fanciful stories of another Exodus

or 'why do we keep getting thrown out of everywhere?'

One of the great War & Peace stories of the year is
the one swirling around Greece, like water down a drain pipe.
Apparently it involves Israel and the US and a place for Israel
to 'go' if things get too hot in the Middle East.
They will likely get too hot if Israel strikes Iran. However, I don't
think that Israel will. That's because Israel is now pumping pals
with Iran. They've got natural gas, out there in the Med. They're
making plans to sell the stuff to the EU. So, you can't invest
in pumping and then start stupid wars.
In fact, Israel and the US are looking to get Greece's untapped
oil and gas resources FOR FREE. They've got some sheister
deal where the US pays off Greece's debt, with rubber dollars
most likely, and Greece hands over the oil, real cheap. Greece
would be stupid to do that, because the US can't lay the
pressure on Greece when they wouldn't do it to a bunch of
Arabs in the desert. MidEast oil is nationalised.
US oil, on the other pump, is not. All the cash goes into the
offshore Cayman accounts of the Chevrons of the world.

Anyway, the Exodus story is just bullshit to get people dreaming
of another Mid East drama, and wind up the Arabs.
What they are after is the oil, and that means a change
in the status of Greece,

from Europariah to the Sheiks of the Aegean,

if they play their cards right.

Read 'em and weep: the Slog. 2 texts (hat4UK.wordpress.com)

GREEK CRISIS: Why Antonis Samaras will not be going into battle unarmed next week.

The Greek Prime Minister has some good cards close to his chest, according to Slog sources

You can hardly blame many EU commentators for having found The Slog’s ‘bondholder haircut and debt forgiveness’ Greek story from last weekend far-fetched. But an increasingly wide range of observers have since emailed me to say they’re convinced that the story is well-founded. Now more clues are emerging….and again, they relate to three consistent themes in The Slog’s approach to the Greek crisis: Samaras is being (with his Finance Minister) increasingly secretive towards his Coalition partners; the geopolitical dimension remains as important as ever; and the Germans are not going to budge: either the Greeks toe the line, or they’re out. (And if Berlin’s will doesn’t prevail, they’re off).

Earlier this week, Merkel spokesman Stefan Siebert said there would be no more compromise with Athens, but then made what I found an odd statement under the circumstances. He said that “further decisions will have to wait until after a report from the troika is released in October.”

Publicly, Greece can’t wait that long. The Athens bond issue raised more than enough to pay off the ECB’s maturing bondholding on August 20th. Several sources across the markets think it highly likely that Mario Draghi bought a fair chunk of them himself, in order to neutralise the potential insolvency. But having scraped through that hole in the wall, the Greeks are still left with only a week or more of money – by which time they will need the €13.5bn bailout tranche to avoid insolvency again. The new Samaras/Coalition plan for additional savings is €4bn short of what the Troika wants.

Somebody, somewhere put a proposal(s) to the Coalition and the Troika last week, the substance of which was enough to reduce the tension. My own view is that the Siebert remark referred to above unconsciously recognised its existence. But it now looks highly likely that Angela Merkel herself wasn’t in that loop. The view from the Chancellery yesterday was brutally clear: if the Greek government doesn’t find the €4bn saving shortfall (and it hasn’t yet) Merkel’s patience will be exhausted.

Angela’s patience is a very political one: Germany’s legislators and voters are all Greeked out. They won’t stand for any more backsliding or delays. Which is a toughie, because Samaras wants an extension of the austerity period, in order to ease the burden on ordinary Greeks.

Although this is all getting incredibly complicated, in one line, it comes down to this:

If Antonis Samaras goes on his tour of EU capitals next week with no aces up his sleeve, he will fail in his bid to get a repayment extension.

Samaras is a smart bloke – and his finance minister Yannis Stournaras is well connected internationally and diplomatically. The two men have been inseparable of late. There is a general feeling across my European and US contacts that what they’re doing is collecting aces….both inside and outside the eurozone.

Officially, the Israeli Ambassador to Greece Arye Mekel on Monday ‘briefed Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras on the interest of Israeli businesses in participating in the privatisations programme’. Actually, they discussed Israeli help in the event of a Greek insolvency and eurozone exit.

Officially, the US ambassador to Greece Daniel Smith yesterday to underline that ‘a new business and economic environment is a necessary precondition for the recovery of the economy and the creation of new job positions and attracting foreign investors to Greece.’ Actually, Smith and Stournaras discussed plans already mooted by a Geithner envoy (who was at College with Stournaras in the States) for specific aid in return for energy rights and military bases.

...

By ‘mirroring The Slog’, my contact means ‘looking for aces in order to play for high stakes and win’.

The French diplomat quoted in last weekend’s Slogpost also remains convinced that Antonis Samaras is after the strongest poker hand he can get.

“Always the trouble with Berlin is, as I have told you many times before – who are we dealing with here and how influential are they? I don’t think Merkel has engaged with Samaras in secret at all. But I can tell you that France, Spain and Italy have.”

“The Israelis and ourselves remain close to the action,” a longstanding Washington source claims, “and the long-term strategy remains the same….to make more friends in South East Europe and the Middle East than we had traditionally. I can honestly tell you that Greece need suffer no fear of isolation, however this [debt crisis] pans out in the end”.

“Samaras trusts Stournaras, but not Venizelos,” says a well-placed Greek expat now living in the UK, “They are working in secret because they see Venizelos as Brussels’ man. Antonis is determined there will be no leaks, that he will not be caught at a disadvantage.”....

2

GREEK CRISIS: Geithner intervention threatens to split Athens coalition

.... ‘I read your article today. More and more frequent visits of U.S. agents in Greece have the purpose to convince Greece to go to a new nest. If this can be achieved there will be two benefits for the US: the weakening of Europe, and the strengthening of Israel and US influences in the Middle East. I believe we will see more of this in the future – the “Greek corridor” (Israel-Cyprus-Greece) [that] can ensure the necessary survival of Israel while in case of hot crisis , it can be used to transport aid to the Theatre of Operations in the Middle East. This vital corridor cannot and should not be allowed to be checked by Turkey as it will then be vulnerable to any intervention.’

I posted on Aril 29th last about the electronic comms cable being jointly laid by Israel, Cyprus and Greece.

.... Last June 21st, I wrote a piece about Putin’s ambition to turn Cyprus into a Mediterranean Cuba. It took the MSM a week to catch on to that one. Last year, the Russians gave Cyprus a $2.5 bn loan at a massively discounted rate…on vastly better terms than those offered by the catatonics in Brussels.

.... Since last February, I have been a lone voice using sound sources, local knowledge and strategic nous to show a consistent American attempt to hive off Greece and thus provide both reassurance and supplies to what security services throughout the West now refer as The Greek Corridor.

.... To get your head round this, the first thing one must do is to stop thinking about Greece as a small country with a big debt, full stop. This is geopolitics, not conspiracy theory – and geopolitics is often about opportunity. Greece is being bullied by Berlin-am-Brussels because, without making an example of them and playing for time, Franco-German banks would’ve fallen over and caused a major disaster. But it didn’t take long for American thinkers to see this desperate ploy as their big chance to cement a presence where it really counts at the moment: at the south-eastern end of the Mediterranean.

Others dismiss Greek Aegean resources as chickenfeed, and point up the strong Turkish-held belief that some of them belong to Ankara anyway. But this is precisely what it’s all about. Let me offer you something that every knowledgeable writer in this theatre accepts, be they Greek, American or German: All three intelligence services have massively underplayed the undersea wealth under the Aegean. So too has Mossad, without a shadow of a doubt. Putin (ex KGB) knows this, Schäuble (ex German Interior Minister)  knows this, the Fed Treasury knows it, and so too does the Athens Coalition. Both the Americans and the Russians are determined that Turkey won’t get its hands on one ounce of rare earth or a single drop of oil. These are the stakes, and they’re why this is massively important.