Libya: An Islamist Terrorist Takes Command of Main Rebel Forces

Finally, we have evidence that Islamists and even al-Qaeda supporters will play a central role in Libya’s new regime. Up to now there has been reasonable speculation that the U.S. government and NATO might be installing an anti-Western, Islamist government in Libya. Now there’s proof that this is so.
The actual government remains in the hands of non-Islamists, technocrats, ex-regime officials, and moderates. But the armed rebels who actually made the revolution have voted and their idol is…an al-Qaeda guy. Political power, said Mao Zedong, grows out of the barrel of a gun and in Libya’s case this seems a very reasonable expectation.
According to Al Jazeera, the network recommended by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as fair and balanced, Abdul al-Hakim al-Hasadi, also known as Abdelhakim Belhaj, has been named commander of the Tripoli Military Council. He was formerly head of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an al-Qaeda affiliate. Moderates are understandably nervous.
In 1999, the group’s spokesman praised Osama bin Laden (remember him?) and said: “The United States no longer relies on its agents to constrict the Islamic tide; it has taken this role upon itself.” One of its former leaders worked to plan the attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, resulting in massive loss of life. In 2003, members were involved in an al-Qaeda terror attack in Morocco.
In November 2007, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri announced that the two groups were merging. True, a number of the group’s activists in prison denounced terrorism and made a deal with the Gaddafi regime in order to be set free. But since the organization broke its pledge to Gaddafi in order to overthrow him, presumably that deal no longer stands.
At any rate, the group was still designated as terrorist by the U.S. government. Here it is on the terrorism list (number 26, in alphabetical order) released by the State Department last May.
Of course, the appointment of one leader in an al-Qaeda affiliated group does not an Islamist regime make. But it is an omen and, again, the people who control the guns are more important than those who control the desks. We will have to see how things develop.
But another indication is that there’s more. Who put him in this post? The armed rebels chose al-Hasadi as their commander, not leaving that selection to the NATO-backed Transitional National Council government. Remember, I pointed out that the guys with guns don’t care what the guys in suits say. Some council members complained that al-Hasadi is sponsored by Qatar, which gave a lot of the money and whose rulers like to play radical sheikhs who often align themselves with Iran.
In fact, we can quote on this point Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who told a U.S. official in 2007 — as we now know thanks to Wikileaks– “He was extremely worried about Qatar and its continued support for Hamas and other Islamist organizations in the West Bank and Gaza…claiming that they provide ‘more support to fundamentalists than Kuwait or Saudi Arabia.’”
U.S. policy has given no sense that it is aware of this problem.
Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, chairman of the council, said he introduced al-Hasadi to his group’s NATO allies to show that he poses “no danger to international peace and stability.” Well, that’s reassuring.
We can assume that al-Hasadi said that he was merely young and impulsive, was driven to extremes by Gaddafi’s undeniably horrible dictatorship, and is now mature. But that argument would miss the point. Even if he has outgrown al-Qaeda, does he favor the transformation of Libya into an anti-Western Islamist state? Or perhaps he’s been “bought off” by the Western aid money. What do you think?
But let me explain to President Barack Obama, the U.S. government, and NATO how this thing is supposed to work. Your key liaison, be it the CIA or State Department, goes to see Jalil and says:
“As you know our soldiers, supplies, advisors, and warplanes have put you into power. Therefore, you either get rid of all of the al-Qaeda types—at least in positions of any authority—or we stop all of our support and find someone else to head the Transitional National Council. No, TLC [Tender Loving Care] for our interests; no TNC.”
Now, you could call that bullying or imperialistic if you want, but the TNC doesn’t have a right to being supported. NATO backing is not an entitlement. The purpose of U.S. and European policy is supposed to be to protect those countries’ legitimate interests. When you give the money, diplomatic support, and air strikes, that entitles you to some say in the outcome. For example, on the eve of the tenth anniversary of the killing of 3000 Americans by al-Qaeda, you don’t accept the appointment of an al-Qaeda supporter to run the new Libyan military.
True, in Turkey the Obama administration has supported an elected anti-American Islamist regime; in the Gaza Strip it saved an anti-American Islamist regime; in Syria, it did everything possible to avoid condemning an anti-American pro-Islamist regime; in Lebanon, it stood by and didn’t help the real moderates as an anti-American Islamist-dominated regime came to power; in Iran, it engaged an anti-American Islamist regime; and in Egypt, it said that it had no problem with an anti-American Islamist regime coming to power.
But actually installing an Islamist regime with Western weapons? That’s crossing the line.

Will NASA Abandon Ship?

For over a decade, the International Space Station has never seen a day in which it didn’t have occupants. Many thought when it was first permanently crewed, back in November of 2000, that it was a watershed in history — the day after which there would never again not be humans living off the planet. That was certainly the plan, because it was assumed that there would be follow-on programs even after the ISS was decommissioned. But it may have been another false start, because NASA is now contemplating at least temporarily giving up our tentative first foothold in the long climb to eventual space settlement.

As a result of the failure of the upper stage of the Russian Roscosmos Progress flight last month, the agency can no longer rely on the Soyuz crew launcher, because it is essentially the same rocket. Until the Russians have determined what caused the problem and how they will fix it, their rockets cannot be trusted. The implications for the ISS are potentially dire. First, there were plans to deliver a new crew on the Soyuz in a few weeks. These will now obviously be delayed.

Also delayed will be the return to earth of three current crew members, which had been planned about the same time as their replacement would be arriving. This isn’t an immediate issue, other than prolonging their stay in space, with whatever health detriments may accrue. The real problem is that they can’t delay it indefinitely, because the Soyuz capsule only has a limited on-orbit life (seven months), after which it cannot be used to return crew home with confidence. The one they planned to bring back will reach its use-by date in late October. So they’ll have to come home then, leaving only three aboard, reducing or eliminating any science that can be performed there until it reaches a full crew complement again.

The remaining three could in theory stay until January, when their Soyuz also starts to get stale, but there are earthly issues to deal with in terms of their schedule. If they wait that long, they will come down in a brutal Kazakh winter, and if they want to get in before that, the last time they can leave and still come down in daylight is in November, so for safety reasons, if the Russians haven’t figure out the problem and gotten a new expedition up by then, they will abandon the station entirely until they can. NASA believes that it can continue to maintain the facility remotely, at least for a while, but it will be a major psychological setback, particularly now that the station has just completed assembly and was about to start finally doing some serious research, including experiments with potential implications for medical cures.

Ironically, it would also be a setback for the most promising near-term means of reducing or eliminating our reliance on the Russians.

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) is currently scheduled to launch its Dragon capsule to the ISS in late November, with plans for a test docking with the system in early December (almost exactly a year after its first successful flight). If that mission is successful, it will be cleared to start delivering cargo to the station next year, and it will be a major milestone toward using it as a crew delivery vehicle and lifeboat. To deliver crew, conventional wisdom is that it will need a life-support system and a launch abort system, which are in work, but won’t be ready for two or three years, depending on funding availability. It could serve as a lifeboat (and one capable of returning seven instead of three) with the addition of the life-support system only, and it could be a fairly rudimentary one for the short trip back to earth. With these capabilities, America would have its own answer to Soyuz.

But if there is no one at the ISS in late November, there will be no one to grab and berth the Dragon, or open the hatch to it after docking, so the mission would have to be postponed until such a time as the station is occupied again.

All of this is a symptom of a deeper problem with our space policy — it is an indication that space, and opening up that frontier, isn’t really important. That is the only way to explain NASA’s extreme risk aversion, which I’ve discussed in the past:

If our attitude toward the space frontier is that we must strive to never, ever lose anyone, it will remain closed. If our ancestors who opened the west, or who came from Europe, had such an attitude, we would still be over there, and there would have been no California space industry to get us to the moon forty years ago. It has never been “safe” to open a frontier, and this frontier is the harshest one that we’ve ever faced. But, fortunately, we have sufficiently advanced technology to allow us to do it anyway, and probably with much less loss of life than any previous one. But people die every day doing a lot less worthwhile things than opening a frontier. I think that part of the angst of the nation over the loss of the Columbia astronauts was because they seemed to be dying in such a trivial pursuit–performing science experiments in low Earth orbit for children, rather than expanding our nation’s reach to the solar system.

We don’t really have to abandon the ISS — NASA has several options. The safest solution would be to simply load up a fresh crew module with payload, and deliver it to replace the one that is going stale, extending the stay of current crew. Or, while it wouldn’t be prudent, if they don’t discover what the problem was on time, we could hope that what happened last month was just an anomaly, and go ahead with the next Soyuz as planned. Or the astronauts could take the risk of a winter landing.

Or (and this would be the gutsiest, but highest payoff thing to do), we could throw together a rudimentary life-support system for the Dragon, put in some couches, and send crew up on it in December. After all, Elon Musk said last year after its maiden flight that if someone had been in it, they would have had a nice ride. In so doing, they would have eliminated the need for the Russians, and immediately have a lifeboat capable of carrying seven people with a designed orbital lifetime of a year, allowing them to immediately increase crew size and perhaps increase the productivity of the facility. And when the launch abort system is completed in a couple years, the safety would be improved, but its absence wouldn’t have prevented us from continuing to boldly open the frontier.

That NASA doesn’t seem to be considering any of these things, and is instead contemplating abandoning our only orbital outpost on which we’ve spent tens of billions over decades, even if only temporarily, speaks eloquently about our national perceptions of its importance, and trivializes it. It would say that unlike commercial fishing, coal mining, construction, and liberating peoples, opening up frontiers, even the harshest one, isn’t worth the risk of a human life. But I’ll bet that there are plenty of people in the astronaut office who’d be willing to take that risk, and in the unlikely event that there aren’t, there are plenty of people fully qualified who are. It’s what our ancestors would have done and how they created this great nation that once put men on the moon. What has happened to us?

Blacks Call for Democrat Carson to Resign Over Tea Party 'Hanging' Slam

A wide spectrum of black conservatives expressed outrage Wednesday at Rep. Andre Carson’s remark that tea party members would like to see black people “hanging on a tree” — and some even called on Carson to resign.

During a speech at a recent caucus event in Miami, the Indiana Democrat said conservative members of Congress would “love to see us [blacks] as second-class citizens,” and “some of them in Congress right now of this tea party movement would love to see you and me . . . hanging on a tree.”

Carson, the whip leader of the Congressional Black Caucus responsible for organizing the black vote in Congress, also alleged that tea party activism stems from Jim Crow racism.



“Some of them in Congress are comfortable with where we were 50 or 60 years ago. But this is a new day with a black president and a black congressional caucus.”

Carson spokesman Jason Tomcsi confirmed that Carson made the remarks. Tomcsi told USA Today: “People are frustrated by the inability of Congress to do something about the economy and get people back to work."

Carson’s choice of words provoked a strong backlash.

GOP Rep. Allen West, the only Republican member of the caucus, blasted Carson’s remarks as “reprehensible” during an interview on “Fox and Friends.”

“I think I’m reconsidering my membership in the Congressional Black Caucus,” West told “Fox and Friends” host Steve Doocy.

Underscoring his objections, West sent a letter today to Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Emanuel Cleaver in which he said, in part: "It is unconscionable when a fellow CBC Member, Congressman Andre Carson, comes to South Florida and claims that some in the Tea Party would love to see black Americans 'hanging on a tree.' It is appalling to hear another CBC colleague, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, say 'The Tea Party can go straight to hell.'

"As Chairman of the CBC, I believe it is incumbent on you to both condemn these types of hate-filled comments, and to disassociate the Congressional Black Caucus from these types of remarks. Otherwise, I will have to seriously reconsider my membership within the organization," West wrote.

"As a member of the CBC, I look forward to working with you to help end this practice. All of us, especially Congressman Carson, Congresswoman Waters and others who have engaged in racially motivated rhetoric, should follow the example of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., not the example of Reverend Jeremiah Wright."

And Timothy F. Johnson, founder of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, said Wednesday that the civil rights abuses and crimes of the Jim Crow era were carried out mostly in regions controlled by the Democratic Party. He decried Carson’s comments as “outrageous, hateful, and desperate,” adding in a statement: “When some Democrats can’t win a political disagreement, they normally resort to race-baiting, which is in itself racist.”


Deneen Borelli: Carson "absolutely should resign,” Borelli said. “This is very dangerous, the comments that he made."
Deneen Borelli, an African-American tea party speaker and a fellow with Project 21, a network of black conservatives under the auspices The National Center for Public Policy Research, called for Carson to resign.

“This is absolutely outrageous for him to say these kinds of comments, especially considering what position he holds in the Congressional Black Caucus,” she told Newsmax. “This is someone who is supposed to be showing a leadership role, and instead he is inciting racial tension in our country.

“With these harsh economic times, high unemployment, and especially in the black community where unemployment is much higher than nationally, this is the last thing anybody in his position should do . . . it is grossly irresponsible on his part.

“He absolutely should resign,” Borelli said. “This is very dangerous, the comments that he made. We should also be looking for [Rep.] Maxine Waters to resign, the comments she made as well. I find it grossly irresponsible for these individuals to make these charges, these claims. What they’re trying to do is keep blacks on their liberal plantation. They don’t want individuals to learn about free market and personal responsibility, because what else would these people be doing?”

Other reaction to Rep. Carson’s remarks:


Kevin Jackson, author of “The Big Black Lie” and founder of TheBlackSphere.net, tells Newsmax that Carson’s remark will give him “street cred” in the black community. “Of course, if you walk around in the black community and say ‘the tea party can go to hell,’ you get cheered,” Jackson says. “Now, any reasonable person would say if a group has been around for three years, and you’ve been experienced what you’ve had in the black community for decades, you shouldn’t be blaming the tea party . . . That’s the level of absurdity that we have, where these guys can point the finger at some obscure specter, some notion: ‘They’re the reason for the demise of the black community.’ As if the tea party is going secretly at night and doing drive-bys in the black community, impregnating black kids, and foreclosing on black homes and kicking people out.”
Singer/songwriter Lloyd Marcus, who performs at tea party events and describes himself as a “proud unhyphenated American,” wrote to Newsmax in an email: “I am a black man who has been embraced as a brother, a fellow lover of freedom, liberty and America. These rallies have nothing to do with race. Many tea party attendees even voted for Obama. They are not opposing Obama's skin color. They are simply saying ‘no’ to his socialistic agenda. The CBC knows this to be true. Obama's record is so horrendous [that] false charges of racism is their desperate tactic to re-elect Obama. Sacrificing national black/white race relations is considered acceptable collateral damage to these vile, evil people. Absolutely despicable.”
The Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, founder and president of the South Central L.A. Tea Party, demanded that both Carson and Waters apologize immediately. “Carson and the CBC want black Americans to forget about the racist legacy of the Democratic Party by falsely portraying the tea party as 'racist,'” Peterson told Newsmax in a statement. “Let us not forget that most of the segregationists of the past like Sen. J. William Fulbright, Gov. George Wallace, Sen. Robert Byrd, and Al Gore, Sr., were all Democrats. The CBC's town hall meetings have been nothing more than political pep rallies to motivate the Democrats’ base by blaming the tea party for President Obama's failures. Rep. Carson, Waters, and other members of the CBC don't care about the black community or the nation at large. They are using the town halls to directly lie to the black community so that they will remain in a hypnotic trance and stay on the Democrats’ plantation."
Tea party speaker Rev. C.L. Bryant, the founder of OneNationBacktoGod.com and the creator of the forthcoming documentary “The Runaway Slave Movie,” which is scheduled for release later this year, tells Newsmax of Carson and the CBC: “This is the only card that they have left to play. And that is a very sorry and tragic card they’re playing right now. Not only are they trying to divide the country along racial lines, but they are also trying to divide the country along class lines. And when you divide the country along those two lines, the result is usually violence. And violence usually leads to some type of chaos. The design of the [Saul Alinsky book] “Rules for Radicals” is to create chaos, and that’s exactly what’s going on.”
Johnson, of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, recalled how Democrats protested vitriolic rhetoric following the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

“Thusly, Rep. Carson and CBC Chairman Emanuel Cleaver should swiftly denounce these hateful statements and following through on what they advocated for back in January.”

Borelli said she sees Carson’s comments as part of an ongoing, “desperate attempt” on behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus to “cover for President Obama’s failed economic policies, and also the failure of their leadership.”

Grass-roots leaders beyond the black community criticized Carson’s remarks as well. Tea Party Express founder Sal Russo, for example, told Newsmax: “We know that we are winning the battle against the liberals when they have totally stopped addressing the issues and resort to outrageously false and negative attacks.

“There is no political or moral justification for the excessive spending and skyrocketing national debt. That’s why you hear the Democrats tell conservatives to tone down the rhetoric, but [they] have no intention of silencing the vicious attacks from their left wing allies.

Tea Party Patriots co-founders Mark Meckler and Jenny Beth Martin called Carson’s remark a “hideous slur,” and called for him to step down.

“Rep. Carson should immediately resign from Congress,” they wrote in a statement. “He is clearly not fit to serve. This type of disgusting, hateful rhetoric has no place in our political discourse. At a minimum, he should be removed from leadership in the Congressional Black Caucus, and censured by his colleagues.”

Boehner Asks Obama to Reschedule Jobs Address to Congress

House Speaker John Boehner requested that President Obama hold his jobs address, which Obama wants to deliver next Wednesday, next Thursday instead.

The Speaker's letter didn't mention the brewing controversy over the speech clashing with a previously scheduled Republican presidential debate scheduled on Wednesday night at 8 p.m. EST.

That debate is the first of the post-Labor Day political season, and the first one in which Texas Gov. Rick Perry is set to participate, The Hill reported.

"As your spokesperson today said, there are considerations about the Congressional calendar that must be made prior to scheduling such an extraordinary event," the Speaker wrote.

"With the significant amount of time – typically more than three hours – that is required to allow for a security sweep of the House Chamber before receiving a president, it is my recommendation that your address be held on the following evening, when we can ensure there will be no parliamentary or logistical impediments that might detract from your remarks.

Boehner also noted that the House isn't scheduled to reconvene until 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

"As such, on behalf of the bipartisan leadership and membership of both the House and Senate, I respectfully invite you to address a Joint Session of Congress on Thursday, September 8, 2011 in the House Chamber, at a time that works best for your schedule," Boehner said.

The White House downplayed the scheduling conflict with the GOP debate as just that, an innocent coincidence. The Republican National Committee (RNC) has accused the Obama administration of politicking by scheduling the speech simultaneously with the debate.

GOVERNMENT GUNRUNNERS

Not that the national media notices much, but the federal government under President Barack Obama has been supplying guns to Mexican drug gangs for quite a spell. With only a few print media bothering to cover the story, Obama’s Justice Department has been discovered secretly supplying firearms to Mexican drug lords using taxpayer “stimulus” monies. If that wasn’t bad enough, guns supplied to these Mexican miscreants by federal agents were used to kill at least one US Border Patrol agent. After the death of the BP agent, California Congressman Darrell Issa launched an investigation into the matter and uncovered what most anyone would correctly describe as a vast government conspiracy to supply firearms to Mexican drug cartels. As a result of Issa’s congressional investigations, numerous heads at the ATF have lost their jobs--or more correctly--have been “reassigned.”

Two days ago, the Washington Post reported, “The ATF head has been reassigned amid an investigation into a controversial U.S. gun-trafficking operation, part of a broader shake-up at the Justice Department in which the U.S. attorney in Phoenix also stepped down, officials said Tuesday.

“Kenneth E. Melson, acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, will become a senior adviser on forensic science in the department’s Office of Legal Policy. He will be replaced as acting director at ATF by B. Todd Jones, the U.S. attorney in Minnesota, the department said in a statement.”

The Post report went on to say, “In a sign of the continuing fallout, Dennis Burke, the U.S. attorney in Phoenix who worked closely with ATF and provided legal guidance for “Fast and Furious,” [codename for the ATF gunrunning operation] has resigned, the department said Tuesday. He is being replaced on an acting basis by his deputy, Ann Scheel.

“An assistant U.S. Attorney in Phoenix, Emory Hurley, who helped oversee “Fast and Furious,” is being transferred out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s criminal division and into the civil division. That means he will not be involved in criminal cases.

“The multiple moves amounted to an extraordinary shake-up for a Justice Department that has been under fire for the gun-trafficking probe, which critics consider ATF’s biggest debacle since the deadly 1993 confrontation in Waco, Tex. ATF is part of Justice.”

The Washington Post has since revised this report.

Back in July, World Net Daily ran a story featuring Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America in which he warned the American people of the ATF’s horrific scheme by saying, “Ten million dollars, and one of the ways they were spending it was a paid FBI informant who was a drug dealer they had flipped. So he was buying lots of guns with that stimulus money.”

Pratt went on to say, “We can say there's one thing that was stimulated by the stimulus bill and that was the Mexican undertaker business. Mexican authorities say that 150 people were murdered using these guns.”

World Net Daily also reported, “Firearms law analyst and writer David Codrea believes that even if there is evidence to prove that known criminals used taxpayer money to get guns to take to Mexico, nothing is likely to be done with the evidence.

“‘If left to Holder's Justice Department, nothing, because it shows this had to be top-level DoJ-authorized,’ Codrea explained.

“Reports say other federal agencies have also been drawn into the operation. The DEA, FBI and upper-level DOJ officers, including the U.S. Attorney’s office in Phoenix, have been named.”

WND goes on to state, “Pratt also believes that some of the guns were purchased by the Mexican cartels directly from federal agents.

“‘One of the founders of the cartel, one of the top 14 directors if you will, a guy whose nickname is El Mamito, has said that he was buying guns directly from the federal government,’ Pratt explained.”

And one more quote from the WND report: “Pratt said he believes for the guns to go across at a designated location, there had to be coordination between several federal law enforcement agencies.

“‘There had to be some kind of a deal with the Border Patrol. . . .We know that in the ’09 meeting that set up Fast and Furious, those four or five agencies were all part of the deal,’ Pratt said.”

See the report here.

What makes the ATF’s criminal gunrunning conspiracy even worse (if that’s possible) is the fact that, much like his superiors Obama and Holder, Melson has a career-long reputation for wanting to curtail the right of law-abiding US citizens to keep and bear arms. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, in the weird world of Obama/Holder/Melson, law-abiding US citizens cannot be trusted to keep and bear arms, but US tax dollars and federal police agencies are used to provide firearms to Mexican drug gangs. Then, when Mexican drug gangs using firearms supplied by the US Justice Department murder one of their own Border Patrol agents, the only retribution that follows is for underlings to be “reassigned.”

Seriously folks, have you ever known of any federal agent being brought to justice for even the most egregious violations of life and liberty? Where was the first federal agent brought to justice for the murders of over 80 mostly old men, women, and children outside Waco, Texas? Was agent Lon Horiuchi brought to justice for murdering Vicki Weaver? That monster shot Vicki in the face with a high-powered, scoped rifle as she stood in her kitchen holding her little baby. Not only was this creep not punished, he was later promoted and continues to work in law enforcement today. (Horiuchi was charged with manslaughter in Idaho State court, but US District Judge Edward Lodge dismissed the case. In justifying his horrific ruling, Lodge said that the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution “grants immunity to federal officers acting in the scope of their employment.” Way to go judge! Heil Hitler!) Oh! And by the way, Horiuchi was a federal sharpshooter at Waco, too.

So, one more time, criminals inside the US federal government have been found out! I hope Congressman Issa will not be content to let the matter die with the reassignments of a few underlings. The American people have been enduring criminality, bloodshed, and death perpetrated by rogue elements inside the federal government for far, far too long! It is time now for true justice to come to the US Justice Department!

Investors See Bull Run Fading Away by Year’s End

Stocks may be rallying right now but today's bull run will fizzle out before the end of the year, investors say.

Badly needed reforms in the United States and Europe won't come in time to make structural improvements to the global economy, which is what markets and pretty much everyone needs these days for the world to see lasting improvement.

"Some grand deal on entitlements in the U.S., moves to bring the 17 countries now part of the EU either fiscally closer together or monetarily further apart, or a more rapid acceleration in the value of China’s currency would all be long-term positives for equities now trading at low levels of valuation despite low levels of inflation and long-term interest rates,” says Jason Trennert, investment strategist and founder of Strategas, according to CNBC

NYSE floor traders (Getty Images photo)

"In the absence of such important secular reforms, investors can only hope for quick liquidity fixes that may mask the global economy’s underlying injuries."

Some want the government stay on the sidelines.

"I want the government to do nothing," says Peter Boockvar, equity strategist at Miller Tabak. "Let the market work. Let it wring out the excess."

While stocks have been volatile this year, gold has become a popular safe haven.

Expectations that the Fed may loosen already loose monetary policy in an effort to get the economy going again could weaken the dollar and fuel more demand for the precious metal.

"The Fed is telling us they are willing to provide more support for the economy," Frank Lesh, a trader at FuturePath Trading in Chicago, tells Bloomberg.

"More free money, the fear of a slowing economy, and a weaker dollar are driving more people into gold."

Fed's Bullard: QE3 Possible, Depending on Data

The Federal Reserve could embark on a third round of quantitative easing depending on upcoming economic data but should first confirm that inflation has eased, a senior Fed official said in the Asahi newspaper on Wednesday.

The Fed will need to confirm whether its economic outlook is still on track at a policy meeting next month and weigh the best options if additional easing is needed, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said in an interview with the Japanese daily.

Expectations are growing that the central bank could ease policy at its two-day meeting starting Sept. 20 after minutes from last month's gathering showed some policymakers pressed for bold and unconventional steps to shore up a flagging economy.

"Depending on future economic data QE3 is one choice, but we need to gather information about how the economy will perform in the second half of the year," Bullard said in the Asahi, referring to the Fed's quantitative easing program where it buys government debt.

"Before any moves, I would like to confirm that inflation is easing."
The head of the St. Louis branch does not have a vote on the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee this year.

Bullard reiterated his view that if the Fed were to buy additional government debt it should do so incrementally, on a meeting-by-meeting basis. Bullard is known for his hawkish views on monetary policy.

The U.S. economy is likely to grow 2.5 percent in the second half of the year, the Asahi also quoted Bullard as saying.

The Fed has a $600 billion quantitative easing bond-buying program, known as QE2.

In addition, U.S. interest rates are already near zero and the Fed has signaled it is willing to hold borrowing costs at that level for two years if necessary.