Obama, Inc.

With Daley and Immelt on board, our president is waltzing with the devil.
by Jim Hightower

When you dance with the devil, never fool yourself into thinking that you're leading.
That would be my 50-cents-worth of advice to President Barack Obama as he remakes his presidency into a Clintonesque corporate enterprise. Following last fall's congressional elections, he immediately began blowing kisses to CEOs and big business lobbyists, and he's now filled his White House dance card with them.

First came Bill Daley, the Wall Street banker and longtime corporate lobbyist. In early January, Obama brought him to the White House ball to be his chief-of-staff, gatekeeper, and policy coordinator.

Then Obama tapped Jeffery Immelt to lead his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, which is supposed to "encourage the private sector to hire [Americans] and invest in American competitiveness." This is a bizarre coupling, for as General Electric's CEO, Immelt was a leader in shipping American factories and jobs to Asia and elsewhere. Today, fewer than half of GE's workers are in our country.

As an AFL-CIO official notes, "Highly globalized companies don't have the same interests as the United States. There is no company more emblematic of this than GE."

In his recent State of the Union speech, Obama offered only cold comfort to the millions of Americans who are unemployed or barely employed, saying blandly that "The rules have changed." Well, yes--and who changed them? Self-serving CEOs like Jeffrey Immelt, that's who.

America's working families--our endangered middle class--have a right to expect Obama to fight for rules that are fair to them and our country, not meekly accept rules that have been skewed by an elite corporate class to profit them alone. Instead, our president is waltzing with the devil.

He's rebranding his presidency, all right. It's becoming Obama, Inc.

Michael Chertoff

Michael Chertoff
The Man & His Star-Crossed Past
Jim Kirwan
6-23-7

hVery few Americans, not directly affected by this man of many faces have no idea, of who really directs the duties of the 180,000 government employees in DHS: Duties that this man now holds in his stained and conflicted hands. It seems that the variety of controversies which have paralleled Michael Chertoff's meteoric rise in government have been allowed to languish in the shadows for far too long. If the public does not soon become familiar with who their Director of Homeland Security really is-then they may live to regret that oversight. The details of Michael Chertoff's personal history should have disqualified him for high office: but instead his nomination for this job was approved without objection by the Senate.

"The Senate voted 98-0 to approve Chertoff on February 15. Chertoff, 51, took the oath of office that night in "a private ceremony at the White House."

DHS has a $32 billion budget, 180,000 employees, and jurisdiction over immigration, customs and transportation security, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The question of Chertoff's dual-nationality doesn't seem to have concerned a single U.S. senator.
Many have wondered who let the detained suspected Israeli agents go back to Israel, immediately after 911. Apparently it was Michael Chertoff.

"Chertoff allowed scores of suspected Israeli terrorists and spies to quietly return to Israel . In several cases, Israeli suspects working for phoney moving companies, such as Urban Moving Systems from Weehawken, N.J., were caught driving moving vans which tested positive for explosives. On September 14, Dominic Suter, the owner of the moving company, which was found to be a Mossad front company, fled to Israel after FBI agents requested a second interview.

One group of 5 Israelis was seen on the roof of Urban Moving Systems videotaping and celebrating the destruction of the World Trade Center. These Israeli agents were returned to Israel on visa violations.

These Israeli suspects, and others, who had apparently transported explosives in the New York area, were allowed to return to Israel without being properly interrogated or their presence and activities in the United States having been vigorously investigated." (1)
What is publicly available about Chertoff's life and his various careers is not comforting, if you care about either law or justice-and it's especially troubling if you demand a depth of character from those who occupy the highest offices in this land. Ah but then this is the Cheney-Bush Era of Empire, so that 'quaint idea' is probably now completely without merit.

"Chertoff is credited with authoring the Patriot Act, the 300-plus page blueprint for the modern National Security State; patterned to great extent on the successes of the KGB in the Soviet system. He's admired among his Bush cadres for making sure that government surveillance operates at maximum efficiency. Under his stewardship at the Dept of Justice, the 4th amendment has withered like summer grass. The long-held belief that citizens, have a right to a "reasonable expectation of privacy" has buckled under the demands of "Big Brother" and the new "intrusive" security paradigm."

And: "Chertoff's record of failure at Justice is second only to that of Ashcroft. His 4 year tenure hasn't produced even one identifiable success. (Check out his "obstruction of justice" in the John Walker Lindh case on Democracy Now) Instead, his personal ineptitude and his palpable contempt for the law have only showered more disgrace on the institution of American justice. That probably explains why he's being moved up the bureaucratic dog-pile to the top rung of Homeland Security. In Bush-world "failing upwards" is more commonplace than cowboy boots at a Crawford tent-show." (2)

As someone that controls the largest Federal Agency in the US government; the life and accomplishments of Michael Chertoff ought to be available and easy to locate: but that has not been the case. Instead the important details concerning Michael Chertoff's past have been meticulously scrubbed from the net. The basics are available from Wikipedia but the facts surrounding the depth of his family's involvement in the actual creation of the State of Israel, have disappeared.

"Chertoff is the co-author, along with Viet Dinh, of the USA PATRIOT Act , signed into law October 26, 2001. As head of the Justice Department's criminal division, he advised the Central Intelligence Agency on the outer limits of legality in coercive interrogation sessions." (3)

One of the little known aspects inside all the secrecy surrounding The vile National ID Card, the HOMELAND Security Act, and the shadowy FEMA camps that many believe are about to be used-concerns the other master criminals that Cheney-Bush hired to ensure that Americans will become as completely controlled a population, as were the people of Communist East Germany or the old USSR.

For Instance: "This "card" (the National ID Card) was designed for Homeland Security by the former East German STAZI chief, Marcus Wolfe, a master of manipulation and intimidation and Primakov the former head of the KGB in the USSR. These two former spy chiefs are who really run our SECRET National Interior Spy Service. Bush employed them specifically for what they brought from their communist states - now they decide who lives and who dies in America! These men have not changed, they are who they are, and that's why Bush & the Bandits hired them for HOMELAND Security. If these men appeared for work, in the uniforms of their former States, the public would be outraged, and rightfully so! How is it that the radical right continues to decry Communism, yet they have allowed Bush to employ top communist counter-intelligence officers to oversee every facet of our lives?" (4)

Throughout this long international nightmare there remains the still incomplete tragedy of the insertion of Israel, as a State, into what was once Palestine. This conflicted and war-torn place has been the international flashpoint of privilege over human rights and bondage over freedom for over half a century. Flames and blood from this dispute were ignited by greed and by those dark and destabilizing dreams of Empire that were beginning even before the First World War. Here's something that one woman adds to the on-going dialogue in Palestine-because what she's found is pivotal to the veracity of claims made by the Zionist extremists that control "Israel" today. This is why the dual citizenship of our Homeland Security Czar is incompatible with his position in government today. The USA is large enough to require that all our highest officials be Americans without dual citizenships, or conflicts of national interest, from any other nation. (5)


kirwan

Controlled Press Hides Chertoff's Israeli Roots
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?noframesread=66175

Falling Upwards ­ the Rise of Michael Chertoff
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney0122200 5.html

Michael Chertoff ­ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Chertoff

Our CRIMINAL Justice System
http://www.rense.com/general65/criminal.htm

Giving Credit Where Credit is Due ­ Jane Gardner
http://thepaleoconservativeprimer.blogspot.com/



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Our New Man in Egypt

Swapping a Dictator for a Torturer
By JAMES RIDGEWAY

As things now stand, the United States appears ready to have Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak tossed out in exchange for his newly-named Vice President, Omar Suleiman, the Egyptian spy master. That is, maintain the status quo by swapping one dictator for another.

Of course, Israel must sign off on this deal aimed at assuring that Egypt can remain as America's main base in the region, straddling as it does North Africa and the Middle East. Without that status quo, the U.S. would have to rethink its entire neo-colonial policies in the region.

But Suleiman looks like a nasty piece of work.

You don't get much about him in the US corporate media, but Agence France Press has pulled together the basics:

"For US intelligence officials, he has been a trusted partner willing to go after Islamist militants without hesitation, targeting homegrown radical groups Gamaa Islamiya and Jihad after they carried out a string of attacks on foreigners. A product of the US-Egyptian relationship, Suleiman underwent training in the 1980s at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School and Center at Fort Bragg in North Carolina….

"After taking over as spy director, Suleiman oversaw an agreement with the United States in 1995 that allowed for suspected militants to be secretly transferred to Egypt for questioning, according to the book "Ghost Plane" by journalist Stephen Grey. ..

"In the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the CIA relied on Suleiman to accept the transfer of a detainee known as Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, who US officials hoped could prove a link between Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda. The suspect was bound and blindfolded and flown to Cairo, where the CIA believed their longtime ally Suleiman would ensure a successful interrogation, according to "The One Percent Doctrine" by author Ron Suskind. A US Senate report in 2006 describes how the detainee was locked in a cage for hours and beaten, with Egyptian authorities pushing him to confirm alleged connections between Al-Qaeda and Saddam. Libi eventually told his interrogators that the then Iraqi regime was moving to provide Al-Qaeda with biological and chemical weapons. When the then US secretary of state Colin Powell made the case for war before the United Nations, he referred to details of Libi's confession. The detainee eventually recanted his account."

Thus our loyal ally Egypt provided the fake information used by the United States to justify go to war in Iraq.

Stephen Soldz of the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis and co-founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology provided the following excerpts from authors who discussed Sulieman:

Jane Mayer, in The Dark Side, pointed to Suleiman's role in the rendition program:

"Each rendition was authorized at the very top levels of both governments….The long-serving chief of the Egyptian central intelligence agency, Omar Suleiman, negotiated directly with top Agency officials. [Former U.S. Ambassador to Egypt] Walker described the Egyptian counterpart, Suleiman, as 'very bright, very realistic,' adding that he was cognizant that there was a downside to 'some of the negative things that the Egyptians engaged in, of torture and so on. But he was not squeamish, by the way'" (pp. 113).

Stephen Grey, in Ghost Plane, his investigative work on the rendition program, also points to Suleiman as central to the program:

"To negotiate these assurances [that the Egyptians wouldn't 'torture' the prisoner delivered for torture] the CIA dealt principally in Egypt through Omar Suleiman, the chief of the Egyptian general intelligence service (EGIS) since 1993. It was he who arranged the meetings with the Egyptian interior ministry…. Suleiman, who understood English well, was an urbane and sophisticated man. Others told me that for years Suleiman was America's chief interlocutor with the Egyptian regime — the main channel to President Hosni Mubarak himself, even on matters far removed from intelligence and security.

Suleiman's role in the rendition program was also highlighted in a Wikileaks cable:

"The context of the close and sustained cooperation between the USG and GOE on counterterrorism, Post believes that the written GOE assurances regarding the return of three Egyptians detained at Guantanamo (reftel) represent the firm commitment of the GOE to adhere to the requested principles. These assurances were passed directly from Egyptian General Intelligence Service (EGIS) Chief Soliman (sic) through liaison channels — the most effective communication path on this issue. General Soliman's word is the GOE's guarantee, and the GOE's track record of cooperation on CT issues lends further support to this assessment. End summary."

"Shortly after 9/11, Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib was captured by Pakistani security forces and, under US pressure, torture by Pakistanis," writes Soldz. "He was then rendered (with an Australian diplomat watching) by CIA operatives to Egypt, a not uncommon practice. In Egypt, Habib merited Suleiman's personal attention. As related by Richard Neville, based on Habib's memoir":

"Habib was interrogated by the country's Intelligence Director, General Omar Suleiman…. Suleiman took a personal interest in anyone suspected of links with Al Qaeda. As Habib had visited Afghanistan shortly before 9/11, he was under suspicion. Habib was repeatedly zapped with high-voltage electricity, immersed in water up to his nostrils, beaten, his fingers were broken and he was hung from metal hooks. That treatment wasn't enough for Suleiman, so:

To loosen Habib's tongue, Suleiman ordered a guard to murder a gruesomely shackled Turkistan prisoner in front of Habib – and he did, with a vicious karate kick.

After Suleiman's men extracted Habib's confession, he was transferred back to US custody, where he eventually was imprisoned at Guantanamo. His "confession" was then used as evidence in his Guantanamo trial."

JAMES RIDGEWAY is senior Washington correspondent for Mother Jones Magazine. For 30 years he was Washington correspondent for the Village Voice. He edits the Unsilent Generation, where this article also appears.

.

Obama and the Despots of the Middle East

By CORINNA MULLIN

Karl Marx, in his famous treatise on Louis Bonaparte's 1851 coup d'état, which shared much in common with the late 18th century coup undertaken by his uncle, Napoleon Bonaparte, remarked that history has the tendency to repeat itself, 'the first [time] as tragedy, then as farce'.

As with many other aspects of the dramatic developments unfolding in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region in recent weeks, Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak's midnight 28 January speech, and the various White House statements that preceded it, prove just how relevant the ideas of the German political theorist and revolutionary are today.

Like his Tunisian counterpart, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, whose similarly feeble attempt to assuage the anger and despair of the tens of thousands of brave citizens, from all political persuasions and walks of life who participated in the demonstrations, was met by demands to put an end to the government's charade, Mubarak's speech was seen by most Egyptians as too little, too late.

For the protesters in Egypt, as in Tunisia only a few weeks before, demanded not only an end to the human rights abuses, rampant corruption, lack of economic opportunities and political freedoms that characterised the state of affairs of their country for as long most of them can remember, but also, and as importantly, an end to the repressive regime that promulgated these conditions. They will certainly not be satisfied with Mubarak's cynical attempts at 'reform', including the appointment of intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, a man who was praised by former US Ambassador to Egypt, Edward S. Walker, for the amenable role he has played in supporting some of the most abhorrent and illegal activities associated with the US led 'war on terror', such as the torture and extraordinary rendition of 'terror' suspects.

Only 3 weeks earlier, Mubarak's Tunisian counterpart, Ben Ali, had cut an equally pathetic figure in his speech to the Tunisian nation, in which he vowed to slash food prices and guarantee 'total liberty for the press and to no longer close Internet sites' and promised 'no presidencies for life,' in a desperate attempt to buy more time for his dictatorial rule.

The farce continued with the Obama administration, who, as in the Tunisian case, remained largely silent until the outrage expressed by the Egyptian people became so deafening it could no longer pretend not to hear their desperate pleas, dramatically changing its rhetoric. One could witness this shift in White House Secretary Robert Gibbs' 28 January press conference. Whereas just the previous day Gibbs had reiterated the Mubarak regime's position as 'a close and important partner with our country' and declared its stability, on 28 January his language had already changed, adopting a much more aggressive tone. 'The legitimate grievances that have festered for quite some time in Egypt have to be addressed by the Egyptian government immediately, and violence is not the answer,' Gibbs chided.

Later in the day, his boss engaged in rhetorical acrobatics in an effort to prove the Obama administration's 'democracy promotion' credentials while at the same time refrain from undermining the 'stability' of a stalwart US ally - one that has provided invaluable support in promoting US geo-strategic interests vis-a-vis the Israel-Palestine 'conflict', the 'war on terror', energy security, as well as promoting US-backed neoliberal economic 'reforms' in the region.

The $1.5 billion in rent/aid Egypt receives annually from its US patron, referred to by many as 'peace dividends' for its 1979 peace agreement with the Israelis, demonstrates just how important this relationship is to the Americans. In the past, though the Mubarak regime, like most rentier states, spent much of these payments on maintaining the security apparatuses necessary for its survival, it also wisely invested at least a portion of it on social spending, notably on food subsidies, education, health and government salaries, spending that primarily affected the lower classes. Over the last several decades, and particularly in recent years, however, this balance of rent spending has been heavily tipped in favor of 'security'.

As with Tunisia, despite its MENA 'democracy promotion' agenda, Egypt's nefarious use of US funds for patently undemocratic purposes has come as no surprise for the American government. In stark contrast to the feigned outrage with which the Obama administration received news of its ally's heavy handed crackdown on the popular demonstrations breaking out across the country, as well as on the new media forms of communication that facilitated their organisation, the recent Wikileaks revelations uncovered US foreknowledge of the regime's brutality. Exposing what most informed political analysts, as well as the majority of Egyptians, have known all along about the Mubarak regime, the second highest recipient of US military and economic aid in the world after Israel, one cable pointed out that government brutality is 'routine and pervasive'. Furthermore, the use of torture against ordinary criminals, Islamist detainees, opposition activists and bloggers, the cables acknowledged, is so widespread that the Egyptian government 'no longer even tries to deny its existence.'

The cables also reveal that the Obama administration aimed to maintain a close political and military relationship with Mubarak, despite acknowledging the existence of a colossal democracy deficit, stating: 'The tangible benefits to our [military] relationship are clear: Egypt remains at peace with Israel, and the US military enjoys priority access to the Suez canal and Egyptian airspace.'

Despite all of this, in his 28 January press conference on the eve of the post-Juma'h (Friday prayer) protests, the most dramatic to hit Egypt since the unrest began, Obama refrained from acknowledging the demands of the brave protesters calling for Mubarak to step down. Instead, he emphasized the need for the regime to make reforms, saying: 'This moment of volatility has to be turned into a moment of promise.' Referring to his 2008 Cairo speech, Obama urged Mubarak to recognise that 'no matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who would hold power: You must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise.'

Once again, the Obama administration has demonstrated a gross duplicity in its approach to the issue of democracy promotion in the region. In this sense it, like other western governments expressing their preferences for 'stability' and 'order' over justice and accountability, has found itself on the wrong side of history.

Perhaps there is a further lesson they could take from Marx's 18th Brumaire, in which he made another of his most famous formulations, this time on the role individual agency plays in history: 'Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.'

In the face of overwhelming odds, including unflagging western support for their governments, a world economic order designed to benefit the few at the expense of the many, well-financed, equipped and trained security apparatuses, largely thanks to the Americans, as the tear-gas canisters used against protesters and stamped 'made in America', made chillingly clear- the people of Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere in the region where protesters have taken to the streets, have decided that despite these overwhelmingly inauspicious circumstances, they are no longer willing to be mere objects in a history written by, and for the benefit of others. They are prepared to risk life and limb to regain their rightful place amongst history's subjects.

It is time for Obama to pay more than lip-service to the increasing role of people power in transforming the political contours of the region. He can start by supporting the demands of the Egyptian opposition, including Islamists, led by the most popular opposition party, the Muslim Brotherhood, and secularists, represented by their most popular figurehead, former United Nations atomic energy chief Mohamed El-Baradei, for an immediate end to the repressive measures being employed by the Mubarak regime against demonstrators, described by a Muslim Brother leader to as 'organised state terrorism', an end to the Mubarak regime, and the instatement of a transitional government leading to real democratic reforms and accountability for the crimes committed by the Mubarak regime.

Obama can also take advantage of the opportunity to implement much-needed structural changes in US foreign policy towards the region, by placing real conditions on the economic and military aid the US government provides to all undemocratic and repressive regimes in the region, including Israel, Jordan and Yemen, to help facilitate the efforts of the people of these countries to similarly regain their agency and make 'their own history'.

Significant cuts in aid to these states, coupled with an overall reduction in US military spending and an end to US aggression in the region, would have the effect of 'killing two birds with one stone', as it would also promote US government efforts to reduce the gaping US budget deficit in a more ethical manner than current proposals, which entail massive cuts to social spending. Going back to Obama's pre-election promises, that would be real 'change we can believe in'.

Corinna Mullin is a Lecturer in Comparative and International Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), with reference to the Middle East. Her current research involves comparative international political theory and explores Islamist and Western conceptions of peace, war, justice, and sovereignty. She lives in London.

미국놈한테 맞아도 싸고 일본놈한테 먹혀도 싸다

제 나라 말을 버리고
외국어를 쓰지 못해 안달인 것들을
아무리 자비로운 조상님이라한들 거둬주시겠나?

인터넷이나 티브이 같은 외래어라면 이해가 가고 그런대로 넘어가 주겠지만
팩트, 포토, 미디어, 샷, 폴, 오피니언, 레버리지, 이코노미, 키, 윈도우, 티켓, 네임, 패쓰워드,이메일, 홈페이지, 스페셜,써브젝트, 콘텐츠, -----
해도 해도 너무들 한다.

영어를 더 잘 하도록 혀를 반씩 잘라주면 어떨까?

민족 운운하는 민족통신도 그렇고 민중의 소리도 그렇고
민중을 팔아먹는것들 마저도 개판이니 무슨 민족통일을 이루랴?

이 글을 쓰는 창 마저도 영어 일색이로구나!

Spinning Unemployment in a Collapsing Empire

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported Friday that the economy gained only 103,000 new jobs in December--not enough to keep up with population growth--but the rate of unemployment (U.3) fell from 9.8 per cent to 9.4 per cent. If you are confused by the report, you are among the many.

In truth, what fell was not the number of unemployed people but the number of unemployed people who are actively looking for work. Those who have become discouraged and have ceased looking for work are not considered to be in the work force and are not counted as unemployed in the U.3 measure. The unemployment rate fell because discouraged workers increased, not because employment rose.

The BLS counts short-term discouraged workers (less than one year) in its U.6 measure of unemployment. That unemployment rate is 16.7 per cent. When statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com) adds the long-term discouraged, the US unemployment rate as of December 2010 was 22.4 per cent.

The question to ask yourself is: why do the media focus on the unemployment measure that does not count any discouraged workers? The answer is that the U.3 measurement only counts 42 per cent of the unemployed and makes the situation appear to be a lot better than it is.

Where are the 103,000 new jobs? As I have reported for years, the jobs are in non-tradable domestic services: waitresses and bar tenders, health care and social assistance (primarily ambulatory health care services), and retail and wholesale trade.

Today the United States has only 11,670,000 manufacturing jobs, less than 9 per cent of total jobs. Yet, despite America’s heavy dependence on foreign manufactures and foreign creditors, the idiots in Washington think that they are a superpower standing astride the world like a colossus.

John Williams reports that “the level of payroll employment still stands below where it was a decade ago, despite the U.S.population growing by more than 10 per cent in the same period. The structural impairments to U.S. economic activity continue to constrain normal commercial activity, preventing any meaningful recovery in business activity.”

Another way of saying this is that American corporations have taken American jobs offshore and given them to the Chinese. So much for big business patriotism.

Williams also reports that, unless it is finagled, next month’s BLS benchmark revision of payroll employment data will lower the level of previously reported employment by more than 500,000.

Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke used his testimony before the Senate Budget Committee last Friday to warn that the U.S. government must get its budget deficit under control or “the economic and financial effects would be severe.” Here Bernanke is acknowledging that the Federal Reserve cannot indefinitely print money in order to finance wars and bailouts of the mega-rich.

But how is the government to get its budget under control? The U.S. government, regardless of political party or president, is committed to American hegemony over the world. The Congress has just passed the largest military budget in history, and there is no indication that any of America’s wars and military occupations are near an end.

The financial crisis is not over, with more foreclosures and more losses for the financial sector that will result in more taxpayer bailouts for those “too big to fail.” John Williams says that the double-dip is already happening, just disguised by faulty statistics, and that the deficit implications are horrendous and are likely to result in hyperinflation as the Federal Reserve will have to monetize the otherwise un-financeable deficits.

The dollar is also in danger, its role as reserve currency undermined by the Federal Reserve’s creation of more and more dollars. Temporarily, the dollar is buttressed by the grief that Wall Street’s sale of fraudulent derivative financial instruments to Europe has caused the euro.

The Republicans [ and complicit Democrats led by the President of the United States – Editors ] will try to destroy Social Security and Medicare in order to pay for wars and bailouts. If Americans are capable of realizing that they are threatened on a much greater level by the Republicans’ evisceration of the social safety net than they are by terrorists, the Republican assault on what they call “the welfare state” will fail.

The fallback target will be private pensions, assuming any survive plunder by the Wall Street investment banks. Pension funds could be required to invest in Treasury debt or they could face a levy. In the Clinton administration, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Alicia Munnell proposed confiscating 15 per cent of all pension assets on the grounds that they had accumulated tax free. Certainly Washington will steal Americans’ pensions, just as Washington has stolen Americans’ civil liberties, in order to continue the empire’s wars of hegemony.

Increasingly, the rest of the world views America as the single source of its financial and political woes. While the superpower massacres Muslims in the Middle East and Central Asia, people in the rest of the world have learned from WikiLeaks that the U.S. government manipulates, bribes, threatens, and deceives other governments in order to have those governments serve the U.S. government’s interest at the expense of the interests of their own peoples.

The American Imperial Empire rests on puppet governments that are increasingly distrusted and hated by the peoples under their rule. Like the Soviet Union’s Eastern European empire, the American Empire is ruled not directly but through puppet states.

Puppet governments are caught between the empire’s power and the power of the local population. To the extent that Europeans have a moral conscience, they will find America’s foreign policy increasingly repugnant. To the extent that Muslim solidarity grows, the Muslim puppet governments that support America’s and Israel’s massacres of Muslims will find themselves threatened from within.

The American Empire is on the rocks, despite its vast arsenal of nuclear weapons and its control over the foreign and domestic policies of its subservient puppet states in Western and Eastern Europe, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, parts of Africa, the Middle East, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, the Baltic states, Georgia, Kosovo, Mexico, Central America, Columbia, and, no doubt, others.

A country that is the font of war and oppression, whose dominance rests on the weak reed of puppet states, and whose economy is collapsing will not long remain dominant.

Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. His latest book, HOW THE ECONOMY WAS LOST, has just been published by CounterPunch/AK Press. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

One Family in Gaza

http://vimeo.com/18384109