Ten years of decline

"Ali Abdullah Saleh, the president of Yemen, one of the first things he did after 9/11 was make arrangements to come to Washington, and he met with President Bush, with the CIA Director George Tenet, with Dick Cheney, with the head of the FBI. And he basically said to the Bush administration, “We’re going to give you full access to Yemen’s territories to conduct counterterrorist operations.” And, you know, they essentially hatched a plot where Yemen would extract funding for its own military out of the Bush administration in return for the Bush administration being able to conduct counterterrorist operations inside of Yemen, including the killing of Yemeni citizens." Jeremy Scahill


The rationale for the US support of Israel has been to create a terrorisit organisation in the Middle East in order to keep the Arab countries
and subsequently the oil in check. The other startegy has been to create local monsters like Mubarak, Ali Saleh, The Shah of Iran etc who can remain in power for 50 years and repress their people for personal gain and untold power. That era is now visibly coming to an end, with the US clinging to prolong it a little bit longer. There is very little difference in this policy between Bush and Obama. Bush hastened the demise of this era through sheer arrogance and ham handedness. The US media has done an incredible job of insulating it's readers from recognising the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan as the absolute rape and desecration of two sovereign nations.

The Al Qaeda bogey has been hugely succesful in pouring billions into the coffers of dictators who were willing partners in crime but has proved to be a huge Foreign Policy debacle by creating an invisible enemy of no fixed address who cannot be defeated. This has created an image of a very vulnerable US who can now be defied. Wikileaks has resoundingly exposed US double speak and US Foreign policy now appears to be in tatters. The BRIC countries watch with glee, the Arabs with concern and the French with open disdain. Nato is no longer beholden to the US forcing them to go to the UN which under Ban Ki Moon has become an obsolete organisation.

The shift in power which came about in the first 10 years of 2010, is continuing. By 2020, a New World will have formly taken root.

Khusro