Clipmarks | ratilfar's 'empire' clips

Reduced Dominance Is Predicted for U.S.

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:37:31 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: In other words, the Empire is in decline.

An intelligence forecast being prepared for the next president on future global risks envisions a steady decline in U.S. dominance in the coming decades, as the world is reshaped by globalization, battered by climate change, and destabilized by regional upheavals over shortages of food, water and energy.

The report, previewed in a speech by Thomas Fingar, the U.S. intelligence community's top analyst, also concludes that the one key area of continued U.S. superiority -- military power -- will "be the least significant" asset in the increasingly competitive world of the future, because "nobody is going to attack us with massive conventional force."

"The U.S. will remain the preeminent power, but that American dominance will be much diminished," Fingar said, according to a transcript of the Thursday speech. He saw U.S. leadership eroding "at an accelerating pace" in "political, economic and arguably, cultural arenas."

Tags: empire, us, decline, future, multipolar, military, intelligence

Palin: Iraq is a war for oil

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 14:15:00 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: Well color me surprised!

Clip Source: thinkprogress.org

In a recent BusinessWeek interview, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) admitted that she believes the Iraq war was fought because of oil:

We are a nation at war and in many [ways] the reasons for war are fights over energy sources, which is nonsensical when you consider that domestically we have the supplies ready to go.

In May, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) also said that he plans to “eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East.” He later backtracked from his comments, denying that he meant to imply that the Iraq war was fought over oil.

UpdateIn June, Palin told Glenn Beck, "The average Alaskan says again we recognize these reserves being ready to be tapped. … We're ready to contribute more to the U.S. in terms of resources that can lead to a safer nation; and I say this while our nation is at war, while we're fighting, in some sense, over energy supplies."

Tags: palin, gop, war, iraq, oil, empire

Bush To Russia: Stop The "Bullying And Intimidation"

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:42:10 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: Another from the Dept. of you can't make this $&#! up! Mr. President, only kids believe in opposite day.

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

WASHINGTON — President Bush on Friday accused Russia of "bullying and intimidation" in its harsh military treatment of Georgia, saying the people in the former Soviet republic have chosen freedom and "we will not cast them aside."

Bush ratcheted up his rhetoric against Moscow as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pursued a diplomatic solution to the week-old crisis. Rice was in Tblisi for talks with pro-Western Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili about details of the cease-fire, which would require Russia to withdraw its combat forces from Georgia but allow Russian peacekeepers to remain in South Ossetia and conduct limited patrols outside the region.

Bush said that Russia, with its air, sea and land attacks in Georgia, had damaged its relations with the United States and other Western powers.

Still, Bush said, "The Cold War is over. The days of satellite states and spheres of influence are behind us."

Tags: bush, putin, u.s., russia, georgia, empire

GOP-ers weigh in on Bush's eight years

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 21:14:28 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: That may be but the bubble of self-inflicted delusion is alive and well:

"I regard Bush 43 as one of the greatest presidents of the last century, right up there with [Ronald] Reagan, and I have tremendous respect and admiration for what he's done," said Clint Moore, a Texas delegate.

In what parallel universe?

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The looming threat of Hurricane Gustav forced President Bush to cancel his planned valedictory address before the GOP national convention Monday night.

For many delegates gathering here, that's not a bad thing.

Everyone assembled in St. Paul hates the circumstances that forced Bush's absence; concern about Gustav dominated every conversation. But given the deeply conflicted emotions that swirl around the president from within his party, Bush's decision to forgo the occasion saves Republicans an awkward moment.

The view toward Bush from this convention is complex. Some delegates praise him for a job well done. Others nurse resentments over a host of Bush actions — the government's botched and insensitive response to Hurricane Katrina, ironically, is at the top of that list.

But most feel a sense of disappointment for what might have been.

Tags: gop, convention, war, empire, conquest, blood, iraq, idiots

Coming Soon: A Post-American World

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 16:56:02 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: Get used to it!

Clip Source: www.cbsnews.com

Consider the Olympic Games a giant exclamation point … a fanfare announcing a message from the Chinese.

They're putting the world on notice, that they are players playing to win, and not just Olympic gold. They want you to know that China is a power to be reckoned with, and proud of it, that it's bearing down on the United States … fast.

"The implications are that China will be the commercial leader of the world," Albert Keidel, an expert on China's economy, told Teichner. "It will also deserve and demand leadership in global institutions."

"We can model the economy and show that by 2035, it will be as big, if not bigger than the United States' economy will be at that time, and by the middle of the century it will be twice the size of the U.S. economy at that time," Keidel said.

Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International, said, "What's happening right now is, the world is moving beyond America. The future is, in many ways, being shaped in distant places by foreign people."

Tags: us, world, china, economy, multi, polar, empire, end

Plucky little Georgia? No, the cold war reading won't wash

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 20:37:30 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: All is not what is what it looks like....

Cont:

Devoted to achieving Nato entry for Georgia, Saakashvili has sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan - and so clearly felt he had American backing. The streets of the Georgian capital are plastered with posters of George W Bush alongside his Georgian protege. George W Bush avenue leads to Tbilisi airport. But he has ignored Kissinger's dictum: "Great powers don't commit suicide for their allies." Perhaps his neoconservative allies in Washington have forgotten it, too. Let's hope not.

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

For many people the sight of Russian tanks streaming across a border in August has uncanny echoes of Prague 1968. That cold war reflex is natural enough, but after two decades of Russian retreat from those bastions it is misleading. Not every development in the former Soviet Union is a replay of Soviet history.

The clash between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia, which escalated dramatically yesterday, in truth has more in common with the Falklands war of 1982 than it does with a cold war crisis. When the Argentine junta was basking in public approval for its bloodless recovery of Las Malvinas, Henry Kissinger anticipated Britain's widely unexpected military response with the comment: "No great power retreats for ever." Maybe today Russia has stopped the long retreat to Moscow which started under Gorbachev.

The more Russia drew in its horns, the more Washington and its allies denounced the Kremlin for its imperial ambitions.

Tags: georgia, russia, war, empire, nato, u.s.

Iraq Faulty Wiring A Severe Risk To US Troops: Report

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:28:24 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: If the insurgents don't kill you, KBR will!

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

NEW YORK — Inferior electrical work by private contractors on U.S. military bases in Iraq is more widespread than the Pentagon has acknowledged, according to a published report.

A Senate panel investigating the electrocutions of Americans on bases in Iraq was told last week by former KBR Inc. electricians that the contractor used employees with little electrical expertise to supervise subcontractors in Iraq and hired foreigners who couldn't speak English. The Pentagon has said 13 Americans have been electrocuted in Iraq since September 2003. It has ordered Houston-based KBR to inspect all the facilities it maintains in Iraq for electrical hazards.

During just one six-month period _ August 2006 through January 2007 _ at least 283 electrical fires destroyed or damaged American military facilities in Iraq, including the military's largest dining hall in the country, according to the documents obtained by the Times.

Tags: iraq, war, kbr, contractors, stupidity, negligence, criminal, tax payers, theft, empire

Coldplay-Viva La Vida

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:37:46 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: Great song and now the official theme song of my blog!

Clip Source: youtube.com

[Video]

Tags: coldplay, video, youtube, music, friday, viva, la, vida, empire

Washington's War: From Independence to Iraq: an interview

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 03:49:37 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: Great stuff here!

Clip Source: www.davidphinney.com

[Video]

Tags: war, u.s., history, iraq, conquest, empire

McCain calls bringing troops home ‘not too important’

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:23:43 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: Is this clip anti-American?

Clip Source: www.crooksandliars.com

After over a year of campaigning, you’d think John McCain would have a sense about how to talk about the war in Iraq. His support for the president’s policy, and his deeply held desire to stay the course, is, after all, his signature campaign issue.

And yet, McCain still doesn’t get it.

[Video]

To be sure, McCain has made comments like these before, most notably in response to questions about his stated willingness to keep U.S. troops in Iraq for 100 years. He frequently emphasizes his belief that as long as Americans are not being killed or seriously injured in Iraq, he doesn’t much care when we leave.

But he’s usually not this clumsy and politically tone deaf. Bringing the troops home is “not too important”? For thousands of Americans in uniform and their families, nothing is more important.

Tags: mccain, mcbush, mcsame, forever war, manchurian candidate, occupation, empire

Iraqis Condemn American Demands

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:21:00 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: "The Americans are making demands that would lead to the colonization of Iraq,"

Their words, not mine.

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

BAGHDAD, June 10 -- High-level negotiations over the future role of the U.S. military in Iraq have turned into an increasingly acrimonious public debate, with Iraqi politicians denouncing what they say are U.S. demands to maintain nearly 60 bases in their country indefinitely.

"The Americans are making demands that would lead to the colonization of Iraq," said Sami al-Askari, a senior Shiite politician on parliament's foreign relations committee who is close to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. "If we can't reach a fair agreement, many people think we should say, 'Goodbye, U.S. troops. We don't need you here anymore.' "

U.S. officials have refused to publicly discuss details of the negotiations. But Iraqi politicians have become more open in their descriptions of the talks, stoking popular anger at American demands that Iraqis across the political spectrum view as a form of continued occupation.

Tags: iraq, war, colony, proxy, empire, conquest

Did Iranian agents dupe Pentagon officials?

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 01:29:58 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: But wait there is more:

"The Senate report said that Pentagon officials never followed up on the investigators' recommendation for a comprehensive analysis of whether Ghorbanifar or his associates tried "to directly or indirectly influence or access U.S. government officials."

The counterintelligence investigators recommended that U.S. officials attempt "to map Ghorbanifar's relationship within Iranian elite social networks and, if possible, his contacts with other governments and/or intelligence organizations," but that effort was never undertaken."

Clip Source: www.mcclatchydc.com

WASHINGTON — Defense Department counterintelligence investigators suspected that Iranian exiles who provided dubious intelligence on Iraq and Iran to a small group of Pentagon officials might have "been used as agents of a foreign intelligence service ... to reach into and influence the highest levels of the U.S. government," a Senate Intelligence Committee report said Thursday.

A top aide to then-secretary of defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, however, shut down the 2003 investigation into the Pentagon officials' activities after only a month, and the Defense Department's top brass never followed up on the investigators' recommendation for a more thorough investigation, the Senate report said.

The revelation raises questions about whether Iran may have used a small cabal of officials in the Pentagon and in Vice President Dick Cheney's office to feed bogus intelligence on Iraq and Iran to senior policymakers in the Bush administration who were eager to oust the Iraqi dictator.

Tags: iran, iraq, lies, intelligence, stupidity, empire, forever war

US issues threat to Iraq's $50bn foreign reserves in military deal

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 07:07:37 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: Iraqi sovereignty...HA!

Clip Source: www.independent.co.uk

The US is holding hostage some $50bn (£25bn) of Iraq's money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pressure the Iraqi government into signing an agreement seen by many Iraqis as prolonging the US occupation indefinitely, according to information leaked to The Independent.

US negotiators are using the existence of $20bn in outstanding court judgments against Iraq in the US, to pressure their Iraqi counterparts into accepting the terms of the military deal, details of which were reported for the first time in this newspaper yesterday.

Iraqi critics of the agreement say that it means Iraq will be a client state in which the US will keep more than 50 military bases. American forces will be able to carry out arrests of Iraqi citizens and conduct military campaigns without consultation with the Iraqi government. American soldiers and contractors will enjoy legal immunity.

Tags: iraq, war, conquest, empire, why

Colombia's Uribe refuses to rule out third term

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:24:41 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: "Uribe is a Wall Street favorite but many investors and analysts say a third term by the bespectacled conservative would present a threat to the independence of Colombian institutions, such as the courts and the central bank."

Clip Source: www.alertnet.org

BOGOTA, June 4 (Reuters) - Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, whose "Democratic Security" policies have put leftist rebels on the defensive and sparked economic growth, refused on Wednesday to rule out a third run for office.

Uribe, elected in 2002 and re-elected in 2006 after Congress passed a constitutional amendment allowing a second term, is flirting with running again in 2010. This would require another change in law.

"We seek to assure the re-election of Democratic Security and investor confidence," Uribe told local radio when asked if he would like to run again, declining to endorse allies such as Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos who are possible candidates.

Colombia, in the grips of a four-decade-old guerrilla insurgency funded by the cocaine trade, is home to regular political violence against trade unionists and others suspected of pro-rebel sympathies.

Tags: uribe, empire, colombia, proxy, south america, war, war crimes

Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 05:00:07 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: Empire by any other name....

Clip Source: www.independent.co.uk

A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.

The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq's position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.

The timing of the agreement would also boost the Republican candidate, John McCain, who has claimed the United States is on the verge of victory in Iraq – a victory that he says Mr Obama would throw away by a premature military withdrawal.

Tags: iraq, war, occupationm, conquest, empire