US To Spend Another $59 Billion On Futile Wars

ΩΩEconomic hell is continuing and is connected directly to US imperial pretensions.  While we allow our industrial base and our international trading position to deteriorate to dreadful levels, our debts shooting upwards while our cohesion collapses, we roll merrily on based on our darling floating fiat currency which allows us to run on empty downhill for a long, long time.  Enough time to end up in hell.  The war spending is increasing even as the US pretends we must live within our means…someday.  Meanwhile, China issues an official warning to keep our noses out of Chinese spheres of influence in Asia.  

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ΩΩFirst, the Gods and Goddesses who rule our fates decided to react to the closing of one gushing well destroying the Gulf of Mexico by random chance causing a tug boat to hit yet another well:  Oil spewing from well near La. marsh – U.S. news – Environment – msnbc.com

Adding insult to the Gulf’s injury, a wellhead hit by a tug boat is now spewing oil near a Louisiana marsh area, officials said Tuesday.  The oil is shooting up 20 feet into the air, the office of Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser said.

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From Sept. 15, 2005:  Culture of Life Financial News:  BAD NEWS BEARS

ΩΩA cartoon about hurricane Rita could be used to show how Mother Nature uses Gulf oil rigs to play bowling games.  Of course, in between violent storms, she gets some help from humans whose errors are legion.  It should be painfully obvious at this point, we are not capable of drilling for oil in the oceans without paying a very severe price in the long and even short run.

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ΩΩThis present gusher isn’t a mile underwater, thank heavens, but at the surface.  But it is still terrible as well as stupid.   Note, in my cartoon, the pod of bond and oil futures traders…ahem.  This is great for them, they thrive on disasters as well as uncertainties that drive up the price of commodities due to natural or human destruction.

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ΩΩN0w, on to totally human destruction, destruction that is utterly deliberate, planned out and pursued to the nth degree: war.  Humans are so talented.  Throughout history, even when using very primitive weapons made of stone and wood, humans manage to utterly destroy even the earliest cities.  Thanks to fire, it is rather easy.  Over the eons, we have found better and better fires to use in this destructive activity and now have such amazing fires, we can annihilate all living things for miles around and totally eliminate even traces of a city!

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ΩΩThis fearful ability is abused by the empire responsible for using nuclear bombs on civilians to push for more wars against non-nuclear nations.  Going after weaker powers is how large empires stay alive.  Like sharks, they must continuously destroy other countries in order to keep alive.  Aside from that, they must destroy any attempts at creating a real democracy, only allowing corrupt rule to thrive while openly attacking democracies (Iran is a democracy, more or less whereas the Palestinian voting caused the US to put the people under severe embargo as punishment for voting wrong!).  Here is some interesting news I endorse wholeheartedly:  Nobel Peace Prizes ‘are being awarded illegally’ – Europe, World – The Independent

More than half the Nobel Peace Prizes awarded since 1946 have been awarded illegally, says Fredrik Heffermehl, a Norwegian lawyer and peace activist, because they do not follow the expressed will of the millionaire inventor of dynamite. He says all but one of 10 prizes awarded since 1999 are illegitimate under Norwegian and Swedish law.

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ΩΩI will happily join such a lawsuit!  I think nearly ALL ‘peace prizes’ violate in spirit as well as hard facts, the desires of Alfred Nobel.  Giving it to war criminals like Kissinger, just for one very glaring example, is outright criminal.  And giving it to Obama when he stood idle while Palestinian children were used as shields or shot in the head for fun, well…once he got an award for that monstrosity, how hard was it for him to double the assassin robot rocket program?  Or double the war in Afghanistan?  Obama is furious that a brave citizen leaked the Pentagon Papers Part II to the public!  How dare we learn the truth?

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Afghanistan war logs: our selection of significant incidents | World news | guardian.co.uk

ΩΩThis map shows the corridor of death in Afghanistan.  Butcher enough peasants and voila!  A peace prize if you stop!  That seems the game here.  Right now, the media is pooh-poohing the treasure trove of documentation that should be used in a grand Nüremberg Trial for the US and we can dig up past war criminals and put their raddled corpses on trial, too. Someone has to stop us.

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ΩΩI remember the Pentagon Papers I.  I was pleased that my private information I got from boots on the ground in ‘Nam was totally correct.  Most of that information was secret in order to keep the populace of the US from knowing the truth.  So it is here: we have totally forgotten the truth and the truth is, not one Afghani attacked the US at any time in the last 100 years.  But plenty of Muslims have lots of anger aimed at us and it is obvious, why.

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Afghanistan war logs: tensions increase after revelation of more leaked files | World news | The Guardian

Tensions between the US, Afghanistan and Pakistan were further strained today after the leak of thousands of military documents about the Afghan war.  As members of the US Congress raised questions about Pakistan’s alleged support for the Taliban, officials in Islamabad and Kabul also traded angry accusations on the same issue.

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Further disclosures reveal more evidence of attempts by coalition commanders to cover up civilian casualties in the conflict.  The details emerge from more than 90,000 secret US military files, covering six years of the war, which caused a worldwide uproar when they were leaked yesterday.  The war logs show how a group of US marines who went on a shooting rampage after coming under attack near Jalalabad in 2007 recorded false information about the incident, in which they killed 19 unarmed civilians and wounded a further 50.

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ΩΩLike Egypt, the government of Pakistan is in the pay of the US or rather AIPAC via the State Department.  So it is very, very unpopular at home which is why so many there are fighting their own government.  Like in any Muslim country occupied by the US and run by the CIA, our embassy is a huge armed fortress.  400 years ago, in The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli, he warns the Prince to never overextend oneself where one has to occupy a distant fortress that can be easily cut off by angry peasants.  So it is with not just our fortresses in Pakistan and Iraq, but also the entire Afghanistan war which is by definition, a massive fortress problem with very angry peasants trying very hard to cut our supply lines….and succeeding!

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Pentagon can’t account for $8.7 billion in Iraqi funds | Raw Story

The U.S. Defense Department is unable to properly account for over 95 percent of $9.1 billion in Iraqi oil money tapped by the U.S. for rebuilding the war ravaged nation, according to an audit released Tuesday.

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ΩΩThe financial horror show continues. The Pentagon is a gargantuan money eating entity that can’t figure out what is going on and doesn’t care since Congress rubber stamps spending sprees.

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U.S. Congress passes Afghanistan war funding measure

(Xinhua) — The U.S. Congress on Tuesday approved a 59-billion-dollar funding measure that would pay for troop increase in Afghanistan, sending it for President Barack Obama’s signature.

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The House of Representatives approved the measure with a 308 to 114 vote. It passed the Senate earlier. In the measure, about 33 billion is earmarked to pay for the 30,000 troops surge in Afghanistan and expenses in Iraq. Provisions not related to the war brought the bill total to nearly 59 billion.

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The new funding is on top of the 130 billion Congress already approved for Afghanistan and Iraq this year. The Congress has appropriated over 1 trillion dollars for the two unpopular wars since 2001.

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ΩΩThis is insane!  We will go bankrupt really fast at this rate!  I am flabbergasted by this.  Another $33 billion for killing the poorest peasants on earth????  As I said long ago during the Vietnam war, ‘Why don’t we just give them all the money and thank them for being our best friends?’  Well, it would have worked a lot cheaper than killing millions of Vietnamese peasants!  I seriously suggested we drop money bombs and then send in sales teams to sell them cars and refrigerators made in America back when we made these things for export.

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ΩΩNow, it doesn’t matter.  None of the money will flow back home, it would float overseas and feed our trade deficit problems even more.  Which reminds me, Vietnam has a trade surplus with the US!  Hell’s bells.  And here is why our Congress and President think we can continue spending like fiends from hell:  Deficits Don’t Matter as Geithner Gets Lowest Yield (Update3) – Bloomberg.com

For all the criticism of record budget deficits, President Barack Obama can take comfort knowing that for the first time in half a century, government bond yields are declining during an economic expansion and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner is selling two-year notes with the lowest interest rates ever.

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The combination of record-low yields on two-year notes, 10- year rates below 3 percent and a deficit projected to surpass $1.4 trillion for a second consecutive year is a signal that the bond market is less concerned with government spending than with getting the economy back on track.

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ΩΩI grind my teeth every day over this issue!  These debts are mostly short-term at these low rates.  They have to be paid off pronto…or rolled over.  This immense ball of wax is growing at a huge rate and eventually the dark day will dawn when China will force us to roll over about 6 trillion dollars in debt at a 20% interest rate!  This is INEVITABLE.  It will happen.  I am assuming the Chinese will stick to their 50 Year Plan so it won’t come next year but if we push them very, very hard, they might be tempted to do it sooner than 2025.

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ΩΩI am including a lot of this particular story from China for it is very strongly indicative of Chinese fury over our meddling in Chinese affairs: U.S. involvement will only complicate South China Sea issue

At the ASEAN Regional Forum Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Hanoi last week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton talked at length about U.S. “national interests” in the South China Sea.  Hinting there is what she called “coercion” in the region, Clinton called for consistence with customary international laws, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in particular.

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It is ironic that the United States is asking others to abide by the UNCLOS while itself still shunning a UNCLOS full membership.  It is known to all that the U.S. Senate has not yet ratified the UNCLOS, as some U.S. politicians insist that the ratification would “diminish” U.S. “capacity for self-defense.”

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While disputes remain between China and several countries around the South China Sea, they have already concluded the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) in accordance with the UNCLOS.  Thanks to the DOC, the situation in the South China Sea remains peaceful, and no party has ever used “coercion” and posed any threat to regional peace or navigation security in the South China Sea.

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Ignoring the advise of the Chinese delegation, Clinton, with a prepared script at hand, tried to make an issue of the South China Sea at the meeting, claiming she was objecting to the “use or threat of force” in this ocean area.  The question is: as the situation in the South China Sea is peaceful, what is the logic in Clinton’s “objection? ”

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So her real intention is questionable.

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History has repeatedly proven that the involvement of a superpower in disputed areas did, more often than not, complicate the situation and bring tragedy to parties concerned.  Superpowers often adopted the strategy of “divide and rule.” They stired up tensions, disputes and even conflicts, then set foot in to pose as a “mediator” or a “judge” in a bid to maximize their own interests.

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In the 19th century, the British empire adopted the tactics of “divide and rule” to fight powers in the European continent.  Nowadays, the United States is resorting to the same old trick when dealing with some disputes and conflicts in the international arena.

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ΩΩThis is an official position in the matter at hand: China will not tolerate any US meddling in Asia that is anti-Chinese.  The US smugly did this thinking that Japan, a country that is like a dying elephant that trumpets and thrashes but is bleeding to death, will be happy with the US challenging Chinese dynamics in Asia.  And of course, India is eager to have the US get punched in the nose on behalf of India’s desire for global power.  Power that is growing due to India raiding US jobs.

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ΩΩAhem.  Where are our friends?  All of these nations, without exception, are running trade surpluses with us!  What on earth do we gain by taking any sides here when ALL are arrayed against us?  ALL of these countries are reaming us out!  All of them are destroying our jobs, wrecking our economy!  We are in deep, deep trouble because of ALL of them!!!!

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ΩΩBack to the issue of our ‘allies’, Pakistan is furious that the Wikileak filed show they are playing footsie with the ‘terrorists’  (aka, peasants who are angry):  Files leaked to Wikileaks suggest Pakistan is aiding Afghan rebels.  And here is another story thanks to Wikileaks, long may Wikileaks sprinkle water on the fires of war and domination!  The Helpless Germans: War Logs Illustrate Lack of Progress in Bundeswehr Deployment – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International

The German army was clueless and naïve when it stumbled into the conflict. The Germans had expected that the relatively calm northern provinces where their soldiers were stationed would remain peaceful. Moreover, they believed their reconstruction teams would provide a model for the other allies on how best to help this country ravaged by civil war.

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The first true resistance to the international troop presence in Afghanistan only began to form in late 2005 and early 2006, and it only developed when the insurgents began offering money to people willing to join the resistance and threatening those who weren’t. Report after report in the raft of war logs note that the population was offered money in exchange for their active support of the insurgents.

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For example, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan — a terrorist group supported by al-Qaida that operates in the north near the border with Tajikistan, an area that is under the command of Germany’s Bundeswehr — offered local residents in the Takhar Province $700 to help it place roadside bombs along the main logistical routes used by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

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ΩΩWe were supposed to crush the Taliban and then the Germans should goose step in behind us and relax and enjoy controlling angry peasants without sweat.  Didn’t work, of course, and who expected it to work???? Any review of history would show the Germans that this is the one place on earth they could not occupy while goofing off.  Might as well re-invade Stalingrad.  What amuses me is how the Germans are annoyed that the Taliban are paying soldiers on their own side!  DUH!  And pray tell, are the Germans trying to occupy a foreign country that they don’t belong in, are they doing this for free?

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ΩΩOf course not.  They get paid…in kind…by the US.  That is, like all our rivals in Asia who use us very cynically, the Germans are only in Afghanistan so they can continue business as usual and here is a graph showing why:

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ALFRED: ALFRED Graph

ΩΩThey run a trade surplus with us!  A huge trade surplus.  Not as big as China’s surplus but as big as Japan’s surplus.  And it is one of the top trade surpluses we have with a foreign power, too!

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ΩΩAs well as being one of the world’s top export powers, in general!  These poor German soldiers are pawns used to keep the US trade door as wide open as possible.  NATO would collapse in a minute if the US were to stop this totally unbalanced trade with these ‘allies’.

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ΩΩNo war can possibly be won if everyone views this as a cynical looting expedition of the heart of the Empire.  And this happens to be why all empires die.  Every last one of them: bankruptcy due to this sort of power playing and money spending schemes.

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Think Progress » Pipes: To Get Obama To Act, Netanyahu Should Threaten To Nuke Iran

In a recent interview with the right-wing Christian Zionist Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, neoconservative pundit Daniel Pipes shared his view that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should threaten to use nuclear weapons against Iran as a means of “applying pressure” on the United States.

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“I think it’s realistic for the Israelis to attack and do real damage,” Pipes said. “Now, what constitutes success, I’m not exactly sure. There are many, many questions“:

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ΩΩThe neo cons continue to demand WWIII.  Obama was totally defeated by AIPAC and is now a Ghost in the Shell of the White House.  And his former followers sense this which is why they are fading, fast.  No stomach for a real fight.  That is, the Netroots Nation meeting which I didn’t attend for obvious reasons, had a captive online audience listening to war criminals demanding more money and support and demanding these poor saps go back online and recruit more people to vote for outrageous war criminals!  GAH.  Once Obama decided to be a war criminal, I washed my hands of him. He can go to hell with Pelosi and Reid and all the rest.

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.I felt this way about LBJ.  Can’t help it.  I have some principles left, I think.  I hope.  Well, I always hope for change and only get short changed.  But someone ought to warn the Democrats, this is no way to build a political party or a nation.  And the GOP seems bent on suicide.  Gah.  How wonderful. Let’s go motor boating in the Gulf of Mexico until a hurricane drowns us or we blow up an oil well.

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