Daily Archives: 16 June 2013

Defending Jordan Is a Pretext for Another US Intervention

online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323734304578547424088624136.html?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTTopStories

Patrick Barron: open quoteNotice the so-called logic: Refugees from Syria “threaten” Jordan, so the US sends warplanes. What are the F-16s going to do, strafe the “threatening” refugees? Then the US “must” create a no-fly zone that extends up to twenty-five miles into Syria in order to protect our F-16s. Plus we’ll keep Patriot Missiles there, just in case the Syrians object to a foreign power controlling its airspace and decide to remove the threat. We are manufacturing another US war, probably not with the Syrians but with their Russian patrons. Are you ready for this?

Of course, there is no Congressional declaration of war, because that would force the government to confront the difficult issue of explaining how we are threatened and by whom. All Middle Eastern governments are threatened by their own people, and there is nothing that we can or should do about it.close quote

EU Free Trade hostage to French interests

From today’s Open Europe news summary:

France rejects last-minute offer to break deadlock over EU-US trade talks
EU trade ministers will today discuss the European Commission’s mandate to negotiate a free-trade deal with the US. France is threatening to veto the launch of EU-US trade talks unless the audio-visual industry is completely excluded. In a bid to break the deadlock, the European Commission and the Irish EU Presidency have proposed asking EU member states to give unanimous approval to any parts of the draft agreement affecting the audio-visual industry once the negotiations on that specific sector are concluded. However, Le Figaro quotes a source from the office of French Trade Minister Nicole Bricq as saying, “We already have a veto on the conclusion of the agreement, so [the offer] doesn’t change anything for us.”