Munich

http://billmon.org/archives/002385.html
April 14, 2006

Munich – the name, not the movie – has long been one of the neoconservative movement's most cherished political symbols, a kind of short-hand description for everything the neocons despise about liberals and their approach to foreign policy.

Munich equals appeasement – the worst sin in the neocon theology. It also stands for weakness, cowardness, naivety and an amoral willingness to bargain with the devil, as well as the failure to recognize that the devil never keeps his word.

Munich is a '30s newsreel of a feeble old man standing on an airport tarmac, holding an umbrella in one hand and waving a meaningless scrap of paper in the other. Munich is the betrayal of the Czechs and the perfidy of the French and the sound of jackboots marching down cobblestone European streets. Munich is Winston Churchill declaiming, with righteous thunder: "You have chosen dishonor over war. You shall have both." Munich is the city you never ever want to visit if you're the leader of the free world.

Now history, as opposed to the historical stereotype, is hardly so cut and dried. There is considerable evidence that the British and the French knew full well Hitler couldn't be trusted, and never expected him to keep the peace – for long. They were playing for time to complete their own rearmament programs, and worried (with good reason) about Germany's diplomatic feelers to Uncle Joe Stalin.

Was it a bad call? Almost certainly. But more a Machiavellian miscalculation than the wishful thinking of fools and cowards. However it later became politically expedient to foist responsibility for the entire fiasco of the West's response to Hitler's aggression on to the narrow shoulders of Neville Chamberlain. Ever thus to losers.

Party Like It's 1938

Naturally, these historical details haven't kept the neocons and their pet rocks in the conservative media from digging poor old Neville out of his grave – again – in order to illustrate their favorite analogy, this time with Iran as Germany, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Hitler, the Democrats as Chamberlain, the French as the French, and (of course) their own courageous selves as Winston Churchill. Just yesterday, for example, I found Hugh Hewitt comparing Iran's enrichment of several teaspoons of uranium to Hitler's march into the Rhineland.

Leaving aside the specific deficiencies in Hewitt's argument – Hitler's move was in direct violation of the Versailles Treaty, Iran's move flouts only a non-binding "request" from the U.N. Security Council – you can make the case that all this Munich-mongering actually turns the truth completely on its head:


• It is the United States that may (again) be planning for aggressive war. (For what that might mean legally for the planners, Google: "Hossbach Conference" and "Nuremberg")

• It's the United States, not Iran, that appears willing to violate the Nonproliferation Treaty to further its budding nuclear alliance with India.

• More to the point, it's the United States, not Iran, that currently has both the weapons and the doctrine in place to launch a nuclear first strike on a non-nuclear state.


But that's not the argument I want to make here. Because while the by-now stock comparison between Ahmadinejad and Hitler is absurd militarily, politically it's not nearly as far fetched as the normal run of Orwellian newspeak.

I don't say this because of Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denials or his public fantasies about Israel being wiped off the map. I certainly don't dismiss those remarks. I'm keenly aware that all too many "sensible" observers (most of them on the political right) dismissed Hitler's Mein Kampf ravings as merely a carny act to bring in the rubes. But I also know that firebreathing rhetoric about destroying the "Zionist entity" has been a staple of Middle Eastern political hate speech since Nasser's time if not before – just as talk about nuking Mecca has become an occasional feature of American political hate speech. I take such talk seriously, and I think everybody should, but I don't automatically assume that those who say such things are actually planning to commit genocide.

No, Ahmadinejad's resemblance to Hitler – and the reason why I find him a legitimately scary guy – is more a function of his role in the decay of the Iranian revolution, which is starting to take on some definite Weimer overtones.

Night and Fog

Ahmadinejad was essentially recruited by the ruling ayatollahs to counter the reformers and roll back their electoral gains. He gave the regime something it has generally lacked since Khomeini died – a popular mass political following. The ayatollahs thought they could control both him and his movement, thanks to their hold on the machinery of the state: the National Security Council, the Council of Guardians, the religious foundations, the army, etc.

Ahmadinejad, however, has been moving to consolidate power, using his fiery appeals to Shi'a fundamentalism and Iranian national pride to whip up mass support, and launching a series of purges designed first to turn the Revolutionary Guard into his own personal instrument, and then to use the RG to bring key state institutions under direct presidential control – in fact as well as in name.

In his recent New Yorker article, Sy Hersh calls this Ahmadinejad's "white coup," and cites a recent wave of forced resignations in the Foreign Ministry. More importantly, key Revolutionary Guard commanders also have been turning up dead – like the dozen or so who died in a plane crash last December. Some are said to have been leading opponents of Ahmadinejad.

(Update 10:10 pm ET: I should have been more circumspect here. It isn't clear whether the RG officers who died where enemies or allies of Ahmadinejad. Nor is there hard evidence that the crash was due to an act of sabotage. It is reasonably clear, however, that a subterranean power struggle is under way inside Iran, and that Ahmadinejad's moves to consolidate power are at the center of it.)

It isn't hard to see some ominous parallels here. A Marxist would probably say Ahmadinejad is playing the classic Bonapartist role: taking advantage of a political stalemate between social classes to forge a personal dictatorship. Or maybe he's just the inevitable product of an authoritarian system in terminal decline, like Milosevic in Yugoslavia. Or maybe he's really only explicable in Iranian terms.

I don't know. But Ahmadinejad's combination of demogogic appeal, ideological zealotry and end-times eschatology does make him a much more plausible stand-in for Hitler than an apparachik like Milosevic or a thug like Saddam. Even Juan Cole – hardly a neocon sympathizer – has called Ahmadinejad "essentially fascist."

Munich: The Untold Story

What Ahmadinejad is not, however, is the absolute dictator of an advanced industrial state with a first-rate military. To pretend that he currently poses the same kind of threat to the world (or even to the Jewish people) that Hitler did in 1938 – or that he will pose such a threat any time within the next decade – is ridiculous. It also discredits the very legitimate concerns that the world should have about Iran and the future of the Iranian revolution.

Which brings me, in a roundabout way, back to my point about Munich. In the neocon wisdom tale, Munich is always about Neville Chamberlain and that scrap of paper. But that's only half the story – or not even half. Hitler might never have risen to power in the first place if the allies had dealt justly with Germany and the other defeated powers at Versailles, or if the Western governments of the 1920s and early '30s had shown one tenth the willingness to compromise with the democratic governments of the Weimer Republic that they later did to appease the Nazi regime.

The source of much of Hitler's political appeal – and the topic of most of his stump speeches before coming to power – was the spinelessness of the Weimer politicians in kowtowing to the Versailles Treaty, and the need for a strong leader who would stand up to the allies. The British and French only understand force, the would-be Furhrer shrieked. Germany must take what was rightfully hers, instead of going hat in hand to plead for concessions.

And of course, the allies proved Hitler right. They insisted on enforcing every humiliating clause of the terms dictated at Versailles. They surrounded Germany with an encircling alliance of smaller states. They forced the German economy deeper and deeper into debt to finance the insane war reparations they demanded. Weimar – and democracy – were discredited and disgraced in the eyes of millions of ordinary Germans long before they started flocking to Hitler's rallies.

And after the Nazis took power, the allies proved Hitler right yet again: They willingly gave him what they had refused the democratic governments of Weimer. They cowered before his initial, hollow threats, letting him march into the Rhineland when they could have squashed the German army like a bug. Is it any wonder Hitler's popularity soared, allowing him to crush all domestic opposition and take the first steps towards the Final Solution?

Letting Ahmadinejad be Ahmadinejad

That earlier half of the Munich story – the hidden half – seems particularly critical to remember now, considering what insiders are now telling us about Iran's pre-Ahmadinejad efforts to seek a diplomatic accommodation with the U.S.:

In the spring of 2003, shortly before I left government, the Iranian Foreign Ministry sent Washington a detailed proposal for comprehensive negotiations to resolve bilateral differences. The document acknowledged that Iran would have to address concerns about its weapons programs and support for anti-Israeli terrorist organizations. It was presented as having support from all major players in Iran's power structure, including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei . . . Unfortunately, the administration's response was to complain that the Swiss diplomats who passed the document from Tehran to Washington were out of line.

But this side of the story really goes back further, to the Clinton administration's dithering response to the blossoming of the Iranian democracy movement in the late '90s and the 2000 presidential victory of moderate reformer Mohammad Khatami.

The opportunity for detente was out there, but the Clintonites were utterly intimidated by our own hardliners – not least the ones in their own party – and never developed a coherent policy either to engage the reformers or challenge their opponents.

The arguments were pretty predictable: the reformers have no real power and Khatami won't able to deliver; containment is working well enough, so don't rock the boat, and (most critically) if we make even a tiny move the Republicans will crucify us. You probably would have heard roughly the same arguments about Weimar if you'd been hanging around in Whitehall or the Quay d'Orsay in the late '20s.

Of course, there was never any question of the Cheney administration picking up where the Clintonites left off – the only kind of Iranian reformers the neocons have ever been interested in are the kind who would be willing to ride into Tehran on the back of an Abrams tank.

The irony is that the point when America was in the best possible position to dictate a deal (an ultimatum, really) to the Iranians – after the fall of Baghdad three years ago – was also the point when the Cheney administration was least willing to even think about negotiations. Such is the price of hubris. Given what's happened since then, is it any surprise that the uranium "crisis" – and Ahmadinejad's defiance – have only boosted his political popularity and clout?

War in Our Time

And so the most promising opportunities for a rational settlement have all passed us by. Instead of a moderate reform president and a group of nervous ayatollahs anxious to cut a deal, America now has Ahmadinejad – and the dawn of what could conceivably become an explicitly fascist regime in Iran, or at least a very close substitute for one.

The good news, such as it is, is that Ahmadinejad's end-times ideology doesn't seem to include any grand territorial ambitions: no "Greater Iran" (Iran is already a greater Iran), no lebensraum in the east. We also have time – time to see how things shake out, to see if the ayatollahs can hamstring their troublesome protege, to see if the democracy movement can make a political comeback. Time for Ahmadinejad to lose some of his popular shine as Iran's internal problems worsen. Time for our own hardline warmongers to be booted out of power.

But unfortunately, our divinely ordained president may not be prepared to wait (and the last sentence of the preceding paragraph appears to be one of the reasons.) Which means at this point we probably should be worrying less about what happened in Munich in 1938, and more about what happened there in 1972, when the German police moved in and tried to disarm the terrorists.

Multiply that carnage by a thousand, or a million, and you've got more than a political slogan; you've got a war.

Posted by billmon at April 14, 2006 06:25 PM

I WANT TO WISH ALL A VERY HAPPY EASTER

Thanks..should get interesting. ... :)))

So you figure CYBR (shell) will be reverse merged by the alternative energy part of EFTI and start trading as such..new symbol etc?

Why would you short TIVO so shortly after they had such great news..the buying must have just started..good luck covering without a loss...or do you figure that the news wasn't that good for them?

You just spew hatred, Islam dude..don't post to me again.

>>>The more formidable opponent, such as China<<<...Agreed..very scary.

Iran Leader: Israel Will Be Annihilated
Apr 14 12:34 PM US/Eastern


By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
Associated Press Writer


TEHRAN, Iran


The president of Iran again lashed out at Israel on Friday and said it was "heading toward annihilation," just days after Tehran raised fears about its nuclear activities by saying it successfully enriched uranium for the first time.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel a "permanent threat" to the Middle East that will "soon" be liberated. He also appeared to again question whether the Holocaust really happened.


"Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation," Ahmadinejad said at the opening of a conference in support of the Palestinians. "The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm."

There are Palestinians and then there are terrorists...right now a bunch of scum terrorists are ruling the Palestinians..

US promotes civil war in a Palestine run by a bunch of scumbag terrorists!

My headline, lets call it like it is.

Nice Easter all..next week should be fun.. ;)))

.016 :)))

GSPG..she's going positive... :)))

TXHE..maybe seller gone.. :)))

GPTC..good thing I listened to my tan-boy.. :)))

UNCN ut.. :)))

TRGD - Historical information regarding Las Minitas indicates three mineralized zones of interest that contain a potential of 22 million tons of ore grading 20 oz/t silver and 0.08 oz/t gold. Metallurgical testing indicates that recoveries of 90% for both silver and gold may be achievable by cyanidation alone. The full historical report is available at http://TaraGoldResources.com.

- Tara Gold Acquires Drill Advanced Silver/Gold Property
http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/060403/0120916.html

- Tara Gold Resources Begins Drill Program to Upgrade and Expand 32.9 Million Ounce Silver Equivalent Resource
http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/060321/0113943.html

- Tara Gold Acquires Near-Production Gold Mine and Plant
http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/060406/0121776.html

- Binding Letter of Intent Signed to Acquire the Lluvia De Oro Gold Property
http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/060406/0121862.html

- Tara Gold Commissions Technical Study to Advance Las Minitas
http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/060410/0122261.html

Lookie at Silver going up: Silver $12.89 !! http://www.kitco.com/charts/livesilver.html

Silver $12.89 !! http://www.kitco.com/charts/livesilver.html
TRGD - Historical information regarding Las Minitas indicates three mineralized zones of interest that contain a potential of 22 million tons of ore grading 20 oz/t silver and 0.08 oz/t gold. Metallurgical testing indicates that recoveries of 90% for both silver and gold may be achievable by cyanidation alone. The full historical report is available at http://TaraGoldResources.com.

- Tara Gold Acquires Drill Advanced Silver/Gold Property
http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/060403/0120916.html

- Tara Gold Resources Begins Drill Program to Upgrade and Expand 32.9 Million Ounce Silver Equivalent Resource
http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/060321/0113943.html

- Tara Gold Acquires Near-Production Gold Mine and Plant
http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/060406/0121776.html

- Binding Letter of Intent Signed to Acquire the Lluvia De Oro Gold Property
http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/060406/0121862.html

- Tara Gold Commissions Technical Study to Advance Las Minitas
http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/060410/0122261.html

UNCN..ut .. :)))

You drunk, dude? lol

..and no panties!!! rotfl!!... :)))

DKGR..accumulation here in da green.. :)))

DREAM & RIG..joined ya on GPTC..phoned the company..very positive..Uranium very hot sector and this one dirt cheap.. :)))..lookie for good news..fingers crossed..

UNCN..perking.. :)))

FMNJ..going sideways..waitin for JV closin of Silver Mine dealio..love to see the valuations on the four Silver veins they will start on first..anyday now... :)))

GSPI..me likes.. :)))

LOLOL..

TRGD..me buying the pullbacks ...monsta in da makin here.. :)))

Looking good, bud..a little news next week and off she goes again.. :)))

rrufff, same here..hope longs do well.. :)))

GSPG..trying to come off bottom.. :)))

Still got some..not heard a thing..yet.. :)))

I'm just astounded how the same lying jerk can keep answering the phone and make the same promise (NEXT WEEK..HONEST!) again and again for how many months now...they must be rollin on the floor each time after they hang up:

"What did ya tell em?"
"Next week..."
"No way!"
"Yup, guy even thanked me for my time, Ha Ha Haha!!"

I'll tell ya right now, I'm gonna sell this dumb stock...Right after the news...Next week of course! LOL

Isn't that old news?? If so, why do that?

UNCN..called the IR yesterday and he promised me that the ceo would call me back this week..he did today:

- They are producing Gold and Silver ..and have their own mill and processing facility ...They have just finished expanding the processing facility cause they expect to increase their production..how?... A JV maybe?

- When asked about their Bell Silver mine in particular...he only would say that for all 3 mines they have been busy considering Joint Ventures with larger entities...Expect plenty updates in the coming weeks, he promised.

- Yeah, but what about a Reverse Split? (They have a big float..count on it..lol) They have that as an option between now and August...At this point they have not made any plans to do such a thing..

- He also said that all mines have lots of silver not just the Bell one.

Below some DD

Please note that the values given are from two years ago - Before the rise in metal prices.

Total Estimated Value
$143,760,000

The Silver Bell Mine is located approximately 25 miles southeast of Salt Lake City in the Wasatch Mountains at an elevation of 10,200 feet. The mineralization is contained within a steeply dipping northeasterly striking fissure-vein and flat lying mantos associated with the vein, consisting of high-grade silver with lead, zinc and copper. The Silver Bell is an underground mine with every face in mineable ore. Several mantos have been uncovered in the workings which will add to the overall potential of the mine. The resource is estimated to contain over 450,000 tons based on strike and dip projections. These estimates have been confirmed by several independent engineering firms. Two reports written by Watts, Griffis, McQuat, commented favorably on the potential of the property. Two thousand (2000) tons of this ore have been stockpiled by past producers.

Silver Bell Estimated Resources


Area
Tonnage
Au opt / oz
Ag opt / oz
Pb% / st
Zn% / st
Cu% /st

Silver Bell
Vein projection
dip and strike
450,000
.018 / 8,100
35 / 15,750,000
5% / 22,500
12% / 54,000
3.5%/15,350

Est. Value 03/2002
$2,349,000
$70,875,000
$11,250,000
$37,800,000
$21,490,000

Total Estimated Value
$143,760,000
-----------------------------
Total Estimated Value
$333,476,000

The Deer Trail Mine, located five (5) miles south of Marysvale, Utah, is a historic producer of gold, silver, lead and zinc. The mine consists of three main areas of mineralization. Recent discoveries of high-grade mineralization within the 3400 Area of the PTH Tunnel have proven to be favorable to near-term cost effect production. The resource also includes a projected 120,000 ton block in the “34 East” southwesterly trending manto mineralization, an inferred block of + 1M tons in the northwesterly dipping Callville Limestone associated with the Deer Trail Anticline mineralization.

Deer Trail Estimated Resources [ return to top ]

Area
Tonnage
Au opt/ oz
Ag opt/ oz
Pb%/ st
Zn%/ st
Cu%/ st

34 East
120,000
.28 / 34,680
35/4,200,000
5% / 6,000
6% / 7,200
2% / 2,400

3400
Drill indicated
down dip
30,000
.19 / 5,700
15.7 / 456,000
2.8% / 840
6.3% / 1,890

3400
Calville down
dip DT anticline
projection
1,000,000 +
.19 / 190,000
15.7/15,700,000
2.8% / 28,000
6.3% / 63,000

8600 DT
anticline red fissure in Toroweap
down dip projection
496,000
.10 / 49,600
15 / 7,440,000
5% / 24,800
12% / 59,520
.5% / 2,480

Old Tailings
186,000
.04 / 7,440
3.6 / 69,000
3% / 5,580

Total est. ounces/tons
287,420 oz.
27,865,000 oz.
65,220 tons
131,610 tons

Est. Value 03/2002
$83,351,000
$125,390,000
$32,610,000
$92,127,000


Total Estimated Value
$333,476,000
------------------------
Total Estimated Value
$107,880,000
The Bromide Basin mines are located 30 miles south of Hanksville, Utah in the Henry Mountains. Bromide Basin is the location for at least four mines, Kimble and Turner, Crescent Creek, Henrietta, and the Bromide Mine. The main metal produced was gold, however, silver and copper was present in most of the ores mined. Bromide Ridge Mines Estimated Resources


Area
Tonnage
Au opt / oz

Bromide Vein
down dip
projection
26,000
+/- 7.0 / 182,000

Crescent Creek Vein
64,000
.25 / 160,000

Kimble and
Turner Vein
10,000
+/- 2.0 / 20,000

Henrietta
exposure
50,000
.20 / 10,000

Total Ounces
372,000 oz.

Total Estimated Value
$107,880,000

http://www.uncn.com/

I hope this is helpful to anyone who's looking for Silver (Gold) plays.. :)))

OMOG..sneaking.. :)))

Nice list, bud... :)))

LOL..Cheese! Too funny.. :)))

Mornin folks.. OIL..N-GAS..PRECIOUS METALS..take ya pick and load em up.. :)))..

Wall Street metals - Gold, Silver at new heights as Iran
helps fuel a rally -
Apr 11, 2006 (XFN via COMTEX) -- UPDATE 2
SAN FRANCISCO (XFN-ASIA) --

Gold futures rose Tuesday to more than 25-year highs -
Silver reached its highest level since late 1983 -
Copper prices climbed to a record as concerns about
the standoff between the U.S. and Iran over its
nuclear-research activities continued to help fuel
buying in the metals sector.

"These are powerful bull markets that just continue to feed on
themselves as market momentum is showing no sign of abating,"
said Dale Doelling, chief market technician at Trends In
Commodities.

Gold for June delivery climbed 80 cents to $602.60 an ounce on
the New York Mercantile Exchange after tapping an intraday
high of $604.30. It rose as high as $608.40 an ounce in
electronic dealings -- a level not seen since Jan. 1981.

On Monday, the metal joined a broad commodities rally after the
New Yorker magazine reported that the United States is
stepping up preparations for a possible air attack on Iranian
nuclear facilities, which may involve the use of nuclear
weapons against fortified underground sites. The Washington
Post carried a similar weekend report.