25 Sept 2008

#28 For Wall Street & Mr Bush

"A woman in red" walks past a mural of Picasso's painting depicting the Nazi bombing of Guernica, Spain, by twenty-eight bombers, on April 26, 1937........photo west belfast 08

The last I heard the bill for Mr Bush's controversial war games was 3 Trillion something or other. The last I heard he is now paying the Iraqi opposition good dollars not to shoot at his men. The last I heard he has broadened his operations to include Pakistan while loosing ground in Afghanistan. Last I heard he says America is in crisis. Last I heard he is soon leaving his office. Last I heard the military complex is happy with their balance sheets.
Is this globalisation? The world is infinitely more complexed than the simplistic views of boardroom bankers wishing to print a new global banknote. Successive American leaders for true democracy have warned of the danger from faceless greedy people behind a giant military octopus stretching beyond beyond to strangle our globe. Overall, the world spends in excess of $1 trillion per year on defense , and this figure has grown by $100 billion per year for the past few years. Almost ninety percent of that money is spent by Western powers with the US leading a staggering $581 billion compared to China's $46 billion or Russia's $34 billion with Europe looking for a new army to use its $361 billion. Crisis?