[Sangetsu]

Interesting that somehow George Bush is again responsible. People think that he is responsible for the collapse of the banking industry, which lead to a worldwide recession. The banking collapse was caused by the burst of the housing bubble, which was fueled by easily obtained credit. Credit was easily obtained due to the Equal Lending Act, which was a product of the Carter administration of the 1970's. Further deregulation of the banks, which occurred before George Bush was elected allowed mortgages to be traded a securities. This recipe for disaster began brewing long before the year 2000.

If you want to go back farther, the present economic crisis is more firmly rooted in Nixon's taking America off the gold standard in 1972, which turned American money into the intrinsically valueless "currency" which the rest of the world used. Currency is easily manipulated by governments and banks (which is why they use it), but "money" (gold or silver) is not.

As for the "illegal war", the definition of "legal" is relative, isn't it? Pot is legal in Amsterdam, but not America. America is not a signatory to the World Court, so the World Court has no jurisdiction over any action America takes. America's chief intelligence directors prior to the second gulf war were appointed by Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton both gave speeches prior to the 2000 elections which condemned and harped on the dangers of Saddam Hussein's WMD programs, so GWB doesn't get all the fault here; his choices were made with the information he had available at the time.

As for spreading US forces too thin, there are three Ohio class submarines in East Asia right now, each armed with more than 150 Tomahawk missiles. Armed as such, any one of these submarines is the equal of all non-US navies in the world combined, and let us not forget that there is also a US aircraft carrier group sailing between Japan and Korea as I write, and a US carrier group is far more powerful than an Ohio class submarine. And, in case you aren't aware, the US land forces based in Japan and Korea are more or less at the same levels they have always been.

Did Einstein really try to stop the Manhattan Project? I haven't seen anything left in writing to that effect. It is said that he expressed regret when the bombs when they were dropped on Japan, but he never said that it was unnecessary. It was Einstein himself who told Roosevelt that building an atomic bomb was possible, and that Germany was pursuing such a bomb. And it was Einstein who recommended to Roosevelt that the US should assemble a team of scientists to explore the possibility of making an atomic bomb. There would have been no Manhattan Project or American atom bombs had it not been for Einstein. This letter to Roosevelt is available on the internet for everyone to see.

And the weak US economy which is the pedestal upon which the American military sits is still far and away the largest in the world. The "astronomical" US debt amounts to 60% of the America GDP; the amount exceeds the GDP of most of the world's countries combined, but in reality it amounts to only about 1% of America's net worth. Were the world's economies to crash they way they did in 1929, America would be the country least affected by it. America's image may have diminished over the last decade, but America's power certainly has not.

"Pax Americana" is only employed as far as American interests are concerned, but it is more extensive than you might think. American spending on national "defense" is $663 billion. America's annual GDP amounts to about 25% of the world's total. Owning 1/4th of the world's economy would allow America the ability to control much of the world's policies, even if America possessed no military at all.