Archive for the ‘US Imperialism’ Category
The armies not there, the battles not fought
January 8, 2008The Blood on Musharraf’s Hands
December 28, 2007
Who benefits from the murder of Benazir Bhutto? Bhutto herself told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that if she were assassinated she would hold Pervez Musharraf “responsible”. Certainly, the prospects for elections are dead. Pakistan will remain stuck with Musharraf and his de facto military dictatorship. Bush’s ally still wields dictatorial powers. The big winners: Bush and Musharraf, for different reasons.
Who but Musharraf has benefited from Bhutto’s murder? At the very least there are new concerns about the stability of Pakistan. American military officials have already said that some $5 billion Bush has thrown at the dictator under the cover of a war on terrorism has had no effect on either Al Qaeda or the Taliban.
Bush support of Musharraf has already been compared to his administrations ham fisted response to Katrina. Musharraf was the lynchpin of Bush’s War on Terror, indeed, US foreign policy under Bush. Always simplistic, Bush threw money at Musharif in hopes the “evil doers” would volunteer to be tortured. Terrorism is the perfect cover to steal oil and territory while squandering tax payer monies propping tin horn dictators.
Bush policy is the geo-political version of three-card monte: pay off Musharraf in hopes that he will cheat the “mark”. Certainly, the once-uniformed Dictator went through all the motions, pretending to fight al Qaeda while spending the money on new weapons trained on India. Nevertheless, Bush now has the pretext he needs to pressure Musharraf whom Bhutto, in death, holds responsible.
Last month President Bush told Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan that he must be more aggressive in hunting down al-Qaeda and the Taliban along his country’s border with Afghanistan. During his recent visit to Islamabad, Vice President Cheney echoed the claim that al-Qaeda members were training in Pakistan’s tribal areas and called on Musharraf to shut down their operations. British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett also expressed concern recently about suspected terrorist safe havens.
Clearly, the pressure is on. Western leaders are finally beginning to recognize that Musharraf’s regime has been unsuccessful in taming the Taliban, which has regrouped in the tribal areas of Pakistan while the military regime has given up trying to establish order on the Afghan border. At the same time, the regime has strategically chosen to help the United States when international criticism of the terrorists’ presence becomes strident. The arrest of Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, a top Taliban strategist, by Pakistani authorities late last month is a case in point. The timing, right on the heels of American and British pleas for renewed toughness, is too convenient. Akhund was arrested solely to keep Western governments at bay.
—A False Choice for Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, Monday, Washington Post, March 12, 2007
There is little doubt that Musharraf failed to provide Bhutto with adequate security. Significantly, both Raw Story and the Washington Post are now warning that Bhutto’s murder has raised the specter of nuclear apocalypse.
WASHINGTON, DC (December 27, 2007) � US Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) issued the following statement after learning of the death of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Bhutto was killed in Rawalpindi, Pakistan in a suicide attack following a campaign rally.
�This is a very dangerous moment for the world,� Kucinich said.
�Benazir Bhutto represented a courageous effort to bring principles of liberty to Pakistan. She was truly dedicated to the people of Pakistan.
�The United States must change its policy direction in the region. It must stop adding fuel to the fire.�
—Kucinich: Assassination of Benazir Bhutto Represents Dangerous Moment For The World 2007-12-27 15:17
Assassinations are carried out because they provoke anger and recriminations. Therefore, don’t expect this assassination to result in trials or justice. As the murder of JFK in our own country demonstrated: assassins are almost never brought to trial because they are state sponsored. That’s been the case for thousands of years. Nevertheless, finger pointers are simply playing out the role that “real killers” had hoped they would. The US, for example, will issue yet another version of Bush’s script and blame the convenient demon du jour: al Qaeda. By the time you read this, such a statement will have already been issued. In that case, it must be remembered that al Qaeda is a creation of the US CIA.
Interestingly, Bhutto was ready to publicly accuse the Bush Administration and current Pakistani President Pervez Musharif of stealing up to five billion dollars from the Pakistani treasury. That five billion is probably sitting in the dictator’s private offshore bank account. Real blockbusters are all but ignored by the “mainstream media”, notably, Bhutto’s revelation that Osama Bin Laden is dead:
In this November 2, 2007 interview by Sir David Frost, Benazir Bhutto claimed that Bin Laden had been assassinated by Omar Sheihk (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1804710.stm ), six minutes and ten seconds into the video. This is most interesting and, if true, it puts a lie to all those Osama bin Laden videos that have been turning up over the past five years – Omar Sheikh was sentenced to death in July 2002 for the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl.
— Benazir Bhutto Claimed Bin Laden Assassinated By Omar Sheikh [Also see: Benazir Bhutto Assassination Brings Us Closer To Potential Nuclear Holocaust]
Related stories from Tom Heneghan.
[The] story leaked by US Media that Bush threatened to bomb Pakistan after 9-11 is a diversion from the real story. The real story is that Mushareaf, Pakistani President, knows that Bin Laden is dead and knows where he is buried. And knows that the bogeyman has gone to his maker aka kidney failure, Jan. 2002.
It can now be reported that Bushfraud threatened to bomb Pakistan just one week ago when Mushareaf threatened to tell the world that Bin Laden has been dead for three years.
P.S. It should be noted that when Khalid Muhammad was arrested in Pakistan, the alleged mastermind of 9-11, a US intelligence officer, aka a Gary Best employee named Spelezio was allowed to escape interrogation by the FBI on orders directly from Bush himself.
Hang on! The world has just become a much, much more dangerous place. Pakistan –a nuclear power –may destabalize. India already feels threatened. Despite or because of Bush, terrorists are emboldened and further radicalized as they have been and continue to be by the war against Iraq. A voice for moderation in the most strategic region of the world —the Grand Chessboard –is now dead.
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Oil Traders Seize Control of World Oil Prices
November 27, 2007
A shadowy cabal of international “oil traders” have seized control of the world’s markets and the price of oil. That’s not the opinion of a crazed “conspiracy theorist”. It is the informed opinion of an expert market analyst interviewed by the prestigious Foreign Policy magazine.
As oil reached $100 recently, Foreign Policy magazine asked the question: who stole the oil? Fadel Gheit, one of Wall Street’s top energy analysts, believes that the world price of oil is no longer tied to the market. In other words, powerful international traders have seized control of the world’s primary source of energy.
I truly believe that major investment banks and a large number of very high-risk-taking financial players have seized control of the oil markets, especially in the last six months. During that time, oil prices moved in one direction and market fundamentals really moved sideways or even lowered. Demand has slowed down significantly. We have seen all kinds of indications that we are reaching a breaking point here. We�ve seen what happened to gasoline margins on the West Coast; they�ve dropped to an almost 18-year low. All this is an indication that something is wrong with the system, that supply and demand fundamentals do not justify the current price. But if the current price is based on speculation, there is no limit to how high oil prices can go. Basically, as long as there is somebody willing to bid higher, the price of the commodity will move higher.
-Fadel Gheith, Seven Questions: The Price of Fear, Foreign Policy
Oil, of course, was rising concurrent with the dollar’s fall. OPEC’s take was simply the rise in oil offset their own dollar losses in the currency markets. It was in middle October that many analysts had already written that many investors trying to hedge their dollar losses amid predictions that another cut in US interest rates would drive the buck even lower, and oil even higher. Gheith is probably correct about oil. The question then is: qui bono? Who benefits most from both the dollar’s fall and the rise of oil?
In October, crude had already reached an historic high above $80 a barrel. In the same breath analysts pointed to the “weakening dollar” and inflation. Inflation of course, threatens consumer spending, even cheap Chinese imports from Wal-Mart. The future is now. Or –is it?
To my knowledge, there is no oil shortage. Any willing buyers will not have a problem finding oil. Global inventories are over 4 billion barrels. In simple math, that is the equivalent of all the oil produced in the Middle East for six months. So, the fear premium, in my view, is totally exaggerated; it�s not justified by logic or market fundamentals.
–Fadel Gheith, Seven Questions: The Price of Fear, Foreign Policy
I find it incredibly interesting that only those oil barons, typified by Dick Cheney’s Energy Task Force, are precisely the group fingered by Gheith as benefiting most from the spread. In other words, US war hawks have probably lost nothing from the dollar’s fall that hasn’t been made up with the sale of oil.
… it�s very difficult to quantify fear. But that is the psychological factor, in my view, that is bringing oil prices to these unprecedented levels. For instance, I don�t believe that Iran is going to cut oil exports, because Iran needs the revenue more than the world needs Iran�s oil. We have to be logical in assessing the risk. And obviously, financial players want to exaggerate the situation so that the risk premium increases and they make more money.
–Fadel Gheith, Seven Questions: The Price of Fear, Foreign Policy
Bush created the task force in his second week in office. Officially known as the National Energy Policy Development Group, it was charged with developing a national energy policy. When documents related to their secret meetings were, at last, released, it was clear that the “Energy Task Force” had simply carved up the Middle East, just as surely as Hitler had intended to carve up the resources of Europe and Russia.
I smell a rat…or just the evil stench associated with Bush’s oil regime?
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