What obama secured for the dropping of the crazy first strike capacity under the guise of Iranian Missile Defense was Russia’s overland route to supplying Afghanistan.  Obama now has to decide whether he is going to increase troops in Afghanistan to prevent losing the war until after the election, or cutting bait now.

Obama was put in office because of his ability to sling inspiring bullshit while continuing Bushite policies.  He has expanded the war to Pakistan where the US is constructing a Green Zone in Islambad, the Pac capital. Since he is merely a public relations cypher, he will probably go along with a troop increase, with US troops in or threatening the continuous states, from east to west, of Iraq,  Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.  Nearly four hundred thousand people. All of whom hate the US occupation except the bought leaders and the Iranian Gucci protesters.

So the elimination of the missles has been bought at a severe price that may include another decade of war.  Along with inspiring bullshit.

An interesting piece by Mr. Pfaff and I may add ,a topic that has been discussed in Polska and Europe for many weeks now.Ever since the Obama administration hinted at the possibility of
scrapping the Missile Defense Shield in August 09 ,the topic had almost become a daily media staple in many European countries.The city of Kiev along with the Ukrainian people are considerably
older and elder as compared to Moscow and the Muscovy Russ, although many Muscovites maintain that the opposite is true.The Kremlin would always fiercely object to having a non-aligned state on
their immediate border in order to protect their own country-it’s like not in my back yard theory-, therefore it has always been highly recommended that the Ukraine at the least ,remain neutral.The Missile
Defense Shield remains as most informed analyst concur a nonentity with regards to their placement and perceived mission.The predominant question that Mr., Pfaff has graciously left the readers with is
rather more complicated.First of all Europe in general has very little oil to speak of-Norway being an exception- the rest have to import large quantities based on their economies,Europe has basically
two choices one of which is the Russians and the other the Middle East .Moscow is willing and able to supply Europe for many years and at a competitive rate,the US is able to do the same but with
someone else’s oil-at one time it was rule Britannia rule the seas - now it has become the US strategy,basically it comes down to control.Germany and Russia have been known historically to cooperate
with one another especially for economic reasons and also for purposes of aggrandizement ,the loss of Germany’s eastern territories is still an open wound to many Germans.The Nord stream project
as compared to the Nabucco pipeline is but one important example with regards to economic needs.From a strategic point of view both pipelines are based on a policy of contournement which is both
expensive and far-fetched, therefore the US decision to drive a wedge in Polska between Russia and Western Europe stirred up quite the hornet’s nest,and one that brings back memories of the Cuban
Missile Crises.The US calculated by placing missiles in Polska for a none-existent threat from Iran ,they could negotiate something for nothing, at the moment it seems that Russia won the first round ,but
it remains to be seen how the Iranian question is going to unravel and whether Russia and or China will acquiesce.

The military Industrial complex will be upset over this, their losing money, and thats the most important thing for them…

But don’t worry they’ll be back with another freaky scheme, to sell a weapons system and get those billions back, and they have the lobbyiests to do it…

Ray Duray, September 25 at 4:16 pm #

Yes, Lori was on Democracy now yesterday (Friday).
Actually Friday’s show was quite good if not
depressing. The present climate regarding the public’s
right to protest is a far cry from my protest day’s of
the 60’s/70’s. From where I sit it’s very difficult to
see much difference between protests in say; Honduras,
Iran, or the U.S. Very depressing. It seems for every
step forward (no missiles in Poland/Czech Republic)
there are 3 steps back.

The main point of this article should have been the impact to our allies.  Regardless if you are pro or con as to the merits of a missile shield deployment, The US, or any country for that matter, can not simply make a unilateral decision regarding a promise made to an ally or allies and have the allies find out the same time you and I do.

Of course the shield was against Russia.  Both Poland and the Czech Republic have been invaded multiple times by Russia in the last 100 years alone.  And those two countries are two of our staunchest allies, as they perceive the US, rightly, as being the reason they are free democracies today.

The entire foreign policy of this administration has been to treat friends and foes on the same level.  More often, even treating foes, or those with interests that are divergent or in direct conflict to the US, better than allies.  This is not the way to “make America respected again” or whatever garbage he’s spewing today.

Hi Ouroborus,

Someone else I’ve paid attention to for a few years now is Lori Wallach of the Global Trade Watch section at Public Citizen.

There’s a very informative interview with Lori on Democracy NOW! today, discussing the background to the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh.

http://bit.ly/2J0sEU

I learned that there’s quite an illusion being offered to the gullible public at Pittsburgh.

<QUOTE>

LORI WALLACH: There’s an incredible contradiction, where the summit communiqué is going to, on one hand, talk about regulating finance, and at the same time, they’re going to talk about adopting the Doha WTO expansion, and a huge part of that agreement is deregulating finance.

And the problem is that the G-20 commitments aren’t binding. It’s a commitment of faith on the countries about what they’re going to do domestically. But the WTO rules are very binding and enforceable by sanctions. And so, it’s hard to know if it’s ignorance or it’s cynicism, but if the Doha round goes into place, all of the world’s countries will have a commitment not only to keep in place the existing WTO deregulation dictates on finance, but to deregulate further, right in the midst of what seems to be a global commitment to re-regulate.

<END QUOTE>

Good for President Obama! To take that first step, and to demand no quid pro quo for it, is a vision of the Barack Obama we saw during the campaign. Normally, one of the signs that a leader has made a good decision is that none of the parties involved go away fully satisfied. It’s a compromise, and that’s what gets the job done in political circles. Too bad the Republicans can’t get that through their heads.

I would hesitate to speculate on what would happen if the population of the United States was made privy to all the things going on in the background while we read what’s permitted to make the news. I suspect it would frighten the socks off most of us, but those in power must face it every day. The list of things going on that pre-Presidential Barack Obama had no knowledge of during his campaign would reflect that.

Imagine becoming the President and being handed an endless list of the current worldwide manipulations of every country and power on earth, and realizing that had you known all that before becoming President, you would have changed the script that got you elected.

I suspect that President Obama found out there were a lot of issues that weren’t as cut and dried as first perceived by candidate Obama, and these were to effect what he could and couldn’t get done, in terms of what he had promised during the campaign. I believe that if we give the man a chance to get his program rolling at full speed, and if the Republican Machine will stop its politically-based interference, we’ll see some positive changes taking place.

I have yet to hear of anyone being prosecuted for writing up those would be young radical right reporters in their guise. Did any of them do that at ACORN?

Also ACORN is by law compelled to report any false or suspicious voter registration sign ups. So they were following the law but it is rarely reported in eXtreme or regular corporate media. Liberal bias? Not a chance!

Well Glenn Beck and company finally have their wish to defund ACORN, something that annoys them terribly. And the support of a minimum wage increase is the main reason they are attacked.

Total Iraqi deaths (only) as of 9/24/2009 is 1,339,771 Only from 2003-2009

Ray Duray, September 24 at 5:28 pm #

Thanks for the link; Engdahl is somebody I’ve been
following for some time now. Glad to see you’re up on
this stuff; it boggles the mind how this insanity
escapes 99% of the electorit (sp). Night-Gaunt is
likewise correct; “they” have planned and “their”
plan will succeed, but maybe not quite as “they”
envision.

As you rightly concluded; “Of course the ballooning
demands of the Pentagon just hasten the doom for the
American Nightmare,er, Dream, er, whatever this
monster is”. Emphasis on MONSTER.

Part of the driving force behind any war is money.  Glen Greenwald @ Salon had this to say:

“Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.)—my guest on Salon Radio today—yesterday pointed out that the bill passed by both the Senate and House to de-fund ACORN is written so broadly that it literally compels the de-funding not only of that group, but also the de-funding of, and denial of all government contracts to, any corporation that “has filed a fraudulent form with any Federal or State regulatory agency.”  By definition, that includes virtually every large defense contractor, which—unlike ACORN—has actually been found guilty of fraud.  As The Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim put it:  “the bill could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex.  Whoops.”

I spoke with Rep. Grayson this morning regarding the consequences of all of this.  He is currently compiling a list of all defense contractors encompassed by this language in order to send to administration officials (and has asked for help from the public in compiling that list, here).” 
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/radio/2009/09/23/grayson/index.html

Mr. Greenwald doesn’t seem to feel that this will have any effect, at least long-term.  I wonder, it’s hard to predict the future, but I see this as a very good sign.  There was this from the Wash. Post:

“President Obama pushed back Wednesday against pressure to make a decision about sending more troops to Afghanistan, saying he will resist any attempt to rush him until he has “absolute clarity about what the strategy is going to be.”

“.....McCain has said he supports sending additional combat troops to Afghanistan.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/16/AR2009091602774.html?hpid=topnews

And this:
“The U.S. troop level is already due to rise to 68,000 this year, and the prospect of sending more personnel has triggered a backlash among leading congressional Democrats. Many Republicans, meanwhile, have sided with military commanders in urging Obama to send additional troops.

“You don’t make determinations about resources, and certainly you don’t make determinations about sending young men and women into battle, without having absolute clarity about what the strategy is going to be,” Obama said.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/afghanistan/la-fg-obama-afghan17-2009sep17,0,393171.story

Doom of the American Republic, it must fall for the empire of the Americas to rise. Even Rome lost its republic first long before its empire fell. This one will be through and through inside and out. Right now we have an external empire and a weakened republic. It cannot stand much longer. Just as they planned.

Night Gaunt,

See if this works any better: http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4263&updaterx=2009-09-24+02:29:32

If not then the item I’m refering to is the William Engdahl interview, top of the page here, titled “Obama at the UN”:  http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

***
I largely concur with your viewpoint. Someone smarter than me speculates the the removal of the proposal for the BMD system in Poland-Czech Republic is a quid pro quo for the Russians acceding to allow the U.S. to reprovision our Afghan fiasco via the ‘Stans. Makes sense to me. Putin/Medvedev must reason that if they can mire a fool like Obama ever deeper into the Hindu Kush that eventually the dummkopfs in the Pentagon will bury the rest of the U.S. under an unendurable economic catastrophe. We’re 90% of the way there now.

Imagine if you will, a nation in which in order to prop up the mortgage market the central bank is printing money at a rate that is monumentally higher than 2 years prior. Then recall that nearly every bank failure in the world in the last two decades has been preceded by an inordinate inflation in the bank’s assets and you read the balance sheet of the FRB and you realize, the U.S. is just about done as a going concern. Of course the ballooning demands of the Pentagon just hasten the doom for the American Nightmare,er, Dream, er, whatever this monster is.

Sorry Ray Duray the page does not exist there now.

It is obvious that the “missile defense” and the RADAR site in the Czek Republic were for Russia, not for Iran. [When they create enemies they paint them as suicidal psychotics bent on national suicide every time.] Iran hasn’t invaded anyone unlike the USA so why are we so good? We play at being a “free” country and also have the largest military on the planet ever recorded.

Just another provacation rescinded for now. Unless they decide Russia as an ally would be good for them. The talk of “protecting” dictators when the right doesn’t like them while they excuse the dictators of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia etc is laughable but only if you know it in the first place.

Bubba, you might find this William Engdahl interview to be a good follow up to my comments regarding the imperial aspirations of the owners of America:

http://bit.ly/Krgqn

I agree with Folktruther and as a European I despaired and resented the US’s mischievous intention to build a missile-defense scheme in Europe. We have suffered enough through war and conflicts and it’s time for us here to work together and that includes Russia who are already supplying most of Europe with gas.

Very interesting, Ray. Thanks.

Re: “So what has this been all about, at the American taxpayer’s expense?”

This has been all about fulfilling the strategy laid out in 1997 in Zbig Brzezinski’s revealing book, “The Grand Chessboard”. In the chapter in that book dealing with Eurasia Brzezinski lays out his belief that with two-thirds of the world’s human population and three-fourths of the planet’s discovered natural resource reserves that Eurasia would be the key to the game for world dominance in the 21st Century.

And Zbig really pushed hard for the U.S. to continue at an accelerating pace to encircle the key Eurasian states, Russia, China and to an extent Iran. And if you look at the maps of military encirclement proposed in that book, it looks remarkably like the archipelago of military bases that we’ve established since 1997. Starting with Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, extending to the robust and enduring bases at Balad, Iraq; Al Udeid, Qatar; Bagram, Afghanistan; etc. it is perfectly easy to see the encirclement of Iran.

And then look at the NATO expansion into Ukraine and Georgia and we see the encirclement strategy being applied to Russia.

This is all very simple, very hubristic and very stupid imperialism that is being played with here. The American public are dupes in this game. They are ignorant enough to be brought to heel by fear-mongering, and can scarcely comprehend that they are mere pawns in a New Great Game.

For confirmation of Brzezinski’s extreme arrogance, another madman to consider is retired Col. Ralph Peters who created a crusading Christian’s wet dream of a new map of the Middle East. This is going to take a while:

http://bit.ly/WDcsd

It would also seem that about 100 million lives will have to be “sacrificed” if Peters’ mad vision is ever to be achieved. Just another cost of doing business for the boys in the Pentagon.

Good question, one I’ve wondered about too. The only thing I can think of is that the Bushites wanted to increase the tension between Russia and Western Europe to prevent an alliance that would effectively exclude the US.  Such a political alliance would follow the economic trade pattern, Russia supplying the oil and gas to Germany, etc.  If it occurs, it would further diminish US power, but would result in a more peaceful world.