What a lovely photo of the two well-heeled leaders of the free world. Previously, it was the American cowboy president and the supposedly left leaning Prime Minister Tony Blair. That buddy act helped drag United States into the worst foreign policy disaster in its history. (Image full size)
This working partnership between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron portends less immediate damage than the Bush-Blair team. Nevertheless, there will be blood
Is there anything other than disaster awaiting the US and Great Britain in Afghanistan?
The response to the murder of sixteen Afghan civilians on March 12th has been disastrous for the United States with retaliatory attacks ongoing. Even before that, March 8 was a Deadly day for the Brits in Afghanistan with six soldiers killed in a bombing of an armored vehicle. General David Allen, in charge of the Afghanistan effort, lamented that this is the type of incident that could threaten the entire effort.
How will the U.S.-British enterprise recover from the latest in a series of insults to the Afghan people?
The people of the U.S. and Great Britain get the message. In a recent poll, 61% of citizens want U.S. troops home immediately. Only 19% oppose that decisive action. In Great Britain, 75% oppose the Afghan war effort.
With
negligible public support and tottering economies, how can Obama and
Cameron conceive, even for a moment, that withdrawal will last through
the 2014 timeline?
What will they do about Syria?
President Assad's Syrian Army is cleaning out rebel strongholds. He is not cooperating with the Obama-Cameron storyline that he surrender his position as head of state. Syria is not giving in on the battle field. And the Syrian army, with mostly Sunni conscripts, is getting the job done.
Can Obama and Cameron pull another Libya - aggressive military action under the cloak of humanitarian aid?
The United Nations General Assembly has the same cast of characters willing to endorse the latest action but Russia and China are blocking action against Syria in the Security Council.
Absent the aid of NATO military forces augmented by Qatari spotters and cash, what can be done? With a far less disciplined army, Gaddafi forces were defeating the Libyan rebels on a routine basis until the humanitarian assault by NATO. Even with outside fighters in place, some from Libya, the Free Syria Army is failing.
Are the two leaders discussing the OTC derivatives market?
The
U.S. and Great Britain are the purveyors of a major portion of over the
counter (OTC) derivatives. This includes the sovereign debt Credit
Default Swaps (CDS) polluting the world economy, particularly southern
Europe.
Derivatives are a means of betting on foreign exchange, interest rates, commodities, and debt, corporate and sovereign. The size of the derivative market is $700 trillion (Bank for International Settlements (IBS), November 2011). The amount at risk in this unregulated global gambling scheme is around $20 trillion according to IBS, almost a third of the 2010 $63 trillion Gross World Product. The $1 trillion subprime derivatives market collapsed and nearly crashed the world economy.
What if more there are fissures in the $20 trillion at risk in the OTC derivatives market? A trillion here, a trillion there of losses and pretty soon we're talking about a global meltdown.
Did Obama and Cameron even raise this subject or are they faith based national leaders?
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