Feb. 4, 2008
Two weeks ago George Bush was sent on a mission to the Middle East to deliver a horse's head. We all remember the disturbing scene in Francis Ford Coppola's “The Godfather” where Lucca Brassi goes to Hollywood to convince a recalcitrant movie producer to use Don Corleone's nephew in his next film. The “Big shot” producer is finally persuaded to hire the young actor after he wakes up in bed next to the severed head of his prize thoroughbred. I expect that Bush made a similar “offer they could not refuse” to the various leaders of the Gulf States when he met with them earlier this month.
The media tried to portray Bush's trip to the Middle East as a "peace mission", but that just a smokescreen. In fact, three days after Bush left Jerusalem, Israel stepped-up its military operations in the occupied territories and resumed its merciless blockade of food, water, medicine and energy to the 1.5 million people of Gaza. Clearly, Bush had green-lighted the operations or Israel's aggression would have been seen as a slap in the face of the President of the United States.
So, what was the real purpose of Bush's trip? After all, he has no interest in peace or in honoring his commitment to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. So, why would he choose to visit the Middle East just as his second term as president is winding down and there is no chance of success?
Sometimes personal visits are important; especially when the nature of the information is so sensitive that the message has to be made face to face. In this case, Bush went to the trouble of traveling half-way around the world to tell the Saudis and their friends in the Gulf States that they were going to continue linking their oil to the dollar or they were going to “sleep with the fishes”. For the last two months, various sheiks and finance ministers have been moaning and groaning about the falling dollar---threatening to break from the so-called “dollar-peg” and covert to a basket of currencies. Bush's trip appears to have rekindled the spirit of brotherly cooperation. The grumbling has ceased and everyone is back "on board". The regional leaders now seem considerably less bothered by the fact that inflation is gobbling up their economies and driving labor, food, energy and housing through the roof. Reuters summed it up like this:
“After a flurry of public disagreements over currency reform last year, Gulf central bankers are trying to close ranks, talking up the pegs as a source of stability and playing down the dollar's weakness as a temporary phenomenon.”
more...
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7998Of course, none of this can happen if Iran has no Internet:
Repairs to Internet Cables Begin in Gulf
By KATARINA KRATOVAC – 8 hours ago
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) — A repair ship began work Tuesday at the site where an Internet cable was cut last week in the Persian Gulf, and a second vessel was to arrive later that day at the spot north of Egypt where two other cables were cut just two days earlier, FLAG Telecom said.
The cuts have disrupted Internet services across a large swath of the Middle East and India, slowing down businesses and hampering personal Internet usage.
There has been wide speculation that the cuts were caused by ships' anchors dragged along the bottom of the sea in stormy weather. But Egypt's telecommunication ministry said Sunday no ships were registered near the location when the first cut in the cables occurred, north of the Egyptian port of Alexandria.
The Egyptian statement further deepened the enigma of how the damage happened.
U.K.-based FLAG Telecom said its repair ship arrived Tuesday some 35 miles north of Dubai, between the Emirates and Oman, were the company's FALCON cable was damaged Friday.
"The FLAG repair team is operating in extreme weather conditions to ensure timely repairs," the company said on its Web site.
more...
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gpLGdYc6VLfCmU0y4QYNLFxBSmlwD8UKEVRO0
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