$100 billion here and a hundred billion there, pretty soon we're looking at serious money

And not too long after that, we'll be looking at bankruptcy. I gotta say I'm not impressed by Carney. For a supposed financial savant, he's committing Canada to long term spending at levels totally beyond our capacity to pay. This is happening with little or no consultation with the public. All the while, mainstream media do their best to limit discussion. We can debate whether Korean or German subs might best suit our needs, but there's no discussion at all about whether these legacy manned combat systems have any role to play in 21st century warfare. Same goes for warships and fighter jets. What the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are proving right now is that war ain't what it used to be. Big warships make big targets. The Ukrainian navy has pretty much kept Russia's Black Sea Fleet in drydock for the past four years using cheap unmanned drones. In Israel, and in USA's Gulf bases, Iran has destroyed the most sophisticated air defence systems in the world using cheap unmanned drones. Mark Carney is loading us up with at least $500 billions in obsolete technology that wouldn't survive a one month war with Iran, let alone Russia or China. On the other hand, even while our new armoury becomes a smoking ruin, we'll (or our children and theirs) continue to pay for all this foolishness for at least the next fifty years. That will require massive tax hikes, equally massive spending cuts, or some combination of both. It is high time we had a public debate on what kind of a society we want, and prioritize our spending accordingly.

Trump crime syndicate's Arab Gulf States empire going up in smoke

If you follow this sort of thing, you know there's multiple NYC billionaires with substantial investments in the Arab Gulf countries. Jarrod Kushner spearheaded a lot of this action. Moving the embassy, floating the Abraham Accords, and the Gaza "Board of Peace" were all manifestations of Kushner's efforts to cash in on Mideast Mayhem. Hardly a month ago, Arab Gulf states were promising billions to join the Board of Peace. Might as well be a hundred years ago, just a few weeks later. That scam is over. American news platforms are thus far trying to maintain the fiction that the USA-Israel war criminal combine is obliterating, destroying, devastating, etc etc Iran. Iran, meanwhile, has the economy of the Western world, ie the Israel-USA-EU-NATO universe, totally and entirely by the balls. They haven't closed the Straight of Hormuz at all. Chinese, Russian, and Irainian ships are getting through just fine. There's absolutely nothing Israel, USA, or anyone else can do about it. The pundits all over Western media continue to spew fantasies of victory for American Empire and Greater Israel. The Iranian missiles streaming through Iron Dome day and night are telling a different story.

Trump puts Israel first

Exhibit A; America, the country Trump was democratically elected to lead, has gone full in on Israel's war on Iran. Trump puffed himself as the peace candidate to get elected. Now he has embraced the ultra-nationalist factions in Israel who celebrate genocide. I have yet to see any remotely plausible rationale for America's war on Iran. There is no evidence anywhere of any "imminent threat" whatsoever. What we're doing with this fakery is running interference for the genocidal maniacs who, having destroyed Israel, are keen to bring down the rest of the Middle East too. There must be some prime juicy Trump footage on those Epstein tapes to make Mafia Don do a 180 on his entire election platform, just to please his blackmailer.

Israel and the wars to come

As the calendar rolls over, national media are hyping up anti-China, anti-Russia, and anti-Iran hysteria. 

We shouldn't roll over for the propaganda.

If you've been paying attention, you'll know that our mainstream media has been busy getting us to see the nations of the world as the Good Guys and the Bad Guys.

The Good Guys are the Anglo-American Empire, its colonies and camp followers. The EU. NATO. The Nations of Virtue and the Axis of Kindness. We are led by the Light unto the Nations, City on a Hill, the Greatest Democracy and Military and all the usual claptrap ad infinitum.

The Bad Guys are those nations who have notions of freedom from US dominance.

And, led by Xi and Putin, the Bad Guys have been getting way too uppity. They've been making demands and threats all over the place.

Uncle Sam needs to put his foot down, and soon!

Which brings us to Israel, a charter member of the Nations of Virtue.

As everyone knows, Israel has outsize influence in the corridors of power throughout the Anglo-American empire. Israel is by far the biggest recipient of US "foreign aid," which aid generally comes in the form of bombs and bullets.

At the same time, Israel also has cosy relations with two out of three members of the Troika of Tyranny, as the erstwhile warmonger John Bolton has framed it.

When the current cold war with Russia turns hot, it will be interesting to see what US allies do. The recent NATO add-ons in Eastern Europe will be howling for US/NATO involvement, as will the Western world's legacy media.

With the exception of Boris' UK, there isn't a lot of enthusiasm for escalation in the original NATO bloc.

Open warfare with Russia will split NATO. When that war goes south for the Good Guys, the second tier allies like Canada and Australia will melt away.

The fascinating question is, what will Israel do?

As much as the Israelis would like to see Iran obliterated, Israel is up a stump. There have been way too many retired IDF brass speculating in public how many rockets and missiles Iran's regional allies have for Israel to consider an attack on Iran, and Iran has various bilateral mutual support agreements with Russia and China.

When push comes to shove, and American hubris and over-reach leads to the end of the American Empire, I don't think the Israelis will be pitching in for the losing side.

Israel Defense Minister talks tough in London

Ehud Barak apparently didn't get the "shut up" memo that has seen other leading orators in Washington and Israel tone down the war talk recently with respect to Iran.

Speaking to the British Israel Communications and Research Center today, Barak was in full "all options on the table" mode, the kind of talk we haven't heard from Netanyahu or Obama in weeks.

Barak reminded his audience that Israel lives in a tough neighborhood where there is no mercy for the weak.

That is certainly a point that he and Hezbollah agree on!

With respect to the "civil war" in Syria, Barak claimed that the last thing Israel wants to see on her northern border is chaotic failed state, but witnesses claim he was crossing his fingers behind his back at the time.

Time for the de-liberation of Iraq

Reuters has quite the scoop today.

Apparently they've seen really real top secret "Western" intelligence reports that report our Iraqi vassals are conniving with Iran to deliver "military personnel" and weapons to Syria.

Fouad Ajami thinks we did a wondrous deed in liberating Iraq.

I think we handed the country to Iran.

This story would never have happened if the evil despot Saddam were still in power.

America spent a trillion dollars and many thousands of lives turning an erstwhile ally of America into an erstwhile ally of Iran.

The concept of unexpected consequences should be kept firmly in view as our rulers contemplate a war with Iran.

How about a nice war to take your mind off the economic collapse?

It's a time-honored strategy.

The "great depression" didn't really end till WWII.

Viet Nam masked America's industrial over-capacity and sundry other economic woes for a generation.

Time-honored, tested, and true. If the masses are getting too antsy about their declining standard of living, scare the beejeezus out of them with a war.

Or even the prospect of war.

I mean look how this strategy is panning out for Netanyahu over in the Holy Land.

Everybody in America knows that Arab Spring was sparked by that poor Tunisian fruit-vendor who had given up all hope of making a go of it in such a repressive society that he set himself on fire.

Virtually nobody in America has heard of the two Israeli Jews who have set themselves on fire in the past month in Israel because they have given up all hope of making a go of it.

All Netanyahu has to do is mention "Iran" and "nuclear" and "existential threat" and self-immolating poor people are immediately forgotten.

So that war with Iran has got to be pretty tempting for a lot of politicians.

IAEA inspectors are CIA's eyes and ears in Iran

That's just one of the not-so-new revelations that aren't generally acknowledged in polite circles, but which the New York Times just blabbed to the universe.

What's even more revealing is the tone of unapologetic belief in American Exceptionalism that permeates the article.

Not that there's anything new about that. What's remarkable is that in this week of a rapidly disintegrating war effort in Afghanistan this kind of chest-thumping isn't more muted.

After having made a complete mess of both Iraq and Afghanistan, America's newspaper of record operates under the assumption that it is a self-evident truth that it is America's unique mission in the world to monitor, threaten, intimidate, cajole, and otherwise bully anyone of whom our ruling class does not approve.

The Times at least puts a little lipstick on this pig. For sheer unadulterated jingoistic war talk find yourself a transcript of the exchange between Senator Joe Lieberman and Admiral Jonathan Greenert at the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings this past Thursday.

Greenert and Lieberman seem to believe war is on its way.

We're just not sure of the timing.

How to make the price of gas go down

I was reading where Obama drops a couple percentage points in the polls evey time the price of gas goes up. He's going to be the "gas president!" What a legacy!

Now the price of gas going up is a favorite focus of armchair economists everywhere, me included. Who benefits from the price of gas going up? Well, in the first place, it's your big multi-national oil companies.

Exxon and all her little brothers and sisters have oil wells all over the world that were profitable when oil was twelve dollars a barrel.

Now that oil is $120 a barrel, do you think it is more profitable or less profitable for Exxon and the other sisters?

I remember when the first wave of Alberta oil sands development was coming off the drawing boards and into the oil-field service shops that I worked in. $12 a barrel was the magic number.  No wonder they're expanding those tar-sands as fast as they can; if they were breaking even at twelve bucks a barrel, what are they doing now?

Meanwhile, we've got an entirely new dimension to consider; fracked shale.

Nobody has any idea how big that's gonna get. Some of your more educated states have concluded that when fracking chemicals show up in drinking water, that's a cause for putting a moritorium on fracking. Luckily the oil industry can then move right along to the next state, where they don't rush to such hasty conclusions.

Bottom line, thanks to fracking technology, ( and so sorry about your tap water, but I'm sure there's no connection...) America is awash in energy as never before!

Well, it's about that global oil market. As you know, way too much of that global oil has to pass through the Straits of Hormuz just to get to your local gas station. And we all know who is on the other side of those Straits.

Iran.

Everytime somebody in the GOP race makes idle threats against Iran, oil traders bid up the price of oil. Everytime Obama talks about all options on the table, oil traders bid up the price of oil. Everytime Netanyahu invokes his holocaust vocabulary to talk about Iran, oil traders bid up the price of oil.

Want lower gas prices?

Stop talking shit about Iran!

Netanyahu in Ottawa: Israel has the right to defend itself

Well of course it does.

Unfortunately Netanyahu is taking a page out of America's playbook. Remember, America's attacks on Iraq have been in the name of self-defense.

America had to defend herself from Saddam's imaginary weapons of mass destruction.

Same with the Afghan campaign. Self-defense all the way. Right up to this day when for whatever reason we can't figure out how to get out of this mess.

This pre-emptive "self-defense" has hurt America more than any attack by Iraq or Afghanistan ever would have.

Why would Netanyahu be so eager to follow in America's footsteps?

Netanyahu still clamoring for US attack on Iran

Netanyahu doesn't get that the Bomb Iran train has left the station.

Not to bomb Iran, but to find smaller fish to fry. America is in no mood for another disaster in the Middle East.

Even without nukes Iran is a formidable enemy. Remember a couple of weeks ago when the blogosphere was awash with stories about how 200,000 missiles were aimed at Israel at any given moment?

These are real missiles, not the home made pipe rockets the Gaza wankers are firing off into the Negev every other day.

By the way, the real resistance in Gaza has plenty of real rockets, way more than ever before, thanks to NATO's "liberation" of Libya. They've been bringing more than Toyotas and concrete blocks through those tunnels.

So even after the military intelligence apparati on all sides conclude that an attack on Iran would be an unmitigated disaster, we still see politicians in Israel and America banging the war drums.

Especially those politicians financed by Sheldon Adelson.

Here's the Falling Downs plan to avert a new Middle East war. Put Sheldon under house arrest and confine him to his apartment in Tel Aviv.

As long as he's within range of those 200,000 missiles, the war talk from Likud and the Republican party in the US will magically disappear.

Terror networks recruiting mentally handi-capped from madrassas

It's good to be vindicated by mainstream headlines!

Twelve hours after posting about the stupidity factor among the "enemy" we learn that a supposed Iranian secret agent sent to Thailand on a terror mission only blew his legs off instead. Not only that, but the blast left his Iranian passport intact as well.

The terror bosses have to hate it when that happens.

You really have to wonder about the quality of their recruits, don't you?

The undie bomber. "Dude, your pants are on fire!"

Indeed. And the guy before that. The shoe bomber. Over-powered by fellow passengers after wasting two books of matches trying to set his Addidas trainers on fire...

Where do they get these guys?

And these are the people who are building themselves a nuclear weapon?

I'm guessing they'll accidentally blow up their own nuclear program long before they're a threat to anyone else.

Let's all relax a little.

Iran's secret agents even dumber than their nuclear scientists

And we know the pathetic state of their nuclear scientist pool.

For at least twenty years now these imbeciles have been months away from a nuclear weapon. And guess what?

They're still months away!

Turns out their black ops guys graduated from the same schools. Rember a couple of months ago when they had the plot to kill the Saudi ambassador? How lame was that?

Now they've spread their terror tentacles to Georgia and India. Didn't succeed in taking anybody out, although in India they managed to injure a couple of people who are of absolutely no consequence to Israeli security.

Meanwhile, their top nuclear scientists keep exploding in mysterious spontaneous combustion incidents.

Coincidence? I think not, folks, and I wouldn't lose too much sleep worrying about any Iranian threat.

Seems to me the threat is pretty well contained.

Canada announces new and improved sanctions on Iran

Foreign Minister John Baird announced tough new sanctions against Iran today.

"Iran continues to undermine regional and global security and stability," Baird said.

Baird is the buffoon who allowed himself to be photographed signing bombs that were to be dropped on Libya during our rebels' struggle for freedom last summer. He has been noticeably silent on the Libyan question in recent months.

Which is not to suggest he hasn't been busy. It takes a lot of research to figure out that the main source of regional and global insecurity and instability is Iran.

In the immediate region, one would have to go back quite some time to find an era of peace and stability. There's that Afghan war on Iran's eastern border. That's a pretty big dollop of instability and insecurity in the region. Is Iran the author of that? No.

Then there's the instability and insecurity on Iran's western border. That festering sore is called Iraq, and it's been a festering sore since the prophets of American Exceptionalism chose it to be the model democratic state in the region. Is Iran responsible for that? No.

There are of course other hotbeds of insecurity and instability in the region. Israel, Lebanon, the West Bank, Syria, Gaza. In every case the sources of the instability and insecurity can be traced to actors other than Iran.

None of which will deter Baird.

"Canada has taken aggressive actions and has among the toughest sanctions against Iran in the world."

When asked for comment, a senior Iranian diplomat replied, "what's Canada?"

US-Israel war games cancelled; what could this mean?

On the face of it, the cancellation (or at least the deferral) of the upcoming Austere Challenge war games scheduled for Israel in the coming months is a bit of a mystery.

One explanation popping up on American news sites is that the US doesn't want to further escalate tensions at this delicate time.

This seems dubious at best. The reason this is a delicate time is that we've been ratcheting up the antagonism any chance we get. We've created the "tensions" as a matter of policy. Why would we stop now?

Another explanation floating around is that budget considerations are responsible. Again, highly unlikely. From a big-picture perspective operation Austere Challenge isn't even a drop in the bucket.

The think tank here at Falling Downs has a better theory.

It's obvious to anyone who follows these matters that the more extreme right-wingers in both the American and Israeli political worlds are gung-ho for military action. Listen to the GOP presidential candidates try to outdo one another in making dire threats against Iran.

It is also well known that the senior professional ranks in the US military are against such an adventure. These are not people taken in by the revisionist twaddle being peddled by the mainstream media about our "achievements" in Iraq and Afghanistan.

These are people who know that Iraq and Afghanistan have been disasters, and that we are in no way shape or form ready for any military engagement with Iran that will not be an exponentially greater disaster.

While there are plenty of rational secular people in the IDF and in the Israeli security apparatus in general who share that view, there are sound reasons for the Americans to have doubts about their Israeli allies.

The IDF is year by year becoming a less secular and more religious institution. Not only is it becoming more religious, it is becoming more politicized.

Austere Challenge was cancelled because the US military at the highest levels does not want to risk having a significant troop presence in Israel. If Israel initiates a unilateral attack on Iran while thousands of American soldiers are in the country, the resulting Iranian counterattack would by definition draw us into war with Iran.

That's a chance the top brass, unlike the war cheer-leaders in the media and at the think tanks and in the GOP leadership race, aren't willing to take.

The war on Iran is well underway

As every serious person who follows these matters appreciates, the so-called Syrian opposition forces are being stage-managed from an American air base in eastern Turkey.

That is the home of the Free Syrian Army.

That is the staging point for the NATO rebels who, having delivered Libya into the tender embrace of the North Atlantic Alliance (read US orbit) are now working their magic in Syria.

That is the "Western Front" if you will in the war on Iran.

There are other fronts.

Those exploding nuclear scientists might be called the domestic front. In what other country do nuclear scientists blow up with such depressing regularity?

Then of course we have the innocent hikers and the random tourists who accidentally test the limits of Iranian security. Who might they be accidentally working for?

And those Kurdish and Marxist undergound groups that we call terrorists but at the same time we fund and supply and give a nudge and the wink of an eye, who are they working for if not us?

Make no mistake; this war is on.