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It's ironic and hypocritical that the USA fires off missiles as a regular part of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq for years, killing hundreds and thousands of innocent women and children and then raises a political stink about Iran test firing unarmed missiles within their own territory. The irony and the hypocrisy hardly ends there. The USA must look to its own non-compliance as a signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
Scott Ritter was one of the more out-spoken UN weapons inspectors in Iraq who campaigned to continue weapons inspections in order to end the murderous sanctions and avoid war. He was also very vocal about denying the Bush/Cheney claim of WMDs in Iraq.
Go to Mr Ritter's article in the Guardian entitled,
"Keeping Iran Honest; Iran's secret nuclear plant will spark a new round of IAEA inspections and lead to a period of even greater transparency."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/sep/25/iran-secret-nuclear-plant-inspections
Then watch his interview on Democracy Now!
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Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Surprise! Welcome to the Third World, Des Moines!
I’ve been working on an essay for several months – ruminating mostly; rolling things round in my head looking for supporting or counter-arguments. The gist of the piece is that the United States is becoming or - more nefariously - is being turned into a Third World economy.
From personal observation, I’ve seen my friends and family, by necessity, change from manufacturing jobs or occupations as skilled workers to service jobs, losing pay, perks, union representation, and a sense that the situation will improve with time. Associating those numerous anecdotes, with the dismantling of social services and the disintegration of infrastructure, I wondered what other element would further the affect the USA’s slide from First World to Third World economy in this depressing scenario.
(n.b. Scenario construction like this is one, is a technique I employ to control my natural ebullience.)
Since the time last March when this dismal thought first occurred to me, the US economy has imploded; the huge no-strings-attached bail-out funds of TARP have mostly been distributed and dispersed to some of the largest corporations on the planet. Unemployment has risen unofficially to nearly 20% and officially in double digits. Home foreclosures and bankruptcies are pandemic. The missing element that would precipitate the change in the US from a First to a Third World economy became evident; massive debt to foreign creditors. Being heavily indebted to foreign entities is an economic characteristic of all of the poverty-stricken nations of the Third World.
The unknown trillions of dollars borrowed from the Fed, the PRC, France (and who knows where else) hemorrhaging from the U.S. Treasury to pay war profiteers (e.g. Halliburton, Blackwater, et al.), Defense Contractors, corporate subsidies, and the out-and-out wholesale bail-out of the most morally destitute, most conniving, self-serving, rapaciously avaricious swindlers, scammers, hornswogglers, flim-flammers and thoroughly destructive bunch of crooks seen in nearly a century would, I judge, qualify as an over-bearing burden of debt. A perfect shit storm of financial hanky-panky, two never-ending wars and the continuing slavish dependence on petroleum just might be the fulcrum by which the middle class of the USA begin to empathize with the citizens of Nicaragua and Colombia.
This postulation was an apparent orphan, though, as far as I could tell – a depressing day-dream but nothing more. I found little real evidence supporting the idea and that offered some relief.
Until I saw a segment of "Real Time with Bill Maher" from Friday, September 25th, that is. In that segment, Paul Krugman, a Nobel Laureate in Economics said, “On bad mornings I wake up and think that we are turning into a Latin American country," Krugman said.
“If America was officially a Third World country, the international monetary fund would come in and say, “You’ve got to break the power of your oligarchs. Those banking interests; they have too much power. You’ve got to end all of this crony capitalism… We’re not in good shape.”
He went on the say that while the American dream is not totally dead, it is "dying pretty fast," particularly when it comes to social mobility.
Sometimes, I surprise myself. I only wish that the surprise was a more pleasant one.
Right this way, Mr and Mrs America. Your hovel is waiting.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/26/krugman-the-american-drea_n_300702.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Krugman
From personal observation, I’ve seen my friends and family, by necessity, change from manufacturing jobs or occupations as skilled workers to service jobs, losing pay, perks, union representation, and a sense that the situation will improve with time. Associating those numerous anecdotes, with the dismantling of social services and the disintegration of infrastructure, I wondered what other element would further the affect the USA’s slide from First World to Third World economy in this depressing scenario.
(n.b. Scenario construction like this is one, is a technique I employ to control my natural ebullience.)
Since the time last March when this dismal thought first occurred to me, the US economy has imploded; the huge no-strings-attached bail-out funds of TARP have mostly been distributed and dispersed to some of the largest corporations on the planet. Unemployment has risen unofficially to nearly 20% and officially in double digits. Home foreclosures and bankruptcies are pandemic. The missing element that would precipitate the change in the US from a First to a Third World economy became evident; massive debt to foreign creditors. Being heavily indebted to foreign entities is an economic characteristic of all of the poverty-stricken nations of the Third World.
The unknown trillions of dollars borrowed from the Fed, the PRC, France (and who knows where else) hemorrhaging from the U.S. Treasury to pay war profiteers (e.g. Halliburton, Blackwater, et al.), Defense Contractors, corporate subsidies, and the out-and-out wholesale bail-out of the most morally destitute, most conniving, self-serving, rapaciously avaricious swindlers, scammers, hornswogglers, flim-flammers and thoroughly destructive bunch of crooks seen in nearly a century would, I judge, qualify as an over-bearing burden of debt. A perfect shit storm of financial hanky-panky, two never-ending wars and the continuing slavish dependence on petroleum just might be the fulcrum by which the middle class of the USA begin to empathize with the citizens of Nicaragua and Colombia.
This postulation was an apparent orphan, though, as far as I could tell – a depressing day-dream but nothing more. I found little real evidence supporting the idea and that offered some relief.
Until I saw a segment of "Real Time with Bill Maher" from Friday, September 25th, that is. In that segment, Paul Krugman, a Nobel Laureate in Economics said, “On bad mornings I wake up and think that we are turning into a Latin American country," Krugman said.
“If America was officially a Third World country, the international monetary fund would come in and say, “You’ve got to break the power of your oligarchs. Those banking interests; they have too much power. You’ve got to end all of this crony capitalism… We’re not in good shape.”
He went on the say that while the American dream is not totally dead, it is "dying pretty fast," particularly when it comes to social mobility.
Sometimes, I surprise myself. I only wish that the surprise was a more pleasant one.
Right this way, Mr and Mrs America. Your hovel is waiting.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/26/krugman-the-american-drea_n_300702.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Krugman
Saturday, September 26, 2009
First, Torture; Now, Disappearances?
Two of the thugs in cammies are apparently wearing a black arm band similar to those worn by military police. I could see no other designation of unit or rank. None wore head-cover.
After the civilian is manhandled into the unmarked sedan, riot troops move in warning off the concerned witnesses.
I hope somebody thought to get the license number.
Are we starting to disappear our own people in broad daylight from the streets of a major city with the eyes of the world turned the G20?
Disappearances; another of the counter-insurgency 'skills' along with torture and assassination taught to fascists the world over at the School of the Americas.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/24/g20-protest-photos-vote-o_n_298692.html
After the civilian is manhandled into the unmarked sedan, riot troops move in warning off the concerned witnesses.
I hope somebody thought to get the license number.
Are we starting to disappear our own people in broad daylight from the streets of a major city with the eyes of the world turned the G20?
Disappearances; another of the counter-insurgency 'skills' along with torture and assassination taught to fascists the world over at the School of the Americas.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/24/g20-protest-photos-vote-o_n_298692.html
Friday, September 25, 2009
Condi Rice continues her neo-Con-Job
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Condi Rice Talks More Shite
In a new interview with Fortune Magazine, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice denounced the idea of withdrawal from Afghanistan with typical illogic heavily tainted with fear-mongering.
"The last time we left Afghanistan, and we abandoned Pakistan," she said, "that territory became the very territory on which Al Qaeda trained and attacked us on September 11th. So our national security interests are very much tied up in not letting Afghanistan fail again and become a safe haven for terrorists.
"It's that simple," she declared, "if you want another terrorist attack in the U.S., abandon Afghanistan."
Codswallop, horsefeathers, hogwash, claptrap and poppycock!
What Ms Rice is adroitly dissembling is the role the CIA and Rep. Charlie Wilson, that woefully misguided naïf, (to be kind) played in arming, funding and training the mujahidin ‘freedom fighters’ which were to be thorns in the side of the Soviet bear. These selfsame mujahidin then known as ‘the Network’ – and included Saudi millionaire, Usama bin-Laden - morphed with little effort into a larger movement to rid Muslim countries of all Western influence. That movement is now referred to as ‘Al Qaida’.
This bit of essential back-story skirts the larger issue, though. Ms Rice, like all neo-cons and many who sit on both sides of the aisles of Congress, wears the stripes of international interventionism whereby the belligerent presence of US military might is the righteous base-line upon which all foreign policy decisions are made.
Our ‘national security interests’ as Ms Rice and her ilk would have us believe would be solved by the further expansion of US military forces to encircle the globe and control by threat of force the policies of every nation and region on earth to suit the perceived needs of the United States and US-based multi-national corporations.
If one were seeking a more truthful observation of reality, it would much more appropriate to paraphrase Ms Rice’s neo-conic cant to state “Unless you want another terrorist attack in the US, abandon the policies of empire and hegemonic military dominance that breed exasperation, hopelessness and fanatical hatred of the US policy of global intervention.”
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/22/condoleezza-rice-if-you-w_n_294755.html
http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/21/news/economy/condoleezza_rice_gop.fortune/?postversion=2009092209
"The last time we left Afghanistan, and we abandoned Pakistan," she said, "that territory became the very territory on which Al Qaeda trained and attacked us on September 11th. So our national security interests are very much tied up in not letting Afghanistan fail again and become a safe haven for terrorists.
"It's that simple," she declared, "if you want another terrorist attack in the U.S., abandon Afghanistan."
Codswallop, horsefeathers, hogwash, claptrap and poppycock!
What Ms Rice is adroitly dissembling is the role the CIA and Rep. Charlie Wilson, that woefully misguided naïf, (to be kind) played in arming, funding and training the mujahidin ‘freedom fighters’ which were to be thorns in the side of the Soviet bear. These selfsame mujahidin then known as ‘the Network’ – and included Saudi millionaire, Usama bin-Laden - morphed with little effort into a larger movement to rid Muslim countries of all Western influence. That movement is now referred to as ‘Al Qaida’.
This bit of essential back-story skirts the larger issue, though. Ms Rice, like all neo-cons and many who sit on both sides of the aisles of Congress, wears the stripes of international interventionism whereby the belligerent presence of US military might is the righteous base-line upon which all foreign policy decisions are made.
Our ‘national security interests’ as Ms Rice and her ilk would have us believe would be solved by the further expansion of US military forces to encircle the globe and control by threat of force the policies of every nation and region on earth to suit the perceived needs of the United States and US-based multi-national corporations.
If one were seeking a more truthful observation of reality, it would much more appropriate to paraphrase Ms Rice’s neo-conic cant to state “Unless you want another terrorist attack in the US, abandon the policies of empire and hegemonic military dominance that breed exasperation, hopelessness and fanatical hatred of the US policy of global intervention.”
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/22/condoleezza-rice-if-you-w_n_294755.html
http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/21/news/economy/condoleezza_rice_gop.fortune/?postversion=2009092209
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
How do you spell 'Quagmire', again?
Gen. Stanley McChrystal writes, “Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near term…risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.”
Does this sound like circular logic to anyone else?
The 'initiative' - meaning the ability to control the battle theater - is an illusion in guerrilla warfare and 'momentum' can only mean sustained and relentless, perpetual military action against the citizenry of the country.
The fact of the matter is that 'insurgency' is a code word for 'citizens of the country that resent the US military for killing their friends and family and have taken up arms to fight hostile occupation'.
Support the troops!
Bring them home to lead productive - not destructive - lives.
Does this sound like circular logic to anyone else?
The 'initiative' - meaning the ability to control the battle theater - is an illusion in guerrilla warfare and 'momentum' can only mean sustained and relentless, perpetual military action against the citizenry of the country.
The fact of the matter is that 'insurgency' is a code word for 'citizens of the country that resent the US military for killing their friends and family and have taken up arms to fight hostile occupation'.
Support the troops!
Bring them home to lead productive - not destructive - lives.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Breaking the Silence - John Pilger
As we near the start of the 9th year of senseless slaughter in Afghanistan, take time to listen to the reasons voiced by George W, Tony B, William Kristol, Douglas Feith, John Bolton, and the other architects of the Project for the New American Century that were meant to justify the illegal invasion and armed aggression against a sovereign people. John Pilger's documentary of 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan. What is the point? What is the justification 8 years on for the death and destruction?
Watch John Pilger - Breaking the Silence in Entertainment | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
Watch John Pilger - Breaking the Silence in Entertainment | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Torture Investigation Gets Gonzo's Okay
It would seem that former Attorney General Gonzalez finally remembered something. He remembered the law and what a prosecutor is suppose to do when someone is suspected and accused of breaking it.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Richard B Cheney: please, go back to your safe-room and await the US Marshalls
Cheney's claim that his policies saved lives and foiled terrorist plots reminds me of that joke about the person shredding newspaper in NYC to keep away the tigers. When told that there are no tigers in NYC, the person rejoins,'See how well it works?'
Although correlation is not proof (as this joke illustrates), the number of plots foiled by Cheney's administration by torture and rendition are few and laughable. The heinous acts that they committed are numerous and vile.
Cheney (and Addington, Rice, Tennant, et al) were caught so flat-footed by 9-11 that they went off the moral and legalistic deep end in a frantic attempt to 1) avoid culpability and 2) make political hay.
In Cheney's own words, they went to the 'dark side' which to me indicates that he was already quite familiar with the territory having been there many times before.
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