- It did not take the Israel Lobby long to make mincemeat out
of the Obama administration's " no new settlements" position.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is bragging about Israel's latest victory
over the US government as Israel continues to build illegal settlements
on occupied Palestinian land.
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- In May President Obama read the Israelis the riot act,
telling the Israeli government that he was serious about ending the Israeli
conflict with the Palestinians and that a lasting peace agreement required
the Israeli government to abandon all construction of new settlements in
the occupied West Bank.
-
- On November 10 Obama's White House chief of staff, Rahm
Israel Emanuel, surrendered for his boss at the annual conference
of the United Jewish Communities.
-
- The ongoing Israeli settlements, he said, should not
be a "distraction" to a peace agreement.
-
- Allegedly, the US is a superpower and Israel is a client
state whose very existence depends entirely on US military and economic
aid and diplomatic protection. Yet, in the real world it works the other
way. Israel is the superpower and the US is its client state.
-
- This true fact is proved to us at least once every week
and sometimes two or three times in one week. A few days, ago the US
House of Representatives voted 344 to 36 in favor of disavowing the UN
report by the distinguished Jewish judge Richard Goldstone that
found that Israel had committed war crimes in its attack on the civilian
population in the Gaza Ghetto. The Israel Lobby demanded that the House
repudiate the fact-filled report, and the servile House did as its master
ordered.
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- US Rep. Dennis Kucinich spoke to his colleagues
for 2 minutes in an effort to make them see that their vote against the
Goldstone report would be a great embarrassment to the US government and
demean the House in the eyes of the world.
-
- But none of that matters when Israel gives its servants
an order. The US House of Representatives preferred to demean itself and
to embarrass the US Government rather than to cross the Israel Lobby.
-
- Retribution quickly fell upon Kucinich for his 2 minute
speech. On November 9, Kucinich was forced to withdraw as the keynote
speaker for the Palm Beach County (Florida) Democratic Party's annual fundraising
dinner. The Israel Lobby gave the order-dump Kucinich or there's no money
and no one is coming to the dinner. County Commissioner Burt Aaronson
called Kucinich "an absolute horror."
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- Kucinich is the rare Democrat who stands up for his party's
principles, the working class, and tried to get health care for those
Americans the corporations have thrown out on the street. But helping Americans
doesn't count. Israel über alles.
-
- Meanwhile, the US dollar continues to decline relative
to other traded currencies. Since spring, anyone could have made a double-digit
rate of return betting on most any currency against the US dollar.
-
- The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently expressed
concern that despite the dollar's continuing slide, it might still be over-valued.
The Federal Reserve's low interest rate policy encourages speculators
to use the dollar for the "carry trade." Speculators, whether
individuals or financial institutions borrow dollars at rock bottom interest
rates and use the almost free capital to purchase higher yielding instruments
in other countries. The demand for dollars to finance the "carry
trade" keeps the dollar higher than it would otherwise be.
-
- Last year it was the Japanese Yen that was used for the "carry
trade" due to the practically zero Japanese interest rates. The
next scare that unwinds the "carry trade" will cause
another big drop in financial asset values. This means that the stock
market is very volatile. It is based on speculation, not on fundamentals.
-
- When the "carry trade" next unwinds,
the demand for US dollars to pay off the loans will temporarily boost the
dollar. But don't be fooled. The large US trade and budget deficits are
the dollar's death warrant.
-
- When the dollar finally goes, so will the government's
ability to conduct wars of aggression, underwrite Israel, finance its red
ink and pay for imports. That's when the printing press will really get
going.
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- Paul Craig Roberts (paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com) was
Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan's first term.
He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held
numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center
for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior
Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded
the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the
author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider's Account of Policymaking
in Washington; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown:
Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton
of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats
Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for
Peter Brimelow's Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about
the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.
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