Follow the Thread...

.... from this...

"Even though the Great Recession technically ended in 2009, incomes fell, poverty rose and the number of Americans without health insurance jumped again in 2010, the federal government announced Tuesday. The nation's poverty rate increased to 15.1% in 2010, up from 14.3% in 2009 and the highest level since 1993, according to the US Census Bureau's annual Income, Poverty & Health Insurance Coverage report for 2010. An additional 2.6 million landed in poverty lat year, bringing the total to 46.2 million - the highest number since the government started tracking poverty in the 1950s." (US poverty rate climbed to 15.1% last year, total number hit all-time record, Janell Ross, huffingtonpost.com, 13/9/11)

... to this...

"Israel's defence ministry said on Sunday that the United States has agreed to provide it with an additional $235 million to finance its rocket defence system... The additional funds come on top of the $3 billion dollars of annual military aid given by the US to Israel." (US 'to give Israel extra aid for rocket system', AFP, news.yahoo.com, 25/12/11)

... and, finally, this:

"Within the US, Obama has laid the groundwork for a new and bigger war in the Middle East by relocating troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and concentrating them facing Iran. To undermine Iran, Washington is expanding clandestine military and civilian operations against Iranian allies in Syria, Pakistan, Venezuela and China. The key to the US and Israeli bellicose strategy toward Iran is a series of wars in neighboring states, world-wide economic sanctions, cyber-attacks aimed at disabling vital industries and clandestine terrorist assassinations of scientists and military officials. The entire push, planning and execution of the US policies leading up to a war with Iran can be empirically attributed to the Zionist power configuration (ZPC) occupying strategic positions in government, mass media and 'civil society'. A systematic analysis of policymakers designing and implementing economic sanctions policy in Congress finds prominent roles for mega-Zionists like Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Howard Berman; in the White House, Dennis Ross, and Jeffrey Feltman in State; Stuart Levy and his replacement David Cohen in Treasury. The White House is totally beholden to Zionist fund raisers and takes its cue from the '52' Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations. The Israeli-Zionist strategy is to encircle Iran, weaken it economically and attack its military. The Iraq invasion was the US's first war for Israel; the Libyan war the second; the current proxy war against Syria is the third. These wars have destroyed Israel's adversaries or are in the process of doing so. During 2011, economic sanctions, which were designed to create domestic discontent in Iran were the principle weapon of choice. The global sanctions campaign engaged the entire energies of the major Jewish-Zionist lobbies. They also faced no opposition in the mass media, Congress or the White House. The ZPC faced virtually no criticism from any of the progressive, leftist and socialist journals, movements or grouplets - with a few notable exceptions. The past year's relocation of troops from Iraq to the borders of Iran, the sanctions and the rising Big Push from Israel's fifth column in the US means War in the Middle East. This likely means a 'surprise' aerial and maritime missile attack by US forces. This will be based on a concocted pretext of an 'imminent nuclear attack' cooked up by Mossad and transmitted by the ZPC to the Congress and White House for consumption and transmission to the world. It will be a destructive, bloody, prolonged war for Israel. The US will bear the direct military cost by itself but the rest of the world will pay a dear economic price. The Zionist-promoted US war will convert the recession of early 2012 into a major depression by the end of the year and probably provoke mass upheavals." (A doomsday view of 2012, James Petras, petras.lehaine.org, 24/12/11)