War Predictions for 2011

[Christians4LessGvt]

While I can consider China becoming a more hostile entity in the 2011 global community,
I see no faction, U.S. included ready to facilitate a military response from them
No, if we fold on our financial debt to them.........well, who knows what their reaction would be

But what if North Korea starts bombing, invading, or God forbid nuking South Korea?
There could easily be a Chinese disagreement on how to punish North Korea.

[sirs]

There could be.  But that would then be an indirect provocation of China.  The list I presented was such that of events actually in play, factions currently in some level of hostility.  It is good of you however, to be looking beyond the mere immediate repercurssions of NK/SK

[Xavier_Onassis]

Consider: It was almost exactly 60 years ago, the last time the Year of the Hare was approaching, when China, confronted by crumbling North Korean resistance to a rapidly-advancing US-led military force, decided to pre-emptively attack the US by secretly crossing the Yalu river in huge numbers.

There are TWELVE animals in the Chinese Zodiac, and so the Year of the Hare was not only 2011, but also 1999, 1987, 1975, 1963 and 1951.

You appear to be playing as fast and loose with the Chinese Zodiac as you do with Biblical predictions. I am beginning to think you just like the idea of war with any non-christian power, and therefore grab at whatever straws are available to justify it.

North Korea generally does some minor bellicose thing when it is ready to sit down and talk again. I imagine that the latest attack was to demonstrate that Kim Jung Un was not to be trifled with, despite his rather trifiling appearance.

Kim Il Sung was over 6 feet tall, but alas, Kim Jong Il was only 5'6" wearing his elevator shoes. Kim Jong Un is another rather short dude.

[Christians4LessGvt]

You appear to be playing as fast and loose with the Chinese Zodiac as you do with Biblical predictions.

XO is it not obvious I did not write those articles?
So it's not me playing fast & loose with anything.
But I assume they might disagree with you....
but I dont really care about who is right or wrong about some Chinese Zodiac.
The Bible and/or Zodiac parts were not the points I was trying to make at all.....
(but I could see how you might have thought that....so no foul)
My point was to SIRS...whom I specifically addressed in each post to answer his questions
that war could likely break out in the Middle East which it has multuple times in the last
decade and that China is also a place to watch.

[Amianthus]

There are TWELVE animals in the Chinese Zodiac, and so the Year of the Hare was not only 2011, but also 1999, 1987, 1975, 1963 and 1951.

The Chinese calendar is more complicated than you are alluding to here. There is also the "stem-branch" cycle which is 60 years long (basically 5 cycles of 12 years).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_calendar#Stem-branch_cycle

The last time the upcoming year - called XinMao - rolled around was indeed 1951 (February 6 to be precise). 1999 was JiMao, 1987 was DingMao, 1975 was YiMao, 1963 was GuiMao.

[Christians4LessGvt]

Lebanon in crisis: Hizballah quits government,
US-French buildup, Israel on standby

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
January 12, 2011, 12:28 PM (GMT+02:00)


USS Enterprise heads for Lebanese shores

With backing from Tehran, Hizballah and its Christian ally Michel Aoun abruptly quit the
Lebanese unity government Wednesday, Jan. 12, in a move that could pave the way
for their seizure of power in Beirut. They struck as the Special Tribunal for Lebanon's
prosecutor Daniel Bellemare prepared to hand over to the pre-trial judge "within hours or days"
indictments naming Hizballah officials in the case of the former premier Rafiq Hariri's assassination
in 2005.

Hizballah is committed to defying those indictments and refusing to hand over its top officials
for extradition by the government.

As the Lebanese crisis raced towards it climax, President Barack Obama, Saudi King Abdullah,
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri held intense consultations
in Washington and New York on a united front against Iran-backed disruptions in Beirut by Hizballah
and its allies.

Iran's supreme ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said repeatedly that the STL and its rulings are
"null and void" because they serve "foreign interests."

As the US, France and Israel made military and diplomatic preparations to thwart a clash,
Obama scheduled a meeting with the Lebanese Prime Minister for Wednesday night, Jan. 12,
to decide how the US, France and its allies would act in a conflagration.

Over the weekend, the US president ordered US vessels to buttress the Sixth Fleet stationed
in the eastern Mediterranean with the USS Enterprise carrier and its strike group with 6,000 sailors
and marines aboard and 80 fighter-bombers. Already deployed there is the USS Bainbridge missile
destroyer.

On Monday, Jan. 10, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on a tour of the Persian Gulf,
expressed concern over the situation in Lebanon. Clinton said: "I'm deeply worried about
the efforts to destabilize Lebanon. We should do everything we can to make sure those
warnings are not accurate."

American military moves in the Mediterranean are intended to signal to Tehran and Hizballah
that Washington will be prepared to use force to defend the Saad Hariri government in Lebanon
and if necessary deploy aerial forces and the marines to avert a Hizballah takeover in Beirut.
The French fleet was also ordered to bolster its naval strength opposite Lebanon.

But Hizballah got its move in first. Its resignation from the Hariri government showed that its leaders
and Iranian sponsors were not fazed by the US-French military moves off the Lebanese coast and
were moving ahead with their plans.

debkafile's military sources add that a comment by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu
Tuesday, Jan. 11, fit into the picture taking shape in Washington, New York and Paris.
He remarked to foreign journalists that 60,000 missiles and rockets, all of Iranian and
Syrian origin, were now pointing at Israel.

Last week, Meir Dagan, at a ceremony marking the end of his tenure as head of the Mossad,
said that only 10 countries in the world have firepower on a par with that of Hizballah.

According to our sources, it is definitely on the cards for an Iranian-Hizballah move in Lebanon
provoking a US-French military response to evolve into a clash between Hizballah and Israel,
providing an opportunity for the destruction of Hizballah's might missile arsenal.

[bsb]

If you want to know what's going on in the world of terrorism, arms movements, local factions, influential individuals, security, etc., etc., don't bother with the debka file, it's propaganda. Subscribe to one of Janes intelligence reports. I get their "Terrorism and Security" magazine. Not cheap, but worth it. Unless of course you like propaganda then it's way too expensive for you.

bsb

[Plane]

Janes has a good reputation, but arn't they very conservative about makeing predictions?

[bsb]

They aren't really in the prediction business as far as I know. They're in the intelligence business.

bsb

[Plane]

They aren't really in the prediction business as far as I know. They're in the intelligence business.

bsb

Exactly!

What facts mean is much more subjective than facts themselves .

[bsb]

That's why I suggested to CU4 that he get out of the propaganda business and into the facts business. If you're going to fight a war best hold onto the few facts you have because anymore will be hard to come by for awhile.

bsb

[Christians4LessGvt]

Thanks BSB but I much prefer Debka.
I have considered Jane's and may still do that.
Jane's is something very different...not bad....just different.
I like Debka because of exactly what it is.
I like Debka in some ways because it's not Jane's.
Debka "runs" with stories many times way ahead of the pack.
Sure that makes a mistake more possible sometimes...(what media is perfect?)
And yes Debka is pro-Israel...but much of the press & world is anti-Israel...so i enjoy a pro-Israel view.

[bsb]

Well, DEBKA is fun because it's black and white. It's grand and all encompassing with it's pictures of great American warships, and the sweeping conclusions it comes to.

Janes though gives you pieces of the puzzle. A few at a time. You have to have patience. You can't just come to a conclusion out of the gate. When you're dealing with the pieces you're forced to realize just how complex the whole puzzle is. A lot of people don't like to come to that conclusion. They don't do complex. The problem is in the places we're fighting today, complex is all you CAN do.

bsb

[Xavier_Onassis]

I agree with Bsb on this one. I suppose that Debkafiles could be entertaining if you like cheerleading for the Israelis.

I don't think that the Chinese see war as useful to their purposes. War causes disruptions in the population and the economy. They take a longer view of things. As I see it, the Chinese leadership is riding on the back of the tiger and they know it. They know that the people are mostly happy with the economy growing and material progress taking place in their lives. Most of them have never had it so good. But keeping an 8 to 10% growth rate is a very difficult thing to do for a long period. When the economy slows down people become unhappy. War would bring disruptions and instability. Who would they attack? Taiwan is a major source of investment in the Chinese economy,as are S. Korea and Japan and even the US. If there is a war over Taiwan, this investment will be withdrawn from these sources.

Lately, I notice that the Taiwan Index is overtaking the Matthews China Fund by a rather large amount.

From what I have read written by people who have lived in the PRC, the average Chinese sees a degree of corruption at the local level: some party head has a new car that his salary could not pay for, someone else builds a fancy home. But they see the national government as too far away to be aware of such things. There is certainly no bad press about China's leaders buying fancy cars and palaces as we hear about Kim Jong Il on North Korea.

When things are good, China will not want to risk making them worse. If things are not good,they will hardly want to make them worse.

[bsb]

>>I don't think that the Chinese see war as useful to their purposes. War causes disruptions in the population and the economy. .......<<

I think that's a fairly accurate assessment what with the worlds economies becoming so interdependent. However, there's one problem. The Chinese civilian authority, while over it's military, doesn't have day to day control of it. That means its military can wonder pretty far off the reservation before the civilian leadership becomes aware.