D MARKS, NSA SPYING, MERKEL, AND SNOWDEN
November 7, 2013 By
While
this story is now over a year old, it’s worth recalling in the wider
context of world events these days, specifically, with respect to the Ed
Snowden/NSA spying/Angela Merkel affair, and the recent calls by
various countries, including Germany, to repatriate their gold from the
western banks in Paris, London, and New York. Some Germans, it seems,
are still conducting their day-to-day business in Deutsch Marks:
Who Needs the Euro When You Can Pay With Deutsche Marks?
Regular readers here will recall that, as the breakdown of the Eurozone proceeded last year, there were quietly increasing calls on the part of some in Germany to pull out of the eurozone and return to the D-mark. Regulars here will also recall that I’ve been arguing for quite some time that the real significance of the NSA-Snowden electronic spying affair isn’t about the “war on terror” at all (though that is certainly a subset of it), but about financial market tracking, strategic modeling and prediction, and market manipulation, particularly on the macro-scale of international trade and finance. It is, I have suggested, both a mechanism of sustaining the US dollars status as the world reserve currency, and also of manipulating markets for that end. In short, it’s a method of making sure the playing field is NOT level.
The idea that the Europeans, much less the Germans, are outraged about being spied upon is theater: they spy on the USA as well, and everyone knows it. Frau Merkel’s outrage is real, but the reasons for it have nothing to do with “friends not spying on friends.” So what’s the real reason?
As if on cue, you’ll recall, stories began to appear in Germany and Russia that the real goal and motivation of the electronic spying was financial in nature. RT, for example, recently ran a story about the financial motivations behind NSA spying on Mexico’s President.
Now there are rumors that Mr. Snowden, in his Russian exile, has agreed to meet with top German lawmakers and law enforcement, to assist them in their inquiries about NSA spying:
Snowden ready to testify in Merkel tapping case – German lawmaker
There are even allegations that Mr. Snowden may travel to Germany to do so.
Now this raises all sorts of red flags in my mind, not the least of which is that if I were Mr. Snowden’s security advisor, I’d advise against the trip. After all, Russia and Germany are certainly capable of providing secure links for a long distance briefing session. If Mr. Snowden or the Germans or both insist on face-to-face meetings, then I’d make awfully sure that he had some heavy duty security on the trip and in Germany, lest covert ops teams attempt to spirit him out of the country and back to the USA. As the RT article makes clear, this in fact is not in the cards, and a more long distance arrangement is being discussed. But as the article also makes clear, if Snowden does come to Germany, the German government is considering not honoring any US requests to extradite him.
And that, folks, is a very serious widening of the fissures and cracks that have begun to appear in the Atlantic alliance in the past few years.
So…why the risky contact in the first place?
As the RT article hints, Snowden appears to have more explicit information, and my guess is that this information is of a financial nature, and revelatory of the full extent to which Germany’s financial structure may have been compromised.
It may even involve a hidden explanation for why the US Federal Reserve has hemmed, hawed, and otherwise delayed the audit and repatriation of Germany’s gold reserves to that country. It wouldn’t surprise me…
…and it does not surprise me that once again all of this is being disclosed by RT…
The bottom line is, Frau Merkel is still very unhappy, and she’s not going to get any happier any time soon. And whatever may come of Mr. Snowden’s private and secret revelations to the German government, it’s not likely that she’s going to get any happier.
Who Needs the Euro When You Can Pay With Deutsche Marks?
Regular readers here will recall that, as the breakdown of the Eurozone proceeded last year, there were quietly increasing calls on the part of some in Germany to pull out of the eurozone and return to the D-mark. Regulars here will also recall that I’ve been arguing for quite some time that the real significance of the NSA-Snowden electronic spying affair isn’t about the “war on terror” at all (though that is certainly a subset of it), but about financial market tracking, strategic modeling and prediction, and market manipulation, particularly on the macro-scale of international trade and finance. It is, I have suggested, both a mechanism of sustaining the US dollars status as the world reserve currency, and also of manipulating markets for that end. In short, it’s a method of making sure the playing field is NOT level.
The idea that the Europeans, much less the Germans, are outraged about being spied upon is theater: they spy on the USA as well, and everyone knows it. Frau Merkel’s outrage is real, but the reasons for it have nothing to do with “friends not spying on friends.” So what’s the real reason?
As if on cue, you’ll recall, stories began to appear in Germany and Russia that the real goal and motivation of the electronic spying was financial in nature. RT, for example, recently ran a story about the financial motivations behind NSA spying on Mexico’s President.
Now there are rumors that Mr. Snowden, in his Russian exile, has agreed to meet with top German lawmakers and law enforcement, to assist them in their inquiries about NSA spying:
Snowden ready to testify in Merkel tapping case – German lawmaker
There are even allegations that Mr. Snowden may travel to Germany to do so.
Now this raises all sorts of red flags in my mind, not the least of which is that if I were Mr. Snowden’s security advisor, I’d advise against the trip. After all, Russia and Germany are certainly capable of providing secure links for a long distance briefing session. If Mr. Snowden or the Germans or both insist on face-to-face meetings, then I’d make awfully sure that he had some heavy duty security on the trip and in Germany, lest covert ops teams attempt to spirit him out of the country and back to the USA. As the RT article makes clear, this in fact is not in the cards, and a more long distance arrangement is being discussed. But as the article also makes clear, if Snowden does come to Germany, the German government is considering not honoring any US requests to extradite him.
And that, folks, is a very serious widening of the fissures and cracks that have begun to appear in the Atlantic alliance in the past few years.
So…why the risky contact in the first place?
As the RT article hints, Snowden appears to have more explicit information, and my guess is that this information is of a financial nature, and revelatory of the full extent to which Germany’s financial structure may have been compromised.
It may even involve a hidden explanation for why the US Federal Reserve has hemmed, hawed, and otherwise delayed the audit and repatriation of Germany’s gold reserves to that country. It wouldn’t surprise me…
…and it does not surprise me that once again all of this is being disclosed by RT…
The bottom line is, Frau Merkel is still very unhappy, and she’s not going to get any happier any time soon. And whatever may come of Mr. Snowden’s private and secret revelations to the German government, it’s not likely that she’s going to get any happier.
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