Majorityrights News > Category: Military Matters

READ MORE...

ASPI - The Strategist, ‘Would a US–China trade war pay dividends to Australia?’, 09 Mar 2017:

Among many other colourful characters, Donald Trump’s cabinet appointments include two protectionist and anti-China hardliners, Robert Lighthizer and Peter Navarro, who sit at the helm of US trade and industry policy. That decision confirms a belligerent change of tack in Sino­–American economic relations. But what are the implications for Australia?

A number of monetary economists, including Saul Eslake, have warned that a potential escalation to a full-blown China–US trade war poses the single biggest economic threat to Australia. That position argues that the already struggling global economy can’t face a superpower trade war, likely to be triggered by the Trump administration at the monetary level, when the RMB/USD exchange rate will reach the unprecedented level of 7 to 1 (it’s currently sitting at around 6.9). Furthermore, a falling Chinese currency combined with protectionist measures in the US will dampen the Chinese economy by way of reduced volumes of exports and higher interest rates that will spread across the Asia–Pacific. According to such reasoning, that could have negative impacts for Australia’s economy; prices for iron ore, coal and natural gas could possibly drop—we’ll know by the middle of the year.

However, it’s questionable that such crisis would be detrimental to Australia. In fact, focusing on monetary dynamics alone fails to capture the role of industrial production and regulatory arrangements in the global supply chain.

On the contrary, after triangulating the trade and industrial data of the US, China and Australia and considering the current trade regulatory framework, there are substantial reasons to argue that Australia is well placed to fill the gaps left by a wrecked US–China trade relationship at the best of its industrial capacity. Australia is indeed one of a handful of countries to have solid free trade agreements in place with both the US and China.

As it currently stands, the annual US–China trade balance is worth over US$600 billion—around the yearly value of Australia’s overall trade volumes.

Australia’s rocks and crops economy—in particular the growing productivity potential of its agricultural and mining sectors—is strong enough to rise above global monetary tensions and falling commodity prices, thanks to rising export volumes to both the US and China. It appears that the harder the two superpowers use their trade relations as leverage in their strategic competition, the harder they’ll need to look for other sources to sustain their industrial production levels and corporate supply chain.

In a trade war scenario, the possible initial hiccups in the global supply chain will likely be short-lived. In fact, let’s consider that about half of US imports are estimated to be made of intra-firm trade, and that protectionist measures from abroad tend to have insignificant effects on the production input of Chinese State-owned firms. Thus, multinational corporations are proven to be particularly adept at   quickly replacing the flows of their industrial production and distribution, as is shown by history.

In other words, in the event of a Sino–American crisis, the major trading actors in both countries will be able and willing to promptly move their business somewhere else.

Thanks to the existing spaghetti bowl of international economic partnerships, Australia is in prime position to be this “somewhere else” for both countries. In fact, Australia is the second largest economy and Sino–American trading partner of the only six countries that have in place free trade agreements with both the US and China, including South Korea, Singapore, Chile, Peru and Costa Rica.

The liquefied natural gas (LNG) trade is a significant case study for Australia in this instance. Australia is the world’s second largest LNG exporter, and is set to become the first by 2020. It exports more than $16 billion a year of LNG and by 2020 the LNG industry is expected to contribute $65 billion to the Australian economy, equating to 3.5% of its GDP. 2016 saw the start of LNG exports from the US and an unprecedented boost of Chinese imports. In a trade war scenario, the US would be locked out of China’s thriving market and thus LNG prices would rise even higher than they already have. With sharply rising production capacity, Australia needs to expand and diversify its customer base to keep the lion’s share of the global LNG market. China’s response to Trump’s trade policy is set to dampen the rise of a   strong emerging competitor of Australia’s highly lucrative LNG industry, and thus open up new commercial frontiers.

The LNG example clearly shows that Australia’s economy would benefit from a contained US–China trade crisis. Nevertheless, should that trade crisis escalate beyond the economy, Australia’s luck may run out.

The Chinese leadership doesn’t hide the fact that promoting international economic integration outside of the US control serves the purpose of carving greater geopolitical autonomy and flexibility in the global decision-making processes. Beside Trump’s trade policy, Xi Jinping’s diplomatic strategy may also speed up the end of the US­–China detente initiated by Nixon and Kissinger in the 1970s. It remains to be seen whether China will also pursue hard-line policies to push the US outside of the Asia–Pacific. In that instance, Australia would be caught between a rock and a hard place.

If the US­–China trade war were to escalate to the geopolitical level, the American order in the Asia–Pacific would enter uncharted waters. For one thing, such an unsavoury development may compel Australia to make a clear choice between trading with China and preserving America’s security patronage.

Giovanni Di Lieto lectures International Trade Law at Monash University.

One of the most interesting things about all this is that while Australia is going to be compelled to make that choice, the choice has essentially already been made through the pattern of trade relationships which Australian politicians have chosen to cultivate.

The only way that Australia would choose the United States in that scenario, would be if Australians decided that they would like to deliberately take a massive economic dive so that they can ‘Make America Great Again’ even though that is not their country, and so that they can avoid being called ‘anti-White’ by the legions of anonymous Alt-Right trolls roaming around on Twitter using Robert Whitacker’s ‘mantra’ on anyone who won’t support the geostrategic and geoeconomic intertests of the United States, the Russian Federation, and Exxonmobil specifically. 

Given that we know that Australians don’t care about America or Russia more than they care about the economic prosperity of their own country, the outcome is already baked into the cake. AFR carried an article last year which can be used to forecast what is likely to happen, and I’ll quote it in full here now:

AFR.com, ‘How our free trade deals are helping Australian companies right now’, 17 Nov 2016 (emphasis added):

Free trade should be embraced, not feared.

It has lifted living standards, grown Australia’s economy and created thousands of jobs.

While it is becoming more popular to denounce globalisation and flirt with protectionism, we cannot turn our back on free trade.

Australia’s economy has withstood global challenges and recorded 25 years of continuous growth because we’re open to the world.   Since Australia’s trade barriers came down, we’ve reaped the rewards.

Trade liberalisation has lifted the income of households by around $4500 a year and boosted the country’s gross domestic product by 2.5 per cent to 3.5 per cent, creating thousands of jobs.

One in five jobs now involve trade-related activities. This will grow as liberalised trade gives our producers, manufacturers and services providers better access to billions of consumers across the globe, not just the 24 million who call Australia home.

However, not everyone sees the value of free trade. Some see it, and the forces of globalisation, as a threat to their standard of living, rather than an opportunity to improve it.

When it comes to free trade, we often hear about the bad but not the good.

The nature of news means the factory closing gets more coverage than the one opening.

Chances are you heard about the Ford plant closing, but not the $800 million Boeing has invested in Australia and the 1200 people who work at their Port Melbourne facility.

You may have heard about Cubbie Station, but not heard that its purchase staved off bankruptcy, and has since seen millions of dollars invested in upgrades of water-saving infrastructure, a doubling of contractors, more workers, and of course, money put into the local economy supporting jobs and local businesses.

Key to attracting investment, jobs

The free trade agreements the Coalition concluded with the North Asian powerhouse economies of China, Japan and Korea are key to attracting investment and creating more local jobs.

The Weilong Grape Wine Company has said the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement is the reason it’s planning to build a new plant in Mildura.

This is a story being played out across the country.

Businesses large and small, rural and urban, are taking advantage of the preferential market access the FTAs offer Aussie businesses into the giant, growing markets of North Asia.

Australian Honey Products is building a new factory in Tasmania to meet the demand the trifecta of FTAs has created.

Owner Lindsay Bourke says the free trade agreements have been “wonderful” for  his business. “We know that we are going to grow and it’s enabled us to employ more people, more local people,”  he said.

It is the same story for NSW skincare manufacturer Cherub Rubs, who will have to double the size of their factory. “The free trade agreements with China and Korea really mean an expansion, which means new Australian jobs manufacturing high-quality products,” said Cherub CEO John Lamont.

It is easy to see why the three North Asian FTAs are forecast to create 7,900 jobs this year, according to modelling conducted by the Centre for International Economics.

Australia has a good story when it comes to free trade. In the past three years, net exports accounted for more than half of Australia’s GDP growth.

Exports remain central to sustaining growth and economic prosperity. Last year exports delivered $316 billion to our economy, representing around 19 per cent of GDP.

This underscores the importance of free trade and why it is a key element of the Turnbull Government’s national economic plan.

The Coalition is pursuing an ambitious trade agenda, and more free trade agreements, to ensure our economy keeps growing and creating new jobs.

On Friday I arrive in Peru for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ministerial Meeting.

Free trade will be at front of everyone’s mind.

With the future of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) looking grim, my ministerial counterparts and I will work to conclude a study on the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), which sets out agreed actions towards a future free trade zone.

We will also work to finalise a services road map, which will help grow Australian services exports in key markets including education, finance and logistics.

More to be done

The Coalition has achieved a lot when it comes to free trade, but there is more to do.

Momentum is building for concluding a free trade agreement with Indonesia, work towards launching free trade agreement negotiations with the European Union continues, we’ve established a working group with the United Kingdom that will scope out the parameters of a future ambitious and comprehensive Australia-UK FTA and we’re continuing to negotiate the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which brings together 16 countries that account for almost half of the world’s population.

The Turnbull government will continue to pursue an ambitious free trade agenda to keep our economy growing and creating more jobs.

Meanwhile Opposition Leader Bill Shorten continues to build the case for Labor’s embrace of more protectionist policies, claiming he will learn the lessons of the US election where it featured heavily.

What Labor doesn’t say though is that by adopting a closed economy mindset, they will close off the investment and jobs flowing from free trade. They’re saying no to Boeing’s $800 million investment in Australia and the Cubbie Station improvements; they’re saying no to businesses like Cherub Rubs and Australian Honey Products building new factories and the many local jobs they will create.

Steven Ciobo is the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment

What’s not to love about all this?

I really think I love Anglo-Saxons. This is going to be fun, isn’t it? 

When Mr. Ciobo spoke of ‘a working group with the United Kingdom that will scope out the parameters of a future ambitious and comprehensive Australia-UK FTA’, he was not joking. That is happening and it is likely going to be another window that the UK will have into the formation of both RCEP and FTAAP, even though technically the UK is not physically in the Indo-Asian region.

I wrote an article several days ago called ‘A view of Brexit from Asia: Britain as a Pacific trading power in the 21st century.’ I chose at that time not to mention the Australian or New Zealand interface at all, but that article’s main point should be viewed as being reinforced by the point I’ve presented in here now.

I have also written an article today called, ‘US Government to build American competitiveness atop socio-economic retrogression and misery.’ It’s crucial to understand that time is of the essence, since the Americans are at the present moment in relative disarray compared to the rest of us. The Americans have not yet tamed and pacified the various economic actors in their own country, they are still working on that, and they also have yet to form a coherent internationalist counter-narrative to the one that is being enunciated by the governments of Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, and so on.

Some of you may be mystified by that statement. What do I mean that the Americans don’t have a coherent ‘internationalist counter-narrative’? I mean that while they are capable of explaining and rationalising their own position as a narrowly ‘America first’ position in a way that is pleasing to Americans, they are not able to export that view to regular people anywhere else in a way that would induce any other European-demography country to comply with America’s geoeconomic interests.

After all, if the Alt-Right people are going to careen all over the internet essentially screaming, “put America first ahead of your own country’s interests or be accused of White genocide”, and alternately equally absurdly, “you’re an evil Russophobe who supports White genocide if you invested in BP instead of Exxon”, then they should not expect that they are going to win the sympathy of anyone who is neither American nor Russian.

I want to say to British people, to Australians, to New Zealanders, to Canadians, Commonwealth citizens in general, that you know, it’s been a long time since you’ve taken your own side. This coming phase is going to be a time when it will become possible to do precisely that.

The time is fast approaching when it will be possible to choose neither America nor Russia. You’ll be able to finally choose yourselves and your own geoeconomic interests, and you’ll be able to choose to trade and associate with whoever else in the world you want to trade and associate with.

An interesting story appeared at ASPI today, regular people have now become aware of the existence of the ‘left of launch’ strategy. Which you can read about at the links included in the Cyber wrap 154 which I’ve reproduced in full below.

The utility of having people know about the ‘left of launch’ strategy is that it even further reduces the credibility of any of Donald Trump’s feigned hyperventilating about the alleged (and in fact non-existent) ‘threat’ of Iran ever attaining a nuclear weapon, much less having the ability to use such a weapon against anyone.

Armed with this information, it is possible for people to go out into the world and make the case that even if one were to entertain the idea that Iran were willing to create some improbable doomsday scenario, there is no need for anyone to send a single American aircraft, tank, or armoured patrol vehicle anywhere near Iran in order to avert such a scenario.

If Donald Trump and his supporters continue to behave like Iran is a ‘major nuclear threat’ despite the existence of the ‘left of launch’ strategy in public view, there is only one place that such a ridiculous narrative can be actually originating from, and that place is Israel. That is the case which should be made over and over again, until it becomes a kind of mantra.

Here’s ASPI’s Cyber wrap:

ASPI - The Strategist, ‘Cyber wrap 154’, 08 Mar 2017 (emphasis added):

Welcome back to your weekly fix of cyber news, analysis and research.

The New York Times reported last Saturday that, back in 2013, President Barack Obama ordered cyber sabotage operations against Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program. The persistently high failure rate of the US’s kinetic antimissile weapons, despite significant investment, reportedly prompted Obama to consider a cyber supplement. The project to pre-emptively undermine missiles in their development stages, known as a ‘left of launch’ strategy, receives dedicated resources at the Pentagon and is now President Trump’s to play with. However, experts are concerned that this kind of cyber offensive approach sets a dangerous precedent for Beijing and Moscow, particularly if they believe that US cyber operations could successfully undermine their nuclear deterrence capability.

Staying stateside, the future of the NSA’s spying powers are   under scrutiny this week as elements of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) approach sunset. Section 702 of the Act forms the basis for the NSA’s monitoring of foreign nationals’ communications around the globe in the interests of national security. It was under this FISA authority that the US’s infamous “big brother” program PRISM—revealed in the Snowden disclosures of 2013—was established.

While the legislation is designed for foreign targets, there have long been concerns it could be used to surveil US citizens through their contact with foreigners. Human rights advocates such as the American Civil Liberties Union are protesting the renewal of this legislation in defence of international privacy. The issue also has the trans-Atlantic data-sharing agreement on thin ice, especially given that EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova has made it clear that she ‘will not hesitate’ to suspend the painstakingly crafted arrangement should the US fail to uphold its stringent privacy requirements.

That task may be even more difficult after WikiLeaks’ overnight release of a dossier, dubbed ‘Vault 7’, detailing the CIA’s cyber espionage tools and techniques. WikiLeaks released over 8,000 documents it claims were taken from a CIA computer network in the agency’s Center for Cyber Intelligence. The documents detail the agency’s expansive and sophisticated cyber espionage capability, including compromising the security common devices and apps including Apple iPhones, Google’s Android software and Samsung televisions to collect intelligence.

China’s Foreign Ministry and the Cyberspace Administration of China this week launched the country’s first International Strategy of Cooperation on Cyberspace. The Strategy outlines China’s basic principles for cyber diplomacy and its strategic goals in cyberspace. Encouragingly, the Foreign Ministry’s Coordinator for Cyberspace Affairs Long Zhao stated that ‘enhancing deterrence, pursuing absolute security and engaging in a cyber arms race…is a road to nowhere’. Unsurprisingly, the Strategy offers strong support for the concept of cyber sovereignty, stating that ‘countries should respect each other’s right to choose their own path of cyber development’, and emphasises the importance of avoiding cyberspace becoming ‘a new battlefield’. You can read a full English language version of the Strategy here.

The revelation that the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) was temporarily forced to rely on diesel generators during last month’s heat wave has prompted the government to significantly upgrade to the agency’s infrastructure. The Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Cyber Security told Parliament on Wednesday that it was recommended by ActewAGL and the NSW Department of Environment that ASD switch to back up power on 10 February as part of state-wide load shedding to protect power supplies. The new $75 million project, funded by the Defence Integrated Investment Program, is intended to bolster the intelligence agency’s resilience.

Several cyber incidents have kept the internet on its toes this week. The Amazon Simple Storage Service cloud hosting service went down last week, knocking hundreds of thousands of popular websites and apps offline. The disruptive incident, originally described by the company as ‘increased error rates’, was actually not the result of cyber criminals or hacktivists, but that of an employee’s fat fingers entering a command incorrectly—whoops! Yahoo is in the doghouse (again) with the awkward announcement in its annual report to the Security and Exchange Commission that 32 million customer accounts are thought to have been compromised through forged cookies. This isn’t to be confused with the entirely separate and very embarrassing loss of 1 billion accounts in a 2013 breach, which recently cost the company $350 million in its acquisition deal with Verizon and CEO Marissa Mayer her annual cash bonus. And if you’ve been tracking the #cloudbleed saga, catch up with some post-mortems here, here and here.

Finally we’ve got you covered for your weekly cyber research reads. A new Intel report, written by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, examines the discrepancies in cyberspace that put defenders at a disadvantage. Titled Tilting the Playing Field: How Misaligned Incentives Work Against Cybersecurity, the report reveals the gaps between attackers vs. defenders, strategy vs. implementation and executives vs. implementers, offering recommendations to overcome such obstacles. And get your fix of statistics from PwC’s annual Digital IQ assessment based on a survey of more than 2,000 executives from across the world. The research reveals that only 52% of companies consider their corporate Digital IQ to be ‘strong,’ a considerable drop from 67% last year.

TOO, “200 Years Together: Chapter 9 — And Some Mysterious Search Engine Results”, 2 Mar 2017:

200 Years Together: Chapter 9 — And Some Mysterious Search Engine Results

Kevin MacDonald on March 2, 2017 —

From the translators of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s 200 Years Together:

Today, we published the English translation of chapter nine. You can find it here: —

https://twohundredyearstogether.wordpress.com/2017/03/01/chapter-9/

There’s an important development this week. Every week, I check the blog stats to see how many people this information is reaching. I check search engine results for “two hundred years together”, without quotes as well. This is done on DuckDuckGo and StartPage (a Google proxy).

Dr. Kevin MacDonald linked to the site on The Occidental Observer about a week and a half ago. The site, understandably, saw an explosion of traffic which sustained until now. Searching for “two hundred years together” would return the link to the post he published (in top 15 results) in addition to several pages (main page about result #25, then chapters 2, 6, 7) on the blog.

Two days ago, I checked the search engine ranking for “two hundred years together”, without quotes. Nothing. Then, I tried “200 years together”, also without quotes which returned no link to the blog. Finally, I tried “two hundred years together” with quotes and that returned a link to chapter 7 near the end of the search results (about #33). In all cases, the result for the post on Dr. MacDonald’s site no longer appears in the search results.

Now, I can get a result for chapter 3 about result #15. Dr. MacDonald’s post doesn’t appear still. There’s no results returned from Google for the blog at all.

This flies in the face of everything I understand about Internet marketing. From the WordPress admin console, I see tons of links from Twitter, links to the blog from various forums around the world, and, until a couple days ago, organic inbound traffic from search engine results. People are sharing links to this blog. Normally, when more sites link to yours or your content gets shared on social media, your ranking goes up. Also, there can’t be heavy competition for the words “two hundred years together” or the result set would be much larger than ~35 results.

My only conclusion here is that the blog is being removed from search engine results and actively censored. I figured the blog would get taken down at some point, but I didn’t think it would get removed from search engine results. I’m not surprised given what chapters like #8 and this week’s, #9, are discussing.

If the blog gets removed, I’ll make another one. These chapters will be published on torrent sites when we’re done. This content isn’t going anywhere. People need to understand that what we are living through now has happened already elsewhere and we need to wake up.

Please, please, please, share this blog. Get this information out there. It is obvious to us certain people do not want people to read these translations. Help us counter the narrative by linking to it anywhere you can.

TNO, “Mass Rapes: Islamic Weapon of Conquest and Domination”, 18 Feb 2017:

By Yolanda Couceiro Morín. Since the sordid episode of the massive New Year’s Eve rape of 2015 in Cologne and other German cities (more than a thousand complaints), cases of sexual assaults against European women by immigrants and “refugees”, overwhelmingly Muslim, have multiplied throughout Europe, especially in Germany and the Nordic countries.

Seeing what happened at the last end of the year celebrations, rapes are becoming part of the European folklore of these dates: together with the nativity scenes, the Christmas markets and the Three Kings’ cavalcades, we will now have Massive Rapes New Year´s Eve.

Traditions change from the usual gift of red underwear to the latest chastity belts. This is the march towards the progress of our battered Europe.

We witness a retreat from civilization, the decline of an entire society, a rupture of the anthropological foundations of our societies. Es el regreso a la caverna. It is the return to the cave.

This social collapse, this degradation of coexistence norms, is not only a change of culture, but the implantation of a savagery that we could call prehistoric.

We all have in mind the classic caricature of the relations between the sexes of those antediluvian times in the scene of a troglodyte, with a club on the shoulder, dragging by the hair to its pair.

This typical image of cartoons represents in a comic sense the terrible situation to which we are forced to march, with the importation of populations manifestly unfit for modern and civilized society.

From the peaks of the highest and most refined civilization that the Earth has carried on its surface, we have fallen into a state of semi-fearlessness.

We must be clear that these are not simple criminal acts, however reprehensible they may be.

Among the European population, of race and native culture, this type of aggression also occurs, although in quantitative terms much lower than this wave of savagery that has invaded us.

But it is the qualitative nature of these violations that should be the object of special attention.

In these cases we are not in front of habitual criminal acts, but in front of cultural facts.

Among us, abuses and sexual assaults against women are considered a social scourge, a highly reprehensible behavior, an improper indignity of decent people, an extreme violation of people´s freedom and dignity.

In the Islamic world, where women are considered inferior to men, abusive treatment and aggression of all kinds against women do not deserve the same reprobation and condemnation as among European, Christian and modern civilized nations: are accepted and justified facts. Therein lies the difference.

[...]

The scarce intellect of these individuals who, in fact, believe that we are all “human beings”, and that culture is something that is put on and removed, as if it were a dress or shoes, is enough to justify these events as something inherent to the human race.

[...]

Wow, such a breadth of choice

The Germans are non-ironically having an election in which Angela Merkel and Martin Schulz are the two front runners.

The choice seems to be quite simple.

Either you vote for Angela Merkel’s CDU and face the death by demographic replacement which will surely arrive by the year 2050 as things continue as they are, or alternately you vote for Martin Schulz’s SPD and face the death by demographic replacement which will surely arrive by the year 2050 as things continue as they are.

There are some policy disagreements that they have on other issues and usually I would actually go to the length of highlighting them and describing them, but when it comes to the issue of Germany it frankly doesn’t even matter anymore. After all, if Germany is going to seriously cease to exist as a nation then making projections about a nation which will not even be populated by the same people would be a pointless exercise from the perspective of ethno-nationalism. It is extremely sad.

In any case, let’s see how the situation looks in the polls at present, for this thoroughly pointless election:

POLITICO, ‘SPD in the lead according to German poll’, 19 Feb 2017:

Germany’s Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) have slumped to second place in an opinion poll conducted by the Emnid institute, with the Social Democrats (SPD) in the top spot for the first time since 2006.

The SPD’s climb comes after the party picked the former President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, as its candidate for chancellor.

Emnid’s poll of 1,885 voters found that the SPD would get 33 percent of the German vote, while Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, would get 32 percent.

Schulz’s party has gained 12 points in the last four weeks, according to German newspaper Bild am Sonntag.

The SPD’s surge in the polls will add more pressure on Merkel, as she seeks her fourth term as chancellor within an uneasy CDU/CSU alliance. Merkel has faced tough criticism from the sister party over the controversial decision to temporarily open Germany’s borders to refugees in 2015.

This the latest in a series of polls that shows SPD’s rapidly rising popularity among German voters. Emnid’s poll chimes with separate findings by Politbarometer, a long-standing German election poll from German broadcaster ZDF, which showed Friday that only 38 percent of voters would like to see Merkel carry on her job as chancellor and that 49 percent preferred Schulz.

But Germany hasn’t completely fallen out of love with Merkel. ZDF’s poll also found that 71 percent of Germans think that the current chancellor is doing a good job, despite her party’s drop in popularity.

German elections are scheduled for September.

Such vibrant campaigning

Meanwhile, the way that Martin Schulz is conducting his campaign has drawn criticism from Wolfgang Shaeuble, a very strange-looking criticism at first brush:

POLITICO, ‘Wolfgang Schäuble: Martin Schulz is the German Donald Trump’, 10 Feb 2017:

Martin Schulz, the German center-left’s candidate to be chancellor, is behaving like U.S. President Donald Trump, according to German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble.

“If Schulz calls upon his supporters to chant ‘Make Europe great again‘ then that’s almost literally [like] Trump,” Schäuble told Der Spiegel in an interview published Friday.

He said Schulz, a former European Parliament president, was acting in a “populist way.”

Schäuble said Schulz needed to “think a little [bit more].” He warned that in times when there is a surge in populist movements, politicians should be careful with their language.

The SPD’s move to nominate Schulz as their candidate for chancellor in the September 24 federal election led to a surge in party membership applications. Opinion polls show that backing Schulz helped the party to its highest approval rating since 2013.

At first a person would think, “Hmm, something is very wrong here, in what important way does Martin Schulz resemble Donald Trump, aside from the use of a similar campaign slogan?”

Surely Schaeuble is just a ridiculous old man who is approaching senility, and he has begun to make even less sense than usual in his statement?

Nevertheless I decided to actually give Schaeuble’s statement some thought. Could I manage to find some unintended ‘sense’ in Schaeuble’s seemingly nonsensical statement?

After about twenty milliseconds of deep thought – which in neurological terms is basically ‘instantly’ – I arrived at the answer. First, take a look at this quote concerning Schulz:

Haaretz / Avraham Burg, ‘Say a big ‘thank you’ to Martin Schulz’, 14 Feb 2014:

[...] Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, is a close friend of mine. On most issues connected to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict we disagree. He is closer to the Israeli mainstream, and his positions resemble those of Labor Party chairman Isaac Herzog. He once told me, during a frank and stern conversation, “For me, the new Germany exists only in order to ensure the existence of the State of Israel and the Jewish people.” [...]

Secondly, take a look at this quote concerning Trump:

The Hill / Elliot Smilowitz, ‘Trump: ‘Stay strong Israel,’ my inauguration is approaching’, 28 Dec 2016:

President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday morning ripped the Obama administration’s treatment of Israel and pledged to end the “disdain and disrespect” for the country.

“We cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect. They used to have a great friend in the U.S., but not anymore. The beginning of the end was the horrible Iran deal, and now this (U.N.)! Stay strong Israel, January 20th is fast approaching!” Trump wrote in a series of tweets. [...]

If you look at it from that angle, then Schaeuble accidentally spoke a kind of truth in the midst of his babbling, somehow.

There indeed is a resemblance between Schulz and Trump. From the perspective of Jewish Zionists in the global sense, the two individuals are almost completely identical.

The Hill, National Security Adviser Michael Flynn resigns”, 14 Feb 2017:

National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has resigned, after reports he misled senior Trump White House officials about his conversations with Russia. President Trump has named retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg as acting national security adviser. Kellogg previously served as Flynn’s chief of staff on the National Security Council.

The embattled Flynn blamed his resignation late Monday on the “fast pace of events” that led him to “inadvertently” give Vice President Mike Pence and others “incomplete information” about his phone conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak.

“I have sincerely apologized to the president and the vice president, and they have accepted my apology,” Flynn wrote in his resignation letter.

Politico, “Why Donald Trump let Michael Flynn go”, 14 Feb 2014:

Retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who has known Kellogg for decades, said early Tuesday that he is a “good man” who was among the earliest Trump loyalists.

But he doubted he will be a permanent replacement for Flynn.

“He won’t be the selection,” McCaffrey predicted, saying Flynn’s permanent replacement has to be “someone with the chops needed to deal with Bannon and Miller, references to two of the president’s top political advisers, Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller.

Flynn’s decision to resign came after it became clear to him that he had lost the president’s trust, officials said.