Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Texe Marrs Podcast - Uranium One—How Bill and Hillary Sold Out U.S. National Security Interests for Cash!
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*9-11 Fast and Furious
*Post-WW1 jewish Communism In Germany
*Judeo Bolshevism Discovered
*Under the Sign of the Scorpion - Jewish Communists
*HITLER DIDN'T START WW2! HE DIDN'T WANT IT !
*Adolf Hitler Explains His Reasons For Invading The Soviet Union
*Hitler's War - What the Historians Neglect to Mention
*Adolf Hitler - The Greatest Story Never Told
*Hitler's Shadow - In the Service of the Fuehrer
*HELLSTORM - THE REAL GENOCIDE OF NAZI GERMANY
*The Holocaust Hoax Mega-post
*Over a hundred locales expelled jews before “Zionism” was even a factor. Why?
*"Anti-semitic, its a trick we always use it"
*What Putin thinks of truthful and real historians
*The Criminal Conspiracy to Genocide Whites
A Dusty Au Revoir
I could not watch Obama's Farewell Address live as I was traveling to Nagano to interview a former defense minister. So, I finally got to watch it tonight from my hotel room, and I am putting it here so that I can find it easily in the future
Of course, one could read this speech as one big subtweet towards Trump, but that would diminish the moment and the meaning. It was a terrific discussion of the threads to democracy, not just here but everywhere else. When people say he was a weak leader, I will point to this speech.
Obama was hardly perfect, and I will always be frustrated with how he did not reverse the accumulation of executive power. But as this speech demonstrates yet again, the man is not only smart and perceptive, but generous and kind and full of grace and class. So, yeah, I got teary eyed as he did, thanking his family and the Bidens and the rest. Watching Malia and Michelle and Jill trying to hold it together was pretty special.
Anyhow, it will be interesting to see what role Obama plays in the difficult years ahead. All I can do know is be thankful for what he has done and to embrace the good stuff that he brought along. Oh, and thanks for bringing Joe along, too.
Of course, one could read this speech as one big subtweet towards Trump, but that would diminish the moment and the meaning. It was a terrific discussion of the threads to democracy, not just here but everywhere else. When people say he was a weak leader, I will point to this speech.
Obama was hardly perfect, and I will always be frustrated with how he did not reverse the accumulation of executive power. But as this speech demonstrates yet again, the man is not only smart and perceptive, but generous and kind and full of grace and class. So, yeah, I got teary eyed as he did, thanking his family and the Bidens and the rest. Watching Malia and Michelle and Jill trying to hold it together was pretty special.
Anyhow, it will be interesting to see what role Obama plays in the difficult years ahead. All I can do know is be thankful for what he has done and to embrace the good stuff that he brought along. Oh, and thanks for bringing Joe along, too.
Thanks Obama
This post is slightly NSFW
Since the last mid-term election, everyone has noticed that Obama is just a bit more himself, a bit more dynamic, and a bit more willing to make decisions that would have been politically risky. Most obvious example is the decision to have diplomatic relations with Cuba and reduce the sanctions.
I raise this right now as I have Obama 2014-present to thank for a phrase that may have existed before but has come to be most useful of late:
Yep, my wife said last night that she had zero fucks to give, and I could not help but think that the President might have had something to do with the way she articulated that feeling.
So, thanks Obama!
Since the last mid-term election, everyone has noticed that Obama is just a bit more himself, a bit more dynamic, and a bit more willing to make decisions that would have been politically risky. Most obvious example is the decision to have diplomatic relations with Cuba and reduce the sanctions.
I raise this right now as I have Obama 2014-present to thank for a phrase that may have existed before but has come to be most useful of late:
So, thanks Obama!
Iran Arguments: Cartoon or Reality
Brian McFadden of the NYT does a nice job of illustrating many of the ant-Iran deal arguments.
There is apparently not enough room for the "if Obama tried harder, we could have gotten a better deal" argument. Still, woot for McFadden.
There is apparently not enough room for the "if Obama tried harder, we could have gotten a better deal" argument. Still, woot for McFadden.
The Upside to Lame Duck-ness
This first part of Obama's appearance on the Colbert Report is just a hunk of brilliance:
Probably impossible before the midterm but Obama is definitely acting as if he has fewer constraints.
Probably impossible before the midterm but Obama is definitely acting as if he has fewer constraints.
Analogy Analysis
So, President Obama says that he has been making progress hitting singles and doubles rather than swinging for the fences, and people are upset that he is not more ambitious. What to make of it?
Well, first, it says a lot about Obama's deliberative style--he took months and months to figure out whether to surge in Afghanistan in 2009. And it was a hedged decision--not as many troops as McChrystal wanted (although the high number was almost certainly offered to get Obama to choose the middle recommendation) with a deadline.
Second, the US has less resources to dedicate to foreign policy thanks to the costs of the past decade's wars (resources in terms of money, spare military power, political capital, domestic support). Do you want to swing for the fences and risk many, many strikeouts or do you want to advance rather consistently but slowly?
Third, as a status quo power--that the US wants to keep its position--it is not clear why gambling on big wins makes a whole lot of sense, as compared to just trying to stay ahead.
Still, there is a problem: one can only be a successful singles/doubles hitter if one is very consistent. Tony Gwynn amassed great stats over his career because he did not create many outs. If you still strike out a lot, then it really becomes hard to score, whatever that means.
If one wants to use baseball analogies, the temptation is to play with advanced statistics: not home runs batted in but WAR (wins above replacement) or VORP (Value over replacement player). Would someone else have done better in these circumstances than Obama: Bush? McCain? Palin? Romney? Perry? Wow, the Republican bench kind of sucks. The value of the advanced stats is that they take into account context such as whether one's homefield is a hitter's park or a pitcher's park and so on.
There are good reasons to criticize Obama's foreign policy--the red line in Syria turned out to be a big mistake. However, I do appreciate the effort not to swing for the fences in big, risky initiatives. It has been a very hard decade for the United States in the world--two wars with uncertain outcomes, much more force deployed elsewhere with mixed results, grappling with a Great Recession, facing a Rising China, and now a revanchist Russia. The choices are not so easy, and I am not sure whether swinging for the fences makes sense when most of these problems present few good alternatives and many bad ones.
Again, the President could have dealt with many of these challenges better, but engage in riskier behavior? No thanks. So, given the players in the league, Obama with his small ball strategy might just have a positive VORP (value over replacement president).
Well, first, it says a lot about Obama's deliberative style--he took months and months to figure out whether to surge in Afghanistan in 2009. And it was a hedged decision--not as many troops as McChrystal wanted (although the high number was almost certainly offered to get Obama to choose the middle recommendation) with a deadline.
Second, the US has less resources to dedicate to foreign policy thanks to the costs of the past decade's wars (resources in terms of money, spare military power, political capital, domestic support). Do you want to swing for the fences and risk many, many strikeouts or do you want to advance rather consistently but slowly?
Third, as a status quo power--that the US wants to keep its position--it is not clear why gambling on big wins makes a whole lot of sense, as compared to just trying to stay ahead.
Still, there is a problem: one can only be a successful singles/doubles hitter if one is very consistent. Tony Gwynn amassed great stats over his career because he did not create many outs. If you still strike out a lot, then it really becomes hard to score, whatever that means.
If one wants to use baseball analogies, the temptation is to play with advanced statistics: not home runs batted in but WAR (wins above replacement) or VORP (Value over replacement player). Would someone else have done better in these circumstances than Obama: Bush? McCain? Palin? Romney? Perry? Wow, the Republican bench kind of sucks. The value of the advanced stats is that they take into account context such as whether one's homefield is a hitter's park or a pitcher's park and so on.
There are good reasons to criticize Obama's foreign policy--the red line in Syria turned out to be a big mistake. However, I do appreciate the effort not to swing for the fences in big, risky initiatives. It has been a very hard decade for the United States in the world--two wars with uncertain outcomes, much more force deployed elsewhere with mixed results, grappling with a Great Recession, facing a Rising China, and now a revanchist Russia. The choices are not so easy, and I am not sure whether swinging for the fences makes sense when most of these problems present few good alternatives and many bad ones.
Again, the President could have dealt with many of these challenges better, but engage in riskier behavior? No thanks. So, given the players in the league, Obama with his small ball strategy might just have a positive VORP (value over replacement president).
TOP OLIGARCHS BACKED OBAMA
Baroque Obama. Website for this image...
Florida
| D | 49.9% | 4,035,286 | |
| R | 49.2% | 3,978,728 | |
| L | 0.5% | 42,707 | |
| G | 0.1% | 8,483 | |
| O | 0.1% | 7,801 |
Most Important Question of Our Time and Obama Ducked
President Obama bravely waded into a relatively new medium: Reddit. He performed well from all accounts, but perhaps because he dodged the most important question of our time:
Why? Well, having seen enough Zombie movies, it is pretty clear that beating one hundred of anything, even a herd of slow, mindless drones can overtake a stronger adversary. Duck-horses may not seem that challenging, but a hundred of them present quite a threat. All it takes is for one to get underfoot, and then you fall, facing the possibility of 400 little hooves pounding away.
On the other hand, a very large duck (the horse-duck) has only three weapons--its beak and its big duck-feet. So, it can be dodged, especially since the big duck feet means that the duck will not be that agile. Sure, it will be hard to defeat, but as the Spew kid said, you just have to defeat it once. Defeating 50 duck-horses just means there are fifty left.
So, why did Obama dodge this question? You make the call.
"Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or 1 horse-sized duck?"Obama did not answer this question. Why not? What is he afraid of? The answer, according to the Spew clan, is obvious: horse-sized duck!
Why? Well, having seen enough Zombie movies, it is pretty clear that beating one hundred of anything, even a herd of slow, mindless drones can overtake a stronger adversary. Duck-horses may not seem that challenging, but a hundred of them present quite a threat. All it takes is for one to get underfoot, and then you fall, facing the possibility of 400 little hooves pounding away.
On the other hand, a very large duck (the horse-duck) has only three weapons--its beak and its big duck-feet. So, it can be dodged, especially since the big duck feet means that the duck will not be that agile. Sure, it will be hard to defeat, but as the Spew kid said, you just have to defeat it once. Defeating 50 duck-horses just means there are fifty left.
So, why did Obama dodge this question? You make the call.
Obama Raises the Military Stakes: Confrontation on the Frontiers of China and Russia
12.07.2011 :: United States
Introduction: After suffering major military and political defeats in bloody ground wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and failing to buttress long-standing clients in Yemen, Egypt and Tunisia and witnessing the disintegration of puppet regimes in Somalia and South Sudan, the Obama regime has learned nothing: instead he has turned toward greater military confrontation with global powers, namely Russia and China. Obama has adopted a provocative offensive military strategy on the very frontiers of both China and Russia.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
Introduction: After suffering major military and political defeats in bloody ground wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and failing to buttress long-standing clients in Yemen, Egypt and Tunisia and witnessing the disintegration of puppet regimes in Somalia and South Sudan, the Obama regime has learned nothing: instead he has turned toward greater military confrontation with global powers, namely Russia and China. Obama has adopted a provocative offensive military strategy on the very frontiers of both China and Russia.
After going from defeat to defeat on the periphery of world power and not satisfied with running treasury-busting deficits in pursuit of empire building against economically weak countries, the world’s second largest economy and the US’s most important creditor, and Russia the European Union’s principle oil and gas provider and the world’s second most powerful nuclear weapons power.
This paper addresses the Obama regime’s highly irrational and world threatening escalation of imperial militarism. We examine the global military, economic and domestic political context that gives rise to these policies. We then examine the multiple points of conflict and intervention in which Washington is engaged, from Pakistan, Iran, Libya, Venezuela, Cuba and beyond. We will then analyze the rationale for military escalation against Russia and China as part of a new ‘offensive moving beyond the Arab world (Syria, Libya) and in the face of the declining economic position of the EU and the US in the global economy. We will then outline the strategies of a declining empire nurtured on perpetual wars, facing global economic decline, domestic discredit and a working population facing long-term large scale rollback of basic social programs.
The Turn from Militarism in the Periphery to Global Military Confrontation
November 2011 is a moment of great historical import. Obama declared two major policy positions, both having tremendous strategic consequences affecting competing world powers.
Obama pronounced a policy of military encirclement of China based on stationing a maritime, aerial armada facing the Chinese coast. A policy designed to weaken and disrupt China’s access to raw materials and commercial and financial ties in Asia. Obama’s declaration that Asia is the priority region for US military expansion, base building and economic alliances was directed against China, challenging Beijing in its own backyard. Obama’s iron fist policy statement, addressed to the Australian Parliament, was crystal clear in defining US imperial goals.
“Our enduring interests in the region [Asia Pacific] demands our enduring presence in this region … The United States is a Pacific power and we are here to stay … As we end today’s wars [the defeats and retreats from Iraq and Afghanistan]… I have directed my national security team to make our presence and missions in the Asia Pacific a top priority … As a result reduction in US defense spending will not … come at the expense of the Asia Pacific” (CNN.com, Nov. 16, 2011).
The precise nature of what Obama called our “presence and mission” was underlined by the military agreement with Australia to dispatch warships, warplanes and 2500 marines to the northern most city of Australia (Darwin) facing China. Secretary of State Clinton has spent the better part of 2011 making highly provocative overtures, to Asian countries that have maritime border conflicts with China. Clinton has forcibly injected the US into these disputes, encouraging and exacerbating the demands of Vietnam, Philippines, and Brunei in the South China Sea. Even more seriously Washington is bolstering its military ties and sales with Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea as well as increasing the presence of battleships, nuclear submarines and over flights of war planes along China’s coastal waters. In line with the policy of military encirclement and provocation, the Obama-Clinton regime is promoting Asian multi-lateral trade agreements that exclude China and privilege US multi-national corporations, bankers and exporters, dubbed the “Trans-Pacific partnership”.It currently includes mostly smaller countries, but Obama has hopes of enticing Japan and Canada to join …
Obama’s presence at the APEC meeting of East Asian leader and his visit to Indonesia in November 2011 all revolve around efforts to secure US hegemony. Obama-Clinton hope to counter the relative decline of US economic links in the face of the geometrical growth of trade and investment ties between East Asia and China.
A most recent example of Obama-Clinton’s delusional but destructive efforts to deliberately disrupt China’s economic ties in Asia, is taking place in Burma. Clinton’s December 2011 visit to Burma was preceded by a decision by the Thein Sein regime to suspend a China Power Investment funded dam in the North of the country. According to official confidential documents released by WilkiLeaks the “Burmese ngo’s which organized and led the campaign against the dam were heavily funded by the US government”(Financial Times, Dec. 2, 2011, p. 2). This and other provocative activity and Clinton’s speeches condemning Chinese “tied aid” pale in comparison with the long-term large scale interests which link Burma with China. China is Burma’s biggest trading partner and investor, including six other dam projects. Its companies are carving new highways and rail lines across the country opening southwestern China up for Burmese products and China is building oil pipelines and ports. There is a powerful dynamic of mutual economic interests that will not be disturbed by one dispute (FT, December 2, 2011, p.2). Clinton’s critique of China’s billion dollar investments in Burma’s infrastructure is one of the most bizarre in world history, coming in the aftermath of Washington’s eight year military presence in Iraq which destroyed $500 billion dollars of infrastructures, according to Baghdad official estimates. Only a delusional administration could imagine that rhetorical flourishes, a three day visit and the bankrolling of an NGO is an adequate counter-weight to deep economic ties linking Burma to China. The same delusional posture underlies the entire repertoire of policies informing the Obama regimes’ efforts to displace China’s predominant role in Asia.
While each policy adopted by the Obama regime in themselves do no present an immediate threat to peace, the cumulative impact of all the policy pronouncements and the projections of military power add up to an all out comprehensive effort to isolate, intimidate and degrade China’s rise as a regional and global power. Military encirclement and alliances, exclusion of China in proposed regional economic associations, partisan intervention in regional maritime disputes, positioning technologically advanced warplanes, are all aimed to undermine China’s competitiveness and to compensate for US economic inferiority via closed political and economic networks.
Clearly White House military and economic moves and Congressional anti-China demagogy are aimed at weakening China’s trading position and forcing its business minded leaders into privileging US banking and business interests over and above their own enterprises. Pushed to its limits, Obama’s prioritizing a big military push could lead to a catastrophic rupture in US Chinese economic relations. This would result in dire consequences, especially but not exclusively, on the US economy and particularly its financial system. China holds over $1.5 trillion dollars in US debt, mainly Treasury Notes and each year purchases from $200 to $300 billion in new issues, a vital source in financing the US deficit. If Obama provokes a serious threat to China’s security interests and Beijing is forced to respond, it will not be military but economic retaliation: the sell-off of a few hundred billion dollars in T-notes and the curtailment of new purchases of US debt. The US deficit will skyrocket, its credit ratings will descend to ‘junk’, and the financial system will ‘tremble onto collapse’. Interest rates to attract new buyers of US debt will approach double digits. Chinese exports to the US will suffer and losses will incur due to the devaluation of the T-notes in Chinese hands. But China has been diversifying its markets around the world and its huge domestic market could probably absorb most of what China loses abroad.
While Obama strays across the Pacific to mount its military threat to China and strives to economically isolate it in Asia, the US economic presence is fading in what used to be its “backyard”. According to one journalist, “China is the only show for Latin America” (Financial Times, Nov. 23, 2011, p.6). China has displaced the US and the EU as Latin America’s principle trading partner; Beijing has poured billions in new investments and provides low interest loans. China’s trade with India, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan and Vietnam is increasing far faster than that of the US. The US effort to build an imperial centered security alliance in Asia is based on fragile economic foundations. Even Australia, the anchor and linchpin of the US military thrust in Asia, is heavily dependent on mineral exports to China. Any military interruption would send the Australian economy into a tailspin.
The US economy is in no condition to replace China as a market for Asian or Australian commodity and manufacturing exports. The Asian countries must be acutely aware that there is no future growth tying themselves to a declining highly militarized empire. Obama and Clinton deceive themselves if they think they can entice Asia into a long-term alliance. The Asian’s are simply using the Obama regime’s friendly overtures as a ‘tactical device’ ,a negotiating ploy to leverage better terms in securing maritime and territorial boundaries. Washington is delusional if it believes that it can convince Asia to break long-term large scale lucrative economic ties to China in order to join an exclusive economic association with dubious prospects. Any such ‘reorientation’ of Asia, from China to the US, would require more than the presence of a naval and airborne armada pointed at China. It would require the total restructuring of the Asian countries’ economies,class structure and political and military elite. The most powerful economic entrepreneurial groups in Asia have deep and growing ties with China/Hong Kong especially among the dynamic transnational Chinese business elites in the region. A turn toward Washington entails a massive counter-revolution which substitutes ‘traders’ for entrepreneurs. A turn to the US would require a dictatorial elite willing to disrupt strategic trading and investment linkages,displacing millions of workers and professionals. As much as some US trained Asian military officers , economists and former Wall Street financiers and billionaires might seek to ‘balance’ a US military presence, with Chinese economic power, they must realize that ultimately, advantage resides in working out an Asian solution.
The age of Asian “comprador capitalists”, willing to sell out national industry and sovereignty in exchange for privileged access to US markets, is ancient history. Whatever the boundless enthusiasm for conspicuous consumerism and Western lifestyles, which Asia and China’s new rich mindlessly celebrate, whatever the embrace of inequalities and savage capitalist exploitation of labor, there is recognition that the past history of US and European dominance precluded the growth and enrichment of an indigenous bourgeoisie and middle class. The speeches and pronouncements of Obama and Clinton are a mixture of nostalgia for a past of neo-colonial overseers and comprador collaborators and a no-brainer. Their strain for political realism I in finally recognizing Asia as the economic pivot of the present world order. But they turn delusional in imagining that military prepotency and projections of armed force will reduce China to a marginal player in the region.
Obama’s Escalation of Confrontation with Russia
The Obama regime has launched a major frontal military thrust on Russia’s borders. The US has moved forward missile sites and Air Force bases in Poland, Rumania, Turkey, Spain, Czech Republic and Bulgaria: Patriot PAC-3 anti-aircraft missile complexes in Poland; advanced radar AN/TPY-2 in Turkey; several missile (SM-3 IA) loaded warships in Spain are among the prominent weapons encircling Russia, most only minutes away from it strategic heartland. Secondly, the Obama regime has mounted an all-out effort to secure and expand US military bases in Central Asia among former Soviet republics. Thirdly, Washington via NATO has launched major economic and military operations against Russia’s major trading partners in North Africa and the Middle East. The NATO war against Libya which ousted the Gadhafi regime has paralyzed or nullified multi-billion dollar Russian oil and gas investments, arms sales and substituted a NATO puppet for a friendly regime.
The UN-NATO economic sanctions and US-Israeli clandestine terrorist activity aimed at Iran has undermined Russia’s lucrative billion dollar nuclear trade and joint oil ventures. NATO, including Turkey and backed by the Gulf monarchical dictatorships, have implemented harsh sanctions and funded terrorist assaults on Syria, Russia’s last remaining ally in the region and sole port (Tartus) facing the Mediterranean Sea. Russia’s collaboration with NATO in weakening its economic and security position is a product of the monumental misreading of NATO and especially Obama’s imperial policies. President Medvedev and his Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov mistakenly assumed (like Gorbachev and Yeltsin before them) that backing US-NATO policies against Russia’s trading partners would result in some sort of “reciprocity”: US dismantling its offensive “missile shield” on its frontiers and support for Russia’s admission into the World Trade Organization. Medvedev following his liberal pro-western illusions fell into line and backed US-Israeli sanctions against Iran, believing the tales of a “nuclear weapons programs”. Then Lavrov fell for the NATO line of “no fly zones to protect Libyan lives” and voted in favor, only to feebly “protest”, much too late, that NATO was “exceeding its mandate” by bombing Libya into the Stone Age and installing a pro-NATO puppet regime of rogues and fundamentalists. Finally when the US drove a cleaver in Russia’s heartland by pushing ahead with an all-out effort to install missile sites 5 minutes from Moscow and organized mass and armed assaults on Syria, did Medvedev-Lavrov awake from their stupor and opposed UN sanctions. Medvedev threatened to abandon the nuclear missle reduction treaty (START) and to place medium range missiles 5 minutes from Berlin, Paris and London.
Medvedev-Lavrov’s policy of consolidation and co-operation based on Obama’s rhetoric of “resetting relations” invited aggressive empire building: each capitulation led to a further aggression. As a result Russia is surrounded by missiles on its western frontier; it has suffered losses among its major trading partners in the Middle East and faces US bases in southwest Asia.
Belatedly Russian officials have moved to replace the delusional Medvedev for the realist Putin, as next President. This shift to a political realist has predictably evoked a wave of hostility toward Putin in all the Western media. Obama’s aggressive policies to isolate Russia by undermining independent regimes has, however, not affected Russia’s status as a nuclear weapons power. It has only heightened tensions in Europe and perhaps ended any future chance of peaceful nuclear weapons reduction or efforts to secure a UN Security Council consensus on issues of peaceful conflict resolution.
Washington has turned Russia from a pliant client to a major adversary.
Putin looks to deepening and expanding ties with the East, namely China, in the face of threats from the West. The combination of Russian advanced weapons technology and energy resources and Chinese dynamic manufacturing and industrial growth are more than a match for crises ridden EU-USA economies wallowing in stagnation.
Obama’s military confrontation toward Russia will greatly prejudice access to Russian raw materials and definitively foreclose any long-term strategic security agreement which would be useful in lowering the deficit and reviving the US economy.
Between Realism and Delusion: Obama’s Strategic Realignment
Obama’s recognition that the present and future center of political and economic power is moving inexorably to Asia, is a flash of political realism. After a lost decade of pouring hundreds of billions of dollars in military adventures on the margins and periphery of world politics, Washington has finally discovered that is not where the fate of nations, especially Great Powers, will be decided, except in a negative sense – of bleeding resources over lost causes. Obama’s new realism and priorities apparently are now focused on Southeast and Northeast Asia, where dynamic economies flourish, markets are growing at a double digit rate, investors are ploughing tens of billions in productive activity and trade is expanding at three times the rate of the US and the EU.
But Obama’s ‘New Realism’ is blighted by entirely delusional assumptions, which totally undermine any real effort to realign US policy.
In the first place Obama’s effort to ‘enter’ into Asia is via a military build-up not through a sharpening and upgrading of US economic competitiveness. What does the US produce for the Asian countries that will enhance its market share? Apart from arms, airplanes and agriculture, the US has few industries which are competitive. The US would have to totally re-orient its economy, upgrade skilled labor, and transfer billions from “security” and militarism to applied innovations. But Obama works within the current military-Zionist-financial complex: he knows no other and is incapable of breaking with it.
Secondly, Obama-Clinton operate under the delusion that the US can exclude China or minimize its role in Asia, a policy that is undercut by the huge and growing investment and presence of all the major US multi-national corporations in China , who use it as an export platform to Asia and the rest of the world.
The US military build-up and policy of “intimidation” will only force China to downgrade its role as creditor, financing the US debt; a policy China can pursue because the US market, while still important, is becoming less so, as China expands its presence in its domestic, Asian, Latin American and European markets.
What appeared to be New Realism is now the recycling of Old Delusions: the idea that the US can return to being the Pacific Power it was after World War Two. The US ‘returns’ to the Pacific in our times with a crippled economy, with the overhang of an over-militarized economy, with strategic handicaps: over the past decade it has been at the beck and call of Israel’s fifth column (the Israel “lobby”). The entire US political class is devoid of common, practical sense and national purpose. They are immersed in troglodyte debates over “indefinite detentions” and “mass immigrant expulsion”. Worse, all are on the payrolls of private corporations who sell in the US and invest in China.
Why would Obama abjure costly wars in the unprofitable periphery and then practice the same military metaphysics at the dynamic center of the world economy? Does he and his advisers believe he is the Second Coming of Admiral Commodore whose 19th century warships opened Asia to Western trade? Does he believe that military alliances will be the first stage to a subsequent period of privileged economic entry?
Does Obama believe that his regime can blockade China, as Washington did to Japan in the lead up to World War Two? It’s too late. China is much more central to the world economy, too vital even to the financing of the US debt, too bonded up with the Forbes Five Hundred multi-national corporations. To provoke China, to even fantasize about economic “exclusion” to bring down China, is to pursue policies which will totally disrupt the world economy and that means first and foremost the US economy!
Conclusion
Obama’s ‘crackpot realism’, his shift from wars in the Islamic world to military confrontation in Asia, has no intrinsic worth and extraordinary extrinsic costs. The military methods and economic goals are totally incompatible and beyond the capacity of the US, as it is currently constituted. Washington’s policies will not ‘weaken’ Russia or China, even less intimidate them. Instead it will encourage both to adopt more adversarial positions, making it less likely that they lend a hand to Obama’s sequential wars. Already Russia has sent warships to its Syrian port, refused to support an arms embargo against Syria and Iran and (in retrospect) criticized the NATO war against Libya. China and Russia have far too many strategic ties with the world economy to suffer any great losses from a series of US military outposts and “exclusive” alliances. Russia can aim just as many deadly nuclear missiles at the West as the US can mount from its bases in Eastern Europe. In other words, Obama’s military escalation will not change the nuclear balance of power, but will bring Russia and China into a closer and deeper alliance. Gone are the days of Kissinger-Nixon’s “divide and conquer” strategy pitting US-Chinese trade agreements against Russian arms. Washington has a totally exaggerated significance of the current maritime spats between China and its neighbors. What unites them in economic terms is far more important in the medium and long-run. China’s Asian economic ties will erode any tenuous military links to the US.
Obama’s “crackpot realism”, views the world market through military lenses. Military arrogance toward Asia has led to a rupture with Pakistan its most compliant client regime in South Asia. NATO deliberately killed 24 soldiers and thumbed their nose at the Pakistan generals while China and Russia condemned the attack and gained influence.
In the end, the military and exclusionary posture to China will fail. Washington will overplay its hand and frighten its business oriented erstwhile Asian partners, who only want to play-off a US military presence to gain tactical economic advantage. They certainly do not want a new US instigated ‘Cold War’ which divides and weakens dynamic intra-Asian trade and investment. Obama and his minions will quickly learn that Asia’s current leaders do not have permanent allies’ only permanent interests. In the final analysis, China figures prominently in configuring a new Asia-centric world economy. Washington may claim to have a ‘permanent Pacific presence’ but until it demonstrates it can take care of “basic business at home”, like arranging its own finances and balancing its current account deficits, the US Naval command may end up renting its navy to Asian exporters and shippers, transporting goods between them, and protecting them by pursuing pirates, contra-bandits and narco-traffickers. Come to think about it, Obama might eventually even lessen the US trade deficit with Asia by renting out the Seventh Fleet to patrol the Straits, instead of wasting US taxpayer money bullying successful Asian economic powers.
This paper addresses the Obama regime’s highly irrational and world threatening escalation of imperial militarism. We examine the global military, economic and domestic political context that gives rise to these policies. We then examine the multiple points of conflict and intervention in which Washington is engaged, from Pakistan, Iran, Libya, Venezuela, Cuba and beyond. We will then analyze the rationale for military escalation against Russia and China as part of a new ‘offensive moving beyond the Arab world (Syria, Libya) and in the face of the declining economic position of the EU and the US in the global economy. We will then outline the strategies of a declining empire nurtured on perpetual wars, facing global economic decline, domestic discredit and a working population facing long-term large scale rollback of basic social programs.
The Turn from Militarism in the Periphery to Global Military Confrontation
November 2011 is a moment of great historical import. Obama declared two major policy positions, both having tremendous strategic consequences affecting competing world powers.
Obama pronounced a policy of military encirclement of China based on stationing a maritime, aerial armada facing the Chinese coast. A policy designed to weaken and disrupt China’s access to raw materials and commercial and financial ties in Asia. Obama’s declaration that Asia is the priority region for US military expansion, base building and economic alliances was directed against China, challenging Beijing in its own backyard. Obama’s iron fist policy statement, addressed to the Australian Parliament, was crystal clear in defining US imperial goals.
“Our enduring interests in the region [Asia Pacific] demands our enduring presence in this region … The United States is a Pacific power and we are here to stay … As we end today’s wars [the defeats and retreats from Iraq and Afghanistan]… I have directed my national security team to make our presence and missions in the Asia Pacific a top priority … As a result reduction in US defense spending will not … come at the expense of the Asia Pacific” (CNN.com, Nov. 16, 2011).The precise nature of what Obama called our “presence and mission” was underlined by the military agreement with Australia to dispatch warships, warplanes and 2500 marines to the northern most city of Australia (Darwin) facing China. Secretary of State Clinton has spent the better part of 2011 making highly provocative overtures, to Asian countries that have maritime border conflicts with China. Clinton has forcibly injected the US into these disputes, encouraging and exacerbating the demands of Vietnam, Philippines, and Brunei in the South China Sea. Even more seriously Washington is bolstering its military ties and sales with Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea as well as increasing the presence of battleships, nuclear submarines and over flights of war planes along China’s coastal waters. In line with the policy of military encirclement and provocation, the Obama-Clinton regime is promoting Asian multi-lateral trade agreements that exclude China and privilege US multi-national corporations, bankers and exporters, dubbed the “Trans-Pacific partnership”.It currently includes mostly smaller countries, but Obama has hopes of enticing Japan and Canada to join …
Obama’s presence at the APEC meeting of East Asian leader and his visit to Indonesia in November 2011 all revolve around efforts to secure US hegemony. Obama-Clinton hope to counter the relative decline of US economic links in the face of the geometrical growth of trade and investment ties between East Asia and China.
A most recent example of Obama-Clinton’s delusional but destructive efforts to deliberately disrupt China’s economic ties in Asia, is taking place in Burma. Clinton’s December 2011 visit to Burma was preceded by a decision by the Thein Sein regime to suspend a China Power Investment funded dam in the North of the country. According to official confidential documents released by WilkiLeaks the “Burmese ngo’s which organized and led the campaign against the dam were heavily funded by the US government”(Financial Times, Dec. 2, 2011, p. 2). This and other provocative activity and Clinton’s speeches condemning Chinese “tied aid” pale in comparison with the long-term large scale interests which link Burma with China. China is Burma’s biggest trading partner and investor, including six other dam projects. Its companies are carving new highways and rail lines across the country opening southwestern China up for Burmese products and China is building oil pipelines and ports. There is a powerful dynamic of mutual economic interests that will not be disturbed by one dispute (FT, December 2, 2011, p.2). Clinton’s critique of China’s billion dollar investments in Burma’s infrastructure is one of the most bizarre in world history, coming in the aftermath of Washington’s eight year military presence in Iraq which destroyed $500 billion dollars of infrastructures, according to Baghdad official estimates. Only a delusional administration could imagine that rhetorical flourishes, a three day visit and the bankrolling of an NGO is an adequate counter-weight to deep economic ties linking Burma to China. The same delusional posture underlies the entire repertoire of policies informing the Obama regimes’ efforts to displace China’s predominant role in Asia.
While each policy adopted by the Obama regime in themselves do no present an immediate threat to peace, the cumulative impact of all the policy pronouncements and the projections of military power add up to an all out comprehensive effort to isolate, intimidate and degrade China’s rise as a regional and global power. Military encirclement and alliances, exclusion of China in proposed regional economic associations, partisan intervention in regional maritime disputes, positioning technologically advanced warplanes, are all aimed to undermine China’s competitiveness and to compensate for US economic inferiority via closed political and economic networks.
Clearly White House military and economic moves and Congressional anti-China demagogy are aimed at weakening China’s trading position and forcing its business minded leaders into privileging US banking and business interests over and above their own enterprises. Pushed to its limits, Obama’s prioritizing a big military push could lead to a catastrophic rupture in US Chinese economic relations. This would result in dire consequences, especially but not exclusively, on the US economy and particularly its financial system. China holds over $1.5 trillion dollars in US debt, mainly Treasury Notes and each year purchases from $200 to $300 billion in new issues, a vital source in financing the US deficit. If Obama provokes a serious threat to China’s security interests and Beijing is forced to respond, it will not be military but economic retaliation: the sell-off of a few hundred billion dollars in T-notes and the curtailment of new purchases of US debt. The US deficit will skyrocket, its credit ratings will descend to ‘junk’, and the financial system will ‘tremble onto collapse’. Interest rates to attract new buyers of US debt will approach double digits. Chinese exports to the US will suffer and losses will incur due to the devaluation of the T-notes in Chinese hands. But China has been diversifying its markets around the world and its huge domestic market could probably absorb most of what China loses abroad.
While Obama strays across the Pacific to mount its military threat to China and strives to economically isolate it in Asia, the US economic presence is fading in what used to be its “backyard”. According to one journalist, “China is the only show for Latin America” (Financial Times, Nov. 23, 2011, p.6). China has displaced the US and the EU as Latin America’s principle trading partner; Beijing has poured billions in new investments and provides low interest loans. China’s trade with India, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan and Vietnam is increasing far faster than that of the US. The US effort to build an imperial centered security alliance in Asia is based on fragile economic foundations. Even Australia, the anchor and linchpin of the US military thrust in Asia, is heavily dependent on mineral exports to China. Any military interruption would send the Australian economy into a tailspin.
The US economy is in no condition to replace China as a market for Asian or Australian commodity and manufacturing exports. The Asian countries must be acutely aware that there is no future growth tying themselves to a declining highly militarized empire. Obama and Clinton deceive themselves if they think they can entice Asia into a long-term alliance. The Asian’s are simply using the Obama regime’s friendly overtures as a ‘tactical device’ ,a negotiating ploy to leverage better terms in securing maritime and territorial boundaries. Washington is delusional if it believes that it can convince Asia to break long-term large scale lucrative economic ties to China in order to join an exclusive economic association with dubious prospects. Any such ‘reorientation’ of Asia, from China to the US, would require more than the presence of a naval and airborne armada pointed at China. It would require the total restructuring of the Asian countries’ economies,class structure and political and military elite. The most powerful economic entrepreneurial groups in Asia have deep and growing ties with China/Hong Kong especially among the dynamic transnational Chinese business elites in the region. A turn toward Washington entails a massive counter-revolution which substitutes ‘traders’ for entrepreneurs. A turn to the US would require a dictatorial elite willing to disrupt strategic trading and investment linkages,displacing millions of workers and professionals. As much as some US trained Asian military officers , economists and former Wall Street financiers and billionaires might seek to ‘balance’ a US military presence, with Chinese economic power, they must realize that ultimately, advantage resides in working out an Asian solution.
The age of Asian “comprador capitalists”, willing to sell out national industry and sovereignty in exchange for privileged access to US markets, is ancient history. Whatever the boundless enthusiasm for conspicuous consumerism and Western lifestyles, which Asia and China’s new rich mindlessly celebrate, whatever the embrace of inequalities and savage capitalist exploitation of labor, there is recognition that the past history of US and European dominance precluded the growth and enrichment of an indigenous bourgeoisie and middle class. The speeches and pronouncements of Obama and Clinton are a mixture of nostalgia for a past of neo-colonial overseers and comprador collaborators and a no-brainer. Their strain for political realism I in finally recognizing Asia as the economic pivot of the present world order. But they turn delusional in imagining that military prepotency and projections of armed force will reduce China to a marginal player in the region.
Obama’s Escalation of Confrontation with Russia
The Obama regime has launched a major frontal military thrust on Russia’s borders. The US has moved forward missile sites and Air Force bases in Poland, Rumania, Turkey, Spain, Czech Republic and Bulgaria: Patriot PAC-3 anti-aircraft missile complexes in Poland; advanced radar AN/TPY-2 in Turkey; several missile (SM-3 IA) loaded warships in Spain are among the prominent weapons encircling Russia, most only minutes away from it strategic heartland. Secondly, the Obama regime has mounted an all-out effort to secure and expand US military bases in Central Asia among former Soviet republics. Thirdly, Washington via NATO has launched major economic and military operations against Russia’s major trading partners in North Africa and the Middle East. The NATO war against Libya which ousted the Gadhafi regime has paralyzed or nullified multi-billion dollar Russian oil and gas investments, arms sales and substituted a NATO puppet for a friendly regime.The UN-NATO economic sanctions and US-Israeli clandestine terrorist activity aimed at Iran has undermined Russia’s lucrative billion dollar nuclear trade and joint oil ventures. NATO, including Turkey and backed by the Gulf monarchical dictatorships, have implemented harsh sanctions and funded terrorist assaults on Syria, Russia’s last remaining ally in the region and sole port (Tartus) facing the Mediterranean Sea. Russia’s collaboration with NATO in weakening its economic and security position is a product of the monumental misreading of NATO and especially Obama’s imperial policies. President Medvedev and his Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov mistakenly assumed (like Gorbachev and Yeltsin before them) that backing US-NATO policies against Russia’s trading partners would result in some sort of “reciprocity”: US dismantling its offensive “missile shield” on its frontiers and support for Russia’s admission into the World Trade Organization. Medvedev following his liberal pro-western illusions fell into line and backed US-Israeli sanctions against Iran, believing the tales of a “nuclear weapons programs”. Then Lavrov fell for the NATO line of “no fly zones to protect Libyan lives” and voted in favor, only to feebly “protest”, much too late, that NATO was “exceeding its mandate” by bombing Libya into the Stone Age and installing a pro-NATO puppet regime of rogues and fundamentalists. Finally when the US drove a cleaver in Russia’s heartland by pushing ahead with an all-out effort to install missile sites 5 minutes from Moscow and organized mass and armed assaults on Syria, did Medvedev-Lavrov awake from their stupor and opposed UN sanctions. Medvedev threatened to abandon the nuclear missle reduction treaty (START) and to place medium range missiles 5 minutes from Berlin, Paris and London.
Medvedev-Lavrov’s policy of consolidation and co-operation based on Obama’s rhetoric of “resetting relations” invited aggressive empire building: each capitulation led to a further aggression. As a result Russia is surrounded by missiles on its western frontier; it has suffered losses among its major trading partners in the Middle East and faces US bases in southwest Asia.
Belatedly Russian officials have moved to replace the delusional Medvedev for the realist Putin, as next President. This shift to a political realist has predictably evoked a wave of hostility toward Putin in all the Western media. Obama’s aggressive policies to isolate Russia by undermining independent regimes has, however, not affected Russia’s status as a nuclear weapons power. It has only heightened tensions in Europe and perhaps ended any future chance of peaceful nuclear weapons reduction or efforts to secure a UN Security Council consensus on issues of peaceful conflict resolution.
Washington has turned Russia from a pliant client to a major adversary.
Putin looks to deepening and expanding ties with the East, namely China, in the face of threats from the West. The combination of Russian advanced weapons technology and energy resources and Chinese dynamic manufacturing and industrial growth are more than a match for crises ridden EU-USA economies wallowing in stagnation.
Obama’s military confrontation toward Russia will greatly prejudice access to Russian raw materials and definitively foreclose any long-term strategic security agreement which would be useful in lowering the deficit and reviving the US economy.
Between Realism and Delusion: Obama’s Strategic Realignment
Obama’s recognition that the present and future center of political and economic power is moving inexorably to Asia, is a flash of political realism. After a lost decade of pouring hundreds of billions of dollars in military adventures on the margins and periphery of world politics, Washington has finally discovered that is not where the fate of nations, especially Great Powers, will be decided, except in a negative sense – of bleeding resources over lost causes. Obama’s new realism and priorities apparently are now focused on Southeast and Northeast Asia, where dynamic economies flourish, markets are growing at a double digit rate, investors are ploughing tens of billions in productive activity and trade is expanding at three times the rate of the US and the EU.
But Obama’s ‘New Realism’ is blighted by entirely delusional assumptions, which totally undermine any real effort to realign US policy.
In the first place Obama’s effort to ‘enter’ into Asia is via a military build-up not through a sharpening and upgrading of US economic competitiveness. What does the US produce for the Asian countries that will enhance its market share? Apart from arms, airplanes and agriculture, the US has few industries which are competitive. The US would have to totally re-orient its economy, upgrade skilled labor, and transfer billions from “security” and militarism to applied innovations. But Obama works within the current military-Zionist-financial complex: he knows no other and is incapable of breaking with it.
Secondly, Obama-Clinton operate under the delusion that the US can exclude China or minimize its role in Asia, a policy that is undercut by the huge and growing investment and presence of all the major US multi-national corporations in China , who use it as an export platform to Asia and the rest of the world.
The US military build-up and policy of “intimidation” will only force China to downgrade its role as creditor, financing the US debt; a policy China can pursue because the US market, while still important, is becoming less so, as China expands its presence in its domestic, Asian, Latin American and European markets.
What appeared to be New Realism is now the recycling of Old Delusions: the idea that the US can return to being the Pacific Power it was after World War Two. The US ‘returns’ to the Pacific in our times with a crippled economy, with the overhang of an over-militarized economy, with strategic handicaps: over the past decade it has been at the beck and call of Israel’s fifth column (the Israel “lobby”). The entire US political class is devoid of common, practical sense and national purpose. They are immersed in troglodyte debates over “indefinite detentions” and “mass immigrant expulsion”. Worse, all are on the payrolls of private corporations who sell in the US and invest in China.
Why would Obama abjure costly wars in the unprofitable periphery and then practice the same military metaphysics at the dynamic center of the world economy? Does he and his advisers believe he is the Second Coming of Admiral Commodore whose 19th century warships opened Asia to Western trade? Does he believe that military alliances will be the first stage to a subsequent period of privileged economic entry?
Does Obama believe that his regime can blockade China, as Washington did to Japan in the lead up to World War Two? It’s too late. China is much more central to the world economy, too vital even to the financing of the US debt, too bonded up with the Forbes Five Hundred multi-national corporations. To provoke China, to even fantasize about economic “exclusion” to bring down China, is to pursue policies which will totally disrupt the world economy and that means first and foremost the US economy!
Conclusion
Obama’s ‘crackpot realism’, his shift from wars in the Islamic world to military confrontation in Asia, has no intrinsic worth and extraordinary extrinsic costs. The military methods and economic goals are totally incompatible and beyond the capacity of the US, as it is currently constituted. Washington’s policies will not ‘weaken’ Russia or China, even less intimidate them. Instead it will encourage both to adopt more adversarial positions, making it less likely that they lend a hand to Obama’s sequential wars. Already Russia has sent warships to its Syrian port, refused to support an arms embargo against Syria and Iran and (in retrospect) criticized the NATO war against Libya. China and Russia have far too many strategic ties with the world economy to suffer any great losses from a series of US military outposts and “exclusive” alliances. Russia can aim just as many deadly nuclear missiles at the West as the US can mount from its bases in Eastern Europe. In other words, Obama’s military escalation will not change the nuclear balance of power, but will bring Russia and China into a closer and deeper alliance. Gone are the days of Kissinger-Nixon’s “divide and conquer” strategy pitting US-Chinese trade agreements against Russian arms. Washington has a totally exaggerated significance of the current maritime spats between China and its neighbors. What unites them in economic terms is far more important in the medium and long-run. China’s Asian economic ties will erode any tenuous military links to the US.
Obama’s “crackpot realism”, views the world market through military lenses. Military arrogance toward Asia has led to a rupture with Pakistan its most compliant client regime in South Asia. NATO deliberately killed 24 soldiers and thumbed their nose at the Pakistan generals while China and Russia condemned the attack and gained influence.
In the end, the military and exclusionary posture to China will fail. Washington will overplay its hand and frighten its business oriented erstwhile Asian partners, who only want to play-off a US military presence to gain tactical economic advantage. They certainly do not want a new US instigated ‘Cold War’ which divides and weakens dynamic intra-Asian trade and investment. Obama and his minions will quickly learn that Asia’s current leaders do not have permanent allies’ only permanent interests. In the final analysis, China figures prominently in configuring a new Asia-centric world economy. Washington may claim to have a ‘permanent Pacific presence’ but until it demonstrates it can take care of “basic business at home”, like arranging its own finances and balancing its current account deficits, the US Naval command may end up renting its navy to Asian exporters and shippers, transporting goods between them, and protecting them by pursuing pirates, contra-bandits and narco-traffickers. Come to think about it, Obama might eventually even lessen the US trade deficit with Asia by renting out the Seventh Fleet to patrol the Straits, instead of wasting US taxpayer money bullying successful Asian economic powers.
James Petras latest book is: “The Arab Revolt and the Imperialist Counterattack” (Atlanta: Clarity Press 2011). Can be found on Amazon
River to Sea
Uprooted PalestinianNews That Is Not News
Presidents Sarkozy and Obama find Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be annoying. There is also gambling in Las Vegas. Sometimes, politicians say what they really think, but often what they really think is not that surprising.
I find it amusing that the Republicans will try to use this to get supporters of Israel to vote for them. The only way Obama could be more pro-Israel, I guess, is if if the US bombed Iran. And, like the invasion of Iraq, that actually might be bad for Israel in the medium to long run. Obama has spewed international political capital by voting with Israel at the UN, UNESCO, and other UNirrelevantorganizations. Obama's effort to have Israel stop building new settlements (forget thinking about reversing previous ones that create very inconvenient facts on the ground) have been ignored, and Obama did nothing about it.
So, in policy terms, the American Jews (and evangelicals that are obsessed with Israel) did not have any of their fears realized when they were contemplating Obama in 2008. Obama talked a bit tough at first, but has mostly supported Israel far more than it probably deserves, given how little the US has gotten back.
General Petraeus was noted a few years ago as saying (while he was commanding CENTCOM) that Israel was endangering American interests in the Middle East. With Netanyahu continuing to support Israeli irredentism (which is what expansion of territory into the West Bank is), Petraeus was not very wrong.
I complain that Pakistan is a crappy ally, which makes Israel look good in comparison. But Israel makes most other American allies look pretty cooperative, including .... France!
So, yes, Obama, you can whine about Netanyahu. Just check the mic next time.
I find it amusing that the Republicans will try to use this to get supporters of Israel to vote for them. The only way Obama could be more pro-Israel, I guess, is if if the US bombed Iran. And, like the invasion of Iraq, that actually might be bad for Israel in the medium to long run. Obama has spewed international political capital by voting with Israel at the UN, UNESCO, and other UNirrelevantorganizations. Obama's effort to have Israel stop building new settlements (forget thinking about reversing previous ones that create very inconvenient facts on the ground) have been ignored, and Obama did nothing about it.
So, in policy terms, the American Jews (and evangelicals that are obsessed with Israel) did not have any of their fears realized when they were contemplating Obama in 2008. Obama talked a bit tough at first, but has mostly supported Israel far more than it probably deserves, given how little the US has gotten back.
General Petraeus was noted a few years ago as saying (while he was commanding CENTCOM) that Israel was endangering American interests in the Middle East. With Netanyahu continuing to support Israeli irredentism (which is what expansion of territory into the West Bank is), Petraeus was not very wrong.
I complain that Pakistan is a crappy ally, which makes Israel look good in comparison. But Israel makes most other American allies look pretty cooperative, including .... France!
So, yes, Obama, you can whine about Netanyahu. Just check the mic next time.
Starting the Year with Pessimism
I have been watching season 3 of The Wire for the past couple of days, trying to make some progress on my resolution from last year. I am halfway in the eighth episode, and it is very clear that this year's theme is all about the challenges of reform. This gives me the excuse to re-run my favorite quote for any political theorist for all time:
So, of course, who am I really frustrated by? Those on the left who see Obama as selling them out, rather than getting as good a deal as one could possibly expect. I already have low expectations for the folks on the right.
"It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the laws in their favor; and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it. Thus it arises that on every opportunity for attacking the reformer, his opponents do so with the zeal of partisans, the others only defend him half-heartedly, so that between them he runs great danger." Previously quoted here.Machiavelli was just incredibly smart to see this so clearly, but his focus on the passion involved downplays a key component of path dependence--institutions. That certain outcomes exist and then become more entrenched not just because they have passionate defenders and ambivalent challengers but because the rules empower those who favor the status quo. The rules of the Senate allow individuals to put holds onto appointments and minorities to hold up bills and treaties via filibusters. Of course, these rules could be changed, but that would require even more passion and interests than the actual legislation at hand because such reforms would alter how to play the game. The uncertainties of the potential new game are enough to deter those who would otherwise seek to change the rules for today.
So, of course, who am I really frustrated by? Those on the left who see Obama as selling them out, rather than getting as good a deal as one could possibly expect. I already have low expectations for the folks on the right.
OBAMA AGAIN CANCELS VISIT TO INDONESIA
Bogor in Indonesia.
Obama grew up in Indonesia.
On 4 June 2010, we learn that Obama has yet again cancelled his visit to Indonesia.
(Third Strike for Obama's Indonesia Visit.)
Indonesia is the 4th largest country in the world, in terms of population.
It is in the same economic league as China, Brazil and India.
So, does Obama fear that Indonesians have woken up to who it was that toppled Sukarno and Suharto and who it was that carried out the Bali Bombings?
Demonstrations have been staged in Indonesia daily, to condemn the USA, which happens to be Israel's closest ally and protector.
What is Obama going to miss?
Bogor in West Java.
West Java is, in many ways, better than Bali.
The ideal tour would include:
1. Flying into Jakarta and hiring a car and driver.
2. Being driven West to Merak
3. Then South to Pelabuhan Ratu
4. Then East to Bandung
4. Then West to Bogor.
In Bogor, there are many traffic free walks by the side of rivers and canals.
One is reminded of Venice in earlier days.
One is likely to encounter colourful little houses and gardens, children flying kites, people bathing, vendors of snacks and spectacular views of Mount Salak.
On the edge of Bogor one can walk beside rice fields and fruit orchards and meet some of the friendliest people in the world.
The people of West Java are generally very friendly.
Yet West Java gets surprisingly few tourists.
Bogor girls
Merak is a fishing port.
Video: Pelabuhan Ratu, on the south coast.
After Prague, What's Next for Arms Control?
Often Americans hear news reports from countries around the world crying out "why won't America lead on this?" Here's an exciting article that shows just the opposite. When it comes to nuclear weapons, we've got a prophet, he's got a plan, now he just needs some followers. Click on my title to read the essay.
OBAMA & BLAIR WERE MEANT TO COME TO POWER. SALMOND WAS NOT?
Republicans and Democrats are the same. Labour and Conservative are the same.
Obama was meant to come to power.
According to Dr James Manning, Obama enrolled at Occidental College in Los Angeles, California in 1979 and was recruited there in 1980 by the CIA. (Barack Obama, former CIA agent )
According to Manning, Obama worked for the CIA in Pakistan.
Alex Salmond was probably not meant to come to power in Scotland.
Did something go wrong with the vote rigging?
Alex Salmond's moderate Scottish National Party opposed the wars in Yugoslavia, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Tony Blair was meant to come to power.
"Tony Blair has trousered millions of pounds in contracts at least partly as a consequence of the illegal war he prosecuted on our behalf against Iraq." (your church)
Video from the BBC - the voice of MI6
Scotland has a parliament and a government with rather limited powers.
The Scottish government is run by Alex Salmond of the Scottish National Party (SNP).
Alex Salmond is opposed by the media and the powers that be.
No doubt the SNP will have been infiltrated by the spooks.
Alex Salmond has warned that cuts are coming
Salmond has spoken of the two big political parties in the UK, Labour and Conservative, as the "Tweedledum and Tweedledee" of politics.
Salmond has said that Labour and Conservative will bring in cuts, but they will not be the right cuts.
Salmond says that the UK (London) government should save money by closing down the ID card scheme and the Trident nuclear missile programme.
Salmond's government has made cuts.
It has frozen the pay of senior civil servants and government ministers.
It has reduced the number of Scottish government bodies (quangos) and halved the Scottish government spending on advertising.
Referring to the Labour Party's Steven Purcell, Salmond said "If there is ever a party that needs shaking to its core, it is the Labour Party in the city of Glasgow."
To deal with crime in Scotland, Salmond's SNP has fulfilled its pledge to put 1000 more police on Scottish streets.
Alex Salmond predicts that Scotland will become the "Saudi Arabia" of marine energy.
Scotland rules the waves. It leads world in harvesting wave power
World first wave and tidal energy projects for Scotland
SCOTLAND BEATS MOST OF ENGLANDOBAMA LOSING INDONESIA?
Go to Jakarta's nightclubs and you may see lots of Chinese.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will visit Jakarta in April 2010. (China growing influence ‘good for RI’)
In mid March 2010, President Obama, again postponed his visit to Indonesia. (Obama ditches Indonesia, Australia trip over health care )
Obama lived in Indonesia, the world's 4th biggest country in terms of population, from 1967 to 1971.
But in Jakarta there was strong opposition to the statue of a 10-year-old Obama erected in a park in the middle of the city.
The statue had to be moved to a school. (Outcry forces Obama statue removal)
Indonesian model Tiara Lestari
According to Dino Patti Djalal, Indonesian President Yudhoyono's special advisor on international affairs: "America's image in Indonesia has taken a beating in the last 10 years."
According to Dino, this is related to the belief that US investors helped cause the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis that more or less bankrupted Indonesia. (US, Indonesia in a tentative embrace)
In 2008, the then health minister Siti Fadillah Supari shut down the US Naval Medical Research Unit, known as NAMRU-2.
It was suspected that this US unit had been involved in espionage. (US, Indonesia in a tentative embrace)
China has increased its trade and defence ties with Indonesia.
Indonesia's powerful Army Special Force, Kopassus, has cooperated with China. (RI vows to remain neutral amid global power shift )
Indonesia and China signed a strategic partnership during the visit of President Hu Jintao to Jakarta in 2005.
When Obama eventually comes to Jakarta, the US and Indonesia are expected to sign "a comprehensive agreement that some analysts believe could signal a strategic shift in US policy towards the region." (US, Indonesia in a tentative embrace)
Obama wants to counter China's rising influence in the region.
The US wants to control the Malacca Strait, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.
According to Evan Laksmana, a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta, "The US needs to ensure that our waterways don't fall into China's hands ... US operations in the Middle East still depend on control of these waterways." (US, Indonesia in a tentative embrace)
Around 80% of China's imports, including oil, pass through the Malacca Strait.
There is a suspicion that the USA is using terrorism to influence Indonesia.
Bombs hit Bali in 2002.
The USA then "gradually strengthened ties with segments of Indonesia's military and law enforcement agencies." (US, Indonesia in a tentative embrace)
In early March 2010, Hillary Clinton told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting that the US hopes to expand its military partnership with Indonesia.
China takes an interest in Indonesia's natural resources, including oil and coal.
Meanwhile, Obama has been stuck arguments over US healthcare.
Indonesia needs investment in infrastructure.
But it has "a rotten parliament and legal system". (Waiting for the man)
Will China help build better roads, hospitals, houses and schools?
How Nuclear Weapons Can Save Your Life
Yes, I know. You suspect this blog post might be a cheap ploy to get more readership, if only from the weekend shift at the CIA. But actually, I'm sharing this article because I thought it was an interesting rebuttal to President Obama's speech in Prague. I went to hear it with 30,000 other people. He said that the world should work toward the elimination of nuclear weapons. This writer thinks differently and makes his case well. When was the last time you read an upbeat article about nuclear weaponery anyway?
I haven't a strong opinion as the subject is outside my area of expertise. I'm just an interested observer with a desire to live out my days. What do you think gentle blog readers? Is President Obama's vision realistic? Or do you side with this writer? Click on my title to read the whole article from this week's Newsweek magazine.
I haven't a strong opinion as the subject is outside my area of expertise. I'm just an interested observer with a desire to live out my days. What do you think gentle blog readers? Is President Obama's vision realistic? Or do you side with this writer? Click on my title to read the whole article from this week's Newsweek magazine.
Paris, Day 2: Romancing the President
I was lucky enough to get almost until 4pm (local time) sans rain. But my streak of days within rain in Paris remains perfect. Took more pictures just to prove that the sun was out today. And the began with a near-Obama encounter and then was interrupted later in the day with yet another Obama-created crowd scene.
More Impressions and Stories from Paris:
- Forgot to mention the strangest interaction: A block away from the Arc d' Triomphe, an Italian man in a new VW bug asked me for directions. Immediately, I should have walked away because a) I don't know anything about driving in Paris; and b) the Arc and the circle of Charles De Gaulle is perhaps the easiest location in Paris to spot on a map. Anyhow, once I made it clear I could not help him, he then started to show me these two coats (he said they were Valentino--too bad Stefanie VH was not there to help me out] and he made it seem like they were gifts--I was already refusing to take them. But then he asked for some money so he could drive back home to Milano (all of this was in fractured italo-franglais) as he lost his money at the casino, or so he said. When I indicated that I had no spare cash, he wanted his card back and was a bit huffy. So, my guess is either the jackets had fallen off of a truck or were knockoffs or both.
- Very strange to watch the last couple of games of the French Open en francais while in Paris while I type this.
- Far more English (and other languages) on the signs in the metro system and elsewhere in Paris than in Montreal.
- More kids on the streets and in the parks than the stories about declining birth rates in Europe would suggest. But then again, I posted earlier about anecdotes versus stats.
- My day stated with Ile de la Cite and the Notre-Dame Cathedral. Before I got to the Cathedral, I had cross a street lined with police and people waiting to watch something pass. It pretty much had to be the big O.
- Once inside the Cathedral, I was struck with my usual thought when inside immense religious constructions of periods before 1900 or so--Built on the back o
f the peasants. - The next major destination was the Pantheon, where a bunch of famous people are buried and where Foucault's pendulum is, well, swinging. Will have to post later with some ideas for other Pantheons (with much debt to the ESPN Sports Guy, who must have inspired the French).
- Walked around quite a bit and then hung out at the Jardin de Luxembourg, which is next to the Assembly and Senat. Nice combo of kid's games and gardens. And palm trees?
- Followed with some more walking, including by a side street blocked by a po
lice car. And with heaps of people. Obama was clearly inside (could not see him, just evidence of his proximity) as the crowd, the cops and the Chevy Suburban with DC plates all indicated that the President was inside, shopping, I think. Perhaps I will go back later in the week to see what kind of place it is. - Quit a bit early due to the onset of rain sans umbrella.
Running Theme G: Fighting Groupthink
We are also told that the president followed the model of self-examination he uses in all of his big decisions to avoid groupthink. He rigorously "tested his assumptions" on Sotomayor, says an aide, including asking the staff to "make the case against her."from Slate.
Yet more evidence that Obama's decision-making style is aimed at getting the best advice and seeking conflicting opinions. I will have to be clearer in future posts where I disagree with what Obama does, but thus far, I am a big fan of how he operates: being clear about the tradeoffs that the country faces, exposing the various ideas (policies, appointments) to considered debate, and the like. Since the process of decision-making influences the substance, Obama's style of decision-making is more than just notable from the standpoint of social science, but critical for the evolution of US policy--foreign and domestic