PRESIDENT WITH A LICENSE TO KILL

On Sep 30, 2010 American drone attacked a car in the south of Yemen with four Al-Qaeda members inside — Anwar al-Awlaki, Abu Mohsen al-Marabi, Samir al-Maruani and Samir Jan. The car was destroyed with Hellfire missiles. All four passengers have been killed. Whichever casual such news from the fronts of announced American wars are, this time they’ve triggered quite a scandal. The reason was that two passengers were actually American citizens. Elimination of one of them — Anwar al-Awlaki — was authorized personally by the U.S. President Barack Obama.

Oil, blood and hypocrisy

Everyone, who looks through the newspaper headlines every now and then, is certainly aware that today the world stands at the threshold of new major armed conflict that is about to grow into a full-scale war featuring nuclear states. Centre of the conflict lies at the heart of Middle and Near East, covering a part of Central Asia, too. Why the scent of war is so strong in the air of that region?

BRIBED LOYALTY: THE WAY THEY DO IT IN KABUL

Tribal leaders of Jirga have apparently been bribed in quite a haste. Instead of paychecks and “the only true currency” Karzai had to lavish them with promises that, firstly, their clans would be free from the “night clean-ups” and inspections, and, secondly, that American military wouldn’t interfere with the tribal opium trade in Pakistan, having confined themselves with the fight against major producers. I’m really desperate to know, whether American taxpayers are aware of objectives, their money are spent for?

“As far back as during his election campaign Barack Obama named Afghanistan the cornerstone of his foreign-policy concept. He has repeatedly claimed that achieving success in Afghanistan would allow solving the major part of the international terrorism dilemma”. This is a quote from my article “Afghanistan: Back to the Great Game?” that was written exactly two years ago. Today, preparing to run again, the U.S. President “is cleaning up his background”, burdened with the lost wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Voters demand results, of which there are none. Reuters has recently published an article by Missy Ryan (chief of the Mexico and Central America Bureau) named “Key Senator warns against Taliban talks, transfer”.

BARACK OBAMA HAS LOST A KEY FROM THE WHITE HOUSE «Pre-Election America 2012»

This September told our readers about a scientific method of estimating the chances of contenders for the U.S. presidency based on an analysis of 13 factors, which the inventor of the system Alan Lichtman dubbed “The keys to the White House”. Author claimed the lack of major scandals concerning the incumbent government to be a key #9. A month ago the incumbent President held that key and now he seemingly lost it.

WHAT DO OBAMA AND SARKOZY HAVE IN COMMON?

Who of these Presidents is better off three months before the election year ends? Is it Sarkozy — not particularly popular, but featuring a reputation of a steady leader, navigating the country through the crisis? Or is it Obama, whose lifestyle and behavior cause no contempt among his compatriots, but whose authority in the matters of American economics and foreign policy is growing all the more dubious?

13 KEYS TO THE WHITE HOUSE

Recent polls indicate that if the U.S. presidential elections took place today, Obama would have lost to both of his Republican rivals: Texas governor Rick Perry and former Massachusetts Mormon governor Mitt Romney. However, American professor Alan Lichtman believes that Obama has the re-election in the bag. He worked up a method he called “13 keys to the White House”.

THE SHOW’S NOT OVER UNTIL THE GOP LADY SINGS!

“Pre-election America-2012” cycle

The U.S. presidential election campaign is under way. There’s much less intrigue in it than during the last one in 2008. And it’s not even because the Russian campaign also started. It’s all about the fact that one bidder for the Presidential post is already known — it is the incumbent President Barack Obama. So the most part of action is on at the side his rivals — the Republican Party also known as the Great Old Party (GOP).

Wild West of taxation

Recently the role of the offshore companies in the state economics became a subject for broad public debates. It all started with the search of an actual owner of the Domodedovo airport after the terrible act of terror. Yet, the problem is much wider.

A CHICAGO YANKEE IN QUEEN ELIZABETH’S COURT: European tour of Obama

American President is not a common guest in Europe. Last time Obama visited the Old Continent two years ago. His current visit, thought, hardly resembles the visit of 2009. Despite the fact that the last time he had a trail of a man, responsible for the financial crisis, this time European disappointment in America was way more substantial.

Tea Party. Billionaires' plot against Obama. Part II

In a statement, Koch Industries said that the Greenpeace report “distorts the environmental record of our companies.” And David Koch, in a recent, admiring article about him in New York, protested that the “radical press” had turned his family into “whipping boys,” and had exaggerated its influence on American politics. But Charles Lewis, the founder of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan watchdog group, said, “The Kochs are on a whole different level. There’s no one else who has spent this much money. The sheer dimension of it is what sets them apart. They have a pattern of lawbreaking, political manipulation, and obfuscation. I’ve been in Washington since Watergate, and I’ve never seen anything like it. They are the Standard Oil of our times.”

Tea Party. Billionaires plot against Obama. Part I.

Midterm elections that Democrats lost in November of 2010 and lost control over the House of Representatives (lower chamber of the U.S. Congress) were caused by emergence of a rising power at the American political scene and this power is the Tea Party. This Party, which borrowed its name from the history of American independence movement, has united the very same “One-storeyed America” that Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov used to describe 75 years ago.

Arabian revolutions and American democracy

Revolts shattering the foundation of Arabian world have undermined the theoretical grounds of American neoconservatism, which used to be a cornerstone of Bush-Cheney’s foreign-policy. Or should we rather say Cheney-Bush? Dogmatic compliance with that doctrine since 2000 till 2008 resembled the reverent attitude of Soviet leadership to the works of Marx, Engels and Lenin.

In 1979 Jeane Kirkpatrick published her famous essay called “Dictatorships & Double Standards” in Commentary, which editor-in-chief at the moment was Norman Podhoretz — one of the neo-con father-architects. This essay caught an eye of Ronald Reagan, who was impressed by the ideas of 53-year-old “Iron lady” and invited her to his elections staff and afterwards appointed her ambassador to the United Nations. Despite the common opinion, it was Kirkpatrick — not Margaret Thatcher — who was the first woman to be honored with such title. In this essay she denounced U.S. President Jimmy Carter and claimed that he had hustled the Shah of Iran and the leader of Nicaragua — who headed, putting it mildly, not the most democratic regimes ever — out of office. Both Iranian Shah Reza Pahlavi and Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza were far from democratic ideals, yet both were pro-American. The results of their overthrow were disastrous. Friendly authoritarians were gone; true totalitarians were taking over in both places. While authoritarian regimes of the right could mellow over time into democracies, totalitarians ones of the left would not. Anyway, it required "decades, if not centuries," Kirkpatrick observed, for "people to acquire the necessary disciplines and habits" to create a viable democracy.

OBAMA: TWO YEARS TO CLEAN THE FOREIGN POLICY STABLES OUT. Part II

                                  4. Settlement of the Middle-Eastern conflict.

Cool-down of American-Israeli relationship was nearly the most dangerous consequence of Barack Obama’s coming to power. No matter how paradoxically it may sound, but Israel is every bit as important to America, as America is important to Israel. Republicans have historically supported Israel with a truly religious zealous fervor and — believe it or not — but neo-con ideology, confessed by the GOP is to a considerable degree based on the literal interpretation of some Biblical excerpts. According to them, second coming of Jesus Christ and the Judgment Day may only come when Judaic Jerusalem Temple (also called the Third Temple) would be completely restored. Place where it should be rebuilt is the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. As the saying goes, that’s where the shoe pinches. Without going deep into historical and religious details, we have all the reasons to state that Temple Mount is an equally sacred place for all three Avraam’s religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). That is why Palestinians demand to give Jerusalem back to them, which is also why Israel has no intention to do so and which is exactly why American neo-cons are supporting the Jewish state.

Two years to clean the foreign policy stables out

Perhaps, everyone may recollect the Obamania that spread over Europe, Asia and Africa during his election campaign in the USA. Europe perceived Obama to be new reincarnation of John F. Kennedy — young, elegant, free-thinking adherent of liberal democracy. Asia and Africa were joyous because of the color of his skin. Whatever the motivation, expectation of a wonder that literally was hanging in the air, unified all Obamaniacs. Miracle, however, didn’t happen. Why is that?

Analyzing the policy of current American democratic administration we should always keep in mind that it is conducted under constant stiff pressure of its eternal opponents — Republicans and the governments of U.S. allies. The latter have their own views regarding the favorable behavior of their Trans-Atlantic “Big Brother” — each of them is to serve the interests of these allies even if it contradicts the goals of other American friends, who are mostly grouped within NATO or simply bound together by the shared aims and targets.

Eight years that changed America. Part II

8. Iraq. The Iraq war was a screw-up of such colossal magnitude that it's easy to forget how many discrete screw-ups went into the making of it. There were the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and the nonexistent links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. There's the humiliating spectacle of Secretary of State Colin Powell presenting hours of bogus testimony to the U.N. Security Council. There was Paul Wolfowitz's bizarre claim that the war would pay for itself, when the real price tag is now in excess of $1 trillion. And let us not forget the 4,000 Americans and 100,000 Iraqi civilians dead, more than 30,000 American soldiers wounded, and several million Iraqi refugees forced to flee their homes. A strategy that was supposed to bring U.S.-friendly democracy to the Middle East instead produced an empowered Iran and a more fragile balance of power in the region. The only thing more astonishing than the scope of these blunders is the fact that the former president does not regret his decision, even now.

Eight years that changed America. Part I

Exactly two years ago, on the 20^th of January, 2009 the first black American President moved into the White House. Since then everyone’s tenderness with the color of Barack Obama’s skin was replaced with disappointment in the hopes and expectations that he failed to live up to. Then there were apprehends regarding the abrupt drop of his popularity. It was getting worse and worse as it went. Democrats lost the midterm elections and, as a consequence, have lost the House majority. Emergence of a new political power (the Tea Party), deep economic crisis, weakening of American foreign policy positions in the world in general and particularly in Europe — all of that changed America, its public image in the world and it gives us a good reason to think about what’s happened.