In These New Times

A new paradigm for a post-imperial world

Posts Tagged ‘Obama agenda’

Obama’s War Has the “peace movement” become part of the war machine?

Posted by seumasach on March 31, 2009

uruk.net

29th March, 2009


PR Watch’s John Stauber took on the Obama administration and the “antiwar” movement in a recent series of posts on his blog. I’ve compiled them here:

Afghan Escalation OK with MoveOn, Anti-War Insiders

Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent noted last week that “President Obama’s announcement of an escalation in the American presence in Afghanistan is being met with mostly silence – and even some support – from the most influential liberal groups who opposed the Iraq War. … MoveOn.org … declined to make any public statement about Obama’s Afghan policies in response to my queries. An official close to the group confirmed to me that MoveOn wouldn’t be saying anything in the near term. … Nor will we hear anything from Americans United for Change, which ran $600,000 worth of TV ads against the Iraq War in the summer of 2007. ‘Americans United for Change doesn’t plan to comment on President Obama’s new strategy,’ a spokesperson for the group, Lauren Weiner, just emailed. Jon Soltz, the head of VoteVets … came out in support of Obama’s Afghan strategy in an Op Ed with The Huffington Post. … Liberal groups don’t want to distract from passing Obama’s enormous domestic agenda. … And officials with some of these groups don’t want to lose inside influence with the White House.”

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Geithner’s ‘Dirty Little Secret’: The Entire Global Financial System is at Risk

Posted by seumasach on March 31, 2009

When the Solution to the Financial Crisis becomes the Cause
F.William Engdahl
30th March, 2009

GlobalResearch.ca

US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has unveiled his long-awaited plan to put the US banking system back in order. In doing so, he has refused to tell the ‘dirty little secret‘ of the present financial crisis. By refusing to do so, he is trying to save de facto bankrupt US banks that threaten to bring the entire global system down in a new more devastating phase of wealth destruction.

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Time to stop the rip-off

Posted by seumasach on March 29, 2009

“This is the biggest rip-off in the history of man. There is no end in sight. When will the Obama administration get it? Obama will have to learn the toughest decision there is in business – when it’s time to stop throwing good money after bad money.”

The crisis in the United States has taken a dangerous turn over the past week, a turn that may prove to be the undoing of the Barack Obama presidency. 
Hossein Askari and Noureddine Krichene 

Asia Times

27th March, 2009

On January 20, Obama stepped into much more than the worst economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression. He inherited the helm of a country ravaged by 30 years of runaway human greed and a complicit government that rewarded it. Obama now finds himself in the middle of a perfect tempest, buffeted on the one side by a relentless financial and economic downturn and on the other a bewildered nation waking up to the landscape of unparalleled economic injustice that had been hidden out of sight with most Americans working hard just to get by. 

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Fiscal plan fails to revive markets

Posted by smeddum on March 24, 2009

 

WWW.PROJECT-SYNDICATE.ORG

 Tuesday, 03.24.09

Miami Herald

Why does Stiglitz want to give the banks more money, then present arguments that seem to be against such a proposal?

Let’s be clear: President Barack Obama inherited an economy in freefall and could not possibly have turned things around in the short time since his election. Unfortunately, what he is doing is not enough.

The real failings in the Obama recovery program lie not in the stimulus package — though it is too heavily weighted toward tax cuts, and much of it merely offsets cutbacks by states — but in its efforts to revive financial markets. America’s failures provide important lessons to countries around the world that are or will be facing increasing problems with their banks: Read the rest of this entry »

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Venezuela’s Chavez calls Obama “ignoramus”

Posted by seumasach on March 23, 2009

22nd March, 2009

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama was at best an “ignoramus” for saying the socialist leader exported terrorism and obstructed progress in Latin America.

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The Financial Sector: “A House Burning Down”

Posted by smeddum on March 17, 2009

3
Ben Bernanke’s False Analogy

By Prof. Michael Hudson

March 16, 2009 “Global Research” On the March 15 CBS show “60 Minutes”, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke used a false analogy already popularized by President Obama in his quasi-State of the Union Speech. He likened the financial sector to a house burning down – fair enough, as it is destroying property values, leading to foreclosures, abandonments, stripping (for copper wire and anything else recoverable) and certainly a devastation of value. The problem with this analogy was just where this building was situated, and its relationship to “other houses” (e.g., the rest of the economy). Read the rest of this entry »

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This climate crunch heralds the end of the end of history

Posted by seumasach on March 12, 2009

Here, former Blair adviser Anthony Giddens shows what a flexible tool global warming…, sorry, “climate change” theory is for the elite. As we have seen elsewhere it provides a handy cover to explain away the disappearance of bees and pollinators and to divert our attention from this ecological catastrophe. Is it coincidental that Brown’s global new deal, an attempt to recreate our financier oligarchy globally, is now directly linked to a new “post-industrial era” resulting from the “climate crunch”, with all its possible neo-Malthusian or neo-feudal possibilities?

We are on the brink of a revolution: the demise of the fossil-fuel economy. A new deal must jolt us out of orthodox thinking

Anthony Giddens

Guardian

11th March, 2009

Every crisis, Sigmund Freud said, is potentially a stimulus to the positive side of the personality and an opportunity to start afresh. Today we are facing two global crises in tandem – the economic recession and climate change. Both are deeply worrying, but what is their relationship likely to be?

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The trade-off season begins on Afghanistan

Posted by seumasach on March 10, 2009

It looks like the New Cold War is already over as, not only have US/UK efforts to put a wedge between Iran and Russia have clearly failed, but NATO dependence on Russia with regard to Afghan supllies  is confirmed. We can now expect Russian diplomacy to become more forceful with their brokering of a comprehensive peace settlement in the Middle East back on the agenda:

Also, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last week, “[The] American side should join the position of the ‘[Iran] Six’ [the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany] not only on paper, but also the talks with Iran as proposed by the six … At issue is also involving Iran on an equal, worthy basis in efforts to resolve the Iraqi and Afghan conflicts, as well as in all aspects of the Middle East settlement.”

By M K Bhadrakumar
Asia Times

11th March, 2009
With the likelihood of the United States engaging Iran in the near future and with Washington “resetting the button” in relations with Moscow, the air is thick with rumors of trade-offs. This is almost inevitable, given the interlocking cross-currents swirling around the three-way US-Iran-Russia equations.
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The Upcoming Political Crisis in Washington

Posted by seumasach on March 10, 2009

David Gordian

Global Research

9th March, 2009

In recent days we have seen even mainstream Democratic figures as Joe Stiglitz and Paul Krugman sound the alarm on what seems to be uncertainty in the Obama administration. Stiglitz, Krugman et al. are following in their essential critique a path well worn over the past few weeks by a range of commentators to be found as much among the Austrians as those on the liberal-to-left part of the spectrum. The fundamental point is, of course, that it is now clear to all but the militantly unreflective that Obama can – perhaps – save the Real economy or – perhaps – save Finance (i.e. Bank bond- and shareholders), but certainly not both. The increasing, but still relatively gentle, criticism of Stiglitz, Krugman and their ilk is owing to the fact that it is becoming all too clear that Obama is still unwilling to engage Finance in what might turn out to be the greatest intramural fight capitalism has ever seen.

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Pakistan Cricket Attack “Inside Job” Theory Goes Viral

Posted by seumasach on March 8, 2009

“However, once again, the overriding story that is being sold paints Pakistan as the problem state.” 

Attack likely part of ongoing strategy of tension by nefarious forces; Another pretext to expand war on terror

Steve Watson 

Infowars

5th March, 2009

The mainstream media has embraced suggestions of an “inside job”, as evidence continues to mount that Tuesday’s attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team was a carefully staged event, rather than a hit and run strike. 

Articles in the Independent, the Times, the Daily Mail, Agence France-Presse, and the Telegraph have today focused on unanswered questions and suspicious activity regarding the attack which which killed six police and two civilians, and wounded 19 people. 

The evidence that the attack was carefully coordinated has been summarized as follows. 

None of the 12 gunmen were killed or captured and CCTV footage has emerged of some of the attackers making a leisurely getaway from the scene in the aftermath of the assault, past an approaching police vehicle, without the security forces chasing them: 

On the first two days of the Test match, the Sri Lanka and Pakistan team buses had left together. However, as umpire Chris Broad has revealed, on Tuesday the Pakistan bus left five minutes after the Sri Lanka bus. 

“On this particular day, the Pakistan bus left five minutes after the Sri Lankan bus. Why?” Broad said. “It went through my mind as we were leaving the hotel: ‘Where is the Pakistan bus?” 

Broad said Pakistan security forces had left the convoy vehicles like “sitting ducks” and that there was “not a sign of a policeman anywhere” when the attack began. 

“There were times in the Karachi Test when the Sri Lankans went first and the Pakistanis went afterwards. But after this happened you think My God, did someone know something and they held the Pakistan bus back?” Broad added at a press conference yesterday. 

Simon Taufel, an Australian umpire caught in the attack, also confirmed that their bus had been left unprotected once the assault began. 

“You tell me why supposedly 20 armed commandos were in our convoy and when the team bus got going again, we were left on our own? I don’t have any answers to these questions.” Taufel said. 

Another umpire, Steve Davis commented: “I saw a (man in) uniform with a pistol and I thought this is an insider come to do us away.” 

The umpires were backed by Muttiah Muralitharan, the most successful bowler in Test history, who questioned whether the terrorists had inside information. 

“Somehow in this incident there were no police with guns on the bus,” the Sri Lankan spinner told the radio station FIVEaa in Adelaide. “If someone was there with a gun we would have had a chance of defending ourselves. 

“Normally all the buses go and we have four or five escorts. We left at 8.30am and Younus Khan with the Pakistan team bus at 8.35am. We divided into two – maybe they knew the information for the right time.” Muralitharan added. 

These factors and comments have been presented by the mainstream media in a way that intimates that it is possible that Pakistani intelligence was involved in the attacks, or allowed them to happen. 

Of course, this is a possibility, however, it should be noted that six Pakistani security officials were killed in the attack as they attempted to defend the Sri Lankan bus, and other witnesses such as Mehar Mohammed Khalil, the Pakistani driver of the Sri Lankan bus, have disputed the allegation that the Pakistani bus left five minutes later and that the police protection was not present. 

Last November, after the Mumbai attacks took place, the corporate media and Indian authorities pointed the finger at Pakistani intelligence, providing a perfect pretext for expanded U.S. military aggression against the country, as promised by then President-elect Barack Obama. 

However, as we revealed in our reports at the time, the evidence indicated that Indian authorities had aided the terrorists. It is interesting to note that the mainstream media did little to pursue this angle, yet this time around every major outlet has highlighted the “inside job” theory almost immediately. 

Further questions regarding Tuesday’s attack have arisen from the leak of a “secret” report which fore-warned the federal and provincial Punjab governments that India was planning an attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team. 

The report, dated Jan 22, warned officials: “It has reliably been learnt that RAW the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s intelligence agency has assigned its agents the task to target Sri Lankan cricket team during its current visit to Lahore, especially while travelling between the hotel and stadium or at hotel during their stay … Extreme vigilance and heightened security arrangements indicated.” 

However, the government in Punjab and its senior security officials, who were preparing for the Sri Lankan team’s visit, were removed from office by a controversial court ruling days ahead of the test match. 

Rehman Malik, Pakistani chief interior ministry adviser, has claimed “a foreign hand” lay behind the attack on the cricketers – which has been widely interpreted as pointing the finger at India. 

Malik said: “We suspect a foreign hand behind this incident. The democracy of the country has been undermined, and foreigners are repeatedly attacked to harm the country’s image.” 

Malik is said to have “shared” the assessment of the country’s ISI intelligence agency with the FBI director Robert Mueller. 

Some Pakistani newspapers have suggested that the Indian intelligence service was involved and that the weapons found at the site of the attack bore Indian markings. 

Mehar Mohammed Khalil, the Pakistani driver of the Sri Lankan bus, has also said he believes the terrorists are from India. He said: ‘Their complexions were Indian-type. They were definitely not Pakistani.’ 

Furthermore, it has been pointed out that similarities exist between the estimated 12 suspected militants who launched the attack in Lahore and those who launched the Mumbai attacks which left more than 170 people dead last year. Both groups of men were young and clean-cut, wore Western clothes and backpacks, and were heavily armed. 

The Press Trust of India has reported that a visiting Pakistani peace delegation has branded the incident as “Mumbai No 2 with same people behind it”. 

With allegations of Pakistani intelligence involvement and Indian intelligence involvement, it must also be noted that the region is strategically important, both states are nuclear and other globalist led intelligence agencies such as the CIA, Mossad and MI6 have much to gain from playing off India and Pakistan against each other. 

However, once again, the overriding story that is being sold paints Pakistan as the problem state. 

Will this latest tragedy be used as another excuse to expand the war on terror and increase U.S. military activity inside Pakistani territory? 

Yesterday the top American diplomat in Kabul warned that Pakistan is now a bigger threat than Afghanistan. 

“From where I sit Pakistan sure looks like it’s going to be a bigger problem,” Christopher Dell, who runs the U.S. embassy in Kabul, said. 

“It is certainly one of those nuclear-armed countries the instability of which is a bigger problem for the globe. Pakistan is a bigger place, has a larger population, it’s nuclear-armed. It has certainly made radical Islam a part of its political life, and it now seems to be a deeply ingrained element of its political culture. It makes things there very hard.”

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Russian FM: Make Middle East nuclear weapons-free zone

Posted by seumasach on March 8, 2009

Haaretz

7th March, 2009

Russia repeated on Saturday its call for the Middle East to be made a nuclear weapons-free zone. 

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