The Olympics, War and the Financial Tsunami

The most obvious, but unstated, point of the Olympics so far is this: China is the major superpower of the 21st century. NBC's commentators tiptoed around the elephant in the living room. The closest they came was when Matt Lauer said the drum show was "a little bit intimidating." The official line is that this is China's "coming out party." No, China is announcing they are the "Big Dog" now. The last 150-200 years of economic history have been just a little down tick in a 5,000 history of world dominance.

The opening ceremonies were a breath-taking blend of sophisticated technology and precision works of human action and arts. The is will be the post-American century, probably much sooner than any of us realize.

The idiot warmongers in charge of American foreign policy seem determined to accelerate our downfall. The pieces are moving into place for a naval blockade on Iran. This is a clear act of war. Iran has every right to develop peaceful nuclear technology, and the most recent inspections showed they had no nuclear weapons program. This won't deter the Bush-Cheney-NeoCon gang. Their lies are legion. (Conveniently, Congress is on summer recess.)

More Bush lies to justify the Iraq invasion pour forth each week. Pulitzer prize-winner Ron Suskind's new book claims that the White House "buried British intelligence on Iraq WMDs." Suskind also reported that an ex-CIA agent he interviewed says Cheney likely ordered a letter on White House stationery linking Saddam Hussein to the 9/11 attacks. Despite White House denials, Suskind stands by his report.

Remember our report last week that "Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh's shocking revelations "that Bush administration officials held a meeting recently in the Vice President’s office to discuss ways to provoke a war with Iran?" All it would take is an apparent Iranian missile sinking our oldest aircraft carrier to the bottom of the Persian Gulf to incite revenge blood lust in the American public. Edgar Steele has an excellent run-down of many events that point to World War III and the reason to make your preparations now.

Arnaud deBorchgrave agrees that we're nearing war with Iran. Apparently Israel is ready to attack Iran "without US permission." Of course, Israel can't attack Iran without overflying Iraq (which needs US permission.) I've mentioned previously the grave economic consequences for the US if we go to war with Iran. Given the close economic economic and military ties Iran has with both China and Russia, such a conflict could easily escalate to WWIII. Which brings us to . . .

US and Israeli-backed Georgia foolishly attacked the Russian-leaning secessionist South Ossentia. Putin-led Russia has said they are through retreating and have apparently crushed the Georgian assault. Israel has been extensively involved in selling arms to Georgia and providing training for at least seven years. "Georgia's defense minister, Davit Kezerashvili, is a former Israeli who is fluent in Hebrew." Michel Chossudovsky of Global Research has an excellent analysis, with maps, that shows how this might lead to a larger US-Russian military conflict. The Georgian attack had to have had the okay and direction of the US, NATO and, probably, Israel.

Alex Jones, at http://www.infowars.com/, is staying up to the minute on what's happening. His current article recaps the latest status. The NeoCons at the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere are likening the Russian response to Hitler, forgetting the Georgia started the confrontation. The US is airlifting Georgian troops from Iraq, and reports are surfacing about American and NATO soldiers/mercenaries being found in the conflict. As usual, Karl Schwartz has an insightful take on this.

Paul Craig Roberts points out that "Georgia was part of Old Russia and the Soviet Union for two centuries. After Soviet communism collapsed, the US taxpayer funded neoconservative National Endowment for Democracy broke every agreement that President Reagan had made with Gorbachev and began using US taxpayers’ money to rig and purchase elections in former constituent parts of the Russian/Soviet empire. The Endowment for Democracy purchased Georgia as a US colony. The affront to Russia was extreme, but at the time Russia was weak. Oligarchs with outside money had grabbed control over Russian resources, and Russia was in dire straits and could not resist American imperialism. Putin corrected the situation for Russia."

William Engdahl says Washington risks a nuclear war by miscalculation. Obviously the Bush-Cheney NeoCons can't calculate the real costs of war, since Iraq was to be a six-week "cakewalk" and cost less than $50-60 billion before all those Iraqi oil revenues kicked in to pay for our occupation.

"Nuclear Primacy" is "what gives the seemingly obscure fight over two provinces the size of Luxemburg the potential to become the 1914 Sarajevo trigger to a new nuclear war by miscalculation. The trigger for such a war is not Georgia’s right to annex South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Rather, it is US insistence on pushing NATO and its missile defense right up to Russia’s door."

If Russia deploys nuclear-capable bombers in Cuba, the crisis will only escalate.

On the economic front, the financial tsunami continues to pick up force. All my reading tells me we still see only the tip of the iceberg. The gold price has been manipulated down to around $860. If you've been waiting for gold or silver to fall, wait no more. Both are already very hard to get.

Just a few economic reports:

America Out of Economic Ammunition -- we have no more financial weapons left.

Rep. Paul Ryan says US Headed Toward Bankruptcy.

The Fire This Time? "What happens if the US economy has finally hit the wall of remorseless reality, and can only produce what it can honestly produce? What happens to the American economy and American standards of living if all the gimmicks have been exhausted?"

Sidney Blumenthal writes on "The Strange Death of Republican America." George Bush has ended the Republican dominance that began in 1968. I'll be a delegate in Minneapolis at the GOP convention the first week in September. Ron Paul will have a simultaneous 3-day event, climaxing with a major rally at the Target Center on September 2. I hope I have time to record some of my observations on the ground.

Grace and Peace and Courage!