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FEBRUARY 14, 20141

THE TRUMPET WEEKLY THE TRUMPET WEEKLY F E B R U A R Y 1 4 , 2 0 1 4

EU to seize pensions? 4

Did Germany just destroy the euro? 5

Why is Taiwan making nice with China?6

Will no one challenge Obamas executive orders?10

The Dow Jones looks a lot like 1929 11

BY ROBERT MORLEY

M A have virtually nothing saved ortheir retirement. Tat is a act. President Obamaemphasized this point in his State o the Unionspeech and proposed a dramatic solution. He wants you totrust your retirement money to the governmentso youcan be protected.

oday most workers dont have a pension, the presi-dent told the nation. A Social Security check ofen isntenough on its own. And while the stock market hasdoubled over the last ve years, that doesnt help olkswho dont have (k)s. Tats why tomorrow I will directthe reasury to create a new way or working Americans

to start their own retirement savings: myRA. Its aits

a new savings bond that encourages olks to build a nestegg. MyRA guarantees a decent return with no risk o los-ing what you put in.

Te presidents solution to the savings crisis: a myRA.He describes it as a risk- ree investment that comes with adecent return. Why hasnt someone thought of this before?

Because that kind o investment doesnt existanywhere,or ever! Tere is no such thing as a risk- ree investmentand especially one that also comes with a decent return.

Where is the president getting this stuff?Here is how the plan works. Anybody who makes less

than , household income can contribute to the

myRA. Contributions would be with afer-tax money. Once

The Government Is After YourRetirement Accounts

see RETIREMENT page 12

U.S. President Barack Obama delivers hiState of the Union speech on Capitol Hil

on January 28 in Washington, D.C

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FEBRUARY 14, 20142 THE TRUMPET WEEKLY

MIDDLE EAST

LOUAI BESHARA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

such as al Qaeda plot to acquire .Cutting-edge methods o terrorismdevelop in the Middle East.

Nineteenth-century diplomatsdubbed the Ottoman Empire the SickMan o Europe. Now I nominate thewhole Middle East as the Sick Man othe World.

Iran Touts Launch ofNew MissilesCNN | February 11

I lauding the success ul test-ring o new missiles, includingone designed to destroy all typeso enemy military equipment, statemedia said.

U.S. officials say theyre payingclose attention.

Te Iranian De ense Ministry said

The Sick Middle EastDaniel Pipes,NATIONAL REVIEWONLINE | February 10

M so deep in theMiddle East (minus remarkableIsrael) that outside powers cannotremedy them. Heres a ast summary:

Water is running out. A dam goingup on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia threat-ens to cut Egypts main water supply

by devastating amounts or years.Syria and Iraq suffer rom water crisesbecause the Euphrates and igris riv-ers are drying up.

People are also running out. Aferexperiencing a huge and disruptiveyouth bulge, the regions birth rate iscollapsing.

Poor schools, repressive govern-ments, and archaic social moresensure abysmal rates o economicgrowth. Starvation haunts Egypt,

Syria, Yemen, and A ghanistan.Vast reserves o oil and gas have

distorted nearly every aspect o li e. Efforts at democracy and politi-

cal participation either wither, as inEgypt, or elevate anatics who cleverlydisguise their purposes, as in urkey.Efforts to overthrow greedy tyrantslead to even worse ideological tyrants(as in Iran in ) or to anarchy (asin Libya and Yemen). One commonly

roots or both sides to lose. Middle Eastern li e suffers romacute biasesofen officialbasedon religion, sect, ethnicity, tribe, skincolor, nationality, gender, sexual orien-tation, age, citizenship, work and dis-ability. Slavery remains a scourge.

Middle Eastern states spendoutsized amounts o their wealth onintelligence services and the military,creating redundant orces to checkeach other. Even terrorist groups

N emitted gasps o astonishment when Syrian

President Bashar Assad missed the second deadline or the removal o his vast stockpile o chemical weapons.

February was supposed to be a momentous day: Te lastshipments o Assads deadly arsenal would be loaded ontoships in the port o Latakia to be taken out to sea or sa edisposal. As many anticipated, this didnt happen. Instead,February quietly slipped by, and Assad went on, not-so-quietly, with his civil war. No surprises there.

Nonetheless, the missed deadline is signicant becausethe United States still trusts Assad to ollow through onhis promise! Assad has proven that he couldnt care less orthe removal o his chemical weapons. He blew off his rstdeadline, December , when he was supposed to give upapproximately tons o his most toxic chemicals. But

rolled around, and the trucks ailed to roll in. Still,many in the international community crossed their ngersand hoped or the best.

As o February , Syria had success ully delivered ameasly percent o itsdisclosed chemical weapons . Te lastshipment came on January . From a declared stockpile oroughly , metric tons o chemicals, Syria has deliveredtwo shipmentsapproximately metric tons.

Its true that there have been no reports o Assad usinghis chemical weapons since the attack on Aug. , ,but Syrians are still dying by the thousands. Over ,

have died so ar in the constant bloodshed betweenAssads army and the increasingly radical rebel groups.Assad isnt changing his ways, nor is he getting rid o hischemicals.

Even i these chemicals are removed, there is a strongpossibility that Assad didnt ully reveal his stockpile toUN authorities. An article rom Londons Sunday imes reported: Te Israelis believe that some o the weaponry,mainly chemical warheads or missiles and artillery shells,is now concealed deep in the Alawite enclavein westSyria and along the coast around Latakia up to the urkishborder.

So Assad still has most o his declared chemicals plusthose he could be hiding, negotiations are ailing, and bothsides seem ated to ght it out until every building has beenleveled and every enemy killed.

Assad the FearlessCallum Wood | February 11

Syrian President Bashar Assadhas failed to meet two deadlines

for removing his stockpile ofchemical weapons.
https://www.thetrumpet.com/article/10678.29848.155.0/middle-east/iran/the-whirlwind-prophecyhttps://www.thetrumpet.com/article/10793.29807.0.0/world/military/whats-next-for-egypthttps://www.thetrumpet.com/article/11359.19.0.0/world/war/assad-the-fearlesshttps://www.thetrumpet.com/article/10027.28982.149.0/middle-east/the-deadliest-mystery-in-the-middle-easthttps://www.thetrumpet.com/article/9737.29033.147.0/middle-east/syria/how-the-syrian-crisis-will-endhttps://www.thetrumpet.com/article/9737.29033.147.0/middle-east/syria/how-the-syrian-crisis-will-endhttps://www.thetrumpet.com/article/9737.29033.147.0/middle-east/syria/how-the-syrian-crisis-will-endhttps://www.thetrumpet.com/article/9737.29033.147.0/middle-east/syria/how-the-syrian-crisis-will-endhttps://www.thetrumpet.com/article/10027.28982.149.0/middle-east/the-deadliest-mystery-in-the-middle-easthttps://www.thetrumpet.com/article/11359.19.0.0/world/war/assad-the-fearlesshttps://www.thetrumpet.com/article/10793.29807.0.0/world/military/whats-next-for-egypthttps://www.thetrumpet.com/article/10678.29848.155.0/middle-east/iran/the-whirlwind-prophecy

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the new missiles include a laser-guided sur ace-to-sur ace and air-to-sur ace missile as well as a new long-range ballistic missile that can carrymultiple warheads, Irans semi-officialFars news agency reported.

Iranian De ense Minister Brig. Gen.Hossein Dehqan said the long-rangeballistic missile can evade enemiesanti-missile de ense systems and has

the capability o destroying massive

targets and destroying multiple targets.Pentagon spokesman Adm. JohnKirby said the agency has seen thereports.

Irans missile program continuesto pose a dangerous threat to [the]region, and is an issue we monitorclosely, he said.

Kirby noted that UN SecurityCouncil Resolution prohibitsIran rom undertaking any activityrelated to ballistic missiles capable odelivering nuclear weapons, includ-

ing launches using ballistic missiletechnology. Fars said it happened on Mon-

day, the eve o the th anniversaryo the Islamic Revolution. Terevolution signied the end o IransWestern-backed monarchy under Mo-hammad Reza Shah Pahlavi and thebeginning o an Islamic republic.

On uesday, Iranian PresidentHassan Rouhani delivered a speechcelebrating the revolutionand

slamming the United States.Te revolution started because

people didnt want to accept humili-ation, Rouhani told his country. Isit possible or the great revolutionarypeople, it is possible or this nation toaccept humiliation by oreign powersor America afer years? It is as ithey have not recognized the great na-tion o Iran. Tey dont have the rightunderstanding and knowledge o the

Iranian people .

Egypt Military ChiefHeads to Moscow WASHINGTON POST| February 12

E chie headed to Mos-cow on Wednesday in his rst visitoutside the country since the ouster oits Islamist president and amid reportso a billion arms deal that wouldsignicantly expand Russias inuencewith a key U.S. ally in the Middle East.

In Moscow, Field Marshal Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi was scheduled to meetRussian President Vladimir Putin andspeak at a joint press con erence withhis Russian counterpart, Egypts statenews agency reported.

According to the state-owned daily Al-Ahram, the purpose o el-Sissis visit was to conclude a billion armsdeal unded mainly by Saudi Arabiaand the United Arab Emirates. Gen.

Hossam Sweilam, a retired Egyptianarmy general who maintains closecontact with the military, also said thedeal would be nalized in Moscow.

Te visit comes nearly three monthsafer Russian Foreign Minister SergeyLavrov and De ense Minister SergeiShogiu visited Cairo.

Moscow has been trying to expandits inuence in Egypt at a time whenEgyptian-U.S. relations soured in theafermath o President Mohamed Mor-sis ouster last July and the subsequent

crackdown on his Islamist supportersthat has lef hundreds dead and thou-sands arrested. Te United States hasbeen Cairos chie oreign backer andbene actor since the s.

Egypt has been the second-largestrecipientafer Israelo U.S. bilat-eral oreign assistance, largely as a wayto sustain the Egypt-Israeli peacetreaty. Washington roze a large chunko about . billion in annual aid,mostly or the military, in October.

I P Hassan Rouhani hit out on uesdayat Western assertions that a military solution to a nucleardispute with ehran remained an option and pledged that

ehran would press on orever with what he called peace-ul atomic research.

In a speech marking the th anniversary o the Islamic revolution, Rouhani also attacked economic sanc-tions imposed by the West as brutal, illegal and wrongand said countries in the region had nothing to ear romIran.

Rouhani said Western officials continued to argue thati such efforts came to nothing, there was always the optiono using military orce against its nuclear acilities.

I say explicitly to those delusional people who say themilitary option is on the table, that they should changetheir glasses. Our nation regards the language o threatas rude and offensive, he said.

I want to expressly announce that the movement o theIranian nation toward the peaks o scientic and techni-cal progress and advancement , including peace ul nucleartechnology, will be orever, he added.

In recent weeks Iranian officials have repeatedly criti-cized U.S. Secretary o State John Kerry or speaking abouta potential military option, something his counterparts inseveral other Western countries have continued to do.

Kerry told Saudi-owned al Arabiya television on Janu-ary that i ehran did not abide by the interim deal themilitary option o the United States is ready and preparedto do what it would have to do.

Rouhani said that i major powers approached Iran inthe nuclear talks seeking mutual interest, respect and coop-eration, they would receive a positive and proper response.I their approach was inappropriate, this would be harm ulto the region .

Rude and Offensive Threat of Military ActionCBS NEWS| February 10

The only way to win such a war is to deal with the main source of the terrorism, or cut off the head of the terrorist snake. But neither the U.S. norIsrael has the will to tackle Iraneven though it is the key part of the axis ofevil in the Middle East. Trumpet, November 2003
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EUROPE

A a sudden, Germany says it wants to be a grown-up.

Tere are people who use Germanys guilt in thepast as an excuse or withdrawal and laziness, PresidentJoachim Gauck said at the opening o the th Munich Se-curity Con erence late last month. Tis restraint can leadto a notion o being privileged, and i this is the case, I willalways criticize it.

Tese are remarkable sentences, a direct challenge toGermanys post-war pacist edice.

Tey are o a historic piece with a amous speech by oneo Mr. Gaucks predecessors, Richard von Weizscker, in

. Ten years afer Germanys capitulation in WorldWar Mr. Weizscker said that the Germans shouldregard themselves as a liberated people.

Now President Gauck is asking them or something more:Feel good about yoursel and eel responsible or others.

Tough Mr. Gauck, as president, has no ormal power,he was not alone. A ew minutes later, Germanys new

oreign and de ense ministers said much the same in theirown speeches. Te oreign minister, Frank-Walter Stein-meier, even repeated Mr. Gaucks rhetoric: German contri-butions to international politics should come earlier, moresubstantially and more decisively.

Officials amiliar with the speeches told me thatMr. Gauck and Mr. Steinmeier had coordinated theirapproach well ahead o Munich. Tey had also in ormed

Chancellor Angela Merkel. She chose to remain silent, butshe, too, will soon have to show her colors.Tis is not what the world has come to expect rom

Germany, nor is it something Germany is entirely com ort-able with. Now, at least rhetorically, it may be takingup a political role commensurate with its outsized globaleconomic power.

Ask the coalition partners how they imagine Germa-nys new role, and the answers could not be more different.

Social Democrats will tell you a lot about strengthen-ing civilian crisis prevention, rethinking arms exports and

generally being skeptical toward expensive de ense projects.In contrast, Christian Democrats will emphasize the

need to maintain and expand the capabilities o the Ger-man Army, in technical as well as in legal terms.

Some even argue that the German Parliament shouldgrant the army units a general mandatethat is, permis-sion to use orce without Parliaments specic approvalithey do so within or European Union structures.

Tis last item is a necessary step i Germany is going tohelp create the nucleus o a true European de ense capabil-ity and become, to use the ashionable German phrase, an

Ahnlehnungs partnerroughly, a shoulder to lean on.Without un ettered leadership rom Germany, European-

level military operations will be hobbled. Te multinationalEuropean Union battle groups, or instance, have neverbeen used since their ormation in , although theycould have been help ul in theaters like Mali or the CentralA rican Republic. Why not? Because Germany, whose sizegave it a virtual veto, never wanted them to be used.

Tat said, the basic structures or such a role are qui-etly alling into place. On January , the Dutch govern-ment put , soldiers under German command as parto a binational rapid-response orce. Dutch soldiers, inother words, are happily receiving orders rom Germanofficers. A similar agreement is currently being discussedwith the government o Poland. It is extraordinary tothink o this happening years afer the outbreak oWorld War .

In act, the Great War may contain the kernel o the

kind o military synergy Germany could oster today,should Parliament step back. At the time, the GermanArmy consisted o the orces o our kingdoms: Prussia,Bavaria, Saxony and Wrttemberg. During times o peacethey were under the control o the local rulers; in wartime,like in , they merged to de end the German empire.

Germany could help lead the same sort o coordinationtoday, albeit under democratic, European terms, not impe-rial ones.

Ms. Merkel is, by all accounts, ar rom pleased with themessage rom Munich.

Can Germany Grow Up? Jochen Bittner,NEW YORK TIMES| February 12

EU to Seize Pensions?REUTERS| February 12

T o the EuropeanUnions million citizens couldbe used to und long-term invest-ments to boost the economy and helpplug the gap lef by banks since thenancial crisis, an EU document says.

Te EU is looking or ways to weanthe -country bloc rom its heavyreliance on bank nancing and nd

other means o unding small compa-nies, in rastructure projects and otherinvestment.

Te economic and nancial crisishas impaired the ability o the nan-cial sector to channel unds to thereal economy, in particular long-terminvestment, said the document, seenby Reuters.

Te Commission will ask the blocsinsurance watchdog in the second halo this year or advice on a possible

draf law to mobilize more personalpension savings or long-term nanc-ing, the document said.

Banks have complained they arehindered rom lending to the economyby post-crisis rules orcing them tohold much larger sa ety cushions ocapital and liquidity.

Te EU executive will also com-plete a study by the end o this year onthe easibility o introducing an EUsavings account, open to individuals

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FEBRUARY 14, 20145 THE TRUMPET WEEKLY ULI DECK/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

whose unds could be pooled andinvested in small companies.

TW I N B R I E Fn EU secretly funds drone projectTe EU has spent . million devel-oping surveillance drones, under theguise o science research, civil liberties

group Statewatch reported on Febru-ary . No democratic body is over-seeing the project, nor did any granttheir approval. Last December, BritishPrime Minister David Cameronblocked plans or the EU to developand operate its own drones, howeverthat did not stop this program. Teassurances sound all well and good,but turn out to be hollow, said BritishM.P. Bernard Jenkin. Te project aimsto develop drones or civilian airspace,

rather than military-style drones likeAmericas Predator and Reaper drones.Te project shows that when high pro-le pan-European de ense initiativesare blocked, officials will still try andwork under the radar to get whatthey want.

n Switzerland rejects EU

immigrationSwiss voters decided to impose quotason the number o EU residents movingto the country, in a re erendum held onFebruary . Switzerlands agreementto allow an unlimited number o EUnationals to move reely to Switzer-land, and vice versa, is a key part o itsrelationship with the EU. It was part oa whole bundle o agreements that spe-cically states that i Switzerland rejectsone part, it rejects them all. But Swiss

voters were so ed up with unlimited EUimmigration that they chose to jeopar-dize their relationship with the EU and

vote against all the major parties in there erendumthough the vote was veryclose, the winning side had . percent.Britain is hosting exactly the samedebate, where unlimited migration isalso one o the most disliked parts o

EU membership. Unpopularity o theEU is growing across the ContinentSwiss voters, who can easily call orre erendaare the ones that can mosteasily express their displeasure. Ulti-mately, the EU will be whittled downto an inner core o nations or groupso nationsa core that will not includeBritain. For more in ormation on whatto expect rom the EU, see our article:EU Membership: A Dening MomentApproaches or Britain.

B summer o , things were looking desperateor the euro. Greece, Ireland and then Portugal hadbeen orced to ask the EU or a bailout. Ten it was the bigboys turn: Spain and Italy were next. It was so expensive

or them to borrow money that neither could keep goingor long. But a bailout o these nations would be hugely

expensive. Tere seemed no way or the euro to survive.Into the breach stepped the new head o the European

Central Bank ( ), Mario Draghi, wielding what has some-how become known as a big bazooka. I a government hadtrouble borrowing the money it needed to keep going, hepromised to print an unlimited amount o money and lendit (in a convoluted way) to the troubled government, in aprocess called Outright Monetary ransactions ( ).

Draghi hoped that this bazooka would never needto be used. I investors believed that the would neverallow a government to go bankrupt, then they would lendmoney more easily.

It worked. Te euro crisis peaked in the autumn o .It has still been simmering away, never actually solved, butDraghis move averted the immediate danger. Until lastFriday.

On that day, the German Constitutional Court, basedin Karlsruhe, issued a ruling saying that it considers incompatible with primary law.

Te way the court made the ruling, however, hasthrown up a lot o con usion. Afer saying it was sure was illegal, it re erred the case to the European Court oJustice ( ).

Te should have no trouble ignoring EU law and

ruling Draghis actions legal. But Germanys ConstitutionalCourt does not consider the a higher court.

I the says that everything is ne, that will triggera showdown with Germanys top court, and the willalmost certainly be overruled. It might be much sa er or

to rubber stamp the courts decision.Even in the months that it takes the to consider the

matter, Draghis bazooka seems disabled. Te Germancourt has parked a tank on the lawn o the , the ele-

graph s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard quoted an anonymousexpert closely involved with the case.

Te German courts ruling will probably be orgotten,until the next crisis. At that point, investors will not havethe condence they once had in Draghis bazookaand itscondence-boosting was always its greatest strength. Te

s attempts to create some kind o udge that preventsan economic emergency has been thwarted by the GermanConstitutional Court.

A ull-blown crisis is now inevitable, and that crisis willorce Europe to unite like never be ore.

Did Germany Just Destroy the Euro?Callum Wood | February 12

Andreas Vosskuhle, Chairman of the Second Senate of the Federal

Constitutional Court, opens a hearingat the court in southern Germany.
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Japan Tires of SayingSorry for Its Past WALL STREET JOURNAL| February 11

I words o Nobumasa Akiyama,a okyo academic and commenta-tor, Japan is ed up afer all these yearswith playing the role o a good loser,the country that bowed its head aferde eat in World War and accepted a

orever diminished status as a nation.And that, he says, accounts in part

or the spectacular domestic political

success o Prime Minister Shinzo Abe,who is striving to remove a post-warstigma that hangs over a vanquishedpeople tired o being apologetic or thepast.

At its root, Mr. Abes campaignto make Japan a normal countryinvolves an effort to rewrite the coun-trys unique no-war constitutionimposed on it during the U.S. post-war occupation. Hes boosting de ensespending, albeit minimally. And hes

become a high-prole diplomatic actor

in the region and beyond.Japanese nationalists are sick oJapan being treated as the good loser,says Mr. Akiyama, a pro essor at theSchool o International and PublicPolicy at Hitotsubashi University. Wedont want to be losers anymore.

Teres no doubt that Mr. Abe is anationalist. And his pitch to restore Ja-pans pride in its past, and condencein its uture, is resonating particularlywell with younger Japanese who dont

eel like carrying the burden o de eat

some years afer the end o wartimehostilities. Such views, however, are part o

a historical narrative unashamedlypresented at a museum attached to theYasukuni war shrine, which Mr. Abe visited last December afer about ayear in office.

Tat visit shocked the region, calledinto question Mr. Abes political

judgment in Washington, and openedhim to accusations rom China that

he is an unrepentant militarist bent

on challenging the post-war peace inAsia.But it did him no real damage in

Japan. A recent poll showed that percent o Japanese supported Mr.Abes visit to the shrine, while per-cent opposed it. Mr. Abe himselarticulates his mission to end Japansstatus as a good loser in a slightlydifferent way. He has an expression or

C aiwan held a landmark meeting on Febru-

ary to establish representative offices (equivalent toembassies or consulates) that will enable closer coopera-tion between the two sides. Te talk was the rst o its kindsince aiwans establishment, and is the latest o manysignicant measures showing that reconciliation between

aiwan and China is near.ension has saturated the relationship between Beijing

and aipei since aiwans establishment in . But whenChina- riendly Ma Ying-Jeou became aiwans presidentin , he began making conciliatory overtures towardBeijing, and the cross-Strait rost began to thaw. Te twosides o the aiwan Strait should not quarrel, Ma said in

. We should instead ocus on encouraging and helpingeach other grow in terms o the core values o reedom,democracy, human rights and rule o law.

Ma explained that since people on both sides o theaiwan Strait share common ancestry, they should build

mutual trust and dispel their disagreements.Te warming relationship between China and aiwan is

bad news or the U.S. and other nations concerned aboutChinas ascendancy. For many years, aiwan has been thebest location rom which to monitor Chinas rise because o

both the islands advanced in ormation technology and itsproximity to China. Shared language, ethnicity and culturealso allow aiwanese spies to blend into Chinese society,giving them a great advantage in their reconnaissance mis-sions. But now aiwan appears to be questioning its role obeing the eyes and ears or other nations. Reports say thatMa has already halted the activities o some aiwanese spyagents operating in China, and is now planning to stopsharing intelligence with the U.S. and its allies.

Te rumpet has long predicted the China- aiwan rec-onciliation, which is now gaining great momentum. Howcould anyone ail to see that aiwan is destined to becomea part o mainland China? editor in chie Gerald Flurrywrote back in .

Te establishment o the representative offices maybecome a key step toward ulllment o that bold geopoliti-cal prediction. We can expect Chinas gentle approach with

aiwan to continue until aipei is offered something simi-lar to the status Hong Kong currently holds. I aipei wereto re use Chinas increasingly bold advances, then Beijingwould probably respond with threats o orcebut underMas Beijing- riendly rule, such re usals are becoming lessand less likely. Follow Jeremiah Jacques: Twitter

Taiwan Edging Back Into the Chinese Fold Jeremiah Jacques | February 13

[I]f the restrictions are lifted, would Japan behave responsibly? Are the newgenerations of leaders and citizensrepentant over the nations past atrocities? Have the Japanese changed? [A]dangerous number of modern Japanese view their nations wartime atrocities with pride. As the U.S. snubs history, turns inward and ignores geopoliti-cal shifts, the barriers established toprevent another world war are beingsystematically dismantled. Trumpet, December 2013

ASIA
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it that roughly translates as leavingthe post-war behind.

TW I N B R I E F

n China to participate in U.S.-Thailand military drillsFor the rst time ever, Chinese troopswill participate in the Cobra Goldmilitary drills, with soldiers rom the

United States, Tailand, South Korea,Japan and other nations. China wasinvited by the U.S. because Washing-ton hopes Beijing will contribute tothe long-term stability o the region,especially in anti-terrorist operations,rescue operations, anti-smuggling,anti-piracy and other areas, saidretired Peoples Liberation ArmyGen. Xu Guangyu. Back in December,Chinese Communist troops conductedexercises on U.S. soil or the rsttime. At that time, rumpet columnist

Robert Morley explained why suchdecisions are oolish on Washingtonspart: U.S. policymakers see thesemilitary exercises as a way to ostertrust between nations. Tey see themas a critical rst step in reducing thechances o international accidentsand eventually turning these nations

rom enemies to allies. But invitingenemies into your house in an attemptto make them riends, or even just tolearn more about their capabilities, is adangerous game.

LATIN AMERICA/AFRICA

Related: Is Japans Military Secret About to Come Out?

UN to France:

More TroopsREUTERS| February 11

UN S General Ban Ki-moon said on [February ] hehas asked France to consider sendingmore troops to the Central A ricanRepublic because the internationalresponse to the crisis does not yetmatch the gravity o the situation.

Ban said violence between Chris-tians and Muslims continued to

worsen and he was gravely concerned

that the violence in the landlockedormer French colony could spiral into

a genocide. Te sectarian brutality is chang-

ing the countrys demography, Bantold reporters. We must do more toprevent more atrocities, protect civil-ians, restore law and order, providehumanitarian assistance and hold thecountry together.

Te international response mustbe robust with a credible deploymento orce It must be swif i we areto prevent the worst-case scenario,

said Ban, who is due to report to the

United Nations Security Council inMarch on options or trans ormingthe current A rican Union peacekeep-ing orce into a UN operation.

I call on the European Union to ac-celerate the deployment o its militaryoperation, he said. I spoke yesterdaywith French Foreign Minister LaurentFabius and asked France to considerdeploying additional troops, Im urg-ing other willing member states tocontribute as well.

Related: Germanys Africa Strategy

ANGLO-AMERICA

Power Grid AttackBafes AuthoritiesLOS ANGELES TIMES| February 11

T afer midnight, two or

more armed individuals so def thatthey cut telecommunication cables inan underground vault and outsmartedsecurity cameras and motion sensorsat the power substation in a remotecorner o Santa Clara County.

At daylight, agents beganpouring over time-lapse photographs

rom the surveillance cameras. Butthe photos revealed only staccatomuzzle ashes rom a semiautomaticweapon and sparks as shots hit rows o

trans ormers. Tere was not a ace, nora shadow, o who was doing the ring.

Te shooters disappeared into thegloom minutes be ore the rst policecar arrived.

Te military-style raid on April

knocked out giant trans ormers atthe Metcal ransmission Substation,which eeds power to Silicon Valley.Te is still working the case, andagents say they are condent it wasnot the work o terrorists.

What they do not have is a motive,ngerprints or suspects.

But theories are piling up. Was it amodern-day Monkey Wrench Gangbent on eco-terrorism? Was it a test othe vulnerability o the U.S. electrical

grid? Was it a dress rehearsal or alarger attack to come?

Was it an inside job by disgruntledPacic Gas and Electric Co. employ-ees? Was it related to the bombing othe Boston Marathon across the coun-

try only hours earlier? Was it aimedat killing power in Silicon Valley, asone official wondered, maybe some-body trying to knock down service toGoogle or something?

Utility officials quickly reroutedpower around the site, and nearbypower plants picked up the slack, sothere was no major blackout. And noone was injured. But it took utilitycrews nearly a month to repair thedamage.
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Gods UnbreakableCovenant With DavidTHE TRUMPET DAILY | February 13

STEPHEN FLURRY Its a promise God cannot and will not break!

ALSO SEE:n Why Build a Coronation Chair for a 2-Foot Slab of Sandstone?n Was Queen Victoria a Descendant of King David?

Click toPlay

Four Democratic senators onFriday urged utility regulators tobee up security at power plants andsubstations around the nation. Tey

said the sophisticated attack was awake-up call about threats to crucialin rastructure.

We ought to be hyper-alert, saidRep. Zoe Lo gren (D-San Jose), whosedistrict includes the substation. Tesewere pros.

Counter-terrorism officials haverepeatedly warned o a potentialcyberattack that could disable or crashelectric grids, causing outages and bil-lions o dollars in damage, and ederalauthorities and utilities have rushed to

bee up their digital de enses. But theassault miles southeast o San Josewas decidedly low-tech.

Law en orcement sources and oth-ers brie ed on the investigation saythe gunmen red rounds rom ahigh-powered rie and that nearly ev-ery shot hit the trans ormers yardsaway in a -minute period.

Te trans ormers began to leaktens o thousands o gallons o oil.Tey overheated and shut down, but

did not explode.Te attackers managed to disable

these trans ormers without blowingthem up and attracting attention,

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) saidon Fox News Sunday.Officials say the attackers brought

night-vision scopes or their weapons,used heavy wire cutters to snip ber-optic cables in a below-ground bunkerand knew the specic manholes toopen to reach the right cables.

Te team briey disabled the emergency system and phone lines.Tey set off a motion detector by the

ence be ore leaving, but the acil-ity sits beside U.S. , a convenient

escape route.Tey were clearly knowledgeableabout the layout o the substation andits communication systems, said one

ederal official, who, like others, wasspeaking condentially because theinvestigation is continuing.

Sources said investigators hadound no ngerprints on the shell cas-

ings, no matchable boot prints and notire tracks rom getaway vehicles.

A our-minute black-and-white

surveillance video, which the SantaClara County Sheriffs Office postedonline, shows little more than a lineo trees and ashes o light along achain-link perimeter ence, possiblyincluding a waving ashlight.

No phone calls, e-mails or lettershave claimed responsibility, at leastnone that are credible, one officialsaid.

Everything now plays into mo-tivation, an official said. Youknow what happened but not yet whomight have done it. So a couple o keythoughts come into play. How sophis-ticated were they, and what was theirintent here?

Authorities are airly certain thatthe assailants in Cali ornia were notdrunk hunters or bored teenagers on alate-night lark.

Tey knew what they wanted totarget, they had an objective and car-ried it out, said Jon Wellinghoff, whowas chairman o the Federal EnergyRegulatory Commission at the time othe shooting. You dont learn rom a

video game how to target an AK- inthose kinds o conditions as preciselyas these people did.

Obamacare EnrollmentRate Slows

WEEKLY STANDARD| February 13

O W , the Departmento Health and Human Servicesannounced that enrollment in theObamacare private exchanges in-creased by , , in January. InDecember, reported , ,enrollees in the month o December.Tat suggests a drop-off o approxi-mately , , or percent.

Yet this underestimates the true ex-tent o enrollment drop-offs. Te reporting period or December was

our weeks . Te reporting periodor January was ve weeks . Tis

suggests that in December, enroll-ments averaged , per week,compared to , in January, or a

percent drop-off in new enrollees.It is clear by now that the admin-

istration will not reach the original estimate o million enrollees by
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Arguments in avor o a globalcurrency resur aced during OctobersU.S. budget impasse, which orced the

government to shut down.It is perhaps a good time or the

be uddled world to start considering

building a de-Americanized world,a Xinhua News Agency commentarysaid on October . Te piece arguedthat creating a new internationalreserve currency to replace reliance on

the greenback would prevent govern-ment gridlock in Washington romaffecting the rest o the world.

In March , Chinas centralbank governor, Zhou Xiaochuan,called or the creation o a new super-sovereign reserve currency to replacethe dollar. In a paper published on thePeoples Bank o Chinas website, Zhousaid an international reserve currency

disconnected rom individual nationsand able to remain stable in the longrun would benet the global nancial

system more than current reliance onthe dollar. Pierre De raigne, executive director

o the Madariaga College o EuropeFoundation in Brussels, said o Linsin rastructure proposal, It is excel-lent, but the problem is how to imple-ment these plans to link those coun-tries that need such in rastructuralconstruction and those with enough

oreign reserves, by using an effectiveglobal mechanism.

Urgent Buildup ofGerman Military The massive demonstrations in the streets of Ukrainegave the German people and their leaders an urgency

they have not had before about building up their military.GERALD FLURRY

Click toPlay

P O State o the Union pledge to actwith or without Congress marks a milestone in presi-dential usurpation o Congressional authority. Most mod-ern presidents have used executive orders to change andeven create laws without Congressional approval. HoweverPresident Obama is unusually brazen, in that most presi-dents do not brag about their plans to rule by executiveorder in State o the Union speeches.

Sadly, his pledge to use his pen to implement laws andpolices without the consent o Congress not only receivedthunderous applause rom representatives o the presidentsparty, some representatives have even pledged to helpObama get around Congress by providing him with ideas

or executive orders. Te Constitutions authors would behorried to see legislators actively aiding and abetting apresident taking power away rom the legislature.

Executive orders are per ectly legitimate and evennecessary i , in the words o leading Constitutional ScholarJudge Andrew Napolitano, they guide the executivebranch on how to en orce a law or complement andsupplement what Congress has already done. Te problemis that most modern presidents have abused this powerto issue orders that, as Judge Napolitano puts it, restates

ederal law, or contradicts ederal law, or does the oppositeo what the ederal law is supposed to do.

Political opponents o the president rightly condemnedObama or disregarding the Constitution. However, itwas not that long ago that many o the same politicianswere labeling as unpatriotic or worse anyone who daredquestion President Bushs assertions the he had the inher-ent authority to launch wars, spy on Americans, and evenindenitely detain American citizens.

Partisan considerations also make some members othe opposition party hesitate to reign in the president.Tese members are reluctant to set a precedent o tyingthe presidents hands that could be used against a uturepresident o their own party.

Te people must also insist that politicians stop viewingissues concerning the separation o powers through a parti-san lens and instead be willing to act against any presidentwho exceeds his constitutional limitations. Te key toachieving this goal is to make sure the people understandthat any president o any party who would exceed constitu-tional limitations is a threat to liberty, and any member oCongress who ignores or acilitates presidential usurpationis being derelict in his Constitutional duty.

Will No One Challenge Obamas Executive Orders?Ron Paul,ZEROHEDGE| February 10
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T eerie parallels between the stock markets recentbehavior and how it behaved right be ore the crash.Tat, at least, is the conclusion reached by a rightening

chart that has been making the rounds on Wall Street. Techart superimposes the markets recent per ormance ontop o a plot o its gyrations in and .

Te picture isnt pretty. And its not as easy as you mightthink to wriggle out rom underneath the bearish signi-cance o this chart.

I should know, because I quoted a number o this chartsskeptics in a column I wrote in early December. Yet themarket over the past two months has continued to more orless closely ollow the - pattern outlined in that two-months-ago chart. I this correlation continues, the market

aces a particularly rough period later this month and inearly March. (See chart, courtesy o om McClellan o theMcClellan Market Report; he in turn gives credit to om

DeMark, a noted technical analyst who is the ounder and o DeMark Analytics.)

One o the biggest objections I heard two months agowas that the chart was a shameless exercise in afer-the- actretrotting o the recent data to some past price pattern.But that objection has lost much o its orce. Te chart wasrst publicized in late November o last year, and the cor-relation since then certainly appears to be just as close as itwas be ore.

o be sure, as McClellan acknowledged: Every patternanalog I have ever studied breaks correlation eventually,and ofen at the point when I am most counting on it tocontinue working. So there is no guarantee that the markethas to continue ollowing through with every step o the

pattern. But between now and May , there isplenty o reason or caution.

One o the market gurus responsible or widely pub-licizing this chart is hedge- und manager Doug Kass, oSeabreeze Partners and ame. In an email earlier thisweek, Kass wrote o the parallels with - : While invest-

ment history doesntnecessarily repeatitsel , it does rhyme.And, based on anumber o indica-tors rather than justthis chart drawingthe - parallel,he believes that thecorrection mighthave just started, hesaid.

DeMark is even

more outspokenlybearish. You may still be

inclined to dismissthis. But many morewere laughing lastNovember whenthis scary chart be-gan circulating. Notas many are laugh-ing now.

Trouble Lies Directly AheadMark Hulbert,MARKET WATCH| February 11

T W I N B R I E F

n England suffers wettest Januaryon recordA total o , homes have oodedover the last weeks, as Englandexperienced its wettest January since

, part o an unprecedented serieso record-breaking wet weather. Tecountry has aced an extraordinaryperiod o severe weather and oodingsince the start o December, with thewettest December in years in central

southern and southeast England aswell as the biggest east coast stormsurge in years ollowed by thewettest January on record, wrote theEnvironment Agency on February .Te Guardian reported that total costscould hit . billion, according to in-surance experts. During the past week,

homes ooded. Te rain has notstopped, and the ood seems certainto continue. Te British GeologicalSurvey warned that even i the rain

stopped right now, so much water hassoaked into the ground, that water lev-els would continue to rise. It estimatedthat . million properties in Englandand Wales are at risk o groundwaterooding. Britain has gone rom seriousdrought to record rain in just a mattero months. What is the cause or allthis unusual weather? For the answer,read the cover article o our September

rumpet edition, Are You Caus-ing Climate Change?
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in retirement, withdrawals are tax- ree.I that sounds a lot like a Roth ,

thats because it is a lot like a Roth something that is already available to

olks who dont have (k)s, and thatthe president is seemingly pretending tobe oblivious to.

Tere is a big difference though. Ina Roth , you can invest in virtually anything you want.You choose. With the presidents myRA, you only get oneinvestment choice. What is it?

You guessed it! Te only thing you can invest in isgovernment bonds.

As the Daily Progress reports, Never in the history oretirement planning have the choices offered to workersbeen more severely restricted or more inappropriate.

You cant make this stuff up. Yet it gets better.Te bonds in the myRA will be modeled on the govern-

ments Trif Savings Plan Government Securities Fund.Guess how much the government und returned in

? . percent. How about over the past three years?. percent.

Tis is the great investment the president is offering?Tis will solve the retirement crisis? Tat doesnt even keepup with the rate of ination . And what i interest rates startrising rom their historic lows? Investors will get massacred.

For comparison purposes, the otal Bond MarketIndex appreciated . percent over the past three years.Te Dow Jones Industrial Index went up percent.

Ten there is the act that i it was a private companyoffering this plan to investors, it would be illegal! Andwhoever was sponsoring it would go to jail . But this is a

government that is increasingly showing itsel to be abovethe law, so it can apparently do whatever it wants.Te myRA violates multiple duciary standards re-

quired by the governments own legislation.Employee Retirement Income Security Act laws are de-

signed to protect investors rom plan managers who mightuse investor money or their own advantage. For example,investment administrators cannot use investors money tomake loans to themselves or to businesses they are associ-ated with. Yet this is exactly what the myRA does.

Additionally, a private company would have to identi ypotential conicts o interest and both communicate andaddress them. President Obama did neither.

So why would the president o the United States pro-mote such a terrible investment that would be illegal ianybody else offered it?

It gets down to this: America has largely eeced theChinese and Japanese or all it can, so now the govern-ment is turning to the last big pool o money lef to keep itoperating: retirement unds.

With the Federal Reserve saying it has to cut back itsmoney printing, the U.S. government will soon need tocome up with an additional billion per month to payits bills. For the past several years, the Federal Reservecovered the entire U.S. decit with money printing .

Hence, the president knocks out two pelicans with onestone: Look good to voters and nance the decitwithoutpolitically uncom ortable raising o taxes or spending cuts.

Sadly, in the end it is going to hurt most the groupo people the president purports to be helping. Te onlypeople likely to invest in such a plan are the poor andmiddle class.

But there may be an even bigger motive revealed by the

myRA plan. And it gets back to the presidents ideology.In , theWall Street Journal wrote an article about

U.S. Deputy reasury Secretary J. Mark Iwry, the mansaid to be behind the presidents myRA plan. Te articledescribed the governments plan to make people savemore by requiring companies to automatically deductemployees wages, without the employees approval, to putinto an -like account.

Te plan seems to be gaining traction.On January , U.S. Senator om Harkin unveiled leg-

islation to rebuild the private pension system. Te slight-ly Orwellian-sounding Universal, Secure and Adaptable( ) Retirement Funds Act o calls or employees tobe automatically enrolled, paychecks to be automatically deducted, and the money managed under the direction oa board o independent trustees appointed by the govern-ment. As o now, employees will be allowed to opt outi they like. Te plan generally ollows what PresidentObama outlined in his FY budget proposal.

Some people warn that this kind o legislation is justa step toward government nationalization o retirementaccounts. But the beauty o it is that there may be no need

or outright conscationat least at rst. I you controlwhere the money is invested, what does it matter whoostensibly owns it?

It does make you wonder what the governments truemotives are though.

Neither the myRA, Harkins bill, or any other govern-ment proposal actually xes the underlying problem. Youcant get something rom nothing. Most Americans livepaycheck to paycheck and are not investing enough orretirementit is as simple as that. So unless people investa lot more, how can the government, which is also broke, somehow magically turn those meager investments intosecure retirements?

It cant.But i the government can get its ngers on the more than

trillion worth o retirement unds in America, it can

insure its own ability to borrow more money by investingthose retirement unds in secure government treasuries.Tere is plenty o precedent: Argentina, Bolivia, Hun-

gary, Portugal, Bulgaria, Ireland, Poland, France.O course each o these countries was or is teetering on

the edge o economic collapse. But that is beside the point.Or is it?

So where is America headed? Te presidents myRAplanwhich does nothing to solve Americas savingsproblem, but uses retirement savings to prolong unsus-tainable government borrowingtells you a lot.

Follow Robert Morley: Twitter

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