The Era of American Leadership Is Over
Vast numbers of people in the United States and abroad are hoping that President Obama will end America's illegal wars, halt America's support for Israel's massacre of Lebanese and Palestinians, and punish, instead of reward, the shyster banksters whose fraudulent financial instruments have destroyed economics and imposed massive sufferings on people all over the world. If Obama's appointments are an indication, all of these hopeful people are going to be disappointed.
James Petras examines Obama's foreign policy appointments and finds the largest collection of Zionist militarists outside of Avigdor Lieberman's far-right political party in Israel.
Petras concludes that Obama's "diplomatic" team has Iran in its sights, a hostility that meshes with Israel's own intent. Not realizing that a member of the press had been mistakenly invited to a selected audience, the Israeli ambassador to Australia said that Israel's attack on Gaza was a dress rehearsal for a major attack on Iran. Benjamin Netanyahu, the expected winner of Israel's March elections, has again declared that Israel will not permit Iran to have a nuclear energy program, as it would provide the basis for developing nuclear weapons.
It makes no sense for Israel baldly to state its intention to attack Iran if Israel does not mean it. What if the Iranians believe the Israelis and decide to strike first with their long-range missiles?
Obama's economic appointments are just as discouraging. Obama chose as his treasury secretary Timothy Geithner, the man who helped Bush's treasury secretary, Hank Paulson, engineer the $700 billion dollar rip-off of the U.S. taxpayer, money that was gifted to the crooked banksters who destroyed Americans' pensions, jobs and health-care coverage.
These banksters, and the negligent federal regulators that enabled them, should be put in prison, not handed hundreds of billions of dollars.
Instead, Obama has appointed one of the chief orchestrators of the rip-off to the helm of the Treasury. Obama's National Economic Council is just as depressing. Clinton's treasury secretary, Larry Summers, is its head. Summers recently declared that he had no inkling that a financial crisis was about to hit. Why did Obama put a person without a clue in charge?
Summer's colleagues are just as bad. Obama has appointed Diana Farrell, lead author of a phony study that claimed offshoring of American jobs is a win-win game for Americans, as deputy director of the National Economic Council. Farrell is affiliated with McKinsey and Co., a firm that helps American corporations offshore their operations. In his book, Outsourcing America, economist Ron Hira tore Farrell's McKinsey report to shreds.
Why not appoint Hira and Nouriel Roubina, who predicted the crisis, to the National Economic Council?
With Israel's most fervent American allies whispering in one ear and banksters and offshoring propagandists whispering in the other, how can President Obama fulfill any of the hopes that people have?
The discouraging fact is that even when faced with crisis in the economy and in foreign policy, the American political system is incapable of producing any leadership. Here we are in the worst economic crisis in a lifetime, perhaps in our history, and on the brink of war in Pakistan and Iran while escalating the war in Afghanistan, and all we get is a government made up of the very people who have brought us to these crises.
Just as the Bushites could not admit the failure of their man, the Obamacons will not be able to admit the failure of their man.
The era of American leadership has passed. America's shyster financial system has brought economic crisis to the world. America's wars of aggression are seen as serving no purpose except the enrichment of the military industries associated with Dick Cheney. The world is looking elsewhere for leadership.
Vladimir Putin made a play for this role at Davos, where his speech at the opening ceremony was the most intelligent of the event.
Putin reminded the World Economic Forum that "just a year ago, American delegates speaking from this rostrum emphasized the U.S. economy's fundamental stability and its cloudless prospects. Today, investment banks, the pride of Wall Street, have virtually ceased to exist. In just 12 months, they have posted losses exceeding the profits they made in the last 25 years."
Putin made his case that the existing financial system based on the U.S. dollar and American financial hegemony has failed.
Putin showed that his economic understanding was superior to that of the Obama team when he said that creating more debt on top of the "hopeless debts," as Obama is doing, would "prolong the crisis."
With another swipe at America's failed economic leadership, Putin said it is time to get rid of virtual money, false financial reports and dubious credit ratings. Putin proposed a new reserve currency system to "replace the obsolete unipolar world concept."
Putin said that a secure world requires cooperation, which requires trust. He made it clear that the Americans have proven that they cannot be trusted.
This was a powerful message. It got a lot of applause.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
Entries(RSS)
That's what so great about the Chronicles site: the posters always make you feel so welcome. It's like Daily Kos, but with Birch-ite cranks, not deluded leftists. It is easy to say that some of one's critics are misinformed without telling how or why. This kind of "conservatism" will never develop any kind of public following because of the airless condescension and purile elitism of the posters who feel it is beneath them to engage in any king of debate.
McNulty,
It's all in good fun. There are similarities to Kos because the extreme right and extreme left are pretty much identical, both towing the line for the Soros NGOs.
Real US (foreign) policy is a shop of horrors so scary that most just can't handle it. We would be lucky if it was being done by pro-Israel Jews, but unfortunately it is the opposite--which is what one would expect when the real history (the stuff in the archives) is examined.
Not sure if you've ever read de-construct dot net. I've studied it, and it's all true. Western media does not tell us about any of it. IMO, the government has never had a tighter stranglehold on what we find out and don't find out. We are lucky in that tools like Lexis Nexis can still be used to dig up old news articles. The websites I read make extensive usage of it to expose the lies told today.
McNulty,
Denouncing one of the most pro-American and U.S. Constitution-loving organizations in American history, are we? Spoken like a true leftist. Perhaps the American government should have been more friendly to Communists in the 50s than it already was? Perhaps we need to expand NAFTA and GATT to completely erase American borders, submit to U.N. rule for our system of government, and leave the American Republic to the ashheap of history? This is what the John Birch Society stands against. We are the torchbearers of the American conservative movement. Trying to appeal to the American voter is the duty of those who are devoted to stealing, swindling, lying and cheating . . . leftists, that is. If you were insinuating that the political mainstream seems to be moving more to the left every day, and candidates must adapt to it and accept it in order to get elected, good point! So, as conservatives, we must realize that we and our principles are not welcome in American mainstream political discourse anymore. Will you not do the same?
IMO, the political mainstream is moving closer to the ideology that we should do whatever we can to placate and please Arabs--and this mainstream is entirely unaware that this has been our covert policy for a very long time.
PCR/Buchanan/Ray McGovern/Larry Johnson/Michael Scheuer/Cannistraro are all government workers, servants of this empire. They rail about non-existent Jewish conspiracies because they shill for the government. They hate the fact that the American people support democracy and civil-rights movements (which is what our LYING leaders say they support), which (as Simpson writes about) are things that they often want to eradicate overseas in many places.
These guys have hijacked any true conservative/non interventionalist movement that ever existed.
Likewise, government propagandists like Bill Ayers (and similar spokesmen for palestinian naziism) long ago hijacked any true leftist movements that existed. These lefties, too, want to placate the Arabs. Obama's rhetoric is all about placating Muslims--because evidently having our CIA put out press releases on all the Islamists it is torturing somehow constitutes an anti-Islam policy.
Like I've said before: it's quite amazing that the torture of Serbs by our KLA allies never makes the light of day, yet the torture of the Islamists just can't be bottled up. And who are all these torturees? Shouldn't they have been on Oprah or 20/20 by now?
All should read Jared Israel's analyses on Bill Ayers, as well as the 'lies of Scott Ritter'. These are good for learning how the government hijacks and manipulates both the pro and anti-war movements.
Makes you realize how powerless the citizens truly are.
slim,
I can't defend PCR against too many charges, I don't know his history in the government, but I know Pat Buchanan's, and I know his real principles because I have read his books. I doubt you can say the same. If he is a government mouthpiece, why is it that he was all but kicked out of the major American political party he was a member of for all his political life, and which he still feels some misguided loyalty towards? If an organization which is a key member of the American political establishment, like one of our two major political parties, saw Pat as a thorn in their side and a huge liability as they did in '92, '96, and '00, how can he be part of the American imperial establishment? He spent about 1100 combined pages in "The Death of the West," "Where the Right Went Wrong," "State of Emergency," and "Day of Reckoning" railing against the American empire like a rabid pitbull.
If you are going to start a discussion about who has hijacked the once-non-interventionist conservative movement, go to the real culprits: the neocons. Bill Kristol, John Podhoretz, Fred Barnes, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh.
Pat Buchanan cut his ties to those bozos years ago for the purpose of finding his Old Right roots, OK? I have not made any false claims about Christopher Simpson. Meet me halfway concerning Mr. Buchanan.
Brock,
Regarding Kristol et al, I don't think they have had nearly the 'imprint' on US policy that Brzezinski and Khalilzad have had. I believe Kristol toiled for Carter(?), and Carter is a rabid Israel-hater, doing whatever he can to rehabilitate Muslim nazis.
I believe that once upon a time, there was a genuine neocon movement--but the current 'neocons' are empty propaganda shells of that movement. We are told that they support Israel, but push come to shove, I can't find thier pro-Israel policy in action. They seem to be infinitely weaker than the anti-Israel forces in the government.
Regarding Buchanan, one thing to keep in mind is that he is very much aware of the things Simpson writes about. It is completely nonsensical to say some of the things he says when you are fully aware that the true power-players are not Jews and are not friends of the Jews.
It's quite possible that a subset of his ideology makes good sense. Kind of like a Farrakhan, who says some uplifting things for blacks--while never forgetting to teach them some Jewhate while he's at it.
Also be aware of the fact that if Buchanan was cast out of the political process, there would be NO outlet for him in Western MSM, kind of like there is no outlet for those that refute this '100% pro Israel policy' stuff, and there is no outlet for those that dispute our 'we had to rescue Bosnian mujahedin from those evil Serbs' story. And there is certainly no outlet for anyone that tries to tell us who the US supports in Africa and what kind of turmoil results from it.
Buchanan seems kind of like the 'right' wing equivalent to Carter or Ayers. He's a part of the system, but closer to the 'edge', where the mainstream must slander him a bit. He probably has some good ideas--but he is not entirely honest with you.
When you learn certain things, and you notice the efforts to hide them, and the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on NGOs that lie out the wazoo, you become quite distrustful of many of these columnists.
"So our problem is not Jackson or Lincoln, it’s the Enlightenment. That covers quite an area. Who among the Founding Fathers was not tainted by the Enlightment?"
What I said was that the Enlightenment had the effect of undoing the sensible measures taken by the Christians of a more prudent age to keep the Jews under control.
Shortly after these measures were reversed for stupid ideological reasons during the Enlightenment, in a strange coincidence we saw Jews push themselves to the forefront of harming Whites and Christians through economic exploitation and the pursuit of a radical social agenda that frequently took on a totalitarian political character (as it did in Russia with the Bolshevik Revolution).
The fact that the theorists of the Enlightment didn't even consider the possibility that their ancestors had good reasons for devoting so much effort to keeping the Jews under control never occured to them; which goes to show the fundamental flaw in their narrow time frame oriented philosophy.
Come on, man, someone who supports the Zionist Entity as much as you do must understand the need for a dominant race to take legal measures to maintain control over a minority from a different religion and ancestry.
slim,
I once made the point that American neoconservatism is different from Israeli neoconservatism, I don't know if you saw it in one of my previous comments. The majority of American neocons are probably Jews, but I know that they do not hold Israel's national interests at heart, now that I have read a few Chris Simpson articles. That is not what defines an American neocon. It is the desire to advance AMERICAN interests around the globe that is the mark of an American neocon. Israeli neocons are obviously concerned with advancing ISRAEL's interests. I don't know a whole lot about him, but from what I've read I suspect Bibi Netanyahu and the Likud party would fall into this category.
slim,
To make my point from my previous post: With those distinctions being made, I would have to assert in disagreement that American neoconservatism is alive and well, albeit rather discredited thanks to Boy George Dubya.
Brock,
for the last 30 years, American interests seem to entail the following:
1) using Islamist proxy fighters to attack the enemies of this empire. Who are our enemies? Pretty much who you'd expect them to be given the Gehlen Org origins of our government. And we do this while lying out the wazoo about this policy and portraying the concentration camp victims as the 'new nazis'.
2) bending over backwards to let the most hatemongering Muslims into our government and academia, ignoring the Muslims that truly believe in a secular Islam.
I'm unable to determine how this has benefitted anyone but the ruling elites, still maniacally fighting the Soviets after all these years.
It got us 9/11. I get to be 'humiliated' every time I have to go through security at our airports. Hasn't really gotten me any cheap oil. Jared Israel does much analysis and argues quite well that it has never been 'about the oil'. Note too, that it's quite disturbing to read some of Simpson's work and find out that pretty much of the post 9/11 agitprop regarding why we were attacked is a lie (a lie told not just by OBL, but also Scheuer, Cannistraro, and other supposed 'friends' of Israel).
It's just not real clear why the US needs to be militarily agressive all over the place--and no US media will tell us why. The original 'fear the commies' propaganda of the 50s was mostly a product of the liars we hired into our intelligence, and they had to create such lies as a means of justifying their paychecks.
The government seems very much out of control, and Obama (who has a mindmeld on his followers) will only make it worse IMO.
You said earlier that we agree on most things, but why must you continue to accuse others on this board of being pro-Islamic? Anyone with eyes and ears know of the Progressive/Islamic alliance and dislike it as much as you do. If you champion the current immigration policies in the U.S. and Western Europe than I say you are the ones who are pro-Islamic.
A carpet bombing of the suburbs of Paris and the ghettos of Birmingham and London would have done more to protect the West than invading secular Iraq. Heck, I should throw in the campuses of Harvard and Oxford too.
I sure wish Slim would find something better to do. Doesn't he have a job?
what's the matter Clyde? Turned your world upside down didn't I?
Strange that PCR never chimes in on these things.
Now. now children. Play nice.
I strongly suspect that what slim and McNulty "contribute" here is their job, paid for by the sucker American taxpayer, via the enablers supporting "that plucky little state" aka "s******e of a country" Israel. Consequently this is the best they can do (to further their cause).
It took me a while to put my finger on it but for everything claimed by this pair the opposite is the truth, but with sufficient exceptions so as to make the differentiation between fact and fiction somewhat labourious.
H.F. Wolff
@62 Clyde
Yes. When he's not being a good little sayanim looking for an anti-semite on every website, he sells Dead Sea make-up and toy helicopters at a kiosk in the mall.
slim,
While you have introduced me to some rather eye-opening facts, the good Dr. Wilson, who is wiser than anybody who posts comments or articles on this website, has a good point, as always. You do seem to be obsessed with the job of rooting out anti-semitism, to the point where you go out of your way to rebuke anybody who isn't. Couldn't you . . . lighten up a little?
As long as PCR keeps penning his Goebbelsesque anti-Israel bile, I'll need to chime in every here and there.
And he's fully aware that it's fiction too.
The most fun part is emasculating the Wolff-types, whose Jewish conspiracy has no foundation in reality, whereas (unfortunately) the anti-Jewish conspiracy is US policy--telling everyone over and over and over how incredibly 'pro Israel' it is to take Israel's land, render it Judenrein, and give it to the disciples of Hajj Amin al Husseini.
But don't worry, verrrry few American Jews know this stuff. Most would rather watch American Idol, and don't really care about Israel at all. Natural result of assimilation and big-lie bombardment.
Wolfie,
My assertions are all over thousands of documents in gigantic warehouses in Suitland, MD--that is 'the national archives'.
And the authors I read cite from said documents, as well as what is logical, as opposed to what is absurd. Absurd? the notion that one of the people whose immigration was limited by the immigration acts in the 1920s, whose slave labor was exploited during WWII somehow took over the US Government, and decided to have it create US intelligence by absorbing 'tens of thousands' of nazi criminals (mostly employed all over the world outside the US).
This is absurd--and it's the foundation of your ideology.
Come back and join the big kids when you are able to escape this realm of absurdity.
slim,
No, sir, you don't need to chime in. You have provided the alternative point of view which tells another side of PCR's stories, complete with web addresses so we can read them ourselves. For that we are grateful. Because that's all Christopher Simpson's writings are - another SIDE to PCR's stories, a different point of view from his. When we feel like we aren't getting the whole story, we can go to Mr. Simpson's website. Reading very vitriolic comments from yourself in response to each of Mr. Roberts's articles, on the other hand, just gets kind of tiring.
Brock,
The problem for PCR is that Simpson's writings expose him for what he is--a propagandist, not a truth-teller. He propagandizes against Israel, telling lies designed to incite hatred. And it should be exposed.
Wolff,
I never stated such a thing ('poor poor Jews'). On the contrary, working class people love the Jews. It is consistently your masters in the government that don't. Israel is the antithesis of Kosovo. They love creating aquiescent thug states like the latter.
Reparations is the least the German government can do based on all the money it stole and laundered--but it does not prevent them, the EU, or the US from contributing to a wide variety of antisemitic NGOs and UN departments. Once again--zero evidence that Israel or the Jews have any kind of 'stranglehold' on anyone's policy.
Putin's speech indicates the wave of the future. The empire is dying fast. I will not mourn it's passing.
The Brits and Italians also paid back in full,interest included.I would assume the same is tru of the French.As far as Italy is concerned,the much vaunted Marshall Plan notwithstanding,WWII was a catastrophic loss.When you factor in frozen assets,never released,and the wanton destruction of war,Italy emerged much poorer from the conflict.And she was none too rich to start off with.
Add to that the loss of Libya and its 30 billion barrels of proven oil reserves,and the Marshall Plan shrinks to insignificance.
The Anglo-Zionist alliance marches on.
Wolff,
there's no evidence that Israel is held in the low regard that you state. Israel has a very varied economy, pro sports teams, some of the brightest minds in the world in engineering, technology, weaponry enhancement.
Your beloved Kosovo--which your imperialist masters love to no end--would probably qualify as one of the lowest regarded states in the world.
Well. let's see. I have been called a crypto-neo-con, have been accusecd of being a paid apologist for Isreal (a "job"?), and have been told that I whitewash atrocities over the centuries by the Jews (atrocities by the Jews? -- maybe they use Christian babies' blood to make motzos -- or wait, the Arabs already have that one). This is like a neanazi site with better diction and larger words. The questions remain: was Himmler misundetstood? Were the Founding Fathers tainted by "Enlightenment ideas"? Did anyone talk about a "Palestinian nation" during Ottoman times? Were the Arabs pro-Nazi during the war? What difference does the "Arab street" make when the leadership is anti-Jew and anti-Israel?
slim,
It could be said, also, as a matter of indisputable fact, that Mr. Roberts constantly shows that Christopher Simpson and his ilk are propagandists FOR Israel. Just depends on what side of the story you want to hear. And I hate to break it to you, but I doubt any posters on this website will ever be inclined to look at the side championed by you and Mr. Simpson. That's because we don't have personal loyalties to any nation or government except the AMERICAN nation (NOT the American GOVERNMENT, God strike me down if I should not make that clear). Needless to say, that nation hasn't truly existed since Constitution was ratified, so we look to the leaders of our past for guidance.
To revise the last sentence of my previous post, I meant THE Constitution. Also, a question for slim. Before God and all these witnesses. Which nation do you love and give your daily loyalty to? America or Israel?
For some reason, Mr Wolff's mentioning of the Russian mafia got me thinking: Germany was looted after WWI, then when she recovered, she was hit with propaganda and economic war followed by the real thing. Russia was looted at the end of the cold war, and now she's recovering and the propaganda war has started......do I see a pattern here?
Brock,
that's actually patently absurd for multiple reasons: his work is cited meticulously from documents released via FIA. 'Blowback' actually stops in 1986, and does not discuss Israel at all--but it is more than sufficient for dispelling this absurd 'Jews control our policy' garbage.
Currently, Simpson is a professor at American University. I've exchanged emails with him before. He didn't reply to me when I asked about Israel. Discussing real policy regarding Israel seems to be verboten.
PCR's Jewish conspiracy theory is without any basis in reality whatsoever.
Simpson lives and works in the US. There is nothing disloyal about revealing our antisemitic foreign policy.
Not quite sure where this fits in, but anybody remember George's confident prediction of a false flag attack on NATO HQ in Brussels by Chechen terrorists disguised as Russian Spetznaz commandos? The one that was going to re-ignite the cold war? The one that was certain to take place by 2/10? It's now 2/11 and does anyone know where George is? Haven't heard from him in a couple of weeks.
I remember it, but I wasn't thinking about it when I made the above post, rather just general patterns. I doubt if he'll be back under that name after posting such absurdity.
Mr. Wolff
I agree the winds of war are starting to blow harder. Only this time, it's going to be even uglier. The theft of the people's wealth to prop up insolvent banks and their elite owners is creating class conflict within countries and between countries (which rightly blame the U.S. for the trouble). Ethnic hatred within and between countries is also growing--what's different this time is there are hundreds of millions of people not loyal to the countries they live in scattered around the globe. Resource nationalism is also growing, as is demand for access to those resources from countries lacking their own resource base.
The question is who is going to light the fuse?
I wouldn't discount Iran, whether it attacks Israel, Israel attacks it, or the U.S. attacks Israel.
I wouldn't discount Russia lighting the fuse either, if oil prices remain low for a few years.
I wouldn't discount China either, seeing a weakened U.S. as an opportunity to reclaim Taiwan.
Or another terrorist attack in the U.S. resulting in a less controlled (if you can call the last response controlled) response from the U.S.
Mr. Wolff
I meant to say the U.S. attacks Iran lol