Uranium Coup.
Spoke Mark Schroeder, Stratfor, Thursday 18, and speaking again Sunday 21, in re Niger coup and the turmoil for the uranium mines and the neighboring Nigeria. The uranium mines are the least of the worries, though they are a worry. The junta looks to be the property of the Chinese and French consortiums that control rights to the natural resources. It is Nigeria that is the immediate threat. Goodluck Jonathan is the Nigerian vice-president, and he has just assumed the powers abandoned by Yaradua, who is either invalid or perishing in a Jeddah hospital, out of communication for months. Jonathan must balance his Christian South roots against the longstanding Muslim North power center. The former Nigerian President Obasanjo is the power behind the power in the North as leader of an executive council that is the shadow oligarchy. The balance between North and South is not stable. Stratfor's Schroeder offered that Jonathan must condemn the Niger coup in order to maintain credibility with the nervous fellows at the Abujah capital and even in the former capital, Lagos. All the coup masters were condemned by the African Union within hours, though the meetings started quickly between the army officers and the former Cabinet officials, with the kleptocrat go-betweens. There may be hundred of millions of pounds of contracts, but the junta looks low-budget, all arrayed in a spare room, simple chairs, bare table with water bottles. Now the competition begins; and one of these fellows will emerge as the strongman. The conditions demand it. Those uranium mines require central authority maintained by the French and Chinese and monitored by the IAEA.
Alan Grayson.
The delightful detail of the coup was that the firebrand Democratic Florida Congressman Alan Grayson, who is the number one popular YouTube member of Congress, was next door to the gunfire. Grayson scurried to the U.S. embassy, and is now in Burkina Faso. Look forward to the YouTube account. Perhaps Dick Cheney can send Grayson back to drink tea with the junta and learn of the uranium contracts bound for Iran? and Venezuela? and Zimbabwe? Is this the same Alan Grayson last seen accusing POTUS Obama of suffering the Stockholm Syndrome of identifying with his aggressors? Grayson aims to lead the Progressive Left in the House, though he is more likely leading the Media Left. His skills include a measure of self-mocking and a whale of a grimace. We can look forward to how Grayson and his Progressive colleagues in the House (e.g., Anthony Weiner) greet the weeks ahead as POTUS and his team attempt to twist the Senate healthcare bill into a creature that the House can vote for again. Is Grayson star-crossed? Is he ready to besiege the Obama administration in the same thrilling way that, last fall, he threw Molotov cocktails at the GOP: "That's what I meant when I said that the Republican plan is, don't get sick. And if you do get sick, die quickly."
In economic parlance there are no less than three terms that describe essentially the same condition: "Resource Curse", "Paradox of Plenty" and "Dutch Disease". All these refer to unstable or failed states that, at the same time, can claim to have a wealth of natural resources. The theory goes, that their natural resources are precisely the reason for the failure of such states; that the resources themselves have made these states the targets of exploitation by foreign interests and, to a lesser extent, of corruption domestically. Obvious examples of states suffering from “Dutch Disease” are liberally spread throughout the Middle East, Africa and South America.
The easiest scapegoat is always the foreigner. In fact, it has almost become obligatory to blame foreigners for any and all domestic difficulties. Foreigners must also meet certain standards of worthiness; that is to say, they must demonstrate sufficiently deep pockets to justify the bother and risk involved in pursuing the protocol of extortion. Foreigners must also exhibit enough sensitivity to be open to severe introspection as to be able to arrive at the entirely narcissistic conclusion that all that has ever happened is one’s own fault.
Future colonizers, exploiters, human and arms traffickers, in order to excel in their self-ordained craft, will have learned to avoid the pitfalls of circular thinking. They will pick a point along the proverbial arc and stick with it. They will know that the point they picked represents nothing more or less than the position most advantageous to themselves. Thus they will have fully understood the adage, “Take care of yourself (first) and all else will take care of itself.”
Grayson is an oaf who, along with his Democrat colleagues, is also about to squander the precious resource of political power. Predictably, he and the others will blame everyone but themselves. Republicans will have to avoid the illusion of the “big tent” and come to terms with the fact that their fine feathered friends in the press, academe and Hollywood will have to suffer the elements while the work of putting our nation back together proceeds in earnest inside.
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
Grayson annoys me for some reason. Like so many on the far left these days he tries to blend a pretense of kind heartedness with almost violent aggression. As if to say "I'll kill you if you get in the way of my efforts to help people."
He is so annoying, maybe he even started the coup. Or as our President would say: "coop".