George of Arabia

Greg Palast with today's 'must read':

Bend over, pull out your wallet and kiss your Abe ‘goodbye.’ The Lincolns have got to go - and so do the Hamiltons and Jacksons.

Those bills in your billfold aren’t yours anymore. The landlords of our currency - Citibank, the national treasury of China and the House of Saud - are foreclosing and evicting all Americans from the US economy.

Let’s begin by stating why Bush is not in Saudi Arabia. Bush ain’t there to promote ‘Democracy’ nor peace in Palestine, nor even war in Iran. And, despite what some pinhead from CNN stated, he sure as hell didn’t go to Riyadh to tell the Saudis to cut the price of oil.

What’s really behind Bush’s hajj to Riyadh is that America is in hock up to our knickers. The sub-prime mortgage market implosion, hitting a dozen banks with over $100 billion in losses, is just the tip of the debt-berg.

Bush needs the Saudis to charge us big bucks for oil. The Saudis can’t lend the US Treasury and Citibank hundreds of billions of US dollars unless they first get these US dollars from the US. The high price of oil is, in effect, a tax levied by Bush but collected by the oil industry and the Gulf kingdoms to fund our multi-trillion dollar governmental and private debt-load.

Bush is there to assure Abdullah that, unlike Dubai’s ports purchase debacle, there will be no political impediment to the Saudi’s buying up Citibank nor the isle of Manhattan.

It has been reported that the President’s Secret Service men traveling with him seemed embarrassed by the eye-popping loads of diamond and gold gifts which they have to carry back for President Bush. They need not feel they have taken too much from their hosts: Bush has assured Abdullah that the King can suck it back out through our gas tanks.

I have nothing to add other than Bush has sold our country down the river. And yes, that was a slavery reference.

Added twofer:

The last part of a Robert Scheer column on G ibn Bush:

With Bush’s imperial fantasy fading into dismal reality, our nation saddled with record debt, an immense trade gap and an American public that has seen through his “What, me worry?” con, the president has bizarrely sought validation through visiting the scene of his foreign policy crimes. [...]

[...] As an editorial in the Arab News, a Saudi English-language newspaper, put it on the occasion of Bush’s visit: “ ... no Palestinian, no Arab believes, he will, or can, deliver. ... Everything he touches turns to dust and ashes. Iraq, Afghanistan, maybe now even Iran.”

There they go again, worrying only about themselves. Didn’t Bush also touch New Orleans? What about Enron? Things have gotten so tough here that even Halliburton’s CEO moved his headquarters to Dubai. The bad news for the Saudis is that Bush broke the United States—but they own it.

Quote du Jour from Le Monde:

On n'impose pas sa loi à son créancier.

Well, OK, the translation is the last sentence in the editorial content at the bottom of this page.

Looks like the Saudis own Europe as well.