The Cardinal Crisis -> Uranus-Pluto World Square: Geopolitics, Extremist Religious & Revolutionary Sentiments > Obscure Film Mocks The Prophet Muhammad Sparking Mass Protests & Death In The Middle East > Also, The Prophet's Guidance For Muslims On Anger > The Life & Times of American Ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens > Global Economic Crisis Morphs Into Generational Conflict > Featuring: Ben Bernanke & The Federal Reserve: Twisting & Twirling Into Hyper-Inflation And Economic Collapse?

The Cardinal Crisis

American President Barack Obama is seen here comforting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton after the president delivered the eulogy for four Americans killed in Libya at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on Friday, Sept. 14, 2012. The bodies included that of U.S. Ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, who was brutally murdered in an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012. The violence was initially attributed to anger over a 14-minute trailer of a film made last year under mysterious circumstances in California, titled the “Innocence of Muslims,” which mocked the Prophet Muhammad. The trailer was released on the Internet this year. The movie trailer caused outrage among Muslims worldwide leading to widespread protests and deaths, including the death of Ambassador Stevens, where the head of Libya's national assembly said the actions that led to the death of Ambassador Stevens and three other state department personnel looked like a planned assault by a "group with an agenda" rather than a spontaneous reaction to the video posted online. President Obama condemned both the offending movie and the killings and ordered increased security at all U.S. diplomatic posts worldwide. This, after the U.S. embassy in Cairo, Egypt was also attacked. American defense officials said U.S. Marines and investigators were en route to Libya to strengthen security at U.S. diplomatic facilities there. Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department ordered all non-essential personnel out of Libya, Sudan and Tunisia.

image: Doug Mills/The New York Times

Uranus-Pluto World Square:

Geopolitics, Extremist Religious & Revolutionary Sentiments

Also,

Obscure Film Mocking The Prophet Muhammad  Sparks Mass Protests & Death in the Middle East

&

The Prophet's Guidance For Muslims On Anger

Also,

The Life & Times of American Ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens

And Featuring,

Ben Bernanke And The Federal Reserve: 

Twisting & Twirling Into Hyper-Inflation and Economic Collapse?

Also,

Global Economic Crisis Morphs Into Generational Conflict

Global Astrology

By

Theodore White, mundane Astrolog.Sci

Peace & Goodwill To All

"Those who spend in Allâh's Cause, deeds of charity and alms in prosperity and in adversity, who repress anger and who pardon men; verily, Allâh loves Al-Muhsinûn (the good­- doers.")

~ 

The Noble Qur'an - Al-'Imran 3:134

Glory Be To The Immortal God, The Ineffable

A man said to the Prophet , "Advise me!" 

The Prophet Muhammad said, "Do not become angry and furious." 

The man asked the same, again and again. 

And the Prophet said in each case, "Do not become angry and furious." 

~ Hadith - Sahih Al-Bukhari 8.137, Narrated by Abu Huraira, r.a.

It never ceases to amaze me how ignorance is allowed to thrive in a world supposedly 'enlightened' simply by being in the early 21st century.

For years, I have been forecasting and warning of the inclinations of the planets relative to the Earth and how populations, nations, governments and their leaders allow themselves to be inclined by ignorance to the point of rank blindness.

In mid-September, the second of seven exact global squares between Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn will begin. I have forecasted the effects of this square on the world in many previous editions of Global Astrology and elsewhere over the years.

My mundane mission, indeed, the goal of all human beings is to seek the Immortal God and bring about Light to those forces of darkness whom continue to disrupt and disturb the peace of our precious planet.

We will not give up the fight, indeed, the forces of Light are gaining strength, for we know that Love Eternal will not be denied.

My world as a mundane astrologer, living here in the natural world, how I see the world through space and time, tells me how closely interconnected we all are.

But it will not always be this way. Some will be broken off from the Light and fall into the exceedingly evil and many mouths of perdition and darkness because of their malefic acts and hatred.

This warning to the world is to very carefully mind your own souls - for the universe watches all and records all things, all words, all acts and all events - by means of the transits of the Sun, Moon, planets and stars.

My travels across the vast expanse of space and time as a mundane astrologer - seeing the past, the present and the future - continually urges me to send out this message to all who desire to see, to listen and to heed:

Seek Gnosis and Love one another; for in this we save our own souls.



In this edition of Global Astrology we examine once again the Uranus-Pluto World Square: Geopolitics, Extremist Religious & Revolutionary Sentiments.

The life and times of the late American Ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens is highlighted.

We take a closer look at the strange events surrounding an anti-Muslim film sponsored by mysterious backers in: Obscure Film Mocks The Prophet Muhammad And Sparks Mass Protests & Death in the Middle East.

This edition of Global Astrology features the state of the U.S. economy with Ben Bernanke & The Federal Reserve: Twisting &Twirling Into Economic Collapse?

We also examine the intergenerational conflict between young and old in Global Economic Crisis Morphs Into Generational Conflict.

The Cardinal Crisis

Furious mobs attacked at least six Western embassies across the Muslim world as protesters filled the streets in another eight countries. Crowds vented rage over a video that defamed the Prophet Muhammad. Violent protests in the photos above include - clockwise from top left - Sudan, Bangladesh, Lebanon and Yemen.

The Uranus-Pluto World Square:

Geopolitics, Extremist Religious & Revolutionary Sentiments

By 

Theodore White, mundane Astrolog.Sci

Allah's Apostle said, 

"The strong is not the one who overcomes the people by his strength. But the strong is the one who controls himself while in anger." 

~ Hadith - Sahih Al-Bukhari 8.135, Narrated by Abu Huraira, r.a

During the second half of the month of September 2012 the world has been witnessing what has long been forecasted - the inclinations of the Uranus/Pluto world squares that is part of the 'cardinal crisis' years I have been forecasting here on Global Astrology.

The recent outbreak of hue-and-cries, mayhem, violence and killings across the globe has been an orchestrated effort to continue to upset populations and turn human beings against one another in the name of religion. 

This is an age-old historical ploy designed to disrupt, disturb and confuse people who suffer the ravages of day-to-day struggles and survival.

The Uranus in Aries-Pluto in Capricorn cardinal square revolves worldwide with inclinations of revolutionary sentiments against oligarchical schemes and planned acts of plutocracy that disrupts basic goals and objectives.

The obvious cures are calm, peace and a cool sound head, but all too often it is emotional hot-headedness and reactionary sentiments among the masses of the ignorant that appears to take precedence and make headlines worldwide.

Yemeni men break a window of the American embassy in Sana'a.

Image: Hani Mohammed/AP

Astrology does not merely foreshadow events which are inevitable.

What Astrology does is to map out the movements of celestial bodies and their aspects relative to the earth which shows us the thought-cell activities that influence the thoughts of people.

Those thoughts then inclines behavior by means of exerting extra-physical magnetic power on the environment in such a way as to make certain events in the atmosphere more than probable.

By means of knowledge of where celestial bodies are relative to the earth, their inclinations and influences, the effort to cure unfavorable transits are to reduce and eliminate these probable events to as few alternatives as possible. 

This is done by eliminating all events of those inclinations of the planets involved that do not bear the characteristics involved.

Obviously, this is quite difficult to do in a society, that at present is not well evolved nor unenlightened; since the great majority of people are blind and ignorant to the very forces they allow to incline them unfavorably.

Nonetheless, with Uranus, its effects are those that bring about something 'sudden' through a human agency and that ushers 'change' into the life.

With Pluto, the causes are usually brought by secret and often criminal organizations and groups, hidden and by means of nefarious subtle acts, bring about co-operation by means of malefic coercion. We can see this in the flash points of September 2012.

The violently anti-American rallies throughout the Islamic world by means of a video denigrating the Prophet Muhammad expanded to nearly 20 countries with demonstrators storming the American Embassy in Tunisia in a deadly clash and protesters in Sudan’s capital broadening targets to include Germany and Britain.

Cairo, Egypt - U.S. Embassy

Khartoum, Sudan - British, German and U.S. Embassies

Sanaa, Yemen - U.S. Embassy

Jerusalem - protests at the Old City

-Basra, Iraq - protests

Tehran, Iran - protests outside the Swiss Embassy

Amman, Jordan - protests

Indian-administered Kashmir - protests

In Lebanon, a demonstrator was killed and 25 people injured after an angry crowd of Islamists set fire to a KFC restaurant in northern Lebanon.

The crowd of 300 attacked the U.S. fast-food chain outlet just as Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Lebanon for a three-day visit. The pope called for Christian-Muslim co-existence and defending against religious extremism.

The violence continued unabated by Friday, September 14, 2012

For instance, in Egypt

Egyptian protesters throw stones at riot police officers during clashes near Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo on Friday, September 14, 2012

image: Tara Todras-Whitehill

The day began with a note of optimism. The Muslim Brotherhood, which was seemingly caught unawares by the attack on the U.S. embassy in Cairo this week, cancelled its call for nationwide protests.

Alarmed at the damage that could be done to its own reputation as a ruling party – a conservative party offering law and order – it said it wanted to avoid loss of life and damage to property.

Instead, it called for a rally in Tahrir Square – the symbolic heart of the Arab Spring.

Confused by the Brotherhood's mixed messages – or perhaps just unimpressed by the idea that Americans should be held responsible for a film apparently made and put online by Egyptians – the people failed to heed the call. No more than 2,000 people gathered in small groups at the eastern edge of the Square.

There were no more than that – probably half the number – at the other end, on the road leading to the U.S. embassy. But they made their voice heard more loudly. They built a blockade of concrete to stop advances on the embassy, but were unable to move out and seize those who continued to hurl stones at them.

Sudan

Worse was to come elsewhere. 

A much larger mob, estimated at 5,000 strong, arriving by the bus-load, moved on the diplomatic quarter in Khartoum, first targeting the British and German embassies, which share a compound. 

The British embassy was successfully defended, but young men managed to climb the roof of the German embassy next door, tearing down its flag and replacing it, as happened at its American counterpart in Cairo on Tuesday, with the black flag of Islamic militancy.

From London, William Hague, the foreign secretary, said: "As it is the Sudanese weekend, very few staff were present in the Embassy. I am glad to say that all UK and Sudanese staff present during the attack are safe and that no injuries were sustained."

He said he had "raised concerns" with Sudan's ambassador, Abdullahi Hamad Ali Alazreg.

The U.S. embassy itself was next. Guards on the roof fired warning shots, those on the ground tear gas. In the melee, at least two people were killed, one hit by a speeding police vehicle trying to disperse the crowd.

Tunisia

Tunisian protesters burn a U.S. flag bearing a portrait of Marylin Monroe during a demonstration outside the American embassy in Tunis.

Image: KHALIL/AFP/GettyImages

Even countries seen as safe, liberal and westernized were not immune.

Tunisia saw the opening shots of the Arab Spring, and its easiest revolution. The coalition government that replaced the dictatorship of Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali is led by an Islamist party, but moderate enough not to insist on Sharia as part of the constitution.

Nevertheless, it has seen its share of violence from the radical Salafi movement whose purist interpretation of Islam has spread like wildfire across North Africa in the last decade.

It took only a few dozen to storm the walls of the U.S. embassy in Tunis, raising an Islamist flag and setting fire to cars parked outside.

Nejib Ben Lazreg, a local tour guide, said that one of the embassy's office blocks was set ablaze, along with an American school found opposite the mission.

"There was black smoke and tear gas," he said. "People driving past could smell the tear gas. Gunshots were also heard." As the smoke rose, at least one helicopter hovered over the embassy while security forces fought to restore order.

In the chaos at least three people died and 28 were hurt.

The violence was not limited to Arab countries. Nigerian police fired live rounds outside a mosque in the city of Jos, the scene of repeated sectarian violence involving its Muslim and Christian communities that has killed thousands of people in recent years.

In Iran, there were protests after Friday prayers, with crowds shouting "Death to America" and "Death to Israel". In Bangladesh, 5,000 took to the streets; thousands more in Indian-controlled Kashmir. In Madras, scores were arrested.

But some of the most worrying incidents occurred in Lebanon, already nervous because of the war in neighbouring Syria and in addition hosting the Pope on a long-awaited visit.

While he was being greeted in Beirut, a crowd, just a few hundred strong but again apparently dominated by Salafists, gathered in Tripoli and set fire to an outlet of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

One man, who called himself Khalil, told The Daily Telegraph that the Lebanese army had taken up positions. "It's more than five minutes that I can hear shooting outside," he said. "The Muslims here have distrust of Christians because they say that the makers of the movie are Coptic in Egypt."

One man was shot dead, though it was not clearly precisely how.

If there was any relief, it was that feared demonstrations in the Yemeni capital Sana'a were less violent than on Thursday, when the U.S. embassy was breached and four died. A higher level of security was able to keep crowds – again no more than a few hundred strong – at bay.

For years, any insult to Islam has sparked protests. Usually, they have died down after a few days, or weeks. It is not the fact of demonstrations that will concern western leaders this weekend, however.

It is rather their virulence, which suggests that western interests, and even well-protected embassies are not safe. That has dramatic implications for how they are defended. More worrying is that it seems the host governments no longer have the will or the strength to stand up to the mobs.

President Mohammed Morsi of Egypt finally made a pledge to protect foreigners in Egypt. With so much of the Arab world desperate for foreign investment, that promise may have come too late.

The second exact Uranus/Pluto square takes place at 6-degrees-57 minutes Aries/Capricorn on Wednesday, September 19, 2012. This second square will rule over the remainder of the solar year of 2012.

The exact Uranus-Pluto square comes a day after transiting Pluto stations direct in motion relative to the Earth.  We are bound to see mundane signs in the Middle East that increasingly appear hostile; as if in 'preparation' for acts of violence and war.

Mundane Chart - Jerusalem, Israel - September 19, 2012

click on mundane chart to enlarge

The mundane chart above depicts the world transits over Jerusalem, Israel for the second Uranus/Pluto world square. This will also be over the entire Middle East at this location. 

Uranus is retrograde at 6-degrees-57 minutes Aries in square aspect to Pluto at 6-degrees-57 minutes Capricorn - an exact cardinal square.

An isolation of the second Uranus/Pluto Square with other planetary points removed.

click on mundane chart to enlarge

Pluto in Capricorn has stationed direct the previous day of Sept. 18, 2012; therefore what we see here is Pluto's involvement by inclination on organized elements working to commit violent acts in a cold-blooded manner. 

The transits of mid-to-late September and into early October 2012 feature powerful planetary configurations associated with geopolitical stresses. For instance, warships from around the world plan to hold military exercises in the Persian Gulf's Strait of Hormuz, where 40-percent of the world's oil exports passes.

The Uranus/Pluto square is transpersonal in that it affects the lives of individuals and groups by means of the 'bigger picture' often by means of events that are out of the direct control of the individual. Uranus' transit in tropical Aries by cardinal square to Pluto's transit in tropical Capricorn signals a strong need for cool and calm heads.

Pluto's position in tropical Capricorn also equates to 'planned violence' - typical of those forces ignorant of the fact that they will be held accountable for the stupidity of their desires to shed innocent blood due to ideology and/or religious extremism.

...It is said that he (sallallahu aleihi wa sallam) mentioned anger, saying, 

"Some are swift to anger and swift to cool down, the one characteristic making up for the other. 

Some are slow to anger and slow to cool down, the one characteristic making up for the other. 

But the best of you are those who are slow to anger and swift to cool down. 

And the worst of you are those who are swift to anger and slow to cool down." 

He continued, 

"Beware of anger, for it is a live coal on the heart of the descendant of Adam. 

Do you not notice the swelling of the veins of his neck and the redness of his eyes? 

So when anyone experiences anything of that nature he should lie down and cleave to the earth." 

~ Hadith - Al-Tirmidhi #5145, Narrated Abu Sa'id al-Khudri, transmitted by Tirmidhi

A protester holds up a sword in front the headquarters of the United Nations Special Coordinator Office for the Middle East (UNSCO) in Gaza City

Image: EPA/MOHAMMED SABER

Over the course of the next several years through to 2016 the geopolitical atmosphere is 'hot' in that it is not a favorable time to initiate major change.

The inclinations are those that 'excite the emotions' - much of it exploited by organized groups intent on their own control and power interests.

AbuWa'il al-Qass said:  "We entered upon Urwah ibn Muhammad ibn as-Sa'di. A man spoke to him and made him angry. So he stood and performed ablution; he then returned and performed ablution, and said: 

'My father told me on the authority of my grandfather Atiyyah who reported the Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) as saying: 

'Anger comes from the devil. The devil was created of fire and fire is extinguished only with water. 

So when one of you becomes angry, he should perform ablution.'"

~ Hadith - Sunan of Abu Dawood, Narrated Atiyyah as-Sa'di, r.a.

The transpersonal energies of the Uranus/Pluto world squares shows that the lives of people will be changed by larger-scale forces beyond individual control.

One of the ways to effectively deal with this is to adjust gracefully to unavoidable changes and to make the most of the opportunities presented by the new circumstances.

Revolutionary sentiments that lead to violence means that old friendships along with group and organizational ties can be severed under the Uranus/Pluto square as people who are meaningful to one another may die unexpectedly and suddenly.

Under the climate of the Uranus/Pluto cardinal square it is a time use caution as perilous and dangerous people are about.

Attacks on the American Embassy in Yemen

These dangers come about from those involved in corporate interests and power structures at odds with one another and society in general. 

The cardinal crisis years are those where it is important to understand that the Twenty-Tens is a sustained period of adjustments and changes throughout the world.

Be slow to anger and quick to cool down.

When angry, make Wudu to "cool off."

When someone near you is furious, say "Audthu billahi mina shaitaan nir rajeem" (I seek refuge in Allah from the rejected/outcast Satan).

If you are angry with someone, sit down. If that does not work, then lie down.

Remember... Allah, subhana watala, sees everything we do!

The Cardinal Crisis

Protesters destroy an American flag pulled down from the U.S. embassy in Cairo, Egypt on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012. Egyptian protesters climbed the walls of the U.S. embassy in Cairo, raged into the courtyard and brought down the flag, replacing it with a black flag with Islamic inscription, in protest of a film deemed offensive to Muslims. 

Image: Mohammed Abu Zaid/AP

Obscure Film Mocks The Prophet Muhammad Sparking Mass Protests & Death in the Middle East?

AP

Angered by reports in the Egyptian media that members of the Coptic Christian diaspora in the U.S. had produced a crude film mocking the Muslim prophet, protesters climbed the walls of the American Embassy in Cairo on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012 and tore down the American flag. 

Later, a Libyan security official told Reuters that armed militiamen had attacked the United States consulate in Benghazi killing four people - including the American Ambassador Chris Stevens.

A  14-minute trailer for the English-language film, that was posted on YouTube in July, attracted little attention until last week, when a version dubbed into Arabic was posted on the same YouTube channel and then copied and viewed tens of thousands of times more. (The Arabic version was removed from the filmmaker’s YouTube channel after this post was originally published.)

See -> Strange Details About Film-maker Emerge as more Questions Arise

Although there was initial confusion about who made the film, The Wall Street Journal reported that the drama, titled “Innocence of Muslims,” was produced and directed by an alleged Israeli-American named "Sam Bacile," a mysterious California real-estate developer who called Islam “a cancer,” in an interview. 

But it appears that 'Sam Bacile' is the alias of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula - a man who served 21 months in prison on fraud and identity theft charges residing in Cerritos, California.

Nakoula is the true identity of "Sam Bacile," and the alias he used to claim credit for writing and directing the film causing outrage across the Muslim world.

Nakoula denied this and said he worked on logistics for the film, but an anonymous official told the AP that the two are one and the same.

Nakoula was charged with bank fraud and aggravated identity theft in 2009. According to the criminal complaint, his other aliases included: Mark Basseley Youssef, Thomas Tanas, Ahmad Hamdy, Erwin Salameh, and Nicola Bacily. He had credit cards, social security cards, passports, leases and driver's licenses to match. 

As a result of the felony proceedings, Nakoula was sentenced to 21 months in prison and ordered to pay $794,700.57. He was placed under supervised release for five years following his release. Bureau of Prison records indicate he was released in June 2011, the year the film was made.

This "Mr. Bacile" told The Journal that he raised $5 million from about 100 Jewish donors and shot the two-hour movie in California last year.

But an actress in the film about the Prophet Muhammad that has sparked outrage across the Middle East said she will sue the filmmaker and that the film's script, titled "Desert Warriors," was to focus on life 2,000 years ago.

Cindy Lee Garcia told Gawker that she called the film's writer and director, who has now gone into hiding, when she saw the protests and his quotes in the media.

"'Why did you do this?' and he said, 'I'm tired of radical Islamists killing each other. Let other actors know it's not their fault,'" she told Gawker. "I'm going to sue his butt off."

She said the mysterious filmmaker, who identified himself as "Sam Bacile," said on set that he was Egyptian and spoke Arabic with his associates. [A report from the Atlantic indicated the filmmaker was not Jewish or Israeli, as the filmmaker had stated earlier in interviews.] 

Garcia said she was horrified when she discovered the video's connection to the deaths of four Americans after an assault on the U.S. Consulate in Libya.

"Now we have people dead because of a movie I was in," she said. "It makes me sick."

Garcia said the only ruckus she saw during her three days on set in July 2011 involved the filmmaker's request that the character appearing to viewers as Muhammad sleep with a girl who looked 7 years old, rather than 10. Assistant directors protested, Garcia said.

"He was just sitting there, and he wanted certain points to be made," she told Gawker.

The "Desert Warriors" script and production was without references to religion, Garcia said, and Muhammad was named "Master George" in the screenplay. Words about Muhammad were edited in during post-production.

Last week, an Egyptian-American Copt known for his broadsides against Muslims drew attention to the trailer in an Arabic-language blog post and an e-mail newsletter in English publicizing the latest publicity stunt of the Florida pastor Terry Jones, reviled in the Muslim world for burning copies of the Koran. 

Reached by telephone in Florida, a representative of Mr. Jones seemed unaware of the film, but hours later the pastor sent out a statement by e-mail in which he complained of the attack on the embassy in Cairo and announced plans to screen the trailer for the film on Tuesday night. He said that it “reveals in a satirical fashion the life of Muhammad.”

The Coptic activist, Morris Sadek, did not respond to a request for an interview, but he is an ally of Mr. Jones and his blog post features a photograph of the two men at a tiny, anti-Islam protest outside the White House in June. Later, he told The Associated Press that he planned screenings of the film.

Although Mr. Sadek never claimed in his e-mail promoting Mr. Jones to have produced the movie - which dramatizes the life of Muhammad, incorporating scenes based on slurs about him that are often repeated by Islamophobes. 

Three days after he passed around a link of the film’s trailer, a Cairo newspaper reported that the leader of an Egyptian political party had “denounced the production of the film with the participation of vengeful Copts, accompanied by the extremist priest Terry Jones.”

That same day, a scene from the film - in which an actor playing a buffoonish caricature of the Prophet Muhammad calls a donkey “the first Muslim animal” - was broadcast on the Egyptian television channel Al-Nas by host Sheikh Khaled Abdalla.

Last year, the Egyptian-British journalist and blogger Sarah Carr wrote, “Sheikh Khaled Abdalla is part of a school of particularly shrill religious demagogues who turn every possible event into an attack on Islam.” She added that Sheikh Khaled regularly attacked Egypt’s Coptic Christian community.

The Egyptian news media reports appear to have drawn much more attention to the obscure film trailer, which was posted on YouTube by someone using the name Sam Bacile who failed to respond to a request for comment on September 11, 2011.

As Menna Alaa reported for The Egypt Independent, photographs and video posted online showed the protesters at the embassy in Cairo on Tuesday ripping the American flag apart and raising a black jihadist flag with the words, “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger.”

The Cairene blogger who writes as Zeinobia reported there were “also pro-Al Qaeda chants unfortunately,” which was particularly striking on the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.

Mostafa Hussein, a psychiatrist and blogger, pointed to a photograph that showed that the protesters had also scrawled the name Osama bin Laden on a sign outside the embassy.

Zeinobia also reported that confusion about the origins of the film was so general that one group of fundamentalist Muslims was “calling for another huge protest at the embassy of Netherlands, demanding its closure because the Dutch government is producing an insult film against Islam.” Dutch diplomats responded with a statement denying these claims, she noted.

The Egyptian blogger who writes as The Big Pharaoh noted that one sign wielded by a protester outside the American embassy in Cairo even called for “the expulsion of Coptic Diaspora from Egypt.”

The man behind video excerpts from the anti-Muslim movie that provoked mobs in Egypt and Libya said on Wednesday, September 12, 2012 that he has gone into hiding. 

But doubts rose about the man's exact identity amid a flurry of false claims about his background and role in the purported film.

The filmmaker, who identified himself in a telephone interview with The Associated Press as Sam Bacile, said he is an Israeli-born, Jewish writer and director of "Innocence of Muslims." Bacile was the name used to publish excerpts of the movie online as early as July 2.

But some key facts about Bacile's background and role in the film crumbled on September 12, 2012 as a Christian activist involved in the film project said that Bacile was a pseudonym, that he was not Jewish or Israeli, and that a group of Americans of mid-eastern origin collaborated on the film. Officials in Israel also said there was no record of Bacile as an Israeli citizen.

Doubts mounted as well about the provenance of the film, "Innocence of Muslims." 

Several Hollywood and California film industry groups and permit agencies said they had no records of the project. Only an employee at a faded Hollywood movie theater confirmed that an entire version of the film had staged a brief run several months ago.

All that currently exists of the film are about 13 minutes of excerpts on YouTube, in English and Arabic language versions. While excerpts were still viewable online in the U.S. on Sept. 12, they vanished from the Internet in Egypt. 

Cairo residents who tried to view the YouTube site instead got a warning that "this content is not available in your country due to a legal complaint."

Protesters apparently angered over the film burned down the U.S. Consulate Tuesday in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi. Libyan officials said Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012 that Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other embassy employees were killed during the mob violence. 

However, American officials now say they are investigating whether the assault was a planned terrorist strike linked to Tuesday's 11-year anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

In his brief interview with the AP, the man who identified himself as Bacile defiantly called Islam "a cancer," and said that he intended the film to be a provocative political statement condemning the religion.

But several facts Bacile provided about himself soon proved false or questionable.

Bacile told AP he was 56, but identified himself on his YouTube profile as 74.

A Riverside, Calif., Christian activist who said he was a consultant and worked with Bacile on the film told The Atlantic Monthly that Bacile's name was a pseudonym, and that he was not Jewish or Israeli. The activist, Steve Klein, said that behind the film were Americans who had lived in several Mideast countries.

"Nobody is anything but by an active American citizen," Klein told the Atlantic. "They're from Syria, Turkey,  Pakistan, there are some that are from Egypt. Some are Copts, but the vast majority are evangelical."

In an interview with the AP, Klein said the filmmaker is concerned for family members who live in Egypt. 

Bacile declined to confirm that suggestion. Klein did not return phone messages.

Klein told the AP that he promised to help Bacile make the movie but warned him that "you're going to be the next Theo van Gogh." Van Gogh was a Dutch filmmaker killed by a Muslim extremist in 2004 after making a film that was perceived as insulting to Islam.

"We went into this knowing this was probably going to happen," Klein said.

Bacile told the AP he is a real estate developer and an Israeli Jew. But Israeli officials said they had not heard of him and there was no record of him being a citizen. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not permitted to share personal information with the media.

The name Bacile also does not appear in searches of California state licenses, including the Department of Real Estate.

Directors' and producers' groups in Los Angeles said they had no record of Bacile and California's state film commission said no permits had been issued to Bacile or "Innocence of Muslims." 

But officials added that films can easily be made on a shoestring, without permits and under the radar of authorities and film industry watchdogs.

"There's no universal registry where you can tell for sure this is legitimate film," said Chris Green, a spokesman with the Producer's Guild of America.

The only sparse evidence indicating that an entire version of "Innocence of Muslims" was filmed beyond its 13.5-minute trailer came in comments from an employee of the Vine Theater, a Hollywood Boulevard theater that was found padlocked on September 12. 

The theater employee, who declined to identify himself, said that a version of "Innocence of Muslims" ran briefly several months ago at the theater and that a man whose first name was "Sam" had brought the film to the theater.

In his earlier interview with AP, the man who identified himself as Bacile said that the film had run for a day at a mostly-empty Hollywood theater.

"This is a political movie," Bacile told the AP. "The U.S. lost a lot of money and a lot of people in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we're fighting with ideas."

Bacile said he believes the movie will help his native land by exposing Islam's flaws to the world.

"Islam is a cancer, period," he said repeatedly, his solemn voice thickly accented.

The two-hour movie, "Innocence of Muslims," cost $5 million dollars to make and was financed with the help of more than 100 Jewish donors, according to Bacile. But the name 'Sam Bacile' seems to be a pseudonym 

The voyeuristic film claims the Prophet Muhammad was a fraud. The trailer, posted in an original English version and another dubbed into Egyptian Arabic, shows an amateur cast performing a wooden dialog of insults disguised as revelations about Muhammad, whose obedient followers are presented as a cadre of goons.

It depicts the prophet as a feckless philanderer who approved of child sexual abuse, among other overtly insulting claims that have caused outrage.

Muslims find it offensive to depict Muhammad in any manner, let alone insult the prophet. A Danish newspaper's 2005 publication of 12 caricatures of the prophet triggered riots in many Muslim countries.

Though Bacile was apologetic about those killed as a result of the outrage over his film, he blamed lax embassy security and the perpetrators of the violence.

"I feel the security system (at the embassies) is no good," said Bacile. "America should do something to change it."

Bacile's film was dubbed into Egyptian Arabic by someone he doesn't know, but he speaks enough Arabic to confirm that the translation is accurate. It was made in three months in the summer of 2011, with 59 actors and about 45 people behind the camera.

Before the protesters attacked the compound, the U.S. mission in Cairo issued said in a statement: 

“The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.” 

Later, the embassy’s official Twitter feed condemned both the provocative film and the attack on the compound.

The Cardinal Crisis

The lifeless body of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens is pictured here on September 11, 2012 after a rocket-grenade attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya left Stevens and three others dead.  Mr. Stevens assumed his ambassador post in May after having served as an envoy to the Libyan rebels who overthrew Colonel Qaddafi. He was widely admired by Libyan rebels for his support of their struggle. Others who say they knew Stevens described him as an extraordinarily talented and insightful diplomat.

image: Agence France-Presse

U.S. Officials Suspect Libyan Attack Was Planned

The New York Times

The Obama administration suspects that the fiery attack in Libya that killed the American ambassador and three other diplomats may have been planned rather than a spontaneous mob getting out of control, American officials said Wednesday, September 12, 2012.

Officials in Washington studying the events of the 24 hours of Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012 have focused on the differences between the protests at the American embassy in Cairo and the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, the Libyan city where U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and the other Americans were killed

The protesters in Cairo appeared to be a genuinely spontaneous unarmed mob angered by an anti-Islam video said to have been produced in the United States. 

By contrast, it appeared the attackers in Benghazi were armed with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. 

Intelligence reports are inconclusive at this point, officials said, but indications suggest the possibility that an organized group had either been waiting for an opportunity to exploit like the protests over the video or perhaps even generated the protests as a cover for their attack.

The consulate in Benghazi was engulfed in flames on Tuesday night, Sept. 11, 2012

image: Agence France-Presse

President Obama strongly condemned the killings and ordered increased security at American diplomatic posts around the world. 

American defense officials said 50 Marines were en route to Libya to strengthen security at United States diplomatic facilities, and the State Department ordered all “non-emergency” personnel out of the country and warned Americans not to go there, suggesting that further attacks were possible.

The death of Mr. Stevens on Tuesday, the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, was the first of an American envoy abroad in more than three decades.

“These four Americans stood up for freedom and human dignity,” Mr. Obama said in a televised statement from the White House Rose Garden, where he stood with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. 

“Make no mistake: we will work with the Libyan government to bring to justice the killers who attacked our people,” Obama said.

The president also offered praise for the Libyan government, noting that Libyan security forces fought back against the mob, helped protect American diplomats and took Mr. Stevens’s body to the hospital. “This attack will not break the bonds between the United States and Libya,” he said.

The attack at the compound in Benghazi was far more deadly than administration officials first announced on Tuesday night, when Mrs. Clinton said one American had been killed and one injured.

Image: Esam Omran Al-Fetori/Reuters

Another of those killed was Sean Smith, an information management officer who joined the Foreign Service 10 years ago, Mrs. Clinton said in a statement. 

Sean Smith, one of the U.S. diplomats murdered in the violence in Benghazi, Libya was also vital to the diplomatic success of the online gaming community EVE Online, many of whose 400,000 users are also in mourning.

The State Department did not identify the other two, pending notification of relatives. Mr. Smith, a husband and father of two, previously served in Iraq, Canada and the Netherlands.

The killing of the ranking American official in Libya raised questions about the vulnerability of American officials at a time when the profound changes sweeping the Arab world have hardly dispelled the rage against the United States that still smolders in pockets around the region. 

The consulate was scattered with debris on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012

Image: Esam Omran Al-Fetori/Reuters

The Benghazi attack also put an enormous new strain on Washington’s relations with the new Libyan government that took over after the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi last year, and they threatened to sour American public opinion about the prospects of the democratic opening of the Arab Spring.

Neither Mr. Obama nor Mrs. Clinton disclosed details of the attack, and it was unclear precisely how Mr. Stevens or the others had died.

Officials in Washington said no warning had been distributed inside the United States government in the days before the assault on the consulate, either on the possibility of an attack to coincide with the 9/11 anniversary or more specifically that a plot might be afoot in Libya. That suggests American intelligence was not picking up unusual communications or other evidence pointing to a planned attack.

About 24 hours before the consulate attack, however, Al Qaeda posted to militant forums on the Web a video in which its leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, acknowledged the death in an American drone strike in June of his Libyan deputy, Abu Yahya al-Libi, and called on Libyans to avenge the death.

If it were established that the deaths of the American diplomats resulted not from the spontaneous anger of a crowd about an insult to Islam but from a long-planned Qaeda plot, that might sharply shift perceptions of the events. But officials cautioned that the issue was still under urgent study.

The White House would not comment. “At this stage, it would be premature to ascribe any motive to this reprehensible act,” said Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman.

Mr. Stevens assumed his ambassador post in May 2012 after having served as an envoy to the Libyan rebels who overthrew Colonel Qaddafi. 

Stevens was said to be widely admired by Libyan rebels for his support of their struggle, and others who knew Mr. Stevens described him as an extraordinarily talented and insightful diplomat.

The Life & Times of American Ambassador to Libya:
J. Christopher Stevens

U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens

President Obama called Ambassador Stevens “a courageous and exemplary representative of the United States” who had “selflessly served our country and the Libyan people at our mission in Benghazi” and, as ambassador, “supported Libya’s transition to democracy.”

It was said that anyone who talked to J. Christopher Stevens instantly became the center of his world.

Stevens, 52, the American ambassador to Libya was a natural diplomat, from his youth in Piedmont, California to his undergraduate years at University of California at Berkeley and studies at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, according to friends and colleagues.

His violent death was doubly shocking, coming in a country where he took a personal interest and whose revolution he was said to have strived to help and understand, acquaintances said.

"Chris was one of those people who was very inclusive of everyone," said Amy Moorhead, whose older brother was a close friend of Stevens' in high school and college. 

"He was a people person. He was genuinely interested in me, even though I was younger. But it was not just me - he was genuinely interested in everybody.

A photograph of Chris Stevens as a toddler published in his 1978 Piedmont High School yearbook

"If he met someone, he wanted to know about them," Moorhead said.

Stevens grew up in a leafy, quiet neighborhood in Piedmont and kept a home in the East Bay hills enclave after being named U.S. ambassador to Libya in April.

Harry Johnson, 69, who lived next to Stevens when the future diplomat was a boy, said Stevens had kept in contact after graduating from Piedmont High School in 1978, through college and after he moved to Morocco for a stint with the Peace Corps before law school.

J. Christopher Stevens, center, in 1978.

"He was so intelligent, but never lost the human touch," Johnson said. "He could make anyone feel comfortable and make them a part of his world because he fit into theirs."

Even when he returned home from important assignments across the Middle East, Stevens wanted to focus on his friends and family.

"He had been to all these glamorous places, and we wanted to hear about them and he always wanted to talk about things like, 'How's your son doing?' " said Paul Feist, a childhood friend who asked Stevens to be best man at his wedding 25 years ago.

J. Christopher Stevens as best man at his friend's wedding in 1987

Image: Courtesy Paul Fiest

Stevens was the son of retired Marin Symphony cellist Mary Commanday and stepson of San Francisco Classical Voice magazine founder Robert Commanday, a former music critic for The San Fransisco Chronicle.

Both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Mary Commanday to offer their condolences on Wednesday, Sept, 12, 2012.

President Obama "spoke to her at great length," Robert Commanday said. "They talked about the tragic irony of a man who has given all of his career and his life for these people and then they murder him."

A photograph in the 1978 Piedmont High School yearbook shows Christopher Stevens at his desk working as a staffer on his school's Piedmont Highlander newspaper

Image: Paul Chinn

Stevens' desire for making a difference was evident from an early age. Above his senior portrait in his Piedmont High yearbook, Stevens chose a quote from the essayist Logan Pearsall Smith: 

"What a bore it is, waking up in the morning always the same person. I wish I were unflinching and emphatic, and had big, bushy eyebrows and a Message for the Age."

In college, Stevens knew he wanted to join the State Department and work in the Middle East, said Steve Tovani, a fellow member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity at UC Berkeley.

U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens, left, walks with an unidentified translator during a tour of Assaraya al-Hamra, or the 'Red Castle,' in Tripoli, Libya in late August 2012.

Image: U.S. State Dept/AP

He could often be found practicing his Arabic, studying Middle Eastern history or rehearsing lines for musicals at Cal - in which he often played characters with a maturity beyond his years, said Austin Tichenor, a childhood friend and Berkeley classmate.

"He had a gravitas about him, which suited him well in the foreign service, I suspect," Tichenor said. 

"It always tickled me to see him do official State Department speeches because he's so serious, he has his ambassador face on. But when you got him one-on-one, he was just funny."

U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, right, talks to Libyan boys in Tripoli, Libya in August 2012.

Stevens earned his undergraduate degree in 1982 and graduated with a law degree from Hastings in 1989. In 2010, he earned a master's degree from the National War College in Washington, D.C.

Emily Gottreich, vice chair of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at UC Berkeley, said, "He had the kind of local knowledge that ambassadors don't always have. 

He spoke Arabic, he was deeply engaged in the process of creating a new and better Libya, and he's exactly the kind of person you don't want to lose. It's just a tragedy."

In a May video that the State Department made to introduce Stevens to the Libyan people, he said, "Growing up in California, I didn't know much about the Arab world."

But Stevens spent two years in Morocco with the Peace Corps teaching English before returning to California for law school. 

After a few years as an international trade attorney, Stevens decided to enter the Foreign Service. He spent more than two decades as an envoy to countries in the Middle East, including Syria, Egypt and Israel.

By the time Stevens was named ambassador to Libya in April, he was seen as one of the pre-eminent American diplomats, friends said.

U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, left, shakes hands with a Libyan man in Tripoli, Libya in August 2012.

"He loved that part of the world, he loved the people, he spoke the languages and he really loved his job," Tichenor said.

After Libyan rebels launched their revolution against the country's dictator, Moammar Khadafy, Stevens served as U.S. special representative to the insurrectionists.

"It was amazing, the stress he was under," Feist said. "There was a car-bomb attack outside the hotel he was stationed in. I can only imagine how stressful it was."

Johnson, the neighbor, said he had attended a gathering in the spring at Stevens' parents' home in Oakland to celebrate their son's appointment as ambassador. The mood was upbeat, he said, yet not without concern.

"Chris knew the hazards," he said. "He was a smart guy. But there was also a feeling that Chris was the right guy because of his genuine affection for people in that part of the world."

The news of the deaths emerged on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012 after violence spilled over the American Consulate in Benghazi and demonstrators stormed the fortified walls of the American Embassy in Cairo. 

Anti-American protests also were reported in Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring revolution, and in Gaza. The Taliban called on Afghans to “take revenge” on American targets in Afghanistan.

The president of Libya’s National Assembly, Mohammed Magarief, apologized for the attack, describing it as “cowardly” and offering condolences, the AP reported. 

Speaking to reporters, he said the culprits would be brought to justice and pledged to maintain close relations with the United States.

The violence was initially attributed to anger over a 14-minute trailer for the American video, called “Innocence of Muslims,” that was released on the Web. 

The violence provoked by the video, which was publicized in recent days by the Egyptian media, recalled the wave of rage and protest in 2005 that followed the publication of 12 cartoons in a Danish newspaper lampooning the Prophet Muhammad.

An unidentified Libyan official in Benghazi told Reuters that Mr. Stevens and three staff members were killed in Benghazi “when gunmen fired rockets at them.

"It was not clear where in the city the attack took place." The Libyan official said the ambassador was being driven from the consulate building to a safer location when gunmen opened fire, Reuters said.

Agence France-Presse quoted the Libyan Interior Ministry as saying that Mr. Stevens and the three staff members were killed when a mob attacked the consulate in Benghazi. 

Al Jazeera’s English-language Web site said Mr. Stevens died of smoke inhalation after a mob set fire to the building, and a Libyan physician who treated Mr. Stevens at the hospital was quoted by The Associated Press as saying he had tried to revive him for 90 minutes.

In Italy, the Web site of the newspaper Corriere della Sera showed images of what it said was the American Consulate in Benghazi ablaze with men carrying automatic rifles and waving V-for-victory signs, silhouetted against the burning buildings. 

One photograph showed a man closely resembling Mr. Stevens apparently unconscious, his face seeming to be smudged with smoke and his eyes closed.

Mr. Stevens, conversant in Arabic and French, had worked at the State Department since 1991 after a spell as an international trade lawyer in Washington. He taught English as a Peace Corps volunteers in Morocco from 1983 to 1985, the State Department Web site said.

Gunfire, a burning building, "heavy, dark smoke" separated Stevens from a security officer as American officials painted a harrowing picture of the deadly assault on the consulate in Benghazi.

Early details sketch out a chaotic situation where out gunned American and Libyan security personnel fought for hours to retake the consulate in the eastern Libyan city from unknown gunmen and lost the ambassador. 

According to sources, at about 10 p.m. in Benghazi, the consulate came under fire "from unidentified Libyan extremists," one official said. Then, 15 minutes later, attackers had breached the perimeter and focused their fire on the main building, setting it afire.

Inside the consulate were Stevens, a regional security officer and Sean Smith, an information management officer with the State Department who was also killed.

"They became separated from each other due to the heavy, dark smoke while trying to evacuate the burning building," the unnamed official said. The security officer and others returned to the burning consulate to find the ambassador and Smith. "This was really quite a heroic effort."

"At that time, they found Sean. He was already dead, and they pulled him from the building," the official said. "They were unable, however, to locate Chris before they were driven from the building due to the heavy fire and smoke and the continuing small arms fire."

At 10:45 p.m., security personnel tried to retake the main building but were repelled. At 11:20 p.m., U.S. and Libyan security forces were then able to retake the main building and evacuated personnel they found there to an annex. 

The annex also came under fire at midnight, an onslaught lasting two hours that claimed the lives of two more Americans and wounded another two. By 2:30 a.m., Libyan forces helped the Americans to take control.

"At some point in all of this, and frankly, we do not know when, we believe that Ambassador Stevens got out of the building and was taken to a hospital in Benghazi. 

"We do not have any information what his condition was at that time. His body was later returned to U.S. personnel at the Benghazi airport," an official said. "I think it was already dawn in Libya."

"There are reports out there that I cannot confirm that he was brought to the hospital by Libyans who found him," the official said. "Obviously, he had to get there somehow. No Americans were responsible for that."

"We were not able to see him until his body was returned to us at the airport," an official said when asked to confirm whether Stevens died from smoke inhalation. "You can imagine that we will not be able to say anything about the cause of death until we've had a chance to perform an autopsy."

American authorities brought in a chartered aircraft from Tripoli to Benghazi to evacuate all of the Americans to Tripoli. From there, they were evacuated to Germany.

The officials repeatedly ducked questions about Stevens' security arrangements. And they offered no details about the protests that reportedly came before the attack.

But they disputed the notion that he was under-protected.

"There was no information and there were no threat streams to indicate that we were insufficiently postured," one official said.

According to the State Department, five American ambassadors had been killed by terrorists before the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi. 

The most recent was Adolph Dubs, killed after being kidnapped in Afghanistan in 1979. The others were John Gordon Mein, in Guatemala in 1968; Cleo A. Noel Jr., in Sudan in 1973; Rodger P. Davies, in Cyprus in 1974; and Francis E. Meloy Jr., in Lebanon in 1976.

In the violence on that Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012, protesters with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades attacked the consulate and set it on fire, Libyan officials said. 

Some reports said American guards inside the consulate had fired their weapons, and a brigade of Libyan security forces arriving on the scene had battled the attackers in the streets as well.

Meanwhile, in Cairo, Egypt, thousands of unarmed protesters to gather outside the American embassy during the same day.

Protesters climbed the walls of the United States Embassy in Cairo and took down the American flag - replacing it with a black flag with an Islamic inscription to protest a movie attacking Islam’s prophet, Muhammad.

Hundreds of protesters marched to the fortress-like embassy in downtown Cairo, gathering outside its walls and chanting slogans against the movie, whose origins are mysterious but which was reportedly produced in the United States.

“Say it, don’t fear: Their ambassador must leave,” the crowd chanted.

By evening the protest had grown, with thousands standing outside the embassy, chanting: “Islamic, Islamic. The right of our prophet will not die.” A group of women in robes and veils that left only their eyes exposed chanted, “Worshipers of the cross, leave the Prophet Muhammad alone.”

Some had climbed over the wall around the embassy compound and destroyed a flag hanging inside. Dozens of protesters then scaled the walls of the embassy building, went into its courtyard and took down the flag from a pole.

They brought it back to the crowd outside, which tried to burn it, but failing that, tore it apart.

The protesters raised a black flag with a Muslim declaration of faith on it: “There is no god but God, and Muhammad is his prophet.” The flag, similar to Al Qaeda’s banner, is popular with ultraconservatives around the region.

Nearly all the embassy staff members had left the compound before the protest, and the ambassador was out of town.

The protesters replaced it with a black flag favored by ultraconservatives and militants and labeled with the most basic Islamic profession of faith: “There is no god but God, and Muhammad is his prophet.” 

Embassy guards fired guns into the air, but a large contingent of Egyptian riot police officers on hand to protect the embassy evidently did not use their weapons against the crowd, and the protest continued, largely without violence, into the night.

A spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, the mainstream Islamist group and the sponsor of Egypt’s first elected president, Mohamed Morsi, urged the United States government on Tuesday to prosecute the “madmen” behind the video, according to the English-language Web site of the state newspaper, Al Ahram.

The spokesman asked for a formal apology from the United States government and warned that events like the video were damaging Washington’s relations with the Muslim world. He also emphasized that any protests should remain peaceful and respect property.

There should be “civilized demonstrations of the Egyptian people’s displeasure with this film,” the Brotherhood spokesman said, according to the newspaper Web site. “Any non-peaceful activity will be exploited by those who hate Islam to defame the image of Egypt and Muslims.”

Bracing for trouble before the start of the protests here and in Libya, the American Embassy released a statement shortly after noon that appeared to refer to Terry Jones, a Florida pastor who promoted the video: 

“The United States Embassy in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims - as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.” It later denounced the “unjustified breach of our embassy.”

~

The Cardinal Crisis

Federal Reserve Chairman Benjamin Bernanke

Ben Bernanke & The Federal Reserve: 

Twisting & Twirling Into Hyper-Inflation and Economic Collapse

by Theodore White, mundane Astrolog.Sci

"A borrower nor a lender be," Benjamin Franklin.

Those are wise words from a famous man whose face graces the $100 dollar bill. 

It has been six years since my forecast of the America's economic crisis. That was back in 2006, when few people believed what I knew was coming - the financial onslaught which has ravaged the economies of many nations countries worldwide.

The truth of the matter is that widespread corruption among international bankers and criminal organizations have wrought heavy loads of debt onto society that simply cannot be paid. 

The United States - under the horrid 'managment' of a dysfunctional baby boomer establishment and their parents, a sick maladaptive oligarchy now shuffling off this mortal coil - has fallen into deep recession that borders on economic depression.

Simply put, those aged 60 and older have been stealing from the future to pay for their present. This, in essence, has been the meaning of 'kicking the can down the road.'

It was excess during the late 1990s through the 2000s - that of money liquidity - that created the economic crisis in the first place. We call this financial bubbles.

Central to all of the financial troubles are the banks, operated and run as criminal organizations fleecing Americans and other sovereign nations.

The banks have been allowed to function as if they were actually in the business of lending money, which they are not doing, as they hoard billions of dollars of fiat money printed by the Federal Reserve.

The Federal Reserve announced it would spend $40 billion a month on bond purchases in an effort to stimulate the economy and drive the the unemployment rate down.

Unlike the first two rounds of Quantitative Easing, or rather, the printing of money out of thin air, this time the Fed will focus solely on buying mortgage-backed securities.

In its statement, the Federal Reserve said the economy was growing but at a sluggish pace. 

See how the Fed's statement morphed from August to September, here.

"The Committee is concerned that, without further policy accommodation, economic growth might not be strong enough to generate sustained improvement in labor market conditions," the Federal Open Market Committee said. 

Remember the Fed has a dual mandate from a baby boomer-run Congress: keep inflation and the unemployment rate in check.

This action also represents an open-ended commitment on the part of the Federal Reserve, which said it was not concerned about inflation at this time. 

Another big announcement was that the Federal Reserve said that it will keep its federal funds rate at near zero through mid-2015 so savers of money and investors continue to be penalized.

"If the outlook for the labor market does not improve substantially, the Committee will continue its purchases of agency mortgage-backed securities, undertake additional asset purchases, and employ its other policy tools as appropriate until such improvement is achieved in a context of price stability," the Fed said. 

That last line means that the Fed promises to "tweak" this program if inflation begins to be a problem.

The Federal Reserve also announced that it was continuing its so-called "Operation Twist" until the end of the year. That means that the Fed will "continue its program of selling shorter-dated government debt and buying longer-term securities."

Only one of the Fed presidents voted against this new policy. 

The dissenter was Jeffrey Lacker, the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, who, according to the statement, "opposed additional asset purchases and preferred to omit the description of the time period over which exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate are likely to be warranted."

The scale of the new effort is significantly smaller than the Fed's previous rounds of asset purchases. The Fed purchased about $100 billion in securities each month during those campaigns. 

It said on Thursday, September 13, 2012, that it would target a rate of about $40 billion a month of purchases during the current campaign; although unlike the first two qualitative easing, the volume of purchases will now be subject to adjustment.

"The new purchases will mark the first time in more than two years that the Fed has expanded its holdings of mortgage bonds. That decision reflects the Fed's view that the housing market still needs help, and that lower rates on mortgage loans could provide significant benefits for the broader economy."

But, New York-based financial expert and investment advisor Reggie Middleton says that he exposes what he calls is a "blatant lie from the Benjamin Bernanke and the Federal Reserve."

The Cardinal Crisis

Elderly Greeks at a political rally: Are older people partly to blame for Europe's debt crisis?

image: DPA

Global Economic Crisis Morphs into Generational Conflict?

By David Böcking

People vs. Banks. North vs. South. Rich vs. Poor? 

While all of these conflicts may be real, one of the biggest issues of the global economic crisis is rarely discussed: 

Older people are living at the expense of the young, and it's high time the next generation took to the streets to confront their parents.

"Que se vayan todos," or "Away with all of them," became one of the slogans chanted by the tens of thousands of "Indignados" in Spain at protests last year.

In addition to their eponymous outrage, many had one thing in common: 

Most were young and viewed themselves as victims of the crisis.

They might have been more specific and instead chanted: "All the old people must go!" 

This phrase would apply because, in many ways, the euro crisis is also a conflict between generations -- the flush baby boomers today living prosperously at the expense of young people.

Intergenerational equity - measured among other things by levels of direct and hidden debts and pension entitlements - is particularly low in Southern Europe. 

In a 2011 study of intergenerational equity in 31 countries by the Bertelsmann Foundation, Greece came in last place. Italy, Portugal and Spain didn't do much better, landing in 28th, 24th and 22nd place respectively. Currently, the unequal distribution of income and opportunities is particularly distinct:

The employment market collapse has hit young Europeans much harder than older generations. In Greece and Spain more than half of those under age 25 are unemployed - twice the rate of older workers. 

Things are even worse in parts of southern Italy, where youth unemployment has risen above 50 percent.

One reason for this situation is unequal employment circumstances. 

Older Spaniards and Italians, for example, profit from worker protection laws preventing them from getting fired that are quite strong by international comparison. 

But almost half of young Italians and 60 percent of young Spaniards are on temporary employment contracts and can easily lose their jobs.

The burdens and risks of the euro bailouts are also mainly borne by young people. Ultimately, growing national debts and bailout funds worth billions will be financed through bonds that won't be due for many years to come.

Excess of Power

Repression of youth in Spain

Bankers and politicians aren't the only ones responsible for the crisis, either. Many from the older generations were accomplices in the faltering system. 

Almost every family in Greece had a member who profited from the bloated state apparatus as a civil servant. Baby boomers in Spain took on mortgages en masse, pushing their country into the debt crisis. 

And in Italy, politicians like Silvio Berlusconi were re-elected repeatedly because their tricks were apparently met with great sympathy - pensioners have been among the former prime minister's most important constituencies.

So why aren't more young people getting outraged?

There are signs that they may be starting to focus on the issue.

In an article penned for the German daily Die Tageszeitung, Italian writer Leonardo Palmisano wrote that the debate over job protection in his home country was "less about class than about age." 

On the one side of the issue are the precariously employed young people, and on the other side the baby boomers with permanent contracts and secure pensions. 

The "C/S", or "Cinquanta/Sessantenni," older people in their late fifties and sixties, are the "protagonists of the Berlusconi regime," he writes, holding "an excess of power in their hands, without having the necessary skills to lead the country out of the crisis."

Of course, not all southern European seniors are little Berlusconis. Many older people are suffering under the impact of austerity measures too.

Nevertheless, in order to get honest answers about the crisis, it is important to pose questions about the responsibility older generations bear for the downturn.

In some cases, countries mulled uncomfortable labor market reforms that would have scaled back the privileges of older people.

And they considered increasing taxes for the rich and a tougher battle against tax evasion, which has long been viewed as a trivial offense. 

Both are measures that would impact older, wealthier people in particular.

A Vicious Cycle

But little happened, and another trend has emerged instead: After some initial self-criticism, conspiracy theories have begun spreading among southern Europeans. 

Whether the bogyman is Wall Street or Angela Merkel, they find someone else to blame for their misery. Berlusconi has become particularly bold once again, claiming that only he can solve the problems as he plans another political comeback.

So why aren't young southern Europeans rebelling more vehemently against this kind of sheer arrogance? The sad answer is that they would be biting the hand that feeds them. 

Lacking their own means in Italy, Spain, and Greece, young people - particularly men - are living with their parents well into their adulthood.

That, of course, makes it a lot more difficult to revolt. Or does it?

Greece

Nevertheless, Germans should hesitate before taking an overly haughty view of the situation.

The unsolved generational conflict in the south provides a foretaste of what could await Germany in the future, too.

Protests in Germany

It was only a few years ago that the then "grand coalition," a government comprised of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union and the center-left Social Democratic Party, pushed through a "pension guarantee" that prevents cuts to benefits for the elderly even if wages sink for young workers. 

Behind this decision was the fear there would be a backlash among outraged pensioners in the next election, but the additional costs will total some €18 billion ($22 billion), according to a study conducted by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a prominent German think tank.

Meanwhile, income distribution between generations in Germany threatens to soon become a "new social issue," warns a recent analysis in a journal published by the Munich-based Ifo Economic Institute. 

The disparity between what young and old people earn must shrink, it says. 

"Otherwise the conflict potential will increase."

Widespread Wealth Disparity

This gap is growing outside the euro zone, too. 

In the United States, household assets for those over 65 have increased by some 42 percent since 1984, according to the Pew Research Center. 

But those younger than 35 own 68 percent less than their peers did during the mid-1980s.

In the United Kingdom - where youth riots last year shocked the world - conservative politician David Willets published a book called, "The Pinch: How the Baby Boomers Took Their Children's Future And How They Can Give it Back," in 2010.

Riots in Britain

Willets writes that the next generation will have to work harder to pay off their debts, making future generations the real losers of the current financial crisis.

But just because someone writes about youth problems doesn't make him one of their allies. Willets named university tuition as one factor behind the disappearing wealth of young Brits. 

However, shortly after his book was published he became Minister of the State for Universities and Science in the Cameron administration and had no problem tripling university tuition. Willets, incidentally, is 56 years old.

Ultimately, young Europeans will have to assert their own interests. Maybe they should resurrect a slogan from the Baby Boomer Hippie protest movement of the 1960s: "Trust no one over 30!