Tag: China

Crossposted from Antemedius

Yesterday we saw investigative historian and journalist Gareth Porter  talk with Paul Jay of the Real News Network about the war in Afghanistan and Obama’s recent appointment of Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal to replace General McKiernan as the US commander in Afghanistan.

Porter says the McChrystal appointment won’t fulfill Obama’s supposed intention of investing in a civilian surge that will “win over the population,” through “services and political programs” because during his five year service in the Joint Special Operations Command and recently as the Director of the Joint Staff, McChrystal “has only been involved in targeted killings.”

We also learned that Obama’s surge may be only a prelude to a ground invasion of Pakistan as part of ongoing imperial resource wars.

Today in part two of the interview we learn that Porter has also interviewed Graham Fuller, the CIA Station Chief in Kabul during US support for the Afghan Jihadi movement against the Soviet Union, and says that Fuller “now believes very strongly the United States has to get out. That there is no way the United States is going to be able to win, [because the US] has no understanding of the forces it has unleashed in Afghanistan.”

I think that Porter is right as far as the majority of people in the US and the world not understanding the forces unleashed in Afghanistan by the US invasion and occupation, but I also feel Porter hasn’t gone far enough in explaining the context of what is happening in Afghanistan and with Obama’s surge, and I want to highly recommend to readers a thorough reading of another recent and very detailed in depth piece from Tom Englehart and from Pepe Escobar that places the AfPak situation in the much wider geopolitical context of a desperate US attempt at world energy and resource domination: Tomgram: Pepe Escobar, Pipelineistan Goes Af-Pak.

Welcome to the 9th in the Dog’s letter writing campaign series. This series is dedicated to taking action (even if it is a small action) every week on the issue of torture. Here is how it works, each week the Dog writes a letter highlighting some aspect of the torture issue and making the point this requires investigation. The Dog sends these letters to the President, the Supreme Court, AG Holder, Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid and Rep. John Conyers, the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee. Your part, if you chose to act is pretty easy. Simply cut and paste the letter and send it under your own name.  

 

President-elect Barack Obama’s adminstration will inherit a $1.2 trillion budget deficit for 2009 according to the forecast by the Congressional Budget Office.

Unfortunately for the United States, despite owning more than $1 trillion of American debt, China has hinted that enough is enough. Rather than continuing to spend “as much as one-seventh of its entire economic output buying foreign debt”, Beijing now plans to pay for its own $600 billion economic stimulus plan.

China’s timing is unfortunate for the American economy, since the federal budget deficit is likely to swell past $2 trillion in 2009 when Congress passes a further economic stimulus measure. The CBO forecast also does not include the ongoing spending for the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Where is Obama going to find the money to restart the U.S. economy?

My oh my, what an interesting week, and I don’t mean that in a good way.  From our trade deficit to our automakers on the brink of joining our domestic consumer electronics firms, things aren’t looking all that swell.  The latest indicators are showing, at least for November, what has been on everyone’s mind, the economy.  Some are saying, though that things will pick up, that the recession began a year ago and we’ll come through it by 2009.  We’ll see, when the average worker is able to stop worrying not just about making rent or that mortgage payment, but also putting food on the table, then I’ll agree.  Globally, like the United States, things for now look dim.  And like I said, the figures show it…which leads us to the Numbers!

(My apologies folks, for the delay.  This was supposed to be published this morning, but I had rush a sick wiener dog to one of those emergency vet places.  Rest assured, he’s Ok, and probably won’t eat another sock again!)

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to another edition of Manufacturing Monday…er Tuesday!  Originally I wanted to post this on Monday morning, but I wanted to include the latest development from the Boeing SPEEA talks. Outside of this we got news from the steel industry, unfortunately not the good kind.  Sticking with steel for a moment, there’s an op-ed piece I wish to highlight that I thought you should look at.  We have news or alarm bells I should say about pensions.  Of course we also have some Green news, some ominous, but some good.  

But before we get to those, let’s take a look at the Numbers!

This from Richard Spencer in Beijing, this morning:

A statement posted on online government media overnight said that 294,000 babies and young children had suffered “urinary system abnormalities” after drinking formula milk from Sanlu, the company most seriously affected, and other brand names.

It now says as many as six infants died and up to 294,000 suffered from urinary tract ailments including kidney stones. That figure is a lot higher than had previously been reported. More than 850 children are still being treated in hospital; at least 150 of them are said to be seriously ill. Why? Last year, China’s dairy industry was worth $18 billion. That’s a whole lot of dairy products.

I wasn’t going to write anything until after the election (Go Obama!) but this is important, IMHO. Yesterday melamine was found in several egg products in South Korea following last week’s similar discovery in Japan, marking the first time the toxic chemical has been found in Chinese egg products.

Some of you have followed my pieces on the Chinese melamine scandal, here is the last one with a comprehensive list of the tainted products. Add egg products to this list now, and God knows what else! Egg products can be found in many items such as cake mixes, cookies and much more, see the list below. Having said that, don’t be alarmed, just make sure you know the provenance of your food products and read the labels carefully.

This is my fourth diary on the melamine scandal (but first here on Docudharma), and like the financial scandals it shows no sign of going away any time soon. To this day 10,666 infants are still in Chinese hospitals fighting for their lives.

Rosa L. DeLauro (CT-3), chairwoman of the Agriculture, Food and Drug Administration Appropriations Subcommittee, issued the following statement about the FDA’s announcement that, despite potential harm to the kidneys, some melamine would not raise health concerns:

“While other countries throughout the world, including the European Union, are acting to ban melamine-contaminated products from China, the FDA has chosen to establish an acceptable level for melamine in food in an attempt to convince consumers that it is not harmful. Not only is this is an insult to consumers, but it would appear that the FDA is condoning the intentional contamination of foods.”

Relatively unnoticed in the MSM has been a sudden, even startling, turnaround in Chinese economic strategy in recent days. The Chinese are making it clear that they must move toward satisfying their domestic market and away from their export-driven growth model.

Here is the op-ed piece in yesterday’s People’s Daily. Note especially the last two paragraphs of the article:

Owing to the sluggish global market, more input in China’s domestic production will also give rise to the glut of goods. Therefore, in order to enable the expanded domestic demand to achieve an anticipated result, it is essential and imperative to input more in such fields as social security, medicare and health work, and education.

In other words, the main purpose of imput is definitely not to turn out more goods or to build more high-rises or skyscrapers, but to bring about more and more consumers with substantial financial strength, so that ordinary citizens in the country are better able to resist and defend against risks. Such an imput will eventually effect the long-term benign growth of Chinese economy, and China will be capable of making even greater contributions to the development of the entire world.

The Chinese Government has also directed Chinese banks not to lend to U.S. financial institutions during this ongoing financial crisis.

The Chinese see that the financial crisis in the U.S. will spread and will make their heavily export-driven growth model unsustainable. Logically enough, they are planning to move quickly toward satisfying their own domestic demand, especially for services and for a better quality of life.

The Chinese must also be having their doubts about investing in distressed U.S. companies or showing up with open checkbook at coming U.S. T-bill auctions. The prospect of an accelerating decline in the U.S. dollar will impel them to look for better places to distribute portions of their Sovereign Wealth Fund or surprlus Yuan.

More below the break….