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October
19
2023

Rushing Into Catastrophe
Paul Craig Roberts

The Biden regime refuses to defend US borders but does not hesitate to rush aircraft carrier task forces and the 101st US Airborne Division to defend Israel’s borders.  “We have Israel’s back,” endlessly proclaims America’ Jewish Secretary of State.  “America can afford two wars,” proclaims America’s Jewish Secretary of the Treasury.  But forget protecting our own border and the burdens on American taxpayers.

It seems our government is captured and risks our lives and welfare in the interest of another country.

It seems everyone in Washington, Republicans and Democrats, especially Republicans, have intense war fever.  While Washington quickly escalated the conflict by deploying US military forces to the area, the Republican Senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, blames  escalation on Iran and issues a threat: “if you escalate this war, we’re coming for you.” Graham continues with his threats, in our name, to Iran saying the US will “knock Iran out of the oil business.”  Like Israel and the Jewish-American neoconservatives, Graham’s target is the Lebanese militia, Hezbollah:  “I am poised to use military force to destroy the source of funding for Hamas and Hezbollah.”

Another House Republican, this one from Texas, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, says he is writing legislation for authority to commit the US military to Israel’s war on Palestine.

What we are witnessing is Republicans who are as extreme as Hamas.  Is this insanity real, or is this showmanship, with political campaign funding in mind, for the US military/security complex who will greatly benefit from America “affording two wars?”

We are also witnessing the total failure of Western leadership, not only in Washington but throughout the Western world.  Instead of escalating the situation by sending military forces, Washington should have used its offices to calm matters down.  Why did not Washington calm the situation down instead of blowing it up?

This website — https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/10/us-deploys-large-force-eyes-on-syria.html — speculates that the US forces accumulating in the war zone are a “war fleet,” the purpose of which is to finally bring regime change to Syria and kick out the Russians in an act of revenge for the Russians preventing President Obama’s planned overthrow of the Assad government.  

I can understand that the Biden regime’s neoconservatives want to continue their policy of cleansing the Middle East for Israeli expansion, but how safe is it to assume that Putin will run away with his tail between his legs?  This would finish Putin as a leader of the dissident world and probably also finish him inside Russia.  A show of Russian cowardice would certainly provoke an escalation of NATO’s involvement in Ukraine.  It seems certain that a US attack on Syria would result in military conflict between the US and Russia.

The Israelis have been massacring Palestinians and stealing their country bit by bit since 1947, and no one has ever done anything about it.  The UN passes resolutions, but the US vetoes them.  So this final time Netanyahu expects no opposition, indeed, he expects  help from the US and its empire in the commission of his war crimes.  

It is clear to me that the situation is awash in miscalculations. Hezbollah is a match for Israel.  Indeed, the militia has twice defeated the vaunted Israeli Army and driven them out of Lebanon despite Israel’s air power. Syria’s army is battle hardened from fighting the mercenaries Washington sent to overthrow Assad.  Like Hezbollah and Hamas, Iran has fervor and a large number of missiles that can hit Israel.  If, as is claimed, 5,000 missiles from Hamas overwhelmed Israel’s Iron Dome, the Iron Dome has no chance against 100,000 or 200,000 missiles.

If Israel’s army is sent into Gaza, Hamas will keep it there, and Israel risks being overrun by Hezbollah, Syria, and Iraq and Iran should they care to participate.  Faced with Israel’s defeat, Washington would commit its forces with catastrophic consequences.

We are experiencing on the part of Israel and the US a total lack of judgment.  The risks are being ignored.  It is starting to look like the Armageddon that Revelation describes.  

The problem for humanity is that it has developed weapons that are capable of destroying all life, and these weapons are in the hands of emotional people incapable of restraint and reason.  

I have been, and continue to be, concerned about the conflict in Ukraine spiraling out of control.  The situation developing in the Middle East is more dangerous.  There doesn’t seem to be sufficient recognition of this danger.  The war propaganda from the presstitutes is extreme and blinds people to reality.  Those in office think they are in control, but they are not. 

Possibly Russia could prevent a wider conflict by raising its military presence in Syria, but Putin is not proactive.  

You tell me, where are the leaders to prevent a catastrophe?

Hon. Paul Craig Roberts is the John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy, Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. A former editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal and columnist for Business Week and the Scripps Howard News Service, he is a nationally syndicated columnist for Creators Syndicate in Los Angeles and a columnist for Investor's Business Daily. In 1992 he received the Warren Brookes Award for Excellence in Journalism. In 1993 the Forbes Media Guide ranked him as one of the top seven journalists.

He was Distinguished Fellow at the Cato Institute from 1993 to 1996. From 1982 through 1993, he held the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. During 1981-82 he served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy. President Reagan and Treasury Secretary Regan credited him with a major role in the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, and he was awarded the Treasury Department's Meritorious Service Award for "his outstanding contributions to the formulation of United States economic policy." From 1975 to 1978, Dr. Roberts served on the congressional staff where he drafted the Kemp-Roth bill and played a leading role in developing bipartisan support for a supply-side economic policy.

In 1987 the French government recognized him as "the artisan of a renewal in economic science and policy after half a century of state interventionism" and inducted him into the Legion of Honor.

Dr. Roberts' latest books are The Tyranny of Good Intentions, co-authored with IPE Fellow Lawrence Stratton, and published by Prima Publishing in May 2000, and Chile: Two Visions - The Allende-Pinochet Era, co-authored with IPE Fellow Karen Araujo, and published in Spanish by Universidad Nacional Andres Bello in Santiago, Chile, in November 2000. The Capitalist Revolution in Latin America, co-authored with IPE Fellow Karen LaFollette Araujo, was published by Oxford University Press in 1997. A Spanish language edition was published by Oxford in 1999. The New Colorline: How Quotas and Privilege Destroy Democracy, co-authored with Lawrence Stratton, was published by Regnery in 1995. A paperback edition was published in 1997. Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, co-authored with Karen LaFollette, was published by the Cato Institute in 1990. Harvard University Press published his book, The Supply-Side Revolution, in 1984. Widely reviewed and favorably received, the book was praised by Forbes as "a timely masterpiece that will have real impact on economic thinking in the years ahead." Dr. Roberts is the author of Alienation and the Soviet Economy, published in 1971 and republished in 1990. He is the author of Marx's Theory of Exchange, Alienation and Crisis, published in 1973 and republished in 1983. A Spanish language edition was published in 1974.

Dr. Roberts has held numerous academic appointments. He has contributed chapters to numerous books and has published many articles in journals of scholarship, including the Journal of Political Economy, Oxford Economic Papers, Journal of Law and Economics, Studies in Banking and Finance, Journal of Monetary Economics, Public Finance Quarterly, Public Choice, Classica et Mediaevalia, Ethics, Slavic Review, Soviet Studies, Rivista de Political Economica, and Zeitschrift fur Wirtschafspolitik. He has entries in the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Economics and the New Palgrave Dictionary of Money and Finance. He has contributed to Commentary, The Public Interest, The National Interest, Harper's, the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Fortune, London Times, The Financial Times, TLS, The Spectator, Il Sole 24 Ore, Le Figaro, Liberation, and the Nihon Keizai Shimbun. He has testified before committees of Congress on 30 occasions.

Dr. Roberts was educated at the Georgia Institute of Technology (B.S.), the University of Virginia (Ph.D.), the University of California at Berkeley and Oxford University where he was a member of Merton College.

He is listed in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in the World, The Dictionary of International Biography, Outstanding People of the Twentieth Century, and 1000 Leaders of World Influence. His latest book, HOW THE ECONOMY WAS LOST, has just been published by CounterPunch/AK Press. He can be reached at: [email protected]

 

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