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One irony of the Elite mindest, they have zero compunction about spending trillions on the US military and its contractors but when it comes to medical equipment to save lives that is another matter except when needed to preserve their own existence.
Meanwhile US-State struts about the stage, braying its venomous rhetoric while the crazed demons who lead it cower in fear isolated in the place they infect. An engorged bloated US Secretary of State — the very caricature of the engorged US State he represents — splutters obscenely by mouth and print about changing a foreign sovereign nation’s behavior or shows frustration that his globalist Axis of Evil cannot change a regime despite years of trying. As a result one set of US oligarchs ridicules the other, saying US-State’s current demons are not as efficient at spreading their horror throughout the world as the regime that preceded it.
There is no satisfaction in hailing a potentially deadly disease as the catalyst to challenge Washington’s deadly geopolitical grip. That the perverse axis Washington created to include the world’s worst actors — the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel — may now be threatened logistically and financially does inspire hope however.
Like US-State’s bloated girth, the financial bubble that burst in 2008-2009 was reinflated again and showed signs of growing instability since the end of 2018. The Fed/Treasury believed they had the problem licked but 2019 issues in the gold and repo markets seriously challenged the consensus view that Wall Street’s bull market bubble would last forever.
As in finance, world events began to push back on Washington’s agenda in 2019 with the Gulf attacks, US Global hawk RQ-4 shoot down, attacks on Saudi oil fields, the GRACE-1 affair, blowback from the US assassination of Iran’s top military leader, and an apparently pre-arranged US stand down after strikes on its own military in Iraq. All seemingly major events capable of bursting the US financial bubble — but none did. Arguably it was the OPEC+ split that finally did the damage occurring in conjunction with the COVID panic.
Now the panic provides cover to the G20 powers to address their primary concerns, whether oil prices, finance, and control of the populace. However the recent G20 meeting highlighted major divisions between globalists and sovereigntists. Signal divisions among semi-belligerents caused the Saudi-hosted summit to accomplish precisely nothing in a failure ironically embodied by the vacant, vacuous, confused stare seen in the ceremonial titular head’s photo. The G20’s irrelevance at a time of global panic well highlights the same vacuous countenance amongst all first world leadership.
Monetary realists tend to concentrate on (physical) gold as economic indicator, but the true global economic indicator is oil pricing as defacto agreed by the world order after August 15th, 1971. Great shocks to the post-1971 oil standard have largely defined major global economic recessions since then and the Panic of 2020 is no different. At the time the OPEC+ oil talks collapsed the pandemic was in the news but was just one consideration for the failure. Behind the scenes, the Russian leadership may have lost patience with Saudi Arabia and its double-dealing, and the continuance of Saudi-led state-sponsored horror in Syria.
By its own production the United States imports a small amount of oil from Saudi Arabia, and US weapons sales to Saudi Arabia far exceed the expense of Saudi oil purchased. Against this backdrop, the US continues to boast about being the number one producer of oil even as US rig counts fall drastically.* Alleged to be the land of free markets, should profit-hungry oil majors ditch US shale and opt for mass imports of cheap oil from Russia (and Saudi Arabia) then the US financial house of cards may be threatened at least in part.
For example, cheap oil from Russia could realign Turkey with Russian hopes for peace in the Middle East and Africa curtailing Turkey’s aggression in Syria and Libya where it acts as a surrogate for Washington, in another double-dealing game. And it’s a game which has cost many thousands of lives. In Iraq, Petronas evacuated the Gharraf field and Iraq has limited its oil production.
In another blow to the US illegal US occupation of Iraq, France just withdrew its military from the country. Now Australia and Germany have requested that their troops be withdrawn from Iraq even if details remain sketchy. The US military withdrew from al Qaim after Iraq condemned US air strikes supposedly intended to interdict “Hezbollah terrorists” but killed a number of civilians. However there is no doubt that the outbreak of disease forced the US to reconsider its presence in Iraq — just as France, Australia, and Germany have done.
The US withdrawal from al Qaim has been lightly reported in the west. al Qaim is strategically important being near the Deir Ezzor oil fields in Syria which the United States military presently occupy. Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units can now interact with their counterparts in Syria and thus pose a flanking threat to US troops occupying the oil fields. That’s because the PMU are not “Hezbollah terrorists” they are a mixed group of veteran fighters effectively opposed to the occupation of Iraq and Syria (some Sunni) and opposed to Islamic State group terrorists there as well. How a cornered US-State will react to this new PMU link-up is still unclear.
Embarrassed by the confused narrative where US State contradicts the US president on Iraq intentions and vice versa, reports say that the United States will withdraw from its so-called war versus the Islamic State group in Iraq due to corona virus. It’s rich to think that an invisible enemy can cause tanks and APC’s to be vacated and quickly become worthless to Washington’s war machine.
Israel too is concerned about worldwide media exposure of its blockade and siege of Gaza. The outbreak threatens to expose Israel’s basic inhumanity, and outside humanitarian efforts to relieve Gaza will challenge Israel’s military authority. Illegal militant settler outposts in the occupied territories pose a complicating disease factor too. For example Israeli forces have declared a closed military zone around a settler encampment called ‘Kipa Sruga’ in an effort to enforce an eminent lockdown. Settlers threw five Molotov petrol bombs at a police vehicle for their efforts.
The situation in war zones is deteriorating especially in Libya, the Occupied Territories, and Yemen. Yemen may find a way out as a ceasefire has just been agreed — the first in four years — after the UN issued yet another appeal to end hostilities on March 25th. But in another contrarian move the United States just discontinued its humanitarian aid to Yemen further underlining US moral bankruptcy. As for Saudi, that the Crown Prince may have met his match in the palace is a far more likely scenario than any predilection for mercy in Yemen.
This is not to write that peace may be breaking out in the world — far from it. Perhaps to support the illusion of global power in the face of events the US cannot control, Mnuchin the Magnificent just announced a new round of sanctions versus Iran and the Department of Justice declared Venezuela’s president to be a wanted drug pusher. Illustrating that the challenge to roll back US State’s Axis of Evil has only just begun… whether invoked by an invisible enemy or by the US Evil Empire’s own vile actions.
Steve Brown
- Noting that the US is far down the list as an oil exporter.
Follow Steve Brown on twitter: @newsypaperz
Source: Lire l'article complet de Strategika 51
