Empire Project Failing in Syria Says French Foreign Minister
Michael Collins
The survival of the Syrian government represents a major failure of the empire project to recolonize and dominate energy rich Middle Eastern and North African states.
In an abrupt change from months of anticipatory triumphalism, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius admitted that Syrian President Bashar Assad will not be leaving power any time soon. This is a radical departure from the NATO script and that of their stenographers in the corporate media. We've been fed a mix of articles over the past months predicting Assad's imminent demise, filled with speculation on how post-Assad Syria will look after he's gone. (Image)
Reuters reported the Fabius remarks on January 24:
"Things are not moving. The solution that we had hoped for, and by that I mean the fall of Bashar and the arrival of the [opposition] coalition to power, has not happened."
PermalinkThe Obama Doctrine: Making a Virtue of Necessity
James Petras
After nearly 3 years in deep pursuit of the colonial wars initiated by ex-President Bush, the Obama regime has finally recognized the catastrophic domestic and foreign consequences. As a result the “reality principle” has taken hold; the maintenance of the US Empire requires modification of tactics and strategies, to cut political, military and diplomatic losses[1].
In response to major military and political losses as well as new opportunity, the White House is fashioning a new doctrine of imperial conquest based on intensified aerial warfare, greater extra-territorial intervention, and, when circumstances allow, alliances with collaborators. This includes the arming and financial backing of retrograde despotic regimes in the Gulf city-states, fundamentalists, opportunist defectors, mercenaries , academic exiles gangsters and other rabble willing to serve the empire for a price.
Argentina: Why President Fernandez Wins and Obama Loses
James Petras
Introduction
On October 23rd of this year, President Cristina Fernandez won re-election receiving 54% of the vote, 37 percentage points higher than her nearest opponent. The President’s coalition also swept the Congressional, Senatorial, Gubernatorial elections as well as 135 of the 136 municipal councils of Greater Buenos Aires. In sharp contrast President Obama, according to recent polls is trailing leading Republican Presidential candidates and is likely to lose control of both houses of Congress in the upcoming 2012 election. What accounts for the monumental difference in voter preferences of incumbent presidents? A comparative historical discussion of socio-economic and foreign policies as well as responses to profound economic crises is at the center of any explanation of the divergent results.
Puppets in Revolt: Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and the United States
James Petras
Introduction
Empires are built through the promotion and backing of local collaborators who act at the behest of imperial rulers. They are rewarded with the outward symbols of authority and financial handouts, even as it is understood that they hold their position only at the tolerance of their imperial superiors. Imperial collaborators are referred to by the occupied people and the colonial resistance as “puppets” or “traitors”; by western journalists and critics as “clients”; by the imperial scribes and officials as “loyal allies” as long as they remain obedient to their sponsors and paymaster.
Imperialism: Bankers, Drug Wars and Genocide
James Petras
In May 2011, Mexican investigators uncovered another mass clandestine grave with dozens of mutilated corpses; bringing the total number of victims to 40,000 killed since 2006 when the Calderon regime announced its “war on drug traffickers”. Backed by advisers, agents and arms, the White House has been the principal promotor of a ‘war’ that has totally decimated Mexico’s society and economy.
If Washington has been the driving force for the regime’s war, Wall Street banks have been the main instruments ensuring the profits of the drug cartels. Every major US bank has been deeply involved in laundering hundreds of billions of dollars in drug profits, for the better part of the past decade.
"U.S. troops join Baghdad battle against militants" AP 2 hours ago
BAGHDAD —"Days after the U.S. officially ended combat operations and touted Iraq's ability to defend itself, American troops found themselves battling heavily armed militants assaulting an Iraqi military headquarters in the center of Baghdad on Sunday. The fighting killed 12 people and wounded dozens.
"It was the first exchange of fire involving U.S. troops in Baghdad since the Aug. 31 deadline for formally ending the combat mission, and it showed that American troops remaining in the country are still being drawn into the fighting.
The Middle Class
By anaxarchos posted by Michael Collins
Capitalism does not elevate… it expropriates and impoverishes. Its urban slums and shanty towns are a step down from the rural, quasi-capitalist material it begins with. Worldwide, it expropriates wealth from the many instead of creating “prosperity”. (Image)
The original American reference to a "middle class" probably comes from Britain. It referred, as on the continent, to the propertied but untitled yeomanry of the countryside, the rising burghers in the cities, and the mercantile classes as a whole. It was an accurate naming. Originally, what was to become the bourgeoisie really did stand between the aristocracy and the property-less classes.
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