This post includes 3 articales. Make sure to read the last 2,
American Pussies Beg Iran To Talk To Them
Vlad Kalashnikov ( Email ) on April 9, 2008
Vlad’s Daily Gloat
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Six
years ago, arrogant President George Bush accused three countries of
“An Axis of Evil”: they were Iraq, North Korea, and Iran. Back then,
Americans, drunken from deranged imperialism, were sure that they will
defeat these three small-time third world countries easily. “We’re
Number One, man!” they cried, giving each other high-fives.
Now, six years later, let us look at the difference between deranged American fantasy, and cruel reality.
IRAQ. It’s five years, and America still cannot defeat
“dead-enders,” stuck in a quagmire that costs $3 trillion dollars
(sure, it’s only monkey-dollars, not real currency like Rubles, but to
poor bankrupt Americans, that’s a lot of money), bankrupting the
empire, and destroying they army. Like most of a civilized world, I
want to see America bleed in Iraq for as long as possible, because a
blood-thirsty nation of brutes like America needs to hurt in order to
stop acting like madmen. That is wishful thinking, I know, to expect
civilized behavior from a most bloodthirsty empire since the time of
Hitler, but so long as America bleeds in Iraq, they CANNOT invade
anywhere, even if they want to! Thank god, Americans are such
dumbfucks, they do exactly what I hope, what Russians, Iranians,
Chinese, Europeans, Latin American, etc. want, according to a Guardian article:
A confidential draft agreement covering the future
of US forces in Iraq, passed to the Guardian, shows that provision is
being made for an open-ended military presence in the country.
Meanwhile the Gen. Petraeus
now doesn’t even want to allow some minor troop withdraws from Iraq,
everything going so fucking shitty there for Americans, he’s afraid:
Telling
Congress that progress in Iraq was “fragile and reversible,” the top
American commander recommended Tuesday that consideration of any new
withdrawals of American troops be delayed until the fall, making it
likely that little would change before Election Day.
The commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus, refused under
persistent questioning from Senate Democrats to say under what
conditions he would favor new troop reductions, adding that he would
not take the matter up until 45 days after a current drawdown is
complete in July. His recommendation would leave just under 140,000
American troops in Iraq well into the fall.
So, everything is completely in shit in Iraq, America will stay there “indefinitely.” That’s really pleasing news.
Next, second “evil enemy” NORTH KOREA.
They are actually the cleverest of the three. They understood right
away that America is a fag country that talks a lot, but is scared of
getting hurt. So, while Bush threatened North Koreans, they quietly
built their atom bomb, without interruptions, tested missiles that can
reach California, and finally, tested their nuclear bomb. That scared a
shit out of cowardly Americans. They now came crawling back to North
Korea, begging to “talk.” That’s where they are today.
Last, IRAN. What scares American
fags is Iran’s nuclear program. A real serious power would not wait
around like fags, if it is really a threat, they will destroy that
threat. So, is America a real power, or a fag power? I give you the
evidence:
Evidence #1: Iran just kicked Americans asses in recent Iraq battles, as War Nerd explains in the current eXile issue:
What
happened in Iraq this week was a beautiful lesson in the weird laws of
guerrilla warfare. Unfortunately, it was the Americans who got
schooled. Even now, people at my office are saying, “We won, right?
Sadr told his men to give up, right?”
Wrong. Sadr won big. Iran won even bigger. Maliki, Petraeus and Cheney lost.
Evidence #2: Iran, like North Korea, doesn’t give shit what America says, so they are continuing , with Russian help, that makes me very satisfied!
President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced major progress in Iran’s push for nuclear
power, saying Tuesday that his nation was installing thousands of new
uranium-enriching centrifuges and testing a much faster version of the
device.
Ahmadinejad said scientists were putting 6,000 new
centrifuges into place, about twice the current number, and testing a
new type that works five times faster.
That would represent a major expansion of uranium
enrichment – a process that can produce either fuel for a nuclear
reactor or material for a warhead. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice cautioned, however, that the claim could not be immediately substantiated.
Iran has about 3,000 centrifuges operating at its underground nuclear
facility in Natanz – the commonly accepted figure for a nuclear
enrichment program that is past the experimental stage and can be used
as a platform for a full industrial-scale program that could churn out
enough enriched material for dozens of nuclear weapons over time.
The part I like is how Rice “cautioned” that the claim could not be
“substantiated.” Didn’t Bush puss out that same way after a North
Korean atom bomb test? Pretend it did not happen, just as they pretend
everything in Iraq going great?
Evidence #3: Amerifag response to Iran teasing them. “Please, pretty please with a sugar, can we talk about it, Mister Ahmadinejad, sir?”
TEHRAN, April 7, 2008 (AFP) – Iran
announced on Monday that it had received a “request” from its arch-foe
the United States to hold a fourth round of talks on security in Iraq.
“We have received a new request from US officials through a formal note
for holding talks on Iraq and we are looking into the issue,” foreign
ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told reporters.
He said that the note had been received through the Swiss embassy in
Tehran, which looks after US interests in the Islamic republic in the
absence of a US mission.
Jesus christ, you Americans are really a world’s biggest fags! Everywhere you get your asses kicked. Last week, you surrender to
Russia over Ukraine and Georgia. This week, you beg Iran for five
minutes their time. I wonder, can America even conquer a little island,
with no people, just birds and monkeys? I doubt it. You really should
just go back to your country, because dumbfucks should be with
dumbfucks, losers with the losers. It is more safe for your type in a
land of Burger Kings and Wal Mart.
–Vlad Kalashnikov
———————————————————————————————————————————————
The End of the World as You Know It
…and the Rise of the New Energy World Order
By Michael T. Klare
17/04/08 ” Tomdispatch” — -Oil at $110 a barrel. Gasoline at $3.35 (or more) per gallon. Diesel fuel at $4 per gallon.
Independent truckers forced off the road. Home heating oil rising to unconscionable price levels. Jet fuel so expensive hat three low-cost airlines stopped flying in the past few weeks. This is just a taste of the latest energy news, signaling profound change in how all of us, in this country and around the world, are going to live — trends that, so far as anyone an predict, will only become more pronounced as energy supplies dwindle and the global struggle over their allocation intensifies.
Energy of all sorts was once hugely abundant, making possible the worldwide economic expansion of the past six decades. his expansion benefited the United States above all — along with its “First World” allies in Europe and the Pacific. ecently, however, a select group of former “Third World” countries — China and India in particular — have sought to participate n this energy bonanza by industrializing their economies and selling a wide range of goods to international markets. This, in turn, has led to an unprecedented spurt in global energy consumption — a 47% rise in the past 20 years alone, according to the U.S.
Department of Energy (DoE).
An increase of this sort would not be a matter of deep anxiety if the world’s primary energy suppliers were capable of producing he needed additional fuels. Instead, we face a frightening reality: a marked slowdown in the expansion of global energy supplies just s demand rises precipitously. These supplies are not exactly disappearing — though that will occur sooner or later — but they are not
growing fast enough to satisfy soaring global demand.
The combination of rising demand, the emergence of powerful new energy consumers, and the contraction of the global energy supply is
demolishing the energy-abundant world we are familiar with and creating in its place a new world order. Think of it as: ising powers/shrinking planet.
This new world order will be characterized by fierce international competition for dwindling stocks of oil, natural gas, coal, nd uranium, as well as by a tidal shift in power and wealth from energy-deficit states like China, Japan, and the United States to nergy-surplus states like Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. In the process, the lives of everyone will be affected in one way or nother — with poor and middle-class consumers in the energy-deficit states experiencing the harshest effects. That’s most of us and
our children, in case you hadn’t quite taken it in.
Here, in a nutshell, are five key forces in this new world order which will change our planet:
1. Intense competition between older and newer economic powers for available supplies of energy: Until very recently, the mature ndustrial powers of Europe, Asia, and North America consumed the lion’s share of energy and left the dregs for the developing world. As recently as 1990, the members of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the club of the world’s richest
nations, consumed approximately 57% of world energy; the Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact bloc, 14% percent; and only 29% was left to the
developing world. But that ratio is changing: With strong economic growth in the developing countries, a greater proportion of the orld’s energy is being consumed by them. By 2010, the developing world’s share of energy use is expected to reach 40% and, if current trends persist, 47% by 2030.
China plays a critical role in all this. The Chinese alone are projected to consume 17% of world energy by 2015, and 20% by 025 — by which time, if trend lines continue, it will have overtaken the United States as the world’s leading energy consumer.
India, which, in 2004, accounted for 3.4% of world energy use, is projected to reach 4.4% percent by 2025, while consumption in ther rapidly industrializing nations like Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Turkey is expected to grow as well.
These rising economic dynamos will have to compete with the mature economic powers for access to remaining untapped reserves f exportable energy — in many cases, bought up long ago by the private energy firms of the mature powers like Exxon Mobil, hevron, BP, Total of France, and Royal Dutch Shell. Of necessity, the new contenders have developed a potent strategy for ompeting with the Western “majors”: they’ve created state-owned companies of their own and fashioned strategic alliances with he national oil companies that now control oil and gas reserves in many of the major energy-producing nations.
China’s Sinopec, for example, has established a strategic alliance with Saudi Aramco, the nationalized giant once owned by hevron and Exxon Mobil, to explore for natural gas in Saudi Arabia and market Saudi crude oil in China. Likewise, the China ational Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) will collaborate with Gazprom, the massive state-controlled Russian natural gas monopoly, o build pipelines and deliver Russian gas to China. Several of these state-owned firms, including CNPC and India’s Oil and Natural
Gas Corporation, are now set to collaborate with Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. in developing the extra-heavy crude of the Orinoco belt once controlled by Chevron. In this new stage of energy competition, the advantages long enjoyed by Western energy majors has been eroded by vigorous, state-backed upstarts from the developing world.
2. The insufficiency of primary energy supplies: The capacity of the global energy industry to satisfy demand is shrinking.
By all accounts, the global supply of oil will expand for perhaps another half-decade before reaching a peak and beginning to
decline, while supplies of natural gas, coal, and uranium will probably grow for another decade or two before peaking and
commencing their own inevitable declines. In the meantime, global supplies of these existing fuels will prove incapable of
reaching the elevated levels demanded.
Take oil. The U.S. Department of Energy claims that world oil demand, expected to reach 117.6 million barrels per day in 2030,
will be matched by a supply that — miracle of miracles — will hit exactly 117.7 million barrels (including petroleum liquids
derived from allied substances like natural gas and Canadian tar sands) at the same time. Most energy professionals, however,
consider this estimate highly unrealistic. “One hundred million barrels is now in my view an optimistic case,” the CEO of Total,
Christophe de Margerie, typically told a London oil conference in October 2007. “It is not my view; it is the industry view,
or the view of those who like to speak clearly, honestly, and [are] not just trying to please people.”
Similarly, the authors of the Medium-Term Oil Market Report, published in July 2007 by the International Energy Agency,
an affiliate of the OECD, concluded that world oil output might hit 96 million barrels per day by 2012, but was unlikely to
go much beyond that as a dearth of new discoveries made future growth impossible.
Daily business-page headlines point to a vortex of clashing trends: worldwide demand will continue to grow as hundred of
millions of newly-affluent Chinese and Indian consumers line up to purchase their first automobile (some selling for as little
as $2,500); key older “elephant” oil fields like Ghawar in Saudi Arabia and Canterell in Mexico are already in decline or
expected to be so soon; and the rate of new oil-field discoveries plunges year after year. So expect global energy shortages
and high prices to be a constant source of hardship.
3. The painfully slow development of energy alternatives: It has long been evident to policymakers that new sources of
energy are desperately needed to compensate for the eventual disappearance of existing fuels as well as to slow the buildup
of climate-changing “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere. In fact, wind and solar power have gained significant footholds
in some parts of the world. A number of other innovative energy solutions have already been developed and even tested out
in university and corporate laboratories. But these alternatives, which now contribute only a tiny percentage of the world’s
net fuel supply, are simply not being developed fast enough to avert the multifaceted global energy catastrophe that lies ahead.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, renewable fuels, including wind, solar, and hydropower (along with “traditional”
fuels like firewood and dung), supplied but 7.4% of global energy in 2004; biofuels added another 0.3%. Meanwhile, fossil
fuels — oil, coal, and natural gas — supplied 86% percent of world energy, nuclear power another 6%. Based on current rates
of development and investment, the DoE offers the following dismal projection: In 2030, fossil fuels will still account for
exactly the same share of world energy as in 2004. The expected increase in renewables and biofuels is so
slight — a mere 8.1% — as to be virtually meaningless.
In global warming terms, the implications are nothing short of catastrophic: Rising reliance on coal
(especially in China, India, and the United States) means that global emissions of carbon dioxide are projected to rise by 59%
over the next quarter-century, from 26.9 billion metric tons to 42.9 billion tons. The meaning of this is simple.
If these figures hold, there is no hope of averting the worst effects of climate change.
When it comes to global energy supplies, the implications are nearly as dire. To meet soaring energy demand,
we would need a massive influx of alternative fuels, which would mean equally massive investment — in the trillions
of dollars — to ensure that the newest possibilities move rapidly from laboratory to full-scale commercial production;
but that, sad to say, is not in the cards. Instead, the major energy firms (backed by lavish U.S. government subsidies
and tax breaks) are putting their mega-windfall profits from rising energy prices into vastly
expensive (and environmentally questionable) schemes to extract oil and gas from Alaska and the Arctic, or to drill in the deep
and difficult waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. The result? A few more barrels of oil or cubic feet of natural
gas at exorbitant prices (with accompanying ecological damage), while non-petroleum alternatives limp along pitifully.
4. A steady migration of power and wealth from energy-deficit to energy-surplus nations: There are few countries — perhaps
a dozen altogether — with enough oil, gas, coal, and uranium (or some combination thereof) to meet their own energy needs and
provide significant surpluses for export. Not surprisingly, such states will be able to extract increasingly beneficial terms
from the much wider pool of energy-deficit nations dependent on them for vital supplies of energy. These terms, primarily of a
financial nature, will result in growing mountains of petrodollars being accumulated by the leading oil producers, but will also
include political and military concessions.
In the case of oil and natural gas, the major energy-surplus states can be counted on two hands. Ten oil-rich states possess
82.2% of the world’s proven reserves. In order of importance, they are: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates,
Venezuela, Russia, Libya, Kazakhstan, and Nigeria. The possession of natural gas is even more concentrated. Three countries
— Russia, Iran, and Qatar — harbor an astonishing 55.8% of the world supply. All of these countries are in an enviable
position to cash in on the dramatic rise in global energy prices and to extract from potential customers whatever political concessions
they deem important.
The transfer of wealth alone is already mind-boggling. The oil-exporting countries collected an estimated $970 billion from the
importing countries in 2006, and the take for 2007, when finally calculated, is expected to be far higher. A substantial fraction of
these dollars, yen, and euros have been deposited in “sovereign-wealth funds” (SWFs), giant investment accounts owned by the oil
states and deployed for the acquisition of valuable assets around the world. In recent months, the Persian Gulf SWFs have been
taking advantage of the financial crisis in the United States to purchase large stakes in strategic sectors of its economy.
In November 2007, for example, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) acquired a $7.5 billion stake in Citigroup,
America’s largest bank holding company; in January, Citigroup sold an even larger share, worth $12.5 billion, to the
Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) and several other Middle Eastern investors, including Prince Walid bin Talal of Saudi Arabia.
The managers of ADIA and KIA insist that they do not intend to use their newly-acquired stakes in Citigroup and other U.S.
banks and corporations to influence U.S. economic or foreign policy, but it is hard to imagine that a financial shift of this
magnitude, which can only gain momentum in the decades ahead, will not translate into some form of political leverage.
In the case of Russia, which has risen from the ashes of the Soviet Union as the world’s first energy superpower,
it already has. Russia is now the world’s leading supplier of natural gas, the second largest supplier of oil, and a major
producer of coal and uranium. Though many of these assets were briefly privatized during the reign of Boris Yeltsin, President
Vladimir Putin has brought most of them back under state control — in some cases, by exceedingly questionable legal means.
He then used these assets in campaigns to bribe or coerce former Soviet republics on Russia’s periphery reliant on it for the bulk
of their oil and gas supplies. European Union countries have sometimes expressed dismay at Putin’s tactics, but they, too, are
dependent on Russian energy supplies, and so have learned to mute their protests to accommodate growing Russian power in Eurasia.
Consider Russia a model for the new energy world order.
5. A growing risk of conflict: Throughout history, major shifts in power have normally been accompanied by violence
— in some cases, protracted violent upheavals. Either states at the pinnacle of power have struggled to prevent the loss of their
privileged status, or challengers have fought to topple those at the top of the heap. Will that happen now? Will energy-deficit
states launch campaigns to wrest the oil and gas reserves of surplus states from their control — the Bush administration’s war
in Iraq might already be thought of as one such attempt — or to eliminate competitors among their deficit-state rivals?
The high costs and risks of modern warfare are well known and there is a widespread perception that energy problems can best
be solved through economic means, not military ones. Nevertheless, the major powers are employing military means in their efforts
to gain advantage in the global struggle for energy, and no one should be deluded on the subject. These endeavors could easily
enough lead to unintended escalation and conflict.
One conspicuous use of military means in the pursuit of energy is obviously the regular transfer of arms and military-support
services by the major energy-importing states to their principal suppliers. Both the United States and China, for example, have
stepped up their deliveries of arms and equipment to oil-producing states like Angola, Nigeria, and Sudan in Africa and, in the
Caspian Sea basin, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. The United States has placed particular emphasis on suppressing the
armed insurgency in the vital Niger Delta region of Nigeria, where most of the country’s oil is produced; Beijing has emphasized
arms aid to Sudan, where Chinese-led oil operations are threatened by insurgencies in both the South and Darfur.
Russia is also using arms transfers as an instrument in its efforts to gain influence in the major oil- and gas-producing
regions of the Caspian Sea basin and the Persian Gulf. Its urge is not to procure energy for its own use, but to dominate the
flow of energy to others. In particular, Moscow seeks a monopoly on the transportation of Central Asian gas to Europe via Gazprom’s
vast pipeline network; it also wants to tap into Iran’s mammoth gas fields, further cementing Russia’s control over the trade in
natural gas.
The danger, of course, is that such endeavors, multiplied over time, will provoke regional arms races, exacerbate regional
tensions, and increase the danger of great-power involvement in any local conflicts that erupt. History has all too many examples
of such miscalculations leading to wars that spiral out of control. Think of the years leading up to World War I. In fact, Central
Asia and the Caspian today, with their multiple ethnic disorders and great-power rivalries, bear more than a glancing resemblance
to the Balkans in the years leading up to 1914.
What this adds up to is simple and sobering: the end of the world as you’ve known it. In the new, energy-centric world we have
all now entered, the price of oil will dominate our lives and power will reside in the hands of those who control its global distribution.
In this new world order, energy will govern our lives in new ways and on a daily basis. It will determine when, and for what purposes,
we use our cars; how high (or low) we turn our thermostats; when, where, or even if, we travel; increasingly, what foods we eat (given
that the price of producing and distributing many meats and vegetables is profoundly affected by the cost of oil or the allure of
growing corn for ethanol); for some of us, where to live; for others, what businesses we engage in; for all of us, when and under
what circumstances we go to war or avoid foreign entanglements that could end in war.
This leads to a final observation: The most pressing decision facing the next president and Congress may be how best to
accelerate the transition from a fossil-fuel-based energy system to a system based on climate-friendly energy alternatives.
Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author of Resource Wars
and Blood and Oil. Consider this essay a preview of his newest book, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy,
which has just been published by Metropolitan Books. A brief video of Klare discussing key subjects in his new book can be viewed by
clicking here.
Copyright 2008 Michael T. Klare
————————————————————————————-
In his famous book, The
Collapse of British Power (1972), Correlli Barnett reports
that in the opening days of World War II Great Britain only had
enough gold and foreign exchange to finance war expenditures
for a few months. The British turned to the Americans to finance
their ability to wage war. Barnett writes that this dependency
signaled the end of British power.
From their inception, America’s
21st century wars against Afghanistan and Iraq have been red
ink wars financed by foreigners, principally the Chinese and
Japanese, who purchase the US Treasury bonds that the US government
issues to finance its red ink budgets.
The Bush administration forecasts
a $410 billion federal budget deficit for this year, an indication
that, as the US saving rate is approximately zero, the US is
not only dependent on foreigners to finance its wars but also
dependent on foreigners to finance part of the US government’s
domestic expenditures. Foreign borrowing is paying US government
salaries–perhaps that of the President himself–or funding the
expenditures of the various cabinet departments. Financially,
the US is not an independent country.
The Bush administration’s $410
billion deficit forecast is based on the unrealistic assumption
of 2.7% GDP growth in 2008, whereas in actual fact the US economy
has fallen into a recession that could be severe. There will
be no 2.7% growth, and the actual deficit will be substantially
larger than $410 billion.
Just as the government’s budget
is in disarray, so is the US dollar which continues to decline
in value in relation to other currencies. The dollar is under
pressure not only from budget deficits, but also from very large
trade deficits and from inflation expectations resulting from
the Federal Reserve’s effort to stabilize the very troubled financial
system with large injections of liquidity.
A troubled currency and financial
system and large budget and trade deficits do not present an
attractive face to creditors. Yet Washington in its hubris seems
to believe that the US can forever rely on the Chinese, Japanese
and Saudis to finance America’s life beyond its means. Imagine
the shock when the day arrives that a US Treasury auction of
new debt instruments is not fully subscribed.
The US has squandered $500
billion dollars on a war that serves no American purpose. Moreover,
the $500 billion is only the out-of-pocket costs. It does not
include the replacement cost of the destroyed equipment, the
future costs of care for veterans, the cost of the interests
on the loans that have financed the war, or the lost US GDP from
diverting scarce resources to war. Experts who are not part of
the government’s spin machine estimate the cost of the Iraq war
to be as much as $3 trillion.
The Republican candidate for
President said he would be content to continue the war for 100
years. With what resources? When America’s creditors consider
our behavior they see total fiscal irresponsibility. They see
a deluded country that acts as if it is a privilege for foreigners
to lend to it, and a deluded country that believes that foreigners
will continue to accumulate US debt until the end of time.
The fact of the matter is that
the US is bankrupt. David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the
US and head of the Government Accountability Office, in his December
17, 2007, report to the US Congress on the financial statements
of the US government noted that “the federal government
did not maintain effective internal control over financial reporting
(including safeguarding assets) and compliance with significant
laws and regulations as of September 30, 2007.” In everyday
language, the US government cannot pass an audit.
Moreover, the GAO report pointed
out that the accrued liabilities of the federal government “totaled
approximately $53 trillion as of September 30, 2007.” No
funds have been set aside against this mind boggling liability.
Just so the reader understands,
$53 trillion is $53,000 billion.
Frustrated by speaking to deaf
ears, Walker recently resigned as head of the Government Accountability
Office.
As of March 17, 2008, one Swiss
franc is worth more than $1 dollar. In 1970, the exchange rate
was 4.2 Swiss francs to the dollar. In 1970, $1 purchased 360
Japanese yen. Today $1 dollar purchases less than 100 yen.
If you were a creditor, would
you want to hold debt in a currency that has such a poor record
against the currency of a small island country that was nuked
and defeated in WW II, or against a small landlocked European
country that clings to its independence and is not a member of
the EU?
Would you want to hold the
debt of a country whose imports exceed its industrial production?
According to the latest US statistics as reported in the February
28 issue of Manufacturing and Technology News, in 2007 imports
were 14 percent of US GDP and US manufacturing comprised 12%
of US GDP. A country whose imports exceed its industrial production
cannot close its trade deficit by exporting more.
The dollar has even collapsed
in value against the euro, the currency of a make-believe country
that does not exist: the European Union. France, Germany, Italy,
England and the other members of the EU still exist as sovereign
nations. England even retains its own currency. Yet the euro
hits new highs daily against the dollar.
Noam Chomsky recently wrote
that America thinks that it owns the world. That is definitely
the view of the neoconized Bush administration. But the fact
of the matter is that the US owes the world. The US “superpower”
cannot even finance its own domestic operations, much less its
gratuitous wars except via the kindness of foreigners to lend
it money that cannot be repaid.
The US will never repay the
loans. The American economy has been devastated by offshoring,
by foreign competition, and by the importation of foreigners
on work visas, while it holds to a free trade ideology that benefits
corporate fat cats and shareholders at the expense of American
labor. The dollar is failing in its role as reserve currency
and will soon be abandoned.
When the dollar ceases to be
the reserve currency, the US will no longer be able to pay its
bills by borrowing more from foreigners.
I sometimes wonder if the bankrupt
“superpower” will be able to scrape together the resources
to bring home the troops stationed in its hundreds of bases overseas,
or whether they will just be abandoned.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury
in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the
Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of
National Review. He is coauthor of The
Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
