End of the American Empire

by craig on August 6, 2011 9:27 am in Uncategorized

China’s call today for a new global reserve currency to replace the dollar spells the beginning of the end of the American Empire. China holds most of the dollar credit in the world, and that of course gave China a powerful incentive to maintain dollar hegemony. That China now views the risks to world trade from the US’ indebtedness, to outweigh the potential loss in value of its own dollar reserves, is the tipping point that spells the inevitable beginning of the end of the US empire.

The reserve currency system has since 1795 allowed empires to be built on the economic output of weaker powers. If you achieve sufficient economic power and control of resources that yours is the currency everyone holds, you can print as much of it for yourself as you like and the devaluation effects are spread around not just your economy, but everyone else who holds your deposits. Being the reserve currency is a license to print money. Both the British and the Americans used this position to build military forces which could dominate both formal and informal empires. Both eventually experienced overreach, with military expenditure pushing deficit finance to the point of implosion. Then you lose reserve currency status.

It happened to the British and now it is happening to the Americans.

The colossal 4.7% a year of its wealth the US throws away on defence and security expenditure (broadly defined) – more than double the European average – is a huge factor in US indebtedness. There is an extraordinary failure to mention this in the mainstream media. It seems to be an Emperor’s New Clothes thing. It is the one area of expenditure the xenophobic hatemongers of the Tea Party want to see increased, and the existence of Empire causes all career politicians to compete in public displays of patriotism. That has been a political fact since the dawn of time. Defence spending is a sacred cow, unmentionable in the United States. They probably have a couple of decades to come fully to terms with the fact that they will no longer be in a position to invade who they will in order to control their mineral and other commodity resources. As with the British empire, the beetle on its back will kick its legs a while yet. It will be painful for them.

I shall enjoy it. I never claimed to be a good person!

187 Comments

kathz

6 Aug, 2011 - 9:34 am

I don’t think you’ll really enjoy it. You may be able to feel some pleasure in the sufferings of the rich and powerful but it’s a fair bet that the peopl who suffer first ad most will be those who are already having a pretty hard time: poor people trying to get by, people who are ill, people who already suffer hate and discrimination. It’s often much easier for the powerful to “move on”, as they like to put it.
craig

6 Aug, 2011 - 9:39 am

KathZ,

Not necessarily. The initial period of the same fall from power of the UK was actually marked by increased egalitarianism and the creation of the welfare state.
brian armitage

6 Aug, 2011 - 9:40 am

Let’s not forget, though, that while the military contribution to the USA deficit is indeed large roughly the same amount was caused by the Bush II tax cuts.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infographics/us-national-debt
mary

6 Aug, 2011 - 9:46 am

What action will China take about the funny American paper money it is holding?
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Foreign ownership
Composition of U.S. Long-Term Treasury Debt held by foreign states, Nov. 2005–Nov. 2010. June figures are results of comprehensive Treasury Department surveys. (graph)
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As of January 2011, foreigners owned $4.45 trillion of U.S. debt, or approximately 47% of the debt held by the public of $9.49 trillion and 32% of the total debt of $14.1 trillion.[40] The largest holders were the central banks of China, Japan, the United Kingdom and Brazil.[42] The share held by foreign governments has grown over time, rising from 25% of the public debt in 2007[43] and 13% in 1988.[44]
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As of May 2011 the largest single holder of U.S. government debt was China, with 26 percent of all foreign-held U.S. Treasury securities.[45] China’s holdings of government debt, as a percentage of all foreign-held government debt, have decreased a bit over the last year, but are up significantly since 2000 (when China held just 6 percent of all foreign-held U.S. Treasury securities).[46]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt
mary

6 Aug, 2011 - 9:49 am

Another question. Will the US keep Israel afloat?
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http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/cost_of_israel.html
Rob

6 Aug, 2011 - 9:51 am

I fear that the end of empire and reserve currency status is marked by global conflict. That kind of power has to be wrested from the powerful and there will be many who want to break free of its grip while others will want to take over control of the reserve currency. The beetle on its back may not be the right metaphor: more the cornered rat which fights tooth and nail to save the status quo.
Tom Welsh

6 Aug, 2011 - 10:25 am

Remember your wistful remarks about “fine writing”, Craig? This post of yours is the best description of the advantages of having the reserve currency that I can remember reading. And that is precisely becuase it is couched in plain, simple language.

Fine writing is certainly an art in its own “write”, with poetry as the extreme manifestation. But what you (mostly) do is write to inform and persuade, and I believe that is best done exactly the way you do write. Probably for the same reasons that the most efficient way for a mammal to swim is pretty much exactly the way a dolphin does swim.
Azra

6 Aug, 2011 - 10:26 am

Craig, I sincerely hope so that the end of American Empire is close. Considering what they have done (of course do not let us forget role of British gov, they they were complicit in many of these acts), they deserve this and a lot more. Look at their contemporary history since Second World War:

Attempted to overthrow more than 50 governments, most of which were democratically-elected.
Attempted to suppress a populist or nationalist movement in 20 countries.
Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries.
Dropped bombs on the people of more than 30 countries.
Attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders.
#
And I can never forgive them ever for what they did to the people of Diego Garcia, people of Palestine who are made homeless because of their actions and policies. They deserve what it is coming to them and a lot lot more. If few American are made homeless.. in no way it even come close to being made stateless..
Tom Welsh

6 Aug, 2011 - 10:29 am

As to the matter of your post, I am afraid I don’t see a happy ending. The USA is by far the most powerful military force in the world, with a huge thermonuclear arsenal (and let’s not forget, it still has plenty of chemical and biological weapons too!)

Trying to get back the money and resources the USA owes the rest of the world may turn out like trying to arrest for debt someone armed with a tank, cylinders of poison gas, and a battery of nuclear rockets. It would probably cost far less just to let the matter drop.
craig

6 Aug, 2011 - 10:34 am

Tom,

I agree, but if people simply start dealing in another currency of choice, and being wary of lending them more money denominated in their own currency, the effect on them will be very severe.
martin

6 Aug, 2011 - 10:44 am

@Tom. China will not ‘arrest’ America. It will simply put its $s up for sale, effectively busting the US in one fail swoop.
ingo

6 Aug, 2011 - 11:03 am

Tom, I agree with your decription, the death of the Monroe doctrine, the ubiquitous piece of paper responsible for US trade/aid machinations has finally landed were it belonged all the while, on the bonfire.

This does not mean they won’t wriggle, maybe try another war or two in the middle east to ensure that their large oil conglomerates will have some sort of control over the last vestiges of uncontrolled reserves.

I would discount the thermo nuclear options, it would take a right Strangelove to push the button for the last ever playground fight, I think global pressure would be too strong to go along that alley, but I can see those black ops teams, Mary linked to 2 days ago, engaging, subdefuging, sabotaging and killing, for more mistrust and false flagging. As long as the Carlisle trust earns money and Israel gets supported, an unstable future is secured.
Azra

6 Aug, 2011 - 11:03 am

Mary, Thanks for the link re whether USA will keep Israel afloat. This debate has been going on for a while (mostly on the net), but quite frankly I think it is Israel who run USA and its politics. I remember in Jerusalem an Israeli man was boasting that it is us who tell America what to do not the other way round. I can 100% believe that..
mary

6 Aug, 2011 - 11:19 am

Quite agree Azra.
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Not a good day for Obomber. 31 ‘special forces’ and seven Afghan soldiers have died in a helicopter crash in East Afghanistan. The Taliban claim to have shot it down.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-14430735
Ann

6 Aug, 2011 - 11:23 am

I recall some suggestions at the beginning of the 2nd Gulf war – which I don’t think ever penetrated to mainstream media, but in my opinion had some logic to them – that the reason George W was so determined to get rid of Sadam was that Iraq had been trying to drum up support for the oil currency to be moved away from the dollar. How horribly ironic if that was indeed the case and the US lost the reserve currency because of the countless billions they spent at war in order to prevent that.
LeeJ

6 Aug, 2011 - 11:37 am

The greatest capitalist country in the world in a financial mess! Makes me laugh anyway.
Paul Johnston

6 Aug, 2011 - 11:51 am

Thought everyone might enjoy a laugh at the Daily Fail

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2020705/LIZ-JONES-The-caring-professions-They-just-dont-care-all.html
MJ

6 Aug, 2011 - 12:06 pm

“I remember in Jerusalem an Israeli man was boasting that it is us who tell America what to do not the other way round”
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That might as well have been PM Ariel Sharon who, in October 2001, stated:
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“We, the Jewish people, control America. And the Americans know it”
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But I think he was in Tel Aviv at the time.
Póló

6 Aug, 2011 - 12:33 pm

I have been waiting 40 years for the bill for Vietnam to come in.

I suppose that’s not too bad compared with the Last Supper.
mary

6 Aug, 2011 - 12:35 pm

@ Anno ‘Even if Simon Jenkins and Dominic Grieve expose the whole matter,….’ What has Grieve ever exposed? Nothing to those fighting for an inquest for Dr Kelly. Nor do many know that he voted very strongly for the Iraq war.
mary

6 Aug, 2011 - 12:37 pm

That comment should have gone on the previous post. http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2011/08/secret-torture-policy/
ingo

6 Aug, 2011 - 12:51 pm

Good link, dankeschoen Mary, what a massive annual burden on the US taxpayer. Still this does not include the security and defense arrangements, contingents and other little agreements for funding the latter, which has kept/ backed up each and every one of Israels past wars.

Crunchtime’s approaching.

So is Sir peter Gibson going to talk to himself then? I mean, to get paid a ransom for his ‘public service’?
Could one not define this sort of behavioural soft touching of the establishments underbelly as being not in the public interest, send him home!
danj

6 Aug, 2011 - 1:07 pm

China calls for a new reserve currency, which one, and will this too be part of the rise and fall of great powers? I fail to see how replacing China with the US, for example, would be a cause for great celebration. Azra says they, the US, deserves a lot more. Would he like to share his hopes and dreams with us? Generally, why do you guys hate the US qnd Israel so much? I think you need to be more balanced. The US is a source of many good things in the world too numerous to mention. And your comments about Israel never really come to terms with the right of self determination and the crimes comiitted against Israel by its enemies over the years.
Katabasis

6 Aug, 2011 - 1:08 pm

Don’t celebrate too quickly Craig.

It’s us next…..
geomannie

6 Aug, 2011 - 1:11 pm

A related issue is one of the preciptating reasons for the American invasion of Iraq. It is little commented upon, but Saddam Hussein was threatening to sell oil in Euros rather than dollars which would have had a devastating effect on the dollar value as the international currency. This, as much as the desire for America to guarantee its long-term oil supply, was the trigger for the American invasion.

For those who have forgotten http://www.energybulletin.net/node/7707
Katabasis

6 Aug, 2011 - 1:22 pm

The UK is still the third largest holder of US debt:
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/tic/Documents/mfh.txt

Combine that with the UK’s Euro holdings (and bailout contributions) and its looking like a busted flush,.,..
Andy

6 Aug, 2011 - 1:41 pm

It’s not just military spending

Dean Baker, ”…….the United States has a broken health care system. Since more than half of health care costs are paid through government programs like Medicare and Medicaid, this translates into a budget problem. If we paid the same amount per person for our health care as any other wealthy country, then we would be looking at surpluses in the long-term, not deficits.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/baker07042011.html
judith weingarten

6 Aug, 2011 - 1:53 pm

Did PM Sharon say that Israel controlled America? Wow! That’s amazing. I wonder if you could supply a reference or chapter & verse (not just that ‘somebody said that somebody said’).
Meanwhile, I’ll tell you another. I heard it myself straight from the lips of a Mr Haaretz — from Jerusalem, I think, but he could have been from Tel Aviv. A friend of Mr H told him that he had stopped reading Israeli newspapers and only read Arab ones now. “Why ever?,” exclaimed Mr H, “They hate us.” “Yes,” replied friend, “but when I read Israeli papers, it’s all about our problems, troubles here, high taxes there; it’s always bad news. But when I read the Arab papers, everything is so much better: they say we are powerful, and rich, and that we control the world.”
YugoStiglitz

6 Aug, 2011 - 2:09 pm

Wow what a boring cliche-slinging fatuous thing to write. Twenty-five years ago, you would have been gloating about how Japan was just about to take over America, and how you’d enjoy watching it happen.

As it is, you think (wrongly) that China is about to take over some sort of supreme U.S. position in the world (invented by people like you and Tea Party folks), and apparently this is something that you’re going to welcome. That you would turn your head away from the reasons why Chinese hegemony would be a really bad thing once again shows how much hatred you have, and how it really only goes one way.

Care to start a thread about China’s massive violations of human rights?
YugoStiglitz

6 Aug, 2011 - 2:12 pm

Someone wrote above: “A related issue is one of the preciptating reasons for the American invasion of Iraq. It is little commented upon, but Saddam Hussein was threatening to sell oil in Euros rather than dollars which would have had a devastating effect on the dollar value as the international currency. This, as much as the desire for America to guarantee its long-term oil supply, was the trigger for the American invasion.”

That’s just a dumb conspiracy theory. How incredibly stupid to think that Hussein had such power. How incredibly stupid to think that the U.S. would chose to bolster the dollar through massive deficit spending.
YugoStiglitz

6 Aug, 2011 - 2:16 pm

About that Sharon quote – you dummies are at it again, and you’ll never learn. That was debunked a decade ago. What does it say to you that at least 90% of the people at this blog automatically believe that Sharon said that?

http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_article=34&x_context=2
Conall Boyle

6 Aug, 2011 - 2:24 pm

The build-up of weapons prior to WW1 was seen as a major cause of the aggression that followed. Germany’s re-armament in the 1930s was seen as massively threatening and a sure sign of aggressive intent.

Surely it’s time to see US massive spending and deployment of weapons of war in the same light? It is a dangerous act of aggression against the whole world — gone rogue, you might say.
MJ

6 Aug, 2011 - 2:24 pm

China has been whinging about the dollar for a couple of years now and has been quietly trying to divest itself of its vast dollar holdings by buying gold and funding capital investments in dollars when possible. The recent statement differs only in the uncharacteristic bluntness of the language used.
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A major problem for China is that there is no obvious candidate for the new reserve currency. Not long ago the Euro seemed to be grooming itself for this role but not now. Interestingly China is definitely not proposing that its own currency should take the baton. Part of China’s success is due to the fact that the yuan has been set at an artificially low exchange rate. If it became the new reserve currency its value would inevitably rise and China’s economy would suffer accordingly.
YugoStiglitz

6 Aug, 2011 - 2:29 pm

Hey Murray, that you don’t understand that China’s new language is a response to many years of well-founded criticism regarding its currency policy further makes me wonder how you ever got your ambassadorship.

I know you’re a hateful person, but you really should big-picture these things.
conjunction

6 Aug, 2011 - 2:35 pm

@Yugostiglitz
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The point is, not that the Chinese are better than the Americans. It’s just that the Americans and perhaps the style of financial control-freakery they stand for may finally be discredited.
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Boehner, the Republican House of Representatives guy who has been arguing with Boehner, said in response to the downgrading:

‘This decision by S&P is the latest consequence of the out-of-control spending that has taken place in Washington for decades. The spending binge has resulted in job-destroying economic uncertainty and now threatens to send destructive ripple effects across our credit markets’.
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This despite the fact that after eight years careful financial work by Clinton, Bush totally squandered the reduced national debt by starting a disastrous war and cutting taxes.
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As Craig says, to the Tea-Party, war is non-negotiable.
conjunction

6 Aug, 2011 - 2:36 pm

sorry, Boehner arguing with Obama!
mary

6 Aug, 2011 - 2:42 pm

Assume that Larry is a fully paid up member of CAMERA.
http://www.camera.org/index.asp
danj

6 Aug, 2011 - 2:47 pm

Yugostiglitz, you are right; though I am not sure that Craig Murray is a hateful person. Perhaps he does though let his grievances at the loss of his position and the obviously illegitmate way it was achieved cloud his judgement. Also I agree with MJ, China is not going to be the new reserve currency. And there is a word for the knee jerk appropriation of all things anti-Israel. Why are they all so obsessed? I agree, why not focus on China, Russia; its support for Syria at the SC? It this, Mary, for example, because this doesn’t make you feel better about your own self righteous virtue? Go to eastern europe and ask them what they feel about their alliance with with the US via NATO.
YugoStiglitz

6 Aug, 2011 - 2:49 pm

Nope; first time I’ve heard of CAMERA. This is how this works; pay attention. I googled that Sharon quote, as it’s obviously ABSURD. So the first link was to that CAMERA page, and the analysis looked good. At least sufficient. Now, Jew-hater, it’s up to you to prove that Sharon actually said that. Ball’s in your court.
McLeod

6 Aug, 2011 - 2:51 pm

Wounded animals are often the most dangerous, I doubt the US will go down gracefully, I expect they will go down fighting, raping and pillaging and laying waste.
danj

6 Aug, 2011 - 2:54 pm

Oh, I forgot; the word is adolescent;
YugoStiglitz

6 Aug, 2011 - 2:55 pm

“Wounded animals are often the most dangerous, I doubt the US will go down gracefully, I expect they will go down fighting, raping and pillaging and laying waste.”

You people, including the original poster, seem to be living in the 19th century.
mary

6 Aug, 2011 - 2:56 pm

Assume that Danj is also a member of CAMERA, or Megaphone, or a follower of The Israel Project etc etc.
http://www.theisraelproject.org/site/c.hsJPK0PIJpH/b.672581/k.12D7/The_Israel_Project__Facts_For_A_Better_Future.htm
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Website similar to CAMERA’s. All these pro Israel sites are predominantly blue in colour presumably to match the colours of the Israeli flag. eg Conservative Friends of Israel. {http://www2.cfoi.co.uk/} Nice photo of Cameron.
YugoStiglitz

6 Aug, 2011 - 2:58 pm

“Assume that Danj is also a member of CAMERA, or Megaphone, or a follower of The Israel Project etc etc.”

See, that how it works around here, Danj – if you speak up against this hateful craziness, they automatically believe that you’re an agent of the Jewish cabal.
YugoStiglitz

6 Aug, 2011 - 2:59 pm

Heh Mary – why do you believe that Sharon said that? Because you saw it on the Internets?
mary

6 Aug, 2011 - 3:00 pm

See that little Chloe Smith of Norwich North fame went over for her indoctrination trip. Arbuthnot took another group previously.
http://www2.cfoi.co.uk/Delegations/RecentDelegations/
YugoStiglitz

6 Aug, 2011 - 3:04 pm

What’s your point, Mary? Other MPs meet with people who want to wipe Israel off the map.

What’s your basis for believing that Sharon said that?
MJ

6 Aug, 2011 - 3:26 pm

For a site that purports to be the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting, CAMERA’s analysis of Ahmadinejad’s “wipe off the map” mistranslation is woefully inadequate.
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http://blog.camera.org/archives/2007/06/prof_cole_write_the_editor_ahm.html

What’s your basis for believing that Ahmadinejad said that, Larry?
Jaded.

6 Aug, 2011 - 3:27 pm

There seems to be a little, scared, wounded animal on this thread and it goes by the name of Lamby. I would suggest some stiff moderation is in order, if I may be so bold, to ‘correct’ his offensive posts. Get on the case please Jon when you next log in. You have done a fine job, so far, of keeping this lunatic upstart on a tight leash so far and long may it continue. Craig’s bog has been a much more wholesome place to visit the last few months.
angrysoba

6 Aug, 2011 - 3:34 pm

As with the British empire, the beetle on its back will kick its legs a while yet. It will be painful for them.

I shall enjoy it. I never claimed to be a good person!

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Do you really believe that it will all be unicorns and rainbows when the Wicked Witch of the West is dead?
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Wait till you see the Wicked Witch of the East…
angrysoba

6 Aug, 2011 - 3:35 pm

Jaded: Craig’s bog
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Freudian slip?
Jaded.

6 Aug, 2011 - 3:40 pm

Perhaps not, . Now skedaddle before the big, bad mod comes for you. You have been well warned sonny Jim, so don’t push your luck.
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[Big Bad Mod: No, I came for your offensive remarks, Jaded.]
Gest

6 Aug, 2011 - 3:40 pm

It would seem that the threat to the USDollar is the real reason for the wartalk against Iran.

Iran’s oil bourse, a new pressure on U.S. dollar
Tehran Times, Thursday 04 August 2011
YugoStiglitz

6 Aug, 2011 - 3:47 pm

“It would seem that the threat to the USDollar is the real reason for the wartalk against Iran.”

What war talk?

You people have been saying that the U.S. will attack Iran the next month for at least five years now!
Azrae

6 Aug, 2011 - 3:48 pm

Danji, May dream and hope is that there is more justice in the world, the wealth of the world is more evenly distributed. I know this is unrealistic so let’s talk about more realistic hopes and dream. I hope China will look at the mess USA has created for its own nation as well as the world and will learn a valuable lesson, I hope China will look and see how USA is despised and disliked for its self serving, one sided policies and will learn…
You are telling me USA has done too many good things to mention, I can give you list of more than 60 countries where USA has somehow or another put an end to aspiration of that nation, has stolen their wealth, has invaded their land, killed , raped, plundered… Amongst them Afghanistan, Albania, Iraq, Iran, Algeria, Bolivia, Mongolia, Vietnam..(do you want me to go on???)
Can you tell me why USA find it necessary for all these military and non military interventions with great expenditure, but not to use that expenditure for the homeless (of which the number is increasing daily) of its people?

• You are telling me that USA has done too many good deeds to mention, please can give me name of not 60, not 16, and not even 6 but just 1 country where USA has done any good not because of self interest but for the good of that country???

Yugo, what about starting a thread about Human right abuses of the USA?? At least China is not claiming to be the champion Of Human Rights.. Talk about hypocracy, talk about Abu Gharib,talk about Guantana Bay, Deigo Garcia… •
And nobody hates Israel without reason, Israel is hated by all decent people including many Jews for their policies. Yugo how would you feel being thrown out of your home, your farm, your orchard and not allowed back in?
mark_golding

6 Aug, 2011 - 3:49 pm

Not so much America ‘Rob’ – Israel’s right wing sees itself in an end-game and will act irrationally within the next four months to strike Iran. Israel is out of control. Alarmed by the Arab spring and the forthcoming UN vote on Palestinian statehood which it will lose, Israel will roll the dice and attempt to change the landscape as it did with the 1967 war by bombing Iran. Obama is powerless to veto the attack as he is surrounded by what I call the ’6th column’ sympathetic towards Israel which now includes Leon Panetta an ardent Middle East hawk while the restraining influence of Bob Gates has gone.
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British intelligence are aware that striking Iran will initiate a response by Iran in Lebanon and Iraq and play havoc with oil supplies. Our senior commanders express the view that a strike will cause short and long term disasters. However I believe the inevitable British control of Libya will give Cameron the confidence to back Israel and in that respect a window of opportunity has already been agreed with our own commanders. I hope to get advance warning of this attack, in which Israeli F16′s will likely fly through Iraq air space, from Naval sources preparing to move a British monitoring force into the Persian Gulf towards year-end.
YugoStiglitz

6 Aug, 2011 - 3:51 pm

Tehran Times huh? Could there be any doubt?

http://old.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=163212

http://old.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=221932

http://old.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=218719

http://old.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=153055

Btw even the craziest truthers have distanced himself from Christopher Bollyn. He’s a Holocaust denier who I believe is still on the run for tax evasion.

The one thing I do believe is that it’s Iran top international daily.
danj

6 Aug, 2011 - 3:52 pm

I am sorry to disappoint you Mary but I am just a regular guy reading this blog on holiday to pass the time.

I did though once write a detailed, prize winning analysis of the Oslo Accords based on interviews with key diplomats involved that was actually quite sympathetic to the Palestinian case.

Over time though I began to become worried about the vociferous anti Israel character of much of this type of discussion and I now believe that it is important not to fall into the traps of the familiar, and I see it slightly juvenile, anti Israel discourse. That goes for the ‘its all the fault of the Americans’ point of view; I actually quite like the Americans and Israelis that I know. I personally don’t know any Palestinians, but not many make it to my town.

Is jaded suggesting that moderation is the same as deleting criticism? I think that the comments here are entirely reasonable. I suppose deleting criticism would help to maintain the stability of the world view. Isn’t that what they try and do in China?
angrysoba

6 Aug, 2011 - 3:52 pm

Craig Murray: KathZ,

Not necessarily. The initial period of the same fall from power of the UK was actually marked by increased egalitarianism and the creation of the welfare state.

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This is bizarre wishful-thinking-cum-analysis.
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Increased egalitarianism/creation of the welfare state actually occured in the US through the time of the so-called Imperial Presidency of the US. FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, LBJ and even Nixon were liberal spenders of tax dollars on civil rights, healthcare and government assistance of the poor. It’s been in retrenchment since the time of Nixon and even with a minor uptick under Clinton and latterly under Obama the US doesn’t have a lot of cash to spend on such projects. But the Tea Party brinkmanship is the thing that has caused this massive clusterfuck so why not write a thank you letter to Boehner and co.
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Now, when we look at the shitty position that Europe is also in we can see quite clearly that the disintegration of the Euro is not going to lead to a new welfare state; there won’t be any pensions for anyone in Europe for a start.
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Presumably in the UK this economic crisis is going to lead to more public spending…er… riiiiiiiiiiight!
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Perhaps in Russia we can see some kind of reasons to be cheerful. No, there too, as you have already pointed out things are dire and there too pensions won’t exist for much longer.
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Interestingly a friend of mine who recently visited me from England was complaining about Niall Ferguson’s recent series – Civilisation – in which the apparent moral of the story is that the West will end up decadent like Opium-era China while China will soar to be the great hegemon soon. My friend complained that Ferguson appeared to be too “anti-Sinic” or “China-bashing” and yet, recently I watched a debate online between Niall Ferguson and Henry Kissinger in which, if I am not much mistaken Ferguson was downright gleeful at the idea that China will not be a mere hegemon but ruler of the twenty-first century before long. It’s quite amusing seeing Craig Murray and Niall Ferguson suddenly becoming bedfellows:
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I can’t seem to find a link to it online but it was quite interesting if you can put up with Ferguson’s posturing.
YugoStiglitz

6 Aug, 2011 - 3:53 pm

“Yugo, what about starting a thread about Human right abuses of the USA?? At least China is not claiming to be the champion Of Human Rights.. Talk about hypocracy, talk about Abu Gharib,talk about Guantana Bay, Deigo Garcia… •”

China violates human rights on a massive scale. There’s no effective human rights organization in China; not even allowed to assemble. In the U.S., there’s thousands.

If you want to test your convictions, please fly to Beijing and attempt some form of minor protest.

And thanks for taking my bait.
YugoStiglitz

6 Aug, 2011 - 3:54 pm

The Tehran Times repeatedly publishes “911 inside job” silliness. This includes featuring Christopher Bollyn, a Holocaust denier from whom even the craziest 911 truthers in the 911 have distanced themselves.
angrysoba

6 Aug, 2011 - 3:57 pm

By the way, did anyone see the way the Chinese government reacted to the head-on collision between two bullet trains a week or two ago? Much of that story was probably obscured by the Breivik shooting in Norway (Shurely no coincidence [/tinf]). The Chinese government’s first instinct was to try to bury the train under the railway tracks so that it couldn’t be properly investigated!!!1! Then the train was dug up again and spirited away.
MJ

6 Aug, 2011 - 3:59 pm

“What war talk? You people have been saying that the U.S. will attack Iran the next month for at least five years now!”

Larry, I never thought I’d find myself saying this, but I agree with you. Nevertheless, Iran’s oil bourse is a serious challenge to the dollar’s hegemony. Gadaffi was/is proposing something similar (though he wanted to be paid in gold), as was Saddam. It could be argued that the US has been protecting the dollar’s reserve status through the barrel of a gun for a few years now. It’s just that, unlike Iraq and Libya, Iran is a well-defended country with sophisticated weaponry.
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But I digress: you were going to tell us more about Ahmadinejad’s “wipe off the map” comment, weren’t you?
mark_golding

6 Aug, 2011 - 4:03 pm

Your own end-game Larry (not from St Louis):
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIOC1J44RYw
Jaded.

6 Aug, 2011 - 4:04 pm

[Mod: deleted, abusive]
angrysoba

6 Aug, 2011 - 4:05 pm

Having now clicked on to the story that Craig Murray linked to I think that some of his sensationalism is a little, er… sensationalistic. Of course it is in China’s interest for the US to pay back its debts and for China to want a new reserve currency such as the Euro (*tee hee!*), the pound (*guffaw!*) or the yen (*ufufufufu!*) would surely be quite irresponsible for China as much as for anyone else.
Azra

6 Aug, 2011 - 4:05 pm

I get it Yugo, human right abuses in other countries by American are OK, because there are check and balances in place that nothing like that could happen on American soil!
Human Right abuses has many faces and forms, and just because demonstration are allowed in a country does not make it necessary a Human Rights heaven.
MJ

6 Aug, 2011 - 4:08 pm

“The Chinese government’s first instinct was to try to bury the train under the railway tracks so that it couldn’t be properly investigated!!!1! Then the train was dug up again and spirited away”
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Hey angry, I think you’ve been reading too many 911 conspiracy sites.
angrysoba

6 Aug, 2011 - 4:10 pm

MJ: “Hey angry, I think you’ve been reading too many 911 conspiracy sites.”
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Do you deny that the Chinese buried the train?
craig

6 Aug, 2011 - 4:14 pm

Angrysoba,

I think what the Chinese want is a trade weighted currency basket – an idea which is pretty mainstream economic thinking nowadays. The massive advantages of being the reserve currency, and the value to the US of the Eurodollar, is economic orthodoxy. I attended a compulsory residential course on the subject at the UK Civil Service College at Sunningdale – as have all relevant British public servants. I am afraid, Yugostiglitz, if you lose reserve currency status the effects really will be very substantial indeed. That in no way indicates I am a fan of Chinese internal or foreign policy. It is just true.
mary

6 Aug, 2011 - 4:17 pm

I have no intention of getting into one of Larry’s wrangles. They are pointless, usually offensive and off topic. Suffice to say I resent the ‘Jew hater’ slur. I do not hate anyone let alone an amorphous grouping. I just have sorrow in my heart for the Palestinians who have been oppressed and denied justice for 63 years. End of.
danj

6 Aug, 2011 - 4:18 pm

‘Israel is hated by all decent people.’ That kind of comment is precisely one aspect of this whole problem. It proceeds by definition; ergo no decent person can not hate Israel. I do worry about where that kind of belief will lead, and also it has got to be factually incorrect, as I regard many people that I know to be decent, even though they don’t hate Israel, some of them might not even know or care where it is.

On your wider point, I am not suggesting that the US has not been responsible for war crimes, there will be many examples, and recent examples. But the solution to this is not to wish upon the country, its people, innocent and guilty, some unspecified indiscriminate punishment, which merely gives vent to a feeling of rage; even supposing it were true, which it is not, that the miseries of, say, Iran, to use one of your examples, were all the fault of the Americans, which is to blatantly ignore the widespread horrific abuse of the Iranian people of its own government, which DOES NOT happen in the US in anything like the same way.

The discourse of anti this and anti that is a tired one, and it is one that replicates many of the faults of its enemies. I believe that it fulfills a need in some people to identify a figure of hate and an explanation, a simple one, for the problems of the world.

That being said, I think that Mark G qnd Craig sometimes say interesting and informative things; that is why I generqlly read the blog, but only comment when I feel that enough is enough.

Th
Clark

6 Aug, 2011 - 4:19 pm

Wake up folks, the whole world is in the shit. There’s no point fighting over the crumbs.
MJ

6 Aug, 2011 - 4:20 pm

“Do you deny that the Chinese buried the train?”
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Not at all. Do you deny that the rubble of the towers was spirited away and disposed of so that it couldn’t be properly investigated? Why do you think the Chinese did it? Why do think the US did it?
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[Wrong thread I know, these are rhetorical questions only for the sake of board rules and decorum].
danj

6 Aug, 2011 - 4:25 pm

You see Jaded can only make his points though abuse: that should tell you something about the strengths of his arguments and the nature of his character; his on-line character.
angrysoba

6 Aug, 2011 - 4:25 pm

Danj, who said this: “Israel is hated by all decent people”?
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Unfortunately it doesn’t surprise me to see such a statement on this blog but I can’t find the original author.
Jaded.

6 Aug, 2011 - 4:28 pm

Everyone knows you are cointelpro. What do you expect you stupid idiot? Roses and adulation? Just relax buddy. It will all be over for your department soon. No pensions for you guys. Ha ha ha.
danj

6 Aug, 2011 - 4:29 pm

AZRAE above ‘… Israel is hated by all decent people.’

I forgot to add that though I might sometimes disagree with Clark above, he is also worth reading, and he doesn’t call people names.
danj

6 Aug, 2011 - 4:31 pm

Jaded, bad luck, I am already retired and currently sipping wine in the south of France. Oh, I suppose that too makes me one of the bad guys.
angrysoba

6 Aug, 2011 - 4:32 pm

MJ: “Wrong thread I know”.
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Then off you go to the correct one – - – >
Mod

6 Aug, 2011 - 4:33 pm

Jaded, your previous post was deleted for being abusive.
angrysoba

6 Aug, 2011 - 4:37 pm

Thanks Danj. It’s amazing that a statement like that can be made by no “decent” person about any other country. I wonder what it is about Israel that brings out so much hostility.
Jaded.

6 Aug, 2011 - 4:40 pm

Lol, what’s wrong with abusing cointelpro? Enough, anyway, they are fighting a losing battle and everyone can see them. I have done my job. You can get ready to start deleting the neverending stream of tosh they will post for as long as this therad runs. Whetehr I do or don’t make another comment will matter not. That is their M.O. and only someone with amoebaesque intelligence couldn’t see that. Peace all.
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[Mod: post non offensive stuff with evidence and it will not be deleted.]
Azra

6 Aug, 2011 - 4:47 pm

@Danji, I concede. I should have said” Israel policies are hated by all decent people”
Clark

6 Aug, 2011 - 4:49 pm

Angrysoba, I really think you’re making too much fuss about what appears to be an impulsive comment.
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“What it is about Israel that brings out so much hostility” is that Israel is in a position to behave much better than it does. People rightly expect better of “the only democracy in the Middle East”.
Clark

6 Aug, 2011 - 4:50 pm

Well said Azra.
ingo

6 Aug, 2011 - 4:54 pm

There is massive rift between ultra zionists who are behind the current discourse in israel and peace loving jews who are led by fear and loathing, just as the palestinians are.

What many here reject is the ignorance and outright lawlessness against global norms, for example the insistence that the law of the sea does not matter, forever twisting realities, laws and facts os they exist.
Thats not what was envisaged, when the UN agreed to allow israel to be formed and founded, not many then knew of the insistence on militarisation of the public, the plans to drive out those who lived there for generations.
Sharon’s words are the words of a mass murderer, Sabra and Shatilla will never be forgotten, his words
count for nothing anymore, he made his bed and now he’s laying in it, god has humour after all.

Yugo has brought assistance, what fun.
Clark

6 Aug, 2011 - 4:57 pm

Angrysoba, regarding your comment about the “Wicked Witch of the East”: It isn’t like some switch is going to flip, and China is suddenly going to be deposing democracies and smashing oil-rich countries. People can be glad of a decrease in US power without wishing for China to suddenly take the place of the US.
Azra

6 Aug, 2011 - 5:01 pm

Danji, I think you are purposefully forgetting the history and the role USA played in politics of Iran. I believe Iran is in a mess now, due to USA policies. Are you denying the role CIA played in bringing down the democratically nationalists government of Dr Mosadaq in 1952?? USA is not denying it any longer..All because he did not want to let UK and USA steal its oil, and pay them pittance for it. Iran had many years under a brutal dictator (and I know that first hand, few of my friends disappeared during his reign, never to be heard from again). Had USA let them be, by now Iran would be possibly a secular democracy. As it is they have exchanged a crowned cannibal for a turbaned one.
angrysoba

6 Aug, 2011 - 5:02 pm

“What it is about Israel that brings out so much hostility” is that Israel is in a position to behave much better than it does. People rightly expect better of “the only democracy in the Middle East”.

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Assuming this isn’t an impulsive comment it would appear to be a retread of “We hold Israel to a higher standard than others”. I am not quite sure what makes its position so priveleged. Couldn’t you equally say that given its position, people could rightly expect it to be far worse than it is. Far less democratic. Far less *gasp* socialist than it is. But no, apparently its achievements in the face of existential adversity mean that people expect Israel to be better than it is.
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I might say, given Saudi Arabia’s vast oil wealth and given Iran’s oil wealth and cultured civilization I might expect things to be better in those countries. Unfortunately, of course, we know that theocratic medeivalist rule keeps both of those countries back.
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China, by contrast, has made sterling and laudatory progress and I long to see the day of a prosperous LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC China. But I can’t cheer on China in its present form and probably you shouldn’t either. I asked you before about why Israel/Palestine was such a major issue for you but Diego Garcia wasn’t. I also asked you about East Turkestan, otherwise known as Xinjiang and I think your answer was something along the lines of there only being enough time in the world. Have you ever heard of, say, Rebiyah Qadeer?
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Do we judge China or Iran or Saudi Arabia by lower standards because they already have a worse political system or because we expect less of them to begin with?
angrysoba

6 Aug, 2011 - 5:09 pm

Here’s the Ferguson-Kissinger debate on China. I think you have to skip the first 12 minutes of crap. Or, according to your preferences the whole thing:
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Munk
MJ

6 Aug, 2011 - 5:11 pm

“Then off you go to the correct one – – – >”

Comments are closed over there unfortunately.
Clark

6 Aug, 2011 - 5:12 pm

The fight that flourished briefly on this thread should be a warning to us all. It is in our human nature to take sides, apportion blame and fight. We’re all stuck on this ball of rock together. We have damaged the climate and we’re running out of the resources we need in order to provide food, water, etc. Things are going to get uncomfortable. Do we also wish to be living in a war zone of our own making? We’ll have a better, happier time of it if we cooperate and share.
angrysoba

6 Aug, 2011 - 5:14 pm

MJ: Comments are closed over there unfortunately.

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You could start a thread on JREF http://forums.randi.org/forumdisplay.php?f=64
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Or another forum of your choice.
YugoStiglitz

6 Aug, 2011 - 5:18 pm

There’s been a really ugly trend among European leftists to gloat over the perceived ascendancy of China and the perceived fall of America.

I don’t mind this as simply a matter of describing the phenomenon – I might disagree with you, and wonder if you really know anything about global economics – but fair enough.

What I find disgusting is the gloating and the bragging. It’s as if you are participating in the downfall of America, and you seem to think China is one your team.

Do you have any idea what it has taken China to put itself in this position?

How much do you care about forced abortions? Jailing dissidents? Stripping minority cultural identity?

It wouldn’t seem that you care at all. You simply hate America (and apparently Jews), so you’re willing to continue to give China a pass.

Just disgusting.
Azra

6 Aug, 2011 - 5:23 pm

Do you have any idea what it has taken China to put itself in this position?
Yugo, you have forgotten or purposefully omitted another fact,

American greed?? spending more than you have?? never having enough and have to have it even if you have to borrow it? spending nearly 5% of GDP on Arms??the list can go on and on and on…
I do not think anyone has any illusion about China, but the mess USA is in today is of USA making alone.
YugoStiglitz

6 Aug, 2011 - 5:33 pm

“American greed?? spending more than you have?? never having enough and have to have it even if you have to borrow it?”

Wow! The same could be said, even more validly, about Italy, Greece, France, Ireland, Italy, Germany …
YugoStiglitz

6 Aug, 2011 - 5:35 pm

“The fight that flourished briefly on this thread should be a warning to us all. It is in our human nature to take sides, apportion blame and fight.”

This is exactly why you’re perhaps the worst person here, Clark. You speak in such platitudes, and on the next thread, you’ll engage in the same behavior that you deplore.
Clark

6 Aug, 2011 - 5:35 pm

Angrysoba, regarding Israel, one of the things that I have to constantly guard against in myself is my tendency to react negatively to Israel’s supporters on this blog. Look at YugoStiglitz’s comment to the effect that I “hate Jews”. It could be designed to provoke anger, and it comes from a known sock-puppeteer and abuser of Arabs.
John Goss

6 Aug, 2011 - 5:37 pm

Anybody who has studied history knows that alliances do not last for ever; one day an ally, the next an enemy. The transatlantic alliance has gone on too long to be sustainable either monetarily or in terms of human cost. When I was a boy 2/6 (or ‘half a crown’ as we called it) was known colloquially as ‘half a dollar’. That suggested there were four dollars to £1.
In stating this it does not mean I would like to see the US and UK become enemies, but our fawning allegiance, especially under Blair has taken us into wars in Serbia-Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and now under Cameron, Libya. Our participation in most of these is illegal under international law, and in helping to do the dirty work of the US we have lost our good name overseas.
Gun-law is enshrined into the minds of many Americans, and the US first course of action is nearly always recourse to weaponry. After WWII and Korea we tried to use diplomacy much of the time (especially when it was apparent that we could not defend our ill-gotten empire). Thatcher changed all that in the eighties with her war over the Falklands; which has cost the British taxpayer trillions. We, in following the US lead, continue to pay for ongoing wars, and the chickens are coming home to roost – for all of us. Eventually the US House of Representatives is going to realise that only by stopping intervention in foreign countries can it concentrate on the urgent problems within its domestic economy. Ron Paul, and not everyone would want him as president, has been saying it for many months. The almighty dollar, (the God in which all Americans trust), is proving at long last to have feet of clay, and many are throwing a shovel and pan over their shoulders and backs and heading for the Klondike instead of Wall Street.
When the US economy stops kicking its upturned legs, and its dried exoskeleton is blown away in the wind, perhaps we can get back to the days when UK citizens were respected abroad, when our currency is not devalued by half against whatever coinage we next have to peg.
MJ

6 Aug, 2011 - 5:39 pm

“You could start a thread on JREF”
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No need. The removal and sale of the rubble is well-documented. No-one seriously disputes it.
Roderick Russell

6 Aug, 2011 - 5:42 pm

Craig, phrases like “xenophobic hatemongers of the Tea Party” suggest to me that there is a misunderstanding in the UK of what this organization really stands for. As a movement the tea party’s supporters tended to be concerned citizens who represented Main Street not Wall Street, and were troubled that the cost of the huge bank bailouts are being done on the back of the average citizen rather than the wealthy investor community. They are not elitists, but believe in the rights of the little guy; In many resects Tea Party supporters are the opposite of neo-Cons: they back Main Street, not Wall Street; and tend not to support foreign wars such as those in Iraq, etc. More a movement than a Party, the Tea Party is leaderless, though there is little doubt that neo-Cons, despite their very different political philosophies, would like to take it over and may eventually succeed. The tea party is most certainly not the US equivalent of the BNP, who are more in tune with neo-Cons, but rather a mildly conservative/libertarian movement who are fed up with the corruption of elites; elites are scared of them, which is why the MSM smears them so consistently
Azra

6 Aug, 2011 - 5:45 pm

Yes Yugo, the same can be said about some of these countries you mentioned , does that make it right? have you heard two wrongs….they are all in a mess as well, and who knows where will it all end up, but here today we were talking about China and USA. Greece rating has been downgraded ages ago, the same with some of the others, but again here we are talking about one of USA, remember the so called Super Power???
angrysoba

6 Aug, 2011 - 5:49 pm

John Goss: After WWII and Korea we tried to use diplomacy much of the time (especially when it was apparent that we could not defend our ill-gotten empire).
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You mean with the exceptions of, say, The Suez, Malaya, Kenya, Aden etc… or even the much talked about coup against Mossadeq which was a UK idea in favour of the AIOC and initially turned down by the US under Truman.
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Thatcher changed all that in the eighties with her war over the Falklands
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Too bloody right. That’s at least one thing Thatcher did right. You can want to sign away the islands to a then-fascist regime but I suggest the people who lived there should be able to say who they lived under.
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“perhaps we can get back to the days when UK citizens were respected abroad”
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Well, sir. I wonder when you think that was and I wonder what you think it was that earned UK citizens respect. Could you tell us which golden era you are nostalgic for?
Mike Raddie

6 Aug, 2011 - 5:52 pm

Couple of corrections needed I think Craig.

1. “China holds most of the dollar credit in the world” – not exactly true Craig:

Here’s a quick and fascinating breakdown by total amount held and percentage of total U.S. debt, according to Business Insider:

Hong Kong: $121.9 billion (0.9 percent)
Caribbean banking centers: $148.3 (1 percent)
Taiwan: $153.4 billion (1.1 percent)
Brazil: $211.4 billion (1.5 percent)
Oil exporting countries: $229.8 billion (1.6 percent)
Mutual funds: $300.5 billion (2 percent)
Commercial banks: $301.8 billion (2.1 percent)
State, local and federal retirement funds: $320.9 billion (2.2 percent)
Money market mutual funds: $337.7 billion (2.4 percent)
United Kingdom: $346.5 billion (2.4 percent)
Private pension funds: $504.7 billion (3.5 percent)
State and local governments: $506.1 billion (3.5 percent)
Japan: $912.4 billion (6.4 percent)
U.S. households: $959.4 billion (6.6 percent)
China: $1.16 trillion (8 percent)
The U.S. Treasury: $1.63 trillion (11.3 percent)
Social Security trust fund: $2.67 trillion (19 percent)

So America owes foreigners about $4.5 trillion in debt. But America owes America $9.8 trillion.

2. “Both the British and the Americans used this position to build military forces which could dominate both formal and informal empires.” is not true either – the British empire was built on debt-free money in the form of tally sticks – see http://dotsub.com/view/0cc9b0c6-8dba-4667-a0a5-3bdf34f0802a

Keep in mind that anyone who calls for a replacement of the US dollar as the global reserve currency usually ends up invaded, dead or with a military coup on their hands. Saddam Hussain began this meme when he decided to sell his oil (via the oil for food program) in euros rather than dollars. When Hugo Chavez held the chairmanship of OPEC – he touted the idea of selling oil in something other than US dollars – within 12 months the US had organised a coup in Venezuela. This only failed when one million mainly working class people took to the streets demanding their president back. Can you imagine anything similar happening here for the likes of the war criminals Blair, Brown or Cameron?

When Libya was touting moving to a gold dinar standard for the whole of Africa, western nations began, under the pretext of humanitarian intervention, to bomb the country with depleted uranium – are you seeing the lessons here? Mess with the petro dollar and you may live to regret it.

The only way the US will even pay off it’s $16 trillion debt is to return to debt-free money. This goes for most nations around the world today. The US could theoretically pay off their entire national debt using quarters – coin is debt free – created rather than borrowed by the government and spent into circulation. Obviously this is not practical – it would take millions of trucks full of quarters to pay the full amount but it could be done with a modern electronic equivalent of a quarter. To prevent inflation, they would need to simultaneously raise reserve requirements to 100% so private banks could no longer create money out of thin air using the magic of fractional reserve banking. This is the only solution that works and yet is the one thing economist, politicians and pundits are not talking about. Ever wondered why?

“Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine
will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in.
But, if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits.” SIR JOSIAH STAMP, (President of the Bank of England in the 1920′s, the second richest man in Britain)
angrysoba

6 Aug, 2011 - 5:56 pm

Roderick Russell: The tea party is most certainly not the US equivalent of the BNP, who are more in tune with neo-Cons
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The BNP are not “in tune” with the neo-Cons. Neo-Cons happen to have a certain family resemblance of beliefs that form a loose ideology that is nowhere near as toxic as is often made out. The BNP are fascists.
Tom Welsh

6 Aug, 2011 - 6:01 pm

John Goss, the UK and the USA have never been allies in the sense that either trusted the other. Don’t forget that every 5th of July (and at other times) all Americans celebrate the victories they won over the hated British, and the redcoats whom they killed. Then there was the War of 1812, when the British occupied and burned Washington – an event which prompted the writing of “The Star Spangled Banner” and which, of course, will never be forgotten. During the American Civil War, Britain began by supporting the South and several times came close to declaring war on the Union. With the arrival of the USA as a first-rate naval power at the end of the 19th century, it and Britain were mutually prepared for war at any time. Indeed, when the USA joined in WW1 in 1917 many of its officers and men were surprised to be fighting against the Germans, instead of with them and dagainst the traditional enemy Britain.

The USA joined WW1 because it had lent so much money to Britain and France that it could not afford to let them lose. It then did a great deal to cause WW2, by exating reparations from Germany and refusing to forgive a single cent of Britain and France’s war debts – which caused them to under-arm, thereby encouraging Hitler’s aggression. When WW2 broke out, the USA remained determinedly neutral until Japan actually sank part of its battle fleet at pearl harbor and Hitler personally declared war.

Since WW2, the USA has continued to pursue its own advantage single-mindedly, under a screen of fine words and high moral pretensions. I very much doubt if a single member of the US government, nor more than about 10% of the American people, would care in the least if Britain sank beneath the waves today. Nor should they, you may say. Fine; but let’s not be misled by all the fine words and talk of partnership.
Mike Raddie

6 Aug, 2011 - 6:29 pm

Without a hint of irony, the Tea Party have just unveiled their new slogan “No Repression without Taxation”
John Goss

6 Aug, 2011 - 6:29 pm

Angrysoba, you left out Vietnam. We were there; France too. But the US made it into a predominantly American war with its new deadly weapons (agent orange &c). I don’t condone British or US or French intervention anywhere. Suez is usually regarded as a crisis with the settlement brought about by diplomacy (including US negotiations). The African wars, were, largely a legacy of former imperialism, and it was after Harold MacMillan’s ‘winds of change’ speech that slowly we moved forward.
As an Englishman I have been treated with respect abroad. But I sense since the recent wars (Iraq in particular) we have lost a lot of respect.
Finally, the Falklands war was wrong. It was another imperial acquisition which contiguously belongs to The Argentine. We could have given every Falkland islander £1 million and ask those who wanted to relocate. At the same time we would have saved trillions upon trillions to the British taxpayer, spared the lives of Argentine and British soldiers. General Galtieri was wrong to invade, but the legal entitlement is Argentina’s, and aswer me this, Angrysoba, how has the daily investment of £1 million, benefited you or I.
angrysoba

6 Aug, 2011 - 6:45 pm

John Goss: Finally, the Falklands war was wrong.…
General Galtieri was wrong to invade
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Correct.
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It was another imperial acquisition which contiguously belongs to The Argentine.
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I’m afraid this is a pretty daft statement. “Contiguously belongs to” is not a worthwhile principle. You would never support a UK invasion of an Island belonging to “The Argentine” (what a curiously archaic term!) off the coast of the UK so why think that the UK had no right to protect her sovereign territory from fascist invaders?
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“aswer me this, Angrysoba, how has the daily investment of £1 million, benefited you or I [sic].”
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Probably not at all. Why should it benefit you and *me*? Do you think that government expenditure is illegitimate if it doesn’t personally benefit you or *me*?
angrysoba

6 Aug, 2011 - 6:51 pm

But the US made it into a predominantly American war with its new deadly weapons (agent orange &c)
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You missed out “Agent Blue”. Agent Blue was worse than Agent Orange because it specifically targetted food supplies and not simply leafy foliage which formed cover for the Viet Cong. Agent Blue was first used by President Kennedy who was assured that it wasn’t a war crime to do it because the British had used the same tactics in Malaya – spraying food supplies that could be used to feed insurgents.
Jon

6 Aug, 2011 - 7:00 pm

John, interesting – thanks. Though I was too young to appreciate it, I understand from my reading that we weren’t too bothered about the Falklands Islands prior to that war. Our investment in it was low and some islanders had been leaving, presumably in search of a better life/work elsewhere. But Thatcher revitalised interest in the place accidentally, having quickly discovered that a small containable war would massively improve her standing in the domestic polls.
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@YugoStiglitz – you are so blinded by your hatred of anti-Zionism, or liberalism, or whatever, you seriously suggested that Craig doesn’t care about China’s appalling human-rights record. I don’t think you even believe this to be true, but you say it anyway. To what end though, I am not sure. In the meantime, in the event you want a serious discussion, do please try to remain civil. I don’t ever delete comments for their views, unless they are particularly racist, but I sometimes trash yours because you appear to be intending to offend and disrupt.
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@Jaded. et al – there are several mods, so it’s not just me that prunes the odd post. However Craig is keen that all views come through, so as to maintain the free-speech nature of the board (notwithstanding Larry’s theoretical ban).
John Goss

6 Aug, 2011 - 7:02 pm

Angrysoba. Tell me who else has benefited then to make the financial cost to the taxpayer and the cost in human lives worthwhile in Thatcher’s war in the Falklands? Do you think those who lost loved ones on board HMS Sheffield are happy with the investment?
Another Mod

6 Aug, 2011 - 7:07 pm

Hi Jon, good to see you here. I trimmed some of Jaded’s stuff. He was just calling people “turds” and “Cointelpro”, nothing that contributed to any kind of debate. And Yugo got one of his BWAHHH etc. blanked.
Mike Raddie

6 Aug, 2011 - 7:08 pm

Tom are you sure about this?

When WW2 broke out, the USA remained determinedly neutral until Japan actually sank part of its battle fleet at pearl harbor and Hitler personally declared war.

The US did all it could to convince its’ population that it needed to enter WWII – arming Japan’s enemies, cutting off fuel and raw materials supplies to Japan was illegal and a deliberative act of war. They knew Pearl Harbour was about to be attacked having been warned by Australia in the days leading up to the raid. They had the foresight to move their expensive carriers out to sea so they didn’t lose any vessel that would have been critical to their desired war effort.

War is a racket and being involved was a huge boost for Wall Street banks’ profits… wasn’t Prescott Bush (George W’s grandfather) found guilty of war-profiteering after selling to the Nazi’s?
angrysoba

6 Aug, 2011 - 7:21 pm

Angrysoba. Tell me who else has benefited then to make the financial cost to the taxpayer and the cost in human lives worthwhile in Thatcher’s war in the Falklands? Do you think those who lost loved ones on board HMS Sheffield are happy with the investment?

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It wasn’t “Thatcher’s war”, was it? You’ve already conceded it was Galtieri’s war. And now you have made a sly transition from a question about money to about blood. You asked me if I cared about the million pounds a day spent on the Falklanders and I said no. Now you ask me about whether I care about the people killed on the HMS Sheffield and my answer would be, of course. But whose fault was that? Was it Thatcher’s fault or did Galtieri have a slight hand in that too?
.
I would be far less in favour of capitulating to the demands of a fascist like Galtieri who was throwing leftist dissidents out of airplanes into the ocean than of telling Galtieri that the people of the Falklands didn’t want to live under his boot. Should I, for the sake of self-righteous rhetoric, ask you whether the families of the disappeared would have appreciated rolling over for Galtieri?
John Goss

6 Aug, 2011 - 7:23 pm

Tom Welsh, I think that is a fair potted assessment of US/UK relations over the last 250 years. Allies (so-called) can never be trusted in the long-term. Or sometimes even the short-term. It is one of the reasons I’m so opposed to the American Base at Menwith Hill, Harrogate, which is there without parliamentary sanction. It is why I support CAAB (Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases).
John Goss

6 Aug, 2011 - 7:33 pm

Angrysoba, please don’t try and ascribe statements to me which are not mine. Re-read what I said. Galtieri’s invasion was wrong. But the war was Thatcher’s.

Wasn’t “capitulating to the demands of a fascist dictator” exactly what Thatcher bent over backwards to do for her good friend, Pinochet?
technicolour

6 Aug, 2011 - 7:42 pm

Mike Raddle: fascinating stuff, thanks. And I haven’t heard anyone else refer to Gadaffi’s attempt to start getting the African nations to trade outside the dollar shortly before being attacked.
MJ

6 Aug, 2011 - 7:59 pm

Mike Raddie: interesting stats, thanks.
.
“Social Security trust fund: $2.67 trillion (19 percent)”

Oh dear.
Jaded.

6 Aug, 2011 - 8:09 pm

Another mod – ‘Hi Jon, good to see you here. I trimmed some of Jaded’s stuff. He was just calling people “turds” and “Cointelpro”, nothing that contributed to any kind of debate.’

Yes, I sure did. Now why do you think I might have been doing that? I think it is foolish to tolerate these ‘people’ on any media platform and it’s nothing to do with allowing free speech. My mantra is ‘identify, insult and isolate’. They are full time agents and not here for debate. They must have a really good chuckle at being allowed to waltz in and carry out their orders. They made a concerted effot to demoralise Craig and destroy his blog last year, but thankfully failed. You honestly don’t see this or do see and still see fit to tolerate them? I think it’s akin to knowingly letting a vampire into your home. Anyway, I don’t deny you can justify your moderation, but a sense of humour allied with an appreciation of reality wouldn’t hurt much. I maintain that is very healthy to give a blocked blog a good flush.
Canspeccy

6 Aug, 2011 - 8:37 pm

“[defence] It is the one area of expenditure the xenophobic hatemongers of the Tea Party want to see increased…”
*
Sounds like a bit of hatemongering of your own, and more or less false too.
*
Ron Paul, the supposed “Godfather of the Tea Party” has been among the most eloquent opponents of the war for global empire and for bringing the troops home.
Canspeccy

6 Aug, 2011 - 8:40 pm

As for Angry, he’s about as out to lunch on the BNP.
*
Technically, the BNP are not fascist by their own declaration, so if anyone wants to argue that they are, they’d better say on what basis, e.g., their anti-war policy, their anti-EU policy (basically the fulfillment of Hitler’s dream), their opposition to mass immigration (opposition shared by 70% of the British population, according to the latest, post-Breivic polls), or what?
*
But in fact the BNP are not, I suggest, anything but an intel op designed to contaminate populist policies with the appearance of thuggish, racist stupidity.
*
In which connection it is of interest that most people would support the “far right” (how can it be “far” right if most people support it?) if it gave up violence. What the Guardian means by “far right,” of course, is what everyone but self-hating white liberals and the settler immigrant groups want.
Courtenay Barnett

6 Aug, 2011 - 8:58 pm

@ Craig,
It seems to me that at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US had options:-
1. Restructure the economy for long term sustainability; invest heavily in research and development to find means of being less reliant on imported oil as the main energy source; make a realistic reassessment of the economy to recognise that the traditional approach of the post World War 11 military-industrial complex lines of production could not be sustained since over time military and defence expenditures and the costs of wars would outstrip the domestic economy’s ability to fund the Empire, since manufacturing jobs were rapidly shifting to lower wage and production cost areas of the world; invest in education, housing, revitalised infrastructure, health care, high technology production targeting global markets – OR
2. Continue with the traditional military-industrial complex approach to running the economy.
With the neo-cons on the ascendancy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century)
the time has arrived when the choice made of the latter of the two options above, have to be not only seen to be, but truly admitted as simply greed and power motivated choices made by a core group with some formally educated individuals having knowledge but lacking either vision or sensible foresight. It is truly hard to resist that conclusion, but there are the ones in the US who label themselves “Tea Party” – “Republican” – “Conservative” and who see more explanation in scapegoating immigrants and minorities than they do in making honest assessment of the consequences of bad and misguided public policy choices made in the recent past. One now sees the consequences of those choices revealing itself – the ‘economic chickens’ are coming home to roost. Actually, the real structural problems besetting the US economy traverse and transcend the traditional lines of right/left divide.
There were real choices at a particular time in recent US history. At this juncture, it seems to me that the former range of choices have shrunk. There is reduced time for implementing constructive domestic political and economic changes and for transition manoevuerability than had existed in the 1990s. Th viable option was not seized, and instead the proactive projection of war into the world was embraced and advanced. The US with the benefit of hindsight is now forced to face the reality that there then, back in the 1990s, were further options:-
A . Accept that multilaterism has to be a sensible alternative to continued US militarism and hegemonic thrusts into the world with its avowed unilateralism.
B. Weigh the economic and human costs of US wars projected into the world and examine the costs and savings of the alternatives.
C. Note that by having over expenditures because the US dollar as world reserve currency, has finite operative ranges, there will be domestic consequences of social dislocation without public expenditure amelioration. This spells social unrest and the need for repression of a dissatisfied populace. Only so much over-expenditure can be absorbed by an economy, even if that economy is the world’s largest with the world’s single reserve currency.
But, ideas A,B and C are the kind that most would term ‘idealistic’ and not practical. I would muse and now question, if such ideas of constructive change for sustainable global dominance are ‘idealistic’ – then are the ideas of the neo-cons/PNAC people any more ‘realistic’ when measured by the objective yardstick of the consequences of US public and foreign policies implemented from the 1990s to the present day?
In a certain sense, the way in which the US responded post Soviet Union collapse, was predictable because the Tiger cannot change its stripes – the banner of war had to continue flying – Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya ( and it will continue to be propelled to Syria and Iran). Apparently only when the Tiger through its actions of continued attacks has had all its fur and covering stripped from its very being, will it recognise itself as an exposed creature of vastly different appearance. Maybe, then, and only then will the creature be compelled to stop its aggressions and change its former character for its own survival. But – I am more inclined to accept McLeod’s observation above “Wounded animals are often the most dangerous, I doubt the US will go down gracefully.”
I am suggesting that it was bad American decisions and imprudent militaristic expenditures that iare propelling the US to decline – as distinct from achieving the true “New American Century” containing more constructive sense and design than the lunacy unleashed on the world by the PNAC (see: link above).
China, Russia and others hold too much by way of US denominated financial instruments to compel rapid US implosion. But implode the US system will, if after the 1990s, not having re-structured and sensibly changed, eg.
i) Return to the abandoned non-proliferation treaties and negotiate and implement with integrity with the other nuclear powers. Not only would the world become a safer place (i.e. if one country can blow the world up with its weapons of mass destruction – then if it spends so much to be able to do the same thing tenfold over – does it not in the long run result in expenditures on military material that cannot be used unless one is intend on mutually assured destruction (MAD) when directing such weapons against other nuclear powers?) – but by so changing there are new options opened for resolving the domestic economy’s problems. The savings from this international approach of advancing genuine arms reduction and non-proliferation must constitute quite significant savings for re-application to the domestic US economy in ways that do not merely stockpile weaponry that cannot be used. The alternative peaceful production investments would provide much needed long-term answers for sustainable production.
ii) Restore the Glass-Steagall Act and have sensible banking and financial regulations and interest rates controls re-implemented. The Wall Street free for all and re-payment of trillions by first Bush then Obama must convince even the non-economists of the lunacy and down-right financial criminality which exists between Washington and the “banksters”.
iii) Cut defence expenditures, because by not doing so, with the domestic economy losing jobs and inevitably with the crime rate rising and social dislocations increasing, so too will the prison population. Does it make more sense to create domestic jobs ( with the money saved from defence and military cuts) – or – does it make better sense to continue increasing the prison population and the related costs that incarceration of criminal and non-productive people represent?
Back in the 1990s, with ideas like these, I would be labeled as ‘idealistic’. The neo-cons had and still have power to advance the alternative public and foreign policy agendas – have their ideas worked? In the year 2011 my ‘idealism’ is rapidly beginning to appear quite ‘realistic’.
CB ( http://www.globaljusticeonline.com)
P.S. This can be considered a “big-picture” assessment for the benefit of Larry/ YugoStiglitz. How are you doing today – Larry? Living in the 19th century and ‘idealistic’ – not the PNAC 21st century -right Larry ?
Andrew

6 Aug, 2011 - 9:12 pm

[Mod: Deleted. Offensive, no argument or evidence presented.]
Jaded.

6 Aug, 2011 - 9:34 pm

Even now it isn’t too late Courtenay, it’s never too late I don’t think, it’s just that these ‘nasties’ who exercise power from behind the curtain won’t give it up. I bet that they self-justify till the cows come home, ‘we are a necessary evil’, but the reality is that they are an unnecessary, bloated cancer which America needs rescuing from. You will always end up in a terrible state if the same minority control power for too long. It’s just a flaw of humanity. The U.S. empire really is an out of control juggernaut that is very close to crashing. Only an increased awareness of the truth amongst a signifcant proportion of tbe population, the trend is there and needs accelerating, can stop this from happening. There needs to be a peaceful shift of representation made through the ballot box and massive reforms underatken. The traitors and criminals need ousting from public office. America needs to really become a democracy of high standard and encourage the same around the world; as opposed to pretending to be a democracy of high standard and exporting tyranny around the world. The big problem is that these elites, bankers, secret societies etc. would even seek to derail peaceful change initiated within the law. Tyranny pure and simple.
writeon

6 Aug, 2011 - 9:38 pm

Be very careful what you wish for. Whilst, in theory, it might be ‘fun’ to see the grand, American, imperial strategy collapse, there’s a strong chance that they won’t go quietly exit stange left from history.

Britain, on it’s way down got itself into an extraordinarily bloody, destructive, and costly conflict with Germany, known as the two world wars, which far from ‘defending’ British interests, saw them destroyed. There’s a strong likelyhood that the United States will folllow this classic imperial decline model, clutching desparately at its military might and national mythology, as its real economic power seeps inexorably away.

Roll on the end of the empire! But roll on WW3?
John Goss

6 Aug, 2011 - 9:59 pm

My slant on the future of world economies would be to use this forthcoming depression to see how countries can work together for peace; and not seek to steal each other’s assets. After WWII Germany and Japan were prohibited from manufacturing arms. That meant while all other countries were spending at least 20% of their gross national expenditures on defence Germany and Japan were spending the bulk of their gross national expenditures on economic development. Guess what! They became the two leading economies. There’s a lesson there for all countries.
John Goss

6 Aug, 2011 - 10:08 pm

Writeon. We’re having WW3. It’s ruining us. The intention was to steal Middle East oil and put the puppet, Ahmed Chalabi, (a thief and liar, who stole billions from Jordan and informed us all about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction) in power in Baghdad. It’s not working out like that.
Jon

6 Aug, 2011 - 10:10 pm

SCHADENFREUDE

The destruction of those who deliberately chose to use the methods of the Nazis to pursue wealth and power, will be satisfying to an exquisite degree. Schadenfreude – the Germans were definitely onto something there! ; )

GALTUNG – ‘THE US WENT THE WAY OF THE NAZIS”

Galtung pointed out that the Norwegians also deliberately chose to follow the path of the Nazis, sending their ‘Norwegian Legion’ to Afghanistan, and bombing Libya. After the World War 2 Waffen SS brigade Quisling sent to attack Russia. Which largely got wiped out. “Just as the US chose to use the methods of the Nazis after 911,” said Galtung. “It will be very, very hard for the Norwegian people to admit it.” Paraphrased. –

Before Johan Galtung’s father – the mayor of Oslo – was put in a Nazi concentration camp he, he told his son that the Germans would be destroyed. “Why?” asked Johan. “Because they don’t know when to stop,” he said.

USUK Empire Psychopathy, murder, torture to death and genocide – not healthy for the perpetrator, never mind their innocent victims, but they contain the seeds of their own destruction. Thankfully! –

- Johan Galtung – Norway – July 29, 2011 – Democracy Now –

- http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/29/norways_johan_galtung_peace_conflict_pioneer

CHOMSKY

In addition to defense spending – ’4.7% wasted,’ Chomsky points out that if the US had a normal — for an industrialized country — national health system, its entire deficit would be also be gone.

But it doesn’t, and it won’t, he says. So there are two options that will not be considered until Hubris and Nemesis take their toll.

- ‘America in Decline,’ by Noam Chomsky, August 6th, 2011 – Information Clearing House -

- http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28767.htm

There’s got to be scope for another Greek tragedy in the present USUK Imperial cock-up. The Bacchae comes to mind, with the emphasis on utter stupidity, and utter inability to alter course one jot!

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bacchae

Where is Monty Python when you need him?
Jon

6 Aug, 2011 - 10:12 pm

IT’S WAR, BABY!

“We think the Neocons, ER, Germans, may be trying to start the war a year early.” “I thought they were the one nation we could trust.” But even though over fifty percent of the US economy goes to war industries, are we _really_ ready for (yet) another war? “What about the Navy? We’re short on spoons, mainly.” – Whinfrey’s Last Case – Ripping Yarns – Michael Palin – Part 1 – Blocked!

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAOs_3qgqWY#t=02m27s

Whinfrey solves the case — and the need for war — But the generals want “a proper war and not one of those mean little jobs run by intelligence.” – and so the Kaiser provides the date for the start of play, ER, war, – August 4th, 1914, in France. The same old same old. “And if this one is successful they’ll want to do a follow up.” – Part 4 – Also Blocked!

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd7o2608bdA#t=04m27s

The USUK Imperial fascists even deleted the always-instructive ‘Whinfrey’s Last Case.’ Except for the (non-political) intro. –

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEr-n9LDj4s

NUREMBERG MK II

Meanwhile the US (In)Justice Department is deaf, dumb and blind to the crimes of the US Neocon-Nazis’s of the last nine years. Crimes of US torture, murder, death squads, illegal war, crimes against humanity and crimes against the laws of war. US war criminals sleep easy in their beds. No change there, then!

“The Neocons were careerists who instituted the industrial killing of millions in an effort to please Our Dear Leader, Comrade Cheney, and win promotion.” “You cannot just order the killing of hundreds of thousands of people. No normal person would do such a thing.” –

- The original clip was utterly damning of the US Neocon Nazis. Ho__rooke? Wo__owitz? Or every d@mn Neocon and his dog??? – Naturally it was memory-holed and replaced by an entirely _newly-edited_ one!!! (Extraordinary attention to what seems to be a minor detail. Big Brother truly!) So supply your own soundtrack! –

- WW2 – Heydrich – Now entirely deleted! –

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF1NXE55LBE#t=01m20s

Poor US Neo-Cons / Our Tony — Terrified of their date with destiny — A long drop on a short rope. – Nuremberg Mk II. –

Still going! – Mk I for comparison – Nuremberg Executions of N_zi Leaders for ‘Crimes Against Humanity’ and ‘Crimes Against the Laws of War.’ – Original –

- http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=95d_1206462963

EUROPE

Where then is sane? Europe – A progressive land of milk and honey, where the crazy right wing is ‘Norwegian conservative guy.’ (Apart from USUK Neo-Con Nazi Quisling ‘Bonkers’ Breivik, naturally).

@ 1.20. From Michael Moore’s Sicko.

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svSUCbClg8E
Mod

6 Aug, 2011 - 10:13 pm

Jaded, YugoStiglitz’s comments get deleted or trimmed when he is offensive. So, if you are offensive, you think I should leave that undeleted, do you? So exactly what criteria do you suggest? Pro-Israel offensiveness to be deleted, but anti-Israel offensiveness to be permitted? That would be anti-Jewish bias, which is exactly the accusation YugoStiglitz makes against this blog. Your own bad behaviour would seem to be justifying Yugostiglitz’s.
.
You wrote “Now why do you think I might have been doing that?”. Well, how should I know? I’m just a moderator; I’m not psychic. I’ve read that a technique used by these blog infiltrators is to be very aggressive and offensive, especially on the forums of peace activists. So maybe you are being paid to discredit this blog. You’d be doing a more effective job of it than YugoStiglitz. At least he sometimes supplies an argument that can be countered. If he doesn’t and it’s just insults, he gets deleted.
.
Moderation can be demanding; there are more contributors than moderators, and sometimes it’s hard to keep up. Do us a favour, Jaded. If people make comments you disagree with, counter them with evidence and rationality. That sort of argument can win people to your cause. Lowering your behaviour to the level of insults plays directly into your opponents’ hands. It also keeps the moderators twice as busy, when we might be trying to compose rational replies ourselves.
John Goss

6 Aug, 2011 - 10:19 pm

Well said, Mod. I don’t envy you.
mary

6 Aug, 2011 - 10:24 pm

America in Decline
Friday 5 August 2011
by: Noam Chomsky, Truthout | Op-Ed
.
“It is a common theme” that the United States, which “only a few years ago was hailed to stride the world as a colossus with unparalleled power and unmatched appeal is in decline, ominously facing the prospect of its final decay,” Giacomo Chiozza writes in the current Political Science Quarterly.
.
The theme is indeed widely believed. And with some reason, though a number of qualifications are in order. To start with, the decline has proceeded since the high point of U.S. power after World War II, and the remarkable triumphalism of the post-Gulf War ’90s was mostly self-delusion.
.
/…http://www.truth-out.org/america-decline/1312567242
Tom Welsh

6 Aug, 2011 - 10:31 pm

Mike Raddie, if the USA was willing to fight Germany and Japan in 1939-41, why didn’t it simply declare war on them? Britain and France declared a tripwire on the Polish border, telling Germany that an invasion of Poland would automatically mean war.

All this talk about how the US government did its best seems to me evasive. If the majority of US voters were unwilling to fight, then the USA was unwilling to fight.

Certainly the Americans supplied Britain with weapons (many of them obsolete like the 50 WW1 destroyers, which the USN had mothballed decades earlier) and other necessities – but every single item was paid in full, even when Britain ran clean out of cash and had to buy on credit. The price included radar, and unrestricted access to British technical knowledge of such advanced subjects as jet engines and atomic physics. Also a large number of military bases around the world, most of which are still in use by the USA today. Last but not least, Britain finished paying off the debt in (I think it was) 2003!
technicolour

6 Aug, 2011 - 10:32 pm

Seconded: well said, mod. And thanks.
mary

6 Aug, 2011 - 10:35 pm

Just for the record, Yugo Stiglitz said several times this morning that I had quoted Ariel Sharon incorrectly. If he checks back, he will see that I made no such comment. I have no interest in what Sharon said or didn’t say.
Tom Welsh

6 Aug, 2011 - 10:39 pm

It seems to me that the main reason why so many people seem to be “anti-Israel” is the growing perception that the state of Israel should never have been allowed to exist. At a time when worldwide opinion was already beginning to turn against colonial rule in places like South Africa, a group of essentially European and American immigrants showed up in Palestine, took over the best land by force, kicked the inhabitants out into the desert, and killed those who resisted.

Saying that Israel should be removed from the map is like saying that a bunch of criminals who have moved into someone’s house, thrown the owners out in the street by force, killed at least one of them, and now claim they own the place, should not be allowed to stay and profit from their crime.

It’s got nothing to do with being Jewish or anything else. Unfortunately the perception of this situation has been muddied by the prejudices of ex-colonial nations like Britain and the USA, which do not want anyone to start questioning their occupation of places like Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the American West (both in Canada and the USA) accompanied by the subjugation, expulsion, and often virtual extermination of the indigenous people. What the Israelis have been doing to the Palestinians is distinctly analogous to what the Americans and Canadians did to their “Indians”, and the Australians to the aboriginal Australians.
Jaded.

6 Aug, 2011 - 10:45 pm

I know moderation is tough believe me. However, my argument is nothing to do with differing points of view. It’s all about concerted efforts at attacking this blog. I see these people clearly and I am sorry if you are unable to. They are not genuine individuals posting genuine opinions, regardless of whether I agree with them or not. Moreover, I made a point of not posting on this blog for a few months at a time and just read. I also told Craig that if he didn’t want me to post at all I would not. There was no difference to the turbulence they had created.
I also hear that cointelpro try to infiltrate the moderation teams on blogs, forums, chat rooms and other social networking sites etc. which they target. I have seen this happen first hand on a couple of sites where they got outed and ousted. Be careful, as these people are very determined and devious.
I’ll just keep getting my wages by telling everyone how 7/7 and 9/11 was false flag and how the ‘War On Terror’ is a complete fantasy. That’s wages to disseminate from the people that did it and want it kept secret of course. All the mass media diversions are just a smokescreen. They are relying on Jaded to get the message out for some bizarre reason. The ‘all criminals have a secret desire to be found out’ theory? For the record, I will refarin from calling Lamby/Stupid/associates cointelpro turds and apologise for causing him any offence, despite it being fully intended. Enough deviation already i’m sure we’ll both agree.
Courtenay Barnett

6 Aug, 2011 - 10:49 pm

@ John Goss,
You said:-
“We’re having WW3. It’s ruining us. The intention was to steal Middle East oil and put the puppet, Ahmed Chalabi, (a thief and liar, who stole billions from Jordan and informed us all about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction) in power in Baghdad. It’s not working out like that.”
I leave you with these quotations in reply. While simple and direct – not at all to be ignored – but the basic sense of each of these quotations will be ignored by the globe’s present crop of power brokers to the peril of us all:-

War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.
Thomas Mann
War does not determine who is right – only who is left.
Bertrand Russell
You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
Albert Einstein
And more to your point:-
The Futuristic Weapons of WW3 Are Unknown, But WW4 Will Be Fought With Stones and Spears
? ( attributed to Albert Einstein)
And
“If the Third World War is fought with nuclear weapons, the fourth will be fought with bows and arrows.”
- Lord Louis Mountbatten

The world is not ruled by ‘philosopher democrats’ – or sensible persons – now – is it?
Mod

6 Aug, 2011 - 10:57 pm

Thanks for your support, folks.
.
It is important to keep calm. Rising to provocative bait puts comments with no decent argument between the bait and its eventual counter-argument. Casual visitors might not read that far, especially if they don’t like watching a slanging-match.
.
Good one, Jaded, thanks. Truthful argument is the best tool we have.
Courtenay Barnett

6 Aug, 2011 - 10:59 pm

The political reality:-
Noam Chomsky, Truthout | Op-Ed – 5th August, 2011

“It is a common theme” that the United States, which “only a few years ago was hailed to stride the world as a colossus with unparalleled power and unmatched appeal is in decline, ominously facing the prospect of its final decay,” Giacomo Chiozza writes in the current Political Science Quarterly.
The theme is indeed widely believed. And with some reason, though a number of qualifications are in order. To start with, the decline has proceeded since the high point of U.S. power after World War II, and the remarkable triumphalism of the post-Gulf War ’90s was mostly self-delusion.
Another common theme, at least among those who are not willfully blind, is that American decline is in no small measure self-inflicted. The comic opera in Washington this summer, which disgusts the country and bewilders the world, may have no analogue in the annals of parliamentary democracy.”

The practical option:-
“By shredding the remnants of political democracy, the financial institutions lay the basis for carrying the lethal process forward – as long as their victims are willing to suffer in silence.”
Self evident – but quoted from Noam Chomsky as an analytical mind with an intellectual touch point to reality.
John Goss

6 Aug, 2011 - 11:07 pm

I would add to your quotes, Courtenay Barnett: “Man is still a savage, but the weapons at his disposal are more sophisticated.” Carlo Cipolla.
John Goss

6 Aug, 2011 - 11:14 pm

Well said Tom Welsh. “Last but not least, Britain finished paying off the debt in (I think it was) 2003!” Exactly. I’m not sure whether the year is exact or not but I am aware the debt is paid in full. So why do we still have a US base tapping our phones, intercepting our emails, and whatever else they are up to at Menwith Hill. It’s bad enough that we’re being hacked by our own press without having the US secret services doing it too.
Clark

6 Aug, 2011 - 11:22 pm

John Goss, it isn’t just weapons either, is it? A man builds a nuclear reactor in his kitchen. Anyone with a company name can have DNA sequences constructed to order and buy cells to culture them in from a different source. LulzSec have no problem accessing the servers of major defence contractors. Humans are going to have to learn to get along with each other, and that means we have to share things out more amicably in order to avoid resentment.
Courtenay Barnett

6 Aug, 2011 - 11:27 pm

@ John Goss,
Could I quip in reply:-
“Weapons at man’s disposal are savage – if only the savagery in man could be quelled not to express humankind’s potential in such ways.”
Clark

6 Aug, 2011 - 11:28 pm

Thinking about what I wrote above, I wonder if maybe I wouldn’t mind being monitored by the state I live in… If only I trusted my state, which of course I don’t.
Clark

6 Aug, 2011 - 11:33 pm

I wrote: “that means we have to share things out more amicably in order to avoid resentment” – this is one reason that I wouldn’t be unhappy to see the economic decline of the US. The world hasn’t the resources to bring everyone’s standard of living up to the average in the US, and that implies that the US average has to come down.
Courtenay Barnett

6 Aug, 2011 - 11:33 pm

@ Clark,

“Humans are going to have to learn to get along with each other, and that means we have to share things out more amicably in order to avoid resentment.”

Precisely the point, at the village, town, city, regional, national, international and global levels.
When will the rulers get the point?
P.S. If I can get on with Larry on this blog – surely – they is hope for humankind’s peaceful co-existence.
Courtenay Barnett

6 Aug, 2011 - 11:36 pm

I said:-

” …they is hope for humankind’s peaceful co-existence.”

that should have read “there is hope…”

Making this quick correction so that Larry does not start a grammatical war with me.
Just joking.
Clark

6 Aug, 2011 - 11:40 pm

A disastrous CIA drone strike in Pakistan, and a US ambassador who tried to prevent it and was ignored:
.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific-ap-exclusive-an-urgent-phone-call-highlights-diplomatic-cost-of-us-drones-strikes-in-pakistan/2011/08/02/gIQAisslpI_story.html
Mike Raddie

7 Aug, 2011 - 1:05 am

Tom Welsh, “if the USA was willing to fight Germany and Japan in 1939-41, why didn’t it simply declare war on them? Britain and France declared a tripwire on the Polish border, telling Germany that an invasion of Poland would automatically mean war.
All this talk about how the US government did its best seems to me evasive. If the majority of US voters were unwilling to fight, then the USA was unwilling to fight.” –

this seems to be to be incredibly naive – very rarely, if ever, is it in the peoples interests to fight a war in a country thousands of miles away and it is always illegal according to international law and the treaty for the renunciation of war of 1928.
The people of a nation need to be shocked, coerced and lied to before they voluntarily sign up to fight a war of aggression. This is the basis for modern ‘public relations’ – a term coined by the father of propaganda Edward Bernays. In his Sept 2010 article ‘Flying the Flag, Faking the News’ JOhn Pilger describes how, “During the first world war, he was one of a group of influential liberals who mounted a secret government campaign to persuade reluctant Americans to send an army to the bloodbath in Europe. In his book, Propaganda, published in 1928, Bernays wrote that the “intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses was an important element in democratic society” and that the manipulators “constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power in our country”.” Was it not Frederick Ogilvie, who succeeded the BBC’s founder, Lord Reith, as director general, who wrote that his goal was to turn the BBC into a “fully effective instrument of war”? The same thing was going on stateside. The idea that voters actually have a say is ludicrous – according to opinion polls, at least 70% of the British electorate want our troops out of Afghanistan and yet we’re still there after ten years and we still have a ready supply of cannon fodder willing to risk life, limb and other trauma to fight a country who never attacked Britain. War is a racket and it only serves the interests of the powerful elite who profit from it and this is why today we have endless war. British armed forces have, save for one year, since 1945, been fighting someone somewhere for no good reason other than for profit. Practically, the only manufactured exports in the UK these days come from the arms industry and you cannot keep this trade going without war and conflict.
mark_golding

7 Aug, 2011 - 1:31 am

Thanks Clark – Yes Grossman is miffed because Bashir has severely restricted movements of American personnel. America is trying to covet Pakistan’s nukes and the damn strategy is ‘top secret’ – one can only speculate at the moment.
Jaded.

7 Aug, 2011 - 2:03 am

Mike Raddie – ‘In his book, Propaganda, published in 1928, Bernays wrote that the “intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses was an important element in democratic society” and that the manipulators “constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power in our country”.’
Exactly, in a nutshell, the best term to describe the current dynamics of power within our society is manipulatocratic. So, what’s the best way for a manipulator, who is invariably only after personal gain with little or no conscience, to further his manipulative agenda? Well, he hooks up with other manipulators of his ilk to form a subversive power structure that is hidden from democractic scrutiny. Alternatively, they can slowly corrupt and take over a power structure that is already in existence. Of course, these manipulators enter mainstream politics too, either as lone manipulators or as members of the hidden, subversive power structure, but the permanent, manipulatocratic power base would exist outside of Parliament. They would simply seek to control high finance and over time, if the population were docile enough, would inevitably slowly begin to take control of the upper echelons of the mainstream political parties. I would say that the situation is pretty grim here, but they don’t yet have maximum control. It isn’t as bad as it is in the U.S..
Clark

7 Aug, 2011 - 2:41 am

Does the US do as Israel says? These Israeli protesters, camped out in Rothchild Boulevard, say that the Israeli government doesn’t do what Israelis want, but serves an elite of rich oligarchs rather than the Israeli people. Does that sound familiar? Maybe Israelis read the blogsphere, too:
.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2011/aug/06/israel-protest-tel-aviv-tents-rothschild-boulevard
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Nationalist settlers arrive to join the protest. Some protesters shout “Fascists, go away, we don’t want you here”. Others invite them to join in, but insist that the protest does not support settlement expansion:
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/04/tel-aviv-tent-city-protesters?intcmp=239
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So maybe neither Israel nor the US calls the tune, but rather both dance to the drum of the global elite and corporatism.
Jotman

7 Aug, 2011 - 3:04 am

Craig wrote:

“The colossal 4.7% a year of its wealth the US throws away on defence and security expenditure (broadly defined) – more than double the European average – is a huge factor in US indebtedness.”

A larger factor in US indebtedness is the 16% of GDP Americans spend on healthcare. This figure is rising too. By 2017, the US will be spending 19.5% of GDP on health. By comparison, the UK and Japan spend only half as much — about 8% of their GDP — on healthcare.

If the US moved to a social healthcare system, not only could the debt be brought under control, but all Americans could be covered.
glenn

7 Aug, 2011 - 3:15 am

Clark: Yes, the US does do as Israel says. Recall earlier this year, when Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the US congress, this is the transcript:
.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/americas/transcript-of-prime-minister-netanyahus-address-to-us-congress/article2032842/
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Can you think of anyone else who would have got that many standing ovations and applause? Senators were jumping up and down like bobbins. His behaviour on the trip was hardly respectful of Obama, and that approach was greeted with wild enthusiasm on the US far right.
.
Remember than fanatical kristians want Jerusalem to be established again as the Biblical prophesies demand, then there will be a great battle following which Jews get the chance to redeem themselves and convert to kristianity or be killed. After that, there will be a sufficiently high pile of bodies that the Baby Jaysus himself will be very pleased, come slithering down that pile of bodies and enact The Rapture, taking the faithful American evangelists into heaven for eternity. I know all that is completely insane, but is nevertheless the grounding beneath a lot of US support for Israel.
.
In the meantime, it is absolutely impossible for a mainstream journalist or any politician to offer even a suggestion of criticism towards Israel’s foreign policy. You simply cannot do it, or you might as well clear your desk as you submit the article. Even those independent commentators who brag about their famous freedom to speak (such as Rachel Maddow, Thom Hartman and so on) are terrified to go anywhere near Israeli foreign policy. Those who cannot be branded as “anti-Semites” or “self-hating Jews” are simply ignored.
.
.
Roderick Russell: You couldn’t be more wrong about the teabaggers. They’re not a grass-roots movement of concerned citizens, they’re a bunch of half-witted, racist, ignorant and hate-filled True Believers who have entirely bought into the bilge from far-right hate radio and Faux News. They are useful idiots of the Coche brothers, via Dick Army’s “Freedom-works” organisation, who know nothing except they’re really angry, and that fascist/marxist/Kenyan/Muslim in the White House is responsible. The “tea party” movement has given teabaggers a chance to be proud of their stupidity, ignorance and racism. Even the filthy republicans are very worried about this bunch of insane reactionaries that have been voted into office as a result of massive campaign donations by the ultra-rich. Teabaggers are mal-informed, and unwittingly serve the interests only of multi-millionaires and billionaires.
angrysoba

7 Aug, 2011 - 5:16 am

Can Speccy But in fact the BNP are not, I suggest, anything but an intel op designed to contaminate populist policies with the appearance of thuggish, racist stupidity.

.
Are you an intel op too? You have all the attributes.
John Goss

7 Aug, 2011 - 7:17 am

@Courtenay. Nice quip. If only we could make “swords into ploughshares” a reality (metaphorically speaking).
writeon

7 Aug, 2011 - 7:54 am

Empires… have two modes. They are either expanding, and, therefore, ‘successful’, or they are contracting and, therefore, ‘failing.’ This is like Galtung’s father saying that the German’s don’t know when to stop. Impirial expansion, the imperial momentum and imperative, knows no bounds. The effort required to launch an imperial, grand strategy, once begun is hard, difficult, to reverse, leading utimately to the emprire’s collapse. And… the paradox that the core nation of the empire usually ends up poorer and weaker than it was before the era of imperial expansion
John Goss

7 Aug, 2011 - 8:17 am

You’re right Clark about it not just being weapons that need abolishing, and I know you have been exploring alternatives in other areas where we are destroying life on earth, but I think cutting spending on weapons would be a good place to start. And a severe depression would probably be the only time when this could realistically be achieved, when people have their minds on survival. I realise that some policing method would need to be imposed if this is going to work. I wouldn’t even mind Hans Blix overseeing it. But we need to get rid of the hawks, warmongers and aggressors. There should be legal structures to deal with them – like there were after WWII (the Nuremberg trials).
mary

7 Aug, 2011 - 9:07 am

A very bad night in Tottenham {http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14434318} and bad weather in Edinburgh. Hope that the Murray posse is warm and dry. Wasn’t Suhayl going over last night?
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-14085088
mary

7 Aug, 2011 - 9:27 am

Contrast the raw happenings on the streets of Tottenham last night with the waste of money and time being spent in a time of austerity on this irrelevance, a tribute to British nostalgia using our licence fees. Just shows how out of touch the BBC are.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-14430516
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Avebury Manor belonged to Alexander Keiller – ‘Keiller was heir to the Dundee marmalade business of his family. James Keiller & Sons was established in 1797 and exported marmalade and confectionery across the British Empire.’
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So there we have it, the British Empire lives on.
.
On their Middle East page there is a long piece on the depradations of hyraxes (rock rabbits) on gardens in Israel yet there has been nothing from them about the week long air attacks on Gaza.
angrysoba

7 Aug, 2011 - 9:57 am

Mary: On their Middle East page there is a long piece on the depradations of hyraxes (rock rabbits) on gardens in Israel yet there has been nothing from them about the week long air attacks on Gaza.

.
Simply not true, Mary. There is an article here on BBC about airstrikes on Gaza and also about the rockets which were fired from Gaza which led to the retaliation:
.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14417604
Azra

7 Aug, 2011 - 10:19 am

@Tom Welsh, absolutely agree with you there.
“it seems to me that the main reason why so many people seem to be “anti-Israel” is the growing perception that the state of Israel should never have been allowed to exist”
It is ironic that Jews which were displaced and their properties were taken during WW2, are asking even today for compensation but Palestinian are every day thrown out of their homes and cannot even ask for decent compensation!
I put the question to Larry yesterday how he felt if he was thrown out of his house.. no reply to that, just side stepped the question. Typical!
ping

7 Aug, 2011 - 11:39 am

It might be ideal to create a virtual reserve currency, which is not tied to any individual countries currencies. Is there any chance in such a thing?
Suhayl Saadi

7 Aug, 2011 - 11:41 am

Well, I was away yesterday, watching Craig’s wife’s excellent performance in ‘Medea’ (thanks, Mary, the weather in Edinburgh yesterday was truly, soddenly atrocious, but much-warmed by the excellent theatrical fare on-hand!), so I missed this thread.
.
Interesting that this post is about the USA and China and their changing relationship with regard to the world economy. It’s the historical narrative of kingdoms, republics and empires, isn’t it? The Wealth of Nations, Das Kapital, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, etc. If one looks at any part of the world, it’s the same kind of process, over time. We just get little snapshots, because we don’t live long enough to see the long view. And that’s kind of it, really. Now, if we were giant turtles, say…
.
… or did I have a little too much warm sake in that pleasant Japanese restaurant? In my relative alcoholic innocence (!), I didn’t realise that while the Chinese beverage, maotai is drunk cold, sake is consumed warm.
.
Good for a wet, freezing summer’s day in Dunedin.
mary

7 Aug, 2011 - 11:48 am

That one crept in Angry and I honestly hadn’t noticed it but should have checked. It is the first for many days and there has been a paucity of reporting from the OPT. We used to have Jon Donnison, Wyre Davies and Jeremy Bowen with their ‘Israel says’ entries and their overuse of the word ‘militants’ for Palestinians but ‘soldiers’ when they were talking about the IDF. I expect they have been moved to the new centre of NATO’s attention, Libya and on hold for Syria which is being reported by Jim Muir from Lebanon.
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The reality of the oppression on 4th August, the latest on the Israeli oppression by this good website.
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http://www.sapienspromise.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2148
mary

7 Aug, 2011 - 11:58 am

PS
.
Academic claims Israeli school textbooks contain bias
.
Nurit Peled-Elhanan of Hebrew University says textbooks depict Palestinians as ‘terrorists, refugees and primitive farmers’
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/07/israeli-school-racism-claim
mark_golding

7 Aug, 2011 - 12:30 pm

Angrysober – To me you have no comprehension of the situation in Gaza and the Beeb is gutless in their reporting trying to walk a line where no line exists only a huge monolithic wall. Some time ago now I relayed the distressing account of a friend returning from Palestine – obviously you over-looked it!
YugoStiglitz

7 Aug, 2011 - 12:41 pm

Clark wrote above: “Look at YugoStiglitz’s comment to the effect that I “hate Jews”. It could be designed to provoke anger, and it comes from a known sock-puppeteer and abuser of Arabs.”

How laughable that you think I “abuse” Arabs (how? when? where?), yet you continue to speak such hippie crap about all of us loving each other.
Tom Welsh

7 Aug, 2011 - 12:47 pm

John Goss, it seems we agree about a lot of things. But some of the problems we face do not have simple – or indeed, perhaps any – solutions. You wrote, quite understandably, “But we need to get rid of the hawks, warmongers and aggressors. There should be legal structures to deal with them – like there were after WWII (the Nuremberg trials)”.

The big obstacle here is that no one has yet found a way to deal with hawks and warmongers other than overcoming them by force. Hence the saying “Si vis pacem, para bellum” (If you want peace, prepare for war”). The “appeasement” of the 1930s, while it is often misunderstood and has been grotesquely oversimplified, demonstrated graphically that you cannot fight tanks and dive-bombers with words and positive moral sentiment. And it seems to me that Gandhi’s “passive resistance” would not have worked against people like the Nazis or the Soviets, who would simply have congratulated themselves on having enemies who made the work of killing them so absurdly easy.

So if you want peace, you must prepare for war. But, as we have seen, if you prepare for war you tend to get it, sooner or later. The conclusions seems to be that human beings will come to blows whatever happens, although after a particularly hideous war it takes them up to a generation (30 years) to forget its lessons.
ingo

7 Aug, 2011 - 12:53 pm

Thanks for those many links folks, took some time to keep up.
The Guardian video shows the raw underbelly of Israel, the mentality that the rightwing are feeding on.

This is a moment were one Palestine should be on the agenda, with sincerity, it is as if these people demand preferential treatment and it was good to hear the call ‘Have you not got any Palestinian olive grows to burn’, from what I would call a moderate mainstream voice.

There will be no sitting down with Palestinians, who are making an effort to unite, unless the building of illegal settlements in East Jerusalem stops, not to speak of those on the westbank.

This swiss cheese approach to building settlements, little hill top bastions, apologiese Evgueni, is making every fine word sound insincere, false and just another time consuming affair.

The two state solution which now being pursued, imho, would perpetuate instability and war in future, it would always be a problem.
Unless Gaza is its own Governor, on and off shore, and Israel stops bombing and digging deep wells to divert the ground water, destroy their gardens with tanks, unless Gaza stops sending missiles into Israel, nothing will change, so the first step should be a declaration of a cease fire by all, would it not?
Israel will have to admit that its 600 million plus ‘Dome’ is just not working as it was supposed to, unless of course, its political and would have made retaliation and bombing unecessarry.
Glenn made some very valid points. There is a global emergence of a rightwing agenda, very rabid and in alliance with anyone who has nationalistic tendencies, thats what worried me about young Cloe Smith visit to Israel on behalf of the FoI, another young mind indoctrinated.

We can not overlook Pamela Gellers support for Breivigs apocalyptic pre announcement of his armed massaker on her blog, allegedly, nor should the police ignore her deletions showing complicity.

Equally our police should not overlook Melanie Phillips writings which supported Breivigs mindset, not to speak of her rabid support for murder in international waters last year, her defense of the indefensable, the bombing of women and children in Gaza, just when the classes were about to swap over, kids everywhere. Her computer should be looked into, just as it is normal routine, or is it?

Thanks a bunch, again, this blog is humming.
Courtenay Barnett

7 Aug, 2011 - 1:17 pm

@ John

We, the ones who want peace and a safe and sustainable future for the world for ourselves and genrations to come – can but set out to make the swords into ploughshares.

What is the alternative – a world with everyone armed to the teeth and at each other’s throats?
Azra

7 Aug, 2011 - 1:23 pm

@Suhyal, your Sake experience brought back memories of my only Sake Drinking occasion and it was in Kuwait! not cold and freezing, but rather warm and to top it all up, I was not aware that Sake cup is shared. Had to share the cup with a Japanese, a Korean and a Brit. Needless to say drinking from the same cup even after wiping it, is not my cup of tea
CheebaCow

7 Aug, 2011 - 2:09 pm

Sorry for the OT post, but I found this article very interesting and I thought others might also.
http://www.thenation.com/article/162598/wikileaks-haiti-aristide-files
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TLDR; Basically the US, France, Canada, the Vatican and the UN (Annan and Ki-moon) all shafted Aristide. It wasn’t until Zuma came to power in South Africa and Dilma Rousseff in Brazil that Aristide was able to leave South Africa and return to Haiti. All documented in US state department cables, courtesy of Wikileaks.
colin buchanan

7 Aug, 2011 - 2:31 pm

For the US dollar to fall from it’s perch there must be some alternative. That’s why the Euro is so important. That’s why last week’s collapse is being presented as part of the euro crisis. US/UK plan to knock out the euro or at least force it’s devaluation in order to keep £/$ afloat. The chinese are aware of this and are supporting the euro by buying euro denominated securities, including Greek, Italian and Spanish government bonds and repeatedly proclaiming their support for eurozone. It’s not that the euro will succeed the dollar as world’s reserve currency but that it is a stopgap,a bridge to a new global currency system. This is the crucial battle with virtually all anglo-american financial,media and political forces united against Euro. Just survey the media- a war by any other name is just as vicious.
Courtenay Barnett

7 Aug, 2011 - 2:38 pm

Haiti is the “best” example one can find of the West’s dirty hands destroying the future of a country.

The Haitian slaves defeated Napolean’s army.

The European and US powers blocaded Haiti and prohibited it engaging in international trade.

There was a reparations price imposed by the French ( $21b in modern value) and that was extracted as a price that the liberated slaves had to pay because France lost is “property” ( i.e. the slaves who had freed themselves in a revolution).

Aristide’s rise to power brought with it a demand that the reparations be repaid by France to permit Haiti a realistic chance to rebuild, and he was seroius about advancing his demand through support from nations within the UN.

Again France and the US ganged up and ensured ouster of Aristide.

Clinton his gang and now in Haiti claiming that they are about building houses for the Haitians.A closer examination of the figures will establish what the Americans term a “rip-off”. A lot of money announced in aid – but a trickle and sub-standard housing provided. The company that Clinton is involved is being sued back in the US.

A criminal operation of oppression if one existed. Haiti has truly been screwed.
Courtenay Barnett

7 Aug, 2011 - 2:57 pm

@ Colin,

The currency solution will have to be a basket of currencies to operate as the world’s reserve currency. This, I think, will come incrementally. The US will resist a change in this direction all it can, but the realities will dawn on the US in due time; the Chinese and others with large amounts of dollar designated instruments will be a huge force compelling the change and the US, with all its militarism and resistance will ultimately by compulsion of global financial reality have to relinquish portions of its global financial dominance.

At present in the US at the domestic level the populace want jobs, they need affordable health care and they need proper education – but – they are being given budget cuts, the maintenance of the same levels military and defence expenditure and more prisons and more war. This is why I say that it will more be the compulsion of economic and financial forces that impose change rather than rational decision making at the political level transposing itself into sensible public and foreign policy changes. The facts and circumstances of the need for certain types of change is there for the American people to see – much as Obama had articulated before his election. Sadly, Obama has betrayed the promise of “change” – and the stupidity in the decisions being made in Washington will serve as the force to compel change. There has been a kicking of the can further down the road with the recent raising of the debt ceiling, without fundamentals being addressed. The same point will be reached again, and the same type of action can be anticipated so far as same is possible. In due course the implications of the excessive deficit will catch up. Since the US won’t voluntarily and sensibly act responsibly, the implementation of change will be not be an exercise of rational political and financial choice – but a process of circumstantial compulsion.
JJB

7 Aug, 2011 - 3:10 pm

Yugo behaves as your typical hasbara boy. At least, he uses them the tactics:
1. Do not be the first to mention Israel
2. DO not engage with the issues exposed by the critics; instead, build strawmen like there is not tomorrow
Of late, however, I have identified another type of hasbara internet “operative” that works by posing as a rabid anti-semite, blaming anything and everything on a zionist conspiracy. The purpose clearly is to make leftist look like old racist cranks. Do not fall into the trap. There is NO zionist conspiracy. Israel abuses towards the palestinians are “just” part of the same old western imperialism that never went away.

JJB
Courtenay Barnett

7 Aug, 2011 - 3:19 pm

Looking at the US actions in Libya – and considering the domestic problems of America – doesn’t it appear a bit like George Carlin described?

“…can’t educate our young people; can’t get health care to our old people! But we can bomb the shit out of your country, alright! HUH!? We can bomb the shit out of your country, alright—especially if your country is full of brown people!” (George Carlin, from his 1992 special, Jammin’ in New York).
John Goss

7 Aug, 2011 - 3:38 pm

Colin, I think that is a shrewd observation, that the Euro is so important in the current crisis. The £ is neither strong against the $ nor the Euro and I suspect there are going to be tough times ahead for everyone. Savers are going to see their savings diminish in real terms. Though I have no affinity to China I am glad they are helping to stabilise the euro. But the whole problem in the west is over-borrowing, indebtedness and banking practice. I have connections with Romania and I learnt last year that Ceaușescu had paid off the country’s national debt (at some cost to Romanians admittedly) by 1989. What a strong position that left a communist country in for growth. Some, and I won’t speculate on who, did not want a communist in such a strong position and he was shot together with his wife (presumably by professing Christians) on Christmas Day, 1989. People in the villages now, and some in the towns, complain about how much better it was under Ceaușescu, when they all had work.
When the depression comes it is necessary to remove a lot of power from the banks and insurance companies. Liquidity ratio is a nonsense – that a bank can lend out seven times as much money as it has deposited with it is ludicrous. Bankers should be paid for their services. But the claim that all the upcoming stars in the banking industry will leave if they don’t get these equally ludicrous bonuses for getting us into this messy stinking mire is also a nonsense. Let them go! They will be going soon anyway!
Hydraargyrum

7 Aug, 2011 - 3:53 pm

Craig, here is a really useful link that lists “Major Foreign Holders of US Treasuries”, its updated monthly by the US Department of the Treasury:

http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/tic/Documents/mfh.txt

Note that the UK is number 3. If there is an equivalent listing for the UK Treasury and/or Bank of England I’d love to know. I wonder to what degree we have “swaps” involving bonds between Central Banks?
Suhayl Saadi

7 Aug, 2011 - 5:23 pm

JJB (not the sports shop, I presume?!), thanks for the apt advice re. trolling activity. I think that in its time, this website has probably had ‘em all!
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“you continue to speak such hippie crap about all of us loving each other…” Yugostiglitz.
.

Yugostiglitz, don’t you love us all, then? Perhaps, then, it’s time for some sake! Or else, some Nesher Malt.
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Joke.
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Azra, thanks – they served it in little jars which had been placed in larger receptacles filled with hot water to keep the drink warm. One drank from small, handleless cups. As well as the Chinese maotai, it reminded me a little of a Portuguese spirit called medronho, which, as though in a fairy story, one sips from thimbles.
Canspeccy

7 Aug, 2011 - 9:15 pm

AS asks “Are you an intel op too?
*
Sorry, I cannot answer that question. The information is classified.
angrysoba

8 Aug, 2011 - 8:28 am

Suhayl: … or did I have a little too much warm sake in that pleasant Japanese restaurant? In my relative alcoholic innocence (!), I didn’t realise that while the Chinese beverage, maotai is drunk cold, sake is consumed warm.

.
Sake is sometimes served warm but it depends on the type. Most of the sake that I drink is served lightly chilled and if served warm the flavour would be ruined. That said, warm sake is good in winter.
.
Azra: @Suhyal, your Sake experience brought back memories of my only Sake Drinking occasion and it was in Kuwait! not cold and freezing, but rather warm and to top it all up, I was not aware that Sake cup is shared.
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Maybe that’s the way it is drunk in Kuwait but I have never seen that happen in Japan except at traditional Shinto weddings where, I think, a flat saucer-like cup of sake is drunk from by the bride and groom.
Suhayl Saadi

8 Aug, 2011 - 7:17 pm

Thanks, angrysoba, that’s fascinating. Maybe it was so cold in Edinburgh (and often is), that the restaurant figured it might as well do ‘The Perpetual Temple of Winter Version’! It was one of those lively teppanyaki places where, in some sections, they cook on a surface in front of the customers.

Craig Murray

End of the American Empire

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