The obvious answers, depending on how aware you are, is either the President or Big Corporations. But, today, it looks a bit more complicated. I will assert that while the U.S. government is there to serve corporations and friends in high places, there is now a very interesting division of power within that government.

Looking back to the Bush II administration, it was pretty obvious that the government was there to serve corporate interests. The "destroy it then rebuild it" policies such as those that have been implemented for Iraq support "the military-industrial complex" very well. President Eisenhower warned us about this but subsequent Presidents seem to have just used this to their advantage.

Beyond the basics, the privatization of war has made possible things that Eisenhower never could have imagined. They include everything from the use of CIA-run secret rendition flights to obscure torture destinations around the world to a judicial system that is not holding private contractors responsible for their actions (e.g., murders of civilians in Iraq by Blackwater employees).

Most people looked for change for 2008 and saw Obama as the vehicle that could effect that change. Many were happy to see Obama finally beat out Clinton in the primary but missed the fact that apparently Obama had to sell out to make that happen.

Now, I wouldn't label Obama "just one of us" and his record of bailing out Wall Street rather than consumers since his election certainly supports this conclusion. If anything, it is a new version of Reagan's famous Trickle-Down Economics. His fight for Health Care reform is honourable but, well, he lost much like Clinton did years before. At this point, there is really nothing left of serious reform but it did keep Obama busy and away from other important events.

(Actually, during the Clinton presidency, it was Hillary Clinton that lead the fight for health care reform. While the benefits intended for the American public never materialized, it isn't clear Hillary Clinton personally lost. Huge sums of health care industry money supported her Senatorial campaign. While I haven't looked up the data, this may also be true for her bid for the presidential nomination.)

Was another round of "president tries to get the health care industry reformed" the plan for those that represent the military-industrial complex? I suggest this is the case. I suggest that Obama has been relagated to the "domestic PR department" of the federal government. That is, his job is to make it look like the government is doing its best to deal with domestic issues. But, that's it.

Who's In Charge of Foreign Policy?

Recent events including the Honduras fiasco indicate that is the case. With regard to Honduras, Obama initially said that the coup d'etat was illegal but, apparently, he was quickly put in his place. The continued war in Iraq, additional troops to Afghanistan, and military bases in Colombia, suggest that while Obama is doing domestic PR, the Clinton foreign policy machine is making decisions that are in the best interest of the military-industrial complex.

First, let me say that when Obama won the elections I told some friends that there could only be one of two results:

1. Obama would be co-opted.
2. Obama would be assassinated like Kennedy was.

At this point, it looks like option one has been exercised. Note that a recent article by Ray McGovern supports the theory that Kennedy's life was taken because he dared to disagree with the CIA. Thus, if Obama only gets to play with domestic issues he may run afoul of the FBI but not the CIA and will probably get to live out his term.

So, what's next? That is, the U.S. has some serious issues and seems to be running out of options to deal with them. Let's look at a few:

1. The U.S. government has been operating on world credit for all too long. China, for example, is taking actions to terminate its independence on the value of the U.S. dollar including buying huge quantities of gold.
2. Most people now recognize the War on Drugs as a fraud. While it has been replaced at the top of the list by the War on Terror it is looking like people are figuring out the War on Terror is a fraud as well but figuring it out much more rapidly.
3. Most of Latin America has recognized that betting your future on the failing U.S. Empire is not a good policy. Or, if you want to put it a different way, following the neo-liberal foreign ideas of the U.S. has cost them both loss of control of their own countries (mostly to international corporations) as well as damaged their own economies.
4. It seems unlikely that starting another war to divert attention from the failing attempts to make the empire appear to be in good shape would work. Of course, as wars are getting close to being privatized, it may not be possible for the political leaders to actually prevent one if the (privatized) military-industrial complex elects to start one.
5. While demonizing "the other guy" is still working in some cases (Hugo Chávez and most anyone in Iran being the current best examples), it is not clear how much longer that will work. People are starting to ask why Hugo Chávez is an issue for the U.S. while much more suppressive leaders are U.S. Government "friends" such as Israel.
6. While U.S. mainstream media tends to support big business (clearly in part because it is big business) it isn't clear how much longer this media will matter. With blogs, world news sources and alternative media taking over as the most reliable news sources, media control is finally slipping from the hands of big business. The obvious solution, having to pay to use the Internet, seems unlikely to happen as people have recognized that the Internet has become a basic right.

Did drug smuggling keep banks afloat?

I heard this as a rumor and while it certainly could be the case, I assumed it was a story in some left-wing newsletter. Well, research shows that this was not the case. One of the places the story appeared was in the UK Guardian. Credited with the information is Antonio Maria Costa.

Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were "the only liquid investment capital" available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.

The next question that comes to mind is whether this is another example of privatization of what was government business. It is now common knowledge that illegal drug money was being used to fund the Contra war in Nicaragua in the 1980s and all indications were that the CIA was seriously involved. Does this mean the illegal drug industry took the lead from the CIA or was the illegal drug industry there first?

Further, is the $352 billion an all-inclusive number (that is, both private and government illegal drug money) or is the total a much bigger number?

Just to make it a bit more interesting, let's tie this information in with what is being done in the money laundering industry with the War on Terror. Every time we do bank transaction for more than US$5000 (yeah, it used to be over $10,000 and some people are saying it is now over $3000), the bank is reporting this to the U.S. government. In theory, this is to prevent Osama bin Laden, et al, from buying more flight school classes and such.

But, if $352,000,000,000 slipped through the cracks, how serious can the financial end of the War on Terror possibly be?

While the War on Terror is looked at as foreign policy, as is the War on Drugs, what if Obama decides to address the domestic side of the illegal drug problem—the fact that the U.S. population is addicted to cocaine. Any successful attempt to decrease U.S. consumption of illegal drugs could have serious international implications. For his own good, he will hopefully stay away from any domestic PR related to this issue.