Bathos Number 5: religious war

Subject: bathos this is a religious war, hedge fund grousing, and 
         somber kill joy thoughts
Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2001


*the
"feel-good-we-are-a-tossed-salad-not-a-melting-pot-cultural-pluralism-and-Hi
llary-Clinton-we-are-a-village-attitude" still reigns.  The WTC has not
occurred.   I am developing a grave sense of foreboding.

The America public education of the Wahhabi faith and in particular the
Salafi Da'Wah and Diobandi movement within the Wahhabi faith and why this
bastardized and evil offshoot of Islam has declared itself as our mortal
enemy has not even begun.  We cannot prevail nor prevent further deaths
domestically until we identify the enemy.  Instead we are blandly cloaking
them as mere terrorists and trying to deconstruct reality to suit our
enfeebled sensibilities.  Outside of those Saudi royals who, within the
Wahhabi faith, have become corrupt and complacent, bought out if you will,
the nation of Saudi Arabia is our enemy.  There is good reason why Saudi
Arabia has yet to declare that they are firmly on our side. The House of
Saud cannot make such a declaration and stay in power.  The Washington Saudi
envoy Prince Bandar allowed the NY Times to quote him in an amazing
confession of corruption and cynical power grabbing  objectives
"The Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan,
acknowledging corruption in his country, said the Saudi royal family has
"implemented a development program that was close to $400 billion." He
continued: "You could not have done all of that for less than, let's say,
$350 billion. If you tell me that building this whole country, and spending
$350 billion out of $400 billion that we misused or got corrupted with $50
billion, I'll tell you yes," he said. "So what? We did not invent
corruption."
He acknowledged that the root of some of the rage in radical Islamic circles
is economic, and that human rights was a luxury some Arab states cannot
afford. "We want the right to eat for a lot of people," he said. "Let's
first finish that. Then we get to all your fantasies in America."
.......Prince Bandar said. "Osama bin Laden came and said `Thank you. Thank
you for bringing the Americans to help us.' "
Prince Bandar added, "At that time I thought he couldn't lead eight ducks
across the street."
Today, as then, the Saudis' coalition with the United States is a delicate
balance. Like the 19 American soldiers killed in 1996 in the bombing of the
Khobar Towers complex, American troops in Saudi Arabia guard the power of
the royal family, but remain targets of radical wrath against the Saudi
house.
"In a Western democracy, you lose touch with your people, you lose
elections," Prince Bandar said. "In a monarchy, you lose your head.""

When I read the word "fantasies" I went red.  We are supporting a buffoon
who lightly admits to grave economic crimes against his own people and feels
no shame to air that in public and calls all the US has achieved
"fantasies".  We  feel we have bought this nation, that they are our stool
pigeon, meanwhile the Saudi people  fund and develop the most horrendous
attacks ever against the US.  The obvious fact is that the WTC is a Saudi
sourced attack from the  Salafi Da'Wah sect within the  Wahhabi Islamic
faith.  The WTC attack enjoys great popular support in Saudi Arabia.  As
well as in all areas of Salafi Da'Wah cults, Diobandi schools, neo-Wahhabi
centers from Indonesia to Algeria with the  motherland being Saudi Arabia.
The Nejd.  We must look past a corrupt monarchy which we have sponsored for
our own base objectives and look to the people.  We must not give ourselves
the illusion of friend or foe based on any deal made with a dictator or a
monarchy and consider that we have made a deal with the people of that
country.

No matter why and for what reasons the Wahhabi crowd despises and hates us,
they have declared war.

We must first defend our borders and the first step is identify who your
enemy is, no matter if such an identification produces a sobering 50 million
people world wide.  Admit that your enemy is motivated by religion, that
this is a crusade and a holy war and be ready to fight those who arm
themselves with such fanaticism.  The Afghans report that the 055 Brigade of
mostly Saudi's fighting against the Soviets were bizarrely fearless and
amazing fighters.  The Afghans we are bombing and fighting so far are merely
dupes and tools, though the Taliban is obviously  religious offshoot of
these Wahabbis.  We must recognize where this faith goes, peppering all of
Pakistan, parts of India, then swinging down to Malaysia and Indonesia, and
in all of North Africa.  We must understand that Osama bin Laden is only
this years figure head to a very broad based religious movement and his
elimination will do nothing.  We must make it clear to these people that
great terror, pain, and punishment comes with attacking the US.  The attack
did not come from the Afghans.

Seen in this light it is amazing there has not been wholesale deportations
from the US of all we can identify connected to this faith or its
peripheries.

Until that occurs we have not really even started to defend ourselves.  This
will likely become evident once we see the anti-climactic results we achieve
when we defeat perhaps the most backward nation on earth. We will be stunned
that the majority of Afghans eagerly accept the respite from war and the
horrors of the Taliban eliminated - before they start to attack us for 101
reasons and objectives.  By that time hopefully we are gone.  But we will
likely witness more attacks domestically in the US and be bewildered as to
why our sound defeat of the Afghans and even the arrest or killing of bin
Laden has done little for US security.

The US attacks will not stop until we seriously decimate and eradicate the
agents of the Wahhabi faith in the US and those in other locales who are of
this faith from even remotely reaching personally or through agents the US.
Some of these Wahhabi fanatics in the US will be American citizens and enjoy
full protection under the constitution.  Those people can only be identified
and then watched. Those who only enjoy visa status should have already been
deported, back to Indonesia, Canada, Malaysia, Egypt, other Wahhabi locales,
and, most importantly, Saudi Arabia.  This is about 3000 to 6000 people and
the political fallout from such a sudden and massive deportation, which has
never been done in the US would spark immense pressure from the world who
also do not wish to identify who the enemy was in the WTC attack.  So be it.
The price to pay in not receiving this criticism and mistaken wrath are
learning to live with ongoing terrorist attacks in the US.  That will, in
the end, not be an option for the US.

Second I am seeing no accounting of our own government.  I see those who let
the WTC occur still in power, with only more bureaucracy slapped on top with
the this absolutely self-defeating "Homeland Security" office.  This office
shows we accept that our domestic intelligence and security is a failure and
rather than fix it we are just laminating on another level of reports,
memos, and power hungry wonks chasing down budget authority.  I have yet to
see the complete and total firing of the Mideast CIA squad - I would prefer
to see some arrests even of many US public sector workers who through
incredible malfeasance allowed this attack to take place.  Fair or unfair?
I do believe we are in a war.  I have see no mass resignations and firing of
the complete FBI anti-terrorist squad.   I have yet to see the complete
firing of our military command structure that defends NY and other locales
from airborne attack.  I have yet to see the resignation of half of Bush's
cabinet.  There is absolutely no showing of any remedy being shown to the US
populace for one of the worst disasters ever. 

Third  I do not see our leaders leveling with us.   I have found out all
this material on Wahhabi faith and history fairly easily.  Are our leaders
getting us ready to fight the Saudis?  Are they getting us ready to invade
Iraq, as Saddam is one of the most notorious deal makers with these people.
Are we being educated as to why Iran and Turkey are perhaps our most
important allies?  Are we educating people at the possible need to attack
Indonesia?   If we do not educate our populace on these issues we destroy
our deterrent capability before it is even formulated.  The Indonesian army
knows it has nothing to fear, despite being mostly a group of radical
Wahhabi practioners, as long as we do not even identify them as a possible
danger and tell the American public.  It would not surprise me at all that
bin Laden is already in Indonesia, the other large source for 055 Brigade
members.  

We are doing none of this as to do so would force us to surrender the  false
lie that this is not a religious war and this is not a war with Islam.  It
is a religious war and it is a war with an important sect within Islam.
Despite the obvious justice in securing our domestic tranquility, and the
likelihood we will have to fight to achieve that - our lack of faith in our
own American people is already moving this to a covert war which will
quickly put many into a Vietnam mode of thought in terms of trusting our
government and our government's objectives.  Those wars we seem to lose.  We
can not lose this war.

Lastly, I do hope to see some massive changes to effect domestic tranquility
in the US by the once and final freeing of the US from non-domestic energy
sources.

*Meanwhile the market trundles on, taking pride that the keen 20-odd/30-odd
year olds leading the charge at hedge funds can look up Dessert Storm and
see a fat juicy 30% rally just there for the taking.  NDX stocks, especially
garbage NDX stocks, are becoming wampum and return generators, where a large
hedge fund can get 20% to 30% returns.  We are moving on to profit from this
war without even addressing the serious imbalances produced pre 9/11.  If
there is any one telling technical indicator that has been 100% right the
last 2 years is that any "V shaped" rally off of a bottom always signals
another 20% downside to come  from the previous low.  One day the bear will
go, but that will be after all the imbalances of pre 9/11 and then the new
challenges of war are addressed. Wars are very dicey because a lot of people
don't lose  assets or value or money but because the Keynes adage, "in the
long run we all die" becomes terribly clear and the duration to that event,
risk adjusted, is terribly shortened.  People have died and there is grave
risk a lot more will die.  Living is one of the prerequisites for investing.

The true bottom will be a long drawn out sideways trading market of
consolidation, certainly no useful return for hedge fund returns and also
one which by definition will allow the common mutual fund holder outperform
any hedge fund type trading methodology.  It is amazing that most have not
figured out what the pre-9/11 bear market is all about, just as any bear
market's function. bear markets have a function and it is to change the
principal form of intermediation in those areas of the market that are key
at the time prior to the bear.  Never has a bear market not delivered the
destruction of the intermediation structure that was in the bull market
preceding. The market will never rally until it is sure to have little if
any hedge fund participation.  Hedge funds defined the rally, hedge funds
will define the true bottom.