WASHINGTON — In the midst of two unfinished major wars, the United States has quietly opened a third, largely covert front against Al Qaeda in Yemen.
The abortive efforts of the "panty-bomber" have inspired the War Party to focus on a new front in our ongoing and seemingly permanent "war on terrorism": Yemen, a godforsaken outpost of medievalism and sun-scorched desert on the northern shores of the Red Sea, is now taking center stage as al-Qaeda’s latest purported stronghold.
Yes, we’re still trapped on Bizarro World, where up is down, war is peace, and this year’s Nobel winner is launching what may very well turn out to be the third world war.
“When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it.
After my experience, I have come to hate war. War settles nothing.” ~ Dwight Eisenhower
President Barack Obama on Monday signed into law an increase in the U.S. national debt limit to $12.4 trillion, the White House said in a statement.
There is nothing like a really big economic crisis to separate the Cassandras from the Panglosses, the horsemen of the apocalypse from the Kool-Aid-swigging optimists. No, the last year has shown that all is not for the best in the best of all possible worlds. On the contrary, we might be doomed.
"Put another way -- 2010 looks like an unavoidable bloodbath for a multitude of 'zombie' borrowers, investors and lenders. Given the looming 'train wreck' of escalating commercial mortgage-backed securities rollovers ($250 billion to $300 billion annually through 2015). the shakeout period may extend 'several years' as even some conservative owners with well underwritten loans from the early 2000s see their equity destroyed."
A deal to end the world's longest-running trade dispute over import tariffs on bananas is virtually complete, but a final agreement may not be reached until next week, diplomats involved in the talks said on Friday.
Caribbean countries say their economies will be devastated by a deal they see as inevitable. Banana exports are the mainstay of their economies and adjusting to the loss of markets is already hurting producers and communities on the islands.
“America is in the fight of its life and that fight is not in Afghanistan -- it's here," Kucinich declared. "We are deeply in debt. Our GDP is down. Our manufacturing is down. Our savings are down. The value of the dollar is down. Our trade deficit is up. Business failures are up. Bankruptcies are up.
“The war is a threat to our national security. We’ll spend over $100 billion next year to bomb a nation of poor people while we reenergize the Taliban, destabilize Pakistan, deplete our army and put more of our soldiers’ lives on the line. Meanwhile, back here in the USA, 15 million people are out of work. People are losing their jobs, their health care, their savings, their investments, and their retirement security. $13 trillion in bailouts for Wall Street, trillions for war; when are we going to start taking care of things here at home?”
TOKYO (Reuters) - Gold hit a record high over $1,225 an ounce on Thursday, exerting an irresistible pull on investors seeking an alternative to the dollar, despite a Chinese central bank official warning against a potential asset price bubble.
“I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit,” said a friend, who told me of swearing to the good character of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who applied to the local police for a permit to buy a pistol. The banker had told this friend of mine that senior Goldman people have loaded up on firearms and are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank.
Wes Benedict, Executive Director of the Libertarian Party, said, "Rush Limbaugh should buy Obama a nice cigar. The liberal president has done exactly what the conservative leader wanted: escalate the war."
Sen. Carl Levin has a solution to the problem of how to finance our losing, futile war in Afghanistan – a war we are fighting to support what has now been officially deemed the second most corrupt government on earth: he wants a war tax.
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