Yet another fun, fun dinner hosted by the US media and our insane President. They all laugh at things like killing people in strange lands, starving people in strange lands and doing the same here at home. Bush loves these dinners every bit as much as our Zionist-owned media. While they work hard to destroy Jimmy Carter and starve the Palestinians in Gaza, they stuff their faces and laugh together. HAHAHA. So I thought maybe we should see how our predecessors, the Romans, entertained themselves with their own emperors.
US President George W Bush poked fun at his potential successors during his last White House Correspondents' Association dinner.
The president said he was surprised they were not in the audience before making jokes at their expense. Referring to Republican candidate John McCain's absence, he said: "He probably wanted to distance himself from me."
The annual dinner dates back to 1924 and is attended by media personalities, celebrities and politicians.
President Bush also put forward mock excuses on behalf of the Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Taking a jibe at controversies which have dogged their campaigns, he said: "Hillary Clinton couldn't get in because of sniper fire and Senator Obama's at church."
First of all, these jokes are so lame, they should be put down like an old race horse. The media lapped it up. These guys are the same people who wonder how the Nazis could joke and have fun even as they were murdering millions of people. Well, it is easy to be entertained if one is cruel enough. Another feature of Bush jokes is how they are always the sort of things spoiled ruling class brat bullies pull. Making fun of people who aren't there. Mocking people for being weak. Stealing pennies from blind beggars or knocking the crutches away from Tiny Tom. This is funny.
In 'The Courtier', a book written 400 years ago which is all about a bunch of spoiled Northern Italian aristocrats on the verge of extinction, spending the night telling stories and jokes. Nearly all the jokes are about themselves cheating or stealing stuff from Jews and peasants or daring deeds at the expense of Muslims. These 'jokes' are eerily like the ones considered funny today by our press and the overlords in Washington, DC. The terrible thing about 'The Courtier' is that all the men in the book who were real people, were all violently killed by raging mobs or invaders taking advantage of the lack of national unity and the anger of the masses against the rules. Just for example, the democratic, free Swiss took time out from inventing new types of clocks to invade Northern Italy as mercenaries.
Our rich Senators should be aware of the hazards of looking too much like horses. Already, they have turned this part of our government into a money making machine that feeds inflation and misspends money on endless wars we are unable to win. And they actively work to destroy Constitutional powers they, themselves, must retain. Their uselessness is amplified by the media that lies about nearly everything political and actively works to undermine our sovereignty and transfer it to various alien powers and nationalist leaders.
Eventually, these stupid dinners will look like the 'Caligula dances' episode from 'I, Claudius.' All empires rot in this fashion. I would suggest that absolute power breeds total insanity. This is why all totalitarian governments eventually fail. The ruler and his family go totally insane and are killed off or completely destroy their own people to the point, they no longer can protect themselves from invaders or complete economic collapse.
Now, onto the news at the fringes of the US empire where we are losing our wars so badly, the media and the rulers who pushed us all off this cliff find so funny:
Militants fired a salvo of rockets or mortars at the heavily guarded Green Zone in Baghdad on Sunday, while officials reported that Iraqi security forces had found more than 100 bodies in two mass graves.
The militants apparently were taking advantage of a sandstorm that blanketed the Iraqi capital Sunday and grounded U.S. helicopters and drones that normally track their activities.
The Empire uses robots and humans who look like clones for the bad guys in Star Wars in order to rule Iraq and Afghanistan. The rebels take grim delight in attacking us right in the heart of our supposed controlled areas. The more we claim we control these vital government/administrative places, the more they are attacked. Indeed, this empire of ours is so inept and pitiful, when a small group decided, with a lot of help from the CIA and Mossad, to attack our financial and military centers, they did so with total impunity over the course of several hours! And the guys laughing at this Caligulian dinner party all, every one of them, sat on their asses that day with mouths hanging open. And then began happily to beat the war drums against their Muslim foes.
For this war isn't directed against Muslim despots or royalty. It is aimed at the Muslim 'street'. The teeming masses that hate us because we are putting them in chains or trying to rip them off, or stealing from them, etc. Like in 'The Courtier,' we make fun of them and laugh as we cheat them [or so we imagine] while they, in turn, wait impatiently for revenge. Saudi Arabia and the other kingdoms are no longer seething with street rage only because the huge flow of money from the West is keeping the peace. But inflation is rising rapidly there, too, and so will dissension and rage.
The fact that our media sits down and laughs with war criminals disgusts me. They refuse to point out obvious war crimes every bit as the German media or Japanese media refused to point out war crimes during WWII. When the world sees obvious war crimes, the US media might report on these events but there is no obvious follow up: no one is arrested, tried and hung. The huge scandals concerning the torture of prisoners, for example, featured very small trials of the lowest level operatives. But as information increasingly pointed to CIA/government torture that was ordered by our President, there have been absolutely no calls for impeaching or arresting anyone who signed these disgraceful orders. Instead, the media has managed to singlehandedly eliminate all anti-torture, anti-war candidates and those who remain in this infantile race are all pro-war, pro-torture criminals.
The media will cover big stories but only if they can frame them in some fashion to keep this warmongering mess rolling along. For example, virtually all the very few stories about President Jimmy Carter are negative, mock him cruelly or are full of lies. Only the small online commentary community has any reasonable news about his efforts to reach out to the starving Palestinians under siege. The pro-Tibet story has huge coverage that is very friendly to the Dalai Lama but it is nearly invisible when say, the IDF shoots a Reuters reporter on an empty road while he was driving a heavily marked car with 'PRESS' signs all over it. Or the recent murder of a young Palestinian girl, shot by the Gaza Ghetto Guards™ looking for some amusing, HAHAHA fun moments in a boring day.
The academy’s troubles reach well beyond its cramped corridors in Boerum Hill. The school’s creation provoked a controversy so incendiary that Ms. Almontaser stepped down as the founding principal just weeks before classes began last September. Ms. Almontaser, a teacher by training and an activist who had carefully built ties with Christians and Jews, said she was forced to resign by the mayor’s office following a campaign that pitted her against a chorus of critics who claimed she had a militant Islamic agenda.
In newspaper articles and Internet postings, on television and talk radio, Ms. Almontaser was branded a “radical,” a “jihadist” and a “9/11 denier.” She stood accused of harboring unpatriotic leanings and of secretly planning to proselytize her students. Despite Ms. Almontaser’s longstanding reputation as a Muslim moderate, her critics quickly succeeded in recasting her image.
The conflict tapped into a well of post-9/11 anxieties. But Ms. Almontaser’s downfall was not merely the result of a spontaneous outcry by concerned parents and neighborhood activists. It was also the work of a growing and organized movement to stop Muslim citizens who are seeking an expanded role in American public life. The fight against the school, participants in the effort say, was only an early skirmish in a broader, national struggle.
“It’s a battle that’s really just begun,” said Daniel Pipes, who directs a conservative research group, the Middle East Forum, and helped lead the charge against Ms. Almontaser and the school.
*snip*
They are carrying out a “soft jihad,” said Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, a trustee of the City University of New York and a vocal opponent of the Khalil Gibran school.
If anyone organizing anything to do with the Muslims are running 'soft jihads' then the Jews are running a very harsh jihad. So when a Jewish mayor and a Jewish governor [who is now gone due to sex scandals] attack and drive out a Muslim, this is persecution. The head of the NYC schools is nearly always a Jewish person these days. The teacher's union is run mostly by Jewish teachers. And they are all very, very organized. But by using this considerable power alongside all the Jewish media owners in the New York region, they have created a monster that will turn out to destroy them in the end.
When they OK religious persecution, when they OK ethnic cleansing or OK the power to shove 'alien' religions around, this is a NOOSE around JEWISH NECKS. I can't be more emphatic about this! The New York Times once again has decided to totally censor me because I mentioned 'Jewish ethnic cleansing' in an article here. The Jewish people who control a lot of our systems hope to do this hideous ethnic cleansing in the Holy Land as well as throw their own weight around here in America, a land that is supposed to be a melting pot, not a volcano. And they are too shortsighted to see that their justification and promotion of this ethnic cleansing will turn into a sword that will be run through the Jewish people themselves. And I want to prevent this!
As Jimmy Carter wants desperately to prevent this. Both he and I see the inevitable end of all this: the Apocalypse and the total annihilation of the Jews as both the Christians and the Muslims crush them underfoot in a titanic struggle for power between the dominant religions of the world. This madness, this total insanity will end up possibly killing all humans! Which is about a stupid a thing I can imagine.
As the increasingly violent US/UK/EU imperial project slams into more and more rocky shores, it is time to look at the news yet again from the perspective of the Goddess of History. No one can make sense of modern politics or international affairs without first understanding the nature of empires and their dependencies. The ability to use the Sword to rule diverse masses is very dependent upon the center of the empire staying solvent. The minute it ceases this, the whole system breaks down in a classic fashion. We see this clearly today with the continuing collapse of the US homelands. Readers have sent me articles that dispute my view of history. These articles are filled with not only bad analysis but outright lies. And as usual, the New York Times publishes outright lies. How typical for the chief newspaper of the heart of this empire.
President Hamid Karzai strongly criticized the British and American conduct of the war here on Friday, insisting in an interview that his government be given the lead in policy decisions.
Mr. Karzai said that he wanted American forces to stop arresting suspected Taliban and their sympathizers, and that the continued threat of arrest and past mistreatment were discouraging Taliban from coming forward to lay down their arms.
He criticized the American-led coalition as prosecuting the war on terrorism in Afghan villages, saying the real terrorist threat lay in sanctuaries of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Pakistan.
Pakistan is pulling out of the War On Terror, aka, the Last Gasp of the US/UK/EU empires. The War on Terror is being pursued by assassin robot rockets, air force bombings of women and children, outright invasions by alien troops seeking natural resources and military domination of tribal groups. How different is this from the European invasion of all of Africa, Asia, North America, South America, Australia and all the world's islands? This latest episode is merely a continuation of the conquest of the planet by European powers after they figured out the dark arts of cannon warfare.
The Mongols and then the Turks used cannons to conquer even Constantinople. The final push was the sieges of Vienna in 1529 and then 1683. As soon as the Habsburgs won, the Austro-Hungarian empire began to grow in earnest. This was due to Europeans mastering the art of cannon warfare. The Turks tended to use bigger and bigger cannons. But the Europeans opted for mobility with the cannons. From 1500 onwards, using cannons on ever-bigger ships, they plied the Seven Seas and used these batteries to destroy shoreline defenses. Thus, the European global empire was born. All the many increasingly vicious battles between the various royal families over who gets to run things gave the impression that Europe was 'weak'. But these battles were like spoiled children in a super-rich family fighting over the spoils.
These interior battles within Europe itself ran alongside global conquests. Periodically, like when Portugal and Spain divided the entire planet between themselves, treaties are negotiated in order to have a more orderly division of the spoils of empire. I will note that not too soon after the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, by 1580, King Philip II, the king who tried to force Queen Elizabeth into marriage, invaded and took Portugal. Portugal regained its sovereignty only to see it all collapse in 1755 with the great earthquake/tsunami that utterly destroyed the capital city. As is true in any empire, when the capital is obliterated, the empire dies. Often, empires limp along for more than a century if other empires are anxious to prevent each other from benefitting by eating up the older empires.
Several examples: the Ottoman Empire, when it was nearly completely dead, in economic ruins, limped along for centuries as Britain, Russia and France feuded over who got what parts. The British were, in particular, very much against Russia and France getting anything. Then the Austro-Hungarian empire began to nibble away, too. This lead to bizarre and complex treaties concerning the destruction of Ottoman power. All of which limped along in unison until Germany suddenly reunited under the greatest German politician of them all: Bismark.
As is usual in all history, the empires with the strongest economic and manufacturing systems rule the roost. And so Germany, when it entered this tense game, threw all things out of whack which caused WWI and WWII. This story is the same in Asia: when Japan suddenly became an economic and industrial power, it destroyed the Concert of Nations in Asia.
Now, back to the news: Karzai is a puppet. He knew his position is tenuous at best. So he tried to show some slight independence from the English/French/German and American empire. His demands to rule his own nation fell on deaf ears, of course. This is because this is a very despotic empire that wants a series of strongmen to be our front men as we use our vast military power to do as we wish. And as usual, since the beginning of imperial power in ancient Egypt, our wish is for loot. We need loot or we go bankrupt.
Let's see what happened next, a mere day later after this attempt at sovereign power:
President Hamid Karzai survived an assassination attempt at a military parade in central Kabul on Sunday, when suspected Taliban insurgents fired mortars and bullets at the dignitaries assembled in the spectator stand.
One person was killed and 11 injured in the incident, Gen. Zaher Azimi, a military spokesman, confirmed soon afterward. Two parliamentarians in a section of the stands not far from the president were seen falling from their chairs on television footage as gunfire rang out. Loud explosions could be heard some distance from the parade ground.
The president was whisked out of the back of the stands and quickly left the scene in a convoy of black armored vehicles as spectators scrambled for cover and security guards opened fire in every direction, witnesses said. The American ambassador, William Wood, also left unharmed, a spokesman told news agencies. Afghan state television, which was showing the ceremony live, cut off its coverage as people fled the scene.
Being the top reporting source for the warmongering half of the US empire, the NYT has this nasty habit of lying all the time. They can't help it. Despite obvious proof to the contrary, they lie reflexively. This is because they are telling a tale as told by a fool. They must believe in the goodness of the empire. As Bush said, 'Why did they attack us? We are the good guys!'
This infantile view of the world is hard to maintain in the teeth of obvious objections. Just as the West has to desperately pretend we are the outposts of civilization and we invade and murder millions of people and make their lives significantly worse, this is all in the name of saving them! From themselves, of course. And who is better at being the judges of international politics than the very same nations that brought us the Napoleonic Wars, the many wars against China, India and the Ottoman Empires, the conquest of the planet and the enslavement of Africa? The nations that brought us WWI and WWII are the ones that will bring harmony and peace. The nations with half of the world's nuclear weapons and missiles are good. The other half that has these is evil and anyone who is not dominated by Europe and America and who wants what Europe and America have in the thousands, must be obliterated.
Isn't is funny that a small detail, how Karzai was in an armored vehicle throughout his military parade, had to be hidden? My contempt for the Times which is pretty high, can't get worse. But this sort of childishness is just like when they refused to publish pictures of say, Rachel Corrie being murdered. They had to pretend the IDF had no idea they were crushing her. Since pictures made it crystal clear, she was deliberately run over, they had to bury the pictures. I doubt more than a few thousand Americans ever saw the sequence of pictures from that one event just like the sequence of pictures from the sinking of the USS Liberty was also and still is concealed from view. If anyone sees them, they know the truth pretty fast.
All empires must lie in order to keep their moral high ground. The so-called 'liberal democracies' in the West are particularly good at this.
The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader said he has yet to receive detailed information about the offer but that talks would be good.
"We have to explore the causes of the problems and seek solution through talks," the Tibetan spiritual leader said a day after China said it would meet his envoy.
He talked to reporters after returning to his headquarters in the northern India town of Dharmsala from a two-week trip to the United States.
"We need to have serious talks about how to reduce the Tibetan resentment within Tibet," he said.
"But just mere meeting some of my men in order to show the world that they are having dialogue, then it is meaningless," the Dalai Lama said.
The Chinese dragon went berserk when rioters in Tibet ran out of control. This shows us that China, far from having oppressive troops all over Tibet were doing the opposite. It took time for them to react. This unnerved them just as it would unnerve any government. Imagine if rioters were able to take over Houston and burned businesses and beat up or murdered say, non-Hispanics? Indeed, when the millions of illegal aliens suddenly marched on several of our major cities last year, the government had to put into high gear, deportations and restrictions. These marchers were waving Mexican flags and yelling in Spanish, after all! And did China attack us for this? Did China demand we secede Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California to Mexico? The dominance we hold over these places is no different from China's dominance of Tibet!
China doesn't want to crimp the long progression of Hu's many diplomatic initiatives due to the agitation in Tibet. This is also why our own President hosted and embraced the Pope and puts mostly Catholic radicals on the Supreme Court, radicals who are ripping up our Constitution. The GOP and the Democrats both recognize this ethnic and religious group to be very powerful just like the Jewish ethnic powers. The Tibetans, like many ethnic groups on earth, resent imperial controls. The only ethnic groups that love empires are the ones that control empires. As we can plainly see. This is why outsiders such as the populations out of Africa must contend. They have to riot just like the Tibetans. Note also, that rival empires will salute rioters if this benefits them. For ALL EMPIRES WISH TO BREAK UP ALL OTHER EMPIRES AND ETHNIC WARS ARE THE MAIN TOOL.
Now, let's look at a particularly stupid example of imperial creepiness from the usual crew of neo cons who have the full and adoring support of the owners of much of the US/UK/EU empire:
In recent years, as the great autocracies of Russia and China have risen and the radical Islamists have waged their struggle, the liberal world has been divided and distracted by issues both profound and petty. The great democracies have squabbled and jostled for the moral high ground, debated the fine points of international law, argued the relative merits of hard and soft power and commented endlessly on each other’s moral and ethical failings.
These arguments were affordable luxuries in an imagined era of international harmony, but not in the time of troubles that the world has actually entered. History has returned and the peoples of the liberal world need to choose to shape it or let others shape it for them.
The neo cons have fought long and hard to resurrect the Cold War. This was a wonderful time for them. Due to nuclear bombs and missiles, the entire planet had to live under the sword. No money was too much when it came to military spending. The bankers were delighted. No longer did they have to contend with a diminishment in debts. Red ink flows fast in Cold Wars without the downside of total destruction like we saw in WWI and WWII. The trick was to spread and strengthen the imperial powers without triggering a fatal WWIII. The EU, UK and Japan were all ecstatic that the US decided to pay for the New World Order all by ourselves. Very cheerfully, they lent us whatever money we wanted for this. This made them richer and more powerful and gave us the illusion, we were 'leading' them to prosperity.
As the US foolishly made one imperial mistake after another, all the cures chosen by our leaders made us weaker. This is why no one in power wants to stop the deindustrialization of the US. Certainly, Japan and Germany want ONLY their own industries in the US! This is why they are taking over many of our industrial systems. The losers of WWII have won the Cold War. Mr. Kagan, one of the stupider neo cons on this planet, can't figure out what is a liberal democracy. For example, Japan has been ruled by one party for as long as China. This party is in total control of the economy just like in China. And the voters in Japan are herded about by the LDP up until this year. I have noted how there is rising anger about the financial mess the LDP has created. Their refusal to use the Bank of Japan to deal with inflation and instead, using the populace to sop up all the inflation, is infuriating people there just as it is here.
Both Japan and the US are doing this. And note how our own 'democracy' operates! We are herded, like the Japanese, into only bad choice versus bad choice. Both of which belong to the same secret clubs and organizations and attend the same secret meetings and gatherings which use their powers to strip the US of our industrial base and put us into hock to the very nations we defeated so handily in WWII. As well as England, our old foes. All these empires owed us money or were run by us after WWII. Now they rule us! We owe THEM money! The Chinese were horrified by this as they figured things out [at my house long ago]. They swore they would not fall into this trap!
So any article that crows about the 'liberal democracies' while not talking about trade problems and debt is nothing but lies.
Kagan:
A majority of Russians seem content with autocratic rule. Unlike the tumultuous democracy of the 1990s, the present government has at least produced a rising standard of living. President Putin’s efforts to undo the humiliating postcold war settlement and restore the greatness of Russia is popular. His political advisers believe that “avenging the demise of the Soviet Union will keep us in power”.
The Chinese learnt from the Soviet experience, too. While the liberal world waited after Tiananmen Square for China to resume its inevitable course towards liberal democratic modernity, the Communist party leadership set about shoring up its dominance in the nation. Keen observers of the Chinese political system see a sufficient combination of competence and ruthlessness on the part of the Chinese leadership to handle problems as they arise and a populace prepared to accept autocratic government so long as economic growth continues.
In the long run, rising prosperity may well produce political liberalism, but how long is the long run? It may be too long to have any strategic or geopolitical relevance. As the old joke goes, Germany launched itself on a trajectory of economic modernisation in the late 19th century and within six decades became a fully fledged democracy. The only problem was what happened in the intervening years.
Hell's bells! Here we have a fake democracy that features things like the Supreme Court squelching vote counting in a Presidential election, gross financial corruption which means only billionaires or their servants can run for office, a Senate filled with ONLY millionaires and most of Congress feeding at the military/industrial trough, outright pirates of the Caribbean running for President, etc! And are our lives improving?
HAHAHA. There is a lot of bitterness out there! And this dying liberal democracy sees our corrupt, lying, evil media billionaire owners attacking Obama for mentioning this! We live in a Potemkin Liberal Democracy. Just watch these two Ron Paul videos showing what a sham our election process is:
Ron Paul delegates locked out of the building in Texas:
Mitt Romney, tax evading pirate, buys votes in Florida:
Several readers were anxious for me to read this article:
Back in the late 20th century there were predictions that the 21st century would be characterized by “resource wars” where fighting breaks out between countries and aligned groups of countries, as they scramble to secure increasingly scarce commodities for themselves, principally oil and water. Barely had we entered the new century when a major resource war began, with the big surprise being that it was not some banana republic suddenly deciding to invade and loot its neighbor’s territory, but instead the most powerful country on earth muscling its way around an entire region on the other side of the planet in order to position itself to plunder its oil resources en masse for itself.
The very first paragraph betrays the total innocence and utter credulousness of this poor writer! The US has been plundering the world since when? How about 1800? And before that, as colonialists for European powers! Not to mention the pirates! I descend from these desperadoes. When my ancestors came to the New World, they were heavily armed with ships, cannons and guns and used them liberally. This is what 'liberal' means: lots of ammo. Just as the neo con couldn't understand the history of enslavement and looting launched by various empires including our present one, this writer can't understand the nature of the Beast, either. This is because we live in a sea of total lies and propaganda and shaking this off is difficult. The ruling elites must self-teach themselves to ignore reality. This is because they might slip up and say something dangerous that expose them as despots.
So they clothe this in fine garments of words and they refuse to broadcast images that clash with these lovely imperial purple. The rest of this article is barely worth mentioning. Of course, the ruling elites are reimposing the status quo! They must! If they fail, they die! But this is falling apart, fast. The Japanese are dying to get the carry trade to restart! Germany must continue to colonize the US industrial base while evading paying for wars or taxing their own workers for military adventures. England still wants to be the Global Empire without paying for it, either! Every one of these leeches are egging on the US and hoping we continue to misspend our money and let THEM invade OUR markets! And enslave us! And no one is stupider than anyone who allows this to happen.
The markets will rise only due to inflation. The only place where industrialization is growing is in the Third World and the only real successes in this regard when it comes to economic aggressive growth coupled with sovereign wealth and power is in communist nations! Why is that, we ask?
HAHAHA. That is the riddle! The communist nations are failed 'liberal' empires that have been reborn via the machinery of revolution. As the US and its empire bogs down in ethnic/religious battles with a quarter of the planet's people, we ignore this reality. We think, if we STRIP workers of wealth and power, the EMPIRE will be stronger! And this is KILLING THE DAMN EMPIRES. And Europe isn't doing this quite as much as the US but they are now, thanks to the strong euro, falling off the same cliff. I put up the picture of the stop sign because this is my emblem: I am the STOP sign. I tell my fellow global rulers, 'Stop it! You can't continue forwards. You must change direction. You can't be this way forever.'
There is no way we can inflate our way to global rule. Once an empire goes bankrupt, all it takes is one hurricane, one massive earthquake and it dies! And the chances of both happening to the US isn't 5% or 25% or 50%. It is 100%! There is NO DOUBT that we will have either or both or more. There is zero chance that we will have neither. And just like Katrina showed our weakness and the 9/11 attacks made hash of our boasts of imperial rule, the defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan show massive imperial overreach. And now that our entire banking system is collapsing, this is just another classic sign. Britain, when its banking system began to sink beneath the waves, ran to the US for loans. And as bigger and bigger wars engulfed this dying empire, they ran off to the US to be saved. Then puffed their chests afterwards and boasted about how they were STILL a global power.
England can't save us from bankruptcy, they are bankrupt, too. Germany and Japan can't save us, they are too small. Only China and Russia can save us from bankruptcy along with the oil pumping nations! And isn't this a joke and a half? Why don't these stupid writers talk about this?
So we can enjoy the last huzzah and splash around in our sea of red ink. But the writing is already on the wall.
England has never come to terms concerning their own criminal past as an imperial power. The propaganda fantasy that they were spreading 'civilization' as they destroyed and conquered great civilizations or destroyed tribes across the planet. So here comes Prime Minister Brown to pet our demented emperor. Meanwhile, the US and UK break up Iraqi cities into high-walled ghettos a la Israel. As we demand China break up, the Canadian Indian tribes demand the same rights the Tibetans want. A break up of the old British Empire. And we must talk about the game of 'Go' and the fall of US/UK power in Asia. Most commentators in the US/UK empire can't understand what is going on there.
The president said he appreciates the contributions of British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Britain has nearly 8,000 forces around Basra, in southern Iraq.
"We're making progress," Bush said. "Failure in Iraq will send a message to Iran that the United States and its allies were not intent on making sure they stay within the borders of their country. ... It's worth it to succeed."
Brown added, "The world owes George Bush a huge debt of gratitude" for his efforts against terrorists.
Thank you, George, for showing the world that we are vicious nut cases. Thank you for sending the planet into a huge inflationary spiral. Thanks for turning Iraq into a charnel house. Thank you for millions and millions of refugees. Thanks for pictures of Americans torturing Muslims. Thank you for bankrupting the USA. There, Mr. Brown Nose! I did it. Now, if you both could please go to hell, I will be even more thankful.
The fact that Labour no longer recognizes fascism is yet another sign of the corruption at the heart of the British Empire. As I have pointed out in the past, WWI and WWII had absolutely nothing to do with 'spreading democracy' and a tremendous amount to do with 'imperialism.' After WWI, the only places that found themselves 'free' were all the ethnic groups within the German and Austro-Hungarian empires. Not only did the British not offer the same opportunity to leave an empire to its own subject nations and peoples, the British ran off to increase the size of their own empire. As calls to divest themselves of this military dictatorship abroad rose, the League of Nations basically told them all to jump in a lake. As the struggle against the French and British empires grew, the anti-democratic autocrats in Europe refused to let go. Instead, they spend a lot of money they didn't have, suppressing popular demands for democracy or conquering even more populations who had no desire to be ruled by a bunch of crazy Europeans.
After WWI, the Irish managed to wrest one half of their country out of the bloody hands of the British Empire. To this day, the British still won't let the Irish have an entire country. Grimly, the British hang onto their half. The British suffered through years of 'terrorism' while the Irish fought them tooth and nail. Finally, the captive Irish people caught in the maw of the British Lion won civil rights within their shattered nation and the terrorism stopped. But only because the natives expect to slowly drive out the British Royal authorities peacefully, in the long run. On the other hand, the British make no moves to show they are leaving.
WWII was even worse: the Brits and Americans poured on thick the mythology that they were fighting for democracy. Even as neither nation gave their own populations civil rights and any say in the government, they pretended we were fighting to extend voting rights to aliens we didn't control. After the war, all the victims of both empires which now merged, demanded these rights. Instead of granting them right off the bat, both the British and US empires point-blank refused. Instead, the imperial wars continued. We call this 'The Cold War' which was stupidly seen as freedom versus communism.
Instead, it was imperial exploitation by capitalists versus imperial economic exploitation by communists. As usual, most of the smaller, weaker countries were invaded or chopped up into ever-smaller units as both sided sought to exploit other nations. Even now, as the US and UK seek to destroy and chop apart into tiny units, the shattered remains of the Ottoman Empire, our rulers have to pretend they are doing something we should be thankful for? This is so demented.
The Defence Secretary has been accused of misleading Parliament over the capture of 15 British sailors and Marines in the Gulf last spring as it emerged that Iran has kept £1 million of seized military equipment.
The Conservatives said that Des Browne was “less than frank” after The Times disclosed Ministry of Defence papers showing that the Britons were seized in disputed waters, not Iraqi territory.
*snip*
An internal MoD paper released to The Times blames the incident on the lack of an agreed border in the waters between Iraq and Iran.
The seizure occurred, the top-level document states, because the US-led coalition created a notional sea boundary but omitted to tell the Iranians where it was. Revolutionary Guard patrol boats were crossing this line three times a week, the partially censored document shows.
This is so classic! At the time, I wrote that the whole fracas as completely stupid. Iran has a 100% right to patrol their borders. The US and UK are invaders who are obviously not exactly welcome within the nation they invaded and are now tearing to shreds. The UK sailors have no rights at all to be tooling about in the seas offshore from Iran. None! Even if a Quisling asks for them to do this, they have no right to come right up to the border of a nation they keep saying, they want to invade! I also said, there was no agreed boundary and if the US and UK empires want this, they know how to get an agreement.
Now that is the whole problem! The US and UK recognize NO sovereignty of ANY nation! We are the empire and we know no boundaries! We rule the EARTH! If any 'brown' or 'black' or 'yellow' people can't accept this brutal fact, we kill them. The US and UK beat the war drums at home over this 'capture'. But sensible people, worried about WWIII, questioned the story right off the bat, the two emperors retreated. Oh, I forgot, the British have an empress, not the PM. Anyway, this capture was an insufficient cause for open warfare. Other aquatic encounters whereby the tiny navy of Iran shadowed US ships. We don't patrol our own borders. But we patrol Iran's borders. The US navy lied about these encounters and pretended that these were horrifying attacks that frightened our sailors. Instead, it was small speed boats merrily sailing in the middle of our imperial fleets!
Britain and America bonded and took over the planet via WWI and WWII. It disgusts me to see our rulers thinking that if they launch WWIII, we will expand our rule. WWI and WWII nearly destroyed Britain. This was due to British overreach. Just like the Great Depression was caused by Britain being unable to pay for WWI except by rolling over their debts and then dropping the gold standard, turning their money into fiat paper. Just like many an analysis of our economic problems and the Great Depression ignores the global British empire going bankrupt after WWI as a cause, commentators refuse to connect the US empire to the dead British empire. We sucked in that empire as well as parts of the French empire and many of our woes today are very much caused by this attempt to ape and increase the British empire. The fact that all Brits who come here are delighted that we are trapped in endless wars in various colonies should alarm and annoy us. We shouldn't be the British empire. Note how Britain's queen keeps here private offshore pirate coves going as a means to drain our nation of our tax base and to allow financiers free reign under her own reign?
The British strut and fret across the globe using our military power as their imperial tool. And we amble behind them, overjoyed to meet the Queen who holds her nose while shaking our hands. I will note that our foolish Mrs. Reagan, upon meeting the Queen, actually curtsied! As if she were a maid in waiting and not the representative of a free nation! But then, our own President and VP are treated like servants by the Saudis.
Back to Iran: the refusal of the US and UK to negotiate an honest agreement on borders is criminal. And our joint criminal operations in the Middle East on behalf of the various despotic rulers there like the Saudi King, is imperialism, not 'spreading democracy'. Especially since Iran is a 'democracy'! But according to the Empire, only Israel, an ethnic-cleansing mini-kingdom, is a 'democracy'. Even though it is not. And when they had elections within the territories they conquered, they didn't like the results and divided tiny Palestine in two and are now bombing one half like crazy. As Carter went in to try negotiations, they upped their attacks and on an empty road, shot up and murdered an obvious Reuters reporter. Many reporters have been deliberately killed by the US and UK imperials, too. They don't like people poking their noses in suppressions.
As Carter talked, the Jewish invaders of the Gaza ghetto were killing. But the Palestinians managed to kill three Jewish soldiers [there are NO Muslim Israeli imperial troopers!]. This infuriated the Israelis who killed more children in Gaza. And this gets no mention in the US or the UK anymore. The 'reforms' at the BBC pretty much wiped out all the last vestiges of honest reportage about the imperial wars.
Trying to stem the infiltration of militia fighters, American forces have begun to build a massive concrete wall that will partition Sadr City, the densely populated Shiite neighborhood in the Iraqi capital.
The construction, which began Tuesday night, is intended to turn the southern quarter of Sadr City near the international Green Zone into a protected enclave, secured by Iraqi and American forces, where the Iraqi government can undertake reconstruction efforts.
“You can’t really repair anything that is broken until you establish security,” said Lt. Col. Dan Barnett, commander of the First Squadron, Second Stryker Cavalry Regiment. “A wall that isolates those who would continue to attack the Iraqi Army and coalition forces can create security conditions that they can go in and rebuild.”
All empires do this: divide and conquer. The US has been busy building ghetto walls all over the place. This obnoxious activity is done in the name of stopping ethnic violence created by the US/UK invasions. On the other hand, when Tibetans have ethnic/religious cleansing style riots, the US and UK demand that China RETREAT! China is supposed to NOT stop this but to remove themselves. China can't build ghettos to pen in ethnic groups that annoy their own empire! They aren't even supposed to suppress riots. In the US, when we had ghetto riots, the military moved in and shot up the local minority populations, killing them. This is now ignored here at home.
Instead, we see a black man running for President, being tormented for being an 'elitist' because he isn't a good-ole white boy!
Now on to Asia: the UK lost power there between WWI and WWII. They didn't notice this because China was fighting a civil war and was broken up into many small pieces. But Japan was a rising power there. When Japan moved against the rotted British empire, they steamrollered right over it. In a matter of just months, they rolled back the entire British empire in Asia and were bearing down on India. India was not girding to fight off the Japanese due to the fact that they were anxious to see the British empire collapse! Who would have thought? The desperate British put Gandhi in prison for not supporting their brutal empire. The Japanese were even more brutal than the Europeans and this caused the Asians to side with the US, not Britain.
After the war, the US merrily handed over the entire empire back to the British and French! To the horror and disgust of nearly everyone. India did manage to eject the Brits but not until after the Brits, in classic fashion, split apart India, triggering many wars over borders and millions died because of this. Another great moment in the history of 'democracy'. I will note that the British based this on ethnic/religious cleansing principals. On the other hand, they would NOT do this for Ireland. Again, it is always someone else's empire that must be shattered along ethnic/religious lines. The fact that the US now endorses this madness infuriates me. We are the 'melting pot'?
China has few countermoves to this pressure over Tibet. There is always talk of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. That is not going to happen — not because China doesn’t want to, but because it does not have the naval capability of seizing control of the Taiwan Straits or seizing air superiority, certainly not if the United States doesn’t want it (and we note that the United States has two carrier battle groups in the Taiwan region at the moment). Beijing thus could bombard Taiwan, but not without enormous cost to itself and its own defensive capabilities. It does not have the capability to surge forces across the strait, much less to sustain operations there in anything short of a completely permissive threat environment. The Chinese could fire missiles at Taiwan, but that risks counterstrikes from American missiles. And, of course, Beijing could go nuclear, but that is not likely given the stakes. The most likely Chinese counter here would be trying to isolate Taiwan from shipping by firing missiles. But that again assumes the United States would not respond — something Beijing can’t count on.
While China thus lacks politico-military options to counter the Tibet pressure, it also lacks economic options. It is highly dependent for its economic well-being on exports to the United States and other countries; drawing money out of U.S. financial markets would require Beijing to put it somewhere else. If the Chinese invested in Europe, European interest rates would go down and U.S. rates would go up, and European money would pour into the United States. The long-held fear of the Chinese withdrawing their money from U.S. markets is therefore illusory: The Chinese are trapped economically. Far more than the United States, they can’t afford a confrontation.
It is nearly impossible for commentators talking about Asian politics to understand how stupid they sound. This long article in the Stratfor magazine is a classic example. First of all, there is NOT 'always talk about a Chinese invasion of Taiwan'. The Chinese do protect themselves from Taiwan since Taiwan is like a knife at China's belly! It is very much like Cuba. The US doesn't hesitate to hammer Cuba and isolate this tiny country using the eternal excuse, 'They are not a democracy'. Even as the US prevented blacks from voting in 1963, we were using the excuse, 'Cuba isn't a democracy' for our imperialist actions there.
Anyone who imagines that China is not using diplomacy and the various arts of economic and social contact to embrace Taiwan is a commentator living on the wrong planet. I have chronicled this long story of gradual pulling together by the Chinese in China and Taiwan. Just this week, the panda diplomacy resumed and Taiwan will get their panda. Air flights between China and Taiwan which were impossible until my father flew directly between the two places in 1980, are not increasingly common place. My father's flight was so controversial, it had to be made secretly! Now, it is normal. A huge change in status. George Friedman clearly is viewed by Stratfor Strategic Forecasting as some sort of geo-political wizard. I would suggest, he is a fool.
This stupid article is also filled with imperial pride. China can't suppress Tibet? Of course they can! We suppress any popular uprising here! Just this week, a religious enclave in Texas was invaded and broken up. I see absolutely NO difference between that enclave and the Tibetan religious enclaves! Both are very strange and have an autocratic system that places worship of the religious leader above patriotism. Both want to be isolated from outside influences. Both exploit their followers for sexual purposes. And yes, both enslave women. The Tibet my parents saw when they came in, back in 1955, was a desperate, despotic feudal state. Not a democracy.
By the way, in the US media, the fact that MAOISTS have won a real election...in Nepal! It is totally ignored! HAHAHA. I am not surprised. Within Nepal is the Tibetan religious rulers who are now irritating the government of Nepal which is NOT Buddhist but is a collection of religions and ethnic tribal groups. The collapse of religious feeling there is obvious since Maoists are winning elections. They will probably eject the Tibetan refugees who have been causing increasing problems. Nepal is worried that the US/UK empire, using these people, will cause trouble for Nepal.
The second thing that irritates me always and which Mr. Friedman is guilty of, is the idea that the Chinese are TRAPPED by our debts. The Chinese were taken for fools and fell into the trap of funding our empire, HAHAHA, and we will cheat them if they try to stop us. This idiotic, childish idea may comfort us as we storm about the planet, making ourselves unwelcome. But the truth is the exact opposite: the Chinese 50 year plan is to become our creditors and then CUT US OFF. They consider the loss of trillions of dollars to be a cheap price to pay if this destroys our empire and builds their empire! They came up with this idea way back in the mid-1980s. They understood the US needed endless funds for our imperial adventures. They could see how Russia went too deep into imperial overreach. We discussed this a lot. Russia was not bankrupt back then but the signs were growing. The fact that Russia began a series of financial arrangements with West Germany so they could pull out of East Germany and still cling to the rest of they dying empire was proof of this back then.
When Russia went bankrupt, their empire collapsed internally as well as externally. The Chinese watched this process very closely. They also now can see that Russia is rapidly rebuilding. Every time the US and UK attack Iran or Iraq, Russia gets stronger. This process is destroying our empire and rebuilding the Russian empire. China doesn't want a strong Russia, they want a balanced Russia. They will OK the European empire rebuilding under the tutelage of Germany and France so long as they don't menace China. When the G7 did menace China, I will note that China threw down the economic gauntlet and the entire banking system in the West shot off the cliff and is still falling!
This massive retaliation is not recognized by the West because of hubris. The idea that China has ALREADY begun their economic moves to kill the US/UK empire just doesn't enter dimwitted minds. But they have done this and note that China's boom is no longer booming! Their own stock markets are down and I predicted this because they didn't want it to get out of control, anyway. I knew the Central Committee would squelch it because they didn't want a huge bubble nor did they want a new economic power base they can't control!
Note also how global inflation is now destabilizing ALL countries. Not just China. The huge flood of red ink that was created via the Japanese carry trade and wild US Federal Reserve lending policies is now causing global inflation. And the Chinese will turn this weapon on us. We created it, they will use it. Since the US is enabling social agitations and murderous riots within China, China will now deliver us the same and more. They have NO CHOICE. We have made it crystal clear, we do not want Taiwan to merge with China and we intend to enable the shattering of China's sovereignty using religious leaders to egg on ethnic cleansing.
Canada’s top native chief says the Vancouver Olympics are a potential target for First Nations protest much like Beijing has been a flash point for Tibet supporters.
Phil Fontaine said today that native leaders will use whatever chance they can, including the 2010 Winter Games, to focus governments on aboriginal poverty.
Thousands of Canadians who’ve marched in support of a free Tibet should be “outraged” by abysmal native conditions in their own country, he said today.
“We’ll take whatever opportunity is presented to us to state our case, to set the record straight, to tell Canadians the true story about our situation. They have to stand up and demand immediate action on the part of their government to fix this.
“We find the Tibetan situation compelling,” Fontaine said when asked if the 2010 Olympics could be disrupted by the sort of protest that has dogged Chinese planners.
Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl said he has heard such talk but finds it “a little odd.”
HAHAHA. The US, EU and UK do NOT want this sort of ethnic enclave stuff over here. I knew this would happen. The Indians in America are next. They realize that they should be talking not about reservations but KINGDOMS. And I expect them to demand the US recognize them as a kingdom on par with the Tibetan kingdom. Always, the empires are pro-ethnic shattering abroad and anti-ethnic shattering at home. It is pure hypocrisy here at home.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization's decision on whether to admit Iran will depend on general plans for expansion that could see other states join, the head of the group said on Tuesday.
Tehran, which currently holds observer status in the alliance, has long sought to become a full member of the SCO, a security alliance which comprises Russia, China and four Central Asian states and is seen as a counterbalance to U.S. and NATO influence in Asia.
"The consideration of the bid [by Iran] will depend on a political decision on whether to expand our organization," Secretary General Bolat Nurgaliyev said during a Moscow-Beijing video conference hosted by RIA Novosti.
He said Iran's request has already been addressed to Tajikistan, which currently presides over the organization. The other three Central Asian members are Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.
Nurgaliyev said several other countries are also considering joining the organization. "We see this as positive evidence that our organization is needed and participation in its activities is useful."
We cannot attack Iran. Iran is going to become part of the Chinese/Russian counter-empire. The strategic errors that led to this disaster was obvious to me for at least 10 years. Instead of making friends with the Iranians after they had the last two elections, we did the exact opposite. When we made it very clear, we will support the fracturing of Iran by supporting ethnic dissatisfactions, the nation had no choice but to crack down on these factions and seek better allies. Their defiance of the US and European powers is, to my mind, a rousing thing. I know that anyone who dreams of resisting the empires are very moved by the Iranians who have fought tenaciously to stop the world's mightiest military powers. Just as Cuba is slowly eroding US power across the planet simply by defying us, Iran is even a stronger case of defiance leading to power. Even as the US tightens the screws on Iran, Iran tightens the noose around our own necks!
I sense something has turned over here. The huge hikes in oil prices are now causing true alarm over here. Thanks to our noxious and evil media owners, the US public cannot understand that our attempts at strangling Iran is killing us. I note that people are suddenly thinking, they will be bankrupt by next year if this keeps up. Since our own dictators refuse to track the inflation caused by food and energy prices, we can pretend there is no inflation if we don't eat or use energy!
But everyone does these things. And since the inflation isn't being fixed via cost of living advances, people here are going under. This process is now accelerating. Our media spent their energy on debating whether Obama was using diplomatic language when he pointed out that people being stranded by economic changes as the US deindustrializes and China builds up, the 'bitter' commentary is more important than discussions about how we can pull out of this economic tail spin.
This is caused by high oil prices which are caused by US/UK/EU attempts at isolating Iran. Recently, Switzerland was accused of being anti-semites because they want to buy energy from Iran. Now, Iran is being embraced by China and Russia and is now formulating a triangular power structure that will destroy US power. Now, let's visit this week's equally stupid New Yorker article. The NYer used to be a smart magazine. But Tina Brown was driven out and replaced by open Zionists. The dumbing down of that once-fine magazine so appalls me, I cancelled my subscription. For the last half a year, they keep sending me the magazine anyway. So I hope this bankrupts them.
Every so often, a grand thesis captures the world’s imagination, at least until it is swept away by events or by a newer, more plausible thesis. The latest one to do so, in policy think tanks, universities, foreign ministries, corporate boardrooms, editorial offices, and international conference centers, is that America’s time of global dominance is finished, and that new powers, such as China, India, and Russia, are poised to take over. It’s an idea that has had as much currency within the United States as elsewhere.
All great empires set too much store by predictions of their imminent demise. Perhaps, as the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy suggested in his poem “Waiting for the Barbarians,” empires need the sense of peril to give them a reason to go on. Why spend so much money and effort if not to keep the barbarians at bay?
America, like England, is running on fumes and debt. When England tried this after WWI, it limped along for a while and then, when Japan turned towards eliminating English power in Asia, it took less than 3 years to accomplish. The British returned only thanks 100% to the rising US power. Now, the US, its economic back broken by 60 years of imperial wars, is limping along. Our proud navy sails the Seven Seas but it is fueled by red ink. The red ink is tremendous. The nations in the world that are in debt the most to foreigners is the US and the UK both! The US overdraft is bankrolled by China and Japan as well as the oil pumping kings. This is total insanity. And deliberate, on the part of the Chinese. They told me many years ago, their plans were to 'be bank' to the US and then dump us into the ash heap of history! It is not accidental nor is it to balance their trade finances. It is their long range plans!
As for great empires crashing: always, it comes at the PEAK of military spending! At the PEAK of power! They go bankrupt. It is that simple. History is crystal clear about this. Empires that can't control their spending always do this.
The New Yorker:
Zakaria sees the future in less belligerent terms. His is the voice of what might be called the Davos consensus, after the Swiss resort where, under the auspices of the World Economic Forum, financial and political élites gather each year for convivial networking. What’s striking about that consensus, though, is how swiftly it can change. The first time I visited this august assemblage, around the turn of the century, the received opinion was that the United States was so far ahead of the rest of the world that no one could ever catch up. This year in Davos, America’s fall was on everyone’s lips.
Zakaria, who is judicious, reasonable, smooth, intelligent, and a little glib, predicts nothing so rash. He points out that, aside from some pockets of backwardness, the whole world has been getting much richer. Global capitalism has been a huge success. Far from menacing local cultures, as some fear, globalization has, by his accounting, been good for cultural diversity. France and South Korea, “long dominated by American movies, now have large film industries of their own,” he writes, omitting to mention that France had one before Hollywood threatened to wipe it out, and that its revival in France, as in South Korea, has been due more to state subsidies than to global capitalism. Still, even though the economic scene looks gloomier now than it did when he finished his book, Zakaria is correct to insist that many people everywhere have benefitted from the global boom.
The problem, Zakaria writes, is that “as economic fortunes rise, so does nationalism.” This is apparent in Russia, of course, but it is equally so in China, where he talked to a young businessman, and felt as if he “were in Berlin in 1910.” Actually, the prickly nationalism of many Chinese may have less to do with their newfound prosperity than with China’s fraught combination of political autocracy and economic liberalism: nationalism and economic boosterism are all the autocrats have at their disposal to try to legitimatize their continuing monopoly on power. In any case, Zakaria is inclined to think that rational calculation will ultimately prevail. He maintains that the Chinese are by nature a pragmatic people, who will surely realize that it is in their interest to be embedded in the liberal global order. “The veneration of an abstract idea,” he explains, “is somewhat alien to China’s practical mind-set.”
The Chinese are very practical. They also know history. They know that the effort to deindustrialize the US/UK empire is working. They know that money is flowing to China and that China is the world's biggest CREDITOR nation, not debtor nation. They know that the power of money is flowing towards them and away from the US and UK. They know their most dangerous neighbor is Japan. But they also know that Japan is withering on the vine. It is literally dying. They know that Time is on China's side, not Japan's side. They also know that if Japan doesn't change course soon and show some consideration towards the Japanese peasants and workers, they will eventually be crushed by Chinese power. People are power!
I notice the yelling about Chinese population controls has collapsed in the West! HAHAHA. Now, we hope they practice birth control. The main thing is, the Chinese people will expand because they are dynamic and filled with a sense of hope and purpose. This energy is internal and very powerful and I am amazed by it. But again and again, I read commentators who cannot understand that the present global 'boom' that ends with the US sopping up most of the world's resources is ending...FOR US. The present dynamics are being destroyed by food and fuel inflation. The US will not be the destination for all world trade when the Chinese decide to no longer fund us and the Japanese are forced to deal more closely with China. Right now, there is already more Chinese/Japanese trade going on than US/Japanese trade. The Japanese PROFITS are still strictly in the US. But only so long as the US can take on more debt.
New Yorker:
The one nation whose presence still guarantees a measure of stability in Asia is the very one whose influence commentators are so quick to write off: the United States of America. The Chinese may not like the fact that the United States has so many bases in Japan and South Korea, but they still prefer it to a nuclear-armed Japan. Cases of American G.I.s molesting local girls enrage the populations of South Korea and Japan, but they still feel safer with a U.S. military presence than without it. Aside from the disaster in Vietnam, the United States has been a reasonably good Asian cop. But how long can it continue to play that role? The longer this postwar arrangement goes on, the longer it will take the East Asian powers to manage their own security responsibly. The same can be said of the Europeans, as became painfully clear in the Balkan conflicts.
This paragraph clearly shows how bizarre US thinkers are. Japan will have nukes just like Iran will have nukes. For self-protection. Japan has about 5 minutes time to pray to the gods before dying in WWIII. They have ZERO chance of surviving. And they know this and all their animators have illustrated this harsh fact over and over again. They are VERY leery of any nuclear war. China can take direct hits and still hit back hard due to sheer size. Only the US, Russia, Brazil and China can easily survive WWIII. Few other nations can do this. Maybe India and Australia. But that is one very short list.
And the Chinese and Russians know this! They aren't stupid. The US has NOT been 'a good cop' in Asia at all, by the way. Ask the Vietnamese. I note the deranged author mentioned them. Heh. But he didn't bother mentioning Cambodia or Laos, of course. Or Indonesia. Or half of Korea. Or a lot of other people.
Europe is content to have the US patrol their empire for free. They also run a trade surplus with us. Ditto, England. Ditto in spades, Japan. We are NOT benefitting China with our hostile patrols, our spy planes invading Chinese airspace, our bombings of Chinese embassies, our harassment of Chinese trade deals, our meddling in Chinese internal affairs. We are openly hostile and China won't let us pretend otherwise. So they yank our chain.
This is why they had military get togethers where they entertained our military chiefs and then turned around and kicked our ships out of Hong Kong! This is how they display our impotence to their neighbors who all sat up and listened. Particularly the Japanese. The Japanese are bankrupting us. They know this and enjoy doing this. But this means, they lose our military powers. So they want to prop us up but they can't help but destroy us at the same time. It behooves the US to prevent them from doing this. But we can't. We want to be an empire and will try this until totally bankrupt. Even if it means, begging China for more money.
While spitting in China's face. And how will this end? History is crystal clear. Spain certainly does not order around America. Nor does Germany. Dead empires can't order anyone around. A quick review of other diplomatic news as Russia and China build their massive diplomatic empires:
North Korea has hurled a series of what Lee calls "belligerent and bellicose" statements about Lee since he took office 50 days ago.
"Both North and South Korea must change their ways," Lee said. "It is not sufficient for North Korea to resort to their old ways."
To that end, he said, he wanted to establish a permanent channel so the two countries could have a regular dialogue, rather than intermittent contacts elicited by crises. He said that offices should be headed by officials with direct access to the leaders of each country.
Every time South Korea decides to go rely on US power, North Korea kicks up the dust. Here is is, again. Eventually, they will reunite. Under the Chinese umbrella. But first, the US must go bankrupt. This is in our futures.
TRIPOLI, April 17 (RIA Novosti) - Moscow wrote off on Thursday Libya's $4.5 billion debt in exchange for multi-billion dollar contracts for Russian companies.
The cancelation of the debt, accrued on Soviet arms supplies, was one of over a dozen intergovernmental trade and cooperation agreements signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi.
After the signing ceremony, the outgoing Russian leader told reporters: "We are satisfied with the way we have resolved this problem. I am absolutely convinced that the scheme we have arrived at will benefit both the Russian and the Libyan economies, as well as the Russian and the Libyan people."
Russia is slowly rebuilding OPEC. Piece by piece, to the horror of Europe. The US ignores this only because we are so totally unable to influence this process at all. Thus, the US media demonization of Putin. Putin will go down in history as a political genius and Father of the Nation of Russia, by the way. Just as Bush will go down as the destroyer of America.
By the way, I often compare US/UK strategic thinking to playing mental games. In Asia, they play Go and in the West, we play chess. The rulers of Russia and China play Go and Chess for fun and to hone the mental skills which are used for diplomacy and war. The US doesn't do either. Our rulers can barely play 'Old Maid'. For anyone who wants to learn more about Go, here is some links and I also suggest watching the anime called 'Hikaru No Go'.
Territory is called'ji'in Japanese. Diagram 2 shows some examples. The continuous lines formed by the black stones form the limits of the territories. The size of territory is expressed in terms of the number of open intersections within it. The unit is called a point,'moku'in Japanese. The territories marked A, B and C are all of the same size..12 points for the black player. Incidentally, it is obvious here that to form territory, it is most efficient to make use of the edge lines as in the case of Pattern A. Pattern B, which makes use of one edge line is not as economical as A, but more economical than C, which must be entirely bounded by lines of stones.
Contiguity of Stones
The unit for the number of stones is also called 'moku' the same as in the case of territory. All stones are of equal power, but like soldiers in a battle, the stones in a good configuration are more powerful than those in a poor pattern, in which the stones cannot function as effectively and economically. Stones of the same color form a firm line when they are placed contiguously along a straight line as in (A) in Diagram 3. Remember an isolated stone means less power for the contestant who has such a stone.
Life of a Stone
A stone has life and it may be killed. This is crucial element that makes'Go'an interesting game.
The trick here is to exploit empty spaces, not fill them. The lesson here is, it doesn't do much good if an empire has many military outposts if these are costing too much. And the costs of defending distant areas can endanger the main body. Just watching Go games can be a good exercise for understanding strategy and power politics.
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