Wider: I'm adding a separate entry after reading Chris Floyd's "Empire Burlesque." I've been puzzling for some time as to how we actually got into the war mess, foreign policy mess, and general messed-up state we're now in and, seemingly, can't get out of--all without the permission or compliance of the electorate. This explanation by Chris, of the "unholy alliances" prevailing in the world, pulled the scales off my eyes. It's brief and crystal clear and here's a taste:
"The high-living plutocrats and playboys of the Saudi ruling clan long ago made a deal with the obscurantist Wahhabi clerics of Arabia. The plutocratic playboys would get the religious cred needed to "justify" their repressive, corrupt rule, while the Wahhabis would see their narrow-minded zealotry protected and promoted by state -- and, in the last few decades, transformed into a global movement by the endless supply of petrodollars pouring into Saudi coffers from the West. As the Western-backed dictatorships and kleptocracies of Muslim lands increasingly failed to provide a decent life and basic freedoms for their peoples, the flood of Saudi oil money stepped in to fill the social and educational breach with Wahhabi schools, Wahhabi mosques, and Wahhabi doctrines. It is all very reminiscent of the deal struck between the old-line plutocrats of the Republican Party and the extremist Christian nationalists in the United States. The plutocrats get "God's" blessing -- and "God's" political shock troops and fundraising prowess - for their rapacious economic and militarist agenda, while the Christian nationalists get a slice of earthly power to help push and promote their own narrow-minded zealotry."
But it's essential to read in its entirety at:
http://www.chris-floyd.com/