HISTORY REPEAT UNAVOIDABLE?

BY DR. ERICK SAN JUAN

Quoting New York Times, The Philippine Daily Inquirer made a report entitled, End to The Good Times in U.S. as Recession Looms, but Lou Dobbs of prisonplanet.com said that the U.S. economy is heading for a stagflation crisis as a result of the U.S. government’s policy of dollar depreciation and that the only solution is for the American people to restore a proper constitutional system of government. I agree.

U.S. policymakers seems to create recession unavoidable. With the help of stock and hedge funds manipulators, rigging the price of future contracts thus creating a mirage of uncertainty. Wall Street economists predicting a possible upturn but doing a dismal job of boom and bust.

Even the Opec officials in their recent meeting are wondering that despite the world’s oil over supply, the United States of America continue to plunge into recession which affects the whole world’s economy. The U.S. stock exchange seem to condition the minds of the world on the speculative high oil price index despite the Opec’s report of supply abundance and price stability. U.S.A. is even sitting on top of 200 billion barrel oil field in North Dakota called Bakken Formation.

Nowadays we learn more about the hidden secrets of Corporate America, thanks to the American patriots and the internet. Before lowly Americans have to work, work, work for the money to have a good life. Everyone can have a credit card, buy anything, live like a rich man as long as you can maintain your credit standing. This way, the American people has been busy so they can pay their dues and don’t mind its political system.

But history seems repeated by a clique of oligarchs who controls the U.S. banking system, it’s military industrial complex and it’s politics.

Every time this “group” wants to create more money and control nation states, it can only be justified by staging a global war just like the first and second world war.

How does the trick go? We have to remember that America is a war economy. If there’s a recession, the “clique” within its government will stage a war to unite the American people.

If one will analyze the two global wars, the American people were forced to fight a war not of their liking. The American people are good, brave and peace loving but when provoked they will fight to death. But voluminous documents showed that they were duped to fight such “wars” because of patriotism and love for America.

But Americans nowadays are aware of the manipulative scheme of a “government” within its government. This was the reason why the Pentagon is having a difficult time recruiting young people into their armed forces and reserve force.

With the sale and proliferation of nuclear armaments, the world powers could inflict a mutually assured destruction among nations.

All kinds of war tricks are in the offing, either economic, biological, techonology, space and the most fatal – the nuke war. Here comes Armageddon.

Who Do We Believe?

By Dr. Erick San Juan

The recent massacre of eight people, including a pregnant woman, a child and an MNLF integree in Sulu by troops accompanied by US military advisers in the course of a supposed operation against the abductors of a businesswoman should jolt the nation since it shows just how grave US involvement in the so-called war on terror in Mindanao has been despite the denial of the US Embassy whose credibility is being destroyed by the hawks in their military establishment.

A sworn statement executed by a survivor of the mayhem will be hard to discredit, and the military is trying doubly hard to shield the Americans from their responsibility for the massacre.

The involvement of US military advisers in this latest bloody episode in Sulu will necessarily reignite the hatred of the Tausug for the Americans, whose forefathers had massacred thousands of Muslims in Bud Datu a century ago in the course of the pacification campaign in Mindanao.

US officials will have to work triple time to regain whatever goodwill they had among the Tausug of Sulu, who had earlier suspected the presence of the US troops as a prelude to another Bud Datu.

Some US military personnels are actually abusing the hospitality of our people and our soldiers by being everywhere in Mindanao, ordering doctors to shut off electricity in their hospitals, and telling military officers to follow their bidding even in military operations.

They are doing what they did before when Washington brought in thousands of soldiers in Vietnam to be an army of aggressors, and not advisers.

The militarists in Washington are certainly doing their utter worst to transform Sulu into an area of internecine warfare, egging on poor Filipino soldiers to fire at will to replicate their My Lai and thousands of other massacres in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

President Bush and his subalterns are concededly creating a world where mindless violence is justified in the war against faceless, nameless terrorists, with everyone becoming a victim of collateral damage to justify trillions of dollars in expense in wars that cannot be won.

In the name of sanity, nationalism and self-respect, these US “butchers” should go as quickly as Bush must.

Bhutto bin Dead!

The assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto by a suicide bomber is not only the latest twist in the muddled situation in the nuclear-capable but fractious nation.

It also betrays the mysterious hand played by powerful forces out to mangle whatever chances Pakistan had to restore democracy and eliminate the deleterious effects of strongman rule in a frontline state in the so-called war against terror.

Strange as it may seem, Bhutto was murdered after she had an interview with David Frost of BBC which was never aired and viewed thru BBC international TV network but can bee seen thru YouTube.com, and exposed what has been common knowledge in Pakistan--- that Osama bin Laden had been dead for six long years.

This bit of information may have struck the militarist wing of US policymakers and their supporters in Pakistan, particularly the anti-Bhutto factions in the intelligence services and the military hierarchy.

It was a deadly bit of information that could not have passed unnoticed not only among Middle East experts but also the clutch of forces pushing for a war of the mattresses against the al-Qaida and bin Laden. Maintaining the myth about the lingering terrorist threat posed by bin Laden and his ragtag troops was necessary for the war dollars to pour in, increasing the annual budget of $600 billion or more, and thus justify continued US military presence and hegemony in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bhutto was a victim of international intrigue, for she was nurtured well by the Department of State, particularly Condoleeza Rice, and encouraged to return to Pakistan and participate in elections that were clearly rigged in favor of Pervez Musharraf. The US knew well that she was the target of an assassination plot much deeper than that of Indira Gandhi and had reported, after Bhutto's death naturally, that the Pakistani opposition leader was apprised of the threats but these warnings were "ignored."

There is a basis for suspicions that Bhutto's murder was the product of the confluence not only of events but also of interests, with the US militarists and the Pakistani fascists agreeing that her revelation about bin Laden's demise was a fatal mistake that must not be replicated. Only death would ensure that Bhutto would not repeat the mistake.

No Visa, A Refund Is A Must

The sad experience of Bernardino L. Flores Jr. of Tarlac City (Letters to the Editor, December 24, 2007, Page 12, PDI) before a consular empress at the US Embassy should be a bitter reminder to our people that diplomacy is missing in that piece of property at Roxas Boulevard.

Flores was made to pay for his visa application and even for the Delbros courier service after he and his wife were interviewed and told that their non-immigrant visa applications were approved.

The US consul even told the visa would be delivered by Delbros quickly, something which made the Floreses practically jump with joy. In common lingo, it was a done deal.

But lo and behold! The Delbros courier brought the couple the sad news as their applications were denied. Only because the other applicant, a relative of the Floreses, had the same contact person in the US.

US consular officials have been condemned so many times for their being boorish, arrogant and gothic in their behavior towards Filipinos. They act haughtily, not thinking that of all the US missions, it is only in the Philippines where thousands of applicants for visas pay through the nose to get that little piece of paper to legitimize their flight to the US. In fact, the consular section makes money, and they will continue to make money by collecting from Filipinos who would be told that their applications are approved, only to be told later that a hitch forced them to reject the application.

Some US staffs in the consular section are a nightmare, a contemptuous lot who still believe that they are overlords here and may as well reject applicants on the basis of their looks.

The US Embassy should reimburse the Floreses and all other Filipinos whom they have mistreated and abused by collecting visa fees for applications that are eventually rejected. In any country, collecting cash for service not rendered is called unjust enrichment.

With the visa fees, denied applicants are suckered to pay without reimbursement, it maintains an embassy which succeeds in getting more revenues, to help support its local operation. It should be a two way relationship. No visa, a refund is a must.

Caught With His Pants Down

By Dr. Erick San Juan

The series of articles run by the International Herald Tribune on the grave faux pas committed by the Bush administration in insisting that it was correct in pursuing its policy of isolating Iran for its supposed nuclear weapons development program in the face of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) which showed Tehran had abandoned the program is proof that the Republican clique in Washington simply wants war.

This should awaken Filipinos about the danger posed not by Iran but by the Bush administration, which believes that its warmaking machine would make the world safe for everyone.

Bush has been caught lying just as the US was proven to have lied when it claimed that Libya was developing nuclear weapons. Libya simply abandoned the program years before Washington said Gaddafi was continuing it.

From May 2005 onwards, Bush had been saber-rattling and demanding all forms of sanctions against Iran, which has uranium deposits and has been using nuclear fuel for energy generation and was supposed to be creating the weapons for attacking its neighbors and the rest of the world.

With the NIE showing the program had been discontinued in 2003, it leaves Bush as a leader who has little need for reason and sober intelligence assessment when he crafts US policy.

Shorn of the usual gobbledygook, the US rhetoric about their assessment of Iran as still "correct" is simply an equivocation.

Bush has been caught with his pants down, yet he has not apologized for his misdeed. With him in charge, one must always worry about war.

The World Will Never Be At Peace

By Dr. Erick San Juan

The recent revelation of the declassified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) which confirmed the halt of Iranian nuclear weapons development as early as 2003 has dashed the warmongering rhetoric of US President George Bush and should teach Washington that the world will never be safe as long as the hawks continue to hold sway at the White House.

For one, it proved Bush's critics right and further diminished the worth of US policy in inveigling the entire world to join a campaign of hate and aggression against Iran.

Second, it made Bush look silly and the caboodle of US officials boosting his tirades as nothing but nattering nabobs of nuclear blackmail.

Third, it shattered the myth of Washington basing its policies and demeanor on good old intelligence and exposed the incredible vice of Bush and company on creating a reality of their own, a solipsism that is dangerous to world peace and the lives of Iranians, Americans and all other peoples on earth.

We are outraged by the insistence of US officials that their May 2005 assessment that Iran was on the verge of creating a nuclear weapon was correct in all essentials, even in the face of incontrovertible evidence that Bush and company had lied.

This is akin to the amentic proclivity of Bush to insist that the executed Saddam Hussein was guilty of harboring Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda when facts showed that Hussein hated Osama and fundamentalism so much that he would hunt them down the way honey badgers hunt down cobras.

Alas, the world will never be at peace if Washington will continue to insist in its version of reality and wrong policies, in utter disregard of its own intelligence.

Ugly Americans, No More!

By Dr. Erick San Juan

The recent report about the declassified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of the US on Iran carried in the December 5, 2007 issue of the International Herald Tribune should open the latchdoor to a flurry of criticisms on the very basis for the dangerous warmongering policy pursued by US President George Bush.

This report has shown Bush's threats against Iran to be without any concrete basis. The NIE has concluded that Iran had not developed its nuclear weapons system since 2003 even if it continues work on uranium enrichment.

An unkind cut on Bush's saber-rattling, the report dashes to smithereens the current administration's visceral hatred of Iran, which apparently has pursued work on the peaceful use of nuclear energy from 1985 to 2003, 18 full years of a secret endeavor that has succeeded in arming Tehran with the weapon to produce cheaper electricity and use nuclear power for other purposes, from medical to agricultural applications.

One does not help but heave a sigh of relief at the NIE's conclusion. It also pushes many to believe that Bush has not come clean on his decisions, relying on his fundamentalist beliefs to throw thousands of servicemen into wars he could not leave without losing a lot of taxpayer's money.

The NIE also blasts the previous assessments made by the White House, from the willy-nilly conclusion that Iraq was building weapons of mass destruction and that its leadership had harbored the Al Qaida and Osama bin Laden, whose family had been a partner of the Bush family in cornering large construction projects in Saudi Arabia.

What the NIE says contradicts Bush's very article of faith. It also vindicates the fears of many US officials that their President has been pushing the country to the brink of war against the planet, imagining enemies where there are none. Hail to the American Patriots in the U.S. government!