Full spectrum dominance moves out into the open and into the Yemen

With the 'Times' reporting that eight people including "at least four CIA agents have been killed in a suicide attack by an Afghani on a US military base in Afghanistan" we might remind ourselves that no Afghanis have blown themselves up outside their own country and that the pretext for Washington's war there is in fact catching the ever elusive bin Laden or, as a minimal goal, ensuring that 'Al Qaeda' are deprived of a base from which to operate. Off they go, in search of the "baddies", the "terrorists", and while pursuing them under the guise of making the world a safer place the neo con agenda is implemented; the United States uses its military supremacy to establish an empire that includes the whole world; a global Pax Americana. That's right folks, "full spectrum dominance" and now off they go into the open and into the Yemen.

The US has been involved in the Yemen since late 2001 and in order to facilitate Washington's pursuit of the "baddies"the government in Sana'a has allowed small groups of U.S. Special Forces troops and CIA agents to operate in the country. Now the covert activities of "Uncle Sam" are out into the open and as recently as two weeks ago US fighter jets were launching attacks on the the northwestern province of Sa'ada where Houthi rebels, who belong to the Zaidi Shia sect, are based and this is where it becomes interesting because as late as october we were being informed that the Yemeni government were enlisting the 'Al Qaeda' to help them crush the  Houthi opposition movement along the Saudi border in the north. Indeed, it becomes all the more interesting when we read that the Saudis have also been attacking Shia Houthis on the Yemeni side of border and that the rebels in turn are supposedly being supported by Iran who provides them with money, arms and training.

All a bit confusing? Not for Washington and first we have American planes killing at least 70 civilians and injuring more than 100 others in the northern district of Razeh as they do their Yemeni and Saudi allies dirty work and attack the Houthi rebels in the north and then a few days later we have our "nobel laureate", Obama, ordering strikes against two "suspected" 'Al Qaeda' sites, which, along with raids carried out by the Yemeni security forces, leave as many as 120 people, including many innocent civilians, dead.

Yes,  and back in the kingdom of the blind, the mainstream media pumps out its daily drivel and we are told today that Washington is planning to retaliate and target 'Al Qaeda' targets in response to the Detriot "bomber", Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who is supposedly an 'Al Qaeda' operative, when, of course, the Americans are in fact already bombing all and sundry on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula. Yes, a half truth covers the lie and innocent civilians die as "full spectrum dominance" moves out into the open on the Arabian peninsula and the Horn of Africa.

Amnesia

There was a group running around from the mid 80s until the mid 90s called 'Lloyd Cole and the Commotions'. Now, the group achieved a certain fame for a number of their records, but it is one particular ditty that I remember today and that is "Lost Weekend" and in particular the first verse of that song:
"It took a lost weekend in a hotel in amsterdam
and double pneumonia in a single room
and the sickest joke was the price of the medicine
are you laughing at me now may i please laugh along with you.

A lost weekend; well a lot of us have been there, haven't we? And the following morning there is the hangover and the, "where am i, who is that lying beside me, what have I been drinking, smoking, eating?"questions and on a particularly rough morning after the night before maybe even a;"Who am I?" Well, that was me this morning or almost and it was certainly me yesterday evening.

Yes, all thoughts of Bibi and his shennanigans, of "full spectrum dominance", of Blair and Brown and Bush and Cheney and Obama and of this, that and the next thing, were put on the shelf for a day, because "ego" was in hospital having his umbillical hernia sorted and having the metal plate from China taken out of his foot. There was the anesthetic and there was me falling into a deep, deep, sleep of the sort that leaves clouds around for, at least, 24 hours and lo and behold, wallah, abracadabra, just like that, when the clouds clear and you go back to www.anything.com there they are; Bibi is still playing his shennanigans, and "oh, they found the sign for above the gate at Auschwitz" but have still to find the inhuman perpetrators of the awful crime of theft and 'full spectrum dominance' is still in full swing.

Anyway, it is late now, the stomach is hurting just a little bit, so I will take myself off to bed and hope that when I wake up I will remember at least most of today for, while I am not too sure whether Llyod enjoyed his "lost weekend", I personally am not really a fan of amnesia and it is with that in mind that I am waiting for our spin and grin man, the one and only Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, when he appears before the' Chilcot Inquiry.' 

The picture shows the room where I spent last night; I think! And here is Llyod Cole who might not be the greatest but he is certainly a damn site better than Bibi or Tony:

Either Full Spectrum Dominance or China inter pares

 
Well, my predicted compromise between 'Google' and the Chinese government is looking increasingly unlikely and not only since Hillary Clinton criticised Beijing because of internet censorship. Indeed, with Hillary also warning China that it risks isolation if it doesn't support sanctons against Iran and with her boss  accusing Beijing of undervaluing the yuan while he goes ahead and sells USD $ 6.5 billion worth of military equipment to Taiwan, we can assume that, even although he has cancelled his meeting today with the Dalai Lama, China has at least a number of good arguments to back up its claims that Washington is interfering with its sovereignty. Nevertheless, that should only want us all the more to look at America's accusations in some detail and when we do so we will at least discover a common thread that smacks of pure hypocrisy.

Firstly, Hillary's accusation of internet censorship might be put into another perspective when we read the news from 'Democracy Now' today which states that: "The internet giant Google is teaming up with the National Security Agency in an unspecified partnership in the name of cybersecurity. Google says the NSA will help it analyze an attack on its computer networks it says originated in China last month. Privacy advocates have raised skepticism about the agreement, whose details haven’t been revealed. The Electronic Privacy Information Center has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for communications between Google and the NSA on cybersecurity and email encryption." Of course, this is what we are hearing today and there are those who might argue that Google teaming up with the NSA is a perfectly logical development considering what has supposedly happened in China.

However, the internet giant working hand in hand with US intelligence is not something new and there is more than enough evidence to suggest that the Chinese would be perfectly right to worry about the company's activities in China. Indeed, as Robert Steele, an intelligence veteran said back in 2006 "In my view, Google is a public resource and must remain purer than Ceasar's wife. I am sympathetic to Google's rolling over for China and agreeing to curtail some content - that can be reversed later. However, I am very unsympathetic and critical of Google for violating its ‘do no harm’ rule. In my view, a secret financial and secret information sharing relationship with the US Intelligence Community - or any other intelligence community - violates everything about Google that should be sacred, and suggests that we can no longer trust them to live up to their original ethos." Ethics aside what this, of course, means is that, while Google might limit some content to satisfy Beijing it is, more importantly, in a position where it can gather information in China and on China and that it might pass this information onto the NSA and CIA. If this is something that doesn't worry the Chinese it certainly should and one can only speculate as to the nature of the cyberattacks on Google's computer systems.

Secondly, considering how US fiscal policy holds the rest of the world to ransom, it would be illogical to attack the Chinese for keeping the yuan, at least as far as Washington is concerned, "artificially low."  Indeed, considering America's use of its own currency along with its and global financial institutions to control the world economy for at least the last fiscal sixty years this is pure hypocrisy. China is getting ready to re-launch its export drive after a global recession that affected the demand for Chinese goods and a cheap currency is vital to that goal. The United States might not like it but the Chinese probably feel they have no need to be lectured on economic policy by their chief debtor and someone whose dollar imperialism is leading the planet into an unprecedented disaster.

Thirdly, the BBC reports that: "Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi called for more direct talks with Iran instead of sanctions." Is there an alternative? Indeed, behind the scenes Beijing probably sees what is behind the West's rabble rousing and also sees that Iran is increasingly in a no win situation. Or that this will at least lead to a regime change in Teheran and a re-allignment with the West. Indeed, it is important that China does not waver in its position as it is increasingly only that position that is preventing sanctions as the first step towards destabilising the government in Teheran. Of course, with China getting some 15% of its oil from Iran this is the last thing Beijing wants.

Finally, China views Taiwan as an integral part of the People's Republic. However, Beijing has proven time and time again that it can be very pragmatic. Only a couple of weeks ago the PRC was officially declaring that "cross-strait relations are good." Taiwan is China's seventh largest trading partner and China is Taiwan's main trading partner. Beijing is not going to do anything in the short or medium term to upset this modus vivendi, however, ideologically and politically it is not going to compromise its position. The United States throwing $US 6.5 billion worth of military equipment at Taipeh does nothing to help either Taiwan or China or the region.

It would be wrong not to criticise China but to do it in order to gain political capital is pure hypocrisy. Moreover, at a time when it is becoming increasingly unlikely that Iran is going to be bullied into submission it would be more than a trifle dangerous to not only speculate that China might be, but to actually attempt it. The real point is we have passed the point where that China will accept such a role and it really is time to accept Beijing as an equal unconditionally. To do this might mean real progress on all of the issues mentioned above. Indeed, we might find that by doing so not only will the planet become a better, fairer and safer place but that China also might tackle those many issues that have the mainstream media in the West crying foul. The pre-requisite for all of this, however, is not only the need to retreat from a barbaric dollar imperialism, which has as its by-product a disgusting hypocrisy and which had to culminate in the pursuit of a full spectrum dominance, but also means that we achieve a situation where we have a real democraticisation of society and of our media.

The end of the "Orange revolution" and is the tide turning?

Viktor Yanukovych's, agreement with Moscow which allows the Russian fleet to extend its stay in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol for another 25 years after the present lease expires in 2017, might be viewed by some as compromising the Ukraine's sovereignty. Most certainly, it does steer the Ukraine back into Russia's orbit. Nevertheless, because of the benefits that it brings to both parties surely this is a natural development. In return Yanukovych has been given massive discounts for natural gas. Natural gas which, of course, also flows in pipes through the Ukraine to Western Europe. Indeed, this can be a win-win situation for both parties concerned.

Moreover, while Washington might be motivating the former Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, to take a stance against this supposedly further erosion of Ukrainian sovereignty, the reality is that the developments since the 14th february, when the Ukraine's electoral commission declared Victor Yanukovych the winner of the presidential run-off signal the death knell for the much touted "Orange revolution". More importantly, however, coming after Moscow's swift and crushing reaction to Mikail Saakashvili's adventurism in South Ossetia in August 2008, it represents a very real challenge to Washington's plans for full spectrum dominance. Most certainly, the events in the Ukraine, South Ossetia and Kyrgyzstan are all indicative of Moscow, after years of NATO encirclement and encroachment, not only saying "no more" but also reasserting its own influence in the area.

Furthermore, while there are those who will see this as an attempt by the Russian bear to undermine the sovereignty of its neighbours, we might argue that it is natural for Moscow to develop close ties with those countries, which don't only border it but indeed are strategically crucial if it is to act independently at all in the geopolitical "great game", which is being played out. Naturally, we might also argue that this de facto implies hegemony by Russia in a region where there is a natural antipathy towards domination from Moscow. Nevertheless, it would be foolish to undermine the common interests that exist in the region as a whole and it just might be that agreements such as those made by the Ukraine and Russia could be used to redifine the nature of cooperation in the region. Despite those suspicions, which are bound to exist, this can, as has been stated in the first paragraph, be a win-win situation for all the parties concerned. Furthermore, while the planners and Washington might not like it, the foreign body in Central Asia is not Russia and it might just be that the developments in the Ukraine and elsewhere are indicative of at least a tacit acceptance of that.

The New American Century

The news from the 'Guardian' today that Obama is deploying a missile shield to protect American allies in the Gulf from attack by Tehran should only heighten our fears that Iran will be attacked in the not too distant future. Indeed, only a fool would believe that the move is intended to deter any possible atack by Iran on the Gulf states in reaction to the sanctions which will very probably be imposed. Of course, those very same allies, which host America's military capability in the area, might very well be attacked if Iran is attacked. Or rather, to be more accurate, Iran might at least attempt to attack Washington's collosal base structures in the Gulf if, or should I say when, it is itself attacked.

Yes, they are all towing the "party line"; there was Tony with his mumble jumble about how we are faced again with the same problem as we were in 2003 in the form of Iran, there was Shimon telling the IAEA what a threat Iran is and now we can read that:  "CIA director Leon Panetta traveled to Israel last week for meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and Mossad chief Meir Dagan, U.S. news site Politico reported on Saturday. The main subject of conversation was Iran, as well as "relations" in general, the website said, quoting an unnamed former official in the Israel government."

While we need not doubt the Zionists and neo-cons capability of quick surgical strikes, these will not usher in a quick end to this war and if George W Bush's "mission accomplished" in Iraq appears to be a bad joke in retrospect, we can only shudder at the consequences of any attack on Iran. There are a number of scenarios for this coming war and none of them are very pleasant. Moreover, with Hillary Clinton warning China that it risks isolation unless it supports sanctions on Iran, with Washington supplying Taiwan with state of the art military technology worth almost 6.5 billion $s and with Hillary again criticising Beijing over "internet censorship" there might even be a dimension to this conflict that that exceeds even our worst fears.

Unfortunately, it really does appear that we have miscalculated on this one and my thoughts drift back to a discussion that we were having in the Department of International History in the LSE back in the 80s: "Was "Mein Kampf" a blueprint for the Second World War?" Now that rather badly written "ditty" was not being taken too seriously back in 1924 but at least by the time they got to Operation Barbarrosa the could see that that particular megalomaniac was very serious and there it was all his meglomaniac madness revealed but then he had been putting it into practice, bit by bit, year by year. Similarly, we have a little collection of meglomaniacs who belong to a "non-profit, educational organisation" called the  "Project for the New American Century". Of course, with Obama in "power" a new front organisation is needed in the government and that is where groups like the (CNAS) the  "Centre for a New American Security" and the 'Foreign Policy Initiative'come in. Whatever their name the game is the same it is all about full spectrum dominance and these are very dangerous, very ambitious, people who, just like Adolf back in 1924,  are even telling us their intentions.

Full Spectrum Dominance

On going to Frederick William Engdahl's site today I found myself making a refreshing return to 'Real News' to follow an interview that Paul Jay, the senior editor at 'Real News' gave Engdahl and what we get is, indeed, "real news" and we are suddenly freed from the daily drivel and the jingoism that dominates the mainstream media.

Engdahl, I believe, is marvelous at exposing the real reasons behind America's wars and at showing how those wars are a continuation of a century of Anglo-Saxon domination of the globe. Nevertheless, his suggestion that Eurasian cohesion will sooner or later bring that hegemony to an end is not one I necessarily share and not because, as Paul Jay asserts, the Chinese, with a trillion dollars in currency reserves, are emeshed in the Anglo-Saxon financial system. No, there I would agree with Engdahl and, as the Shanghai Cooperation indicates, there are very real reasons to believe that the Chinese in particular are building bridges which, if the constellation were different, could allow them an opportunity to get off of what is a sinking ship and create the conditions for a new world order. What, however, is the "constellation" that could very well prevent them doing so?

Firstly, the evidence would appear to suggest that, at a time when the American economy is going down the drain, its global military presence is, in fact, increasing. Moreover, the network of alliances that Engdahl talks about at length will also help to ensure that "Uncle Sam" will set the agenda for some time to come. In short, while Engdahl is right when he says that the Chinese cannot do much to actually help the US economy and that that economy is going to go through ten years of hell, it is, I believe, a hell that "Uncle Sam" will "share" with the rest of the world. If the Anglo-Saxons are to leave the limelight we can be sure that they will not be going out without a bang.

The Washington Consensus

"Substantial gains have been made in Afghanistan"; the ticker at the bottom of BBC World reinforces the clichés and while the band plays "believe it if you like", President Obama, a year after he ordered 30,000 more troops to the Hindukush, tells those either myopic, moronic or masochistic enough to listen, "I want to be clear, this continues to be a very difficult endeavour, but we're on track to achieve our goals." Are they now? Well, we could briefly discuss what those "goals" are, or, in other words, we could look at the reasons why innocent Afghan civilians and young men from the United States and its allies are being sacrificed.

According to F. William Engdahl there are two reasons the first of which is: "to restore and control the world’s largest supply of opium for the world heroin markets and to use the drugs as a geopolitical weapon against opponents, especially Russia. That control of the Afghan drug market is essential for the liquidity of the bankrupt and corrupt Wall Street financial mafia." It is a thesis, which certainly requires closer consideration and all the more so as it would seem to support Engdahl's main thesis that the "American Empire" or, as he calls it, "full spectrum dominance" is built, like the British Empire before it, on three pillars, namely, control of the global financial markets, oil, and military hegemony.  Nevertheless, it is to the last of those three pillars  namely "military hegemony" and to Engdahl's second reason for the American presence in Afghanistan which is,  "to build a permanent US military strike force with a series of permanent US airbases across Afghanistan",  that we should turn.

What is being referred to here is in fact the implementation of what Andrew J. Bacevich refers to as the "Washington Consensus on National Security", where the American military is used not for defence but for global power projection and interventionism.  Moreover, while, it is a strategy which supports and complements that other Washington Consensus, namely, the orientation towards those free market policies which Naomi Klein terms "disaster capitalism", it is also a strategy which we might look at on its own. On doing this we will discover that it is not only a policy which has nothing to do with American national security, but is indeed also detrimental to that security.

In his speech to cadets at West Point just over a year ago Obama wanted it known that by sending thousands of additional U.S. troops to fight in Afghanistan he was following in the footsteps of his predecessors.Their policies were to be his policies. There was to be no change. There was to be no questioning of the fact that the Pax Americana is no more legitimate than the Pax Britannica. There was no questioning of the fact that the United States invasion of Afghanistan is every bit as criminal as previous invasions and like those invasions it is doomed to fail.

Just over a year ago Hillary Rodman Clinton in an interview with 'Der Spiegel' said that " (America's ) goal is to defeat al-Qaida" and its extremist allies". That is a pretext for the war on the Hindukush that insults our intelligence. Nevertheless, the United States' real goal in Afghanistan, that is to implement the Washington Consensus is doomed to failure and one might now suspect that beyond the pretext, the hyperbole, and the geopolitical ambitions the only goal is now to avoid the humiliation and slaughter that the British experienced in 1842.

That will probably be avoided and we might instead look to the 15tth of February 1989 and the 'New York Times' report the following day: "The last Soviet soldier came home from Afghanistan this morning, the Soviet Union announced, leaving behind a war that had become a domestic burden and an international embarrassment for Moscow." History, does indeed repeat itself, and we while we can still only speculate, there is evidence to suggest that just as Afghanistan ushered in the end of the Soviet empire, so too might it be the death knell for the Washington Consensus.

Fooling the people

There is no doubt that Obama is articulate and, yes, intelligent, very intelligent. However, it is also obvious that he is just the face that Washington needs to pursue its "full spectrum dominance" and it is precisely because of that that I cannot share in the outpourings of understanding and almost sypmathy for this "hype" creature that two separate articles in the 'Guardian'; one by Michael Tomasky and one by Martin Kettle apprear to advocate; indeed, both articles, which praise Obama's speech in Oslo, are almost a paraphrased version of each other.

Yes, what a "spellbounding similarity," what a "mind boggling likeness" and there was Tomsky concluding that the speech was perhaps "designed to … be truthful about the world as he sees it, and to be honest with the world and with posterity about the complexities we face," while Kettle in his summing up says, "Obama was right, when he said in Oslo: "We can understand that there will be war and still strive for peace." With Tomasky and Kettle the analogy of the brain and the dungheap were never more appropriate.

The world as Obama supposedly sees it or rather as he portrays it, is wrong; we are not threatened by Afghanistan and to believe anything else is absurd. Moreover, while the crimes being committed on the Hindukush wouldn't be any less wrong if he were open and honest about the real reasons why we are in Afghanistan, there would at least be less hypocrisy and less lying. Indeed, that is why I resent and can no longer listen to the "hype" man's drivel, for this is no idiot who can be at least partly admonished because of a lack of grey matter and his, like Blair's, crime is not just an intellectual dishonesty that seduces all and sundry but it is telling lies that, with the help of intellectual pygmies such as Tomasky or Kettle, are accepted as the truth and which ultimately are just as responsible for mass murder as was the nazi myth of the "Untermensch".  However, for me, at least,  I can put the record straight and Barack; "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time."

The real news from Haiti

Studying at the time in London, the summer was spent back in Munich, or in Maisach to be precise and there we all were out in the garden the sun shining, watching Bob Geldof's "Live Aid Concert". Good intentions, no doubt, from Mick Jagger, Led Zepplin, from Sting, from all and sundry. Good intentions and in moved the World Bank, the IMF and, ten years down the road, we had the WTO and no point in teaching the Africans how to fish when we can throw them an occassional fish from the rich man's plate, and so on to Haiti!

Now, they are at it again with their "Hope for Haiti" and there is no reason to believe that Madonna, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Bruce Springsteen and the rest of them are not well intentioned. Although with Mr "self publicity incarnate" Bono there we might begin to doubt even that. However, it is with the appearance of Mr William "structural adjustments programmes" Jefferson Clinton that the stomach goes particularly quessy, that the mouth dries up, that nausea overcomes me and I run out into the garden and vomit, for this is the man who takes a big chunk of the responsibilty for Haitians working for a pittance in the sweatshops of Port-au-Prince, the man who facilitated the implementation of policies that resulted in poor farmers leaving their land for poorly built slums in the capital. However, even Bill is not worthy of the "real news" at a moment when Haiti is increasingly relegated to the second page of our mainstream drivel. Furthermore, if Bill's neo-liberal nazism is not worthy of the front page, neither is the fact that the "we are the world" single from 1985 has been re-recorded to help the victims of the earthquake, nor the news that children are possibly being abducted. Therefore, what should the front page news be?

As we all know, the United States has some very big embassies and with Washington building its fifth biggest embassy in Port-au-Prince and with the military occupation of Haiti proceeding apace the "real news" for the front page might be taken from John Pilger who writes: "Oil was found in Haiti’s waters decades ago and the US has kept it in reserve until the Middle East begins to run dry. More urgently, an occupied Haiti has a strategic importance in Washington’s “rollback” plans for Latin America. The goal is the overthrow of the popular democracies in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, control of Venezuela’s abundant oil reserves and sabotage of the growing regional cooperation that has given millions their first taste of an economic and social justice long denied by US-sponsored regimes." Pilger, is not pulling assumptions out of a hat here and it there is enough evidence to suggest since the 2004 Bush regime change in Haiti, when Betrand Aristide was deposed as president, the US has been using UN troops as a proxy to avoid charges of imperialism. as it implements its neo-liberal policies. Of course, when it comes to Washington's geo-political ambitions not only is this umbrella completely inadequate but with the earthquake it is also no longer necessary as thousands of American troops pour into Haiti under the guise of a humanitarian mission. 

Nobody seems to know how many have actually died in the earthquake; it might have been 100,000, it might have been 200,000. The number of casualties is news certainly worth reporting. However, the "real news", the news that is not getting to the front page, is the American occupation of Haiti and a geopolitical strategy aimed at full spectrum dominance, which, in South America means the overthrow of popular democracies in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador and what Mr Pilger describes as the implementation of Washington's  ""rollback" plans for Latin America." This is the real news, this is the front page news, with Bill's neo-liberal land grab being relegated to page two and who knows we can even give Bono Brad, Clooney and their cronies a wee column on the back page although it would be more appreciated if these people got in touch with reality and really took a stance and, who knows, If that were to happen, they wouldn't have to be giving one of their concerts for a long, for a very long, time.