Let’s face it, this relationship with the Obama administration just isn’t working out. I’m going to give some concrete reasons why. I’m also going to give my opinion at the end of this article. Let me say that this list is flabbergasting. Anyone with any common-sense can figure out why. I didn’t enjoy writing this at all. It’s because I’m an American citizen. All of this was done in my name and the name of every American citizen. It’s about time we changed the direction of this government and you can’t do it at the ballot box voting for the Democrat or Republican they decide to put in front of you. There isn’t a dimes worth of difference between the political parties. The Democrats represent fascism light while the GOP represents regular fascism.Here’s what’s going on :
1. Not Charging Anyone in the Bush Administration with War Crimes or Criminal Misconduct. The first thing that should have tipped us all off is when he told us all that he was going to look forward and not backwards, meaning that he wasn’t going to go after members of the Bush regime for war crimes or for breaking any other laws while in office. Of course most Americans figured he was just avoiding a partisan fight in Congress, but what we really found out is that he was just staying silent about the war crimes and executive power abuses of the Bush era so that he could pull off his own war crimes and executive power abuses.
2. Drone Strikes . Probably the most heinous behavior of this morally corrupt administration is the weekly war conference between his advisors and the military and civilian intelligence agencies about who should be killed by drone strikes that week. Imagine having a weekly conference to decide who lives and dies in a place half way around the planet and choosing victims. This is without any semblance of due process. No charges, no investigation, no trial…nothing except hearsay. This includes choosing Americans to die. Can anyone say War crime?
3. Uncritical Support of Israel. We supported this rogue state as they attacked the Gaza strip with white phosphorus and cluster bombs, both of which are banned by the Geneva Convention as inhumane. We watched as fighter jets attacked, all of these weapons supplied by the United States. We give these brave Israeli’s three billion dollars for “defense “each year. We turn a blind eye as they use weapons that don’t discriminate between friend or foe when they kill women and children. Over two thousand Palestinians died during that brave Israeli “incursion” into Gaza with tanks and armored personnel carriers. Not a word was said, not even by that recipient of a Noble Peace prize. This was a colossal refusal to point out pure evil.
4. Sabre-rattling on Iran. Every day we hear of the treachery and deceit by the evil Islamic State of Iran. We hear of their intention to develop nuclear weapons. Even though the IAEA has claimed that Iran had stopped working on development of nuclear weapons in 2003 the noble entity of Israel does not believe that it has. Benjamin Netanyahu received numerous standing ovations from the thugs in Congress. No one thinks twice about the claims Israel makes about the dangers of a nuclear Iran. Even though the top brass in the Iranian Army were trained largely in the US when the Shah was in power and Iran was a close ally. Now it has turned into an evil empire. No one talks about Iran’s track record on aggression, noting that Iran has not attacked any State in more than two hundred years. Just like the lead up to war in Iraq, every day brings new accusations about Iran’s real intentions. Like watching a repeat of a bad TV show… Iraq redux. It appears that the US didn’t learn a thing from the Iraq war. Will this be the spark that turns the Middle-East into a smoldering hell?
5. Interfering in Syria. The United States and its allies, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and The United Arab Emirates send M-16’s and other weapons of war in an obvious bid to cause the much desired “regime change” in Syria. Rebel fighters from Libya and other nations sneak into Syria and fight to establish an Islamic State in Syria while the US turns a blind eye, hoping that a new regime in Syria will be friendly towards the West. Nobody can say for sure what outcome will arise from toppling the Bashir regime. Russia and China warn the United States about “meddling” in Syrian affairs. The United States, the World’s only “superpower” seems to ignore the threats from these two nuclear states. Once the US decides that regime changer is the only solution, the game will not stop until its objectives have been met. A bully in foreign affairs, nobody in Washington remembers that “reset button” that was pushed last year to set relations with Russia right. The US consistently toys with the Russian Bear. Not unlike the situation with Iran, could this confrontation about Syria be the nuclear start button that leaves the Middle East and maybe the planet in a smoldering hell?
6. Propping-up the regime in Bahrain. We turn a blind eye again to the troubled State of affairs in Bahrain. There, the Khalifah monarchy uses troops from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to keep those that cry for democracy down. The ruthless Khalifah regime even imprisons and tortures medical personnel, doctors and medics that treat the wounded. The United States, which has its mighty Fifth Fleet anchored at the Capitol of Manama, has congratulated the regime for coming to a “accommodation” with the protestors, when in fact there was no “accommodation”, just a ruthless crackdown on dissidents, using torture and imprisonment. More ruthless than the regime in Damascus, the US, acting in its own self-interest, abides the human rights violations of the monarchy. Where is the much-touted call for democracy here?
7. Plotting Against Venezuela. The government of Venezuela, led by the vilified socialist, Hugo Chavez, was toppled by the wealthy right-wing elements of the Venezuelan opposition with help from the CIA in 2002. The US recognized the new government just hours after the coup. The people of Venezuela became incensed by the coup and took to the streets in protest. As a crowd of almost a million people descended on the Capitol, the Army changed sides and a firefight erupted between the Army and the Secret Police. The Army took control and demanded that Hugo Chavez be reinstated as President. The Bolivarian State of Venezuela, a democratic socialist republic, still exists there. This is a thorn in the side of the American administration in Washington. By all means possible, they vilify Chavez at every opportunity. Why is a functioning democracy in Latin America a problem there? The reason is that Chavez nationalized oil refineries that refused to split profits from oil 50-50, insisting that 80-20, the 80% going to the oil companies and 20% going to the people of Venezuela (the standard contract around the world). The only oil company that agreed to the split was Citgo. This was an affront to capitalism, the de-facto religion of America. Watch for more interference from America in Venezuelan affairs.
8. Our Armament Economy. Just as our industry in America was outsourced to nations that had cheap labor pools, our defense industry grew by leaps and bounds. With the many wars that America is involved in, from Central Africa, to the Horn of Africa all the way to Afghanistan and Pakistan, our defense budget boomed. Between The Department of Defense to the Intelligence Departments either belonging to the military or connected to the military, the actual budget according to different sources is about three trillion dollars. Also according to IPS: U.S. Sets Another Record on Defence Sales, Already .
“Despite the global economic strain, demand for U.S. defence products and services is stronger than ever,” Andrew J. Shapiro, an assistant secretary in the U.S. State Department, said on Thursday.
He confirmed that the U.S., long the world’s largest weapons exporter, has already seen more than 50 billion dollars in government-to-government military sales this fiscal year.”
9. Shifting the Military focus from the Middle-East to the Pacific. Some regard this as an attempt to contain the World’s second largest economy and a nuclear rival, The People’s Republic of China. Negotiating with the Philippines for the right to use Subic Bay for use of the port for the Seventh Fleet the US is also negotiating with Vietnam for the deep-water port of Cam Ranh Bay. Singapore has offered its naval facilities for use by high-speed Littoral ships. Marines will be stationed in Australia. According to The Japan Times :
“The Yomiuri Shimbun reported that the new force layout would divide the Marine Corps command, ground force, air and logistic units into an arc of bases forming a flank along the eastern seaboard of China.”
This of course, will not be a stepping stone for better relations between China and the United States.
10. Paying Wall Street. In what amounted to a gigantic “giveaway” The United States and The Federal reserve decided to heap $4.76 TRILLION Dollars on the financial firms and investment banks “Too big to fail”. This is according to Source Watch . This amount is staggering. Hardly any accounting for the funds was demanded by Congress. Some claim that investment banks and other entities are sitting on trillions while small business loans and mortgages remain next to impossible to attain. This gigantic bail-out was the spark that ignited the Occupy Movement that was started by Occupy Wall Street located in Zucotti Park. CEO’s received huge million dollar bonuses directly after the bail-out. This incensed Americans when Wall Street defended the bonuses claiming that they were based on “performance”. This so-called “performance” took place when casino-economics ruled the financial markets with the selling of derivatives.
“A derivative is a financial contract whose value is derived from the performance of underlying market factors, such as interest rates, currency exchange rates, and commodity, credit, and equity prices. Derivative transactions include an assortment of financial contracts, including structured debt obligations and deposits, swaps, futures, options, caps, floors, collars, forwards, and various combinations thereof.”
Investors could buy these derivatives, betting on the failure of any number of things. Financial wizards bet on “credit default swaps”. “A credit default swap (CDS) is a financial swap agreement that the seller of the CDS will compensate the buyer in the event of a loan default or other credit event. The buyer of the CDS makes a series of payments (the CDS “fee” or “spread”) to the seller and, in exchange, receives a payoff if the loan defaults.”
Buyers of these credit default swaps bet on different investment houses and banks that would experience loan defaults. Lehman Brothers was a good bet. These credit default swaps could be bought even though the buyer had no financial interest in the institution they were betting on. Unlike insurance, where the buyer had to have a financial interest in what they were insuring, these were like bets at a casino, hence the term “casino economics”. When Lehman Brothers went belly up, along with a number of banks, ING, the largest insurance company in America, held most of these derivatives and had no way to make the pay-outs that the investors demanded. To stop ING from going belly-up the Federal Government stepped in and poured billions into the firm.
These derivatives made some investors rich, courtesy of the Federal Government. The figures foResearch in Washington, D.C. This table relies entirely on government data and represents an accounting of actual government funds disbursed, mostly in the form of loans. Our total includes major programs of the U.S. Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and other government agencies to assist the financial sector and institutions that had a role in the crisis.”
All of the reasons above are the reasons why I doubt that the United States acts in the best interests of the American people. The war taking place in Afghanistan is a prime example of this logic. The American people have no vested interest in that nation . This “War on Terror”is a façade for the real goal of Full-Spectrum Dominance by the United States. The US is striving for global hegemony. Is this what the majority of Americans want? Where does it say in the Constitution that our number one priority should be top dominate the World?
The trouble with empires is that they not only rise, in the end they fall. It appears that the earlier empires such as Egypt and Rome lasted hundreds of years. As time went by, the empires that rose after lasted for shorter and shorter times. The Soviet Empire only lasted nearly one hundred years. How long will the American Empire last. Is it worth spending more on our military than all the other nations on the planet together?
We spend 711 Billion dollars according to our military budget alone. This does not take into account appropriations for ongoing wars and intelligence costs that balloon the cost to almost three trillion dollars. The rest of the world spends 851 billion dollars combined. Why is that? It’s because we have military bases in 63 different countries. “The US tends to view the Earth surface as a vast territory to conquer, occupy and exploit. The fact that the US Military splits the World up into geographic command units vividly illustrates this underlying geopolitical reality”. Is this what the American people want? It’s not what I want. As far as conquering the world, just because we believe that we can, is an idea that I don’t support. 53 cents out of every dollar in taxes goes to the military. I don’t think that the majority of Americans would support that if they knew and thought about it.
This march toward global domination is insane, insane and expensive too. Funding the military and associated intelligence agencies is like pouring money down the toilet. If Romney is elected Defense spending t will spike $2.1 trillion. Wow. These people just won’t stop. In all of this you can count me out. I just want to live the rest of my life and see my granddaughter grow up.
I have simple needs and one of those needs isn’t watching my government try to conquer the world. r the amount it took to bail-out Wall Street were a calculation that “was peer-reviewed by economists at the Center for Economic and Policy
By Timothy V. Gatto
19 June, 2012
Countercurrents.org
Tim Gatto is former Chairman of the Liberal Party of America, Tim is a retired Army Sergeant. He currently lives in South Carolina. He is the author of “Complicity to Contempt” and “Kimchee Days” available at Oliver Arts and Open Press.