ARE WE ABOUT TO ATTACK IRAN?

So maybe we will start a war to get ourselves out of the depression. I would have put my money on China going first. Of course, if we start a war with Iran, and China supplies them with arms and munitions (probably based on the blueprints Clinton sold to them while he was in office) maybe both countries can murder their way out of economic Armageddon. The only problem is, we might find ourselves involved in the real thing.

"Hundreds of powerful US “bunker-buster” bombs are being shipped from California to the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in preparation for a possible attack on Iran.

The Sunday Herald can reveal that the US government signed a contract in January to transport 10 ammunition containers to the island. According to a cargo manifest from the US navy, this included 387 “Blu” bombs used for blasting hardened or underground structures.

Experts say that they are being put in place for an assault on Iran’s controversial nuclear facilities. There has long been speculation that the US military is preparing for such an attack, should diplomacy fail to persuade Iran not to make nuclear weapons.

Although Diego Garcia is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, it is used by the US as a military base under an agreement made in 1971. The agreement led to 2,000 native islanders being forcibly evicted to the Seychelles and Mauritius.

The Sunday Herald reported in 2007 that stealth bomber hangers on the island were being equipped to take bunker-buster bombs."
Herald Scotland

LOOK TO THE EAST- CHINA AND THE FUTURE WAR

We are in a depression. It was caused by the bursting of bubbles and the creation of new bubbles to offset the effects of the last bubble's burst. Each bubble in succession has burst ratcheting our debt to unsustainable levels. We cannot pay down our debt so we have to make a choice; inflate our way out or collapse. To this point we have increased the money supply to affect Keynesian economic policies in the hopes that we could stimulate the economy back to life. It hasn't worked and will have the effect of causing massive inflation, ratcheting up the cost of goods as the deflationary pressures of a depression drive wages down.

A war would be just the thing to take our minds off the problem, wouldn't it? It would also be a dandy way to wash the excess capital out of the system while creating high paying manufacturing jobs. The only thing holding us back is that we are a Christian nation and the immorality of war started for economic reasons (most are anyway) still rubs us the wrong way.

I wonder if China would have the same qualms?

"While communist China’s growing hostility toward the free world (as represented by the United States) is becoming more and more difficult to conceal, the trade and financial ties between the two countries are nevertheless stronger than ever.

Some wonder why China, as resentful as it is toward the U.S., has spent so much on purchasing U.S. treasury bonds.

The question remains whether and when China will dump American bonds as an extreme financial weapon. Chinese military officers once threatened to do so in the aftermath of earlier threats to fire 200 nuclear bombs at the U.S.

Beijing’s think-tank and pro-communist overseas media believe that dumping a small portion of the $800 billion in American bonds would cause economic turmoil in the U.S.—a blow almost as great as a nuclear bomb. Should that happen, they have speculated that the U.S. would be brought to its knees."
Epoch Times

"China retained its spot as the biggest foreign holder of U.S. Treasury debt in January even as it trimmed its holdings for a third straight month. The string of declines underscored worries that the U.S. government could face much higher interest rates to finance soaring budget deficits."
AP News

"China has succumbed to hubris. It has mistaken the soft diplomacy of Barack Obama for weakness, mistaken the US credit crisis for decline, and mistaken its own mercantilist bubble for ascendancy. There are echoes of Anglo-German spats before the First World War, when Wilhelmine Berlin so badly misjudged the strategic balance of power and over-played its hand."
Telegraph

"Nervousness is growing in the financial markets about China, which might seem odd when there are so many other places to worry about.

There’s still Greece, for example, which is likely to be the focus of this week’s meetings of European finance ministers. There’s Germany, and its trade surplus. And there’s the U.S., the U.K. and all the other places with triple-A-rated debt that may not be rated triple-A for much longer.

So why the focus on China, where shares closed Monday at their lowest in five weeks, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite ending below 3000 at its weakest since Feb. 9? Well, as one bank put it on Monday: “Are we facing a ‘growth miracle’ or will China be the next bubble to burst?”

So far, it’s been widely assumed that the strength of the Chinese economy is a plus for the global economy as a whole. But fears of over-heating are growing and, after China’s failure to raise interest rates over the weekend, there’s inevitable concern that it might wait too long before tightening the screws.

What’s more, the rhetoric from China seems increasingly confrontational. Premier Wen Jiabao warned other countries not to pressure China over its exchange-rate policy during his news conference at the end of the country’s annual legislative session Sunday."
Wall Street Journal

"In China's zeal to keep their economy going, the government injected about 4 trillion yuan since 2008 (14 percent of GDP) as fiscal stimulus. It expects to have deficit spending equal to 1.5 trillion yuan this year. Since they believe in Keynesian stimulus, and since they still have a quasi-centrally planned economy (the ultimate Keynesian technocrats), they will keep doing this until the crisis passes. You see, there is one thing the Central Politburo fears: their own people. If the economy collapsed, you would see massive unrest, and I believe they fear for their lives."
Zerohedge

THE CHINESE ARE COMING-ALONG WITH THE FOUR HORSEMEN

So while our President is giving a speech today once again promising to ram health care through we get the stories below. Besides the obvious Constitutional problems with the government providing health care, let's just focus on the strategic problem. China just about owns us now and WILL use the power they have gained to control America as surely as if they had conquered us in war. Yet, our President and his Progressive friends in Congress intend to borrow even more money to gives us the health care we have repeatedly told them we don't want.

They aren't this stupid. America is being destroyed from within by the very people that we elected. This is being done purposely; I cannot come to any other conclusion. We are on the brink of becoming a Chinese satellite state or a hollow shell, without a single shot being fired.

If we don't get our act together now we are going to lose our country and the greatest experiment in freedom ever carried out on this earth will have failed. I'm afraid that we are going to be left with very few options; none of them good.

Somebody tell me how in the hell we're going to save ourselves. The push is on in Washington to to close the deal on health care. I heard part of Obama's speech today and he said that if the doesn't get the appointments he wants he will put them in during the Congressional recess. In the speech last week he mentioned using executive orders to implement programs the Congress refused to pass. We are seeing the Executive Branch elevated to a level of power not seen since the Lincoln Administration. Obama will surpass FDR in control of the Congress and the country. And, he will see it destroyed. No one in the government will stand up to him. It is the responsibility of the Congress to push back when the Executive Branch tries to take power it wasn't intended to have. But they won't do it. Not even the Republicans seem capable of anything more than a half-assed effort.

The Chinese are rattling their sword and the EU is starting to crumble. Central and South America are powder kegs. And Iran is threatening to do something on Thursday that they promise will amaze and frighten the West. And once again our elected leaders are focusing on health care. Is it a distraction? I don't know. Nothing makes sense anymore.

Pray, pray, pray. And prepare. We are on the verge of cataclysmic disruptions in our lives. No one can predict what, when or how but I feel confident that something is coming. Chaos cannot create order, it can only collapse into deeper and more intense chaos.

"By their carelessness Congress and the Obama administration are steadily handing over control of America's economic and financial future to a handful of Chinese officials and generals in Beijing. Those who think the Chinese won't use that control if they feel they have to are ignoring history -- and the Chinese.

The ancient military strategist Sun Tzu said that the best strategy was to render an opponent's army helpless even before the battle began. America may still have the biggest and best military in the world.

But many at the Pentagon are starting to realize that, thanks to our growing fiscal irresponsibility, we may be surrendering control of America's destiny to a rival superpower -- and all without a shot being fired."

The Burning Platform

"Senior Chinese military officers have proposed that their country boost defense spending, adjust PLA deployments, and possibly sell some U.S. bonds to punish Washington for its latest round of arms sales to Taiwan.

The calls for broad retaliation over the planned U.S. weapons sales to the disputed island came from officers at China's National Defence University and Academy of Military Sciences, interviewed by Outlook Weekly, a Chinese-language magazine published by the official Xinhua news agency.

The interviews with Major Generals Zhu Chenghu and Luo Yuan and Senior Colonel Ke Chunqiao appeared in the issue published on Monday.

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) plays no role in setting policy for China's foreign exchange holdings. Officials in charge of that area have given no sign of any moves to sell U.S. Treasury bonds over the weapons sales, a move that could alarm markets and damage the value of China's own holdings.

While far from representing fixed government policy, the open demands for retaliation by the PLA officers underscored the domestic pressures on Beijing to deliver on its threats to punish the Obama administration over the arms sales.

"Our retaliation should not be restricted to merely military matters, and we should adopt a strategic package of counter-punches covering politics, military affairs, diplomacy and economics to treat both the symptoms and root cause of this disease," said Luo Yuan, a researcher at the Academy of Military Sciences."

Reuters