Has the financial crisis created by de-regulation and the economic policies of the past 20 odd years moved the world closer to nuclear weapons in the hands of al-qaeda?

While financial markets crumble worldwide, Pakistan is in the grips of a terrible economic crisis which threatens to destabilize the country. Pakistani officials have reached out to its richest allies for support, China, Saudi Arabia and the United States. All three countries, dealing with economic woes of their own, have denied this request, leaving the country to negotiate an emergency loan from the IMF. Sunil points out that the other major source of income for the Pakistani military leadership is the drug trade, a practice that is made possible by the billions in aid that the leadership receives from foreign governments every year.

October 27, 2008 – 11 min 55 sec

Pakistan in a panic

Sunil Ram: Military ruling class is dependent on international aid that is now in jeopardy

Both Nightprowlkitty and Magnifico have posted today about Bush’s attempted blackmail of the Iraqi government in his latest attempt to save the face he’s never had anyway by trying to force a Status of Forces Agreement on Iraq through threatening to shut down military operations and other vital services throughout Iraq with a gun held to their heads if Iraqi parliamentarians will not sign a deal allowing US troops to remain in Iraq that will give Bush something he can use to claim success in the 5 year old debacle he has created there.

Gareth Porter, speaking by telephone to the The Real News, explains the background leading up to Bush’s desperate gangster like extortion attempt.

In an article on ipsnews.net, journalist and investigative historian Gareth Porter analyzed the final draft of the US-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement on the US military presence in Iraq.

He states that the agreement “represents an even more crushing defeat for the policy of the George W. Bush administration than previously thought.”

The deal not only calls for a clear deadline for a withdrawal of combat troops by 2011, it will also be unlikely the a residual non-combat force of US Troops would be allowed to remain in Iraq for training and support purposes. Porter also states: “The clearest sign of the dramatically reduced US negotiating power is the willingness of the United States to give up extraterritorial jurisdiction over US contractors and their employees and over US troops in the case of major and intentional crimes that occur outside bases and while off duty.” The Real News Network spoke to Gareth Porter.

Gareth Porter is a historian and investigative journalist on US foreign and military policy analyst. He writes regularly for Inter Press Service on US policy towards Iraq and Iran. Author of four books, the latest of which is Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam.

October 26, 2008 – 7 min 34 sec

US-Iraq troop deal “crushing defeat” for Bush

Gareth Porter: Bush admin is desperate for troop agreement as end date of UN authorization nears

In the final talk in Real News CEO Paul Jay’s series of interviews with activist political scientist and historian Howard Zinn, we’re led to the conclusion that there is a silver lining, as Buhdy and others here have also noted, in the twin dark clouds of the culture of militarism and the financial collapse that eight years of Bushism and many more years of bankrupt imperialist ideology exemplified by both the Democratic and Republican parties have finally brought the American Empire to, that the combination of financial and war crises have finally created an opportunity for real change:

In the final segment of our interview with Howard Zinn we explore the idea of the United States as a source of freedom and democracy in the world.

Prof. Zinn outlines the long history in the US of linking military pursuits with the cause of freedom and democracy, a marriage which Prof. Zinn believes is still used due to inappropriate historical education.

Zinn believes that it is time to drop war altogether as a practice and begin the hard but fruitful transition to an economy based on domestic improvement rather than military dominance. He finishes by adding that education is most affective when coinciding with a changing reality and that the combination of the financial crisis and the military crisis are creating such a scenario.

October 26, 2008 – about 7 minutes

Democracy and militarism

Howard Zinn: The financial and war crisis have created an opportunity for real change

October 25, 2008 – about 13 minutes

Guns or butter? Howard Zinn: New president must choose between continued militarism and domestic well-being

Via RawStory yesterday, one hedge fund manager’s story about the roots and causes of the current financial crisis, and his long term prescription for what it will take fix to the economy:

Retiring hedge fund manager: Idiots made me rich

Sunday October 19, 2008

“May meritocracy be part of a new form of government, which needs to be established,” wrote a multimillionaire retiring in his 30s in an open letter to those “stupid enough” to make him rich, which condemns the practices that did so and the system whose injustices he struggled with to get to where he is. Furthermore, he’s leaving the business, content to “sit on the sidelines” and wait to see how the markets play out through the crisis, noting that “sitting and waiting” helped the subprime crash prove profitable.

“Today,” Lahde Capital Management’s Andrew Lahde wrote on Friday, “I write not to gloat. Given the pain that nearly everyone is experiencing, that would be entirely inappropriate. Nor am I writing to make further predictions, as most of my forecasts in previous letters have unfolded or are in the process of unfolding. Instead, I am writing to say goodbye.”

“I was in this game for the money,” he continued. “The low hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale, and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking. These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government.

“All of this behavior supporting the Aristocracy only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America.”

Emily Anderson’s reality break…

The economic meltdown on Wall Street has sent shockwaves across the globe.

Political economist William Engdahl believes the “US faces an economic depression that will be worse than the Great Depression of the 1930’s.” He goes on to state that “European goverments are furious at the corruption and fraud that has come out of the New York financial community.”

October 15, 2008 – 4 min 55 sec

F William Engdahl is an economist and author and the writer of the best selling book “A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order.” Mr Engdhahl has written on issues of energy, politics and economics for more than 30 years, beginning with the first oil shock in the early 1970s. Mr. Engdahl contributes regularly to a number of publications including Asia Times Online, Asia, Inc, Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Foresight magazine; Freitag and ZeitFragen newspapers in Germany and Switzerland respectively. He is based in Germany.

2.4 trillion dollars up in smoke since the Democratic Party/Bush bailout of Wall Street, just the beginning of a global systemic financial meltdown?

October 13, 2008 – 3 min 54 sec

Pepe Escobar: World markets and top economists dismiss the Wall Street bailout

World markets on the verge of panic continue to dismiss the Bush/Paulson Wall Street bailout plan – despite White House rhetoric and supposedly concerted action by the G-7, the group of leading industrialized economies. Top economists criticize the mechanics of the plan, which concentrates too much power on Secretary Paulson and his Goldman Sachs colleagues; warn of an incoming systemic crisis; and point out the taboo topics nobody is talking about: the US budget deficit and the US military budget.