Obama Administration

Until Putin’s speech the world was intimidated by the Washington Bully. Resistance to Washington brought swift retribution. In the Middle East and Africa it brought economic sanctions and military invasions that destroyed entire countries. In France and other US vassal states it brought multi-billion dollar confiscations of bank net worth as the price of not following Washington’s policies toward other countries. Other countries felt powerless in the face of the arrogant hegemonic Unipower, which from time to time replied to noncompliance with threats. President Putin of Russia brought all that to end on September 28. He stood up before the world in the presence of the overflowing hubris of the hegemon and belled the cat.

It was clear what was about to happen in Syria only because we understood one important fundamental – that there are no “sides” in any modern conflict, only proxies fighting on a global chessboard controlled by the same elitist interests. Syria represented a perfect catalyst for a planetary scale conflict triggered between East and West in a way that could divert attention from internationalists. Modern war, whether through kinetics or economics, is almost always theater designed to distract and terrorize the masses, which are the true target of any conflagration.

Whatever the efforts of that expansive corps of intelligence analysts (and the vast intelligence edifice behind it), when anything happens in the Greater Middle East, you can essentially assume that the official American reaction, military and political, will be “surprise” and that policymakers will be left “scrambling” in a quagmire of ignorance to rescue American policy from the unexpected. The evidence, after all, is largely in.  In these years, for what now must be approaching three-quarters of a trillion dollars, the national security state and the military seem to have created an un-intelligence system.  Welcome to the fog of everything.

The reason these articles are so important, is not because they are based on intel leaked by an additional whistleblower (i.e., not Snowden), but because you can’t read the information without concluding quite simply that the U.S. empire is completely and totally out of control. That the plethora of American military adventures overseas are not only not making us safer, but are in fact making us far more vulnerable.

As the old adage goes: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and as the recent bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz clearly shows, the US military presence in Afghanistan is doing wonders for stability and security which is presumably why the Obama administration has just done a 180 on troop deployment in the country.

Admittedly it's not Mayweather-Pacquiao, but Las Vegas is buzzing ahead of tonight's rumble-in-the-jungle between Bernie and The Battle-axe. While Joe Biden remains the most notable absentee (or will he?) there are three other 'debaters' to carry water and towels for Hillary and Bernie as they drag one another left-er and left-er and more populist-er. In the pre-fight Sanders has lobbed some awkward Iraq War questions at 'hawkish' Hillary but as Clinton's 2008 campaign manager notes, "she's rolled out Latinos for Hillary, Women for Hillary, and met the leadership of Black Lives Matter; she has checked a lot of boxes walking into this debate."

The stage is being set for World War III, but most Americans are completely and totally oblivious to all of this because they are so wrapped up in their own little worlds. Most Americans still seem to assume that the Russians and the Chinese are our "friends" and that any type of conflict between major global powers is impossible. Well, the truth is that conflict has already begun in Ukraine and Syria, and tensions are rising with each passing day. It won’t happen next week or next month, but we are on the road to World War III.

Another sad chapter in the CIA's book of failed government overthrows comes to a close, leaving the Syria "rebels" that the CIA had supported for years, to fend for themselves, and handing over Syria to Putin, who has once again "won" or as the administration would prefer to spin it, "has hung himself."

According to the WSJ, the Pentagon is offering "condolence payments" to the civilians injured and the families of those killed by a U.S. airstrike that destroyed a hospital near Kunduz, Afghanistan. Because, the thinking probably goes, human lives are like any other commodity and can be measured in reserve notes. However, what is more disturbing is that since the US prints the world's reserve currency, should Obama proceed to exterminate countless other "collaterally damaged" civilians, all that the US will need to do is print a few more million to wash its - and that of the "free and democratic world" - conscience, and all shall be well in all future cases.

Last weekend we called Obama's latest failed attempt to replace Syria's president for what it is: "this is shaping up to be the most spectacular US foreign policy debacle since Vietnam." Today, less than a week later, we have confirmation that this was correct after first Bloomberg reported that "some top White House advisers and National Security Council staffers are trying to persuade President Barack Obama to scale back U.S. engagement" in Syria, and then a report from the NYT that "the Obama administration has ended the Pentagon’s $500 million program to train and equip Syrian rebels." And just like that Obama folds, again.

In what seems like a nervous populist move amid Bernie Sanders' gains, Hillary Clinton has flip-flopped rather stunningly to oppose President Obama's Trans-Pacific Partnership. Despite supporting the bill at least 45 times, as CNN's Jake Tapper points out, Clinton told PBS' Judy Woodruff Wednesday in Iowa that, "As of today, I am not in favor of what I have learned about it." It's also a departure from the Clinton legacy, as CNN notes, it was President Bill Clinton who, two decades ago, signed the first mega-regional pact: the North American Free Trade Agreement.

"This is a real war on Sunnis, their countries and their identities. Join a jihad against the enemy of God and your enemy and Muslims will back you every way they can."

The popular belief that the U.S. economy has been steadily recovering has endured months of disappointing data without losing much of its appeal. But the downright dismal September jobs report that was released last Friday may prove to be the flashing red beacon that even the most skilled apologists can't explain away. But rather than questioning the Fed's credibility in missing another forecast, most economists are lauding it for supposedly seeing weakness that others missed, which allowed it to wisely do nothing in September. But this is simply a continuation of the Fed's long-standing playbook: Talk the economy up through optimistic statements while continually holding off an actual rate hike that the Fed is concerned could undermine an economy teetering on the brink of recession.

Once again the corporatocracy wins as the so-called "Trojan horse" Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement has been finalized. As WSJ reports, the U.S., Japan and 10 countries around the Pacific reached a historic accord Monday to lower trade barriers to goods and services and set commercial rules of the road for two-fifths of the global economy, officials said.