Bear Read - A Markets blog

Friday, August 30, 2013

Surprise, surprise

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Courtesy of Zerohedge and Bloomberg. A summary on Syria

U.S. ACTIONS:

Obama Begins Selling Action Ahead of Decision on Force
U.S. and Allies Move Closer to Brink of Syria Military Action
U.S. to Release Syria Gas Attack Proof
Tomahawk Missile Launches Likely in U.S.-Led Attack on Syria
U.S. Said to Weigh Legal Justification for Attack on Syria

SYRIAN ACTIONS:

UN Syria Envoy Says Strikes Can’t Precede Council Decision
Rebels Used Chemical Weapons: AFP Cites Syrian Ambassador to UN
Syria Evacuates Troops From Damascus Military Base: Arabiya
Syria Foreign Minister Denies Chemical Attack to BBC
Assad Not in Iran, Mehr Says, Citing Iranian Foreign Ministry

INTERNATIONAL ACTIONS:

U.K. Drafts UNSC Resolution to Protect Syrian Civilians
Cyprus Says Hasn’t Heard From U.K. on Use of Bases for Strike
Iran’s Khamenei Says Syria Attack Would Be ‘Disaster’
Ban Ki-Moon Says Syria Now in Most Serious Moment of Conflict
Italy waiting on UN
Russia FM Says Rejects U.S. Assessment of Chemical Attack
Germany May Participate in Syria Action: Rheinische Post
German CDU Party Lawmaker Calls for “Surgical Strike”
Hollande to Meet Head of Opposition Syrian National Coalition
Recalls French Parliament to Discuss Syria, Spokeswoman Says
Israel Warns Iran, Syria Against Reprisal for U.S. Strike
Strike Would Lead to Retaliation on Israel, Iran Warns, According to NYT

MARKET REACTION:

WTI Crude Rises to Two-Year High
Oil Diverges From U.S. Stocks Most Since 2011 on Syria
Brent Crude May Spike to $150 on Syria Spillover: SocGen
Libya Compounds Syria Tension in Oil Market
Bond Markets Price in Syria Strike, Not Wider Clash
European Stocks fall to 6-Week Low

US, Britain and Israel have used chemical weapons within the last 10 years... Kind of..

Article

http://www.filmsforaction.org/news/the_us_britain_and_israel_have_used_chemical_weapons_within_the_last_10_years/

A debate on the above:

ABC I don't want to get too semantic, but neither depleted uranium nor white phosphorus are chemical weapons? I agree that both have horrible effects if used in the wrong circumstances, but there's an important line between these and chemical weapons per se.

For example, depleted uranium's primary effect is that it's an extremely dense material which punches through fortifications. The problem with DU is that it has toxic and radioactive properties which, in cases like Fallujah in '04, where extreme quantities built up in a place which was still inhabited by significant numbers of civilians, could have caused horrors like birth defects. While dreadful and regrettable, and I don't mean this to somehow atone, these effects are extrinsic to the intent of the attacker. The shells aren't fired with the intention of causing birth defects.

The primary effect of nerve agents (i.e. proper chemical weapons, which incidentally are only confirmed to be stockpiled by four countries in the world), however, is to attack the central nervous system, with the typical result of constraining people's muscles so they lose control of their bodily functions, suffocate and die. Historically, they have typically been used en masse to injure and kill with the full intention of these horrible effects.

All forms of death are as grim as each other, but I think it's important to keep a view on intent. I don't think the claims of hypocrisy are justified.
XYZ Deploying DU and white phosphorus with the knowledge of those effects is tantamount to deploying them with those intentions...
ABC I disagree, though to get into my reasons would involve some pretty dry and abstract ethical reasoning. I agree that to deploy DU and white phosphorus with knowledge of the effects is morally bad. (Though I'd leave out white phosphorus and just stick with DU; it's really quite a different case and is nowhere near the same league as chemical weapons.) I just think there's qualitative difference between the use of the them versus 'conventional' weapons which needs to be maintained else we end up in unhelpful reductionism.

ABC i.e. Bullets are pretty nasty, too! Where do we stop?
ABC Furthermore on DU, the US military at least doesn't believe there's even a negative effect on the health of its own troops. One could question the honesty of that assertion, but assuming it's sincere then I don't think we can attribute to them true knowledge of the effects which we believe ourselves.
XYZ i understand your point, i just dont agree that we only hold states responsible for the 'purported' intentional effects of their weapons, if theyre fully cognisant of toxic and radioactive qualities of these weapons then it seems to me that they are deploying toxic and radioactive arms
ABC Oh of course I agree; effects are what matter. I'd just maintain a hierarchies of evil, so to speak. One of the cleanest deaths in war is a bullet through the head. One of the ugliest is lingering death in a trench from nerve gas. We're still working out how bad DU is along that scale, with both primary and secondary effects included (in time I imagine countries will ban its use in civilian areas and perhaps stop using it altogether), but I don't believe it shares its character with nerve gas either in the typical intent causing its use or in its sum effects.
ABC In a sentence, we're shits, but they're worse shits.