Obamageddon - What Could be on the Horizon with Afghanistan and/or Iran

I really don't have much to add to this article. I've snipped most of the relevant stuff, but read the whole thing to get the links contained within and to watch the Fox News interview with economist Gerald Celente. Large text emphases are mine

An American president is launching the most ambitious, the most expensive, and certainly the most dangerous military campaign since the Vietnam War—and the antiwar movement, such as it is, is missing in action. After a long and bloody campaign in Iraq and the election of a U.S. president pledged to get us out, our government is once again revving up its war machine and taking aim at yet another “terrorist” stronghold, this time in Afghanistan. Yet the antiwar movement’s motor seems stuck in the wrong gear, making no motions toward mounting anything like an effective protest. What gives?

We shouldn’t doubt the scope of the present war effort. Make no mistake: the Obama administration is radically ramping up the stakes in the “war on terrorism,” which, though renamed, has not been revised downward, as the Washington Post reports:

"As the Obama administration expands U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, military experts are warning that the United States is taking on security and political commitments that will last at least a decade and a cost that will probably eclipse that of the Iraq war.”
{snip}
As the economic crisis escalates and the debt-based central banking system shows it can no longer re-inflate the bubble by creating assets out of thin air, an economic and political rationale for war is easy to come by; for if the Keynesian doctrine that government spending is the only way to lift us out of an economic depression is true, then surely military expenditures are the quickest way to inject “life” into a failing system. This doesn’t work, economically, since the crisis is only masked by the wartime atmosphere of emergency and “temporary” privation. Politically, however, it is a lifesaver for our ruling elite, which is at pains to deflect blame away from itself and on to some “foreign” target.

It’s the oldest trick in the book, and it’s being played out right before our eyes, as the U.S. prepares to send even more troops to the Afghan front and is threatening Iran with draconian economic sanctions, a step or two away from outright war.

A looming economic depression and the horrific prospect of another major war – the worst-case scenario seems to be unfolding, like a recurring nightmare, and there doesn’t seem to be any way to stop it. Are we caught, then, helpless in the web of destiny, to be preyed upon by those spiders in Washington?
{snip}
History has shown that Afghanistan is practically unconquerable, and we could send an army of a million or more and still fail miserably. But think how the endless expenditures will “stimulate” our economy!

Pay attention to this part.

Our current foreign policy of global hegemonism and unbridled aggression is simply not sustainable, not when we are on the verge of becoming what we used to call a Third World country, one that is bankrupt and faces the prospect of a radical lowering of living standards. Unless, of course, the “crisis” atmosphere can be sustained almost indefinitely.

Sound familiar? "1984"?..."Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. No, wait, Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia. No, wait, Oceania has always been at war with..."

It is said that FDR’s New Deal didn’t get us out of the Great Depression, but World War II did. The truth is that, in wartime, when people are expected to sacrifice for the duration of the “emergency,” economic problems are anesthetized out of existence by liberal doses of nationalist chest-beating and moral righteousness. Shortages and plunging living standards were masked by a wartime rationing system and greatly lowered expectations. And just as World War II inured us to the economic ravages wrought by our thieving elites, so World War III will provide plenty of cover for a virtual takeover of all industry by the government and the demonization of all political opposition as “terrorist.”

An impossible science-fictional scenario? Or a reasonable projection of present trends? Celente, whose record of predictions is impressive, to say the least, sees war with Iran as the equivalent of World War III, with economic, social, and political consequences that will send what is left of our empire into a tailspin. This is the popping of the “hyperpower” bubble, the conceit that we – the last superpower left standing – will somehow defy history and common sense and avoid the fate of all empires: decline and fall.

Could Afghanistan become Obama's Iraq? It's possible, if not probable, given that he has driven us further into debt and has plans for driving us further so; given that he has no qualms about national takeovers of corporations like GM and the banking industry. He could make it work with the politics of personality. That is, with his "kept whores" in the media, it could be sold to his unwavering sycophants on the left. Then we will see the "true colors" of the so-called anti-war crowd - that is, will all the anti-war protesters during the Bush era be out yelling in the streets, or were they "anti-war" because they were anti-Bush?

Time will tell, but things could get very interesting. Sleep tight.