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Sol Sanders | Follow the money No. 86 -- Perfidious Americus
Latest from Uncle Sol. A version of this column is scheduled for publication on Monday, Oct. 3, 2011, in The Washington Times -- Chris
Follow the money No. 86 -- Perfidious Americus
Sol Sanders
Running an empire is not for sissies.
Since 1945, the U.S., holding the aces, had to finesse a role once played by the Europeans with Washington pulling up the Latin American rear. But that tacit alliance maintained worldwide stability for only two decades, in part because pre-digital America could sulk behind two oceans.
After Western Civilization’s second bloody civil war, rules changed: colonialism was abnegated, first “officially” in the 1943 Cairo Declaration. Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his Nationalist China ally Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek acknowledged European domination would go following the Allied victory. Of course, Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill, there too, was soon to meet British class voter retribution, and within less than two decades, the last of the Tory Grandees, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, would wrap up what had been the empire on which the sun never set. So much for Churchill’s vow he had not become the King’s first minister to preside over liquidation of the British imperium.
But Soviet aggression setting off The Cold War, and, U.S. amateurism, never allowed Washington. to get ahead of the time curve. [After “Cairo” former Sec. of State Dean Rusk, then a young political officer in the South East Asia Command, signaled Washington for instructions on French Indochina. He never got a response.] Furthermore, it was always America’s idealistic aim to set new standards for mutual respect and benefit, even while it had not yet cleaned up its own racist backyard.
Washington learned quickly managing alliances never comes easy, even with hegemonic power. The reason is obvious: too many conflicting demands. Still Pres. Harry Truman’s good old Midwestern common sense, gifted European leadership, and American dough-re-me, girded Western Europe to defeat the Soviet challenge. Although we may well look aghast at today’s tatters, NATO was perhaps the most successful alliance in history, winning a long, costly struggle – “peacefully”.
You wouldn’t know that, of course, listening to the self-deprecation and, indeed, abysmal groveling, of the Obama Administration. That alone would have torpedoed current American prestige and strategy, unhinged by Islamic terrorism and an abrupt end to the most prosperous era in world history – gained in no small part through trillions of dollars in U.S. generosity still continuing to client states.
The Obama Administration, though, was intent on “leading from behind”. Too clever by half, as our British cousins would say, forgotten were the first elements in any alliance: at least temporary loyalty to a common cause, and stalwart if sometimes painful leadership by example. First there were petty insults to the Brits – return of Churchill’s bust from the Oval office, gimcrackery for the Queen, etc. Instead of securing an Iraq alliance at the heart of the Arab/Muslim world, there was a hallelujahed withdrawal timetable. There is, apparently, coming abandonment of a Kabul regime on lifesupport long before victory. Vociferous equating of Israeli and Palestinian claims doomed any accommodation there, especially after a problematic “Arab Spring” explosion demonstrated Israeli-Arab relations was only one, and probably not the most important, Mideast problem..
In all these instances, typically, semiruptures came with American media piling-on, campaigns of fact and fiction about the steadfastness, or lack thereof, of allies. This tactic flouts -- particularly with third world countries -- the obvious: helping inept, corrupt regimes to modernize is the name of the game. Were that not true, America would not be there in the first place.
Now in the election silly season, Obama Administration foreign policy proceeds on autopilot. Not only are arms – required under U.S. law – denied Taiwan but “a high official Administration source” publicly trashes the opposition candidate in the upcoming January presidential elections. Regarding Pakistan, whose overwhelming problem is dysfunctional government, Washington chooses war on the front pages and NPR, simultaneously publicly delivering ultimata. These latter may, in the end, turn bluff given the critical role that country’s geography and its menace of becoming a factory for creating jihadists [with nukes] on a half a billion impoverished, semiliterate Muslim base.
Alas! It is all too reminiscent of the unlearned lessons in the demise of the South Vietnam alliance now a half century ago after loss of 58,000 American lives and enormous treasure. Pompous media, including some conservatives, are still repeating old clichés. No wonder Washington doesn’t seem to have learned a lot about running alliances. Perfidious Albion, indeed!
— Sol Sanders, a veteran international correspondent, writes weekly on the intersection of politics, business and economics, can be reached at solsanders@cox.net and blogs at http://www.yeoldecrabb.wordpress.com
Sws-9-30-11
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are most of the 'commenters' here being paid by Vladimir Putin?
To a man (person) you all read and sound like Russia Today (a 'television 'news' station) ... which happens to be a Putin propaganda organ. Get some reality in your anit-semitic banker fetish paranoia fantasies ... and I dislike Goldman Sachs and merrill Lynch way greater than the average person ... ofr real true exp[erien ce drivend reasons ....not some Occupy Walll Street fantasy
"Alas! It is all too reminiscent of the unlearned lessons in the demise of the South Vietnam alliance now a half century ago after loss of 58,000 American lives and enormous treasure. Pompous media, including some conservatives, are still repeating old clichés. "
What a fucking idiot. Guess what? If we'd kept up the fight in Vietnam for our beloved 'alliance' (with as corrupt a regime as you could have ever found), why, we'd still be fighting in Vietnam. Instead, we took our troops home and, guess what, no dominoes fell, the world did not fall into communist hands and now we can surf some great waves all up the Vietnamese coast, get some Pho and maybe a hot Vietnamese chick and all without the fear, as in the old days, that some kid strapped with dynamite is gonna come in and blow us up.
Jeez, "Uncle" Sol, this empire is crashing, and you want to examine history to find a point in the past where it could have been saved? Let it go already. Good riddance.
Well, firstly, I hope the "version that gets published on WT" is an edited version :P. This is almost unreadable gibberish.
Secondly, while the US invasion of the middle east is mostly banker driven (the rest christian-zionist supplication), I'd have to say that our failure to arm taiwan is the largest failure in his entire foreign policy career. Taiwan becoming the next hong kong would be like insurance that China will be forced to become capitalist in the future.
Oh yeah, I forgot, Obama is a communist. Go figure.
Obama sucks, but he's not a communist. He's a fascist.
Sorry to rain on your history parade, Sol; but it was the American taxpayer who defeated the 'communist menace' (Gosh, without those commie demons we would never have developed the military/industrial complex or is it simplex?). Reagan and his ilk always thoroughly enjoyed taking credit for what the average Joe wound up paying for and never received a speck of credit for.
International politics is filled with characters typecast by professional wrestling. The Good Guy, The Bad Guy, The Doofus, The Clown are all present and acting out their roles. While we're all distracted, the pickpockets, burglars and flim-flam artists are robbing everyone blind. If people understood the power of real money, they wouldn't be fooled by this paper stage play.
http://georgesblogforum.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/from-babylon-to-the-uni...
Let us look closer at our current WWF match:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1RHMZRb-B8&feature=player_detailpage
looks like that paper thingy is still foolin folks.
I try every day to be a pacifist, no violence ever for any reason. If they lined the people up who did this and strapped nuclear weapons to their backs I don't think I'd flinch (as long as we were safe from the fallout). Is there any fate too awful for these people? They make man-devouring sharks seem wholesome and lovely.
If I want this I'll get it on Fox news.
After readiing all the posts stupid is as stupid does I always say
Was that you, Rupert?
how could Obama be surprised? according to suskind’s own account, in this book, Obama was getting inside wall street information from the ceo of ubs americas bob wolf since at least 2006 summer, as to the on coming collapse, but here suskind, makes obama look wonder-eyed.
according to suskind, this was the reason obama jumped ahead of clinton in iowa.
according to renowned journalist john pilger and according to obama himself, he worked for service international corporation, an admitted cia front company.
obama knew what was coming, he was playing the perfect part, dialectically tailor-made for him - after 8 years of the cheney-bush neo-con junta - for millions of suckers desperate on hopium, stranded on the margins.
did Obama really warn main street voters that were desperately seeking someone, anyone to be on their side?
of course not, instead, as any politician would, he used the information to maximize his wall street money operations in order to get elected.
In this sense, he betrayed not only himself, but also the democrat fdr, lbj legacy and worse, he put up for pawn, the legacy of mlk and malcolm x, and hundreds of years of civil rights wars against feudal minded elites
suskind’s book is a statist rehabilitation of the ante & post status quo, inter alia, just like hirsch and chimp bush.
if you notice, this happens every administration along with the principles’ own books , narratives and agitprop.
source: http://falsepolitics.wordpress.com/
From the article:
"Harry Truman’s good old Midwestern common sense, gifted European leadership, and American dough-re-me, girded Western Europe to defeat the Soviet challenge."
Are you kidding? Truman hoisting the apostate state of Israel on the planet earth is the single greatest threat to human kind since he and the UN did it.
Who here thinks "Israel" is the fulfillment of the Old Testament?
"You wouldn’t know that, of course, listening to the self-deprecation and, indeed, abysmal groveling, of the Obama Administration."
You call self-depracating telling the world to suck up any and every acre of land Israel steals daily from Palestine? What the hell does the USA get from protecting Israel except for 9-11 (the USA caused 9-11 either way: either we actually blew up the buildings or OBL did it for the exact reasons he said he would in his '96 Declaration of War...read it if you have not yet). It's not because Islam hates the West, it's because we're in Islam's house telling Islam to ESAD.
Sol Sanders :
A simplistic overview of pax americana and its waywardness. Its coming demise, like for all empires, comes from entropic decay from within, rather than from foreign enemy action. Hubristic play by home-bred Oligarchs that boomerangs and backfires like a retro aimed Stinger missile, over sixty years.
As for the Muslim fundamentalist backlash, alike the previous Communist regression : The second resulted from decadent European industrial age type colonialism aftermath, the first from pure US hegemony play on world scale. WHy this conclusion on the first front (I assume the second is admitted as self-evident since 1914-1945 European Armageddon)?
Consider this : Pakistan was ARTIFICIALLY created by the Brits, as typical divide and rule play when they reluctantly dismembered the jewel in their crown in 1947, post 1945 economic debacle and FDR's dictat..."Free market economies, democracy and decolonisation world-wide in "free world". However, under the fear of domino theory collapse post Dien-Bien-Phu and Korean War, the US decided to bring down all "non aligned" third world regimes à la Bandung Conference 1955 (JF Dulles Doctrine). They installed Military regime in Pak in 1956 to destabilise Nehru, the last recalcitrant "non-aligned". They did not succeed in destabilising India. But they made Pak a bastion of Islamic fundamentalisim thanks to surrogate PAk military rule post 1956 military aid deal as counter-weight and persistent thorn in India's back. Subsequently and more importantly, via ZIA ul Huq, American point man after his role as Pak mercenary regiment leader of Black September brigade to oust Arafat from Jordan in 1970 where he became tabbed by CIA as "their Pinochet" for Pakistan, they developed a regional anti-Soviet fire wall. Zia installed fundamentalism in Pak in 1979 to fight Soviet, created Talibans etc. That country, which had never known muslim fundamentalism in Pathan tribal regions since partition in 1947, in ten years, thanks to CIA -ISI collusion, became rabid Islamist stronghold in 1980s. Thank you very much Imperial USA for this machivellian twist to that hell-in making on earth for the decades to come. Cynical conquistador play, that along with the explosion of heroin trade, destroys US's proclaimed role of benign, magnanimous world leader role, who got "naively caught" in the world great game "honey trap", like a innocent by-stander, who did not understand the corruption of retrograde, third world regions of old world of devious oriental bend...etc. Oh the intolerable burden of white man in far away, barbaric lands...
Similarly, in the Middle-east, since FDR's handshake with Saud in 1945, the ME oil patch became strategic Jerusalem for West. There again, the US MIC excelled itself by building regional alliances with THE TWO MOST RETROGRADE REGIMES OF THE REGION : THE WAHHABITE SAUDS AND THE APARTHEID ZIONISTS. YOU CAN'T GET MORE UN-AMERICAN AND ANTI LAND OF FREEDOM, IMPERIALISTCALLY CALLOUS AND ROMAN LEGION THAN THAT. TWO unsustainable PILLARS of regression to uphold pax amercana! Now with the Arab spring...the chickens come home.
SO THE USA HAS DUG ITS OWN GRAVE OF HEGEMONIC COLLAPSE AND IRAN/OBL's inevitable reactionary BACKLASH. SINCE THOSE early DAYS local democracy was systematically stifled and all that remained was rabid, reactionary patriotism. In the Middle east like elsewhere around the world, that type of NEW world order will be called to avow its real motives in the coming years as history unwinds the hidden threads.
Lincoln said at Gettysburg : "No nation, half slave half free...". The US adminstrations since 1949 have spat on that mantra abroad in dependent countries to the eternal shame of those who believed in those famous words and their sequel ..."A day in Infamy"...bringing USA to save Europe.
So Sol Sanders, I suggest you somewhat re-appraise the reasons of US imperial decline in a more "historically relevant" mind set than your "naive" geopolitical rant, that cherry picks rather than pin points salient facts and their consequences.
Islamic fundamentalism has been nourished and nurtured by US imperialism for geopolitical reasons; just like Israeii zionism. The OIL PATCH...has polluted the US mindset. The armies of the ninth Crusade; the expression is from Claus-Levi Strauss, a jewish-french Ethnologue; and wahhabism, have dug the graves of Arab-Persian secular evolution à la Mossadegh-Nasser, since those early 1950 years, when Kermit Roosevelt...well you know the rest!
Bam! Falak wins.
Magnificent
@BR np
Hear, hear!
H/T to GoinFawr.
"YOU CAN'T GET MORE UN-AMERICAN"?
Watch them. The confiscation of gold and retirement accounts will be the poison cherry on the USA sundae.
Impressive response to Sanders.
Hey how about some comments on the ARTICLE?
The issues raised in the posted ARTICLE above are serious, reasonable, and relevant economically. These types of international mis-steps result in political problems, that have often severe economic impact. Thankfully the US economy is strong and well positioned to handle any problems........
More neocon horseshit.
The "history" offered is a dead giveaway. Please, no more of this. It is an insult to the very real virtues embodied in this blog.
Amen.
It is interesting that few understand that the US Military is the enforcement arm of the global banking cartel. Remember what Ike warned? So true then, more true now. If anyone still thinks that the invasion of Lybia was for humanitarian reasons, there is a bridge in Brooklyn that I have clear title to and will sell at a steal.
Everything this god-forsaken hell hole of a country does is primarily for the oligarchs.
Cali RE:
"...even with the financial firepower of the Federal Reserve home prices will fall to a level supported by local family incomes. The reason is obvious although severely underreported. Local area households need to pay for their home through the income their household generates.
Given the state of the California economy with a headline unemployment rate of 12.1 percent and an underemployment rate closer to 23 percent household earnings simply cannot support current home prices in many cities.
Now that people are looking at housing with a surgeon’s perspective instead of a Nothing-Down-Hawaiian-Shirt state of mind, we still have a way to go until we reach any semblance of a normal market. Let us look carefully at the overall picture here and see where we stand today."
Dr Housing Bubble gives the facts...just the facts:
http://www.doctorhousingbubble.com/california-home-owner-problem-making-...
Cali RE is toast. See you in 2035.
Who give a sh!t about what this guy is saying?
What do YOU care about? The next lineup on Dancing with the Stars? Have you found anything on ZH that you liked? I haven't spotted one so far. Why are you here?
Let's just keep it real here. I don't care for neo-con BS.
Shouldn't you be preparing for hibernation, Rocky?
The Federal Reserve is neither Federal nor a "Reserve". This private bank run by the "Bank of England" has been stripping the US of its assets since the days of Andrew Jackson. If the $16,000,000,000,000.00 given away secretly, since 2007, to the member banks isn't reason enough to overhaul our entire government financial system then our country is doomed to financial failure. You won't read this in the mainstream media....but it may emerge in the coming elections. Read about this first ever audit of the Fed and understand why we are in such trouble. Tuesday, September 27, 2011 First Ever GAO Audit Of The Federal Reserve
(You can click on the site and read the report).
The first ever GAO audit of the Federal Reserve was carried out in the past few months due to the Ron Paul, Alan Grayson Amendment to the Dodd-Frank bill, which passed last year. Jim DeMint, a Republican Senator, and Bernie Sanders, an independent Senator, led the charge for a Federal Reserve audit in the Senate, but watered down the original language of the house bill (HR1207), so that a complete audit would not be carried out. Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan, and various other bankers vehemently opposed the audit and lied to Congress about the effects an audit would have on markets. Nevertheless, the results of the first audit in the Federal Reserve nearly 100 year history were posted on Senator Sanderâs webpage earlier this morning.
sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9e2a4ea8-6e73-4be2-a753-62060dcbb3c3 (Summarized below)
What was revealed in the audit was startling:
$16,000,000,000,000.00 (TRILLION) had been secretly given out to US banks and corporations and foreign banks everywhere from France to Scotland. From the period between December 2007 and June 2010, the Federal Reserve had secretly bailed out many of the worldâs banks, corporations, and governments. The Federal Reserve likes to refer to these secret bailouts as an all-inclusive loan program, but virtually none of the money has been returned and it was loaned out at 0% interest.
Why the Federal Reserve had never been public about this or even informed the United States Congress about the $16 trillion dollar bailout is obvious the American public would have been outraged to find out that the Federal Reserve bailed out foreign banks while Americans were struggling to find jobs. To place $16 trillion into perspective, remember that GDP of the United States is only $14.12 trillion. The entire national debt of the United States government spanning its 200+ year history is only $14.5 trillion.
The budget that is being debated so heavily in Congress and the Senate is only $3.5 trillion. Take all of the outrage and debate over the $1.5 trillion deficit into consideration, and swallow this Red pill: There was no debate about whether $16,000,000,000,000 would be given to failing banks and failing corporations around the world. In late 2008, the TARP Bailout bill was passed and loans of $800 billion were given to failing banks and companies. That was a blatant lie considering the fact that Goldman Sachs alone received 814 billion dollars. As is turns out, the Federal Reserve donated $2.5 trillion to Citigroup, while Morgan Stanley received $2.04 trillion. The Royal Bank of Scotland and Deutsche Bank, a German bank, split about a trillion and numerous other banks received hefty chunks of the $16 trillion. ****
When you have conservative Republican stalwarts like Jim DeMint(R-SC) and Ron Paul(R-TX) as well as self-identified Democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders all fighting against the Federal Reserve, you know that it is no longer an issue of Right versus Left. When you have every single member of the Republican Party in Congress and progressive Congressmen like Dennis Kucinich sponsoring a bill to audit the Federal Reserve, you realize that the Federal Reserve is an entity onto itself, which has no oversight and no accountability.
Americans should be swelled with anger and outrage at the abysmal state of affairs when an unelected group of bankers can create money out of thin air and give it out to megabanks and super-corporations like Halloween candy.
The list of institutions which received the most money from the Federal Reserve can be found on page 131 of the GAO Audit and are as follows:
Citigroup: $2.5 trillion($2,500,000,000,000)
Morgan Stanley: $2.04 trillion ($2,040,000,000,000)
Merrill Lynch: $1.949 trillion ($1,949,000,000,000)
Bank of America: $1.344 trillion ($1,344,000,000,000)
Barclays PLC (United Kingdom): $868 billion* ($868,000,000,000)
Bear Sterns: $853 billion ($853,000,000,000)
Goldman Sachs: $814 billion ($814,000,000,000)
Royal Bank of Scotland (UK): $541 billion ($541,000,000,000)
JP Morgan Chase: $391 billion ($391,000,000,000)
Deutsche Bank (Germany): $354 billion ($354,000,000,000)
UBS (Switzerland): $287 billion ($287,000,000,000)
Credit Suisse (Switzerland): $262 billion ($262,000,000,000)
Lehman Brothers: $183 billion ($183,000,000,000)
Bank of Scotland (United Kingdom): $181 billion ($181,000,000,000)
BNP Paribas (France): $175 billion ($175,000,000,000)
IT WILL BE INTERESTING AS TO HOW MUCH ATTENTION (AS WELL AS THE SLANT) THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA GIVES THIS UNBELIEVABLE POSITION OF OUR GOVERNMENT HAS PLACED US IN WITH NEVER PREVIOUSLY HAVING AN AUDIT OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE.
I AM CONFIDENT THAT WE WILL HEAR SOMETHING LIKE THE FED HAD TO GIVE STIMULUS TO WHOM THE $16 TRILLION WENT TOO BECAUSE IF WE HAD NOT ALLOWED THIS IT WOULD BE THEIR COLLAPSE AND THE OURS.
HAS ANYONE EVER HEARD OF CLOWARD AND PIVEN ECONOMICS? (PARAPHRASING) IT INVOLVES TWO HARVARD PROFESSORS WHOSE BOOK SAID TO CHANGE ANY GOVERNMENTâS ECONOMIC SYSTEM INTO A SOCIALIST ONE, IT SIMPLY DRIVES THEIR ECONOMY INTO THE DITCH THEN THE CITIZENS ALLOW THE GOVERNMENT TO DO WHAT THEY WISH TO SAVE THEM
We have been bought, sold, collateralized, sliced, diced, and fucked so totally over that trying to hold your shit in will require stuffing your asshole with a blanket. Life is good at the top of the pyramid...........
Ever since Alexander Hamilton, who set up the first Bank of the United States. Jefferson shut it down, and England immediately provoked America into the War of 1812, forcing James Madison to set it back up again to "finance" the war. Andrew Jackson shut it down a second time.
They don't want you to see that the revolution can be real.
Occupy Maine - rain or shine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoCKOPSenPY
Occupy Asheville, NC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8xTDvopzRIU
http://www.mountainx.com/article/35891/Occupy-Asheville-opens-with-assem...
Occupy Seattle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my0-m2_apZ8
Occupy Denver in front of Federal Reserve
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ap6KEfVoZM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lop4HllGKcU
Occupy Austin, TX
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53lsRCn4FHg
Occupy San Antonio, TX
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INgl_jHkfm0&NR=1
Occupy Portland
http://vimeo.com/29899204
Occupy Los Angeles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZr5NS19mw0
Occupy San Francisco - Marines joining in
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPQOU1KNF0U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIgP1FlqRnA
Occupy DC in starting protest against corporate personhood
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uABmme8C_7c&feature=player_embedded
Occupy Chicago in front of the Federal Reserve
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luON3CNuq3A&NR=1
Occupy Boston - "Fuck the Fed"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fV0YjQQzYk
Occupy Wall Street New York 500 arrested on Brooklyn Bridge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yULSI-31Pto
More launching near you: http://www.occupytogether.org/
It is a class war. 1% vs 99%. Make banksters pay!
$1.2 Million bonuses for my broker this year are what he is expecting....maybe he will not be able to refurbish his $3.2 million yacht this year?
part of the money goes to buy the police and government.
JPMorgan Chase recently donated an unprecedented $4.6 million to the New York City Police Foundation. The gift was the largest in the history of the foundation
http://www.jpmorganchase.com/corporate/Home/article/ny-13.htm?TB_iframe=...
Your Post SILVERGEDDON could have been the main post. Like the MSM tells the sheeple over and over again how to think.
Your post should be said over and over until it reaches the Sheeple. I doubt it, but they may just start thinking for themselves.
Hence, they may act in their own behalf instead of buying the garbage they don't need. Both physical garbage and mental garbage.
So..... Are you saying buy? Or sell?.......