In These New Times

The claimed US attack on the City is credible but not this conclusion:

“The biggest item on the British agenda is Brexit, and since the EU regulations on financial services are one of the biggest sticking points in the UK-EU negotiations, the revelations may make these negotiations so contentious as to strengthen the pro-Brexit lobby which will seek to escape EU’s scrutiny of London’s City.”

Without the “special relationship” there is little point in calling for Brexit since, at the same time as being excluded from Euro transactions and jeopardising the strategic partnership with China, the City would face takeover from Wall Street. This looks like lose/lose to me. Consolidating Oceania as a security block looks like an equally futile goal and would anyway be blown out of the water by a Trump victory. The British people left to their own devices may well vote for Brexit but look out for one or more “white swan” events to turn the tide in this campaign.

South Front

5th April, 2016

The “Panama Papers” affair has the unmistakable hallmarks of a net-centric hybrid war operation: a disparate group of apparently non-state actors, seemingly operating without central direction, carry out an information attack which just happens to dovetail nicely with US international policy objectives and not resulting in a black eye for any prominent US actors. Given the level of corruption of the US elite and the degree of offshoring engaged by US financial institutions, it seems all too fortuitous that the targeted firm did not do too much business with US clients, due to a variety of US laws which specific prohibit offshoring through Panamanian firms. It’s as if someone in the US decided to use Snowden’s act of civil disobedience and attempt to disguise a US information operation as a similar act by a civic-minded individual.

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