US, UK form joint security council Obama will announce on his first state visit to Britain this week that the White House is to open up its highly secretive National Security Council to Downing Street. The move aims to show the US still values the trans-Atlantic 'special relationship." A joint National Security Strategy Board will be established to co-ordinate senior officials on both sides in dealing with challenges such as terrorism and rogue states. – Sydney Morning Herald

Dominant Social Theme: England and America, perfect together ...

Free-Market Analysis: The British-American relationship is deepening again, or so it is reported. According to the Herald (see above) President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron will formally present to the press and public a new Service Personnel Joint Task Force when Obama is in Britain on his latest whirlwind, European trip. As of yesterday, he was still in Ireland proclaiming Irish roots.

Obama will also visit Warsaw and then attend a G8 summit in Deauville, France. But the big deal in London is the new Joint Task Force, which we figure isn't exactly what it's being portrayed as. For one thing, the talks between Obama and Cameron supposedly will deal mainly with Afghanistan. As the article tells us: "The main discussions between Mr. Obama and Mr. Cameron will focus on Afghanistan, on which they have a similar outlook. They both aim to reduce combat troops and recognise that elements of the Taliban will have to be involved in a political settlement."

In fact, Obama told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show bluntly, 'We're not going to militarily solve this problem ... What we can do, I think, is use the efforts that we've made militarily to broker a political settlement that ensures the Afghanistan constitution is abided by, that elections remain free and fair, that human rights including women's rights are respected.'

The Pentagon is alarmed by Cameron's stated intention to draw down British troops, which number about 10,000. About 400, or four percent, are scheduled to leave soon, which is causing the Pentagon anguish. But Obama doesn't appear to have any intention of talking Cameron out of it. The Afghan war, as we have pointed out previously, is increasingly being seen as something of a lost cause.

Anglo-American elites behind the war, having failed for a second time in 100 years to beat the stubborn Pashtun Afghan-Pak nation into a bloody pulp, are apparently regrouping for other fights. Bin Laden's non/death (we believe he probably died 10 years ago) is useful in this regard. We are now detecting at least two ways it is being manipulated. It is allowing the US and NATO to declared victory in order to reduce forces, and it is also putting significant additional pressure on Pakistan's leaders.

This can either lead to an invasion in Pakistan to route out the Taliban, a general war with Pakistan, or even an international realignment in which Pakistan seeks to ally itself with China against the US. This latter evolution would begin to set up China as a military opponent of the US – which the US military-industrial complex may be seeking in order to keep orders moving. As we have pointed out in the past, the war on terror is simply not compelling enough. Something on the scale of a Cold War is necessary to keep the big money flowing to America's military providers.

Of course, Obama is sticking close to the Pentagon line as he always does. He was asked, according to the article, whether the US has plans to speak directly to the Taliban (apparently the US already is) and he replied in the cautious affirmative as follows: 'Ultimately, it means talking to the Taliban, although we've been very clear about the requirements for any kind of serious reconciliation. The Taliban would have to cut all ties to al-Qaeda, renounce violence, and they would have to respect the Afghan constitution. Now those are some fairly bare-bones requirements.'

Obama needs to say something like this because the American generals are having trouble giving up the fight and Obama doesn't really want to get on the wrong side of the US military. But from what we can tell the game is pretty much over. The US may make all sorts of public preconditions about talking to the Taliban, but the war is costing US$100 billion a year and every day more and more hearts and minds are being lost – not won. There is no reason for the US to stay in Afghanistan any longer or at least not from the point of view of a full-fledged military operation. There are other wars to fight.

Yes, the playing field has enlarged considerably. The Anglo-American axis has done some of what it needed to do in Iraq and Iran and now the battles must be waged elsewhere. As we state every now and again, the goal is world domination and has nothing (primarily) to do with oil, gas, pipelines, currency or any other kind of raw material. Those are secondary reasons.

Primarily, Anglosphere elites are intent on influencing CULTURE. The first thing Western occupying forces do when they enter a nation is set up a central bank. The next thing they do (mostly the Americans) is to begin to set up military bases. The central bank secures the ultimate control of the business environment and the bases secure some (enough) control of the political process – which is also reconfigured into a regulatory democracy.

In the case of Afghanistan, the Western elites have not entirely secured their goals, nor will they. The Pashtuns will survive as an independent entity as they have before. In Iraq, the process is more advanced. The government itself is somewhat dependent on the Americans and the political class generally may not want the Americans to leave. But there is a significant Shia population that wants nothing to do with the US. Bombs are beginning to go off in Iraq again and the only group besides a handful of political leaders that wants the Americans to stay is a small, northern Kurdish population.

What will happen to the Afghan and Iraq troops that are drawn down? Well, from our point of view, the Anglosphere has made a tactical decision to use freed-up resources to intimidate the larger Middle East and parts of Africa since it cannot finish the job in Iraq and Afghanistan. Additional troops may be deployed for maximum effect in and around countries such as Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Libya.

The idea is to spread Anglo-American influence throughout the region in order to bring it under far firmer control of the West. Iran and the Palestinians are additional logical additional targets for this next chapter of Western world domination; Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates are already Western proxies. The West even has a compliant media outlet in the Middle East in Al Jazeera from what we can tell, as Al Jazeera was funded by the Western puppet state of Qatar and staffed initially with BBC reporters.

Hillary Clinton held a news conference with her British counterpart yesterday. Much of the news conference consisted of Ms. Clinton warning the leaders of Libya, Syria and other countries that their time was basically up and that the US and Britain were going to dictate the nature and shape of future governments in the region. "Leaders," Ms. Clinton intimated in her droning monotone, "do not step out of line or the UN will sanction you and NATO will invade you."

None of this is preordained in the era of the Internet. The CIA-sponsored youth movements (See AYM) in Egypt and Tunisia have already spiraled out of control. As we have stated many times, the broad manipulations of Money Power in the 20th century are not so effective in the 21st as in the 20th. The West has apparently absorbed a defeat in Afghanistan and Iraq has not been properly reconfigured either.

Conclusion: It is the masses themselves, informed by the 'Net that will provide the most formidable pushback to the West's Middle Eastern and African consolidation – a process we refer to as the Internet Reformation. The elites know this of course, and are doing what they can to diminish such pushback by imposing economic chaos, high food prices, etc. But understanding the process and doing something to effectively halt it are two different things. History itself may be conspiring against fuller, Western elite control in the 21st century.

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