Stephen Lendman

Since 2008, Western nations have force-fed their people austerity poison. Decline replaces prosperity. Millions suffer. Living standards deteriorate. Societies become no longer fit to live in. Neoliberal and imperial priorities let essential public needs go begging. How much more people will take before erupting remains to be seen. The longer fiscal pain continues, the closer an ultimate day of reckoning approaches. It'll arrive disruptively. Perhaps people will recognize that throwing out bums for new ones accomplishes nothing.

America is Exhibit A. Political Washington is corrupt, immoral, degenerate, and unprincipled. Instead of helping people, they destroy them. They benefit from imposing misery. Allied with criminal bankers an other corporate predators, their policies made conditions for growing millions intolerable.

Imperial wars destroy nations. Austerity leaves "nothing to drive the economy," says Paul Craig Roberts. Washington's solution is increase it. Doing it is economically destructive. Only bankers, other corporate favorites, and war profiteers benefit.

Michael Hudson says austerity sacrifices the "production economy, the consumption economy, (and) the real economy...." Viable alternatives are ignored to benefit privileged elites at the expense of most others. Hudson calls it

"financial warfare against the entire society, not only against labor, but against industry and, most of all, against government." Productive "industrial capitalism" became predatory "finance capitalism." It's not financing industry. It's furthering "economic parasitism and overhead."

Politicians in Washington support it. Obama exceeds the worst of Bush. Europe is corrupted the same way.

Wayne Madsen

Using the former Soviet republic of Georgia as a base of operation, NATO, the Wahhabists of Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, and the Zionist regime of Israel have a plan to carve up southern Russia, including the Caucasus region, into a group of vassal states that will either be under the influence of Georgia, pan-Turkic nationalists, or radical Sunni regimes owing fealty to Riyadh and Doha. Moreover, the plans for southern Russia are a carbon copy of Nazi Germany’s failed plans for the region.

Current neo-conservative doctrine foresees the fall of the governments of Iran, Belarus, and, ultimately Russia and China, after the fall of Damascus, to the combined forces of NATO and the Saudi- and Qatari-backed Salafist Wahhabis, who make up a large portion of the Syrian rebel movement. Russia has clearly drawn a line in the sand in Syria and does not want to see yet another Arab nation fall into the clutches of neo-con globalists and radical Muslims. Libya constituted proof of the alliance between the neo-con uber-capitalists, Zionists, and Wahhabists. Even if Russia concedes Damascus and the rest of inland Syria to the rebels, it is prepared, through the use of its Navy and naval base at Tartus in the predominantly-Alavi coastal region of Syria, to offer military protection for Bashar al-Assad, his fellow Alavis, and Syrian Christians who have been protected by the Alavis in an independent salient that includes Tartus and Latakia. The complete fall of Syria to Wahhabists and NATO will move the instability of the Middle East closer to the Russian southern frontier.

The stakes for Russia are immense. One only needs to examine Nazi Germany’s “New Order” (Neuordnung) plans for the occupation of the Soviet Union and Persia to understand what the neo-cons and their Israeli and Wahhabist colleagues have in store for southern Russia and Iran.

Philip Giraldi

So the upshot is that we will likely have a war in the Middle East only because Mitt Romney wants to become president and is willing to sell out every U.S. vital interest to succeed in that goal. Obama has already walked down that road, leaving little hope for the rest of us to cling to.

The shameful spectacle of American politicians trying to outdo each other in demonstrating their love for Israel played out again last week. The sparring began before the Olympic Games in London. Israel asked for a moment of silence at the opening ceremony to commemorate the 11 Israeli athletes who were murdered in Munich 40 years ago. President Obama obligingly endorsed the proposal and Romney followed, even though it was none of their business, but the British organizers turned it down. They also refused to provide special protection for Israeli athletes, arguing that the security was adequate for everyone involved in the games, which it was.

Preparing to leave for London, Mitt Romney then upped the ante at the Veterans of Foreign War convention in Reno Nevada on July 24, stating to tepid applause that “President Obama is fond of lecturing Israel’s leaders. He was even caught by a microphone deriding them. He has undermined their position, which was tough enough as it was. And even at the United Nations, to the enthusiastic applause of Israel’s enemies, he spoke as if our closest ally in the Middle East was the problem. The people of Israel deserve better than what they have received from the leader of the free world. And the chorus of accusations, threats, and insults at the United Nations should never again include the voice of the president of the United States.” Mitt also castigated Russia before going on to his real target, “There is no greater danger in the world today than the prospect of the ayatollahs in Tehran possessing nuclear weapons capability.”

Note that Romney was adopting the neocon and Israeli demand that Iran should not even have the capability to create a nuclear weapon even though it already is able to do so, as are a number of other countries. That means that going to war is already on the table. Mitt then continued “The same ayatollahs who each year mark a holiday by leading chants of ‘Death to America’ are not going to be talked out of their pursuit of nuclear weapons. … A clear line must be drawn: There must be a full suspension of any enrichment, period.”