €30 billion "sweetener."

According to the IIF, the agreement represents the largest sovereign debt restructuring in history.

Overall, the deal will result in losses of 74% for the private sector, according to Marc Chandler, head of global currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman.

Euro economy shrinks, is recession next?

Given the onerous terms, he said reaching the targeted 95% participation rate "seems unlikely." He also suggested that an official endorsement by the IIF may not mean that all private sector investors are on board.

"It is not clear how much the IIF really represents the private sector," said Chandler, in a note to clients.

The concern is that a large number of investors will balk at the deal, forcing the terms to be renegotiated. That could delay the just-approved bailout and put Greece back at risk of a disorderly default.

The Greek government is expected to pass legislation this week that would force investors who reject the agreement to take losses on Greek bonds issued under domestic law, which make up the majority of the nation's debt load.

The presence of so-called collective action clauses would not qualify as a "credit event," according to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association. But the association suggested that activating the clauses could trigger credit default swaps, a form of insurance that investors use to protect against a default.

Credit default swaps, or CDS, were a major contributor to the 2008 financial crisis, when declines in the U.S. housing market caused banks to suffer major losses on mortgage-backed securities.

But analysts say the Greek CDS market is small and such a credit event would probably not shock the global financial system.

"The net Greek CDS positions of systemically-relevant financial institutions appear to be relatively limited," said Tobias Blattner, euro area economist at Daiwa Capital Markets.