This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
Not with a bang but a whimper.
T.S.Eliot’s poem came to mind when the people in Washington, consumed by a surfeit of hubris let loose their violence against Iraq, a country that had posed no threat whatsoever to this country.The reason that was given for this misadventure was the need to control the smooth flow of oil to these shores so that American diminance of the world’s economic system could be kept alive.
Rather than its intended aim, the war and the relentless deficits it engendered has brought this country’s economy to a standstill and while we were at it, the usual crooks at Wall Street’s pyramid schemes feasted on the loot that they were able to unload on unsuspecting foreign investors in the form of derivatives.
It will no longer be possible to pretend that USA is number one as the real economy comes crashing for lack of demand from people whose purchasing power has been decimated.Professor Roubini of NYU says that the recession which we are about to enter will be deep and long lasting.
A population that did not experience any economic hardship during the years when Bush unleashed his wars was more supportive of hegemony.As hardship descends on even previously well off segments of our population,I doubt that it will be supportive of foreign adventures because now the connection between such militarism and their own pocket books is well established.What is even more obvious to the population at large is that while they endure hardships the real culprits,from Bush,Cheney,Rumsfeld on down never even feel any after effects.The disconnect between our ordinary lives and those of our rulers is total.
I also want to say that while we will feel the pain in the coming months and years,it will be as nothing compared to the death and destruction that these megalomaniacs have visited on the Iraqi and Afghan people in our name.