The World Isn't Waiting

The failures of the worst administration ever are a subject that we explore here pretty often. Not all countries on our earth, though, have been held captive by a ruling cabal that eschews good relationships based on diplomacy. Some are advancing their interests.

China has been moving into good relationships that include material advancement. It has trade agreements with Sudan, that it has not used to advance human rights there. It has also a few alliances our media does not usually talk about. I thought it might be a good idea to see what some of them are.

Iran and Pakistan are locales for China's development of cooperation.

It stands to reason that regional powers - especially Russia, Uzbekistan and Iran - will be watching closely the intra-Afghan dialogue involving the UNF and the Taliban. What gives impetus to this dialogue is apparently that the NATO summit in Bucharest came up with only small troop increments, which puts question marks on the viability and prospects of the NATO operations. But is that all?

These various strands can be expected to run concurrently for a while until some begin to outstrip others. It seems the geopolitics of energy are already taking an early lead. Musharraf last Friday aired with Chinese President Hu Jintao the topic of a gas pipeline connecting Iran and China via Pakistani territory; Iran is pressing for SCO membership; a gas cartel is about to take shape at the seventh ministerial meeting of the gas-exporting countries scheduled to be held in Moscow in June.

China's National Offshore Oil Corporation has confirmed that talks are indeed progressing on a US$16 billion gas deal involving Iran's North Pars gas field, close on the heels of the $2 billion agreement signed in March between the China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation and Iran for developing the latter's Yadavaran oil field. (Emphasis added.)

While our occupied White House impedes progress and advances its political aims against the interests of the country, regimes that are concerned with progress for their citizens move in directions that benefit them.

While Mugabe in Zimbabwe is working to keep a post he lost in elections, where is the West? The citizens there see what we are doing for them, i.e., nothing. What else are they seeing?

Chinese troops have been seen on the streets of Zimbabwe's third largest city, Mutare, according to local witnesses. They were seen patrolling with Zimbabwean soldiers before and during Tuesday's ill-fated general strike called by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Earlier, 10 Chinese soldiers armed with pistols checked in at the city's Holiday Inn along with 70 Zimbabwean troops.

One eyewitness, who asked not to be named, said: "We've never seen Chinese soldiers in full regalia on our streets before. The entire delegation took 80 rooms from the hotel, 10 for the Chinese and 70 for Zimbabwean soldiers."

Officially, the Chinese were visiting strategic locations such as border posts, key companies and state institutions, he said. But it is unclear why they were patrolling at such a sensitive time. They were supposed to stay five days, but left after three to travel to Masvingo, in the south.

China's support for President Mugabe's regime has been highlighted by the arrival in South Africa of a ship carrying a large cache of weapons destined for Zimbabwe's armed forces. Dock workers in Durban refused to unload it.

Meanwhile in the realm of shopping, the prices are going up for more than just the reason that oil producers are raping the world. Chinese workers have begun to flex their muscle.

The era of cheap Chinese consumer goods appears to be ending, thanks to irrepressible inflation.

Now when the Chinese present their lists, some American importers are conceding higher prices, meaning that American shoppers, for the first time in years, are starting to pick up the tab for rising costs in China.

Some Chinese factories are now asking their American customers for price increases of as much as 20% to 30%.

All those outsourced jobs aren't making consumers of Americans, but they are making bargainers of the workers that got them.

It seems that the cretin in chief has been too busy building up his enterprise in Iraq to have time for relationships that might actually benefit this country. No end of spending has been dedicated to making work for Halliburton and Co., while none is allowed here in America. A comment from the Wyoming area, where all protections have been stripped from that state's government lands while they have been opened to development by oil and coal producers; The war is over. Halliburton won.

While the world about us works to improve its prospects, our own are being sold out to those of the industries favored by the White House. We will have a great deal to recover from starting January 20, 2009.

269 days.