America Is No Longer A Superpower

When I first started writing this article I wrote the title as a question.  Upon further reflection I came to the easy decision that there really wasn’t any question about it and that I should write it as a statement instead to better reflect reality.  As our fearless leaders in Washington both republican and democrat debate whether or not we should launch military strikes against Syria I think it is time to acknowledge that our days of being a Superpower have passed.  Yes, we do still have the world’s most powerful military by far but that fact doesn’t look so powerful when you begin to realize that for us to use this military we have to borrow the money, mostly from China.  Can you really claim to be a real Superpower when you are dependent on rival regimes to finance your mighty military?  To me the answer is obvious and has been since the Great Recession began.  The sad fact of the matter is that we are now dependent on borrowed money from rival foreign powers to do anything militarily.  What happens when our interests don’t align with the people that are lending us the money?

 

US Now Bankrolling British Intelligence So They Can Spy On Americans

 

Recently leaked documents revealed that the NSA has paid the British to spy American citizens to circumvent US law. 

 

In a shocking revelation courtesy of Edward Snowden it has now been revealed that the US has been paying the British for their intelligence services.  This includes using the British to spy on American citizens because the NSA is regulated by US law, supposedly to prevent the spy agency from spying on ordinary Americans.  This is a bombshell on multiple levels.  First, because of what we already mentioned and second, because the British are revealed in the documents to be keenly aware that they are the junior partner in the relationship.  In other words they readily acknowledge that they are providing a service to a paying client.  Check out these inflammatory quotes below and then head over to  http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/aug/01/nsa-paid-gchq-spying-edward-snowden for the whole story.

“We both accept and accommodate NSA’s different way of working,” the document said. “We are less constrained by NSA’s concerns about compliance.”

Picture courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/rothbard/3738299427/