"Two years ago, the ADB [the Asian Development Bank] was searching for a role in an Asia that was growing fast with surplus savings, burgeoning foreign exchange reserves and easy access to capital. Now the bank finds itself in the position of being courted both as a focus of regional cooperation and as a source of funds to help Asian countries face the crisis. Middle income countries like Indonesia and the Philippines have come knocking on the bank's door, looking for funds to boost government spending, particularly on infrastructure and for social safety nets as unemployment rises."
The fall of a superpower
The United States has long ago outlived its presumed role as the lone superpower. The last administration just hammered the last nail into the coffin of this shadow of lost grandeur. Nobody needed the adoration of an illusion and very few people are going to miss the lies, the fake elections and the gaudy hoopla that leads up to the conventions of the two almost identical parties, both run and shaped by the big corporations that have been the true rulers of the United States for decades. Maybe after the economic recession is over, many years from now, maybe when Afghanistan and Pakistan are back on their own to fight out their own conflicts, maybe when Iran will no more have to fear reprisals from the West because it is intent on defending itself from Israel and the United States and maybe even the regime of the ayatollahs will be gone and some kind of democracy installed, maybe then a kind of equilibrium will reign and we the people won't have to be whiplashed into obedience by screams of national security, killer pandemics and a war on terror. And the people is lulled to sleep by newspeak of freedom and democracy, of moral values, of leaving no children behind and of trickle-down economics that will make us all healthy, wealthy and wise.
Asia will have achieved equal power with the West and the present efforts towards people-oriented politics in Latin America will have borne fruit and we will finally see democracy arising out of the ashes.
[1] After us, the deluge - a premonition of impending political and social collapse attributed to Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of Louis XV. She is actually supposed to have said: 'Après moi le deluge.'
[2] More about the history of Pakistan and Afghanistan in my wrongly titled essay ? 'Is it the Dawn We Are Seeing on the Horizon?' http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_55397.shtml Scroll down to 'A look back on history'
[3] Global Viewpoint: Obama's Policies Making Situation Worse in Afghanistan and Pakistan? by Graham E. Fuller.
Graham E. Fuller is a former CIA station chief in Kabul and a former vice-chair of the CIA's National Intelligence Council. He is author of numerous books on the Middle East, including The Future of Political Islam.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/graham-e-fuller/global-viewpoint-obamas-p_b_201355.html
[4] The Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN was established on 8 August 1967 in Bangkok by the five original Member Countries, namely, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Brunei Darussalam joined on 8 January 1984, Vietnam on 28 July 1995, Lao PDR and Myanmar on 23 July 1997, and Cambodia on 30 April 1999. http://www.aseansec.org/64.htm
[5] Asia Helps Itself ? by Philip Bowring http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/opinion/07iht-edbowring.html?_r=2
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