Monday, May 02, 2011

Now what? (heavily updated)

Update: I get the strange feeling that Osama bin Laden was like a bottle of champagne that people keep in the refrigerator to open on some future, unspecified "special occasion". Since he was obviously under Pakistani surveillance and probably has been for years, I'm interested in understanding the timing of this great day.

The "mysterious force" that seems to be at work here is the collapse of supply side economics, otherwise known as "voodoo" economics or Reaganomics, which has led to a situation where the USA must cut costs and raise taxes or go the way of the Wiemar Republic. This is very upsetting for those few who have enough money to influence public opinion, such as the Koch brothers, Murdoch and of course Trump, plus many other less conspicuous billionaires. Nothing more mysterious than that.

Recently added to this poisonous brew is the slow motion collapse of America's position in the center of the world's oil production, the Middle East, otherwise known as the "Arab Spring", which is being sold as a triumph of our "values", but which is, in fact, an unqualified disaster for the USA both economically and geopolitically.

My tentative reading of the bin Laden "job" is that Obama was looking weak and now needed some of what Dubya called "political credit" in order to raise taxes, cut entitlements and declare "victory" in Afghanistan and Iraq and get out ASAP, because the USA is broke.

Bin Laden had been located for quite some time and like the bottle of champagne kept in the fridge for special occasions that I mention, now was the time to uncork it and drink it... get people feeling good before major surgery.


David Seaton's News Links
Nearly ten years after the attack on the Twin Towers, it is reported that Osama bin Laden has been killed in a military town in Pakistan by American commandos and his body quickly dumped into the ocean. At this writing there is no photograph of his corpse.

The question that immediately springs to my mind is that, although Americans will feel a lot better, what will  be the real impact  of bin Laden's death (in battle) in an Islamist culture of martyrdom, a culture of countless suicide bombers? Are they expected to pack up and go home on hearing the news. To be killed in jihad was presumed to be bin Laden's heart's desire. To have captured him and brought him to trial would have certainly been more demoralizing.

Do Al Qaeda still have the capacity to retaliate significantly? That is the real question in the coming days and weeks. DS

5 comments:

lambert strether said...

Love the champagne metaphor, but check out Modern Monetary theory on deficits:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=MMT+Weimar&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=

Anonymous said...

David, I hope you are correct. My instinct was to anticipate just the opposite outcome:escalation of the "wars" since war seems to now be all the American economy has left. We shall know which way the wind is blowing very shortly.
Philip

Anonymous said...

David,

I am quite disturbed that this man (if actually killed) was never charged nor convicted of the crimes of 9/11 and contrary to conventional wisdom, never claimed responsibility either. So I can see why the U.S. would rather avoid the inconvenience of a trial. Is this how the justice system operates now? Where is this messy detail in all the coverage? Completely disappeared.
Philip

Jacob Gittes said...

I agree with your analysis and ideas here, I just don't have much to say. We will never know the actual motivations of the executive branch here, and what really happened.

I think they have studied Goebbels and Lenin carefully, not to mention Limbaugh and Karl Rove.

Since Limbaugh is praising Obama, I would guess that something smells, and something is going to "blow up" soon, metaphorically or literally, in politics or economics or war.

David Seaton's Newslinks said...

Very sharp Publius. Let's watch the mouse (rat?) hole.