New York
City & US Investment Markets: by Ron Holland (www.redzonenews.com) Let's
get real, why has there been no media discussion of the
likely target of opportunity and how do we protect those
threatened by this potential threat? While the conventional news media and commentators have been silent on this question either to avoid a public panic or at government direction, this question must be asked. The recent airliner attack on Washington and New York was an operation years in the making and certainly not a one time strike on America. This is part of a well thought out terrorist plan. They have planned for Washington’s response with a massive counter attack for maximum public effect, US humiliation, with the goal of gaining more recruits in their Jihad against the United States. "Terrorists have not only long memories, they have infinite patience. They certainly learn from their mistakes." --Edith E. Flynn, professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University. To determine the target, we must first explore the probable goals of the anti Western players in this conflict. While, they can't hope to destroy the United States as the world’s only remaining super power, they are obviously interested in replacing all the existing "moderate" Arab governments (and I use that term liberally) with fundamentalist, Islamic regimes. Their long-term objective is to topple the existing governments of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Turkey and replace them with fundamentalist Islamic governments that are anti-American and will cooperate in destroying the nation of Israel.
Why? First they want to win and unite the fundamentalist Islamic world and this rules out nuclear, biological or chemical weapons of mass destruction against Israel. Yes, crazed Saddam might launch isolated localized attacks if invaded by the US or attacked by Israel, but there is no danger of a mass, unilateral attack against Israel for the following reasons. A mass attack, if Iraq or others have the capability, would by its very nature, kill many hundreds of thousands of Palestinians on the ground in and around Israel. This would be unacceptable in rallying other Arab nations and peoples to the fundamentalist cause. This attack would probably destroy or render unusable the Moslem holy sites in Jerusalem and on the West Bank. Again, killing most of the Jews in Israel along with the Palestinians is too high of a price to be paid for the immediate destruction of Israel. Not to mention that an attack against Israel would be counter productive, even to the terrorist leaders, because of Israel's nuclear arsenal and stated intentions. Every Arab leader knows that if weapons of mass destruction are used against Israel and they suffer massive loss of life or likely defeat, then no Arab city in the Middle East will avoid a final Doomsday attack with total annihilation and ultimate destruction by nuclear weapons. The opportune target certainly isn't Western Europe either. They are really on the sidelines in the current conflict and due to oil or geo-political considerations often side with the Arab states regarding US foreign policy. They Will Avoid Attacking Washington DC Or US Military Targets With Weapons of Mass Destruction The primary target of opportunity certainly isn't Washington DC, the capital of the United States. Although home to many military installations and commands, national intelligence and a hundreds of thousands of politicians and bureaucrats, America's military might and capabilities are far too widespread and decentralized around the US and the world. If they had the means to hit two targets in the US at the same time with weapons of mass destruction this would be the shared target but this isn't likely. The military might and capability of the United States armed forces is such that terrorists can have little impact on our capability to wage war and retribution in the event of an attack. Yes, they could target Washington, yes they could destroy maybe a fleet or aircraft carrier task force and yes, they could conceivably defeat us in a land war in Afghanistan. But as the Japanese learned with Pearl Harbor, it is not a wise course of action to provoke the United States when we can target the enemy. Let’s fact the facts. It is very difficult for Washington to target this enemy and they really don’t want to destroy our ability to wage war even if they could do so. Their success depends on us getting in over our heads in a land war with the Moslem fundamentalists The Opportune Target – Our Financial Infrastructure This is our Achilles heel. Already, an attack costing approximately $500,000 has destroyed up to $30 billion in property damage in New York and caused a market panic, destroying over $1 trillion in stock market valuations. It has pushed many airlines in the US and Europe to the verge of bankruptcy. This minor strike, when compared to weapons of mass destruction, is creating a serious recession all around the non-Islamic world. Just as their two main earlier attacks were on the World Trade Center, I believe that a mass destruction attack will also be directed on New York City. This is the center of our American stock and bond markets already proven to be vulnerable. An attack with weapons of mass destruction on New York would by its nature and scope also take out our backup financial systems that would become crucial for surviving this type of attack. Now, thanks to the news coverage and short sighted attempt to generate confidence in our financial system after the World Trade Center attack, the world knows that most of the back up operational centers, crisis re-location and records storage for the major US banks and Wall Street investment firms are by necessity located within close proximity to Manhattan. These crisis centers are worthless without the trained personnel to run them and keep the firms operational so they have to be near enough to their headquarters for the workers to get to the alternative locations. A successful attack with weapons of mass destruction would probably take out these sites thus destroying the stock markets, firms and records for some indefinite time. While this is the real threat to the United States, there are other more vengeful reasons for them striking New York City. The high-density population in Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs means this type of weapon would generate the highest population kill rate in addition to taking out the guts of the US financial infrastructure. They would consider most of the population deaths surrounding New York City as acceptable collateral damage due to demographic and political reasons relating to their goal of destroying the state of Israel. We must also address the extreme hatred for Jews and Israel that is constantly expressed by these Islamic purveyors of hate demanding the destruction of the State of Israel. However as stated earlier, it would be counter productive for these terrorists to target the nation of Israel for attack due to the existing Moslem holy sights, massive Palestinian deaths and the likely nuclear retribution by Israel armed forces. There are around 5 million Jews in Israel and its occupied territories and close to 4 million Arabs. Where is the next largest concentration of Jews in the world? New York City. With a population of almost 2 million Jews, this accounts for over 1/3 of the entire Jewish population in the United States. Therefore from the terrorist point of view wiping out New York City would decimate not only the US financial markets but also much of the US based Jewish financial support for Israel. Simply and crudely put from the terrorist point of view, taking out Israel gets the Moslem extremists and the nations they want to take over nuked and destroyed forever. Taking out New York City, on the other hand, destroys the US investment markets, our financial infrastructure, a substantial percentage of the Jewish population and therefore financial support for Israel. This would ultimately destroy the long-term existence of the nation of Israel because they could not survive without US financial and military support. Currently, US civilian aid to Israel equals almost 1% of their gross national product and US military aid is another $2 billion. The government of Israel would have nothing to lose in nuking their Arab adversaries if the existence of their tiny nation state was at an end due to extremist attack by deadly weapons of national destruction. On the other hand, an outraged United States would go after the guilty parties and nations with nuclear weapons if New York City were destroyed but would never attack the other Arab states not involved in the conflict. This might be an acceptable cost to the Islamic extremists. What is the Terrorist Fall Back Plan if Plan One Fails - to Incite Islamic Fundamentalist Overthrow of Moderate Arab Governments I believe this is the diabolical plan Bin Laden and Saddam Hussan have up their sleeve if their plan to draw the US into a sustained conflict in Afghanistan fails. Here a long-term conflict might radicalize the Islamic populations to such a degree as to win their short-term goals of over throwing the moderate Arab states. This would be a big step toward their ultimate goal to destroy Israel and to end American influence in the Middle East without the high cost in destruction, death and world retribution if they should gamble everything on their first use of weapons of mass destruction. It is important for every New Yorker and American citizen to remember that every war has been started with limited objectives and goals by the attacking nation. History has shown that once a war starts and intensifies they develop a life of their own where reason and right and wrong have little place in a conflict governed by hate, emotion, strike and counter strike. Do these Moslem extremists and nations like Iraq, Iran and others have weapons of mass destruction? I don't know. If they do, are they willing to pay the retribution costs for being the first to attack? Against Israel, probably not, as the ultimate price will be too high even for them to pay. What about against the United States? Are they willing to launch this type of attack against New York City? I fear the answer is yes, especially with our limited reaction so far to the World Trade Center attack. Can they do it? Do they have the capability to create and/or deliver these weapons to NYC? The Only Safe Way Out For New York City! The question is do they have weapons of mass destruction at the present time? I hope and pray the answer is no. The Jews and others have already suffered one holocaust in Europe from fanatics who believed in their evil cause just as Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden do today. They believed the end justified the means and this is the evil mindset of the Moslem terrorists in the world today. We must avoid and defend against the possibility of a terrorist attack on New York City using biological, nuclear or chemical weapons of mass destruction. The world doesn't need another Jewish holocaust and neither does America and the innocent, already suffering population of New York City. What can we do to protect ourselves individually, the financial markets and New York City from the risk and destruction of a possible attack? Leave! If you live or work in New York City and can leave then I would get out. It is apparent from the most recent 6,000 plus deaths in the World Trade Center, the attack on the Cole, the ’93 World Trade Center bombing, the cruise missile attacks on the Aspirin factory in the Sudan and empty huts in Afghanistan that US intelligence has failed miserably in dealing with anti-Washington terrorist forces. Why should we have any confidence in them now? Do not trust the federal government or local politicians to warn you. No one really knows the amount of risk here and politicians will always do what they must to prevent panic in the streets, in the investment markets or risk their chances for re-election. The public reaction to this threat could paralyze the already weakening economy of New York City and shatter the dollar and stock and bond markets. They would never come out and warn of this possible threat to Wall Street and New York City anymore than a major investment brokerage firm would ever tell its clients to get out of the market because a bear market or crash was coming. A notice such as this could cause the market to crash or a panic in the city. Many investment clients and readers of my articles, reports and web sites have asked me, over and over again, why didn't my broker tell me to sell my stocks at the top of the bull market? Why didn't my investment advisor, sell my stock portfolio near the top of the market and then go to cash? Why did the Wall Street establishment financial publications or the TV and financial news remain overly optimistic about a market turnaround on the NASD, which has gone from the 5,000 level down to under 1,500? The simple answer is they will never tell you when to totally sell or get out of the market and nether will the same vested interests warn the citizens of NYC or stock market participants about the potential terrorist risks to their remaining savings and investment portfolios. Remember, what is important to the political, financial or media establishment is always first the survival of the system, the markets and their own best interests, then we come a distant second. Any politician that warns of this risk would forever be out of politics if they give this warning and nothing happened. The same for your friendly Wall Street broker or investment firm. Any firm that recommended for all their investment clients to sell stocks and go to cash would be out of business if the crash did not occur and then forced out of business for helping cause the crash if they were right. They would be damned if they did and damned if they didn't and thus in a no win situation. So as the markets continue downward the financial establishment and media constantly remain overly optimistic all the way down, claiming a turn around is just around the corner. You get picture if you've checked your portfolio recently. Thus they prevent panic that might destroy the brokerage firm or do even more damage to the investment markets. All investors lose money (except for the insiders) and misery loves company. We have an orderly down market and everyone loses but the financial firms and inside players. An outcome certainly better for the industry than the alternative no win situation of getting out of the market. The Financial Industry Must Immediately Create Back Up Facilities Outside the NYC Area - All of the banks and investment firms based in and around New York City must make immediate contingency plans to establish back up operational and management facilities in locations away from New York City. If our enemies know they can't knock out our financial markets and back up systems, they may not attack. The Press and Media Should Address the Terrorist Risk of Weapons of Mass Destruction - The press and government must begin to honestly discuss the risk and educate the public as to how they are building a defense and a level of protection against this type of attack. The news blackout on this risk to the citizens of New York City and the entire US financial markets is criminal in potential for lives lost and a US economy destroyed. The more we talk about this risk and our efforts to defend this nation, the less likely they will follow through with this attack. The
US Must Publicly Guarantee An Immediate Response If
Attacked – The United States must go on record
stating that any use of weapons of mass destruction
against the United States would result in an immediate
response against all terrorist groups and existing
nations that have supported or harbored these groups now
or in the recent past. Get the Terrorists Now Before It's Too Late! - The US military must pull out all stops in their determination to quickly kill Ben Laden, destroy his terrorist network and take out Iraq at the earliest possible opportunity. This is not a time for coalition building, talk, negotiations or threats but for a quick, decisive in and out military action to destroy these Moslem fundamentalist cancers around the world. This action must never be allowed to degenerate into a land war or occupation of an Islamic nation. We must act quick as New York and the future of the US financial markets hand in the balance. Protect Your Personal Savings and Investment Portfolios - If you are worried about the risk of another devastating attack on NYC and our financial markets, it would be prudent to consider the benefits of global diversification. Diversify out of the US dollar and US investment markets into foreign currencies and safer European markets that would not be so negatively impacted from a major terrorist attack. Also get some of your wealth legally, following all reporting requirements, out of the jurisdiction of US markets and regulators to protect yourself should a future attack force a much longer closure of US markets and banking system. Remember liquidity is always king in a financial crisis and there would be no liquidity with either your bank or brokerage firm in the event of this type of attack on NY. Finally, keep copies of your statements and consider brokerage firms, mutual funds and investment advisors not based in the New York area. You don't want your portfolio, records and liquidity going down with a New York based investment firm liquidated in the attack. "The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connections as possible. It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances, with any portion of the foreign world." --George Washington In closing, our politician's foreign policy of intervention around the world has undoubtedly helped cause the hatred leading up to the current conflict. Had we followed the wise counsel of George Washington quoted above, we would not now be in this tough situation. But now is not the time to discuss our past mistakes or to cast blame. Will pressure by the Washington politicians and financial elite's keep this important topic and threat blacklisted from the American public and citizens of New York City? Only time will tell, but not to explain the risk to the public and take appropriate public steps to minimize the risk of attack is criminal, little better than those Islamic terrorist and nations that seek the total destruction of the United States of America. Those who have attacked the innocent civilian targets in the United States must be avenged and destroyed. Any politicians, media or financial elite's that choose not to warn New York and our nation about future terrorist risks because of political posturing, advertising revenue or stock market profits should also pay the price and be accountable for their actions or inaction. We have failed to follow the counsel of George Washington with regard to foreign affairs and military intervention around the world. We have suffered the consequence with this terrorist war on America. I fear, if we don't begin today as a nation, a people and as investors to follow another sound bit of advice from George Washington, that we will pay a price far higher in death, destruction and economic disruption. "If we are wise, let us prepare for the worst." --George Washington - Ron Holland is a concerned American, financial & political writer and investor who has been totally out of the US stock market both for himself and his clients since late 1999. |
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There has been much
speculation and discussion in the news media concerning
the possible threat of terrorist attacks against Israel,
Western Europe and the United States with biological,
nuclear or chemical weapons of mass destruction. Frankly,
I don't know if Bin Laden's al Qaeda network, Saddam
Hussein, or other Islamic and Palestinian terrorists
groups have weapons of mass destruction, but if they do
we need to take a cold, objective look at the potential
targets of opportunity for such an attack.
Neither Israel Nor Europe
Will Be Attacked By Weapons of Mass Destruction!