Friday, August 26, 2011

Down Mexico way

President Drone continues to live up to his name:
American Predator and Global Hawk drones now fly deep over Mexico to capture video of drug production facilities and smuggling routes. Manned American aircraft fly over Mexican targets to eavesdrop on cellphone communications. And the D.E.A. has set up an intelligence outpost — staffed by Central Intelligence Agency operatives and retired American military personnel — on a Mexican military base.
How long before they start firing missiles at our brown neighbors to the south? It would take just one 'incident' to kick start selective elimination of kingpins and then soldiers of the cartels, and Mexico may piss and moan, but certainly the current leadership just can't say no to drones, anymore than the US can say no to drugs.

Expanding the drone wars to Central and South America is clearly in the cards. We haven't heard about drones in Columbia yet, not that that means they're not there, but maybe the NYT will have another scoop for us, by and by, as soon as the administration is ready to leak it.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Mismanagement?

Fantasists such as Juan Cole have now achieved their triumph in Libya, and are probably now ready to turn their guns on other hapless peoples that need to be liberated.

Their premiss for 'humanitarian' intervention is that once the evil dictator has been forced out, the liberated people will be able to live in peace and harmony. What they fail to add is that peace and harmony will require ongoing military action, bombing, torture, targeted assassination, etc.

Then after many years of ongoing destruction, they will announce that the occupation was mismanaged. But they are wrong, they just never understood the process.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Pots and kettles

President Drone has conferred with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and David Cameron of Great Britian:
Obama and Abdullah agreed that the “Syrian regime’s brutal campaign of violence against the Syrian people must end immediately,” the White House statement said. During the call with Cameron, the two leaders “reiterated their belief that the Syrian people’s legitimate demands for a transition to democracy should be met,” according to a separate statement.
One wonders if Obama discussed the people of Saudi Arabia's legitimate demands for a transition to democracy. Maybe not, since all demonstrations are banned in Saudi Arabia, perhaps Obama doesn't believe that Saudis desire democracy and that they are enamored with being ruled by a sclerotic monarch, propped up by the US. One could also ask if he knows that the majority Shiites in Bahrain protest for democracy, and their protests were ruthlessly repressed by their clownish king, with the help of the popular Abdullah's army?

Certainly Bloomberg's reporter couldn't remember such ironic facts, or at least chose not to report them at this time. After all, it's all about Syria now, isn't it? Oh, and Libya.

Friday, August 12, 2011

Oh, NOz!@!

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Holy Bastille Day, Batman!

Some political theater.

The guillotine in Tel Aviv Photo: B. Eitan 

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

All the news...

That's not fit to print. As Israel's protests enter fourth week there is practically no coverage in the US press, and certainly not the photo shown below.

Also, I wonder if the Congresscritters visiting Israel courtesy of AIPAC are interested. I doubt it.

Ha'aretz photo:

Confidence

Confidence is one of the major goals of the Obama administration, it is its magic wand that will reduce or eliminate all problems. President Drone himself seems to calculate every word and action to best promote confidence, and uses every trick in the book to have the press repeat ad nauseum today's confidence building pablum. He apparently does little else.

I don't believe there is a web site in the western world that isn't trumpeting the news that the Taliban that shot down the helicopter with Navy Seals on board have been killed. How these individuals were identified both as the shooters and as being dead is left up to the imagination of the reader, but since a top general said it, it must be true.

In the calculations of the administration, we can see how this news was necessary to recreate the lost confidence in the Afghan mission. The docility of the press has reached new levels under Obama, the unrelenting and unrelieved propaganda about Libya and Syria, the silence about Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen, etc., the killing of Osama, are all incredibly orchestrated. Now we have another example. The orchestra is supposed to drown out actuality, which none the less keeps rearing its ugly head.

Tuesday, August 09, 2011

Free money forever!

Well, for two years, but that's like forever to the Fed.

The transition from despair to euphoria, and vice versa, takes place these days within minutes, and the previous emotion is forgotten as if it never existed.

2013 is past the election, so as a date it comes as no surprise, but the effect of continued low interest rates won't content the markets for long. The gorilla in the room remains, the paper owned by the banks that is worth bupkes, and the bupkes have been leveraged to the point that it dwarfs the world economy.

Banks now run the world, or most of it, but they're broke. Funny, huh?.

Sunday, August 07, 2011

Today's dictionary lesson

When people take to the streets in London, it's a riot, when they do it in Syria, it's a demonstration.

When police respond in London it's maintaining order, when they do it in Syria, it's repression.

Thursday, August 04, 2011

Don't go, Timmeh!

We don't know whether the irony was inadvertent at the NYT today with its article on Geithner, saying how he is being implored to stay on as Treasury Secretary since he's done such a bang up job and probably cannot be replaced by any mere mortal. Probably not, since the anonymous administration officials were talking to just about every major newspaper, and that takes time to set up. Just a bad coincidence?

Of course, a tanking stock market around the world is just the tip of the humongous iceberg that was left in place by Geithner and Bernanke after the last crisis. But since Geithner, Bernanke and Obama are nothing more than the lackeys of the banksters who need to collect ever more rent from the productive economies, or what's left of them, the only role these clowns have is to appear as the public face of the disaster and pretend that it is only temporary. That's why Geithner has to stay, he's necessary to maintain the illusion that any meaningful action is actually possible, when the Treasury, even if it wanted to, can do nothing to stave off disaster.

Only Bernanke has his hands on the printing press, so the sooner he starts up QE3 the better. True, that would mean that 4, 5 and maybe 6 and 7 might be necessary before the election, but at this point, why quibble. The money is illusory anyway, bypassing the real world, and going directly to the banks and the bourses before being swallowed up by the black hole.