Unremitting deceit from leadership is killing the country - International Social/Political

There is only so much false hope, broken promise and outright deceit a nation can take before it becomes completely dispirited and dejected. The latest news of yet another broken Obama promise -- this time the troop withdrawal from Iraq; 50,000 ‘re-classified’ troops will remain -- is as welcome today as a salmonella peanut butter sandwich!

Everyone seems to have forgotten that nations are made up of vastly different people that must be united in constructive purpose, spirit and IDEAL, not herded with fear mongering or other destructive methods of social control favoured by conservatives.

Even the most fervent Obama supporters feel betrayed and dejected by the latest broken pledge -- troop withdrawal from Iraq was a cornerstone policy of Obama’s now pot-holed road to power; he may as well be a white Republican for all the lies, deceit and broken promises! Things must ‘change’ …, indeed!

The ideology of greed, selfishness and callous indifference has indeed proven to be the demise of not only the economy but the entire United States – a nation now in the past tense of history!

How is it possible that no one foresaw what is painfully obvious to outside observers – the COST to the NATION of fragmented, fractured, hypocritical policies and FLAGRANT double standards! Poison ‘sermons’ from the pulpits of exclusivists do not a tenable or enduring nation make!

Few on the inside are able to see clearly as they are ‘immersed’ in their own shit! The hopes of a nation have already been sold to money-lenders and mercantile parasites. The people are now confronted with a fully manipulated government bailing out the private sector with public money when it is CLEAR that insider criminals should be held accountable NOT indulged or encouraged to persist in their folly!

Restoring national sovereignty and eliminating the failed, private banking sector is clearly required, however, the reaction of the American people to the most outrageous and brazen rip-offs in American history has been whipped-dog complacency – it seems the loss of personal investments and super schemes is not enough to stir the population into action or trigger lucid thinking and rational responses. With no real resistance to their outrageous ‘solutions’ (of robbing public funds) bankers have ordered puppet politicians to transfer the last portion of public assets into Wall St coffers – how does it feel, people?

People in other nations have demonstrated in the streets, besieged their capitals and demanded that they be treated in the same manner as banker elites. And why shouldn’t they, three percent of the population controlling 90% of available wealth is OUTRAGEOUS and an INTOLERABLE situation? But not a whimper or murmur from the sheeple of America. The American national will has been completely destroyed, much to the delight of competitor nations vying for global dominance.

Nations require viable ideologies, clear directions and purpose. The British Empire succeeded for hundreds of years because Britons, including the lowliest foot-soldier, clearly understood and could participate in the greater glory of Empire -- fighting for King, country and Empire was vocational for hundreds of years. British soldiers fought for an expanding Empire and were not troubled/weakened by mixed, contradictory messages from their leaders. Ideology and reality meshed completely and the Empire prospered for a relatively long historical period.

Contrast the UNDISGUISED, single-minded pursuits of the British Empire with the appalling LIES and HYPOCRISIES of America today!

Killing over one million civilians and attempting to justify that holocaust by naming it an exercise in spreading ‘liberty and democracy’ is absurd and incredulous to the extreme – THE ENTIRE WORLD, including the American people KNOW it’s a LIE!

Attempting to justify an illegal war with the excuse of removing an ‘evil dictator’ becomes self-incriminating when the numbers of murdered are compared -- America is directly and indirectly RESPONSIBLE for at least three times the civilian deaths attributed to former dictator Saddam Hussein; nevertheless, that ‘minor’ fact did not stop Cheney’s Halliburton and other private contractors from making billions from the suffering of countless innocents. When Congress requested accurate auditing figures private contractors were unable to supply accurate data! Why should they if former Secretary of Defence, Rumsfeld, openly admitted he couldn’t account for a staggering 2.3 trillion dollars in Defence Department spending! Only the American people tolerate such flagrant mismanagement and obvious misappropriation of funds.

The performances of imbecile neocons in power was absurd to the extreme – in all recorded history never have so many puppets, psychopaths and incompetents in high office been so clearly exposed as thieves, idiots and lunatics, but no action was taken at the time. The Obama administration is clearly avoiding the issue and is obviously loath to pursue the KNOWN, self-confessed, CRIMINALS of the former regime! Another wound to the heart of the nation!

The effect these contradictions, hypocrisies, LIES and DECEITS are having on the population is severe – an accurate analogy would be a cowering, whipped dog! The entire outside world sees what self-serving elites cannot; a ‘plague’ infecting and killing the ENTIRE nation!

Imagine if British fighting men (or Roman Legions) had been CONSTANTLY lied to about the objectives and goals of the many wars they waged. It is highly unlikely these Empires would have persisted for hundreds of years if the people had been fed obvious lies and mixed messages. They conquered, plundered and bathed in the glory of their deeds – no contradictions or deceptions to weaken the collective will, morale or national psyche of two of the most successful Empires in history!

Obama is merely the latest example of a long line of lying puppets doing the bidding of financiers, bankers and transnational corporations. One thing we can all be assured of is that Obama will continue to deceive and renege on promises; after all, who would take him to task, the people are incapable of the most elementary survival response?

See:
http://cleaves.zapto.org/news/story-204.html

Take this interview at face value at own risk!>br />

Barack Obama won the votes of many Americans by promising to swiftly end the Iraq War and bring U.S. troops home. He denounced George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq as a "violation of international law."

So will U.S. troops leave Iraq? Will those responsible for this trumped-up war face justice?

No, on both counts.

President Obama says U.S. combat troops will leave Iraq by August 2010. However, the U.S. military occupation will not end. What we are seeing is a public relations shell game.

The U.S. has 142,000 soldiers and nearly 100,000 mercenaries occupying Iraq. Obama's plan calls for withdrawing the larger portion of the U.S. garrison but leaving 50,000-60,000 troops in Iraq.

To get around his promise to withdraw all "combat" troops, the president and his advisers are rebranding the stay-behind garrison as "training troops, protection for American interests, and counterterrorism forces."

At a time when the U.S. is bankrupt and faces a $1.75 trillion deficit, the Pentagon's gargantuan $664 billion budget (50% of total global military spending) will grow in 2009 and 2010 by another $200 billion to pay for the occupation of Iraq and Obama's expanded war in Afghanistan. Throw in another $40 billion to $50 billion for the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

Obama insists the U.S. will withdraw from Iraq. But his words are belied by the Pentagon, which continues to expand bases in Iraq, including Balad and Al-Asad, with 4,400-metre runways for heavy bombers and transports.

AIR BRIDGE

They are key links in the U.S. Air Force's new air bridge that extends from Germany to Bulgaria and Romania, Iraq and the Gulf, then onward to Afghanistan and Central Asia.

Besides Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone and U.S. embassy (the world's largest), the Pentagon reportedly wants to retain 58 permanent bases in Iraq (by comparison, there are 36 in South Korea), total control of its air space and immunity from Iraqi law for all U.S. troops.

The U.S. also will retain major bases in neighbouring Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Diego Garcia. U.S. oil companies are moving in to exploit Iraq's vast energy reserves, the Mideast's second largest after Saudi Arabia.

U.S. troop levels will remain high during Iraq's December elections to ensure "security," according to the Pentagon. In other words, ensuring the U.S.-selected regime "wins" the vote. Iraqi parties, notably Baath, opposing the U.S. occupation, are banned from running. Many Iraqis believe the U.S. will never leave their nation.

In short, contrary to all Obama's high-blown rhetoric about pulling out of Iraq, Washington clearly intends it will remain a U.S. military, political and economic protectorate. Washington is following exactly the same control model the British Empire used to rule Iraq, and exploit its oil: Install a figurehead ruler, keep him in power using a "native" army (read today's Iraqis army and police). RAF units based in Iraq (read U.S. air bases) bomb any rebellious areas. Smaller British ground units based in non-urban areas are on call to put down attempted coups against the king. The U.S. plan for Iraq is identical.

Obama made clear that officials responsible for the Iraq war, torture, kidnapping or assassination will not be prosecuted. The theft of over $50 billion in U.S. "reconstruction" funds sent to Iraq is being hushed up.

By contrast, Britons are demanding release of cabinet documents leading to war that are likely to expose Tony Blair's lies and illegalities.

BYGONES

There is no corresponding call for justice in the United States. Obama tells the public, let bygones be bygones. Unless, of course, it's Osama bin Laden.

Between 600,000 and one million Iraqis died as a result of President George W. Bush's aggression, which cost nearly $1 trillion and some 4,500 U.S. dead. Four million Iraqis remain refugees. The U.S. holds over 20,000 Iraqi political prisoners.

Mr. President, this is not a bygone. It's a historic crime that demands justice. Keep your word about withdrawing from Iraq. Enough with the Bush doubletalk.

© 2009 Toronto Sun

The Real Scandal of AIG
by Robert Reich via fleet - Robert Reich's blog Sunday, Mar 15 2009, 9:05pm

The real scandal of AIG isn't just that American taxpayers have so far committed $170 billion to the giant insurer because it is thought to be too big to fail -- the most money ever funneled to a single company by a government since the dawn of capitalism -- nor even that AIG's notoriously failing executives, at the very unit responsible for the catastrophic credit-default swaps at the very center of the debacle, are planning to give themselves over $100 million in bonuses. The scandal is that even at this late date, even in a new administration dedicated to doing it all differently, Americans still have so little say over what is happening with our money.

The administration is said to have been outraged when it heard of the bonus plan last week. Apparently Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner told AIG's chairman, Edward Liddy (who was installed at the insistence of the Treasury, in the first place) that the bonuses should not be paid. But it turns out that most will be paid anyway, because, according to AIG, the firm is legally obligated to pay them. The bonuses are part of employee contracts negotiated before the bailouts. And, in any event, Liddy explained, AIG needs to be able to retain talent.

AIG's arguments are absurd on their face. Had AIG gone into chapter 11 bankruptcy or been liquidated, as it would have without government aid, no bonuses would ever be paid (they would have had a lower priority under bankruptcy law that AIG's debts to other creditors); indeed, AIG's executives would have long ago been on the street. And any mention of the word "talent" in the same sentence as "AIG" or "credit default swaps" would be laughable if laughing weren't already so expensive.

This sordid story of government helplessness in the face of massive taxpayer commitments illustrates better than anything to date why the government should take over any institution that's "too big to fail" and which has cost taxpayers dearly. Such institutions are no longer within the capitalist system because they are no longer accountable to the market. To whom should they be accountable? As long as taxpayers effectively own a large portion of them, they should be accountable to the government.

But if our very own Secretary of the Treasury doesn't even learn of the bonuses until months after AIG has decided to pay them, and cannot make stick his decision that they should not be paid, AIG is not even accountable to the government. That means AIG's executives -- using $170 billion of our money, so far -- are accountable to no one.

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